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2011, FEBRUARY |
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February 25 Am I the only one who noticed that the royals in “The King’s Speech” did not tie their ties with a Windsor knot?
February 23 A few more commercials I’m having trouble understanding: “Don’t take Reclast [for postmenopausal osteoporosis] if you’re pregnant or plan to become pregnant.” I say if you’re pregnant you shouldn’t take any postmenopausal product. I also don’t understand why it’s called Reclast. The suffix “-clast” is from the Greek meaning “break” or “crush” and is used in medicine to refer to bone destruction. So “reclast” would be…. Campbell’s soup has “a sprinkle of lower-sodium sea salt.” Under the impression that salt is sodium chloride whether it comes from the ocean or a mine in Siberia, I e-mailed the producer, Ocean’s Flavor, and asked how you get lower-sodium salt. Their representative’s answer in full: “Thank you for choosing Oceans Flavor. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments regarding any of our products.” My reply: “Thanks. I did.” Philips Norelco’s new Sensotouch shaver guarantees “our best shave yet or your money back.” Notice they didn’t say “your best shave….” Centrum Silver advises us that for multivitamins “there’s complete, and there’s most complete.” No, there’s not. I see Keurig is pushing their coffee maker that brews a single cup of very over-packaged coffee at a time. You can choose from 256 different varieties, for $3.30 a cup—and you have to make it yourself. Of course, you can get 10% off if you join the club, whatever that is. Come to think of it, there’s really nothing wrong with the ad except that it suggests that a coffee pot that makes one cup at a time is a good thing. It’s the machine itself that I find unbelievable—it belongs on my list of completely useless inventions. Since I have access to the BS Archives, I think I’ll just slip this one in. I’ll be right back…
February 17 Last night I watched IBM’s Watson (named for IBM’s founder, not—as I had thought—because the computer is elementary, my dear) destroy two men who had made a very nice living as Jeopardy contestants. It was no contest, but it was interesting to see what kind of associations the machine made to come up with a result. It got me thinking about how my own brain works, and today I got to watch myself going through the process. I was trying to recall the name of an actor. I came up with Max von Sydow, which I knew was wrong, but he plays the same sort of parts. I knew the name had three syllables and wasn’t Sutherland. So I started running through the alphabet in my mind for the first letter and when I got to P, it popped in: Christopher Plummer. Three syllables. I was trying to dredge up the name because my guitar store’s home page is promoting an upcoming concert by the “Helios Guitar Quartet featuring Christopher Plummer” (I know, I could have just gone to the website for the name, but I wasn’t home at the time), but on the page for that particular concert, the guy is listed as Christopher Trimmer. I was pretty sure Plummer wasn’t right—at least not that Christopher Plummer—but when I was in the store I asked and nobody knew. They are coming a week from Sunday, but nobody in the store knew. I googled Christopher Plummer and found nothing about music beyond The Sound Of. Christopher Trimmer, on the other hand, is listed as a guitarist playing Moby Dick with drummer Tyler Moshier. Another reference to the same YouTube video describes drummer Chris Trimmer playing with guitarist Tyler Moshier. A third reference informed me that Chris Trimmer is dead. Watson, what do you think?
February 13: There is a subcategory of machismo consisting of men who consume hot peppers and sauces, as hot as possible, and pretend they like it. There is no theoretical reason a woman can’t share this particular psychopathology, but I’ve never met one and doubt their existence. Capsicophiles like to brag about the hottest thing they can get down. They probably have clubs and meetings where they discuss the relative merits of Scoville units versus ASTA pungency units and munch on Naga vipers, Scotch Bonnets, habañeros, and the like. If you’re not a member of the club and want to know, the naga viper is rated around 1 million Scoville units, compared to 5,000 for the average jalapeño. Law enforcement grade pepper spray comes in at around 5 million, which is why nobody drinks it. Inevitably, an industry has grown up to serve these people, with dozens if not hundreds of companies claiming “the hottest sauce on earth,” with names like Satan’s Blood and Jersey Death. There are even collector’s bottles of pure capsaicin crystals: Blair’s 16 Million Reserve (“No more than 999 bottles will be offered.”) for people who demand the ultimate. I’ve never attended one of their conventions, but I know about these people because I used to be one. Now that I’m older and my palate has matured—which is to say, at some point I realized that all this stuff was doing was raising blisters on my tongue and preventing me from tasting anything—I don’t generally use anything more potent that Tabasco. But I still have a reputation based on my youthful indiscretions, so occasionally I am gifted with a bottle of something that threatens—or promises—great bodily harm. I just got one called “Ass In The Tub Armageddon” which is “guaranteed to burn twice,” on the way in and on the way out. That’s how they promote their product. Why would you want to do that on purpose?
February 8 A few more commercials I’m having trouble understanding: “Don’t take Reclast [for postmenopausal osteoporosis] if you’re pregnant or plan to become pregnant.” I say if you’re pregnant you shouldn’t take any postmenopausal product. Campbell’s soup has “a sprinkle of lower-sodium sea salt.” Under the impression that salt is sodium chloride whether it comes from the ocean or a mine in Siberia, I e-mailed the producer, Ocean’s Flavor, and asked how you get lower-sodium salt. Their representative’s answer in full: “Thank you for choosing Oceans Flavor. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments regarding any of our products.” My reply: “Thanks. I did.
Philips Norelco’s new Sensotouch shaver guarantees “our best shave yet or your money back.” Notice they didn’t say “your best shave….” Centrum Silver advises us that for multivitamins “there’s complete, and there’s most complete.” No, there’s not. I see Keurig is pushing their coffee maker that brews a single cup of very over-packaged coffee at a time. You can choose from 256 different varieties, for $3.30 a cup—and you have to make it yourself. Of course, you can get 10% off if you join the club, whatever that is. Come to think of it, there’s really nothing wrong with the ad except that it suggests that a coffee pot that makes one cup at a time is a good thing. It’s the machine itself that I find unbelievable—it belongs on my list of completely useless inventions. Since I have access to the BS Archives, I think I’ll just slip this one in. I’ll be right back…
February 3 Road Closed: not a good sign. Some yellow flowers came up in our front yard unexpectedly, apparently from bulbs Jeanine put in years ago. I recognized them, but I couldn’t dislodge the name from the crevasses of my brain. I knew I would get the name eventually, but not by the usual route. It was like I had a mudslide in my brain and Pacific Coast Highway was blocked. I could get to Malibu, but only by going through the Valley. Crocuses. |
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The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect--well, yes, come to think of it, I guess they do.
all materials on this site ©michael grossman. all rights reserved. |
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