Wasting Time and Money

Mrs. Chaka and I have made the dangerous discovery of two hours of Star Trek (TOS and TNG) being broadcast each night. Last night's episodes (The Changeling and Emergence) were somehow archetypal; each embraced all the joys and absurdities of its respective series.

It's always amusing to see how dated the future is. The Changeling made frequent reference to data being stored on "tapes". Then again, in Emergence, Dr. Crusher had a pretty cool blue iPad.

Oh, and I had a Double Down a week ago. Definitely not worth the price of admission.

Spite Food

I read (on the Wait Wait Don't Tell Me blog) that KFC introduced the Double Down because of complaints that there wasn't enough chicken in their chicken sandwich. If true, it places the Double Down in that delightful genre, Spite Food.

Potato chips are the best-known example of Spite Food. To quote the Wikipedia article:

"The original potato chip recipe was created by George Crum, the son of an African American father and Native American mother, in Saratoga Springs, New York on August 24, 1853.^{[citation needed]} Fed up with a customer who continued to send his fried potatoes back complaining that they were too thick and soggy, Crum decided to slice the potatoes so thin that they could not be eaten with a fork. As they could not be fried normally in a pan, he decided to stir-fry the potato slices. Against Crum's expectation, the guest was ecstatic about the new chips."

I'm still hoping to eat one of those Double Downs; haven't got to it yet.

Endless Rain

Blogging has suffered, what with the moving house, the many calls to AT&T trying to convince them to take my money, the computer dying, etc. But I just discovered this and had to blog it:

YouTube Repeat!

Insert the word "repeat" into a YouTube URL before the ".com" and the video will loop endlessly. I'm using it to listen to this over and over. Helps me focus on the giant pile of work.