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The rarely updated blog of Joel Dixon
Viewing blogs posted in September, 2007
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Chicken and Onion Risotto
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 30/09/2007 06:52:53Another recipe from the Group Recipes site, this one was originally called Roasted Chicken and Risotto, but as I didn't buy any roasted chicken (I just cooked it in my frying pan) I've renamed it Chicken and Onion Risotto. I don't think it hurt the taste.
Chicken and Onion Risotto
Olive Oil - 4 tbsp.
Chopped Onion
Balsamic Vinegar - 1/4 cup (120 mL)
Uncooked Arborio Rice - 1 1/2 cups
Dry White Wine - 1/4 cup (120 mL)
Chicken Broth - 7 cups (~ 1.5 litres)
Chopped Thyme - 2 tbsp.
Chopped Cooked Chicken Breast - 2 cups
Butter - 2 tbsp.
Salt and Pepper - to taste
1. Heat up 2 tbsp. of oil in a medium-sized saucepan on medium heat.
2. Stir in the onions and saute this for approximately 15 to 20 minutes (the onions should turn dark golden brown when finished).
3. Remove from heat and stir in balsamic vinegar. Set this aside for later.
4. Heat up the remaining oil in a different large-sized skillet on medium heat.
5. Stir in rice and mix it all up thoroughly.
6. Let this heat for about 2 minutes and then pour in the wine and thyme.
7. Reduce the heat to medium-low and begin pouring in the broth. Do this 1 cup at a time. As each cup is absorbed add more broth. Continue doing this until all of the broth is absorbed and the rice becomes "al dente" (takes about 20 minutes).
8. Stir in your onion mixture and allow it to heat all the way through.
9. Remove from heat and slowly stir in the chicken and butter.
10. Season with salt and pepper (amount depends on your tastes).
This was very nice - but also very rich in flavor. It would make a great side dish, but not the best for dinner one night - then lunch the next day.
This is the rice being cooked
The onions being cooked - after the balsamic vinegar has been added
# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Recipe
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Friday, September 28, 2007
XBLA: Texas Hold'em
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 28/09/2007 09:29:00Updated by Joel Dixon at 28/01/2008 14:51:21
My latest game review has been a month in the making because of a stupid developer's decision on the definition of a "hand type" - but more on that later.
Attempting to cash in on the huge popularity of poker, and specifically the Texas Hold'em variety, Tik Games have created this Xbox Live Arcade game.
An extremely bare bones, basic game with very little in terms of frills or features, Texas Hold'em is probably best described as a good game. When compared with other poker games on the 360 (such as World Championship Poker or World Series of Poker), this game will only match up when comparing price.
Gameplay is very basic - you have all of the essential elements of poker, but nothing more. After playing a little bit of real online poker before, I quickly missed features such as hand histories or an option to make your decision before your turn. Although gameplay is very basic, it's solid in the implementation - and also boasts connectivity with the Xbox Live Vision camera, which is pretty neat.
The single player game is next to useless, providing a place for complete novices to learn the game, as well as a few achievement points. Computer AI is very lame, and it doesn't take long to work out a system that will beat them every time.
The multi player game mode is where most serious players of this game will find their time - and the aforementioned camera as well as headset support really make the game a little extra fun. Online games exacerbates the issues with gameplay, as well a lot of waiting for people to act - but at least the opponents are not predictable. They will, occasionally, be complete knob-jockeys - but I've come to expect that.
Most of the achievements were simple to get and well thought out (like one for winning a pot with high-card, or winning an All-In bet), and the first 190 achievement points came pretty quickly. The last 10 points took me over a month to earn.
The last achievement is to be dealt one of each hand type of poker. That would have been fine, as in my 3,000 or so hands it took to complete the first 11 achievements, I had had at least one of each poker hand types: high card, pair, two pair, trips, straight, flush, full house, quads and a straight flush. The problem was, the developer stupidly decided that a royal flush is a separate hand type to a straight flush.
Now a royal flush is simply an Ace high straight flush, and not a separate type of hand. By adding this requirement for the achievement - the developer had significantly upped the difficulty. Apparently the odds of a straight flush are 1 in 72,000 - not too bad. The odds of a royal flush are 1 in 649,739 (much worse). And there's also the possibility that you may never receive a royal flush.
