Nate (left) and Ben in National Park, NJ
November 8, 2011
(click on image for large version)
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Welcome to the Blog of
Charles C. Cotton
of Woodbury, New Jersey
Notice: I'm currently looking for a new photo gallery so people can check out what's going on with Nate and Ben! Keep checking back!
Oh my God. My hands tremble as I type this, because while Carol was working late tonight, I decided to let Nathaniel try the food that he asked for.
If it was only eating habits, I would swear Nate wasn’t really my son, because he is just about the most picky eater I’ve ever known.
Tonight I made spaghetti. Ben likes “the red sauce” that the rest of us eat. Carol, due to her half-Italian upbringing calls it “gravy”. I don’t call it “gravy” because in my book, to be “gravy” it should have some meat in it. Nate doesn’t like tomato sauce, however, even though he likes tomato catchup and pizza. IN FACT he likes CATCHUP ON PIZZA.
And that’s where we’re going.
When asked if he wanted his spaghetti as he usually does, just with butter, because Mom wasn’t here, he was bold enough to ask for his spaghetti WITH CATCHUP.
Totally grossed out, I made a very small bowl of spaghetti and squirted some catchup on it.
TO MY HORRORS – HE LIKED IT.
May God forgive me, because I know Carol won’t.
An acquaintance writes:
I just saw an ad on TV for Hallmark Cards. It showed a daughter visiting her mother for mother’s day and then leaving. The mother then goes to her desk and picks up a card for another child. The voice then says something like “Give her something she can keep for Mother’s Day. Give her a card.”
What the hell is the message here? It’s better to send a card to your parent than to visit? A card is better than being with someone you love? It seemed to me that Hallmark was putting down the visitor because she had to leave and suggesting that cards were better. Subtle, but nonetheless disturbing to me.
Here’s my greeting card-scrooge rant:
What totally mystifies me are people giving cards even though they go to see the person (like to a birthday party).
I mean, we go over to my in-laws (my parents happen to be dead, the story would be the same, however) and we give them a card for their fill-in-the-blank occasion (that’s in addition to a present if it’s their birthday for example).
But after having giving it some thought, I realized the whole point of “a card” was to send them a message, as in, you couldn’t tell them something in person / be with them so I sent you this card…
But since WHEN (cough*HALLMARK*cough) has “the card” become (part of) “the present”?
What a racket. Then to add consumerism to injury, the recipient, seemingly right out of the commercial, ceremoniously reads the damn out-of-the-box poem / saying as if the giver wrote that pap themselves.
I like to give cards, but you should give cards for those times YOU will be there.
I honestly don’t care, dear reader, if that’s always been the case in your limited experience, I’m saying it DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. *HALLMARK* *WANTS you to consider this some half-assed “tradition”. BREAK THE CYCLE! FIGHT THE SYSTEM!
If you’re THERE, YOU DON’T NEED TO GIVE A CARD. (only exception: money goes with it)
AND STOP GIVING CARDS FOR EVERY DAMN THING. Thanksgiving Day cards? HALLOWEEN CARDS? Oh come ON!
PEOPLE: TAKE BACK OUR CULTURE FROM THE MERCHANTS!
No, they haven’t improved it. It still burns.
Everyone, at some time, has a Jiffy Pop moment. Who can forget the time when they saw the silver foil grow from a flat disk into a giant dome! What innocence.
The only thing was that, as far as I could ever tell, it was virtually impossible to make the damn popcorn without burning it.
Guess what! TIMES HAVEN’T CHANGED!
Did anyone EVER get GOOD POPCORN out of Jiffy Pop?
But times move on, I thought. I figured, Orville Redenbacher has come and gone and has left us with near-perfect popcorn both on the stove and in the microwave (you could consider that an endorsement). So, how complicated can corn be? I mean, is there any shortage of MONEY in making processed corn that they couldn’t make it, well, GOOD?
Apparently so, because being otherwise required to relive my childhood through the eyes of my sons, I felt somewhat compelled to buy the way over-priced Jiffy Pop (really, $2.60 for what, 20 cents worth of popcorn and some foil?) and share “the experience” with them.
NOT DISAPPOINTED. I expected something pretty bad and it delivered!
Maybe the best childhood memories aren’t always the sweetest. I remember trying to make Jiffy Pop when I was young but failing to make it look and taste as good as it looked on the TV commercial (as countless other toys and cereal promotions ended up disappointing me – damn you Lucky Charms! You call THAT a “puppet”!??). The circle is complete. It was crap then and it’s still crap.
The good news: They still make Jiffy Pop the same way they’ve always made it.
