We’re really good at mispronouncing all those “foreign” names here in Illinois. See also the towns of Cairo (Kay-roh) and DuBois (Doo-boys). We somehow do manage to pronounce Illinois with a silent s.

Our TV has a volume leveling feature, but I’ve found that dialog in some shows is easier to understand with it on and others with it off. As you say, sound mixers seem not to be doing a great job these days. It’s similar to how dark many action scenes are. It’s often very difficult to tell WTH is going on.

When I was in the 8th grade the same paperback copy of Forever got passed around and read by almost every member of the class, including us boys. After more than 40 years I don’t remember very many details about it, but I’m sure it did make an impression on us all. It was a small rural school and a class of only 14…

I planted 1-year-old asparagus crowns last year, and they did very well. This year they’re already 4 feet high! They do grow fast; some of the sprouts have grown 8 inches in less than 24 hours. You could probably make a cool time lapse of it.

This reminds me of manakish, which I heard about recently on the radio. Those are typically filled with za’atar and olive oil, sometimes plus other seasonal things. I have a bag of za’atar I need to use, so I was going to try making some soon. I bet some onion mixed in would be a tasty hybrid between the two dishes.

I don’t know about elsewhere, but burgers from my local McD’s have fresh chopped onions on them. Very strong oniony fresh onions. Requires a couple of Altoids afterwards. This is on a Quarter Pounder; not sure about the others, because I haven’t had one for a while. Do they use different onions on different burgers?

Exactly what I did last year to keep the squirrels out of my new asparagus bed. I think this year it won’t be necessary, since it’s already sprouted and 3 feet high. Early spring!

Most important part of this post: have a perfectly functioning exhaust fan.

Oh, I think those things you mention are above-average. That’s the problem: the actual average of creative works is so, so low that these “objectively” mediocre works are above-average.

I think the win should go to the Sprite, as mentioned by others, but I have to at least nominate the Neon for the classic ad:

My wife and I discovered the Gold Nuggets a couple of years ago, and they’re now our favorites. (Not easy to get just any produce here in the rural Midwest.) We have a bag of them on the counter right now.

This seems like a good place to restate my belief that it should be illegal for radio stations to play the sound of a car horn. They do so fairly often it turns out, and almost every time, it causes me a moment of panic as I look around to see if I’m about to be hit.

Seems like he may have opened himself up to some criminal charges, like unauthorized access to a computer system, for looking at those text messages?

Arrest you? I want to give you some kind of award!

I’m in Illinois, and all my life I’ve never heard them called anything but Long Johns. So, of course, I just went and searched the local Walmart store’s site for them, and they’re labeled “bars.” smh

Wine coolers are back?!?

Oh, yeah, I can see some ginger being good in there.

I’ve just discovered Walmart’s packaged pulled rotisserie chicken. It’s tasty and makes it really easy to mix up some chicken salad for lunch at work. Yesterday I made some, just mixed together about 4 oz of the chicken, a tablespoon of mayo, and a snack packet of nuts and dried cherries, then made a sandwich on keto…

Lemon is a critical ingredient for a good chicken soup, IMO. You want just enough lemon flavor that it makes you think, “Is there a bit of lemon in this?”

We have a local place that makes taco, BLT, and cheeseburger pizzas that are really good.