An almost live action shot from the Tunch Cam™:
In other words, Saturday night is looking an awful lot like Sunday through Friday night around here.
On to something different, this paragraph in a story about pears confused me:
The Bartlett pear was the principal ingredient of fruit cocktail, which my generation back home had been raised on. But as the fruit cocktail died a well-earned death, the market for the Bartlett pear swooned. And that’s how I got into trouble. I came home and set out to rescue the Bartlett pear market, save orchard farmland from development for tract homes, provide myself with a decent supply of good poire williams, which was impossible to get in Oregon at that time, and maybe make a buck or two.
Since when did fruit cocktail die a well-earned death? I just had some a couple weeks ago. And why would the demise of fruit cocktail be “well-earned?” What is wrong with cutting up a bunch of fruit and chilling it? Is this just a snobby NY yuppie thing? Is fruit cocktail déclassé and I never knew it?
At any rate, doesn’t appear to be much on the boob tube tonight. I am either going to watch “W” on pay per view, do some gaming, or read. Can’t figure out which yet.
*** Update ***
Link deleted because I just don’t feel like dealing with 100 morons accusing me of buying into this crap.
Eamonn
I think he meant the canned crap.
Eamonn
Oh, and "first"! (I’ve always wanted to be first)
Comrade Stuck
I thought Tunch was the Bartlett Pear until I saw the ears.
Wile E. Quixote
If you have iTunes check out Breaking Bad. OK, I know I’ve been raving about this show, but I just got done watching the last episode and it’s great.
I’m in the market for a game console. I put a new power supply into my gaming PC and the magic smoke escaped from the power supply, motherboard, two of my DIMMs, the video card and the CPU (It was a Thermaltake power supply, strangely enough. I’ve had good luck with their gear before).
So I’ve had it with screwing around with PCs for gaming (I use a Mac for everything else). I’m tired of having to constantly upgrade my video card, I’m tired of broken video drivers (ATI and NVidia are both bad in this regard). I just want a simple machine that allows me to plug in games and go shoot things.
So I thought I’d ask the Juicer community what they recommend, XBox 360 or PS/3. With the PS/3 you do get the Blu-Ray player, but other than that how do the two consoles compare?
Scott
What’s wrong with canned fruit cocktail?
Laura W Darling
As long as there is Ambrosia, fruit cocktail will have reason to exist.
The only true pear is Bosc.
Tunch is cute from behind.
Thanks for mentioning W on PPV. I was just about to watch TDS/Colbert from Thurs and Maher from last night but that’s a lot of comedy energy for me tonight. I’m feeling more somber. Think I’ll go order me up some Tragedy for the 7:30 showing.
Comrade Stuck
I really do enjoy the sedate life after running wild for so many years. In the old days, this time on Saturday, I would be about recovered from the hangover brought about by Friday night. Several snorts of Jack and Coca Cola, or Wellers and water, and it would be party time all over again. Would wake Sunday morning in some strange bed, and swear to God I wouldn’t do that again. My memory was short in those days.
Chuck Butcher
Since I’m a married construction contractor I be you can figure out why my life has gotten pretty much stay at home…
If credit for home improvement or repair doesn’t free up pretty soon – like yesterday – I’m in very large trouble.
JenJen
Make it a real fruit cocktail… add an ounce of DiSaronno Amaretto, and a half-ounce of Campari. Toss the fruit gently in the liqueurs and enjoy. Mmmmm….
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
I think canned fruit cocktail is the only place most people encounter gooseberries. I remember actually getting fresh gooseberries one summer when I was a kid in Montreal, but they’ve been almost impossible to find since then.
JL
Canned fruit salad should be banished.
wmd
The problem with many canned fruit cocktails is the amount of added sugar, usually in the form of corn syrup. It’s added as a preservative, but it makes for a lot of empty calories.
Eamonn
..plus the fact that all you taste is the syrup.
JL
According to Americablog, there is a rumor that Larry Kudlow is planning on running against Chris Dodd. Ha, Ha, Ha!
Ned R.
Hope Larry does, his skills at economic predictions will make him the most entertaining GOP Senate candidate since Keyes.
Sending good thoughts to Chuck, for sure.
Am chilling before going to the first of my two birthday dinners. Long story.
Dan Munz
WhatEVER — canned fruit cocktail is the best. Take a can, pour it into a bowl, keep it in the freezer for about 10 minutes, and enjoy a good cold treat. Some things stick around for a reason.
JenJen
@Ned R.: Not to mention all that blow Larry Kudlow is rather infamous for consuming, back in the day. The joke used to be that cocaine became so expensive in New York because Kudlow snorted it all.
Not that these things matter so much in politics these days (See: George W. Bush).
Incertus
I’ve got a new project going–don’t know if it’ll interest anyone here, but this is an eclectic group, so I’ll give it a shot. I’ve got a photocopy of an old diary from my great-great grandmother from 1895, and I’m posting a new entry every day. I’ve got 6 entries up now, and they make for quirky reading. I’m going to keep it going until I run out of entries, then leave it up there for posterity.
Ned R.
Hahaha, brilliant. Yes, I want to encourage this. Dodd’s no prince of course so I’ll be entertained.
Ned R.
Incertus, that’s great stuff. :-)
Oracle
I think the word "déclassé" is a snobby NY yuppie thing.
JenJen
@Incertus: Oh. My. Gah. Incertus, I LOVE stuff like this! Thank you thank you thank you thank you!!
Laura W Darling
@Incertus: That is so wonderful to read and visualize. "Bath night…cannot go." Do you tell the story anywhere of how you came into possession of the diary entries and how it was preserved through your family for all those years? I’d find that very interesting as well.
Delia
@Incertus:
Can you give us a little background? Where did your great-great-grandma live at this time and what was she doing? It’s very interesting.
AhabTRuler
@JenJen: I only take one thing away from that article: he smokes Merit UltraLights. The only way it could be any worse is if they were 100’s.
That isn’t smoking, that is breathing tobacco-perfumed air.
The Dangerman
The pear reference reminded me that the Flag of California, the Bear Republic, was a grand mistake. Personally, a flag with fruit on it would have sucked.
Thus ends the Saturday evening History lesson.
JenJen
Re: Factchecking the Playboy piece… it’s damned intriguing. But, as mentioned in the earlier thread by KevOH, just about every city in America is camping out already on a TeaParty.com domain.
