Fan Dancer
Hello World,
Happy Labor Day Weekend! Of course in these parts, it is generally considered the end of the summer season, so it may not be regarded as a happy occasion by everyone, particularly the "back to school" set, but for fans of three-day weekends, it comes as a welcome treat. It's true that it seems ridiculously early, and actually, it's the earliest that it can be, since Labor Day is on September 1st, which is Monday. I had somehow convinced myself that, like Election Day, you first had to have a day in the month before you could have the holiday (because of this rule, the earliest Election Day can be is on the 2nd, not the first) but apparently that doesn't apply to Labor Day, and so here we are already. And even though the holiday itself is in September, the long holiday weekend starts on August 30th, and for some of us, even sooner. I had an appointment on Thursday, plus a meeting after work, and some other things I wanted to get taken care of, and I thought it would simplify matters if I just took the whole day off. It occurred to me later that if I also took off Friday, I could have a bunch of days off in a row (especially if I played hooky from church on Sunday as well) and that would be a nice change of pace for me. I knew I had to go in to work on Friday for a bit anyway, because they wanted the payroll finished early due to the holiday, but it was still better than being at work all day. So for me, the Labor Day weekend started on Wednesday, August 27th, and for that I say, "God bless the spirit of Samuel L. Gompers!"
When I mentioned to Bill that I was surprised Labor Day wasn't like Election Day, so that you couldn't have it on the first of the month, he made the point that when he was a youngster, Labor Day was always on September 1st, regardless of what day of the week it fell on. This prompted me to observe that it would have been back in the days when the dinosaurs were roaming the vast unformed land masses, but he took umbrage at that remark, and insisted that he was born during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, and the dinosaurs had been extinct for many millions of years by then, as hard as it might seem to believe by young whipper-snappers nowadays. So there you have it, holiday fans, although I don't dare say it's straight from the horse's mouth, heaven knows, if he objects to being lumped with ancient reptiles, I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate being stable mates with the ponies either.
One thing I did last week that should make everyone in the local area happy is go and get gas at long last. When the Sunoco station down the block was selling regular for $3.93, I drove a mile out of my way to the Exxon station, which is usually cheaper. No such luck, it was the same price at that time, but I was still glad to get it under $4.00, so I considered it a great bargain and drove off very happy with my purchase. Ever since then, I've been watching the price at the Sunoco come down a few cents every day, so that by today, it was 12 cents less than when I got it last week. Somehow, the gas always manages to stay the same price, as long as I'm driving around and watching it, but then as soon as I break down and fill up, then the price drops at stations all over the place. So that was my good deed for the benefit of the wider community, and I'm sure the President's economic advisers appreciated it also. No, please don't thank me, after all, virtue is its own reward.
Meanwhile, in the "deja vu all over again" department, one morning when it was too dark to read my new scale, I moved it closer to the window, and lo and behold, just like my old spring scale when I would move it to different parts of the floor, it gave me a bunch of wildly divergent readings that were many pounds apart. When I first tried the new scale, and found that it had packed back on an extra 12 pounds that I thought I had already lost, compared to the old scale, I took it at its word, because it was shiny and new and digital, so I figured it had to be right. But I also tested both scales side by side, using some dumbbells, and if I would put 20 or 25 pounds of dumbbells on the new scale, that's what the display would show, but on the old spring scale, it would read consistently too low. So I figured the new scale was accurate, and left it at that. But I hadn't considered that when I tested it, I put it on top of my dresser, which is not only flat, but of a single piece, so there were no seams or edges for the scale to wobble on. This is not the case with the floor, where each foot of the scale could be on a separate tile, with all four edges pushing up unevenly against the bottom. I couldn't see any way around that, because I rejected out of hand the idea of climbing up on my dresser every morning to weigh myself on a large flat surface. Then I remembered that we also have a handy blanket chest with a large flat surface, which is long and low like a coffee table, and I thought this would fit the bill nicely and solve at least one problem on the spot. So I've been doing that since, and I must say that the results have scaled new heights of consistency, that never could have been achieved on the floor. So there you have it, accuracy fans, a story with a happy ending, where right triumphs over crookedness.
