spring is just around the corner
Almost halfway thru January, February is a short month, then March …
it’s like only 20 minutes (as per Jerry Seinfeld’s calculations)
click on link below to see how much longer….
Jan12
Jan11
aisle of shame.
The “Aisle of Shame” is the unofficial name Aldi enthusiasts have given the store’s middle aisle, home to a weekly rotation of curious edible and non-edible products available only while supplies last. We’re talking everything from vegan lasagna made from lentils to a churro maker and apple cinnamon latte-flavored dog biscuits. The recipe for the Aisle of Shame’s surprising cult status combines the joy of a bargain, the thrill of discovery, the allure of the unusual, and the satisfaction of snapping up a limited-time offer.
“It’s something that you can use to express yourself and add fun and joy to your grocery shopping,” says enthusiastic shopper Brenna Bazemore of its odd assortment of products. “I hate grocery shopping, but I love to go to Aldi and shop, because I know I’m at least going to get something that I can use outside of food and that’s always exciting to me.”
Plus, she can share her excitement with a million other AOS fans in the Facebook group where members share more than recipes, reviews, and Insta-worthy pics. With an evolving lingo, hashtag trends, and a propensity for random acts of kindness, the Aisle of Shame community is a unique food culture inspired by a grocery store. The Aisle of Shame’s edible advent calendars contain beer, cheese, and more. “It started as a fan group and it has become so much more,” writes Stefanie Fleming, the creator of the Aisle of Shame website and Facebook group.
While each week’s AOS items can often seem like a compilation of randomness, a method exists. Since Aldi keeps prices low by stocking about 1,400 products (mostly staples) compared to a conventional grocery store’s 40,000, the AOS introduces more excitement and variety for shoppers. The aisle, which each week is split 50-50 between edible and non-edible items, often has a theme, whether seasonal (pumpkin foods in the fall; pool products in the summer) or regional (many AOS enthusiasts plan meals of schnitzel, spätzle, and strudel around the aisle’s German Week). Nils Brandes, a retail consultant who has co-written a book on Aldi’s business strategies, estimates that 20 percent of all yearly sales come from these products.
The Aisle of Shame is also where the grocers test new products to gauge their popularity—the vegetarian and vegan Earth Grown and gluten-free LiveGfree product lines, for instance, advanced from the AOS to the main aisles. “It’s crazy to think this is a grocery-store community,” Bazemore says.
After some thought, McKillip observes that Aldi shoppers might be more down-to-earth, their need to make a dollar stretch giving them both a healthier perspective about the products and more joy when they have room in their carts and budgets for the AOS’s more quirky products. Ultimately, though, she offers a simpler explanation: “It’s fun.”
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“you’ve got bad eating habits if you use a grocery cart in 7-eleven.”
-dennis miller
Jan10
here we go.
i just love everything
about this 1955 michigan tourism poster
according to the map
it looks like ann arbor
is the place where you can dance.
—
“you live as long as you dance.”
-rudolf nureyev
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poster source: michigan heritage and history
Jan9
bubbles….
someone, (not me) celebrating by bubble-bathing
—
last night
i once again celebrated one of my favorite holidays
national bubblebath day
actually i celebrate this most every day
i’m a huge fan of baths, less so of showers
often so relaxing that i fall asleep in the bath
if ever my post doesn’t show up one morning
you’ll know what has happened to me.
what about you? are you team bath or team shower?
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national bubble bath day:
Few things are as soothing and relaxing as a bubble bath. This is especially true if the bather decides to take their bubble bath to the next level using scented bath oils. Because bubbles form an insulating layer on top of the water, bubble baths also tend to stay warmer longer than ordinary baths. With that said, it’s National Bubble Bath Day, which celebrates the joys of these baths.
history of the bubble bath:
Although soap is a substance used since ancient times, it was very different from today’s soap. Baths were important to the Greeks and Romans, but most of the time oil, not soap, was used to dissolve dirt and grime on the skin. Sometimes this oil would be mixed with fire ashes, which creates a primitive soap that dissolves dirt and oils.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe entered the Dark Ages and bathing fell out of fashion. That’s because suspicion and myths arose around the act of bathing, and many households only had access to primitive soaps. As bathing declined, the public became more prone to various diseases and plagues which continued until the Renaissance.
During the Renaissance, scented bath oils became extremely popular, but they were only enjoyed by the aristocracy and they didn’t produce a whole lot of bubbles. Fortunately, during this time, bathing also increased among the lower classes. However, the types of soaps used by the upper and the lower classes differed greatly. While the upper classes enjoyed high-quality scented soaps made from olive oils, the lower class had to be content with lye-based soaps made from rendered animal fats.
Bubble baths as we would know them today started with the invention of soap flakes—which was around the turn of the 20th century. By the 1930s, bubble baths were a widespread practice and the practice continued to increase in popularity from the 1940s on. Today, a variety of bubble baths are produced and enjoyed by people all over the world.
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“you can often wash your troubles away with the right kind of bath.
throw everything you have into the tub; bubble gels, bubble oils, bubble powders, bubble gum. “
-henry beard
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image credit: bored panda
Jan8
fry o’clock.
try to be on time
—
“maybe i shouldn’t have had breakfast at denny’s”
-jordan kent
Jan7
smoot.