And Malkin, et al, prefer to point the minions (the real minions, not us poseurs) to http://www.OfficialChicagoTeaParty.com, registered on February 19, 2009.
Not a debunk, obviously, as it’s rare that anything in politics occurs by accident. And if DICK ARMEY is involved, as the Playboy piece alleges, well, all bets are off.
Jon H
@Wile E. Quixote: "So I’ve had it with screwing around with PCs for gaming (I use a Mac for everything else)."
I use BootCamp on my MacBook to boot into Windows when I want to run a PC game. Works fine.
Brick Oven Bill
The Playboy article makes no sense. GE-NBC-Obama are all on the same team. Obama has bought into this whole wind power thing, which would never work in the free market. GE is a company that stands to make those billions and is run by Immelt, who is one of Obama’s ‘economic advisors’. GE is also the company that owns CNBC.
The idea of GE allowing it’s media unit to sabotage it’s industrial unit, when its political unit has a seat at the table is not likely credible.
In the old days, the left was concerned about the military-industrial complex. The GE-Obama partnership could be defined as fascist, which is a real good system if you are on the inside. The odds of the Tea Party guy being silenced are much higher than the odds of a GE conspiracy against the Obama administration.
Polish the Guillotines
Canned fruit cocktail is the best. Especially the rare but prized grapes and maraschino cherry halves.
JenJen
@AhabTRuler: Fair enough. It was my first-hit google on the subject; just thought Kudlow’s cocaine addiction was one of those Villager common knowledge things, though. Maybe I’ll email Tina Brown! She’ll know!
(Oh, how I used to adore Marlboro Ultra Light 100s. Then again, I’m a girl like that)
JenJen
@Brick Oven Bill: Atrios refers to GE by its more common name: "The Sheinhardt Wig Company."
raholco
@BrickOvenBill: Large conglomerate enterprises (like GE divisions) have to operate at arms length, otherwise there’s big trouble. NBC-Universal needs to address what the Playboy writers appears to have uncovered.
My name is Hanes
Its amazing the lengths you go to to discount plain fact. Americans don’t want to pay for the wreckless mistakes of the greedy and stupid. It’s bad enough when some gangbanger gets himself shot we have to pay his Medicaid bills. If this were a protest against President Bush you wouldn’t go looking for conspiracies. Maybe you just needed cover for looking at the boobies.
p.a.
Better canned fruit cocktail than no fruit at all. Much of what I’ve read lately speaks highly of canned and frozen veggies as probably fresher than the ‘fresh’ from (insert developing country name here) megamart produce. Just stick to the ‘no salt added’ stuff.
Speaking of déclassé, as a proud viewer of Top Chef, does anyone out there remember any of the contestants using veal? Ever? There was an Italian contestant this year, and even he didn’t use any.
Carnacki
John, you should get a wii fit. I got hit by a car about a year ago and put on nearly 20 pounds because I had stopped running due to a leg injury. Since Feb. 10 I’ve lost seven pounds exercising with the wii fit and adding 30 minutes of walking each day. The wii fit is great for exercise because many of the exercises focus on balance and strengthening core muscle groups in a way that reminds me very much of physical therapy. It’s a very comfortable way of exercising.
On an unrelated note, have you followed the infighting among the WV GOP?
Here’s a link from January and a follow up today.
Chuck Butcher
I was just admiring my rather plump medium coat Calico lap decoration, John there is no comparison in girth. Are you sure Tunch isn’t cheating?
This was after a bit of an uproar as Marlin tried to navigate the plant ridden window sill and get past Gus’ post between window next to the easy chair with his big head at eye level. She evinces little fear of an animal whose head is just smaller than she. It drives her nuts if Gus is being talked to and petted and she’s not somehow involved. My wife is not a fan of window sill plants on the floot, more uproar.
Being a good lefty Democrat I try to include all these different agendas at the same time. Anybody want to do something simple like argue the 2nd A?
Emma Anne
Re: the conspiracy theory update.
John, you should be able to tell us whether there are really talking points sent out to all the conservatives, and sub rosa coordination. Or for that matter, what the story is on the progressive side. It seems like the majority of talking points and coordination is thrashed out in the view of us all, but perhaps I am naive.
TR
If BOB doesn’t believe it, then it’s likely true.
raholco
@My Name is Hanes: Geithner’s plan is doing exactly that. And, believe it or now, Greater Wingnuttia does a yeoman’s job of ferreting out Liburl Astroturf camapigns (that it, when they do a decent research job and not look like total tools a la Grahame Frost.)
JenJen
@TR: FTW!
John Cole
@Emma Anne: Ehh- it read like VRWC stuff that I will let others sort out.
@My name is Hanes: It is amazing the length you go to discount what I wrote, which is that I will let others fact check it before I believe any of it. Not sure what is wrong with some of you and your reading comprehension.
And for the record, you selfish twat, I don’t even own a house because I knew better than to get into a market that was this screwed up, so yes, the idea of paying for other people’s mortgages does piss me off. But you know what? The way things are right now, we all go down together.
I am so sick of the WATB who lash out at people who just want to fix the god damned situation, but say nothing about the jackasses who really got into this mess, which is mainly the financiers and lenders and wall street wizards.
AhabTRuler
@JenJen: I’d grant that any Marlboro cigarette is a REAL cigarette, if you catch my meaning, if you get my drift…
[/Firesign]
Anyway, in my smoking days I was a dedicated Camel Lights guy. My stepmother smoke the aforementioned Merit UL’s 100’s, which on a few rare occasions, I did cop and smoke.
But not often, cause they took all the fun out of smoking.
Comrade Stuck
What do you think all those wingnut thinktanks funded by the Koch family is,(though a loose conspiracy at best, for now)? To promote wingnuttery to the masses, the same as Soros, among others, who fund liberal counter TT’s. As for a dark smoky room where Ologarchs meet and plan things like the tea parties, or the Santelli rant, I doubt it’s that’s organized yet. But when some wingnut gets a wild idea about doing such things, they know where the money comes from for an operation, and they request it.
Having said that, I think we are in new territory now for several reasons. The first being the complete, or nearly so, rejection of RW ideas by the voters, and the corresponding loss of governmental power. With no new message that isn’t now deemed obsolete, coupled with a charismatic, smart and competent dem president and large majorities in congress. And one with a clear vision to take the country in a direction they believe is un American and even Marxist, the gloves will start coming off as we’ve already seen . Straight up calls for hoping Obama fails in his first month of office is something I’ve never heard before, from a political party’s leaders, and portends a new pair-a-dine.
