At least once a year I hear of some cook who pokes their turkey right in the breast or right in the cavity with a cooking thermometer to try and gauge how done it is, and inevitably comes out with either an overdone or underdone bird. This video from Bon Appetit shows you the right way, in 27 seconds.
    
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The Swiffer is easily one of the best inventions of our generation. But those single-use cloths get annoying when you have to keep buying them. Karah over at The Space Between discovered that shammys actually make great washable, reusable Swiffer cloths.
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Sometimes shopping during Black Friday can feel like betting on a prize fight. You plunk down all your money on a great pair of shoes, only to see their price get knocked down during a Cyber Monday blowout. But how can a shopper know what kinds of unadvertised, winning sales are just around the corner? On everyone's mind this season is the question of whether Thanksgiving, Black Friday, or Cyber Monday—or the span of time in between these holidays—will be the best time to shop for the specific items they want.
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Android: Tablets are great for a lot of things, but some Android tablet designs don't have the best placement for the power button. To eliminate this minor annoyance, Invisible Lock Screen Widget allows you to lock your device with a gesture from the home screen.
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Did you know that there's an appliance whose sole purpose is making quesadillas? Ever heard of a specialized breakfast sandwich warmer? That exists too. You can actually buy an appliance that is made specifically to create and keep breakfast sandwiches warm. There's an overwhelming number of kitchen appliances on the market place. With that comes the ever-present opportunity to overspend on appliances you probably don't really need.
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You cook a turkey, what, once a year? Maybe your go-to turkey-cooking method's been handed down from your grandmother; maybe you try a different recipe every year looking for a better way. I'm not saying you or your grandma are wrong, but if you're turkey is in the oven for more than two hours, you're wasting your life. Here's the best turkey recipe I've ever found, courtesy of the exhaustive test cooks and food scientists at Cook's Illustrated. Bake time: Two hours. (And don't worry: My standards are high, and this turkey is fantastic.)
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When kids want something, they'll ask..and ask...and ask until you cave in. You can teach them to unlearn this annoying negotiation tactic by saying just three words: "Asked and Answered."
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With all the 2013 Black Friday ad leaks and sneak peeks we've unearthed in the past few weeks, this season's shopping extravaganza is looking ripe with deals and discounts for all. But even though many product categories will see new all-time low prices, not everything is at its lowest price on Black Friday. In fact, there are 13 items you definitely shouldn't buy on November 29.
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Sure, putting on a Thanksgiving dinner isn’t cheap or easy today, but what about mere weeks after the Stock Market Crash of 1929? A few years ago, I found a sample holiday menu plan in a newspaper article from 74 years ago, and wondered: what would this feast for four people for $7.89 cost today?
At the time, I was working in the news library at the Albany Times Union. It was Thanksgiving 2008, the global economy was collapsing all around us, and the editorial page editor had sent me looking to see what his predecessors had to say during the previous collapse, 79 years earlier. I found it, but on the way to that page in the microfilm reader, I also found this handy sample menu complete with detailed price information.
I took the shopping list from the 1929 menu with me to my local grocery store in order to find out what this spread would cost today. Then I took the prices given in the article from 1929 and adjusted them for inflation. (I did a less detailed version of this post in 2008.)
There were a few things missing from the shopping list that would have been commonplace in 1929. I couldn’t find lard at the grocery store in my upscale suburb, for example. We’re more likely to use vegetable shortening to make a pie crust today, Mincemeat was also nowhere to be found. It would probably fascinate a home economist or the average homemaker from 1929 to learn that ready-made pies were all around and cost only $4.
