This was YEAR TWO of having a doggy scrubber wearing a mask as the top of my simulated Charlie Brown tree. My tree sheds every year where certain branches need to be faced towards the back, or MORE LIGHTS! This is an extra mask that I wore once and it adorns the ceramic fox at my front door and for the December month, it's top of tree. Will it make it to year three?
Look at these masks. I build these, sometimes weekly. Wash and then build them. I never saw another one like mine made with small spring paper clips. I only did that because I don't have a sewing machine nor can I sew. Well, other than the few stitches I've put in on the straps of the light use masks. (The ones where the coffee filter is exposed, can only be for short trips because breath contains spit which is why we're wearing these things in the first place. Ever taste a wet coffee filter? ) Now I can get rid of them, or not. I have squirrels. I have trees. I have squirrel hammocks.
This was my latest mask I added to my mask collection. I bought it from an independent dollar store that was going out of business. They said I'd need another item to get two for one pricing. Yes, I'm that cheap. So I grabbed this. Yes, I did convert it to my coffee filter system but, um....I just can't go out in public with a tiger muzzle mask. It will make a nice squirrel hammock. I'll build a multi floored hammock system. It'll be like Skipper and Lil' Buddy had on Gilligan's Garbage Scow. (Working title...)
Cornering the market on coffee filters and mini paper clips and Wally pillow case wrappers and generic black masks and elastic bands from other cheap paper masks since 2020. We're your cheesy mask superstore here at the Junk Blog. Yep. We did this for two years. Please don't let it get to 3 years.
2022. This year we need to go Farther Along. This is one of my favorite Randy California's Spirit albums. This album was the closest they came to a 1970's reunion to 60's Spirit and was way too short, but damn good. I used to be able to name all of the players, but I do know Ed Cassidy. He was the "world's oldest rock drummer" when he finally passed a few years ago. He was stepdad to Randy California and played with some jazz greats. I think one of the other guys was in soft rock group "Firefall" and then the 80's in "Heart". He was a paid player in both bands. I was a huge fan a few years ago and have everything I could get because Randy's Spirit has a ton of posthumous releases. (Randy passed in 1995.) But, when Randys mom passed a few years ago, all of the tapes "disappeared" and nothing was being released. I moved on to other bands and I found the Hugh Tube Aussies and Grateful Dead. Ahh, but the faucet was turned back on! A "expanded" re-release of a few of my favorites came out and well....
8 CDs. "Mercury Era" Box set. Yep. I'm back in. There is quite a bit of material here that I hadn't heard. Yes, more unheard live sets including one recorded on a 4 track cassette machine. It's actually the masters of the albums on Mercury Records. Randy actually took the masters and re-mastered them using mid 90's studio tech for a planned 2 disc compilation. So, those masters he made were cleaned up and release in full length fashion for this set. The only bad thing is on "Farther Along", a few of the songs were "enhanced" by Randy. It's only a few tracks, but far outweighed by the brighter/cleaner versions. It's Randy on guitar as well. I guess when an artist gets a chance to redo something he felt he didn't do right 20 years before... Okay. I guess I'm boring you now. I just want to promote an artist that seems forgotten.
Christmas this year was very nice. We didn't have to sit six feet apart or wear masks. Nice to see family again at Thanksgiving as well. I picked the lights up because it seems strings of lights last three years and one or two strings that I put out this year seemed to be on their third year. Of course I bought them when I could because by mid December, you couldn't get these, at least around here. I'm used to a bunch of half priced sales between Christmas and New Years. I also got the barrel of "Moose Munch" in my stocking. If I'd received nothing but Moose Munch this Christmas, I'd be like "Best Christmas Ever!"
Spoke too soon. This would be the Best Christmas Ever. BOOZE as a GIFT wearing a CHRISTMAS SWEATER. Oh, it's wearing a familiar red wax hat. Must be MAKERS! *Snoopy Dance* This KY Bourbon was the first bourbon I tasted when I was tasting boozes like Oban and Blue Agave Tequila. There were better beverages than Buschhhhhhhhhhh beer? It's been my favorite bourbon forever.
Happy New Years. I celebrated with my favorite brand of bottled water because of the animals they put on the bottles and a bottle of Barefoot. Yes, I know. Not the finest bubbly you could buy but at least this time it wasn't as dry as last years. Clean that stove top! I wouldn't walk barefoot on that stove top! Get that bottle of Lyslaw that you had on this blog and clean it up! Make your stove be pH Balanced.
I asked for a "Burr" coffee grinder for Christmas. I had one grinder go bad after two years. It was a prediction I'd heard. Even if kept clean like mine was, it would go bad after two years. Yep. I needed another, so I bought another cheap one to fit the bill. "Burr" grinders are preferred by "coffee snobs" because they use gears to grind the coffee not a fast moving chopping blade. I just asked for one that was "cheap". What I got was this huge appliance. I haven't yet started grinding with it because of the counter space it will need for my daily grind of coffee. Yeah, I'll just set up a folding table and deal with it for two years. They all fail within two years.
After all, I have a ton of coffee to be ground. I loves me some Dunkin coffee. Got these for Christmas when the normal place I've been getting the coffee from stopped placing "Three pounds for 19.99" coupons in the mail. Plus, this is about the only brand sold as whole bean at major stores and marts. Man, I miss the old Caribou coffee stores. I did try a bag of Caribou at home and well, I miss Caribou coffee stores.
Thank goodness one of the things I did of summer last year when we thought we were coming out of the pansamatic was returning to Trader Joes. They have 5-7 blends of coffee beans and I can shop there again without being paranoid that I'd be shopping on top of everyone else. I always got a sample of hot "Joe" coffee from their sample kitchen. They haven't re-opened their sample kitchen at least at my nearby Joes. So, no no "Joe" brewed in store. One good thing is, their "Joe" blend is as good in the store as when I make it at home. They Burr grind right? Nah, they have ground right? It's amazing that it tastes as good at home. I wish Caribou's coffees would be like that...
GAHHHHHHH! This was "gifted" to me by my mother. It was clearance priced at ALDI for $1.65. I thanked mom. After all, I love me some pumpkin pie. I love me some coffee. Two great tastes that taste great together. Right? RIGHT? My trouble with any flavor in a coffee is that when you need to flavor the coffee or put in those horrible artificial favor creamers, you end up with a coffee flavored mess. Thank you Adam Carolla. Real cream is all he uses in his coffee or even a pat of butter? Yep. No other flavors. He hates the artificial flavors of creamer that are mostly water and hydrogenated oils. When I made a pot of this coffee, it was stunningly artificial. You could taste the coffee, but the artificial almost marshmallow sweetness just made it a drain pour. I started using 4 scoops Dunkin and three scoops this. It was better, enough to almost use up the bag but in the end... 86!
SO WHAT THE HELL IS THIS S**T???
Faithful readers of this blog know a few things about your obsolete junk blogger. One: I keep a lot of stuff for inane reasons. (Willy Wonka Fireball wrapper because it went all the way around a luggage transporter at my local airport.) Two: I'm obsessed with writing supplies. (Pen shootout and Burrows.) Three: I like music. (Repeat.) Four: I Like beverages. (Repeat.) Five: I'm a cheap bastard. HA! Stop right there. This was clearance priced for 50 cents at my local "temporarily out of everything" store. I haven't "enjoyed" it yet, but for 50 cents... When I was younger, while visiting my local Big Lots, I purchased three cases of different "flavored" Pepsi beverages and I think paid $3 for the lot. Who knew that drinking "Strawberry" Pepsi or "Tropical" Pepsi would be something I'd enjoy about two cans each of and then... No recycling back when. "86" Yes, I will enjoy this beverage. 50 cents and I didn't have to buy a mask with a tiger muzzle printed on it.
Awww. Palmer put out a nice chocolate dog for Valentines day. I bought one because it's a dog and it's chocolate and it's ....wait for it... HALF PRICED CLEARANCE? Yep. I wouldn't eat this because it's not chocolate at all. If you could put a wick in this, it would be the worst smelling candle, but would likely go for a really long time. Love/Hate with Palmer chocolates. Love all the stuff they do for holidays, hate the waxy texture/flavor of their chocolate. Hell, kids don't care. Well maybe they do. "Hello Uber Eats? Deliver yummies to my phone post haste! Put it all on the Underhills."
Now, you know I love pizza. I'll eat anything from the cheapest party pizza to the super deluxe deep dish Wicks pizza from Louisville, KY. (Then I'll place it in my hollowed out Palmer bunny and light it. Actually, ever fill a broken Palmer bunny with a shot of bourbon and drink from it like a shot glass? No. Good. Bad for you. *whistles innocently*.) This was a pizza from a small local restaurant that appears to have some great reviews so when the usual pizza joint with McPizza was filled to capacity on a Saturday, I suggested we try this place. Look at that crust. Lots and lots of overdone dough. Look at those thin burnt strings that were onions. Oh there is cheese and meat and other veggies, but don't let that fool you. It's a dough monster. Sops up the heavy amounts of grease. It has to do something. But, the sauce? They said their house sauce was "sweet". No big deal. Well if there is such a thing as tomato flavored sweet tarts, this is it. Bleah. Several errors made on the Adam Carolla pizza faux-pas scale. I love cold pizza but WTF is this? "86"
It was late on New Years eve and I needed some popcorn shrimp that I would make during the radio show that I do on New Years every year. Supply chain issues and all that stupid stuff or everybody had the same idea so I had to settle for this. Popcorn Chicken. Look at the box. I eat Banquet's chicken strips dinner for my lunches, so these gotta be just like those right? Gee a few entries ago, I featured the box of bones that is Banquet Fried Chicken. Fond memories of a good product were dashed by how bad it was. I ventured a guess that they scrape those chicken pieces a bit to put in their other chicken products. So I thought these would be okay...
I see. They used the dough from the pizza I 86'ed to make these little pieces of loosely "chicken" flavored dough. Eating these was like eating the eraser from a #2 pencil if it is fried to mush. Hell, what did I expect. I got exactly what I paid for. It's why you have dipping sauce. So you can't taste what you're dipping. At least you can taste popcorn shrimp because they actually contain a shrimp!
See my ugly dishes? I have a set of Corelle seemingly indestructible dishes. They last forever and long survived most of the dishes I bought from a participating Dollar General when I finally went to "Big Boy" phase and moved out on my own. I've dropped these dishes on the floor or into the dish rack several times and they come back for more. Ahh, but they are glass. When I had a fork in my sink and one of my Corelle dishes was set in such a way.. I accidentally dropped my 30oz coffee tumbler, the fork acted as a fulcrum and well... I had shattered glass plate in my sink to clean up. I went along with a set of three dinner plates but quickly ran out of plates so out to uncle Wally's place where I found that I can buy Corelle by the dish rather than an entire 4 person setting with tiny mugs that just aren't the way we 'Mericans drink our coffee. 30 OZ Aluminum Tumblers! It's 'Merican. Made in China. I got these "industrial" "restaurant style" plates and also bought one with a actual pattern on it bringing my available dinner plate total to six. I can entertain again! Bring your own tumbler.
Speaking of cheap. Can you believe this failure? I mean you can expect coffee grinders to last two years but they are mechanical and have moving parts. Why would a $1 plastic bucket that I've used as recycling bin for the last twenty years just crack like this? I mean what kind of cheap ... Oh... Me? Yep. Put some Gorilla tape over the hole and keep it for another twenty years. By the way, yes, it is marked "VOMIT". It is a bucket I purchased in case I have Mr. Creosote over and force him to have a wafer thin mint. *Skitch* *Monty Python* Thanks*
One thing I can say about being cheap, I'll try cheap adult beverages once to see if they are worth anything. I bought a 6 Pack of beer once on the way to my brother's cabin. I remember if it was really really ice chest cold, it was just "drinkable". "86". When I saw this at ALDIS I didn't hold much hope. Generic "Hazy IPA" which is a description of a type of beer with a hazy, dank , wet hop sort of... I have no idea what makes it a "Hazy IPA" Point? It was 8.99, which is about 2-4 bucks less than similar beverages. I had recently found that Cleveland's own Great Lakes brewery makes a hazy IPA that rang every taste bell in my head. It became my favorite beer they brew. This? It was good. Especially for the price. Maybe an "intro to the style" beer, this would be a good choice.
Ahh, but if you want to keep your head above water and don't mind swilling something "beer like" that is cold and will get you shnockered if you drink enough of them, this is the beverage for you. A twelve pack of pounders! Great size beverage for all your beverage needs. Truth? When I don't feel like shlepping to my local for a few of these, I call it a home/bar evening. I would have consumed them at the bar anyway, but I pocket the mark up of having college basketball on 17 TVS and a juke box that plays music I'd rather not hear and peeps that constantly walk to the "tear em off" card machines for another $20 worth of hoping they will win $50 after spending $120.
Finally, I have new junk. Planned obsolescence junk. When I had my first cell phone "gifted" to be, it was back before smart phones. It was prepaid. I paid $20 every three months. If I used it more, I'd have to top it up to keep it running but in the end, I had $120 credit in my account. When my friends were all showing me their flashy fruit phones or robot phones, I'd hold mine up and say "mine plays Tetris." A friend of mine convinced me to upgrade to a smart phone primarily so I could text peeps. I went to Wally and found one for $50 on the same carrier I had and took the plunge. Of course the money I had saved up I thought I had to use because it would not carry over to my new phone. Why then do I still have 20 cents on my new account? So, yes, I stayed with "Virgin Mobile" and I loved my new phone even though it wasn't that fast and took less than stellar pics. I got a nice rubber case for it and was ready to keep it for another 10 years of service. Then Virgin announced the were ending cell service. I was being transferred to "Boost". No problem. Everything stayed the same. La La La. Year 4 of smart phone ownership...until.... "Upgrade before your phone self destructs. This is a recording." 3G service was being shut down. Wait, I had a 4G phone. Wait. Boost was sold to Dish? Wait. Boost was moving to a different carrier making most of their phones obsolete or in need of a new sim card? Mine was one of the ones that was obsolete because my sim was Virgin/Boost Buyout. So? Hello Moto. I got a phone for free because I was willing to stay with Boost. Who know how long it will be before they are sold or they shut down and I'll need to upgrade again. Oh, did I mention that I have TWO of the Virgin Mobile LG Tribute phones? I bought the second one to be strictly a MP3 player and it does a hell of a job but it can also WiFi and take crappy photos. I think the max MP3 player sold up until two years ago was 4 Gig. Now, I got another for MP3 player . One for each ear. Yeah.
Compare. There is no compare right? One looks like an actual Motorola radio where one looks like it's a "spaaaaaaace phooone" Bigger screen, more room to break I guess. I did buy a case for it but I need the rubberized case for all that extra bouncy goodness. It saved my other one from a fall or two. Did I mention that my previous phone cost $50 and my new one was free? I'm worried about what?
Still, the other case had a stand that broke and was fixed by Gorilla tape. It also had a nice plastic frame around it. It truly made my phone semi un-destructable. Hey, the new one barely fits in the camera case I carry it in. Why have additional...wait.. Yes, I carry this in a camera case. I don't keep my phone on 24/7 so I can keep up with the social meat-eye-uh. I don't purchase things with it. I barely use it. But damn it, I need a rubberized/protected case!
..because... I hang on to things for so long... We established how I think my new cell phone is going to be phased out in less than 4 years so I'll be left with another WiFi brick. Did I mention that LG has stopped making phones? Microsoft made their phones for a few years with their own operating system but didn't penetrate the market and stopped. However, MS's CAMERAS in the phones take some awesome photos so my friend still uses his as a camera! My LG's are bricks. I guess they did have better LGs but they also gave up on cell phones. Did I mention they work great as MP3 players? The Motorola phone however, took this picture of of the camera I have been using for a few years to produce this blog. I find something that works great and I keep using it until it just doesn't work. Then I keep it hoping one day I can fix it. It's why we're a junk blog. This is a Canon Power Shot A1100. It's the camera I found while I was buying cameras from thrift stores looking for one that took great photos in every condition. This was it. Note the fine battery door/masking tape securing system. Note the missing lens cover with the fake Sharpie marker colored tape around the exposed plastic. It says "PRO".
I took these with my New Moto cell phone. It means that well, I can retire the point and shoot camera. NO! I must keep on using it! I need yet another cable to attach it to my computer! (Did I mention that my new phone uses USB C? Yes, another cable to buy backups for.) At least now I have something that I can carry everywhere and can take pics as good as this Canon. The LG's would take pics as long as I didn't move and there was sunshine on a cloudy day. I can't make a movie with my Moto, but the point and shoot goodness of it keeps me from having another brick in the electronics wall. Did you see that GE stereo clock radio a few pictures back? Behind it a Sony "Silver" boombox with a dodgy CD player and non working tape player? Behind that a Hitachi tape dubbing boombox with missing tape door? Junk blog. -Ric
]]>You needed speakers right? Small speakers with big sound. When you plugged Radio Shack speakers into a Radio Shack amplifier, you had a whole Radio Shack HiFi stereo system. Believe it or not, compared to going to your local Zayre to get the latest double deck stereo for $149 or a Lenoxx mini system from Grey Drug for $99, this system cost more but sounded like $1000. I know, it wasn't a true turn up your nose stereo system, but especially if you didn't need to tune radio stations, this was many people's stepping stone to better equipment. Essentially, if you needed small speakers that could take a whallop and yet be loud and at the same time decent sounding, these speakers were the solution. The only better small speakers you could buy were "studio" monitors that cost a hell of a lot. These came out before the "monitor" and "stereo" television craze of the late 80's. That changed it all. Before that, it was a niche thing. Why have a stereo set up around your 25" console TV. It's mono sound anyway. I can't afford those new fancy stereo disc video systems. I can't afford a fancy stereo video tape player. If I want good sound in my movies, I go see them at a movie theater with that new surround system. Right?
"Simulated Stereo Amplifier That Is Better Than Soundesign" Ahhh..this was it. Fake wood grain on everything before silver became a color for stereo equipment in the high tech 80's. Plastic case with wood grain sticky paper. If you had a pressed board case, it could have simulated wood grain that was guaranteed not to start peeling for the 90 day warranty. Fake wood grain was for the common man. The HiFi elite wouldn't even light their cigars off this if it were on fire. They'd prefer to use their TUBE amp with real wood cases and wait for the tubes to heat up so they can light their cigars off of the heat. "Simulated Walnut Grain Finish" Hmmm. I had a band called "Simulated Walnut Grain Finish" once. "Tribute too?" "The Cars!" *and scene*
"Where do you connect the speakers?" "RCA outputs?" I think they made these with spring terminals where you could connect speakers that didn't have RCA ends. This model used the cheaper/simpler RCA ends and surprise! Radio Shack sold the speaker cables with RCA on one end and bare speaker wires on the other. Again, before stereo everything happened where you were generally not LOUSY with extra RCA cables that you could nick off one end to use for this. Ahh, but there was another plus for this little amp. You COULD plug a turntable into it. Before MODERN vinyl and record players could convert your records to MP3s or send sound to wireless speakers or even connect to a computer with a USB cable, you needed a pre-amp for any better record player. Otherwise you got no sound or a scratchy high "needle on the record" sound without an amplifier sound. This was the winner but you should only connect a record player to the record player input because other equipment would be distorted because you were amplifying something that didn't need it. I could explain OHMS and minimal sound outputs..if I understood any of it.
Radio Shack on Radio Shack Crime. Ever trying to have the latest HiFi I woke this amp from my junk collection when my odd living room computer speaker surround sound amplifier that I was using for video..gave up the ghost. I needed something to play stereo when I watch Grateful Dead videos right? How about HiFi VHS movies or my DVD collection which includes mostly MONO DVDs of old TV shows. I needed the stereo right? I have just added a cheap DVR so now I need something that can take USB chip input stereo so I can listen to podcasts while I'm putting up my Christmas tree. I need to DUST dammit! Oh yeah, I have a big old MONITOR 25" TV. The type with a pane of tempered glass over the screen. It has an "RF" input on the back. That's it. So I still use the Radio Shark "Line To RF" converter that allows me to hook up video and stereo audio to a TV with only a RF on the back. Do I like antique crap or something? You know? JUNK? *Dun dun dunnnnnnnnn* No silly, if it's in working condition, I put it to use. I'm a creature of habit. I fear change. I even used the small speakers that came with that surround sound amp. Soundwise? Thin. Really really really thin. Like cheap boombox thin. Hey wait? I think I have two Minimus speakers somewhere in my junk collection. I took pics of them a few years back and haven't used them on my junk blog as of yet.. Hmmm. That would require more work... Hmmm... This Grateful Dead DVD called "Dead Set" from their Radio City performances from 1980 sounds like poo poo on my annual watching of the Grateful Dead. Sheit.
