Who says you can't find good help?

 

Boxed in.

My wife loves online shopping.

A lot of guys get dragged out to the stores with their wives, but that seldom happens to me, because she loves online shopping. She's also good at it. She can turn a keen eye toward hundreds of posted reviews and separate the useful ones ("This product works as advertised, and is priced appropriately") from the useless ones ("You should buy JOE'S THING instead!" -- notjoe1; "THis IS stuppid a nd shuld'nt be used and i demandd my mony back an they sed no becaus i shoplifted it"). 

The convenience of shopping online is unbeatable, and she's a whiz at getting free shipping. Returns are a pain, of course, but it doesn't often happen. The only real downside: I'm drowning in cardboard. 

Not a picture of my cellar, but it could be

Our trash goes out through the cellar to the garage, so when she gets a new purchase, she flings the box down the cellar stairs. This serves the dual purpose of getting it out of her hair and getting it away from baby dog Izzy, who chews cardboard and paper into bits like it's the best thing ever. (We let him have some sometimes, because it's the world's cheapest toy, but the bits are hard to pick up and, coated with dog saliva, can be virtually glued to the floor.) 

What happens is, I resolve to get rid of the boxes on recycling day, but am faced with a decision for every single box:

❐ This box is bad and technically I should break it up and tie it for recycling, but everyone throws garbage into the recycling collection anyway, like my neighbor who through half a bottle of Thousand Island dressing into his last week, and I know it all goes in the landfill, so why do I even bother?

❐ This box is good and maybe I should save it because we want to move and get away from these lousy neighbors, and boxes are expensive, but God knows when that will be, and even if the box is too small for moving it will be useful to ship Christmas presents in December.

❐ This box is not worth keeping but it's full of Styrofoam peanuts/shredded paper/Bubble Wrap and I'd have to find something to do with that, and those peanuts get everywhere and it looks like it's been snowing in the cellar.

What I wind up doing is taking an empty box, filling it with scrap paper from the recycling bin, and carefully put it out with the recycling so it can go in the landfill (while the town follows the state law that requires "recycling"). 

As you can guess, I am dead certain this kabuki recycling theater is another reason people don't trust institutions these days. They lie to us, spend our money, and nothing works the way it's supposed to. Meanwhile, I'm about ready to demand to take my wife shopping, just to avoid any more boxes piling up. Let me get rid of the ones we have first, honey! 

Fizz.

I wrote last April about Coca-Cola's weird Starlight Coke, which was like cotton candy cola. Now I have an equally bizarre item from the competition, Pepsi. I give you Nitro Pepsi. 

Available in vanilla (shown) and
non-vanilla

I thought that this was another product with amped-up caffeine, like Coca-Cola Energy or Diet Coke XTRA (they leave off the E for Energy!). But no, nitro is referring to actual nitrogen, or as the label says, it is "nitrogen-infused cola." So I thought I'd see what it was about.

I should have read the back of the label. I didn't know there were instructions!

You see, there's a second lid beneath the lid of this soda, and popping it open seems to nitrogenate the soda, making for a thick head of tiny bubbles. You pour it into a glass, and you get a very rich, foamy consistency in your otherwise typical Pepsi. Or, like me, you drink out of the can and get a mouthful of bubbles and wonder what the cryin' hell this is supposed to be, because you didn't look at the can for instructions. I'd never seen a can of soda with instructions, but I have now. 

It should have been obvious to me, though, because I believe these are the same cans that Guinness used when they started selling their famous stout in cans. They'd invented of means of simulating that rich stout foam from the tap in your very home, and it was abundantly clever. It looks like Pepsi is in on the game. 

So my review: If you like the taste of Pepsi, you may find this an enjoyable experience. But I don't suppose there will be a Diet Pepsi Nitro; I think you need the sugars in order to help generate the foam. Nitro Pepsi actually has more calories and it does have more caffeine than a regular 12-ounce can of Pepsi -- a 12-oz can of Pepsi has 150 calories and 38 mg of caffeine; a 13.65-oz can of Nitro Pepsi has 230 calories and 73 mg of caffeine. Budget accordingly. 

Ancient tech.

I was cleaning out my office on Saturday, and I came across this relic of an ancient civilization.

Ah, the old flip phone. I'm not sure when my wife finally had enough and demanded we get smartphones, but I know I was using this Samsung as late as 2013. I think it was after a trip out of state in which we were going to a wedding, and I forgot my digital camera. I bought a disposable digital camera, but I inadvertently got one without a flash. So all the pictures from the reception were deep brown; it looked like it was being held in a sewer rather than a lovely hall. The Samsung flip phone did get a few shots, but not all that great. 

Regardless, that wasn't the reason my wife pressured me into agreeing to get smartphones for us soon after. The reason was that the suits upstairs at her workplace were eliminating the company-issued Blackberrys and were going to insist employees instead use apps on their personal phones. So we got iPhones and joined the 21st century. 

One reason for my reluctance is that, six years into the smartphone era, it was already plain that those little handhelds were more addictive than even the Crackberry had been. People of weak character couldn't seem to put them down. So I knew it would happen to me. 

In related news, we may be on the brink of a much larger technological upheaval. Guess who is being born today! 

Is this true? I mean, not does The Jetsons paint an accurate picture of the near future, but was George Jetson supposed to be born on July 31, 2022? For help I turned to that prestigious scientific journal, People magazine: 

In a tweet on Thursday, fan Brendan Kergin shared a chart from the character's online fan page, which includes George's basic information, such as his dad's name Montague, his wife's name Jane and his catchphrase: "Jane! Stop this crazy thing!"

