I get what they’re going for here, but wouldn’t spraying them with bright paint make them more visible to the bears and such that prey on them? It seems to me like modifying the roads in high deer areas might be a better, not to mention more efficient, way to go. Who wants to be the guy who has to track, catch and repaint them every year?
Every year, about 4,000 reindeer lose their lives on Finnish roads in car accidents, causing 15 million Euros of damage every year. And now, the Finnish Reindeer Herders Association is testing out a new way to make the large mammals more visible to drivers: reflective paint.
The idea is to spray the antlers of reindeer with reflective paint that reflects motorists’ headlights. “The aim is to prevent traffic accidents. The spray is being tested on fur at the moment, but it may be even more effective on the antlers, because they are seen from every side,” Anne Ollila, chairwoman of the Reindeer Herders Association, told the Finnish news source YLE.
“I have a really terrible idea,” proclaimed Patrick Kelleher one day in 2008, “and I want everyone to know that its mine.”
And so it came to pass that a patent application was filed and Cramonnaise came dangerously close to being born.
Abstract
Two popular food items, mayonnaise and cranberry sauce, are mixed together to form a new food item which is to be called Cramonnaise. This new item is to be packaged and labeled with the new name—Cramonnaise. The name is derived from parts of the names of the ingredients, cranberry sauce and mayonnaise.
Whether enough people banded together to talk him out of it or he sobered up and gave it a second taste I do not know, but the patent is currently marked as abandoned, a reminder that there was a time in this world when sanity could still prevail.
I’ll admit I don’t much care for cranberry sauce, so I’m sure that’s where at least part of my distaste for this idea comes from. But I’ve watched a good number of people enjoy it in my day, and not once do I recall any of them saying ” this would be so much better if only it looked and tasted like off colour mayonnaise with chunks in it.”
But maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps this fellow was simply ahead of his time. Is this something people might actually eat?
And now, some more innovation I can’t imagine anyone asked for.
Meet the ColdSnap, a machine that will transform pods made of lord only knows what (they don’t even need to be refrigerated) into ice cream in a minute and a half.
I have so many questions. Mainly, why? Why do I need or want to make ice cream from a pod? Why do I want this extra machine taking up valuable counter space? Why is everyone so obsessed with pods in general? Beyond the laundry ones that are super convenient when you live in an apartment building, I’ve never understood this.
But back to the ice cream.
The site promises that in four simple steps, we can all enjoy some delicious ice cream. Great, aside from the bit where that’s about how many steps it takes now.
remove ice cream from freezer.
Scoop some into bowl and put the rest away.
Eat.
Rinse bowl, move on with life.
And none of that involves figuring out how to use a new piece of expensive technology or dealing with its expensive refills.
ANOTHER DULL QUARANTINE WEEKEND AT HOME, TARGET, CHIPOTLE, HOME DEPOT, AND OUR NIECE’S GRADUATION PARTY
This is one of those pieces that’s technically satire but is pretty much on the nose. All coronavirus long I’ve had to hear people bellyaching about how rough things have been, how little there is to do and how they feel like prisoners and can’t wait to break out, even though they seem never to have been locked in to start with. It’s bad enough when strangers and casual acquaintances spout this junk, but when I get it from people I know well it makes me want to snap. More than once I’ve had to suppress the urge to break my own stay at home order so I could beat someone half to death with a dictionary opened to the page defining the word lockdown. I’ve at times found it hard to keep viewing those people respectfully, if I’m being completely honest.
My parents met us — we hadn’t seen them since March, except for dinner last Tuesday and the Friday before that, and at Ethan’s backyard birthday, and Janey’s drive-by birthday, and their weekly lunches in our backyard. We gave each other jokey air hugs, and Mom choked up to finally see her grandkids. We all wore our masks, except when we were eating, drinking, and talking, and we didn’t share any food, except for a few appetizers and desserts. Mom kept feeding Janey her French fries, but she always does that. It’s sort of a tradition.
When we got outside, we put our masks on and strolled down to the beach. Dozens of people in masks were enjoying the break in the heat in little clumps — it was disgusting. We turned around and left. We came back with a blanket from the car and found a spot by a family we knew from Janey and Petey’s school. We hadn’t seen them in months, except at Janey’s drive-by birthday, when they briefly got out of the car and the kids played in the family room while us parents sat six feet apart in the yard, and that time we all met up at the playground because the police tape had blown away. It was so good to finally see them!