All I want for Christmas is Crown Royal, a golden retriever with a Tampa Bay Buccaneers foam football around his muzzle and a gross of Swiffer dust catchers! I dodged spider webs in the basement and dug these out. The spring connections in the back were in need of assistance. A little screwdriver action helped close the terminals on my pre-made RCA one end/bare wire the other. Thankfully my amp doesn't have the scratchy dust filled pots that help ruin my previous small amp. Yet. I clicked the resume on the DVD and well...
"Jeeeerrrreeeeeeee! Darrrrrk Staaaaaar!" I tightened up my headband for the extra RUSH during Jerrys guitar solo! *skitch* *Frank Zappa* *Thanks* Admire the beauty of a TV so old, the channel display is a green two digit LED display. Admire my 60's living room lamp reflected in the tempered glass cover over the 25" screen. No letter boxing here ladies and gentlemen. Hey, what is that sound? Is that some BASS response out of that pair of Minimus speakers that has been in a box FOREVER now in use? Well, welcome to the 80's. Hot funk, cool punk, even if it's old JUNK it's still weedly weedly weeeeeeee from Jerry to me. *skitch* *forget it* Thanks. -Ric
PEEYESS: Shortly after I put these Minimus speakers into use and right during the coffee/nosh/smoke/bong rip/sugar cube/rail off a strippers belly section of this concert known as "Drums/Space" where the Grateful Dead drummers showed their stuff, I noticed the side of my screen going psychedelically green. "Wow!" I thought. I checked my bottle of water to make sure it hadn't been dosed. No, what I had was a classic case of an old friend I hadn't seen for "Ny-Un-Tee-Five Years" *skitch* *Roger Rabbit* *Thanks.* The Minimus speakers were an older model before they got used in video applications, They have large magnets inside of them. With tube televisions and monitors, if your speakers were not magnetically shielded, if they were close to TVs, they could "warp" the thin steel mesh inside a TV tube and cause it to distort the colors. If this went on too long, it would stay on the screen and you'd need a repairman to come out and use their "Degaussing" wand to try and get your TV to normal. I assumed these Minimus were shielded because in the 80's and 90's, these speakers were usually next to a television. Plus, I'd forgotten that this was a thing! It was like seeing an old friend that is largely extinct in these days of flat screen 70" TVs for $100 bucks from your local Walgreens. It was another reminder than maybe I should get an upgraded TV. Ahhh, I just moved the speaker two feet away. Problem solved. Time to watch the Blues Brothers. Orange Whip? Orange Whip? Three Orange Whips.
]]>Yet, this is booze. This tiny airline bottle of licorice flavoured booze has lived in my freezer for years. I keep it there for the one day I use it when I make a mixed drink my friends and I enjoyed a number of years ago. Like a Hairy Buffalo only adulterated with THIS. I've never had the nuggets to buy butterscotch schnapps and rum and triple sec and tequila and fruit punch and margarita mix. Maybe I'll do it as a fall treat.
Speaking of wasting food, I guess I'm going to have a few pictures where food was wasted because I had to waste it. There was a recent salmonella outbreak and for weeks, they weren't sure were it was coming from. I had bought this onion with the intent of making a pasta salad with tuna and I was looking forward to finally making one but OH NO! Yep. Unmarked yellow onions from exactly the time period I had bought this...RISKY! It was when at the beginning of the pansamatic, they recalled some other food stuff where I had missed the recall dates. Whew. I didn't miss this damn pansamatic. I started keeping a diary way back when as I usually diary when I take trips to Chicago or Louisville or Florida. I want to remember what happened on those great trips. I had started my diary for a Florida trip that was cancelled at the last moment and kept detailing what it was like to live through a pansamatic. I thought I was done with it when I ran out of pages, but started a new one when it looked like... What? Spring 2022? We have to live with this "bug" now... Hell. Happy thoughts right?
So, more food. "Smart Ones" frozen meals are well, some of the best tasting frozen food you can get. Yeah, frozen meals are still heavily processed and bad for you, but when you did a pansamatic switch from eating fast food almost every lunch to eating frozen microwave food, the lesser of two evils right? My mother turned me on to Smart Ones Pot Roast meals and she's right. Real roast with real veggies. Great. In fact I've had a few of these varieties of meals and all of them, with a little "enhancement" are great. "Enhancement" being adding some canned veggies. Maybe a little cheese here and there. It makes a smaller meal into a bigger meal and tastier. When I saw a "tuna casserole" frozen meal, I thought "why not?" Well... Have you ever heard of a frozen tuna casserole? Why not, right?
Dana Carvey show. One of his bits was an official sponsor. Mountain Dew was an official sponsor. He sat with Steve Carell and stared into a glass of Mountain Dew asking "What does THAT look like?" So, I ask you. What does THAT look like? Yeah, okay, it has bread crumbs. I took it out of it's container because I never microwave in the container. I use a plastic lid for that. "Citrus eee goodness? " No, Mr. Office.
Here it was, prepared with a cheddar cheese enhancement. It wasn't too bad, but it made me aware of one thing I never grew out of. I used to hate peas, now I love them. I used to hate canned HOT seafood. I STILL DO. Canned Salmon to me is the worst because it's crunchy. I love tuna when it's cold. I love Salmon when it's hot and fresh in a "piece" form. My mom used to make canned Salmon patties and well I had to choke them down or refuse to eat dinner or eat everything else. The only thing I would have done is have more tuna in this meal, but no, I won't get it again. It was sort of dry because of the bread crumbs.
As to this year's shortages. My local food store has a good selection of private label breads. If they didn't have the Italian bread on sale that I liked that week, I'd get the store brand. A few months ago, they didn't have any. The shelves were bare on everything but their generic white or wheat breads. I was happy they had it back in stock the next time I went. However, something was different. A completely different recipe? This one was more like fresh baked Italian bread and that should have been a warning. After a weeks time I went for a piece and well, you see the result. I thought I could waste a few pieces, refrigerate the rest and finish the loaf. Oh no, the other side was a large stripe of growth down the underside. I never wasted any bread during the pansamatic other than when the bread had foreign substance sprayed upon it by what appeared to be a malfunctioning date sprayer nozzle. Ahh, we learn. I usually get a max of 5 to 7 days from any "fresh" bread, but bagged bread can last an average of three weeks without Mr. Mold showing up. It's just they didn't tell us that the loaves were different. Now they are back to the same old loaf. Ask your store manager about your loaf today! They'll be glad to talk to you I'm sure.
Then there's cleaning. These are Pabst 12oz cans. I drink four of these each week because I like to drink Pabst while I do radio. I would have 24oz king cans dubbed "Ziggy Zockys" *skitch* *The Man Show* *Thanks.* but they don't sell them to the public where I live. At least once a month, I'd go to PA and hang with Boomer The Dog and I'd always come back with my supply. Well, that stopped. I've only had Ziggy's this summer that one time I visited Boomer when it looked like we were headed out of the pansamatic. Haven't been back since so it was back to the more expensive 30 pack. This pack, on the first four from the pack, I found GLOOP on the cans. I have been cleaning my cans before I drink from them ever since I bought some Pepsi products from a surplus foods store that was near me when I lived in Louisville. Oh, did I mention they were in taped up cases? Oh did I mention they were from when Louisville had the FLOOD? When entire neighbourhoods next to the river were wiped out and were under water? Where exits were closed because you would go 1/4 down the ramp and be in the river? Well, two years later here they were for 1.99 for a 12 pack! Value priced. Old Dr. Pepper and old Mt. Dew in cans that were UNDER WATER? Needless to say, each can had to be scrubbed before drinking and even then, two year old Dr. Pepper tasted like two year old Dr. Pepper. Wash those cans! At least wipe them really good... We should all be good at that if you ever bought a bottle of pop in spring 2020 right?
Here's another odd thing that I gotta break out of. I've never owned salt and pepper shakers. When I moved to Toledo, I needed some salt and pepper and bought these DISPOSABLE salt and pepper shakers. You know, the cheap ones you get for a picnic that get thrown away when you're done? The only thing more disposable would be the little salt and pepper packets you get with take out. Well, I don't use a lot of pepper and salt in my food. So, I didn't use these that much. Let's see, I worked for WIOT Toledo back in 1996-97. Hmmmm. Do the math. 1996-2021. Hmmmm. That's like making a popcorn string for your Christmas tree in 1996 and then tasting it in 2021? Yes, these DISPOSABLE salt and pepper shakers were 25 years old! Now, I used the salt shaker to add a little salt to my humidifier in the winter so I've refilled it with salt a few times, but the pepper? It's been so long since I've used it that I finally sprinkled a bit of it on my food at lunch a few months back and thought...hmmmmmm. "Self?" "Yes dumbass." "Maybe this pepper has seen better days." "Oh, YA THINK?" Yeah, it was time. I thought I should hang on to the containers themselves because I'd had them for 25 years! Yep. They are not going to the Smithsonian. They are not going to an antique sale. They are following the freezer burned meat or tainted onion. "86!"
Now a few other things rather than talking about food. Ministry! This is their latest album and it's quite good. It's got enough "old Ministry" sounds as well as "new Ministry" sheen to be a classic album. Lead Ministry creator Al Jourgensen has varied Ministry for many years. He released a trilogy of albums that were largely against George Bush and released everything from Euro-Techno which he hates to sludge metal like the last album "AmeriKKKant". Fans of 90's Ministry when they were in their prime would dig the stuff on this latest album. Ministry was to come to a close when "From Beer To Eternity" came out, he even did a track at the end where he said we could "enjoy the quiet now..." but hell, as long as "Uncle Al" takes a breath, we know where our Industral/Metal bread is buttered. As long as it's a loaf treated with that stuff that doesn't make it mold over right? Talk to your manager. I'm sure they want to hear from you on such important issues.
"Oh NO Theo, not another AUSTRALIAN band...." Amyl And The Sniffers release their second album "Comfort To Me", and well, I haven't taken it out of my MP3 rotation yet. Classic punk, and despite being the sophomore album, improves on their first self titled album into what a friend called "Blondie before Rapture". I'll agree. When this pansamatic stuff is done, maybe the punk sound will explode again in the US and make this group huge international stars. Music is too easy to make these days. GOOD music is harder. Lots harder. To make good music. Really really really HARD! Like twice the HARD. Tee shirt in a meat market HARD. Head light hard!
Welcome to the early oughts. Even Al Bundy had a TIVO, or wanted a TIVO anyway. When I saw this at my local Meijer, I thought...hell, they don't make VCRS anymore. Why do they kill such good analog tech? Was the VCR a good tech? All I remember was tapes that looked like crap after a couple plays, the hours of my life spent rewinding or fast forwarding to my content or replaying the transformation scenes in the Shaggy DA over and over. Um... did I say that out loud? I bought one of these to be the modern blogger. To capture the fun that is late night television when I'm out getting shnockered. I need that extremely left biased "humor" and can't miss the 100th time Seth Meyers imitates the My Pillow guy and says "Da Bears." Actually, all I have is a collection of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" that I'm building. That's it. I don't have cable. I have the internet. Fast forward through the 72nd time Fran Tarkenton tells me I should call now and enter my zip code for great benefits. You wore huge fur coats on the sidelines! Did you ever watch the Shaggy DA transformation scenes on repeat? Um..really? Dean Jones was pushed.
..and finally... more tech! When I was in Pitt, we went to Boomer's old neighbourhood and they had a classic small Foodland I believe. It was a 30,000 sq ft store, maybe less. It seemed like a large convenience store but it was a full grocery. I'm amazed by the nostalgia of these relics. We went in and took lots of pics. Well, recently when I got a big back up drive for my computer, I started sorting and going through all the pictures. I think this was taken in 2012 or so. I held up what seemed like maybe the first or second generation of CFL bulbs that were available. Note the price and the yellow of the container. My guess is this bulb had been there for at least 10 years and they had two of them. 8.99. Value Priced. I think I first got them in a 4 pack for $5 from Lowes when I moved into my home and they were 4th or 5th gen so they were truly COMPACT. Cheers ya'll. Hope yewts have a good holiday season, although I may have a few more posts this year... -Ric
]]>Mike Trivisonno, "Mr. Know-It-All" to longtime listeners, passed away suddenly before his Oct. 28th 2021 broadcast. I like many tuned in at 3 only to hear them running a presidential press conference. Then, they ran the Browns press conference about the upcoming Browns Vs. Steelers game? I thought something was up, but never could have imagined that I'd hear my former boss come on and deliver the news while breaking up. I'd pretty much listened to every show, at least the beginning of it during my day since about 2011, but I did know him/work for him in a distant speck of a footnote sort of way.
He was an annoying caller on Pete Franklin's sports show. I didn't listen to Pete Franklin because what did I care about sports? Then he got hired at WNCX in the mornings. "Those Guys In The Morning", was about as horrible as it could get and their most memorable "bit" was the one where they answered the phones "Hello, why do we suck?" To which callers reply "Because you do...". I was just starting in broadcasting and I was doing a college radio morning show at the same time, so I can't say I remember Triv on that show.
Fast forward to when I was actually employed in radio. My friend was going to television and he gave my name as his replacement. I took a gig working overnight running the board and was the board op for the great Jaz McKay. I was able to do produced comedy bits for his show and he provided me great advice. His tips made me a better producer and got me the chance to work with Cleveland radio legends "Jeff And Flash" afternoon drive as their technical producer, (Fancy name for the minimum waged guy that ran the board and played commercials.) BUT, I also became their "bit guy". I'd take the topic of the day and write/produce a bit about it. Triv followed our show so I knew him and spoke to him on the changeover. He asked if I could do a bit for his show imitating local sports host and making fun of how the Browns were leaving Cleveland. I have recorded proof of at least two bits I did for him. I should have just spent additional hours (unpaid) doing lots more stuff for Triv. I thought he was just about sports. How wrong that was, but at the time... Hindsight... Don't look back You can never look back. I saw a WIOT sticker on a Cadillac. :)
I remember my last day at the station, on the drive home and going across an old bridge, there was a "cyclone" (mass winds, heavy rain, cloud of dust) and everybody was stopped on the bridge. I thought "wouldn't you want to be on solid ground rather than a bridge in a tornado?" Triv was taking calls about it as he let whatever was happening in Cleveland overtake the sports talk. (Yep. See? He was Cleveland more than just Cleveland sports.) I got home and called in to tell my story and he wished me well on my Toledo journey.
Everything that could be said about Triv in person has already been said on the tribute shows. He always will be Cleveland. Another "Cleveland Radio Legend" taken away. Safe home Triv.
-Ric
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First to the junk that crewmembers had to wear. Of course I kept this crap. I love buttons. There was a store in my local mall that had thousands of funny buttons to choose from and I used to buy my friends buttons that kind fit their personality every year for a few years. Nothing beats one of the guys giving one of our hot managers a pin on some undies. The pin was a picture of a strawberry and said "Sweet". We fell about the place. Thankfully this gal was one of the "cool" managers who didn't care that we'd point at her and say "I want to know what love is, and I want YOU..." Ahhh, the 80's and being a nugget head.
Here is something that some of you might remember but most of you will have no idea. Lettuce & Tomato Special is what McDonalds called a great idea. It was a quarter pounder with cheese with lettuce and tomato. In other words, a WHOPPER. Back in the 80's, McDonalds still cooked everything fresh but it went to a heated "bin" and the manager would order based on how busy we were. Food waste was HUGE because once the timer went out on what was in the bin, it went to the trash. We didn't have microwaves. If you worked at Burger King, well, that's why I didn't. So a brilliant ass marketer wanted to get in on the quarter pound "deluxe" burger trend but mayonnaise when warmed, sitting in a bin, wouldn't hold up that well. So, they invented a two compartment burger container. We had the meat with the bottom bun on one side and put the dressed cap on the other side. We had to label the generic foam with stickers. The ad line was "Keep the hot side hot, and the cool side cool." It was a great idea and was my favorite sandwich. Of course the condiments were all room temperature anyway, so we used to say "Keep the hot side hot and the cool side WARM". I think it was out for six months and the ad guys wanted to change the name to something exclusively McDonalds. Therefore the name change to "McD.L.T." Hmmm. That double foam made a good ashtray after you ate your burger. It was a HUGE foam container. Shouldn't it come with BACON? No silly, this isn't a BLT , it's a McDLT!
I remember after the transition, they started a new ad campaign for the new named burger. There was such a glop of McMayo that to put cheese on this was almost a crime. I liked it with the mayo but liked it better with Mac sauce on it. We couldn't put Big Mac special sauce on anything but a Big Mac. The customer is always right, give them what they want...except when they wanted a squirt of the Mac sauce on a quarter pounder. As crew though, we put it on everything we ate. Some crew would use it for their beef tallow french fries. Remember those? Cooked in beef tallow? Old Coke/New Coke right? Nothing better than a Lettuce & Tomato Special with beef tallow cooked fries with a cold ice filled original Coke and a delicious fried cherry pie. If you worked an 8 hour shift, you got that free. Ahhh, you don't know they joy of making 3.45 an hour, gotta have some perks. I think the McDLT was put to rest when McDonalds said they were getting rid of the foam packing. They tried a deluxe again then they tried a reduced calorie deluxe but nothing stuck. I miss that puss gut burger and why I didn't keep a foam for proof of the madness I'll never know.
Here was something I took pride in. Working at McDonalds had little else to be proud of because the work was so dull. Because I was still in school, I could only work a longer shift on the weekends so on Saturdays and Sundays, I "opened" the store. When I was working grill, that meant setting up breakfast. Turning on the grills, melting the butter, prepping the muffins, that kind of crap. Then we heard we were going to have fresh made biscuits. For a few weeks, I made them as a secondary if needed because the person that made them was always working cashier after we opened. One morning, I was asked to make them before we opened and I did. With the mix and fresh buttermilk, the kneading and the baking, somehow, some way, I was making an exceptionally fluffy biscuit. Every pan, every time, would be tall, and fluffy. For about two months, they came out exactly like that with only one or two that didn't rise as much. Then, they changed the mix, the recipe and the amount of buttermilk. When that happened, my biscuits were like rocks. Almost never much higher than the pan. However everybody else was having similar results. That ended my baking career. This came from my first paper hat and the button was another thing all the crew working mornings had to wear.
New? I don't know what that arrow came from. There's the big purple taste bud flying a plane. We did have pencils to mark things with, and of course they were McPencils. The little finger puppet things were motion photos. You can see Ronald would cover his eyes if you held it at the correct angle.. The little tray? Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be crew. That was from a Playschool McDonalds play set. Fisher Price had the "Little People" play sets all sewn up in the 70's. I even had a camper with an actual TOILET. No kidding. Their little people were SQUARE. They had the same busy box like effects at the Fisher Price stuff. This McDonalds came with a car, people, plus crew. It had a merry go round and a paper fold out parking lot that showed where everything went. It also had a cash register that dinged and it came with several trays that you could shoot out to the counter from the back. You could wedge the trays between the gap between the head and the body of the customers so they could walk out to the lobby with their trays or eat in the car. You will work at McDonalds when you turn 16. You WILL work at McDonalds when you're 16. You will attend Hamburger University and become a shift nugget head. You will wear your uniform to school on Halloween. You will be forever a tool.
Believe me. I have no idea why I have these. Other than the rulers that you used to get for free with advertising on them. Banks, political, McDonalds. As for the Hamburglar toothbrushes? Double mystery unless at one point they were promoting tooth care? Sure have a sundae or a milkshake or an apple pie, but then brush your fangs? McDonalds Slim Fast? Maybe brush your teeth with a Shamrock shake? It's mint flavored right?
Who said we couldn't have fun while we worked? It was all fun until one of these went into a fry vat and they had to close the vat, drain the tallow and deep clean/flush the unit. Hell, it could even ruin the fryer. So that's why these were NOT ALLOWED anywhere but in a box to the customers. I may have received this one when someone discarded it in the lobby or left it to be cleared or even when it was under the booths when we had to scrub the lobby tiles near the floor. It went home and into a box marked "future junk blog post."