More organized conspiracies, I think, will start to occur from a group of people who have nothing left but to bank on failure of the new government. It’s going to get worse, before it gets better because a lot is at stake, and tea parties may seem like a tea party down the road a piece.
**jaysus, I sound like one of The Lone Gunmen" pining for Mulder and Scully to hurry the fuck up.
Brick Oven Bill
GE Windmills
GE Smart Grid
There are a set of TV ads that are lying about renewable electricity, saying that we can go 100% renewable in ten years. This is not possible because the sun goes down, the wind stops, and energy storage technology for wiggling electrons is just not there.
Renewable sources might be able to provide 20% of the power needs of our electrical grid at a very high price. The established answer is nuclear power. Someday, perhaps we will learn about why this safe technology was withheld at this point in history.
The only thing a smart grid provides is the ability for the government to monitor (and tax) the manner in which we use electricity within our homes. Why would we want to pay to grant them that power of surveillance? Hello?
GE is not orchestrating a conspiracy against Obama. Immelt is the President’s ‘economic advisor’.
Litlebritdifrnt
@p.a.:
That is because veal is evil, the very thought of hanging a calf by its leg, slitting its throat, and allowing it to bleed to death is inhumane, I mean really, not only do we kill these animals for food but we have to torture them too? Veal is evil. Veal should be banned. Period.
MikeJ
Which ones does he fund?
Chuck Butcher
@AhabTRuler:
I guess if you see a reason for a cigarette with a tampon, for me, Camel straights – period. I haven’t liked paying the increases but all they have to do to get me to quit is stop making my Camels. During my days as a drunk there was stuff I would not drink – Bud – and I won’t smoke those other weeds.
Good program on Sirius BB King’s Bluesville – Shemekia Copeland (Johnie’s daughter) promo-ing her new album, some good stuff, interesting lady.
John Cole
If Brick Oven Bill could tie the GE-Obama fascist conspiracy into a female brawl during a lounge act at a chinese restaurant in which people were discussing the concept of “white” during the Spanish colonial period, and how that relates to the current Pizza Price index, this thread is a winner.
KevOH
@Wile E. Quixote: Strangely enough I’ve had much better luck with Macs running Windows (via bootcamp) or the Windows API (via Crossover) than regular PCs. Apple has less hardware variation and hence the drivers tend to be more stable.
PS3 is overpriced for a gaming console given the paucity of unique titles, if you want a cheap bluray that can also play games the PS3 is the way to go. If you want a gaming console the XBOX360 is better. XBOXLive is a wonderful service, and offers a ton of arcade and downloadable xbox original titles. Also XBOXLive now has an agreement with Netflix.
JL
@John Cole: LOL You have to include that comment in next years award ceremonies.
Comrade Stuck
@MikeJ:
Here
jl
I’m not sage, clever, or in-the-loop enough to fact check obscure plottings that might have ended up with Santelli spouting on TV ’cause one of his nabob buddies told him to. But, for what it is worth, Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture blog thinks there might be something to it. See blog excerpt below.
I agree with Ritholtz. Santelli’s tantrum was nonsense. The trading floor might well have been deserted months ago, except for the (failed, corrupt, and bogus) financial bailout, which seems to have been too small a thing to stoke Santelli’s outrage.
History will judge what proportion of our elite leaders over the last ten years have been corrupt, parasitic, talentless, crooked nincompoops. But the history of the future starts now, and I want to contribute to the cause. People like Santelli and Kudlow surely belong in that pantheon.
Concerning another commenter’s observation, the picture of the Cole Cat had me stumped for a second too. Tunch does look like a pear. Probably the angle and lighting, since we are being assured that its owner has set it on a path to vim and vigor through a healthful slimming diet and vigorous exercise, which apparently consists of attacking its owner when things get slow.
You know, Cole could be part of the conspiracy against Hopebama too. He owns a Fat Cat, and just might be sending signals to the teabaggers via blog posts about Tunch’s weight. Poor Tunch, to be caught up in such deviltry. Not that I am really asserting any thing, just want to get it out there. It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
—
Rick Santelli’s Planted Rant ?
By Barry Ritholtz – February 28th, 2009, 5:47PM
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/02/rick-santellis-faux-rant/
“I was interviewed by several journalists last week about Rick Santelli’s Rant — my exact quote was it had a “Faux” feel to it. (I haven’t seen it in print yet)
What was so odd about this was that Santelli is usually on the ball; we usually agree more often than we disagree. He’s been repsosible for some of the best moments on Squawk Box.
But his rant somehow felt wrong. After we’ve pissed through over $7 trillion dollars in Federal bailouts to banks, brokers, automakers, insurers, etc., this was a pittance, the least offensive of all the vast sums of wasted money spent on “losers” to use Santelli’s phrase. It seemed like a whole lot of noise over “just” $75 billion, or 1% of the rest of the total ne’er-do-well bailout monies.
It turns out that there may be more to the story then originally met the eye, according to (yes, really) Playboy magazine.”
Martin
One again, Bill, please explain how the wiring in your house sends any information back to the meter on what each device is. You’ve confused remote monitoring of the amount that you use at your home (which we’ve granted to the power company for 100 years now) with some kind of surveillance of your daily habits.
Brick Oven Bill
Baby steps John. Baby steps. It has been a long week.
One logical use of the ‘smart grid’ would be to restrict electricity use when the wind isn’t blowing. One example would be a master switch to secure all electricity flow to ovens when the wind isn’t blowing. I have prepared for this scenario, but most of my fellow Citizens have not.
Why are we paying to do this to ourselves?
robertdsc
I love my PS3. So far it’s worked fine on both gaming and Blu-Ray and the ability to switch on the fly from HDMI to composite video is a huge plus for my video game recording habits.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Chuck Butcher:
My boss smokes camel unfiltered, he claims (I have never looked it up so I do not know) that noone ever got sick from smoking until they introduced the filter, he claims that it is FILTERS that give people lung cancer, and not the smoke itself. Too lazy to go research that.
Martin
Actually, Apple provides all the drivers for their hardware in Boot Camp. That they need to provide so few probably attests quite a bit to their stability as you suggest.