I'm a bit of a completion-ist - I spent a full day playing Prince of Persia to get the last achievement, and I spent a good week of solidly playing Kameo to get all of the A rankings. I ended up finding something heavy to place on my controller's A button - and let it play hands for me as I slept. 40,000 hands later - I had my royal flush and those last 10 points. Probably not worth the time, electricity, or fact that my Xbox will now die a hundred hours earlier than it would have - but once I completed 20,000 I couldn't turn back!
Overall Texas Hold'em is not a great game, it's barely above average, but it's OK if you just want a basic poker game. All considered - I don't think it's worth the money. 2.5 out of 5.
# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Xbox 360
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Wednesday, September 26, 2007
God Bless the United Provinces of Canadia
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 26/09/2007 12:38:46This trip to Edmonton has helped me in shedding some of the generalised misconceptions that I have had about Canada up until now. An obvious example is that very few of the population here ice fish during their lunch break. One of the biggest surprises I've experienced since staying here is the level of patriotism of the Canadians.
During my years living in Australia, I have formed the (generalised and stereotypical) opinion that America is a very patriotic country. I don't think I'm going out too far on a limb here - television, movies, and sport all point towards Americans being very "American-focused". Things like the "World Series" of baseball comprising of 29 American teams and 1 Canadian team, and the typical American-only travel pattern of a large percentage of the population help reinforce this. But I didn't expect Canada to reach the same level of inward-focus.
My perception of Canadians were of a nice, hockey-loving people - and perhaps a little slow-moving (I'm not alluding to intelligence here, but suggesting a relaxed attitude). For the most part, this perception has been pretty correct. It's definitely a little slower-moving around here, the people are very nice, and the level of interest in hockey is as high as I had hoped. I also expected Canadians to have pride in their country (they seem to be doing a few things right) - but not to the extent that I have experienced.
Firstly, they love their maple leaf. When walking around the city in the afternoon, or on a weekend, the Canadian flag is everywhere. A lot of people wear clothes with a huge maple leaf on it, or even just "Canada" emblazoned very prominantly. Some people wear tracksuits with a huge flag of Canada on the front, and some patriotic message on the back. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think back to a time where I've seen somebody wearing an Australian flag as regular casual wear. Scratch that, there is one dope that occasionally walks around with an Australian tracksuit - but he's a special case.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if people wore the same kind of patriotic clothes in Australia (with the Aussie flag or Southern Cross displayed front and center) - they'd be viewed as dorks (at least by me). And I'm not talking about sporting attire (although the number of people wearing Canadian sporting gear is definitely higher than those wearing similar Australian gear back home), these are just items of clothing that bear the Canadian flag, a maple leaf, or "Canada" in huge letters.
It doesn't stop with clothing, I've been on walks with Canadian flags hanging from windows, on the front of cars and even on the pattern of a dog lead. I'm positive this doesn't happen with the same frequency at home.
The prevalence of the maple leaf is increased ten-fold when you start looking at various companies' logos around town. I've been told that, at one point, a Canadian company would be given a tax rebate for designing their logo with a maple leaf symbol in it. Even though I can find no Internet evidence of this (after google searches), I can only assume it's correct as the Canadian companies certainly have responded! Even McDonald's have altered their globally omnipotent, multi-million dollar symbol to chuck a maple leaf in the center.
Another stereotype I have acquired in my years was a general dislike between Americans and Canadians. Admittedly most of my evidence has been from the America side (Blame Canada, Canadian jokes, etc), but I just figured Canadians harbored a distaste for Americans as well. Maybe that one time a few Canadians burned down the White House in the war of 1812 had a little something to do with that. But the reality of an anti-Americanism sentiment from the Canadians was a lot less than I had expected.
Certainly - there is a definite desire of Canadians to remain independent of the American identity, there's a distaste towards American politics (specifically George W) and I have heard "Yankee" being used in a derogatory manner a few times. But apart from that, Canadians don't seem to have much resentment towards the U.S. of A at all. In fact, I'm given the impression that a fair number of Canadians are trying to emulate American culture (much the same as in Australia). In general, there seems to be a respect from Canadians towards Americans - with the obvious exception of the "leader of the free world".
Now, I may have given an impression at the start of this entry that I'm not a proud Australian, which is incorrect. This trip has definitely reinforced my view that I'm glad I was born in Australia, and given unlimited funds I would retire in Melbourne (and only visit North America in the hockey season)! I can also support the impression that Canadians love Australians, from my limited experience so far. Although since arriving a few people have said that I don't have an accent, and they didn't know I was from overseas. I might have to start wearing a tracksuit like this to advertise my homeland a little more!
