So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Harp]

Trying early internet office Christmas shopping today and everybody stopped by at the wrong time....
Cat's out of the bag this year.

 

[BobHufford]

You know those 15,000 lumen LED light bars you see on off-road trucks? I came up behind some fool with one on the back of his SUV and it was lit up. Like looking at the sun! He passed three cops and a Highway Patrol trooper and no one did anything. Grumble...

 

[3fingers]

ALDI has recently opened stores in the Washington, D.C. region. I went to one, but saw no reason to go again.

Aldi is hit and miss. Some of their products are outstanding in both price and quality, some are acceptable if you are looking only at price and some would be rejected by me if they were free.
The trick is to figure out which column each falls in. Once you do that you can save some money and get good quality. At least for us, Aldi is on the other side of the street from the main grocery store left in town, so it isn't out of the way to stop there.

 

[3fingers]

You know those 15,000 lumen LED light bars you see on off-road trucks? I came up behind some fool with one on the back of his SUV and it was lit up. Like looking at the sun! He passed three cops and a Highway Patrol trooper and no one did anything. Grumble...

That would not go unticketed here for long. My wife won't let me mount even a .30 caliber Browning on my truck let alone the .50 I would really prefer to have.

 

[Edward]

The UK had rationing after WW2 right up until 1954, the scarcest of the commodities was always meat, so butchers up and down the land sold rabbit as a sort of substitute. Rabbit stew was commonplace when I was a child. As Lizzie said, call it something highfalutin like Lapin au Vin Cuisine d'Aubery, and the foodies will be queuing up to order it, just to show their culinary credentials. But I tell you, I haven't eaten rabbit since the mid 1950's and never will either. It's very strong, tough and after all, rabbit is a rodent.

I've been served rabbit stew at a friend's house, that was nice - though I don't know that I'd go to the bother at home - harder to get, much less meat than on a chicken... I do support rabbit being in the food chain as most of my brimmed hats are rabbit, and I'd hate to see the rest of the animal wasted. The rabbit as food industry is well supported by Ms Greta Marlowe, though, as it's a very common component in cat food.

I'm a kid who was raised in a town and who has lived in towns or cities his entire life which means food comes from a store and is usually several stages along in the processing by the time I see it. I like a little distance between the visceral reality of the farm or slaughter house and my plate for the reason you note.

As much as I love visiting NYC's (or Boston's) Chinatown, I know enough to avert my eyes at certain store windows.

I've thought long and hard about it over the years, and I concluded that I am morally very comfortable with eating meat and my place in the food chain. That said, I do prefer my food not to still have a face when it arrives at the table!

People who show up to the movies at the last minute and don’t show any urgency to sit their rear ends down, try to duck when passing in front, or say “excuse me” as they bull by to their seat.

I mind that less than those who don't know how to shut the hell up for two hours at a time. I swear some of the kids in our local cinema are scared if they keep schtum that long their mouth will heal over....

I've never seen the blanket bit in our place, although I did once find a leopard-skin thong under a balcony seat during the run of the Al Gore movie, but I digress.

After a screening of Rocky Horror that I lead a shadow cast to years ago, we found a disposable camera beneath one of the seats. For a lark, we had it developed - expecting photos of the show and such. Instead, well.... We recognised the girl in the pictures from the audience for that show. From the first photo. Which was the only one in which we could clearly see her face. And the only one in which she was clothed.

We had a pink sports bra in the lost and found the same time the thong was there, but nobody ever owned up to them. Who would wear pink and leopard-skin together anyway? Wicked tacky.

Sounds like an excellent McGuffin with which to open a John Waters detective picture..... Oh, he could play the widowed cinema manager himself, and spend the film travelling across state to find the beautiful woman from the tour group to whom he thought they belonged, but of course they belonged to her drag queen friend. And the driving (cue road movie tropes!) would be done by his son. As played by Steve Buscemi. Please, Santa....

