"Dit produkt is met de meeste zorg vervaardigd. Er kan echter geen enkele aansprakelijkheid worden aanvaard voor eventuele fouten en/of onvolkomenheden." - from Hertz roadmap of Holland. I don't know what it means, but my spell-checker says that all the words except four are spelled wrong.
Well, I have nothing of substance to report on, so I've accumulated here a small batch of unrelated thoughts, as I have been known to do.
We got a new TV. Well, not NEW new, but new to us. Margaret got in for FREE from her dad's old apartment in Denver, and it was made in 1981 by Sony and has a remote control! This is a big step up for us; our old TV was made in 1975, had no remote, and had difficulty getting any channels except Channel 3 (we used to do the tuning on the VCR). I got the '75 model for free in Tucson (thanks, Tim), and I feel obligated to pass it on for free. We'll be donating it to Goodwill when spring cleaning rolls around.
So we decided to break in the new TV by renting a pair of excellent movies: Apocalypse Now (1979) and Hearts Of Darkness (1993?), which is a documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now. A.N. was outstanding, if incomprehensible. H.O.D. gave us a minor setback, because the opening credits immediately showed starring roles for Tim Roth and John Malkovich. We realized that we mistakenly rented "Heart Of Darkness", a 1994? remake of the William Conrad novel, not "Hearts Of Darkness", the documentary. Oops - one more trip to Discount Video, who was very understanding. Apparently, we were not the first people to screw that up.
And did anyone else notice the bizarre psychic connection between the character "Chef" in Apocalypse Now and the character "Chef" on South Park? I still laugh every time I see the words "Isaac Hayes as Chef" on the screen.
We also rented "Waiting For Guffman", which is a fake documentary of a community theater group in Blaine, Missouri. It's directed by Christopher Guest, and is very much in the Spinal Tap vein. It's a riot. A 10.
Margaret also had some other interesting stuff besides the TV in the car when she drove back from Denver. She had a certificate from the Swiss Army thanking her Great Aunt Frida for her service during the war. (Part of Margaret's family is from Switzerland.) We can't really read it because it's in German, but I joked that the word "sharpenshooten" should be included somewhere.
The new Ben Folds Five album is terrific. (Thanks, Charles.) I'm hooked.
It looks like spring is coming early out here. It hit 70 degrees in the Twin Cities yesterday! This is not at all typical for March, which is usually the snowiest month in Minnesota. My coworkers and I celebrated by going to Old Country Buffet for lunch, also known around the office as "The Trough." I have to laugh at the large number of elderly people at Old Country Buffet - they even have prunes at the salad bar. (no joke) That explains the "Old" in Old Countrry Buffet...
As Seagate celebrated the manufacturing milestone of its one-billionth magnetic recording head, they handed out calcuators to the employees with the inscription, "one billion heads and counting". I thought it was entertaining that we can't do the head-counting on the calculators themselves, which only have eight digits.
Kudos to Entertainment Weekly for pointing out the similarities between the orange-in-all-directions hairdos of Janet Jackson and the Simpsons' Sideshow Bob.
I think I just heard Thomas Dolby's new wave classic "One Of Our Submarines" played in a string arrangement on Muzak. I think I'm gonna be sick.
I think I need to take the ratings in my Leonard Maltin movie book with a grain of salt. On the same page, I found the following two reviews:
- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - 2-1/2 stars
- Willow - 3 stars
This is just plain wrong.
More disturbing news. I noticed that our department got a new dictionary, so I took it for a test drive. And I'm very disappointed in my findings. From the Riverside Webster's II New College Dictionary (1995):
- proactive or pro-active (pro-ak' tiv) adj. Acting in advance to deal with an expected difficulty: anticipatory. -proaction, n. -proactively, adv.
