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Shot Salad Shooter Slicing Cone

2012-01-23T07:04:00.001-06:00

My Salad Shooter, by Presto, is a small appliance that I use nearly every week, sometimes a couple of times a week. I've had it for maybe 20 years. Mainly, I use it for slicing carrots and olives. Occasionally, I use it for slicing veggies, especially for my veggie pasta recipe. I use it for chopping nuts and peanuts for making cookies and fudge. I used it for grating cheese in the past, but have since discovered the pre-shredded kind, so I don't salad-shoot-shred cheese no mo'.

My slicing cone is worn out, with some "fractures" that threaten to totally break it, as shown in the outlined areas of the pixstrip. I've done some searches for part availability and bottom-line cost. I've gotten the impression that comparison shopping is more difficult than in the past. Companies might now be less willing to let a viewer see total cost before requiring form filling. I think it might be a psychological nudge so that the visitor invests time and energy into filling information, and might be more committed to purchasing the item. In my online travels for finding a reasonable-cost cone replacement, I stopped at Mending Shed, eBay, and Presto.

Mending Shed

Mendingshed.com has an appealing price $4.95, but the shipping is $11.26, bringing the total to $16.21. Decided to pass on it. Furthermore, their form gave me four different options, but when I chose the post office, the tally screen told me they use only UPS. Hmmm. They could have disclosed that info on the first screen.

eBay

I was amused at the number of listings for a USED slicing cone on eBay. Something I'm going to use on MY food. Really! Not!

Presto

The starting Presto page for buying the part looked simple enough. I even inferred that estimating the cost would be simple. Nooooooo! After I reached the contact info screen, I saw that I needed a user ID and password as part of the form fill-in. Well, I decided I'd just send an email and request the shipping cost info, using the Contact link. Even that effort required more than meets the eye.

The contact page showed that I could use the form to email, or call an 800 number, or send snail mail. As the customer service hours availability didn't coincide with my own availability, I chose to fill the form. What a surprise that the Name field displayed "optional." The reality was that clicking the submit button triggered a you-gotta-give-us-a-name message. OK, so I went ahead and put in something. (Bleah. I dislike places that use contact forms for collecting data.)

The autoreply message that I received stated that they "will be in contact with you within 3 business days." Sure seemed like a long time for waiting for a reply to an inquiry. I think some other companies might have fancier inquiry forms where a consumer can pick a certain topic so the company's system can funnel messages to more specific topic buckets.

Mercifully, Presto got back to me that afternoon. The shipping cost would be $2 for the cone for anywhere in US and Canada. Woohoo! I placed my order. Wouldn't you know, the shipping cost is $3. OK, so I'll write the customer rep after I get my cone. Seems they could improve the customer experience by enabling the customer to more easily find out shipping info, especially a good shipping rate. A couple of more incidentals: ETA is about two weeks, and sales tax goes on top of the part AND shipping.

If anything unusual or unexpected occurs between now and the time my cone arrives, I'll put an addendum to this article. (I want to publish NOW. )

Family Matters

2011-12-24T05:55:00.004-06:00

This time of the year is good for reflecting back on something besides material items, whether acquiring for self or others, imho. I've been musing about music and family themes for some time. Last week, watching the movie version of How to Succeed in Business without Trying resparked my interest when the actors launched into "Brotherhood of Man", a joyful, inspiring song with energetic choreography (hallelujah!). What a surprise when I went to youtube and looked for Brotherhood of Man and found several versions of the performance AND a group with that name!

Robert Morse is the original Finch of both the stage and movie version of How to Succeed in Business without Trying.
For those who remember Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller, his portrayal of Finch shows him all grown up.
This Finch is Daniel Radcliffe. (Yes, Harry Potter!) This youtube video starts out with Robert Morse and Matthew Broderick talking about the play's 50th anniversary. John Larroquette (Night Court) is a co-star in this latest version of the play.
Now for the OTHER Brotherhood of Man, whom I'd forgotten about over the (um) years. Their moderate hit is "Save Your Kisses for Me."

Even though my article is Family Matters, and brotherhood is not blood relations, I'm being flexible about the etymology regarding family members. From Online Etymology Dictionary, brotherhood:

Originally "relationship of a brother," also "friendly companionship

Onward to family relations

Family of Man, by Three Dog Night
Family Affair, by Sly and the Family Stone
Soul Train, by MFSB (Mothers, Fathers, Sisters, Brothers)
California Dreamin', by Mamas and Papas
Can't Nobody Hold Me Down, by Puff Daddy (Sean Combs)
Heard a Word, by Sister Souljah
Twofer! Family reference for both title and artist! We are Family, by Sister Sledge

Pop (and mom)

Papa Was a Rolling Stone, by Temptations
Papa Don't Preach, by Madonna
Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, by James Brown
Daddy's Home, by Delfonics
Your Mama Don't Dance (and Your Daddy Don't Rock and Roll), by Loggins and Messina
Mama Said There'd by Days Like This, by Shirelles
Mama Told Me not to Come, by Three Dog Night
Mamma Mia, by ABBA

Kids! (and siblings)

What's the Matter With Kids Today, by Paul Lynde and others, from Bye Bye Birdie
Blue Eyes (Baby's Got Blue Eyes), by Elton John
You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby, by Michael Bublé
Sister Golden Hair, by America
He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother, by the Hollies
Daniel (My Brother), by Elton John

Parent-offspring relationships

Cats in the Cradle, by Harry Chapin
In the Living Years, by Mike and the Mechanics
I Can Never Go Home Anymore, by the Shangri-Las
She's Leaving Home, by Beatles
Mother and Child Reunion (1, 2), by Paul Simon

Family member references within the song

Fun, Fun, Fun, by the Beach Boys
"Your dad was gettin' wise to you"
Leader of the Band, by David Fogelberg
"A cabinet maker's son ... My brothers' lives were different"
Leader of the Pack, by the Shangri-Las
"One day my dad said, 'Find someone new'"
Another version of Leader of the Pack, this one by Twisted Sister
A twist on the iconic original version by the Shangri-Las
Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen
"Mama, I just killed a man"
What's Going On, by Marvin Gaye (with What's Happening Brother)
"Mother, mother ... Brother, brother, brother ...Father, father"
Another Saturday Night, by Sam Cooke
"Another fella told me he had a sister"
Another version of Another Saturday Night, this one by Cat Stevens
Love Train, by the O'Jays
"People all over the world (Sisters and brothers)"

A language-derived example for my family theme article is Philadelphia Freedom, by Elton John. From the Online Etymology Dictionary, Philadelphia:

"brotherly love," from philos "loving" + adelphos "brother"

What a difference 200 years make for relationships between the former colonists of the mother country, and the song by a Briton just ahead of the U.S bicentennial. Watch a different performance, which shows people enthusiastically waving their Union Jack and Stars and Stripes flags.

A Convenient Fudge

2011-11-29T07:16:00.002-06:00

This fudge recipe requires only three ingredients and spray oil. You can add nuts, peanuts, coconut, or anything else that comes to mind. The main flavor is chocolate. You can change one or more of the ingredients to different flavor(s) for variations.

Ingredients, in the order of processing and adding

12 oz. chocolate chips or other meltable candy
16 oz. frosting
15 large marshmallows (or 1 1/2 cups minis)
1/2 cup or more nuts
spray oil for the pan

My recent ingredients that I have used most recently are peanut butter disks, chocolate frosting, caramel-flavor marshmallows, and chopped peanuts.

Utensils

1 large mixing bowl
1 cooking spoon
1 or more knives for chopping nuts (I use Salad Shooter), cutting the finished fudge
1 8" x 8" pan, prepared with spray oil

Instructions

Melt chips or other meltable candy the large mixing bowl in the microwave oven, using reduced power. Check about a minute or so for about two rounds of heating.
Add frosting to the bowl. Microwave another minute or so until you can easily blend the ingredients with the spoon.
Add marshmallows to the bowl. Microwave another minute or so until you can easily blend the ingredients with the spoon.
Add nuts to the bowl. Blend the ingredients with the spoon.
Pour ingredients into the spray-oil prepared pan.
Refrigerate for no more than two hours. (If longer, the fudge could be difficult to cut.)
Cut into 64 pieces (8 x 8) or fewer. (FYI, the paper cups are available at craft stores and baking supply outlets.)

For other recipes, mostly that I tag as convenient, download my blog catalog file and look for the yellow-highlighted rows.

Veggie Pasta

2011-10-30T08:14:00.002-05:00

Up until now, I have titled my recipes with "Convenient". This recipe is a bit less convenient, but it's veggie loaded, and produces 10 servings of 8-ounce portions. You can share with family, company, or you can store leftovers in the freezer (using food wrap, Ziploc bags, etc.) for future convenient meals.

My recipe uses four kinds of vegetables, spaghetti sauce, pasta, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses, and a little bit of oil for separating the cooked pasta. The graphic provides a visual cue of the ingredients and stages of preparation.

Ingredients (guide for types and quantity—YMMV)

1/2 half pounds each of celery, carrots, zucchini, and crookneck squash, sliced
12 ounces of dry pasta
28-ounce jar of spaghetti sauce
8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese (minimum amount)

Utensils

Dutch oven or pan large enough for cooking and stirring stages
Large mixing bowl
Medium-large mixing bowl
Medium-large strainer
Baking pan (9 x 13)
Tablespoon
Measuring cup (1/4 cup or so)
Large metal or wooden spoon
Spoon rest

The following descriptions of the images (grid of 5 across and 4 down) can help walk you through the stages of preparation. Preheat the oven to 375° some time before you put the casserole in the oven, or add about another 15 minutes to the baking time.

Image 1 through 5 show the initial stage of raw veggie preparation (paring and slicing). I use a Salad Shooter for making fast and consistent slices for cooking.
Images 6 and 7 show the pre-processed, non-veggie ingredients and the measuring items.
Images 8, 9, and 10 show the pasta-cooking stage. Cook according to box instructions, strain, and stir in enough oil prevent pasta clumpies.
Images 11, 12, and 13 show the veggie-cooking stage. Cook about 8 minutes or until your choice of doneness.
Images 14 and 15 show the merge stage for the cooked veggies, pasta, and spaghetti sauce.
Image 16 shows the preparation before putting all the cooked ingredients and cheeses into the baking pan. Layer the ingredients into the baking pan as follows:
Parmesan (top)
Mozzarella
Mix of sauce, pasta, veggies
Parmesan
Mozzarella
Mix of sauce, pasta, veggies (bottom)
Image 17 shows the pan with the ingredients, topped by the final Parmesan cheese layer.
Image 18 shows the assembled casserole, covered with aluminum foil, ready for it to go into the oven.
Image 19 shows the covered casserole in the oven. Bake at 375° for about 40 minutes. YMMV for time.
Image 20 shows the finished casserole. Waiting a few minutes for the casserole to cool down a little helps portioning out rectangles with a griddle spatula or cooky spatula.

For other recipes, you can enter "recipe" in the Blogspot search. Or you can download my article catalog and visually scan for yellow rows, which include links to recipe articles.

Wordle Word Doodle

2011-09-22T17:11:00.002-05:00

I’d been interested in Wordles since sometime last year when I encountered the term in a forum. I was so unfamiliar with the term, I initially thought it was Wordie. Wordles have been described as word clouds, from shapes that words would form.

A wordle takes all the words in a text and writes them in the form of a word cloud, using colours or different size letters to show how frequently words are used in that text

My thought is that it’s a blended word, Word + Doodle combined into Wordle. (Take a side trip for more word-blend explanation and view blended words lists.)

The prominent name associated with Wordle creation is Jonathan Feinberg, who created the algorithms and the web application. You can dive right in to the Wordle site, click Create, and follow the instructions. For my own featured Wordle images, I used text from my Texas towns article. (The pixstrip at the top of my article shows an image with the text all vertical, rotated clockwise 90 degrees, and redisplayed as horizontal and rescattered.) The initial Wordle window opened and showed buttons for changing the looks: Edit, Language, Font, Layout, Color. The graphic had the following settings:

Language
Remove numbers
Leave words as spelled
Remove common English words
Font
Teen
Layout
Rounder edges
Vertical
Color
Milk paints
A little variation

Clicking the Randomize button at the bottom of the screen resulted in a combination of changes.

The Language settings were the same.
The Font changed from Teen to Goudy Bookletter 1911.
The Layout settings changed to Rounder Edges and Mostly Horizontal.
The Color settings changed to the Indian Earthy palette, but still a little variation.

For one more look, I decided to change the Layout orientation to horizontal and Color palette to B/W. Note that the largest words are "Community" and "Lake". Frequency affects the size of the words in a Wordle; the Texas towns article has 16 instances each of "Community" and "Lake".

I've summarized the row of commands that are at the top of the interface as follows:

Edit: Edit has the choices of Undo (Ctrl+Z) and Redo (Ctrl+Y), and they function similarly to browser Previous and Next. The Edit command is a lot more fun after you generate several looks to revisit.

Language: Most of the forced-choice options pertain to removal of common foreign-language words. A few choices are significant for filtering, such as number removal y/n, character case, and removal or not of common words. The common words options are available for 29 languages.

Font: You can play with 32 fonts. It's nice that simple clicking generates the image immediately rather open a window where you require another one or more commands. I found the Owned font to be interesting for the script look with all the characters sized the same. And the Language (case) options have no effect, as though the characters have one case definition.

Layout: Clicking the first choice, Re-layout with current settings, is like randomizing the looks. Continue clicking Layout > Re-layout with current settings until you see a really eye-catching image that you want to capture and save. An extension of using the feature might be setting a graphics program to capture screens in intervals as you continuously click Layout > Re-layout with current settings. Then combine all the screens to create a slide show.

Color: You can pick palette offerings, or make up your own. The default ones primarily have either black or white backgrounds. The results generate immediately, similar to the Language output.

Get moving on your own Wordles! For additional resources, besides the Wordle home site, visit the following sites:

Jonathan Feinberg
Wordle Blog
Weaving Words with Wordle: A Talk with IBM’s Jonathan Feinberg, by Wade Roush 3/16/09

Youtube videos:

From bochi23
- wordle - part 1: the basics
- Wordle - Part 2: Extending Wordle a Bit More
From Kicode2
- Wordle tutorial
- Wordle tutorial part 2

Store Coupon Madness

2011-08-28T08:48:00.002-05:00

I clip coupons, mostly grocery store coupons. I also clip eatery coupons, just a lot fewer of them. I've not registered with restaurants.com or groupon. I don't often think to search for coupons online. I myself find that most of the coupons that I see and put any energy into arrive in my Sunday paper. And I dump probably 99%. Call me a bit behind for how I hunt (or not) for savings.

Many years ago, I remember a grocery store at one time hut put up a round-table display with maybe a noble idea that customers would bring in coupons they snipped, and obtain coupons that other people would leave for sharing. I don't remember more than a few weeks had passed that I no longer saw the table. I speculate that maybe the table overflowed from excesses and took too much floor space.

About the early nineties, some local supermarkets started doubling and tripling coupons, up to some maximum value. The campaigns were pretty nice while they lasted. I think they stopped after a year or so. I'm guessing that stores really got squeezed on the margins because of some more diligent customers like me. I do remember that collecting and sorting for the multiple savings was time-consuming, but the payoff pretty good.

I'm less mad now over store coupons than in the past when it seems I embarked on reviewing, clipping, sorting, redeeming, and eventually tossing out numerous saved ones. Alas, so many would expire. Or the store didn't handle the product. Or I waffled over whether I really wanted to hunt down the products. I'm now better at reviewing for items I think I might buy and use coupons for. I've arrived at coupon characteristics that get my attention, for good and bad. The following lists are my coupon raves and peeves.

Coupon characteristics that make me cheer

General
- Plenty of coupons for merchandise that I buy
- Numeric value that amounts to 25 to 50% off or better
- Buy one, get one free (maybe even buy two, get one free)
- Applicable savings for single-serving rather than bulk such as packaged candy (evil food)
Visuals
- Clearly legible expiration date, preferably one month or more, for a Sunday or end of a month
- Thorough information, such as store area type, applicable varieties, packaging (weights, counts)—"any size or variety" favored
- Graphics, such as color pictures for iconic visual processing (My local supermarket has in-house, yellow, portrait-oriented coupons that would be even more attractive with at least line images.)

Coupon characteristics that drive me mad:

General
- Dinky value, like 25 or 40¢. Inflation has crept up so much over the years, even $1 savings is no longer necessarily compelling. Don't those nationally known companies marketing people pay attention to how out-of-date those humongous savings look?
- Discount offers that look good, but the list price is so high that the savings are no savings (predominant condition in drug stores, it seems)
- No such item in store
- No such item for that manufacturer
- No such packaging size for that manufacturer
Bundling
- Requirement to buy more than one, such as so-much-off if you buy two
- Requirement to buy more than one type of product. This condition makes the hunt like a treasure hunt. My supermarket frequently has deals for buying one or two items, and throwing in one to 6 items, many house-brand. Sometimes I bite, often not.
Expirations
- Short expiration time window
- Expiration date placed anywhere except at the top (I hate hunting for dates, especially when they are at the bottom of the coupon.)
- Expirations that are NOT on Sundays or ends of the months (I'm a Sunday shopper most times, and it bugs me when I miss a coupon by one day because of my own oops.)
- Time windows with a start date that occurs after the current calendar date
Visuals
- Gradient or or other poor contrast between background and foreground
- Tiny font (sixes, fives, nines, and eights when they all look similar)
- Illegibility or graphics resolution for varieties of the product (occasionally, misalignment of color layers, particularly in accompanying ad)
- Lack of information for store area location, particularly for meals that could be room temperature, refrigerated, or frozen Yes, I do microwavable meals! (If I need to hunt, I'm not likely to.)
- Pet food coupons that accompany ads with pictures resembling people food
- Oversized coupon, requiring folding
- Undersized coupon, easily misplaced or misfiled
- Questionable literalness for items, such as exact flavor, item size that falls outside the coupon listed range

Although my focus is on grocery store coupons, I have a few thoughts about eatery discounts. Likes: Good savings value, expiration, discounts places I go to or would go to. Dislikes, applicable to the ad than the offered discount itself: No address, phone number, maps, web address.

MnM--Munch n Music, Sin Ingestibles

2011-07-10T07:00:00.001-05:00

This article is the third one in my Munch n Music series. The focus of the first article started out with popcorn and other munchies, and took a side trip to main and side dishes. The focus of the second article was primarily about fruits and desserts, with a revisit to more substantial edibles. This article pertains to ingestibles—alcohol and tobacco. Ingestible isn't listed as a noun like consumable is, but the root meaning of to ingest seems more appropriate than that of to consume.

Alcohol

Tobacco

Benson & Hedges
Michael Jackson (Billie Jean footage) & Benson & Hedges
Benson & Hedges 1987 Animation
Cigarette ad video (Check out Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore lighting up from 3:02 to 3:04.)
Tobacco Road
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Smoker Face - Lady Gaga Parody (Blink, and you miss Fred, Barney, and Goofy puffing.)
One Toke Over the Line—Brewer & Shipley, "Gale & Dale" on Lawrence Welk Show

Not wishing to wander too deeply into dangerous territory, I now close without providing links to Doobie Brothers music, the don't Bogart that joint song, and Purple Haze. You're on your own.

MnM--Munch n Music, Sweetyummies

2011-06-24T07:32:00.004-05:00

Sweet tooth? You've come to the right place for video links of music and sweet stuff. Last month, I wrote about munchies and music. OK, so some of the links pertained to main courses. During my lookups at that time, I ran across more than I wanted to put into one article. This time, I'm listing sweet edibles, in time for Independence Day. Also adding more edibles here rather than in last month's article.

Fruity and tutti frutti

I must say, the only thing I think sounds sweet about tutti frutti is the phonetic fruity term. It gives me an excuse to paste a link to Little Richard's Tutti Frutti.

Non-fruity sweet stuff

If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake
MacArthur Park
Jurassic Park
Candy (Manhattan Transfer in formal wear)
Candyman, Christina Aguilera
Candy Man, Sammy Davis Jr.
Candy Man, Roy Orbison
Lollipop (Dig those over-the-elbow gloves that the Chordettes wore.)
Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows (The clip from one of those Beach Blanket movies—Ski Party, from 1965.)
Lollipops and Roses
My Boy Lollipop
Sugartime (Perry Como mixing it up with the McGuire Sisters)
Sugar Sugar
Honey Honey
Taste of Honey
Honey Don't
Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Huneybunch)
The Way You Do the Things You Do (quick reference to honey)

Leftovers

Visit the first part of the Munch n Music series for other main and side dishes.

Granny Goose Potato Chips (What's in the Bag, Goose?)—not a song, but food-themed oldie commercial
Mashed Potatoes
Soup and Sandwich
Love and Marriage, with clip of Cary Grant & Ingrid Bergman. Recorded most famously by Frank Sinatra. This song was also the theme song for Married With Children TV series.
Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch (added 7/10/2011)
Lunch Will Keep Us Together (added 7/10/2011)
Teach the World to Sing, version 1 and version 2
Lime in the Coconut

The next Munch n Music article will feature links to sin ingestibles.

MnM--Munch n Music

2011-05-31T21:54:00.001-05:00

Was in the mood for writing about two of my favorite topics, both rolled into one. My thoughts started out with wanting to pop some popcorn with my quite-old air popper. During the course of popping, melting butter, and mixing the butter and salt into the popped kernels into a large kettle, I thought about having read kernel popping action. I read that the kernel turns inside out. So I decided to look up some youtube videos. Eureka!

