I went to the harbour the other day and searched for "Landies Sweets & Treats" forever. It says on their pamphlet that its in the "Small Boat Harbour". I couldn't find it.

Seriously, where IS this place?? I tried ringing them but no one ever picks up this phone: 716-834-8212. I know it exists because (e:Paul) has a journal about the Fun-ana.

I really really want to try this particular delicacy on their menu:

Java Jolt

Coffee ice cream dipped in dark chocolate, rolled in crushed chocolate espresso beans, served with fresh whipped cream and topped with whole chocolate covered espresso beans.

It is really weird that I couldn't find it - things cannot be so hard to find, especially at Buffalo's tiny harbour! Could anyone please post a link to a map with the location of "Small Boat Harbour"- Landies on it?

If this sounds desperate you should have seen me in action in the harbour. I asked every second person if they knew about it and NONE of them had even heard about it, or eaten a Fun-ana even. Were these people not at the Taste of Buffalo? Furthermore, I can't imagine anyone in Buffalo not wanting to read and scrutinize (e:Paul)'s most engrossing journal, on a daily basis. Maybe all of them were wretched little out-of-towners. Hmmmph.

I am working on cleaning out *everything* at home and reaching a paper/cardboard-free state by the end of summer. I could gather everything and dump it in trash but a teeny voice in my head is chiding me for not even trying to do the right thing.

So, does anyone know what I should do with cardboard from various cartons and boxes? The green and yellow paper recycle bins* around the city specifically forbid cardboard.

Also, what do you do with your metal/tin containers - such as containers of coffee, nuts etc that come with a plastic lid. Does the city collect scrap metal for recycling somewhere? Surely, metal has more recycle value than any of the other materials?

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• I take all my paper to one of the green and yellow recycling bins. The nearest one to Summer and Linwood is the one on Washington - about 2 blocks south of the Washington and Carlton. Has anyone seen one that is even nearer? It gets a little crazy wheeling carts of paper a mile just to make sure they are recycled.

I really like LaRoux*. Their music pops out of the headphones with tons of bass dripping life. But Oh. my. sweet. piano., I LOVE this kid's take on two of their most popular songs!



If you decide to visit his page, check out his Lady Gaga cover. I mean, anyone who makes the completely awful and disastrous "Poker Face" sound like a lush 40s broadway musical deserves more than just an applause!

---

For the non-electro-poppers:
-- *LaRoux:
-- Bulletproof:
-- In for the kill:

I was walking back from PriceRite today when I saw two old ladies struggling with their groceries on the way. I offered to carry one of their bags and they accepted my offer. We walked the very short distance to the American Cancer Society (ACS) mansion on the corner of Oakland Place and Summer.

I was surprised that they lived there. I always thought it was some kind of a regional office for the ACS. Apparently, they let patients and their families from all over the world live there while they are being treated for their cancer at Roswell Park. One of the women I met was from Florida and the other was from Canada. I also met one of their friends who had come all the way from Greece with her husband for treatment at Roswell. They were all praises for Roswell. I couldn't tell if they genuinely felt that way or were just saying that because I told them that I study there.

They gave me a tour of the mansion. You won't believe just how beautiful it is inside! I wish I had my camera with me. The mansion is wonderfully maintained. The massive polished door leads to a small foyer which opens out into a landing. You immediately see a wide generous staircase leading up. The banisters are gorgeous to look at, though I can't remember whether they were specially carved or not. I have such a fickle memory for detail!

The landing also leads to a living room - with nice furniture and very soothing curtains. The dining room is really impressive with a huge table and matching chairs. I could almost see a formal 18th century banquet there! Then there was a kitchen followed by a corridor which lead to bedrooms - that are given to the patient families. At the back there is another dining room/living room of sorts. The place is enormous - seemed like a endless cave mansion of sorts.

The mansion is actually similar to the 24 in so many ways. I remember mentally comparing it with the rooms in the 24. From several (e:Matthew) conversations, I think it must have been built around the same period in time. I have a feeling that (e:Matthew) would love it! I am wondering if I should take the ladies up on their "visit us again" invite just to snap photographs or better yet, go with (e:Matthew) so he can weave his magic photo-capture technique (and I can then get the scoop on that).

The ladies told me that they are given lodgings but they cook for themselves. In fact, a couple of the other people I met were sitting together and shelling peas (or maybe cutting cauliflower - I really can't remember!) in the back-dining room.

It was an interesting little revelation about that mansion. I wonder if they pay for their lodgings or if its a service that is fully/partially funded by the ACS. If its funded by the ACS, then they are doing a remarkable job!

• SPOILER ALERT*****

Don't watch this unless you don't plan on watching (or have already watched) the BBC series. It will spoil it somewhat for you.



I thought of this exact scene as I was watching the finale of the series. Hahaha. I can't believe someone else actually thought of the same scene in that movie!!

Remember the songstress from ABBA? She is still weaving beautiful melodies...

I had a nice wake-up scare this weekend and lost some newer revisions of my dissertation. I am not sure entirely what happened but overnight, some of my revised copies went back to their earlier versions with all their glorious little ancient mistakes. It was a very painful weekend. My dissertation is now backed up in 4 more places. My laptop looks like this:


Source:

Yeah, it really does.

I am on a cleaning up and backing up mission and I think I want to go back to the bare-bones aggressively slipstreamed Win XP version that booted in 14 seconds in another life long long long back. I have so many programs here that I have no idea about. I have some piece of obscure software that simultaneously displays weather and forecast in 10 cities. For some reason that I don't have the faintest clue about, one of the cities is Kathmandu, Nepal. Really? What was I thinking??! That is insane, even for me. Did I plan an ill-fated climb of the Mt. Everest in one of my nightmares?? That .exe just went into oblivion trash.

I have no less than 6 Java updates installed! Innumerable re-installs of Firefox and Opera with stray shortcuts ALL OVER the place.This is a living nightmare.

I am whittling it down. Maybe I should just stick to these in the next install

Browser:
Firefox.

Documents
Word 2007
MikTeX

Books/Articles
Adobe Pro
CutePDF
PDF Unlocker

Citations
Bibtex4Word
Jabref

Statistics
R
G*Power3

Visual Media
MPC
ffdshow

Audio
Foobar2000
SRS Labs Plugin
RealAlt Plugin
Mp3Tag


Art
Paint.NET
ArtRage
IrfanView


IRC/Phone
Skype
Neebly

Utilities
Winkey
TaskSwitchXP Pro
7zip
CCleaner
FreeCommander

Do you have better alternatives? :)

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• NB: I think I might need to update this thread - I have so many random things on my laptop, its ridiculous.
  
• : Wow that image is so tiny, the font became unreadable... I thought the width limit for (e:strip) was 600 pixels. Apparently not...

Indeed. Hahaha...

You want proof? Behold the hard annotated evidence!*


You begin to have your first suspicions when you see these random dinghies packed with people who wear a regimented attire of a blue flimsy plastic...


...in preparation of sailing face to face with a mighty waterfall that can crush your bones into powder if it crashed on you.


In the wild multinational excitement that surrounds this dinghy trip, you take leave of your senses, suspend your suspicions and pay $13.50 to be loaded on to a wobbly vessel wearing the cult attire.


The dinghy sails past this structure know

---

• a.k.a the virtual Maid of the Mist tour captured enthusiastically through a soaked lens by a wildly excited 1st time tourist. ;-)

I was out grocery shopping and guess whom I heard honking at me while I was crossing the road?



Heh. That was funny, (e:enknot). :)