A Crummy Commercial

I went over to Mann's store today, first time in a long while (since the election - I popped a bike tire on the way back, still need to fix that one of these days !).  Apparently just before Thanksgiving they re-organized the store.  Shopping took a little longer because I didn't know where anything was :)  They did have some items I'd never seen before (bread flour in a 10 pound bag and Maple sandwich cookies from Canada).  I eventually found what I wanted on my list but it'll be a while before I get my memory reset. Novelty is the modren curse !  They usually have the Paczki filled doughnuts on Fat Tuesday, that's in about 7 weeks !  We'll see how the weather is then. https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/02/fat-tuesday-2023.html Here is the link to the Mann's sale flyer: https://www.mannsgrocery.com/Pdf_Ads/Index/ Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

This Ars story about President Carter saving the Shuttle program appears to be from 2016 ? https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/a-cold-war-mystery-why-did-jimmy-carter-save-the-space-shuttle/   Quite an interesting story and it is always great to see a picture of the cast and principals of Star Trek with the NASA Shuttle Enterprise (yes, I know that Shuttle Enterprise was not a functioning space ship but neither was the Enterprise on Star Trek :) I also saw this CBS Sunday Morning video review of notable deaths in 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcPBLrLCbrA Speaking of CBS Sunday Morning , I used to watch CBS Sunday Morning a lot, one of the most memorable was Horowitz in Moscow with Charles Kuralt  I've got that on tape somewhere, also have the CD, here is an excerpt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSiWxuS7DcE Good bye President Carter, you were the first president I ever voted for :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Another start of a new year, not as many checks being written but still gotta watch the dates !   AND there are more books, movies, photographs, artworks, records and songs entering the public domain on Wednesday January 1st, 2025.  Here is the excellent summary from Duke law on the subject: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/ Nothing quite as momentous as Mickey Mouse (who joined the public domain in 2024) but Popeye is the most famous of the bunch to me.  Speaking of the bunch, there is also: The Cocoanuts with the Marx Brothers ! Of course it's not all good: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-to-avoid-all-the-nsfk-mickey-mouse-knock-offs?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I came across a test set I built - originally from the 20th century.   I *believe* it started as a way to test PIC and EEPROM chips from the Island Memory kit.  After discontinuing that kit I repurposed the test set to test latching relays (Omron G6HU-2 5 volt, single coil).  Apply 12 volts to the RCA jack on the front and the LED next to the jack lights up indicating 5 volts from a regulator.  A relay is then put into the right ZIF socket, top 10 pins.  Either the left or right LEDs will then light up.  If the momentary switch (the black or blue levers) on the opposite side is pressed and released the relay will flip state and the other LED will light up.  That's about all it does. The left ZIF socket and the ribbon cable aren't used.   Not sure why I bothered building this, maybe it was due to some relays I had bought surplus ? Anyway, interesting to see those HP1000 aluminum pieces on the front and back of the test set (liberated from the back ...

This video popped up on Youtube recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40MvjFaTVzE    This USDA recipe book was mentioned at the start: https://archive.org/details/CAT92970475 There are lots of recipes in this book, it looks interesting.  I don't remember pizza (or pizza burgers) at school but my classmates do and this recipe is close to what they remembered (although NOT with Spam): https://www.food.com/recipe/pizza-burgers-297957 As I've mentioned before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/10/vincent-prices-spooky-speedway.html the lunches at Maple Dale were excellent.  But at Nicolet High School the lunches weren't so much bad as lacking in comparison (think: Franks and Beans). Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I saw (listened) to this podcast with Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis about sports gambling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKVTFld45LM It was quite interesting and included episode 4 of Lewis' podcast called: Against the Rules: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2MJpPQDlWA I listened to all of the episodes for this season posted so far - it's so weird how the sports books can take the information they gather to attract and then target people who have gambling problems.  At the same time with bettors who actually do have consistent skill at winning are "limited" possibly to have their assets temporarily frozen and have their future bets limited in size. It was also interesting to hear to former NJ Senator Bill Bradley.  He really was kind of a latter day realization of Frank Merriwell, except of course that he went to Princeton rather than Yale :)  I remember listening when I was a kid to a lot of Bucks games versus the Knicks teams with Bill Bradley, Dave Debussche...

