Monday, June 28, 2010

Carl's Jr

I little silliness today for you about the awful fast food we Americans eat too much. Here in Portland, I have discovered that the great desire in food is volume rather than taste. Full service restaurants serve mediocre food but the number and variety of fast food places here is enormous.

When you feed them allot of food in Oregon they are both fat and happy, something I have observed to be both cases since coming here. There are many super heavyweights here, perhaps even more of them than in New Orleans, and New Orleans has much better tasting food than what one can consume in Portland.

The favorite sign here seems to be that of fast food eateries or the omnipresent buffet restaurant that carries on the tradition everywhere of serving copious amounts of bland food at inexpensive prices. Turning one's head to glance at any of the many buffet places in Portland will surely enable you to spy a 150 plus kilo human waddling in or out of it.I did try one of the better reviewed buffets here and can only say that it was so non memorable that I do not ever plan to return. But I also have eaten at a few fast food restaurants near my home in Portland.
One of them is called 'Carls Jrs', a west coast hamburger based fast food franchise. It is an eye opener.

When I entered Carl's that day I perused the menu on the wall behind the order counter to find something simple and light. Since it features hamburgers I spotted a listing of what is the cheapest "value meal", the "Big Car combo. "Two charbroiled beef patties, our classic sauce, two slices of American cheese, and lettuce all on a toasted sesame seed bun", says the advertisement for it. Hmmmmmmm I was in a curious and playful mood.Here was my dialogue with the waitress who placed my order.

Jim "What is in the "special sauce"
Waitress 1- "I don't know" (Looking to her right at an associate at another register she asked him) "Do you know what the special sauce is"?
Waiter 2- "I don't know".
Of course this was an opportunity for mischief and I took it.
Jim- (with a feigned look of exasperation and slight crazed stare I loudly bellowed) "How can your sauce be special if you don't even know what is in it?"
At that point a much older and more knowledgeable supervisor came to the order site to calm the crazy (me).
Supervisor- "They are new here. They don't know. The special sauce is Thousand Island Dressing", she blurted to me.
Jim- "That's it! Plain Thousand Island"
Supervisor- "Yes"
Jim - "How can that be special? Why not call it what it is..Thousand Island Dressing?"
Supervisor- (turning and going back to her duties)-
"I never asked and don't know"
Jim- (speaking now again to the cute and now amused little girl taking my order) "You need to study your menu ingredient sheets. Until you do, I am not about to ask you what's in the hamburger. I'm afraid you might know.
"Waitress 1- "You want the special sauce"?
Jim- "No thanks. I'll wait before ordering that for it to earn it's reputation as special. But I have another question for you.
"Waitress 1- (eyes rolling in her head) "Sure"
Jim- "I might like the special sauces at Carl Sr's better if I could see Carl Sr. Where is Carl Sr."? (There is in fact, and I knew, no such thing as a 'Carl Sr's')
Waitress 1- (looking like a deer in headlights) "I never thought of that!"
Jim- "Thank God your healthy minded enough not to have...."
Supervisor- (Seeing her young employee in distress) "What is it now, Sir"
Jim- "Sad to say, more questions...I just want to know here I can find Carl Sr"?
Supervisor- "You'll have to ask corporate offices."
Jim- "No, they probably kidnapped him and are holding him ransom until they really find out what is really in the special sauce."

At that point another customer was in line so I stopped torturing the waitress and waited at my table for my Big Carl. It came and it was huge! The Carl Jr nutritional information said it is 935 calories. With the large number of french fries (the best tasting item of what I ordered) and drink provided that meal was enough to satisfy the entire day's calorie ratio.As to the taste of it, it was greasy and unsettling after eating half of it. More of the volume beats taste mentality found here.

I couldn't finish the entire burger because the grease content put a stop to it. Looking around the restaurant I saw people eating much bigger orders, smiling and waddling away in a fast food feeding frenzy( Hey! That's nice alliteration).

