RIP Old Friend

Floppy Disk, you lived a long an fruitful life. Born in 1969 at only 8 inches you shrank to 5.25 by 1976. Then in 1981 you shrank again to 3.5 inches. I remember thinking how incredibly cool and high-tech those 3.5 inch disks seemed with their little sliding metal window , write protect tab, and gargantuan 1.44 MB of storage. Now floppy, you're leaving us for good.

As with the 8-Track and the generation that actually used them, future generations will constantly ask us "You used floppy disks?" as they stare in amazement at how old we must be. It's alright, because someday, they're kids will be asking "You actually used flash drives? You must be old!"

Elbows and Knees

That's the last time I share my toys with a six year old. When I was a boy, action figures had no elbows or knees, and that's the way we liked it! If they had elbows, how would the light sabers retract, huh smarty pants? We didn't need any fancy articulated joints. No that isn't a Q-Tip painted yellow, its a replacement light saber. And please put IG-88 back into the spot clearly labeled "IG-88." Yes, my sister did bite the head off that one but don't worry, I'll get her back someday...

Weird

This is just strange.

Disgruntled Imagineers?

I guess even if your job is designing rides for Disneyland, you still have to deal with middle management sucking the life out of you. The Imagineers have an anonymous blog where they can complain. It's interesting to read their opinions about the changes over the years at Disneyland and Disneyworld. One guy sure hates the Dolphin and Swan resorts.

HFCS

Public enemy number one on our grocery list is High Fructose Corn Syrup. I believe that it is directly related to the obesity problem we have in this country today and try to avoid it like the plague. One of the most difficult things has been finding food that does not contain this ingredient. I did some searching and was surprised at some of the items that contain this ingredient:

• McDonald's Hamburger Buns
• Subway Wheat Bread (Jared didn't tell us!)
• Stove Top Stuffing
• Corn Flakes (They're Grrreat!)
• Heinz Ketchup
• Miracle Whip
• Robitussin (yes, the cough syrup)
• Ritz Crackers
• Yoplait Yogurt
• Mott's Applesauce
• Claussen Pickles (damn, I love those things)
• Baby Formula (get the hooked young)

So then I started wondering why all these companies would use HFCS instead of regular sugar. It turns out that in 1982, the government set a quota on how much foreign sugar could enter the US. This made sugar prices in the US artificially high and turned HFCS into an attractive alternative. In the rest of the world, sugar is actually cheaper than HFCS.

One last tidbit. Coke and Pepsi switched from sugar to HFCS in 1984. Many other products made the switch around the same time. Think about that timing compared with our current "childhood obesity epidemic". Check the ingredient list before you make a purchase and voice your opinion with your pocketbook.

Amazon-onomics

A piece of advice for any college student; skip the school bookstore and go online! I needed a copy of "Accounting: Concepts and Applications" for my latest MBA course and nearly choked at the $95.00 used price tag. So, I decided to try Amazon instead. I found it for $68.00, already a relative bargain. I also signed up as an Amazon associate which, earned me a $4.08 commission on the purchase. After completing the course, I was able to resell the book on Amazon for $45.00. Final cost to me: $18.92. The lesson, shop for textbooks online. This semester I was able to purchase $178.25 (school bookstore prices) in books on Amazon for $55.94. I don't think I'll be visiting the school bookstore anytime soon.

Christmas Light Season is Over

I've allowed you all a 9 day grace period but now it has to be said. If you still have your Christmas lights up, you must stop turning them on. There is nothing left to celebrate, please allow the rest of us to quietly sink into the cyclic post-holiday depression to which we've become accustomed. I know some of you won't get around to taking them down until June but, that's no excuse for not simply unplugging them. Any baby Jesus or plastic snowman still left outside at this point is fair game.

Your 4th Grade Teacher Warned You

If you grew up around the same time as I did, the metric system was a threat used to strike fear into the hearts of grammar school children everywhere. "You had better learn the metric system because we're switching some day!" We'd worry aloud about figuring out how much a liter of milk is or how far 3 kilometers is. Cursed to a life of always translating metric to English in our heads. Luckily it never panned out and life went on. Well, it looks like I should have listened because NASA is officially switching to the metric system. Can everything else be far behind? I'm not sure the tenth kilogrammer has the same cache as a quarter pounder.

Spook Country

William Gibson's new book Spook Country is up on Amazon. Unfortunately, it won't be available until August. Neuromancer, which I first read in high school, is still one of my favorite books.

Big

I don't know what this thing is but wow, it's big. I think I saw it parked on my neighbor's driveway once.

Supersize Me

Just a second while I climb back up onto the soapbox. Ah, the view is always much better from up here. Sue and I happened to catch Supersize Me on MSNBC the other night and it reminded me of why I buy local and organic whenever possible. Every time I start thinking longingly of a double cheeseburger, all I have to do is watch this movie and it puts me right back on the straight and narrow. If you haven't seen it, put it in your Netflix queue. I still crave the burger every once in a while but I feel a little twinge of guilt every time I give in. Oh, and thanks to Mr. Spurlock, I'll never touch a McNugget again.

Master of Accounting

Somewhere deep in the bowels of the university grade keeping system, there is a fatal flaw. I'm sure some day in the far future I'll receive a tersely worded letter from my alma-matter stating that the 'A' I received in Accounting 601 should have actually been a 'D' and, as a result, I have not completed the MBA program. I'll be fired from my CFO post at a major corporation and humiliated as I once again try to figure out if the cost of the wine I'll need to recover should be logged as a debit or a credit on the balance sheet of my life. Until that day arrives, in your face Management and Financial Accounting! I'm going to savor the 4.0 GPA while it lasts. Oh, and if your major corporation is looking for a new CFO, I know a guy...

Eat Local

LocalHarvest is a great web site for finding local family farms, markets and other sources of sustainably grown food. There's also some interesting information on the cost of shipping food all over the world. Growers receive, on average, only 18 cents for every dollar you spend at the grocery store. Buying locally means that you know how the food was grown, who grew it, and have helped the environment by reducing the amount of energy used to get the food to your home. Plus nothing tastes better than fresh produce.