Winning isn't everything

But I would be remiss if I failed to mention how proud I am of the Packers this morning. 

"Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn't do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another." - Vince Lombardi

Random Acts of Thursday - Ready For the Madhouse

Ah, April 1st.  Le jour des imbeciles d'Avril!  Convinced anyone that Coca Cola is going back to classic Classic, complete with coca leaves in the mix?  Planted a thumbtack on your favorite cow-orker's chair?  Get cracking!

In my own little reckless way, completely ignoring convention and putting together a quiz based on famous firsts, or famous fools, I thought I would instead regale you with a happy little story, Mad Lib style, using our current quest to sell old and acquire new housing as a basic theme, and using film titles old and new to fill in the blanks.

The Home Viewing - First Impressions

Today our Realtor took us to the House on Haunted Hill.  We had high hopes for this one, not like that Nightmare on Elm Street.  Did you see the wallpaper in that one?  Walking up to The Doors took forever, this house had The Longest Yard I'd ever seen.  The Realtor handed the Keys to Tulsa, who turned the Lock Up and over to let us in.  Immediately we knew this was the Home of the Brave.  

The Wall in front of us was stories high.  Even though the house only had Four Rooms, we had to climb The 39 Steps just to get to the second floor.  As I walked to the Rear Window, though, I could see the appeal of this home.  It was right On The Waterfront.  And still, there was space for The Shaggy Dog to run around and do his business.

The downside, since there is always a down side.  The Basement and the Kitchen both showed some signs of past water damage, but nothing major.  Certainly I could overlook the Stain on the floor, at least there were no Cracks in the Ceiling.

When the breeze picked up, the metal roof crackled and groaned in the sun. It was almost like there was a _________________________________________________ .  (It was a stretch, I know.  I just can't bring myself to fill it in.)

Think you can do better?  Give it your best shot in the comments.  I'm on the road for the next week, so I may not get to your comments right away, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't leave them.

Cheeselessness - the crisis continues

Here we are in Day Two of the Great Blog Format Crisis of 2010 - I feel like we need Charlie Gibson reporting live from my front lawn, and a special ABC News theme song just for the crisis.

I also feel there needs to be some sort of 'Cheese Dance'. Like a rain dance, with a sideways half-step every third shimmy, and spontaneous hokey-pokeying. As part of our ongoing educational services, and in an effort to call on the great cheese (or, as I prefer, El Queso Gigante), I thought we would create a chant that can be shared the world 'round. Initially, I was just going to translate cheese for you in the languages of the world, but Google, being ever helpful, suggested the phrase 'Your head is a block of cheese'.

How apropos. Now you can attempt, in rudimentary local tongue, to describe your favorite blog (this one...what?) to strangers around the world as you travel this fine planet.

Spanish - su cabeza es un bloque de queso

Norwegian - hodet ditt er en blokk med ost

German - Ihr Kopf ist ein Block von Käse

French - votre tête est un bloc de fromage

Romanian - capul este un bloc de brânză

Polish - głowę jest blok sera

Italian - la tua testa è un blocco di formaggio

Dutch - je hoofd is een blok kaas

Greek - κεφάλι σας είναι ένα μπλοκ του τυριού

Swedish - huvudet är en bit ost

Russian - ваша голова блока сыра

Portuguese - sua cabeça é um bloco de queijo

Behold, the power of cheese! Use it in a sentence today! And we thank you for your support. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Fun Fact Friday - I'm blushing as I write this

I found it!

Made you look.

I heard a news story earlier this week that after exhaustive study of over 1800 women, all twins, at King's College in London, they have determined that the G-Spot is a myth, physically speaking. I love the concept of this survey. It sounds like the 'plot' from some bad 70's porn movie, something the Brough twins would have had some involvement in. You can almost see the bad handlebar mustaches as you read this, I know.

The Grafenberg Spot (or G-Spot) was named in honor of Ernst Grafenberg, a German doctor who spent years studying female genetalia (who hasn't?) after starting his career as an opthamalogist. Do you suppose he was able to look his patients in the eye? Personally, I think that's quite the career shift.

I like to think the g-spot is psychological, rather than physiological. But ultimately, if something feels good, does it have to have a name?

Interestingly, there are doctors who insist they can accentuate or enhance the g-spot, and probably making a fortune doing so.

I think I got into the wrong line of work.

And as a bonus, it's time for another Dead Wrestler Trading Card! Collect them all! Brag to your friends!

