respublica

Locked up baby forumla

Out here in the DC area, grocery stores don't keep baby formula on the shelves. You have to take a slip of paper with the type of formula on it and hand it to the cashier when you check out. Then the cashier calls over the intercom for someone to come with a key and unlock the formula cabinet.

Very strange.

Running out the door may be a relative term

Headline from a story about a Waterloo Illinois man charged with stealing big screen tvs from Collinsville and Glen Carbon Walmarts:

Man accused of RUNNING out of Walmart stores with Big-Screen TVs

Here's the thing, how many of us would be able to run and escape from a store while grappling with a large, boxed, big screen TV? And out of a Walmart no less where there are normally people in every aisle. Quite an image.

Who names their new baby Messiah?

Asks Mark Hemingway on Twitter.

Well, according to a new survey of the fastest rising baby boy names for 2013, it appears that more people than we'd ever imagine are naming their new sons Messiah.

Highway Hypnosis

Every done some driving and realized later you have no memory of part of it? You may have experienced highway hypnosis.

"Most psychologists point to a number of factors, generally grouped into the monotony of the task, the fatigue and boredom of the driver, and the ease of the driving experience".

I've had this happen, mostly on the drives I do most frequently, like going back and forth from Collinsville, not the long boring vacation drives.

Let's come clean

Does anyone else believe the makers of hand soap have gone small? It sure seems to me as though the bars of soap are smaller and less dense which makes them melt away to a sliver very quickly. Following the lead of every product these days-less product same or higher price.

And why does every name brand of shampoo have to have myriad varieties of itself nowadays? 

Au revoir Suite de Monsieur

This may come as a surprise to fans of House Hunters or any other HGTV show, but among some builders and realtors in the DC area the term Master's Suite is suddenly thought to have a (too male too slave owner) connotation.

What is this 1866? 

"A survey of 10 major Washington, D.C.-area homebuilders found that six no longer use the term “master” in their floor plans to describe the largest bedroom in the house. They have replaced it with "owner’s suite" or “owner’s bedroom" or, in one case, “mastre bedroom."

Shoot, now that we've been conditioned to 'have to have' a master suite, we find ourselves sleeping in something that brings to mind great baseball seats. And really, Mastre Bedroom? Do they seriously think people who find Master Suite politically incorrect will be fooled by using the French for the very same thing?

"Word of the change is now reaching the resale market, where “owner’s bedroom” is most commonly used in higher-end listings. The terminology has more of an upscale tone to it, particularly in some of the really large homes that truly have a large bedroom, sitting area, enormous walk-in closets, and lavish bathrooms."

Maybe in DC "owner's bedroom' seems high end, but it has the ring of a boarding house to me. 

Mastre Bedroom!! Bwahahahahahahha

 

7 years for taking the teleprompter

While our news outlets are not in their normal frenzy over the trial of horrific abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, they love this story. Odd thing about the Gosnell story and the media was that it has become a firestorm now, but not about Goswell's horrific crimes but about journalists trying to explain themselves. Sheesh.

"Virginia Man Gets Seven Years in Prison for Stealing Obama's Teleprompter." Actually he stole the Ford truck the teleprompter was in, but what the heck. 

Headlines that make no sense

Here's a headline to a story I tried to read today and quickly realized I had no idea what the reporter was talking about. I hate it when that happpens.

Food Inflation Everywhere, But Not A Bit In CPI (Yet)

Designer kitchens are for those who don't cook

According to a lengthy article on kitchen remodels in the Post Dispatch, " people with multimillion-dollar kitchens are the ones who can afford not to cook. It’s the people who typically have limited space who cook."

How weird is that?   "The trick to making a kitchen look good is to not use it."

Ye olde misrepresentation

Have you seen the tv ads for the Olde Brooklyn Lantern? Usually it features a middle class, middle aged couple riding out a power outage in their living room with the help of the Olde Brooklyn Lantern. According to the infomercial, you'll get a light source with 9 ultra bright LED bulbs which lasts 100,000 hours.

Well, some time back Dale went out and bought two of these to place in our very dark upstairs hallway and on a landing halfway up the stairs. He was pretty excited about them because he gets up very very early and the stairs are really dark. Well, let's admit that the lanterns shine a fairly bright white light. But...what the ads don't say is that each takes two D batteries which last (I'm not exaggerating) only a couple of days.

And I don't mean they last only a few days being constantly on. They suck the batteries dry very quickly.

What they don't tell you.