Toaster Strudel vs. Pop Tarts

 I think toaster strudels are doing a little bit of over advertizing. Now I’m no marketing expert, for that you would have to talk to my brother, but I think their ads against pop tarts are a bad idea. They start off by showing what clearly looks exactly like a pop tart and calling an other breakfast pastry or fruit pastry or something. Then they inject fruit goo into the middle which plumps it up a bit, and wrap it all up in flaky doughy pastry. First, if you actually took a pop tart, then added gooey goodness to the middle and wrapped it all up, I would think that deserved a taste. That, however is not what a toaster strudel is. A toaster strudel is everything they say it is, without the original pop tart looking thing. It is gooey middle with flaky pastry outside and frosting to top it. If we take a second to think about this, a pop tart and a toaster strudel, if they are even in the same family, are on opposite sides of each other. A pop tart has a compressed, packed dough outside with a (more or less) solid filling, and an already hardened icing top. Toaster strudels have a light, airy pastry outside with a gooey liquid center, and a fresh icing top. They are so different, my desire for each of these is not related whatsoever to my desire for the other. But now that I think about it, they probably would make a pretty good breakfast if they were combined…

So Scott Thought.

Super Villians Rule

Super villains are sometimes way cooler than the superheroes that they fight whom we so commonly root for to win the aforementioned fight. A bunch of superheroes have really weak ways of getting their powers, and as a result, go through almost no trials. For example, superman was born with his powers and had to do nothing to get them, as opposed to Two Face, who gets sulfuric acid splashed in his face, then has to build himself into a villain. It just seems that the villain way of life (building a name for yourself) is more impressive than the hero way (having powers be given to you). Also, villains can be way more creative, in the ways that they torture their respective superheroes.

So Scott Thought.

Hat History

Now I’m not going to say I’m a hat expert, in fact I had the good fortune to learn a little more about hats (and the world) recently when my mom, and then later that night, our waitress, correctly identified a millinery as a women’s hat shop. So I’m not a hat expert, but I am an enthusiast and great hat wearer. I can’t quite recall when I decided I wanted to do this, but at some early point in my educational career, I decided to wear a hat to school. Now for a long time kids weren’t allowed to wear hats in school, so when I say I wore a hat to school, I literally mean on the way to and from school (and like every other waking moment of my life not in school). I liked hats. I really liked wearing hats. In accordance with this I actually wore the hat right up until the school day actually started, sort of as an act of defiance (that was about as defiant as I ever got), but mostly just because I liked wearing my hat. Also, for a long time I liked to use hat to express my enthusiasm for my team. Enter ninth grade, the hat ban is lifted and now I get to wear my hat all the time! Now this brings up a new problem: consider if you will, wearing a hat pretty much from the time you wake up until you go to sleep (sometimes past that) it tends to get pretty dirty. So I came up with a rule for myself, one new hat a year, meaning every hat I had was the only one worn for a year, then it was retired. More recently, I’ve gotten an interest in hair, namely my own hair on my head because it’s awesome. Normally, if my hair wasn’t so long, I would be wearing a hat. This derives from the pure satisfaction I get from wearing a hat, whereas the new trend derives from the fact that I now care more about how my hair looks than about wearing a hat. So like I said, I’m no hat expert, but I sure do have a lot of experience with them.

Scott hat stats:
Favorite practical reason to wear a hat: to cover up ugly in-between hair that isn’t long enough to be a flowing mane but isn’t short enough to look good either
Scott’s number one used hat type: the baseball cap (bonus, my favorite variety is fitted)
Number one thing featured on my hats: university of Michigan
Number two: university of Wisconsin
Rising trend: winter hats/beanies
Trend that should come back: top hats

So Scott Thought.

Religious Math

This is an old thought:

I could definitely see math becoming a religion, believing all things that had happened could all be shown to happen with math, trying to use equations to predict the future with equations, and looking for the one true ultimate equation that would be the solution to everything and mix the entirety of everything all together in one big lump. Yep, I could definitely see math being a religion.

So Scott Thought. 

