Tag Archives: consumerism

925: Product Review: The Blendtec Total Blender/That Baby From the Grocery Store

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Recently, my attention was directed to a blender by an alert husband. Because he’s pretty much the only person I’ve talked to this week, except for yelling at the receptionist at my doctor’s office.

Her: “Do you have insurance?”
Me: “DYING! DYING! DYING!” (slumps against wall to make this clear)
Her: “Well, it’s just that what we have on file has expired. Do you want to self-pay?”
Me: (inner monologue) I actually have very fancy insurance. However, husband or husband’s work colluded in such a way that the cards for new job’s insurance have not yet arrived prior to my throat rotting from within. Insurance rep was most unhelpful on the phone, as nature intended. Can I wheedle this frowsy wench into calling them to verify it for me, since I can barely talk?)
Me: “DYING!” (throws checkbook at her head).

This blender, the Blendtec Total Blender, can blend an iPhone. I give them credit for ripping off “Will it float?” from Letterman as “Will it blend?” I also give them credit for blending up a variety of dangerous objects into pure shrapnel pâté. I would buy this product if I ever did anything in the kitchen save rearrange the take out menus. I may buy this product anyway just to blend things. I have a shoe rack I don’t need anymore, but I don’t want to throw it out or summon the mouthbreathers from FreeCycle to my house.

Speaking of mouthbreathers, at the grocery store, I sometimes see really ugly babies. My ybab tends to get many approving looks and comments, for her beauty as well as her poise and charm. “Reeesh?” she might exclaim, magnanimously including the deli counter in a sweeping hand gesture. The market employees know her and come out to see her, summoning others from the back. “SHE’S here!”

Another baby might be waiting in line too, but that other baby is so ugly that he is not even offered free stuff. I look at the other mother, and I think “Wow, that’s what you go home to, lady?” I would pity her, except that emotion demeans us all. Clearly, that other baby is an inferior specimen in many ways even apart from its decided unattractiveness: lolling, drooling, not even making an attempt to communicate or observe its environment. I think of the clever lies we must all tell ourselves, convincing ourselves to get out of bed each morning, no matter how lackluster our lives may be. “But tonight, I will watch that show I like! I may even fast forward the commercials. Except I like that one with the guy who does that thing.” Or perhaps we look forward to using a certain glitter bodywash. I can’t really say. I don’t have these problems. Aside from a little hoof and mouth disease, my life is a dream, something so marvelous it used to be reserved only for people like Pat Sajak.

917: Dine in affordable chic

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I got an email imploring me to do just that. They must mean continue doing exactly what I am doing: eating a bagel while not wearing pants while ybab scavenges for sesame seeds. I can afford this! And certainly it is chic. I am sure celebrities do this all the time, when they aren’t busy doing other things that they also do.

I get many more emails than just advertisements from Worst Elm. The mind boggles. People feel I should do work at a schedule of their own choosing. Other people feel the need to be unreasonable about things pertaining to my personal life. Hi! Hi! I am going on an email boycott soon. I am going to print out each email I receive and shred it. This is the greatest idea since individually wrapped cheese slices. The alternative is to start telling people off, but that is the equivalent of eating a giant block of chocolate. It feels good at the time, but then things start to chafe. The Chafing of the Consequences. This is a national tragedy.

The 912 Commission

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Hey, I had 911 posts. This domain expires in July. Should I push the stupid pedal to the metal and flame out with 1000? I think I can do it.

Let’s talk about Lost. I know some of you haven’t watched the finale yet or are waiting for the deeveedee, like peasants. I will only say that all the people who are speculating about the identity of the person in the newspaper clipping are morons. If the show runs until 2010, what are thee odds that they will introduce new characters in the next two or three seasons? Oh, I dunno. Let’s leave the numbers to Vegas. Plus I found the screen cap, squinted really hard, and the last name fragment doesn’t match the last name of any known characters. At least not according to the listing on alt.nerd.obsessive.

And I don’t even LIKE Lost. But I was entertained by the finale. I like how that show continually throws me a bone and lets me observe really obvious things and thus feel smart. I am not smart. I’m happily watching network television while eating all manner of snacks, so right there we have a basic tip off about my intelligence level. I didn’t watch most of the last season because I work from ybab bedtime until hell freezes over every night. And last night I did not have any snacks while I watched, but I thought about snacks, and I wished I had some snacks, and I almost got up and went all the way over the kitchen to get some, but snacks are too loud and wake up ybabs. At least in this house. No walls and all. Typing wakes a ybab, for that matter. I am living on borrowed time over here.