I figured, since we're talking about mythical sexual anatomy, why not pick someone who looks like she DEFINITELY doesn't have a g-spot. The Fabulous Moolah was a pioneer in early women's wrestling, with a career spanning four decades. And her signature finishing move was the 'School Girl', as long as we're discussing bad '70s porn plots.

I'm not a plumber, but I'll take a look...

Author's note: Your regular 'Random Act of Thursday' will not be seen today. Instead we bring you the following heartwarming tale of home maintenance.

I hate the smell of sewage in the morning. Smells like…failure.

Lori called me yesterday to tell me that the dishwasher had backwashed and flooded the sink cabinet with its leavings, thanks to some previously inept plumbing work. I touched the hose from the dishwasher to the disposal, which promptly fell off the disposal into my hand. I tapped the sink trap, which promptly dropped from the disposer and out of the wall.

We’ve been fighting with a minor clog for a while now, but I couldn’t figure out how one side of the sink would work just fine, and the other did its best to attract mosquito larvae by standing for long periods of time. I tried fixing this myself yesterday, and finally broke down and called the plumber when my 'Junior Plumber Fix-It Kit' snake couldn’t get past the resistance in the drain.

This is not the first time we’ve had to call a plumber for this sink - click here for last year’s saga.

Forty feet of professional drain snake later, the sink was draining, swirling away all Coreolus-like, and all was well with the world. I managed to scrub the stink of failure (and sewage) from my hands, cough up $175 for his time, and went to sleep thinking we were groovy.

Cut to this morning, nice hot shower, refreshing, new day has dawned, and the like. However, when I opened the shower curtain, I saw the lake where once was our bathroom floor. The water going down the shower drain was forcing its way back up through both toilets and running over the wax rings. Sixty feet of larger scale professional drain snake from the street (and $200) later, we can once again flush with minimal trepidation. Ah, the joys of home ownership.

Can’t you just hear Wagner playing in the background?

It's a Thanksgiving Miracle!

Not really, just sane booking. We fly out to Vegas in a few hours, and our flight change is actually ALONG THE ROUTE from Tampa to Vegas. Like someone planned it.

What are the odds?

Last time I flew Phoenix to Tampa, I changed planes in Philadelphia. Oooh, THAT'S direct. Likewise with my flight from Milwaukee to Kansas City, via Atlanta.

Click here for a map if you're confused by why this might cause me stress.

Wherever you're going, have a safe journey this weekend, even if it's just across town or across the kitchen. And feel free to vent about your worst flight connections here. Really, it will help the healing begin.

You can then be thankful tomorrow.

Reader's Remorse - a bloggy confession

I don't read every blog to which I subscribe.

Sometimes a writer has a beautifully crafted witty post, followed by clunker after clunker. Sometimes a writer has a beautifully crafted witty post, followed by months of silence. Maybe I started following the blog because the author stated a well-versed opinion or relayed a humorous anecdote in someone else's blog comments. In some cases, I just started following because I thought Lori would enjoy it, and because I don't remember they're there, I never bothered to show them to her.

I just deleted three more, and the list is down to 40 blogs. Forty. The big four-oh. That still seems like way too much to keep up with. I am bleary-eyed and my brain hurts trying to remember even what many of the blogs are about.

But I'm sure I didn't delete your blog. I like you, I really like you. If you post regularly, and I get much enjoyment from what you post, I'm sure I'm reading everything you put out there.

Really.

Off to Tomorrymorry Land

Except there's no Aunty Entity. But there is a desert, that's something.

Remember: no matter where you go, there you are. And where I am, it's still yesterday, even though it's today at home. This throws off my bloggerization, since part of me still believes it's 2 am, even though the clock says 11. It also means that I'm none too fresh in the matter of gray matter this time of night, so the brilliant ideas I had earlier today don't come to fruition so easily.

But really, if you had expectations of me, surely they've been lowered by now.

Speaking of lowered expectations, I went to Fatburger for dinner. The sign said 'the last great burger in America' or some such rubbish. I was not impressed, even with bacon and a fried egg. Last night at King's Fish House though, dinner was a beautiful shellfishy delight. Everything evens out, I guess.

And lastly: Here's a gratuitous shot of Andre the Giant! Remember, collect the whole set of dead wrestler trading blogs! Share with your friends! Hours of fun for the whole family! Implied guarantee of fun not valid in Kuala Lumpur, Buenos Aires or Padukah.

Nightmares. They come from somewhere.