Here is the real prize of my collection. Anybody who ate at McDonalds in the late 80's remembers these. "Fast Macs" . In the 80's TOMY was famous for making a ton of little wind up figurines. I remember in the late 70's they came out with a wind up robot that I prized like gold. Simple things for little future nugget heads. All sorts of spring operated crap flooded the market and McDonalds had the idea to put characters on cars. Collect 'Em All. They were a huge hit with the public and with us bored crew. These were all over the place in our break room, but again, off limits near fry vats and the grill. We'd have races and yes, there would be favorites. Was everybody that worked there a nugget head? Pretty much. These were fun little toys. They multiplied and the managers had to put them under lock and key.
My guess is that's why I have multiples of the Big Mac model. I think it was those we raced because the others did tricks. Likely lined with something to make them pop wheelies and spin, but Mac, he flew. Of course I could be remembering that incorrectly. I think when I took these pics a few years ago, I didn't even try them to see if they did what they did, but I do remember they did something or other. My nugget headed-ness only goes so far.
Yes, what we have here is a Fast Mac smash up derby. The Big Mac "Gremlins" have the advantage. The Birdie classic convertible is no match. The Hamburgular roadster may be fast, but fast is no match in a smash up derby. Ronald has the best chance driving a Willys 4 wheel drive. He can run over any of these 'chitboxes. Sunday Sunday Sunday! We're going to turn the fairgrounds stadium into a giant McMUUUUUDPIT!
Out early is the Hamburglar! The Big Macs are all banging along, Ronald pops his Willys into 4 wheel and is going to do some Mac climbing while Birdie is just trying to keep the others from scratching the paint. Ohh, one of the Big Macs threw a club! (Inside reference for fellow nugget heads.) Holy sheit! The Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker got away! Gimmie a Diablo and a Doc. Thank you nice lady. See the USA in your Chevrolet.
ACCCCK! (Cathy....) What's that in the sky? Why do we see Jo Swerling Jr. on the screen? It's the little green guys here to beam up all of our convertible VW's. Hey,they have issued a super suit with a manual to one lucky regular of the 80's Perry Mason movies and a FBI agent that ate milk bones and always talked scenarios. Okay, maybe I went to far with that reference. William Katt was pushed. To bad they couldn't clear the original music for the DVD set. Anybody that was haunted by the episode with "Eve Of Destruction" playing from the 27 year old high schooler's ride, you'll know what I mean. At least they got about 70% of the music cleared for the WKRP box set. Scene. Junk Blog -Ric
]]>..Meanwhile, elsewhere in Australia, my other currently favorite band "King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard" released their second album THIS YEAR. "Butterfly 3000". Oh yeah, it's completely different from anything they have released before, yet, distinctly Gizzard. Boy, if that didn't seem like writing from a critical template, but that's what it is with this band. Don't like this record? Wait for the next one to see what direction they go. When a band with this much talent and rabid fans (Dogs-Rabid-Bad) they can change it up and every album you see the best. I'd say for sheer volume, this band wins. Here's a minimal/electronica/psychedelic album but towards the end "Ya Love" lifts this album to heights that made me a fan. I may love King Gizzard but, I SAW/MET Tropical F**K Storm when they came to Cleveland. Ohhh.. Shake the hand that shook the hand of P.T.Barnum and Charlie Chan. *skitch* Grateful Dead. Thanks.
*Cues Barney Miller Theme* I finished my Barney Miller box set over this summer so I'm back to consuming MASH eps. This taken from Lakewood park on a weekend morning. Nothing special but it shows that yes, I got out this summer. I didn't go anywhere special other than my one day in Pitt. So, If you're like me and enjoyed traveling, but after a year, you decided not to travel so much, daytrips were for you. Driving to the record store (yes, they are still there) was a trip for me. Also going to the bar that damned the closing notes in March 2020 was another trip. (Irish dive bar asked to close a few days before St. Patrick's day for a microscopic spiky thing? F-That! The shag carpet on the side of the bar will keep us safe.) Hell, I just wanted to try it once. If you like a stripper pole and a cigarette machine that actually worked as items in your bar.. I'm just glad they were still there in 2021 serving up the finest in beverages. (Yuengling? We don't have that fancy stuff. )
LAWNMOWER REPAIR
I had been battling all summer the lawnmower. I have a Honda Electric. It's a plug in job. You know, the kind you keep mowing over the cord so that the cord has several patches in it? Yeah that one. This mower was provided by my friend Boomer so many years back when the lawn mower that came with the house decided to go all "80's Chrysler product" on me. It was a self propelled deluxe model and one day I was mowing and heard chunks of metal being chewed and the unit wasn't self propelled anymore. The transmission had exploded. So, Boomer who had a yard with a back 40, (not good for corded lawn mowers) gave me this one. Funny, in all the years I've been mowing with this one, my sis-in-law and Boomer have replaced gas mowers.
This has plastic tires, and this one started to crack apart and gradually wore itself down and fell off. I had been trying to repair it all summer and this one I thought sure would hold. Gorilla tape, bushings and a clamp. You see, I couldn't get the bolt on the end to unscrew. So I thought I needed to go around it. Yep.
I mean, I had tried the clamp to hold it on and it worked for a few weeks but the clamp wore through the sides of the tire so much that if I made one wrong turn, it came right off the clamp or got stuck. You know, they have the internet right? You know you can find how to fix anything right? Not me. You know I still have a Haynes auto repair manual for my PARMAVAGON, a 1989 Pontiac 2.5L4 with stick. It helped me figure out how to fix my door and rig my electrical system so I could keep the car from overheating. How far we've come with cars since 1989.
Ain't she a 'beaut :) This car was also a "Gift" from my brother, but I needed something that ran until I got new wheels. My Saturn SL had just been destroyed by a lumber truck and I needed wheels. I didn't have much cake and didn't think I could get into a fancy new Hyundai so my brother who had just bought a deluxe new Chevrolet extended cab full sized pickup, just gave me this because he was going to sell it for $500 but didn't want the hassle of advertising-showing. It really helped me get through the summer, but by no means was it supposed to be a touring car. I used it as a touring car. Louisville-Pitt and Louisville-Memphis and Louisville-Cleveland. It was more than the Parmawagon could handle. Single best memory? When it was over 100 degrees while driving to Memphis and NO AIR. I heard a "POP" and my windshield decided to self destruct on it's own. From a small crack in the corner to a HUGE crack. Yeah, I used the vice grips on the window knob to roll down the window after that and endured hot wind. Anyway, back to the lawn mower.
When the taped up tire with metal lag washers and the clamp lasted 5 minutes before melting into a pile of goosh, I felt I had to go nuclear. I had to hacksaw off the AXLE to get the bolt end off of it and replace the tire. No internet looking for me. Oh no. I'd do it the hard way. Yep. I went to my local drug store chain where I get all my lawn mower parts. Yes, my local drug store chain, Doesn't everybody buy lawn mower parts from their local CVS or Walgreens? No, this local chain has everything. Like a modern Woolworths. I got my tire and took a hack saw and started sawing. I got a groove and started sawing and sawing and sawing. 90 degrees. 80% humidity. Saw saw saw. POP. The windshield on my current car broke from the heat. Well, no, but towards what I thought was the end of sawing the axle, I got a hammer to take it off. A few whacks and what? Did the axle just move? No, the BOLT just moved. What? It moved? Grab those damn vice grips that were a window crank on a 1989 Pontiac Grand Am....
Just like Snoopy when he cries out. "Waaaaaaaaaaa". Yes, those bolts DO twist off. They have a lock washer on them, but DUMB DUMB DUMB, they do come off! The new tire screws on and bolts into place. DUMB DUMB DUMB. So, I went thee to my local big box and matched up the bolt and got extra washers so that the tire fit "just exactly perfect" (thanks Bob Weir from the Grateful Dead.) One of the washers is already on the one side.
All nice and new. No more forcing it while the tire disintegrated. I'm a Jean-yus right? Three more tires to go but the plastic is all pretty decent on those, for now. On to the one offs about this summer.
I was watching a late night show and they had Billy Crystal on and he was talking about the old times and he reminded us that this flick was indeed 35 years old. Running Scared. It's always been a favorite of mine. I don't think I saw it in the theaters but because I was taping all of the David Letterman shows in 1986, I have Billy Crystal when he was on the show promoting the movie. When it was available for rental, I got it and when I could get the DVD, likewise. It just reeks of mid 80's buddy cop tropes. 80's soundtrack? Check. Cops quitting the force in 30 days? Check. Jimmy Smits as a nefarious drug dealer. Check. What? There are a few catchphrases that I use to this day from this movie. "Mama! Could I have some more mini marshmallows in my cocoa?" "OhhhNoooo" Ahh, but Jimmy Smits had the role of his lunchtime in this film. Great actor reduced to screaming "My COOOOOKE!" Yep. See it and enjoy a juicy trope filled flick, but still funny after all these years.
Now to the retail of it all. Mom and I went to said retail store in Mentor. This was Higbees in the 1970s. Like many department stores like it, "what, spend money to redo the outside of our store? ". It became a Dillards in the 1990s and has maintained it's "classic" look since. Well, they used to have windows all across the store, but the decorations of Christmas or the latest 70's disco fashions displayed in the windows went away as smash and grab got too costly. This Dillards didn't have what mom was looking for and had very little in the way of Men's "hideyerfatinthesummerbywearingaHawiianstyleshirt" shirts. Plus this mall soldiers on and was pretty full despite being down two anchor stores at either end.
Can YOU tell what this used to be? (You can see what it was from the label scar, the impression left by having a sign on your building for years.) If you answered a MAY COMPANY, I would have given you a 70's cigar..or a McDonalds french fry from the floor of my 1979 Chevrolet Monza. May Company then became Kaufmanns which then became Macys in the mallmageddon of the early '00's. Oh, it didn't kill many of the stores just then, but Macys buying the May Company chain meant turning off regulars and killing off some of the smaller malls through the 10's. Then, as malls go, so does Macys go. Eating oneself. When Sears threw in the towel, if you had a mall with Sears/JCPenny/Macys, well that meant... Likely Macys was next and JCPenny has been shaky but soldiers on at many of the malls where other department stores are long gone. This one closed before the pansamatic. Who needs ya. We still got a Dillards which will likely become a Dillards Clearance before it goes and we have good ol' JCPenny. Hey, we also have a huge bowling alley/fun center with a trendy microbrew in one side that took an anchor and a Dick$$ Sporting Good$ $tore making it another anchor. HOTCHA!
Now I have a few pictures showing that the summer was a good time to do the things I haven't done since 2019. You would think a year isn't that long to wait until I could have a cuppa sludge but to go to said sludge seller and sit in their lobby enjoying my sludge and get a "credit" for making a drawing at a new sludge shop, well, that's what I missed okay? Yep. This is a sludge shop that is like many of the new shops in Cleveland thankfully. They have an actual LOBBY. They have a place to stretch out and enjoy your doublesludgefrappecappacHimo. (Intentionally spelled that way.) This one and a new Burger King was on the site of an old hodelmodel. Guess they got out of that business just in time before the pansamatic hit as these stores have been there for two years, but the pansamatic..well, you know...
See a penny, pick it up, and all the day you'll BE GETTING THE GERMS! Really, I always pick up pennies, even though the feel like they are made of plastic these days. Since the pansamatic, I didn't pick up any change because I'd have to reach for the POOPIEZ. I used to say "if I get too rich that I won't pick up a penny, then I'll pay someone to pick it up for me." What a douche. I mean, what a douche. Revved up like a douche. Lord and lady Douchebag. I slathered it in Purell.
I can't say enough about the hand sanitizer that got me through the summer of 2020. Natural Concepts. It doesn't smell like real dook, but it does have a nasty kind of scent. Not really repugnant, but not the best thing to use on your hands before having a sandwich. I used to separate bottles, one for when I was eating and Natural Concepts for everything else. The huge stocks at my local lawn mower parts store/drug outlet are dwindling but those that know, bought the now plentiful Purell. I had bought one of these to give to Boomer for his Christmas in June, but you know, I'm a cheepdog..and it was 99 cents..and not made in China..so..
"WHY?" you may be asking. "Why buy something that you didn't like, even if it was at a give away price? Why Ricochet why?" WHY? Why ask why, Drink Kentucky Tavern bourbon till it's DRY. WHY? Because Red Fang, the stoner/metal/sludge/geek band came out with a new album called "Arrows" and keeping with their kick ass humorous cheap beer fueled videos, released "WHY" as one of the singles. Fans of Chuck E. Cheese rejoice for nostalgia reasons. This video tips the depression scale, but its full of funny mascots right? Witty video while the song talks about sinking into drug addiction. It really is brilliant. The band makes a cameo appearance. :)
Hey, what would this blog be without a picture of BOOZE. Do I drink? Yes I do. Do I drink the cheapest stuff? Pretty much. I bought this because the price of bourbons has gone up and up. Not living in Louisville anymore I'm stuck with what my local has. Some of the cheaper brands are being squeezed out by the boutique bottlers. Now I've flirted with the bottom before, but bottom shelf bourbon, if you're not mixing it with something, ick. If you live in Louisville, there is twice the bottom shelf offerings and some of them are really good as a straight shot. Here in Cleveland? Um... So, I got this bottle, and well, yes. It's a mixer not a sipper. Too bad I've stopped the cola mixers in an attempt to reverse the summer post-pansamatic pounds I had begun to place back on my frame. It isn't the worst cheap bourbon I've had and was good in cola, but spend a few more dollars and get something you'd drink as a sipping drink.
Another good thing about this summer was going to Fat Heads Brewery. It was a Pitt restaurant, and when a deal fell through for a microbrew here in Cleveland by another company, they combined their super sized sandwiches with a Cleveland brewery and opened Fat Heads North Olmsted and brewed beer for the Pitt location. As their beer grew popular and they were selling it more retail, they opened a master brewery with a restaurant in Berea in an industrial setting. For two-three years it's been someplace I wanted to try but as I have weekends off, that's when they are most busy so I stayed away. This summer I've had one "long weekend" a month which I planned to be in Pitt. That didn't work. So, I went on a weekday to this joint and man. If you want to know what a palace to the art of brewing is, you gotta come here. HUGE tall ceiling eating hall is just a part of it. Large gift shop is another.
...but the BAR. Yes, just about every flavor that they are trying to see if peeps like it and if it goes to retail, is here at the bar. Behind that was the brewing operation with employees tracking the process or putting ingredients into the brewing equipment. I can't state this enough. If you have a weekday off and you're around the home of WBWC, stop in for lunch and a beverage, beer fan or not. Oh yeah, they had plexi separating the bar seats and you needed to be lead to the bar by the greeter. Damn pansamatic.
Here's a few summer quickies. One tradition I had for a long time when I went to Mentor to hit the Record Den for the latest releases was to have a 32oz fountain drink on the way home. Indeed this summer was the return of the calories. Gee, you wonder why I said that pounds were ticking back up? Nothing better than a Cherry Dew and ..oh yeah, we're still in a pansamatic. At least that's Purell in there.
The tale of the fans from the schmuck who buys them. For years I've had this type of fan. The one I had the longest finally froze up. It could have been saved with a trip to Boomer's Fan Repair service, but I just went out and bought a new one. That lasted several years until the metal in the base and the screws that attached the rest of it to the base went to bubble gum. So I bought one with a base that was really heavy and I thought it would be with me for at least ten years. Well cuz. Actually the base was a plastic substance and around the metal pole, that substance broke apart. I was able to shore it up with large washers but it failed and failed. So, like a sheep, I went and bought another, but this one is smaller. It's not as top heavy and the base is hollow hard plastic. Last longer yes? Ohy.
Another thing I used to do is spend time at a participating Pawnera. I go to the coffee urns and mix dark with light to make a drinkable coffee. (Alone, not so good, but mixed, a good cuppo.) The few Pawneras I've been too this summer, other than the Purell dispenser they have at the front door, it's business as usual. Oh yeah, employees wearing masks. Okay. Oh yeah, some Pawneras are drive through only as they don't have staffing. Denied once I was.
Not denied here either! I went to the Arbys I'd gone too earlier that I'd creatively said "They don't have the seats." Ha ha ha. Still laughing. WHY? Well, on my most recent trip, I went in to have my slider lunch and well, they had just opened their lobby on the previous Monday of that week. WHY? Employees. I guess the word hadn't spread, but usually in the afternoon about the same time on the weekends, the lobby was pretty much the same. It was another chunk of returning to BPP. (Before Personal Pandemic.)
The truth of the matter. I haven't been to Pittsburgh since going there once this summer. WHY? You figure it out. Therefore I can't buy my favorite serving size of Pabst. 24 Oz Ziggy Zocky size. I don't need that size beer for the drive alone to PA with no other meet fun so I'm back to the 30 packs for 4 beers once a week. Yes, I'm still doing that.
Keep smiling. "Deep States" has great premier reviews and chart numbers for this little band from Australia and I'm sure more are going to tell two friends and so on and so on and so on. Third time for this pic on this blog. Braindrops, the TFS second album is no slouch. Get them all.
-Junk Blog
]]>Um... Best by date Dec. 2020. Hmmm. It was melty. I tasted it, and it it was fine if a little stale tasting. What did happen is the layers of peanut butter solidified into a taffy like texture that stuck to the teeth. That was not so good, but still, it was my victory treat. 15 months passed. To quote the Grateful Dead: "I Wheel Survive". No worries, I had special sauce to wash it down with....
14 Year old OBAN scotch. Of course, Grand Macnish was the sub for this photo shoot. Into a Dalmore rocks glass I poured the nectar of the scotches while I was on air. (Another 5 minutes of radio. Hey, keeps the show going right?) This scotch the single most expensive bottle of booze I've bought, period. I had it once long ago and it became the best scotch I've tasted. Sure I've had tastes of other scotches, but none topped this. So, I figured I'd get a bottle as a treat for my PPP. It was as advertised by me and I drank it slow. The error I made was trying to wash down the taffy like 15 month old Butterfinger with OBAN. Not recommended. Fun nonetheless. 30 seconds more of me gagging on the air. What a great show huh? Podcast. Phew.
No problem. The summer cougar had brought me a 6 pack of fresh Butterfingers. I found the summer cougar at a participating Tarjay. He was only a buck and he looked happy, ready for summer. It's how I felt.
So, with my new found no mask wearing but still distanced self, having turned the corner, one of the first things Mom and I did was again, go for a pizza. Then we went back to a "favorite" place to shop. I'd mentioned it before on this blog but now it was here. The return to Trader Joes. You could see lines outside the parking garage where the peeps must have lined up before they cleared all from coming in again. This sign said it best.
Look at that! It's whole bean coffee from Trader Joes. Different flavor coffee. Nice cans Doug. (It's how I kept my Dunkin and Aldis beans fresh, now I have replacements. ) One thing that was decent about this trip, it was Saturday about 4PM and the you could actually keep your distance from everybody. Really. They do have small stores, and always felt like you were elbow to elbow with other shoppers. It was a half full store. I don't think I've ever shopped at a half full Trader Joes. The other thing, at least for this trip, the coffee was the same price paid in early 2020. Even ALDIS raised their prices on coffee. Awww, but I couldn't get the shot glass free sample of coffee that I get every time I went there. Give it time....
Here's another sign that things are "back to the way they were". Of course, I can't purchase kitchen towels. I have to use old shirts. I hung the shirt back on my fridge so I don't have to drip water to the other side of my kitchen where I had a chair laid out as my "sterile" chair. It was the place I'd put things I was taking outside my house in the plastic bag "briefcase" that was during the pansamatic. All that is no more. Place the germ catcher back on the fridge. Dumbass. This happens to be a really old blue shirt from my retail days. Wonder if they want it back?
CLUNK! Hear that? Another transmission on a 1977 Ford Pinto sliding into gear. I guess I'm into slowly getting back the things I stopped because of the pansamatic. One of them was getting "credit" for drawing at a place I had never drawn before. This does include when a coffee house or restaurant does a remodel and it's new to me again. Here was the 'Bucks near me that moved locations to add a drive through. All 'Bucks in my area are open until 9PM even on weekends and the staff is wearing masks, but otherwise, the lobbies are wide open. This was the very first credit I got for myself in 2021. I still think their coffee is harsh mud, but so be it.
Another weekend, another new 'Bucks to get credit at. This one was a real outlier. See, two of these 'Bucks so close to me just waiting for my fat ass to sit back down and muss up some sort of cartoonery..but I couldn't because... This one took over for a Steak N' Shake restaurant and they didn't sub divide. So...HUGE! I mean you could use this store for an airplane hanger. Plus they had outdoor seating as well. The bathrooms alone were the size of efficiency apartments. Lets just say I'm going to this as my regular 'Bucks from now. This picture is only half the lobby! We used to have the smallest 'Bucks here in Clevo. I remember when I went to the one that opened that was three floors with a party room and thought that was big. Nope. There's a few more that I have to go and get "credit" for including another Steak and Shake conversion. I was bummed because the Biggsby coffee that is close to me still doesn't have indoor seating. I went to that store a lot for the two years it was open before the...yadda yadda.
