That's interesting that browning potatoes creates a cancer causing chemical. Well, I'm not going to worry about it. We're all basically in a sort of race to see what ends up killing us, and I have a feeling that potato-browning hazards are probably the least of my worries. I do think it's funny they post a warning about acrylamide, when the real hazard of potato chips probably lies more in the calories, trans fat, and salt.... the basic make-up of a potato chip itself. It's like having a warning on sticks of dynamite, saying that the tissue paper wrapping has a red dye that studies have shown is linked to diabetes.
No, they don't have King Cole potato chips any more. That company was bought out by another company. I think they still make them, under the brand of Humpty Dumpty potato chips, in South Portland. Years ago, when people could still take tours of factories, before insurance regulations shut that all down, I toured the Humpty Dumpty factory. It was great... walking along over slippery, grease covered floors, watching huge cauldrons of sliced potatoes being dumped into giant vats of bubbling oil, and all of that, and getting handed a bag of potato chips at the end.
We were down in New York over Easter, visiting Henry. You remember that I had been thinking about how cell phones and various internet gadgets are used to turn people into viruses-like agents so that various companies can use those people to further their marketing campaigns. Being in New York made me think all more about how everything these days is marketing and selling. As humans, we are basically seen by corporations as herds of consumers, and New York is a headquarters of that whole business of marketing, and selling shit to people. I was noticing how many people wear clothes and carry gear that has large logos for the company... they've got people paying good money for the right to be walking billboards. In some sense, the more popular of a person you are -- the more "friends" you have on Facebook, for instance -- the more valuable you are to these companies, because the odds go up that you will influence other people to buy the same stuff that excites you. I had a good time in New York, but I did come away with a heightened, dispiriting understanding about how in the modern world we are treated like vast herds of cows, to be milked and stampeded and slaughtered. Companies put in vast amounts of research and energy figuring out how to manipulate us in every conceivable way.
As part of hospice, Margaret is seeing a woman who sounds a lot like you, in regards to her weather preferences. She is from Oregon, which probably explains it. On a sunny day, she will have her curtains all tightly shut, to keep out the disturbing light. But when it is cloudy or rainy, she has the curtains thrown open wide, and she happily soaks up the grayness. She is in a much better, more alert mood when it is overcast. If there is a stretch of sunny weather she becomes downcast, and very homesick for the cloudy skies of Oregon.
That is pretty sad about the parents who are getting out of hand at Easter egg hunts. On the other hand, maybe it's just better for parents to set the thing up themselves on a small scale, anyway. Why do they have to turn it into some huge affair with hundreds of kids, and thousands of eggs lying all over the ground in this roped-off area? It seems like an unnecessarily sterile,commercial, competitive setting to begin with. It would be as if people decided they didn't want to have a family Christmas at home any more, and instead set up a huge Christmas Tree in the middle of a parking lot, with hundreds of presents under it, and everybody stood behind ropes until the GO! command. That probably wouldn't go over too well either. This might not be related, but one of my pet peeves is that people don't seem to think a think is worth doing unless they film it and photograph it and blog about it.... people market their own personal lives the same way corporations market all the crap they sell.
--Edward
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