Don't send me email with the wrong address - part III

As you know- I continue to get email to my account that is meant for someone else. After gently dissuading them I was the wrong recipient, they persisted. At their own peril it turns out...

Hello, Everyone!

We have a date for our new Supper Shuffle group’s first gathering. It is Sunday, November 11^th. Let’s plan to meet at our home at 5 pm. We live at 516 XXXXX Ave. in River xxxxx (four houses north of Lake Street, on the west side; last of the four red brick and stucco houses). You can park on the west side of our street in front of our house, in our driveway, or across the street in the Methodist Church parking lot. Our phone number is xxx-xxxx

Al plans to do pork roast on the grill. John and Loretta – please bring the appetizers. Darrell and Rosemary – please bring a vegetable. And Mary – please bring a dessert. If Linda does come with you, Mary, would you have her bring some applesauce? Please let me know if she is not coming.

As a reminder, Rosemary does not tolerate milk products. And, UNFORTUNATELY, I cannot eat onions (including chives, leeks, scallions, shallots) or bell peppers. If you have a recipe which includes any of those delicious items, you could do what my family does for me. Make the recipe without those foods, remove a small portion for me, then add the onion, etc. for everyone else.

Have I forgotten anything? Let me know if I did. See you soon!

Irmgard

So I respond thusly - there is no dissuading these people:

This sounds awesome! 
Couple of quick questions for the group - does everybody like turnips? Rosemary does some nice 'nips, and as a practicing lacto vegan gluten free ovo-tarian, she has a way to make then not taste like casket wood.
Also, I'm not sure we should park in the Methodist church lot. Those guys are hard core about their Sunday services, and I certainly don't want to pull up in the middle of any ritualistic goat sacrifice. And those robes....gives me the willies just thinking about it! Anyhoo, looking forward to seeing you all. I have a bunch of internet cat videos I want to share!
Ps - plan to get lubed up, I'm bringing a bucket of Jäger for us all!

Airplane Travels - Flying the Friendly Skys

Given that my last diatribe garnered so many comments I thought that I might continue with some more "observations" on the subject. I hesitate somewhat, because the most derided subject in the world for most comedians is the subject of airline travel, so I beg pardon from my gentle readers, with an excuse on two fronts. Firstly, I am an observer of the human spirit and my observations take place over several decades and across many cultures. I'm not going to comment on the Boston to Vegas run. You've all done that and have your own observations. Secondly, I believe that I am somewhat of an authority on the subject having flown nearly one million miles in my business career alone. I've done a lot of other flying (falling with style?) but that is fodder for another mill at another time perhaps. In no order of importance I give you - Flying the Friendly skies.

• Mileage Clubs - how is it that if I accumulate miles, the airlines can tell me that they expire, that there are blackouts and that I can't travel with more than two people, and that I can't sit where I want to sit on the airplane? If I pay top dollar for a Omaha to Chicago run because I booked late, my 300 points is the same as the old lady next to me who paid 1/3 the price because she has the luxury of booking 6 months ahead of time? Then when I redeem, they pull all the blackout and choice seat crap on me?

• People, people, people - I know that you want to be comfortable when flying, but here are a few tips that might help you out as much as they will me. First - bathe. You know you want to do it. Next Orifice cleaning. Please don't do that on the airplane. Resist with all your might the urge to poke, insert, ream, wipe, grind, scratch, rub and lick the various orifices on your body. As a libertarian, I respect your right to do so, but please, not in front of the children. And here is a bonus tip - whatever you pull from said orifices, do not examine, wad up in your fingers and throw into the aisle. KC is serious on this one.