So the next big step to take in my PPP is a ROAD TRIP. Crossing STATE LINES. Taking COORS to the states it's not in! East Bound And Down! Loaded Up And Truckin! Burt Reynolds was pushed. Oh yeah. Construction time again! Gee, I had forgotten about the fact that summer travels were plagued by orange barrels. Why? No freeways for me in 2020. At least not ones that see work every year like clockwork. I was headed to Pittsburgh and I was going the route to avoid the automatic tolls because I don't trust the cashless "We'll Bill You" crap. This was three lanes into one complicated by an exit on the freeway 1/2 mile earlier and at the bottleneck. 30 minute delay. Stopped on a bridge that shimmied from the weight of the cars and trucks. Ick. Yep. Welcome back to summer in 2021.
Here I was! Back in Pittsburgh. I wanted to do it all. Eat at the exotic Pitt restaurants. I was there to see Boomer. We pulled up to this very exotic "fast food" place where we both had the pleasure to dine at before and have a "tasty" double stack. Hey, wait a minute? Haven't you heard Pittsburgh? It's my PPP! I want to spread out in your spacious lobby with the fake fireplace and enjoy 4 for 4! Have that drink "Mello Yellow Peach." Reality was? I needed to take a whiz. They still had the lobby closed. In fact half of the fast food joints in the area had closed lobbies. Employee issues or just a refusal of the fat guys? At least they had Frosties. Boomer tuned in the polka station and we enjoyed our fake ice cream listening to "chubby" over modulating when he spoke. Hey, when in Pitt...
So we decided to go to this pizza joint. We like this place. It's smallish on the inside and a bit on the pricey side, but the food is always top notch. Because it had rained somewhat when I was going there and it was threatening rain most of the time I was there, the outdoor seating was not available. Boomer wasn't so sure that we could be in of doors and believe me, Pittsburgh had that vibe of "not just yet PPP time...". The place wasn't that busy, so he agreed that we could eat in. We had the Mufaletta hoagies which were great but could have used more and we both doctored up our take home halves to really make them tasty burgers. Then we went shopping. I went to the SUPERBEERSTORE. Glad to see it open and selling beverage, maybe not as full as it used to be but I was able to buy a 12 pack of Sierra Nevada Torpedo in the can. (Not readily available in Clevo...) Plus I bought the official ZIGGY ZOCKY size Pabst. What burned me about it, the 30 packs. They were 18.49 in Pitt. F the CAN SHORTAGE. We then went shopping at a place that we haven't been for ...wait for it... 15 MONTHS. (Ick. Ack. Ugh.)
It was good to see. In fact, this store was busier than Trader Joes was, but with twice the space, it wasn't so bad. They also had all their checkouts open. It's always busy a 5PM on a Saturday. They didn't have their king sized subs that I love so bad, but Boom was able to do a ton of shopping. I joked that his fridge would have more food in it now that it has for..I won't say it. I had the Christmas gifts to give him which we went back to his place after this shopping trip and he opened while I consumed one of the aforementioned Sierra Nevada Torpedos that Boomer had been "aging" in the back of his fridge since my last visit in March of 2020. As always, it was more complex, less bitey and Mmmmmm that's good beer. We also went to his 'Bucks for a "coffee draw", where we both draw or he draws and I write. Jeeze, we remembered when some dude a few tables from us was wearing a mask March 2020 and we thought that was silly. Uh huh.
When it came time to do our show again, I had also "liberated" from Boom's "fridge beer cellar" , two official Ziggy Zockys. The 24 Oz "king can" Pabst Blue Ribbon cans. Since Pitt law says that you have to buy beer from a "distributor" unless you sell a lot of prepared foods, they sell these which I'm sure are bar specials. You can't get them here. I'd left two of them in Boomers care because "what, I'll be back in two-three months right" said the dog in March 2020. Here they were and I had to photograph the "best by" date just to prove that this had aged "gracefully."
Um. Yeah. A year from the best by date. Now I've had these cheap beers when they were a month or two past the best by date. The didn't taste quite as good (sic) as a fresh version but they still went down. I had faith that because Pabst has a little more hop content than your average BudMillerCoors and these were kept cold the whole time, they would at least be drinkable right? As someone that almost booted when having a warm Genny Cream Ale, I didn't hold much hope. Ahh, but 10 minutes of content! I'd do it.
Old in the plastic tumbler and new in the glass. I had to get the picture so you could see the difference in appearance alone. The old Pabst was drinkable..if you were a passive beer drinker. Pabst is brewed with corn to help it ferment quicker and they can produce more beer that way and at a cheaper price point. What they call an "adjunct" beer. Trouble is, beer is still very much alive when it goes in the can. The fermenting never stops. Sure you can slow it by refrigeration or brown bottles to block it from light, but eventually it becomes... The slight hops profile of Pabst had been eaten up and it was a strong corn flavor. Again, not bad, even passable, but not to me. Drain pour.
Remember these? Sure you do. This was the Kay Store that I bought the desk that I've been raving about in this blog. It was a shadow of it's former self. I do remember this store at least being clean and well stocked the few times I went to it. It closed sometime in 2019 and then it was announced it would be replaced by regional discounter Meijer. It seems they took a lot of K-Mart spaces here in Cleveland. I went to one in the summer of 2020 where I was annoyed by the long lines and the auto checkouts not being able to take cash because of the great change shortage of 2020. Remember that? I only had 5 items so I went to the service desk to check out.
THEY TORE DOWN MY BIG-K! Yep. Brand new Meijer. They are super centers. I worked for Meijer for a short time while I lived in Louisville. This was state of the retailing art. It would seem in a small space, they are HUGE on the inside. I went shopping for groceries and well, prices were like every grocery store. Some things cheaper, some things more expensive. I didn't dwell on the "HARD" goods side for very long but I'll be going back lots because I timed it pin to pin my ride home at 15 minutes. I wonder what their portable desk stocks are like?
Which brings us to something else I haven't done since before. I spent the Sunday in Mentor. I went to the record store to buy the latest King Gizzard album but it's not going to be out on physical media for another month. Damn. No biggy. I had lunch at a participating Arbys and decided to experience the "2 Dead Anchors" mall. Sears went a few years earlier and Macys went during the pansamatic, but surprisingly the place was fairly busy and fairly filled! It's still got a Dillards and a JC Penny, plus a Dicks sporting goods and a fairly new anchor sized entertainment center, so this mall had morphed and made it through the pansamatic. I noted while walking through that a local micro brew chain "The Brew Kettle" was open someplace near, but couldn't find it attached to the mall... It was attached to the entertainment center.
It was the micro brew that features 400 variations on their one "okay" IPA. I had one version and it was terrible and another version that was better than the original. I had a guest beer that was a "sour" fruit beer. Good but not my cup of beverage. Then I had the Irish Stout and well, it's what I should have been drinking since I got there. Then the DOWNPOUR happened. They had to pull down their garage doors because the tables got soaked. It was so great to be watching the Cleveland baseball team get their asses handed to them while drinking great stout during a tsunami.
I left there and could have gone across the street to the 'Bucks were they had a lobby with 8 seats total. (Told you, small lobbies...) No, I drove down the road to the alt 'Bucks which to my surprise, was now a sub shop. The 'Bucks was another that didn't have a drive through and they moved across the street into a former Half Priced Books. I was sad that it wasn't a Half Priced Books anymore. I had bought "Greyfolded" from there a few years before which is Plunderphonics mix of a mess of Greatful Deads's Iconic song "Dark Star". It was long out of print so I was lucky to find it. Now, it was sub divided into a modern "new" long box 'Bucks and two other spaces. I got the unexpected credit from this place as well as the micro brew. I ended the Sunday with a stop at Speedway for a 32 Oz Cherry Mountain Spew and then a few beverages at my local while I finished writing for my radio show. PPP baby. We're back. Leon is getting LARGER! "Fat, Drunk and Stupid is no way to go through life." *skitch* Animal House. Thanks.
Look at that. A man built that. It's a 12 pack of 24 OZ Ziggy Zockies taking the place where the 30 packs I had to buy because I didn't travel for those long months. Brings a tear to my eye. Actually, these would rest with 2 in Pitt and 4 pack in my fridge...the rest consumed in Pitt. This really looks odd for me nowadays but so be it. How did that mask get in there? -Junk Blog
]]>This is the year we reinstate some traditions around here. Sort of. It was a little too early to have the greatest fireworks show in America. Louisville, Ky. They have held it as long as I lived there and every year after. They added some neat things. It takes place on two barges on the Ohio river and the Main street bridge. They light the bridge on fire! Then they made a pedestrian walk across the river and now they light that with LEDS. However, it happens in April. There were no lotteries if you got the jab in April. We can't have 100,000 peeps crammed on the banks of the Ohio. So, they moved them to 4 locations and televised the result. YAY! *Pbbbbbtttttt* The good news is my tradition is in tact. See you next year Thunder.
Thinkin and drinkin is all I have today. Thanks Greatful Dead. Makin "Cowboy Coffee", thanks Spirit. I hate it when they don't have beans. Ground coffee is not as fresh as the bean . ALDI doesn't have their breakfast blend in bean style anymore either. Looks like a job for Trader Joes! I haven't been to one of those tiny "peeps on top of peeps" stores since this pansamatic began. I use the cans of their coffee to hold Aldis and Dunkin. Stupid poop. Did you know that a can of peanuts has the same top size as a can of Trader Joes coffee. Didn't I say in the start of this blog that it would be funny?
Now THATS funny. Look at the size of those TIES. Yeah I cracked my set open and have been watching through them again and enjoying them even more than last time. I started watching MASH again but I caught up to the nightly airings on MEtv, so I jumped off. MASH is so familiar to me, I can have it on as background noise and know if BJ is combing his mustache and annoying Major Winchester. Hey, I didn't promise a funny blog, I just turned on my head and spilled what came out. I should be writing this. We've been over that. It's my preferred way of expressing my stupidity.
"Hey Father Mulcahey, I got another trachea tube for ya. " Radar is going to barf. Get the skin to close around the tube. That's exactly what's supposed to happen... I'm a good Bic Pen user, yes I am.
I draw using pen and paper as well. No computer stuff here. I am a creature of habit and I fear change but sometimes you gotta change if they don't make a 5" Black And White TV/RADIO for those long days when you go fishing. When my favorite sketch pads became something that they just couldn't make and sell for $2.50, it only left the Strathmore company to make the size and sell them for $172 each. Wait? Is that just what Michaels sells them for? Oh, buy one get one for half. Better than nothin.
Of course there will be booze. I'm shown all through this pansamatic that "Fat, Drunk and Stupid is no way to go through life"...but a PANSAMATIC? Bring on the SKYY (Fris) and lets make some Marys. Actually this is the first time in years I bought some hot sauce. and just for this. Hot sauce makes my stomach all "WHOOOHOOO" but if I disguise it with cheap ass vodka (Not SKYY) it goes down well.
So, I'm not a Crown Royal fan but this is the third bottle I've bought. Okay, well it is a nice smooth shot. They had some "flavored" Crowns and I never wanted to try them, but here they were in neat little one shot deals. Let's see, APPLE Crown Royal tastes like I shaved some green apple Jolly Rancher candies into my glass and added CR. The VANILLA Crown Royal is kind of like taking a swig of CR and then licking 10 envelopes. Really, I can review beer and how it tastes all day because that's something I care about. Booze should be booze. Keep the sugary flavored sap out of it. It's not House Of Pancakes, it's booze. Let a bartender make a flavored drink. That's what they are tipped for.
Did I say I can review a beer? If you want a decent honey brown beer, this is it. Above standard. Boozy but with sweet to temper. That's they way any alcoholic beverage should be. Don't know about drinking a beer with a orange sack of shit on them. Sorry artist who drew these cans. That makes me laugh. What does THIS look like? :)
Word to the wise. If you boil a pot of water on a stove, don't get distracted by finding endless hours of new music on the web. You should set a timer. I was boiling the water for another failed attempt at cleaning the clog my sinks are currently under going. I've tried it all except caustic stuff. Green stuff. Baking soda. A Rooter. I now have really clean pipes leading from one sink to the other sink but nothing going down the drain. So, it's another pan of hot water, and I forgot about it. Once you do that, toss it. A man built this, it's a pot. Owner stupidity. Another landfill claims a pot.
You get the MAXX for the MINIMUM. I wanted to replace my pot with a Faberware classic so I went ova dey to the Bed Bath And Stock Piled High. It's where I got it from, and no dice. All they had were the 1QT and since I've boiled through a few of those, I bought two the last time I needed them. I dejectedly walked out from Bed Bath And Crap On Pegboards and hello cuz! I never think of this place, but TJMAXX. Of course! They have all that pots and pans crap. They had just what I needed. I bought two. I know me.
Now how desperate do I have to be to buy skivvies from a big box store? Get this, how much MORE desperate do I have to be to buy said skivvies from a HOME IMPROVEMENT store? Junk improvement? Made in India. What the hell was I thinking? These are darker colors. I hate the white skivvies or the light blue skivvies because they might as well be white. I also don't want to go a department store to buy 1 pair rather than the chubb pack. Hell, I've bought some skivvies from Walgreens from one of those "special buy" bins at the front of the store. I don't care. Fits my ass. Wait, why does a home improvement store have SKIVVIES??? Cover more ASS at Menards.
Speaking of things for your ass available in a CHUB pack from a big box store... Were we speaking of such things? This comes as the pansamatic is starting to wane in America. I mean, Gov. X-10 is going to allow all seats to be filled for our baseball thingy we have starting on Memorial day. Good job America. We're a little more back to "show me your papers or you can't come in." I should stop calling our Governor "Gov. X-10" because he extended so many curfews, but I'll always know him for that. I remember being a scofflaw by driving home from mom's place at 11PM when I should have been home at 10. Here's an idea, lets not have this pansamatic shit happen again, okay? You come here for ideas, I just gave you one. So, the big box store had only 3 packs of flushable butt wipes. I usually buy the 5 pack because I like the cool fresh clean ass feeling. I should get one of those squinter toilets. Hooray! They have the 5 pack again. Hoarder.
Blink and you'll miss these. I draw little cartoons in said pads that were mentioned at the top of this blog. When they are done, they get scanned in and then I gotta put the drawing someplace. These guys make the best clip board, so why not make a second product that I think is the best. Wal Stores haven't had these or they have ones that are damaged in some way, but I was lucky to find three of these in the last few runs. That's ten more years of drawings. Yep. I'll likely buy a few more because who gets photos developed anymore?
Here's a little retail trivia. Once upon a time in the Northeast Ohio area and towns and cities everywhere, there were department stores. If you wanted a console TV or appliance, you went downtown to buy it or you bought it from specialty dealers that would buy and sell. Then, someone got the idea to "stack em high and watch em buy". Here in Cleveland, we had Northeast Appliance and Tokyo Shapiro and Home Centers. In addition to home improvement stores getting in on the action. Then there came "category killers". A few smaller ones came and went quickly but SUN TV was the biggest of them all. They also had three aisles of a new thing called PC's. Nobody had three aisles of those. Quickly all the small players went by the boards and I was one of the employees that was in that roll. Then BEST BUY came to town and had no commissioned sales and they became the dominant player. I worked for Sun TV for one week. It took me 30 minutes to get a customer out the door after selecting a higher end boom box. 30 minutes! We had to sell the extended warranty, and if we couldn't we'd bring in someone else to try and if that didn't work, a manager would take the third shot. Then, we had to wait in line to cash out the customer. If there were 6 or 7 people and only one line open... Then we had to go to the counter, wait in line again while someone verified that it was paid for and tried the warranty sale again. Then the security guard had to inspect. 30 minutes! I went to beer and a movie with friends and never came back. I found this relic at my mom's apartment. "Super SLEEPING Centers" .
Now a tell about the end of this pansamatic in the United States. I don't want to get happy. "Don't Get Happy" according to Mike O Meara. https://mikeomearashow.com/ However on Mayday, I walked into my "no card so you can't get that box of cookies for $1" drug store. No signing up on the web. Just walked in. I was against all the net sign up because every time you need to sign away your info so that they can market their high priced arthritis cream to you. So, I was there, I asked, and the counter girl gave me static. "We're not giving the flu shots" she said. Um, excuse me. Last time I checked the pansamatic is a FLU? Thankfully someone stepped in. There was also a little reluctance to not have me go on the computer for an appointment. After that, no problem. Got my shot and a Mothers Day card in the 15 minutes I had to wait. The cards are pre-priced. Didn't need a F-Ing card. Went to Mom's day dinner at a restaurant and SAT IN! Hadn't done that since March 2019. But the next weekend my eye was on the prize. It would be two weekends since my jab, and I felt safe enough to go to a pizza restaurant with my mom. This indeed was the last restaurant I'd attended before the pansamatic. I remember there were rumblings about something that was over there coming over here. The place was absolutely packed. It seemed like maybe it was the last time a LOT of the people would eat out. Red Robin serves Donatos pizza at this location. Mom loves it. I loved that we were back after a year and three months. Same price as well!
So, I'll tell you intrepid readers of this junk blog. I returned to the "at least the Arizona tea is pre- priced at a buck so I don't have to use your g-d card" and it was even easier to get jab #2. Then Mom and I went back to Red Robin and got another pizza/salad. For some reason, it felt better this time. I mean, it felt good to go with someone I love and have something she enjoys and make all involved happy. So, what does this all mean? I'm not going to preach. Get it or don't, but now it's as easy as walking in. So, when does this pansamatic end for me? I've started getting my drawing pack mentioned in a previous blog ready to go and darken a participating Pawnera restaurant. How am I going to explain that I need a 70 Regular/30 Dark pour of my coffee? Looking forward to leaving my state to visit others again. I did something I've never done before. I bought the above. Long ago at a convention in Memphis, a friend had a booze tasting. He had beer beverage to drink and I never touched to hard stuff, but he convinced me and others. We tried Cabo Wabo tequila. Mmmm, that's good booze. I lived in Louisville, KY at the time but I'd never had any bourbon and I tried Makers Mark. Mmmmm Thats Good BOOOOZE. Then he pulled out the OBAN. I locked in on this brand as being some of the best booze I'd ever had. Years and years later, my mom bought me a bottle for Christmas. It took two years to finish. You see, it's a $90 bottle of booze. I never ever considered spending $90 on a bottle of booze. Well, this pansamatic has been something, and well, it deserved something really special to say I'm out of 90% of the worry.
...and with all that hope, the year and a half old Butterfinger bar will finally be enjoyed with a with a shot of OBAN to wash it down. Doggy Radio is where it's going to happen. Why not. We need the content . -Ric
]]>The front has a zippered pouch that I keep current items in. I like this because I don't have to unwrap the bag and get crap out. More on the contents in a moment.
The back of the case has a large flap which is even easier to access. I keep directions to Chicago and a map in here when I drive. It can hold bottles of whatever I was drinking or will be drinking. Just a handy flap where I'm not as worried about losing stuff. Yeah, I've had stuff bounce out of this when being transported, but again, while I'm driving, it's easy access.
This is all the crap I've had in the front zippered pocket. Mostly cough drops which thankfully haven't been needed since Winter 2019. I gotta imagine the imitation "Compare To Halls" cherry drops are now really old and sticky, but then, they always got that way. I keep them in a hot car right in a black bag right? RIGHT? I have the current directions to Pitt in the center. It's just in case I forgot how to get to my friends house. Two years ago, they changed the PA turnpike to a non ticketed system. If I don't have a transponder, they "BILL ME". Yep. Nope. Government bills for a 1.25 toll? Yep. Nope. So I had to route a way around the tolls and did so. Sure it adds about 20 minutes for the trip, but I don't want to be in traffic court for a 1.25 bill to the PA government because I didn't receive a bill. Ick. The other? Portable pack of flushable wipes. For that fresh feeling after I s*it up a McDonalds restroom near you.
Here's the filling of the doughnut. Actually, this is a laptop bag and it has a expandable middle and Velcro closures to hold it in place. It also has another zippered pouch which doesn't have much in it.
