Walt's Corner

Looking for an easy chili recipe during these cold months? Here is a sure fire way to make that happen with minimal effort. I like my chili easy on the meat, so feel free to adjust to your liking. If you love beef in your chili, double that ground beef

Ingredients:

• Half pound of ground sirloin
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 x 8oz cans of tomato sauce
• 1 ~ 15oz can petite diced tomatoes
• 1 ~ 15oz can of your favorite kidney beans
• 1 ~ 15oz can black beans (or double up on your kidney)
• 2 packets of McCormnicks (or equivalent) chili seasoning

Directions:

1. Brown your ground beef in a large enough pan to hold all these ingredients, salt and pepper to taste.
2. Drain grease if any, add 2 packets of chili seasoning and stir.
3. Stir in tomato sauce and petit diced tomatoes.
4. Add Daves Insanity Sauce.
5. Add beans.
6. Heat to boiling, stirring frequently.
7. Cover and simmer for 35 minutes.

Serve and top with your favorite fixings. I like green onions, shredded cheddar and sour cream.

Crock pot variation – Same as above, but after browning/draining the grease, transfer to the crock and cook on low at least 4 hours. Will handle well all day in the crock.

Fancy Shur Fire Chili – Same as above, but dice an onion, bell pepper, and a couple jalapeños/Serrano/habaneros and add to the mix. Will add that extra touch of fresh veggies in your chili.

Other variations – The kitchen is your playground. Substitute what you will. Try fire roasted diced tomatoes instead of diced petite. Or garlic tomato sauce instead of the standard.

Fuck Around, Find Out. That’s a popular saying going around today and certainly applies to this story. Going to have to make that its own category here on the Corner. See story here. Some good amateur footage where you can see it in action and ending in an explosion. Some idiots decide to street race and literally crash and burn at the end.

I’m back. Not that anyone was really looking for me in the first place. More of personal endeavor. Facebook and twitter are ok for random bits and pictures, but I was really missing my corner. Some place to write at length about my thoughts. My binary diary of sorts.

I don’t really use a computer anymore. This iPad has more computing power than the last computer I was using and has met my meager computing needs for many years now. At some point, I just didn’t care enough anymore to keep my blog and MySQL database up to date resulting in the inability of WordPress to display my website. I fixed that this morning and I’m getting back in the game of writing.

So much has happened in the last 11 years since I touched Walt’s Corner. Traveling these states in our Lance. The passing of my father and father-in-law. Promotion at work. Getting closer to my real retirement date. COVID.

Lots to catch up on. So here’s my test of making sure Walt’s Corner is back up and running. Wherever that may lead.

This began as a story about being addicted to smartphones but ended up being about notifications in iOS 5 instead. A recent article from CNN claims that we are addicted to our smartphones and launches a list of reasons and symptoms to support his claim, and finally gives a solution – lock your devices up in another room when you go to bed.

Seriously, if you are losing out on sleep because of a temptation to “check your devices,” I suppose you really do have addiction issues and probably should remove that temptation. Not being someone who is addicted probably makes me more cynical and critical of those who are.

I value my sleep and refuse to let any of my devices interfere with my slumber time. My devices are there to serve me, I’m not a slave to them. Both my iPad and iPhone are on my nightstand all night. The iPad ends up resting there because I read before going to bed. A simple flip of my mute switch ensures the device won’t be interrupting my rest. The iPhone stays next to me for two reasons. First, I listen to the pzizz sleep app to put me into my deep sleep. Second, my iPhone is my alarm.

The only complaint I have about the new iOS 5 is the way notification settings are implemented. In the previous iteration of notifications, I was able to turn off all notifications with one simple swipe in the settings. In fact, I could even specify a period of time that notifications were not to bother me at all. I had all notifications disabled between the hours of 10PM and 7:30AM. This worked for all seven days of the week for me. All I had to do to keep the iPhone quiet through the night was to disable the cellular radio. Notifications made sure I wasn’t bothered by any apps, and Airplane Mode guaranteed I wouldn’t be bothered by any drunk calling or texting to the wrong number, which inevitably would always seem to lead directly to my number.

In iOS 5, however, the notifications have to be enabled/disabled individually for each application, making my job silencing the iPhone for the night a bit more complicated. Yes, I could simply put the iPhone into Airplane Mode, but that would defeat my iCloud backup that now occurs when wifi is enabled, plugged into power, and asleep – during the same time that I’m asleep. But this is exactly what I do throughout the work week because it’s the most simple solution – put it in Airplane Mode and I’m never bothered. On Saturday I’ll risk being awakened in order for my backup to go through. After all, I can sleep all day if I wanted to that day.

But I digress. This was supposed to be about moving these devices out of our rooms at night so that we wouldn’t be bothered by them. As the final couple sentences of this article implies, get rid of these distractions. “You sleep better.”

Everyone seems to be weighing in with their thoughts on the iPhone event next week. There’s going to be an iPhone 5. There will be a new iPhone 4. OMG! A dirt cheap iPhone 4, called the iPhone 4s!

This should come as no real surprise to us. Yes, there will probably be an all new and improved iPhone dubbed the iPhone 5. I think too much time has passed for there to be simply an incremental update like there was between the iPhone 3G and 3Gs. I could very well be wrong, but that’s what I think. New features? The obvious are faster processors, better cameras, and possibly a slightly different form factor. Other improvements/features have already been revealed to us in the iOS 5 announcement, and I’m sure there will be a few surprises about iOS 5 that we haven’t heard of yet.

The news that motivated me to pen this post is the shock and awe that seems to stem from a cheaper iPhone 4. Duh. Of course there will be a dirt cheap iPhone 4. Every year when Apple announces the new iPhone, guess what inevitably follows? That’s right, last year’s new model then becomes this year’s cheap model. There should be no real surprise there.

That brings me to the supposed iPhone 4s. The iPhone 4 has been out for well over a year now. There is even a newer version of the iPhone 4 for Verizon. That version of the iPhone has some improvements worked into it, such as an improved antenna layout. It would make sense for Apple to redesign the iPhone 4 in order to streamline and economize production for sales to multiple carries. Not to mention the fact that because this iPhone has been out for so long, I’m sure Apple has determined other cost or performance improvements that could be worked into the current iPhone 4 design. And it wouldn’t surprise me if Apple titled this phone the iPhone 4s, the normal progression of the less expensive model iPhone.

That leaves me with the final shock of more memory configuration. Again, no big deal there. The iPad and iPod touch is available in up to 3 different RAM configurations that the market seems to support. Would it be a surprise if Apple tried the same thing with the iPhone? Not to me.

By next Tuesday afternoon all questions will be answered, and my next iPhone will be chosen.