I have to admit that I play a few of the Facebook games that are out there.  I had played more, but found out very quickly that most of them require you to have 782 other facebook friends playing them also.  So I am down to 5.  Three of them are farming games and two are fish keeping/ fish tank games. 

I have noticed some interesting things in these games and also developed a few questions.

• How is it that on one farm pumpkins grow in 1 day but on the other farm it takes 4 days?
• If you don't feed the fish, do they eventually go floating belly-up at the top of the screen?
• Llamas have a tendency to wander.
• These games are highly addictive.
• All animals of the same breed move in perfect repeated motion.
• If you line up the chickens in a row you can make them look like chicken rockettes.
• Sheep give wool, chicken give eggs, cows give milk and elephants give circus peanuts.
• None of the animals give any meat
• These games are highly addictive.
• You can make art patterns with crop planting -- swirls of tomatoes in a field of peas
• You can't sell anything unless you have 5 (or is it 8) other farming friends
• Internet farming is a great way to kill time when you have insomnia
• These games are highly addictive.
• The game Fish World is offering to let you buy a great white shark that will feed on the fish you have grown
• You can teach fish to do tricks
• In one game (Fish World) no matter how many fish you have their hunger is satisfied with 1 bite of food.  The other fish game (Happy Aquarium) the fish require enough food to feed Ethiopia for a year.
• These games are highly addictive.

I have in my mind, a collection of some of the all time worst kitchen appliances.  It amazes me that people come up with this stuff and furthermore, that other people buy them.

1. The Inside the Shell Egg Scrambler.

This wonder is brought to you from Ronco, makers of fine proucts usually sold on very late night TV.  This is what it does: place an egg on the slanted needle, push through the shell, and then press down. The needle whips the egg into a perfectly smooth blend!
That's it.  You still have to break the egg open.  For $25 plus shipping and handeling, you can this counter clutter do what a bowl and fork (or whisk) do for free.

2. Margarator Maragarita and Frozen Drink Machine.

This machine at $99 plus S/H will make Maragaritas and other frozen drinks.  It is not able to be used for any other purpose.  Now, I don't drink alcohol, but my understanding is that the rest of the world who haven't bought this amazing bit of technology use a blender.  Wow!  A blender that can be used for other things, other mixing.  I never see them use the Margarator on Iron Chef, but I do see them use the blender a lot.  You decide.

3. For $16 you can get the OctoDog!

This item will take a regular hotdog and after application, will make it look like an octopus.  Hmmm.  I think you can do this with a regular knife.  And, after the initial, "That is so cool, Mom" factor of an 8 year boy, how often are you going to make octopus hotdogs?  Your next gourmet appetizer at your bridge dinner?

4.  Remember how Mom and Dad used to make pancakes into shapes... easy ones like Micky Mouse head or sometimes a cat.  Well, there is an easier way to do pancakes and eggs into shapes.  And what shape do we ALL want at breakfast?
GUNS!
I
I am sure that there are some households where gun-shaped eggs and pancakes are teaching all the right messages, but my mind draws a blank short of drug dealers and gun runners.  This educational shape will set you back $7.

5 My newest favorite is...... Microwave Smore Maker.
 
No campfire needed for gooey, chocolatey s’mores—just microwave for 30 seconds! Microwave cooker heats graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate evenly at once; simply add water and assemble up to two s’mores.
To me, smores are sickeningly sweet deals that you make only when there is a campfire and you are outdoors.  There is an art to browning your marshmallow without turning it into a tiki torch, snitching some chocolate before the assembly stage and then burning your tongue on the result.
This is NOT something that should be done in a microwave.  The marshmallows don't even brown -- or burn!
You are going to pay around $10 plus the s/h for something you may use once or twice and then tuck back into the darkest rescess of the lowest cabinet, afterwhich you will never remember where you put it until you move to another house, digging it up like some archaelogical artifact?  Bite me.

These are just 5 of the many kitchen "wonders" and "time saving" devices that litter our world.

I have been going through all sorts of stuff, cleaning out the junk ones accumulates over the years.. like the box of random power cords that don't actual fit anything we own anymore.

Today, I went through a file box that I have been dragging around from one home to another.  I thought I would find some old tax forms (I did) and car registration for a car I didn't own anymore (I didn't) but what I did find was an amazing testament to.. I saved what???  WHY???

• A receipt for payment on a parking permit for a 2 unit art class at the community college ( 2,272 miles away) from 1996.
• A spelling test from 1st grade. (4 wrong)
• A copy of the temporary DMV handicapped placard - 1995
• My Bluebird Girls ID card from 3rd grade
• Warranty for a hair dryer in owned in 1987
• Pamphlet -Going Back to Work in 1994
• Homework assignment sheet from collage class Business Law
• Coupon for 25% off shoes - expired Dec 1992
• Application - blank - for Bank of Santa Maria (Closed in 1998)

Best of all were my report cards from elementary school with teacher comments.  I notice that I am pretty much the same person....

Kindergarten ... still needs help in controlling her verbal outbursts when she is unhappy about something
Isn't that what they made comments on the Internet for?  And blogs?

1st Grade - is too "speedy" especially in reading. 
It's wrong to read faster than the rest of the class?
Wastes time.
I was bored.
Can do well in the above areas when she is "in the mood."
Well.. yeah.

2nd Grade - capable of doing outstanding work... but she often "can't be bothered" with details. 
yeah...
She has clever creative writing if she will take the trouble to write them down. 
Still a problem
She is too sure she is right which is not always the case.
Still a problem

3rd grade - Needs to work on spelling!
Spell check saved my educational career.  If it weren't for the wavy red lines under some words this blog would read like a hill-person's.