Turkey (1929): 8-pound turkey at $6.69 per pound ($.49) = $53.52
Turkey (2013): 8-pound turkey $.49 per pound frozen; $.99 per pound fresh = $4.92 or $7.92
Box of Gelatin (1929): $2.73 ($.20)
Box of Gelatin (2013): $1.33
2 pounds onions (1929): $2.73 ($.20)
2 pounds onions (2013): $1.20
1 loaf bread (1929): $1.37 ($.10)
1 loaf bread (2008): $1.39
1 pint light cream (1929): $5.46 ($.40)
1 pint light cream (2013): $2.49
1 quart milk (1929): $1.91 ($.14)
1 quart milk (2013): $1.39
1 pound mixed nuts (1929): $6.15 ($.45)
10 ounces mixed nuts (2013): $4.99
1 head lettuce (1929): $1.78 ($.13)
1 head lettuce (2013): $1.99
1 pound butter (1929): $7.51 ($.55)
1 pound butter (2013): $2.48
2 grapefruit (1929): $3.41 ($.25)
2 grapefruit (2013): $2
2 oranges (1929): $1.37 ($.10)
2 oranges (2013): $1.58
1 apple (1929) $.68 ($.05)
1 apple (2013): $.60
1 banana (1929): $.55 ($.05)
1 banana (2013): $.30
1 pound grapes (1929): $1.39 ($.10)
1 pound grapes (2013): $1.58
5 pounds potatoes (2013): $2.50
1 quart potatoes (1929): $2.05 ($.15)
1 dozen rolls (2013): $2
1 dozen rolls (1929): $2.80 ($.18)
1 pint cranberries (2013) $1.58 ($.10)
12 oz. cranberries (2013) $2.50
Flour (1929): $.68 per pound ($.05)
Flour (2013): $2.50 for 5 pounds ($.50 per pound)
Sugar (2013): $1.09 per pound ($.08)
Sugar (2013): $2.99 for 4 pounds ($.75 cents per pound)
1 loaf cheap bread (1929): $1.58 ($.10)
1 loaf cheap bread (2013): $1.49
1/2 pound cheese (1929): $2.73 ($.20)
1/2 pound cheese (2013): $1.50
We made the price conversions using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator. Food prices are from the Price Chopper store in Slingerlands, N.Y. and include some Thanksgiving-themed sale items.
(Quadel)
Twas the night of Thanksgiving and no shoppers were stirring, not even Neighbor Bob who is always up to something. At least, they won’t be in three states where Black Thursday is actually against the law. In Rhode Island, Maine and Massachusetts, most big stars are barred from opening on Thanksgiving day.
What! How? Huh! Is what you’d be shouting if you love shopping so much that you can’t wait to chomp that turkey down and get out the door. It’s all due to “blue laws” from back in the day that prohibit large supermarkets, big box stores and department stores from opening up on that day, according to the Associated Press.
This makes some businesses a bit crunchy because in other states there are 24-hour shopping bonanzas bringing in the big bucks. And some shoppers are seeking solace across state borders, which means their money is also going out of state.
The vice president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts says shoppers are border-jumping to Connecticut, Vermont, New York and New Hampshire, taking those bucks elsewhere.
“Why not give stores in Massachusetts the option?” he said. His group is siding with legislation that’s currently stuck in nowhere land to allow stores to open on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.
But on the other hand, is it so bad to just take a day off? Many shoppers in those three states are fine with it.
“I shop all year. People need to be with their families on Thanksgiving,” said one Rhode Island resident.
Thanksgiving Shopping Is Illegal In These 3 States [Associated Press]
Oh, hey. A bunch of company names.
You might know the backstory behind some brand names — like that BMW stands for Bayerische Motoren Werke (or Bavarian Motor Works) or that CVS started as Consumer Value Stores. Look at you, smartypants. But what about LEGO? Or ASICS? LG, anyone?
There’s a whole world of company monikers waiting to be discovered, whether they’re acronyms or portmanteaus. Learn about them so you can thrill audiences at your next cocktail party or while practicing conversational skills during your nightly chat session with your cat.
Herewith then, 15 name mashups, acronyms or otherwise smushed together company names you never thought you needed explained.
Arby’s: This one’s a double dose of fun, so prepare yourselves. Back in Boardman, Ohio on July 23, 1964, Leroy and Forrest Raffel opened their first restaurant, serving up roast beef sandwiches with potato chips and iced tea. They were they brothers, and they were Raffels — the Raffel Brothers, or R.B. Say it with me now: Arr-bee’s. If customers want to think the R.B. means Roast Beef, well go for it.
Asus: You might think this computer company’s name is an acronym, but it’s really just a bit of a chop job. It’s named after Pegasus, a flying horse from Greek mythology. Not only that, but the remaining letters weren’t wasted — Pegatron was spun off from Asus in 2008.