• In terms of clothing, I need to put this in reference terms. I was in Vegas recently. At an uber posh hotel. I was in a suit. A nice one. I was working. After observing the GUMS (Great Unwashed Masses) for awhile, I noted to a colleague that Vegas has lost some of it's charm after I observed a grandmother in a bikini dragging both her breasts and a cooler behind her through the casino, holding a lit cigarette in her mouth and a bottle of Bud in one hand. And she had tattoos. Lots of them. The segue to airline travel is this. You may think you are "all laid back" and "being a precious individual" and all, but I do not. In fact WE, do not. Cover yourself up, act your age and dress like you matter. Because if you don't, the rest of us see you as a visual eye-sore. Sorry to be harsh, but please, please, please, get a mirror.

• Kids on airlplanes. There, I said it. Think of an airplane as a torture chamber in Libya. Most of us don't want to be there, and are desperately trying to figure out how to escape or control our minds for the next three hours so that we don't crack. You child screaming "I want gum" or just plain screaming is akin to CIA water-boarding and is less pleasant. How does your spawn get through a day of school without riding the short bus if they can't sit in a chair and watch movies for 3 hours? If the child is screaming - it is your fault. I don't blame them, and pity you. I blame you, and pity me! Invest in duct tape or Dimetap, each works equally well.

• Drunk guy. I know the drinks are free in first class, and I know that you feel like you are sticking it to the man by getting as many as you can in three hours, and heck, I like my JD as well, but you don't hear me saying to the attendant "heavy on the vodka baby!" or randomly yelling "that's what I'm talking about" as you imbibe. And lastly, the little red stirring device in the cup is not a straw. For the love of god it is a stir stick. That's why it is so small you see. Please do not try and suck your martini through that little hole. It won't work, and you look stupid doing it. Sheesh.

Well, those are a few of my pet peeves. I could go on. Actually, I could go on and on and on. But I won't. You see, when travelling, discretion is often the better part of both valor and comfort.

For all of us.

Ketchup is the food of the Gods.

I think I will write about Ketchup to take my mind off the economy. You can always trust Ketchup. Yes, ketchup is probably one of the most common ingredients on the kitchen tables in the US, in fact over 97% of homes have ketchup in them. Point of fact, despite what you have read, Americans consume FAR more ketchup than salsa. The confusion comes about because Americans SPEND more on salsa than Ketchup. Not hard to figure out when ketchup is 1/2 the price and has 4 times the shelf life of salsa.

Nowadays, most Americans think of ketchup as a tomato based product, but that wasn't always the case. Hundreds of years ago, the Chinese and Malaysians used the brine from pickled fish as dipping sauces. Known as kachiap, the sauce had a savory taste, flavored by the brine spices and fish. Europe in the 1600s, cooks began experimenting with different ingredients—besides anchovies, mushrooms, walnuts, oysters, and even lemons appeared in various ketchup recipes over the next couple of centuries. Throughout the ages, the only ingredient that remained constant was salt.

In the New World, tomatoes were known to be used in ketchup as early as the 1780s, though the first published recipe for tomato ketchup—created by James Mease, a physician and horticulturist from Philadelphia—dates only from about 1812.

It wasn't until the late 1800's when a Pennsylvania food producer took tomatoes, added vinegar, sugar, onion and some secret spices and bottled it did tomato ketchup take hold. Now, pretty much all ketchup in America is made the same way. Sure, the seasonings vary from brand brand, but to Americans, ketchup is a thick tomato based sauce.

Now when it comes to barbecue sauce and ketchup, well some would say that's a marriage made in heaven. Do a Google search for "ketchup and barbecue sauce" and you'll get 1,770,000 hits. Thanks to our friends at Kraft Foods, a thick tomato based sauce, aka Kansas City style, has become the definition of barbecue sauce in the US. Even in Texas, when they do use sauce, ketchup is often the first ingredient.

So, the next time you reach for a bottle of ketchup, remember, this year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of what we know as ketchup. And a tablespoon has only 16 calories - so enjoy!

I have no hands with which to type

KC Loves his fans.....

Who Wants to be in the Poorhouse!