I got a letter the other day that mildly annoyed me, but I guess it’s a sign of the times. It seems MedicAlert is discontinuing their life membership program and moving to a subscription fee system that you either pay per month, per year or every 3 years. I guess maybe this whole life membership thing would stop being sustainable, and they do have to pay people to answer a hotline and keep your records on file. I got the bracelet something like 20 years ago so I suppose I got a good deal while the getting was good.
The part that annoys me about MedicAlert is they have always seemed poised to cancel the life membership program, even for people who just got it. I got the bracelet, and not much later, I got a call saying that I should switch to a subscription plan. Back then when I had less money to throw around, I was having none of it, and said I signed up for a life membership and I think I should get more than a year or two before the program is yanked. The person eventually caved and let me stay a life member until now. So, I was already uneasy about calling them and giving into the subscription fee because I still remember that call. But I did it because I want the bracelet to be useful if I ever needed it. I haven’t yet, but there’s a first time for everything. So I called.
I updated my subscription plan and that was fine. Then they asked me if I wanted to get an extra bracelet if I lose mine or in case the engraving is going on mine. I understood that, even though I was pretty sure the engraving was supposed to be super durable, and my band was pretty strong so probably wasn’t going anywhere, so I said I didn’t need a second bracelet but thanked them for the offer.
But this is where I got irritated. They then said that “usually our subscribers have given a donation of an extra $60 and would I be willing to do that?” Nope. They hit the limit. I was already disappointed that a life membership was not life, and before they got off the phone, they were asking for more money.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something off about looking to squeeze every dollar out of people who are using a service to be a life line in an emergency. Some people who need that don’t have a lot of spare money to go around, and the mail from MedicAlert already makes the recipient feel indebted to the service.
MedicAlert is definitely a valuable service, but I think their model is a bit off. If they’re going to ask for donations, do that in a different call or in one of those letters they love sending me. After I’ve already coughed up $150, it is not the time to see if they can get more money out of me. As for the “people usually donate $60” line, was that just another piece of script designed to squeeze more money out of me and nobody in their right mind just hands out random donations after paying for their subscription? Or do the people who do make the donations feel pressured to do it? It really makes me wonder if MedicAlert used to be a good service, but something has changed over the years and now they’ve turned into something less reputable than they used to be. I hope I’m wrong and I don’t find out the truth if I ever need them.
The other day, I called Dana Shortt Gourmet to ask them something and I got their voicemail. It started off like a normal voicemail, and then my jaw dropped open when it said something like “Please note that aggressive behaviour towards our staff in person or on the phone will not be tolerated.” That sentence bounced around my head a couple of times, and I was left feeling so sad that they had to leave that on their voicemail. They never had to say that before the pandemic, that’s for sure.
What kind of nutbars are screaming at the folks at Dana Shortt? It’s a place where you buy yummy chocolates and dinners and cookies and olive oils and gift baskets…and nutbars, now that I think about it. It’s not like you’re mad because someone got the last pound of ground beef or the last roll of toilet paper and you’re desperate and stressed. That doesn’t make it any better, but I could see someone at the end of their rope doing or saying something dumb. But this is the place where people go to get cute gifts and yummy treats, and the people who work there are amazing! They have delivered things in a hurry, and gone out of their way to make whatever I ordered be awesome. What the hell is wrong with people that they’re screaming at these sweet workers?
I hope that they have had less absolute jerkbags, but I’m sorry they have had to deal with any of them at all. Now I wish I had a good reason to buy some yummy treats from them, and be the best customer ever, just to try and make up for the hopefully few mean humans who apparently live in this city.
It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these how are we doing posts, so here we go. I intended to write a woohoo I’m two weeks past my second COVID vaccination post, but that weekend, I was trying to prepare for a presentation and didn’t have the time to do it. So now I’m at five weeks past, finally saying something.
Unlike poor Steve, I hardly had any effects. I think maybe my endocrine system went a little wild, but it came back to something resembling normal pretty quickly. I was smart and got them to give it to me in my left arm, so I didn’t bump my sore arm in my sleep all the time.
