Unicorns - The New White Meat

On April Fool's Day, the website ThinkGeek put up an ad for Canned Unicorn Meat. 

The ad pretty well thought through, including a recipe for Savory Unicorn & Heirloom Tomatoe Bruschetta, and an anatomy diagram of a unicorn, including parts like Sunshine, Dreams, Wishes, Giggles, Rainbows, Stars, etc.

Figure it gets taken down on April 2, and the gag is over. 

Then, on May 5th, the National Pork Board sent ThinkGeek a Cease and Decist Letter over the use of the slogan/tagline, "Unicorn - the new white meat".  The National Pork Board has "The Other White Meat" trademarked, and was sending a C&D to protect it. 

ThinkGeek calls this letter officially their best ever C&D.  Here is an excerpt from the article that ThinkGeek posted about the C&D:

We'd like to publicly apologize to the NPB for the confusion over unicorn and pork--and for their awkward extended pause on the phone after we had explained our unicorn meat doesn't actually exist.

I haven't been able to stop laughing.... and yet it got better!

"It was never our intention to cause a national crisis and misguide American citizens regarding the differences between the pig and the unicorn," said Scott Kauffman, President and CEO of Geeknet.  

In fact, ThinkGeek's canned unicorn meat is sparkly, a bit red, and not approved by any government entity.

'Nuff said.

Corn on the Cob

For the first time in at least 15 months, I had corn on the *cob*. What a treat! Don't know what you got till it's gone.... And even better when it's back!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad.

I'm FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

AND THEY'RE OFF!!!!!!

My braces were removed today.  What an ordeal that was...

First, the pop the brackets off.  This literally took no more than 10 minutes.  When she popped the brackets off of my very back molars and my bottom front teeth, she had to really yank.  It didn't hurt, but it wasn't comfortable.

Next, she scraped off the epoxy or whatever the stuff is that they use to bond the bracket to your teeth.  And she scraped.  And she scraped some more.  More.  More.  More.  She used both a scraping tool, and a small power sander.  She'd pick at the teeth with a fine pick, find a spot, and sand some more.  By the time she was done, it probably took an hour.  And then the orthodontist checked her work, too.

In the middle of that, the orthodontist smoothed out the ridges on the edges of my front teeth, both top and bottom.  I haven't had that happen since I chipped my tooth in the bathtub when I was younger.

The technician then took an impression of my top palette/teeth which would be used to make my top retainer.  Rinse.  Lots of rinsing, actually.

Then she cleaned my teeth.  More rinsing.

Now it was time to install the permanent bottom retainer.  It's bonded to the backs of my bottom front teeth, between the cuspids.  It's a really thin wire, so it's really not invasive, but my tongue naturally goes right to it.  That probably took about 15 minutes to install.  It's the same process as putting a bracket on your teeth.

Then she took a 3 dimensional x-ray of my teeth, and pictures of my mouth from various angles, including palette shots. 

The orthodontist fit my top retainer, they handed me a bag FULL of candy and gum, and said, "See you in 10 weeks!  And don't forget to bring your retainer with you!" 

WOOHOO!!!!

My permanent bottom retainer only places one restriction on me; I should not bite into a whole apple.  Totally cool with that.  Keep it clean with good brushing and floss with a floss threader.  I will have that retainer the rest of my life.

My top retainer is like a mouthguard like I used to wear for playing field hockey/lacrosse, except it's truly clear/colorless, it's light years thinner, and it's far more comfortable because it's an exact fit!  I am to wear it 10-12 hours per day, especially at night when sleeping.  Since I don't get 10-12 hours of sleep at night, I'll probably put it in after dinner.  But until I figure out a routine that maximizes wear time, I'll take it to work with me (fluorescent green case!), and wear it a few hours there.  Maybe it'll keep me from snacking.... ok, I'll keep dreaming.  I am to wash it with a toothbrush, paste, and water, probably drop it in denture cleaner once every couple of weeks for 15 minutes.  All in all, not bad, considering I have friends who had braces as an adult and they had to wear their retainers 24-7 except when eating for the first 3 months, minimum....

When I got to work, my manager had a King Size Twix bar and two packs of Bubblicious waiting for me on my desk.  The Twix didn't survive 2 minutes.  And a piece of Watermelon Bubblicious is gone.  :-)

I've been running my tongue over my teeth incessently, and checking out everything in the mirror frequently.  Other people have said, doesn't it feel weird?  And I can honestly say no... it's freeing.