ASICS: Finally, an actual acronym. The shoe company gets its name from the Latin phrase: Anima Sana In Corpore Sano, which loosely translated means “A Sound Mind in a Sound Body.” Because if your mind isn’ fit, your body’s gonna have a hard time catching up, perhaps.
Fiat: Another acronym that only works when you’re using its Italian name, which of course makes sense as it’s an Italian car company. Go figure! Anyway it works off Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino. In English that’s Italian Automobile Factory of Turin. Just so happens that the word “fiat” in English is an actual word, one that means “a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort,” according to Merriam Webster and whoever teaches vocabulary in high school. Or an alternate meaning: “Fix it again, Tony!” according to my brother.
Garmin: Get ready for a mashup, ladies and gents. Garmin is named for its founders, Gary Burrell and Dr. Min Kao. Gar and Min, such a team, right? We see what you did there.
GEICO: You’ve seen the gecko yakking about 15-minute phone calls in ads and the doughy guy from the bakery company go through airport security, but Geico doesn’t actually mean anything on its own. It’s an acronym that stands for Government Employees Insurance Company. Its founder Leo Goodwin first aimed his insurance darts at U.S. government employees and military personnel.
Haribo: First of all, these are the absolute best gummy bears, in someone’s opinion that is definitely not me because I can’t choose candy sides. Second, the name is a combination of the founder and the company’s German hometown: Hans Riegel, Bonn. I’d also like to imagine there are gummy bears running free there, waiting for me to catch them nicely and eat them. I mean, not me. Someone else.
IKEA: Smash together Swedish founder Ingvar Kamprad’s initials along with the property and village where he grew up in Sweden and you’ve got it — Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. And here you thought it was just another made up name that sounds like a piece of furniture.
LEGO: This is a fun one, if I do say so myself. The word comes from the combination of Danish words “leg godt,” which means to “play well.” Interestingly enough, lego in Latin means to let go of someone’s waffle. Just kidding. It means “I put together,” but that’s just a coincidence, the company says. The company first manufactured wooden toys before the arrival of those multi-colored building blocks of childhood.
LG: The company that makes TVs and phones doesn’t stand for Life’s Good, not really. Shocked, right? But really, it stems from the combination of two brands popular in Korea back in the day, Lucky and its plastic company spinoff, GoldStar. Those initials go together and make — tada! LG.
Nabisco: Nowadays it’s part of Mondelez, but Nabisco started its snack reign on this earth in 1898 when the United States Baking Company, the New York Biscuit Company and the American Biscuit & Manufacturing Company joined forces to become The National Biscuit Company. In 1971 the company made the switch to Nabisco.
Saab: Your car doesn’t have wings but back in 1937 when Saab was founded, the Svenska Aeroplan aktiebolaget (Swedish Aeroplane Company) made airplanes to supply demand for the Royal Swedish Airforce in World War II.
Sprint: Sprint started out with a parent company called the Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications. Back then it was common to use pipelines and railroad tracks to lay communications lines, because companies already owned those routes and could thus install phone lines along them.
Taser International: I sort of thought Tasers made a sound like “taaaaase!” when they’re used, but what do I know? They’re actually the product of a fictional weapon, Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle, named after the novel Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle by Victor Appleton.
So there you go. Now get out there and start reciting all these facts in one big long string. It’ll be something to keep you occupied while everyone else is napping off that turkey.
“We have seen usually one or two [nicotine cartridges] a week puncturing the tire,” the manager of a tire shop told TV station WGAL. The cartridges, which are made out of metal, are much more harmful than a cigarette butt when they land on the road. “When they slash a tire,” the shop manager explains, “they usually leave a pretty big gash in it.”
Unlike a nail, the sharp cartridges don’t leave a simple hole in the tire that can be plugged up. They leave a gash that can’t be patched.
So, smokers, as you use the battery-powered device to break one bad habit, please try to break another. Keep a trash bag in your car for the cartridges.
E-cigarette cartridges puncturing tires [WGAL]
According to the airline’s site, travelers departing on or after Jan. 15, 2014 will incur a $95 fee (one-way) for carry-on pets.