The Mac has become the easiest to manage Windows PC I’ve ever dealt with. There’s something really nice about being able to use standard Windows install discs rather than the prebundled restore discs that most mfgrs provide (with all the extraneous crap that they force on you) just to get some wiggly driver that is critical to running the machine.
Martin
I am intrigued to hear of the many scenarios you have prepared for. I sense most here are far behind the curve.
South of I-10
@Incertus: That is really cool. I would love to know the back story. I just typed out this really long story about my great grandparents and the depression that I think you would find interesting, but I am on my phone and I lost it. Another time.
jl
Also, to commenter who said GE would not approve of media coup plotting against Obama because of what it manufacturing arm would gain from alternative energy subsidies, I don’t believe that.
Most of GE is now a financial services firm, and is about in the same shape as BoA and Citi. Making real things was long ago abandoned as a serious base for the corporation’s prosperity -making things for the real economy is so 20th century. I think it is in the process of selling off of even more of its manufacturing lines in order to save itself. Manufacturing is a mere appendage to the financial services lines.
GE’s fate depends upon the feds continuing the Bush II era crony capitalist policies of crony capitalist subsidies to a corrupt, incompetent and malfunctioning financial industry.
The banks, and GE’s financial services arm, do not need a stress test, they need an audit, and if they are insolvent, then they need to go into some kind of bankruptcy proceeding, or taken over by the FDIC, or special custom gummint arrangement (aka nationalization) if too big and complex for usual procedures.
Skepticat
Polish the Guillotines, you do know that there’s a fruit cocktail called "Very Cherry" that’s the same stuff but with more cherries? I make black cherry jello, mix fruit cocktail in as it’s setting, store it in very small plastic containers, and use it as travel snacks.
John, Tunch’s coat looks very sleek. Does furmination get the credit?
Comrade Stuck
@MikeJ:
This one too. Most well known.
AnotherBruce
I’m never quite sure exactly what the hell Brick Oven Bill is talking about. His obscure little diatribes have the quality of a koan. He has mastered the art of saying things that appear to have substance, but the closer you look the more you realize that there is nothing there.
Comrade Stuck
Keep the cow close to the stove just in case.
kommrade reproductive vigor
The pear shaped cat goes well with a discussion of pears.
Damn. I was about to go have a smoke. Now … not so much.
Brick Oven Bill
Martin; It is easy. Each house has a fuse box. One fuse goes to the oven, another to the living room, one to the refrigerator, etc, etc.
Telemetry could be established that sends the current flows through the various fuses back to the electric company, or its government minder, which would then monitor your pattern of power usage. By the fuses and energy flows through them, the government could tell the difference between a oven, or a lightbulb, or a refrigerator, or a…
CLOSET GROW LIGHT.
This same circuitry could be used to receive a signal from the electric company, or its government minder, to block electric flows for certain uses, say heating units in a low wind condition. We will have a lot of low wind conditions if we try to power more than 15% of the electric grid with GE windmills.
These smart grid boards could be easily made to send a signal back to the electric company, or its government minder, if it was tampered with.
This is when, in my scenario, one of Obama’s Universal Volunteers with a Uniform and a Patch, would stop by to make sure everything was OK. And to make sure there were not inappropriate reading materials, unlicensed firearms, or things like that, lying around.
This is why I do not like the idea of being taxed so that I can have the privilege of having a smart grid box.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Litlebritdifrnt: My now dead from lung cancer maternal grandfather smoked unfiltered Camels.
tofubo
came accross this
Tako-Tsubo syndrome is a dreadful illness (albeit quite rare) that appears under circumstances of exceptional and extreme stress, at times associated with anger. If this is happening to you, you should try to calm yourself down, if at all possible (although most patients recover completely if supported adequately in a hospital).
explains the nutters rightly enough
from wiki:
Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as transient apical ballooning
if that’s not what we do
Annie
After a glass of wine, and some fruit cocktail, I think I saw Tunch move…..
Ninerdave
R.I.P. Paul Harvey. Couldn’t stand a lot of the words that came out of his mouth, but loved his delivery and "The Rest of the Story"
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Yes …
Yes!
OH! GOD! YES!
I think I need a cigarette.
Polish the Guillotines
@Skepticat:
I find this simultaneously cool and yet disappointing. It’s kind of like having an all-Crunchberry cereal. Sort of diminishes the "specialness."
I either need to get a life, or a martini.
Martini it is.
Laura W Darling
@AnotherBruce: Yes, that is an intermediary stage in BOB Comprehension. If you persist long enough with your meditations, and press on past the bewildering obfuscation and seeming meaninglessness, I have found that you can reach a much deeper level of contemplative samadhi, wherein everything is truly there, and each of his deliberately-chosen words will unfold in your third eye as if it were a thousand-petaled lotus.
Plus, he’s really fucking funny if you let go of the attachment to understanding him, making sense of him, or arguing with him.
As my beloved, longtime, spiritual mentor would advise:
"Don’t pathologize The Mystery."
Chuck Butcher
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Oh jeeze the bs people will say, cigarette don’t "give" you cancer, they are a trigger for a genetic disposition. If they gave you cancer everybody that smoked would have it. Your chances of getting that kind of lung cancer w/o smoking is really small, same as with asbestos.
Most cigarettes handed out in WWII were non-filter, lung cancer began to spike as a direct result of the increased use by soldiers. It’s bad for your lungs on a lot levels and to pretend it’s not is just silly. I’m shorter winded than when I was young even though my life style clears my lungs a lot faster than others. Cancer is a genetic dice roll, in this regard.
I eat a pretty balanced diet, but I eat a lot of stuff that isn’t supposed to be good for me. I don’t give a rat’s ass, I’d rather enjoy a shorter life than put up with a long one. As for the BS about being really sick and not being able to do anything about it – I certainly can, quite terminally.
That’s why I’ll quit if they stop making Camel straights, I won’t support a habit (addiction) that I no longer enjoy. The only thing I’ll say about non-filters in this respect is that you simply cannot smoke as much of the cigarette without that fiber handle tampon thingie.
Christ, I’m a construction worker. Chances are that what gets me will be nasty, worker comp rates make that pretty clear (27% of wage vs 5-7% for retail/office). The weather beats the snot out of my cardio-vascular system and I just don’t care. Just for god’s sake pay me something to do quality work and not treat me like a trained chimp or an immaterial bag of guts.
