Why I Oughta...

Any parent will tell you what I'm about to tell you:  There are times that I'd give my life for C Batteries.  The pack-n-play vibrates on a C cell.  The swing moves on a C cell.  The vibrating bouncy chair runs on a C cell. I heard someone say it before I was a dad and now I believe it:  If Menards charged $50.00 for just one C cell battery - I'd pay it. Doesn't matter what it costs.  In fact, I think these baby product companies are missing out on profits.  Make a swing that puts my baby to sleep every time....Market the hell out of it...Make me NEED to have one. Then make sure it runs on your own proprietary battery.  Make that sucker last only like 3 weeks.  Make me go out and buy them for $50 a pop. Guess what?  If the swing works?  You'll have me as a customer.  No matter what it costs.

Are you guys watching Modern Family on ABC?  You soooo should be.  It is on Hulu or you can catch it on Wednesday nights on ABC.  The show stars Ed O'Neill as the patriarch of a uniquely-American family. 3 different story lines collide in each episode which include a gay couple with an adopted Asian daughter, a youngish couple with 3 kids and a pretty goofy dad (and requisite hot mama), and Ed - who married a younger hot potato. I'm certainly not doing it justice - nor do any of the "clips" on Hulu.  Nevertheless, I've embedded one below.

Up in Michigan, we shop at a grocery store called "The Hilltop".  Well....actually it is named Hardings , but we call it "The Hilltop" because that's what it was called for 15 years.  And it's more fun than "Hardings".  It is a small little store that usually smells like fried chicken.  Seriously.  They must sell a shit-ton of the stuff because you can go in there any time of the day and the deli area is firing up some chicken.  Guess it could smell like worse things. They sell most things you'd need at a lake house: bbq sauce, a variety of buns, sodas, beers, ice, Star Crunches , and the like.  One of the things I've noticed is that they still put price tags on EVERYTHING.  Not on the store shelves.  On the actual products.  And there's this older guy who does it with the old fashioned "gun" just about every time we go in. I thought it was unique to Hardings until we went to a rival store in South Haven and there, too, wer

TOM’S TAILGATER ITALIAN BEEF COURTESY OF Steve Dahl  and  DAHL.COM Ingredients: One 3 ½ to 4 pound boneless beef chuck pot roast One package of Zesty Italian Salad Dressing and Recipe Mix One 16 oz. jar of hot giardiniera One 16 oz. jar of mild giardiniera One dozen baguettes (French rolls) Directions: In a four-quart Crock-Pot, pour in one bottle of giardiniera. Place the roast on top of the layer of giardiniera. Sprinkle the salad dressing mixture on top of the roast. Add the second bottle of giardiniera to the top of the roast. Cover Crock-Pot and cook on high for 6 to 8 hours. When fork tender, shred the roast in the Crock-Pot and allow it to combine with the other ingredients. Slice the baguettes in half and pile on the beef and giardiniera mixture. ------------------------------------ For the babe's baptism party, we hosted a collection of family and friends back at our house after the church proceedings. We ordered some of the food from Maggiano's in

As I've mentioned before, I'm not the baker in the house - Nat (when she has time) enjoys it more than I do.  Her mom shared a recipe for "Red Velvet" cupcakes late last year and much to our chagrin - it called for numerous bottles of red food coloring.  We walked down to the Jewels (yes...I said "Jewels".) and plunked down $4 a piece for the little bottle of McCormick's coloring and went on our way - knowing that had to be a better way. Fast forward a few weeks and we found ourselves in Schweppe's on North Avenue near our house.  Schweppe's is a kitchen-supply shop featuring industrial supplies for commercial applications.  They allow the public in - and charge us a bit more than their restaurant customers - but it is still very cheap! They have everything there from spatulas to snow-cone machines to industrial-sized containers of ketchup.  They also happen to have big bottles of Evon's "Red Color" syrup.  It's about $4 for

I've read RachelleB's posts  in the past about CVS' odd pairings in the liquor department like Cook's Champaign and KY "Touch Lotion" or Merlot and mouth rinse and laughed along at the merchandising mishaps.  I can imagine the dudes who are tasked with creating these pairs wondering if they'd be good fits. Last week, Nat and I were in a Meijer up in Michigan and it seems that they've gotten this "grocery aisle pairings" a bit more fine tuned.  As we were walking down the liquor aisle, I noticed they have packages of ping pong balls and " Wippety Wipes " (you can barely make them out on the left edge of the photo).   Everything you need for a long night of beer pong, I suppose.   Who ever has the job of finding these companion products at Meijer in Michigan clearly has a stronger finger on the pulse of drinkers than the folks at the CVS in Chicago. It isn't perfect being liquor and not beer, but not bad.

The web is full of interesting things - probably infinitely more interesting than my posts here.  To get a full sense of what catches my eye across the web, you can now follow me on Google Buzz here .  There's a lot in there including my Twitter account, my shared items from Google Reader, my Picasa photos, YouTube videos and more. I've also put up a link to my Buzz page on the top right - and included a nifty little image that someone was nice enough to make and set free out on the web. Sure I'm biased, but I think there's something worth investing some time in with it.  I live most of my life in the Google Cloud, and this seems to have quite an ambitious road map around Google services.  For me it is a nice fit.  Maybe it will be for you, too? Would love to see you over on Buzz .