respublica

Guiness World Record broken in Illinois

There are many weird attempts at World Records and so it is with this one. The world's largest fruit display was put out in front of a Jewel-Osco grocery store in Chicago in which 70,000 pounds of bananas were used for display. Pictures of all these bananas are shown at the story link. This is almost overwhelming and my first thought was, what is going to happen to all these bananas after the ceremony is over? Bananas do over ripen pretty fast especially when it's hot outside.

Here is what happened. Customers were given free bananas and Remaining bananas will be donated to Northern Illinois Food Bank.

Jewel stores sell 140,000 pounds of bananas a day! I wonder how many the Schnucks stores sell down here, I buy them every two days and there are always shoppers in front of the banana display.

I grew up in Chicago suburbs and we always shopped at the Jewel.

Surprising things

A couple of surprising news items caught my eye this morning. One I find kind of unbelievable and the other is just silly.

First we learn that Aldi's grocery stores are having a big problem with people stealing steaks. It's gotten to the point in some of their stores that signs telling customers they must ask for steak, this meat and a few other expensive cuts are not put on shelves. How in this world of ever present security cameras can this happen? I'm not much of an Aldi's fan, the store never makes much sense to me and the produce is not so great.

Secondly, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker must have had a slow day yesterday when he signed legislation designating dolostone (dolomite) as the official state rock. I mean, come on. A state rock? Surely there are better things to do for good old JB.

Recommended just for me

I had a laugh this morning when my Facebook page recommended a few products "just for me". Frankly, no, just no.

That couch....and what is that wooden table with plastic bins below all about?

Trash schedule

While we were down at our Huzzah cottage this past weekend my mind turned to our Collinsville trash pick-up. I'm kind of obsessive about trash and recycling and wanted to make sure of exactly what day ours would be picked up due to Monday being a holiday. When we turned onto our street coming home last night we saw ever single house on the block with their two trash carts out on the curb. This puzzled me because normally when a holiday is involved the pick-up is moved back one day.

So. Dale decided, just to be safe, he'd put our carts out. We normally get yard waste picked up on Monday and trash on Tuesday. I put out the yard waste. Still it bothered me that we had our  regular trash carts out so I went to the Republic Services website and learned that I was correct. The normal pick-up is moved back one day and we took our carts away from the curb. Hopefully this will be the correct move.

One weird study

There is a survey group named, FitRated which found that 81 percent of Americans would work out if they were to receive cryptocurrency rewards.

Personally I very much doubt this. Most of that number of Americans probably don't have the slightest idea what cryptocurrency is and what you do with it or where you get it. There may well be 30 percent of those crypto knowledgeable Americans out there, but I'd like to hear about their work-outs and what the cryptocurrency value would be.

Also, 75 percent of Americans would sign up for gym memberships using cryptocurrencies. Seriously? I know a lot of people and not one has ever brought up the wonder of cryptocurrencies. So where are these people and where do we get some of this crypto money?

Leather free leather

This sounds very weird to me, maybe in years to come it will be as common place as table salt.

Animal-free leather is coming. Supposedly. "Would you ever wear shoes made from “grape leather”? Or gloves in “cactus leather”? What about a “kombucha leather” jacket and a mushroom leather bag?" With the drive towards more sustainable fashion, the burgeoning world of animal-free “alt leathers” is becoming increasingly mainstream.

What is going on with at least one company is shoes made with a leather-like material created from grape skins left over from wine-making.

So-called “plant-based leather” promises great benefits for the planet. Not only is Lerins upcycling an existing waste stream (as is also the case for “leathers” made from apples, bananas and pineapples), it’s also disconnecting from the cattle industry, and in doing so, avoids the issues of greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and animal welfare.

You just never know.

Shaving cream! What can't it do?

Leave it to England's Mrs Finch the cleaning expert to come up with another way to clean the brown burned on mess found on most oven windows. I plan to try this today since I've tried many other methods to little success.

Spray shaving cream onto the door and leave it for an hour or so and then clear it off. Some people say it's great to remove it with a ball of silver foil while others just use a microfiber cloth or sponge. Whichever, most rave about how well this cleans the oven glass.

So, I've borrowed Dale's can of shaving cream and will have a go at this today.

UPDATE: This did not work for our oven window

This must have been written by a competitor

The headline which had me click the link: Things You Should Never Buy at Home Depot

It turns out you should not buy almost anything at Home Depot which is absurd. Maybe someone from Lowes wrote this. Just kidding but it has to come from somewhere like this.

So...

Has anyone else noticed a conversational trend in which a person answers a question from another person by starting with the word--So? I'm hearing this all the time these days.

"Anything happen at work today?"  "So"...

How do you keep the pie crust from burning?  "So"...

"How did it go with the doctor?  "So"...

"Who let the dog out?"  "So"...

When did this become a thing?

More advice from "experts"

Some one out there always knows what's best and this link a good example of people who don't live like us. Granted there is a lot of truth in some of this, but not all.

An expert in home things has put up a list of 10 things we should get rid of "right now" because they are just taking up space. Some I agree with, I'm an obsessive "get rid of it" person. I especially agree with getting rid of some of the many coffee mugs. We have way too many, most being give-a-ways at some function or other.