I Have Seen The Future, and it is Spoutless

The very day this article appears in the New York Times touting a new environmentally friendly redesign of the milk jug, I happened to be at Sam's Club--one of the early adopters of the new jug design--and in need of milk. Welcome to the future of your milk jug, folks:

Here at Penguin Perspectives, we strive to do all the awkward stuff first, so you don't have to wind up on the great cosmic blooper reel. In that spirit, here's a rundown of the new milk jug experience.

The new design eliminates the little plastic ring around the cap, replacing it with a foil under-seal. The difference is that I needed a fork to get the ring off and a knife to get the foil seal off. The pour experience, much maligned in the NYTimes article, is on par with a lemonade pitcher. As a matter of fact, if you can hit a glass pouring liquid out of a pitcher, the new jugs won't be much of a challenge. The milk aperture is a little on the wide side and there is not a lot of headspace, making flow control on the first pour or two somewhere between "dicey" and "nonexistent." I made my first experimental pour into a juice cup, and while I did not spill, I had filled the 8-ounce cup with my first slosh out of the carton. The flow control got better once there was about an inch and a half of space between the top of the jug and the milk level. In sum, don't try to add milk to your morning coffee out of a newly-opened jug if you would like the milk:coffee ratio to remain tilted in favor of coffee. In future jugs, I will check to see if merely punching a pour hole into the foil underseal fixes that problem.

With the new jug design lacking more than a vestigial spout, I had assumed that my days drinking straight from the carton were over. Not so. It takes considerably more lower lip dexterity, but still a manageable feat. And no, I don't drink from the carton when we have guests at the Rookery. Then, I get a glass.

Bucket Not Included

Polish and Canadian researchers have determined that 90% of people can carry a tune. The data were obviously not collected on Karaoke Night.

I really must stop being annoyed by this

So this afternoon, I'm at the sink draining a can of chunk light tuna in water (and as a side note, when did "chunk" tuna stop having chunks in it larger than individual tuna cells?) when I see the notice on the side of the can:

Allergy warning: contains tuna

If that is what it takes for a tuna-allergic customer to realize he or she is about to embark on a tunapalooza, rather than, say, the big letters on the front of the can that say "Tuna" or the big sign that says "Tuna" over the shelf display in the supermarket...well, there is a fine line between deserving a Darwin Award and asking for one.

Headline Sampler Platter--Because With Food Prices Like This, You Can't Afford the Entree

Honey bee crisis could lead to higher food prices

Midwest flood may cover nation in higher food prices

Costly corn creeping into grocery prices

Before the midwest went underwater, the news was abuzz with how much the skyrocketing cost of fuel was adding to the grocery bill. Maybe the media should save some time and energy, and tell me what isn't making my milk cost more every time I go to the store.

Either that, or we all take a lesson from this headline from KHNL in Honolulu, Hawaii: Rising Costs of Food Leave Some Looking for Other Options. Other options to food are starting to look better and better every week that I go grocery shopping. Oh, and note to Hawaiians: having eaten poi, I can confidently say that you guys have already found another option to food.

I Am The Queen of Dorkopolis

Tonight, Emp. Peng. and I got invited to a wingding where, among other things, they were serving jello shots and pudding shots. I have a glancing familiarity with jello shots, although (as will become clear in a moment) I have never actually imbibed one. Pudding shots, though, were a new one on me. Apparently, they are sort of like a dollop of chocolate mousse spiked with Bailey's Irish Cream. I was curious, so I got one.

It was not for another three hours that I found out one is not supposed to eat them with a spoon.

Waddling in Memphis

Emp. Peng. and I were migratory again last weekend, this time to Memphis. It was not a destination of our choosing, and (with respect to any Memphibians out there) not really a place we would go back to. That does not mean it is completely without its charms. A few lessons learned:

1. Elvis had, um, interesting tastes in interior decorating. While I do not intend to implement it in the Rookery, green shag carpet actually works surprisingly well as a ceiling cover.
2. Tequilla bad. Very bad.
3. Barbecue good. Very good.
4. When the Purveyor of Barbecue offers a bib, take it.
   