# Posted in the Travel section and tagged as: Edmonton
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Tangy Chicken Potato Bake with Sweet and Spicy Onions
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 25/09/2007 13:22:39This meal is the first time I've gone with a side dish for my meal, and it surprisingly turned out quite well. It actually came from a Jean Paré book, which I had bought on the first shopping trip I took here. It took this long for me to get the time, ingredients and cooking utensils to give it a shot.
Tangy Chicken Potato Bake with Sweet and Spicy Onions
Tangy Chicken Potato Bake
Italian Dressing - 1/2 cup (125 mL)
Honey Dijon mustard - 1/4 cup (60 mL)
Chopped fresh basil - 2 tbsp. (30 mL)
or 1 1/2 tsp. (7 mL) dried
Boneless, skinless chicken breast halves - 4
Medium unpeeled potatoes cut into 2cm cubes - 4
Salt, sprinkle
Pepper, sprinkle
1. Combine dressing, mustard and basil in a small bowl.
2. Put chicken in large freezer bag and coat with half of the mixture made in step 1. Seal bag and place in refrigerator for 2 hours. Drain.
3. Put potato in medium bowl and add remaining mixture from step 1, salt and pepper. Toss until coated.
4. Arrange chicken in centre of greased baking dish. Arrange potato around chicken and cover with foil.
5. Place in moderate (190 Celsius or 375 Fahrenheit) oven for about 45 minutes, or until there is no pink in chicken.
Chicken Potato bake before being cooked
Sweet and Spicy Onions
Butter (or margarine) softened - 3 tbsp. (50 mL)
Chili sauce - 2 tbsp. (30 mL)
Brown sugar, packed - 1 tbsp. (15 mL)
Worcestershire sauce - 1 tsp. (5 mL)
Salt - 1/8 tsp. (0.5 mL)
Pepper - 1/8 tsp. (0.5 mL)
Medium onions, cut into 4 wedges - 4
Grated Parmesan cheese - 2 tsp. (10 mL)
1. Melt butter in large frying pan on medium heat.
2. Add chili sauce, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Heat and stir until mixture starts bubbling.
3. Add onion, stir to coat.
4. Cook covered for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft and caramelised.
5. Sprinkle with cheese.
The two dishes go really well together, but probably better for a fancy meal than my daily lunches!
# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Recipe
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Fancy Alarm Clock
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 25/09/2007 12:40:36I almost forgot - I bought a really cool alarm clock when I first got here:
It has two separate alarms, so I've currently got the radio turning on at 6:50 am, and the beeper alarm thing to turn on at 6:55 am. It also has a USB port at the back of the device to connect an MP3 device or even a thumb drive full of MP3 files.
But the thing that really pushed me towards buying it is the iPod dock station:
A little draw slides out with an iPod docking connector - and the time display moves to the left so you can still see it.
It doesn't take much to amuse me!
# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Gadgets
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Monday, September 24, 2007
Cable TV + PVR = Crazy Delicious
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 24/09/2007 11:27:20Apologies to the hilarious SNL skit Lazy Sunday for the blog title
While in Edmonton I decided to get the premium digital television package from my communications provider - as I knew I'd have a fair amount of spare time on my hands. I also took the option of buying a PVR device, to prepare myself for the hockey season. I made a good decision, if I do say so myself.
The first thing I did was check out the extensive Electronic Programming Guide. With the hundreds of channels and a week-long programming guide - I filled up my PVR's 80 Gb hard drive very quickly. As the hockey season hasn't started yet, I stuck mainly with movies. There's at least 6 channels that are dedicated to movies, as well mainstream channels running weekly movies.
I've been able to see movies I've been meaning to catch for a while now (such as Monty Python's Meaning of Life, Scarface and Half Baked), some old favourites (Fletch 1 and 2, Die Hard and The Firm) as well as some movies I'd never heard of.
One such movie that I hadn't previously heard of was . It caught my attention immediately, as the opening scene involves He-Man figurines involved in a staged paintball scene. I highly recommend this movie - it's a bit of a mix between and . Here's the trailer for the DVD:
But the thing I like the most about my cable and PVR mix is coming home, cooking dinner and sitting down to watchable, pause-able, fast-forward-able and rewind-able television (without the expense of DVDs).