Oh, if you ever see Carl Sr., tell him I want to know what's in his special sauce. Haha

Grandma's 90th

We had an unexpected hail storm today. It only lasted a few minutes but the deck outside my kitchen was filed with pea sized hail stones. I love the power of nature. Do you too? Nature when angry or showing off reminds us that we humans are insignificant to the larger world. Perhaps the natural order would be more pure for the rest of life if humans were not here. We are not "needed" for the earth to live and breath. Too, nature is non discriminatory to all its creatures and it inspires our imagination.

The poet Emily Dickenson is a favorite of mine. When I see nature "act up" I am reminded of one poem of hers I like entitled 'I Never Saw A Moor'

'I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be'

For some reason (It might be because they mistakenly think that I am a relative of theirs named "Maria Herran".... and herran is part of my E mail address), some years ago here at this hotmail address I got on someone's family mailing list. It starts with a man named Pete Shobe. I tried to tell him to stop and that they were mistaken about my identity, but every one in awhile I still get the personal messages from Pete and the other family members.

Today it was about Grandma Shobe's 90th birthday bash. Haha They surely wouldn't let me near her to corrupt grandma if they knew who I was. I only read one of the 20 or so mails about that birthday party because it feels as if I am a voyeur if I read other's mails.This goes to show why E mail can be the best and worst of communication. This kind of mix-up is minor, but what if someone mistakenly sends personal information to a person that can be stolen by the recipient and used for harm. I supposed that happens from time to time.

Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA SHOBE..whomever you are. Should I send her a cake with a stripper in it?

Redlands Or Rednecks

I have a grandfather clock that was set up the other day by a clock repair and assembly company here in Portland. But the key to the clock case, like so much else in my move from New Orleans, is missing. The clock "guy" who checked the clock and set it up again mentioned that if took the clock mechanism with me and drove to his business about 30 minutes from here, he would fit the lock and give me a key for about $8. That's far better than another expensive house call to have another clock case key.

Today I took the drive and will relate an observation about Redlands (which is a distant suburb of Portland, yet a rural unincorporated area of farming and lumbering). I was struck by the redneck nature of Redlands. This verifies what I have observed during my trips to Portland. The area has an element that very much resembles rural Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama or any other deep south state. This surprises me very much, though I find it charming and genuine (maybe I am a redneck too?).

Redlands is quite bucolic, with 'U pick' fruit and veggie farms, cattle, lamb and other livestock grazing on farms and next to residences. It shows both run down and luxurious homes among the rolling, timbered enclave of Redlands, and also has a few "country" style businesses so reminiscent of rural Louisiana. I just had to stop for lunch at the 'Redlands Cafe' since it had a sign screaming "Barbeque Thursday nights". In the south, any place serving barbeque is guaranteed to be quaint, welcoming and eccentric.When I entered I saw all the southern traits that I know and am amused by. There were tattoos, pot bellied men dressed in overall jeans, convivial conversation among the patrons (this is not evident in many places in Oregon, where the residents do not like or engage in small talk), rather "relaxed " service from waitresses....everything except the quality of food was to my taste.

I ordered a simple hamburger and french fries because simplicity is best when eating in Oregon, a land where proper cooking is rare. The burger was overcooked and without much taste, the fried the standard frozen variety served at fast food places. Oh, and the serving portion was the usual Oregon BIG. They do like large quantity when eating meals.Still, I found the people, places and look of Redlands to be curious and charming.

Too, I'll have to go back. The clock man and his one man shop was closed. I remain both clue less (personally) and key less (my grandfather clock case).. so will try to return before I leave Portland at the end of next week.

Too Big For An Airline Seat

My most recent airline flight was uneventful except that I noticed a growing problem on planes, people who are too fat to sit in their seat without encroaching on nearby passengers.
In an aisle seat, two rows to the left of me was a man who occupied the aisle seat of the two seat row, the seat adjacent to him not yet filled as we passengers boarded the plane. After the boarding had been almost complete, and the extra seat remained unfilled until a young woman approached and stopped, relating to the 170 plus kilo passenger (who spilled into the unoccupied seat due to his beefy physique) that the empty seat was hers. He quickly pointed to an unoccupied seat in the next row and asked her if she wanted that. She did. Problem averted.