Smother’s day

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I have recently been made aware of a concept in the America called “Smother’s Day.” A television ad told me about it, and then another and another. If I am to correctly understand, a Smother is something like a Smore, but not an actual brand of jelly. That’s Smuckers, and they are happy people live to be one hundred despite eating high fructose corn syrup solids. So in the midst of all that jubilation about the dinosaur birthdays, a ybab decided to start pointing at things. “Dat?” Well, honey, that’s Matt Lauer. “Dat?” Oh, put me on the jeezly spot, why don’t you? Some things just can’t be explained. Maybe when you’re two.

And back to this Smother’s Day deal: I hear it’s a magical day, where the cat box cleans itself, and ybab will wipe her own butt for 24 entire hours. I hear that I might get a gold pendant of some sort, possibly with the “#1” designation. And I won’t even have to put out to get this jewelry. Who wants to put out when you have a ybab already? Fool me twice, I don’t think so!

Do I smell natural gas? That would just figure if my house blew up. Last year on Smother’s Day, it flooded. Haha! As you might imagine, I am jittery about this one. Pee to the Tee to the Ess to the D. I am celebrating by not purchasing gifts for any relatives who have been blighted by offspring. Mr. H is of course free to purchase gifts in my stead, but he won’t, because he’s Mr. H. Is he even reading this? I have set a bear trap just now. Who else has found my blog? You? Great. Leave a comment plz.

OK, so if not a pendant, I hope to get a mug. Or a beer hat, but insulated for coffee. It should attest to my prowess at keeping ybab alive. She takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’, luckily. This morning I removed her from eating cat kibble, and she rewarded me with a boilermaker to the head. Is that a type of punch? A hay bailer maybe? If those aren’t types of punches, they should be. She fights dirty.

Yesterday: a result of science?

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Yesterday I almost got run down by a Volvo in the Whole Foods parking lot. I jumped aside just in time, and a Volkswagen pounced and ate the Volvo. Now that’s natural selection. Inside Whole Foods, a child was enraged that only brown eggs were left for purchase. She was dubious on the possibility of them actually taking dye. Her mother berated a teenage employee for the egg situation. He failed to conjure white eggs out of thin air, and the mother failed to take responsibility for waiting until the last possible minute to buy eggs to dye.

I was enraged because I saw some cookies that looked good, and the allergy warning only included nuts and wheat. But then the third ingredient was butter. I wanted cookies! I did not berate anyone, but I should have.

This morning, my little piglet awoke at three ayem. She did not opt to capitulate until well past five ayem. At this time, the Director of Software got a call from his boss to say that He is risen, but the servers are down. Fine. We are all risen at five ayem. We give up and let the small beastie sit in a pile of puffed rice cereal watching Sponge Bob while we lie on the floor moaning.

My girl is the queen of the savages

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I bought a lovely pair of ballet flats in early 2005 and promptly ruined them two months later. When we toured the construction progress on our Indian Burial Ground, the ground was a bit marshy, and one shoe got sucked entirely off my foot. Foolish me, thinking a hard hat paired well with kicky flats. Where are Stacy and Clinton when I dress myself each day? They might have put the kibosh on the three shirts plus Nanook boots and rubber gloves joint from the other day. What can I say? I am always cold.

I found out that I have a vata problem. I used to be a nice corn-fed pitta with the moon eyes of a kapha, but now I am cold and crackly and speedy and have trouble falling asleep. I forget as quickly as I learn. And don’t get me started on how hard it is to be an Alpha. At least I am not infested with imaginary bugs, like my poor father.

Losing my slipper was only fitting though, since sucking and my real estate forays go hand-in-hand, hoof-and-mouth. I tried to sponge the mud off, but it didn’t really work. So I left the shoes in the back of my closet for two years. Duh.

Yesterday, I cleaned and polished them, and whaddya know, instant Spring! I also added up all our debt before I did this. All of it. I wrote it on a big piece of paper and stuck it on the fridge. Shame works wonders. I love to be shamed, don’t you? I’m your secretary. In summation, we owe every cent we take in before the end of the year to that piece of paper on the fridge. No, I can’t have new shoes. I am putting tiny human diminutive former primate to work on making me some, though. She is handy with an awl. She climbs the couch like a little ape and hangs upside down from my chest. One day I will give her power of attorney, and she will have to make decisions about my welfare. Until then, we Make Do and Improve.