This, too, is just plain wrong. "Proactive" is a nonsense word used by managers who don't know what they're talking about. The word has been mocked by The Simpsons and Dilbert, and (at Kodak) I routinely ignored anything said by the one guy who liked to use the word in daily conversation. And now, IT'S IN THE DICTIONARY?!?!? Then again, "orientate" is also in this dictionary, so maybe the book itself is flawed. (I don't want to think that it's the whole English language.)
The "Crap From The Past" pursuits are slowly gathering steam. I was allowed to do a half hour of CFTP on the morning show of my station (community-run KFAI), and I filled in a midnight-2AM slot a few nights ago. I don't think I'm cut out for morning shows, though. While we were reading the weather, and talking about temperatures in the teens, I advised people to "throw some more cats on the fire, it's gonna be cold". In spite of my weather advice, people are starting to learn who I am, and I feel like I'm slowly making progress with a show of my own. After all, TV's "Solid Gold" wasn't built in a day...
I will leave you with an item that was forwarded to me (thanks, Seth). An item that I shared with my family, and I have never heard Grandma laugh so hard... (oy, I'm gonna plotz...)
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The 8 Worst Convenience Foods
By PENMART10@aol.com
8. Meeter's Kraut Juice (Stokely USA): Yes, that's sauerkraut juice, which is even worse than it sounds. The taste and smell can be a bit, well, harsh, but KJ is reputed by its fans to have certain medicinal benefits (as a source of vitamin C, cure for intestinal bugs, etc.), which adds up to a classic case of the cure being worse than the disease.
7. Guycan Corned Mutton with Juices Added (Bedessee Imports): The best thing about this Uruguayan canned good is the very pouty-looking sheep on the package label -- he seems to be saying, "Go on, eat me already." The second-best thing is the presence of both "cooked mutton" and "mutton" in the ingredients listing, which would seem to have all the mutton bases covered.
6. Armour Pork Brains in Milk Gravy (Dial Corp.): If you're really looking to clog up those arteries in a hurry, you'll be pleased to learn that a single serving of pork brains has 1,170 percent of our recommended daily cholesterol intake. All the more ingenious, then, that the label on this product helpfully features a recipe for brains and scrambled eggs.
5. Sweet Sue Canned Whole Chicken (Sweet Sue Kitchens, Inc.): From its size (think growth-impaired Cornish hen) to its overall appearance (it's stewed in a quivering mass of aspic goop), this product may change forever your idea of what constitutes a chicken. Gives new meaning to the old line about meat "falling off the bone."
4. Musk Life Savers (Nestle Confectionery): You may think musk is a scent, but over in Australia, they think it's a candy flavor. A candy flavor that tastes disturbingly like raw meat, to be precise. But what did you expect from a country where everyone happily consumes Vegemite?
3. Blind Robins Smoked Ocean Herring (recently discontinued by Bar Food Products): Possibly the world's most bizarre prepackaged tavern snack. Interestingly, the product's titular robin isn't actually blind, he's blindfolded -- the better, presumably, to avoid looking at these heavily salted herring strips, which look like giant slugs.
2. Kylmaenen Reindeer Pate` (Kylmaenen Oy): This Finnish canned good may not be particulary tasty, but at least it answers the age-old question of why Rudolph was so eager for that safe, steady job on Santa's sleigh team -- he didn't want to end up a cracker spread.
1. Tengu Clam Jerky (Tengu Co.): Nothing you've ever consumed can prepare you for the horror that is clam jerky. Still, this product does score a sort of conceptual coup: If you're the sort who's always found raw clams too slimy and gelatinous for your taste, these dried, shriveled mollusks will help you dislike clams on a whole new level.
[Note - originally appeared in rec.food.cooking. Reprinted with permission of PENMART10@aol.com. All are reportedly real products - ed.]
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The pork brains won me over, and Margaret made me call Grandma and ask if she knows any traditional Jewish recipes that involve brains. There are. Oy, Jewish food...
Stay warm and proactive...
Ron and Margaret G