 

The Bishop's Wife (1947) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o9SskdQWzw   I heard the ending of the Lux Radio Theater (Old Time Radio) version of this movie and thought I'd watch the actual movie - it's well done.  It has that touch of magic that Hollywood liked to add to movies (similar to It's a Wonderful Life). Beyond Tomorrow (1940) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVXSJGWsMqc Coincidentally in 1940 Christmas was on a Wednesday just like this year (2024).  This is a movie from a non-major studio but the actors are good although the only one I really knew was Richard Carlson who I specifically remember from the Capra science film: The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays . When they sing Jingle Bells (in multiple languages) it reminded me of the Joe Gumin recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JuTfgUV35E   Carol for another Christmas (1964) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPjAQHuM85M The most serious of the three movies.  Apparently it wasn't well received - I...

I found this West Bend clocktimer II: It was on the side of the fridge.  Had to think a while - as I recall the button cell leaked but after cleaning it was always undependable.  Opening it up revealed a couple of hanging wires (cut off) that must have been for an external power cell.  I decided to try it again with a switched AAA holder and after adding a shorting wire to take the place of one of the AAA cells, tried it and it worked ! It is nice to actually get something to work for a change.  It is a little awkward with the battery holder hanging so I'll have to figure out a way to join them together. The advantages it has over the Doughboy timer: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/11/timer-design-wishes.html are that the the numbers are bigger, the buttons are bigger and it shows seconds.  It also has a clock but does anyone really need another clock ? Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Watching NFL highlights on Youtube recently has me suffering through the SAP ads with this guy: They are short so no way to skip them but still over and over again about SAP and AI. The thing I realized ?  He's always holding a newspaper, like something made of paper that's going to stain his fingers kind of thing.  If he's so fashion forward with AI and computers and everything, where's his Ipad or Iphone or whatever ?  Does AI read actual newspapers now ? I will give SAP credit in that they:  1) drive the point home, over and over about AI  and  2) there are multiple different ads.  I'm getting really tired of Snoop and Mahomes selling T-mobile with 1 or 2 ads I guess the ads say more about me than anything. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I saw that the first episode of The Simpsons: Roasting on an Open Fire is now on Youtube: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3kc0zDkNo and it explains where Bart's dog, Santa's Little Helper, came from. That's the smallest Christmas gift that Disney+ ever got me but it was a lot more than I have ever given them ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

The 1950s and 1960s had a LOT of fiction written about nuclear war.  Recently I encountered what I thought was the most effective piece of fiction on the subject:  Tomorrow !  by Philip Wylie.  This takes the form of an Old Time Radio show (for the Civil Defense) from 1956: https://archive.org/details/otr_civildefensewithorsonwelles It's really a well done program - and as you might expect it does come with a "commercial" for Civil Defense.  The cast includes Orson Welles as the narrator and Marshall Thompson (who I remember as Daktari on 1960s TV) as a character named Chuck Connor.  Maybe being a radio show makes it more effective with excellent original music and a really annoying siren over some of the dialog.   The book is available on Archive although I haven't read it yet: https://archive.org/details/tomorrow-philip-wylie-288-f-ocr As I say there are a bunch of shows and books on this subject but this one was worth an hour of my time.  I lis...

