For instance, this Saturday I decided to test out a recipe that I wanted to make for two friends coming over this coming Friday. We have an awesome night of board games, dinner and hanging out planned.

The recipe is called Sirloin Roast Wrapped in Bacon. How can you go wrong with such a recipe? Roast beef? Good. Bacon? Awesome.

So, Joe and I went out and I bought all the ingredients we needed and I have to admit, as I was preparing the roast – slathering on the Dijon mustard, carefully wrapping the roast with bacon (the kind with 25% less salt too – I am considerate of my guest’s arteries) – I felt a surge of as yet unearned pride. There I was, making a meal that would say: “I am an adult. I can host a successful dinner. I am awesome.” A montage played through my head: my guest’s eyes rolling up in their heads in ecstasy as they took the first bite. A ringing of wine glasses as they toasted my prowess in the kitchen. Admiring and envious looks.

Yes, I do have quite the imagination.

I slid the roast into the oven, marveling at my own handiwork and within 30 minutes, I could smell bacon and a hint of the Dijon mustard in the air. I congratulated myself; if the smell was anything to go by, this was going to be great.

Fast-forward to nearly 2 hours later.

The timer on the oven has buzzed; I open the oven door and when the fog clears from my glasses – there she is: the bacon wrapped roast. I break off a tiny piece of crisp bacon. It is perfect.

With great care, I remove the roast from the pan. I take out most of the toothpicks I used to hold some of the bacon and cut in with my sharpest knife and try a little of my masterpiece: it is not good.

The marbled fat that I somehow missed seeing when I purchased the meat is rubbery and disgusting. The Dijon mustard has added a sludgy texture that is reminiscent of flavourless mud. The bacon seems bland and a little soggy. The meat itself is dull – I might as well offer my guests waterlogged wood chips covered in filth and fat.

I have failed.

In fact, dinner was so bad that we ate almost nothing of it (while attempting to watch the movie Trick ‘r’ Treat which was nearly as bad as our dinner) and we tossed most of it straight into the garbage; it was that unsalvageable.

As I was washing the dishes, I saw the whole thing in a new and rather dismal light. I don’t even like Dijon mustard – it doesn’t belong on any food ever. I knew this and still used 1/3 of a jar on the roast. That bacon has 25% less salt – to hell with healthy arteries, everyone knows salt adds flavour! The toothpicks made the roast resemble Pinhead from the Hellraiser movies and it tasted gross!

My confidence in my cooking skills took a dive. My faith in the god-like abilities of bacon to make everything awesome wavered. I felt something like despair. I should have known that a recipe that came with the roasting rack might suck. I mean, it was a $14.00 rack for god’s sake. I doubt Gordon Ramsey would have clipped the it from the package and stuck it in his recipe box like I did.  I should also have known that buying a roast at your local Save On Foods might not be as good as say a butcher’s cut of roast. I might have been able to get the part of the cow that wasn’t riddled with fat if I’d gone to a butcher.

And then I remembered I had beer in the fridge.

So I had one, and I thought some more about my failed adventures in roast beef. Perhaps I wasn’t a failure after all.

I did learn the value of a good cut of meat and I did save my guests from having to eat a disgusting dinner (plus forcing them to choke it down politely because they didn’t want to hurt my feelings) – I hadn’t failed at all.

I just wasted some money and time and made my husband eat a crappy dinner…for the second night in a row…

And then I remembered I had beer in the fridge…

As a recap, Ms. Knight is miffed that TransLink did not run transit later than usual on Halloween night while she and her “posse” were out “getting their drink on”. Apparently sobering up in the wee hours of a cold November morning while dressed in a slutty, cold-weather-inappropriate costume kind of sucks.

Ms. Knight also complains that TransLink is more concerned with impressing visitors for the Olympics than its own citizens (and unfortunately, that’s probably true) and that McDonald’s has more sense because they stay open late to take advantage of all the drunk people with the munchies.

I don’t disagree with the assertion that public transit should be available late at night for people too inebriated to drive – that’s one of the great things about public transit – but how late is late enough?