...except BURROWS! Hey, I carry it everywhere. These highlighters I've had in both briefcases and I don't think they have any liquid left in them, but I keep them in there because that's where I keep 'em. The other mechanical pencils and Bic pens are in there because they are in there. I haven't drawn with a pencil in years. ..but it's in there.
Here's the heartbeep of the briefcase. The central nervous system. The inner garbage. A smaller version of my stuff. I had another bag that wore out after a few years because, well, I carry this to places when I don't want to carry the entire briefcase. Stuff I used to keep in the flaps of the briefcase I now keep in the flaps of this bag. It's a GYM bag. Guess who made it? No, not IZOD. No, not Gucci. No not TOTES. One more guess. HOLY SHEISS. ON TEEVEE there are CATS singing COUNTRY. OMG, now there is a silver hood ornament singing an 80's song! . Hell. I could just cut off the tag and put a bumper sticker over the logo, but eh. Named after a site right? Is there a drop on blood in it? It's a tribute to Winn Dixie's "Chek" brand Cola. Yep.
I keep smaller bags of crap in my big bag of crap that I keep in a bigger bag of crap. First was USB cables and cell phone back up batteries. (Currently being used elsewhere.) Inside the white zippered pouch is an MP3 player that I really don't use anymore. It's a 4 Gig. I don't use it much anymore. Did I mention that I don't use it much anymore? It's in there because... you guessed it. Then, the drugs, chap stick and bandages. Am I carrying a purse?
My music is now held in a cell phone. It's a cheap cell phone so all I use it for is keeping my music so I can listen to Spirit while writing or drawing. It doesn't even have a SIM card. It does go on line via WIFI. I had a really small tablet replaced with a larger tablet until I bought this. It was faster than either tablet, and now I use my big tablet as a timer, just to use it. The batteries are for the camera I carry in another bag. Always good to carry extra rechargeable. Why not buy two back ups. This on top of the 4 sets of back ups. See a pattern here?
Yep. Burrows. Why do I need to keep a sample of every pen I own? Because. That's why. I even have a red pen in there. Do I use a red pen? Nope. It's in there. Do I use them every time? Nope. They're in there.
I keep the other pens with the paper that I carry in other little plastic bags. One of these carries the small book that I keep trip journals in. The other keeps my drawing pad. Neither one is populated currently. I started my trip diary when I was going to Florida back in March 2020. It's become my daily log of the pansamatic. The drawing pad I put into action when we could start going to restaurants and bars again. The debris is waiting for both to return. The red case carries a pair of reading glasses. They come in handy when I need to read the small expiration date of my Arby's 2 For $5 chicken choice coupon.
This debris is also waiting for me to return to it. I keep 8 1/2x11 sketch book sheets in this folder and I keep my most recent drawings that I made on 8 1/2 x11 sketch book sheets as a reference. I used rulers and I used sticky notes to keep my fat hands from making smears on my paper. I haven't made a "project" drawing as I call them for a few years because it's a lot of erasing. I find small doodles with pen and paper to be the quick way to express my garbage. Plus, I can do it while swilling Miller Lite at a bar near you and carry the books in my pocket rather than my briefcase in my briefcase.
Damn. I really want to start making the projects again, but I'll need to vac up my sofa desk every day because of all the eraser shavings I shed while doing the drawing. The paint brush was to dust them away without making a smear in the drawing. The MP3 thingy is a pencil sharpener as I used to carry colored pencils until I realized I've done maybe three drawings with them, but I keep the sharpener in there. *Sigh* It's all in there. Maybe by fall I can start carrying this whole briefcase again and go back to going back. Until then, if I need to carry stuff, I use plastic grocery bags so when I get it back home, the bags go into holding for a few days. The president says this will all blow over by Easter. Uh huh. *ANALOG ECHO* *DOOOOON'T YOU BEELEEEVE ITTTT* - Junk Blog
]]>I don't remember why I went to Burrows or when to buy these staples. More than likely, I went to the Great Northern strip center Burrows because I'd moved to North Olmsted when I was younger which I called "mall city". There was the mall, and there was two sides of the city. No "downtown" but Great Northern was the city center. I remember going to the Burrows in a Lakewood strip center near downtown as well. The one thing I used to love about Burrows was smelling the Mr. Sketch marker that had a "mango" scent, the cinnamon one was second. Signet Al Jaffee books were a reason to go as well. Mad Magazines Al Jaffee drew lots of cartoons and had a deal with Signet to release them. It seemed when a new one was out, Burrows was the only place to buy it. Al Jaffee was my favorite Mad artist because he used to draw a little caricature of himself in all his Mad stuff. The cover of "Al Jaffee Gags Again" (which was my first non-Mad book) had a simple drawing with a face like (*.*) and that was easy for me to draw. Al Jaffee's Mad Inventions book was one of my favorites. He did some cartoons on "In the future" and lots of them were spot on. The one that sticks out is a typewritten letter full of edits sent to a loved one, would be completely sanitized and error free when auto corrected and printed out by a computer. Hmmmm. *Gets the correction fluid and starts smearing the screen...* (Don't try this at home.)
Time marches on. You used to go to small office supply stores. Office Max got it's start here in Cleveland and was a office supply oasis with every possible thing you'd need for your office or home. Magazine and book stores became superstores with Barnes and Knobbly and Borders. Even the card stores were becoming more and more a thing. I don't think Wally had made inroads into the area yet, but they have 4-5 rows of office supplies and sell them dirt cheap, putting the squeeze on the big supply stores. Well, that was the end of Burrows. Even this lowly pack of 5000 Made In The USA staples was re-priced once as there is another tag under it. That's why I guessed this was purchased near the end of the chain's life. Fondly remembered. What's silly about this? I intended to do a blog talking about all the stuff I have for drawing/writing and I figured I'd call it the Burrrows Brothers 2021 entry, but I did not have a picture of the only piece of retail debris I had from the chain. Done. Now, to the mess of junk I have.
Heh. A big grey hulking mess of tech, made in China. Lenovo was the IBM of a few years ago until they sold off the tech. They still are pretty decent computers. I bought this one a few years back when the M$ corp decided that Skype would be better if everybody ran it on a 64 Bit machine. Wait? What? You're going to make everybody using 32 bit machines just throw those away if they wanted to use your product? Yes. I needed a remote computer to do Skype with because my cell phone wouldn't cut it. I bought this. Why did I show the back of a laptop? Hmmm. Do I use Skype anymore since Zoom works better and on everything? Hmmm. Did I want to prove that this is what the world has gone too rather than pens/papers for just about everything? Hmmmm. Why don't I have a big "steelie" sticker showing I'm a Grateful Dead fan. Hmmmmm. This space for rent. Hmmmmmm.
Lets first talk about "SURFACE." Surface is what I call a flat, smooth place where one can spread out paper to draw or write on. It matters because one needs a smooth flat space to draw or write on. This I got for sitting in bed and writing/drawing on. Pen and Paper. Writing and drawing. Who does that anymore? I'm writing this with a computer. IBM clicky key keyboard rat-a-tat-tatting away. I should try writing stuff with a computer and printing stuff out. It's what the trend is these days right? *get off my lawn!* Now I use this as a place for my remotes or as a desk when I sit on my futon.
I have pictures of my K-Mart Desks. I'm not going to run a pic of my K-Mart desk. You've seen them before. Now, it's the place where I do the majority of my writing chores for the radio shows I write for. A few years back, I was shopping in a Wally and found these. "The Ultimate Clipboard" they are called. Thick plastic. Elastic band to keep pages from blowing. They are pretty decent. This brought the "surface" to remote locations. Starbucks with community picnic tables? Whip out the surface. Smooth. A place to draw or write. Gee, I use pads right? I rarely use one sheet of paper to draw or write anything, but I have in the past. Hmmm, maybe I should get another. Wait? My Wally didn't have these in stock? I'll go to another Wally. They didn't have them. What? I went back to the Canton area and yes, they had a few left. I bought a few. Later, they had them in stock again everywhere. Why not buy a few more for safety. I like them. I don't want them to stop selling what I like so I better buy a few more...
...one for the car. One for my computer room. One to have in the living room. I'll give one to Boomer in Pitt. He'll like one or maybe two so I have one if I forgot to bring mine. I'll have surface wherever I go. See? I created a junk pile of stuff I'm probably never going to use all of. I did have some dollar store clip boards to use as well, but they aren't the ULTIMATE. I want the ULTIMATE. I like the ULTIMATE. I'm not obsessed or anything...
But I am. Not really. Case in point, these. (To the side and back of this photo.) They are Canson XL (recycled) sketch pads. 3.5 by 5.5. I think I bought my first one from Pat Catans (a now gone craft store chain that was a superstore of drawing wares as well as every other dam craft product made. They had 8 aisles of stuff for artists alone. Hence, they carried every sketchpad made.) They were really cheap and decent quality. I started my "cartooning" (drawing with pen) on these pads and quickly became a fan of using them. Whenever I went to Patcats, I'd always pick up one or two of these. Michaels even carried them and at one time, they were selling these cheap as discontinued pads. I bought a few. Then when Patcats announced they would be closing as they were swallowed up by Michaels, I went to several stores and bought what they had left. Now, when I look on the web, I don't think they even make this size anymore. See? I stocked up. Lets see, I just passed 1000 sketches on these books. I started in 2010. 10 years for 10 pads. That means I'll use these up by the year 3000. Awww, well, I am going through them a bit quicker since the pansamatic, so 2050. Yep. The other pads are sticky pads of all sizes. I use them when I draw on a big sheet of paper to stop my big clumsy mitts from smearing. Envelopes. Lots. Note cards? Check. It's Burrows Brothers.
I started really trying to draw when I switched to overnights at the gig I was working at the time. There was a lot of down time during this over night gig and I started to draw at the encouragement of a friend who was in the business. He gave his advice to "trace" at first. Take an image and trace it. Eventually you get the feel of drawing and you can then try and duplicate the picture you're tracing without tracing it. Eventually you get the feel to start making original drawings with just reference pictures and then you don't need the reference pictures, you just know how to draw what you're trying to draw. It worked. I bought mechanical pencils and found that these Mead 8x11 sketch books were the ones I wanted to use. They had micro perfs so they tore out easy. They fit on my scanner so I could print them out if need be. They were heavy, acid free paper. Great for erasing. Lots of erasing. I bought a ton of these pads and still have them because I haven't drawn a full sized piece in a few years at least. Turns out, they aren't made anymore. BAM! Another reason to stock up.
Look! I can draw Boomer The Dog! Yeah, this is a children's "learn to draw" book, but when I saw it was Boomer The Dog! Hey, where are the paws? Okay, it is for kids but the for older folks learning to draw, these types of "here's how it's done" just didn't click. How do you go from 4 circles into a fully finished lion drawing in four frames always baffled me. It took my friend telling me the "Trace" method that got me jazzed on drawing cartoons.
Just a sampling of some of the "derbis" that I've built around my "cartoons". The 3-D pad was sold at a dollar store and came with a set of 3-D glasses. (The red-blue type.) These came in handy when I watched King Gizzard's "Cellophane" video. Look ma, two drummers floating in space and that harmonica player just gave me a dirty look! I've actually used the "cartoon animals" book to draw the animals listed, just to copy the features. Happy Dino.
Ahhh..Darice. Part of the PatCats empire that all faded. Double stick tape that frankly doesn't get much use around here other than to tape up a mirror to the back of my electrical box so that I can see what I'm doing when inflicting a pansamatic self hair cut. *shudder* Need to do that again. I should just get a bowl. They are also good if you need to block the glare from a downward LED light fixture that was put in sideways facing. Yep.
Everybody needs a place for their STUUUUUUFFFFF. *skitch* George Carlin. *Thanks* Here's mine. Paper clips. Thumb tacks. Refills for pens and erasers. A ZIMA pin with led lights that I found outside of a bar way back when Zima was still a thing. Plus, a Sobe cap that has a tribute to one of Howard Stern's whack pack. "Riley Martin" who was all about UFO abduction sometimes spoke things other than English and this was one that Howard played on his show all the time. Imagine finding it in a SOBE bottle. "O-Qua Tangin Wann" RIP Riley. There's a googly eye for one of my plants. SNL was pushed.
Folders and envelopes do do do do. Folders and envelopes do do do do. (Incense And Peppermints.) Does anybody know what words they say after that in that song? Heck these were bought for a dime apiece from some dime apiece back to school sale from a participating mart. Do I use them? A bit. Did I need to worry that these would be discontinued? No. Did cheap stuff like this cause Burrows to fold? Likely.
This has been my mostly consumed product since I can remember. When I started writing a lot, I used spiral bound note books, but the spiral would wear and the tearing of pages would result in a mess. So, Mead gave us "Neat Books." I was home. They were compact and the pages could be torn out and stored cleanly. This was my way of doing things. I usually try to get them when they are on sale but in the past few years, they are getting tougher to find. I bought a CASE of these (20) when Target had them for for 50 cents apiece and I've been using them since because I had several more before I started on the 20. I still have several. Made In USA. They still make them but now they are "Assembled In USA". Ahh, but being past 15 years old a few years back, I noted the binding was falling apart when I used these. (Plus the fact that I was going through one every 6-18 months..) There was this pansamatic thing that showed up in 2020 and well... I had to rethink my Neat book strategy. I wasn't going anywhere to write anyway. It was stay at home Jones, and still is, but one of these that went fell apart a week after starting it and well...
Solution. 3 ring notebook. The advantage? I can take out a portion of a radio script I started and put it with where I'm starting it again a few pages after. That's it. That's all. Actually, there was one other use... You see, they make spiral bound notebooks now with micro perf pages, so they can tear out cleanly. They are only 70 pages usually, I need 80 pages. I'm a creature of habit, I fear change. *skitch* *Don Geronimo from the Don and Mike show* *Thanks*. I had a few of these laying around and figured, because I've switched, I might as well... So I have about 5 more pads to get through (made 80 pages by combining the paper) and then it will be back to neat books with cracked bindings.
Oh yeah. The evil dollar store. Makes me buy stuff when there is no need for it. Construction paper? Maybe once I needed a piece. 40 page sketch pads? I use them to throw them away. I'm like the parsley that Fred Flintstone had to buy just for the customers to throw away. Never has a lesson in economics been taught so well that by Fred Flintstone. Way Out. WAY OUT! That's where the fun is. WAY OUT!
Yes, even the smaller stuff is squirreled away for me when it comes to my writing and drawing habits. Years ago, I got a spiral bound mini book from Dollar Tree and then, I guess it was from one of the first times I went to Orlanldo for a vacation, that I started a tradition. Writing a diary of my trips. Gave me something to do when I was on the plane or downtime in my room. It was small, so I didn't need a lot of surface. I found it worthwhile to remember the crappy service we got at a Chilis in 2016 when we went for a dinner. Yes, filled with that stuff. A few years later, I went to buy a few more but they looked the same, but were not the same. Cheaper/thinner and with cardboard backing. I used one, but the paper tore easily. So, I looked to replace and got the dogs/cats covered ones because they are better. I'm currently using Mead's version of one that I had started for my non trip to Orlando that I was going to take just before the pansamatic. It became my pansamatic diary and is still being written in with details: Tuesday- Woke, Worked, Mom Call, Bar, Late Night, Zzzzz. --I'll bet this working on this entry in this very junk blog with be in a weekend entry. Yep.
...and of course, what would this junk blog be without dogs and pens. That's it. I have pens. Lots and lots of pens. I've compared pens on this junk blog, which means I have a ton of pens. Of course, I've compared how napkins and toilet paper were on this junk blog. Do I have a lot of toilet paper and napkins? Nope. Those get used every day. Pens? One by one. Refill the Bics. Here's a batch of the "old" Bic pens that blopped little blops of ink when you wrote with them. The newer ones do not. That's why it's all I use currently. There's some Papermate pens as well. They didn't blop as much as the Bics did but they still blopped. Blop blop fizz fizz. Oh what a mess it is.
Of course! When I find something I like, buy more than I can use in a lunchtime. Walking through a store and see a pack? Pick em' up. They will eventually get used. Yep. Devo Obsesso.
I have more pens that I can use? To quote Adam Carolla: "Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshocking." It's the dollar stores fault. The BK420's you see in excess here were purchased because they had a low blopping factor and with a little cutting of the refill, they fit in the Paper Mate retractable pens that I also bought mass quantities of. Trouble was, the Paper Mates were old, and the ink dried pretty easily inside the pen. So, I got BK420 pens from Pentel and they worked as replacements. Hotcha. Of course, dollar store again. When Bic became the best pen to buy, I used a shell from the very few "gripper" pens to make a Bic Hybrid pen that I use to this day. Ahh, but I only had three or four shells, until I found the Prima pens you see "piled high". They worked , so why not buy 500 of them?
.....FOR A BUCK?????
Yes, pens for a buck. Imagine my surprise when walking into the dollar store, they had a ton of the pens I thought they were not going to make anymore. Closeout Jones. I bought a ton of these as well. Too bad they don't get used because they will all be dry if I tried to use them. They had something like 14 separate pieces to make up a click pen from. Guess that's why they went the way of Burrows.
...FOR A BUCK????
Yes, I did have the same experience with mechanical pencils as well, only not as much. I still use my original G-Force pencil for drawing but when I found out they were not going to make them anymore, Boomer went onto Flea Bay and got me a DATSUN. Ahhh, but about a year later, there was a ton in the dollar store. Did I need more of them? Haven't you learned not to ask that question here on the Office Supplies Junk blog?
Don't get me started on the erasers that I tried and used. For a buck? These should really be donated to the eraser museum. They got a lot of nice erasers there. *skitch* SHUT UP! Okay. I'll shut up. -Junk Blog
]]>I used to travel to the city of Brunswick all the time. I'd go to a thrift shop there where I'd hope of scoring a camera or two for a cheap price. That all dried up after a year, but I'd go looking anyway. I would have lunch at the Wendys or McDonalds and shop at the Dolgencorp Market or Big Lots or go to the Pawnera and drink coffee while writing stuff or drawing my little doodles. Plus, K-Mart. That ever present K-Mart. One of the last K-Marts in Ohio. A K-Mart where they didn't even take down the sign so that they could smack the denizens who shopped there for years in the face. K-Mart. Home of the 24.95 fold-able desk. This was it. The final visit to a K-Mart/Sears while that company was still interested in doing business. Are they still in business? Yes, this store went out pre-pansamatic, but to see the husk sitting there with a freshly re-paved parking lot... Funny, I took this with my crappy cell phone camera. Who knew that a few years later I wouldn't be using the Polaroid that I found at the thrift store that took great pictures. All things must pass. I had Arbys for lunch. I couldn't go in and sit down at either Arbys or Wendys as of yet.
Why did I go? I needed an oil change. I had gotten an oil change at this very place a year before at about the same time. In that year, I hadn't driven 3000 miles. Really. I'm amazed. However, you should get it 3 months or three thousand miles whichever comes first? So, I should have gotten the oil change quicker than a YEAR LATER, but the deal is, really? Best if used by dates rarely are the date when you need to use the product by. Really? Had I driven less than 3000 miles in a YEAR? Yep. Other than to my moms house and to the grocery store or even the summer trip to Mentor for some King Gizzard music enjoyment I really haven't driven. At least, I got the change done in LESS than 3000 miles, but it was a YEAR. Damn. What a fricken year.
I've been to a few places in the past few weeks as I try to reclaim, slowly but surely, the things that I was used to doing before the pansamatic happened. Maybe the year anniversary since Kobe Bryant awoke me to those things. I was sitting at this very Arbys when I found out. I went back a few weeks later and sat in the same booth while in the next booth there was a kid coughing away. The guardians didn't bat an eye despite all the talk of the outbreak in Seattle. This was the last time I ate inside a local Arbys. (The following week I was in Pitt and enjoyed the sauces shown in my last blog entry.) So, a lost a year to the day, I returned to this Arbys and well, I wouldn't have gone in and enjoyed my food anyway. I did make the joke: "Arbys! We have no seats!" Hahahaahahahhahhahhahhahhha. Crappy. I go to this Arbys because they still have the great "homestyle" fries, which are not the curly fries. They were a real treat as I sat in the parking lot of various strip center big box stores that were out of business only to be joined by several others eating in their cars because Arbys didn't have the seats. Hahahahhahhahhahahhahahhah. Fudd.
