Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1KIKI:
What's with the supply chain over the last year? I can't just get my list together for groceries and sundries, and go shopping and get it all. Somebody - and often a few somebodies - are always out of at least one thing. So I have to go to different stores, or go back to the same store later, usually a lot more than once, just to get everything. Or bail on what I wanted and either get something sort-of-like, or give up on it altogether.

And it's been getting worse the last few weeks! Today for example, I struck out at 4 of 5 places where I went shopping! ... just looking for ordinary, everyday stuff.

Walgreens - Walgreens-branded sugar and dye-free cough syrup, and hand sanitizer, not a single one on the shelf. Albertsons - lite salt (discontinued entirely, even though I'd been buying it there for 10 years), it was the only reason I'd shop there.. Chevron - not pumping gas at all, open, but not for buying gas. Vitamin City - no paper towels or ground pork, at all. Target - no shampoo or paper towels. The only place that had what I wanted was Trader Joe's.

It's so time-consuming and frustrating!

I feel like there should be some geezer sitting behind the counter, picking his nails with a camp knife, saying ... nope, we don't have none of that here, neither. Not since the gas station burned down in oh-five.

Has anybody else noticed the same thing?

---

Seeing that here, too. Too many times lately I've come home and had to tell hubby (after he's asked for something specific) that they did't have it in the store, like sugar-free lozenges. Or had to change my menu because they didn't have picnic roast (pork) or full fat plain yogurt. I can understand not being able to find Thai red curry paste or shirataki noodles, but when you can't find reduced fat Swiss cheese or xfirm tofu or frozen peaches or frozen corn, something's fucked up.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Just FYI, not going to be posting as much. Now that my energy is back (thanks to cetirizne, Advair and albuterol inhalers, mupirocin/saline nose rinse, and fluticasone, oxymetazoline, and cromolyn nose sprays, plus nose strips and the occasional lozenge, antacid, or cough syrup!) I'll be helping hubby with urgently-needed home repairs and catching up on the things that got dropped about 5 weeks ago.

Definitely will be checking in with you guys here, but don't expect to see me as much in the political threads.

As always tho, I enjoy your comments and info!

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1KIKI:
I'll keep my eye open for that.

Or, since Signy and I both live in SoCal, maybe it's a SoCal thing.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda:
Another bright sunny day here. Squeak one more out tomorrow according to the weather people then back to rain.

---

enjoy the weather, BRENDA!

Please send rain!

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

---

Quote:

---

BRENDA: Another bright sunny day here. Squeak one more out tomorrow according to the weather people then back to rain.

SIGNY: enjoy the weather, BRENDA!
Please send rain!

BRENDA: I am SIG. If I could send you what is heading my way for the weekend I would.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1KIKI:
You originally claimed that I'm FROM SoCal and that's how I got my 'SoCal' values.

---

Quote:

---

I'm not FROM SoCal. I lived the first half of my life in western NY, near or in Buffalo. That's where I acquired my heritage, Catholic, socially-responsible values.

I LIVE in SoCal now.

Yanno Jack, a lot of these issues could be avoided if you would just read more carefully.

Sigh. Just read more carefully - OK?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
No rash for two days.

Still a little itchy, but it is the middle of winter and the heat is on. It's probably just dry AF in my house right now.


I think I'm going to try the rice and vegetables tomorrow without the spice and see what happens.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, one little fun project that popped up

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:
BRENDA, I feel your pain! How do you hold two pieces in position and clip or screw then together? With your third (or fourth) hand?

One trick I discovered when I was assembling a shelving unit by my lonesome was to lay it out on the floor for the initial assy, then tip it up before adding shelves and tightening bolts. I have to admit, I was a lot younger then. Not sure I would try the same again.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:
BRENDA, I feel your pain! How do you hold two pieces in position and clip or screw then together? With your third (or fourth) hand?

One trick I discovered when I was assembling a shelving unit by my lonesome was to lay it out on the floor for the initial assy, then tip it up before adding shelves and tightening bolts. I have to admit, I was a lot younger then. Not sure I would try the same again.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda:

Yup. Last time I did something like this I was younger too. Think in my 20s.

Realized that I should have put it together standing up. I got both pieces together but they are separated spots. Going to see if I can fix my mess-up tomorrow.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1KIKI:
"we called a local company that we've worked with before and they did the job for $200" I'm curious - did they check the other ones as well?

"Oh indeed, if people only knew what was behind the walls their skin would crawl!" I know what's behind mine! Mice and rats, thanks to balloon framing. And let's not forgot the (probably raccoon) that ripped off some of the siding and is now living in the attic. Not for long. The exterminator is coming out Monday.

"While installing a light fixture hubby discovered that - with the switch off- of he touched the hot and neutral lines with one hand and the ground with the back of his hand he got a significant shock. The wiring in this place is atrocious, we fix it as we encounter it but hubby keeps asking if the place was built by monkeys." I might have mentioned how I got juiced in the shower, since the hot and neutral were reversed in a lighting fixture, which somehow shifted onto the vent stack, putting voltage on the drain system.