In local sports news, the Mets seem bound and determined to lose their way out of first place in the NL East, while for their part, the dratted Phillies seem just as determined to stay in second place, rather than overtaking the division lead and leaving the Mets in the dust. This is in stark contrast to three of the other divisions, where the first place teams are 30 games over .500 and leaving their nearest rivals floundering in their wake, while the Phillies and Mets are slugging it out in a quagmire of mediocrity that the media wags refer to as the NL "Least" and with good reason. That reminds me of a quote I read recently, but first let me say that for anyone who hasn't already tried songza, which is a sort of online jukebox (and please feel free to give them a try at www.songza.com and see for yourself) you're really missing something, and I can highly recommend it. Bill found a review of it and some technical information at www.geekycoder.com, which was really interesting, although a bit too arcane for the average visitor perhaps. The page also had a reader comment complaining about all of the typos, while making allowances for the writer's lack of fluency in what might not be his native language. Au contraire! (That's French for, "English 'R' Us!") The writer insisted that although he was based in Singapore, English was indeed his first language, and blamed carelessness for the typos and not translation failures. This surprised me, because when he described a problem with a particular function of the service, his comment was, "How this feature can be useful at all fathom me." Well, I guess it would fathom me too, unless English was my native language, in which case I would realize that "fathom me" is not an expression that we use, at least not up until now. Someone else having this problem, in spite of English being their native language, was Yonkers police Captain Frank Bruno, after they arrested some youths for vandalism, based on an anonymous tip, without which the arrests could not have been made. "We would have been in a lurch," said Bruno. Indeed you would have been, right there at 0001 Cemetery Lane with the rest of the Addams family, and lucky to get any help out of Uncle Fester, if that. So there you have it, sports fans, or to paraphrase the immortal Casey Stengel, "Can't anybody here speak this language?"
While we're on the subject of languages, you can imagine my surprise last week when I was coming home from a hard day of shuffling papers at the hospital, and found myself behind a truck that was emblazoned all over with the single word: "BIMBO." Frankly, this is not a category of people that I expect to have their own fleet of trucks, and anyone can call me naive (they'd better not!) but I admit that it not only fathom me, but I was also in a lurch, and Uncle Fester was nowhere to be found. Incredibly, the truck was also emblazoned with their web site address (and please do go visit them at www.bimbo.com and see for yourself) so you know I had to hurry home and check that out and see what they were up to. Presumably, "bimbo" means something entirely different in Spanish than it does in English (and a good thing, too) and these nice folks sell a wide variety of breads and bread products, they are happy to tell me, "por un mundo mas tierno." Their home page highlights one of their newest products, "Nuevo Bimbo corteza tierna blanca, el unico con la corteza tan tierna como la miga," with lots of pictures of happy children, beaming parents and soft fresh breads. It's really very interesting, and you'd be surprised how easy it is to find your way around their web site, even though everything is in Spanish. Having said that, however, I must point out that a web site for the English language version of "bimbo" couldn't help but be way more interesting, certainly more than funky old Spanish white bread, but that would be taking the moral low road, and we should all remember that virtue is its own reward. So there you have it, bread fans, and please be sure to encourage your friends to get out there and go pick up a Bimbo. Tell them Uncle Fester sent you.
Happy Labor Day Weekend! Of course in these parts, it is generally considered the end of the summer season, so it may not be regarded as a happy occasion by everyone, particularly the "back to school" set, but for fans of three-day weekends, it comes as a welcome treat. It's true that it seems ridiculously early, and actually, it's the earliest that it can be, since Labor Day is on September 1st, which is Monday. I had somehow convinced myself that, like Election Day, you first had to have a day in the month before you could have the holiday (because of this rule, the earliest Election Day can be is on the 2nd, not the first) but apparently that doesn't apply to Labor Day, and so here we are already. And even though the holiday itself is in September, the long holiday weekend starts on August 30th, and for some of us, even sooner. I had an appointment on Thursday, plus a meeting after work, and some other things I wanted to get taken care of, and I thought it would simplify matters if I just took the whole day off. It occurred to me later that if I also took off Friday, I could have a bunch of days off in a row (especially if I played hooky from church on Sunday as well) and that would be a nice change of pace for me. I knew I had to go in to work on Friday for a bit anyway, because they wanted the payroll finished early due to the holiday, but it was still better than being at work all day. So for me, the Labor Day weekend started on Wednesday, August 27th, and for that I say, "God bless the spirit of Samuel L. Gompers!"
When I mentioned to Bill that I was surprised Labor Day wasn't like Election Day, so that you couldn't have it on the first of the month, he made the point that when he was a youngster, Labor Day was always on September 1st, regardless of what day of the week it fell on. This prompted me to observe that it would have been back in the days when the dinosaurs were roaming the vast unformed land masses, but he took umbrage at that remark, and insisted that he was born during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, and the dinosaurs had been extinct for many millions of years by then, as hard as it might seem to believe by young whipper-snappers nowadays. So there you have it, holiday fans, although I don't dare say it's straight from the horse's mouth, heaven knows, if he objects to being lumped with ancient reptiles, I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate being stable mates with the ponies either.
One thing I did last week that should make everyone in the local area happy is go and get gas at long last. When the Sunoco station down the block was selling regular for $3.93, I drove a mile out of my way to the Exxon station, which is usually cheaper. No such luck, it was the same price at that time, but I was still glad to get it under $4.00, so I considered it a great bargain and drove off very happy with my purchase. Ever since then, I've been watching the price at the Sunoco come down a few cents every day, so that by today, it was 12 cents less than when I got it last week. Somehow, the gas always manages to stay the same price, as long as I'm driving around and watching it, but then as soon as I break down and fill up, then the price drops at stations all over the place. So that was my good deed for the benefit of the wider community, and I'm sure the President's economic advisers appreciated it also. No, please don't thank me, after all, virtue is its own reward.