Laura W Darling
@The Grand Panjandrum:
My now dead from horrible emphysema maternal grandfather smoked unfiltered Camels and after decades of listening to him hack up his lungs every day in the bathroom, and watching him drag his oxygen tank to the kitchen table to puff on another, and die one of the most painful deaths imaginable…Lilbit…your boss is blowing smoke out of his trachea hole.
Brick Oven Bill
"PreSTAT also offers a fully customizable feature range, which delivers system operators a choice in software from basic, local pre-alarm status indicators to fully automatic, remote central PC-monitoring telemetry packages."
I have previously made reference to a glorious experience with residential sewage, where I have serviced and monitored these residential meters. This is similar to a smart meter in that they can transmit current flows and alarm conditions from a residence to a central facility. Reading the link, I now know that this manufacturer is a spin-off of General Electric.
Ninerdave
@Chuck Butcher:
As a smoker that’s been trying (more or less) to quit for 2 years. It’s the emphysema that scares the piss out of me. Cancer at least knocks you out quickly. Lung disease erodes your life slowly.
Ninerdave
+1 here. Your boss is an idiot or in deep denial.
Zuzu's Petals
I notice the writer gave a shout-out to the Rogue Creamery.
I gave my Portland-based son and his wife a RC cheese club subscription for Christmas (I know, how Mom-like is that?), and was there for the first sampling. I can tell you their stuff is outrageous.
Svensker
Canned fruit cocktail, blech. But canned fruit cocktail cake (big in the 50s and 60s? Yum-o-rama.
Bartlett pears are good, but comice are the pinnacle of pear exquisiteness, so soft, so yielding yet so firm, so full of sweet juice, ah.
Montysano
I just came up for air after sitting down and tearing through Cormac McCarthy’s "The Road". After that, a global econmic meltdown doesn’t seem like so much. A very dark novel, but the language is just beautiful.
In other news: I made 55 years old today. And I’m still gimping around from a hike I did last Sunday. Now that is depressing.
Laura W Darling
@Ninerdave: See #76 and lemme know if you want some personal support. My dad died of lung cancer…3 months from diagnosis to death.
Took my grandfather decades to die of emphysema. I watched it all.
Not how you want to go, Dave.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Laura W Darling:
Well yeah I know he is full of shit, and justifying his behaviour, just like I am.
booch
Canned fruit cocktail makes me gag.
Death to canned fruit cocktail!
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
Fruit cocktail is Republican.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
@Ninerdave:
Dave, I think you and I talked about this once. For one thing, you left heart disease off your list. Would you like an x-ray of my stents?
Stop smoking, man. If I can do it, anybody can do it. Seriously, my body craves tobacco the way a dog craves a leg bone. I haven’t smoked for almost 4 years.
Hang in there and don’t give up. If you fail, try again.
I watched a neighbor die of emphysema not long ago. He was still smoking on the day he died. His death lasted about ten years. You don’t want that.
Ninerdave
@Laura W Darling:
Oh I know Laura. It’s funny (in a sadistic sort of way) I worry about my health hourly. Yet, I continue to smoke. Thank you for your offer, I might just take you up on it.
Chuck Butcher
I like fruit cocktail, the little plastic cups work really well in my lunch box. They do as long as I have a spoon, most of my tools make lousy spoons – experience speaking.
I think Tunch is a pretty cat, but that sucker is fat, like really fat, like nothing to do with big boned or lots a fur fat. The vet said Marlin was fat so a diet. Made the cat miserable and annoyed the hell out of me, so I just let her have what she’ll eat. She’s gotten no fatter so evidently plump is what works for her – and the lack of constant begging works for me. She’s over 12 so why torment her if she’s not ballooning?
Here’s a question for you cat people, why the hell do they like me? I don’t care about cats, Marlin is a bit different and time has increased my regard, but people whose cats will have nothing to do with strangers love me. I don’t smell like a cat, I have a 150 # dog, guess what odors I have on me. I make no effort to get friendly with cats – I don’t care enough to but I will be forced into it because they just love me. I can’t be in a house with a cat for more than a few minutes and it will be all over me. Suppose it’s the Camels?
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
@Ninerdave:
Paul Harvey. Same here, I hated the content, but loved the delivery. What a talent.
An original political lunatic, rightwing nutcase, but there will never be another radio voice like his.
Ninerdave
@TheOfficialHatOnMyCat:
Yup we did. I don’t need to look at your stents, I can look at my Dad’s and he quit 30 years ago.
I have been working on it, although as Polish the Guillotines can tell you since we’re co-workers. I’m more on than off.
Funny thing is, I can make it through a few days, a week, it’s not the nicotine, it’s the mental gymnastics that I go through that trips me up.
bago
360 has LIVE, Netflix, more exclusive and all of the cross-platform titles. FFXIII is even going to make it to the 360 in the US.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
@Chuck Butcher: Cats know when you are just a pussycat at heart.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
OMFG, your moderation filter traps "pu55ycat?"
Where did you get this thing, at a yard sale?
Ninerdave
@TheOfficialHatOnMyCat:
Nope. Sad day for radio geeks (which I proudly call myself one). Trying to guess who the rest of the story was about was always a fun.
I heard the news at the top of the hour today on KGO, our local ABC affiliate. Gil Gross mentioned that Paul Harvey eventually turned against the Vietnam war, saying that with all the lives and gold lost, we could only fight to a standstill. Gil mentioned that will Paul turned against the war and started speaking out against it, public opinion started to turn. I have no idea if that is true, but I found it interesting and a completely different side from the Paul Harvey I grew up with.
Ninerdave
@bago:
Best video game series…evah! I still play FFVII
Laura W Darling
@Ninerdave: Yeah well, we wouldn’t be human if we weren’t all self-destructive in one way or twelve.
As TZ said, just keep trying. Every hour/day you don’t smoke counts, and gets you closer to total freedom. Who knows how many times I "quit" before I finally let go 21 years ago. And I started at 13. But I hated the habit even as I engaged in it. Never missed it since. I was lucky.
I know for most it’s the hardest thing they can ever do. Michael D. should come around and give you some support. I trust he’s still "clean"? Recall how he struggled in his first few weeks here in front of the readership?
Press on. It will get easier, as trite and magical-thinking as that sounds now.
gnomedad
@Brick Oven Bill:
Your electric toothbrush reports that you need to cut back on the nightcaps.
