A Thanksgiving treat for my American friends

And a Happy Turkey Day to all of you south of the Border. Even those of you south of the border who happen to be north of where I am.

But let's not get into that again. I've waffled about the geography of the United States as it relates to the time of their Thanksgiving holiday before, difficult though that may be to believe.

In the meantime, a special present for you all, found inside the Thanksgiving turkey at Chateau Ricardipus earlier this year, and in pristine condition, still in its wrapper:



It's a Turkey Lifter. Any resemblance to a few mangy bits of string with a couple of plastic handles attached is entirely coincidental.

The instructions, which are admittedly rather difficult to read in that photo, are quoted here for reference. I hope they may be useful to someone.

Place Turkey Lifter across full length of flat rack in roasting pan. [Ed. note: what rack?]
Place turkey, breast up, on lifter so the two middle clips are under back of turkey. [Ok, seems reasonable so far.]
Raise one loop over wings and breast. [I bet that's more difficult than it sounds.]
The other over drumsticks. [Hey! That's not a complete sentence!]
Rest loops over turkey, not over pan during roasting. [Presumably, to stop it from adhering permanently to the pan.]
Lift roasted turkey onto platter with Turkey Lifter. [Yeah right. Pick up a 20-pound, searing hot carcass with two bits of string and some plastic doohickies, while it drips scalding juice all over my extremities? I think not.]
Remove Lifter and discard. [Even though it's adhered permanently to the turkey, not to the pan.]

It further goes on to instruct:

NOTE: Lifter is to be used only once. [But, but, but... I like keeping sticky, turkey-smelling, rotting bits of string around! Really!]

And finally:

Do not use when grilling as string may burn. [I refuse to comment on this.]

So there you go. Crystal clear. I bet the wretched thing is even patented.

Happy Thanksgiving, Americans.

poppies

I had intended to post something for Remembrance Day, but ironically enough, I forgot.

Instead, I give you this lovely piece, written by Junior Ricardipus #2. Forgive the spelling, the sentiment is rightly felt.

Popys are inportint becus they are red and red is won of the colers theat th solgers wore.

I think that says enough.

In Camera

As some of you know, I'm fond of taking photographs and clogging up the internet with them posting them to Flickr. My weapon of choice for this, in recent years, has been Mrs. Ricardipus' rather nice, Zeiss-lensed Sony Cybershot DSC-R1. Which is a lovely chunk of a camera, with a big, fat (if fixed) lens, 10+ Megapixel resolution, and rather more features than I really know how to use.

However, it is too large to conveniently pop in a pocket (unless I really want to look like I'm smuggling a bomb under my coat), and is also a bit expensive to haul around while traveling. So more recently, I've taken to purchasing disposable 35mm film cameras on my trips here and there, which are a) expensive per photo, b) use film, which gets me into the whole scanning nightmare, and c) typically equipped with tiny little lenses that I swear are made of dubiously high-quality plastic. Which can sometimes give you some interesting optical distortion effects, to be sure:


Rainbows in the corners.

but are generally, in a word, crap.

Things changed a bit recently, with the appearance of a rather nice little Nikon Coolpix L16 at work. Which, conveniently, lives in my office. And also conveniently fits in a pocket, has a lens that isn't made of plastic, and takes rather nice photographs. In exchange for occasional use of this beastie, I replace the batteries on my own ticket. Seems fair, I think, and it spends its days available for taking photos of people and things in the lab when needed, like this rather fabulous microscope:


A different kind of digital camera.

Of course, it sometimes gets used for things outside the lab, too:


Parked across the street.

All of which means, of course, that I've been after a nice little point-n-shoot of my own, that I can happily take traveling, leaving the work camera where it belongs.

Which brings me to this... joy of joys, I have finally accumulated enough reward points for contributing my knowledge, wisdom and tongue-flappery (in the cyber sense) to this discussion forum, that I just ordered myself a slightly out-of-date, but still (allegedly) fabulous Sony Cybershot DSC W55. While it won't arrive before my trip to Montreal on Tuesday, and probably not before my next trip to Washington in the middle of the month, it should be well and truly in hand before the following trip to Montreal again, in January. And well available for shooting from the hip while traveling hither and thither throughout the Greater Toronto Area, like this:


This amused me slightly.

I'm very happy - it's been a long time coming. Let the flood of photos of questionable quality begin.