How Much Would You Pay To Not Eat Raisins?

I paid a buck twenty-five to not eat raisins.

My granola cereal has raisins, which I eat reluctantly. I like raisins okay, our primary source of boron, as you know. I just don’t like them in food, especially cookies. And cake. And cinnamon bread.

I found a brand of granola cereal that doesn’t have raisins, but it costs $1.25 more, which, if you know me, is a huge difference. So I did some quick math and determined that the cost per ounce – only about  7 cents – was a small price to pay not to have to pick raisins out of my bowl.

Wouldn’t you have done the same in this situation?

Sometimes Only A Brand Name Will Do (Just Ask Winston Churchill)

The TOMS shoes post got me thinking about name brands. In most cases, the known brand is not worth the extra money because most generic products are identical to and manufactured right alongside the more expensive ones. But aren’t there some things where only the brand name will do?

I have a few favorite brands, such as ConverseAll-Stars, Wilson tennis rackets, Levi’s Jeans, and Gibson Guitars. Right now I’m wearing Reeboks and Lee Jeans, because they were on sale. I play tennis with a Head racket, also on sale, and the guitar sitting next to me is a Johnson (a Johnson?) because who can afford to learn on a Gibson? In most things, it seems – clothes, groceries, most hygiene products – my loyalty is to price over brand.

But there are some things on which I do not skimp, just like Churchill having some things up with which he will not put….

In the kitchen, I only use Saladmaster cookware. It is simply the best and healthiest and cheapest way to cook, and the food tastes great because it loses so little nutrition.

Since 1977, all my cameras have been Canon. A friend loaned me a Canon AE-1 35 years ago and I was hooked for life. Even though Kelly’s wonderful Nikon Coolpix is on my desk at the moment, I would never purchase anything other than a Canon for myself.

My computer is a big ol’ HP, as are both monitors, the speakers and sub-woofer, the external hard drive, the wireless keyboard and the printer. I like HP, and likely will stay with the brand. Kelly, on the other hand, has a big ol’ iMac on her desk and a MacBook where ever she goes. She is pretty devoted, in the way raving lunatics are devoted, to the brand, and if I point out – logically and kindly – that she could have bought three computers like mine, or six times the computing power, for the same price, she starts acting all wonky, like all Apple people do when you use logic on them.

A recent preference is for Bose speakers. Over the last four years we’ve gotten the SoundDock, the SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker, and the Quietcomfort 15 headphones. I’m telling you, you have never heard music until you put those babies on and flip the little switch. The sound is stunning and absolutely personal. Don't tell anyone, but sometimes I just put them on with the noise cancelling feature on so I get a little quiet time. Oh, and don't wear them while riding your bike.

I take generic medicine, when I take medicine at all, but if I have a cold, I rely on Vicks VapoRub. It’s the best.

I use regular Zest soap, and only Zest soap, in a bar, because I like being "zestfully clean," and I use Mennen Speed Stick, Unscented.

There are also some brands that I refuse to use. I don’t Google, for example. I don’t wear Old Navy or Aeropostale or Abercrombie, which is good, my children say, because I’m not cool enough. Which, I say, proves the point about that whole TOMS shoes scam.

How about you? What are your brand loyalties?

It's A Gala Day

And Groucho follows that line with, "Well, a gal a day is enough for any man. I don’t think I could handle any more." The scene is from Duck Soup, the 1933 movie that featured Groucho, Harpo and Chico at their Marxest.

Here are some other funny movies for your weekend enjoyment:

Adam's Rib - 1949: Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, in the best of their movies, playing married lawyers representing opposite sides in a divorce case.

Harvey - 1950: An addled Jimmy Stewart and a six-foot rabbit only he can see.

The Seven Year Itch - 1955: Marilyn Monroe, fabulous white dress, subway grating. I'm sure there must other things in the movie, too.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World - 1963: Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Jimmy Durante, Jonathan Winters and SpencerTracy. They are just funny guys.

A Shot in the Dark - 1964: Peter Sellers and Inspector Clouseau, together again, and not a Steve Martin in sight.

All these titles are available on Netflix, but the Marx Brothers, Marilyn Monroe and Peter Sellers are Watch Instantly selections, so you won’t have to wait until next weekend for those.

Some Dance To Remember, Some Dance To Forget

I'm listening to Hotel California by the Eagles. What a great song, from the achingly slow, 53-second bass intro to the haunting, colorful lyrics. It is a terrific song, a classic, a wonderful and mysterious short story.

Like all good writing, great songs elicit powerful, emotional images, and remind us of who we are, or should be. Who does the words "she got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends," make you think of? Someone in the news, or someone in your past, perhaps?