The bad news: They always made it BAD.
Who says you can’t go back home. Thanks to Jiffy Pop I was able to share at least one burned kernel of truth with my boys.
I bought one of these Kill A Watt gadgets which tells you how much energy a given appliance uses. This is especially useful when you want to know how much an appliance uses when it’s not turned on. My results have been very modest, btw. When it’s not on, my Dell computer, for example, along with its ISO-Bar uses a combined 3 watts. I can live with that.
So, after having ‘played’ with the Kill A Watt for a few times, to satisfy some curiosity, I parked it on the kitchen table to take downstairs the next time I go. My boys asked me what it was and I had to go into the whole speech about how things use electricity, and that electricity isn’t free, etc.
So, in order to demonstrate to them how it worked, I plugged in our Panasonic microwave oven.
Well, I don’t know what happened.
When I plugged the oven with the Kill-A-Watt in, it was using 3 watts. I explained to the boys that when I turn the microwave on, however, they can expect that number to go up really high.
I turned the microwave on, but to my surprise, the Kill A Watt showed numbers changing every SECOND, up and down, sometimes going to 1,950 watts (it’s a 1,250 watt oven) and while the boys were losing interest, I stopped the “demonstration”.
That was enough of that.
Only, after I plugged the microwave straight back into the wall, it didn’t work. The clock worked and the ‘menus’ worked, but when I went to run it, it ran for like one SECOND then shut off.
Today, I’ve bought a new one for $143, rather than waste two afternoons of my time plus the time I wouldn’t be using a microwave, plus at least $80 in order to get the old one fixed and who knows if the repair would really fix the problem?
If you want to know how the ‘disposable society’ is made, that’s the answer – that the VALUE of repairs often exceed the VALUE of getting a new one.
If they made such things in a way that they would be cheaper to repair, or that we could repair them ourselves (and would you really want to “play” around with a MICROWAVE OVEN?) then maybe I woudln’t have been drawn into my decision.
But now I’m scared to use the Kill A Watt on anything of value.
I wonder if this was just a coincidence, a “bug” of some kind just for microwave ovens or even just Panasonic microwave ovens (which boasts a special “inverter” circuitry).
I’ll let you all know if something more happens!
Follow up: I have made contact with the guy at Research Associates who has one of these. Seems to be a real electronic whiz. Said he never had a problem.
Maybe it was NEVER the way it used to be! People have told me that it used to be called The Berlin Auction, and they had actual auctions there, but that was before my day. For me, I have many memories at The Berlin Mart in Berlin, New Jersey. I’ve gone there, on and off, for many years, even in the Winter. It’s managed to survive many decades now, and while some things have changed, many things remain. I apologize in advance for not having taken any pictures on my last trip there with Carol and the boys, but I was saddened during my last trip enough to say that it’s going to be a long time before I make the trek out there again.
The Berlin Mart Sensory Overload Experience is STILL there!
The last donut from the Berlin Mart from the batch we bought. STILL YUMMY!
TO BE FAIR, and because many people often don’t read further than the first few paragraphs, I’ll put the good news FIRST.
I am glad to see many of the ‘old’ stores and experiences are STILL THERE. After having gone up and down the isles of disappointing flea vendors, see below, we went toward the South entrance. Past an electronics shop in a barn affair, there is an apple cider vendor and the donut shop. Now, this donut shop is the rinky-est, dinky-est little shack you’ve ever seen, but people STAND IN LINE for these donuts. There’s quite a selection too! Sugar Cinnamon and Glazed. While they are BAD for your diet, (I’m guessing each donut has at LEAST 2 teaspoons of oil) they are HEAVENLY.
ENTERING THE BERLIN MART – The South Side Whammy!
But the apple cider stand and donut shack are the “up” side of the Berlin Mart sensory rollercoaster. Because after you’ve had your apple cider in the paper cup that’s just a little too thin to hold comfortably and finish eating your incredibly delicious freshly made donut, you head through the doors to the mart you get the triple whammy. Read the rest of this entry »
Seemingly unable to talk about people who actually have talent (versus raw ambition, overly energetic constitutions and well funded publicity agents) or people who’ve shown the public something they want to see and/or hear for 15 years, the media is BUZZING of the latest story on Madonna’s failure to adopt a baby from the African nation of Malawi.
A win-win for the former “pop” star who seems to be constantly fighting to get her name in the media!
