Some Things I have Noted

Some things I have noted:

1) Expect your favorite cocktail or bottle of wine to go up up up in price soon. No, there are no new taxes on liquor, no shortage of grapes and no major increase in production cost. Attribute it to a new university study. Researchers at California Institute of Technology and Stanford University have found a direct correlation between the pleasure of tasting and the wine's advertised price. The higher priced the wine, the better they thought it tasted. That was even true when the test subjects were given the exact same wine but told one sample was $10/bottle and the next one was $90/bottle.

Now really, this was nothing new. Restaurants have known this forever. Just compare the price of a bottle of wine at a store and what you pay for the privilege of ceremony and service.

Some die-hards will dispute this notion. My friend Bruce for example swears his gallon size box wine is better than any chardonnay he has ever had.

2) A couple of weeks ago, a blog called MissouriPulse controlled by Repub power monger John Hancock went off line for a while. According to FiredUP Missouri (see link to the side of the blog page, after a few days a message appeared saying the site was being updated.

It seems MissouriPulse is back online now but...and here is the big but... the site has been altered to change some remarks made on the site about Scott Eckersley, a former state lawyer who was fired for whistle blowing Boy-Gov's deleting of email and violation of records retention laws. FiredUp covers it well, so look at their site for the full details.

Do, however, look at Mr. Hancock's entry of 10/28. He missed something.

Do these people have any shame??? Or brains?

3) In the basement of our house in Decatur sits a vintage 1949-50 Crosley Shelvador refrigerator. Round topped, non-frost free freezer, it was however state of the art in its day. It still works, daily. Never been out of service it seems since it was first plugged in almost 60 years ago. Keeps everything nice and cold. The only thing broken is the handle. Has been as long as I can remember, a screwdriver was inserted in the holes and you pull on the end of the screwdriver to open the latch. Not too far from the Crosley sits a working 1950's vintage Filter Queen vacuum. Testimony to the fact things are not built as they used to be.

I mention that because I am ready to trash my 6 month old GE cordless phone that refuses, even with a new battery, to keep a charge for more than 10 minutes, thus limiting my phone calls, and an unknown brand desk lamp whose switch is gone after about a year.

Both likely made in China and not by Crosley.