Brainiac Science Abuse - Popcorn Popping In Slow Motion (This video shows someone popping popcorn on a stove top.)
High speed video of popcorn kernel popping at 5,400 fps
Pop corn in slow motion

I thought about a song titled "Popcorn" and found a video, which is actually the moog music set to video. Gershon Kingsley wrote in about 30 seconds, according to background info on him .A song that sounds very similar to Popcorn is Percolator.

Onward to related topics—munchies and coffee

I found more substantial consumables as follows. Of course, themes about music and food must include Weird Al. I did sandwich some of his videos with other food-term songs. Some of these videos are trips down memory lane. Click and get down!

Future feature: More food music—yummy sweets, sippin' stuff, tutti frutti

Cereal Eatin's

2011-04-30T21:41:00.012-05:00

Cereals have become increasingly varied over the last 10 years or so. Way back, the novelty cereal was Cheerios for shape. Other shapes were flakes (boring) and puffed rice (sugarless and pretty bland, unless you made Rice Krispie cereal blocks). Other cereals that come to mind are puffed wheat and puffed rice, which tasted surprisingly bland to me. Nabisco Shredded Wheat, to my recollection, came three pillow-shape, haystack-textured rectangles to a box, as unexciting as all getout for looks and taste.

The shapes that later came along to capture imaginations were Post Alpha-Bits and Chex shapes (wheat, rice, corn). Alpha-Bits seems to have spawned other shapes, like Lucky Charms and Trix. (Watch the Trix youtube video of the commercial for Bugs Bunny cameo.)

Lots of the cereals come and go. Most I can't remember. Seems that disappeared cereals are similar to mall store closings and some comic strips for me. When one disappears, I sense something changed, but unsure what had formerly occupied the space. Three cereals that come to mind are General Mills Fingos, Kellogg's Nut & Honey Crunch, and Post Crispy Critters. Just ran across a link for discontinued cereals. Read 'em and weep.

Fingos seemed to straddle between obvious snack and cereal. It didn't stay long. Some background info indicates that a $34 million launch in 1993 didn't guarantee market longevity. Nut & Honey cereal was maybe more famous for the catchphrase than the product itself. Crispy Critters had a jingle and catchy product name. Unfortunately, the cereal disappeared long ago also. Of course, the term crispy critters has evoked more of a negative image as years have passed.

I went through a long period that I skipped cereal, but have been eating them heartily for the last few years. What choices these days! Lots of different shapes and flavors!

I've recently been eating some cereals more out of the box instead of just than eating them with milk. They're yummy for munching while watching TV or working at my desk. Most of the munchable ones I pick are sub-bite-size and not messy or crumbly. They don't melt in my hand or mouth. They're nice alternatives to other, faster calorie-delivery munchies or snacks, like candy bars, bite-size candies, ice cream, snack crackers, chips, roasted peanuts, etc. (You know, those evil foods that often jump into the shopping carts.)

Nearly very week, I slowly amble along the supermarket aisle to see what I'm in the mood for to pick up. The following cereals often make it into my cart, not every week, of course.

I don't list any General Mills cereals. I would if they would make the Cinnamon Toast Crunch and French Toast Crunch cereals twice the square size. They're tasty, but too, uh, small for my taste. Not as much fun when I have to pull out several in each grab. Most of the munchie cereals I listed actually have some healthful aspects, of sorts.

The shredded wheat ones, Chocolate Granola, and Just Bunches, have 5 to 10 grams of fiber per serving in them.
They take longer to consume than candy bars, chocolates, cookies, and ice cream. (The yummies, with more fat and calories, go down much faster and have fewer nutrients.)
They cost less by the mouthful. For example, Oreos and chocolate chip cookies don't seem to last as long in the house as cereals.

Munchie cereals are a little less fun to eat and messier as I reach towards the bottom of the box. When clumps become niblets, it's definitely better to mix the bits in milk. For that matter, it's fun to mix several cereal types and flavors together.

My cereal tastes don't extend to those that I consider to be really sweet. Sure, the ones I list are sugary, but not quite sugar bombs like Frosted Flakes and Corn Pops, both by Kellogg's. Actually, I do buy cereals that I pour milk into and eat, without regard to munchiness versatility. I definitely go for variety!

As a result of eating lots of cereals, I empty out lots of boxes and bags. At another time, I'll write about handy ways to reuse them, up to a point.

Spoken Out

2011-03-24T20:45:00.000-05:00

Pronunciations interest me for how words and names often sound different than their spellings. Even as a native English speaker, I trip up. I've started this article talking about EU (not you) and skipped along names, consonants, words, and contextual pronunciations.

In a TV show about Paris, the narrator pronounced unique as YOO-nik, like the word spelled eunuch. Phonetically related is the name Eunice, a name I heard of at a young age. I heard it as yoo-nis, but thought it would be spelled Unis. If I’d never known the pronunciation of Eunice, I might have thought the name should sound like ee-YOO-nise (long i) or EU-nise.

More observations about name pronunciations

Basil—if if’s a name, pronounced BAAA-zul. If it’s a spice, pronounced BAY-zul.
Herb—it it’s a name, pronounced herb. If it’s a spice item, pronounced urb.
Lincoln (LINK-un) and palm (pom) spell with l’s, but don’t sound with them.
Bret Favre (farv)
Bode Miller (BOH-dee)
Bono—BOH-noh if you're talking Sonny, Cher, or Chaz. BAH-noh if you're talking about the Irish singer.
Gabriel vs. Gabrielle. The guy's name has a long a, and the woman's name gets a short a. I would think it should sound like gay-bri-ELLE.
Paul Krugman (long u or short u?), John Boehner (pronounced bay-ner), Matt Groening (pronounced grayn-ing)

More OE pronunciation

Three names with "oe" vowel combinations can seem unpredictable and confusing besides the ones I just mentioned. Why is Joe pronounced joh, but Zoe is ZOH-ee and Chloe is KLOH-ee For that matter, if I hadn’t heard of Chloe, pronunciations could include chloh, shloh, SHLOH-ee, CHLOH-ee, kloh. Hmmm, Joe needs a y for the pronunciation of JOH-ee. Seems the other two names should be spelled Zoey and Chloey.

A segue to CH, a major consonant-pair confuser

While I'm discussing ch pronunciations, I think it must be difficult for people who are not native English speakers to decide on the sound as ch (chair), sh (machine), or k (chemical).

Melancholy (MEL-un-KAH-lee) looks like it should be pronounced mel-AN-CHO-lee, something related to a pepper.
Chamomile (CAM-uh-myul) is a tea flavor made from dried flower heads of a particular plant. This word is a minefield for mispronunciation possibilities.
The ch sound is in truck. I hear the pronunciation as chruk, not truk.

More visual consonant-pair and single-consonant confusers

I think th combinations can be difficult if the word is not familiar. Is it pronounced like thermometer or there? Think of a thimble there that is close to those thermometers.
One consonant that stumps me constantly is "g" ("g" or "j" sound)? The other day I saw an ad for Allergan's Allegra. I have no problems with Allegra, but I want to pronounce Allergan with "g" and not "j". General, germ, galaxy, garble, gin
Another consonant with dual pronunciations is "s" ("s" or "z" sound). State, states, status, statuses.
Close—"z" sound or "s" sound? Depends on the context. Related: the movie "Closer". Not having seen it or heard the name pronounced, I don't know whether the title pertains to relative distance or something or someone who closes a deal.
Of, off, oof are three words with two letters in common but pronounced differently from each other Odd that pronunciation of "of" is "ov". Stick an "a" between the letters to get a long "o" pronunciation (oaf).

A meandering to relative speakings

Uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, cousin don't really spell as simply as they sound.
UNG-kul, ant or ont, NE-few, nees, KUZ-un

Anomalous spellings considering the pronunciations

Knuckle, knee, and knight are odd for starting with k’s.
Muscle (MUS-sul) actually evolved from mouse, little mouse, which a muscle resembles as a body shape under skin.
Scissors (SIZ-urz)—Vanna, get me an s. What a strange way to spell the device.
Iron (I-yern), irony (I-yern-ee) are mystifying because no one pronounces them as I-ron or I-ron-ee. Iran and Iraq sound like they’re spelled. Of course, the pronunciations for residents of those countries wind up with short i’s.

A few town names to try the spelling or pronunciation

Worcester, Ma (WEST-er)
Quogue, NY (kwog)
Phoenix, AZ (FEE-niks)
Coughran, TX (unsure)
Manor, TX (MAY-nr)
Burnet, TX (BURN-et)
Manchaca, TX (MAN-chak). I want to pronounce it man-CHAK-a. (Now thinking of Chaka Kahn's "I Feel for You" song and lyrics.)
Pedernales, TX (pur-deh-NAH-less)
A couple of similar sites that address some Texas town pronunciations, not that I necessarily agree—Rules of Austin, Keep Austin Weird

Different pronunciations depending on context

read—present tense and past tense verb that are spelled the same but pronounced differently.
lead—noun and present tense verb. The past tense of lead is led. If attempting to apply similar rules to that rhyming word read, past tense seems like it should be red. But red's a color.
live—adjective and verb. Pronunciation of long i or short i depends on usage.
sewer—nouns. Pronunciation of SOO-ur or SOH-ur depends on usage, which I have written about.
minute—MIN-it or my-NOOT. Odd that it looks like it could be pronounced min-NOOT. Seems like the word should be spelled minit if talking about the time unit.
woman—weird that the plural form is pronounced wimmin. For that matter, the singular form sounds like WUH-mun, not WOH-man.

Other mysterious word spellings, attributed to French origins

Even though I took French classes in the past, I don't have explanations for some of the following words: soldier (SOLE-jer), colonel (KER-nul), lieutenant (LOO-ten-unt). Hmmm, lieu tenant (an officer in place of a tenant).

While I'm on the topic of military ranks, I'm bringing up private. The private has the lowest rank, yet the word implies choice and control over self-disclosure. On the opposite end of the rank, we have general. A military general is highly ranked. As an adjective, general indicates ordinary status. Exceptions might be if general is part of a proper noun, such as General Electric, General Motors, General Dynamics.

Written words that surprised me when I first heard the pronunciations

Cupboard (KUB-urd). I want to pronounce it CUP bord.
Preface (PREH-fus). I want to pronounce it PREE fays.
Tuberculosis (too-BER-kuh-LOH-sis) looks like it should be pronounced TOO-ber-kol-OH-sis. And it looks like it should mean some sort of potato disease.
Vacation. The first time I saw it spelled was in the first grade. I had not yet learned about long and short vowels. I immediately spotted "cat". I might have wondered why "tion" was pronounced "shun".

Home and Hermione

I see the word home, and I think homage should sound like HOME-age or home-AZH. The pronunciation is "\ ä-mij, hä-\ ". I mentioned "homage" and other puzzlers in my Hermione pronunciation article a year ago.

Heart 2 Heart

2011-02-14T07:38:00.005-06:00

My theme today is hearts, the iconic symbol for the day. I've written about it in the context of things nearest and dearest that pop into my brain for this article.

Valentine's Day! It seems to have sneaked up on me very quickly this year! Last year, I had plenty of time to publish my convenient cooky recipe for making heart-shaped, red cookies using two flavors of cake mix. If you feel you have time to run to the store to get the ingredients and bake them, go for it! OTOH, you can just stretch the Valentine celebration (observation) for the whole week and wait until the weekend to bake them.

The pixstrip at the top of the article is an assemblage of some pictures I took at my most previous visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center These prickly pear cacti caught my eye because of heart shapes. At that time, I knew I'd want to write something up and include cropped pictures of them.

Another heart theme item I'm including in this article is info about PaintShopPro's picture tube feature, specifically hearts. (PaintShopPro is a graphics editing tool.) The associated pixstrip is a screen capture with the Picture Tube icon, icon label, my "spray" of hearts, and the Tool Options dialog box with option selections. My version of PaintShopPro is very old, so the interface does not resemble the ones from a webpage that discusses PSP picture tubes.

If you use PSP and want to download picture tube images, visit Corel's Paint Shop Picture Tubes webpage

This year, I myself am skipping making the cookies. I think I had been making them annually for about five years straight, sometimes for two to three different groups of people I'd see. Several conditions have converged to nudge me to forego the activity. Although I had re-entered the working world back in July after a 17-month hiatus, my perception of decreased discretionary time seems to have settled in only right after the new year started. Even towards the end of 2010, I managed to adhere to my self-imposed goal of publishing an article three times a month, one for every 10-day division. So far, I've managed to post only one last month and this one this month. Not sure if I will manage another article before February ends.

Here's a thought if you have enough fortitude to resist the psychological exertion to DO SOMETHING TODAY. Wait till tomorrow. I'm looking forward to tomorrow (Tuesday). That's the day the stores and drugstores knock off 50% for the cookies and candies. The meal? Just offsetting it a day. For an article that provides a different view of Valentine;s Day, read the New York Times' "When Love Outgrows Gifts on Valentine’s Day"

If you feel you must DO SOMETHING TODAY, here's a list of last minute suggestions for the day. Pick any, some, or all:

Card
Candy
Stuffed animal
Trinket, gadget, or bauble
Heart-shaped cookies
Favor coupons that you create
Meal out
Meal in
Other thing(s) that come to mind

Have a happy day, whatever you do!

Names on the Brain

2011-01-27T17:19:00.006-06:00

On and off over the years, I've thought about various aspects of names. In my article, I muse about four aspects:

Names of characters in soap operas, for which I'm citing one digest's compilation
American gender-neutral names
Popular names I've run across during my schooling and work career
Hurricane names

Soap Opera Names

I originally started to write about names I spotted that were in a Sunday insert soap opera digest a few weeks ago. I mused about characters' names. While Googling for the online source of the soap opera digest, some of the non-soap opera hits intrigued me enough that I clicked some of them. Some sites pertained to name origins, several of them pertaining to naming babies. One website had input fields for searching databases for popular names for boys and girls by year. (I've put URLs at the bottom of my article to avoid breaking up the reading continuity.)

I've not been a big soap opera watcher over the years. A long, long time ago and far far away, as far as I can recall, I regularly watched at least a couple of soaps with my mother. (I think I was in-between jobs at the time.) Some time after I quit watching them, I would read digests in the Sunday newspaper inserts. It amazes me that events that broadcast five days a week for half an hour each could be summed up in about six sentences. Well, someone else watches soaps so I don't have to. Sure, I could probably record soaps and zip through commercials, but I have other shows I'd rather lose my thoughts in.

I try to avoid getting involved in any of the soap opera digests anymore, but one soap seems to beckon me occasionally still. That would be Bold and Beautiful. I'm curious about how many of the main characters look now, as I hadn't watched the show in maybe 15 years. I can't seem to muster the energy to turn on the TV to look in on them. Maybe I'm apprehensive of getting sucked into watching again. As if I have spare time to shoehorn more activities.

Anyway, back to Bold and Beautiful. I'd always thought some of the characters' names were a bit unusual. The name Ridge has always struck me as odd. I myself don't know anyone named Ridge. I could say the same thing about almost all the other names I saw—Thomas, Brooke, Taylor (woman, pre-Swift), Whip (!), Amber, Liam, Hope, Tawny, Oliver. Thomas is one common name among guys (or the familiar form, Tom). The rest of the names seem to belong to mostly actors rather than everyday people. Besides several Toms/Thomases and one Oliver I know, I don't personally know anyone with those other names. Whip? Egad!

The digest's other soap operas and characters' names I collected are as follows:

All My Children
Madison (woman), Greenlee, Zach, Kendall, Marissa, Scott, JR (making me think of Dallas series), Annie, Amanda, Cara, Caleb, Asher

Days of Our Lives (aka DOOL)
Daniel, Chloe, Kayla, Caroline, Parker, Philip, Melanie, Philip, Nathan, Stephanie, Sami, EJ, Nicole, Vivian, Brady, Sidney

General Hospital
Sonny, Brenda, Luke, Tracy, Carly, Dante, Nik, Brook Lynn, Michael, Edward, Patrick, Robin, Lisa, Johnny

One Life to Live
Matthew, Inez, Nora, Bo, John, Natalie, Marty, Jessica, Brody, Clint, Viki, Joey, Aubrey, Joe, Kelly, Layla, Cristina, Blair

Young and Restless
Sharon, Skye, Adam, Daniel, Daisy, Kevin, Phyllis, Victor, Kyle, Diane

The digest I cribbed from is Scoopin' the Soaps, posted 12/15/2010, Toby Goldstein for Tribune Media Services. My Sunday insert excluded Desperate Housewives and Gossip Girls. For my article, I also passed on mentioning characters' names from those shows.

American Gender-neutral Names

The following non-gender-specific names have occasionally popped into mind: Dale (Evans, Earnhardt), Taylor (Swift, Lautner), Chris (Simms, Evert), Pat (Pat from skits in SNL, Boone, Nixon), Alex (Trebek, Doonesbury—fictional), Sidney (Lumet, Simpson). Most of the names seem to be popular now or had been in the past in movies or TV. Speaking of which, if you want to find links to celebrities with names you have in mind, Google "celebrities named [name]". Surprisingly, the websites themselves don't seem to have easy search tools.

Popular Names from School and Work

The following names are popular ones I've encountered over the years: Kathy, Linda, Mary, Deb or variations, Jennifer, Jessica, Karen, Jean, Sharon, Sue and variations, Carol, Dave or David, Steve, Bob, Bill, John, Mike, Dan, Scott, Paul. In some of my school classes or workplaces, I'd know several people with the same first names. Differentiating required actions like adding their surname initial, in written reference, quietly approaching them, ..., but not shouting out just the first name.

Hurricane Names

Used to be that they gave girl names to hurricanes. For some time, they've also tossed boys' names into the mix. For info about names, visit http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/tcfaqHED.html and click Section B questions. Because the website is a FAQ, you might want to open Section B in a new window so you can easily return the other four sections for more hurricane items of interest.

The names in the two following sites are clickable for name origins and meanings.

100 most popular names for boys, based upon Social Security Administration statistics as of May 2010
100 most popular names for girls, based upon Social Security Administration statistics as of May 2010

Visit The New Parents Guide for links to most most-popular names for boys and girls by certain years, decades, and eras.

If you've been curious as to your own name's popularity rank for the year you were born, or any other year, for that matter, this SSA page has filters you can play with.

Buy Buy Buy Ay Ay Ay

2010-12-23T08:16:00.005-06:00

Only another couple of shopping days left! Borrowing from an article I wrote about this time last year, I'm thinking gadgets again. Not that I'm going to buy any myself. This year for inspiration, I looked to three local advertising inserts, accompanied by web searches. This article can serve as a mini-shopping list to keep shoppers out of the malls, which I imagine are crowded. If you're cybershopping, it's another matter. If you're bricks-and-mortar shopping, get thee out there!

To provide some mystery and also avoid appearances that I'm pushing specific b&m places, I'm omitting store names. Let's say two of them are drugstores (pharmacies, apothecaries, mini-marts that coincidentally also dispense prescription drugs in teeny corners, …}. The third b&m place is a stand-alone electronics store that seems to have gotten on the holiday-gadget bandwagon. My table format has a heading row for places identified as "A", "B", and "C"—followed by rows for items and prices. To view images of items, copy and paste the item names in Google image searches.

The price focus is for items priced $19.99, $14.99, and $9.99. I listed one notable exception because the item looks so cute. The 99¢ price ending is no accident. My article "The 99¢ Effect and Other Saver Thoughts" includes discussion about the psychology of the pricing something just under the next dollar threshold.

One electronics store that I patronize places those impulse-buy snacks near the bank of cash registers (typical merchandise location). The price signs show the dollar and cents values with different type size. Not that I can recall at this moment, but it seems the cents value is about one-fourth the size of the dollar value. Anyway, happy celebrations of whatever you're celebrating!

	A	B	C
Pillow Pets	$19.99		$19.99
34" Jumbo Teddy (bear)		$19.99
Fushigi Magic Gravity Ball	$19.99	$19.99	$14.99
Big Box of Fuzzoodles	$19.99
Homedics Neck and Shoulder Massager	$19.99
Dr. Scholl's Full Cushion Massager	$19.99
Homedics Hand Sanitizer Dispenser	$19.99
EnviraScape Home Fragrance	$19.99
Dr. Scholl's Foot Spa	$19.99
Paper Jamz Guitar	$19.99
Paper Jamz Drums	$19.99
Shake Weight	$19.99
Belly Burner	$19.99
Discovery Kids Motorized Pottery Wheel		$19.99
Discovery Kids Adventure Play Tent		$19.99
Mister Steamy (dryer ball that you put water into)	$14.99		$14.99
Yoshi Blade (Looks like successor to Ginsu knife)	$14.99	$19.99	$14.99
Amazing Wand	$14.99		$14.99
Total Pillow	$14.99
Chef Basket	$14.99
Snuggle	$14.99	$14.99	$9.99
Pet Zoom	$9.99
Finishing Touch Personal Hair Remover	$9.99
Handy Caddy	$9.99
Cami Secret	$9.99
Might Fix It	$9.99
Pasta Boat	$9.99
Dropps Detergent	$9.99
Voice Recording Photo Frame	$9.99
13 in 1 Pocket Tool	$9.99
Golfer's Tool	$9.99
2 Pack LED Book Lights	$9.99
Open It! Any Package	$9.99
Sara Peyton Wand	$9.99
Sarah Peyton Two Headed Massager (!!)	$9.99
Homedics Foot Massage Pillow	$9.99
Homedics Mini Bath	$9.99
Homedics Exfoliating Shower Massager	$9.99
Wexford Glass Personal Scale	$9.99
Emerson Triple-head shaver		$9.99
Emerson wet/dry shaver		$9.99
Soft-Sided Pet House		$9.99
Doggy Stairs		$9.99
Discovery Kids moon lamp		$9.99
Money Farm piggy bank		$9.99
Slap Chop			$9.99
Anti Static Dryer Balls			$9.99
Wonder Hanger			$9.99
HD Vision Ultra Sun Glasses			$9.99
Slippers	$9.99
Rainbow toe socks	3pr/$10

A Convenient Ganachey Icing

2010-12-16T06:12:00.007-06:00

I don't have a good name for my hybrid icing, so I'll refer to it as ganachey icing. Ganache is a term for a chocolate icing with two main ingredients—chocolate (squares, chips, candies, etc.) and heavy cream. The white icing equivalent is white chocolate and heavy cream. A typical ganache to me is the chocolate icing on Hostess cupcakes.

