Andy and Darcy’s Blog

On Thanksgiving day several of us went to see Enchanted, the new Disney movie. It was a mix of animation and live action, so I was really skeptical (for about 20 minutes). But I loved it.

It has McDreamy, Susan Sarandon, and the guy who played Peter Pettigrew (I think) in it. There is singing, and it is quite humorous. And I left with warm fuzzy feelings, so that is always a good thing about a movie!

There is not much left for me to say other than this movie is worth your time.

Before today, I did not know what a windcap was. I just happened upon it in a book I’m reading…The Charnel Prince by Greg Keyes. And it is not an easy word to define.

I went to several sources (all online) without a lot of success. I went to m-w.com, my favorite site for looking up words, and it wasn’t there. I then wikipedia’ed it, and I got 4 articles that resulted in my conclusion that it was some part of archaic wind instruments. Luckily, people still sell instruments with windcaps and that means that google came through for me, even though I had to read several pages worth of hits to figure out what “windcap” meant.

So here it is: the windcap is part of a reeded instrument. It is a mouthpiece that fully encloses a single or double reed. And then, fully understanding what a windcap was, I was impressed because this is a super cool idea, and it is ancient.

Why? Because reeds suck. They break easily, and they can be quite inconsistent. And it is quite painful to play on a single reed instrument for any amount of time. I can only imagine how it is for the double reeds.

Since the windcap fully encloses the reed, the reed is fully protected. And the vertical pressure on the reed comes from the windcap, not your mouth. So I imagine it would be a bit more like playing a trumpet. I know that the present way of doing things works well for vibrato. But I think that the windcap could be engineered to produce the same if not better results. It’s kind of hard to believe that reeded instruments evolved away from the windcap, but what do I know. Anyway, if I’m ever going to play a reeded instrument again, I’m going to need a windcap.

We’re writing to you from Topeka, Kansas, where there are copious amounts of stuffing in the early phases of preparation. There was a breakfast casserole to keep our strengths up, coffee is being made continually, and I’m sure there are other things going on here that I’m not even aware of. My grandparents have it all under control.

We drove in last night from Rochester. And it is cold. We really were not expecting that. As we drove south, we ran into snow! And ice, but that is a tale of steering into the slides and otherwise being tediously alert. Ugh! But anyways, we are Minnesotans without even an icescraper in the car in the middle of a Kansas winter. Is that totally unprepared or what!

Today we are excited to be eating Thanksgiving food with our family, and we are waiting to watch our fantasy football players get us lots of points. It’s Zane vs. Andy and Ben/Paula vs. Darcy. Go Too Legit to Quit! Go Gryffindors!

And a Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

So whilst chatting about laptops and operating systems I was thinking of when the support for XP was going to go away and when some people would be force to start using Vista. It seems like it really is becoming the Windows ME of this set of operating system’s generation. I haven’t heard people who wanted to use it, I’ve only heard people who were forced to use it for some reason, such as getting a new computer and they don’t offer XP.

It’s almost like Microsoft doesn’t get it. They are supposed to be this awesome software company, but to date I haven’t really been awed by their software. Take the new 2nd generation Zune. Here I’ll show ya. Go here, I’ll wait.

….

So how’d you like that? Yes thats right, they didn’t make sure that their newest operating system worked with their brand new media player. It is astonishing. I won’t even go into the error message, but seriously folks, how much more descriptive can you get than “Failed”? Blech.

Anyhoo, I was reading my RSS feeds today and I came across an interesting page. It is CNET’s Windows Vista guide. Make sure to click on “Play with Sound” on the ad on the left. Again, go here, I’ll wait…

So yeah, pretty clever, it seems like I’m not the only person that thinks that Vista is a bad idea, and I’m not talking about Apple.

My ramblings are a bit skewed obviously since anyone who knows me knows that I am a Mac person, with occasional stumblings into Linux (it has come a long way, but it’s still not there).

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

I can hardly believe that it is Christmastime again. It was just summer it seems like. That means it’s also the time for Christmas movies. I know for me this means National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. There really is nothing better than the Griswold Family Christmas. However if National Lampoon’s isn’t your thing I have another suggestion. While it may be less of a Christmas movie and more of a romantic comedy-type film, I’ve got to say it’s good all around. That movie is love actually.

The premise of the movie is that it is about 5 different stories of people told starting at around 5 weeks to Christmas. It is based in London, but reaches out to other locations as well. They each are going through some life changing events. The cast is quite good, Hugh Grant (About a Boy), Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean, Pride & Prejudice), Alan Rickman (Harry Potter, Die Hard), Bill Nighy (Underworld, Pirates of the Caribbean), Liam Neeson (Star Wars), Emma Thompson (Harry Potter, Stranger Than Fiction) and many other lesser actors that you’ll probably recognize. I won’t give it away, but in the end the stories intertwine in a unique and interesting way.

The stories in the movie really center around one theme, that love actually is all around. Different kinds of love, old love, new love, friendly love. It is really very, very good. I watch it every year and it still affects me the same way. I highly, highly recommend it if you want a good heartwarming movie that is set around Christmastime.

Even if you’re thing isn’t romantic comedies, I would recommend this movie on the performance of Bill Nighy alone, one of his best I would have to say.

P.S. What are some of your favorite Christmas movies? I’d like to hear them.

Next time I may consider using a flash.

We’ve been going to Prescott’s in Rochester ever since they opened, and we’ve never been disappointed. We went again last weekend, and I was happy to see how popular they were, even if I had to wait for a table. As always, it was incredible. And I took a few pictures just to remember this meal by.

I also tried a bite of Andy’s pheasant. I don’t even like game, and it was quite good. I’m getting hungry just writing this.

We went out one final time to try and get fall colors pictures. We went to the Mayowood Trail.

This was the first time we have been out here since before the flooding. The bridge is now closed off even to pedestrians so you have to choose which side of the river you want to visit before you go. The bridge is also covered in dirt, and there is grass growing on it. The flooding must have been crazy.

These are the last of our fall color pictures. Come back next year!

It’s funny how fast technology changes. If you really think about it, we were living in the dark ages just 14 years ago. I mean we used a hard telephone line to connect to AOL with maximum speeds of 28.8kbps. Now we connect wirelessly hundreds of times faster through something smaller than your wallet. Remember spending hours and hours trying to do research on this fabulous new “World Wide Web”? Now the same research can be done in minutes. Ah… Google.

That brings me to my newest cool link. It’s better if you’ve seen an episode of 24, but it is still pretty good.

Well thats it for now, have fun surfing.

I was reading yesterday and came across this article, which describes places you can go to get new batteries for your ipod. It kind of inspired us. Andy looked at ipod batteries for his 2nd gen ipod. And then he found me a new RAZR battery on Amazon for less than 3 dollars!!! So if you’re putting up with an old battery, check it out.

And now Andy is pointing out that I don’t deserve a new battery because I never carry my phone anywhere. But, ha! I’m getting one anyway.

I saw this recipe at the Kraft Food And Family website, which I though looked really good. It is cheesy stuffing cups. It is just a suggestion for any upcoming Thanksgiving dinners you might have.

I would make this recipe, but I’m guessing I’m going to be quite busy with the turkey and gravy on pseudo-Thanksgiving Day. And its not the end of the world if we don’t have stuffing.

P.S. If someone out there decides to make this recipe, you might want to leave out the walnuts for the people who don’t like them.