Sunday, October 18, 2009

Sunday stuff

us49crash

Today was grocery shopping day and apparently a bad day for this driver.

We came upon the accident scene about a mile south of Pine Log Road on U.S. 49. Our guess is the driver of this car made an ill-advised exit from the Citgo station across the road and got tagged by cross traffic. Fire fighters had just arrived and we met two ambulances as we continued on into Jonesboro, so there apparently were injuries.

It was the first bright sunny morning in several days, so the drivers involved certainly couldn’t blame weather conditions. More evidence of the ongoing epidemic of bad driving here in Northeast Arkansas.

After a Waffle House breakfast we stopped by the post office drop box to mail a customer evaluation postcard from last night’s dinner at Colton’s. I had the Southwest Chipotle Tips and Maria had beef tips. The waitress brought us salad, but never gave us silverware, despite our asking for it. Maria finally scoured the restaurant and came up with some. Our food arrived after an over-long wait and, of course, was room temperature, i.e., cold.

Then we joined the after-church crowd at Sam’s Club where some minor league version of ShamWow Vince was hustling a crowd of mouth-breathers with his assortment of miracle kitchen knives, guaranteed to stay sharp forever. This, of course, begs the question of how many companies can stay in business forever. So far as I know, it’s never been done.

I also noticed a typical Sam’s Club large volume package of Land O’ minimoo Lakes half  & half coffee creamers called Mini Moo’s. Since the name appears under the Land O’ Lakes Indian maiden logo, anyone familiar with the proper use of an apostrophe would conclude that the half & half belongs to Mini Moo, suggesting that the company it telling us the girl’s name for the first time in the 81-year history of the distinctive logo.

My guess, however, is that it’s just another example of morons trying to for the plural of something with an apostrophe. Probably never occurred to them that the right way to do it would be with a noticeably smaller “s” so as to avoid the impression they were trying to spell “moose” but forgot the “e.”

Here’s what Wikipedia says about the logo:

The Land O' Lakes Indian Maiden holding the butter box was painted in 1928 by Brown & Bigelow illustrator Arthur C. Hanson, who also painted the original Old Style Lager logo. His original art (that hangs in the lobby of the Arden Hills office) was the maiden in a pastoral scene with lakes, pines, flowers and grazing cows in the background. According to the Land O' Lakes official consumer website,The original Indian maiden was "simplified and modernized" in 1939 by Jess Betlach and has undergone many minor modifications since as the enduring logo of the company.

Now you know.

Maria is finishing the shopping at Kroger while I blog and surf and listen to Jimi Hendrix’s Voodoo Chile on my iPod at Books-A-Million next door.

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