But what happens when there is not alternative and the passenger who purchases a ticket must ride with a heavy passenger slobbering into his or zone? Should the airlines make a too big passenger buy the adjacent seat? And if so, what standard determines who is too fat to fit in one seat?

We all are seemingly getting fatter these days as the airlines makes seats smaller to make more money, and the growing number of people who are too fat to fit into tiny airplane seats cause discomfort to their seat mates. If a passenger pays for a full seat but has a seat mate spilling into a third of it, is that fair? Among American airlines only Southwest Airlines currently has a rule about too fat riders having to buy the adjacent seat (and few grossly obese fly that airline as a result), and there is no FAA regulation about the problem. Too, the more I fly the more I see this problem occurring.

Conversely, is being too fat a handicap that should be treated as a legal disability? If so, this would make mandates for airlines to set aside a section of extra wide seats to accommodate the extra large passengers (who are, ironically, probably far more uncomfortable than the passengers they spill on top of). Maybe the jumbo passengers who fill the bigger seats could pay a little extra for the bigger seats so slimmer passengers would not feel slighted.

At the very least, the FAA should require all airlines to publish clear policies stating how they will protect squished and uncomfortable passengers who find themselves getting less than what they paid for. What do you think?

Obama Follows

President Obama made his 4th trip to the Louisiana coast Monday. The popularity polls that motivate Obama and most other politicians are finally forcing him to at least pretend to attack the spill crisis.Every poll conducted no shows the American voters think Obama has fiddled while Rome burned. In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, taken Friday through Sunday, 71% of those surveyed say that Obama hasn't been tough enough in dealing with BP on the oil spill. Just one in five say his actions have been "about right," and a negligible 3% say he's been too tough.

I listened to a New Orleans radio talk show via the net to get the pulse of what New Orleans think about Obama's performance. 53% of those gave him an F and another 26% a D. Odd because he keeps pretending he is proactive. Bush II/Bush Light (Obama) is sinking in the oil crisis nationally as well.

The majority of Americans say the oil spill is an environmental and economic catastrophe, that some beaches will never recover from it, and that some species of wildlife, including fish and birds, will never return to normal levels even after the clean-up is completed.

The Obama administration has been sitting on its hands for 4 weeks while pointing at and blaming BP rather than mobilizing personnel, equipment and money that Louisiana and other Gulf States asked for is backfiring.

Ha! Louisiana may be small and insignificant to most, but it is the venue that destroyed Bush's credibility forever (his response to hurricane Katrina) and the one that is bringing Obama done now with this effete reaction to the Oil leak. In the lead or follow equation, Obama is following...following into a political disaster as messy as the oil spill he has pretended to care about.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Packaging And Warnings

Packaging for consumer products that are sold today at grocery stores are getting me worked up today because I had a confrontation with one of those things this morning. Maybe the worst kind of modern food packaging, the one that frustrated me today, is the container with a clear plastic snap on lid and a styrofoam base. They put many bakery items in that thing, and it's enough to make me want to go on a sugar free diet, because I get frustrated both trying to open them (they break as often as they open when I try to do it) or when I close it (The lid never seems to close on both ends). If you don't know what kind of packaging I am writing about I am not explaining it well enough because it is everywhere in the world. We should find the inventor of that and have he or she placed under house arrest to prevent any more of his ideas from coming to market.

Another plastic container I hate is the kind that is thicker and houses electronic and other more expensive and delicate devices, like a hard drive for instance. How does one open those? I always wind up getting so frustrated trying to pry it open that I just get scissors and cut it open. They use this type to keep customers from getting inside to tamper or steal the product. And like the other plastic container I mentioned above, it provides protection for the product inside in case it is smashed or dropped.That leads me to one of my points today, that containers are made for the benefit of the maker, not the consumer. In fact, most things about the products we buy are customized for the manufacturer's welfare- to ship more easily, to protect against liability, to make the product look larger or better, to make it seem to weigh more and on and on. First the maker satisfies self, and then thinks about the buyer.

