8 Ways to Count to 8!

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3. 🂣

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5. V

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8. ㊇

Why are we such suckers for these kinds of stories?

Headlines like "7 Ways to Lose Weight While Eating Doughnuts!" and "5 Things You Should Never Put in Your Pants!" are click magnets, but why? BuzzFeed, Mental Floss, Sharecare, and especially Cracked are masters of the form. It's always 4 of this, 17 of that, 9 of the other. I fall for this stuff as much as anyone. What am I, Count von Count?

"10 Vonderful Facts about Johnny Bravo!
Ah ah ah!" (boom)

Thinking about it, I came up with 3 Reasons Why I Fall for Numbered Data Stories!:

1. I have an idea how long it will be. I am a busy enough guy that my time to spend with trivia articles is short; if you tell me it's an article about 7 Iconic Cookies and How They Originated I know not only that the article is limited in scope but also I have an idea right up front how long it will take to read.

2. Lists are manageable. We like lists. They make things neat, and we all aspire to some kind of neatness, even if we are incapable of it in our own lives. Take a subject that's inherently sloppy (like Reasons We Can't Solve World Hunger), and stick a number in front of it (5 Reasons We Can't Solve World Hunger) and everything seems more manageable, even if it's still hard. Now, if we can just fix these 5 Reasons....

3. No writer mission creep. These days you start an article entitled "Why Does Your Dog Like Belly Rubs?" and ten paragraphs in the writer has morphed it into a disquisition on the evils of corporation-made pet foods and THAT DAMNED CHEETO TRUMP. While this could still happen in something like "12 Great Cincinnati Street Names" it's unlikely, as each item is self-contained and less likely to flow into polemic diarrhea. The internal breaks keep it brisk and on point.

I have to say, children, that the numbered story is not just an Internet thing. In the 1990s I was working at a dead-tree consumer magazine whose editor in chief was a big proponent of catchy coverlines, and particularly liked to tease readers with a number. Running a line like "7 Ways to Lose 10 Pounds by Summer!" on the cover would be her ideal. Except that she really loved "that big fat 8"; it was a numeral she found to be eye-catching and maybe soothing. She would send the story back to the editor to have her and the writer squeeze out 1 More Way to Lose 10 Pounds.

The magazine did fine while she was at the helm. Not since, though.

Better 8 than never.

Back to obedience school time.

Oh, come on, PetSmart.

First of all, it is July 15, and as you may know I am very much against premature back-to-schoolism. I understand that there are multiple issues at play here. In many places students have been running amok since May. But in New York the kids were slogging it out until two weeks ago. Do we really have to start rubbing it their faces now?

For national companies like PetSmart, Walmart, and even those that cover large regions like Shoprite, somewhere within their bailiwick students are going back in about a month, so let's get Mom and Dad thinking about the school supply specials. Which is still, to the child within me, mean. I don't care if you start school August 8; you should be allowed a carefree July. It will not happen again for most of us until we're too old to enjoy it anyway.

But as I say, in New York the kids just got out, and won't be going back for a month and a half. Is it too much to ask to wait two more weeks to roll out the back-to-school things?

And yet that too is only part of the issue here, because this is PetSmart. The things in the photo are dog toys. Are the dogs going back to school? I do not think so. Not unless obedience class happens to start soon, or the dog is an assistance dog accompanying a human student to school.

Dogs and cats don't know that it's (soon to be) back-to-school time. I know that they don't know that it's Christmas or Halloween or any of the other events for which companies supply seasonal toys for them either, but we get them these things as a way for them to have fun along with us at holidays. "Everybody gets a treat at Halloween, even Sophie McMophie!" Are we really so desperate to pretend to our kids that returning to education is fun that we have to make the pets into unindicted co-conspirators? Are we so bored that we have to turn the buying of crayons and notebooks into a national holiday, a holiday whose date we can't even agree to?

It's all pretty stupid, and I will not be part of it. Although when a bunch of these toys turn up in the discount bin when the Halloween stuff arrives I will be willing to buy them cheap for Destructo Pup, who still treats his toys cavalierly to say the least. He doesn't care if they're out of season, even though they won't be, because PetSmart celebrates Halloween in July. Seriously, it's the only store I know that has seasonal clearances before the actual holiday occurs.

What's in a (brand) name?

Somehow I came into possession a coupon for a new cereal, which I decided to try, inasmuch as even if it was terrible, I could probably get a blog entry out of it. Plus, it would have sugar, so it could only be so bad. And lo, here it was!

Strawberry Toast Crunch by General Mills, part of what they are calling their "Toast Crunch family." But wait! This looks nothing at all like the granddaddy Toast Crunch, Cinnamon Toast Crunch. That cereal is flat and has wacky cannibalistic mascots.

This Strawberry Toast Crunch cereal looks like little pieces of toast.... Familiar somehow....

Hey! Wait just one cinnamon-toasted second, here!

It reminded me an awful lot of Tiny Toast, a cereal I reviewed favorably in this blog a little more than a year ago. Tiny Toast, in strawberry and blueberry flavors, was the first new General Mills cereal in 15 years. And this Strawberry Toast Crunch stuff is clearly just strawberry Tiny Toast with a new name!

How could I have been so BLIND?

Some determined detective work on Google requiring all of 0.77 seconds told me that what I suspected was true. Ad Age reports that General Mills rebranded the Tiny Toast cereals as ___ Toast Crunch. It seems that while sales of Cinnamon Toast Crunch are pretty robust, the same has not been true for Tiny Toast ($370.3 million in 1 year vs. $13.3 million for Tiny Toast since its introduction).