Conservatively Liberal
About 25 years ago I got stoned out of my gourd and ate all of the marshmallows in a giant box of Lucky Charms. Haven’t touched them since.
I am a longtime menthol smoker, preferring Kool or Marlboro kings. I was a steady 1+ pack of smokes a day kind until just over a month ago. I figured that if I am paying for S-CHIP then I am paying the bare minimum. I have limited myself to a half a pack a day and it has been pretty easy since my weed is tax free. ;)
Since my sleep is broken up from pain and I rarely sleep more than two hours at a time, I broke it up into five cigarettes every twelve hours, at any time I wish and no more than five. Now I don’t leave cigarettes in ashtrays burning away and I smoke no more than a third of a cigarette at a time. So far it has been a breeze, much easier than I thought it would be.
When I started smoking, it cost me less than $20.00 a month ($240 a year) for smokes. Now it is over two thousand dollars a year, but my cutting back will make it just under $1,000 a year. I can live with that…lol
Laura W Darling
@Chuck Butcher:
Your apathy is an aphrodisiac. Cats will not tolerate being ignored. They are the ignorers.
It’s a power thing.
stickler
Re: cigarettes and filters (tampons? Yee-ikes).
What really happened with the introduction of filtered cigarettes was simple: smokers needed to suck harder on the cigs to get the nicotine into their lungs. So the smoke went deeper. So when the cancers were diagnosed, they’d had longer to metasticize undiagnosed.
So, ironically, lung cancer death rates per diagnosis started to go up (in the 1970s, I think).
When people mostly smoked unfiltered cigs, the cancerous anomalies showed up closer to the mouth, where they were more likely to be noticed early, and potentially more successfully treated. Not a lot more, but some. Then the cigarette industry gave us a "healthier" cigarette (and if you doubt me, look at some of the early "low tar" or "filtered" print and TV ads — they’re pretty bold in their claims), and people gravitated to it. And drew deeper breaths to get the nicotine kick. Mmmm, sweet nicotine.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
@Ninerdave: So, a radio junkie like me?
I did several years of radio, I can’t give you the details here for anonymity reasons, but I had some interesting times. As a kid I wallpapered the house with SWL QSL cards (if you know what those are, then … you know what those are). And I loved to play the skip at sunset, I got AM stations as far from AZ as the clear channels back along the Mississippi River once in a while.
Of course, KFBK and KSFO were easy from here. I stalked the Bay Area stations regularly. Ross Hodges and Lon Simmons ring a bell? Heh.
Montysano
@Ninerdave:
FWIW, I’m currently trying the e-cigarette. You inhale water vapor w/a bit of glycol, and of course nicotine. So far…….. eh, it’s not smoking, but it does deal very well with the nicotine addiction aspect.
Tattoosydney
@Brick Oven Bill:
I wasn’t worried when they were monitoring my oven, but if they’re monitoring poo as well, that’s terrifying.
Church Lady
My father is in the process of dying from lung cancer. Depending on the results of the chemo he started last week, he has between six months and a year. After being with him last week, I put it closer to six months. Never smoked a cigarette in his life. Never smoked anything. Just shitty luck and, apparently, an unsuspected genetic marker for it.
While I do believe that certain behaviors certainly can contribute to the chances of developing cancer, I think the roll of the genetic dice has a whole lot more to do with it. Like someone above said, if it was simply smoking, all smokers would develop lung cancer, which they don’t.
Martin
Or Jesus could just tell them what light is turned on…
"Telemetry could be established". Yeah, no shit, that’s easy. But nobody is doing that and nobody is proposing that so that’s just totally made up. The meter sits between the street service and the fuse box. It measures overall usage from the home. It can’t tell the difference between my 230V table saw and my garage door opener. And every home has so many items drawing current at any given time – refrigerator, TV on standby, alarm system, air conditioner, TiVo, etc. that it’d be virtually impossible to discern from total power draw what was being used and what wasn’t.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
@Brick Oven Bill:
Bill, you have discovered the Shit-O-Meter(tm).
Good work.
Keep up your quest for the truth!
ChrisB
@Incertus: When you published Mrs. Webster’s diary, did you have any concern that it should have been kept private? I know she’s been dead for decades but do diaries become fair game when the diarist passes away. Don’t mean to be critical, just wondering how it works.
cyntax
@Brick Oven Bill:
Well, never say never:
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse: And thanks to you, I need another keyboard.
Ninerdave
Ah yeah! Lon Simmons, of course. Amazing. Luckly the Giants have the best radio crew in the business. Even when they suck, the broadcasts are still worth listening too. I could listen to John Miller read a shampoo bottle and be entertained.
KSFO…I loved Gene Nelson.
KFBK…Rush Limbaugh’s launching point!
KGO…the inventor of the talk radio format, and the only talk radio worth listening too.
When I lived in AZ, I used to wait for the skip so I could listen to Bernie Ward at night.
I also did a couple years in radio myself.
Ninerdave
@Montysano:
Never heard of it…
Brick Oven Bill
I will explain the Environment One system to you Martin. A good and reliable system, by the way.
There is an electric current that powers a small motor which grinds sewage with the equivalent of a garbage disposal, and sends it down small diameter sewage pipes at pressure. These are often used in water front communities where the ground is flat, and gravity flow is impracticable.
The primary source of resistance to the motor is friction (friction friction!) between the metal rotor and the polymer stator which creates a progressing cavity, which pushes the ground sewage into the small diameter pipes.
You can tell when the polymer stator is getting worn out because as it wears, the tolerances grow, and there is less friction. This reduces the current required by the motor, which might sound nice. But eventually the amount of force generated by the motor is not large enough to push the sewage into the pressurized sewer mains, and toilets stop flushing.
There is a current, at which this polymer stator is to be replaced, which IIRC is 3.5 amps. The current for this motor is one parameter that can be easily tracked by a centralized facility for routine maintenance purposes. All electric use can be tracked by a central facility. Smart meters are about control. What other use do you think they serve?
fdc
John, what game can be more fun hunting than peak wignut?
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
The same purpose that reading your posts serves: Tracking your crap.
I like to think of it as a scatology.
Brick Oven Bill
Martin, the ‘noise’ you describe of the many different electrical uses at once is exactly what the smart meter will be able to decode.
A refrigerator is a moderate cyclic load.
