Timeless timer

From way back when I was a kid (think no television, 17-cent gasoline) I can remember the wind-up kitchen timer that Mom used, a Minute Minder. It was so neat because the knob you turned to set it was shaped like a rocket ship! Wow! On a kitchen timer!

After the initial excitement passed, I started to wonder about the knob's shape. A rocket? That seems kind of weird. Does it imply speed? Fast cooking without a microwave? Its hot exhaust turns your kitchen range into a convection oven? Just about the only real rockets in those days were the V-2s the Nazis shot at the Brits. That's a pretty scary thing to put on a kitchen timer! Of course there were the fictional rockets of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. But comparing a cooking aid to a bunch of adventurous space jockeys doesn't make too much sense, either.

I still haven't figured it out. Regardless, what's most remarkable is that the Minute Minder is still to be found in stores! With the same rocket-shaped knob, the same clunky mechanical tic-toc-tic-toc sound and the single one-quarter-note-off-key DING when your time is up. Amazing.

Amazing box of gloves!

Even though the gloves in this box seem to be stuffed in willy-nilly, they are actually packed in the exact order you need. For example, I need a right-hand glove. I reach in and pull any glove at random, and guess what? It's a right-hand glove! This happens every time, and works for left-hand gloves, too. I have even tried to fool the system by not deciding which glove I needed until I pulled it from the box, and it still worked!

From the Funny Pages…

Dying in a fatality is a killer. Even for males.

There is a local twice-weekly newspaper that has some pretty amusing headlines (and articles, for that matter) that are begging to be shared. Here's the first.

Shake well before using

On the whipped cream can it says, "Shake well before using." Since the party was on Thursday and I bought the can on Monday, I shook it up, well before using. On Thursday I was disappointed when the cream came out in a limp gooey stream, not whipped at all. Next time I'll buy it and shake it a whole week before using.

Baby steps

The first thing you do when you have a brand new blog is put something on the page. Then you follow up with more if you happen to think of more. I certainly hope to have more as time goes on. Let's start off with some of the important people I know. This isn't name-dropping or bragging in any way, but it may put you in a mind to pay attention to what I have to say later. Here's the first important person whom I know (well not actually know, but know about through someone I actually do know—I guess that counts).

Not to brag, but I know a guy who knows the guy who invented the clip on the plug that snaps it to the power cord (see photo). His name is Gary. Not the guy, but the guy who knows the guy. I've forgotten the other guy's name and am not exactly sure if I ever actually knew it in the first place.