However, I'm still getting used to eating... and not having to think about it.  I don't have to worry about a rubber band.  I don't have to worry about breaking a bracket.  I can eat!!  Huh... I'd better stick to my workout routine!!!!

It took 15 months, exactly what was estimated, but that's ok.  I'm FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Sportsmanship

I was reading ESPN.com when I came across Rick Reilly's post condemning a coach in Texas that continually runs up the score against clearly inferior teams.  Here is the text of the post:

I am not generally a spiteful man. I pat toddlers' haircuts, donate to the glee club and mostly greet the world with open arms.

But when I think of coach Greg Wise of Houston's Yates High School, I become darker than Johnny Cash's closet.

The things I would like to do to Coach Wise would curl an executioner's toes. For starters, I'd like to see him dipped in seal butter and dropped into a polar bear's cage.

Coach Wise is the hammerhead who believes it's his right to toast other basketball teams by 100 points. Sometimes more. He thumped Lee High School this season by 135 points, 170-35. Wise's team was up at the half, 100-12. And full-court pressed to the very end!

Wise is to sportsmanship what tsunamis are to beach chairs. So far this season, he's beaten teams by 135, 115, 99 (twice), 98, 90 and 88 points. Trying to get to 100 points in a crushing of Westbury, his players intentionally fouled to stop the clock.

I'd like to clock him.

If Wise doesn't stop, somebody's going to get hurt. In a Feb. 20 home game, Wise refused to pull his foot off the accelerator in a 132-68 fricasseeing of Booker T. Washington. Nobody likes to be humiliated, and this includes fans. Like at some of Yates' games, there was fighting. This time it happened in the parking lot afterward. Shots were fired, though nobody was hurt. This time.

What's it going to take for Houston Independent School District officials to stop Wise? Or suspend him? What's it going to take before Yates principal Ronald Mumphery grows a pair and disciplines his coach? Somebody dying? "These are tough kids from a tough part of town," says Jacques Armant, coach at Lee, which also lost to Yates by 99. "Beatings like this can turn out to be real dangerous."

At the very least, USA Today ought to remove Yates from its national rankings -- the school is No. 1 -- as a statement about basic sports decency. That'd be the un-Wise thing to do.

This is not war. This is not the pros. There's no bonus for belittling young men in front of their parents and girlfriends. These kids are getting their pants yanked down in front of the whole playground. They don't deserve it.

"A lot of my kids went into a kind of depression after [losing by 135]," says Armant. "They thought the game was over, but when you turn on your radio and every deejay is saying how you got beat for an all-time record, it hurts. I took one kid home, and he said, 'Coach, can you please turn the radio off? I can't take it anymore.'"

On second thought, I'd like Wise to spend a day as a speed bump in the Lee parking lot.

I was unable to reach Wise or Principal Mumphery, but Wise has defended himself by saying he practices pressing and trapping, and that doing anything else during the game would be bad coaching. He's said that all 15 of his players -- 11 of them seniors -- play. "The [third string] deserves the chance to play hard and compete too," Wise has said.

Yes, those kids deserve to play hard and compete -- every day in scrimmages against the best team in Texas. In games against schools with no chance, they need to back off. Basketball isn't Greg Wise's personal vanity mirror. He needs to say, "We're going to work on passing. Anyone shoots and they're running stairs at the Astrodome."

But Wise won't say that because Wise is about Wise. He's after records. He wants teenage scalps. He tried to break the record for most 100-point games in a row (and failed). He did set the state record for points in one game (170).

And I wouldn't be surprised if he goes for the national record of 211. If he gets it, I hope they add an *:

*Set by Yates High School, Classless of 2010.

I could not agree more with this post if the facts are as stated.  This is dispictable behavior and disrespectful to kids themselves and the whole of the institution of interscholastic sports. 

Coach Greg Wise of Houston's Yates High School = FAIL.

Tinsel E - 1 year update

Yesterday, I visited the orthodonist.  It's been just over a year since I got these retched braces, but the orthodontist gave me some good news!!  He likes the way my teeth look, and my next appointment (in 5 weeks) will be to take impressions of my teeth.  The impressions are to make my retainers, which means the following appointment after that (5 weeks after that?), the braces come off!!  YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!

