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Another Open Thread

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Wanna make a couple hundred million dollars? Make a garbage disposal with blades that will not destroy soup spoons that slip into the hole with all the guile of a female night elf rogue.

Nothing like finishing off a dish-washing session with a grinding metal sound and a mangled spoon shot out of the disposal.

God damnit.

Reader Interactions

74Comments

  2. 2.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    That reminds me of one of the cool things you can do with a kid. You act like yer cleaning the garbage disposal out and ask them to flip the switch. Then you let out a blood-curdling scream and gyrate your whole body wildly. Fill the garbage disposal with ketchup beforehand for even more lulz.

    And 9 or 10 is the perfect age for these hijinks.

  4. 4.

    jl

    Are there consultants who can help out with making a place “kids safe”?

    Heck, forget about kids, they can take care of themselves pretty well, comparatively. Any consultants who could help out making Cole’s place “Cole safe”?

  6. 6.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    Just saw your post below. I’ve worked with a lot of foster parents, and they are awesome people. Now that the dogs & cats have trained you, I say go for it.

  8. 8.

    FlipYrWhig

    Also, a blender that doesn’t destroy corkscrews! Pretty much all spinning metal blades should be able to emerge unscathed from having metal jammed into them. I don’t know why this problem hasn’t been solved yet.

  9. 9.

    lamh35

    after making what seems to be a good impression with his speech this morning, this evening at a state dinner, Obama met the new Miss Israel.

    Jeez,she’s a pretty lady. she the first Ethiopian-born Miss Israel, off the top of someone’s head, what %. of the population are the Ethiopians in Israel.

  10. 10.

    Corner Stone

    @jl:

    Any consultants who could help out making Cole’s place “Cole safe”?

    Talk about the consultant gravy train. Every 18 months or so they could issue a new full color binder filled with data and charts and solicited feedback from targeted peers/competitors.
    Damn, where’s the line to put in an RFP for this?

  13. 13.

    Valdivia

    Just finished watching Top of the Lake on Sundance. Amazing new series from Jane Campion with Elizabeth Moss in the lead rocking a New Zealand accent. Highly recommend it.

    It even distracted me from my horrendous toe.

  14. 14.

    lamh35

    BTW, I know it’s been talked about to death the idea of a woman’s biological clock ticking once they hit mid-30s or something (although at 36, I guess my clock is broken or something, case not only ain’t ticking, & I don’t even think my alarm is set). after reading Coles previous post, I’m just beginning to wonder if some men have biological alarm clocks as well?

  16. 16.

    AnneW

    My solution to spoons in the garbage disposal is to never ever put flatware in the sink which has the disposal.

  17. 17.

    lamh35

    @Just Some Fuckhead: oh, ok. so I guess it is kinda a big deal. I remember when Vanessa Williams became the First African American Miss America. it was a big deal. her “fall from grace” at the time was devastating. funny enough if the pics of her had come out today, they’d be no big deal for today beauty queens

  18. 18.

    TaMara (BHF)

    @lamh35: Yes. I’ve met them.

    Re: grinding spoons. I have one spoon that always takes the bullet. I’ve pulled it out 3x now over 4 years. All the other spoons and utensils are unscathed. I should get it a medal or something.

  19. 19.

    Tractarian

    I’m just beginning to wonder if some men have biological alarm clocks as well

    I don’t know about alarm clocks; I think men have more like a biological stopwatch. It doesn’t stop ticking until you get laid.

  20. 20.

    YellowJournalism

    @AnneW: I’m sorry. Common-sense solutions to everyday problems are not allowed here. All solutions must involve pets, highly complicated machinery or technology, mythical creatures, and/or alcohol.

    Oh, wait. I believe alcohol is always required.

  21. 21.

    Corner Stone

    @AnneW:

    My solution to spoons in the garbage disposal is to never ever put flatware in the sink which has the disposal.

    Seems easy, doesn’t it? Why do I somehow think Cole’s solution would be to have the small child use his skinny arms to delve into the disposal and go huntin’ for the flatware?

  22. 22.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @AnneW:

    My solution to spoons in the garbage disposal is to never ever put flatware in the sink which has the disposal.

    Alternatively, you could shave your flatware down with an angle grinder prior to trying to run them through the garbage disposal. Honestly, there’s no easy way to dispose of flatware this way. Thankfully, we have a 17 year old that just loses them into another dimension in her room.

  24. 24.

    Mandalay

    Good news for Tony Blair in a new poll in Britain to mark Iraq’s happy birthday:

    More than a fifth (22%) believe Blair knowingly misled parliament and the public and should be tried as a war criminal over the conflict, according to the poll.

    Blair is a marked man. He has a noose around his neck for the rest of his life. He won’t ever be forgiven.