Cautiously, I’m trying to go do more stuff. I’m not ready to jump on a plane or scream at a concert, but I have been to a family gathering and our book club finally met again! Since most if not all of the people in both places were fully vaccinated, it felt safe to see them, and the weather cooperated to let us be outdoors. Both gatherings were so amazing. It was nice to see people without worrying about phone batteries or bandwidth or stuff like that. I finally got to see babies that were born during the pandemic. It was so awesome! I know it’s not over, but it’s nice to see progress.
But since I’ve been out and about, I find myself once again waking up each day and if I feel off at all, wondering what that means. It’s been a while since I’ve done that.
I think about some of the exchanges I’ve had with people lately that are just weird. Once, I was on the elevator, and it opened up and a lady said “Can I come in? I’m masked up and half vaxxed.” I laughed and said I was the same, this was before my second shot, and we chatted away. People swap vaccine side-effect stories and ask which one each other got or where we went to get it. Weird, weird times.
I finally got a haircut! I don’t look like I’ve been living under a rock for 9 months anymore! Here are some pictures to give you an idea. Here is before… It keeps going, and going, and going…
and here is after.
Do my shoulders feel a breeze? Are those bangs?
Notice how my bangs had completely grown out and it was out of control. I needed so much shampoo to wash the great thunderin’ heap of hair that I had.
Now that I look respectable again, I renewed my poor expired health card. Thankfully it wasn’t too much of a rigmarole. I walked down to the Service Ontario place just to see if I could, and stood in the line which wasn’t super long. The only wrinkle happened when the line all moved inside but me, and there was no one who showed up behind me. Thankfully, there was someone in the line who kept looking out for me, and popping her head out to say I could move. Once I got inside, it went pretty smoothly, and in a few weeks, I will have a shiny new photo health card, good for another five years.
I had some vacation, and got a bunch of errands taken care of that I’ve been meaning to check off, and I was so happy that I remembered how to get places. I was afraid that since I had been not really going far, I would forget everything I knew. It doesn’t seem to be the case. And I’m not so out of shape that I’m huffing and puffing through the city. This is also good. But I did find myself more mentally tired after being out and about for a while.
From what I understand, I think we might be hoping to be going back to the office in January, but who knows? But I don’t think I’ll be keen on going back until our restrictions are a little more relaxed, simply because of one particular restriction. If I read the return to work plan correctly, they only want one person in each bathroom, even if there are multiple stalls in it. That isn’t going to work for me, because of my old pal the captain. He’s more under control, but if I march up to the bathroom in urgent need and find the no bathroom for you sign up…
…
You don’t want to be nearby.
Also, sometimes I have to be in there for a bit until I know I’m good. I don’t want to feel guilty for keeping others out.
And about that sign thing: if we’re all flipping the sign to say “open” and “closed”, doesn’t that negate the whole one person per washroom thing? And whether I flip the sign or not, I will have to touch it! Yarf!
But really, I have everything I need here. I just miss running into people around the office and some fun lunches and other random spontaneous things. I can wait these restrictions out.
That’s about it. Hopefully if we have a stupid fourth wave, it won’t be too bad. It will hopefully have less and less scary potential as more people get their shots. Screw off, Delta variant!
The plan now is to have Ben call the home games on sight and the road games from a studio in Toronto, basically what they should have been doing all along.
And no, I’m not giving Rogers any credit for this. Yes they reversed a bad decision which is both rare and nice, but all they’ve really done in making it right is clear the lowest possible bar.
Now how about we get Ben a partner. He’s doing a fine job on his own, but you really need an annalist for a proper broadcast. Not that Rogers gives much of a damn about what a proper broadcast sounds like, but I’m still gonna throw that out there.
“Taking the radio call away, we knew it would get a negative feedback — and it did,” said Rob Corte, vice-president of Sportsnet and NHL production. “There are certain elements of a radio broadcast that you can’t duplicate when you’re trying to have a broadcast of doing television and radio.”
Citing safety concerns and travel restrictions connected to COVID-19, Sportsnet began the season with its television feed grafted onto radio coverage. On social media, listeners noted when announcers were telling them to “look at this replay,” or whenever they forgot to provide the score for long stretches.
“We had tried to get as close to the middle, and as close to satisfying both mediums, as well as we could,” said Corte. “I think we did a pretty good job. It was never going to be perfect, and I think that’s where a lot of criticism came.”