Caught a 4th Cir/US Ap opinion notice in American Legion vs American Humanist Association,
a tempest inside a teapot regarding a World War I memorial Latin Cross feature,
relisted at SCOTUS; continued across the docket and an interesting case study.

The other amusing case looming is the Chruch of Satan's threat to sue the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina for copying its Baphomet statute.

I've seen people with trucks like that parked in their driveways deliberately swabbing them with mud to make it look like they're rugged outdoorsy woodsmen, when in reality they only drive the things to Dairy Queen.

If they park selfishly in public, the punishment should be a public humiliation lecture by Stu Lost Worlds.....

One of our TV channels shows a program called Car SOS, where an old classic is rescued. On one occasion the team rescued a wartime Austin Tilley. The vehicle had never been restored, so after reconditioning the engine and gearbox, and replacing all the brakes, electrics and running gear, they brought in a specialist paint artist to repaint the bodywork. His brief was to make it look tatty, he did that alright, even down to the painted on rust around the doors.
View attachment 145029 View attachment 145030

Not seen that episode yet, but it's a great show. The bits that are obviously set up / fictionalised are a bit naff, but there's a genuine enthusiasm and expertise among the presenters, and they do seem to pick really deserving cases with people who truly appreciate what they do.

The Tesco brand first appeared in 1924. The name came about after Jack Cohen bought a shipment of tea from Thomas Edward Stockwell. He made new labels using the initials of the supplier's name (TES), and the first two letters of his surname (CO), forming the word TESCO.
Tesco tea became very popular, owing to Cohen's strategy of: pile it high, sell it cheap, and was always referred to as Tesco's. As the company grew, successive managements promoted the brand as Tesco's. Impressed by company's like Kleenex, Hoover, Gillette and others, whose name has become synonymous with their product(s) Tesco management have tried to achieve something similar. Somehow though, I can't see the expression of going to the supermarket being replaced by going to Tesco's anytime soon.

Ha, no. Interesting how some generics become so, others not - and how it varies with geography (sellotape / scotch tape). Finel ines, though: the more generically your brand is used, the harder it is to actually protect it in TM law.

Aldi is hit and miss. Some of their products are outstanding in both price and quality, some are acceptable if you are looking only at price and some would be rejected by me if they were free.
The trick is to figure out which column each falls in. Once you do that you can save some money and get good quality. At least for us, Aldi is on the other side of the street from the main grocery store left in town, so it isn't out of the way to stop there.

Never been in ALDI; our local version is Lidl. We love it - we eat better (less processed food), and our weekly bill is less than half of what Sainsburys cost us, even with the rises in some prices in the last eighteen months (butter especially is now 150% of what it cost us in June 2016).

That would not go unticketed here for long. My wife won't let me mount even a .30 caliber Browning on my truck let alone the .50 I would really prefer to have.

One of my most common expressions of frustration is "people like that are the reason I'm not allowed to carry a gun!" Often followed by a swift dig in the ribs from Herself, who doesn't want to waste time at the airport while I suffer advanced security procedures on grounds of being Irish....

 

[Harp]

The other amusing case looming is the Chruch of Satan's threat to sue the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina for copying its Baphomet statute

This ranks with the Gorsuch and Sotomayor joint dissent from SCOTUS cert denial in Vanessa Stuart v Alabama.

 

[Mae]

Those cars with the decal mud across them remind me of the PT Cruiser's that we used to see everywhere around here with the decal bullet holes "in them" driving around town in the mid 2000's. Like they were getaway vehicles from the 1930's who'd just robbed a bank.

 

[GHT]

Ha, no. Interesting how some generics become so, others not - and how it varies with geography (sellotape / scotch tape). Finel ines, though: the more generically your brand is used, the harder it is to actually protect it in TM law.

A point in case: Whatever you do, never call a vacuum cleaner a Hoover whilst in the presence of James Dyson.

Those cars with the decal mud across them remind me of the PT Cruiser's that we used to see everywhere around here with the decal bullet holes "in them" driving around town in the mid 2000's. Like they were getaway vehicles from the 1930's who'd just robbed a bank.