I remember a Bradbury story where a spaceship flies close to the Sun and then extends a ladle to scoop up some of the Sun.  It was called: The Golden Apples of the Sun here is the wiki on the book the story was published in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Apples_of_the_Sun the story can be read here (page 23):    https://archive.org/details/PlanetStoriesV06N03195311/page/n22/mode/1up As was always the case with Bradbury, his stories are heavy on the poetic, lighter on the science but still Science Fiction :) But on Christmas Eve 2024 the Parker Solar Probe is going to do something similar to the ship in Bradbury's story: actually fly close enough to the Sun to make measurements on the origin of the solar wind.  Here is an article about the Parker Solar Probe by Eric Berger on the Ars site: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/were-about-to-fly-a-spacecraft-into-the-sun-for-the-first-time/ This is as close as anyone has ever gotten to realizing the imaginat...

I was poking through a drawer and found this: Even though it's not super fancy I thought it looked nice.  After popping the back off I found the dead 377 cell.  Getting on Ebay I quickly found 5 Energizer 377 cells for $4.44 plus tax or $4.68 total.  About a dollar a piece - Mann's probably has them but I suspect they are a LOT more than that.  So I bought them and they arrived today: So then I popped one into the pocket watch and nothing.  I can hear some clicking but no rotation of the second hand - rats !  I took out the 377 cell and tested it and it was fine.  So, not being a watch expert I will put the watch on the old shame shelf for consideration later.  Conveniently the folding cover provides a good place to keep a note detailing the problem. I know I've got an old digital watch around here somewhere, those brand new cells won't go to waste ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

The "Bart head" in spectrum analysis was blogged on before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/01/bart-head-in-december-i-joined-crowd.html ,   I noticed that The Simsons premiered on December 17, 1989. I never watched The Simpsons until some friends told me about this episode, Season 2, episode 16: excerpts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cPfRaioHgk   The thing that was clever was seeing from the viewpoint of Santa's Little Helper, in black and white, and the dialogue as heard by the dog is all waa-waa kind of like Charlie Brown's teachers. The amazing thing is the detail on an animated show, the script is 54 pages !  They don't "wing it" in animation: https://archive.org/details/7F14-barts-dog-gets-an-f-table-draft But just like NFL games I never watch The Simpsons or any other network shows any longer because the only network that I can still see is PBS, the local Fox station in Escanaba, MI went off the air some time ago. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9K...

When I watched the Packers 30, Seahawks 13 highlights, all I could think of was this guy: source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Yuk What in the world are the Seahawks thinking with those uniforms ? source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1rvw5P4vbM Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I saw this ad on Face: The question is whether Jack smoked Luckies is answered here: https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2021/04/dispelling-benny-myths.html 15 to 20 cigars a day couldn't have been good for him.  It was interesting that Mary smoked but not Luckies.  I suspect that the sponsor would have been more than happy to provide them with Luckies for free.  Per note 6 on this page: http://www.jimramsburg.com/vicandsadeaudio.html the Vic and Sade cast got a 3 pound can of Crisco a week !  So it seems reasonable that Lucky Strike would have been willing to supply the Benny cast with plenty of free smokes. I remember my Dad telling me that in the olden days in Milwaukee people walking down a downtown street might be given a free small pack of cigarettes.  Considering the habit forming nature of nicotine, yikes !  He also told me that American made cigarettes were the best.  But I'm glad that he quit smoking in the 1960s - I remember that he liked Kent ciga...

A couple of things have not been going my way this month, first the USPS strikes again: supposed to arrive today but NOPE ! This is dated  November 25, 2024 mailed from 50 miles away and it's still not here ?  That's over two weeks, I could walk 50 miles in 2 weeks !  I realize there was a holiday but still seems like poor service.   The second thing: Kitchen Insiders is a survey program with rewards run by Kellogg's for several years.  It was actually much better than Kellogg's Family Rewards where it took forever to actually accumulate enough points to get a reward.  Now Kitchen Insiders is also becoming defunct at the end of the year.   The thing is that you need 500 points to redeem a gift card and I am stuck at 495 points, so close.  I even asked them for a last survey so I could get 5 points but NOPE !  I was able to get a number of Apple gift cards over the years so I shouldn't really complain. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy...