How I Met Lampy the Bean

I have a friend named Lampy the Bean. Admittedly Lampy has not always been his name, it’s a nickname that my mom inadvertently gave to him, but that comes later. So here’s the story of how I met Lampy, and like any good story, it starts in Mexico. It was about five years past now when my family and I were on a vacation in Mexico for my grandparents’ anniversary, and thus it was a nice family vacation. One day, however, we decided to go looking for a “real” Mexican place (because apparently being located in Mexico isn’t enough to call it a “real” Mexican restaurant). Eventually we found a place that looked like it would have good food but was in a place that didn’t make us fear for our lives too much. We get in and we’re served dinner, the meal is winding down and I’m at the table with my oldest cousin Bob and there’s a pepper on my plate. So naturally, Bob tries to get me to eat the pepper and he offers me a one peso coin. At first this seemed like a good idea, but I decided I wasn’t that easy and I would hold out for more, plus after a quick conversion I realized it was only ten cents. A short while later he had doubled his offer to two pesos. I agreed, the terms were set, and we had a deal. I ate the pepper and shortly thereafter believed I had won out because it wasn’t too hot, when all of the sudden it started to burn. I quickly downed two or three waters because of course all the food was gone (meal winding down, remember) and had slightly lessened the degree of the burning at the cost of some spreading. Moments later as we were leaving, we found out that each glass of water had cost extra… oops. Naturally, years down the road my cousin remembers this and introduced me to my friend Lampy on, or very near to, my birthday I think. Last summer I felt an extra special connection to Lampy and consequently he was around a lot more often. When my mom saw Lampy she would always call him the bean plant. What about that bean plant over there? When are you going to take that to college? Then as we were traveling to drop me off at the airport to go to college while he was in the car, my mom again misnamed him and just called him Lampy. We already thought the bean plant was such a funny name when I said Lampy the bean, it just stuck. That’s how I met my magnificent ghost pepper plant, Lampy the Bean plant. And now I would like to issue a challenge to my cousin, Bob: once I have grown peppers, I want you to have one with me and write a review on your blog.

So Scott thought.

Product Magic

I had some thoughts so I'm going to write them out for you.

Have you ever noticed how some of the companies out there are actually doing it right for us consumers? It's not that they make products that just work, they make things for us that are magic. It sometimes makes me proud to use their stuff, which just makes me feel better, so I like the product more. These companies put me in a catch twenty two of goodness and I call it magic. For example toilet paper. All I'm saying is some companies some that super thin, sand papery crap and some make that thick fluffy, cloud like toilet paper. Or northface, I was always a little disappointed to say it. but I was ashamed to have a northface and be one of those guys. However now I've come to terms with my ownership. In fact I'm happy I have one and you know why? They're warm and I think my jacket actually looks good on me so I like to wear it. One product that I'd really like to highlight though is mane and tail. I warned my roommate Matt five days ago about the sheer awesome power and magic of this shampoo and conditioner. He was totally not believing me until he actually used it. This is not a product to be trifled with, it must be respected and used properly and it will be awesome. That's why I always like to look for that extra special part of a company, their product magicness. 

Have you ever noticed how draining it can be going to the bank? First you have to drive to the bank and somehow the route is always crowded with moron drivers and the bank closes in five minutes. Then you get there and you have to find a parking space in the lot, but you know it will only take a couple minutes so you contemplate illegally parking. Then decide to just find a space. Then as soon as you get into the building, every worker looks at you and they swarm you all trying to help you out (and trick you into spending money in one way or another)… it can be really stressful.

That was a bonus because I had to go to the bank today and get some quarters for laundry and I was again swarmed by a guy. On the bright side I walked so I avoided driving problems, but I had to stop a lot at intersections.

Sports Nation

This is an old thought with new ideas added in and I was having some trouble remembering complete new ideas, so you just get one for now... sorry.

Baseball fields sort of have their own little nation inside of them… they have their own laws, traditions, and even discriminations. First, I would point out that in a stadium, it is perfectly acceptable to eat peanuts and throw the shells wherever they may land. Furthermore, everybody has their own team anthem (i.e. Go Cubs Go). And everybody hates the other team. There are unified rules by which everybody plays, but there are also subtle variations, say between NL and AL. In my marvelous academic career I've learned a thing or two about geography and I'm reminded of a couple interesting terms, states and nations. It was a few years ago, so I may be a little off on the exact definition, but in my recollection of the definitions, states were places geographically bound by humans for example a country. On the other hand, nations are places were humans feel connected to other humans much like how people sometimes rally to support a baseball team. Of course this goes beyond just baseball, you can see it in almost every sport. Once you cross the gates, it’s a whole new world.

The first Major League Baseball stadium to feature a live organist was Chicago’s Wrigley Field in 1941.