Back in the 1960's when fuel was cheap, the big fuel companies would often give tokens that you could collect and then exchange for gifts, like the worst set of wine glasses that you ever saw. But Esso hit the jackpot when they did a deal with the makers of The James Bond franchise, Esso's giveaway was a set of James Bond stick on bullet holes. It was the one of the tackiest gimmicks ever. But Esso managed to top it. Their advertising claimed that their fuel put a tiger in your tank. Their next giveaway was a long, fluffy tiger tail, with an elastic grip to fit around the fuel cap. And if you are reading this, Edward, I definitely did not have James Bond bullet holes on my car, nor did I drive around with a tiger's tail hanging off the car's filler cap.

 

[Woodtroll]

A point in case: Whatever you do, never call a vacuum cleaner a Hoover whilst in the presence of James Dyson.

Back in the 1960's when fuel was cheap, the big fuel companies would often give tokens that you could collect and then exchange for gifts, like the worst set of wine glasses that you ever saw. But Esso hit the jackpot when they did a deal with the makers of The James Bond franchise, Esso's giveaway was a set of James Bond stick on bullet holes. It was the one of the tackiest gimmicks ever. But Esso managed to top it. Their advertising claimed that their fuel put a tiger in your tank. Their next giveaway was a long, fluffy tiger tail, with an elastic grip to fit around the fuel cap. And if you are reading this, Edward, I definitely did not have James Bond bullet holes on my car, nor did I drive around with a tiger's tail hanging off the car's filler cap.

As a kid, I would have had no use for wine glasses, but I do remember the Esso tiger's tail and thought it was cool! Those were the days when Dad could fill up a '67 (?) Mercury for less than $7. I also remember thinking what a small fortune that was!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Gulf had an ad campaign claiming that their high-test No-Nox gasoline was the "gas with a kick." They gave away little sets of plastic horseshoes to stick on car bumpers, but most them ended up in the hands of annoying small boys who would stick them on the back of your coat when you weren't looking.

The best oil company giveaway was the set of presidential coins handed out by Shell dealers. They were all much better looking than any of the gawdawful presidential dollar coins put out in recent years by the US Mint.

 

[Edward]

A point in case: Whatever you do, never call a vacuum cleaner a Hoover whilst in the presence of James Dyson.

A Dyson should never be called a Hoover rather than what it is: Obscenely Overpriced.

Back in the 1960's when fuel was cheap, the big fuel companies would often give tokens that you could collect and then exchange for gifts, like the worst set of wine glasses that you ever saw. But Esso hit the jackpot when they did a deal with the makers of The James Bond franchise, Esso's giveaway was a set of James Bond stick on bullet holes. It was the one of the tackiest gimmicks ever. But Esso managed to top it. Their advertising claimed that their fuel put a tiger in your tank. Their next giveaway was a long, fluffy tiger tail, with an elastic grip to fit around the fuel cap. And if you are reading this, Edward, I definitely did not have James Bond bullet holes on my car, nor did I drive around with a tiger's tail hanging off the car's filler cap.

Ha, that sounds fun. I remember wine glasses, glasses of all sorts, soup bowls..... the eighties "Shell Promotion" (featuring an ad which badly parodied The Locomotion)... then there were the gift catalogues where you could pick from a wide range. I remember saving Texaco stamps forever and never quite getting the six full cards I needed for a Sanyo personal stereo, but I still have at least one CD from the Esso catalogue.

 

[3fingers]

Shell was still doing promotions in the '90's. I remember my mother talking about buying her fuel at Shell stations to collect CDs. I don't recall how she accumulated the points or whatever to get each disc though.

A Dyson should never be called a Hoover rather than what it is: Obscenely Overpriced.

Indeed. Dyson has to be given credit for being a marketing genius though. He is a master at convincing people to spend ridiculous sums to solve a problem that they either didn't know they had until he told them or to eliminate some tiny inconvenience from their lives. The ultimate Boy from Marketing.