A priest, a rabbi, and a parenting expert were crossing a river in a rowboat…

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I accidentally watched thirty seconds of the local FOX affiliate’s morning show last week. Why was the TV left on FOX at all? Cops, duh. Anyway, a self-proclaimed parenting expert was talking about “infant discipline.” I picked up my coffee and prepared to be infuriated.

But the lady had a point! She said that I shouldn’t be picking up my ybab every time my ybab cries because this will teach her that I will pick her up every time she cries. I pondered this, thinking that surely there will be some time when I’ll need to pick her up. What if she is being partially eaten by crocodiles? But I realized that I would have to stand my ground. If I pick her up every time she’s being eaten by crocodiles, she’s just going to expect me to pick her up every time she’s being eaten by crocodiles. Shouldn’t she be learning to self-soothe if she’s being eaten by crocodiles? She should also be able to sleep through being eaten by crocodiles, for at least twelve hours in a row.

I still haven’t gotten around to writing the nasty letter I planned to write. I have been too busy picking up my ybab, but only when she is not being eaten by crocodiles.

Oh, to finish the joke, the parenting expert fell in the river, and the priest and the rabbi beat her senseless with a paddle. She died.

Jack Bauer once double-teamed a chick all by himself

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I am finally halfway through reading the October issue of Vogue. I’ve found out about outfits that are already out of style and movies that are already out of the theater. Very useful. Where’s the beef? Not in Vogue, of course.

In other TCB news, I am halfway finished collecting the annual bucket of refuse to take to the accountant. It seems we’ve paid enough in medical expenses and usury mortgage interest to buy a Lincoln Navigator. Well, more than a Yaris or two at least. How very, very exciting. I even paid my quarterly taxes like a good Beta, and I have the faint hope that we might get a refund. After all, a ybab is a terrible drain on our finances what with her daytrading habit. I keep telling her to hang on to Home Depot, but she doesn’t listen.

If Jack Bauer lived next door to Kramer, Kramer would knock before entering

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Not much going on at This Old Hovel. I find myself wandering around muttering things like “They’re boxy, but they’re good!”

Yesterday, we went to IKEA again, under great protest. Did you know that you need to special order hinges for your kitchen cabinets, but you have to pick up your handles at the store? You can’t just also order the handles. Theoretically, at the end of 3-5 more weeks, we’ll have some cabinets. Goodbye, pile of food. Goodbye, unused rice cooker. Now no one will be able to see that I don’t use you.

Anyway, at IKEA, you can totally tell who is from Cambridge. That is all. And you can also tell who made a wrong turn looking for the Christmas Tree Shops. They’ll be the ones in your way in the marketplace as you desperately try to escape. They’ll also ask, of the ybab strapped to your front, “Is he comfortable in there?” No, I am Jack Bauer. I specialize in discomfort of the infant variety. If a ybab is comfortable, then I am doing something wrong. Please call my 800 number.

Helllloooo? Where are my chocolate-covered carbon offset credits? Don’t you love me?

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It’s almost “Christmas,” which we somehow celebrate even though we are not religious except for Festivus. On Christmas eve, we gather with the relations of Mr. H, and we exchange one gift per person under $25 based on names drawn out of a hat. There is frequently food I can’t eat, such as a platter of meat injected with hormones and dairy byproducts. At midnight, the animals talk. They say “Liiiiiiisa, why are you eaaaaating meeee?”

Our own nuclear family traditions include not buying each other anything. We buy things for other people, sometimes. But not predictably. Just enough to introduce stress for the other party as to whether or not they need to buy something for us next year. I love it!

And we generally buy whatever it occurs to us to buy throughout the year. We are Hard to Shop For, I’ve been told. The other day, I bought a ybab a poncho since it is cold now, and she acts like sleeves were invented by government torture squads. The pointed hood makes her look like an adorable little KKK Grand Wizard. Why would we need anything else?

Maybe we should try other holidays, but if we can’t even get it together for one gift under $25, I don’t think I could handle eight nights of gifts. We should start doing Diwali instead. I like those almond sweeties. Christmas is just not festive enough, unless a certain relative comes with a handle jug of Canadian Club. I can’t wait for the airing of grievances, though.