A couple of days ago I saw one of the many news items about the 17 year (and 13 year) cicadas invading Eastern Iowa this summer.
But I haven’t seen any mention of the sex-crazed, fungus-infected zombie cicadas announced in April.
So, you can relax. Try noise-cancelling headphones.
It’s that time of the year again; everybody’s moving whether relocating across the country or just moving across town.
One thing is key: you need quality, top of the line appliances. Say you’re having family and friends over for dinner and you need freezer space for roadkill squirrel. Why, a General Electric fridge with the perfect size little freezer designed to accommodate flattened rodents is just what you need.
But wait; you’ll need a stove to cook them! Look no further than your own Magic Chef. Emeril Lagasse would be proud to own this little gem, which might even have smell-o-vision as he would call it! That is, if you like the smell of smoked salmon (see what I did there?). Just whack your food against the grill to knock off any residual char. Or spray them down with the complimentary Copper Bullet Hose and watch that smoke just disappear!
Better hurry to order. These items are selling so fast there is a strict order of only two to a customer!
Pay no attention to that thing which resembles an antique hash pipe in the oven.
Note on Photos: Courtesy of Slager Appliances in Iowa City, I took these photos of vintage appliances on display in their showroom.
We got the Triple Berry Frosty at Wendy’s and we got a surprise answer at the order station when we asked what berries are in it:
“Uh, I don’t actually know.”
Fair enough. We tried to guess. Sena thought one of them was strawberry and another was blueberry (to account for the slightly bluish color). I couldn’t tell what was in it-but it was good.
I had to look on the web to find out the berries are strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry.
The Wendy’s Blog says that the Triple Berry Frosty is one way to take a break: “We all have moments when we could use a bit of an escape from our busy lives.”
That fits right now.
Bank tellers who hand you sleeves to roll your coins laugh in their sleeves (so to speak) because they don’t count coins anymore and they like to see the customers wince.
I complained about this in a previous post. I tried it. It’s doable. I used the Wikihow method. Using a cloth to put the coins on helps because they just slide around on a smooth tabletop.
Lining them up in your palm and sliding them into the sleeve just right so they don’t jam is the hard part. Once you get the hang of it—it’s still incredibly slow.
Maybe the Coinstar machine?
UPDATE: I got $55 dollars rolled up in coins. All told, I probably put in about 2 hours on the project. I also want to point out that you’ll have different numbers of piles of 10 coins depending on what denomination is marked on the sleeves.
The other day we noticed our piggy bank is getting really full. We decided to take it to the bank and get it counted.
Much to our surprise and dismay, the bank told us they don’t count piggy bank small change anymore. In fact, they stopped that about 6 years ago. Then they gave us these little sleeves with different coin denominations on them and basically said count it and roll it yourselves. Nerve!
I looked this up on the web and it turns out this has been a trend for a few years now with the big banks. Smaller banks and credit unions may still count coins. I even saw that Quik-Trip will do it.
And most banks will charge you for counting your coins for you. And there is something called a Coinstar machine which will do it—but it’ll cost you.
I found a web page that explains a little more about Coinstar. You need to know a few things about those big machines. Skip to the end of the article to get the skinny.
There’s a WikiHow instruction web page where you can learn in 15 steps (that’s right, I said “15 steps.”) how to roll coins. I read through the first half-dozen steps and had to go take a nap. And banks may not like the idea of either depositing your coins or exchanging them for folding money.
I’m not liking this idea of rolling coins. But our piggy bank won’t accept many more coins. Maybe I should try to roll some.
Getting the new laptop reminds me of my pocket protector nerd days. That’s because the modern laptop is a sharp contrast to the big heavy desktops. I worked for consulting engineers back in the stone age and I wore a pocket protector. Some people might not know what that is. It’s a little plastic pen holder that fits in your shirt pocket. It protects your shirt from ink spots, but makes you look like a nerd. I would also keep notes on a little pocket flip cover paper notebook.
It was mandatory that you carry six or seven pens and mechanical pencils in the pocket holder, which typically would be emblazoned with some kind of engineering advertising label: Nerdy Engineers Are Us or The Silos of Tomorrow.
When I graduated to a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) complete with stylus, I thought that was a major upgrade. It was a mobile handheld device on which I took notes using a stylus. It was a little on the big side for my shirt pocket, so it displaced the paper notebook and the pocket protector.
You can see the PDA in action by watching the Men in Black II movie in which a couple of junior level men in black are using them to take notes. This is the scene at Ben’s Pizza Parlor in which Frank the talking pug says the deflated body of Ben has “zero percent body fat” and the two men in black laugh at the joke.
Also on the nerdy side, I used to wear bow ties. They were kind of fun to tie. I had many. One of them was plaid, which I realize raises the nerd level up a notch. My nerd fashion attire also included (you might want to sit down for this)—clip on suspenders. I later graduated to the suspenders you button on the inside of your pants beltline.
I think you can still release your inner nerd by getting a pocket protector. And remember, you didn’t hear it from me.
I found this cribbage YouTube site that does a really nice job of teaching you how to play Cribbage. Here’s a video about whether Cribbage is mainly a game of luck or skill. It turns out it’s a mix of both.
I play computer Cribbage games with high level computer opponents who-let’s face it, don’t make mistakes. You have to get used to losing pretty often, but there is a certain amount of skill which can help you win-sometimes.
We bought a laptop computer. It has been years since I’ve used one. I forgot how exasperating a touchpad is. Luckily, we have a spare wireless mouse and a USB port. The laptop is slim and very light, like most laptops these days.
I remember the first “laptop” I had early in my career as a consulting psychiatrist. I think it weighed about 2-3 times what the modern ones weigh nowadays. I think I could have stopped a thief from taking it from me by whacking him over the head with it.
If I remember correctly, it had a slot for floppy discs and another for disc media. It developed a hardware problem which forced me to box it up and send it back to the manufacturer for repairs. I don’t remember how long I kept it after that.
The new laptops don’t have any internal optical drives built into them.
I read a tech article in which the author’s opinion about the gradual disappearance of internal optical drives and other physical media for laptops was probably the result of large companies finding out they could make more money by charging subscription fees for digital media.
Microsoft comes to mind.
There’s an upcoming meeting of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) June 26-28, 2024. They’ll discuss the new Covid-19 vaccine and several other vaccines including RSV.
I’ve got a couple of things to get off my chest about Artificial Intelligence (AI). By now, everyone knows about AI telling people to put hot glue on pizza and whatnot. Sena and I talked to a guy at an electronics store who had nothing but good things to say about AI. I mentioned the hot glue thing and pizza and it didn’t faze him.
I noticed the Psychiatric Times article, “AI in Psychiatry: Things Are Moving Fast.” They mention the tendency for AI to hallucinate and expressed appropriate reservations about its limitations.
And then I found something very interesting about AI and Cribbage. How much does AI know about the game? Turns out not much. Any questions? Don’t expect AI to answer them accurately.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 