Even the nightmares I have with Norm MacDonald and a septugenarian lesbian couple come from somewhere. But those are nothing compared to the really creepy, wake-up-screaming nightmares, the ones you can't believe aren't real.

If you heeded my advice, you didn't read my post a few weeks ago. If you actually made it to the pictures at the bottom, you know what I'm talking about. Since some of you are arachnophobic, be aware that I am going to talk about spiders here.

Spiders.

Big, hairy, forking spiders.







In. My. Nightstand.

Yes, I went to get my belt this morning, and one of the damn things jumped out of the drawer at me. The Dammit just laid there as if nothing was going on while I pounded the floor with one of my shoes.

It's bad enough I tried to get one in the garage last night and missed him, now I'll be lucky if I can even sleep tonight. Those little bastards are fast.

Terminix is coming tomorrow. As if you had to ask.

Elliott and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

***note, I apologize now for the negative tone and self-centered nature of this post. Save yourself. Go Google cute bunnies or surf porn now, avoid the whole mess.
I had a fantastic weekend. Should I, therefore, be punished? Apparently so.

My phone died Sunday night, and apparently that means that the phone itself decides to go into paperweight mode after recharging. No calls, no email, nothing. Therefore, I never got the calls from the mechanic about the Buick, so even though I dropped the car for service yesterday morning, it didn't get fixed. I was able to bum a ride home, but now I have two vehicles in south Tampa and none at home, on a night I work until 8 pm. I'll be going to get Lori tonight, then driving back down here to get my car, then driving back home. That's not inconvenient. Not at all.


And the Packers lost. To He-who-shall-not-be-named. But we won't discuss that.

When I got to my desk this morning, my computer was off. I didn’t shut it off, but powering it back on confirmed a ‘thermal event’ transpired overnight. That’s a weather condition, not a PC issue. It’s like the Alli people referring to uncontrollable anal seepage as a ‘Treatment Effect’.
***artist's depiction. If only our closet was actually this big!

When the computer finally booted up again, I got the email from Lori that the new double-poled, double-shelved, beautifully organized closet that we put together last month suffered a meltdown this morning. The top shelf collapsed, and since it landed on the bottom pole, I’m sure that one’s worse for wear, too. Lori can’t tell for sure because the whole closet is just a jumble of wire shelving, clothes, hangers and boxes.
***not the Dammit, but the markings are strangely familiar


Now I just got another email from her, indicating that the Dammit Dog decided he wanted to roll in poo, and is now encrusted in it. He never does this, but it’s my fault, I haven’t picked up the yard lately because in rainy season, it disintegrates before I can get to it.
Meanwhile, our systems have been experiencing outages all day, so clients can’t access our system. And their clients can’t access our system.

And, thanks to stress, the nightmares are better than ever. Lori woke me up because I was whimpering in my sleep, apparently. That’s better than snoring, I would think, but she doesn’t agree. As I was trying to go back to sleep, the medivac helicopter was suddenly hovering and circling above our house until traffic wherever they were headed could clear. That’s not disconcerting when you’ve just been woken from a bad dream. Not at all. When I came back from lunch, my desk fan wouldn’t turn. After a few minutes disassembling, turning, flipping switches and banging it on my desk, it’s finally running again.
And I just read that my favorite magazine, Gourmet, is stopping publication after 68 years.
Can I get a do-over on my week? Because this one just isn’t working for me.

And it’s only Tuesday.

My attention span is barely a footbridge

From time to time, I do manage to squeeze a coherent, well-versed essay from my addled brain. However, as much as I want to, today is not one of those days. Instead, I am electing to enlighten you with random little thoughts that have crossed my mind of late.

I love Bond films, and I am biased toward Sean Connery. Especially when compared to the wacky, '70's episodes with Roger Moore and wacky music and bad stop-motion photography. Which begs the question. Obviously James Bond in a finely tailored suit is NOT the same as James Bond with his tweed safari jacket and Sansabelt bell-bottomed trousers. Why then did '70's babes like Britt Ekland, Jayne Seymour, Maud Adams and Lois Chiles simply fall into bed with him? If we're going to do a parody of Bond in the NOW era, wouldn't it be far more empowering for them to reject him cold? To simply chuckle in his face when he tries to be suave in his bell-bottomed Sansabelt slacks? To scream 'Rape' when he grabs their arms tightly and throws them down on the bed?

This is not something a superspy wears. Even if he did get a Chevy Vega from the rental agency.