Naturally, I couldn't get away with no extra torture just because I'm almost done.  They put a rubber band chain(as they call them) around each one of my top teeth brackets to pull all of my top teeth together and close the gaps between them.  These rubber band chains, whether on my top front 4, bottom front 4 or all of my top teeth, give me headaches for the first few days of having them.  Seriously.  Before this, I had no idea your teeth could make your head hurt.  Now I know... ugh.

But the light at the end of the tunnel is there... faint, but there!

NBC's show Chuck and Mackintosh Braun's album The Sound

Last night, Steve and I were catching up on our Must-See-TV that we had DVR'd, specifically, the episodes of Chuck that we hadn't seen yet.  One of the episodes we watched was Chuck vs. First Class, and during one scene, a song was in the background that made me pause.

This is not the first time a tune from Chuck has caught my attention.  In fact, both Steve and I have "Chuck" playlists on our iPods full of tunes from Chuck episodes.  So since I wanted to know what that one tune was, naturally I went out to my favorite Chuck fan-site, ChuckTV.net.  The site has an entire music section broken out by Season and then by episode, and then the tunes per episode.  From there, you can download the tune from iTunes or Amazon directly.  Of course, you can find out what the music is per episode on NBC's official Chuck website, too.  :-)

So which tune caught my attention in the Chuck vs. First Class episode?  The tune Wake Up by Mackintosh Braun.  I went out to iTunes and previewed the entire album, and knew after 5 tunes that I would enjoy the whole album.  It was my first album purchase in a very long time. 

Who is Mackintosh Braun?  According to the Tinderbox Music website:

Mackintosh Braun is an Oregon based electronic duo that is reaching listeners far beyond their local Portland ties. Their debut album "The Sound" is quite frankly a headphone masterpiece, filled with rich detail and soothing vocal harmonies.

"The idea was to create an album that you didn't have to skip through, hopefully this is one of those albums for people." Combining a creative blend of organic instrumentation with electronic clicks and pops, Mackintosh Braun accomplishes a feat that few achieve.

I've been listening to it all morning, and it's awesome.

Tinsel E - Update

Went to the orthodontist yesterday hoping that they'd tell me it was time to make my final appointment.  I was sorely disappointed.  To boot, my teeth are now sore, too.

I've had a rubber band on my right upper incisor for the last 6 weeks to "pull it out" to fix my bite.  Apparently, it didn't move enough for the orthodontist's happiness. 

As they did a number of months ago with my bottom front 4 teeth, they put a rubber band across my 4 front top teeth.  This pulls my front teeth closer together thus creating space between my front 4 teeth and my 2 incisors.  This will allow the rubber band on my right incisor to be more effective and actually pull that tooth out since there will be room now for it to move.

This whole scenario makes my front 4 teeth hurt like hell.  I'm on motrin again in an attempt to get my mind to stop thinking about how much my mouth hurts.  I can't bite into anything either.  I'm losing my patience for this, though admittingly, the results are amazing from what I can see...

I have another appointment March 1, and I'm supposed to be re-evaluated at that time, whatever that means.  Maybe I'll get some good news...

Another one bites the dust

Apparently, our bay window overlooking our backyard has the same properties as my parents' picture windows on their house: it is a magnet for birds to fly into head-on, not realizing there's a hard immovable object there at all. 

So more than once, we have heard a very loud THUNK and in most cases, we don't see the bird when we go to investigate.  In fact, one time, Steve did find the bird, face down in the pacasandra, but alive.  So he picked up the little critter, and put it somewhere where it could recover and fly away at its leisure but also safe from neighbor's outdoor cats.  No easy snacks for you!

But this time, the thunk captured a victim.

Cardinal

A closer look... you an even see the ice/snow on it!

Luckily, DJ didn't notice it while looking out the window, so we avoided some trauma there.  But man... we have a deadly window! 

My Laundry Disaster

Laundry Disaster
pronounced /ˈlɔndri, ˈlɑn-/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [lawn-dree di-zas-ter]

Definition:
A laundry disaster is when the red dye from an item in the wash bleeds on everything else in the load and turns it all pink.

-----

Everyone must have a laundry disaster as one of their life experiences.... it's a rite of passage.  It took 34 1/2 years, but I finally had mine this past Sunday.  I've always been super-careful when it comes to doing laundry with new items that could bleed, so this took me by complete surprise when it happened, particularly since my laundry disaster had a bizarre result.