Vancouver, a city that tags itself as “world class” (and don’t get me started on that misnomer), has transit that stops running pretty early considering how late the night life in downtown Vancouver runs. Any city that is truly “world class” (I’m looking at you Berlin) has a 24-hour transit system in place – or at least one that runs until 2 or 3 a.m.

And let’s face it; a cab ride from downtown Vancouver to say Burnaby, Surrey or Port Coquitlam etc. can get pretty expensive – and that assumes you can find a cab driver who will take you anywhere if you’re drunk. Most cabbies, quite reasonably, don’t want drunk people in their car.

That being said, TransLink’s operating hours are not exactly a secret. TransLink didn’t just spring this on an unsuspecting public for Halloween – the hours are clearly posted on their website along with maps of every route and time tables for every single stop. Their website isn’t easy to navigate (the maps are hard to get to), but the information is there.

Perhaps the reason TransLink doesn’t run later isn’t just that they don’t care about the citizens of Vancouver, or that they are financially constrained but, perhaps they don’t wish to be perceived as supporting “getting your drink on” at clubs. I bet they also don’t want to clean up the resulting mess of a bunch of drunks with food from those captains of industry at McDonald’s off the bus seats and floors.

Another good reason for transit not to run late: TransLink performs maintenance on buses and train lines at night to ensure that everyone gets a safe ride during their hours of operation. It seems TransLink is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Terminate service at 1 a.m. – people complain. Run transit 24-hours and do the bare minimum for maintenance and repairs – people would complain.

Knowing that Ms. Knight, perhaps you should have planned your night out a little better. And that goes for the “other 200 people” you mentioned and the “hundreds of people trapped downtown” every Friday and Saturday night. You could have done any of the following before headed out dressed as a “slutty version” of anything:

• Rent a hotel room together.
• Share a cab to the closest house and crash.
• Plan your time accordingly and make sure you’re on the last bus home.

These ideas are not beyond your intelligence.

Just for the record, I find it very hard to believe that the same people get “trapped” downtown every weekend. Is their ability to remember when the buses stop running hampered by the amount of alcohol they consume? I could see that happening once or twice, but every weekend? Give me a break – if that’s really the case, then those hundreds of people are morons who drink too much.

I suppose your next argument would be cash flow – but, if you can afford to pay cover charges at clubs and pay more to get drunk at said clubs; you can afford to share the cost of a hotel room or a cab.

Your “bleary eyed $2.50” is hardly an inducement for incurring the extra expense of running transit an hour later.

I’ve seen drunken people on transit here – it’s not pretty: loud, obnoxious, reeking of booze (and, in one case, urine) and a river of vomit under the seats. I sure didn’t envy the poor driver who had to hose down and disinfect the bus that night. I wonder if he appreciated those party-goers $2.50?

Your right to pass out on the bus, be a drunken nuisance, or throw up on yourself does not trump TransLink’s policy of providing their employees with a safe and puke-free environment in which to work.

Ms. Knight, as the Events and Student Life Director for the Kwantlen Student Association, couldn’t you find something more important and pressing to write about? This article – written in association with your position at Kwantlen, gives the impression that being inebriated and unable to get home is part of the routine for Kwantlen students. Also, as someone who is in charge of events and student life, you do a poor job of planning your own events and life if you can’t manage to catch a bus out of downtown by 1 a.m.

I’m even more surprised that the Chair and Director of Academic Affairs thinks this is an appropriate story to have associated with Kwantlen.

How would you feel about a $2.50 donation towards finding something resembling journalism at Kwantlen?

So I stripped the old stuff off, cleaned up the mildew and soap scum and let it dry. Once that was done, I filled the bathtub with as much water as it would hold (this apparently helps mimic the gravity of bodies and water in the tub when it’s in use which allows the caulking to contract and expand properly) and then recaulked everything. It looks awesome now.

Unfortunately, I also had to remove a plastic shower guard to properly redo things. The old shower guard had at least three layers of caulking  – are people not aware you can’t recaulk in the same manner that you would give a wall a new coat of paint? – and some sticky stuff holding the guard to the tub ledge and wall.