An oven range is a given load, based on size of the heating element, that come on around mealtimes. This load cycles (oven) or is continuous (rangetop).
Lights are 50, 60, 75, or 100 Watts each, and can be tracked. Do you really need a 100 Watt bulb in your living room?
A CLOSET GROWING LAMP is a large continuous load located outside the kitchen or utility circuitry.
All of a home’s usage patterns can be reasonable modeled with 30 or so separate circuits and some simple software. GE knows how to do this, they build nuclear submarines.
Most appliances could be assigned individual electronic signatures. It could perhaps even be used to know if TheHatOnMyCat was official, or unofficial, with the touch of a display screen.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@TheOfficialHatOnMyCat: You can always tell BOB’s because it’s extra nutty.
Anoniminous
Fruit cocktail, Larry Kudlow, lung cancer, nicotine addiction, getting stoned and eating all the Lucky Charm’s © marshmallows, cyber-support for withdrawal systems, paranoid ravings about sewer control meters monitoring electric stoves …
This is one weird-assed thread.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
The Warren Terra will be won when we can monitor exactly all activities involving electric can openers.
Now, can we ascertain whether those tomatoes were diced, or crushed?
Haha! Gotcha, Bill.
Back to the drawing board for you.
Polish the Guillotines
@Ninerdave:
And I’ll keep rootin’ for you no matter how many times.
Chuck Butcher
So I’m clear about cats, I do not dislike cats, they’re just not something I would deliberately have as a pet. I have speculated that indifference is actually the trigger. (HT to our Darling) There is a long story involving the acquisition of Marlin involving an elk hunt, a K5, tall mountains, and a 45-70 Marlin lever action that clearly demonstrates she was not a deliberate course of action.
Marlin pretty much likes anybody that comes around, but over the last year (of 12) she has become quite possessive of me (irritating wife) and demanding (lap). Along with this is the complete determination that if Gus is involved in any attention that she will be a part of it.
I believe that if something went after the cat Gus would eat it, but he maintains a pose of total indifference to the cat, I suppose it is if he ignores her existance she doesn’t exist.
I can remember living in central Ohio as a kid and hoping for the skip that would bring in (IIRC) Cousin Brucie on WABC and I could hear rock n roll that wasn’t 1950s but was modern mid60s and reports about the nut preacher burning 45s. Living in Napa and Marin Cos in later 70s KFAT out of Gilroy – I like garlic. An interesting time to be in the N Bay. Ran/rode with scooter trash, in some ways that’s like the Chinese curse about having an interesting life. The Angels presented certain social dilemas, there is a very fine line with those folks between not taking any shit and getting killed. Getting killed is on both sides of not taking shit.
I’m still alive but a reasonable person would certainly shake their head. Trying to stuff 100 years into 20 years, well…
Comrade Stuck
Well, of course they do BoB. Or else we’d be making toast with a blender. jeesh.
Anoniminous
Chuck Butcher — it’s body language.
Humans avoid eye contact when they don’t want to socially engage. To cats that’s an invitation to socially engage.
The next time, try getting and maintaining eye contact. To cats that is a "stay away" message, usually works.
Polish the Guillotines
Would anyone like any toast?
Incertus
Thanks to everyone who showed interest in my little project. I’ll try to answer some of the questions you all raised, but I have to warn you, I don’t really know much of the story myself. This is a diary that predates my great-great-grandmother’s marriage–the George R. who’s been mentioned so far winds up becoming her husband, I believe (I haven’t read the whole diary myself either). I don’t know where she was living or what her circumstances were, though it’s plain it was somewhere that got cold in the winter and that she was working in a childrens’ home or orphanage or something similar.
I got a photocopy of the diary from my sister about 8 years ago and it’s sat in a file cabinet all this time until I saw someone doing something similar on Twitter (I didn’t see the feed–only a story about it) and thought this would be the kind of thing that would actually force me to transcribe the diary.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Anoniminous: You’re new here, aren’t you?
Wile E. Quixote
@Brick Oven Bill
Yeah, I’d love to see the government parse through all of that information. As it is the government already looks at power consumption to find people who are running grow operations and they don’t need any fancy telemetry to do so. If they suspect something they just look at your power consumption relative to your neighbors and over a period of time. If it jumps suddenly then they go check you out with a thermal viewer. So I’m not too worried about this, and I don’t know why you are either. Aren’t you burning oil shale in your backyard brick oven to generate electricity for your CLOSET GROW LIGHT?
Back to sanity and the gaming console question. I run VMware Fusion and BootCamp on both Macs and BootCamp works pretty well for games. But I’m tired of the fact that PC game developers keep bloating their games out. Both of my stepbrothers do game development, one for the PS/2 and PS/3 and the other for the XBOX/360 and they’re both of the opinion that console games are tighter in their code because the resources for a console are defined at manufacture. You’ve got X amount of video RAM and Y amount of CPU and you had better be able to make your game work well within those constraints because otherwise it won’t sell. With PC games the developers just go out and say "Well, you need to get a video card with 1Gb RAM and a faster CPU otherwise our game will run like crap.
On my gaming PC, the one that the magic smoke escaped from, every time I tried to play World In Conflict at 1600×1200 it whined and cried and told me that I didn’t have enough system resources. This was on a dual core 3.6 Ghz Pentium D CPU with 8Gb of RAM and an ATI Radeon 1950 video card with 512Mb of RAM (16 times as much RAM on the video card as on the first UNIX system I ever administered which supported 300 users at a university research laboratory).
Will the XBOX/360 play XBOX games? My understanding is that the PS/3 is not backwards compatible with the PS/2.
Brick Oven Bill
Pavlov started his research in the 1890s. The first English translation of his work was in 1927.
Today, there is some guy in Sydney (thanks for the pre-Disney Wiggles, by the way), who might read this, in like, a second. I will now fully disclose that I have had a couple of cocktails and am going to turn on my toaster oven and broil a piece of cheese bread before going to sleep.
And if ideas did not rule, the bears would have won long ago. I had a bear chase me out of a campground once in the middle of the night. They are scary when you can’t see.
KevOH
@Wile E. Quixote:
Yes, the Xbox360 will play most/some Xbox games there is a compatibility list out there. Microsoft is actively expanding the list through system updates. Some Xbox games are available for download over XboxLive for $10-15.
Comrade Stuck
@Polish the Guillotines:
LOL, "First Degree Toastercide"; I think you discovered where BoB gets his inspiration.