My alternative to heavy cream is canned frosting. The convenience is microwaving two items and not having to boil cream. Anyway, the ratio is typically half "candy" and half frosting, by weight. For cupcakes, I tend to use 8 ounces of candy (Wilton, chocolate or other flavor chips, candy bars, "bark", ...) and 8 ounces of frosting for a batch of cupcakes cut into 48 halves.

You can be as flexible and adventuresome with icing flavors and cake shapes as you want. For that matter, the ganachey icing is good also on cookies and rice crispy bars/squares. I have not ever tried icing a whole cake because I tend to make bite-size desserts.

Melt the candy in a microwave. Follow instructions for melting if the package has them. Otherwise, microwave a minute at a time, using a spoon to test for meltedness each time. When it's melted, spoon in the frosting, stir, and microwave the mixture until it's a syrupy texture. Spread or dip items as desired.

The first batch of images show icing one mini-cupcake. Coverage should be about 60 (one cake mix box recipe). YMMV for how many bite-sizers you ice.
The second batch of images show icing a sheet of chocolate rice crispy treats, then cutting and arranging the squares into a container. Yes, that's a squeegie handle I use for spreading the warm ganachey icing—clean!

In case mentioning Hostess cupcakes triggers a Pavlovian response and you want to try making your own, do a Google search for "homemade hostess cupcakes recipe". Of several recipes I've viewed, these bakers are serious scratch-recipe people! One recipe that is particularly eye-catching for details and pictures is Faux Hostess Cupcakes - Childhood Lunchbox Memories. A secondary source for reasonable information is Homemade Hostess Cupcakes.

I myself would probably just be casual enough to bake from a box cake mix recipe, squirt in canned frosting, pour and spread my ganache recipe, and draw the squiggle with more canned frosting. Wouldn't these cupcakes look cute as mini versions?

Visit my other baking recipe articles:

A Convenient Triple-dose Pnutty Butter Cooky Batch
Cookies using PB cookie mix, turbocharged w/chopped peanuts & Wilton PB flavor candies
A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites
Cookies using cake mix—German chocolate cake taste with predominance of chocolate, coconut, and pecans
A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter
For Easter, cookies using cake mix, decorated with color sugars, then imprinted with small cooky cutters.
A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch
Easy cooky recipe using cake mix for making red cookies for Valentine's Day. Includes a strip of images at the top of the article.

Post-TDay Travel--Part 3 of 3

2010-12-04T15:46:00.005-06:00

This article is the third of three parts of the Thanksgiving week travel theme. In the first article, I wrote about songs about planes, trains, and cars, based on the movie title Trains, Planes, and Automobiles. As I dove into writing about other travel modes, I wandered around from song to song. I concluded I have enough material for three parts. Part 2 is about water travel songs—boats, surfboards, submarines, …. This article covers the rest of the travel modes I can think of. I've listed songs, artists, lyrics sites, and video sites (if possible). Take another trip down memory lane.

One Foot in Front of the Other

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video
Walk, Don't Run	Ventures	NA	V
25 Miles	Edwin Starr	Click	ES
Stroll	Diamonds	Click	D
Hitch Hike	Marvin Gaye	Click	MG

Non-car Wheelies

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Surrey with the Fringe on Top	Various	Click	BD, GM to SJ	from Oklahoma play
Bicycle Song	Red Hot Chlit Peppers	Click	RHCP
Bicycle Race	Queen	Click	Q
Bicycle Built for Two	Various	Click	Chipmunks, computer
Acoustic Motorbike	Luka Bloom	Click	LB
Little Honda	Hondells	Click	H, [imagery]	2nd video—montage
Highway In The Wind	Arlo Guthrie	Click	AG
Motorcycle Song	Arlo Guthrie	Click	AG	Significance

Mass Transit (of Sorts)

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Bus Stop	Hollies	Click	H
Magic Bus	The Who	Click	Who
Another One Rides the Bus	Weird Al	Click	AY	parody of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust"
Promised Land	Chuck Berry	Click	CB	Prominent in MIB w/Tommy Lee Jones singing with radio while driving upside down
Convoy	C.W. McCall	Click	CWM, [imagery]	1st video—movie trailer w/complete song, 2nd video—montage w/twist on lyrics

Clippity Cloppity

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Over the River and Through the Woods	Various	1, 2	Chipmunks	Lyrics for Thanksgiving, Christmas refs
Horse with No Name	America	Click	A
El Paso	Marty Robbins	Click	MR	Performance from father, then son
Ghost Riders in the Sky	Johnny Cash, Pukipu/Ramrods	Click	JC, P/R	1st video—Johnny Cash 2nd video—Pukipu/Ramrods

Up in the Sky (Not Planes)

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video
Superman/Can You Read My Mind	John Williams composer	Click	JW
Up, Up, and Away	5th Dimension	Click	5D
Yellow Balloon	Yellow Balloon	Click	YB
Magic Carpet Ride	Steppenwolf	Click	S
Whole New World	Peabo Bryson & Regina Belle	Click	PB, RB

Up in the Stratosphere (Also Not Planes)

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Rocket Man	Elton John	Click	EJ
Fly Me to the Moon	Frank Sinatra	Click	FS
Star Wars	John Williams composer	NA	JW
Star Trek	Various	NA	classic, Next Generation
Telstar	Tornados	NA	T	Trivia: Band member George Bellamy is father of Muse’s Matt Bellamy.
Martian Hop	Ran-Dells	Click	RD
Bennie and the Jets	Elton John	Click	EJ	All these years, I never knew it was Bennie, and Bennie’ a she. ("She's got electric boots a mohair suit")

Just Moving On

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Wayward Wind	Gogi Grant	Click	GG
Travelin' Man	Rick Nelson	Click	RN
Ramblin’ Man	Allman Brothers	Click	AB
The Wanderer	Dion	Click	Dion
Different Drum	Linda Ronstadt, Michael Nesmith	Click	LR, MN	Lyrics link plays LR's song immediately. 1st video—LR, as part of Stone Poneys 2nd video—MN (ex-Monkee), DD writer
Me and You and a Dog Named Boo	Lobo	Click	Lobo
On the Road Again	Willie Nelson	Click	WN
On the Road Again	Canned Heat	Click	CH

Post-TDay Travel--Water Water Everywhere

2010-11-29T08:42:00.003-06:00

This article was going to be the second of two parts of the Thanksgiving week travel theme. Previously, I wrote about songs about planes, trains, and automobiles, base on the movie title Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. As I dove into writing about other travel modes, I wandered around from song to song.

I concluded I have enough material for a third part, coming out in about a week. (Visit http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/ about the first week in December for it.) This article focuses on music for a prominent mode of travel NOT in the movie title —boats (and other water travel methods). I've listed songs, artists, lyrics sites, and video sites (if possible). Take another trip down memory lane.

Surfboard Travel (On the Water)

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Surfin' USA	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Surfin' Safari	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Hawaii Five-O	Various	NA	classic, 2010
Wipeout	Surfaris, Ventures	NA	S, V
Pipeline	Chantays, Ventures	NA	C, V	1st video—Chantays' Lawrence Welk appearance: Check out the Beatles' suits, pre-Beatles
New York's a Lonely Town	Trade Winds	Click	TW
Surfer Joe	Surfaris	Click	Surfaris
Surfer Girl	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Catch a Wave	Beach Boys	Click	BB	same tune as Sidewalk Surfin'
Sidewalk Surfin'	Jan and Dean	Click	J & D	See skateboards when they used to be flat boards with wheels.

Boat Travel (Also on the Water)

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Sea Cruise	Frankie Ford	Click	FF
Come on Down to My Boat	Every Mother's Son	Click	EMS
Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)	Enya	Click	Enya
Sailing	Christopher Cross	Click	CC
Come Sail Away	Styx	Click	Styx
Advemtures in Paradise	Lionel Newman composer	NA	LN
Sloop John B	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Sail On, Sailor	Beach Boys	Click	BB	Vocals by Billy from Dino, Desi, and Billy
Beyond the Sea	Bobby Darin	Click	BD
Blue Navy Blue	Diane Renay	Click	DR	Video includes other songs.
Kiss Me Sailor	Diane Renay	Click	DR, DR & ER	1st video—montage and bad audio 2nd video—duet w/Ed Rambeau, one of the song writers, who also wrote and recorded "Concrete and Clay"
Brandy	Looking Glass	Click	LG
In the Navy	Village People	Click	VP

Underwater Travel (In the water)

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Yellow Submarine	Beatles	Click	Beatles	Legos video animation
Pink Shoelaces	Dodie Stevens	Click	DS	“He takes me deep sea diving in a submarine!”
Sea Hunt	David Rose composer	NA	DR

The catchy song that takes you from land to water is "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" (Brian Hyland): lyrics, video.

Turkey Week Travel--Planes, Trains N Cars

2010-11-21T15:55:00.006-06:00

The day before Thanksgiving is supposed to be the most heavily traveled day, at least for flying. I'm thinking that lots of people travel during the entire week. As we're rapidly approaching the big day itself, I'm bringing up a Thanksgiving-theme comedy movie and putting a music wrapper around it. Planes, Trains & Automobiles. which came out in 1987, stars Steve Martin and John Candy. From the IMDB site, the short introduction states, "A man must struggle to travel home for Thanksgiving, with an obnoxious slob of a shower ring salesman his only companion."

The movie title is about the modes of travel that the two main characters use to get from here to there, and there, and there, …. The time setting is long before 9/11, and well before TSA. It's amazing how air travel rituals have changed. Even now, maybe especially now, who knows the next paths that air travelers follow, willingly or not?

This article focuses on music that feature the movie's three modes of travel—planes, trains, and cars. I've listed songs, artists, lyrics sites, and video sites (if possible). During my web research travels, I had encountered songs that featured additional travel modes. Having accumulated lots of references, I'm publishing two parts. For this part, take a trip down memory lane with songs that feature the movie's travel means. The second one—well, wait for it (the next article). Let's say it'll be another trip with more ways of locomotion to sing about.

Planes

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Leaving on a Jet Plane	Peter, Paul, Mary; John Denver	Click	PPM, JD	Catch the duet with John and Mama Cass Elliot.
Daniel	Elton John	Click	EJ
Jet Airliner	Steve Miller Band	Click	SMB
Back in the USSR	Beatles	Click	PM; Beatels	Paul McCartney in Red Square 2003, Beatels—decent Aussie tribute band
Eight Miles High	Byrds	Click	Byrds

Trains

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Night Train	James Brown	Click	JB vocals, JB instr.
Midnight Train to Georgia	Gladys Knight and the Pips, 2010 Yale Whiffenpoofs	Click	GK & Pips, YW	I encountered links to the Yale Whiffenpoofs during research for this article.
Midnight Special	Johnny Rivers	Click	JR
City of New Orleans	Arlo Guthrie	Click	AG younger, AG older	Arlo sounds the same after all these years.
Folsom Prison Blues	Johnny Cash	Click	JC

Automobiles

Song	Artist(s)	Lyrics	Video	Comment(s)
Fun, Fun, Fun	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Little Deuce Coupe	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Little GTO	Ronny and the Daytonas	Click	R & D
Hey, Little Cobra	Rip Chords	Click	RC
409	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Pink Cadillac	Natalie Cole, Bruce Springsteen	Click	NC, BS
Hot Rod Lincoln	Commander Cody, Asleep at the Wheel	Click	CC, RB
Mustang Sally	Wilson Pickett	Click	WP
Sister Christian	Night Ranger	Click	NR	"You're motoring, What's your price for flight …"
Little Old Lady from Pasadena	Jan and Dean	Click	J & D
Nadine	Chuck Berry	Click	CB
Maybelline	Chuck Berry, Johnny Rivers	Click	CB, JR	The Johnny Rivers video includes Memphis.
No Particular Place to Go	Chuck Berry	Click	CB
Drive My Car	Beatles	Click	Beatles
Vehicle	Ides of March	Click	Ides
Taxi	Harry Chapin	Click	HC
Cab Driver	Mills Brothers	Click	MB
Low Rider	War	Click	War
Beep Beep	Playmates	Click	Playmates
Shut Down	Beach Boys	Click	BB
Dead Man's Curve	Jan and Dean	Click	J & D	Helicopter flight over "Extreme Roads in Southern Italy"

Visit my other music-topic articles:

Moe-SKI-Toe--I've Got Me Under Your Skin
Info about mosquitoes, accompanied by links to content and images, my parody "I've Got Me Under Your Skin", and links to my target song.
Fish Fries Telephone
Mini-lesson about commas and an abbreviated parody of Lady Gaga and Beyonce's "Telephone" song.
Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa
Technical communicator parody (abbreviated) of Lady Gaga’s monster hit “Bad Romance”.
Body Parts Express
Huey Lewis' "Hip to be Square" triggering thought of "hip" as a body part rather than a social attribute, which results in my article about various body-part usages in songs and expressions.
Year-end Fun-AT-tix and More Same Song Titles
Seasonal homophones for year end and more same-song-titles/different-song examples.
Dual-theme "Weird Al" Yankovic Songs
Weird Al parodies that capture music from one song and integrates lyrics and visuals of his vision from another song.
Same Song Titles, Different Songs
Example songs that have same song titles but are different songs entirely.
Some Wordplays Placed in the Wicked Play (and Other Wicked References)
References to "For Good", "Defying Gravity", "I'm Not That Girl", "As Long as You're Mine", "The Wizard and I". I also include some background about main Wicked characters.

A Convenient Bean Soup

2010-11-08T12:18:00.003-06:00

Now that the weather's getting cooler, thinking about soup. My basic *convenient* soup recipe calls for a can of refried beans and fluid. The image at the top of this article is an idea guide, usable as an auxiliary shopping list. If you can boil water, you can easily make the soup.

The ratio of fluid to canned refried beans is one to one. YMMV for soup thickness, depending on the brand you buy. You might want to start out with half the amount of fluid in case the brand put in more cooking fluid for their processing. (Yes, have done that before, too.)

These instructions make one quart of soup if using a standard 16-oz can of beans. If you want, you can halve the recipe and save the other half of the beans for another time. Or you can store the other half of the processed soup for another sitting.

Instructions

Open the can of refried beans.
Spoon the beans into a saucepan.
Use the can to measure fluid, then pour the fluid into the saucepan.
Stir and heat the contents.
Add whatever ingredients from the list, or anything else that sounds good. (If you want, add these ingredients AFTER you pour the soup instead of before.)
Pour into bowl(s).

If you buy the packaged refried beans, double the amount of fluid and follow the package instructions.

One additional idea—for a group gathering, heat several cans of refried beans and water in a large pot. Set aside bouillon powder. Acquire all the suggested add-ins. Let the guests ladle their own soup and add in what they want. Remember to have extra bowls and spoons on hand. Expand on a party idea. With a bunch of the ingredients, you could even move sideways with the thought and try queso dip and chip ideas.

Another convenient soup recipe you can try is my veggie lentil soup.

Q4 Lights N Decor, Halloween Sights N More

2010-10-28T07:15:00.000-05:00

More and more, appearances by outdoor lights and decorations have been creeping backward and forward in the calendar in the 4th quarter. What formerly had been prominent displays only during the end of the year started showing up near Thanksgiving, staying around into the following year. This year, Halloween lights and decorations seem to have started as soon as early October.

In past years, simple paper-bag-shape lights lining driveways and walkways seem to have made way for Christmas lights, air-pumped lawn balloons, tree-hanger illuminators, and other lawn decorations. During the years that Christmas displays have become more elaborate, illuminating, and animated, Thanksgiving themes have been creeping in as if they were preludes to the BIG EVENT. Think inflatable pilgrim-outfitted turkeys.

In more recent years, Halloween decorations have gone on display since much of October. There are ghosts and ghouls, jack-o-lanterns, black cats, graveyard scenes, and more. Lights? Lots! A few years ago, they seemed to be primarily orange. Black is a common color for Halloween, but pretty impractical. This year, I've seen several houses that have multiple-color lights.

I think a possible trend could be lights and decorations that segue from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas. Well, maybe not all three events. You CAN have common items for Halloween and Thanksgiving using a harvest theme—pumpkins, orange lights, straw brooms, maybe more. Thanksgiving to Christmas might be less likely for common items. Hmmm, maybe make up an inflatable turkey wearing a red suit? (Yow!) I think that's a worthwhile marketing idea, maybe not too far-fetched! In any case, multicolor lights can make it through all three holidays, starting in early October through a few weeks in January.

Technologically, I wonder how feasible it might be to make strings of lights that are programmable for color. I know there are already light strings that blink, flicker, and chase. If someone could come up with lights that are programmable for motion and color, the lights would be REALLY multifunctional. Maybe a three-color lights gadget (red/blue/green) in a string of many that can display any one color or combination? Maybe a chasing-lights rainbow display? Programmable lights for color could be useful even for Valentine's Day and Easter! Well, one possible obstacle might be the association of red lights to a different meaning ("red light district").

For decorations versatility, companies could come up with inflatable balloons of cutesy kids that wear velcro-fastener outfits of holiday-theme clothing. How about witchy or batty for Halloween, pilgrimy for Thanksgiving, Santa Clausy for Christmas, …. Further use of my hypothetical kid balloons could include outfits with red hearts for Valentine's Day. For Easter, they could wear springy outfits (maybe including duck-bill hats and rabbit-ear headgear) and hold Easter egg baskets.

It might only be a matter of time before marketeers successfully induce mass use of outdoor decorations for Valentine's Day and Easter. They are very good at getting people to prep for those days, seducing us to buy holiday main-course food, desserts, and candy. Speaking of which, we sure don't need to wait for THOSE events to start in on the consumables. There's a lot going on this quarter!

DIY Bizcards and Name Tag

2010-10-21T05:39:00.002-05:00

Attending meetups and attaching sticky-back name tags that you print or write your name on? Attending meetups and NOT having any name tags at all? Prepare for the next event by making your own tag and also having your own DIY business cards. Visit https://www.box.net/shared/usayfv8pv4, download my Word file, and modify it using instructions farther down in this article.

When I attended a networking meetup about a week ago, I received compliments about my name tag as I introduced myself. The tag was black on white, business-card size, double-side-tape attached to a paper trade-show card—all tucked into a clear, trade-show badge. I explained that I had attended so many networking events that I made up my own name tag.

As a writer, I considered the appearance of my tag to be an opportunity to display typography know-how. The tag displays my name and occupation, readable for type size and type face. Furthermore, I inserted Webdings that I felt symbolized my occupation—computer, sheet of paper, open book, stack of books, world globe, spider, and spider web. For subtle grouping, I enclosed a dotted rectangle around the globe, spider, and web.

The name tag is one of 10 cells that fit on a 2 x 5 grid, suitable for printing onto perforated card stock, commonly available at office supply stores. (Do a Google Image search for "perforated business card paper" to see packaging.) My process represents an alternative to getting business cards from Vistaprint and similar companies. And you also get a name tag as a bonus. With the Word file I have made available at https://www.box.net/shared/usayfv8pv4, anyone can use it to create their own business cards and name tag.

Instructions

Download the file and save it to your drive.
Edit each line of one business card cell to suit yourself. Save the file.
Select and copy that cell's information to your clipboard.
Paste the information onto one of the business card cells to see if the pasting looks good.

If the pasting is good, continue to paste the information onto the other eight business card cells.
If the pasting is not good, undo the paste. You might need to copy/paste special, line by line.

Modify the name tag cell as you wish. Save the file.
Print a test copy of the file onto plain paper. (Don't worry about the paragraph markers, non-printing symbols, and borders printing. They won't.)
Overlay the paper over a perforated card stock sheet, checking that the information aligns and also that each cell's information is well within its borders.
Adjust information alignment and looks as necessary.
Print the file onto a sheet of the perforated business card stock.

Suggestion: Save the file under a slightly different name. Copy a business-card cell, replace the name tag cell, and save the file so you have a file with only business cards.

For those who want to consider name tags that attract more attention than static ones, get one that scrolls. In my article—"Inventions Running Around the Blockhead"—I mention scrolling name tags (accompanied by URLs) and someone who has created her own to wear at events.

PDF2W--Converting PDF to Word-recognizable Format

2010-10-09T05:38:00.002-05:00

You have a PDF file that you would like to convert to .doc or .rtf and you don't have access to an Adobe Acrobat version that will. How to convert for cheap? Even better, how about for free? Try two free online converters—Free File Converter (.pdf to .doc) and PDF Online (.pdf to .rtf). I have tried both procedures using an experimental PDF file, listed results for both tools, and discussed the results.

Free File Converter

Visit http://www.freefileconvert.com/.
Click the Convert File tab.
Browse to your input file, a pdf in this case.
Select the output format, doc in this case.
Click Convert. Wait as instructed.
On the new screen, click the file link to open it.

In my own case, my converted .doc file opened as a read-only file and had hard breaks at every line instead of line wrap. It also showed weird lines (correlated to no-longer-functioning hyperlinks) across some of the text. Just as an experiment, I did a save-as to the desktop. I closed the newly saved-as file, then re-opened it to view the actual new results.