A little Goo Gone, some elbow grease and a few swear words and it was done. Nice clean tub for a fresh start.

So, this morning I went out and bought a plastic shower guard. I tore open the package, removed the backing from the sticky part and laid it lightly on the tub’s ledge and congratulated myself on being such a fantastic DIY-er.

Just as I got ready to press the guard firmly into place, I realized the wall had an inch of tile going up the wall. The guard would have to be hacked up to accomodate the tile. Dammit.

I do not have a fine tooth saw capable of such a job and I had no intention of going back out to buy one, but I didn’t let lack of tools stop me! I improvised!

Tools of destruction

As you can see a marker, paring knife, scraper and file are all you need to horribly mangle repurpose a shower guard to fit your tub!

I call my approach “resourceful and innovative” – Joe, had he been here, probably would have called it a potential trip to the emergency room. I won this one: I only needed a small bandaid on the pinky finger of my right hand where I nicked myself with the scraper.

Now I just have to wait for the tub ledge and wall to be completely dry before I stick the guard on and caulk around it.

I’m sure I’m not the only person using whatever happens to be lying around the house for DIY projects – what resourceful and innovative measures have you taken to beautify your home?

There are other ways to look at all the Internet has to offer: (Firefox, Opera etc.) without having to swear at IE7. However, IE is the browser that most people are used to, so despite the frustration of not being able to find anything and the fact that IE7 seems to assume all its users are morons, we keep using it.

Well, if you’re going to use it anyway, you may as well learn to control it. Part of having control is being able to delete your internet history; the cookies, the browser history – the stuff you don’t want your significant other, your mom or the geeks at Best Buy to find on your computer.

There are two ways to delete cookies (or your browser history):

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click Tools > Delete Browsing History…
3. Choose one of the options and click the corresponding delete button.

This will delete ALL of whatever option you pick. You will not have the option to pick and choose. So, if you chose to delete cookies, all cookies would be deleted. Even the ones you wanted to keep.

Or, you can delete cookies this way:

1. Click Tools > Internet Options
2. On the General tab, under Browsing history, click Settings.
3. In the Temporary Internet Files and History Settings, click View Files.

You can now choose the specific files, images and cookies you wish to delete.

If you want to delete things from your browser history, you can choose to delete everything through the Delete Browsing History… option (see the first set of instructions), or you can pick and choose:

1. Open Internet Explorer 7.
2. Click the inverted triangle  to the left of the address bar.
3. Click History.

You can now pick specific folders or pages to delete without being forced to delete everything.

Happy deleting!

When Microsoft introduced the new Office Suite 2007, I went right out and paid full price for a copy. I opened Word with my head full of feel-good marketing stuff about a new look and ribbons. It sounded pretty and superior to the old version

I was totally flustered when I saw it for the first time.

Where the hell were the file menus? What was all that mess across the top of the screen? Why are there tabs all over the place and why don’t they make any sense? Why did Microsoft have to so brutally kick me out of my comfort zone and take away all the stuff I was familiar with?

But I’m no complainer, so I gave it a try. I typed up a blog post in there intending to copy and paste it into WordPress. I generally use a lot of keyboard shortcuts when I type, so at first everything was OK – but everytime I wanted to use something from on of the old toolbars, it wasn’t there. I wanted to change the properties on the document and I couldn’t figure out where to go. I wanted to save the document so I could possibly retrieve it later – assuming Best Buy could sort of broken bits of laptop because I was ready to drop the thing off the roof of the house.

I wanted my damn file menus back!

But then, the fog of frustration rolled back to reveal this:

This is the Office Button – it’s in the upper left corner of the Word screen. Click it to reveal this:

And there they are – all those items you miss from the old File menu.

Look under Prepare for nifty things like changing document properties and encrypting documents.

I am ashamed to say it took me several weeks to realize that Office Button was a button that did anything. I figured it was like the Internet Explorer icon that I see in the upper left of my screen as I type this. Just a little picture to let me know which program I’m using – in case I forget. A mere decoration, but not something useful.

The Office Button is the only complaint I have about Word 2007 now. I like the ribbons – no more searching through menus and drop-down lists for basic stuff; it’s all in the open. I can do what I want to do much, much faster now.