Ahhh, what a difference an exit on a freeway makes. Here's the former White Castle that became an Avis Rent A Car joint that was reinvented into a Biggsby Coffee and Jimmy Johns subs just a few short months before the pansamatic began. I love me some Jimmy Johns subs. Haven't had them for the past year. I loves me some Biggsby coffee. It's been a year. Across the street is the dead mall that was one of the first I'd attended when I was but a pup. Don't know if that had changed because I just wanted to do the coffee experience. This was the coffee shop that a year previous, I made the decision that I was going to Orlando despite my misgivings. I had whatever coffee I wanted to pump out of the taps which was one of the things I liked about Biggsby that made me want to come back. Here Both Biggsby and Jimmy Johns had inside seating! There were peeps sitting in the Biggsby. I wasn't one of them...yet. You know, if they had stores that were local to me, I'd go a lot more. They don't. Likely the pansamatic stalled that growth. Ever since Caribou left, the Cleveland market is really needing another coffee challenge. Caribou at Einsteins is not the challenge we needed also because of a handful of locations. Nervous Dog is a local chain that has kick ass coffee, but so few locations. Bucks is on every corner. Rah rah bucks. At this point I could sit in a Biggsby, not in a bucks. Another piece of abnormal "normal."
...and the second time I was back at a participating Wal-Store was to buy this. A real piece of nostalgia. It has a tape deck and a CD player. Wow. I already had one but the tape deck will not function and the CD player was questionable. Difference being? This one has an input! I can plug in my cell phone and listen to all my library that's not on CDs. Trouble being? It's not quite a boom box using the input, even with the volume cranked on my phone, but as it's meant for a sleep timer by my bed, it works. It also plays MP3 compact discs, I'm going to get the collection I used to carry in my car and put them to use. Oh yeah, it plays a CD as normal. Most cheapies now leave off a second of the next song playing. Not Sony. They don't use a cheap chip set. Is this the last Sony CD player made? They made the first and the first "portable"...so why should the be the last. Bring back BETA man! Come on man! F the digital video man.
Here is the aforementioned cheap boombox. I'd asked for same two years ago, and well, I got this one. I have several analog boom boxes including the cheapies I'd bought from TarJay. Hello Kitty branded, and they PLAYED CDs without cutting off the first second of each song. This one does cut off the intro, but since I had it handy as the pansamatic started and it has the aux input, I made it my living room entertainment center. I just discovered a setting on my cell phone that EQ's the sound and makes this cheap box sound like a REAL STEREO. Honest. I never thought EQ's were anything. Even when you could get those 50 EQ sliders with dancing lights that could fit in the ashtray of your car. They didn't do much. Well, this made the music sing. Oh yeah, and the sturdy box I use for a coaster holder while laying on my living room futon. Hotcha.
Now a few things that are silly junk from someone that can't throw anything away because it might once again find a use, Here's my K-Mart porta-desk in use with my living room office, sporting a "new" desk lamp. It's a BBQ light with several LEDS that was dodgy when it was new. 3 "AAA" batteries in a holder to create light that you clamp onto your BBQ so you can see where you put that spatula. It worked for a short time but then I remember my brother being kind enough to put in a light on my garage and well, that was that with that. This dodgy light that never kept itself in working order too well eventually failed, but I kept it because it was a good vice grip and the neck bent and maybe I could fix it somehow. Enter a Dollar Tree light and some rubber bands. Light enough that the goose neck BBQ light can hold it in place and bright enough to be a real desk lamp. Really junk. Reused.
How am I going to power said battery powered item? Wow I have a lot of rechargeable batteries in various states of being useful. So, I dug up my Ray-O-Vac charger and my Duracell charger and my Energizer charger... The only one that works for the batteries it was designed for is the Duracell charger. It's designed for those high capacity batteries and other chargers just don't charge them that well. Otherwise, Energizer batteries work and I have a lot of them. Charge Charge Charge. I have $1 Dollar Tree LED lights for you to be used in or LED toilet lights that really consume battery power. Charge Charge Charge. Have you ever used your camera so much that you needed the second four back up Duracell batteries you got for it? No, but you never can tell when you'll need a lot of flash pics of your trip to Orlando. Right? Charge. Charge.
Lifetime warranty. Yeah right. Spend $5 to send in these things that cost $1 to get replacements in 5 years when they eventually fail. All of these do when they are used in the freezer or fridge to seal off bags. These have magnets so they hang on the fridge. A few years ago, you couldn't find them except when they cost a princely $3. Here they are at my local for $1. Gotta stock up. Cheapdog. That's what I am.
Really. Cheepdog. I look at it as Adam Carolla does. Someone spent time to get all the materials together to produce this product, why let something go to waste if it can be reused. Yes, and here I go wasting a perfectly good Giant Eagle Family Napkin that could be cleaning up coffee shmutz or soup dribble from lunch to dry a paper clip I found resting under my refrigerator. A paper clip? Really? Yes, I've even circled back to rescue paper clips I saw discarded in the parking lots of participating Arbys restaurants. They are the big ones. I use the big ones. Many a time they have reset clocks or unlocked inside doors. At least I owned this one so it likely fell off of a folder and went under the fridge where it began it's dust gathering mission until I realized it was time to clean the dust from under my fridge. To quote Monty Python: "Every paper clip is sacred..."
What's this then? Here I complained about the smell of this particular brand of hand sanitizer. I was so glad that I got done with it and that was that with that. What would possess me to buy MORE of it, especially when I can now bathe in Purell now that Purell is so available. It was so cheap! It's down to $2 a bottle and well, I felt that my friend in Pitt wouldn't believe me that this stuff smelled so bad, I'd have to get a bottle for him to smell and verify that this stuff really is the "Poopieeez" that I said it was. Okay fine. Nostalgia for last summer. Okay. Usually that takes 10 years or so, but last year. ...I'll work with that thought. However, I also bought the other bottle and this was a different formula with no alcohol. It does NOT smell. It's the alternate hand sanitizing method that I've heard of that does not spontaneously combust on a hot day. Works pretty good. Coats the hands. Seems softening. Then I read up on them. I used to use Dial Anti Bacterial soap because it had a nice scent, but then I learned that TRICLOSAN was in it and that was that with that. Your soap is bad for the environment? Wait, in the last year, I learned that all antibacterial soaps and rinses were HOO HAW when you allow yourself the extra 10 seconds of washing your hands with ordinary SOAP? Yes, soap can do that. Who has time to really clean your hands for 20 seconds? Learning a lot these pansamatic days. This new hand sanitizer is just like my old soap, only dries by itself rather than rinsing. *face plants* Not gonna make that mistake again. *Fills tub with Purell*
Speaking of disinfecting... You know that UV light works that way? Any gribblies that are crawling around cannot survive when blasted with UV light. They can't survive in the miocrowave either but what if your gribblies are on aluminum foil? What then? HUH? I got this as a Christmas gift. It's a 5V UV chamber. Yes, it's a clone of the good patented idea by a leading blah blah blah that was advertising on the podcasts a few years ago. It's primarily for your cell phone. Put it in the chamber. It fires up the UV and a few minutes later, sanitized. You know your phone has more bacteria on it than a public toilet right? RIGHT? I've never talked to a PUBLIC toilet but there were a few times in my younger days where I've spoken with my friends toilets or my own toilet. "Hello Mr. Toilet, I'm now getting to know you all too well HWARRRRRRRRRFFFFFFFFF!" Okay, so, we'll all feel better if we zap our keys and phones and other small crap we carry in the outside world in this questionable knock off. It speaks REALLY LOUD and says something about being ready and when it's working. Yep. I'm sure it's doing something. Effective? They wouldn't sell something that does nothing just to make a buck on people right? RIGHT?
Everybody is cooking at home during the pansamatic. Everybody trying their hand at making that loaf of bread. It occurred to me. I can't cook or bake or anything. Hey, I'm going to go to the pizza buffet for dinner. Maybe I'll go to that Chinese buffet. You know the good one out in Streetsboro that has actual warm food? Maybe that Mexican buffet with the great lunch specials. Maybe go to the grand Golden Corral where if I have a walker with tray holders I can load up those tray holders with extra food. We're all fat here, so eat up! There's a chocolate fountain to dip s*it in when your done? Why not use it as your salad dressing? Couldn't hoit. Nahh, tonight, just the salad bar at Eat N' Park. Mmmmm great chili and fresh cornbread. What? All of that is over? *Snoopy Cry* Well, I love the brownies, but I don't eat the brownies because I love the brownies. The only time I'd enjoy a brownie with my meal was at CiCis pizza buffet. They had the edge pieces that were a little hard and the rest was chewy goodness. When they closed a majority of their restaurants, how was I ever going to taste that cheap brownie flavor? Mom bought me a pan. Now I can make them. No, they won't be POT brownies. I'd never allow something so simple and sweet as a delicious brownie to be soiled by those evil substances.
Hmmmm. Crown Royal brownies. Oh, it wouldn't work. All the alcohol would bake out leaving a bizarre whiskey tasting brownie. *Breaks eggs, add mix, adds water* *Whistles* *Oil... Crown* *Whistles* Hmmmm.
Heh. Lets mellow out on this Saturday morning and watch some classic cartoons. This is the Tom and Jerry Hour. I liked it better than the Popeye hour. On the Popeye hour of cartoons, they show the black and white ones where everybody is bouncing up and down to a rhythm and Popeye punches Olive Oyl in the face to get her to "snap out of it". Then they show the color ones with the AAP logo where Bluto's brother Brutus took over in one of those unfortunate Three Stooges "Shemp" replacement deals. No, it was on to the Tom and Jerry hour. A cat chases a mouse and fake sings "If Your Ever Down In Texas, Look Me Up" sparking my every seven year old memory to sing along. I hoped the next one they would show would be one done by Chuck Jones that were more like Coyote and Road Runner cartoons only with less falling down a cliff scenes or explosions. Tom hissed in the intro to those cartoons. Wait? Did Popeye just punch Olive Oyl in the face? Mork would never do that to Shelly Duvall. They don't call it "Sweet Haven" for tourism.
XTC said it best in their song "Dear God" "I don't need a big reduction in the price of beer." It's a pansamatic. We all make sacrifices. I've shown my case of Pabst beer before, and well I'm proud to say that it's still taking me 7-8 weeks to finish a 30 pack rather than every two weeks. It's my weekend treat. 4 Pabsts. In a tall glass. Ziggy Zocky Ziggy Zocky Ohy Ohy Ohy. However, the aluminum can shortage... Unlike the TP shortage which affected all of our asses or the meat shortage that caused some Wendys restaurants to not have the TRIPLE available, this one I really feel. 20.99. That's right. 20.99. I mean, when I first started buying beverage... I've bought 6 packs for 1.99 and I've bought 4 packs of micro/specialty beverage for 17.99 but PABST over 20 bucks? Cost of doing business. They don't have a production brewery. They contract from the Swiller corp. Swiller corp needs the cans for their beers. Pabst pays market price for this shortage of cans. Of course bottles have gone up as well but OVER 20 BUCKS FOR PABST? Hey, it's a treat and it likely costs even more in other markets. What the hell am I complaining for. Priorities man. Get yer jabs. 6 Feet. Mask over the shnodder. We're all in it together right? I AM NOT DRINKING MERLOT! *Skitch* *Pig Vomit in the movie Sideways.* *Thanks* -Junk Blog
]]>The weekend when our Governor X-10 decided we needed a handle on this pansamatic. I'd had been in Pitt the weekend before and they said there was now a few cases in our state and one in my town. That weekend everything stopped. 3/15/20. Close it all. "Shelter in place." (What, are we being bombed?) Stay at home from now until infinity. Wash EVERYTHING that touches OUTSIDE AIR. Cancel your St. Pattys day plans and stay safe! We're all in this together, except if we don't agree with you. My camera was filled with memories since September 2019. I usually clean the camera before a major event and that was when my pictures started. I took a trip to Orlando and we spent a day in Tampa. That's why I'm doing this now. Remember the Sooperdoopertoilet in 2020? We watched like nothing was going to wreck all our lives and be held hostage by a spiky thing that we can't see that kills whomever it wants. This year, Tampa hosts the dooper game with a Tampa team playing with a former Patriot at the helm. Meanwhile, here are my memories of good times from my recent BPCC.
Yep. We stayed in the glow of a big box that holds football games. We stayed at a hotel, a new hotel, that was nearly across from this big box. I remember they had really crappy parking at this hotel, but they had a bus that would take you anyplace. Park once, take the bus everywhere else. I got a lesson that you should tip your hotel bus driver? Now I'll remember to make change while being driven to a Coffee house with no air conditioning when it was 98 degrees out and it would be raining if there was any more humidity. Hell, it was a nice hotel and all and I was glad they gave me some basics because I'd left my toothbrush and deodorant in Orlando. The only thing I hated about the place was the soap/shampoo/conditioner dispenser that was in the shower. Not only was it not full, but it grossed me out because who knows what peeps can do to those dispensers. No thanks. I'm always going to travel with mini soap and mini shampoos from now on.
It was a week day when I arrived in Orlando. Look how empty and clean the tram system was from terminal to terminal. I love flying to Orlando because I look forward to riding these clean trams. Gee, it took a pansamatic where other " mass transit" systems picked up a disinfecting wipe to wipe the grab bar in their trains every 24 hours. MCO has been keeping their trains clean forever. With the millions of people that ride these trains all year, they always are this clean. Doors are closing. Doors Are Closing. Doors are Closing. "Welcome to Orlando. You know there is other things to do here besides Disn....*Murrrrph* *Girl From Ipanema elevator music* "
We stayed in St. Pete. When on vacation, I like to drink heavy at local bars because I don't have to drive anywhere. Also, as you might have guessed, I like the pooches. My friend did a search for a "dog friendly" bar and found a place called.... *wait for it* .... *Girl From Ipanema elevator music* THE DOG BAR. Hell I didn't care. It was a really nice place with as well as an indoor/outdoor bar. It was filled with dogs and people and dogs and dogs. Trouble was, it was all open and it was hot and humid and add in the wafting scent of all those dogs marking their territory and we blasted pretty quick. We came back later in the evening when it was cooler for a dog costume show.
Another piece of St. Pete besides every business being in an old gas station or car repair shop was that there was a lot of old video games. We went into a small beverage store with an entire other storefront filled with every chip known to the world. Indeed there were some punters in the place that remarked that this store had the snack food they had in jail. It was a fun loving crowd. I played this Apple IIc version of PacMan for 15 seconds but have never been a fan of playing games without a joystick. Remember when we could touch things like a keyboard in public and then eat prison chips while sucking down a 40 and smoking a Marlboro? Memories. Glad they had this up and running.
Oh HELL. Look at that! Someone grilled a cow, topped it with fried pork strips and then fried up a vegetable x3 and then topped it with goop and yellow floor tile. There was another of the same vegetable on the bottom not all brown and some green stuff thrown in like the Flintstone's "Parsley" ...to throw away. The best thing about this gut buster is, I was on vacation and we got plenty of walking in to work off all the BBQ sauce. We had stopped in an art store and the food was said to be good at this particular restaurant by the store owner. Hmmm. I wondered if there was a Wendy's near by. I was on vacation. I was eating out. Remember that?
St. Pete had lots of restaurants all inside former gas stations. We had dinner at one place that was a little higher in price but had absolutely fresh food and had a local beer with grapefruit that was simply the best beer of the style that I've had. Ahh, but we combined video games and beer and went to the small microbrew/video game place inside a house. Twice. Damn good. You know, since this all began, I've sworn off hanging at the microbrews other than the small one that mom and I enjoyed late summer when we ate in the parking lot tables the microbrew had added. It's one of the things I really miss. Ahhh, spring is coming...
We also spent a day in Centennial, Florida. Here's the train museum. Remember when we could go to museums? Yeah, bigger ones are open again. This is a telegraph desk. Dot Dot Dash. Dot Dash Dot. Dot Dot Dot Dot Dash Dot Dot Dot Dot Dash Dot Dot Dot *Girl From Ipanema elevator music* Where's the browser? Does this thing have Pandora?
So, after the fun that was a trip to Florida in September, I went to Pitt the following weekend to HOARD TOILET PAPER! Actually, it was a bit of a joke. I was leaving Boomer's house to drive home a few weeks before and missed one of the three steps down to his driveway and FLEW across the driveway, landing hard on the grass. I did a photo shoot with Dollar Tree's finest to indicate where I landed. The good thing? The leftover pizza I had on a paper plate survived my Dick Van Dyke moment and I had it for lunch. Good wrapping job. Tin foil.
The other thing I did while I was in Pitt is enjoy some Caribou. Einsteins Bagels restaurants added Caribou coffee about a year before and every chance I get, I stop in to draw and write and enjoy original Caribou. Of course, the other blends of coffee simply are not Caribou even though they say they are. As someone that loved Caribou coffee shops before they pulled back from my area, Caribou NEVER had a HAZELNUT. They did at Einsteins. A manager told me it was their best selling blend 3-1. Hmmm. Same company owns all the coffee now. At least Caribou's main blend still tastes like Caribou coffee.
Of all the places I frequented before the pansamatic, here's one I haven't been back too. Trader Joes has at least 6 different blends of whole bean coffee and all are good to great. Their Irish Breakfast tea is really tasty as well. Trouble is, the stores are not much bigger than my basement. Well, they are bigger. I didn't want to shop there even if I wear a space suit. Pretty much the only thing I got there was coffee and tea and well, maybe this summer...
Why post this? I've posted it in previous pictures on this blog. No big whoop. Chicago beer right? Well, I decided that in 2019, I would not go to Chicago after Thanksgiving as has been my tradition for almost 15 years. Why? I just didn't want the hassle when I could get the beer I would drink there and do some other things that I would do normally if I went there. I figured I'd take a year off and go in 2020, and I'd take more time off and really enjoy my trip there. It was just one year right? Not that big of a deal. Damn.
As you know if you've been a reader of my Junk Blog, I'm a big fan of crap nobody cares about. One of the things I did in Chicago the year before when the weather turned lousy and I stayed an extra day was to go to the neighborhood dollar store and shop for some detergent so I could wash my clothes since I didn't pack an extra day's things. I found these Prima pens that were exactly what I'd been looking for. Clear, gripper pens that fit BIC Crystal pen refills. Well, after some searching I found a generic dollar store in my area and they had the same pens. Well, as I missed Chicago in 2019, I went back to that store and bought more pens and other crap.
Geeze. I can remember when I actually had the time to give a damn about this crap. The ones I bought were different from the once I bought earlier. I made blogs about this stuff in the olden days? Yep.
Yes! There was beer to "enjoyed". The microbrew chain BJ's opened a brewery near me and I stopped in to taste the wears. Did I mention I miss sitting at my local microbrew thinkin and drinkin? I don't miss BJ's. Mmmm, Average. However, that's a lie. I would LOVE me some average beer and food. Summer 2021 man, Summer 2021.
More food at a microbrew. This was in January. It was a birthday celebration with my closest family. I only post this because I was starting to eat better at that point? No really. Chicken and cheese rather than a sloppy burger? No, it's a memory that will always stay with me. The last time my family would be all together in celebration of something we did every year. The beer was really good at this place. We had a lot of beer places to choose from. Fall 2021 man. Fall 2021.
Losing track of time is also what the Pansamatic has meant. Here is the WKRP box set I got for Christmas. You know, when this show was on, myself and most of America didn't realize how funny this show was. When it was in reruns, America and myself didn't realize how funny this show was. When I got into radio, I didn't realize how funny this show was. When they finally got the rights for a majority of the music on this set, we didn't know how funny it was. When I got the full set and consumed it all in a binge watch as a document of television in the late 70's early 80's now comparing it to the mid 80's and beyond...well, this was a funny show for the future Maytag man and Burt Reynolds future wife to be on. Why aren't they wearing headphones when they are on the air? They are just that good! --- Wait....so, before this Pansamatic, what we've learned thus far is that all the fond memories I have are about as unexciting as after it started? I think so. Not much has changed other than not going to Pitt or Florida. Let's do a quick mid blog post check.
Big food consumer. Check. Actually, this pizza was a two year tradition that ended for another reason. It was from a shopping chain called Earth Fare that became my mom's favorite place to shop. They had these giant thin crust pizzas which they would sell for cheap on game days. So while my mom and I watched the Browns two awful seasons, we would enjoy great pizza. This was a "meat lovers", and really, they did come with more toppings usually. This one was sparse to say the least. Earth Fare went out of business before the pansamatic took hold. Funny, they had just opened a few years before and spent millions to remodel their store just a few months before. Hmmm, Tokyo Shapiro spent "thousands" to remodel the store I worked at only to close a few months later. Hmmmm.