The doc file ended up with extra pages, far beyond my experimental doc file of two pages. My observations:

The converted PDF-to-doc file wound up as six pages:

1st page totally blank
2nd page with lines that had correlated to the hyperlinks and an image that had been on the first page
3rd page with content from original 1st page with no-longer functioning hyperlinks
4th page also totally blank
5th page also totally blank, but with some weird anchoring
6th page with content from the original 2nd page

The page header converted to regular text.
The font appearances and section breaks stayed.
Style names and table formatting didn't carry over.

Cautionary note about Free File Converter results: If your PDF file has anything besides line-breaking text, you can kiss everything else good-bye—line wraps, headers (and presumably footers), tables, selectable images, styles. If you care to apply the PROPER techniques to obtain the looks (not just settle for the looks), you can be looking at all sorts of formatting and adjusting.

PDF Online

Visit http://www.pdfonline.com/pdf2word/index.asp.
Click Browse, then browse to your input file, a pdf in this case.
Click Upload and Convert. Wait as instructed.
Click the right-click here link to download the zip file.
In the dialog box, save the zip file to your drive. Extract (uncompress) it. View it.

My observations:

My PDF converted to rtf.
Almost all my content turned into tables with extra columns.
Hyperlinks no longer worked.
Image was no longer selectable at all.
The page header converted to regular text.
The font appearances stayed.
Style names, table formatting, and section breaks did not carry over.

Cautionary note about PDF Online results, which are similar to Free File Converter results: If your PDF file has anything besides line-breaking text, you can kiss everything else good-bye—line wraps, headers (and presumably footers), selectable images, styles. Table modifications could be a major issue. If you care to apply the PROPER techniques to obtain the looks (not just settle for the looks), you can be looking at all sorts of formatting and adjusting.

Using Free File Converter vs. PDF Online

The major contrast between these two converters is that PDF Online didn't add extra pages. If you want to convert for only looks, the PDF Online results file would probably be easier to work with than Free File Converter results file. You should try both free converters and decide which one to go with.

Free File Converter does all sorts of file conversions, including image formats. Now, here's my shameless plug where I cite Free File Converter and numerous other handy online tools—Tooling Around, at http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/2010/05/tooling-round.html.

Moe-SKI-Toe--I've Got Me Under Your Skin

2010-09-27T18:40:00.014-05:00

Over the weekend, I attended an event at Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas, music provided by the Austin Community College Jazz Band. One song they presented was "I've Got You Under My Skin", composed by Cole Porter.

Cole Porter wrote I've Got You Under My Skin in 1936, as part of the score for the movie "Born to Dance", which fans of Jimmy Stewart may remember as starring Eleanor Powell. (Trivia tidbit: Virginia Bruce actually performed the song in the movie.) The song was such a hit that it was nominated for an Oscar (and Academy Award). Then, the cover versions began appearing.

Frank Sinatra was probably the most celebrated singer to record the song. Shortly after RW (the event singer) sang it, I mused to myself that it could be a mosquito song, titled "I've Got Me Under Your Skin". After a few more songs, the band finished up, and RW came over to put away his trumpet and other items. (Yes! An accomplished trumpet player as well as gifted vocalist!) I told him my thought about the mosquito idea, which he responded to favorably. This positive reaction got me to thinking of writing a parody, which I have included farther down.

During my research about mosquitoes, I encountered several websites about them I found enlightening, entertaining, and amusing. I did a Google image search because I wanted to include an eye catcher in this article. Much of the content appealed to me as well. In the following list, I ranked for content. Underneath each URL, I listed the link for the image with my image ranking. The image at the top is one of many images that the website encourages downloading. As for the other images, I omitted displaying them because of copyright concerns. (They're worthwhile looking at!!!!)

1. Coloring page mosquito bite
1. http://www.edupics.com/mosquito-bite-t11826.jpg

2. Mosquito Coloring Pages (a site for downloading mosquito ringtones and coloring images)
6. http://www.freemosquitoringtones.org/coloring/mosquito8-thumb.gif

3. Facts: The Mechanics of a Mosquito
3. http://www.homelanddefensecorp.com/images/mosquito-anatomy.gif

4. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/insects/mosquito/Mosquito.shtml
2. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/mgifs/Mosquito_bw.GIF (Very detailed diagram!)

5. 14 things you didn't know about mosquitoes (a Sameh Fahmy blog article)
5. http://www.illustrators.net/gothard/images/mosquito.jpg (Run away! Run away!)

6. Kids’ information Mosquitoes
7. http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/education/stowawayskidspages/images/mosquito.jpg

7. Healing Tips
4. http://www.healing-tips.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/mosquito-parts.gif

For ease of navigating to the images, I've relisted them by my ranking:

********************
I've Got Me Under Your Skin

I've got me under your skin.
I've got you deep en-do-der-er-mis.
So deep in your blood where I stuck in my pro-bos-cis.
I've got me under your skin.

I’ve tried to land so light-ly.
I’ve said to myself what a feast! It’s a gonna be so swell!
Your arms, your legs, and your knees. Especially want your neck!
Yes, I want me under your skin.

I'd sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of having you near.
In spite of a warn- ing swat, your sweep-ing hand
Tha-at came so close to my ear.

Don't you know, you fool, you never can win.
You know I’m a teeny bug going after your blood.
By the time you itch, I already hit.
You’re the top. I’m lovin’ it.

Because I got me under your skin.

[musical interlude]

I'd sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of having you near.
In spite of a warn- ing swat, your sweep-ing hand
Tha-at came so close to my ear.

Don't you know, you fool, you never can win.
You know I’m a teeny bug going after your blood.
By the time you itch, I already hit.
You’re the top. I’m lovin’ it.

Because I got me under your skin.
And I like me under your skin.
********************

My primary links about "I've Got You Under my Skin"

I adapted lyrics from Lyricsfreak.
I verified (as much as possible) the Lyricsfreak words to Sinatra vocals—Frank Sinatra version (montage & lyrics).

Other YouTube links for "I've Got You Under My Skin"

Frank Sinatra (1974, Madison Square Garden)
Michael Buble (date and venue undetermined)
Four Seasons (1966, Ed Sullivan?)
Chris Botti & Katharine McPhee (September 2008)
Steve Lawrence (date and venue undetermined)
Ella Fitzgerald (vocals—video unrelated)

Inventions Running Around the Blockhead

2010-09-16T07:43:00.000-05:00

This article is about some inventions I've thought about lately—ones that are real, and ones I'd like to see become real. Maybe other people can think of inventions they'd like to see in the marketplace, or ones they'd like to create themselves.

I'm impressed with
the miniaturization of computer text. Electronic text displays have come a long way from movie and billboard marquees to very compact displays on phones and name tags. In between those sizes and times, one of my former co-workers came up with a handheld communicator. The intended user, someone incapable of speech (mute), could type text and show it to others. At that time, it seemed a big breakthrough to replace the-paper-and-pencil method I've seen in numerous movies and TV shows over the years. (The most recent instance I saw was a character in a VERY POPULAR TV SERIES communicating by writing down text in English. She had temporarily reverted to speaking in Korean only as a result of her head knock.)

One device I've not seen many of is the programmable scrolling-text name tag, although I've seen lots of ads for them. The links that have most caught my eye are at http://tinyurl.com/AmazonScrollingMsgBadge, http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7c54/, and http://www.usbgeek.com/prod_detail.php?prod_id=0598.

One name tag owner I know has had her tag for over a year, and she says she still gets lots of comments. Another person I know has created her own, using spare parts. She says she's gotten lots of comments also. These devices are good for conversation icebreakers. They're novel, not that common. People react to motion; vision edge detectors provide information about relative locations over time. (Companies that target children take full advantage of kids' attraction to motion in addition to using colors and shapes.)

Devices I've appreciated
pertain to grocery stores. Two of them are the self-service checkout station and the techy produce scale.

The self-service checkout station, found in some stores and in one big box home improvement store, is convenient when I have few items. I consider using the station much speedier than an express line.
The techy produce scale doesn't just weigh something. I provide the code for the item and print out the price ticket. It's a good way to verify the item name, unit price, and total price.

Would like
a computerized merchandise mapper. When I go to the store looking for something I don't get frequently, the hunt is often a challenge. When it comes to drugstores, home improvement stores, or department stores, I dislike the hunt even more. For me, I feel I waste a certain amount of time hunting for things because

I have no idea where the item might be.
I have only a faint idea where the item might be.
The store moves the item or the category, whether it's down the aisle or over an aisle or two.
I don't know if the store carries the item.
I don't know if the store has discontinued the item.

Using a store computer, a customer would select a search term, drill down to more specifics if desired, then have the screen display a map of the store with a customer "You are here" icon and a "It is here" icon. The map might even include a dashed line to suggest a pace route. Think Google walking route map on a smaller scale.

Would like
a dental-mirror-size dual-mirror device wearable for backstroke swimming. I don't like getting my face in the water, so I prefer to do the frogkick backstroke. The downside is not being able to see where I'm going. The logical way to cope is to note reference objects above and slow down or stop accordingly before hitting the the pool wall. Some enterprising soul could come up with such a head-hugging device that has multiple, adjustable, even telescoping positions. The positions would make the device adaptable for different views, even for wearing on a walk to avoid fast approaching, uh, objects.

Would like
a lightweight, transparent, sandwichboard clipboard with broad base for holding papers vertically--useable for paper sheets and recipe cards, and other similar media.

Magnetic or spring-clip holders with concave surfaces are ok, but the curvedness, which I assume exists to help with holding the paper upright, is a small detraction. Flipping pages requires repeated motions if I'm working with manual-size documents. Rotating the device results in convex text, not quite as easy to read as concave text.

I've also tried using large, approximately 2" wide, square, clip magnets. Because the edges are straight, they don't help keep the piece of paper rigid. Adding a piece of thin cardboard, curved slightly backward, helps some, but the non-transparency makes it necessary to flip the paper over. I also tried folding over a piece of transparent mylar to try using it like a sandwich configuration with the paper in the middle. No good. The "sandwich" flops over from the high center of gravity, pulling the clip(s) over.

For a few days, I've laid down a 2" clip with a piece of paper in the jaws. An existing water jug serves as a back wall so the paper rests against it and the text faces me.

Would like
a hybrid hand-buzzer and audible noisemaker. My primary application inspiration is notifying when a small-department meeting or the speaker is running overtime. The hand-buzzer aspect would be the size, shape, and main trigger, pressed by the owner. I suppose a keychain fob would also work, although similarities between devices could result in visual confusion. The noisemaker aspect would be a device that emits variable noises and volumes. I'm not talking about radios, although engineering overdesign might include that feature also.

The noise types could be limitless--short ding chime for gentle notification, loud and long raspberry or body noise for demonstrative disapproval notification. Another application would be use as a hand-held alarm. Sure, I know there are pocket alarms, but they seem pretty feature-limited. Of course, now that I'm talking about variations in noise and volume, the device would require more controls than just a dead man's switch.

For added versatility, the noisemaker could include a bright LED for use as a flashlight. How about muscling it up by also adding a laser pointer for use in meetings? Problem might be that an annoyed meeting attendee might use the lights to harass others. Another feature to consider adding is a sound sampler/player. How cool to record and play back sounds or voice clips of your choosing! The imagination runs amok! Uh, oh, the mischievous self is periscopically poking just above the surface.

One device is more of a curiosity for me rather than something I consider life-changing. I wonder why brass mouthpieces are round instead of lip-shaped. Lips aren't shaped like brass-instrument mouthpieces; brass mouthpieces aren't shaped like lips. ??

Rearview Mirroring TX Towns

2010-09-10T06:02:00.014-05:00

Texas has 254 counties and about 1030 school districts. In googling for the exact number of districts, I ran across different totals. Every 10 years, school district boundaries require verification. Texas Education Agency (TEA) is in charge of delineating the borders. The project is harder than it might sound. School districts expand, contract, consolidate, disagree with other districts over where the borders are, use natural borders that change because of nature, etc.

Back in the early 90s, TEA hired me as a contract "mapping technician", a title much more impressive sounding than the reality. I, along with other co-workers, needed to verify Texas school districts' borders according to legal definitions. (School district superintendents mailed back a TEA-sent letter.) Also, we needed to read descriptions that might be subject to different interpretations. One task was taping narrow red tape (!) on paper maps to delineate the boundaries.

During my time at TEA, I logged the names of many cities and towns—160, to be exact—because they caught my eye. I recently ran across my hardcopy file while reorganizing my workspace. Because I couldn't find Broom City in my computer, I knew I'd need to re-key the list before I could write a decent article about the places. As I re-keyed, I could see certain commonalities gel—lots of food, bodies of water, communities, money, gaps and related, wordplay (homophonic), a few names that could either try peoples' spelling or induce residents to learn spelling quickly, comforting words, a few peoples' or celebrities' names, shooter's paradise, ...

I've listed my best theme categories and cities/towns, a subset of the group I logged originally. I omitted county names so they won't dilute the collective impact of the names. A file with the names of all 160 municipalities and their counties is available in a table-formatted file. An asterisk below (*) denotes a municipality that I put into more than one category (asterisked in its first category appearance).

Food (one of my favorite subjects)
Oatmeal, Pancake, Sunny Side Community*, Coffee City, Teacup Community*, Honey Island*, Pecan Gap, Atwater Prairie Chicken (national wildlife refuge), Turkey, Birds Nest [soup], Krum* (okay, not the most appetizing, not normal spelling), Plum, Punkin Center (ok, another not normal spelling), Crabb (phonetic anyway), Hungerford (not food, but related), Bootleg Community*

Water bodies and related
Runaway Bay, Lake Run-A-Muck*, Hide-A-Way Lake*, Lake O' The Pines*, Possom Kingdom Lake, Bland Lake, Lake JB Thomas, Newgulf (24 miles from Old Ocean), Old Ocean (24 miles from Newgulf), Canyon Lake, Canyon Lake Acres, Canyon Lake Forest, Canyon Lake Mobile Home Estates, Canyon Lake Shores, Canyon Lake Village, Canyon Lake Village West, Honey Island (42 miles inland), Rock Island (80 miles inland)

Communities
Bootleg Community, Teacup Community, Sunny Side Community, Tobacco Patch Community, Type Community, Profitt Community*, Ding Dong Community (in Bell County), Eulogy Community*, Welfare Community, Old Bowling Community

Structures
Structure, Sweet Home*, Fosters Store*, Guys Store*, Carls Corner*, Pearsons* Chapel

Words of comfort
Comfort, Point Comfort, Sweet Home, Blanket, Cool, Sublime, Happy, Smiley*, Sunny Side Community, Eulogy Community

Money
Cost, Dinero, Cheapside, Nickel, Dime Box, Jerry's Quarters*, Lohn*

Gaps and related
Cranfills Gap, Indian Gap, Buffalo Gap, Notrees, Nada

Names and celebrities
Bumstead, Kermit, Bigfoot*, Bebe, Panna Maria (Virgin Mary, not bread), Big Sandy, Jerry's Quarters

Shooter's paradise
Gun Barrel City, Cut and Shoot, Bangs*, Point Blank, Trophy Club

Body parts or features
Cheek, Wink, Smiley, Shiner, Bald Hill, Bangs, Whispering Wings, Bigfoot

Hyphenations and apostrophications
Jot-Em-Down, Lake Run-A-Muck, Hide-A-Way Lake, Lake O' The Pines, Hell's Half Acre, Jerry's Quarters

Apostrophe deficiency
Fosters Store, Guys Store, Carls Corner, Pearsons Chapel

Wordplay (mostly homophonic)
Lohn, Hoop and Holler, Priddy, Inadale, Arp, Tye, Blewett, Pyote, Rhome, Profitt Community, Krum, Dew

Other special names
Loves Lookout, Barwise, Pelican Spit Military Airport (Reservation), Tool

Rear-viewing Year of Blogging

2010-08-28T13:05:00.003-05:00

I started blogging just about a year ago, having decided my output would be three times a month, which breaks down to one about every ten-day period. For some people, that's way too seldom. Well, that's the pace I can live with. I want to put out quality, well-thought-out writing that frequently includes links, which are often time-consuming to vet.

Journey start
I joined my writing clublet, TheWriteJob, a little over a year ago to meet other writers and would-be writers. The community blog sparked my interest in contributing to it, and to eventually launch my own blog. After having published six articles there, I registered for my own blog. I ported my previous articles over (truncated and linked the earlier articles); and have been publishing here since.

Theme
In setting up my blogspot, I thought about my theme. I came up with "writing mostly for language enlightenment, entertainment, and a-muse-meant". It became more of a guide for me to determine my article topics. Low standards—if I fulfill any of those broad categories for an article, I succeed in achieving my topic goal.

Theme expansion into categories
A few months ago, I added a line to the theme, as I felt categories were starting to pop up. My category labels—language, tech communications, EZ recipes, food, wordplay, humor, music, tech topics, and how-to's—also form the basis of my article today, compiling and analyzing stats of my year in blogging. I'm omitting discussion of Google Analytics. I use them, but don't have enough of a fan base or readership to report anything impressive. :-)

First compilation file
*LinkedIn membership required to view this file*
Awhile back I had created an compilation file that included the article title, linked url, publish timeframe (early, mid, late part of specified month), and summary. The format was 2-column landscape. Recently, I decided to redo the compilation file. Numerous times of adding and removing column breaks with every update to make the file look nice started to irk me.

Second compilation file (Newer! Improved! Now with category descriptors!)
*LinkedIn membership required to view this file*
The impetus to change the formatting was wanting to categorize the articles, logically the descriptors I thought of. Also, I knew I'd want to write and time an article pertaining to the 1-year milestone. I removed the column formatting and breaks, then converted it into an 11-column table. The first column has the title, URL, and summary, the second column has the date I published, and the rest of the columns have the category descriptors and check marks. Because food is near and dear to my heart, I highlighted food rows in yellow to make them stand out.

For each article, my new compilation file has check marks in the categories I consider appropriate. For further enhancement, I highlighted the rows that had food themes. I did pause over designating some category names for a few articles. For instance, can a food article be a tech article? Yes, I decided "Wanted Unholed Lotta Bagel" fit the descriptor of tech topics because of history, techniques, and related background.

I waffled (food!) over articles about language and technical communications. Most that fit in one category also fit the other category. In looking at my table (place for food!), language was more predominant than my profession of tech comm (writing, editing).

Stats (drum roll! yum!)
Since September 6, 2009, I have published 36 articles. I don't include the current article in my stats, although I will have updated my table to include it (code green). Deciding categories was the longest part of the process. The fun part was tallying everything—the number of check marks for each descriptor, the number of checkmarks for each article—first for each of the five pages of my printout (yes, hardcopy!), then adding them up. Natch, if I had a LOT to tally, I would have put everything into Excel. I used Word. (Gasp!)

Category	Qty check marks
Language	20
Tech communications	14
EZ recipes	8
Food	11
Wordplay	15
Humor	21
Music	10
Tech topics	16
How to's	18

Articles with the most descriptors—a 3-way tie with 6 descriptors each
Fish Fries Telephone
Wanted Unholed Lotta Bagel
Technical Communications Means

Articles with the 2nd most descriptors—a 5-way tie with 5 descriptors each
Vocabs of Steel
Greater Less Fewer More Thans--More or Less
Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa
Pronunciations Heck with Hermione and Homage
Color N R Lives

Rest of article quantities (titles omitted)
Note to novice statisticians: I tic-marked the article quantities and added them up to confirm they total 36—no duplicated counts and no undercounts.

Qty articles	Qty descriptors
2	4
10	3
4	2
2	1

Categories for this article
For this article, I would categorize it into technical communication, food (coupla nibbles!), humor (minor rib ticklers!), tech topics, and how to's. I don't consider light mentioning of the other categories to quite warrant checking off all the descriptors. :-) Although I did not include numbered steps that indicate a process, I think there's enough of a road map feel here for people who want to put information on a grid.

A Convenient Triple-dose Pnutty Butter Cooky Batch

2010-08-17T06:19:00.003-05:00

AHOT (Austin Heart of Texas) Event

AHOT, an organization for printed circuit board design professionals, recently held its annual Vendor Day. It was well-attended—maybe 100ish. Renowned speaker Tom Hausherr, EDA Library Product Manager at Mentor Graphics Corporation, delivered 4 different presentations. The event had 16 sponsors this year, up from 12 last year. You can download the announcement pdf with hyperlinks to the sponsors and speaker if you are on LinkedIn.

Cooky Musings

I decided to take in cookies as I did last year. I'd been wanting to try out a boxed peanut butter cookie mix. Both Krusteaz and Betty Crocker put out a peanut butter cookie mix. Each brand's box contents weigh 17.5 ounces and call for 1 egg, 1 T water, and 3 T oil. The standard yield is 36 2-inch diameter cookies. (I myself wound up with 44.)

I like PB cookies okay, but think of them as somewhat boring. I decided to turbocharge the peanut flavor. I started out mixing the batter according to the box instructions, then added peanuts and Wilton Peanut Butter Flavor Candy Melts—for sale at bakery supply stores and craft shops. Other than dose up the flavor with chopping up and mixing in the two additives, I didn't modify the box recipe.

After I removed a baked batch out of the oven, I was surprised that the chopped candies seemed to have disappeared. I anticipated they would be like chocolate chips or chocolate chunks and be visible. I'm not that knowledgeable about the Wilton candies, but it's possible that they might have a lower melting temperature than chocolate chips and just melted into the cookies during baking. In any case, I received rave reviews for the hefty peanut flavor.

It did take me awhile to settle on a name, although I kicked around other titles, such as "Xtra P-nutty PB Cookies", PB and Pnutty Madness Cookies", "P-nut Trio Cookies", "Triple P-nut cookies", and "P-nut Trilogy". Ed E, a Vendor Day attendee and enthusiastic praiser of my cookies, was the one who suggested "P-nut Trilogy".