I have let go of my Word 2003 blankie and I am taking my first steps. If I were several years younger, someone would be offering me a cookie and some praise right now – I’m still open to that offer at the ripe old age of 32 – especially if you’ve got chocolate chip!

So, I thought I might save someone out there a little aggravation and post a few basic tips on creating presentations using Power Point 2007. Please keep in mind these tips assume you have some understanding of Power Point already – if you’re a beginner, go here or here.

Choosing a preset design

1. From the menu, click Design.
2. Click .  This will show you all the themes available within Power Point
3. Click More themes available on Microsoft Office Online… for even more themes.

All of these themes can be modified to suit your needs, or you can simply create your own and make the Power Point slides look anyway you want them to. Here are some helpful places on the Design menu you might want to play around with if you want to get creative:

1. Design > Colors – Allows you to use built in colour themes or create your own.
2. Design > Fonts – Use a built in theme font, or create a new one.
3. Design > Effects – If you use Quick Styles to format the shapes in your presentation, choosing from the Effects menu will reformat those shapes for you using the new effect.
4. Design > Background Styles – Change the background colour using built in colour schemes, or get creative and create your own.

Creating effects is where I ran into trouble – getting things like graphics and text to enter and exit the way I wanted and when I wanted.

Effects: entering and exiting

1. Click Animations > Custom Animation.
2. A Custom Animation panel should appear on the right of the screen.
3. Click on the text or graphic you want to apply an effect to.
4. Click the Add Effect button.
5. Choose an effect from the drop down list.

Let’s assume for a moment you’ve chosen Entrance > Fade for your graphic or text. This means that your graphic will fade into view. To have the same graphic or text fade out, follow the steps 2 -5 above and choose Exit > Fade.

The Custom Animation panel on the right now looks something like this:

Figure 1. Custom Animation Panel

Click the green star in the Custom Animation panel to change the entrance or click the orange star to change the exit using the drop-down menus above to change how the effect starts and the speed at which the effect moves.

This is the point at which timing becomes important. The preset speeds you chose may be too fast – even on Very Slow – and pausing the graphic or text before it exits might be necessary.

Pausing an effect

In this case, I want to pause the graphic before it fades out so the viewer can look at it without feeling rushed.

1. Click the orange star.
2. From the drop-down menu, choose Timing…
3. Use the up arrow in the Delay field to add a 4 second pause to the graphic.
   
   Figure 2. Adding delayed timing.
4. Click OK.

Linking slides

If you want the presentation to play without needing to click something after every slide, you’ll need to link them together so they each slide will advance automatically. For the first slide:

1. On the Animations menu, uncheck the On Mouse Click option.
2. Check the Automatically After option and use the up arrow to put a 2 second (or so) pause between slides.

For subsequent slides:

1. Ensure that On Mouse Click option is unchecked.
2. Ensure that Automatically After option is checked.
3. Ensure the first effect in the next slide (and subsequent slides!) is checked to start After Previous. This will force the effect in the new slide to start after the previous slide is done playing.

These are a few of the basic tips I found useful in Power Point once I figured them out. Happy creating!

The scanner is now working. I’d like to tell you that I was diligent and patient with the process; that I sat calmly at my desk and simply worked away at things until I got them working. This would be a dirty lie.

I got Joe to help install the new version of the drivers – and at the 96% done mark, I got an error message saying “We can’t finish the installation because some of the drivers are screwed up and we don’t feel like helping you anyway.”

I decided a nice hot bath was in order and I left everything in Joe’s capable hands. Before I tell you what he did, please allow me to state a small disclaimer here: My problems with installing the HP C4250 All-in-One Printer, Scanner, Copier were a) I am using Vista as my OS, b) the message window on the printer said the scanner could not detect the alignment page and c) Both the computer and the printer could not tell that I had plugged in the USB cable.

My issues were specific, if you have different ones, I’d really recommend calling HP Support.

Also, if you are using an HP computer, or any other HP software already – please call HP Support BEFORE you uninstall anything! At the very least, check out this list before uninstalling as there may be important HP stuff your computer needs to keep.