And I mean BIZARRE.

For the record, this wouldn't have happened if weren't for the dogs.

So, as in previous years, we had a red and white tree skirt around the Christmas tree stand.

DJ hanging his first ornament (and a good view of our Christmas tree skirt)

When I took the tree down this weekend, I discovered that a dog had marked the tree skirt, right on the white part.  GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.  I have my guesses as to which dog (IO) but it was immaterial since I now had to wash the tree skirt. 

I tossed the tree skirt by itself into the washer on delicate cycle (no spin), and cold water.  When it was done, it was soaking wet, but I didn't see any evidence of bleeding.  So I tossed into the dryer, and I went back upstairs.

After DJ fell asleep for his nap on Sunday, I went downstairs to check on the dryness of the tree skirt.  I opened the dryer and to my horror, I found this:

My pink dryer drum

A quick note: you can always click on the picture to get an enlarged version.  Then hit your browser's back button to come back to the blog post.

My jaw dropped to the floor.  In any other situation, a string of words that could make a sailor blush would have come out of my mouth but not this time... I was stunned mute.

I pulled out the tree skirt, and all the white parts weren't just pink, they were as red as the rest of the skirt itself.  I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of it before I threw it out.

Despite the fact that we had company over to watch the football game, I went upstairs to get Steve.  "Steve, come with me right now."

When he saw it, he was impressed.  "Nice job, honey!"  He tried to rub it off, and barely got any to come off on his finger.  But to be sure that was really the case, we decided to throw some dog laundry in to see if the color on the dryer drum would bleed off onto freshly washed stuff.

The dog laundry came out just fine, but the dryer was still pink.  Here's another picture of the dryer with a white bag in it for contrast.  Although I think there's so much pink that the bag is even taking on a pink hue...

Another view of the pink dryer drum

The pink (nearly red) dyer door

So I did what I do best, and that's ignore it for the next few days.  Ok, that's not true, I at least did a few Google searches to see if there were any home remedies out there.  Most of the results involved getting crayon or pen off of the drum, but I found a few ideas here and here.  Man, what did people do without the Internet???

Still, embarrassed to face my own failure, I let it sit for a few days.  I had to do something about it, though, when DJ ran out of clothes yesterday.  I had to run a load of laundry for him else he'd have nothing to wear today.

So I thought about what to try.  I didn't want to use nail polish remover or rubbing alcohol because I didn't really know what it would do to the drum.  I didn't have a Magic Eraser handy.  So I mixed a bucket of OxiClean and hot water as Billy Mays' OxiClean ads ran through my head, and started scrubbing.

Lo and behold, the pink started to come off slowly (and I started thanking Billy Mays, God rest his soul...) and boy, let me tell you.  Dryer drums are big when you have to scrub every square inch of them 50 million times to get any results whatsoever.

After one round of (a lot of) scrubbing, I saw a marked improvement.  I probably spent an hour scrubbing.

Results after 1 round of scrubbing

I did another round scrubbing, and then I soaked rags in the OxiClean solution, didn't wring them out, put them in the dryer, and ran it on low heat.  When it finished, the dryer drum had an OxiClean film on it.  To get that off without re-scrubbing with clean water, I ran the rags through the washer, and put them, soaking wet, in the dryer on low heat again.  Upon completion, the dryer looked like this:

The final result

The not-so-pink dryer door!

Then I ran DJ's clean laundry through the dryer and when it was done, it did not have a film of OxiClean on it!

Clearly, the dryer is not perfect, though the dryer door looks almost like new; I have to look really hard and in the exact right spot to find where it was pink.  The back of the dryer is still pink as that was the hardest to scrub, but it's a whole lot better!  The dryer drum isn't as smooth as when it was untarnished by my laundy disaster; you can tell it still has a little film on it, but that will come off over time, I think.

But seriously, it never even crossed my mind that I could stain a dryer drum.  So let my laundry disaster be your warning!!!  Don't let your dogs pee on your Christmas tree skirt and if they do, DON'T WASH IT.  Just throw it out and get another one.  It's not worth it!!!

Welcome Baby Jake!

The Steaks send a hearty welcome to baby Jake Nelson Chaffinch who came into the world today!  He was born 8 pounds 1 oz!  That's a big boy for being 2 weeks early!

We wish his parents, John and Shannon, lots of love and laughter forever and SLEEP for the next few years!!