Hey! Watch my head explode!

A soon to be announced decision by the Arizona courts may open the way for people who speak only 'broken English' the opportunity to take elected office in the US. Hey! Why should they have to speak English at all? The Uber Left wants the American People to become more tolerant of other nationalities and continues to seek special provisions for them even if it is to the detriment of the US citizen.Well sorry, I'm just about all out of tolerance these days.
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While I'm at it, I would like to state another obvious fact that the Far Left believe as gospel - 'that it's the American people who are the real reason why things are not going well here in the States not the government. Well, sad to say, it is the government and as a group you folks are a total Cluster Fuck!
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Finally, I would like to ask those of you in mainstream America who are cheering the police on, when they are cracking heads during an OWS eviction to please remember that these jobless wonders actually need you're sympathy. It ain't them, its the unions that are behind all this crap! They're just useful idiots. Wait for it! Wait for it............

KA BOOM!

Disclaimer: Did you have trouble reading this post? Was it a little dis-jointed? Well congrats! Now you know how I feel.

Critique: Health Choice Rotini & Zesty Marinara Sauce

I’m not real sure what you’d call this dish exactly: is it an entrée or a side? OK, I’ll go with an entrée. It looked interesting when I happened across it at the grocery today. Close inspection revealed it to be a two part meal with the sauce separated from the dried Rotini by a plastic barrier inside a plastic tub. Real strange looking and therefore something I wanted to critique.

After getting home, I had more time to examine the packaging. One of the first things to catch my eye was the lack of any absurd little messages like some of the other package meals display. (My current favorite is Banquet’s dollar-a-throw TV dinners that advertize ‘A Good Source of Protein’! Really! Now who would have guessed anything might have protein in it)!

Another thing that caught my attention was the expiration date – in this case December 04 of 2011! Whoops. We’re a little bit beyond that date. Yet, what’s interesting is that there are no signs that this product has been sitting on the shelves at the local Country Mart for what is apparently quite some time! (I figure that most products like this are good to go for at least a year from the date of manufacture). Whatever the case, this package must have been sitting around somewhere for the better part of that time! Well, you know what they say, in for a penny and all that! Not only will I have a chance to critique a product made by ConAgra, but will also get to see how well this product has stood up to the test of time!

Preparation

According to the directions for preparing this ‘oldie, but hopefully goodie’, fixing it is pretty straightforward with simple instructions for cooking the pasta and sauce. Total time to from microwave to table is about four minutes. Nutritionally, you’re getting about 300 calories, no cholesterol and only a little sodium, so not too bad in that department.

Scoring

Now, as is my style, I’ve broken the meal down into six categories with a score of 1 to 10 and then some snide remarks made after each to help explain why I rated that aspect as I did. Here’s what I came up with:

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Pkg Art:     6    Good job – I like the picture and overall package design!

Reality:      4    The reality was rather damp and soggy looking!

Cost:          4    At $3 a throw, a little on the high side for cheapies like myself!

Smell:        2    Maybe I had a cold! Couldn’t smell much of anything!

Texture:     1    The pasta was overcooked and mushy. Yuck!

Taste:        1    Took two bites and dumped the rest into the compost!

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Average:    ?    Pending review - see follow up section

Summary

I’m not sure if maybe the fact that the package was old or if the idea of making micro Rotini is a bad idea or what! Plan to steer clear of this one for the future. However, I will be doing a follow up post where I plan to take regular spaghetti, homemade sauce and see if I can’t use this cute container to make up something edible!

Follow Up

I contacted ConAgra with a complaint on this product and was told I should not eat something that far past its due date (duh). I agreed. And to be fair, the reviews it has received on their site were all positive. The gentleman I talked to (Matt I think it was) was helpful and informative. He was also kind enough to send me a coupon good for a replacement product which I intend to use on their Balsamic Vegetable Medley. A product that was highly rated by a couple of reviewers.

Update: Feb 12, 2012

My coupon arrived on time, but surprisingly, I could not use it on another Fresh Mixer product as that was an item that was specifically excluded! 

