Sleet and Hail: semi-angry rants that should be taken no more than semi-seriously

The Excess of Christmas
Why am I writing about Christmas now? Because one part of my family is celebrating it this weekend. We've already purchased gifts for our gift exchange. This is where we buy a gift for "Man" or "Woman" and play a game to exchange these gifts (some call it a "White Elephant" gift--we roll dice to select the wrapped gifts we want, and we can take opened gifts from others).

Hey, the game itself can be sort of fun. But does such an exercise proves that gift-giving at Christmas has evolved into mere obligation? We're supposed to give non-personal gifts to generic "Man" in the family, rather than select a gift for a person we care about to express our feelings. We do it not out of love, but because it's what we do.

Well, I got the DVD Borat for this gift exchange. Usually the gifts are something like a wallet or a flashlight or a screwdriver. If I can pull off getting Borat back for myself, I probably will.

Media, Celebrity, and Royalty
The American media spend far too much time trying to make us care about celebrities that we either don't care about or shouldn't care about. Do we also need to be forced to care about the British royal family? What are the British royals to us? Nothing. I will never bring myself to care about any of them. There's no reason for any American to watch any interview with Chuck or LeRoy or whatever Diana's kids' names are.

Weather and Grammar
It is grammatically incorrect to say the temperature is hot or the temperature is cold. Temperature is a number: this number can be called high or low if you wish. "Hot" and "cold" are subjective terms to express subjective feelings of the weather. So you can feel hot, you can say "It's hot in here," but you can't say "The temperature is hot in here." Wouldn't it sound stupid to say "The weather is low today"? Yes, it would. The temperature can be high or low, and the weather can be hot or cold.

Local News + Sitcom = Gold, Jerry, Gold.

We love local news in fiction form (one of our favorite movies is Anchorman, but my favorite fictional weather man is David Spritz of The Weather Man). So we are really excited about Fox's new fall show Back to You, featuring Kelsey Grammar and Patricia Heaton as local TV anchors. As far as we can tell, a sitcom starring Grammar and Heaton will be at least good enough not to get canceled, but it should be better than that. Any work of TV or film making fun of local TV news has to be good; that's a scientific fact.

Day Tripper

The Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis is a spectacular place to spend a hot afternoon, and since it participates in the Museum Adventure Pass program, you can go to your local public library and get a free pass to the museum. It really is a wonderful museum, and we're lucky to have it on the Twin Cities; I highly recommend you take a visit this summer.

Is there more to Sven than meets the eye?

Sometimes I wonder if Sven is the surface level through which we experience him: the wholesome, boyish weatherman with a love for running, his family, and his goat, Minnesota to the core and sexually ambiguous. Is this Sven, or are there hidden depths to the man? Does he spend his mornings merely styling his hair, or does he face the mirror daily facing his own mortality? Does he wake ready to follow storms, or does he read Ted Hughes' poetry and quote Nietzsche? Does he struggle with on-camera interactions with rubes but carry an Oscar Wilde like wit off the camera? Is he obsessed with his perfect body and packaged appearance, or are there spiritual desires and Shakespearean complexity driving Sven? Does his blog reveal this simple good-natured fellow, or is that simply one aspect of the large man's complicated soul?

Sven seems to attend a lot of local community events. Is he a small-town fellow that enjoys the simply pleasures of a festival or parade, or does he shrewdly see these appearances as self-promotional work as Kare 11's ambassador to the community? What does it mean that his favorite movie is "Dr. Zhivago," his idols are Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, and that he likes Coldplay (or at least says all these things)? Don't some the photos on his blog not always reveal the constant smile on the pretty face and chiseled body, but a serious edginess and hard stare (or is this just the "I think I'm cool" look of a guy that obviously spends time and money making his hair look like that)?

And it must be hard to be in your mid-20s and already be a Minnesota Icon. Are his co-workers jealous? Do his competing meteorologists hold him in contempt?

If Sven is the sort of fellow to google himself, he may know this blog exists, and he may be embarrassed that a blog devoted to such brief poorly written inaninity as frugal consumerism and daytime TV also devotes energy to understanding him, a weatherman for whom we have clearly expressed mixed feelings.

Sleet and Hail: Good for business

I wanted to call your attention to a new blog by the blogger formerly known as Possible Flurries. My wife was disgusted at the cover of American Baby and was going to write a letter to the editor. I told her, don't become one of those people that writes a letter to the editor; besides, if you do so, your message is still under their control. Start a blog and complain about it--that's the new way to get your message out there. So she did. Cruelty-Free Mommy is her chance to talk about the things she wants to about parenting in our society; if that's the sort of thing that interests you, check it out.

