Smudge and the Fudge Grudge

We used to have two cats, and one of them was named Smudge. A very long time ago I wrote a rhyme about him, and I thought it would be good to share it here:

My cat Smudge,

Always has a grudge,

Against a little bit of fudge.

He said:

"Fudge is made out of sludge,

So do not get me to budge.

For a little bit of fudge".

I cannot remember how old I was when I wrote this.

My "Recipes": Andrew’s Turkey and Cheese

The twelfth episode of My "Recipes" is Andrew's Turkey and Cheese:

Bread
A packet of cooked turkey
Cheese

Cook one side of the bread until goldish. 
After cooking on side of the bread put one slice of turkey on the non-cooked side of the bread. Then sprinkle cheese on the turkey.
Cook until cheese is melted.

My verdict: a relatively simple and tasty recipe. To nitpick, "goldish" should be "golden", "cooking on" should be "cooking one", and "non-cooked" should be "uncooked"; in addition, the ingredients do not specify what type of cheese yet the instructions state that the cheese should be sprinkled (implying that grated cheese should be used, though slices of cheese would work as well as grated here). Other than a few wording issues, I have no problems with this recipe.

Twitter

It occurred to me that I have not yet mentioned here that I am on Twitter. I do not use it a lot, and when I do it is often to tweet about a blog post, but if you are interested in following me over there I can be found at http://twitter.com/#!/Airtoliveland.

Another one of my jokes (4)

Only have time for a joke for today's post; this one was written for Christmas 2009:

"In the final Harry Potter book, why was Potter looking for Avon? He was searching for the Deathly Darrows."

This is one of my more obscure-humoured jokes: to understand it, you not only have to have read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but you also have to have watched a 1970s television show entitled Blake's 7. In that show, there was a character called "Avon", and he was played by the actor Paul Darrow. I have rarely used this joke outside Christmas 2009 because of its obscurity, but I think it is a good one nonetheless...it just needs to be told in the right circumstances.

The Oregon move

The last two posts have been move-related, and it seems I am now going to post another one! Anyway, it is now eleven years to the date that my family and I moved from Patterson, California to Medford, Oregon. I can remember us being excited about getting to see a new state (at that point, my brother and I had only lived in California and visited Nevada), although we were also saddened about leaving California, a place that had been our home for close to five years.

It was sunny and clear along the stretch of the I-5 from the Modesto area all the way up to the Rogue Valley. We had set off early, before 9:00am, and made it to Medford probably about around 5:00 in the evening, as I remember it being close to sunset when we arrived. We encountered few if any delays on our way up, and we did not rush the journey at all. It was exciting to see the "Welcome to Oregon" sign, and it was at that point that we knew the drive up was almost over: within a day we had gone from living in a valley and having mountain ranges on either side of us to actually living in the mountains...I will not forget the first time we saw our house.

To think how long ago that all happened: we did not expect that ten years on from that day we would then be getting used to living in a new country again (well, technically the old country, but the sheer amount of time we lived in the United States, plus the fact my brother and I grew up there, makes the United Kingdom seem like a totally different country). No, I am not complaining here...merely reflecting on the past and thinking about what has changed and what is still the same from back then.

Coincidentally, we met an American today, though she was not from Oregon (Tennessee, in fact). We have actually met several Americans since being back in the United Kingdom, but I did find it interesting to meet one on the anniversary of our Oregon move.

Yet more boxes

I really did think that we would not have to sort out any more boxes any time soon. We unpacked and re-packed numerous boxes when we moved to Northamptonshire, and I thought we got the job done with sorting them out and unpacking what we needed/could store around the house. Then, for a significant amount of this afternoon, we had to unpack/repack a few boxes with our books in.

In all fairness, I should not complain: I am actually glad to have some more books unpacked as the majority of them are still in boxes. Even so, box sorting is a task I thought we had finished ages ago!

Buying the house

It was about eleven years ago when we purchased our house in Oregon. I remember the moment Mum told my brother and I that we had bought the house and that our move to a new state was imminent (neither my brother or I had been to Oregon at that point). It is hard to believe how long ago the move from California to Oregon was...it seems like it was yesterday.

A picture of "The City"

Back in June, I wrote about "The City", a city we built out of rocks, bricks, metals, and other materials, and was situated at the front of our house in Oregon for a time. Here is a picture of it:

This was the city in its earlier days: the metal poles and some of the more broken bricks were removed not long after this image was taken. The tallest tower on the left was moved to where the long metal pole in the middle is located in the picture; in addition to being moved it was subsequently "upgraded", and at one point stood at over four feet in height. Various other buildings were also added, but unfortunately, the only pictures we have of the city in its later days are all on photographic paper and have not yet been scanned for digital storage.