Since this is a fee that is paid at the time of check-in, it looks like even those who made reservations before the price change went into effect will face the higher fee.
Even at $95, Southwest is still the least-expensive airline for flying with pets in the cabin (it does not accept checked pets in the cargo hold), but it is closer to what other airlines currently charge.
JetBlue and Spirit each charge $100, while United, US Airways, Delta, and American all charge $125 for carry-on pets.
Richard thought that he found a great deal between a sale on a Nintendo 3DS game at Walmart and a promotion with the Toys ‘R’ Us credit card. The store employees stood in his way, not understanding the store’s price-match policy the way he did. He tried to convince corporate to intervene: no luck. No stacked discounts for him.
Here’s the deal that he was trying to make happen. “Skylanders: SWAP Force” normally costs $74.99, but Walmart had it on sale for $37, and Richard could prove it. Sweet deal. Then there was a 10% off discount for people with a Toys ‘R’ Us credit card, taking another $3.70 off the top. Then he noticed a buy one, get one 40% off promotion, which could get him a second game for 40% off. He found a $10 game that seemed to be worth about $6 and headed to the register.
I asked why the policy said that you could price match after applying TRU offers,” he wrote to Consumerist, “and all they would tell me is that it was one or the other, that I could not combine offers.”
Now, Richard had read the chain’s price-matching policy carefully. As far as he could tell, he should be able to get the game for the Walmart sale price, then apply Toys ‘R’ Us discounts to get another game for 40% off, then 10% off the whole total. That’s not how it works. The policy is to apply each store’s discounts, compare the two prices, and give the customer the lower of the two prices.
This dispute hinges on the meaning of this line in the Toys ‘R’ Us price-matching policy:
Prices are matched after deducting any Toys”R”Us and/or Babies”R”Us coupon savings and other offers from our price.
Richard understood this to mean that Toys ‘R’ Us would apply their discounts to the price along with matching the Walmart sale price. That reading of the text makes sense, but that’s not what Toys ‘R’ Us means. The policy says “from our price” – not from the matched price.
We know this because we sent Richard’s issue over to Toys ‘R’ Us for some clarification. “A customer cannot apply a Toys”R”Us discount on top of matching a competitor’s price,” explained a spokesperson. That means you can’t combine the Walmart price with the 10% off credit card discount, or with the buy one, get one 40% off deal. Customers can have one discount or the other, but not both.
So that settles it. Or does it? While we were talking to Toys ‘R’ Us, Richard reported back that he spoke to a corporate employee and to the store manager about his dispute. “[The corporate employee], after we spoke, confirmed that the store should had honored both offers, as per the terms of their price match policy,” Richard explained to us. When the employee offered to send his complaint on and have someone from the store’s district management contact Richard, he agreed.
The next day, the manager called him up, explaining that the real policy is exactly what the media relations person told us and the store staff had told him when he tried to combine discounts. The policy doesn’t say what he thinks it does.
Who’s right here? The store’s message is pretty consistent, unless you read the policy the way that Richard did. They apply discounts and then compare the two prices. Maybe the corporate employee was going rogue and a fellow lover of discount games…or maybe the store has a secret hatred of price-matchers.
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Frozen yogurt is currently quite trendy, but we didn’t know that word had spread to wildlife. Yet a deer psuhed through the swinging door of a Peachwave shop in New Jersey last month and had an exciting romp, doing $5,000 in damage to the shop as it freaked out that its hooves couldn’t get any traction on the shiny floor.
Of course, the world didn’t hear about this incident until the owner’s son decided to set the footage to “Benny Hill” music and post it on YouTube. Of course.
The shop had just closed for the night when the deer crashed through the door, scaring the owner and his daughter. It scrambled around for about three minutes, finally giving up and lying down in a hallway near the door until an employee came and let it out.
The shop closed for a day to clean up, fix the damage, and get the health department’s okay to open back up.
Deer caught on tape running through Peachwave Yogurt in Holmdel [News 12]
If you’re one of the many Yahoo users (Yahoosers?) who hasn’t been terribly impressed with the numerous recent “upgrades” to the web giant’s e-mail service, you’re not alone, especially in the Yahoo offices, were 3-out-of-4 employees have apparently decided to just stick with Microsoft Outlook, in spite of the company’s pleas to switch.
AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher got her hands on a memo sent to Yahoo employees by the company’s Chief Information Officer and a Sr. VP of Communications, in which the execs basically beg employees to break up with the boring but safe Blaine McDonnagh that is Outlook and please, please see that they should really be falling for the Duckie Dale of Yahoo mail.
“Earlier this year we asked you to move to Yahoo Mail for your corporate email account,” reads the message. “25% of you made the switch (thank you). But even if we used the most generous of grading curves (say, the one from organic chemistry), we have clearly failed in our goal to move our co-workers to Yahoo Mail.”
The memo calls it a “matter of principle to use the products we make,” adding “BTW, same for Search,” which implies that most Yahoo employees have the same feeling about Yahoo search as the general public.
“[Y]ou might now be running in your head to a well worn path of justified resistance, phoning up the ol’ gang, circling the hippocampian wagons of amygdalian resistance,” continues the memo, no doubt causing countless Yahoo workers to search on Google or Wikipedia to understand that last sentence.
The memo then goes on, trying — much like an overeager suitor mocking his object of affection’s current love interest — to show how much cooler Yahoo is than stupid ol’ Outlook:
First, it doesn’t feel like we are asking you to abandon some glorious place of communications nirvana. At this point in your life, Outlook may be familiar, which we can often confuse with productive or well designed. Certainly, we can admire the application for its survival, an anachronism of the now defunct 90s PC era, a pre-web program written at a time when NT Server terrorized the data center landscape with the confidence of a T-Rex born to yuppie dinosaur parents who fully bought into the illusion of their son’s utter uniqueness because the big-mouthed, tiny-armed monster infant could mimic the gestures of The Itsy-Bitsy Pterodactyl. There was a similar outcry when we moved away from Outlook’s suite-mates in the Microsoft Office dreadnaught. But whether it’s familiarity, laziness or simple stubbornness dressed in a cloak of Ayn Randian Objectivism, the time has come to move on, commrade [sic...go deep in this pun, it is layered].
At this point, everyone at Yahoo is probably reminded why they get picked on by the cool kids at Google when they run into them at the mall.
The letter praises all the features of using the Yahoo Mail service for corporate e-mail accounts — basically all stuff you can do in Outlook and numerous other suites — but then slips in the note that, oh yeah, “corp mail is not yet supported in our Mail app for Android or iOS, but that will change.”
So the company wants everyone to switch to a mail service that isn’t yet mobile-friendly? That’s like the aforementioned suitor telling the girl he adores that “Okay, so I do currently live in my mom’s basement, but I swear I’m going to move out soon!”
We wonder how many of the Yahoo employees that received this memo then immediately used their Gmail accounts to forward it to their friends, or to apply for jobs elsewhere.
A few weeks ago, a New Jersey waitress set the Internets on fire with by posting a receipt, allegedly from her work, with a hateful message instead of a tip. “Sorry I cannot tip because I do not agree with your lifestyle & the way you live your life,” read the message on the receipt. The customer has now come forward to say that they left a 20% tip and would say no such thing.
The family claims that they recognize their receipt, the amount, and even the husband’s signature under the obscuring blur. Yet their own copy of the receipt and their credit card statement show a different total…with an included 20% tip.
“We’ve never not left a tip when someone gave good service,” insists the wife, “and we would never leave a note like that.”
The receipt that circulated online showed a total of $93.55, but the total that the family actually paid was $111.55. Their copy of the receipt was printed at the same exact time and from the same terminal as the one circulated online. Their copy just has a tip and lacks the explanatory note.
The family wants to correct the record, but they also want to remain anonymous because of the hysterical Internet frenzy reserved for both non-tippers and bigots. The question is: who did write the note? NBC 4 confronted the waitress outside of work, and she claimed that it isn’t in her handwriting and she had nothing to do with it.
For people concerned about the donations collected on her behalf, don’t be: as a Marines veteran, she’s turning them all over to the Wounded Warrior Project.
The restaurant claims that they’re investigating the situation.