Ingredients

To keep the recipe looking uncomplicated, I've listed a somewhat compressed list of ingredients. People experienced enough with cooky baking will have no problems whipping up a batch. Novices might need to peruse the list a little more closely.

1 pkg peanut butter cooky mix, ingredients stirred together per instructions (usually requiring combining of water, egg, oil)
4 oz. peanuts, coarsely chopped
4 oz peanut butter flavored candies, coarsely chopped (e.g., Wilton brand)

Equipment

cooky pan(s)
pastry blender
bowl
measuring cup
measuring spoon(s)
small rubber spatula
cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
cooling rack for done cookies

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Pour the cooky mix powder into a medium-large mixing bowl.
In a cup, combine the egg, water, and oil.
Pour the wet ingredients into the larger container and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
Stir in the chopped peanuts.
Stir in the chopped candies.
Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough, then level it.
Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet. (This dough was very dense. After a few dollops, I put on vinyl gloves to shape and dispense the dollops individually.)
Flatten and spread the dough using the bottom of a glass.
Bake for about 8 minutes.
Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

Additional Past Cooky Recipes

Fish Fries Telephone

2010-08-04T06:29:00.002-05:00

I intend for the title to evoke huhs for its lack of commas. Blogspot bases URL assignments on article titles and places hyphens as term separators. I’d lose the commas in the URL anyway, and my omission of them gives me an opportunity to lightly inject a writing point. Use commas to separate series of items in written text—in sentences and phrases, bulleted lists, email address fields (Microsoft Outlook being a notable exception for use of semicolon separators instead), and numerous keyword fields.

I initially wanted to write about fast food, which isn’t always fast, by the way. I then thought about several fooderies where the workers seem to toss salt on the fries by the cupful. (Assaulting fries! No pinches here!) I also thought about one particular fried fish chain restaurant in the area that has, um, gone underwater at three different locations within the last few years. I eventually mentally meandered to Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s “Telephone” song, for which several video versions and parodies have been viewable on YouTube for the last few months.

We now reach my parody (abbreviated) of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone”. To keep this article reasonably wholesome, I have omitted hyperlinks. (I have dropped some un-breadcrumbs so readers can locate videos and lyrics of “Telephone” and parodies.)

Hello. Hello. I would like to place my order,
Gimme bundled special with a double fishburger,
Make my soda cola and my side curly fries,
Here’s my money. Don’t drop it. I’m handing two fives.
Here are two fives.
Here are two fives.
Here’s my money. Don’t drop it. I’m handing two fives.

Oky dokey, don’t get prickly and defensive,
I didn’t think you’d go rantin’ and have a snit,
Mellow out now. I’m gonna hail your manager,
Yoohoo, manager. Wouldja come over here?
Wouldja come over here?
Wouldja come over here?
Youhoo, manager. Wouldja come over here?

Stop salting, stop salting. You are ruining my fries,
They’re way too salty though I’ve had just one bite,
Why do you gotta throw on way too much salt?
If my blood pressure climbs, it’ll be all your fault.

Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
Too much sodium.
Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
Can’t eat ‘em.
Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
More tator taste, please.
Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick. Ick.
Beggin’ on my knees.

This part’s way too fast, run-on syllables,
Gonna write a couple of bloddy duhs,
Gaga and par’dists sing their stuff so fast,
I’m so amazed and say to them “Congrats!”

Might be able to eke just one more rhyme,
Think I’m starting to hurt and lose my mind,
Getting close to finishing this section,
I’ll never memorize this confe-ection.

Confe-ection, confe-ection.

To gaga more, please visit “Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa”, my abbreviated parody of “Bad Romance”.

Vocabs of Steel

2010-07-26T04:42:00.001-05:00

Crunch up those vocabs! This article provides suggestions for those who want to solidify and expand their word power. Make use of dictionaries (definitions, etymology, synonyms), thesauruses, Google lookups, crossword puzzles (printable, online), and other types of word puzzles. A huge influence in building word power is curiosity about words, at least, enough curiosity to look up definitions when encountering new words. In numerous cases, text surrounding new words can also indicate meaning.

Speaking for myself, I believe a lot of my vocabulary building came from reading superhero comic books and running across new words when I was in early grade school. In these kinds of comic books, the protagonist would have dual identities—usually a disguised or costumed character (superhero) and an everyman/everywoman persona (alter ego) that allowed him or her to slip away to emerge as the superself. Common storylines included the main character's social and work interactions with lesser mortals while disguised as someone ordinary, but battling enemies while costumed. Hmmm, my idea of an archetype would be the Man of Steel himself, Superman!

I think vocabulary building benefits by reading comic books tends to fade upon readers reaching the early teens. As it's been years since I had any steady diet of comics, I don't know what level of vocabulary appears these days in spoken/thought balloons and panel-narration phrases.

In the more recent past, I had taken a humanities class that was immensely helpful for building vocabulary: The Greek and Latin Element in English. The required textbook was English Words from Latin and Greek Elements, by Donald M. Ayers and the accompanying workbook. The gist of the course was to recognize syllables pertaining to their basic Greek and Latin origins and their definitions.

A major basic resource to build vocabulary is the dictionary. Two of my favorites are Merriam-Webster Online and Dictionary.com. More major ways to satisfy word curiosity include looking at a word's etymology and synonym(s) in a dictionary. Besides viewing synonym(s) at the dictionary's entry, looking up the word in a thesaurus provides even more information. In Google, prefacing the term with "define: " narrows the results.

Additional ways to expand vocabulary are reading well-written articles, blogs, and op-eds. As a side-effect, well-written pieces provide good examples to emulate mechanics such as proper spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and style. A lesser effective means (to me) of expanding vocabulary is reading online comments, particularly at sites that often invite flame wars or result in them. Many such posts are rife with bad mechanics and incoherency, to say the least.

More to and About m-w.com and dictionary.com

Merriam-Webster Online is accessible using a URL as short as m-w.com. Note various other features of the website. At the FREE Daily Features tab, clicking Daily Crossword (Today's Puzzle) serves up links to puzzles—Universal Daily Crossword, L.A. Times Daily Crossword, and Jumble Crossword (a version of Jumbles that also has vertical terms). The downside to the puzzles are waiting out the commercials. The LA Times puzzle has parameters you can set. A nice feature is instant feedback in immediately showing your typed letter in red if it's incorrect.

Dictionary.com is accessible using a URL as short as dictionary.com. This site has a link to Universal Daily Crossword as does m-w.com, but without a commercial. While at dictionary.com, I ran across an eye-catcher question : "What word has the most definitions?"

"Set" has 464 definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary. "Run" runs a distant second, with 396. Rounding out the top ten are "go" with 368, "take" with 343, "stand" with 334, "get" with 289, "turn" with 288, "put" with 268, "fall" with 264, and "strike" with 250.

More about Puzzles

Awhile back, I wrote an article about crosswords. At that time, online puzzles had not entered my mind. In researching material for this article, I encountered online puzzles, initially seeing them as links in a couple of online dictionary sites. One online crossword puzzle site that provides small ones is at http://www.boatloadpuzzles.com/playcrossword. In case you hadn't guessed, the site owners would like you to buy the full-blown application.

A few weeks ago, I had run across a printable-puzzles site. I was unsuccessful seeking it out to cite it here. In trying to actually find places that didn't just go to other links that cited links, I resorted to and was partially successful in doing google image searches for "printable crossword puzzles for free". A reasonable replacement is Want More Crosswords?. Mouse over a puzzle thumbnail, click it to open it in a small-size window, right-click and select View Image to open the puzzle, then print it. (Recommended: Preview it and adjust scale before printing it.)

If wordsearch puzzles is more your type, find a cache at Livewire Puzzles' FREE Printable Word Search Puzzles.

Differentiations among Similar Items and Terms

I have listed some sets of words that present common definition and usage problems, accompanied by enlightening links. No doubt you can think of many other candidate sets; differentiating such terms can help boost vocabulary. One advantage of having my own blog is that I can and do publish content where I can access pet topics without needing to fire up my computer. Anyway, I have provided candidates for comparing and contrasting terms, including compare and contrast.

compare, contrast

compose, comprise
Best excerpt—
If you are confused, just say, "The rock is made up of three minerals," or "Three minerals make up the rock."

conglomerate, conglomeration
My conclusion for difference:
conglomerate: a thing composed of heterogeneous elements; mass
conglomeration: a mass of miscellaneous things

envy, jealousy

farther, further

infer, imply

indifferent, ambivalent, apathetic
Very short explanations as below:
indifferent—no feeling one way or the other
ambivalent—pulled in different directions
apathetic—don't know, don't care

assure, ensure, insure

loan, lend

The following sets pertain to animals.

butterfly, moth
Butterfly/moth differences, including a table with six physical and behavioral differences

yellow jacket, wasp, hornet, etc.

frog, toad

tortoise, turtle

rabbit, jackrabbit, hare

A special category of similar items and terms are homophones, which I discuss in my blog article. Ones that pop into mind frequently are the following sets:

to, too, two
your, you're
there, their

There are various ways to strengthen your word power; get your vocabs of steel! Reinforce, improve, and adopt methods for yourself.

Ailing Fridge and DIY Door-open Alert Unit

2010-07-13T10:59:00.002-05:00

This article is about addressing a refrigerator that wasn't optimally turning on and off and a gadget that sounds off to help prevent at least one possible reason. Three possible common causes for a sickly refrigerator are a malfunctioning compressor, dirty coils, ice inside the freezer walls, or a combination. The refrigerator part of this article discusses assessing for and resolving for ice inside the walls—defrosting the entire unit and cleaning it during the process. The gadget part (DIY door-open alert unit) of this article discusses the project.

Ailing Fridge

I've occasionally taken out an armful of items, then forgotten to fully close the door. One problem has been the compressor overworking, causing icing up inside the freezer walls, resulting in appliance underperformance. Recent symptoms indicating all was not well included the following:

The fridge seemed to be running all the time instead of in on/off cycles.
Eggs toward the back of the fridge froze or partially froze.
Water pitchers occasionally wound up with shallow icy layers.
Fresh spinach leaves froze about the upper three leaf layers.

Tweaking refrigerator settings didn't seem to always resolve the problems. The longer-term process for resolution was to defrost the refrigerator/freezer, which included emptying it out and leaving the doors open for a couple of days, ensuring any possible ice in the walls would melt and the water drip away. The main sections of the process are total defrost preparation, defrosting, and cleaning.

Preparation for Total Defrost of the Refrigerator

Over time, consume all freezer items.
Over time, consume fridge items that needed refrigeration. If not consuming them all,

Give them away.
Throw them away.
Obtain dry ice to store the items in an ice chest for up to 48 hours.
Ask someone a favor of storing the items.

Defrosting of the Refrigerator and Freezer

Turn off all controls.
If you have an icemaker, turn off the water supply to it.
Unplug the refrigerator.
Completely empty out the refrigerator.
Empty out the refrigerator's drip pan.
Leave the refrigerator's doors open.
If possible, place buckets or pans underneath the open doors to catch possible melting-ice drips.
Monitor for drips for a day or two. Could be messy.

Tasks to do During Defrost Wait-Time

Remove shelves, crispers, and other removables and wash them. (I washed mine in the bathtub using soapy dishwater.)
Wipe the refrigerator interior surfaces with a solution of 2 tablespoons baking soda and 1 quart water. If your own manual specifies otherwise, follow that manual's instructions. Rinse with clean-water rinsed/wrung cloth. This stage might take several passes to wipe down all the surfaces.

DIY Door-open Alert Unit

The fridge door-open alert unit is useful to remind people to close the refrigerator door. After several seconds of the refrigerator door being open and the photocell being exposed to light, beeper emits a continuous whine. When the door closes, the sound decreases until the capacitor has been fully discharged. The device also serves as a good reminder to reduce time putting away cold groceries and also minimize dawdling in front of an open fridge.

The information and schematic for the Refrigerator Door Alarm is at http://www.techlib.com/electronics/kitchen.html. Note that the author suggests a 10uF capacitor across the battery, but doesn't show it on the schematic. (We omitted that capacitor also.) As this project is intended for a DIYer who does not require hand-holding and can fill in blanks, I have not included step-by-step information to create it.

If you are a hardware DIYer, you can obtain the parts fairly easily and breadboard and test the guts one day. Another day, you can wire and solder the discrete parts onto a project board, power the unit up, and have it operational. If you want to fancy it up, you can put the project into a metal project box, then set it in a small plastic tub to keep it off refrigerator shelves.

The parts came from hobby part drawers, Radio Shack (photocell from 5-pack 276-1657, buzzer 273-0059/273-059, 1/2 board 276-148), and Fry's Electronics (2 NTE123AP equivalents to 2N4401 transistor substitutes for the NPN Darlington transistor—seemingly not a commonly stocked part, zener diode NTE5009A). Overall packaging notes are as follows:

Already having a Bud Industries CU3000A aluminum project box on hand that measures 2.75" x 2.12" x 1.62"
Placing standoff-function hardware at the box's base to allow horizontal placement of a 9-volt battery (power source) beneath the assembled board—standoffs or spacers also suitable (Used 6-32 machine screws, nuts.)
Placing the buzzer outside the box for sound carrying (Used 2-56 machine screws, nuts.)
Drilling a hole on the box's side opposite the buzzer for light to reach the photocell

Note: In our case, we used a project box. When doing the final assembly, screwing the lid on required time that exceeded the time allowed before the alarm went off—an annoyance until the unit went inside the fridge and the noise fully abated.

Visit a lighter side of a refrigerator alert unit, which does not include a time delay before sounding off.

A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--German Chocochip Bites

2010-07-02T08:28:00.004-05:00

My convenient cooky recipe this time is my third one using cake mix. The other two have Valentine's Day and Easter themes. The German Chocochip Bites evoke German chocolate cake taste with predominance of chocolate, coconut, and pecans. The recipe yields about 55 soft and chewy cookies.

1 box chocolate or devil's food cake mix
1 can coconut pecan frosting
1/2 cup butter, melted
6 oz. chocolate chips
2 eggs

Note: The stated weight for a standard-size box of cake mix is 18.25 ounces.

The following baking equipment required:

cooky pan(s)
pastry blender
bowl
measuring cup
measuring spoon(s)
small rubber spatula
cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
cooling rack for done cookies

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Pour the cake mix powder into a medium-large mixing bowl.
In a bowl or large cup, combine the melted butter, eggs, and frosting.
Pour the wet ingredients into the larger container and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
Stir in the chocolate chips.
Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough so it looks more than rounded and less than heaping (about a 4-teaspoon measure).
Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
Bake for about 13 minutes.
Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

If you want to make smaller cookies but more of them, level off the tablespoons of dough instead of rounding them. Bake for about 10 minutes instead of 13.

Note: My German Chocochip Bites cooky is an adaptation of a foodista recipe for Coconut Pecan Cookies, which calls for 4 ingredients: yellow cake mix, coconut pecan frosting mix, melted butter, and eggs.

Greater Less Fewer More Thans--More or Less

2010-06-26T16:22:00.000-05:00

As a technical writer and grammarian, I run across all sorts of grammatical anomalies. The type I've posted about today pertains to apparently comparative terms "greater than", "less than", and "fewer than". Also belonging to the topic is "more than", more or less.

A particular mathisfun page typifies sites that show mathematical terms and symbols "greater than" (">") and "less than" ("<"). To me, these terms are not exactly antonymous. To me, "great" implies more a subjective word than "more". Thus, if I were advocating appropriate terms, I would say "more" or "less". "Greatness", the noun related to the adjective forms of "great", connotes positiveness, something subjective, maybe emotional. "More than" seems more suitable to indicate comparative quantity than "greater than". With this train of thought, it would seem the antonymous term to "greater than" could be "awfuller than".

This brings me to the point about "less" vs. "fewer". I believe the default term in mathematics courses—"less than"—has overshadowed the correct usage of "fewer than" in non-mathematical-course situations. The problem in the context of grammar is applying "less than" to integer quantities. Put another way, if something can be counted as an integer, the reference term should be "fewer than", not "less than". The prominent example is the sign at express lanes in a grocery store. When first established, the expression tended to be "[n] or less items". Over the years, I had noticed some stores replacing "less" with "fewer".

These days, I glance only to see the number for restrictions. Weird Al, a song parodist who coincidentally has a bachelor's degree in architecture, is strong in both left-brainedness and right-brainedness. His grammar lesson YouTube video strikes a blow for grammatical correctness where he modifies a sign that says "15 ITEMS OR LESS". He attaches "FEWER" on top of "LESS".

The other day, I encountered a YouTube video that highlights my snit about "less than"—even more so than usual. At 1:19, the following lyrics appear: "Point being, in short, less annoyances and more awesomeness." Wow. Anyway, I think I understand why mathematicians retain "less than", as the number specified can be a non-integer. As a grammarian, I'd prefer mathematicians and similar-discipline professionals be more cognizant of the difference between "less than" and "fewer than".

As my article has "more or less" in the title, I should mention it in the article itself, though the segueing might be somewhat odd. An example of using the phrase "more or less" could be with regard to purchasing an article of clothing that was suitable for style, color, fabric, and price. I can't say my selection jumped out as a must-have item. The price was so-so but not great. It was a decent buy, more or less. :-)

A Convenient Veggie Lentil Soup

2010-06-18T17:00:00.002-05:00

My veggie lentil soup is about as convenient as can be—three or four ingredients, depending on whether the fluid is all water or part water and part soup stock/reconstituted bouillon. Make no bones about it. Well, you can if you want. You can also further increase work time by buying, washing, peeling, and cutting up fresh vegetables. I title each of my recipe articles as "A Convenient" something or another because I emphasize convenience, mostly in minimizing the number of different ingredients. The table below lists the four options; the pixstrip above provides visual aids.

**Ingredient/Recipe-size Options**
Ingredients	Full		Half
Image in pixstrip	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Dry veggie soup, 0.9 oz packet	2	1	1	1
Lentils, 16-oz. bag	1	1	1/2	1/2
Water	8C	4C	4C	2 1/2 C
Soup stock/reconstituted bouillon	—	4C	—	1 1/2 C
Minimum number of servings	8	8	4	4

Instructions:

Pick the recipe option you want to try.
Set out the equipment you'll need. (The pixstrip images show the equipment you should have.)
Rinse the lentils as instructed on the package.
Put the ingredients into a large pot.
Heat the ingredients until they come to a rolling boil.
Turn the heat down to simmer.
Go do something else for about a half hour or so.
When you return,
- Check a lentil or two for the tenderness you want. Add more simmer time if necessary.
- Taste for seasoning preference. Add more seasoning as you want.
- If the soup's thicker than you want, add more fluid.

Note: I understated the amount of seasoning needed. It's easier to add more flavoring later than adjust for overseasoning.

SurveyMonkeying-A-Round

2010-06-10T06:09:00.006-05:00

This year, I used SurveyMonkey for the first time. Some people in my professional writing organization (STC, Society for Technical Communication) had ushered in its usage a few years ago for the annual salary survey for the area. The version we subscribe to is Unlimited. (The free version allows only 10 questions and up to 100 responses.) The pricing page shows a page of features for Free, Pro, and Unlimited. Except for the billing commitment, there appears to be scant difference between Pro and Unlimited.

In February, I finally dived into using the tool when my request (plea?) for a volunteer to conduct the survey yielded a few polite declines. I logged into our SurveyMonkey's account to see what was there. Fortunately, I did receive a guideline document; otherwise I would have been totally lost. In any case, SurveyMonkey's online help was extremely helpful. I felt the tool itself was extremely well-designed and user friendly—a lot of intuitiveness built in for the intermediate tool user. There were ways to clone surveys, copy questions, move questions, select answer options, …. There are expansive explanations of all the features.

At SurveyMonkey's Design Survey section, I navigated a prototype survey and explored response types. I checked out behaviors for multiple choice (check-all-that-apply), single-selection of multiple options ("radio button", dropdown listbox), and open-end answers ("other", fill-in). There were options for presenting possible responses horizontally, vertically, and grid configuration. The advantage for an x-by-y matrix is saving vertical space.

Another response setup that saved vertical space was using the dropdown listbox for single-selection of multiple options, if there were at least four response possibilities. If fewer than four, there was virtually no vertical space savings. For few-answer-option questions, I felt it was more user friendly that all possible answers were visible at the same time.

Why did I concern myself with vertical space? I wanted to present a survey that appeared to be shorter than if all answer possibilities made it visually long. I sensed an overly long survey might fatigue the participants and maybe decrease the chances they would take or complete the survey. Putting some response possibilities in grids and some others in dropdown listboxes required less vertical space for the entire survey than listing line-by-line selections.

After setting up the survey in March, I sent a dry-run version to the board using the Collect Responses feature, then did a cursory analysis using Analyze Results. After minor tweaking, I set up the survey for the public and launched it in early April, sending out several emails over about three weeks requesting participation from technical communicators.

After I finished collecting the data, having set a shut-off date in SurveyMonkey, I moved to the data analysis stage. At the Analyze Results section, I re-acquainted myself with graph types and appropriate uses. The graphs I used were pie, column, and line. Later, when I presented the results, I concluded that in some instances, bar graphs would have better conveyed information than column graphs. But there needs to be judicious use and consistency for bars rather than columns—the biggest reason being if the column charts showed vertically rotated text.

SurveyMonkey's graphing options were actually fun. At the Create Chart option, the following choices were available:

Chart shape/type
Number of answer choices to show
Sort by answer quantity
Show or hide a chart title, the default text being the question itself
Labels for response number, percent, both, or none
Location of the labels, inside or outside the graphic

Clicking Download Chart created the chart. Right-clicking the selection to create the chart in a new window was effective. If I wanted to vary my selections, it was easy to return to the Create Chart option and try something else. On the other hand, I found that SurveyMonkey's graphing capability lacking with regard to answers to open-ended questions. To make suitable graphs for those responses, I used Excel formulas.