Entropy - and critters!!! They're all such rascals.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:
BRENDA, I feel your pain! How do you hold two pieces in position and clip or screw then together? With your third (or fourth) hand?

One trick I discovered when I was assembling a shelving unit by my lonesome was to lay it out on the floor for the initial assy, then tip it up before adding shelves and tightening bolts. I have to admit, I was a lot younger then. Not sure I would try the same again.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda:

Yup. Last time I did something like this I was younger too. Think in my 20s.

Realized that I should have put it together standing up. I got both pieces together but they are separated spots. Going to see if I can fix my mess-up tomorrow.

---

Me three. It was a long time ago for me as well. I got nothing. No suggestions. I just kept struggling till I managed and I don't even remember what I did. And I think I'd be hard-pressed to manage it again.

---

Quote:

---

SIGNY: BRENDA, I feel your pain! How do you hold two pieces in position and clip or screw then together? With your third (or fourth) hand? One trick I discovered when I was assembling a shelving unit by my lonesome was to lay it out on the floor for the initial assy, then tip it up before adding shelves and tightening bolts. I have to admit, I was a lot younger then. Not sure I would try the same again.

Originally posted by Brenda:

BRENDA: Yup. Last time I did something like this I was younger too. Think in my 20s.
Realized that I should have put it together standing up. I got both pieces together but they are separated spots. Going to see if I can fix my mess-up tomorrow.

KIKI: Me three. It was a long time ago for me as well. I got nothing. No suggestions. I just kept struggling till I managed and I don't even remember what I did. And I think I'd be hard-pressed to manage it again.

BRENDA: The thing with this bookcase Kiki is the top half is heavier than the bottom. So I can't lift it into place. I am going to see if I can take apart the top half and then redo it and hopefully get it to fit on the bottom half. It's about all I can do.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1KIKI:
That seems awkward to me and not terribly stable. If I got it right, you're going to reconfigure it so the heavier part is on the bottom? That sounds promising! I hope it all goes easily, Brenda!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

---

SIGNY: BRENDA, I feel your pain! How do you hold two pieces in position and clip or screw then together? With your third (or fourth) hand? One trick I discovered when I was assembling a shelving unit by my lonesome was to lay it out on the floor for the initial assy, then tip it up before adding shelves and tightening bolts. I have to admit, I was a lot younger then. Not sure I would try the same again.

Originally posted by Brenda:

BRENDA: Yup. Last time I did something like this I was younger too. Think in my 20s.
Realized that I should have put it together standing up. I got both pieces together but they are separated spots. Going to see if I can fix my mess-up tomorrow.

KIKI: Me three. It was a long time ago for me as well. I got nothing. No suggestions. I just kept struggling till I managed and I don't even remember what I did. And I think I'd be hard-pressed to manage it again.

BRENDA: The thing with this bookcase Kiki is the top half is heavier than the bottom. So I can't lift it into place. I am going to see if I can take apart the top half and then redo it and hopefully get it to fit on the bottom half. It's about all I can do.

---

Gee, that sounds like a crappy design. As KIKI said, not terribly stable and also pretty hard to put together! Also, one of those design flaws that's hard to spot in the store. I also hope you can reconfigure it succssfully.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1KIKI:
I always wondered how the previous owners just turned a blind eye. Didn't they notice? Didn't they care?

Yours sounds like the same thing ...

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1KIKI:
I've been thinking about your emergency food, Signy. How does your SO react to beans, blood-sugar-wise? And I'm asking about beans specifically, not beans+ ... grains, veges, etc. Because I took a class in diabetic nutrition, and if your food has more than 5g of fiber per serving, you're allowed to subtract the fiber from the total carbs. And some beans/ legumes have a phenomenal amount of fiber! (according to the USDA).

Here's my fiber list with top amounts of fiber, USDA reference, per 100g (food/ protein/ carbohydrate/ fat/ fiber):
Beans, cranberry (roman), mature seeds, raw 100g 23.03 60.05 1.23 24.7
Beans, french, mature seeds, raw 100g 18.81 64.11 2.02 25.2
Beans, kidney*, all types, mature seeds, raw 100g 23.58 60.01 0.83 24.9
*cook well to remove lectins
Beans, navy, mature seeds, raw 100g 22.33 60.75 1.5 24.4
Beans, small white, mature seeds, raw 100g 21.11 62.25 1.18 24.9
Beans, yellow, mature seeds, raw 100g 22 60.7 2.6 25.1
Lentils, raw 100g 25.8 60.08 1.06 30.5
Peas, split, mature seeds, raw 100g 24.55 60.37 1.16 25.5
All of these are about 40% fiber, except for lentils which are about 50% !!

So you and your SO might be OK with beans, no grains. BTW, beans have a standout amount of protein compared to grains. To make a balanced protein, iirc, I calculated out once that you'd need about 8x grains by weight to balance out the protein in beans. For additional protein, dry powdered milk would provide both calcium and protein; whey protein provides protein but no calcium or milk sugar. Oil could make up the balance of calories.