Iran's expertise in stalling is pure genius!

When thinking about Iran and her development of nuclear capability over the past decade, I'm reminded of a saying:

“If you can't awe them with the facts, baffle em with bullshit!”

Shuffling nukes around to hide them is a lot like the game of 'Three Card Monte'! Everything, and I mean everything that the West has learned covertly about the progress of Iran towards bomb making has pointed unerringly towards a 'furious and focused effort to develop weapons of mass destruction' and in such a manner that what should have taken decades to accomplish has been accomplished in less than one! Catching them in the act has been the problem!

But here's the facts. While the civilized nations have pussyfooted around with sanctions for much of this time, Iranian leadership has engaged in all manner of deceit, misdirection and even bald-faced lies in a concerted effort to elevate their extremist Islamic agenda.

The most recent visit by international nuclear inspectors to Tehran this last week was termed a failure as the following quote attests to...

“The agency expressed interest in all the areas of concern,” said a diplomat based in Vienna, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The team asked for access in the future to different types of sites and personnel, and that was denied."

One senior American official described the session between the agency and Iranian nuclear officials as “foot-dragging at best and a disaster at worst.” But a diplomat at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna said “disaster is too strong a word.” He added: “Iran has refused to address the issue for three years now. To be fair, you have to give them credit for at least discussing it. The dialogue is continuing, and that’s a good sign.”

A good sign of what? And for whom?

Reheated pizza and my path towards the Matrix!

Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? [Takes a bite of steak]
Cypher : Ignorance is bliss.

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It is a fact of life that eating a pizza is perhaps one of the fastest ways of breaking a diet that is known to man. Everything on that pie, with the possible exception of the olives, is bad for you in one way or the other. And, like potato chips, I dare you to eat just one slice. Can’t be done! No way Jose!

Leftover pizza is even worst. It sits in the fridge and calls to me like a siren from Homer’s Odyssey. This goes on until sometime about 1 AM when I can take it no more. I get up, pop a slice into the microwave and moments later all is cheesy bliss! As I eat though, I have to forcibly ignore this little guy in my head. He's the one who's in charge of my metabolism and he's screaming to be heard above the sound of a klaxon. ‘all hands on deck – get those fat cells ready to take on a sh**load!’

The next morning dawns and the cycle repeats itself as I mentally justify having pizza instead of cereal for breakfast. I manage this by promising myself I won’t have yet another slice for lunch [lie] or two slices for dinner [lie #2]. This torture goes on until the last satisfying morsel is consumed.

That line from the Matrix brought it all home to me! Were that I was a bit more naive, I could consume copious amounts of this most wonderful food in complete and utter bliss.

Could Global Warming have hidden benefits for northern states?

This morning while enjoying a nice hot cup of soup with the mercury outside reading in the eighties, I had a bout of epiphany. At first I wondered if I was suffering form some sort of mental seizure, but no it was one of those moments when my mind took a leap and then a jump to a new and interesting thought. It went something like this:

“Man that soup sure tastes good. It’s a little cool this morning and finally were seeing some seasonable readings. This winter has sure been warm and February was riding in on a 13 degree above average start. Hmm. I’ll bet that means we’re going to have a hellacious summer this year. And, I'll bet that for a change, a lot of people will be heading north to escape the heat…..”

And with a start, I realized that that thought just might become a reality. Think of it. Last year it hit 100 degrees every single day in Texas for a month! Now look at the graph above! Wouldn’t it make sense then, that anyone going on a summer vacation might want to head for, say the Wisconsin Dells to cool off? That thought got me to thinking about other locations further north; even say places across the border in Canada as new American destinations for summertime activities. This would be just the reverse of what usually happens in the wintertime when tens of thousands try to escape the cold by heading to places like Florida.It would also represent a major shift in where dollars are spent by families all across the continent!

Now, while this may become a new trend in America as the years progress, it was fun for me to experience a thought that probably happens to smart people all the time.