Sven Sundgaard blogs his experience at the Grandma's Marathon here and here. As a bunch of bloggers blogging about our mixed feelings about Sven Sundgaard, we are really happy that Sven regularly maintains his blog. About Sven's blogging, we do not have mixed feelings; we moderately enjoy it.

And my recent embrace of the new Diet Mountain Dew has only enhanced my reputation as a mush-headed flip flopper. Am I fickle, or am I post-modern, baby!

Objective Distance

I used to drink Diet Mountain Dew straight out of the 2 liter bottle.

About a year and a half ago, I tasted a funny bottle of Diet Mountain Dew. Later I bought a six-pack of 24 oz. bottles, and after one or two bottles tasted funny (a grapefruit aftertaste), I sipped every bottle to test and dumped it when it tasted odd (I thought they were rotten or contaminated).

Soon after I found that this new taste was intentional; the flavor had been changed.

Outraged, I have not had any Diet Mountain Dew since (in actuality, I barely drink pop anymore: I get my caffeine from iced tea--along with antioxidants--and have a few pops a week).

But last night on a hot evening I saw a six-pack of Diet Mountain Dew, and the old associations with the crisp taste of Diet Mountain Dew came back to me, and I bought it. I figured on a hot day, even the new taste would at least make for a refreshing drink.

And tonight I drank it.

And it was good.

No: it was spectacular.

In the words of Frank Costanza, "I'm back, baby!" The love affair that seemed over for the past year has been rekindled: Diet Mountain Dew is once again my soulmate. I just needed objective distance: the taste and feel of Diet Mountain Dew is still wonderful.

The Great Mystery

I have been to many a mall. I am a shopper. What I don't understand is why a perfectly good mall--Brookdale--is always empty. I have been there three times (if memory serves). All three were weekends, and one was a few weeks before Christmas. The place is DEAD. I just don't get it. It has all the same stores most malls have (or so it seems to me). It even is one of five locations in the cities that has a Steve and Barry's, which is an awesome, super-cheap store featuring the famed Starburys for like 15 bucks and a great new clothing line by Sarah Jessica Parker. I got 6 tops from her clothing line, and it cost 47$. Craziness. So, why don't people shop at this mall?

Partly Cloudy and I were there for the SJP debut at Steve and Barry's, and we ate lunch afterward in the food court. In the food court, there was me, Partly Cloudy, Baby Viking, about 10 employees, and this bird:


Yep. A bird. It was flying all over, and hopping from table to table. Nobody seemed to notice or care. In order to leave, the bird would have to go through some glass doors, then an entryway, and then another set of glass doors. I have a feeling the bird has found a home. Fortunately, it's probably a pretty safe home, since there are no shoppers there to do it harm.

Confrontation and Discussion

I'm going to say what needs to be said: if you go to a restaurant to order pasta you are a sucker.

It may seem like a good deal, but it's not. You've seen pasta in the grocery store: it's extraordinarily cheap. If you were really really frugal, you could live on pasta every day and barely spend anything.

Possible Flurries and I just had a massive spaghetti meal featuring broccoli in the sauce and cheese bread on the side. I estimate the meal cost us $4.25 combined. Combined! If we got that at a restaurant, I'd expect it to cost around $8 each. And all it took was a little effort to cook.

So don't be a sucker. There are some things that can be cost effective to purchase at a restaurant (it would be hard to reproduce a Subway veggie sub at home for the cost you can get it at the restaurant. Now I'm going to go throw up because I just called Subway a restaurant. Someday, when this blog really devolves, I'll start sharing stories of the summer I worked at Subway). But pasta is not. If you want to make a killing, open a restaurant that serves pasta. The raw products cost little, but if you cook it, people will pay you a lot for it.

But don't go to a restaurant to overpay for a meal you could easily throw together yourself. Because it takes little to no skill and very little effort to make freaking spaghetti. Any rube can make spaghetti, and make it very cheap.

And now for discussion. Several months ago, WCCO did a story on generic and store brand products. One question Ben Tracy asked people was "Is there anything you wouldn't buy generic?" And that's a good question for this blog, since generic and store brand products are a necessary aspect of a frugal life.

So I'm turning this question to our readers.

Is there anything you wouldn't buy generic? What products do you require brand name only?

For me there are two: ketchup and beverages. I only want Heinz ketchup, and I don't want any generic pop, or any generic iced tea, or anything generic I have to drink (other than booze: only the cheapest gin for me, thank you very much).