In May, I presented the salary results to the STC Austin chapter meeting. My presentation showed a hybrid of a few updated parts from the previous year's presentation, but mostly graphs of each question's responses for this year. I handed out hardcopies of the report that reflected mainly a subset of responses—those pertaining to salaried, full-time technical communicators.

During the week after my presentation, I created a supplement document that went into detail about the questions that required "other" responses and fill-ins. I also wrote about survey design changes from the previous year and specific areas for possible future handling of some questions. All three survey documents—report, presentation, supplement—are available at http://www.stcaustin.org/employment-mainmenu-30/13-salaries/2-salary-survey-results-available.

Conducting this year's salary survey was eye-opening for methodology, learning SurveyMonkey, writeups, and coming up ways for improving the 2011 version. I have listed some survey resources below:

Chart Types and their Uses
http://www.sapdesignguild.org/resources/diagram_guidelines/charts_bk.html
Use charts and graphs in your presentation
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA101085021033.aspx
Bar, column, line, climatic and proportional graphs
http://www.skwirk.com.au/p-c_s-16_u-188_t-632_c-2347/bar-column-line-climatic-and-proportional-graphs/nsw/bar-column-line-climatic-and-proportional-graphs/geography-skills/tables-graphs-and-diagrams
AP* Statistics Tutorial: Bar Charts and Histograms
http://stattrek.com/AP-Statistics-1/Histogram.aspx
Column Charthttp://www.anychart.com/products/anychart/docs/users-guide/Column-chart.html

Excel formulas I used are as follows:

=MIN([cellposition1]:[cellposition2]) <- lowest value

=Quartile([cellposition1]:[cellposition2], 1) <- 1st quartile, aka 25th percentile

=AVERAGE([cellposition1]:[cellposition2]) <- mean

=MEDIAN([cellposition1]:[cellposition2]) <- median, midpoint, aka 50th percentile, also calculable using 2nd quartile

=Quartile([cellposition1]:[cellposition2], 3) <- 3rd quartile, aka 75th percentile

=MAX([cellposition1]:[cellposition2]) <- highest value

=COUNT([cellposition1]:[cellposition2]) <- quantity of responses

Pixstrips in Blog Articles

2010-05-24T16:11:00.004-05:00

My convenient-recipe blog articles show series of progressive pictures at the top, from start to finish of each recipe. Each recipe pixstrip (the assembled image) contains eight images except for one that has nine. Clicking a pixstrip opens a new window with an enlargement. Nice of Blogspot to have that easy-access feature.

This article describes the process—staging the shots, processing the individual pictures, assembling them into a pixstrip, and uploading it into the article. The settings I use (outlined with red rectangles) appear in the image above. (I omitted the in-progress and completed images, as those stages should be obvious.)

The first time I made the decision to include pictures was for the spinach-cheese taco recipe. During preparation, I took pictures as follows:

plate
tortilla added
cheese added
spinach added
contents microwaved
more cheese added
contents microwaved
taco folded, with fork above it

My other convenient recipes I put pixstrips in are "A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch" and "A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter". The first cooky recipe is for Valentine Day cookies, which results in red cookies. The second one is for Easter-theme cookies. Both recipes use the basic ingredients of a box of cake mix, one-third cup of oil, and two eggs. I recently retrofitted "A Convenient Quiche" with a pixstrip. I took about a dozen pictures, winnowed the collection down to nine shots, then created the strip.

Principles for Pictures

Take more pictures than you'll need—preferably in the order of the actions. If you think you might use any shots, take them. Better to have the pictures and not need any than need any and not have them.
Find a decent-sized staging area that has minimal clutter or visual distractions. Most of my areas have been a countertop where I don't need to move many items more than once or twice. (I'm not a professional photographer; just using gut feelings.)

Gathering the Recipe Items

Gather all the ingredients.
Gather as many utensils as you can remember. Basic ones are bowls, spoons, spatulas, pans, and utensils to blend with. Secondary ones are cooling rack(s), oven mitts, egg timer as necessary. (I use the term "utensils" very loosely.)

Taking Pictures During the Recipe Process

Stage ingredients and utensils for big-picture effect if it makes sense. Take a few pictures from different angles if unsure of how the items look together.
Take pictures in the logical order of action. If possible, take the pictures from the same angle and distance. (Note: I stand on a stepladder about a foot away and shoot my pictures using my camera's highest resolution and quality.)

Storing and Processing the Pictures—Camera Off-loaded Set, Processing/Processed Set

Offload the pictures into a folder; keep these originals in one place.
Copy the original pictures into a different folder for modifying them. Typical modifications will include cropping and lightening as necessary, then saving them. (I save as .png to avoid losing picture quality.) Occasionally, cropped enlargements help.

I create a folder called "images". I create two subfolders—one I call "fromcam" for the pictures I off-load from my camera, the other I call "inprocess&finished".

Generating the Final Image (the Pixstrip)

Resize and save each image to save filesize space. I resize to about 15%, or about 150 x 150 pixels.
Enlarge the first image's canvass wide enough to accommodate the other images in order.
Copy/paste the images as desired, then save the pixstrip, using a reasonable name.

Uploading the Pixstrip

After logging into the blog account, select or create a blog article.
Use the blog image-upload command to upload the pixstrip.
View the image at the top of this article for the settings I use in Blogspot. YMMV for your own blog site.

Tooling A Round

2010-05-20T21:58:00.002-05:00

I have run across several tools I use often, sometimes in spurts. Some are online calculators; some are downloadable tools to be installed on the computer. The page titles are self-explanatory. Most instructions at the sites are intuitive. Note that I cite timeanddate.com a LOT.

"The World Clock Time Zones"
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

I used this online resource often to determine the times for co-workers in other time zones, particularly those located overseas. Timing was important when communicating or passing documents back and forth.

"Calculate distance between two locations"
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distance.html

Select "From location", "To location", then "Calculate distance".

"See other locations near a city"
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distances.html?n=24 (Austin)

Select a city, then click the button "See cities close to location".

"Calendar for year 2010 (United States)" (default settings, customizable)
http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/

Here's my shameless plug for my article about creating monthly calendars:
http://whilldtkwriter.blogspot.com/2010/01/create-monthly-calendars-for-year.html

"CSS Font and Text Style Wizard"
http://www.somacon.com/p334.php

Click buttons, then see the results and code.

"Free File Converter
Convert your files into different formats."
http://www.freefileconvert.com/

Click the Convert File tab to get to the interface as follows:

Obtain the existing file (Browse)
Select the format you want (dropdown list box).
Click Convert.
Click the download button to save or open the converted file.

"Cool Ruler 1.5: Free Download"
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Cool-Ruler-Download-40393.html

This tool's features include variable length, capabilities of launching multiple instances, rotating them for 90° positions, and marking tics at onscreen image widths. This is and excellent aid when working with mechanical images or other images where visual scaling is desirable.

"PrintFolder 1.2" (at URL below)
http://no-nonsense-software.com/download.html

This tool makes it possible to rightclick a folder and generate an onscreen list of your folder's files and other information, suitable for copy/paste onto email.

"EditPlus 3.12" (text editor, HTML editor, PHP editor and Java editor for Windows)
http://download.cnet.com/EditPlus/3000-2352_4-10018241.html

I had used this tool for html coding for about year or so before I acquired Dreamweaver.

"Irfanview ...one of the most popular viewers worldwide!"
http://www.irfanview.com/

I had used Irfanview initially for its thumbnail features. My graphics tool of choice has been PaintShopPro; however, I will probably soon explore more recent Irfanview's features that have caught my eye, such as playing movies, playing sounds, and creating slideshows.

Wanted Unholed Lotta Bagel

2010-05-03T06:12:00.000-05:00

The first time I'd become aware of bagels was about the early 90s. Oh, I'd encountered "bagels and lox" in books occasionally, but never gave them much thought. Seems when I read about them and saw pictures, they mystified me. They looked like doughnuts. Sometime shortly thereafter, I bought one. I ate it as though it were a doughnut. Hmmm. Kinda plain, not sweet. (Hadn't thought about the lox; thought cream cheese sounded icky.)

Over the years, I'd eat them in spurts. Sometimes a co-worker would bring in a box of them, accompanied with little containers of specialty cream cheeses. I really liked the salmon-flavored ones, also the jalapeno ones. Now I've finally settled into eating them mostly toasted, with a layer of butter.

I sometimes wondered about bagel denseness contrasted with store bread. Whenever I occasionally bought bagels at bagel stores, the stores tended not to list caloric information. Maybe I was too much into the out-of-sight-out-of-mind mode to bother looking up nutritional information.

In any case, bagels have become another bread aisle staple, in the same area as loaf bread, buns, and English muffins, with something called sandwich rounds starting to make appearances. Not long after I started to add bagels to the weekly shopping list, I looked at the nutrition table. Wow! 300 calories! That's about the same amount of calories as four slices of bread! Now, my days of eating one whole bagel (or more) at a time are gone, hopefully not to return.

The other day as I started the butter smear on my toasted half bagel, it crystalized in my brain that the hole in the middle makes the smearing inconvenient. I then thought about other times I'd thought about bagels and their holes. Bagel shops sell sandwiches on bagels. Occasionally, I'd bought bagels that had almost no hole. (I attributed the condition to the bagel dough preparer using a small ring to cut the dough instead of using a big one.) Most times, holes seemed to be about an inch in diameter.

I had thought using a bagel absent a hole at all would make a better sandwich than using a bagel where you need to be artful with the spreader; otherwise, condiments fall through. Also, if you're going to eat bites that have bread for each bite, it seems odd to run into breadless bites. The spreading care is even more crucial if buttering or creamcheesing a toasted bagel.

Why do bagels have holes? According to answerbag.com, the serious answer is that the holes allow thorough cooking of the bagels. "History of the Bagel: The Hole Story" has some history of the bagel in addition to details about the hole. Googling keywords "bagels no holes" yields numerous results. Closely related to why holes is how to make them. I ran across three ways to make them, none of which involve use of a cooky cutter device as I originally thought might be the case.

From baking911.com—

Hole in the Middle Method: From a ball shape, moisten your finger with water and poke your index finger through the center to form the hole. Moisten your finger with water, if necessary to smooth and to reshape the sides. Pull gently to enlarge hole.

The Hole Around the Finger Method: Flatten the ball of dough slightly into a disk shape, folding the bottom edge under and smoothing it until it looks like a doughnut shape. Make a hole in the center of the circle from the bottom up and twirl around your index finger to widen the hole. Reshape the round into a doughnut shape.

The Tube Around the Palm of the Hand Method: To form the bagels, take each piece of dough and roll it into a ball. Flatten the ball, then fold it in half, sealing the edges with your fingertips. Then fold again to form a tight cylinder. Roll the dough into a tube about 9 inches long. Wrap this piece around the palm of your hand, overlapping the dough about 2 inches. Pinch the ends together to form a ring. I like this way because it is quite fast.

Besides explicit information about shaping bagel dough to make the holes, Baking911.com has lots of detailed background and techniques throughout the stages of bagel making—even a q/a section. A passage that had caught my eye was "Boil on each side, about 3 minutes or less at a time, turning with a slotted spoon or skimmer. When done, the bagel will be puffy and the center will be nearly closed." Soooo, it's possible commercial bagels might have larger holes than necessary (or for my taste, anyway. ).

Well, after having poked around some sites to find out why bagels have holes and also reading the methodologies, maybe I'll settle for the normalcy of most bagels having approximately 3/4" diameter holes. OTOH, it seems possible that homemade ones might yield almost-closed-hole results.

I have listed some promising recipes that use breadmaking machines. My criteria for recipes tend to be calls for few items and ease of the process. (Look in my blog index for any title that has "convenient" in it, then visit articles. The fewer the ingredients, the better, I say.)

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/1180/Breadmaker-Bagels129588.shtml
Lists 6 ingredients. Features a calculator for adjusting recipe ingredient amounts to numbers of servings.

http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Basic-Bagel-For-the-Bread-Machine-55609
Lists 5 ingredients for the bagels, 2 additional for egg wash substitute for Pam-type spray. Also includes recipes for bagel sticks and chips.

http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=5812.0
Lists 5 ingredients, accompanied by numerous comments.

Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa

2010-04-26T18:47:00.004-05:00

This is my technical communicator parody (abbreviated) of Lady Gaga’s monster hit “Bad Romance”. Her Youtube video is approaching 200,000,000 views. For related videos and lyrics, do Google searches. Note: Lyrics accuracy varies among sites. Lyricsmode.com, which I used for most of my research and initial lyrics, had the best accuracy contrasted with other lyrics sites.

Bad-Prose Rants from Lady Wawa

Uh oh uh oh oh oh no no no no no no,
Your doc seems pretty poor.

Uh oh uh oh oh oh no no no no no no,
Your doc seems pretty poor.

Ras-ras-raspberry,
Ras-ras-raspberry,
Gag—I just might choke,
A doc is not a joke.

Ras-ras-raspberry,
Ras-ras-raspberry,
Gag—I just might choke,
A doc is not a joke.

Unmatched tenses are plenty to see,
Subjects and verbs don’t often agree,
Well you should see,
You skipped some concepts that are key.

Your lists aren’t swell; items aren’t parallel,
Paragraphs too long, too many lines just read wrong,
Re-duce, re-duce,
Re-reduce redundancy,
(Re-reduce redundancy.)

(spoken)
You know you wrote bad,
It's only your first draft,
Take another pass; improve that trash.

You need to improve that piece of poo,
And upload some better content,
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh.)

Please tighten the prose so it won't look so hosed,
And so it won't make me retch.

Uh oh uh oh oh no no no no no not this,
Don't ship the piece as is.

Nah nah, no no, it's not good work,
Improve it, and don't write it worse.

Ras-ras-raspberry,
Ras-ras-raspberry,
Gag—I just might choke,
A doc is not a joke.

Edit, edit punctuation,
Periods, commas, exclamations,
Word, word, use thesaurus,
Choose the words most glorious.

Move, move, move some clauses,
If they bring about good pauses,
Shorten up some sentences,
If they make for better senses.

Fix misplaced mods,
Fix comma probs,
Fix split infinitivin’s,
Fix letter cap nits.

Fixez punctuation,
Fixez double negation,
Fixez tout formatting,
Do style guide adhering,
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh-oooh),
Do style guide adhering,
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh-oooh),
Do style guide adhering,
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh-oh-oh-oh-oooh),
Do style guide adhering,
(Doing a bad-prose ranting),
Do style guide adhering.

You need to improve that piece of poo,
And upload some better content,
(Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooh.)

Please tighten the prose so it won't look so hosed,
And so it won't make me retch.

Uh oh uh oh oh no no no no no not this,
Don't ship the piece as is.

Nah nah, no no, it's not good work,
Improve it, and don't write it worse.

Ras-ras-raspberry,
Ras-ras-raspberry,
Gag—I just might choke,
A doc is not a joke.

Rich Man Poor Man

2010-04-20T06:43:00.001-05:00

Rich man. Poor man. Beggar man. Thief. Doctor. Lawyer. Indian chief. From my recollection, these occupations/titles were designators in a child's poem for buttons that would foretell the clothing-wearer's fate. (Never mind that people don't wear only one article of clothing for life.) Scrapbook.com and phrases.org.uk have some overlapping background information.

The scrapbook.com reference mentions the poem as a chant, that the landing button is the occupation of the future spouse. As another use for the chant is to find the "it" person in a game. ("Tag, you're it" comes to mind.) The methodology of determination reminded me a lot of "one potato, two potato", the countoffs starting the same way.

All players put their fisted hands together in a circle and one person starts the chant by tapping each fist in succession. When "Indian Chief" is said, the person whose fist is tapped puts that fist behind their back. Then the chant starts again with the chanter starting with someone else in the cirle [sic]. As soon as one person has both hands out of the circle they are "It".

At mamalisa.com, the game-instructions for one-potato-two-potato countoff indicate the similarity to scrapbook.com's button countoff.

All of the kids put our their two fists. One kid goes around tapping the other kids' fists with his fist. The one whose fist he ends the rhyme on is out (that kid puts that fist behind his back). Then go around again and again until only one fist is left. The one that is left at the end of all the rounds is "It".

In phrases.org.uk, pits from fruit on game players' plates—rather than their clothing buttons—determine the "it" person. In an indication of ingrained tradition, the occupation/title applies to males only; if the game players are female, "it" is the occupation/title of their future husband. In another difference from scrapbook.com, phrases.org.uk lists occupations as tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief.

For more variations of countoff chants and occupations, visit Wikipedia's tinker-tailor page .

Rich man poor man—that phrase is so well-known, I sense many people could mentally finish reciting the rest of the best-known parts of the poem. It's so well-known, an Emmy-award winning mini-series titled Rich Man Poor Man broadcast in 1976 , thereby providing a feedback loop for familiarity between the mini-series and the poem.

I've thought about songs that tie in with the poem, not initially knowing about tinker, tailor, soldier and sailor. I offer the following for viewing (as much as possible) and listening entertainment:

Rich Man
If I were a Rich Man, [musical video clip, uncredited artist]

Poor Man
Poor Side of Town, Johnny Rivers
Rag Doll, Four Seasons

Beggar Man
Ain't Too Proud to Beg, Temptations
Beggin', Four Seasons
Baby Please Don't Go, Them/Van Morrison

Thief
Steal Away, Robbie Dupree

Doctor
Good Lovin', Olympics
Doctor Doctor, Robert Palmer

Lawyer
Lawyers in Love, Jackson Browne

Indian Chief
Cherokee Nation, Paul Revere and the Raiders
Spirit in the Sky, Norman Greenbaum

Soldier
Universal Soldier, Buffy St. Marie

Sailor
Sailing, Christopher Cross
Sail Away, Enya

Tinker
If I were a Carpenter, Bobby Darin

One song that contains nearly all the occupations of the poem is the Yardbirds' "Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor". Occupations listed in the lyrics are as follows:

tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doctor, baker, fine shoe-maker, wise man, madman, taxman

I am unable to find a song that refers to "tailor" as an occupation; however, the Searchers' "Needles and Pins" might be as close I find for a thematic fit because of the implements. Sew, in closing, I hope I will have provided enough entertainment, enlightenment, and a-muse-meant in this article to suit visitors.

52-week Year As 13 Months

2010-04-08T09:10:00.007-05:00

Instead of the current calendar that has the inconsistent spread over 28, 29, 30, and 31 days—depending on leap year, leap century, or regular year numbers, it'd be dandy to divvy up the 52 weeks differently. How about 13 months of four weeks each, with the leftover one or two days as bonus day(s) for the 13th month of the year? A year has 365 days in a normal year. Using 13 as the divisor, the quotient winds up as 28 (four exact weeks), with one day left over—two if 366-day year. (Par-TAY! Par-TAY!)

With twelve of the thirteen months having exactly 28 days, all the months could start on the normal first day of the week. As everything would be multiples of seven, there could be huge reduction in confusion over non-synchronization between current calendar day numbering and weekly day numbering. Payroll, scheduling, and programming could be greatly simplified, imo. There'd be fewer calendars to have to buy year to year. (An example of 13-month year advocacy site is 13moon.com.)

Just think! No more "September hath 30 days, ...". In my case, I could never get past the September rule comfortably. A newer ditty completely destroyed any possibility of my memorizing it. And it expresses my sentiment: "Thirty days hath September. The rest I don't remember."

Awhile back, I had learned a handy physical helper until repetition facilitated the memorization. With the hand in a fist, I used the finger-knuckle method to note the 31-day months. The path starts with the index-finger knuckle (January), advances to the pinky-knuckle (double tap to accommodate July and August), and returns to the middle-finger knuckle (December), as shown in the illustration. Tap a few times till you get used to the knuckles representing 31-day months. (The valleys represent the not-30-day months.)

Anyway, as the world is unlikely to change the calendar any time soon, the poem, knuckles, and various paper/online calendars can continue to be the mainstay of day/date consultations. In case you're curious how we got to the messy distribution of days and months, wisegeek has explanations.

Excerpt of interest, when the calendar had only 10 months—

The calendar had only ten months, and the number of days in a month were as follows: 31 days in Martius, 30 days in Aprilis, 31 days in Maius, 30 days in Iunius, 31 days in Quintilis, 30 days in Sextilis, 30 days in September, 31 days in October, 30 days in November, and 30 days in December.

Note that the first syllables for 7th (Sept), 8th (Oct), 9th (Nov), and 10th (Dec) months are Latin terms for the ordinal positions. Now, we associate the positions of September as the ninth month, October as the tenth month, November as the eleventh month, and December as the twelfth month. More detailed explanation about these months and the others are at 13moon.com's "WHAT'S IN A NAME?" page.

While I'm on the subject of calendars, the names of the days of the week have long histories and also associations across regions in Europe. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday retain much of their phonetic and name ties to Norse gods. Encyclopedia Mythica's "Origin of the names of the days" has explanations and also other-language information.

If you need to create your own calendar, my other calendar article will help, but only if you don't try to create a 13-month one.

A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch--Easter

2010-03-27T09:36:00.004-05:00

This article is a sibling recipe to my Valentine cooky recipe. This simple recipe requires only 4 ingredients:

1 box vanilla or otherwise light-color cake mix
1/3 cup of oil
2 eggs
various-color sugars

Note: The stated weight for a standard-size box of cake mix is 18.25 ounces.

The following baking equipment required:

cooky pan(s)
pastry blender
bowl
measuring cup
measuring spoon(s)
small rubber spatula
small cooky cutters to create indentations
cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
cooling rack for done cookies

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Pour the cake mix powder into a medium-large mixing bowl.
In a bowl or large cup, mix the oils and eggs.
Pour the wet ingredients into the larger container and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
Complete the process as follows according to the cooky size and number you want (larger/fewer—40 vs. smaller/more—50).