 

[Edward]

Shell was still doing promotions in the '90's. I remember my mother talking about buying her fuel at Shell stations to collect CDs. I don't recall how she accumulated the points or whatever to get each disc though.

If memory serves, you got a voucher for every five or six pounds you spent on petrol, then you had to have a certain number for each gift. I think it was thirty for a CD. The last time I remember getting one must have been..... 1993, now I think about it. I never really drove after I got my licence in 94, then I moved to London in 1999 and haven't run a car since so I don't know when they stopped these things exactly.

Indeed. Dyson has to be given credit for being a marketing genius though. He is a master at convincing people to spend ridiculous sums to solve a problem that they either didn't know they had until he told them or to eliminate some tiny inconvenience from their lives. The ultimate Boy from Marketing.

Ha, yes...

 

[vitanola]

Indeed. Dyson has to be given credit for being a marketing genius though. He is a master at convincing people to spend ridiculous sums to solve a problem that they either didn't know they had until he told them or to eliminate some tiny inconvenience from their lives. The ultimate Boy from Marketing.

My mother bought one of those expensive Dyson sweepers nearly twenty years ago when they were first marketed here in the 'states. The handle broke after a few years use, and the machine was retired to the cellar. Mom "temporarily" replaced it by taking my late grandmother's Premier Duplex out of the attic. Our Grandfather Bartik purchased it used as a gift to our grandmother for Christmas of 1936. Mom is now ninety six, and is in hospice, but that old Premier is still in service cleaning my parents' house.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, scarcely has the spilled gravy had a chance to congeal than comes the murderous onslaught of the Ho-Ho-Holy Chri$tma$ $eason. I got waylaid on my way to lunch today by a desperate OMG THE WREATHS AREN'T UP OUT FRONT YET YOU BETTER PUT THEM UP RIGHT NOW OMG OMG WE WANT THE MEMBERS TO SEE THEM OMG AND GET THE TREES UP IN THE LOBBY TONIGHT OMG. And the trees -- two of them, yet, for AN EXTRA DOSE OF CHRISTMAS PIMPIN' -- had better be as cold and joyless and bourgie as possible. WHITE LIGHTS ONLY. NO HOMEMADE DECORATIONS. NOTHING THAT LOOKS THE LEAST BIT FUN.

I wish there really was a "War on Christmas," so I could be the first in line at the recruiting station. The sleazy venality of the season offends me more with every passing year.

 

[GHT]

Christmas is only thirty-one days away, or, do me a favour will you, there's another month to go yet. At least that's how I view it.
Yesterday witnessed the first of Santa's Grotto imitations. How I pity the poor neighbours:

 

[ThankfulGirl]

Yup. To both of the above. I had to go shopping in town (Nb "town" where I live is maybe 5 000 people? tops?) with Small Boy, Hairy Bloke, and frail 78 y/old mum and her walking frame. It was like the zombie apocalypse. And they don't shop at tge little stores, the markets, oh no! White Stuff and Superdry and Primark for them! (while outside in the rain the farmers' market struggles on)

 

[LizzieMaine]

You couldn't get me into a store this weekend at gunpoint. I understand our local Wal-Mart ran out of giant-screen TV's about noon yesterday. You remember, of course, how the Magi brought one to the manger so everyone could catch up on "Game of Thrones." They say Joseph was a big fan.

 

[ThankfulGirl]

You couldn't get me into a store this weekend at gunpoint. I understand our local Wal-Mart ran out of giant-screen TV's about noon yesterday. You remember, of course, how the Magi brought one to the manger so everyone could catch up on "Game of Thrones." They say Joseph was a big fan.

They were actually fighting, literally pushing one another aside, for a five-foot tall stuffed soft toy carrot in the Aldi store this week. Two things: a five foot carrot would scare me witless, and that's probably the closest most of these herberts will come to a vegetable all year....

 

[LizzieMaine]

You know what's frustrating? You can't even joke about Late Stage Capitalism anymore, because nothing you can come up with is as ridiculous as the real thing. It's killing my material.

"In America, giant stuffed carrot attacks you." See? No good at all.