Charlie's Blog #122: To all the cheeses I've known...

To all the cheeses I've known...

5/26/05
In today's installment of The Occasional Blogger (dats-a me), you get to see just how weird I really am. I keep a folder on my computer called "Reference." In said folder I keep all kinds of miscellaneous things. Various random, unrelated pieces of information I want to hang on to, or not forget. Gajillions of unrelated text files in a folder. It works for me. In this folder are such things as:

WatchBattery.txt, a file listing the types of batteries all my watches take, so that when they die I don't have to open them up just to see which I need to buy

ReadingList.wri, my renowned reading list -- a list of books so incredibly dense that few ever escape. Seriously. At last count there were about 315 books on this list, some that I've wanted to, or intended to, read since 1996

PoetrySeeds.doc, a place for poetic images that occur to me, where hopefully they will germinate into actual poems

DesktopIcons.jpg, a screen shot of the icons on my desktop so that I can put them back where I had them after Windows scrambles them. Which it does every so often. Boy, that's quality, I'll tell ya.

Phone.wri, phone numbers. So I don't lose them all when my cell phone dies or gets dropped into the toilet. (Phobias. What'a ya gonna do?)

Bosses.wri, the names of everyone I have ever worked for. I have no idea, not a clue really, why I should want to remember this. But there it is. And I keep adding to it too.

E-Mail-Addresses.wri, same as Phone.wri, but for e-mail addresses. I don't bother trying to maintain an address book in every e-mail account I have anymore. They're all here, in one place, just a copy and paste away.

Blog-ideas.txt, ideas for stuff to post here! Cross this one off the list!

SQL.wri, handy SQL commands. I don't use SQL enough to remember all the quirks of its syntax.

Ascii.txt, an ascii table

House-Notes.txt, various unrelated notes about my abode. What size furnace filters I need, how big the space the fridge goes into is, etc. Ya know, boring crap.

US-Great-Lakes-Area-Codes.gif, a map I found on da web showing the area codes in the states around the great lakes. Free advice: if you find a piece of info on the web that seems particularly useful to you, keep a copy. No telling when it may be taken down.

Laptop-Problem.txt, the steps I use to correct a weird "power is on but it's not booting" problem my laptop gets whenever power is disconnected and reconnected to the docking station. This file is of course, is not on that computer. That just wouldn't help!

Food-Tea.txt, ah, part of the whole series of "food" files! ;-) This one reminds me that I have determined, through repeated experiment, that I like jasmine tea and chamomile, and cannot stand Darjeeling and Earl Grey. There are similar lists for bacon, crab, and cheese.

Math.txt, believe it or not, some mathematical formulae I want to retain. Circumference and area of circles, statistical formulae for permutations and combinations, and fun facts about standard deviations!

SunriseSunset.txt, Local average sunrise and sunset times for programming the light timers. I actually tracked this monthly for a year. I'm a geek.

VBdocFav.jpg, a screen shot of my "favorite" Visual Basic online help topics, since the damn thing won't retain this list itself. Boy, that's quality, I'll tell ya.

YingZheng.txt, notes about Ying Zheng, the first Emperor of China c. 221 b.c. Built the Great Wall. Was contemporary with Hannibal, who of course gave the Romans some trouble.

CivNotes.txt, notes on the intricacies of playing Civ 3

WatchCompass.txt, how to use a watch as a compass. "Take a watch, point the hour hand at the sun, half way between the hour hand and 12:00 is south." I told you I'm a geek. This is backwards, some way or another, in the southern hemisphere.

And now that I've bored you with a list of 20 of them, even being very selective, I must reflect that there are 169 of these files. So assuming you're still with me, lets cut to the chase and list the actual contents of a couple of the more bizarre ones.

Grammar.txt, the important stuff I missed in 6th grade:

Grammar Notes
Adjectives modify nouns; adverbs modify adjectives and verbs.
Adjectives modify nouns: "big car"
Adverbs modify adjectives: "very big car"
Adverbs modify verbs: "run faster"
"its" doesn't have an apostrophe because it's like his or hers
The car is hers, the car is its. Its car exploded. Its tail is wagging.
"it's" has an apostrophe when it's a contraction for "it is"
When it's raining.

Food-Cheese.wri, cheese seems to be hard to describe. Here is the file verbatim:

To all the cheeses I've known...
White Stilton with Lemon - yum!
Stilton, blue veins - strong flavor, yuck!! So bad I threw the rest away.
Havarti - strong smell, still a mild cheese
Feta - really strong smell, yum!
Butterkase - Kind of buttery, waxy, mild
Aged Cheddar - delish!
Coburn - Cheddar with Port wine. Makes it red. - It's good, basically cheddar.
Sharp Provolone - Hard times, take such a mild mannered cheese and turn it into such a bitter old man
Muenster - a mild cheese, kind of like mozzarella
Port Salut - a mild, soft cheese, a little sharper than Muenster
Smoked Gouda - Good, hard to describe. On the mild side. Smoked is good anyway.
Asiago - Man I'm getting tired of dry, bitter Italian cheeses. Sure hope we can't blame the Romans for all these... Does of course remind me of Panera's Asiago cheese bread.
Havarti with Caraway - Havarti and Gouda seem similar in an indescribable way. The caraway reminds me of course of caraway rye bread.
Smoked Cheddar - Oh man! The best cheese ever!
Double Glouster - Very good. Cheddar based.
Jarlsberg - Eh... I guess this is a Swiss kind of cheese.
Lorraine - Also a Swiss cheese, but a pretty mild, light cheese. Pretty good if you're in the right mood.
Forest - A white, soft, French cheese. Smoked. Very good.
Mahon - Spanish. Kind of sharp. Hard to describe, but quite good.
Fontina - Similar to Jarlsberg, but a lot better. A mild Swiss.

I'm not really a fan of swiss cheese.

Somebody tell me something here is a great idea. Anything. Thank you, goodnight.

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