Flat-tablespoon Method (Shown in pic strip at article title.)
Yields about 40 cookies.

Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough.
Flat-scrape the excess with a rubber spatula.
Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
Flatten and spread the dough using the bottom of a glass.
Sprinkle color sugars over the dough disks.
Press cooky cutter shapes all the way through the dough disks.
Bake for about 10 minutes.

Domed-teaspoon Method
Yields about 50 cookies.

Use a round teaspoon to scoop the dough so it looks more than rounded and less than heaping (about a 2-teaspoon measure).
Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
Flatten and spread the dough using the bottom of a glass.
Sprinkle color sugars over the dough disks.
Press cooky cutter shapes all the way through the dough disks.
Bake for about 8 minutes.

Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

Note: Using a cooky shooter is also suitable for dispensing the dough. If using a shooter, sift the powder before mixing in the wet ingredients, in case there are soy "pebbles" that can clog up the pattern disk(s).

The cookies are soft right out of the oven; the edges become slightly crunchy after a few minutes.

Pronunciations Heck with Hermione and Homage

2010-03-18T15:29:00.000-05:00

As my occupation (technical writing) is more involved with the written rather than spoken word, I often trip over pronunciations of words that I read rather than speak, particularly non-English names. But even with a name common in England consciousness, one gives me problems in particular—Hermione—for the following reasons.

The name starts with an "h", a letter that seems to have no logical rules for it getting pronounced or not.
Syllable accentuation is not obvious.
The "i" is not obvious for whether it's long or short.
The second "e" because of the word-end placement seems like it should be silent.
Possible pronunciations seem to include "HER-mee-own", "HER-mee-one", "her-MY-own-ee" (Bingo!), etc.

Unless I've seen a Harry Potter movie recently—maybe a year since, I forget how Hermione is supposed to be pronounced. Reasonable video resources, besides Harry Potter movies, now include YouTube videos where Emma Watson talks about her character.

Another "h" word (term) that gives me pause is "homage". M-W.com's pronunciation guide shows "\ ä-mij, hä-\ ". There are two speaker icons. When clicked, they sound like "hawm ij" and "awm ij", respectively, to me. Dictionary.com's pronunciation guide shows "[hom-ij, om-]", although there's only one speaker icon. When clicked, I hear what sounds like "hawm ij". I can't help but also consider pronouncing "homage" as "home age" or "ohm age" or "home ij" or "ohm ij".

My feeling is that "h" words come with the unusual pronunciation difficulties particularly for non-native English speakers. Does the "h" get pronounced or not? Seems only experience helps in knowing. Honor? Hour? Hope? History? My efforts to find online pronunciation help regarding "Hermione" and "homage"—my "h" pet words for this article—has yielded a few reasonable resources.

Online Dictionaries

Merriam-Webster.com: Found "homage", but choked on Hermione.
Dictionary.com: Found both "homage" as well as "Hermione".
Howjasay.com: Found both "homage" as well as "Hermione". (Here, "Hermione" sounds like "her MY nee".)

Other Resources

AT&T Labs Natural Voices® Text-to-Speech Demo: Allows selection of several voices and provides a text box to type or paste up to 300 characters.
Encyclopedia Mythica's pronunciation guide: Shows alphabetized mythological names with their phonetic pronunciation guide and regional bases.
Inogolo.com: Found "Hermione", but couldn't find my other "h" word "homage".

Per inogolo's "About" page, inogolo.com is "website devoted to the English pronunciation of the names of people, places, and various things". The result for Hermione provides a link for speech ("Audio Pronunciation"), displays pronunciation ("Phonetic Pronunciation") as "hur-MY-o-nee", and shows the name/word origin.

A topic at WordReference.com Language Forums yielded a commenter's link to AT&T for pronunciations. At the AT&T site, you can select different voices from a drop-down list box, then type or paste text into the text box. You then click SPEAK to hear the text. The American English speakers pronounce Hermione as "her MY oh nee", whereas the British speakers pronounce "HER me on". Other language-speakers have yet other pronunciations. Incidentally, the WordReference forum page shows a paid-ad link for free text-to-speech reader.

Even if I mastered and could continue to remember pronunciations for "Hermione" and "homage", I could never be an news announcer for foreign news. I would have an awful time correctly pronouncing names of heads of states for former Eastern-bloc countries and several Mediterranean-area countries. I'm fine with most British-based and Spanish names, except for Hermione (British by Potter <g>).

Technical Communications Means

2010-03-09T11:38:00.013-06:00

Telephone and mail correspondence—mostly referenced in songs, movies, and a few TV shows are the technical communications means I'm talking about. At the time of those media release, they reflected the prevailing technology for non-f2f interactions. Back then, letters did not reach recipients within seconds, older phone calls person-to-person required manual dialing on a rotary dial (woe if numbers were 8s, 9s, or zeros and your dialing finger slipped), and there was no Caller ID nor answering machine. Cheap mass mailing? Fuggedaboutit!

Especially regarding songs that mention phones, references to phone call costs (dime, 40 cents more, …) and dialing contrast sharply to current call charges and keypad or memory-number inputs. One carryover from dialing days seems a bit amusing to me: the feature called "redial". And how about "speed dial"? Another anachronism: "operator", an occupation that has gradually faded from phone call prominence but for which there are several songs that feature that term.

I've grouped some lists and links as follows:

Songs that Feature Letters

"Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" (written 1935), Billy Williams (recorded 1957).
Lyrics excerpt—

I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter
And make believe it came from you

"Love Letters in the Sand" (1957), Pat Boone.
Lyrics excerpt—

On a day like today
We passed the time away
Writing love letters in the sand

"Please, Mr. Postman" (1961), Marvelettes.
Lyrics excerpt—

please mr.postman
deliver the letter
the sooner the better

"Return to the Sender" (1962), Elvis Presley.
Lyrics excerpt—

So then I dropped it in the mailbox
And sent it special D.

"Sealed With a Kiss" (1962), Brian Hyland.
Lyrics excerpt—

I'll send you all my love
Everyday in a letter
Sealed with a kiss

"PS I Love You" (1962), Beatles.
Lyrics excerpt—

As I write this letter,
Send my love to you,

"All My Loving" (1964), Beatles.
Lyrics excerpt—

And then while I'm away,
I'll write home ev'ry day,
And I'll send all my lovin'to you.

"The Letter" (1967), Boxtops.
Lyrics excerpt—

my baby just a-wrote me a letter.

"Take a Letter Maria" (1969), R B GREAVES. (See the guy dictating into a tape recorder, starting about :29.)
Lyrics excerpt—

So take a letter Maria, address it to my wife
Send a copy to my lawyer

Songs that Feature Phones

"Beachwood 45789" (1962), Marvelettes. (Note that both "Beechwood" and "Beachwood" appear in search results. An image of the record label shows the correct name to be Beechwood. Oh, sunnybeeches!)
Lyrics excerpt—

Beechwood 4-5789
You can call me up and
Have a date any old time

"634-5789" (1970), Picket Wilson.
Lyrics excerpt—

All you gotta do is pick up your telephone and dial now…

"867 5309/Jenny" (1982), Tommy Tutone.
Lyrics excerpt—

Jenny, Jenny who can I turn to? (8-6-7-5-3-0-9)
For the price of a dime I can always turn to you.

"Call Me" (1965), Chris Montez.
Lyrics excerpt—

Call me, don't be afraid, you can call me

"Call Me" (1999), Blondie. (Note someone writing "636-1636" on someone's forehead at 1:18.)
Lyrics excerpt—

Call me on the line

"Reunited" (1979), Peaches and Herb.
Lyrics excerpt—

I wished I could climb right through the telephone line

"Memphis" (1959), Chuck Berry.
Lyrics excerpt—

Long distance information, give me Memphis Tennessee
Help me find the party trying to get in touch with me
She could not leave her number, but I know who placed the call
'Cause my uncle took the message and he wrote it on the wall

"Wichita Lineman" (1968), Glen Campbell.
Lyrics excerpt—

And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line

"Back in the USSR" (1968), Beatles. (Paul performs in Kiev in 2008.)
Lyrics excerpt—

Honey disconnect the phone

"Rings" (1974), Lobo.
Lyrics excerpts—

Ring ring telephone rings
…
Ring ring door bell ring
…
Ring ring golden ring
…
And let the wedding bell ring

"Ring Ring" (1973), ABBA. (See Agnetha and Anni-Frid use their index fingers to simulate dialing a telephone, about 2:34.)
Lyrics excerpt—

Ring, ring, why don't you give me a call
Ring, ring, the happiest sound of them all
Ring, ring, I stare at the phone on the wall

Related: YouTube audio mix using ABBA's "Ring Ring" and Blondie's "Hanging on the Telephone"

"Happy Together" (1967), Turtles.
Lyrics excerpt—

If I should call you up, invest a dime

"Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" (1978), Rod Stewart.
Lyrics excerpt—

Give me a dime so I can phone my mother

"Sylvia's Mother" (1992), Dr. Hook. (Note there's a phone booth in the background.)
Lyrics excerpts—

Sylvia's mother says "Sylvia's busy"
"Too busy to come to the phone"
…
And the operator says "40 cents more for the next 3 minutes"
…
And Sylvia's mother says "thank you for callin'"
"And, sir, won't you call back again?"

"Amish Paradise" (1996), Weird Al Yankovic.
Lyrics excerpts—

We haven't even paid the phone bill in 300 years
…
There's no phone, no lights, no motorcar

A small subcategory—Operators

"Operator" (1972), Jim Croce.
Lyrics excerpts—

Operator, could you help me place this call,
'Cause I can't read the number that you just gave me,
…
You can keep the dime.

"Operator" (1975), Manhattan Transfer. (Note the bent arm and fist by the ear to simulate holding an operator's set.)
Lyrics excerpt—

Operator
Information
Please give me Jesus on the line

"Smooth Operator" (1984), Sade. (OK, so it's not about a phone operator.)
Lyrics excerpt—

He's a smooth operator,
smooth operator,
smooth operator,
smooth operator.

Movies that Feature Phones and Letters

Enemy of the State (1998), Will Smith.
Will's character gets tracked via cellphone usage, before current common GPS outfitting into phones.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), Keanu Reeves.
The phone booth serves as a good vehicle, as it could transport several people at any one time.

Superman (various releases and stars).
Superman typically switched out in a phone booth. One movie did reflect the downsizing of phone booths to a payphone surround, with Clark looking perplexed, needing to find an alternate changing room.

Matrix (1999), Keanu Reeves.
Characters travel through payphones lines. At the time the movie was in theaters, payphones were still common. Try to find a payphone these days.

My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), Julia Roberts.
This movie has both phones and letters. Julia's character drives a wagon while talking on a humongous cellphone, indicating an agedness in technology. In a different scene, she keeps a draft email, but inadvertently, the email goes out, resulting in stressful circumstances.

Vanity Fair (2004), Reese Witherspoon.
Correspondence letters are prominent in this story.

TV Shows that Feature Phones

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, featuring Lily Tomlin as Ernestine, the phone operator—one of many characters Lily developed. (Note she is at a switchboard, and at a later point, dialing the phone.)

Keeping up Appearances.
The main character Hyacinth often converses using a phone—YouTube instance, starting about 2:16. One clip shows Hyacinth dissed and thwarted in her attempts to use a phone.

"Night Call", a Twilight Zone episode.
A woman receives mysterious phone calls, but is regretful when they stop. They had been from her deceased fiancé, and he finally hung up on her.

As my compilation turns out, my focus is more on phones—letters seeming to loom not quite as large—in songs, movies, and TV shows. In any case, I hope visiting links brought entertainment, enlightenment, and a-muse-ment nevertheless. Note: Other resources (besides linked YouTube videos and lyrics sites) include Google and Wikipedia—mainly for release-year information—and IMDB for movie references.

My Blog Article Methodology Inception2finish

2010-02-27T07:37:00.000-06:00

My article is intended for beginning bloggers, would-be bloggers, and sporadic bloggers. I have been blogging since September 2009, inspired by TheWriteJob clublet to explore my inner creative writing. After awhile, I noticed a pattern emerging on how I generate a blog article. Recently, I made a presentation to the clublet regarding my process as follows:

principles I advocate regarding blogging, how I choose my topic, my output scheduling, supporting info (or not), stream of consciousness, content organization, editing methodology, publishing, and publicizing

Principles:
I have heard bloggers present the first two principles as bases for writing; I subscribe to them as well. I present the third principle as a nudge.

Write about something you know about.
Write about something you're passionate about.
Think of writing as pumping iron to achieve or improve written output. It's analogous to an exercise program—you don't attain the conditioning by just watching an exercise video.

Stages (and Publicizing):
For me, there are three stage locations for inception to publishing. Other bloggers might use only two or even just one:

Stage 1: Initial drafts
I start with a working space in my emailer application. I always have it open, and I can save the drafts instantly without needing to commit to a filename or directory structure.

Stage 2: HTML file
I copy my emailer content over to my HTML editor, code the draft, review for mechanical edits, and tweak as necessary to prepare the article for the blog site.

Stage 3: Blogsite post(s)
I copy the final draft onto the blog site and preview it. If I tweak it, I tweak the HTML file also. As part of the third stage, after I publish to the blog, I create a truncated version in TheWriteJob community blog.

Post-article publicizing
I announce the new article.

How I Choose My Topic
Influences are timeliness, inspiration, something in my accordion file folder, or a combination. Inspirations have included a song, a holiday, a recipe, an event, a crossword puzzle, a conversation, … Related: If I think of something, I scribble it, then file it into the folder, for which I have taped a scribbled index inside the flap.

My Output Scheduling
I make it a point to post three times a month. (One month I put up four posts.) Three posts divide pretty neatly into monthly divisions of first 10 days, second 10 days, and whatever is left of the month. For me, self-scheduling is a good motivator.

Supporting Info (Or Not)
A good amount of my assertions and information comes from Google search results. If I have a series of results for an article, I tend to mention main sites. A benefit to citing URLs is ease of finding similar sources for future articles.

Stage 1: Initial Drafts
I create a workspace in my emailer program.

Stream of Consciousness
I key in topic content in a stream of consciousness using my emailer program. I have it open more than any other application, and can save drafts without commitment to filenames. When keying in stream of consciousness, if poking around URLs, I log them near their related content in case I list them in the actual article.

Content Organization
The stream of consciousness can overlap with content organization.

During organization, I generate an opening paragraph or story lead-in. Example thoughts include the following: How the topic come about, a conversation, a song, a news article, something I witnessed, something I've been thinking about for awhile, etc.
I organize the content for flow. I arrange, rearrange, reword, rework, move snippets to the bottom in case I use them or decide to discard them.
I create a closing paragraph, which can come near the end of the organization process. (My shortest closing paragraph had only one word, which is in my article about the Spinach-Cheese Taco.)
I create a label list to insert into the blog label field.

Stage 2: HTML file
I create a webpage for the blog article in an HTML editor. I serialize it, along with its folder. (I create a folder that starts with the number of the article I'm getting ready to post, which is where I house the html page.)

Editing Methodology (Mostly Technical)
Content organization can overlap with editing methodology.

After I copy the contents over to my HTML editor, I fine-tune the article. (I have never been able to totally just copy over without tweaking later.)
I tag the content (paragraphs, lists, …), tweak the URLs as applicable. I occasionally view the article using the design view or browser view for formatting, punctuation, looks, and correct site destinations.
I review for passive vs. active voice. (Active is more engaging.)
I check for subject/verb agreement for number (singular vs. plural) and tense.
Especially for lists, I check for parallel structure—noun, verb, phrase, etc.
I check punctuation.
I spell check.

In this article's case with numerous subtopic titles, I also checked and revised for title-case capitalizations.

Stage 3: Blogsite Post(s)
I publish to my blog site, then publish a truncated version to the community blog site.

I log in to my blog site.
I select for new post, then I copy the formatted article to the wysiwyg view. (I also fill in a new-title field, which becomes the article title and gets associated with the post's URL.)
I paste labels to the blog label field.
I preview, then publish when the article looks right.
I put a truncated article in the community blog as well as my own blog. (This is an anomaly that applies only to me; however, adopt if feasible.)

After I have published my full article to my blog, I note the URL. In my html editor, I then save my full article as [samearticlename]-truncated.
I find a strategic place in a paragraph to select and truncate.
I open a previous-article truncated file and copy boilerplate reference info onto my new truncated article.
I replace the old URL with the new article's URL and save it.
After I navigate to http://thewritejob.blogspot.com/ and select the option to post a new article, I paste the truncated article and labels, then publish it.

Post-article Publicizing
I announce the new article in various social media and email lists.

**Topic Ideas**
The following section lists potential topics for blog articles.

Suggestions for inspiration topics:

What was the best thing that has happened to you this week?
What thoughts occurred to you Thursday 2/18 about the plane crash?
What was something memorable for you in January?
What was at least one Olympic event or news that captured your TV time?
What was something new you did or learned in 2009?
For bloggers, when did you publish your most recent article? (This is not really a topic, just a nudge.)

Suggestions for passion topics:

food—cooking, eating, eating out
family—immediate, extended, relationships
recreation—sports, shopping
other topics

A Convenient Cake Mix Cooky Batch

2010-02-11T07:01:00.005-06:00

Make the cookies with a basic recipe using cake mix, eggs, and oil. I timed this article for making red, heart-shaped cookies for Valentine's Day. (Combining Red Velvet and strawberry flavors results in a nice red color—not too dark, and not pink.) The resultant chocolaty and strawberry flavors are a bonus. This simple recipe requires 4 ingredients:

1/2 box Duncan Hines Red Velvet cake mix (Only Duncan Hines makes this flavor.)
1/2 box strawberry cake mix
1/3 cup of oil (For a slightly nutty flavor, replace 1 tablespoon oil with sesame oil.)
2 eggs

Note: The stated weight for a standard-size box of cake mix is 18.25 ounces.

The following baking equipment required:

cooky pan(s)
pastry blender
couple of bowls
bowl(s)—one for mixing dry ingredients, one for mixing wet ingredients (unless you use a large cup for the wet ingredients)
cooky spatula to lift and transfer baked cookies
cooling rack for done cookies

Heart-shaped vs. Round cookies

If making round cookies, a measuring spoon and spatula also required.
If making heart-shaped cookies, a cooky shooter with heart-shape disk highly advised.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Sift or otherwise dry-mix the cake mix powders together thoroughly into a medium-large mixing bowl.
In another bowl or large cup, mix the oils and eggs.
Pour the wet ingredients into the larger container and use a pastry blender to stir the ingredients together.
Dispense cooky dough as follows according to the shape you want.

Cooky shooter dispense method
For heart-shape cookies, my method is using a cookie press, which resembles a caulking gun, to push out the dough. (The disk resembles a "Y".) I use 1 and 1/2 trigger squeezes for each suitable-looking cooky. (I myself don't care for the cooky-cutter method, as the dough rollout is not all that fun.)

Round cooky dispense method
For round cookies, my method is as follows:

Use a round tablespoon to scoop the dough.
Flat-scrape the excess with a rubber spatula.
Use the spatula to turn and drop the spoon's dough onto the cooky sheet.
Additional option: Flatten and spread the dough using the bottom of a glass.

Bake each batch about 10 minutes.
Use the cooky spatula to lift and transfer the done cookies onto cooling rack.

The cookies are soft right out of the oven, but become slightly crunchy after a few minutes. The yield can be as high as 4 and 1/2 dozen.

Body Parts Express

2010-02-05T07:57:00.005-06:00

Earlier this week, I heard Huey Lewis' "Hip to be Square"—a song I hadn't heard on the radio for a long time. It struck me this time about "hip" as a body part. I find it odd to think of a body part having a positive connotation as "hip" seems to have. Sure, in the context of the song, hip is a desirable attribute. Soooo, I decided to hop on the hip (no hip-hop or hippity-hoppity) train and mentally wander from cowcatcher to caboose and back and forth to collect tidbits and tidbytes for this article.

I started to think about other hip uses and also other body parts. Anyway, I mentally segued to a "hip" song released in the 60s—"Hippy Hippy Shake", associated with the Beatles and also the Swinging Blue Jeans. Around that same time, "Mohair Sam" (Charlie Rich)—notable for its title and some of the lyrics—mentions "hippie" in hipness terms. At the time of the song's popularity, "hippie" had not yet connoted counterculture long hair.

Well - who is the hippie that's happenin' all over our town?
Tearin' up chicks with the message that he lays down
Who is the coolest guy, what is, what am?
That's fast-talkin' - slow walkin' - good-lookin' Mohair Sam.

Chugging along on the hip route, my stream of consciousness began yielding the following hip terms in addition to hippie: Hippy Dippy Weatherman (George Carlin character), hippo, hippopotamus, Hippocrates, hippocratic oath, Hippolyte/Hippolyta (Wonder Woman's mother), hippocampus, hypnotism, hypocrisy, hypocrite, rose hips, Hutto Hippos, …

Thinking of other body parts, there are numerous associations with expressions and songs. Parts that come to mind are neck, arm, toe, back, nose, cheeks, ear, lips, eye, finger. (Be forewarned: I do drop an occasional homophone.)

Neck
To stick a neck out, to neck, bottleneck, breakneck (speed), nekkid. (OK, so that's an almost-homophone I'm sneaking in. )

Arm
Something costing an arm and a leg, strongarm, stiffarm, call to arms, army, armada, armor, Armor All, armadillo.