Could there be a more simple, evocative description of human loneliness than "some dance to remember, some dance to forget," or the helplessness many of us endure than "and she said, we are all just prisoners here, of our own device"?

Where in literature is there, in so few words, such an accurate depiction of the seeming futility of life than, "they stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast," or the more potent "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave…"?

No Clothes And Other Warm Delights In Eureka Springs

Kelly’s childhood friend Penny is with us, making her annual summer visit. We’ve taken her to Silver Dollar City a time or two, to a llama farm, to Dolly Parton’s Stampede, and, of course, to Bass Pro Shop more times than I care to admit. This year, we decided on a day trip to Eureka Springs. If you have to go to Arkansas, and you can’t go to Hot Springs, that’s as good a place as any.

The first store we saw after parking was this one, which kind of worried the girls. I’m not sure which freaked them out more, the thought of them having to undress or the possibility of the grown-ups shedding their clothes, but it turned out to be a fun little shop.

Our purpose in going to Eureka Springs was the art, as there are several galleries with a fascinating mixture of textures and talents. None of them allow photographs, so you’ll have to take my word for it, but the art makes the drive worthwhile.

We have a more personal motivation, too, shown by this section of the mural above. One of Kelly’s relatives is a well-known artist who was instrumental in establishing the current artistic community in the area, but I will leave it to Kelly to tell that part of Louis Freund’s story.

The girls were more interested in the shopping, and there was no lack of variety there, everything from the extremely tacky to the lovely in clothing and jewelry, something for every price range, but most of it out of ours.

Libby found some bargains, getting a purse, several rings, a jewelry tray, a hair band and a leather bracelet for not much more than $20. She also found a friend roaming free in the store.

Along with a couple of cute rings, Aubrey also found a friend, but just like at home, their friends don’t really play well with each other. Luckily for us, these two girls enjoy the hunt in shopping, rather than just the buy. They are content to spend much of the day just looking.

Libby sometimes could not contain her squeals as we came upon yet another dress shop. Or a jewelry shop. Or a shoe shop. Or a t-shirt shop….

As for Kelly, this is either a yawn – as she was up most of the night before, grading before finals deadline – or a reaction to the price of something the girls wanted to do.

 Adorable, yes, but the hats didn’t make the trip back home with us. Too bad for the hats.

I told everyone that Eureka Springs is populated by all the ex-hippies who couldn’t afford to move to Boulder, but I was the only one who thought that was funny.

The girls tried everything, from the fun…. 

… to the fanatic. That’s a photo of Guy Fieri, who must have brought his RoadShow to Arkansas at some point. We are big fans of the Food Network. At least, we were before we got rid of television.

Of course, no trip would be complete without posting on Facebook that Kelly and 3 others are taking a rest stop at the Big Cedar Lodge….

Walnuts Classified As A New Drug, Subject To FDA Regulation

3 pounds of drugs in my fridge right now,
not counting the pecans.

I wish this was satire, an attempt by me to be funny. But it isn't.

Diamond Foods received a severe warning from the FDA that says, in part:

“… we have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease.”

Remember, now, we’re talking about walnuts. What prompted the rebuke from the FDA was a statement on the Diamond Foods web site that says, referring to the plant-based Omega-3 content natural to walnuts, “Every time you munch a few walnuts, you’re doing your body a big favor.”

Few scientists would disagree that Omega-3s in walnuts are good for you, and it is pretty well established that Omega-3s can “help reduce cholesterol, protect against heart disease and stroke, ease inflammatory diseases and fight depression,” research that Diamond Foods alludes to on their web site.

Yet the FDA warns Diamond Foods that walnuts “are not generally recognized as safe and effective for the above referenced conditions” and “they may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application,” which, as any drug company knows, costs millions and millions of dollars.

Walnuts are unsafe, according to the FDA? Isn’t this the same FDA that allows Lays potato chips to be labeled “heart healthy?”

Does anyone else wonder what’s going on here?

Read the complete article here, especially the citations at the end. It's not satire; it's spooky.

Stop And Face The Music Or You Might Miss The $3,000,000 Violin Guy, Too

The man playing violin in the corner of this mass transit entryway is Joshua Bell, an award-winning violinist. His violin is worth more than 3 million dollars.

Because Bell is out of context, he is barely noticed, much less appreciated. During this performance, he collects $32, a big step down from the $100 per seat paid to watch him just two days earlier at a sold-out theater in Boston.

I doubt that I would have appreciated his performance, although I likely would have dropped a dollar or two into his case.

As this article from Dr.Mercola suggests, why not take a moment to recognize the beauty around us, especially in unexpected places?