  25. 25.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Cole, I think the foster kid would end up taking care of you more than the other way.

  26. 26.

    J.W. Hamner

    The spoons knew what they were getting into. You don’t sign up for that duty without knowing the risks. I’ve never of course been cutlery myself, but that’s what the books I’ve heard of allegedly say.

  27. 27.

    ? Martin

    Sink grid.

    In our kitchen remodel we put in a nice wide, deep sink with a manufacturer sink grid. There’s an opening for the disposal, but the grid make sure everything stays put. Our early habit was to put all of the silverware waaaaay over on the other side of the sink rather than tempt the fate of the disposal.

  28. 28.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @lamh35: I don’t know if it is or not. I just came up with the 4% number off the top of my head, like you asked.

  29. 29.

    dance around in your bones

    Last week the youngest grandkid who was “helping” me with the dishes somehow wedged a small plastic cup in the garbage disposal. I tried for half an hour to get the damn thing out, finally had to take a pair of pliers and just crack the thing into pieces.

    We also frequently get coins in the disposal – I have no idea how they fly into it – but it causes the most gawd awful noise. Plus you have to put your hand down into the disposal and feel around for it…..I’ve seen enough horror movies to know how THAT generally turns out.

  35. 35.

    scav

    @srv: If he can deal with this lot some days, they may just decide to unload all their kids on him based on the evidence.

  38. 38.

    James E. Powell

    @lamh35:

    I’m just beginning to wonder if some men have biological alarm clocks as well?

    Yes, of course we have clocks, but they are a little different. Ours go off when the professional athlete we idealized during our high school years is not voted into the Hall of Fame. Or, when the band we admired most is voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

  40. 40.

    Corner Stone

    @Mandalay:

    Blair is a marked man. He has a noose around his neck for the rest of his life. He won’t ever be forgiven.

    Well since he makes about $20M pounds a year I’m sure he’s really quaking about it all.

  42. 42.

    max

    @J.W. Hamner: Made this tonight and am pretty pleased.

    You should be – that’s a damn fine lookin’ chicken. The hardest part of baking a chicken is always getting the damn thing browned right.

    Wanna make a couple hundred million dollars? Make a garbage disposal with blades that will not destroy soup spoons that slip into the hole with all the guile of a female night elf rogue.

    Not really doable. You’re asking for the equivalent of a chainsaw that won’t cut off your hand. I mean, you could make one with plastic blades, or some kind of cut off but then the thing would suck as a disposal. Grids work. A magnetized might work well, but expensive.

    Compost, dude.

    max
    [‘Yeah, someone will invent an awesome disposal some day but it’ll turn your excess food into vapor, basically, and spoons that fall in are just missing. For good.’]

  43. 43.

    Corner Stone

    @efgoldman:

    We were missing a fork for the longest time

    What? You were missing a fork? What? You know how many forks you have for neighborhood BBQ purposes?

  44. 44.

    Corner Stone

    @? Martin: Who lives in your house that is incapable of not putting a metal utensil into the disposal drain?
    I mean, I understand how Cole keeps doing it but what’s going on here?

  45. 45.

    slag

    @lamh35:

    after reading Coles previous post, I’m just beginning to wonder if some men have biological alarm clocks as well?

    Yep. Though I think it’s more mid-life crisis-y. That is…When some men hit a certain age, if they haven’t had kids, the crisis is, “What have I done with my life?”. And if they have had kids, the crisis is, “What have I done with my life?”.

  46. 46.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @James E. Powell:

    Yes, of course we have clocks, but they are a little different. Ours go off when the professional athlete we idealized during our high school years is not voted into the Hall of Fame. Or, when the band we admired most is voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

    Odd. The Clash went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. James Lofton was inducted* into the NFL Hall of Fame in 2003.

    *Yeah, my guy made it, but still…

  47. 47.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Corner Stone:

    You know how many forks you have for neighborhood BBQ purposes?

    He prolly keeps ’em numbered like the black folks at Bob Jones University.

  48. 48.

    Lolis

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Is he going to lose the child like he lost the mustard?

    Ha. This can go on forever.

    On a serious note: John will have to jump through a bunch of crazy hoops to get a foster kid. My best advice is to understand that the child welfare system is something that should be gamed. Don’t admit to anything they don’t want to hear and say whatever you need to get a kid. Also, I recommend going with a boy first. Girls are way more complicated even before you throw abuse and neglect into the mix.

  49. 49.

    Corner Stone

    @Lolis:

    Don’t admit to anything they don’t want to hear and say whatever you need to get a kid.

    100% agree. This is exactly who I want taking in small children.

  50. 50.