And what about the words on the product labeling? Some times I am mystified at them. Yesterday I saw a small container of "banana pudding ice cream" in a local grocery store. I rarely buy ice cream in groceries but the sound of that flavor was too interesting to resist (I bought it and it's tasty). Just below mid center of the ice cream label was this statement, "Natural Flavors Added". Huh? What does that mean? It implies that the whole product is not natural, but a little natural ingredients are added. that is impossible with ice cream. Surely enough I read the ingredients...cream,. milk, egg yolks, banana puree, sugar....They all seem natural to me. So what does the label mean? Is it a warning? Is it a requirement for the manufacturer to say that? Did they make amistake and mean "Some Artificial Flavors Added"?

On of the funniest label warnings I once read was on a bottle of Jane's baby lotion. In bold print it said "Keep away from Children". Haha Good luck selling that to babies with that kind of warning. Every hairdryer sold today warns not to use it in the shower. If you get a bottle of sleeping pills from your bathroom it probably says "May Cause Drowsiness" on the label. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh How stupid do they think we are?

I say, put the product in an easy to open and close paper bag and don't print anything except the name, ingredients and price. The rest I can figure out on my own. Oh, by the way...I am obliged to warn you that "This E mail may deaden the brain".

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Evolution of Electronic Language

I have been ranting about cell phones for years. It's no secret that I think they are one of the bigger impediments to civil behavior and basic politeness. They seem to be taking over most other forms of communication too. It used to be that when we communicated electronically it was via E mail. Well, E mail as a personal correspondence is on it's last legs. What replaced E mail is instant messaging. IM is still popular but I see it is dying too and being replaced by texting on the phone. Ugh! There is a pattern here that isn't a positive one.

The evolution is E mail to IM to texting. Hmmmmm I see patterns that are continuous in that evolution. Take, precision, for example. At each stage of the personal electronic communication evolution there is a decline from precise communication and a movement toward more informal language. E mail itself was just was semi formal communication. (I miss old fashioned snail mail). The E mail writer did not have immediate feedback, as is so in the case of the other two.

Therefore, when sending an E mail it was important to use at least some complete sentences, grammatical and syntax or the reader might be confused or not understand what was said. For awhile, we wrote E mails as we wrote snail letters, with care and precision as a guideline. That has changed as electronic communication has become even less formal. Even E mails now are lacking structure.

When Instant messaging and all its annoying cutsie icon symbols and abbreviations (the creator of "lol" should be publicly flogged!) became popular as a substitute fro E mail, E mail became less precise and since has lost much of its appeal to users. I think the writing skills of people today are at an all time low level now, and I blame the informality of modern electronic mediums for some of that. Formal language has been smothered by informal language, even in cases where formal language use is the only that is needed.

Instant messaging has the advantage of being instantaneous communication, and it has much lower levels of skill as a requirement when using. A person can cover his or her poor language ability by constant restatement on IM and by using that annoying IM slang that everyone understands. If I were teaching English now I would assign my students the task of writing the same message in each of the three forms I have described here, or at least in how we most typically see the message written in each of them. It might show the student (at least the ones capable of understanding the distinction in styles of all three) that, though informal language is easier to use and "more fun", sometimes (when precise understanding is desired) it is far from being the better mode to use. Perhaps one student might even decide to communicate with less informality and with more precision. But then, I am a dreamer....

The third electronic communication that has evolved and now become most popular is texting. I find very little of use in that, but confess to have never texted myself and to having never owned a cell phone. Of that I am proud! I haven't drunk the poison. Texting is the equivalent of babbling because the majority of it is unintelligible and un necessary. Those who most like to text also most like to hear themselves talk. They are on auto pilot, texting but signifying nothing of importance (yes, tweeting).

It's sad to see the written language assaulted by these new lazy mediums of communication. Every tweet is another nail in the casket of communication......