Oh, and even though I always want Connery to win, and would love to see Moore fail, I still love the episode up above where Homer tackles Bond, resulting in his demise. He he he!

A while back at the grocery store, I discovered manna from the pork gods: a three-pound box of bacon ends and pieces for the same price as a pound of strip bacon that I was going to chop up, anyway. Nothing like frying three pounds of bacon at once to put the whole house in an applewood-induced state of euphoria. A plus, it was Wright Brand bacon, whose marketing campaign includes one of the all-time best call-in radio questions: How can I get my wife to be more like Wright Brand bacon?

And yes, I'm inserting another rad '70's clothing moment. Because how else can we appreciate how far we've come if we don't remember where we've been?

Last week, as part of my weekly movie quote contest, I decided to take it upon myself to catalog all the films I've seen in my life so far. I knew I'd seen a few, but so far, I have over 650 on the list, and somehow I keep coming up with films that I thought were obvious and that I would have listed early on, but they're not there. It also amazes me how many movies I haven't seen in their entirety, despite knowing their plots and intricacies.

A week or so ago, I managed to get my entire desk dismantled into its component pieces, and I only had to drill out one 40-year-old bolt to get it done. Now I can once again park a car in the garage along with both bikes, and we can still navigate around with relative confidence. Which was especially nice this past weekend, because it poured for most of it, and unloading groceries is far nicer if I don't have to walk through the deluge off the roof of the house.

I did manage to stay relatively dry on my ride home on Friday, though I still get a little flinchy on wet pavement. No traction is a bad thing.

The Packers won yesterday, and beating the Bears is always especially nice. Tough thing, though, I didn't get to see any of the game since we're apparently not in prime Packer-watching country. That also means, however, I don't get any of these on my television, while overpaid commentators make generalizations about my home state:

Which could be a mixed blessing, depending on who decides to wear them.

Look at that! No discernable theme, not even any segues. The road to enlightenment blurs before you. Sorry about that. I'll try harder next time.

Poetry in motion, I'm not

Baking is science, and a scientist I am not.

We were to have a pot-luck breakfast at work this morning, and in an attempt to bring culture and joy to the office, I planned to celebrate International Bacon Day one day early.

The muffins above are NOT mine, though that is usually how my baking projects turn out. (and on a side note, be careful when Googling 'muffin' at work to key the whole word instead of accepting the first suggestion the Mighty G offers you. Just sayin'.) Instead, I wanted to share bacon-cheddar corn muffins with everyone, because that's how I roll (or muffin, as the case may be).

Bad things, man. Bad things! Really. How difficult could it be to fry some bacon, crumble it and add it to a Jiffy cornbread mix with some shredded cheddar? It was, even for me, baking simplicity, and I don't bake, because for me baking is always a baking fail.

A lot of it comes down to three important factors, and I will always screw at least one of them up. First, there's the whole greasing/flouring of the baking pan. No matter how hard I try to get that right, somehow I manage never to do it right, as my baking sticks in non-stick bakeware no matter what I've done, even if I use Crisco and powdered Teflon, my baking will split in half.

Second, there's the distraction factor. If I'm cooking, it's an active process. Pans to watch, sauces and pasta to stir, temperatures to monitor. With baking, the prepared dough/batter/whatnot goes in a preheated oven, the timer gets set, and there's nothing to do. This often means I wander off to do something else, like mow the lawn or teach underprivileged kids to yodel, and I end up with baked goods that could have been manufactured by Kingsford.

Finally, there is the experimentation that for an accomplished baker would be child's play. For me, I end up messing up the wet-to-dry ratio, or completely missing that I doubled an ingredient that I already doubled once, and get a wet, sloppy mess that will never set.

Last night I committed sin #1, and despite heartily greasing my mini muffin tins, those damn things wouldn't come free for anything. I overfilled, which meant that I couldn't even get a knife around the sides without popping off the muffin crown. Cornbread, being crumbly like it's wont to do, wasn't cooperating on the properly filled tins, either, so I have two dozen mini-muffin crumbles at home.

Apparently, the road to pot-luck breakfast, running parallel to the road to Hell as it does, is paved with good intentions and muffin crumbs.

Fail.

Fun Fact Friday - You sweat me

Admit it. Living in Florida and owning a yard with gardens, sweat is a way of life. But I love gardening, as evidenced by the chest of my tee shirt from last weekend:

Yes, that's my sweat. It might be gross, but really, when was the last time you saw a sweat stain like this?

Thanks to Chemistry Daily and my unruly lawn and gardens, we all get to learn about perspiration!