    Booda

    JC your cranky domestic diatribes are balm for my soul. The hubs and I spent the whole evening railing at the slobbering labs for digging under the storage shed after a rat. So, then it was time for scotch. If only we were neighbors. I would buy you a new spoon and we could swap garden veggies and bitch about the animals. Cheers from Dallas fucking Texas. Also too, I have like 3 different kinds of mustard you could borrow

  51. 51.

    ? Martin

    @Corner Stone: We’ve actually never put one in there. But we have two kids, and both were in elementary school when we got the sink. But the grid is nice for other reasons, and it’s a nice bit of insurance with the kids.

  52. 52.

    catclub

    I was thinking of re-purposing a disposal to grind things for compost. Would involve complicated plumbing and water supply/exhaust.

  53. 53.

    r€nato

    why has there not been made a film about the Salad Oil Scandal?

    It’s got a ballsy scam, a greasy Italian con man (who is apparently still alive), AmEx, JFK, and Warren Buffett. With echoes of the mortgage bubble scam as well.

    Starting in 1962, De Angelis decided that his network was strong enough that he could make a serious attempt to corner the market on soybean oil and started to buy massive quantities. On the basis of this huge value of inventory, he took out massive loans from various Wall Street banks and companies, and used the cash to buy all of the futures on the oil. This way he would not only own a large quantity of soon-to-be expensive oil, but also cheap futures that would soon be worth a considerable value when the prices went up. He also used this cash to pay his staff, influence the community and occasionally make sincere gestures, such as paying a government official’s hospital bill.

    American Express (Amex) in the early 1960s was a respected name in traveler’s checks and credit cards. They created a new division that would specialize in “Field Warehousing”. It was a way for Amex to loan a business money based on inventory of goods and commodities. Tino De Angelis was a new customer, and Amex wrote him warehouse receipts for many millions of pounds of vegetable oil. The receipts could be taken to a bank or broker and exchanged for cash. The lender would then “own” the oil as collateral.

    As the exchanges became more regular, De Angelis reduced the actual amount of oil he had. The tanks at Allied Crude were increasingly filled with water, with a small, and constant, amount of oil floating on top. Some tanks had special compartments at the top, and others were a maze of pipes where oil could be shuttled between them to make one tank of oil appear in other tanks at key times. When inspectors visited and dipped the tanks, they found oil and everything seemed fine. The loans based on the warehouse receipts were “guaranteeing” that the oil was really in the tanks.

    What was puzzling about the quality of Amex’s Field Warehousing operation was that since De Angelis was theoretically buying so much, they essentially authenticated the existence of much more salad oil than was actually accounted for in the entire United States, according to monthly reports from the Department of Agriculture. While the warehouse operation was small for Amex, they were lenient with De Angelis, as he was one of their biggest customers. With Amex continuing to vouch for the inventories, their trusted seal of approval combined with De Angelis’ talent for offering great deals, mainstream companies such as Bunge Limited, Staley, Procter and Gamble, and The Bank of America also provided loans.

    The inspectors were eventually tipped off by such things as attempted bribery and delivery mistakes. So they returned to Allied’s tanks in Bayonne and found the water. The result was a massive crash of the futures market, wiping out in minutes the entire value of the loans.

    On November 19, 1963, De Angelis’s company filed for bankruptcy, at which point investors learned hundreds of millions were unaccounted for. The brokerages who handled De Angelis’s futures trades were now tainted, and the next day the NYSE, worried about potential U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission involvement, suspended Williston and Beane and Ira Haupt and Co. from trading. Word started spreading as traders investigated the suspension, and desperately tried to get their holdings out of the companies.

    The entire debacle was overshadowed by the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Hours before Kennedy was shot, NY Stock Exchange president G. Keith Funston was attempting to avoid a massive crash caused by the 20,700 customers of Ira Haupt, who feared their holdings were now worthless. Because of the trading the brokerage firm did on De Angelis’ behalf, they owed various banks over $37,000,000 that it could not pay. The Kennedy assassination provided the panic that Funston was trying to avoid. In 27 minutes, the Dow dropped 24 points (about 5%) and 2.6 million shares were sold off; the exchange closed 83 minutes early that day.

  54. 54.

    JCJ

    Holee shit! Harvard just beat New Mexico.

    Steve Alford – overrated as a player, overrated as a coach.

  56. 56.

    danielx

    @lamh35:

    Some are more flexible than others; as I recall Jack Nicholson fathered a child at 55. Of course Jack isn’t exactly lacking in funds to hire nannies, au pairs, etc…

    Also, too – fostering a child and running silverware down the disposal. This shit just about writes itself, don’t it now?

    Or it could be that Cole is just fucking with us.

    Naaah, he’d never do that.