5. Do not ask the Purveyor of Barbecue for butter. You will not get it.
   

One night, we went to a place called Jim Neely's Interstate Barbecue for dinner. Emp. Peng. and I both had the Sampler Platter, described on the menu as "A Trip to Hog Heaven! Pork Ribs, Beef Ribs, Links, Beef Brisket, Pork Shoulder, B-B-Q Spaghetti, Beans, Slaw and Bread." One of our dining companions described it as "Almost as good as sex." The meat really is that good, and that messy. Having gnawed through approximately 1/3 of a mammal worth of meat, leaving a stack of bones in a puddle of grease and barbecue sauce, Emp. Peng. asked the waitress for a bit of butter to go with his bread, only to be told "We don't do butter here. It's bad for you."

"Bad for you" seems to be the guiding principle of Southern cuisine, where the Official Appliance is the Fry Daddy. I am not sure it is legal to serve something south of the Mason-Dixon line that does not contain lard, bacon grease, or both. The only vegetable I saw the whole time there was the dish of cole slaw served with the Sampler Platter, and even that was drowning in enough mayonnaise to cause a coronary event in a small whale. We did see some fruit, both at the continental breakfast and between two slices of Wonder Bread slathered in Skippy, coated in butter and grilled to a golden brown (BTW, yummy, but I can see how it would kill a man).

Given that, Emp. Peng. considered butter an odd place to draw the line.

Are Penguins an Aphrodesiac or Something?

News story from Reuters today is headlined, "Antarctica Base Gets 16,500 Condoms Before Darkness," and while that would seem like a fairly self-explanatory headline, the reporter does point out that this is a year's supply for McMurdo Base.

Let's do the math. 16,500 divided by 365 works out enough prophylactics for 132 encounters per day, every day, or 264 scientists not watching the penguins on a daily basis. In the winter, that is more than are actually at McMurdo. Even for the summer population of 1,000, that is a lot of pair bonding.

Apparently, being surrounded by an ice shelf and two penguin colonies is better than oysters or powdered rhino horn. I bet the oysters and the rhinos like it better, too.

Maybe It's the Lips?

I may be something of a city girl, inasmuch as I prefer to vacation in facilities where the walls are made of wall, but I am somewhat sanguine in the ways of the meat. While I have never personally slaughtered a chicken, I know where McNuggets come from. Bad example. I don't think anyone, including Ray Kroc, knows where McNuggets come from. Let's just say that I am under no delusions that boneless, skinless chicken breasts sprout in little styrofoam trays at the supermarket. While I promised Emp. Peng. that the Rookery would be a "no livestock" zone (the resident cat lumps often straining the definition of "live," let alone "stock"), I have no compunction about paying someone else to raise my livestock for me. No omnivore does, but in my case, I pay the person directly.

The farmer I get my beef from is branching out into poultry. Yesterday I put dibs on 4 chickens that Kathy tells me will be free range if they ever get up the bird cajones to leave the barn. As part of the dibs-calling process, Kathy walked me through the per-chicken costs ($1.75 to slaughter and de-entrail them, 10 cents for whatever "De-necking" means, etc.). Since these will be custom slaughtered per pre-order, I have options about whether I want my birds whole, split, quartered, or the seven-piece cut.

Hold the phone. Seven pieces? Chickens, like most birds, mastered bilateral symmetry ages ago. Draw a line down the middle of a chicken, and you end up with one of everything on each side. That should leave an even number of chicken parts. We can't figure out what that seventh piece is.

Get out the Ear Floss

Emp. Peng. is a member of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors--NAIFA for short. Tonight, the local group had a wingding at the local theater, with hors d'ouvres and a social hour in the basement of the local theater, then a night of live improv comedy. He had told the theater usher to direct anyone here for the NAIFA event downstairs. About a half hour after the social hour had started, we were wondering why more people were not there. Turns out the usher thought that downstairs was where the theater was holding the NAFTA event.

Waiting Room Observations

Things I noticed while the doctor's office staff sort of forgot I was there this morning:

• The clock on the pencil holder was 11 minutes faster than the clock on the wall
• The sign should have read, "Patients who are in for physicals should wait to provide a urine sample," not "Patients that..." Though it took much restraint, I did not grab one of their Lamasil pens and correct that sign.
• A "healthy seating area" in a doctor's office is slightly less useful than a "non smoking section" in a restaurant. The germs don't know not to hop over two chairs.
  

Blooper Reel

I was video chatting with PengSis, PengBrotherInLaw (who needs a shorter nom de blog) and the fledglings tonight, sitting on my big inflatable exercise ball, when I got a graphic illustration of why it is inadvisable to own both inflatable furniture and cats. One minute, I was sitting there chatting, then Chessie walked behind me. One stealthy claw, a quiet pop! and a much less quiet expletive later, I was on the floor, atop what is now a giant floppy Pac-Man. Unfortunately, I do not have video of the event, but PengSis may be able to elaborate on the visuals. Such is the power of webcams, that they bring your bloopers 3,000 miles so that your siblings can share them, live.