Thats right ladies and gentlemen - Ketchup Chips is starting my own game show - Who Wants to Be in The Poorhouse!! In this fast paced game, contestants have to guess only one fact that corresponds to another fact - and the winner - and all his children and neighbors - are guaranteed a spot in the Poorhouse for the rest of their lives. It's educational, it's fun and it's downright exciting in a Russian Roulette kind of way. Are we ready to play? Of course you are!!!!!!!!!

Here's the first fact - the ten cities below have the largest percentage of their population living UNDER the poverty line in America:

1. Detroit , MI 32.5%

2 Buffalo , NY 29.9%
3. Cincinnati , OH 27.8%
4. Cleveland , OH 27.0%
5. Miami , FL 26.9%
6. St. Louis , MO 26.8%
7. El Paso , TX 26.4%
8. Milwaukee , WI 26.2%
9. Philadelphia , PA 25.1%
10. Newark , NJ 24.2%

And now - here is the question - for all the marbles - what is the one single fact that all of these diverse, geographically dispersed, multi-racial cities have in common? You can do it - c'mon, put that thinking cap on.

YOU GOT IT!!! Congratulations - the answer is they all have elected Democrat mayors and city councils for at least the last 30 or so years! You win a spot in the Poorhouse!!!!!!!!!!

Detroit, MI (1st on the poverty rate list) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961.

Buffalo, NY (2nd) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1954.

Cincinnati, OH (3rd) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1984.

Cleveland, OH (4th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1989.

Miami, FL (5th) has NEVER had a Republican mayor.

St. Louis, MO (6th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1949.

El Paso, TX (7th) has NEVER had a Republican mayor.

Milwaukee, WI (8th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1908.
 

Philadelphia, PA (9th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1952.

Newark, NJ (10th) hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1907.

So there you have it - the first round is complete, and we already have a winner that looks an awful lot like a loser. Tune in again next week when we tee up the next contestant on "Who Wants to Be in the Poorhouse!"

Chevy Volt causes Hippies to Cry

General Motors will suspend Chevrolet Volt production from March 19th to April 23rd in order to bring supply of the plug-in hybrid car in line with demand, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Apparently the demand is zero - because of the last 7 out of 10 weeks, no Volts have been manufactured.

Chevrolet sold 1,023 Volts in February 2012, which up from 603 in January, but far from the 60,000-unit annual output originally planned for when the car was launched in December, 2010.

Less than 8,000 Volts were sold in all of 2011 - with more than half of them being sold to government agencies. Industry estimates are that it costs $250,000 in government subsidies and rebates to move each Volt off the lot, with dealers reporting being forced to put the units on the lot despite no sales and no interest.

GM spokesperson Chris Lee told the newspaper that 1,300 employees at the Hamtramck, Michigan, assembly plant where the Volt is built would be temporarily laid off during the production freeze.

Volt production was also halted for several weeks from late December until February 6th to reengineer the car to address fire concerns raised during government crash testing.

There you have it - the greenie weenie agenda once again fails when faced with the reality of the consuming public. Despite massive government intervention, relentless green agenda propaganda, desperate legislational agendas and simple economic principles, the green vehicle, green re-cycling, green energy, green home, green underwear, green environment etc. etc. etc. movement won't work.

You cannot make rational people do dumb things for very long - because eventually they figure it out. The greens never will.

Wanna buy a Volt?

I love your blog - vote for mine!

Okay - just to put a point on automated responses this weekend - people like my blog on blogger, vote for it, and then shamelessly ask me to vote for their blogs of which I have never read. I usually use the opportunity to dis them. Silly foreigners. I offer these for your amusement:

Arguing against Obama - when Ad Hominem is justified. Part 1 of 2

In this age of political correctness, it has been made diffucult (and purposefully so!) to organize a cogent discussion around the merits of political candidates given that on their face, you are attacking the person, their experience, their ideas and often their very legitimacy as a candidate or speaker.