Sleet and Hail: Minnesota, home of malls

How do you stay cool during these miserable hot muggy days? I have a suggestion: let somebody else pay to air condition you. There are places you can go for extended periods of time during which nobody will ask you to leave, nobody will expect you to do anything, and nobody will expect you to buy anything. Go to a mall: you can spend a long time walking around a mall amused without spending any money (and if you want to buy a cheap snack, why not?). Go to a library: they are air conditioned, they have books and magazines to entertain you, and there's no expectation to do anything. Stay cool on somebody else's dime.

We do not have mixed feelings about KSTP's Patrick Hammer: we like him. He really explains the reasons for the weather patterns well. Thanks, Patrick Hammer: I now understand the meteorological reasons why I will hate life until Monday.

If you dislike Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten, you may enjoy my recent critique of her latest column at Costanza Book Club.

Stock Footage

Finally, another post about TV news!

Whenever I flip channels, I catch MSNBC covering the immigration bill. While talking about the details (rarely) and politics (more often) of the possible legislation, I always see the same footage of some guys running around out in the grass. Evidently, these are illegal aliens trying to illegally cross the border. But it's always the same guys.

How useful is television news? Not very. When it provides stock footage to supplement a story (which actually never tells anything about the specific story, and provides no meaningful insight), and it provides the same stock footage again and again, you know you could just as easily get your news from a print source or the internet.

Cheapness Tip

Bored with your home? Don't spend money on anything new to add; don't worry about getting an interior decorator.

Just rearrange the damn furniture.

Twin Cities Frugality Report

From somebody who thinks George Costanza isn't cheap, but really rather reasonable.

My week spending no money.
I last spent money around 8:30 last Sunday. Today I went grocery shopping at 10:30 (I could have waited until 8:30, but since I was buying fresh produce, and the produce sitting out in the morning would be the same produce sitting out at night, I thought it better to get it early and make use of it through the day).

By the end of the week, we were out of canned green veggies (if you've lived day to day in our home the past few months, you know how ridiculous that is), no fresh lettuce (also ridiculous in context), no fresh broccoli (painful), and no fresh fruit (oddly, I did discover a forgotten bag of fresh baby carrots). For a vegetarian household, that is untenable.

So how much did I spend at the grocery store to make up for a week of buying no groceries? Under $37. If there's a frugality hall of fame, I would like to nominate myself for membership.

Is it ever worth it to buy coupons?
Coupons are everywhere. They get mailed to your house, they come in products you buy, and they come in the newspaper. So should you ever buy a book of coupons?

We did (well, since it was a week of spending no money for me, I left this decision entirely up to Possible Flurries, and she did). For $26, PF bought a Papa Johns coupon book featuring 3 free large pizzas (meaning if we use nothing else, we got 3 large pizzas for $8.67 each), four 50% off extra-large pizzas, and probably a dozen buy a pizza-get one menu item free (including another pizza as far as we can tell) coupons.

So was it worth it? We hope so.

Semi-offensive confession about ethnicity.
Along with being cheap (I don't think there's any ethnic reason for that), I have an absolute obsession with punctuality. I cannot abide being late for anything. I hate it. This may be because I am German, and I have the German adoration of punctuality (I also have the German desire to be drunk, which is like the Irish desire to be drunk, but a lot less fun).

This morning Possible Flurries and I were running late for church. But in addition to being German, I am Scandinavian, meaning I am intensely passive aggressive. I rarely express my anger directly, but instead express it in passive and indirect expressions. So while I may have angrily blamed the rest of my family for our tardiness, I couldn't directly express my anger at PF or little Fox. Instead I said things like, "Gosh, I wonder how we can be just two minutes late. Five minutes I could understand, but two minutes? If we just got up two minutes earlier, or rushed through something, or skipped something, we'd make it." There's the passive-aggressive nature: I substituted "we" for "you" to make it seem like I was complaining as much about myself as anybody. PF often gets to deal with my passive-aggressive remarks about all sorts of things. When she complains, I say, "Hey, I'm Scandinavian."

At one point I said, "I just hate being late for church." PF said, "People are late for church every week." "I know," I said, "but I always judge them" (I'm actually a very non-judgmental person, I think--it's not my Lutheran self-righteousness but my German surliness that leads to this judging of tardy church-goers).

So we arrived late, I was angry enough to snap at PF when she asked if we should put the car seat in the coat area, and we snuck into the wing. Every few minutes another family would come in late, and I refrained from judgment since I also was late. Of course, it became clear that every single group that was late had small children, and so it is quite clear why some people (including us) could be late for church.

