Tag: humor

We Tried Domino’s New York Style Pizza

The other day, we tried a large Domino’s New York style pizza. You may have seen a recent commercial in which focus group members at first aim criticisms at Domino’s pizza until the leader springs the new pizza on them without telling them what brand it is. After they rave about it, the leader tells them (surprise!) it’s the new foldable New York style pizza. They rave about it.

Our curiosity about it peaked after we saw this really enthusiastic YouTuber posted a video (from his car; why do they do that?) reviewing it.

So, Sena got a Domino’s large takeout 3 topping with extra cheese (Italian sausage, pepperoni, and mushrooms). It was actually pretty good, though I thought it could have used more tomato sauce.

Domino’s has been around a long time. Back in the 1980s when I was an undergraduate at Iowa State University in Ames, Domino’s got a fair amount of criticism. I can’t remember exactly why. I think it had something to do with their 30-minute delivery promise or you got the pizza free deal.

I found an article about focus groups for the purpose of changing the Domino’s pizza recipe but it was published in 2010. So why are we seeing commercials about it nowadays?

The pizza box is interesting and funny. One of the many messages on it reads: “Domino’s Carryout: It’s like a pizza-scented air freshener for your car except you don’t hang it from the mirror.” There are several messages on it indicating Domino’s sensitivity to protecting the environment. It’s almost like they’re trying too hard to be liked including one that says:

“We take pride in being en-pie-ronmentally friendly.”

They also take pride in asking for tips. Sena gave him a 10% tip, just for handing her the carryout pizza.

Here’s my tip: Don’t use focus group commercials and put more tomato sauce on the pizza. You’ll be fine.

Big Mo Pod Show “King of the Segway”

Hey, I managed to catch the Big Mo Blues Show on July 19, 2024 and then listened to the podcast the next day. Because our big Bose wave radio is packed away in storage as we wait for our house to be built, I had to use our little portable Sony Dream Machine in the hotel. I think it dates to the early 2010s. I couldn’t get the local Iowa City KCCK 106.9 or 88.3 station unless I switched the radio to AM first, then tuned to 106.9, then flipped back to FM. It gets staticky if you hover over it or touch the radio, but if you leave it alone, it sounds OK.

Now I’m just going to comment on the theme of the pod show, which was “King of the Segway.” This is in the spirit of my frustrated grade school English teacher, Miss Piggott. One of her comments on my report card was, “A little too exuberant.”

OK, that segues into my correction of the use of the word “segway” in the podcast theme title. If you listen to the show, Big Mo clearly uses the word as a verb that mean to move without stopping from one theme, song, etc to another. That should be spelled “segue.” The word “segway” is a trademarked name for an electric transportation vehicle. To be fair, the two are often confused.

Big Mo did a pretty good job of getting most of the points on the 5 songs; at least he could name all the artists. The first part of the ‘da Friday Blues show played a couple of numbers that show the funny edge of Blues music. The latter part played Blues numbers that are on the gritty side.

I’ll take the funny side over the gritty side of the Blues any day of the week.

The funniest number was the song “Lustful Earl and the Married Woman,” by Tony Joe White. I remember his tune “Poke Salad Annie” from way back. Lustful Earl is hilarious and had me laughing out loud.

Earthquakes and Railroads and Magic Fingers, Oh My!

The hotel we’re staying in while our house is being built is very close to railroad tracks. We hear the whistle and then, we feel the train going by. No kidding, we can feel the rumble. It shakes the chairs, the sofa, the bed. The whole room shakes for as long as the train passes through the area.

It’s kind of an eerie sensation. It reminds me of the Illinois earthquake in 2010, which was felt by many in Eastern Iowa. It rattled our bed. That went on for a few minutes.

And some of you X-Files fans will get it when I say this free association would naturally lead to memories of the Bad Blood episode (season 5). This hilarious show features Mulder and Scully telling their own versions of what happened in a little town full of vampires. Both agents got all shook up using the Magic Fingers on a hotel bed.

Scrub to about 2 minutes into the YouTube to see the first Magic Fingers earthquake. There’s more, but you’ll get the idea.

U-Haul is Laying Down the Lavatory Law!

Ok, the other day, we were out to U-Haul, not to get more boxes, thank goodness, but so I could use the bathroom.

There was this new sign on the door laying down the law about how construction workers should keep it clean-or else.

You should know that the Iowa City U-Haul is building a huge new facility with tons of self-storage. I can’t tell you how much money we’ve spent on boxes, packing wrap, and tape and more. We kept going back for more punishment.

After the moving was done, I couldn’t bring myself to even look at the U-Hall sign whenever we passed it. It just reminded me of the pain. I can’t even avoid it when I look out the hotel window. Yes, there are two U-Haul centers, one in Coralville and the big one going up in Iowa City. I can see the Huge U-Haul sign rising above the Long Horn Steakhouse. I can’t unsee it.

I remember detasseling corn when I was a kid, and some of you may remember that if you grew up in the midwest where people grow corn just to torture kids who need a summer job. At the end of the day of detassling, when I collapsed on my bed, my hands curled into claws from grabbing tassels, I would close my eyes-and not be able to sleep because I would hallucinate with closed eyes miles and miles of corn fields.

The same kind of thing happened after all the packing was done. I closed my eyes and saw nothing but corrugated cardboard boxes. I can’t unsee it.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, the U-Haul lavatory law. How do you ban the construction guys from using the bathroom? They’re the ones building the new U-Haul complex, complete with a zillion self-storage units.

More important, what did the construction guys do to get the book thrown at them like that? Did they try to flush boxes down the toilet? Did they stick packing wrap all over the mirror? Did they tape the flush lever down? It’s impossible to tell now; the bathroom is spotless.

