{"id":325,"date":"2008-07-14T17:08:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-14T21:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=325"},"modified":"2009-01-14T17:55:46","modified_gmt":"2009-01-14T21:55:46","slug":"odd-lots-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=325","title":{"rendered":"Odd Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>For a little over a year, I&apos;ve been buying dry-roasted peanuts                 from Safeway that do not contain MSG. Recently we noticed that                 the packaging had changed, and checked the ingredients. MSG returns,                 gakkh. Dry-roasted peanuts are a much better snack than their                 rep would have it, but MSG makes me feel weird in the head, so                 the search for MSG-free dry-roasted peanuts resumes. Interestingly,                 I had a couple of Planter&apos;s dry-roasted peanuts the other day                 (knowing full-well that they have MSG in them; I had a few, not                 handfuls) and <i>they do not taste any different<\/i>. Not better.                 Not worse. Not a little bit. Not at <i>all<\/i>. So the companies                 that print &#8220;monosodium glutamate (flavor enhancer)&#8221;                 on their peanut labels are being ripped off. MSG does not enhance                 flavor. What it does do is mess some people over (like me, and                 countless others) and cost the vendors money. MSG is cheap, but                 not free. When will food packagers realize that they could save                 money and increase their market by just dumping it?<\/li>\n<li>Pertinent to the above, Jay&apos;s Barbecue Potato Chips also lack                 MSG, and are the only barbeque potato chips I&apos;ve ever seen that                 don&apos;t have it. They are a Chicago brand, and so far we haven&apos;t                 seen them in Colorado Springs. But when I&apos;m here, I gorge.<\/li>\n<li>I&apos;m a big fan of lashup railcars, but I startled a little when                 Pete Albrecht sent me a link to a model of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.factorydirecttrains.com\/14-428-2.aspx\">a                 <i>pink<\/i> Galloping Goose<\/a>. The paint schemes are described                 as &#8220;authentic.&#8221; So was there ever a Rio Grande Goose                 in pink and white livery? I&apos;ve not been able to determine that\u2014but                 whoa, somehow I doubt it. That&apos;s a spit-and-baling-wire, real-man&apos;s                 tin-roof rough-and-tumble item that reminds me of <i>Mad Max<\/i>                 as much as it does of the Old West. Pink? Sheesh!<\/li>\n<li>A tenured professor at the University of Minnesota has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2008\/jul\/12\/professor-solicits-hosts-to-desecrate\/\">put                 out a call for Catholics to send him consecrated Eucharistic hosts&#8230;so                 that he can desecrate them<\/a>. I had hoped this was an urban                 legend, but the <i>Washington Times<\/i> generally knows better.                 I wonder if he (and his clueless university) understand that this                 doesn&apos;t hurt the Church at all, but makes higher education in                 general and university professors in particular look mean-spirited                 and ridiculous. (Quick: Somebody test that guy for <i>toxoplasmosis<\/i>&#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>From Michael Covington comes a link to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.modernmechanix.com\/2008\/07\/08\/electric-spikes-roast-weinies\/\">a                 Modern Mechanix item<\/a> from 1933 that may be the original &#8220;watt                 dog&#8221; cooker, which spawned <a href=\"http:\/\/www.copperwood.com\/Carl_and_Jerry-V10N02-Dog_Teaches_Boy.pdf\">a                 famous Carl &amp; Jerry story<\/a> cautioning young tinkerers about                 the hazards of messing with line current. A board with nails pounded                 through it, facing up&#8230;with 110V on the nails. Wow. (And while                 you&apos;re there, click on the cover image to get a closer look at                 what was prompting young geeks to buy magazines in 1933. Maybe                 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indiana.edu\/%7Eintell\/flynneffect.shtml\">the                 Flynn Effect<\/a> really does exist.)<\/li>\n<li>On second thought, <a href=\"http:\/\/revealingerrors.com\/tyson_homosexual\">probably                 not<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/baron-waste.livejournal.com\/\">Baron_Waste<\/a>,                 I discovered that <a href=\"http:\/\/baron-waste.livejournal.com\/644789.html?#cutid1\">the                 United States&apos; net carbon emissions declined by 3% between 2000                 and 2006<\/a>. Of the top 17 carbon emitters, only France reduced                 emissions more\u2014and I&apos;d wager that that&apos;s because France has                 had the good sense to stuff their antinuclear crackpots in the                 Bastille and forget about them.<\/li>\n<li>Nertz. Wrong. France closed the Bastille in 1789. Well, hey:                 Today is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/science\/discoveries\/news\/2008\/07\/dayintech_0714\">the                 158th birthday of the ice maker<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For a little over a year, I&apos;ve been buying dry-roasted peanuts from Safeway that do not contain MSG. Recently we noticed that the packaging had changed, and checked the ingredients. MSG returns, gakkh. Dry-roasted peanuts are a much better snack than their rep would have it, but MSG makes me feel weird in the head, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}