But, most importantly, Kergin highlighted George's birthday — which is said to be July 31, 2022.

The article goes on to explain that the show, which debuted in 1962, was supposed to take place in the far-flung world a century ahead, so 2062. George's age in the first season was established as 40, so the year is correct. The actual birthdate is subject to conjecture, as far as I and People know. 

Of course, the real shock is that we are six-tenths of the way to the date of the show. I don't mind not having the flying cars, but I really would like the conveyor belt that got George clean, shaved, and dressed in under a minute. 

Also, as readers know, my elder dog is called Tralfaz, after Astro's original name on the show. I'd better not find Baby Jetson coming around here trying to swipe my dog, is all I'm saying. Or his dad, Montague. Or his boy, Elroy.

Counting crows.

So, the crows are back in town. 

I haven't missed them much. Their CAW always sounds like an accusation from an angry ex. They're not ugly birds, and black goes with everything, plus I admire their interest in getting to the high ground however tall a structure may be. 

Of course, they do like to go after the garbage, when people are too foolish to get cans with lids. 

"MMmmm!"

I mean, we're not foiling raccoons or bears here. A lid is all it takes to stop the crows. 

Anyway, I didn't realize that they were gone until they came back. That is to say, last summer was so wet that the crows never seemed to show up, not even in the fall when they are most active in these parts. I understand from certain crowologists that heavy rains discourage crows, and we sure had a lot of that in 2021. The grass had to be cut weekly. Now? My lawn hasn't been cut all month and even the weeds look exhausted. This may be ideal crow summer weather. 

One morning this week the boys and I went outside and on the front lawn it looked like we had some crow-on-crow violence. Or perhaps the local fox caught one and devoured it on the spot. 

Just black feathers hither and yon. As for the bird, well, nevermore.

Of course, my dogs were fascinated by the remains. They kept sniffing around, me trying to discourage it. Avian cholera, mad cow disease, bird mites, all kinds of fun things can be carried by those doity boids. I'd prefer to admire them from afar. 

If I'm trying to sleep, actually, I'd rather not admire them at all. I do not have any ex-wives around, but if I did, I imagine they would sound just like that. 

And now, another moment with Igor.

 

This has been another moment with Igor.

(Sorry for two Igors in one week, but it's been a lousy and very busy one, and I'm feeling like Igor is my spiritual twin at the moment.)

CBD!

I'm seeing places that promote CBD everywhere in New York these days. CBD apparently can cure every single problem you might have. Neuralgia, sinus trouble, lumbago, chilblains, Igor's hump, macular degeneration, inflammation, handmaid's knee, you name it, this modern medical miracle does everything but the dishes. So why is it usually promoted in storefronts where burnouts and vapers hang around?

For the record, a friend of mine was told to try CBD (cannabidiol) for tinnitus. He'd tried everything else. Once when drunk he'd even tried putting a screwdriver in his ear. So now that he doesn't drink anymore, he was a little nervous about taking something that came from marijuana. He was assured that it wouldn't get him stoned. He was also concerned that it would make him look stoned on a pee test -- he was driving a school bus part-time. 

Well, none of the three happened -- he didn't get stoned, he didn't give a dirty urine, and CBD did nothing for his tinnitus. 

Since CBD is advertised all over the place, over the 'Net, in magazines, and so on, I hope people going to it for relief have found what they wanted, but I'm pretty certain it's been oversold. Harvard is pretty skeptical about it. So is the FDA. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration has only approved a small number of drugs that use marijuana in any way:   

• Epidiolex, which contains a purified form of CBD derived from cannabis, was approved for the treatment of seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome or Dravet syndrome, two rare and severe forms of epilepsy.
• Marinol and Syndros, which contain dronabinol (synthetic THC), and Cesamet, which contains nabilone (a synthetic substance similar to THC), are approved by the FDA. Dronabinol and nabilone are used to treat nausea and vomiting caused by cancer chemotherapy. Dronabinol is also used to treat loss of appetite and weight loss in people with HIV/AIDS.

I always thought that medical marijuana was just a stalking horse to promote the legalization of marijuana, and I think time has proved me right. After all, if THC -- the fun ingredient -- was so helpful for glaucoma and whatnot, why not have a pill form that could be dispensed by prescription? But no, the fight was always about letting Grandma take a bong hit for her chemo nausea because reasons. And the reasons were, people wanted to get stoned, and the state wanted us to be able to sedate ourselves while taking a big fat cut. Of course, it hasn't worked out that way. Freelance (shall we say) marijuana sellers can undercut the government by a large amount, and states like California are not seeing nearly the tax revenues they expected. Meanwhile, the government has put its stamp of approval on pot, like it does on booze, and more people are using both.

Who could have foreseen all that, except anyone?

In my wayward youth I was pretty much just a drinker, and that was bad enough, but I wanted to use it to have fun on the go or pound beer with my pals while conversing into the night. I didn't want to sit around and stare at lava lamps. But to each his own, I guess. 

Still, I'm not a fan, and I'm not happy to see even more burnouts around in the kids than we had when I was in high school, and we had a lot of burnouts in my high school. It just seems to make people into wasteoids (another term of art in my youth) at an earlier age. Plus, in my large and overcrowded city high school, not one kid died from drugs in the four years I was there; now it's a common tragedy. 

What things have changed since 1999?