Drink. Check. Isn't it cute? A sweater for a beverage. Makers Mark already has a wax cap on it's head, but now it's got an ugly Christmas sweater. Maybe my mom was inspired by master comedian Jimmy Fallon with his 12 days of ugly sweaters thing he does on the "Do you want to play a game and tell me about your next project" Tonight show. Maybe I'm giving him too much credit. He did get better from the tent...
CVS Talk. Pens. Check. You see, pens used to be an expensive thing. Ball points were still fairly new. You were always griping when someone stole your pen right? They would sell them at convenience stores for 29 cents a pen because someone always needed a pen right? Of course the pen you bought had been used a thousand times before to write bad checks for cigarettes but you didn't care. You had that important contract to sign for the Cleveland Browns didn't you Vinnie Testaverde? (He signed lots of contracts, but 20 years in the EnnEffEll is a career right?)
Senseless DVD viewing of old TV. Right? Yes, I asked for this set. Barney Miller. I fondly remember watching this entire set while I was drinking, eating leftover pizza from Earth Fare while consuming many beers and writing my latest blog entry about pens and how upset I was that they changed the Bazic pens from taking BIC refills to a different style. Barney Miller was a great show, one of the best to take place on the same set. Is that really how they made coffee before the drip coffee maker came out and revolutionized bad coffee? Is that a film of lard smeared on my screen to make the picture not so great on certain episodes? Why Fish...WHY? Hal Linden 10K Run? Hal Linden up against Kotter in "Battle Of The Network Stars". Kotter cleaned up in rowing. I bet Kotter is no slouch in poker. Never count your money while you're sittin at the table. *skitch* Kenny Rodgers. Thanks.
Thanks Daffy. Now the memory blog gets serious. There were rumblings that some thing was spreading but don't worry, it appeared it wasn't so bad. It had arrived on our shores and people started to die. Don't worry though, it was a seasonal flu. Get your flu vaccine, You'll be fine. Go on about your business. We're America. Nothing can stop us from going to where we want, when we want, and shopping 24 hours at a grocery store or participating mart right? I even liked my previous trip to Florida so much, that I made plans to go to Florida mid March. Got plane reservations and everything. I also spent the weekends I was not in Pitt driving around to favorite locations and having coffee while writing/drawing/using the web to look up pens. (Really Bic, what did you do to your website in early 2020. I couldn't see a damn thing on my cell phone. I just went to your competition.) I went to Hudson, Ohio to "enjoy" Panera's tankards of "new improved" coffee. I'd mix the dark and normal blends and get a good cuppo. Try and tell that to the counter help now. Another place I haven't been since BEFORE PANSAMATIC.
Did I mention that I went to Pitt a lot? Boomer and I always seemed to do a slightly better show when we were staring at each other, barking to the troops on the Ray-Diddy-Oh. We rarely went to movies, but one of Boomer's favorite movie meccas was a mere bus ride away and he'd seen the Sonic movie for no apparent reason. When I was in town late Feb 2020, there were two movies of "interest" out to see. We went to the "Phoenix" theaters that took over when the 22 theater place had went belly up. IT WAS HUGE, and the new owners had sold off a big corner of the place to the local DMV and remodeling the remaining movie houses to a state of the art theaters. By this time, it was really rumbling about the pansamatic. I was a little at ease that both movies were sparsely attended. We saw "Call Of The Wild" and enjoyed the CGI dog smiling all the time. We also saw "Dr. Dolittle" just for the unneeded "Iron Man giving a CGI dragon an enema" scene. Both were entertaining movies, but not the best cinema as the last movies we would see before you wouldn't want to see a movie in a theater...with people.. *shudder*
I was actually excited to see a poster promoting Wes Anderson's new joint "The French Dispatch" which was going to be the summer movie that I would attend several times and enjoy thusly like all other Wes Anderson pictures before it. "Isle Of Dogs" was so good, I went to Pitt on a Sunday afternoon on a whim just to go see it with Boomer. Of course, we had the wrong theater but we saw it twice the next week. Like many things different in 2020, the release of this film was pushed back, pushed back then removed from release. Shelved. YOU DO NOT SHELVE THE GREAT BILL MURRAY!! ..oh yeah, I guess you did. May 2021 is now the "planned" release. Ugh. Think happy thoughts. *I think I will go to a theater to see it in May 2021!* Ahhhhhhh.
Two weeks before. *DUN DUN DUNNNNNN* Leon is getting LARGER! I'm a cheepdog. I was thinking on this as I couldn't fit into my jeans that well and other pairs were calling for a time out, that I'd expand into the next size up RATHER THAN LOSING WEIGHT. You see I liked beer. It's really tough to lose weight when I drink BEER. So, I thought I'd try REALLY HARD to lose weight during 2020 starting NEXT MONTH. (It's always what I said. Next month..next month...after the next trip to Pitt..after my trip to FL where I'll be eating GUTBOMBS and MICROBREWS. Next month.)
Trouble was, I'd have nothing to wear. I was at the point where I should be attending the "XL" stores. Enter Rural King. They have their own brand of jeans available in every size you could think of. Every waist, every height. They got them. Of course, you got a dumb looking sewn on "patch" on the the rear pocket. WHY? Why do you do this Rural King? You have the cheapest prices on everything from chicken coops to peanut butter pretzels. Why should you make your amazing selection of cheap fat ass wear have the RK logo on them? Can you imagine wearing these to school? I got razzed when I was in school for wearing "Rustler" jeans. (Wranglers cheaper brand...) (Oh yeah, RK carries Rustler brand as well...) AHA! Good old EXACTO knife and the patch is removed leaving a darker square on your ass. Believe me, nobody is looking at MY ASS to see what type of jeans I'm wearing.
I went to a new Bigsby coffee store that opened in an old White Castle and shared the building with a Jimmy Johns subs restaurant. I can have a great sub and awesome coffee from 5 pumps and "celebrate" the fact that I just got jeans that would fit me better. I was going to be in Florida the following weekend. Grapefruit beer. Sub Par Onion Ring Burgers. Maybe not as much SWEAT because it's MARCH. Ahhh, but now I was getting really worried that the trip my be upended by this flu that seemed to be spreading. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to fly in a tube with others who are hacking away in their Mickey ears. It was becoming very real to me. Something was different. Have another coffee fat boy.
I was at the dying mall which didn't have much left but a "NOT DICKS" discount sporting goods store. I bought another pair of cheap oversized jeans and a new "winter" jacket and a replacement for the carry bag that I use for all of my drawing/writing excursions at the coffee houses or restaurants that I attended. It was handy enough to swallow all I needed and be a "MURSE" wherever I was. I'd carry an MP3 player and a comb and aspirin and a bag of extra pens and bandages. Everything. But after three years it was starting to be a little worse for wear so I found it's eventual replacement. They made a few improvements mainly by eliminating the mesh on the sides. It is supposed to be a gym bag after all. Sweat socks could breathe. Um...yah. It's sat on the same chair with the blue one since the pansamatic...wait...just....a..few...more...days....
ANOTHER BEER! LAST WEEKEND BEFORE.... Yes, come that Monday it was looking like the "mystery flu" was very real and very serious. This really couldn't be happening I told myself. I was going to Florida this weekend. I would have a good time and all this talk about being so contagious, well, it was all talk right? I really didn't want to go but my friend was expecting me. I'd get another grapefruit beer at that gas station turned restaurant right?
My friend in Florida had returned from a conference some place, knew I was worried about coming, had been keeping a running total of cases... He started feeling bad that Tuesday and by Wednesday he was in the throws of ... it was still just the flu back then right? Needless to say, I cancelled my trip. With the days off already taken however, another trip to PITT! This was taken at the superbeerstore while I was checking on the Pabst stocks. The trip had been so hastily thrown together that I forgot my camera, so these were the scant photos from my cell phone and Boomer's few pictures. Boomer doesn't drink beer but he likes dogs. Yep.
There is a scene we'd repeated hundreds of times before. We go to a coffee shop, and sit and draw/write for a few hours. 3/8/20 is the date on the the paper where I needed to write an intro for our radio show. Boomer had just begun to sketch on his drawing pad. I had the time off because of the cancelled Florida trip, so I was really chill about this Sunday. I could sleep in after we did the show at 3am. We could relax, but even then, we couldn't really relax as there was someone two tables away that was wearing a surgical mask. Looking back, that person had either been in New York recently or had flown back from a place where the cases were starting to mount. It was the last flash of a "normal" thing that I did, and I remember it fondly. No I don't. It was like any other time we'd done it. Oh, I haven't done it since? I send e-mails saying if we got together in the summer of 2020, we'd be sitting outside and deal with wind and smokers. (Yes there was a time in 2020 where it looked like there would be a break from....NOPE.) To this day I think this is one of the things I long to do the most. Oh sure. I don't remember it fondly.
Nancy Deckant. Life Jacket. Released in 2011. A country/folksy Nashville/Pittsburgh production. They had stacks and stacks of these CDs at a local Pitt thrift shop a buck each. It's a little country rock and she's upfront singing. You know, I always had the dream of releasing my "music" on CD. The closest I got was an actual tape my band released in the early 90's to critic acclaim. It was in the local record stores for about 5 minutes. Hell, I know what it's like to sit on 100+ copies of one's album hoping for a Kickstarter to release our music on a VINYL RECORD? Remember when you could play local shows and sell self made professionally recorded CD's at your shows... I never had that. Someone heard you in 2020 Nancy, wherever you are.
Then I returned home. Went to the bar for pitcher night. They had announced the cases that now in my city. Spent time the next weekend watching an ABC commercials commercials *content for 30 seconds* commercials commercials news special. This would be a serious event. Our Governor announced all bars would be closed to selling booze at midnight to get ahead of the crowds for St. Pattys day. I looked at my mom as I left and said "I think it's going to be awhile until we can see each other again..." And it began....
They started by saying we were to "shelter in place" which was silly because there wasn't a tornado or a bombing but there might as well be. Quickly it became a "stay at home" order. The world went crazy and toilet paper was in short supply. No worries. I'd bought myself a few rolls for the stunt pictures I took while I was in Pitt. "How about 10,000 rolls of toilet paper I happen to be sitting on..." "No, we need a incubator..." (Dialogue went something like that from Mash.) I usually didn't participate in St. Pattys day, but this one, NOBODY did. Ziggy Zocky 24 Oz Pabst I speak your name. -JUNK BLOG- -Ric
]]>GO BROWNS! WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR!! (Familiar, but this year, we beat the Stillers twice in a row including once at their house where we'd pretty much never won a game, let alone a playoff meeting.) I normally top my tree with a cheap mini mask of wolf fangs and nose. This year, I wanted to have something reflect the year's doings since it was so unusual. I tried to fit the mask on the headless fangs but no mas, so the doggy scrubber came into use. I also had a mini bottle of Purell to put on there and a "Nervous Dog" coffee company coffee wrap was also new to the tree this year. Why not. In 2020 , I've been a Nervous Dog without the coffee,
A word about cheap Christmas trees. Nobody puts an "expires by" date on a fake tree. Every year I put it up and every year while I'm putting it up and when I take it down, I'm "treated" with a ton of needles that decided to end their years holding beer cans and dog scrubbers on my tree. This year, I could really see how "Charlie Brown" my tree was getting, with some of the "branches" being just green wrapped wires.
Look at the age of this tree! 2006 was so long ago. *Gulp* So, I'd estimate for a cheap dog like me that loves tradition and doesn't want to throw an old tree out to get a shiny pre-lit silver airplane tree. I'll probably have this tree for another 47 years . It will go into the Smithsonian and a tribute to how cheap an American can be and how if you stock your tree with enough decoration crap, who needs needles. Your vacuum thanks you.
Being of cheap retail, I got these for $10 each one year at my participating DolGenCorp. They are lit with a night light and my guess is they should have small trains running by them. I love mine so it's my tree decoration every year. Dollar General is the modern Woolworths except in a small space. They have a little bit of everything and a cheap prices. They aren't big box where you have to walk across a mile of store to go from paper towels to underwear. They have big bottles of mouthwash cheap. That's worth buying every time. I know I've waxed poetic about this company and deservedly so. Why not open a store that has a lot of things that you would normally drive thirty miles to get. I'd call that a community service store. Oh yeah, and to have Lo Lo discount prices as well? Good on ya, DolGenCorp. Of course, mine is two blocks away...
Here in Cleveland, we have a chain called Discount Drug Mart. They started back in 1969 in Elyria, Oh. Funny but when I was just a chunk, I remember riding in our 1967 Ford Fairlane 500 Wagon with the gas tank that fell out. We'd drive to Drug Mart on Abbe Road to try the Bonnie Bell 7-UP Flavored Lip Smackers back when you would just smear on the big demonstrator tube regardless of who came before you. Simpler times. Abbe Road was indeed the very first location for Drug Mart, and it likely was a closed grocery store that they moved into and expanded into other stores. It's still there as the anchor for the strip center that used to also have a Hardees restaurant. Greasiest burgers and bad fries and always seemed like a budget McDonalds. "Budget" back then meant closer to where you lived so you'd save a few cents in gas. I do like the Christmas bag they came up with. Santa..right? Santa in a MASK right? Get it? Thank you Dr. Claus. Give any enemas to those reindeer? Stop feeding them FONDUE.
Another common foe to home owners at Christmas time. Every year you bring out that big keeper full of Christmas lights and you spend hours making sure they are untangled. Then you dutifully test them to make sure they still work. Undoubtedly, one or two cheap ass strings of lights will go cheap ass on you and cheap ass not work. When I talked about expiration dates for trees, there should be a date on any string of Christmas lights marked " random". Hey, they could be like our Governor "X-10". (I call him that because he keeps extending our 10PM curfew and most recently didn't say how long it would be extended for...) Even a fancy string of lights like the ones that I got this year may last for the "five year" warranty period or not work when I pull them out next year. Who do you send Christmas lights too? Yes, 2020 was a bit tough to find multi color lights so I paid a premium for this string. It was the last wrapped string at my local big box home improvement store and it actually wasn't with the rest of the remainder lights. I was lucky because the strings that I had tested in my house, suddenly didn't work once they were in place. I tell ya, BIG CHRISTMAS LIGHT is laughing all the way to the bank.
Of course, I had another problem to contend with this year. When I moved in, I had a few GCI outlets installed on the house so I could use electric garden tools without plugging them into really really long extension cords from inside my house. Well, before the pansamatic, I had a roof replaced and other work and I'm guessing someone dropped something on my new 15 year old and very weathered heavy plastic CGI outdoor outlet cover leaving it with a wonderful hole through it. A nice sized hole that allowed the weather to get inside and well, do what water does best. Of course, I use a lawn mower that is electric powered but I use a really really long cord plugged into my garage. So, I hadn't seen the outlet since I took down the lights at the beginning of 2020. I went to plug in my lights this year and noted the crack in the cover then noted the GCI circuit was "popped". So when I pushed the button, a very unsatisfying "CRUNCH" was heard. GCI outlets are supposed to "click" when you reset them, not CRUNCH! So, I became an electrician. I went to said big box home improvement store and but the same outdoor GCI and cut the power in my place and went to unscrewing the spider hut that was my outdoor outlet. Actually, the instructions were simple and the outlet replaced easily other than I had to re-size a screw because it didn't fit into my outlet box quite right. Geeze. I's an electrician nau. Of course a generous patch of Gorilla Tape went over the hole. I'll replace the box cover this Spring.
The good news from this year is my family and I had as "normal" a Christmas as we could despite the pansamatic and a personal loss. My mom and I thought we would buy gifts for my sister in law and have dinner and do stuff like every year, with the added protection of 6 feet of distance and masking when moving. Thankfully we made it through and had a warm, remembering time. My brother and sister in law had just moved to a new house so she asked for a new high tech and yet, very light hose. I have a really heavy 100 Ft one that waters all the way around the house and I love it. Must be 25 years old and shows no signs of it. This one is made from the same stuff bullet proof jackets are made of? Point being, you'll need a second mortgage for one of these, but so light when you carry it around to wash your car or fill that dog dish in the summer.
Oh yes, did I mention we had SNOMAGEDDON TWO this year for Christmas. We've had a history of every three-five years, it snows a lot on Christmas. F those "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" bastards. NO I'M NOT! Especially this year when staying at mom's during a PANSAMATIC is the last thing I'd want to do. Since Mom and I had our usual Christmas thing on Christmas eve, I went to her house and it was snowing but the roads were passable. Three and a half hours later... It DUMPED ON US. I tried to leave, not being one that lets the weather stop me. When the rear of my car went through an intersection before the front of my car and I was taking up three lanes of a five lane street, I decided maybe I should go back to mom's and wait it out. So, with masking, hand sanitizer, and distancing.... I had a great night/morning of sleeping on the couch and watching Sipowitz arrest a perp and then learning all the Christmas Western tropes. It wasn't until noon when we had a crack in the sky. So I took my camera out and snapped this pic. The good thing is, it was light fluffy snow so while it took me forever to clean my cheap jeep, it was okay to drive home and shovel out my driveway so I could pull into my garage.
Oh, you know how I complained earlier in this post that half the lights wouldn't work later this year when I put them up again? Maybe because I stuff them into a container willly nilly.... Actually, that's a sting of lights on top that only half the string works. I can't throw those out right? RIGHT? So on the top of the container it goes. See you in November and half of you BETTER WORK DAMMIT!
A few things I got for Christmas this year. Mom gave me a toilet light. This was all fun and games until I actually put three AAA batteries in this thing that reminds me of the small while music box kids used to have attached to their training pottys that played a little ditty while they tried to doot in one place rather than while playing in the living room with big animal blocks or in the yard while riding your trike. No, this act of wonder, this fine "as seen on your telescreens" device actually works great! It eliminates the need to "search" for the target without turning on the lights that I'd assume most men do. (Women, this device would mean less to you unless you're blitzed.) The toilet lights the way in several colors and works as it says. Your toilet is now a super bright night light. Hotcha!
Yes, in the category of "Okay, so we can get these easily now, I'm still using my odd cloth/paper clip/coffee sealer design" I got 50 more masks and these are in black. Are they better or worse than medical blue? Actually these are a bit bigger and have a better nose clip to hold them, so I like these a bit more, but in reality... Why do both boxes of masks that I now own have a weird musty basement scent? Ahh, I did find a use for them...
Reuse that elastic! I listed before the trouble I had with obtaining elastic for my previous masks. I had to wear them around my head, which meant I had to take off my hat and expose my bad hair cut. I couldn't use the existing elastic as an around the ear mask design because the elastic was thin and cut into my ears, Enter non medical surgical masks, I had two of the blue ones that I had to use when I forgot my deluxe mask and I popped the elastic off of them rather than throwing them out and tied them to my paper clips. A little adjusting which is pretty easy because of the cloth over wrap around the elastic, and I had a new version of my mask! I have a mask made of a darker cloth and well, the black mask gave up it's elastic to match. See? Adam Carolla? I try not to waste anything either. Want an old blown CGI outlet or broken cheap electric heater?
Ahh yes, re-use of stuff. Sometimes, it's a needed thing because of other things. Case in point. Doggy Calendars. I buy two of these every year so my friend Boomer and I can gush over how KEYOOOTE the "Mutt Of The Month" is. Silly poop. This year I was met with the package you see here and "New! Eco-friendly design" promising some new way they are attempting to save the planet. The package was thinner and weighed a little less. UH OH. It also was a buck more than the past 36 years. UH OH. Higher price, less $$$ to make = ECO FRIENDLY right? RIGHT?
Their idea of ECO FRIENDLY is rather than mounting it on a sturdy plastic base as they have done for the past 72 years of making these calendars that I buy EVERY YEAR is to totally redesign the base to a heavy cardboard stand that is so much more ECO FRIENDLY than a sturdy plastic base that has been used for 162 years right? (I'm sure in the 40s, the sturdy plastic was BAKELITE like every cheap radio case... before that it was crafted from a solid piece of military iron and before that was chipped from bedrock. ) No, we'll do it in CARDBOARD to hold up this heavy desk calendar. You see how it tore just trying to get the damn thing assembled? Ahh, but there was a fatal flaw to this new ECO FRIENDLY design. Sure, after six months, it would weigh half and would probably work well, but what about the first part of the year? Tear a page, pull the whole thing down on itself. Set a coffee down or vibrate the surface that this ECO FRIENDLY stand is located, it flops down faster that the dogs they are showcasing. It's okay when my dog flops at my feet but not my ECO FRIENDLY MORE EXPENSIVE calendar. *grumble*
Solution? Use the OLD F-ING STAND! I folded up the new ECO FRIENDLY stand and set this top heavy calendar on the type of stand that had worked since I started buying these calendars in 2002. *end rant*
Now for the musical portion of this Junk Blog. This is "KG" from King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard. It's a compact disc. The way I prefer to buy music since I could afford to buy music. Of course, I had to wait for a MONTH after the album was released, Pansamatic delays. This is VOL. 2 or my favorite album from these boys "Flying Microtonal Banana" where they played music using the notes between the notes on their guitars, making this odd and new. On this album, they revved up the sound and replaced "Banana" as my favorite Gizz release. They had the pansamatic to deal with as well so this was largely an assembled album with each musician playing parts at home. Better or worse? Unique I'd call it, and no worse for wear because it's now my "Faaaaaaaavorrrrite". (Thanks Richard Christie.) I'm gonna have to get me one of them record player deals...