I Told You That You Wouldn't Believe It

Above is a photo of the terminal screen for the Las Vegas Monorail ticketing kiosk. The monorail runs the length of the strip, behind the casinos, and I heartily recommend it as a way to get around. If you look at the right hand column of selections closely, you will notice something odd about the fee structure. Granted, Las Vegas did not get where it is today by attracting visitors who are good at math. Still, how many of those yard-long frozen daiquiri beakers does it take for someone not to notice that, for the price of one 3-day pass, a person could get three 1-day passes and a yard-long beaker of banana daiquiri?

The Dessert You Have To See To Believe

One of the daytime activities at the convention was a cooking demonstration in the Bellagio's million-dollar kitchen studio. The first three courses of lunch were demonstrated and prepared by one of the hotel's main chefs, who, as it turned out, was on his last day working at the Bellagio. The next day, he left to join the catering staff of the Burj-Al-Arab, that sail-shaped hotel in Dubai where suites start at $1,600 a night and are bigger than my first two apartments combined. Appetizers were goatcheese stuffed zucchini blossoms, fennel-pollen-dusted scallops and butternut squash risotto. The salad course was microgreens and flower petals in a citrus-wildflower honey vinaigrette. The main course was free-range petaluma chicken breast stuffed with peas, sauteed pea tendrils and sous-vide white asparagus. The main course was the one I managed to splatter all over my white shirt. Cue the waiter with a napkin and a bottle of Pellegrino ($15 from the hotel honor bar) to blot up the chicken juice--and, before you go there with it, he let me do the actual blotting; he just decanted the mineral water onto the napkin for me. That is the kind of service that almost made up for the hotel's lack of an in-room coffeemaker.

The dessert course, designed and prepared by the pastry chef, is what is photographed above. Back in the 1980s, Kraft foods made a novelty product called Jello 1-2-3. Made properly (easier said than done), it separated out into a gel layer, a creamy layer and a foamy layer as it set. This dessert is much the same concept, except that the layers are created and layered individually and it is not flavored with a Tang taste-alike. The bottom layer is a jello made with hibiscus flowers, with raspberries floating in it. On top of that, there is a coconut cream layer topped with little coconut crunchies. On top of the coconut, there is a foam layer made with lychee puree, and nestled in the lychee foam is a scoop of rose ice cream, which should be one of Baskin Robbins 31 flavors. The thing sticking up on top is a sugar-coated rose petal. It was one of the weirder taste sensation I have ever had, but not in a bad way. Catering did not let us keep the glasses, although we did get a nice souvenir hat, which I did not wear through airport security.

Dolphin Urine Sample

As promised, the saga of my newfound knowledge of collecting a specimen from a dolphin. On our second night in Vegas, the company had arranged a private party at the Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat, where the animals from Siegfried and Roy's show live when they aren't on stage. Technically, all of the animals live in quarters away from the public areas and take turns spending the day in the exhibit habitat. When there is a private event, the animals stay out a little later and keep their trainers and keepers up to talk to the people. One of the dolphin trainers mentioned that the cetaceans-in-residence take part in research projects, mostly related to dolphin breeding programs, and that researchers from universities often call them up for blood or urine samples for off-site research projects.

This leads to the inevitable pondering: these are marine mammals. How does one go about collecting a urine sample from something that swims around all day? I figured that I was only going to get one shot at finding out, so I asked. As it turns out, one gets a urine sample from a dolphin in much the same way one gets one from a human: get the mammal to pee in a cup. Since one can't exactly send a dolphin into the bathroom with a Dixie cup, the dolphin has to come up onto the shallow platform, tail-first. It then lifts its tail up and the keeper squeezes the necessary specimen out of the dolphin. The photo below has two of the smaller dolphins from the habitat demonstrating the position, face-first instead of tail-first.
You learn something new every day. Today, that something is collecting urine samples from a dolphin. The keeper was a little more circumspect about how they get the dolphins to voluntarily give semen samples, except to say that in dolphins, it is a muscular reaction, rather than the nerve-based reaction it is in humans. This bonus factoid is brought to you by the letters T, M, and I.

Answer to Game #1: How fast can we get from Mandalay Bay to The Venetian?

