My Sick Mind

OK, so I know you're tired of reading about my exploits at the supermarket, but I'm not tired of writing about them - and it's my blog - so deal with it. I was in there again tonight - as I am most nights, because it's a couple of blocks away - and I had a (canvas) bag full of stuff, as is my style. Among the stuff was some fresh chicken, rice and yogurt. Staples. Also present was a can of something called sizing spray. Most of you are familiar with spray starch, but there is also something called sizing spray that isn't quite as drastic as starch, yet still provides a straightening method without the stiffness of starch. I know, I'm a renegade. While the items were being moved along their conveyor, a woman began putting them in my provided canvas bag. Once she got to the sizing spray, she immediately reached for a (dreaded) plastic bag and placed the can of spray in a plastic bag to insert among the other items in the canvas bag. I didn't want a s...

I don't know. So, there's that Newton robot thing that IBM put together to compete on Jeopardy . It won, so I hear, beating famous brainiac Ken Jennings and another guy. Jeopardy is such a fraud of a game show that it's difficult for me to get very excited about a robot made up by a huge corporation to compete on a game show that is just giving it a half hour of free advertising. It is supposed to represent artificial intelligence, but I think that Jeopardy represents artificial intelligence, so whatever the robot is doing is still a couple of steps below that as far as I'm concerned. Meanwhile, I have this DVR thing on my cable that costs me 17 bucks a month. I finally figured out something useful to do with it. I record The Late Show with Craig Ferguson every night and watch it the next day, when normal humans are awake. He's a very funny fellow (even though he is from Scotland) and it's a nice way to end my day or night. Especially, since the biggest thin...

Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa invented the first loaf-at-a-time bread-slicing machine. A prototype he built in 1912 was destroyed in a fire and it was not until 1928 that Rohwedder had a fully working machine ready. The first commercial use of the machine was by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, which produced their first slices on July 6, 1928. Their product, "Kleen Maid Sliced Bread", proved a success. Battle Creek, Michigan has a competing claim as the first city to sell bread pre-sliced by Rohwedder's machine; however, historians have produced no documentation backing up Battle Creek's claim. The bread was advertised as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped." Even now, 83 years after the Chillicothe Baking Company introduced sliced bread, we still use the phrase, "It's the best thing since sliced bread." Some things have staying power, even though there is no reas...