Further to my post yesterday about the malfunctioning spell check feature in my “open office” software. Are you making these mistakes?
1. It’s for its (It’s always means “it is”, its is possessive form of its)

2. There for their or they’re. “There” indicates location or proximity, “they’re” means “they are” and their is a plural pronoun.

3. “Two” and “too”. Two is a number. Too means in addition to, or also.

4. Who’s and Whose. Who’s is the contraction for “who is.” Whose is the possessive of “who.”

5. You’re/Your. “You’re” is the contraction of “you are”. “Your” is the possessive of “you.”

6. A lot is two words.

7. Spell Check often won’t catch misspelled names, e.g., Mari instead of Mary

8. Spell Check often won’t catch incorrectly written compound words, e.g., can not instead of cannot.

9. Spell Check often won’t catch incorrect verb tenses, e.g., if you write “seen” (past tense) when you should have written “saw”.

10. Spell Check often won’t catch incorrect usage, e.g., when you wrote pare and really meant pair, or effect and should have really written affect.

I’ve been using the “Open Source” version of MS Office since the trial version that came with this computer expired. Does pretty much the same job as the real deal and it’s free. However, yesterday I noticed that the spell check tool that’s built in was not functioning. I just hope I didn’t do something similar over the last few months…

Eye Halve a Spelling Chequer

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Missteaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
Iam shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it’s weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Do you ever get on the phone, mumble your way though the conversation and then say “why didn’t I say this?” or “why didn’t I ask this?” Not me. Before every important (business related) phone call I get myself prepared. This includes:

- having a pen and paper handy

- I write down my concerns or questions in point format, so I know exactly what I want addressed by the conversation

- I make sure to tell everyone (I work from home) I’ll be on the phone and to try and not only be quiet, but keep the dog from barking.

- I let everyone know that when the call is complete, I will let them know.

- I write down the person’s name that I’m calling on the paper with my questions, so I know who to ask for and I try to personalize the phone conversation by mentioning his/her name while we speak.

* If I don’t know the person’s name before I call, as soon as they answer and tell me their name I write it down.

- I also make notes during the call in the vent other questions arise as we speak

IMPORTANT : I also found it very effective when I write down what we’ve discussed, the date and time, the name of the person I spoke to as mentioned above and if the conversation requires a follow-up or action by the next party. This way if I need to call this person back or file a complaint, I can look back at my notes. I had a problem a while back with our cell phone service and when I called back… quoted what I was originally told, the date and time I originally spoke to them, as well as the name of the person i spoke with… things went well

Here’s a great vidoe to get you up to speed …

With the girls out of town, Caron and I decided to to go out for dinner last night. She spent all day clearing and packing away all the Christmas decorations, so it would be a nice break. We always have a hard time deciding where to eat… we went into Crabby Joe’s, but the place was empty, except for a couple tables. We took this as a sign that this place didn’t have good food

As we drove into the parking lot for “The Keg” we noticed they had a line to be seated and from past experience, we know how slow that line can move. Even though we knew the steaks there are good, we didn’t feel like waiting. So we headed over to the Medowlands in Ancaster to give Jack Astor’s a try. we’d never been there, but Caron’s mates from work had been, so we figured it was worth a try.

The place was nice inside, typical bar/restaurant with the whole sports theme. We didn’t have to wait to be seated and the person assigned to help out at our table (I don’t like the word server ) was there in a second.. good start! Ordered our drinks and then started to work our way through the 2 page menu, with the special of the season found in an insert. So this post doesn’t get too long, here are my main comments …

- as mentioned, the menu is very small and BORING! It took me forever to find something I wanted to try.
- smack in th middle of this “Bar food” menu, you come across “stir fry” and “Pad Thai”!  Had me thinking about my childhood and the song on Sesame Street.. “one of these things just doesn’t belong here, one of these things just isn’t the same…”

- I ordered the “special” which consisted of a NY 10oz steak (brushed with beer while it was being grilled), two skewers of shrimp and the choice of 2 sides. I chose the chicken soup with the oriental vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes.  The soup arrived first and though the broth was excellent (I guess you can go wrong with broth), but as I searched the bowl for the oriental vegetables all I could find was a mash! Seems it’s been cooking in some sort of crock pot for too long. What the heck..I still ate it. A few minutes later the main course came. What a boring looking plate, anyone who’ve tuned into the “cooking network” would know how to dress this plate up much better. Something needed a make-over! Not only that, but the shrimp were basically white! No real pink or grill marks, and they looked so dry! Maybe the steak would be great, after-all they were brushed with beer as they were seared on the grill. I can hear the noise it made as this cut of fine NY strip, hit the scorching hot grill! NOPE! It was the most basic tasting steak I’ve ever had. It was cooked to the way I ordered it (medium), but bland, a bit chewy and no friggin sauce, juis… nothing to add a little ahhh this tastes great! Yea, there was ketchup and chipolte Tabasco sauce on the table. would it kill you to even crack me some fresh pepper?

The shrimp… did I mention that it was more pale than Nicole Kidman? Not even a grill mark! It was truly a challenge to consume, but I usually get vexed when I see food wasting so as the print on one of Caron’s t-shirt says.. “grin and bear it”. Sadly though, I had to give up. No taste (again, nothing was brushed on it as the boiled???). A total waste of morsels that’s usually great tasting.
I almost forgot I had my garlic mashed potato to consume, YUM! NOPE… though the flavor was nice, I really didn’t like the many little surprises. Huge pieces of potato hidden in what was supposed to be “mashed”. Did you want coffee or dessert? Budinski, kindly bring us the bill so we can hightail it back to the safe confines of my home where I can get a tea and watch some tv!

Normally I would complain, but I wrote this off as a learning experience! $70 down the tube. BTW Caron had the Caesar salad (excellent - just the right amount of dressing, a hint of fresh lemon juice and fresh made croutons), NY 10oz steak (tasteless as mine) and french fries. Well, the fries looked as if they were straight out of a “McCains” freezer bag! Need I say more?

Not to completely knock Jack Astor’s, since the service was good. And the ketchup did taste as original Heinze
In the event you’re daring:

Jack Astor’s Bar & Grill

839 Golf Links Road
Ancaster, ON L9K 1L5, Canada
(905) 304-1721