Now, before you even bother with the HP CD, there are couple of things you’ll want to do to save your own sanity. If your printer came with version 8.0 software and drivers CD and you’re running Windows Vista, head to the HP site to download the 9.0.0 version of the HP Photosmart Full Feature Software and Drivers file.

Assuming that Vista doesn’t have a full on temper tantrum and tell you it can’t finish downloading the latest drivers and software, save that file to your C: drive in a folder you might call HP Drivers and Software. So, the file pathname might look like this: C:\Program Files\HP Drivers and Software.

If Vista does have that tantrum – go back to the software and drivers link I provided above, and order yourself a copy of the CD. It’s just easier. 

Now you’re going to want to turn off those annoying “cancel or allow” messages in Vista. If you end up having to uninstall the HP drivers and software – even once – you’ll be glad you did this.

Disabling Vista’s User Access Control (UAC)

1. Click Start > Control Panel  > User Accounts and Family Safety.
2. From User Accounts, click Add or remove user accounts.
3. Click Go to the main User Accounts page.
4. Click Turn User Account Control on or off.
5. Uncheck the ’Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer’ option.
6. Click OK.
7. In the Microsoft Windows dialog box, click Restart Now.

That should take care of the “cancel or allow” messages, and when you’re done installing the HP stuff, I’d recommend following the same steps to turn the UAC back on.

OK, so you’ve got a copy of the latest software and drivers – either by download or on a CD – and the Vista UAC is off sulking quietly in a corner somewhere. Now what?

If you haven’t already done so, get the printer plugged into a power source (DO NOT plug in the USB cable yet. The computer will tell you when to do that.) and follow along in the guide provided with the printer. At some point of setting up the printer, you’ll be asked to scan in a sheet you printed – and the scanner might not work. You’ll get some unhelpful message about how the scanner can’t detect the alignment page. IGNORE THIS. Your scanner is not broken, it’s just stupid. Trust me.

Carry on with whatever instructions are left in the guide, if you are asked to restart your computer go ahead and do it.

Now we are going to scan that page you printed earlier – even if the printer told you that wasn’t possible.

1. From your desktop, click the HP Solution Center icon.
2. From the HP Solution Center dialog box, click Scan Picture.
3. The hp scanning dialog box will open and your page from earlier will appear in the dialog box.

This is the point where your All-in-One is saying “Oh! You wanted to scan something. Geez, why didn’t you say so?” Now you can pop stuff onto the scanner, and use the scan button directly from the printer/scanner itself!

And that’s it. You’re all done.

However, if you didn’t get a prompt to plug in the USB cable during the process, I can tell you already you’ll have to uninstall the HP software and drivers, restart your computer and start over.

Uninstalling HP Software and Drivers

1. Click Start > Control Panel > Programs.
2. From Programs and Features, click Uninstall a program.
3. Choose the HP feature you wish to unistall from the list.
4. Click Uninstall/Change and follow any prompts that come up.

You will have to uninstall more than one item. These items may include the following:

• HP Customer Participation Program 9.0
• HP Imaging Device Functions 9.0
• HP OCR Software 9.0
• HP Photosmart All-in-One Software 9.0
• HP Photosmart Essential 2.01
• HP Smart Web Printing
• HP Solution Centre 9.0
• HP Update
• HPSSupply

One last hint: if you get it all installed and then find that trying to copy text from the web results in a little box appearing which highlights things and gives you the option of copying as a picture – that’s just HP trying to do your thinking for you. Here is how to make it stop:

Disabling HP Add-ons

1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click Tools >  Manage Add-ons > Enable or Disable Add-ons…
3. From the Manage Add-ons dialog box, click HP Clipbook in the list to highlight it.
4. Choose the radio button for Disable in the Setting portion of the dialog box (lower left corner).
5. Click OK.
6. Repeat steps 4 to 6 for HP Print Clips and HP Smart Select.

And that should be all you need to get started with your HP All-in-One. Happy scanning!

P.S.: Joe? You’re awesome – and very patient – thank you!