Wile E. Quixote
@Comrade Stuck
That picture of Tunch reminds me of this B. Kliban cartoon. There’s another one where he defines a cat as "Cat: One hell of a nice animal frequently mistaken for a meatloaf."
Wile E. Quixote
Kliban didn’t just do cat cartoons, although those were hilarious. He also did some very funny, and very sick, cartoons for Playboy such as this one.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
And 119 years later, you report it here.
Good job, Bob! I see a Pullet Surprise for you.
Steeplejack
@Brick Oven Bill:
"Paging Dr. Evil . . . Dr. Evil to the white courtesy phone . . ."
BethanyAnne
I don’t know why this dub thingie of Paul Harvey amuses me so much. Probably because I’m simply a bad person *grin*
Comrade Stuck
@Wile E. Quixote:
I think Cole knew that photo of Tunch looked like a Bartlett pear, hence the reference in the post. Prolly running a perfessor experiment on us minions.
BethanyAnne
Oh, and PS3 v. XB360: I’ve had both. I don’t really know tons about the game availability, what I do know is about the noise. The Xbox was seriously loud. Like, do I want to put up with that noise to play loud. I can be a bit sensitive to environmental noise, but, jeez, I thought it was broken and returned the first one for it.
Even with that, if I had to buy just one, I’d prolly get an xbox again. For me, it’s the controller. My hands are large, and the PS3 controller just doesn’t fit me as well.
I know that games are getting more system agnostic, but there are still exclusives. Halo, of course, for xbox, and I think Ratchet and Clank for PS3. Whatever system you get, if you haven’t played Portal, spend the $15 at eBay, and getcha a copy of The Orange Box for it. It’s fantabulous.
HTH,
B
Steeplejack
@Chuck Butcher:
Dude, they sense your aura.
I get the same thing from cats and dogs. I get on the elevator in my building, some person with a dog on a leash is reassuring me, "Brutus is really not as mean as he looks," and before they’ve finished the sentence Brutus is fawning on me, giving me lickies and curling around my legs the better to get petted. And the owner is pissed because I’m getting more Brutus action than they’ve seen in months. LOL.
Steeplejack
@Laura W Darling:
True dat.
BethanyAnne
Oh, and Chuck, about cats. I’ve noticed that most of my allergic friends are cat magnets. My personal theory, for whatever it’s worth, is that it’s dominance behaviour. I think allergic folk try to ignore cats, and cats interpret that as "safe", so they come right over.
Chuck Butcher
I’m pretty sure it is the indifference thing, with Marlin I don’t know what’s going on, change in ways at 12+ is odd. Senility?
My first dog, when I was 4yr was a 70# and all my life I’ve had big ones, the last 3 in order 135, 140, 150 so I’m not intimidated by dogs. The only time I’ve been bitten was by a rat dog. I’m not stupid about dogs, either.
(rat dog 30#, real dog>70#, BIG DOG >125#, freaking moose >/=150#)
Gus = BIG DOG or freaking moose depending on my mood and what he’s getting up to at the moment. For ex. laid up in the corner he’s a BIG DOG, other activities can quickly evolve into freaking moose, hell he outweighs me by 5#.
Chuck Butcher
Steeplejack,
If Gus doesn’t like you, you’re screwing up somehow and I need to really pay attention. But jeeze, if you’ll screw up with Gus present there is something seriously wrong with your wiring.
No BoB, no meters involved.
Chuck Butcher
The smartest box of rocks I ever had was a bull mastiff at 140. The dog was actually smart but you’d have as much luck teaching a box of rocks. I think he was Republican.
Tattoosydney
@Brick Oven Bill:
Sheer genius. Bob, you are a master of the multiple non sequitur.
AnneLaurie
Happy belated birthday, Montysanto. If it helps your mood any, I’m ‘only’ 53, and just spending an hour walking around the local BJ’s Warehouse gave me a backache. (As the joke goes, I’m in shape if you accept ’round’ as a shape… )
But at least the Spousal Unit got the wire shelving units he wanted. And the new pet beds were soooo wonderful that Zevon, the Excitable Boy, not only grabbed his & immediately started humping it, he’s already torn open one corner & spread polyester stuffing all over the living room. Apparently Microban is a canine aphrodisiac, because our other Papillon boy (who was neutered early, unlike Zeev) just sniffs the bed & looks confused.
JenJen
@JL: Late to the party, but seconded!
JenJen
@South of I-10: Hopefully, you’ll share that with the class when you can.
My dear, departed grandmother talked often about the Depression, probably because, as kids, we were going through the ugly 1982 recession and were feeling the pain. I’ll never forget her telling us about the pure joy of receiving an orange, a simple orange, as her Christmas present, and how thrilled she was. Turns out this was a common story, and its plainness makes us forget what that must have felt like.
Honest to gawd, hokey as it sounds, I think about her every time I eat a delicious, wonderful, exotic, juicy, perfect orange. Every single time, I toast to her.
We have a lot to learn from our grandparents, especially those who lived through the Great Depression. I hope these stories are not lost. Would really love to hear your family’s story, South of I-10.
ilsita
@p.a.:
Hi p.a., I love Top Chef, but watch TV like an idiot (I can never remember when the shows I like are on). I’ve missed about half of them, but I don’t remember seeing any veal on the show. You should check in with endlesssimmer.com — it’s the best food blog, and they’re obsessed with TC, even liveblog every episode. They list the ingredients the chefs use. If anyone would know, they would.
Regarding fruit cocktail: It’s fantastic if you mix it with some hamburger and a can cream of mushroom soup, and bake it… I mean marshmallows and celery jell-o, and put it in the fridge, and top it with miracle whip, or cool whip, or something… Anyway, get some little parfait cups, and layer it with some radishes and stick a cocktail weenie on top. It’s golden!
Hedley Lamarr
Canned fruit cocktail is loaded with sweetener. Back in the days it was sugar. Now it’s that HFCS, which keeps Iowa in business, as well as doctors who treat diabetes.
Make your own fruit cocktail with grapefruit, apples, oranges, grapes, bananas, etc. It’s good in the winter when you cannot get fresh local fruits.
bago
@BethanyAnne: So most of the noise is the 12X DVD drive. If you download the NXE you can install a game to your HD, and dismiss your drive based frets.
LarryB
Maraschino cherries.