Even though I knew the album backwards and forwards because they had placed it on the web in glorious 128K Netsonic (TM) sound, I still got to follow my tradition of pouring myself a nice bourbon beverage, putting on my good headphones, and sitting down to hear the fidelity. Yeah, I did hear stuff that I couldn't when I listened to it the old.....OHHH, put this on a USB chip in 192k so I can have it in my car. No, not the bourbon...
McCartney 3 !!! When I heard that the former Beatle had cooked up something in his studio and had done all the work by himself except with the help of an engineer, I said... Yawn. However I do own McCartney 2, His solo album cooked up the same way in the early 80's. It was one of the first CDs I bought because it had great tunes on it like "Temporary Secretary" and "Check My Machine". Other than that, I had a few Beatles albums like when Sgt. Pepper was released on CD or George Harrison's pre Wilbury's release "Cloud Nine" which I loved. What got me to take a chance on this release was hearing his interview with Howard Stern. Sir Paul talked about one song getting backlash because it went on too long and despite his engineer and others saying to shorten it, he thought better. I love it when an artist insists the hip people are going to see. The track "Deep Deep Feeling" has become one of my favorites. I even bought 2018's "Egypt Station" because I was hearing from the reviews that "3" wasn't as strong as "his best album in a long time". I gotta say, I like that album as well, but not as much as "3". How could a Beatle in his late 70's create such great music that young punters (and aaaaaging punters like me) could get a groove on with? Good on ya Sir Paul. You should buy this album or at least stream it to see how much hips you see. :)
The other bit of musical magic comes from these Swedish musicians known as the "Viagra Boys". Now, I know what you're thinking. When I saw them on a poster with one of the punk bands I like "Surfbort" , I though they had the dumbest name, but I checked them out anyway. Instant fan. Period. An American with twisted thoughts on dogs, shrimp, drugs, aliens and frogstraps teamed up with punkers with talent of their own. Plus, they have a punk sax player to give them a really unique sound. Their first album was more collection of singles. This album "Welfare Jazz" seems like my old friend, the "album journey". Where start to finish, you want to hear what's next and you want to repeat the album at the end. Not for everyone, but awesome for fans of old punk or industrial.
AND NOW....THE QUICKENING!!!! (Fast entries. Lightning round. 5 Hours to do this crap??)
If you use a product because you like it, don't be "forced" into buying another flavor because your local DolGenCorp is out of your flavor. This "Moisture Blast" blend of Irish Spring is very very VERY smelly. It's a good smell mind you, but I would have liked them to tone it down about 27 ticks. They were out of Coast and didn't have regular scent Irish Spring. Oh well , only 7 more bars to go...
Now I know why I haven't eaten this stuff since I was a kid. Sweet sauce? Misc meat that makes Taco Bell look good? Really, this wasn't bad, but when you'd rather have potato pierogis....
Bubble gum. I started buying these in 2019 when I bought a ton of bubble gum for Boomer. (He chews a lot of gum.) I tried these, and fell in love. Very tasty and won't rot your teeth.
Pansamatic cleaning essentials. Getting easier to buy this stuff. The Woolite was for my mom. She's got a cat that doesn't always find the littler box. The Softsoap was for me as were the Purell refills. Mmmmm. 99% Clean.
I was so exciting about finding those jumbo refills of Purell. No longer would I have to "suffer" with the smell of "poopiez". Then Mom gave me this for a gift. Um, it's flipping the switch on the smelly stuff to overly perfumed stuff that really has a pleasant smell, but WAY TOO STRONG. You can smell it on your hands after 4 more hand washings, even with DISH SOAP. I has Purell now. That's all I need. Mom said to bring it back for her to give the smell test. Okay. Here ya go.
PHEW. Pee-YEW! Whew! Yes, like I said before, I don't want to waste anything, so the mask went from my pot scrubber as my Christmas tree got put away for another year, but the mask? Why not strap it on my door fox which came with the house. He guards my door and now he lets me know when I've farted on the futon. JUNK BLOG. -Ric
]]>Go Browns. I'm from Cleveland. Didja notice ova dey? This was the first sport I ever liked and watched intently and later drank myself silly while we were losing. I guess, even when I moved to Toledo or Louisville, I remained a Browns fan. (Of course the three years the Browns were out of the league waiting to come back was when I lived in Toledo or Louisville...) Here is a tribute to the team I love, home made gifted to me two years ago. It's also a tribute to the now closed Pat Catan's craft chain where they sold all of the things used. Glass block with plug at bottom. Check. Cheesy brown bunting. Check. Cheap ugly brown Christmas lights. Check. I'm not sure about the Browns sticker. Point being, I'm leaving it as is rather than re-using the glass block as a bank. Maybe use the ugly brown bunting for straining a dozen clams? I don't know.
In the "I wish we could do that category", here is my current favorite band King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard in a screen shot from their latest video "Intrasport" from their new album "KG". It's the second volume of the Gizz guys doing music with "microtonal" instruments. It's been released in Australia, but in the US, we must wait a few extra weeks. However they were nice enough to release the tracks to the TOOB and on Bandcamp in net fidelity. I'll live with it. You know I have a tradition where I take a new album, pour myself a bourbon, put on my good Sennheisers and take the first listen. Well, I guess since every other tradition this year has gone by the boards, but I'll still do it when I get it. Now, you're asking, "was this video done before the pansamatic?" Nope. Australia is one of the few where the cases are so low, they've resumed gathering in a efficiency apartment to drink, dance, and shoot a ...dance video??? Isn't this a rock band? Now, if the US could follow, we'll be seeing the band LIVE in the US in 2021 and we can see...
...Second lead guitarist Joey Walker rocking the electric microtonal leaf blower. Jethro Tull is jealous. Another goofy screen shot of another video from "KG" called "Straws In The Wind" (Is it all ending?)
Mom loves this pizza. It's from Donatos. Yes, they are the pizza joint that at one point was partially owned by McDonalds. They opened lots of restaurants in the 90's to early 'oughts and closed most of them a few years ago. Something to be said by using a thin crusted pizza, but more important, the deluxe toppings that they pile on these. Yeah, the veggies and the meats are tasty and the thin crust pizza is a great idea, but to me, it's only good enough to be the top of the syndicated pizza places. Nothing is going to beat a pie from your local favorite. Also, just a personal aside, I like a slice of pizza, not a sliver as these are cut. Wahhhhhhh. :)
In the "wow, that smells..." category, I finally made it through my back stocks of hand sanitizer. You know, the stuff that at least had a acceptable scent? In my last entry, I bought these. Now, I'm into the second bottle and getting through it even though it's ranked so low it has to look up to see down. *skitch* *Welcome Back Kotter* Thanks. Crazy, but I think I'm going to buy another bottle. It was a fluke that I found gen-u-ine Purell because I haven't seen it since as our numbers are again going up and up and up. So, it's good to have another back up bottle. Maybe they've improved it?
See? I can't keep buying these 1oz bottles at 1.49! That's $100 for 8 ounces. Do the math. Actually, the one ounce container that I've been carrying around is made from cheap plastic and likely will fail, so I bought this as a replacement. You can hook it to your belt and keep yourself sanitary until February. You decide. (A line I wrote 25 years ago for a bit on my old radio show Under The Shelf. High comedy, don't cha think?)
Now to the booze section of the blog. As you all know, this pansamatic has had odd effects on peeps. One of them is increased alcohol consumption. Check. In a way, I went sideways. I like beer beverage more than I like a whiskey drink or a vodka drink. When the bars were closed at the beginning of all of this, I decided to curb my beer drinking and, well, I also curbed my fast food eating as well. Those two items combined to make me a "LEAN, MEAN FIGHTIN' MACHINE" *skitch* *Dewey Oxburger (Friends call him Ox) from Stripes* Thanks. Well, let's say I lost weight rather than gaining because I curtailed my beer consumption. I went to the booze. When the bars reopened I still don't drink beer at home, but when I went to the bar, they had umbrellas on their patio with "Tito's Vodka" on them. Tito's has a reputation of being for dog lovers so I had to finally try it. It was..well...I usually don't drink vodka unless it's mixed with juice be it tomato or grapefruit or even iced tea. Nuff said. The Sheep Dog Peanut Butter Whiskey, these were two bottles I got for a buck apiece from a convenience store. It's only 42 proof but was a pretty decent shot. However, I haven't been able to find bigger bottles and well, I'm not a huge fan of flavored spirits.
Yes, but a new old friend on the block is bourbon. This one is corked rather than twist off. Big deal. However, I gotta have it with cola. I've tried drinking it straight with an ice cube like I used to do long ago, but I guess tastes change. I like the scotchy scotch plain and not in cola, It just seems to have more personality. Now a gin martini...cola is no tonic. Hey! I'm a bartender now. Gimmie a Pabst any day.
Now, the groceries and food portion. Deluxe pit sweetener. Plain oatmeal taste makers. DUCK tape. Yep. Genuine DUCK tape. More mask clips and Allen J. Stash ladies and gentlemen. Allen J. Stash. Earl Grey. Hot.
No it's not a dance from a band called Attack! Attack! that fused metal with dance beats and shlocky vocals and did a dance that was dubbed "crabcore" . No, these are Utz's brand of crab seasoning on potato chips. When these first came out (at least in my area), I bought them every time and thought these were great. Then one day while sharing a bag with a friend, I realized "this is pure salt!" Indeed when I bought another bag recently, they were the most salty ass chips of potato in the history of...I ate the bag anyway. That's what dips are for.
See? There's the cola. There's the fruit and vegetable drinks. Then the pasta night. Yes, taking pictures of food is getting a little old for this blog, but MMMMMMMM cheese and cellulose. Maybe I can combine the Thanksgiving newspaper with a chub pack for sharp cheddar and make a sharp cheddar cheese shaker for sharp cheddar cheese and cellulose goodness. On spaghetti and sauce? *URP*
We'll call this part of the blog "Adventures In Cheap Appliance Repair." I've shown my coffee maker on this blog before and professed the beauty of a pot'o with fresh ground coffee. About a month ago, it started to shut off early or even not come on. I tried taping the switch in the on position and plugging in/unplugging when I wanted to brew, but that also stopped working. I went to a local drug store and paid the premium for a new coffee maker with digital controls that I never use because I don't have the counter space to leave it plugged in. It's a Mr. Coffee and it brews a decent cuppo after getting the new water measure correct. Mom said "throw that thing away". Ahhh, but I knew if I opened the old one up, and replaced a switch, it would work for a few more years right? So, when I had a chance, I did take it apart and surprise! The switch had been bent against the plastic separator dividing it from the hot plate. I must have damaged it as I shake this coffee maker upside down after every pot and never had to clean it because of this. No quantity of water sits in the pipes after use. So, all I needed was to bend the contacts back in place and also re-seat one of the contacts. Put it back together and brewed away. So, I have a back up maker when the digital control maker fails. Cheap Appliance Repair Tip #1: When the new version of something cheap has gotten cheaper, it may be worth fixing the old cheap one rather than tossing it. Plastic Boogie.
Here's the other one. I again told my mom that I has a cheap quartz heater fail and again her reply was "throw that thing away". I had bought this heater as a second heater when I was working in my home office in the basement. It was a $10 wally special so I was happy. It worked just like my Holmes brand heater that I've had for at least 15 years. When I moved back upstairs to work one winter when the temps were ten degrees for longer than a week, I put this one into service as my main heater. So, It got a lot of daily use for 2-3 months out of the year when I didn't want to heat the whole house. Well, it just failed. The power switch was really hard to turn on and then went into high heat mode and the knob spun. So, I took it apart. The knob had broken but didn't come off because of the way it was built. The switch could not be turned. Even with a vice grip. Plus there was evidence of aging and another wire popped off of the thermostat while I was looking at the salvage of.... 10 years. 10 bucks. High powered electrical device? (Of course, not a high powered electrical device that has water running through it, but the difference is, this one sits on the floor and usually runs for hours and uses tons of watts.) So, into the trash it went. Cheap Appliance Tip #2: It's TEN DOLLARS. Dimes worth of gas up your ass. I didn't need to replace the switch in my coffee maker...
Now here's a little bit of change because of the pansamatic. I've been using Mead 80 page Neat Books (note book paper with those micro perfs to tear out cleanly) to write with forever. Why? Because I've never really been a fan of writing stuff with a computer, yet I do it all the time for net consumption. When I produce something for radio, I prefer pen and paper and crossing out errors of pieces parts I think don't really fit the bit. Sure it's old hack, but then the money I've saved in toner through the years... Plus the bindings are thin, so they fit into a briefcase better. I bought a ton of these years ago and I'm still working through them. So much that the glue that binds them has been failing so I've had to re-glue each one lately to keep all the pages in the book. On my most recent book, a new problem cropped up. Some of the pages were not perforated correctly. Really, this was the first time ever I have had trouble tearing the pages out of the book, so much that I decided to tear the book apart and place the pages in a regular three ring binder, I don't carry a briefcase with me during the pansamatic because I never find myself at a place where I sit and write and drink coffee for a few hours on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Oh yes, I have bought some spiral bound notebooks with the perforations when they started making them. I didn't like them because they were less than 80 pages and they had the spiral. So, I tore those books up and placed them in three ring binders as well. Now I have seven additional 80 page notebooks to go through before I go back to my old stock Neat books, Really. I made the effort. Really. The things we do during a pansamatic. Who knew. I could have done without.
Finally, the best product I've used for eliminating odors in carpet and upholstery. Unfortunately it's no longer made or it's changed it's name, but such a generic name I couldn't find it when I searched. This goes back to Toledo when I lived there. The water heater in my apartment failed and made the carpet a little funky as it dried out. I went to the store and found something without too much perfume that said it was for tough jobs. Two treatments with this stuff and all smells gone. Really. Again, living in a Cleveland apartment when a joint on the radiator pipes went bad, this stuff stopped any long term smells. Plus, my car. When the seats had any kind of funk, like, oh I don't know, vomit or urine, (usually one or both) two treatments eliminated the phew. I tried using a spray bottle of the fabulous trendy odor remover that was all natural and blah blah blah, but still, this stuff is the shizznit even after 24 years. Maybe we could find a way to use this internally....BOP! Junk Blog. -Ric
]]>I found this priced on sale at 2 for 6, regularly $4 a bottle. This says it's made in the USA, so I wasn't getting tainted stuff. I mean, USA=FDA right? Right? This is a Canadian company that I never heard of making a brand that I never heard of. My local drug chain had it in stock, and they usually vet products before making a large purchase. My local grocery store also has this stuff and they have half gallon jugs of same. So, my supply was running low, I thought I'd go ahead. I should have smelled it first. It works the same as other name brands and its gellin like Magellin not liquid like booze. Yay. However, It smells like Otis the drunk had a wet fart after a drunken night trying to have sex with a coal stove, Otherwise, a "spoiled lemon" after smell haunts your nostrils and hands. I'll be glad when this stuff is finally gone but in a pansamatic..throw it away? No....ugh...can...ugh...do..ugh.
Before all this, I invested in a few bottles of liquid soap. I had a few other bottles of same and well, I use the stuff a lot faster in these days of wash your hands after ....everything. Pick up a newspaper? Open a door? Making tea or coffee? Wash your keyboard after 8 years of use? Keeping healthy means keeping clean and not touching your keyboard without washing your hands. The DG stuff was half price so another stock up item that now has more use. Soap Soap Soap. Lots of soap.
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SOUP!
Not soup. This is breakfast. I always wanted to do a joke on this blog with soap and soup and eggs. Yep. I always said if I do a blog for any length of time, I'd eventually have a post featuring soup, soap and eggs. The bar soap was after I'd finished my 500 bars of other soap. Shower protocol dictates that if I'm out in the world, it means that a shower is imminent. Sometimes twice a day if I go/stay/go again. That frequency has me using up the bath size bars a lot faster. The soup is becoming more available now, so I get more. I prefer the veggie stuff so that I can open a can of said canned veggies and make it into two meals. The eggs? Since I don't have fast food breakfasts on my list, I still consume a hard boiled egg in the morning or sometimes oatmeal mornings, egg salad at night or sometimes with my salad. See? It's why I called this entry "Pansamatic Debris" . It's the pics I've been saving up or using on my internet radio show.
In these trying times, one looks for the comforts of the old days. When we were kids, mom was holding down a job, attending college and still had time to feed us. This was the treat of treats. Banquet Chicken night! I was a big fan of their pot pies until I realized that salt and fat can be consumed in other ways which much less salt and fat and a much more taste. The other things from Banquet, the quick "TV Dinner" style meals made great lunches or switch up from the frozen slurry of noodles and chicken erasers that comes from Michelinas. Of course these were way more expensive and the box, while it seemed like the same size, had it's contents shrink to 29oz. It also seemed to have grown in the amount of asterisks. "Back Portion" . You know there is very little meat and a lot of ribs on the "back portion" of of a chicken breast. Yeah, but plenty of space to add breading and breading and more breading. Like paper and paste applied to a frame to have paper mache'. Here is chicken mache' magic. I was excited to share this with mom despite her saying that it wasn't going to be like I remembered. She cooked the 6 mis-shapen blobs of something heavily breaded that may have had a breast and two drum sticks and Bob Neckenback....
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!
This was mom's plate. My plate was also filled with similar piles of bones and breading. I might have got 6 or 7 full bits of chicken from my stuff and mom did no better. Really. If you like bread and bones, you'll love this expensive disappointment. I looked on their website to see what was said. Among the scant "great chicken, great value" comments that were peppered in, the majority were like mine. "Where did this product go wrong?" If you must have fried chicken, most stores sell a squab fresh in their deli and costs about the same or you can get a non fried squab usually for a buck less. You'll get a lot more chicken and may even have some left over for another meal.
Here's comfort. The cheapest coffee maker with comfort beans. Grind these up, make a batch of quality coffee. Oh sure. There are other coffee beans to grind up and I do frequently pick my flavor before brewing. However, nothing beats a good old cup of home brewed "Dunka Kawfee"
More comfort. My store had it on sale. I think it's the best. Ahh, but the jars get smaller and smaller and smaller don't they. Yes, I don't go crazy eating mayo based meals, but when you want a spread of it on your egg sandwich in the morning rather than the piece of cheese and mustard or bbq, best to get this for your egg on egg crime. Yeah, that's why It takes me three months to get through a jug.
Tools of the trade. There is some of the other blends of coffee I've featured here. Aldis has good beans as well, but "Dunka" just means "comfy". Black tea from ALDI is good when mixed cold with gin time agin-in. My local drug store has 200 coffee filters not only for my cheap coffee maker but also my home made masks. I'd use them even if I buy commercial made masks as long as they have a slot so I can stuff one of these filters between the cloth. Sounds like a new Nutflix show. "Between The Cloth". The story of a demented priest that wants to have sex with many models but set in a comedy, light, detective squad set. Yes, I got another coffee press to back up the cheap one I bought. I love making tea in them, because coffee is better left to the Mister. Other tools include some wireless note books I can add to the pile and the best pen refill I've used and mused about on this blog. Gee, remember when I would muse about pens on this blog while watching the DVD set of Barney Miller? It seems like two years ago.
See? I always will show a pen giving up it's refill for the old style see through Bic pen. Where fat hands can grip a small pen and write for all he's worth until he's ready for another sacrificed tree and makes another trachea tube for Radar and the father to operate on a guy in a jeep while Hawkeye tells them what to do. Then Hawkeye and Beej can go to the still to have delicious booze that may or may not taste like my "Natural Concepts" hand sanitizer smells. Junk Blog. -Ric
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