The Smoot is a unit of length, defined as the height in 1958 of Oliver R. Smoot, who later became the Chairman of the American National Standard Institute (ANSI, and then the president of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The unit is used to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge. Originally in 1958 when Smoot was a Lambda Chi Alpha pledge at MIT (class of 1962), the bridge was measured to be 364.4 Smoots, plus or minus one ear, using Mr. Smoot himself as a ruler. At the time, Smoot was 5 feet, 7 inches, or 170cm tall. Google Earth and Calculator both include the smoot as a unit of measurement.
The Cambridge, Mass. police department adopted the convention of using Smoots to measure the locations of accidents and incidents on the bridge. When the original markings were removed or covered over during bridge maintenance, the police had to request that someone reapply the Smoot scale markings. During a major bridge rebuild, the concrete sidewalk was permanently divided into segments one Smoot in length, as opposed to the regular division of six feet.
i’d love to have measurement named after me –
how many ‘peaches’ equal the length of a subaru?
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“measure what can be measured, and make measurable what cannot be measured.”
-galileo galilei
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photo credits: MIT alum
Jan6
january 6th remembered.
memorial at u.s. capitol
—
“great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
-albert einstein
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photo credit: reuters, carlos barria
Jan5
his boots were made for blockin’
life is all about luck and timing
this story recently resurfaced and was too good not to share.
Cleveland Indians pitcher Kyle Denney won’t complain about having to dress like a cheerleader again. The white go-go boots that went with the outfit might have prevented a bullet from seriously injuring his leg.
The rookie was hit in the right calf by a shot that came through the side of the Indians’ bus in Kansas City as the team traveled to the airport after a victory over the Royals. The bullet caused only a flesh wound, probably because of the tough leather of the knee-high boot, Denney and his trainers said.
All of Cleveland’s rookies were decked out in outfits on the bus that weren’t their usual dress, part of a hazing ritual. An Oklahoma native, Denney said his teammates told him to dress as a USC cheerleader because the Sooners are ranked second behind Southern California in the Associated Press college football poll. “I’ve never been so glad to have a USC thing on.” Kevin Hallinan, senior vice president of security for the commissioner’s office, met with Kansas City police on Thursday regarding the shooting, which happened as the bus traveled along a highway ramp.
Hallinan said the shooting appeared to be random, and that police had no suspects. Team trainers removed the bullet from Denney’s leg while he was still on the bus, and he stayed overnight at a Kansas City hospital before rejoining his team.
“As soon as the skin heals, it should be fine,” Denney said at the news conference, where he wore a suit and walked without a noticeable limp. “The way he handled the situation was pretty awesome,” said outfielder Ryan Ludwick, who was sitting across the aisle from Denney and was grazed by debris. “Now I know the guy can pitch in the big leagues, ’cause he got shot by a bullet and was about as calm as can be.” Indians spokesman Bart Swain said there was momentary panic on the bus before teammates realized Denney was not seriously hurt, and Ludwick said that is when “a lot of jokes started flying.” Denney said he hopes the shooter realizes the consequences could have been much worse.”I thought it was just another prank, like a firecracker or something,” Denney said. “I didn’t know I was shot until I saw the blood.”
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“when you see someone putting on his big boots, you can be pretty sure an adventure is going to happen.”
-a.a. milne
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Credits: Washington Post, Andres Ybarra /AP -2004
Jan4
good words.
sometimes finding good words is a walk in the park.
—
“good words are worth much, and cost little.”
-george herbert
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gallup park in winter, ann arbor, mi, usa
Jan3
huh?
The word “huh” packs a lot of meaning into just one syllable. When we use it, we might be expressing confusion, asking for clarification, or requesting that a statement be repeated. We’re also communicating so concisely there’s hardly a break in the conversation, making “huh” the politest kind of interruption.
No wonder, then, that the word “huh” appears in multiple languages. In fact, according to a recent study in the journal PLOS ONE, linguists have found that the word is used to express confusion not only in related language families, but across multiple, independently developed languages. The researchers, who recently won an Ig Nobel Prize honoring their study, argued that “huh?” is so common it may actually be universal.
According to New York Magazine, the researchers studied conversational use of the word “huh” in 10 different languages, including English, Icelandic, Murrinh-Patha (from Australia), and Cha’palaa (from Ecuador). Though these languages don’t share an origin, they still employ “huh” in much the same way.
The researchers believe that the widespread use of the word “huh” is an example of convergent evolution. In each language, “huh” developed independently, but was shaped by similar environmental or linguistic pressures—for example, the need for a relatively polite way to signal confusion. According to the study, the word “fulfills a crucial need shared by all languages –the efficient signaling of problems of hearing and understanding.”
“Huh” is not an innate human sound, like a grunt or emotional cry, the researchers say. Rather, it’s learned, taught to children, and passed down linguistically from generation to generation. According to researchers, its universality is a result of its important conversational function. Most of us probably take the word “huh” for granted—or don’t even think of it as a word at all—but according to researchers, that’s exactly why it’s so important: It doesn’t draw attention to itself.
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“before I came here I was confused about this subject.
having listened to your lecture I am still confused. but on a higher level.”
-enrico fermi
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Source Credit: New York Magazine, Photo credit: Animal Channel
animal planet
I didn't have my glasses on.... 