I always was amazed at how Elizabeth Taylor managed to keep her name in the tabloids decades after her performing career ended and did so without having to resort to such stunts. I forgive Ms. Taylor for her over-stayed presence, however, as she redeemed herself very well through her aids activism at a time when it wasn’t fashionable. I should also point out that Ms. Taylor didn’t “grace” us with one bad performance after another past her prime, or marry a movie director for little more than keeping her movie “career” going.
Madonna, on the other hand, has not been content to merely adopt children in need, rather, she has to do it in a way which would garner her as much PUBLICITY (cue fanfare) as she can. Of course she didn’t invent this wheel. The adoption-for-publicity-tour has been well traveled by the similarly over-rated Angelina Jolie, who has also failed to impress me time and again.
Understand
, if Madonna were to adopt one of the many thousands of children looking for homes in her locality, she would not get the world wide publicity (maybe not even national publicity) that she’s getting from looking to adopt from some obscure African country (is it a country, or some kind of territory? Newsflash: no one CARES.) (the map is shown here as an educational service). It would have been equally possible for Madonna to have kept the whole affair PRIVATE, but we can see that wasn’t part of the PLAN.
Kudos to Madonna for a Win-Win Victory!
If you’re asking why I would write that, you don’t get it. If you “got” it, then you’d know that the whole thing is for the purpose of global publicity. That being the case, once an adoption was made, unless the child somehow managed to garner further headlines, the publicity “ride” would be over, but the price would be on-going, and the price would be not just money but the most valuable of things: TIME.
But Madonna’s managed to pull out a major coup in that not only has she gotten the publicity she was looking for, but she now doesn’t have the burden of having to raise the kid (or rather, pay to have a nanny raise the kid).
Funny thing, on the morning of this writing, a woman interviewed on the BBC radio suggested that, even in the light of the failure to adopt this child, Madonna should pay some stipend for helping with its on-going needs. NICE TRY! Gotta love you Brits! Oh, WHY are you guys so fascinated with Africa?
But Madonna’s gotten her cake and she gets to eat it too! Congratulations, Madonna! We’re still talking about you!
Today‘s New York Times tells us of a new kind of sound machine from Ecotones. Sound machine? OK, they’re not for everyone but there have been sound machines like this (though not as fancy) for years and years. We bought one for our boys when they were babies an used the “heartbeat / swoosh” sound to keep them sleeping. I don’t know if it helped, but I can say that I use an old one with a ‘thunderstorm’ sound that does a great job of hiding the traffic sounds outside.
Well this baby adjusts its soothing sounds according to the sounds it can hear. So, if a truck goes buy, it automatically increases the volume to ‘cushion’ the abrupt sound of the disturbance! I know I’m a bit of a kook, but if you have trouble getting or staying asleep, I’ve found these types of things to be better than a warm cup of milk!
We live on a very busy street. I could practically jump out of the bedroom window and onto the top of a passing truck, Steven Segal style. These good old boys come barrelling through trying to either make the light going one way, or making up for time lost at the red light coming from the other way. Only moving to another house is going to solve this problem, because as it is the only viable route between West-South Jersey to points East to the shore (via the Atlantic City Expressway or the Black Horse Pike) is passing in front of my house.
Oh, did I mention? They want just under $300 for this thing! What a great gift – TO ME! I’d even send the giver a nice “thank you” card!
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/the-sizzling-sound-of-music.html
Jonathan Berger, professor of music at Stanford this week revealed the results of a multi-year survey he’s been running:
Students were asked to judge the quality of a variety of compression methods randomly mixed with uncompressed 44.1 KHz audio. The music examples included both orchestral, jazz and rock music. When I first did this I was expecting to hear preferences for uncompressed audio and expecting to see MP3 (at 128, 160 and 192 bit rates) well below other methods (including a proprietary wavelet-based approach and AAC). To my surprise, in the rock examples the MP3 at 128 was preferred. I repeated the experiment over 6 years and found the preference for MP3 – particularly in music with high energy (cymbal crashes, brass hits, etc) rising over time.
In other words, the present and future consumers of music now prefer inferior sound quality! First, crappy music (yes, I said it) and now crappy SOUNDING crappy music!
What’s next? Have them pay for something they don’t use? Well Comcast has beat you to THAT!
I’m pretty comfortable with computers and replacing hard drives. I’m also comfortable with burning CDs. If this neither describes you nor anyone you know, then you may just want to skip this.
About 3 years ago I bought a TiVo with a lifetime subscription (possibly one of the best moves in my life!)
You may or may not know that such a subscription is NOT transferable to any other TiVo, so it makes my box somewhat precious.
OK, 2 years ago I checked out this addon kit from http://www.weaknees.com which added 160gb to my 40gb for a total of 200gb.