"Cameo Lover" - Kimbra

While on YouTube a few days ago, a song called "Cameo Lover" by a New Zealand artist named Kimbra was in the recommendations of a video I was watching. I decided to click on the link and listen to her song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elyk9MBY72U

Once "Cameo Lover" had finished, I was glad I had come across a link to the song: I liked the style of the music and Kimbra's voice, and a couple of other songs of hers that I listened to were also good. The only problem I found was that her debut album, Vows, does not appear to have been released here in the United Kingdom yet, but that may change one day.

My "Recipes": Andrew’s Salad

Episode eleven of My "Recipes" is entitled Andrew's Salad. It is not to be confused with the earlier recipe, Andrew's Very Health Salad.

1 bag of baby carrots (small carrots!)

5 sticks of celery

3 tomatoes

1 bag of broccoli

1 onion

1 big bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch not low fat or no fat

5 tsp. of garlic salt

How to make it:

Pour ½ of the bags of vegetables in the bowl and chop all the other vegetables up,

In fact chop all the vegetables up!

Then add ½ of the ranch then add the garlic salt.

Garlic salt and ranch is optional.

ENJOY!

My verdict: a salad made up of carrots, celery, tomato, broccoli, and an onion (I am guessing a bulb onion here, rather than spring onions) would certainly be different to the regular lettuce salads. This recipe seems okay, although any type of salad dressing could be used, rather than a particular brand.

Skype fun

My Dad installed Skype on his computer earlier so he could test a new webcam. I decided to have a little bit of fun when he started a video call to my account.

He was talking, commenting how the quality looked good from his camera and was asking how it looked from mine when Oregon Trail II music started playing from my end of the call. He was surprised by this, and then I came down to listen to how the tunes sounded through Skype. We listened to Oregon Trail II tunes over Skype for about five minutes.

Now that I think about it, this does not actually sound very funny when typed up, but I can assure you that this was surprisingly hilarious while it happened (it was the whole scenario of listening to Oregon Trail II through Skype that made us laugh, as it was so bizarre).

The orangutan and the boy

I came across the following article this morning, and thought it was a gentle, light-hearted piece:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058936/Moscow-Zoo-orangutan-kisses-little-boy-lips--almost.html

Do not worry, the boy was behind the glass, and there was no danger to either him or the orangutan. It is just a fun little article.

Amusing comments

I nearly always laugh whenever I come across an article on pop culture, such as something about a band splitting up/coming back together, what the number one song of the week is, the latest celebrity, or Justin Bieber. I am not normally laughing at the contents of the article, rather, I am laughing at some of the comments the article often comes with.

Unless they contain attacks, I am amused with the "who cares?" comments: I find it downright hilarious when the first five comments on a pop culture article are all "who cares about this? I don't!", and the sixth commenter points out to the rest that they must have cared enough to say they do not care about the topic of the article. At the same time, I do wonder if these people honestly do not realise what they have posted, or if posting trolling comments is something they find fun. Still, they do provide a minor source of amusement.

The mystery kit

My brother and I used to have a large wooden clothes drawer. However, rather than just being a place to store a large amount of our clothes, it doubled as a piece of furniture I decorated with stickers that came in the mail  (yes, I really did used to have a place to put stickers). The front top drawer and one of the piece of furniture's sides were both covered in stickers; neatly, of course, as I wanted the decorations to at least look good.

Sometime back in either 2001 or 2002, a letter arrived in the mail informing us that we may have won a certain type of mystery kit, aimed at kids 10+. The kit was free, but the type of mystery kit we would receive depended on what type of "key" the letter contained: if it had a sticker showing a silver key, it would be a basic kit; but if it was a sticker with a gold key on it, we would receive comprehensive mystery kit (I cannot remember what the contents in either kit were, it has been a long time since then). Once either key had been mailed back, you would then receive the kit. I should note here that the letter was not spam...it had just come with something else we were subscribed to at the time.

With the sticker of the gold key in the letter, we had won a comprehensive mystery kit! It was not really something we needed, but it was suited for people of my age at that time, and it could have been a lot of fun. So...what did I decide to do instead?

That is right! I threw the chance away by placing the sticker with the golden key, along with a few other stickers that came in the letter, on our clothes drawer. Rather than taking the opportunity to win a neat new item, I decided to add to my sticker collection.

It the grand scheme of things, not getting a mystery kit was not that big of a deal, but when I look back upon the whole occasion I still think I was a chump for not mailing back the gold key sticker. On the bright side, the sticker lasted on the clothes drawer until sometime in 2009 when Mum had to remove all my stickers so the furniture could be sold.

Another one of my jokes (3)

Only have enough time for a joke for today's post. This one was written for Christmas 2007:

"How does Harry Potter get out of paying bills? By going to the Order of the Fee-nix."