You did a pretty good job in the sense that you didn’t do an even worse job, but I wouldn’t exactly be patting myself on the back for this experiment, my man.
Touchscreens are pretty much the bane of my existence. The damn things keep popping up in more and more places while the number of usable ones in my life stays firmly stuck at two. My microwave because we stuck braille all over it, and my iPhone because it has Voiceover. Every other one might as well have a big flashing display on it that just says “fuck you, Steve.” I can’t even buzz into my own apartment building if I ever lose my keys, because someone decided to replace the simple phone keypad with a touchscreen keyboard that you have to write names into. And to add insult to injury, it talks, but only so it can tell you to “please enter the building” as if you’re going to be stumped by what to do when confronted with a door. I doubt these bar ones are going to talk, and even if they did, bars aren’t the quietest places. Good luck hearing your choices.
What about braille, though? Couldn’t they label each tap? Technically? Maybe they could. But practically? No. How many places do you go to that have the same things on tap all the time forever? For me, the answer is zero. Things are constantly shuffling in and out of the rotation. So unless somebody at the bar is super diligent about making sure that the braille is always up to date (spoiler alert: that’s not happening), your boy is screwed.
And the reduced number of staff will make a bunch of little but important things about the experience of going out a lot more difficult. Without them, there’s no one to show me an unoccupied seat. Nobody to point me in the direction of the bathroom. No one to help me sort out the menu if I need that. There are apps that can help with this, but they’re dependent on you having a smartphone which not everyone does, they’re only as good as the lighting and the cell connection between you and the person helping, and some of them are pricey enough that you’ve blown the beer budget before you’ve even left the house.
Maybe this is going to be great for bars, but for some of us customers it’s going to be maddening enough to drive us out your door forever.
On a recent night, the bar was quieter. Still, customer after customer strode up to a stainless steel wall lined with beer taps to insert a card, touch a screen and pour a glass of self-serve beer.
No waitstaff. No waiting.
“This is my first time doing a beer wall!” says one patron, Chris Porcaro, over a yeasty IPA. “I’ve been to many sports bars, but never a beer-wall sports bar.”
The shiny beer wall allows customers to choose from 23 different varieties of beer — or “24 if you count Bud Light,” says owner Jeremy Gifford. Pour-your-own beer isn’t just a novelty, Gifford says; the idea is to cut down on waiting for alcohol (which means selling more of it) and freeing up bartenders to make cocktails.
“If you have 50 self-serve taps, then you essentially have 50 employees you don’t have to pay to service your customer,” says Josh Goodman, who runs a company called PourMyBeer that sells this technology.
According to Goodman and others in the industry, self-serve taps are exploding in popularity. Back in 2015, Goodman says, his company sold fewer than 200 taps. But over the past five years, it has sold more than 5,000, he says.
Business doubled in 2017 at a similar company called iPourIt, says its vice president, Darren Nicholson. And last year, he says, it grew by a whopping 70%.
“When I entered the industry back in early 2016, there were probably only 80 locations in the U.S. [that sold self-serve beer],” Nicholson says. “There’s currently about 400 in the U.S.”
Hi there, Apple. Me again. I know you haven’t fixed that speakerphone thing for me yet, but I’m going to lay another longstanding gripe on you if that’s alright.
Can we please have a feature that makes the phone treat the phone part of itself as a background app instead of always taking focus from other things?
If you need a use case for this, here’s an easy one.
When I’m listening to or recording something in another app, I don’t want to be bulldozed by a call from some computerized asshole telling me I’m going to get arrested for not paying taxes. And I especially don’t want to have what I’ve recorded erased when that call comes in. If you can’t auto detect what I’m doing, can we at least have a toggle that allows me to choose that mode? When it’s on, a simple notification would pop up letting me know I had a call coming in, and I could choose whether to take it or dismiss it like I can with call waiting. Then I could finish what I’m doing in peace, plus it would have the side benefit of me not resenting the person who just derailed my train of thought through no fault of his own.
I don’t build phones, so as always, maybe there’s something I’m missing here. but I don’t feel like this is too much to ask for or that it should be all that difficult for offices full of bright people with a gazillion dollars at their disposal to implement.
Thanks for your time, guys. Looking forward to you pleasantly surprising me one day.