Toe
The House episode this week included a portrayal of a soldier who shot off his toe in an attempt to get around his stop-loss order. This incident made me think of Catfish Hunter's having shot off a toe. What a pitcher he was while with the A's! When he pitched his perfect game, there had been a headline "Catfish Hunter Hurls Perfect Game". That sports headline HAD to have been really confusing for anyone who didn't know who Catfish was or what a catfish hunter was or why he would throw (out or away) a perfect game!

Anyway, back to toeing the line about toes. BTW, the term refers to using a toe to draw a line in the sand, a do-not-cross boundary, sometimes mistakenly written as "towing the line" because of the homophonic nature of "toe" vs. "tow". "Towing the line" seems more applicable to motorboat drivers pulling water skiers than drawing lines in sand. OK, I'm moving back to talking about toes—toetap, toehold, toenail (wood), stand toe to toe, not the same as meet face to face, see eye to eye, have a tête-à-tête, dance cheek to cheek, …

Back
Have someone's back, have your back to the wall, throw out a back, backbreaking (work), back someone, back up (physical movement, records duplication), look backward, back down, back off, comeback, "Get Back" (Beatles),"Back in the USSR" (Beatles), Come Back Little Sheba (movie), backstab, Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap star), Baccarat (casino card game), baccalaureate (bachelor's degree or sermon to bachelor's degree graduates), Chewbacca (hairy one in Star Wars), Burt Bacharach (song writer), "Come Back When You Grow Up" (Johnny Tillotson), "Baby Come Back" (Players), "I Want You Back" (Rolling Stones, Jackson 5). Whew! Several songs have to do with backs! OK, I also sneaked in back homophone words and syllables. Also threw in some backs that aren't the body part. :-)

Nose
Keep your nose to the grindstone, have a nose for news, nosegay (small bunch of flowers), cut off nose to spite face, put your nose out of joint.

Cheeks
Dance cheek to cheek, be cheeky, nice cheeks (reference to the body parts that resemble cheeks but aren't), cheek by jowl.

Ear
Have the ear to the ground, earful, lend me your ears (quite a visual for those unfamiliar with Mark Anthony's opening speech at Julius Caesar's funeral), [H]ear ye [h]ear ye here come de judge (Flip Wilson), walls have ears.

Lips
Lipstick, "Lipstick on Your Collar" (Connie Francis), Loose lips sink ships, lip lock, lip service.

Eye
Eyeball, eyesore, "Eye of the Tiger" (Survivor), "I Only Have Eyes For You" (Platters), "Spanish Eyes" (Al Martino), "Bette Davis Eyes" (Kim Carnes), "My Eyes Adored You" (Frankie Valli), "I'll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time" (Wayne Newton). OK, I'll skip most other homophones, as "eye" provides lots of bull's eyes for associations, such as all sorts of other songs, ay caramba, aye aye captain, iPhone, iPod, Iraq, ICU, I See You (expression and song from Avatar), I Spy (TV show).

Finger
To finger (point out), fingerling (small young fish), give someone the finger, Fingerhut (mail-order company), Butterfinger (candy), butter fingers (oops!), lady fingers (cookies). Related: Thumb, as in "Under My Thumb" (Rolling Stones).

In the interest of keeping the article suitable for family consumption, I decided to refrain from naming additional body parts. In case you're curious to see what terms I omitted, the Hair soundtrack has a song about body parts ("I Got Life"). Honorable mention—"What's New Pussycat?" (Tom Jones). References used for this article: Google searches, YouTube searches, www.m-w.com, various lyrics sites resulting from google song-title lyrics searches, and chitchats with others.

A Convenient Spinach-Cheese Taco

2010-01-24T06:16:00.005-06:00

In November, I had written about a convenient quiche that required only five ingredients. The convenient food item this time around is a spinach-cheese taco that requires only three items—really convenient and inexpensive for road warriors, vacationers, other travelers, relocatees, and folks at home. The only items required are a plate (paper or microwave-safe), a taco-sized tortilla, shredded cheese, fresh spinach leaves, and access to a microwave oven.

If you want to skip straight to the recipe, go ahead. For those who want to read how I got to this topic, continue reading. At a recent networking event, I was talking to someone (BT) when we got to talking about making bread. He said he makes his own—kneading AND baking. (Wow—especially coz we're talkin' about a GUY!) I thought it interesting that we segued to the bread-making process. (I do bread machine bread myself.)

We talked about the fluid temperature and how to achieve it. We talked about the kneading (push, fold, rotate partway, etc. vs. machine's paddle action), the dough rise, the punchdown, the second rise. We talked about dough-rise easiness but didn't conclude much. My bread machine is squarish, requiring a bit of vertical rise against gravity. With hand-processing, the dough can spread out to bigger areas more easily (oblong, flattened round), requiring less vertical resistance, I think.

During the bread discussion, BT then suggested I view a youtube video "George Egg Hotel Survival" . The description includes "how to cook tortellini and how to bake muffins, all in a hotel room using just what he find there". Regarding the bread discussion, the snippet of interest for me (kneading) occurs around the 48-second mark. We then talked about the spinach and tortellini entree. I personally didn't care for the looks of the results, but the dish appealed to BT.

George Egg claimed his meal would have run £22, but he spent only £4. I told BT about my convenient recipe that calls for spinach, cheese, and taco-sized tortilla, which can include an egg if so desired. BT started expressing hunger, as in "I'm getting hungry". Our conversation led me to thinking that the topic would make a good blog article. Here goes.

Spinach-Cheese Taco Recipe

Ingredients: Taco-sized tortilla, shredded cheese, spinach leaves.

Other items required: Plate (microwave-safe or paper), microwave oven, fork to fold taco as necessary and also use as a utensil to eat finished item with.

Procedure:

Place tortilla onto plate.
Sprinkle about an ounce of cheese onto the tortilla.
Layer spinach leaves onto the cheese.
Place plate into the microwave oven and heat on high for about a minute, rotating halfway through if there's no rotator. (The leaves will shrink down some.) Add cooked egg if desired. (Recipe follows.)
Sprinkle more cheese onto the heated plate of ingredients.
Microwave the plate about another minute, rotating as necessary. (If the last layer of cheese hasn't melted to your satisfaction, fold the taco halfway, then microwave an additional 20 seconds or so.)
Eat it!

Spinach-Cheese Taco with Egg

If you want to add an egg to the meal, follow the steps below:

Obtain another plate, container for stirring the egg, oil spray, additional cheese.
Spray the oil onto the plate.
Crack open the egg, pour it into the container and mix it.
Pour the egg onto the oiled plate.
Place plate into the microwave oven and heat on high for about a minute, rotating halfway through if there's no rotator until suitable doneness.
Flip the cooked egg onto the spinach-cheese taco AFTER shrinking down the spinach in Step 4 of the upper recipe.
Add more cheese (yes! more cheese!!!!!).
Microwave the entire plate of items for melted-cheese doneness, rotating as necessary. (If the last layer of cheese hasn't melted to your satisfaction, fold the taco halfway, then microwave an additional 20 seconds or so.)

Burp.

Create Monthly Calendars for the Year

2010-01-16T20:52:00.003-06:00

Did you get a 2010 calendar recently? Get one for a Christmas gift? Buy one for yourself? Bank give you one? Some other business give you one? Calendars used to be assumed freebies, which seemed to be in short supply this season. The other day, I asked a bank teller about calendars. She pointed out a small stack of pocketbook-sized ones. Well, it’s adequate for viewing month to month, but the cells measure only 1.2" wide by 1" high.

I decided to visit an online calendar utility for viewing and creating custom calendars. I wound up creating and printing out all 12 months for the year in landscape orientation, double-side printing them onto six sheets. This type of calendar is good for scribbling short notes on a month-to-month basis. I myself like the days-of-week column arrangement to reinforce weekly occurrences.

For making the calendar, I used a Firefox browser with PaintShopPro7 (PSP) graphics editor, and selected options at http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar. (The default view shows a 3-row by 4-column setup for an entire year, tweakable for preferences.) I experimented with the browser screen sizes for graphics capture, then previewed and tweaked the page setup in PSP for printing maximum cell sizes.

If you want to make your own monthly calendar, start at http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar and click Advanced customization. At the new screen, the critical selections are as follows:

Calendar period=1 month
Format=[your preference]
Add space for notes=[some vertical spacing per cell]
Main template=[your preference]

When done with selections, click Show calendar. For the rest of the procedure to set up and print the first month, YMMV. To prepare the browser to capture screens, I set my browser for maximum size; i.e., clicked the Maximize button (restored to full screen). To obtain more vertical viewing space, I turned off the navigation and status bars (browser view menu), and pulled down the task windowshade to close it.

To set my graphics editor to capture screens, I opened PSP and set it to use a cursor for dragging and defining a capture window.

An alternative to setting the browser for maximum and setting the graphics editor for windowing the area: Resize the browser so only the calendar appears, then set the graphics editor for Object capture. This setting enables capturing only the object inside the window.

To prepare the application to print, I set up page settings to Landscape and Fit to page. I then tweaked settings by unchecking Fit to page, and accepting the new default margins.

I created the rest of the months for the year by doing the following:

Scrolled the browser upward until I saw the links for previous/next month.
Clicked the next month.
Scrolled the browser downward until I got the full view of the month.
Captured and printed the months as I did for January.

Yup, I'm set up for the rest of the year now.

Sew What

2010-01-07T14:46:00.000-06:00

I occasionally sew, although much less than I used to. (I mostly repair items or shorten overly long t-shirts for myself.) I assess if it's worthwhile to pull out the sewing machine and set up the spool and bobbin. If the job's too small, or if I feel I might risk mangling the fabric by using the sewing machine, I'll hand-stitch the item. Often, when I sew or think about sewing, I think about the term for someone or something who/that sews. I wonder why a person is not a thought of as a "sewer", but a "seamstress" or "tailor".

Sew-related—why has a sewing machine not evolved to become referred to as a sewer, as a washing machine has become referred to as a washer? For that matter, a machine that dries clothes used to be called a clothes dryer but is now commonly called a dryer. Maybe the topic of that particular machine never comes up except in the context of clothes, so using the single term "dryer" is enough.

The noun "sewer" has three main entries in the Merriam Webster online dictionary. What an unfortunate case of one word being spelled the same way, but meaning three different things, with the definition partially dependent on pronunciation!

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French asseour, literally, seater, from Anglo-French asseer to seat more at assize
Date: 14th century
: a medieval household officer often of high rank in charge of serving the dishes at table and sometimes of seating and tasting

Date: 14th century
: one that sews

Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from assewer, essiver to drain, from Vulgar Latin *exaquare, from Latin ex- + aqua water more at island
Date: 15th century
: an artificial usually subterranean conduit to carry off sewage and sometimes surface water (as from rainfall)

In the written form, "sewer" requires context. I'm thinking that "sewer" has a built-in unpleasant connotation (sewage), effectively rendering the other definitions nearly irrelevant for acceptance. In the spoken form, both the pronunciations for sew and sewer (someone or something who/that sews) seem they should be spelled "soh" and "soher". The etymology goes way back, so (not sew fast) probably we will be stuck with sew much unpleasantness. (BTW, "sow" has its own set of definition, pronunciation, and part-of-speech issues, which I'll forego.)

"Seamstress" and "tailor" seem to be two main words associated with people who sew that don't conjure sniggers (silent or vocal) that "sewer" seems to. It seems there's a gender implicitness in using "seamstress" or "tailor" for someone who sews. A seamstress sews, although the root indicates the seam is the object of attention. The suffix is the feminine form—a girl or woman. Why isn't a male who sews commonly called a "seamster"? For that matter, "seamster" seems to be a term for someone who, uh, seams. "Tailor" is used for someone who creates, but also customizes clothes, and might actually sew. It seems that "tailor" implies a male occupation.

Returning to talking about "seam", a seam is only one specific part of an item that gets sewn. Anyway, I've never encountered "seam" used as a verb as I have seen "stitch" used. I never hear anyone referred to as a "stitcher", yet it seems "stitch" is a perfectly good word that fits the sewing topic. A "stitch" is a general term for a unit of the activity "sewing". To stitch is to sew—perfect infinitive, imho—even spells like it's pronounced. A stitcher can be someone who sews (no gender assignment) and sews any part or all of an item that has stitches—seam, collar, facing, interfacing, sleeve, cuff, armhole, yoke, lining, hem, skirt, pants, suit, ….

Sew what? Sew what you think you might want. In August, I had run across a recent article about sewing getting popular again ("Sewing surges in popularity"), which you can sink your teeth into. A notable excerpt is the following:

At Sew Crafty, students start with clutch purses for male students "man bags" and gradually move on to pajama pants and aprons. Despite the rules on the studio's wall, students are encouraged to let their imagination guide the stitches.

Maybe after reading the article, you'll be inspired to sink (or stick) pins and needles into a sewing project.

Year-end Fun-AT-tix and More Same Song Titles

2009-12-25T07:07:00.006-06:00

Fun-AT-tix is my wordplay on phonetics, but I'm also using the base syllable "phon-" to talk about homophones. (I wrote about homophones in a previous article.). I wanted to use "fun@tix", but I have a feeling the blogspot would have an issue with the "@" sign in the article title.

The first part of this article is about homophones in year-end holiday songs and/or their lyrics. (Well, the words completely or closely approach homophones anyway.) I think a lot of songs are probably so popular and ingrained in many of us that we don't consider the possibilities of different spellings of words. I've listed some songs below for rumination. (Christmas-song midi files are available at http://www.classicalmidiconnection.com/cmc/christmas.html.)

Note: People who are poor spellers or ESLers might consider NOT looking to this article as a learning tool for correct spelling. :-)

Santa Claws Is Cumin to Town (Sandy Claws has been done to death.)
Gin Gull Bells
Sy Lent Knight
O Holey Knight (also spellable as O Wholly Knight)
O Little Town of Beth La Hem
A Way in a Manger
Hark the Harold Angels Sing (The actual title makes me think of Shelly Fabares' Johnny Angel from 1962.)
Rudolph the Red Knows Rain, Dear
Angels We Have Herd on High
Joy to the Whirled

One holiday song that has long mystified me for title strangeness has been Angels We Have Heard on High. The title appears ONCE in the entire song, yet "Gloria" is sung repeatedly, extendedly (glo, o-o-o-o-o, o-o-o-o-o, o-o-o-o-o, ree-yuh) and often. In talking about "Gloria", I'm now revisiting songs that have the same titles but are different songs ("Same Song Titles, Different Songs"), for which I wrote an October article. In keeping with the holiday theme for now, the following songs fulfill both holiday and non-holiday categories:

Gloria
Gloria by Van Morrison/Them (1963) is actually titled rationally; there is no doubt who or what the main thought is—"Glo-ree-a. G-L-O-R-I-A, …" and on and on and on. Laura Brannigan's version (1982) has "Gloria" throughout the song, also leaving no doubt as to the topic name. As for Angels We Have Heard on High, "Gloria" gets a lot more air time than the actual song title's words. I say rename the song to Gloria and really confuse people!

Joy to the World
Joy to the World by Three Dog Night (1971) dominated the rock and roll airwaves and took over JTTW consciousness for awhile. In one Christmas special I saw many years ago, a group of elderly people were introduced to sing Joy to the World. Instead of the religious version, they launched into "JER-I-MY-AH WAS A BULL-FROG, WAS A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE, …", etc. Wish I could remember what the show was or could easily find it on youtube. Hilarious and entertaining!

Auld Lang Syne/Same Old Lang Syne
Same Old Lang Syne by Dan Fogelberg (1980) is a bittersweet song that actually contains a pastiche of Auld Lang Syne as delivered by most bands on New Year's Day (popularized by Guy Lombardo).

Now, on to the rest of Same Song Titles, Different Songs, Part 2—non-holiday songs.

Candy Man/Candyman
For people who hear the song and pay less attention to whether it is one word or two, aurally, it's three sound memes—can-dee-man. The notable versions are from Roy Orbison (1961), Sammy Davis, Jr. (1972, song used in original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), Christina Aguilera (2007), and Aqua (1997, song AKA Lollipop, not to be confused with Chordettes' Lollipop from 1958 or Millie Small's My Boy Lollipop from 1964).

Cherish
Both the Association's version (1966) and Kool and the Gang's version (1985) are slow, with love and devotion lyrics. The Association version indicates a silent sufferer, however, contrasted to KATG's version of public pronouncements.

Sunny
Neil Sedaka (1965) and Bobby Hebb (1966) both sing of rain and pain, then of love. Two very different styles for similar themes, Neil's is very melodic and Bobby's has jazzy arrangements.

Color My World
Two songs with the same song title could hardly be more different from each other. Petula Clark's peppy, horns-laden version from 1967 contrasts with Chicago's slow, flutey version from 1970.

Fever
Peggy Lee (1958) might have the best-known version, also popularized by the McCoys (1965) and Rita Coolidge (1973). Recently, Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert separately recorded and released Lady Gaga's version.

Holiday Gadgets to Inspire or Not

2009-12-19T22:14:00.004-06:00

Over the years during the holiday season, I have smiled bemusedly at gadgets hawked on TV as prospective gifts. Thoughts that popped up in my mind have usually been one or more of the following:

Really? A saucepan would work, and most people already have one.
Gee, another appliance to take up shelf, cupboard, or drawer space.
Does that gadget really work?
[price, usually ending in .99] sure seems like a lot for what that thing is supposed to do.

Gadgets in the past that trigger one or more of my above thoughts include the hot dog cooker, hamburger cooker, butter melter, toaster-sized deep fryer, and rotisserie. I admit I succumbed to having bought a deep fryer and a rotisserie (different times). The deep fryer is long gone, it never seeming to have delivered goods as expected. An additional concern was what to do with the excess oil. I donated it so long ago, I don't remember much about the oil or device anymore. As for the rotisserie, it had great promise, especially for roasting turkeys under 10 pounds. The key is "10 pounds". Almost NEVER have I found such a peewee turkey in a store.

My most recent turkey experience with the rotisserie was maybe two years ago, when I trimmed some turkey body parts to make it weigh under 10 pounds. The cooking process was underwhelming. The turkey was eventually too big around to gracefully fit in the rotisserie cavity, circumference-wise. After some time of the turkey rotating and roasting, the meat contracted lengthwise but its girth expanded, which exposed the imbalance of my insertion of the spit into the turkey. (Spit—funny name for the turkey immobilizer, as spit also means to eject [something] from the mouth—also, the action's output.) The meat began bumping and thumping the window door until the cooking time finished (whirr, thud, thump, whirr, thud thump, ...).

My roast method now includes placing the turkey on a turkey lifter that's inside a 16-inch diameter cake pan, parking a meat thermometer in it, than roasting according to recommended time and temperature for its weight. (I admit, I also own a pair of poultry lifters , which I have used occasionally but forgot to last month.)

Two electric versions of products I saw advertisements for recently were an electric cookie gun and electric wine bottle opener. They are real products, but they make me think of the gag gift Spencer's used to sell—the electric fork. Anyway, I can't see myself foregoing elbow grease to get electric versions of a cookie gun or wine bottle opener.

Anyway, as I was in my local drugstore waiting for my photo order for outgoing greeting cards, I used the half-hour wait time to browse a merchandise area for gadgets. I felt I hit some sort of jackpot. Not only were these items amusing to me, but they neatly fit into the 99¢-effect pricing, which I blogged about in November.

I am omitting urls for the products I have listed below, as readers, if they want to acquire additional details, should research to satisfy their own satisfactions, including finding product reviews and price comparisons. For many of the products, the premises and/or prices leave me speechless and commentless.

Point 'n Paint
(wholesale distributor, IDEA Village; $19.99)
The package states "No tape" and "Paint entire room in less than an hour". (Please, no heckling about the text case.)

Save a Blade Automatic Razor Sharpener
(distributor, Exceptional Products Inc.; $19.99)
The package says "up to 200 shaves from a single blade".

Emjoi Tweeze (distributor, Tristar Products, Inc., $19.99)
This item comes with 2 AA batteries. The packaging states "Easily removes facial hair except eyebrows".

Touch N Brush Hands-Free Toothpaste Dispenser
(distributor, Allstar Products Group, Inc.; $19.99)
No electricity. No batteries.

Set of 12 Bottle Tops Turn Your Drink Can Into A Bottle
(Tele Brands, $9.99)
Packaging states "Snap top onto standard cans" and "Keeps Carbonation Longer".

One Touch Hands Free Can Opener
(distributor, Harvest Direct; $19.99)
You place the unit on top of a can, after ensuring that you have inserted 2 AA batteries ("sold separately"), then press the button. The opener walks around in a circle. Actually, I used to own an electrical can opener, which had long ago departed for the great scrap heap in the sky. Can't say I miss it. Besides making do with a hand-crank opener occasionally, I see that many cans these days have pull tabs, further reducing the need for using an opener.

Emson Egg Genie
(distributor, Emson; $19.99)
With this appliance, you can cook up to 7 eggs at one time. Eh, I always thought a saucepan was versatile enough.

The hamburger cooker of yore seems to have evolved into two newer types to reflect a more recent selling of hamburgers—the "slider". The gadgets I ran across were the Big City Slider Station and the Chicago Slider. (I think previous name attempts have been "mini-burger" and Burger King's "Burger Buddies". )

Chicago Slider
(distributor, East West Distributing; $19.99)
This gadget makes four square burgers and uses electricity. Scoop meat into the cavities, close the clamshell lid, cook.

Big City Slider Station
(distributor, Harvest Direct; $19.99)
This gadget makes five round burgers and uses a stove top. Scoop meat into the cavities, press down with its mating part, cook.

As I have all the equipment I think I need now, I'm short of cabinet space for new gadgets, I'm skeptical of them working, and I prefer to spend the money on other items, I hope Santa isn't inspired to bring me any of the items I recently spotted and listed. Maybe I'll ask for things not available in stores or online. Can't tell; otherwise, wishes might not come true. Happy Holidays!