Tesco Limited Edition Mexican Chilli Chicken Sandwich

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It is not often I don’t bring to work a sizeable luncheon, but being on call this week, I have been a little remiss, and so this Friday I’ve been caught short.

So my hand was forced and I had to traipse over to Tesco’s to buy something for lunch. God knows why but I opted for one of their sandwiches. Perhaps it was the packaging that caught my eye, perhaps the Limited edition stickers. Or perhaps the £1.60 price tag. Whatever it was, I handed over some of my money and left, with a small sense of anticipation. Surely this new sandwich would leave my tastebuds craving more? This sandwich, “inspired by regional American cuisine, influenced by the food of Mexico” would hopefully inspire me, whisking me away to the planes of the Sierra Madre Orientals?

Well folks. Fellow cuisine aficionados. Let me tell you thus:

I have never tasted a sandwich that tasted of anything less. Indeed, it would not be contrived to say that I didn’t taste this sandwich, because there was nothing to taste. The Tesco Limited Edition Mexican Chilli Chicken Sandwhich is to sandwiches, as Dulux would have been to 16th century Chapel ceiling painting. If I hadn’t have put the packet in my bin I could be entirely forgiven for wondering if I’d even eaten it.

Allow this post to serve as a friendly warning. If you want a nice sandwich, do not buy this particular offering. Indeed, should you want a horrible sandwich, for whatever reason, do not buy this sandwich. In short, if there were some way to vomit this sandwich back into its original shape and place it in the box, I would be seeking a refund right about now.

Whatever you do today, I hope you enjoy your lunch.

Event 41 Kernel-Power

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Just a quick heads up for people that have this problem as it took me a while to figure out. This was my problem on a Windows 7 64bit Service Pack 1 install on an i5 CPU over-clocked to 4.0GhZ, with a Corsair CX650W. I attempted to put a GTX 580 into my computer, but when I did kept getting this problem. Despite my PSU being rated high enough (on the 12V rail) to supply power, it isn’t sadly.

These are the new “budget” range from Corsair, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it’s a bit irritating given that the specifications of the PSU show it being more than capable. Oh well!

Born To Run

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Ok so I was a late comer to the “read this” party for this trendy book, but I loved it. Whilst I recognise a few flaws with the way some of it is written, it is exhilarating and inspirational at the same time.

As a marathon runner, and an aspiring ultra runner (I’m getting there, I’m getting there – 6 months and counting I’ve been injury free *touch wood*) there is a lot in this book for me. I’ve been slowly building up leg strength in order to get myself ready for barefoot running, and I’m now managing a few outings a week, I can’t see myself running an entire marathon barefoot, but I’d like to get to the 10k stage fairly soon. Who knows though?

It’s been a while since I had a compulsive page-turner, but I can’t wait to finish this book.

Olympic Tickets

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It comes to something when I can’t even partake in the great big Olympic monopoly that is the ticket purchase, sponsored by Lord Seb Coe’s mates at Visa. Registering on the site in February I set up my account as instructed in order to get tickets for the 27th round of the shooting qualification elimination knockouts, or whatever events I probably wouldn’t want. I was unlucky in that I didn’t get any tickets for any of the events I’d selected (cycling, athletics, badminton, swimming).

Now, given that the people that were unsuccessful first time round were supposed to get priority this time round I was somewhat dismayed to find out that at 8am (the website opened at 6am) absolutely nothing was available.

So the “greatest” show on earth will be coming to London, 45 minutes away, and I can’t even purchase tickets, through the official sponsor Visa’s gateway, to a less popular sports qualification round. Great work LOCOG.

The following article highlights just how ridiculous the situation is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/jun/24/london-olympics-visa-card-tickets

Astonishingly the site then goes on to tell customers how to apply for a Visa card, saying “the easiest way to obtain a Visa card is to contact your existing bank which will be able to help you to select and apply for a Visa card that most suits your needs. Alternatively anyone can purchase a Visa prepaid card from a Visa card issuer which can be used immediately. Please visit the Visa website for details.”

I wonder how much Seb Coe got for that pretty little deal.