  57. 57.

    J.W. Hamner

    @max:

    You should be – that’s a damn fine lookin’ chicken. The hardest part of baking a chicken is always getting the damn thing browned right.

    I both appreciate your compliment and agree with your assessment of the roasting of chickens. The difficulties you mention are precisely why I spatchcock/butterfly every chicken I cook now. Cut out the backbone, flatten it, and it cooks amazingly evenly.

    I’m still trying to figure out this particular recipe though… in a skillet the potatoes didn’t really crisp much. Would the larger area of a roasting pan fix that? The key for me is that I want the rendered chicken fat to play a big role.

  58. 58.

    dance around in your bones

    Anybody seen The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel? I am finding it hilarious.

  60. 60.

    Corner Stone

    @danielx:

    Also, too – fostering a child and running silverware down the disposal. This shit just about writes itself, don’t it now?

    If you mean in a criminal prosecution case, then yes. Yes it does.

  61. 61.

    Jay

    Watch “How To Survive A Plague,” everyone. Really, really moving.

    Also, good on you for the foster kid bit, Mr. Cole. I’ve been reading you ever since you started leaning left, and you strike me as a very solid dude. We need fathers – and foster fathers – who clue kids in on the importance of gay rights, of racial and gender equality. We need men who tell boys that one can at once serve in the military and be gentle, that gentleness is a high form of strength. And we need men who tell boys it’s not “cool” to act dumb, that one can tear through a bunch of books and movies, then turn on an NFL game without so much as blinking.

    Once the kid enters your life, please blog about the relationship.

  63. 63.

    Ash Can

    @Mandalay: That poll is good news for Blair. If almost 80% of the people polled believe he shouldn’t be prosecuted for what he did, the consequences he’ll face are somewhere between jack and shit. Those results don’t indicate any marks or nooses at all.

  64. 64.

    Yutsano

    @J.W. Hamner:

    The key for me is that I want the rendered chicken fat to play a big role.

    It will definitely help the potatoes crisp, but you’ll want to turn them so all the sides get evenly crispy.

    Or do this. With the chicken fat.

  65. 65.

    Scott Alloway

    John, John, John. For two bucks you can buy a strainer which prevents tableware from sliding into the drain and doing the disposal tango when you hit the switch. Keep it simple, make life easy and always use basic tools – be it in the kitchen, garage or wood shop. Long ago I learned that the right tools make life easy. Be it a floor jack in your trunk, a strainer in your sink or a few five gallon jugs of water in a spare room in case of emergency, foresight makes life easier.

  67. 67.

    Anne Laurie

    @Lolis:

    Also, I recommend going with a boy first. Girls are way more complicated even before you throw abuse and neglect into the mix.

    Not denigrating our beloved blogmaster, but are the social services in West By Gawd Virginia liable to hand over a young girl to an unmarried middle-aged male? A middle-aged male couple, okay…

  68. 68.

    Anne Laurie

    @dance around in your bones:

    Anybody seen The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel? I am finding it hilarious.

    So did the Spousal Unit & I; it was one of the five movies we saw in a theatre all year, because we both have a crush on Judy Dench.

    Of course, since I am the world’s least flexible traveller, in real life I’d be the brittle beyotch wife who ended up racing back to England… and SU would totally stay behind with Judy. But then, who could blame him?

  69. 69.

    dance around in your bones

    @Anne Laurie: Judi Dench and Maggie Smith – what a great combo.

    India is just as intense and crowded and colorful as depicted in the movie. I’ve seen people who just flew in from the West(as opposed to traveling overland and getting your toes wet)and just freak the fuck out.

    I swear, you are never alone there. You can be out in the countryside in the middle of nowhere trying to take a pee in a field and look up to find ten people staring at you.

  70. 70.

    zzcool

    Easiest solution would be a metal detector that turns the blades off as soon as it detects a spoon or whatever. Might even save a couple of rings and the fingers that wear them as well.

  72. 72.

    cmorenc

    @Tractarian:

    I don’t know about alarm clocks; I think men have more like a biological stopwatch. It doesn’t stop ticking until you get laid.

    The upside to this for men is that the longer their biological stopwatch keeps ticking without getting laid, the greater the percentage of women who start looking attractive, and then even hot to them. Well, actually the extent to which this phenomenon is a feature or a bug is opent to debate, but whether it exists is not at all in doubt.

  73. 73.

    billshearn

    There is a solution! New models have strong magnets in the throat that will capture any flatware that starts down into the disposer. A friend picked up one at Costco as a replacement.

  74. 74.

    JustRuss

    Ballistic spoons, vanishing mustard, ninja kittehs….when you apply to be a foster parent, do not mention this blog, Cole.

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