Archive for January, 2010

I have a great family. As a for instance, my brother, bless his heart, gave me a gift for Hanukwanzmastide this year, despite the fact that we’d agreed not to give each other anything. And it wasn’t even to make me feel guilty.

No, what he gave me was a bottle of Besito Caliente. You’ve likely never heard of it, but trust me, you want it. Born and bottled at the Truck Farm in New Mexico, Besito Caliente is a unique and quite remarkable blend of blackberries and habanero.

I’ll let you read those last words again. I didn’t mistype them.

I first came across this delightful sauce this past summer, at my brother’s house. He didn’t tell me what it was at first. Instead he spoke of how they’d wandered into a small town store in southern New Mexico on a recent trip down that way, and how they’d tried this wondrous stuff and had to buy some. Then, with a proud smile upon his face, he poured a bit of the syrupy goodness on some vanilla ice cream and let me take a nibble.

Delightful. I know I’ve already used the word, but there’s no better one in my dictionary for the experience of Besito Caliente. The blackberries are smooth and perfectly tangy. For a heartbeat or two the taste of them lingers upon the tongue, a sweet dance of sensory pleasure. And then, just as your brain sighs in satisfaction, “Ah, yes, that was good,” the tickling buzz of habanero rolls back across your palate. Not a true burn at all, despite what you might think. It’s instead a sort of muted shiver that reignites the senses and leaves even the most hard-hearted taster smiling with wonderment.

And that’s just the first bite.

I loved the stuff (obviously). And when I was asked some months later what I wanted for the Holidays this year I said, “Peace on Earth, good will toward men … and Besito Caliente.” My brother — may he be praised! — somehow got wind of this and acquired a bottle for me.

It was everything I remembered. And it’s not just good on ice cream. Pancakes? Yep. Waffles? Oh, yes.

Tonight I even found another Besito Caliente treat for my tastebuds. Hot Kiss Margaritas:

1.5 oz. tequila
.5 oz. Besito Caliente Sauce
2 oz. sweet & sour mix
.5 oz. fresh lime juice
.5 oz. Cointreau

Magnificent.

Since I’ll obviously be continuing to hit the sauce, my only problem now is that I’m already running low on our one bottle. At this rate I’ll have a bottle-per-month habit, and it’s a long way to the Truck Farm!

Like a great many young toddlers these days, Young Master likes trains. Likes ‘em a lot.

It’s that Thomas bloke, of course. All blue and happy and pip-pip, cheerio, chap! He’s like a cheeky little drug for the little ones. I personally think it’s those dastardly Brits getting back at us for kicking Cornwallis’ butt.

Anyway, we decided early on that we weren’t going to buy a bunch of Thomas stuff. It’s expensive. Besides that, it isn’t all that nifty. I mean, I’ve spent a lot of time playing with sets in the kids’ section at Barnes and Noble, and they just aren’t all that special. So how to get little buddy his train fix while getting us more fun and less expenditure?

GeoTrax, baby.

Young Master has been picking up sets here and there for birthdays and Hanukwanzmastide and such, but we also made a Big Score on eBay last week, getting a bunch more extra tracks to add to our growing collection. The set-up a couple of days ago:

GeoTrax Fun

Pretty cool, eh? You can push trains around, and you can run them automatically, rather like an old slot-car set. He even has a Lightning McQueen and a Doc Hudson that’ll run around the rails.

Adding to the sweetness quotient, Young Master insists that I always play Doc. He, on the other hand, he gets to be McQueen, since “he’s a winner.”

A little over three years ago we bought a new TV. A new big TV. A new big HDTV.

It was a huge hit to our savings, but we had the perfect spot for a big TV, the old one was a little punchy, and, well, the Super Bowl was coming up and the sale was awesome, so….

A 56″ Samsung HL-S5687W was soon sitting in our living room. Gorgeous. Grand. Gargantuan.

We’ve loved it. Best TV we’ve experienced.

Recently, however, the TV has taken to turning itself off now and then. You’ll be watching something — say, I don’t know, the new Star Trek movie — and Kirk is about to be eaten by a horrible beast on the frozen plains of Hoth a moon of Vulcan (I guess? The science is sketchy beyond belief here) and — poof! — the TV turns itself off. It’s almost as annoying as trying to diagram that last sentence.

This morning, I did something about it. A quick Google search revealed that other owners were having a similar experience. Here and there were reports that the problem was a microswitch, and that sure seems to fit perfectly with how the TV has been acting. So I decided to take steps to be sure that the offending microswitch would never cause me trouble again.

Want to follow along at home? Here’s how I have fixed (knock on virtual wood) the problem. Note that if you try to do this and blow up your TV/home/self, I am not to be held responsible:

1. Unplug the power cord from the back of the TV. We’re going to cut wires, so you probably don’t want any juice in them.

2. Just below where you pulled the power cord is a small vented panel held in place by a single screw. Zip out that screw and then pull the panel out and up. You should see something like this:

Opened panel. Look on the left side.

3. Okay. You need to identify the panel-activated microswitch. It’s pretty obvious there on the left side. Here’s a close-up:

The wee microswitch. Prepare the cutters, stat!

This is a simple microswitch. There’s a tab on the back of the panel you removed that, when installed correctly, pushes the toggle on this switch (the blue-green thing) toward the interior of the TV. When that happens, the switch closes a circuit and the TV will function. If the toggle isn’t pushed (or isn’t pushed just right), the circuit is open and the TV will not function. This simple switch is thus intended to be sure that you can’t run the TV without the protective panel in place. Thoughtful, I suppose, but this microswitch can also get loose, or something could get between the contacts, or the panel might not be screwed in tightly enough to engage the switch or …

Long story short, I don’t like this switch. I’m pretty sure it’s the problem, and I’m also pretty sure that I’m going to remember to close the panel without its help. So I’m going to remove it.

4. Snip the two wires running to the microswitch — they’re white and blue — an inch and a half or so away from the switch (you want to leave yourself room to fuse these wires back together if you ever want that switch again).

Did you get shocked when you snipped? If so, you skipped Step 1. If not, you can go ahead and …

5. Strip back the wires on the TV side of things. You don’t need much bare wire here. A half-inch at best. Twist the exposed ends of the wires separately, then twist them together good and tight. Get yourself a short piece of electrical tape and wrap them up so that they can’t touch metal and short something out:

Circuit permanently closed, baby. Note: Remove finger prior to panel installation.

I’ve pulled the bulb cover on the right side to give a better look at things. You don’t really need to do that to execute this fix, though it’s simple to take in and out.

Anyway, I’ve left a short tag of electrical tape loose here, as you can see. Before closing the panel, I’ll take this and use it to tape this bundle to the severed wires sticking up from the microswitch. Should keep things nice and tidy.

6. Check to be sure everything is tight, then close the panel.

7. Plug the power cord back in.

8. Walk around front and turn the TV on.

9. Listen for pops and sizzles. Sniff for electrical short. Watch for TV picture.

See picture and you didn’t smell/hear anything horrible? Good …

10. Celebrate in whatever fashion seems appropriate to you. (I grabbed a glass of pomegranate-blueberry juice, cuz I’m crazy like that.)

Having just done this work, I cannot guarantee that this will actually fix things. I’ll need to test it quite a bit to be sure. Good thing we’re into the NFL playoffs…