Meanwhile, in the "deja vu all over again" department, one morning when it was too dark to read my new scale, I moved it closer to the window, and lo and behold, just like my old spring scale when I would move it to different parts of the floor, it gave me a bunch of wildly divergent readings that were many pounds apart. When I first tried the new scale, and found that it had packed back on an extra 12 pounds that I thought I had already lost, compared to the old scale, I took it at its word, because it was shiny and new and digital, so I figured it had to be right. But I also tested both scales side by side, using some dumbbells, and if I would put 20 or 25 pounds of dumbbells on the new scale, that's what the display would show, but on the old spring scale, it would read consistently too low. So I figured the new scale was accurate, and left it at that. But I hadn't considered that when I tested it, I put it on top of my dresser, which is not only flat, but of a single piece, so there were no seams or edges for the scale to wobble on. This is not the case with the floor, where each foot of the scale could be on a separate tile, with all four edges pushing up unevenly against the bottom. I couldn't see any way around that, because I rejected out of hand the idea of climbing up on my dresser every morning to weigh myself on a large flat surface. Then I remembered that we also have a handy blanket chest with a large flat surface, which is long and low like a coffee table, and I thought this would fit the bill nicely and solve at least one problem on the spot. So I've been doing that since, and I must say that the results have scaled new heights of consistency, that never could have been achieved on the floor. So there you have it, accuracy fans, a story with a happy ending, where right triumphs over crookedness.
In local sports news, the Mets seem bound and determined to lose their way out of first place in the NL East, while for their part, the dratted Phillies seem just as determined to stay in second place, rather than overtaking the division lead and leaving the Mets in the dust. This is in stark contrast to three of the other divisions, where the first place teams are 30 games over .500 and leaving their nearest rivals floundering in their wake, while the Phillies and Mets are slugging it out in a quagmire of mediocrity that the media wags refer to as the NL "Least" and with good reason. That reminds me of a quote I read recently, but first let me say that for anyone who hasn't already tried songza, which is a sort of online jukebox (and please feel free to give them a try at www.songza.com and see for yourself) you're really missing something, and I can highly recommend it. Bill found a review of it and some technical information at www.geekycoder.com, which was really interesting, although a bit too arcane for the average visitor perhaps. The page also had a reader comment complaining about all of the typos, while making allowances for the writer's lack of fluency in what might not be his native language. Au contraire! (That's French for, "English 'R' Us!") The writer insisted that although he was based in Singapore, English was indeed his first language, and blamed carelessness for the typos and not translation failures. This surprised me, because when he described a problem with a particular function of the service, his comment was, "How this feature can be useful at all fathom me." Well, I guess it would fathom me too, unless English was my native language, in which case I would realize that "fathom me" is not an expression that we use, at least not up until now. Someone else having this problem, in spite of English being their native language, was Yonkers police Captain Frank Bruno, after they arrested some youths for vandalism, based on an anonymous tip, without which the arrests could not have been made. "We would have been in a lurch," said Bruno. Indeed you would have been, right there at 0001 Cemetery Lane with the rest of the Addams family, and lucky to get any help out of Uncle Fester, if that. So there you have it, sports fans, or to paraphrase the immortal Casey Stengel, "Can't anybody here speak this language?"
While we're on the subject of languages, you can imagine my surprise last week when I was coming home from a hard day of shuffling papers at the hospital, and found myself behind a truck that was emblazoned all over with the single word: "BIMBO." Frankly, this is not a category of people that I expect to have their own fleet of trucks, and anyone can call me naive (they'd better not!) but I admit that it not only fathom me, but I was also in a lurch, and Uncle Fester was nowhere to be found. Incredibly, the truck was also emblazoned with their web site address (and please do go visit them at www.bimbo.com and see for yourself) so you know I had to hurry home and check that out and see what they were up to. Presumably, "bimbo" means something entirely different in Spanish than it does in English (and a good thing, too) and these nice folks sell a wide variety of breads and bread products, they are happy to tell me, "por un mundo mas tierno." Their home page highlights one of their newest products, "Nuevo Bimbo corteza tierna blanca, el unico con la corteza tan tierna como la miga," with lots of pictures of happy children, beaming parents and soft fresh breads. It's really very interesting, and you'd be surprised how easy it is to find your way around their web site, even though everything is in Spanish. Having said that, however, I must point out that a web site for the English language version of "bimbo" couldn't help but be way more interesting, certainly more than funky old Spanish white bread, but that would be taking the moral low road, and we should all remember that virtue is its own reward. So there you have it, bread fans, and please be sure to encourage your friends to get out there and go pick up a Bimbo. Tell them Uncle Fester sent you.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:46 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home