Homemade Fish & Chips

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Who doesn’t like fish and chips? The advantage of cooking it at home is that it’s quick, simple, you know whats gone into the batter, and you can use healthier oil to fry the fish in. For this dish its best if you buy and use fresh fish, but if you have to cook frozen, make sure its completely defrosted first. The batter is a simple one with my own little twist, if you want a standard batter don’t bother with the herbs. Apologies for the photos, taken with a mediocre phone camera.

I don’t have a deep fryer, for this method I have baked the chips, and used a wok to fry the fish. Be very careful when doing this as hot oil splashes and burns easily.

Ingredients
1 Homemade Fish & Chips

  • 3 Cod Fillets (~200g)
  • 3 or 4 large potatoes
  • Peas

For the batter

  • 50g plain flour
  • 2 tbsps olive oil
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tbsp ground pepper
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon mixed herbs
  • A pinch of salt
  • A glass of water

Making the batter

Combine the water, salt, flour and pepper, then make a well in the middle. Into the well place the yolk, the oil, the herbs, and the lemon juice.

5 Homemade Fish & Chips
6 Homemade Fish & Chips
4 Homemade Fish & Chips

Heat the oil in the wok for a good 10 minutes or so before getting the fish ready. Dip the fish in the batter, making sure any excess runs off, and then place the fish in the oil, frying for no more than 5 minutes, turning once.

10 Homemade Fish & Chips

11 Homemade Fish & Chips

For the chips – just cut the potatoes into chunky chip like shapes, place in a baking try, cover lightly in oil and then bake for around 45 minutes.

Boil some water whilst the fish is cooking, put the peas in for a few minutes, and then serve whilst hot icon smile Homemade Fish & Chips .

13 Homemade Fish & Chips

SecurityTools

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This is a nasty little program that masquerades as a security program that has found lots of viruses on your PC, and will clean them if you unlock it – eg if you hand over your credit card details.

The easiest fix I’ve found is using ComboFix, and then deleting the [random letter/numbers] folders found under ‘\Documents And Settings\All Users\’.

Goodbye Dear Friend

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One of the most incredible feats of engineering has been axed as part of the Strategic Defence Strategy review, and what a travesty it is. A testament to British engineering ingenuity and skill, one of the greatest war planes ever to have flown, and just a down right beautiful craft. I can’t recall the amount of times, both as a child and an adult, that the Harrier took my breath away.

Goodbye.

Cryptic Christmas Quiz

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I’ll post the answers sometime next week.

1. Carl had no song.

2. You’ll have heard of this name for Christmas.

3. Light part of music and learning.

4. Precious metal or —-.

5. Miser ordered “Go score”.

6. Sinatra at home. Unusual scene for kingly gift.

7. Reindeer sold out to the high street.

8. Spirited Cheek!

9. No soap with the trees.

10. Sounds like the Queen’s job, darling.

11. Thieves scram at this time of year.

12. what did it cost king to hang this up?

13. Stole item intended for Christmas decoration.

14. Saint Laura upset at Roman winter festival .

15. Bladed footwear found in desk at entrance.

16. Initially found rime on several trees.

17.S
N
O
W

18. Another Wise Man scrambled up elm next to a confused choir.

19. Christmas, otherwise, without the 12th letter.

20. Yuletide newborn’s bed is a garbled German trough.

21. In satin seldom found on a tree.

22. Beneficent monarch sews clean when confused.

23. Yuletide mother is in army disarrayed.

24. Excellent playwright provides happiness (not to women).

Windows Home Server v2 (Vail) is dead in the water

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I’m a big fan of windows home server. They failed to deliver on some things, such as Media Centre integration, but that doesn’t really bother me. It’s a decent piece of server kit with a nice UI built over the top of Server 2008.

The best feature of it has to be Drive Extender, a disk management tool that allows you to pool your drives, of any size, and provides one click duplication, making installing new disks and taking backups a breeze for the home user. The clue is in the title: Windows Home Server.

Vail has been in the works for a while, and a recent post on the WHS blog has announced that the number one feature has been stripped. I’m fortunate enough, I guess, in that I understand how RAIDs work, and know how to set them up. However, I use WHS because I don’t have too. I spend enough time at work with computers that I don’t want to at home.

Absolutely unbelievable. Microsoft manage to alienate their core customer base (of this product) in one fell swoop.

Still, at least it saves me the cost of the upgrade.