odds and ends...

TVSis hiding in a stone structure along the hiking path we chose back in September....

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Speaking of September, at the hotel TVGal and I stayed at on our wedding night had a card in the bathroom extolling guests wisely to not have their sheets and towels washed on a mutliple day stay to conserve water... smart choice indeed... however, this was the quote on the bottom of the card that I thought was unusual....

"Small choices can really add up. Kimpton makes it easy for their guests to make a difference."
--Danny Seo, Kimpton Hotel's Eco-stylist

"Eco-Stylist"???? Huh? Can you major in that at colleges? Is that even a word? Let's find out...

(spending a few minutes on various websites....)

...and our answer is pretty much a resounding "No."

It's basically made up by Danny Seo, who is "The Martha Stewart of The Environmental Set"... give me a freaking break. He's the editor in chief of "Organic Style"... I can't believe I'm not subscribing to that! (The answer of "What to get TVGuy for Christmas" has just been answered... ugh...

But if you want to be a Eco-Stylist like Danny, apparently all you have to do is get hired by a Large National Hotel Chain and then tell them to conserve water all they have to do is... you know.. use less of it...

Genius!! The Planet is Saved!!!

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Someone at work posted a note to the Vending machine guys that I thought was pretty damn funny... and thus it is recreated here for you, the loyal TVGuy audience...

Dear Snack Machine Administrators:

Alright... It's high time something was said. There is an entire row of delectable product in this machine which has been rendered virtually unobtainable by poor marketing. I am speaking , of course, of the 2.0 oz. Cheez-its inextricably positioned in row B6 behind a crumpled and miserable bag of Wheatables, that appear to have fallen out of the box and been run over by a forklift. Thus an entire row of ambrosial fruits are held hostage by a single battered bag of bland grain-wafers.

If I thought it at all possible I would assume that pranksters had broken into the machine and positioned this ludicrous item there as an abstract joke of some kind. Nobody... I mean NOBODY! is ever going to purchase those Wheatables. From the looks of it you've been trying to sell them in one way or another since the Carter administration (Do they even still make Wheatables??!)... they're gone man... Let 'em go...

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That's a lot of effort to remove one bag of questionable snacky goodness.... but a lingering question remains... and as always, I'm happy to help with another installment of the web's fastest growing segment...

I Had No Idea #7

Q: Do they still make Wheatables?

A: Yes.

Okay, that was fairly anticlimactic... Certainly not worthy of previous installments of this exciting segment... let's try again...

You may have seen Friday's TVGuy photos of the disturbing beverage known as "Beverly"... someone at the TVGuy Mansion was talking about Coca-Cola (Bottler of "Beverly") and the "fact" that they had cocaine in their product (hence "Coke").

Well now, that can't possibly be. Cocaine simply can't be part of their secret formula in this day and age, can it?

Let's find out...

I Had No Idea #8

Q: Does Coca-Cola have Cocaine in it?

A: Sort of.

This from the Chicago Reader...

The soft drink was one of many concoctions in that era containing cocaine, which was being touted as a benign substitute for alcohol. Coke, in fact, was promoted as a patent medicine, which would "cure all nervous afflictions--Sick Headache, Neuralgia, Hysteria, Melancholy, Etc...."

How much cocaine Coke actually contained and how much kick you got from it is not known (a Coke spokesman today says the amount was "trivial"). But for years Southerners called the stuff "dope" or "a shot in the arm," while soda fountains were called "hop joints" and Coke delivery trucks "dope wagons."

In the 1890s, however, public sentiment began to turn against cocaine, which among other things was believed to be a cause of racial violence by drug-crazed blacks. In 1903 the New York Tribune published an article linking cocaine with black crime and calling for legal action against Coca-Cola.

Shortly thereafter Coke quietly switched from fresh to "spent" coca leaves (i.e., what's left over after the cocaine has been removed). It also stopped advertising Coke as a cure for what ails you and instead promoted it simply as a refreshing beverage...

So the answer is that it kinda has some semblance of flavoring from the coca plant, but no cocaine...

Thus ends "I Had No Idea" once again....

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TVGal found a small container of "Unusual Jelly" somewhere and brought it home a few months ago... I haven't thrown it out for 2 reasons...

1) It's "Lychee Jelly". What the hell is "Lychee"? It's from some kind of a nut, right?

It looks like one of these packages...

Let's taste it and see...

(tasting...)

Umm.. it's not very good. At all actually. Ick.

2) On the package it hilariously instructs to "Please take separate bite and chew before swallowing"...

You know, in case you needed some help eating... you know... Jelly.

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And as Thanksgiving approaches I like to keep you supplied with November odd facts... today's is a doozy...

Did you know that Turkeys sleep in trees? Yep. It's true.

And with that, have a nice Monday, won't you?

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Gareth: Tim's put my stapler inside some jelly again. That's the third time he's done it. It wasn't even funny the first time...

--"The Office" (BBC)