Is there a creature in Vostok’s hole??

No, for starters, Volstok is a place – not a person. Volstok is located deep in the Antarctic Continent and in point of truth; it’s really a vast lake that lies below two miles of ice. Scientist had spent years trying to drill down to the lake to see what might lay there in the icy depths. Whatever was there would have been undisturbed for over 20 million years! But time was running short as the ‘winter’ was about to begin when the temperatures which had been a balmy forty below zero would soon drop down to close to a hundred below. A temperature so cold that a man’s eyeballs (no to mention other parts) can freeze solid in just moments if caught outside.

Things began to go wrong when the Russian team in charge of drilling the hole failed to report back via satellite phone early in February. A competing American team nearby wrote it off as nothing serious until over a week had stretched by and then concern began to mount. Now, unless the Russians are heard from or show up on their own, nothing can be done until the next ‘summer’ period half a year away. Conditions will make it impossible for any rescue to be effected and the fate of the Russian will dim.

It is at this point that speculations as to what happened will begin to mount. Maybe what killed the team wasn’t a large creature at all, but some primeval microbe that was so novel that mankind would have no defenses to fight it. Maybe that creature took out those Russians, froze again and is now content to wait for the rescue effort to arrive in the future. (This is beginning to sound like that creepy music played at the beginning of the movie ‘The Thing’ directed by John Carpenter)! Just remember that truth can be much stranger than fiction!

Sorry, but that dog just won’t hunt! Cuz it’s dead!

[this dog is not dead, he's just resting]

I love listening to dyed-in-the-wool hyper left-wing Democrats who look with hungry eyes to the corporate owners who seem to be so damn rich! Their universal complaint is, “how cum they make so much money? Why, that’s downright greedy. They should be spreading that wealth around!”  This, by the way, is the mantra of the WSO movement (Wall Street Occupiers) and I can see their point. I could use a handout (or two) myself!

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But let us not be so...so anally focused here folks! What about the rest of the world? You know, it’s a fact that an American citizen making just $20K per year looks awful darn rich to someone living in Africa who makes maybe thirty cents a week!  If we’re going to take from the wealthy here (to give to those who’ve never worked a day in their life), I say we need to look long and hard at all those fat pocketbooks of the Middle Class working stiffs. I mean surely, someone living on 20K could do just as well on say 13K?? Well, couldn't they?

Hey! Maybe we could even figure out some way to ‘redistribute’ that wealth in a fair manner also! Maybe Obama’s ideas on ‘Cap and Trade’ will work after all. (It too is designed to move all that greedy Middle Class wealth to poor folks around the globe). What a grand idea by a President who puts his country first! (Say what)?

So, here’s the plan, Jan – first we take anyone who makes more than $250,000 and tax them at a new rate of 80% to 90%! That will leave them on about the same level as the rest of us Middle Class jerks. (Never mind that most companies would be in danger of folding – Obama can easily bail them out with money from his stash)!

Next, we implement a Super Duper Cap & Trade (with malice aforethought) and milk those Middle Class cows until they turn pale. Why, it’d be just like those doctor’s worked in the Middle Ages – you remember – when a patient got sick, they’d attach leaches to help drain out all that nasty old blood. Patients who did survive the procedure were announced ‘cured’ and allowed to stagger home. (This worked out great until some busybody went and found the cure was actually killing all the patients).

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Now, I know I can hear many of you out there complaining that perhaps some of the money (a teensy bit) will go to fill the pockets of special interests or union bosses. I’m aware of your fear and concern. That is why I plan to set up a National American STW (spread the wealth) drop site at a mailing address I will soon put out on the net. Yes, I know it will be a lot of work managing billions of dollars in contributions a week, but I promise to soldier on until the very last penny that is squeezed donated from ‘You the Peeps’ is resting safely in a Swiss account somewhere far from these shores. From that account, I will then disseminate the funds as I (DanoManno Dingo) see fit. Thank you all in advance for your generosity.