Uncle Tommy Tune

 The tunes on the new washers and dryers announcing the end of the cycle keep getting longer don’t they? I swear I heard one with a second verse recently. I like to put words to the new tunes. Try it. It’s fun, and it gives you something to do when you’re matching socks.

But why do we limit these tunes to washers and dryers? Why not try them on other appliances?

•             The toaster – That butter spreads a lot better on toast fresh out of the toaster.
•   The toilet – Lets you know it’s not running continuously like that one time. And you’d get a different tune for each toilet.

Just don’t have any of your appliances or bath room fixtures play “Turkey in the Straw”. I still run out the front door looking for the ice cream man when I hear that song.

What the H?

Do you ever run across people who abuse the a/an rule? The rule traditionally calls for the use of a if the next word in the sentence starts with a consonant and to use an if the next word starts with a vowel. Of course, like anything in the English language, there are exceptions and sometimes, dare I say abuses of this rule. If the next word, for instance, starts with a silent consonant, it’s proper to use the word an. An example of this would be the word “honor” where the h is silent. “It was an honor to receive the reward.”

There appears to be some confusion on this subject. Too often, for instance, we see the an in front of the word “history”. Somebody out there must think that H is (sometimes?) a vowel, or they think that the H in history is silent.

I blame this confusion on popular actress Anne Hathaway. That name messes people up.

All You Need is Love's

 

Well, it turns out today is National Hot Dog Day.  Why did I not know this? Unknowingly, I had pizza. But, yeah, there are specials running across the country. Here are some samples:

•           7 – Eleven – If you’re a member of their Speedy Rewards Loyalty program, you can get a hot dog for just $2. Gosh, 7 – Eleven, what do you normally charge?
• Circle K – You get 2 hot dogs for $1 but they're off the roller grill thing. At this point, I’m leaning Circle K
• Shake Shack – 2 hot dogs for $8.  And you gotta buy 2.  If they’re $4 apiece, they must be so big I wouldn’t be able to eat 2. No thanks.
• Love’s – Hot Dogs are free if you have the app. Free. Is there any doubt here? I know we’ve been pretty hard on Love’s lately here at UT but this is too good to pass up.

Call ahead and make sure you get a bun with the hot dog but Love's sounds like a pretty good deal. Love will find a way.

Crop

 

These cell phones are so smart. I took a picture of our flourishing vegetable garden to send to loved ones today. We’ve got peppers, squash, tomatoes, rhubarb, and raspberries. I did not plant the rhubarb – it just showed up, so it may not be actual rhubarb. But I left it in for the picture; it makes the picture look more impressive.

But yeah, back to the cell phone. Like when Charlotte spun the words “Some Pig” over Wilbur’s pen in Charlotte’s Web, a word appeared over my garden picture. That word was “Crop”. Impressive, eh?

While I can’t expect a phone to know all the vegetables by name – that may be for another generation, - I was still impressed. Now I need to see if it can tell me if tomatoes are a fruit or a vegetable…  

Really Big Shoe

Remember the post from last year where my son and I saw a shoeless woman getting on our plane? We thought she had maybe forgotten to pick up her shoes after they went through the inspection tunnel. Or was she just headed to Florida? We never found out. Well, the first instance should not happen again. A law is in the works where we will not have to take our shoes off in the airports anymore. What a relief for the employees to not have to deal with our shoes. It always seemed like the shoes heated up in the tunnel. Gross! But those tunnels always made me hungry for Quizno’s…

There were changes to the inspection policy over the years. I know at one point, if you were over 70 you didn’t have to take off your shoes. I would have based the inspection on the size of the shoe. Say, if you’re bigger than a size 10 men’s shoe or comparable women’s size, you would need to run your shoes through the tunnel. Logic being that it’s easier to hide something in the larger shoes. They’d have a separate line for people with big feet.

I guess the downfall of my plan is that sometimes men wear women’s shoes and women sometimes wear men’s shoes. The shoe sizes get confusing. Would there be a separate line just for those folks?

Hot Stove in the Summertime

Major League Baseball has no shortage of sponsors for various things that happen during the game. There's a Rolaids Relief Award. Players even wear advertising on their uniforms now.  But there's room for more sponsorships. Here are some thoughts:

• A sacrifice bunt sponsored by Nothing Bundt Cakes - How has this not happened?
• The Wendy's Single - coupon redeemable on Singles night at Wendy's. This could go a number of directions. 
• A mound visit "brought to you by Mounds, the delicious dark chocolate coconut candy bar."  Mounds can use the help. Do people even like dark chocolate?  We had a bag of dark chocolate covered cherries at work and it sat there for months. 
• Gatorade needs to sponsor the Gatorade dump on the unsuspecting game hero getting interviewed after the game. Actually, I'd like to see this done occasionally during the game. C'mon. Looosen up, guys. 
• Since Denny's has the grand slam breakfast, they could sponsor each grand slam home run. Get 10% off your next grand slam at Denny's. 

Granted, there aren't many grand slams, but people don't go to Denny's very often.