I'm surprised Australia hasn't been bigger in the PVR space. The closest is Foxtel iQ, which is pretty good but doesn't cover all of the free-to-air channels. You can also buy a regular PVR to attach to your regular TV - but the programming guide only goes two days in the future.
I have heard that Tivo is coming to Australia soon - which is about time - but there still isn't an all-channel programming guide available. Since coming to Canada, I'm really aware that Australia is getting shafted in both the Internet and television industries. Perhaps I will have to keep purchasing those DVDs.
# Posted in the Travel section and tagged as: Edmonton, Movies
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Friday, September 21, 2007
Crazy like a theremin-playing robot
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 21/09/2007 15:27:06Updated by Joel Dixon at 03/03/2008 17:19:49
Funny how things go full circle.
I was updating my contact me page for this site this evening, when I found an old text file that contained an idea for a blog post I had ages ago. The idea was to describe my linking travels on Wikipedia. Put in a search term, read through the article, click on an interesting link - and see where it gets you.
An example of this was when I was watching the Scrubs DVDs with Belinda, I saw an episode which featured The Polyphonic Spree.
The Polyphonic Spree
The mini Polyphonic Spree
I was first made aware of The Polyphonic Spree from an Excel-based Minipops quiz - in which they were the only 25-person group wearing white robes with colourful leggings. I didn't think too much about them after this until I saw them in the afore-mentioned Scrubs episode playing , and I quite enjoyed the song. Upon researching the band, as well as the fact that they've now diversified their robe design, I discovered that one of their 25 members is a theremin player.
This is such an awesome picture in so many ways!
The theremin is very difficult to play - the first instrument designed to be operated without touching it. The musician controls the pitch and volume by waving their hands around the two antennas - to varying effects (and sounds). It's probably more of a novelty instrument - but does appear in popular music from time to time (such as in Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love).
The circle was complete when the next DVDs Bell and I started watching was the final series of Futurama, which involved another hard-to-play futuristic instrument: the Holophonor. The DVD commentary also included a mention to the theremin as another hard to play instrument.
So that was my original blog post idea, which was discarded probably due to laziness instead of quality control. A few hours after reading this old blog post idea this evening - I come across the following video in one of my feeds:
Robot playing Crazy
To summarise, this guy has a series of robots playing Gnarls Barkley's on a series of different "instruments". They play the song using a MIDI file as input (MIDI files contain separate tracks for each instrument in the music). I hope you noticed one of them is playing a theremin!
# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Web
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Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Hickory Chicken
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 19/09/2007 16:15:41Updated by Joel Dixon at 23/09/2007 10:11:51
Turns out the Internet is not just for pr0n (don't worry, you can click that link) - I found this wonderful recipe a little while ago, and even took a photo - mid-cooking.
Hickory Chicken
Didn't take too long to make, and it looks really nice (especially with the sprinkled bacon pieces)
Hickory Bacon Strips - 12 slices
Skinless Chicken Breast - 4 fillets
Large White Onion
Fresh Garlic - 4 cloves
Medium Portabella Mushrooms - 4 (I left this out - mushroom is pure evil)
Sea Salt
Bundle of Fresh Leaf Spinach
Cheddar Cheese - 4 thick slices
French Bread to serve - 4 slices toasted
1. Cook bacon in large skillet on medium to high heat until crispy. Remove bacon strips, drain on paper towel and set aside.
2. Cook chicken in bacon drippings on medium heat, until golden brown. Remove, drain on paper towel and set aside.
3. Slice onion, garlic, and portabella mushrooms. Cook together in bacon drippings, on medium to high heat, until tender and caramel in color. Remove and set aside in bowl.
4. In same skillet, arrange cooked chicken breast, salt to taste, topping with 2 slices cooked bacon on each breast. Pile the onion, garlic and mushrooms on top. Add the bunch of fresh spinach, covering the entire pan of chicken arrangement.
5. Place lid on top of skillet and steep on low heat until spinach is limp, but still bright in color.
6. Remove lid. Add 1 slice cheddar cheese for each chicken breast, replace lid until cheese is melted.
7. Remove from heat. Using spatulla, place each individual chicken breast on top of toasted french bread on each serving plate.
8. Crush remaining bacon strips and sprinkle on top of each breast.
As promised, here's a photo at the start of step 5. Admittedly, my spinach wasn't exactly fresh!
# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Recipe
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Web feeds for Mummies
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 18/09/2007 13:52:23
I'm not indicating that Mummies are dummies, just working the pun
I've just added a link to my web feed on my home page, so I thought I'd give a quick overview of web feeds for those that may enjoy using them.