I’m tempted to ask the U-Haul clerks about it. But that means I would have to return to U-Haul. Not that. Can’t do it; won’t do it. You can’t make me. I’ll use another bathroom.

Where is the Weather Channel Going?

Have you noticed where the Weather Channel is going lately with its commercials? We’ve been staying in a hotel while our house is being built and the TV defaults to the Weather Channel-no matter which channel it’s on when you turn it off.

OK, what’s up with the Blue Chew commercials? I honestly thought it was about chewing tobacco with food coloring until I noticed (and how could you not notice?) that there were several women with serious cleavage holding up a bag with the name “Blue Chew” on it and repeating the name over and over.

Is the Weather Channel hurting for sponsors that now they have to swing chesty women in front of you to get your attention? It used to be about barometric pressure. Now it’s about boobymongous babes.

This commercial gets heavy rotation. You notice the women more than the weather. Maybe that’s the idea. You don’t notice how bad the weather is because the in-your-face mammaries on parade compete for your attention.

I know this sounds like a guy thing-and it is. On the other hand, the big boob picture, (I mean the big picture), are all the in-your-face commercials you see nowadays: Lume, Artificial Intelligence (how many times do you see the Google Gemini jingle in a minute?), and “Bienvenido la vida mas fina?”

What’s your favorite annoying commercial? When I look back, I think of the old Rice Krispies opera style commercial in 1967.

The Haunted Bellman’s Luggage Carts

When we moved into the hotel we’re camping in to wait for our house to be built, I rediscovered the joy of driving the bellman’s luggage cart. Does anyone besides me find this a major challenge?

I always get the cart with the crazy, wobbly wheel. Worse yet, they are impossible to steer and the rack itself is prone to popping out of the cart! I then get preoccupied with replacing the rack back in the dysfunctional hole while our luggage starts to tip over and the wobbly wheel prevents me from steering the thing into and out of the elevator.

I think all bellman’s luggage carts are haunted. They are possessed by the spirits of bellmen who didn’t get tipped.

That is why you should smudge the carts. I don’t mean you should actually rub dirt on them (they’ve got enough of that already). I mean you should get somebody who knows how to do that ritual to get rid of the bad energy in the cart. I think they usually burn sage (or maybe thyme?).

Mall Walker

Our hotel is about a 20 minute walk from the shopping mall. Both ways it’s about a 2.5 mile walk. I’ve been over there a few times and I think I’m becoming a mall walker.

The other day at the mall, an older lady approached me and asked me if I’d help open her water bottle, which I was glad to do. It was too tight for her to twist open. She told me a couple of times how she’d traveled to Iceland recently.

On one of my visits to the mall, I sat down in front of a clothing store. Most mannikins have full heads, but at this one, they had only half a head. The top half was gone. I don’t know what it means for a clothing store to have half-head mannikins.

Maybe they’re trying to say, “Hey, if you have half a brain, you’ll shop at our store.”

What’s the Skinny on Indoor Saline Pools and Vitamin D?

We saw a sign in the hotel elevator that made us curious. Part of it said:

“There are also lots of ways to get out and soak up some good ‘ol vitamin D from our saline pool to our grill and patio area.”

Not to quibble or get too sciency (“sciency” turns out to be a real adjective by the way, at least in the Oxford English Dictionary), but the bit about soaking up vitamin D from a saline pool is a little confusing. I suspect that sentence was about an outdoor pool. But at our hotel, the pool is indoors.

Here’s the thing. You can’t soak up Vitamin D through a window. And salt water doesn’t have anything to do with vitamin D absorption. In fact, the way we learned in medical school which vitamins are soluble in water was to memorize the acronym “ADEK.” Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat soluble, not water soluble. You can’t get Vitamin D from swimming in a saline pool. Saline is still water.

According to the National Institute of Health (NIH) web page for the public about Vitamin D, your skin can’t make it from sunlight through a window.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t health benefits from swimming in a salt water pool. For example, an article on the Healthline web site says it may be better for people with allergies or asthma, or if you can’t stand the smell of chlorine.

On the other hand, you certainly can soak up the sun and Vitamin D from the grill and patio area. Be sure to use sunscreen!

Hotel Kitchen Notes

I need to make a note about the kitchenette in our hotel room. It’s big enough for Sena to cook a meal in, but small enough for me to knock the meal on the floor.

The kitchen has a fridge with freezer, yet lettuce freezes in the fridge. We have really crunchy salads. It has a microwave. It doesn’t have a stove but you can get a portable induction cooktop, believe it or not.

Sena cooked fantastic chili on that cooktop, which reminded us of the induction cooktop in the house we moved out of.

There’s no oven. But Sena cooked a frozen pizza in our Presto deep dish fry pan. That was a neat trick.

The only thing I did in the kitchen at our house was heat up frozen pizza. Now I don’t even do that. Every time I stick my head in the fridge, I bump my head on the bottom of the freezer door. In fact, I have not done anything in the kitchenette so far but make trouble.

I lost a cooking challenge once for not completing a dish. I ran out of thyme.




Workout at the Hotel!

We’re camping out in a hotel while our new house is being built. We tried out the exercise equipment. It has been tough to exercise what with all the chores of showing and selling the house, moving all our stuff into storage, and now adjusting to living in a hotel (which will be for a couple of months).

The hotel has a Peloton bicycle. We tried it. One of the foot straps was missing, and we didn’t try the free workout offer.

As some of you know, I wrote a blog post about the Peloton machine a while back, comparing it to my anti-Peloton bike. The title is “The Anti-Peloton Exercise Bicycle.” As part of the moving process, we donated the old bike to charity.

We’re not planning to invest in a Peloton any time soon.