Ryan J. Allen

The idea of reading my wedding vows off of the iPhone is amazing.

Dear readers,

I wish you and your loved ones a very merry Christmas, whatever that means to you.

With love,

Ryan J. Allen

I have two food stories to share, but neither is related to the holidays.

Denny’s
On Friday night I had a reasonable meal at the Grizzly Grill in Kingston. The company was excellent and the food wasn’t bad, but I have a negative opinion of all of those “Hub” restaurants which brought the whole thing down a notch. Still, an excellent meal that set me up for anything but what was about to happen.

Being the only night of the break that myself, Dot, Evan, MattieK, and Brad Chaplick would be in the city we got together. I was tired, and ill, but I still made an effort to make an appearance. The appearance was extended to a grand showing when the idea of going to Denny’s for an old-fashioned Lumberjack Challenge was presented–the first impromptu Lumberjack Challenge ever.

Now there’s good reason for the Lumberjack Challenge to be well planned. In fact, there are plenty of good reasons. One of these good reasons is that it is a lot of food, and proper planning is required to have a chance of finishing it. We had a large corner booth and could barely fit all of the plates on the table.

There are also plenty of good reasons to not even participate in the Lumberjack Challenge, and Katy found those reasons to outweigh all of the reasons to participate. Either that or she was just better at avoiding the peer pressure than anyone else. Some other semi-random guy was there who actually seemed to love the entire concept. I think he probably went home and slept on his baby grand.

The only one to finish was the random, but he was lame so I would say that nobody completed the challenge. In a way that makes us all winners, and also all losers. Overall, though, I imagine it was a worthwhile experience for everyone. I highly enjoyed it. And to cap it off, Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight” was playing on the radio when we got into the car.

Pan Chancho Cafe
Now, onto the second food story. This one involves the Pan Chancho Cafe.

After church this morning Dot and I went to Pan Chancho Cafe for brunch. This was my second or third time eating in the cafe and the experience was consistent with my previous visits. Dot ordered the poutine, and I had the french toast with apple butter. The food was good, a little overpriced, and the service was lacking. Dot turned complaining into a bit of a game, which I furthered by allowing her to write in the tip and sign the bill. I employed my trust in her to not write a massive tip that would bring my net worth to a negative number and believe that trust was not misplaced. She did laugh after she signed the bill, though, and I wondered why.

After we left the restaurant she informed me that she signed my name as the URL for this very web log. If the waitress was curious enough it is entirely possible that she has or will read this very post. Or maybe someone in accounting will. Or the Visa fraud department. Either way, welcome visitors who may be here related to this incident.

I am looking forward to holiday food proper.

Nothing says Christmas like an Amazon gift certificate. Sure you’ve gone to the effort of creating a wish list on Amazon, and sure you’d like to enjoy the usual unwrapping of a gift on Christmas morning, but really that means I have to:

1. look at your gift registry;
2. find something(s) that fit my price range that I don’t completely object to;
3. order it and ship it to myself, possibly having to incur shipping costs on top of the order or possibly bumping my order up to the point where I get free shipping by getting you another gift or ordering myself a copy of Tim Allen’s book;
4. receive the item, which is often difficult when I work during regular delivery hours;
5. wrap the gift, which may involve purchasing new wrap or wrapping supplies; and
6. deliver the gift.

A lot of those steps can be saved in comparison to the Amazon gift certificate:

1. Order gift certificate.

Because Christmas is all about how much we owe when it’s over.

A warning to anyone coming to my holiday soiree tomorrow: it’s going to be awesome.

Last night I was speaking to Dot about self-awareness (actually, self-concept but we’ll continue to refer to it as self-awareness). I told her that I didn’t think I was very self-aware, but I wonder if that in and of itself is an example of my being self-aware.

Bonus points to anyone who can make a joke about me, self-awareness, and robotics.

Ryan Allen Endorses: Dentyne Ice Gum.

Some say that chewing gum is a disgusting habit, but I say: I like chewing gum. There was a time (4:35) that I carried a pack of Dentyne Ice Intense gum with me all the time; I carried it in my front-left pocket, in front of my card wallet. I turned to gum many times out of boredom, an interest in freshing my breath, hunger, and as a common social glue that people high and low can identify with.

No longer do I carry gum on my person all the time, but I try to keep a stock of it at work. Dentyne now offers a container of 60 pieces in the Spearmint flavour; though not my favourite flavour, it is hard to beat the value that such a container offers, not to mention the reduced packaging compared to having five packs of gum. I am a little bit of an addict with it at work now, turning to the gum container a half-dozen times a day, but I can leave my addiction at work. (It’s hard to beat that fresh breath feeling after eating some delicious home-made chili for lunch.)

At home or on the go, if I ever need a piece of gum the first place I’ll turn is: Dentyne Ice.

Yesterday I asked a few people if they would describe my beard as “ferocious”; nobody said yes.

Paul Simon once wrote and sang about a most peculiar man. Here is what we know about him:

• he lived below Mrs. Riordan;
• he lived alone in a house and spent his time in one room;
• he kept to himself;
• he had no friends;
• he seldom spoke;
• he wasn’t friendly;
• he didn’t care;
• he was “different”;
• he committed suicide on a Saturday by suffocating himself with gas in a closed house; and,
• he had a brother.

Wasn’t he a most peculiar man?

I can’t sleep but don’t feel like posting. Here’s a cheap cop-out:

Whopper Freakout