On the other hand, since its initial launch, GM (Mills, that is) has treated the wee toasties like redheaded stepchildren:

Spending on Tiny Toast appeared to live up to the product's name, with media spending of roughly $133,900 last year, according to data from Kantar Media. Meanwhile, General Mills spent about $36.4 million on Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

What happened to, you gotta spend money to make money?

To be fair, I did not do my bit to support Tiny Toast in its original incarnation despite liking it. Regular readers of this blog -- hi! -- will have the impression that I breakfast every day by chewing on a five-pound sack of Domino sugar, but it's not true. Store brand sugar is okay too. Furthermore, most of the time I don't eat comically sugared cereal for breakfast, but those are fun to try and write about. Cornflakes and Cheerios are not as inspiring.

Plus, with cornflakes and Cheerios you seldom get a lump of sugar and whatnot in your bowl, as I did here.

Well, never mind about that. Basically I was not willing to spend five bucks or so on a small box of cereal, which is what Tiny Toast was going for initially; someone in pricing screwed the pooch, I think. Seems like G.Mills has simply rebranded the cereal to try to get a free bump by tagging it to their popular Cinnamon Toast Crunch, even though the cereals are not similar. Really, from flavor to consistency in milk they are quite different.

It's your money, General Mills, but if you don't treat the little toast with respect it will not move. And get the pricing in order. Currently Strawberry Toast Crunch is going for three bucks at Target; stay on track that way and you'll move the merch, whatever name you give it.

I think it's all a shame, in that the Tiny Toast name was cute. But in Cereal Town, cuteness is not enough. Don't ask what Tony did with Katy, Elmo, and Newt, the other three mascots for Frosted Flakes. Or for that matter what became of the baker characters for Cinnamon Toast Crunch. (Hint: Those squares ARE crazy....)

Y'know, the thing about a square, he's got lifeless eyes,
black eyes, like a doll's eyes.

Rah.

Disease trees.

Can one of you please tell me what the heckin' heck this is?

A big halo of leaves on this tree have turned partially brown on the south side, and I have no idea why. It's a well-established tree of at least 17 years' standing. I've tried to get the answer from Google, but all I see is leaf scorch. Believe me, we have not have drought conditions. You could pick up the town and wring it, we've had so much rain. Maybe some kind of disease?

I don't know -- I don't even know what kind of tree it is. As longtime readers know, despite my Cub Scout experience in the urban elementary school I attended, I never learned real Scout stuff. Pinewood derby and macrame are what I remember, and I may be wrong about the macrame. I never earned the tree identification badge. Or would have if there were such a thing. And there's no tree surgery or naturopathy or tree disease treatment badge, either.

What bothers me is that the idiot next door cut off most of the limbs of one of his trees, leaving essentially a large stick in the ground. Did it have some kind of disease? I don't know; he's too stupid to tell me. The stick is sprouting leaves again, so it may turn back into a real tree in 30 or 40 years. I hope if it was a disease it's not anymore contagious than idiocy is.

I'm not stupid, just ignorant. So if you know anything about trees, please drop me a line in comments or write me at frederick_key at yahoo dot com. Help save my tree!

Dog food.

Ten things my puppy likes to eat in ascending order of preference.

10. Actual dog food

9. Things people throw out of car windows

8. Leash

7. Grass

6. Anything the other dog is eating

5. Anything the humans are eating

4. Toys

3. Neaker pisketti!

2. Papa's hands

1. Papa's feet

Another fine Mets.

It's that time of year again -- the All-Star Break, when we all pretty much ignore the All-Star Game and watch the Mets sink into the morass of hopelessness once again. 

The only reason the Mets' record isn't much worse than 39-47 is that the National League East is so weak. The NL East's collective record is 203-232 as of this morning. It's why Washington trumpets into the postseason and then gets hammered  -- they've been getting fat on bad teams.

The injury bug has not just bitten the Mets this year, it's sucked them dry. To give you an idea how bad it is, there is only one member of the Mets going to the All-Star Game, Michael Conforto -- and he just came off the DL, so we may not see him play. And if he does, maybe he'll get hurt again!

All those hotshot Mets pitchers, the most feared lineup in baseball? Syndergaard, Harvey, Wheeler, deGrom, Gsellman, Matz? All hurt or just back from being hurt. Other guys who have been brutalized this season already include Lagares, Walker, Smoker, Nimmo, Flores, Duda, Lugo, d'Arnaud, Milone, Cabrera, closer Jeurys Familia, star Yoenis Cespedes, and fan fave David Wright (yet to get one at-bat this year, who played just 75 games...in all of 2015 and 2016 combined).

I've seen seasons where the team has had a lot of injuries, but this is insane. Maybe if it were the 1347 Yorke Mettes, and the lineup was devastated by the bubonic plague, it would be understandable.

It makes me wonder if we should trade for a new training staff. Seriously, what are these trainers and coaches doing, rubbing dirt on everything?

"His bone's sticking out of his forearm." 

"Have him go another couple innings; the bullpen's exhausted."

This is not the first time the Mets medical staff has been questioned. When first baseman Ike Davis suffered a rolled ankle in a collision in 2011, that was it for the season -- he's never been quite the same since. The Cubs' Kris Bryant had a similar injury a few weeks ago and he's day-to-day now, not laid up until 2018. Was Ike hurt worse or did his medical care consist of leeches and mustard plasters?

When riding subways or driving around the New York Metro area, you often see posters for hospitals and special care centers. They might feature a picture of a well-known member of a team, with a tag like, "When the New York Bagelchompers need the finest healthcare to keep their players in top condition, they go to the Manhattan Mormon Medical Center." If I were the hospital that looks after the Mets, I would rip the posters down, fast.