Um... is this the Grocery Store?

"This way" sign at Trader Joes. So you call yours the "Fearless Flyer"? (Found at Trader Joes in Paramus)

Pocky for Whitey

Just got back from the super market and saw that they are now selling Pocky in regular stores. Apparently for some unknown reason, Glico the Japanese manufacturer can't sell in regular American stores so it took a deal with European cookie maker LU to get it into the local super market. Look it's "New!" I guess it is new for middle America but honestly I've been buying this crap for over 20 years in chinatown. They are only selling the two most boring flavors of Pocky available, milk chocolate and milk chocolate crunch, but I guess it's a start. Call me when they have the Kobe wine, milk and pumpkin flavors. Actually blueberry is the best. Just to prove that Americans still don't understand Pocky when the cashier scanned it the register said it was "alcohol". Um..... yeah.

When You Ask for Allies, You Don't Know Who's Going to Show Up.

I was watching a documentary on you tube called "The God Who Wasn't There". I actually haven't seen the entire thing because it wasn't all posted to youtube (damn copyrights). The film is an argument that Jesus most likely never really existed and the evidence for him is flaky at best. As part of the promotion of the film the producers ask people to post video of themselves on youtube committing the only unforgivable sin in Christianity... denying the existence of the holy spirit. Apparently doing this is a one way ticket to hell with no reprieve. Enter the people posting their videos in support of the movie and in support of Atheism. Here's Rael, the head of the Raelian Church. He and his followers believe that Rael himself met with extraterrestrials who told him that humans are one of the alien's genetic engineering experiments. I don't think the makers of the film anticipated these supporters.

Denial of Benches Attack

Whew, I really need to sit down. Oh, hey there are some benches... ummm.....

Gotham City

Took this photo on Sunday from Hudson River Park. Looks like with a few brush strokes, this could be something from the 30's hanging in the Whitney

Open Source Candy Tray

So the Space Duck candy box (previously blogged) contains one other feature ... an open source candy tray. The tray that holds the easter duckie chocolates is form fit to the shape of the chocolates. This gives you a nice set of duckie molds after you eat all the candy. Instead of throwing away the packaging, the manufacturer gives you suggestions of how to use the garbage as a mold. Basically the equivalent of an open source candy mold so you can use their shape. They suggest you use it for frozen juice pops, frozen yogurt, gelatin pops and party ice cubes but obviously you could mold your own chocolate lollipops.

Just imagine if they had similar suggestions on every package of music. They'd suggest that you make your own mix tapes, use it as background music, for home videos etc. I don't see that ever happening.

If record companies made chocolate they'd make sure that the packaging could only be used for chocolate, could only be used once and would lobby congress to enact a law that you could not try to figure out how the chocolate was originally molded. This of course would be classified as an act of terrorism under the DMCA.

This is not to say that I think that music should all be free but it's just shows a difference in approach when it comes to treating customers.

Candy Conundrum

What do you do if you make Easter candy and want to expand your business to selling kosher candy for passover but you don't want to spend the money on new candy molds?

You take your chocolate duckie pops with easter hats and call them "Space Duck Pops". Also give them a back story. "Mild Mannered Duck by Day, Intergalactic Super Hero by Night"

They'll never notice the difference.