Las Vegas needs the opposite warning as the one on automotive sideview mirrors. Objects on The Strip are not anywhere near as close as they appear. The Strip is about 4 miles long. On the first day or two, the hotels seem really close together, but after a couple of days hoofing up and down Las Vegas Boulevard, the distances get much farther. On our last day there, I was convinced that the monorail station at Bally's had inched its way into Arizona during the week.

After some quality time walking through Mandalay Bay, located at the southern end of The Strip, we had to get up to The Venetian to make our rendezvous with the gondola rides on the second floor (yes, the indoor canal is upstairs). Google Maps puts the distance between the two hotels at about 2 miles, keeping to the streets. The pedestrian route: take the tram from Mandalay Bay past the Luxor to the Excalibur. Take the skyway from the Excalibur over the 13-lane road over to New York New York, turn right at the Nathan's Hot Dog stand to the skyway over Las Vegas Boulevard to the MGM Grand. Go downstairs, past the lion habitat, through to the back of the casino and pick up the monorail. Ride the monorail to the Harrah's/Imperial Palace station, then walk through to the front of Harrah's and take the sidewalk past Casino Royale to the moving sidewalk over the mini Rialto Bridge into the Venetian. We made that in 35 minutes.

One More Thing About the Hat

This never happened to Indiana Jones, but I am having some difficulty adjusting to the blind spot just above my head. Wednesday afternoon, we were meandering through the carnival midway at Excalibur. Because I did not see it, I smacked my head into a six foot tall stuffed penguin hanging from the ceiling. That's the sort of thing an intrepid archaeologist and/or Vegas tourist should see before it whacks them on the skull (crystal or otherwise).

Yes, I am bored waiting for my plane and the airport has free wi-fi.

Gratuitious Vacation Plug

If anyone finds themselves in Las Vegas, I highly recommend the buffet at Mandalay Bay. Lunch is $20 a head, but that is a particularly good value considering that I don't think I will be able to eat for at least a week. The lunch spread we got had carving stations with prime rib, pork tenderloin, turkey breast and salmon, a full sushi spread, a selection of pizza and pastas, veal osso bucco, burrito bar, five kinds of potatoes, salad bar and a dessert selection second only to the dessert I will describe when I get home and get the photos of it off the camera and onto the computer. That dessert fell into the category of "No one will believe this if we don't have pictures." Other things in that category: "Menopause: The Musical" and the fee structure on the Las Vegas monorail.

Pengy and the TSA Checkpoint of Doom

I'm blogging this at gate A10 in McCarran Airport, fresh out of airport security, which has managed, yet again, to provide more entertainment than security. This time, it was particularly good.

Even with the ozone layer intact, this penguin sunburns easily, so I have been in search of a nice travel sun hat for a while. Emp. Peng. found one for me at an establishment called "Hattitude" at the mall inside the Planet Hollywood casino (for those who haven't done the Strip, most of the hotel/casinos also have a mall similar to the local mall back home, except instead of an Orange Julius, these malls have Daiquiri bars that sell Sloshed Puppies in yard-long beakers). This particular sun hat is a wide brimmed brown felt fedora with grosgrain satin hatband. While the hat is billed as "collapsible," the guy at Hattitude recommended I not test that too much by packing it in my luggage. This brings me to why I was wearing an Indiana Jones fedora through the TSA checkpoint.

As anyone who has experienced the thrill ride that is airport security lately can attest, it would go a lot faster if we just all agreed to do it naked. Nonetheless, we still remove shoes, hats, glasses, jackets, jewelry, laptops, water bottles and all detachable cybernetic implants, place them in little bins, and reassemble ourselves on the other side. This time, after I got myself put back together and my glasses on, I was looking for Emp. Peng., who got routed to a different metal detector. Suddenly, I heard the unmistakable strains of the Indiana Jones theme coming from two metal detectors over. Out of the guys manning the x-ray machine, who were pointing me out to their co-security-personnel. I might feel better about airport security if they had been watching their own line.

More Coming Attractions:

Look for games of "Which of these people are being paid to look pretty?" and "Which of these people are dead, and which are just sloshed?" Although I cannot share the game, we also played "How fast can we get from Mandalay Bay to The Venetian?"

Tomorrow, the penguins will be migratory. After that, I will give a full recount of the fun we have been having this week.

Coming Attractions

Emp. Peng. and I attended an private party at the mini zoo in the Mirage where the animals from the Sigfried and Roy show live. I will explain when I get back to the Rookery how it is that I found out how one gets a urine sample from a dolphin.