Isle of Man

A friend of mine knew a guy from the Isle of Man. The isle is off the coast of Great Britain somewhere. I’ve never been to the Isle of Man. (Somebody’s gotta run this blog!) I’d like to go there and explore the Isle of Man caves. I’m guessing this is where the man cave concept originated…

But yeah, the Isle of Man man my friend knew (Man from Man?) apparently came here for a while but went back to the Isle of Man. Maybe he couldn’t blend in with normal society. He was a man among boys…

When I was in high school, our choir sang a song called “No Man is an Island”. Maybe some of you remember it. You don’t hear it any more. I think it failed the test of time. I bet some smart kid called out the choir director and asked, “What about the Isle of Man? That man is an island, or at least he has an island.” I bet the guy who wrote the song never heard of the Isle of Man…

If I owned a pharmacy, I would, in honor of The Isle of Man, name my men’s section (deodorant, shaving cream, beard colorants) The Aisle of Man. Yeah. If I ever own a pharmacy Isle do that…

Micro (Wave) Managing

 

We wrote recently about finding coins in pay phones. The only thing free I seem to find anymore is time left on the microwave. You go to use the microwave and you try to put your cooking time in and yeah, there’s already 31 seconds on the timer. Somebody pulled out their popcorn with 31 seconds to go. So yeah, the time left on the microwave would be great if you had to pay to use the microwave (like a parking meter). But the microwave is free…

It’s even worse when you consider how fast the microwave cooks something. You really should take some of that time you saved and cancel the remaining cooking time when you leave the microwave. Somebody needs to invent the microwave that alerts you when you haven’t cancelled your remaining time…   

Besides, the amount of time you find on the microwave is never the amount you need anyway. Nobody’s ever said “I needed 31 seconds on the microwave and 31 seconds was already set for me”. No. I’ve never heard that, have you? This is not a “pay it forward” type of thing (“Somebody left me 31 seconds so I’m leaving 31 seconds for the next guy…”). No.

Only the Shadow Knows

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about job shadowing. That’s where a new employee follows you around on your job all day. I think it’s a great concept because the person being followed actually has to work. He or she can’t do their normal routine of hanging out at the water cooler or going for coffee or whatever it is they do all day. No three martini lunches. Folks, this concept has nothing to do with the new employee; it’s about making the veteran employee work.

Let’s take it to the next level and have some job shadowing of the people who “work from home”.
Let’s see how hard these people “working from home” really work. Let’s see if they even get dressed!

Sometimes? Why?

My wife and I were talking about vowels the other day.  A, E, I, O, U. And sometimes Y. Sometimes? That’s too vague. Let’s come up with a percentage of how often Y is a vowel. C’mon! We have the technology. Doing this would assist those trying to learn our difficult English language. I’m guessing that with all the adverbs we have Y is usually a vowel. But I've never seen verification.

Wouldn’t it be easier to teach students new to the language that the vowels are A, E, I, O, U and 81% of the time Y (or whatever we determine the percentage to be)?  The other 19% of the words (where Y is a consonant) could be handled as one off exceptions.  

The word “yield”, for example, could be taught in driver’s ed in the roundabout chapter.

Name Brand

My dry cleaner is very personable. The employees learn everyone’s name. You don’t have to give your name when you go in to pick up your clothes. Been this way for years. It’s a nice touch. ‘Til now. They hired a new woman who doesn’t know everyone’s name yet – I get that. But I was in there last week waiting for her to retrieve my shirts (after I had provided her my name) and a woman came in with a little dog. First of all, why is a dog in the dry cleaner? I personally am against dog hair on my clothing. But no, there’s more. The clerk knew the dog’s name! “Hi Charley!” the clerk shrieked as the woman came into the shop. I asked if the dog was a paying customer (it wore a little jacket thing). The clerk said, no, they did not dry clean Charley’s jacket. (Yes, I’ll admit, it’s none of my business knowing where a dog gets his jacket cleaned. But I was trying to make a point.)

I have a plan to help this woman learn my name. I have a name tag I can pin to my coat. I’m going to wear it into the dry cleaner the next 5 times or so I go in there. Come mid-April, I’m going to stop wearing it and see if she remembers my name.  If that doesn’t work, I’ll leave some pictures of my late dog in my dirty shirt pocket. At least she’ll learn the name of my dog…

Traffic Cone

Our local McDonald's is offering a special where, if I buy a meal, I get a free ice cream cone. Now, maybe that works if you eat inside. Maybe they let you go back to the counter and get your free cone after you eat your burger and fries. But what about the drive-through? Aren’t most of their customers drive-through people? Can you really get the cone handed to you when you get the burger? You’d have to eat the cone first, during which time your fries would go limp. I suppose you could get your meal, hop back in line, and eat your meal while you’re in line. Or maybe you could get just your meal and drive around and eat your meal and then go back for your free cone. What would be the time limit for you to come back through the line? What if there’s a shift change and they don’t remember you when you come back through the line? And there would always be one that guy who would try to come back like 3 hours later, maybe in a different car…

Is this concept even safe? If they made eating ice cream and a burger and fries at the same time while driving illegal, and you got pulled over for it, and you pounded down the ice cream, burger and fries while the cop was walking up to your car, would it be legal for them to give you a breathalyzer?

 

Mush Read Post!

I ate at Bob Evans a few years back and, for something different, ordered corn mush. It was OK, nothing fantastic, but yeah, it was OK. It’s a good thing I ordered it then, ‘cause it’s no longer on the menu. I googled Bob Evans Mush and their website said it’s no longer on their menu but “it may be available at some locations. Ask your waitress.” Wait. What? Now I really want to go to Bob Evans and order some mush and see what happens.

Be prepared though. If you do this you need to remember that “Mush” is a sled dog command meaning “Get going!” or “Start Moving”.  So, don’t be surprised if the waitress leaves when you order it.

I bet that’s why they took it off the menu. Yeah.

Pineapple of Your Eye

 

Have you heard about the pizza place where they don’t like pineapple? You can get a pizza with pineapple as a topping but it costs like $125 if you want to add it to your pie? Yeah. Look it up. The owner of the restaurant does not like pineapple on a pizza. But he’s willing to offer it as an ingredient for the right price.  I don’t know where the owner stands on Pineapple Fanta…

If I had a pizza place I would do that with kale. If kale was any good, you’d be able to get it on a pizza, right? Nobody thinks twice about putting spinach on a pizza, but you NEVER have the kale option… 

Can we please stop kidding ourselves that kale is good? It’s green, but you don’t even see it on St Patrick’s Day. You never see ads with leprechauns telling you to eat kale…

Oh, and there’s no Kale Fanta. Huh-uh.