Sweating is the loss of a watery fluid, consisting mainly of sodium chloride and urea in solution, that is secreted by the sweat glands in the skin of mammals (like you and me). Sweat also consists of the chemicals or odorants 2-methylphenol and 4-methyphenol.

In humans, sweating is primarily a means of temperature regulation, though it doesn't help all that much in 99% humidity. Evaporation of sweat from the skin surface has a cooling effect due to the latent heat of evaporation of water. Hence, in hot weather, or when the individual feels hot through exercise, more sweat is produced, which explains why I look like I've been in the pool after mowing on an otherwise pleasant Saturday. Sweating is increased not only by physical activity, but also by nervousness and nausea (and in my case, when I drink tequila). Captain Obvious also notes that sweating is decreased by cold. Animals with few sweat glands, such as dogs, accomplish similar results by panting, evaporating water from the moist lining of the oral cavity and pharynx. Most of the time they do this while sitting six inches from your face, and right after they've been licking very personal areas of the personal kind.

In humans, there are two kinds of sweat glands which differ greatly in both the composition of the sweat and its purpose:


Eccrine sweat glands, which are distributed over the entire body surface. These produce sweat that is composed chiefly of water with various salts. These glands are used for body temperature regulation.


Eccrine sweat glands are coiled tubular glands derived from the outer layer of skin but extending into the inner layer. They are distributed over almost the entire surface of the body in humans and many other species, but are lacking in some marine and fur-bearing species. The sweat glands are controlled by sympathetic cholinergic nerves which are controlled by a centre in the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus senses core temperature directly, and also has input from temperature receptors in the skin and modifies the sweat output, along with other thermoregulatory processes.

Human eccrine sweat is composed chiefly of water with various salts and organic compounds in solution. Which explains why I'm so salty. Mmmm, salty!

We also have apocrine sweat glands, that produce sweat that contains fatty materials. These glands are mainly present in the armpits and around the genital area and their activity is the main cause of sweat odor, due to the bacteria that break down the organic compounds in the sweat from these glands. Emotional stress increases the production of sweat from the apocrine glands, or more precisely: the sweat already present in the tubule is squeezed out. Apocrine sweat glands essentially serve as scent glands.


If you're not already wigged out by the whole concept of this, it just gets weirder. In some areas of the body, apocrine sweat glands are modified to produce wholly different secretions, including the wax of the outer ear. Others are greatly enlarged and modified to produce milk.


Thanks for enduring this slightly more personal 'fun fact'. Admit it, you enjoyed it. If not, don't sweat it. There's always next Friday.

Aaaaauuuuuuggggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not shaping up to be the best of days, can you tell?

When the legend becomes truth, print the legend

Some of you have discerned, or outright read, that I am an erstwhile novelist. Given my drive for follow-through, I started the concept of my first novel back in college, and I have about 100 pages of what once was genius, and has since degraded in my mind into insane drivel. The one constant, and one that seems to get me some odd looks from time to time, is the 'microcows' tag on all of my various web identities (just look up! There it is!).

In 1996, I attempted to dramatize the idea that standard cattle are a burden on the planet. However, I would never suggest we stop raising beef or dairy cattle, because steak, butter and cheese are some of the finest gifts we've received from the food gods. Instead, I figured if we could raise smaller animals, spaniel-sized cows, and each family would get just the amount of milk they could consume in a day. In the third-world absence of refrigeration, a cow could feed a village for a day, but nothing would go to waste.

Of course, in 1996, the Information Superhighway was Google-free, and was really just an Information Two-Lane Paved Road, with a few strip clubs and Ask Jeeves bordering the gravel shoulders. Now, in the knowledge overload of 2009 Internetitude, I can look up anything and find 200 relevant videos on YouTube, including the Jack-in-the-Box commercial I witnessed this morning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut0WDb-xzks&feature=player_embedded

Of course, after this added a little joy to my morning - sorrow-laden, but joy all the same - I saw there was actual, documented proof that microcows really exist, they're not just a Castro-related myth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De3XjqPVa0g

Sorry I can't figure out how to embed the videos here for your enjoyment, but please follow the links, at least the first one. I'm just going to go be sad that I missed my opportunity to be cutting-edge while I'm mowing my lawn.

Never underestimate the power of a good repressed memory

I hate when something seemingly trivial triggers a childhood trauma that I've repressed for years. Apparently I'm not consuming enough beer, because stuff like this is supposed to go away, this is what makes us grow up, become responsible adults, and create all sorts of new memories to repress.