Since the 1950's institutes of higher learning have advocated that we place ourselves into camps that identify with their makeup more than with their own moral judgements. For example people say they are Latino, or African American, or female, or gay or disabled or any other number of identifiers before they identify themselves as a unique, thoughtful, moral, enterprising human being - and you have to ask yourself why. In a perverse way - Martin Luther King would be shocked that in this day and age we still, and forcefully so, still - judge people by the "color of their skin" rather than the content of their character.

How does it work? Easy. By banding into identifiable groups, any attack on the REASONING of the individual is turned into an attack on the group, and that attack is condemned as whatever "ist" you want it to be.

I think Barack Obama's policies are ineffiective, ill-conceinved and poorly implemented.
Response - "you are a racist".

I think that marriage should be between a man and a woman because I believe that children brought up in a male/female environment do better in the real world.
Response - "you are a homophobe"

I think the rule of law should be enforced, and that people breaking laws should be sanctioned for their actions.
Response - "you are an anti-Latino racist".

These arguments of logic at their core are deemed to be "ad hominem" attacks against an individual, but incorrectly so. Doug Watson is his 2008 book  Informal Logic: A Pragmatic Approach. Cambridge University Press discussed at length that if the premise of the argument IS based on their personal makeup, beliefs experiences, characteristics etc. - then an "ad hominem" attack is justified.

And what of it my friends? Aha - within the next article lies the keys to defeating one Barack Hussein Barry Sotaero Obama in 2012. Stay tuned.

New Computer Blues - AMD, Intel, Gigatbyte, and NewEgg Oh My!

Sheesh - I need a new computer - the core of this one is 5 years old now, and is getting really slow and quirky. I've been looking at systems online and I am going to build my own. The real test is getting enough of a processor to give you cutting edge for a few years and then another couple of years at half speed. I like the AMD line and Intel seems to have some more cost effective CPUs that get the job done. If you aren't up on this stuff - you can now get a "six core" CPU - essentially putting 6 CPUs into one processor.

Motherboards are the platform on which everything rides, so you have to get a good one. Integrated video only adds a few bucks, but lets you coast a couple months before you have to commit to a kick ass video card. Nowadays - you need a super good power supply like 600 or 700 watts to get the job done, and they aren't cheap, and you need at least 4 gigs of ddr 3 memory. I have a Windows 7 disk from one of the kids computers and hard drives and DVD drives from my old rig.

All in all CPU is $250, motherboard is $100, power supply is $100 and memory is $80, putting a pretty good solution in place for about $530. Next upgrade is a super video card - another $190 or so into the pot.

There are two great websites for making your decisions on all this stuff - feel free to putz about - -

http://www.pricewatch.com/ (cheapest and best raw hardware supplies)
http://www.tomshardware.com/ (great articles, advice and how-to's on building your own rig)
http://www.newegg.com/ (great hardware specials and some cool add-ons like cases and fans and stuff)

I now return you to your regularly scheduled life....

The Deficit, Netflix and Obama-rama-lama-ding-dong

If given enough rope eventually the guy is going to hang himself. I thought Barry Sotaro's performance over the past few weeks on the debt issue has been as expected. Bleh. I thought Boehner's speech today was pretty good on top of it all. It now looks like Hussein will be facing off for the election in 2012 with Tweety Bird from the Bugs Bunny cartoons. Tweety is preparing his/her acceptance speech. I never did figure out if that bird was a man or woman. I mean, it never laid an egg or anything. But I digress.

With this impending social crisis - how are Americans feeling? What are they concerned about? You guessed it - the top issue by far was the hike in NetFlix fees.

On the other hand, I see the last point has more points than BO. I'm not sure math was one of the strong suits at the news networks.....Anyways - I feel for our overall well-being if the people of these country are more worried about the delivered price of the Wiggles than they are about the economy. "It's about the Yellow Wiggle Stupid". Sorry about that James Carville.