For DD perhaps canned meat - perhaps no-salt-added canned tuna, no-salt-added canned salmon, and other canned meat (chicken, beef, spam, but watch the sodium!) and as a relief from tedium and additional/ alternate protein source, dry powdered milk and/ or whey protein, and grains, plus oil to make up calories.

BTW - I was in Buffalo for the Blizzard of '77. It was a great way to empty the frig and cupboards. But we got down to eating oats and mustard, after we used up the mayo for oats and mayo. So as you suggested in your post - dried herbs and spices (Book's ticket onto the ship!), and dried or canned veges and maybe fruits.

ETA: If you're used to a daily dose of nicotine, caffeine, or alcohol, don't forget to include them in your hunker-down supply! Going through withdrawal could make you grumpy, give you headaches, and destroy your sleep!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1KIKI:
That sounds perfectly fit for use! (and safer and more stable and all around better).

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Sometimes I think big companies need design input from regular people once in a while. What sounds good on paper and what looks good on the showroom floor just doesn't work well IRL. How about if you write them a letter??? No need to be nasty, just describe the problems you had and your suggestions for making it better. It might just help them improve their product.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1KIKI:
FWIW whenever a service tech came in to set up/ maintain/ repair an instrument I always asked them if their engineering departments ever asked the service people for suggestions ... and the answer was always no.

Why not have NO feedback for your what I'm sure you think is your perfectly perfect product!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda:
The instructions for that bookcase gives the company name but no address. There is a phone number that is only good for the US. The case was designed in the US but made in China.

---

Quote:

---

KIKI
FWIW whenever a service tech came in to set up/ maintain/ repair an instrument I always asked them if their engineering departments ever asked the service people for suggestions ... and the answer was always no.
Why not have NO feedback for your what I'm sure you think is your perfectly perfect product!


SIX: Because this is all cheap stuff made in China that sells well enough even though it's cheap stuff from China with instructions that can hardly be called English.

The entire plant is set up, and mostly automated, to make the products specifically as you get them in the box. Altering just one little thing would cause the need to alter the production process which requires shutting down a portion of the plant, re-configuring everything, then testing it before putting it back into production mode.

Given the fact that this stuff is manufactured, packaged and shipped halfway around the world and is still as cheap as it is, they are working on razor thin margins to turn profits.

The only time they're going to look into altering anything is if something is broken so bad that all of the units are getting returned, or (much worse) it ends up causing injuries or death.

I think about computers and computer parts and their history when I think of this. In the early days of building computers with a friend of mine, everything was made in the States and was SUPER expensive. But despite the fact that the processing power, storage and memory were just mere fractions of what we have at our disposal today, those old PCs were almost perfect when it came to stability compared to what we have today if you set them up right.

You'd be hard pressed to find any electronic parts now that are made in America. They're a boatload cheaper, for sure, and everything is so much more powerful after 20+ years of R&D. From the quality of anything from motherboards, CPUs and GPUs to the software you're running whether it be an office suite or video games, the coding is also quite lazy these days, relying on the processing power of today's technology rather than expert coding and intelligent decision making to really push the limits of today's hardware.

By all rights, the machines we use in our everyday lives should be capable of quite a bit more than they currently are. But everything from the Operating System to the software package for your Graphics Card/Chip is written so sloppily that countless cycles are lost every second executing redundant code.

But nobody is ever going to fix any of that. Nobody's life is at risk. Most of the time, even though it is thought of as an inconvenience, a simple power down of the system and reboot is all that is required to "right the ship".

That's arguably a small price to pay compared to the $4000.00 it would cost to build a new computer if all of the parts were made here in the states and the fact that the days of $600 Office Suites are long gone. Hell... you can just use Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets which are almost as good as Microsoft Office and offer more to most people then they're ever going to need to use and you don't have to pay a cent for it.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda:
The instructions for that bookcase gives the company name but no address. There is a phone number that is only good for the US. The case was designed in the US but made in China.

---

Call the US number. Or maybe you can find the corporate office address online. I would be looking for "product development" or "design", or "customer feedback" or "complaints" but if you can't find those, ANY address will do!

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1KIKI:
And as I keep pointing out - that's THE essential internal contradiction of capitalism.

The person who makes a Mercedes can only afford a Kia ... yanno, the difference between the value their work creates and the sales prices is profit. They literally can't afford to buy their own work.

The person who makes a Kia buys a bicycle ...

The person who makes a bicycle buys shoes ...

The person who makes shoes goes barefoot ...


And I suppose that's OK. There are enough warm places on the planet where going barefoot will get you parasites, but at least your feet won't freeze off. But then you start considering the food production cycle ...


OF COURSE people can't afford to buy quality, or even buy American! That's a DUH! And OF COURSE business will only makes what they can sell! That's another DUH!

---