Next to each other on the shelf at Safeway this afternoon
Top: “Now 15% More!” Weighing in at 14 Oz. for $2.99
Bottom: “Classic Vanilla” Weighing in at 16 Oz for $2.99
To be fair you get a 15% bigger container to throw away.
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He thought he kept the universe alone;
For all the voice in answer he could wake
Was but the mocking echo of his own
From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake.
Some morning from the boulder-broken beach
He would cry out on life, that what it wants
Is not its own love back in copy speech,
But counter-love, original response.
And nothing ever came of what he cried
Unless it was the embodiment that crashed
In the cliff’s talus on the other side,
And then in the far distant water splashed,
But after a time allowed for it to swim,
Instead of proving human when it neared
And someone else additional to him,
As a great buck it powerfully appeared,
Pushing the crumpled water up ahead,
And landed pouring like a waterfall,
And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,
And forced the underbrush–and that was all.
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Dark shawled within the skies,
Upon our eyes will Starfish dance
Their waltz of Blind surprise.
The sun will Rise within wine Dark
As Argonauts imbibed,
Whose drunken arms embrace that sleep
Where Phaeton’s horses Stride.
Upon all of Earth’s wind-sanded shores,
As dolphins Learn to soar,
All we once were on the land
Shall be sealed behind the door
Of Ivory and Chastened Gold,
That the Mystery solved complete
Shall never til the seas’ Long fall
Wake mariners from their sleep.
— Van der Leun
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
Gerard Van der Leun
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I ought to comment on a material property known as “density”, but I’m more interested in reading the commentary this post will evoke from your proletariat following.
Maybe it’s a warning label…”Now 15% More Expensive!”
I’m not gonna do the math.
Wow! I just saved $2.99. That stuff is mainly sugar and grease, not part of a healthy breakfast. I’ll spend the money on beer, once called “the runner’s most perfect beverage.” And great for breakfast, especially with leftover pizza.
Hmmmm…they also look suspiciously like soup cans. Chicken whipped cream, anyone?
edaddy-
I could provide a learning moment for you about mass vs volume (and about making dense statements), but I won’t.
Edaddy thinks I am a plebeian?
Whoops. I meant we. The collective.
10X and milk and vanilla
hit it with the wisk on the mixer and set your tastebuds on high
don’t need no can full of chemicals
TJ obviously belongs to the bourgeoisie. He probably also owns a gun. That means he hates women, gay people, black people, peoplekind and … kittens!
I absolutely LOVE kittens. My kitty absolutely loves me, too. Kitten videos, OMG!? TJ is evil and should go to prison for, like, everrr because I think he hates kittens.
We’ve created a dynasty for our 5 cats. Though they are all gurlz they live like kings, deservedly.
Driving around ruralville way back when I observed that almost nobody has a screened in porch on their house. Lot’s of open decks, but with the plethora of insects in the summertime, most of them are vacant, thus the need for screened enclosures. But nobody thinks that far ahead I guess. Our house was no exception so within a year I built, with my own hands, and 28′ long, 2 story, screened in porch for our cats as they love to sit out there and observe the wildlife and the sun.
I’m from Florida and it is the rare home that does not have at least 1 screened in porch. A porchless house simply will not sell in the marketplace. They are mandatory for the insects will consume you. Here in ruralville not only are screened in porches extremely rare the materials for creating them are rare also. When building ours I found out that 20/20 screen material (20 squares per inch each direction) were just not available at any cost. Larger screening was available but the holes were so large entire fleets of insects could come inside toting their luggage. So I ordered what I needed from Florida and paid huge shipping costs because of the size. I needed 8′ wide material to do what I wanted. So the chore got done, 10+ years ago, and each evening in the weather appropriate days my wife and I sit out there on that west facing porch and sip our wine/mud/suds and watch the sunset and converse, with our 5 cats and 1 dog lounging about, as it should be.
Gerard, why are you hanging out in the frosting aisle? You know it’s Lent, right?
This is easy, it’s just “New Math.”
It’s simple: One pound (16 oz.) for $2.99; or get 15% more for the same price. Now 15% of 16 oz. is 2.4 oz. so carry the 3 and divide. See how simple that is? Or, you can get 14 oz., which is 2 oz. less than the one pound, for the even cheaper price of $2.99, but then you’ll miss out on getting that 15% extra! That was pretty obvious, but after kindergarten it does get more complex; you just have to remember, the string goes on the longest finger. Then Bob’s your uncle!
Why, any teacher of Common Core could do this. Just ask ’em! It’s the same exact math as used by Government Departments everywhere, particularly the I.R.S!
A couple of decades ago someone in a food lab noticed that if you whipped some air into stiff, hard-to-spread things like frosting and cream cheese, it was easier to spread. It didn’t tear up the cake or the bagel. Then it went to focus groups where they tested different densities, to find the ones consumers like the most. Finally, they paid companies to have someone stand in the store, spreading the stuff on something, to demonstrate how easy it was. Printed coupons were handed out with the samples, offering 40 cents off that $2.99 price.
They also found out they could charge the same price, and in some cases a higher price, for less product (by weight). Win win all around!
You would not believe how much money is being spent these days to find new variations on the snack bars (Lara, Clif, Nature Valley, Quaker). Do people want three squiggles of chocolate on top, or two? The lesser make folks feel virtuous, and if one is liberal in political outlook, virtuous in one area allows you to cheat in other areas, without guilt. We all knew this, or had observed it, but it’s Science! now. Snack bars are a big, big category that didn’t exist in 1974. Have you eaten a Clif bar? They are dense and bursting with healthiness. After you eat one, you reach for another, because that wasn’t very much. And then you stop, because that one little bar is sitting in your tummy like a chunk of lead, and you really don’t want to eat anything else. Thus, it’s slimming.
Hershey does that, makes a bar twice as big as the others cause it’s pumped full of air, and they charge twice as much. It had been years since I ate Hersheys anything and recently I ate a standard bar and the bitch was completely flavorless. WTF? Tasted like soft chewable plastic. How do they keep selling those things?
Clif Bars. Tried one of those expensive things recently too. Never again. Was like eating ground up cardboard that had been mixed with elmers glue. And yes, it felt like I ate a spare tire, for the rest of the day. Never again.
Inflation, the real one we all see everyday – not the fake one which is much lower that the gov’t puts out, is causing food manufacturers to up with clever ways to prevent you from realizing you are getting less and paying more.