While prospecting in the old junk boxes I came across these yellow jacketed beauties from the 20th century: The D cell is obviously not a "real" D cell, it must have the infamous sub-C cell inside, as seem here it only has about 10 grams more mass than the C cell. I used to use the D cells a lot when we still had the dog.  I'd take him out before bedtime and we'd walk around a little - with 2, 4 or 6 cells a Maglite threw a decent beam for shining deer.  Now the LED flashlights are much brighter with less mass. I used the C cells with cassette recorders.  The only problem is that NiCd cells are very low impedance so I think one time I plugged an earphone into a power jack by mistake and it got so hot it melted !  Luckily not while in my ear ! Now I've shifted over my rechargable use to mostly AA Nimh cells - they work pretty well but I think that these NiCd cells could still be useful - I will have to dig out the bigger Maglites, also the old camping lantern - can...

Whenever I feel like skipping my daily exercise I think of this picture: It's from this fitness and strength training video with Angie Flickinger at about 27 min 30 sec: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbQZSGUmmjU There's also a newer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDFbsYCXqcY The slide shows the condition called sarcopenia.  The thigh cross section scan on the left is from an active young woman.  The cross section on the right is from an older sedentary woman.  The women are about the same size and weight but the difference in the muscle (lighter gray) versus the fat (darker gray) is  startling.  And yes, you will never look at those packaged ham slices in the meat case the same way again !  BTW the program of exercise is a well tested regimen used around the world and is supposed to be a proven way for people to gain strength. Now to be truthful I've never really made a consistent effort on strength training.  The video workouts are about an ...

I had an old blinker (for walking) in the repair box, it was from an open house the local clinic once held.  Cleaned off the battery gunk and replaced the button cells and it did work but not bright at all (no that is not a quote from my "permanent record").  So I thought I'd put the Blinky kit prototype to work: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/08/blinky-tryout.html http://wb9kzy.com/blinky.htm I took off one of the the LEDs and replaced the other with a blue LED.  Then put it into an Altoids tin using a 9V battery for power: Here is a short movie taken in the dark - I think the blue LED is a lot easier to see: I suppose I could change the period, first though need to figure out a clip or something to hold it Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I dunno about the mail, maybe it is just here, kind of a special case.  But if this gets worse I think it'll be the death of kit selling for me. Most recent example: on Friday (2024-12-06) the mail was delivered after 6 PM, in the dark, unusual on the island where normally the mail comes in the early afternoon: Then on Saturday the mail came before 12:20p because I was working on an order that I had received in the late Friday delivery.  I didn't make it in time. So on Monday, December 9, 2024 I got the parcel into the mailbox early - and yup, it was picked up at 10:51 AM: Do the mail deliveries start earlier and earlier each day ?  Will I have to get outgoing mail in the box by 6 AM ?  It's not that the USPS does a horrible job, it's just that I can't trust them to do what they say they will do when they say they will do it - we are paying increasing prices for poorer service.  It's the uncertainty that I don't like. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kz...

A grade school classmate passed this link along: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/washington-island-wisconsin-bitters-shots I was only in Nelsen's once, in the restaurant though not the bar.   I dug out some bitters and tried a little, to me it tastes like brown, weak Everclear, just alcohol.  But this is a really old bottle although I did shake it before tasting. But it reminded me of a ham who used to refer to McDonald's Big Macs as gut bombs.  And it also reminded me of other "dare you to drink it" type of drinks that I've survived. Of course it's always a challenge for me to finish a bottle of Guiness Stout.  Yikes, the bottles have a little layer of something on the bottom which I assume is from an Irish bog ! And then the non-alcoholic gut bomb:  ginger beer.  I remember seeing this episode of Charles Kuralt's, On The Road in SC at the Blenheim plant.  He was at a bottling plant that made the spiciest ginger ale: source: https://www.youtube....