The quick and basic summary - if you want to be notified when this site is updated (or other sites that provide syndication), click the
button, choose to "Add to Google Reader", follow the prompts and visit the Google Reader site whenever you're on the Internet.Unlike television shows, most websites have content that is updated in a sporadic nature. In the early days of the Internet, an audience member that wanted to keep track of a website's content would either have to check the site each day, or subscribe to a newsletter-type mailing list. The website owner would then send emails whenever content was updated (or whenever they wanted, really).
There were a few problems with this method. Firstly, you need to give the website author your email address. Many a spam list have been created from people signing up to newsletters. Secondly, some scrupulous site owners would ignore an unsubscribe request (such as a crappy Java News site I sign up up for in the early days of my web experience) and continue sending you unsolicited emails. Another problem is that email is not the best technology to keep track of website changes, and all the update notifications would quickly cause a messy inbox.
Web feeds are designed to keep you up to date with website content, without filling your inbox with useless emails. A web feed is provided by various website owners to allow its users to track the changes to their content. Every time I add or edit a blog entry on this website, I also update an XML file that contains my last 20 blog posts. By keeping track of this XML file, you can keep track of the changes. Thankfully, there are useful programs that can keep track of this XML file for you.
Feed Readers or Aggregators are used to keep track of these XML files, and notify you of changes. They are very helpful - instead of visiting 20 websites a day and trying to remember which posts you have already read, a feed reader can provide you a list of the new / edited posts on those 20 sites which occurred since the last time you checked. Feed readers can either be client applications - a Windows program that can be used offline, or web applications - a website that you can (generally) only access your content while connected to the Internet.
A client feed reader will check for updated web feeds whenever the user is connected to the Internet. When it finds changes it will download the new file and store it on your computer. This means that you can choose to disconnect from the internet after your feeds have been updated before reading through them (this was more important when dial up internet access was more common). Some examples of popular client Feed Readers are FeedDemon and SharpReader. Other software such as email clients (Outlook and Thunderbird) and web browsers (Firefox and IE 7) also provide offline feed reading modules. A big limitation of an offline feed reader is that all of your content is stored on the one PC (unless you have syncronisation software), and you must be at that one PC to read through the latest changes.
FeedDemon screen shot (click image for full size)
A somewhat newer concept is a web-based feed reader, accessible whenever you are connected to the Internet. The advantage of this method is that all of your content is stored online, and can be accessed from any computer (such as Internet cafes) connected to the net. Popular web-based feed readers include BlogLines, Netvibes and my personal favourite Google Reader. Google Reader also uses the Google Gears platform to allow you to download your unread feed items to your computer, to allow for offline reading of your latest content without an internet connection (such as while on a plane). Best of both worlds.
Google Reader screen shot (click image for full size)
I've been a big fan of web feeds for a while now - it helps me keep track of my hockey team, keep and eye on the tech world, check out cool gadgets and have a chuckle now and then.
# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Web
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Monday, September 17, 2007
Texas Hash
# Posted by Joel Dixon at 17/09/2007 14:15:05Updated by Joel Dixon at 23/09/2007 10:11:16
Time for another beef recipe, so I scoured the net and found Texas Hash:
Texas Hash
You can see my nice heat pad under the delicious dish
Apparently, a hash in this case is a mixture of beef and leftovers to form a meal. I've never had a hash before - but it's not a bad use of leftovers.
Ground Beef - l lb (450 gram)
Large Onions - 3, sliced
Large Green Pepper - chopped
Diced Tomatoes - 16 oz (450 gram) can (do not drain)
Regular Rice - 1/2 cup (uncooked)
Salt - 2 tsp
Chili Powder - 1 to 2 tsp
Pepper - 1/4 tsp
1. Heat a moderate (180 Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit) oven.
2. In large skillet cook and stir meat, onions and green pepper until meat is brown and vegetables are tender.
3. Drain off fat and stir in tomatoes, rice, salt, chili power and pepper and heat through.
4. Pour mixture into ungreased 2 quart (just under 2 litre) casserole dish.
5. Cover with foil (or lid) and bake for 1 hour.
6. I (and the original author) like to add about a cup of shredded Colby cheddar cheese the last ten minutes or so.
The Texas Hash before going into the oven
# Posted in the General section and tagged as: Recipe
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