When I was young, I was a 'husky' child. I dreaded gym class, couldn't run, throw or catch. (Come to think of it, nothing much has changed, though my parents don't buy me corduroys anymore, so bonus there.) I did walk home from school in 6th grade, it was about a mile and a half, but it was downhill, and there was a Baskin Robbins at the half-way point.

I've oft told the tale of having my watch stolen from me on an MCTS bus, my reward for being a stupid kid.

What dawned on me this week was that about the same time, perhaps earlier in the same school year, I was grabbed by a larger kid in front of the school, in view of everyone getting on their school busses and milling about after class, and had a demand made for my worldly posessions. It could have been for my really cool Velcro wallet, or the watch that was subsequently stolen on the North Avenue bus, or for my really cool new backpack. What I do recall is thinking that somehow I, a fat little grub of a 6th grader, could outrun this 8th grade thug.

I made it five feet.

I remember the scorn in his voice as he scolded me for running, at which point I broke out the secret weapon.

I don't condone crying. Crying is unfair weaponry in any fight. Crying is blackmail. And, if called to task, I will deny ever crying in my life, including during this episode. However, much like the skunk and armadillo, fat kids have their own means of self-defense. I started sobbing uncontrollably, and it worked. He took his hand from my shirt, and spoke to me with such disdain. "Shit, I ain't gonna rob no crybaby, man. You ain't worth it." And he shoved me off on my way.

Ah, memories.

Life with Mikey

Life is not simple. It is not a choice between cherry red and midnight blue. And with all the decisions of life weighing on me and threatening to set off the old ticker like a time bomb, the last thing I need to decide is which of the 83.7 pre-programmed options on the microwave to use.

I don't typically cook in the microwave. I have pans and pots and a nice stove and the wherewithal to use them all in conjunction with one another to produce edible, if not downright delicious, creations. No, the microwave in my life has three simple uses, for which I need two buttons, total.

First, the 'Minute Plus' button. When I make the steam-in-the-bag veggies, reheat leftovers, or melt cheese on tortilla chips, or for the occasional Ceremonial Boiling of the Water (the 'CBW') for flavored gelatin desserts, TheraFlu or (gasp) Cup-o-Ramen, I can press this as many times as I need to make the nuclear magic happen.

Second, the 'Popcorn' button. Sure, I could over-simplify and use the 'Minute Plus' again, but that would actually require me to remember time to time how long popcorn takes, and I'm just not that into it.

Finally, if the safety gestapo at U.L. inist, a 'Cancel/Clear' button. But really, who uses that? I will always - ALWAYS - cancel the operation by opening the door. If there's time left on the timer, I'll probably just use it up next time I call on Chef Mike, IF I haven't lost power between the last time and the next time. The Florida power grid is reliable only in that I can expect it to go out once a day.

As for the buttons I don't need:

The numbers - the only time these get used is when I'm foolishly resetting the clock after the most recent power outage. Otherwise, am I using my microwave to call Taiwan for a replacement carousel? No. Don't need the numbers. If I need more time than I get by pressing the 'Minute Plus' button, I'm just going to press it again.

'Reheat' - Really? Is this for the last three people on the planet who've never SEEN a microwave before? That's what it does.

'Potato' - How many times do I have to say this? If I want to blow up produce, I will use the 'Minute Plus' button!

'Beverage' - Did you see the CBW discussion above? Two minutes on high and that baby's rolling.

'Rolls/Muffins' - What kind of muffins? English muffins? Chocolate chip muffins? Bran muffins? And rolls? Sure, I fought the toaster oven's appearance on my kitchen counter, but at least when I want bread warmed up (or even 'toasted', if you will) it doesn't turn to shoe leather five seconds after I pull it from the tray.

'Vegetable' - Yes, I get a different button for potatoes than I get for the rest of my vegetables. Agri-segregation IS WRONG.

'Defrost' - This requires a brief stop at 'Master's degree in Physics' territory, because you cannot effectively defrost ANYTHING in a microwave. Sadly, food is generally not frozen in an ideal defrostable state for the microwave, i.e. a big ball, so I always wind up with a frozen block of ground beef surrounded by slimy gray ground beef. Turns out you CAN spell 'microwave' without 'even heating'.

Call me old-school, but my favorite microwaves are the ones with the simple dial. One dial, with numbers, no frills, I could even do without the carousel. Anything to reduce the stress. How cherry red is that?