So there you have it...
Boy, has this blog devolved from a lame commentary about local weather reporters into a semi-journal about PV's stupid life of cheapness and punctuality. We'll try get the focus back on Sven.

Shenanigans!

Tonight's Kare 11 weather broadcast
I thought Sven's tie was way too big/wide.

When I saw the weather forecast, I said, "Uff da, I'm going to want to put in the air conditioner this weekend." Possible Flurries then berated me for using the phrase "Uff da." As a German-Scandinavian Minnesotan, I don't know how I could not use the phrase "Uff da." That's life.

My week of spending no money
Early on it was easy enough: now I look at the fridge and cupboards and despair. I've eaten all the canned green veggies, all the lettuce, all the fresh broccoli, all the apples. Now it's frozen fries and boxed pastas until Sunday night.

Since I'm not spending money, I actually haven't even entered a vehicle of any sort this week.

"No I'm sorry, it's the Moops."
If you are frugal, one way to enjoy the time is playing games. Tonight Possible Flurries and I played Book Lover's Trivial Pursuit. I almost went bonkers when the question asked which book ended Alexandre Dumas' three musketeers stories. I said The Vicomte DeBraglione, or Ten Years After (sp?). The card said The Man in the Iron Mask. Now, this is sort of true: the last three musketeers book was The Vicomte DeBraglione, but it was so long, it is often published (maybe even first published--in point of fact it was published serially first, so I'm not entirely sure how it started as an actual book) in three separate books: The Vicomte DeBraglione, The Lady De Valliere, and The Man in the Iron Mask. Frankly, I'm not sure if I've got any of the titles or facts right in this claim, as you'll see why in the next bit.

Update #1: sober PV checked his facts. Here's what Dumas' wikipedia page reads:

"The Vicomte de Bragelonne (Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, ou Dix ans plus tard, 1847): When published in English it was usually split into three parts: The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Valliere, and The Man in the Iron Mask, of which the last part is the most known."

And the page for Vicomte de Bragelonne:

"The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later (Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix ans plus tard) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It is the third and last of the d'Artagnan Romances following The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After. It appeared first in serial form between 1847 and 1850. In the English translations the 268 chapters of this large volume are usually subdivided into three, but sometimes four or even five individual books. In three-volume English editions, the three volumes are titled 'The Vicomte de Bragelonne', 'Louise de la Vallière', and 'The Man in the Iron Mask.'"

So, Book Lover's Trivial Pursuit: you have upset me. This is nearly as upsetting as when I was playing "You Don't Know Jack" (I think part 2) on the computer with Possible Flurries, and according to the game, Romeo and Juliet were not married. I'm not sure I've played the game since: what's the sense in playing a game that gets such a basic and obvious fact wrong?

Update #2: Here is the exact wording of the question:

What Alexandre Dumas novel concluded the adventures of The Three Musketeers?

So, if you were me, would you be upset if you confidently answered, "The Vicomte de Bragelonne, or, Ten Years After," only to be told the correct answer is "The Man in the Iron Mask"?

A lesson for the kids
Do you know why you store your gin in the freezer? So it doesn't melt your ice, and you don't have a watered down drink.

I'm still mad
It's been about a year and a half, and I still can't believe Diet Mountain Dew changed its flavor. It's just not fair.

The celebrity I'd most like to see, meet, or be photographed with:

William Shatner. No question.



What other celebrity combines legitimate legendary icon with funny campy irony? Nobody. If I saw him, I'd say, "Holy crap. I can't believe that's William Shatner." He's a legend. But he's also slightly ridiculous enough that such a sighting would fill me with funny giddiness.

What celebrity would you most like to see, meet, or be photographed with?

Summer fun for TV and cheapness

TV
Sometimes when a new month comes along, there are changes in TV programming. So now it's between 3:00 and 4:00 and TNT is showing another episode of Law & Order instead of Charmed. Yippee! Update: today seems to be a marathon, so I don't know if it's a permanent change.

I really hate Angie Harmon's character. I don't get why she has to be so rude, mean, condescending, and sarcastic to everybody. My favorite of Jack McCoy's assistants was Serena, the liberal blonde.

Cheapness
I made a wild claim Sunday night around 9:15 that I would not spend a dime this week. As I was called on it, I made it an oath--I will not spend a dime until next Sunday night at 9:15. Nothing could be easier. I don't have anywhere to go, I have plenty of food at home, and I spend my days taking care of a baby. It's supremely easy not to spend any money at all this week. I'm looking forward to the challenge.