Family Says They Did Tip Gay Server, Didn’t Leave Note [NBC New York]
The least of those reasons is simply that the couple never even received the order in question. But despite that, KlearGear.com claimed that by posting a negative review of the company online, the couple violated a non-disparagement clause that it claimed was in its online Terms of Use.
But it turns out that the clause in question wasn’t even on the KlearGear site in December 2008, when John first tried to buy something on the site and when his wife subsequently posted her review.
Despite that, the company filed a complaint with credit companies, severely dinging the couples’ credit scores and making it impossible to get a loan to buy a new furnace.
Public Citizen points out in its letter to KlearGear.com [PDF] that any clause, if it had even existed at the time, would be invalid “because it constitutes unfair surprise in a take-it-or-leave-it contract, and the terms themselves… are so one-sided in their broad, restrictive impact as to oppress an innocent party”.
“KlearGear.com’s unscrupulous conduct has affected every aspect of our lives, from major financial transactions like financing a new home purchase and a car purchase, to basic needs like heat in our home,” says John. “We are fighting not only to clear my credit record and obtain compensation for our ordeal but also to make sure that no one else has to go through what we did.”
In the letter, Public Citizen demands KlearGear to contact relevant credit agencies and tell them the debt was in error, as well as compensation of $75,000 and the removal of its non-disparagement clause from its Terms of Use.
If KlearGear.com refuses these demands, the couple will file a lawsuit.
We’re happy Jen and John have received such an outpouring of support, which many of our wonderful readers have been a part of. It feels good when someone comes to the aid of a the little guy, huh?
In theory, the change was supposed to save money and labor, making the stores more efficient. RFID tags are useful for both theft prevention and inventory, allowing remote inventory management and other wonderfulness. It was expensive, though, and Penney dumped the project back in January, even before doomed turnaround CEO Ron Johnson was able to finish the project.
Of course, stores had already taken the older anti-theft sensors off items in preparation for the new system. Why? The Wall Street Journal speculates that the two systems interfered with each other, so the old tags had to go before the switch. The never-completed switch.
The shoplifting frenzy hurt the company’s profit margin by one whole percentage point last quarter. Well, “profit margin” is a misleading term: the company lost half a billion dollars last quarter.
How J.C. Penney Became a Shoplifter’s Paradise [WSJ]
The cuddly animals that will keep your preschoolers entertained day and night make our list of Hot Holiday Toys.
Right out of the gate: I could not be more excited for the planned Marvel shows on Netflix.
I’ve long thought that certain comics (Preacher, for example) were way better suited to be TV series than movies. When it comes to superheroes it can absolutely work too, especially in the case of heroes that don’t have the same top-tier status that say, Iron Man or Spider-Man have.
I think what it comes down to is the villains. When you have a character like Luke Cage or Daredevil that don’t really have an established following outside of comics circles, you need to have a really strong villain to draw people in. Their “Joker” if you will. As it stands, no one’s going to want to make a $200 million dollar movie to see Daredevil smack around The Owl. With a TV series however, you have the chance to build up that character’s status and audience using the Marvel brand that’s really well known now.
The same can be said for DC and Warner Bros. The Flash is a character that I would love to see on the big screen, but who’s he going to battle? What’s the big draw there for someone who doesn’t really know who Barry Allen is? Couple that with the fact Flash doesn’t really have a “single” nemesis but a Rogues team to contend with and TV makes so much more sense. They could easily introduce the Rogues over time and build to a movie where The Flash has to fight them all at once.
It’s a super exciting time for longtime readers of comics as these characters take on life in so many other mediums, but TV is still the one that I think will do the best for the industry as a whole in terms of growing characters and bringing in audiences. Plus saying Daredevil in the same breath as amazing shows as House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black is pretty cool.
Finally, if “Pimpslap Mickey” isn’t on toy store shelves next Christmas, they are missing a huge opportunity. Huge.
Today’s page comes to us from our ol’ pal Christian Meesey:
Christian “Meesimo” Meesey is a mild mannered Caricature artist by day. But when night falls, he unleashes upon the world a slightly less mild mannered comic book artist, with more blogs than one human should have. He is a Leo, and enjoys Coen Brothers movies and the musical storytelling of Tom Waits.
Have a great week, everyone! See you back here Friday!
