Stane or Ballmer?

Obadiah Stane description from the Iron Man website: “As … a top executive in Stark Industries, Stane is a calculating genius who is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.”

From the people who brought you Luthor or Larry?

Jason Perlow, Consumer Advocate: High Octane Antiperspirant

As some of you have learned by now, I am currently on a longer-than-usual assignment in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina this summer. Because it is a four month engagement, and it necessitates that I sometimes need to stay down here for two weeks at a time, I’ve rented a small apartment so that I can live more comfortably and do cooking for myself and store items over the weekends when I need to go home. This has forced me into a bachelor-like lifestyle where I have had to actually take care of myself, something I haven’t really had to do for like, I dunno, 13 years.

Routine shopping has become a new pastime for me. Oh, Rachel and I shop all the time, but I tend to ignore the mundane aisles, such as the personal hygiene products, because I tell Rachel usually to buy a whole bunch of something at COSTCO or get whatever is on sale. I don’t care — as long as I don’t stink up the house or walk around with a foul odor on me that my co-workers might notice, it makes no difference to me what product I use. So I have no cultural frame of reference for what is actually going on with that industry.

Maybe I have been so out of the routine shopping thing for so long, but these products caught my eye on a shopping trip to Kroger yesterday:

Maybe these have been around for years, but It appears there are now “Pro” and “Clinical” strength antiperspirants. This seemed like a particularly good idea to me, as the weather in Durham is approaching 90 degrees already and I have been taking half mile walks between the buildings that I need to work at. And we big guys tend to reek when we get sweaty.

I was about to grab 2 or 3 of these to test out, until I saw the PRICES.

WHOA! Eight bucks per stick? That’s more than twice the price of their regular brand!

Okay, I want to be All Day Fresh or Arctic Clean, but not at these prices.

Even the “loss” leader in this category, Right Guard, is still more than twice the price of their volume product.

So I looked at the back of these boxes and peered at the actual label. Like all other deoderants and antiperspirants, besides fragrance, the primary active ingredient is Aluminium Zirconium Tetrachlorohydrex Gly. All the “Pro” versions seem to have it in a 20 percent ratio whereas the regular products have it around 14-16 percent. At four to six percentage points difference, is this really going to make you sweat less and smell less stinky on a super hot day? And even in milder climates, is it really going to help, at more than twice the price? And is Aluminium Zirconium so expensive that a minor percentage increase in formulation will vastly increase manufacturing costs for companies like Gilette, Procter & Gamble, Mennen and Unilver to justify such a large price increase for these products?

Do any of you actually go out and buy this stuff or do you agree that it is a total ripoff?

Introducing the Y!Phone

Today on ZDNet i wrote an article about “What If” Microsoft and Yahoo were to fully consummate their marriage and release an iPhone Killer. My brother, Brandon, who is a 3D CGI modeller in Hollywood, did a quick mock-up of what one of these units might look like. I want a Y!Phone!

“a Windows Media-Powered “Y!Phone” that incorporated the features of the Zune portable media player, Wi-Fi connectivity and integration with all the Yahoo! and MSN/Microsoft online assets, built-in camera, integrated slide-out keyboard and HSDPA 3G data service with secure corporate email connectivity and ability to run third party Windows Mobile applications. This, at a corporate volume price point of less than $300 with carrier incentives, could be the device that everyone truly wants.”

Tam Tam Unobtainium

I’m not sure how I missed this one, but OTB fan, Flickr Jewish Cuisine diva and net-bubbie Melissa Goodman notified us of this March 27th New York Times article about the scarcity of Manischewitz Tam Tams this year due to manufacturing delays at the Newark, New Jersey Manischewitz Matzah plant.

Passover without Tam Tams? What are we supposed to eat instead, Shmurah-etes? There’s just no substitute.

Related:

Manischewitz: No Tam Tams by Passover (UPI)

Glitch Creates Shortage of Passover Crackers (SJ Mercury)

Attack of the M3 Paper Shredder

Got a junk mail problem? The Staples M3 Mailmate can clear it right up.

How to include Charlton Heston, Passover and Linux in the same blog post

Click on the photo above to read the entire article.

When Poodles Attack

Bailey and Kona during their morning sumo practice.

The Gary Gygax Geek Process Flow

artwork: Sam Potts, The New York Times (click drawing to expand full size)

I’m ashamed to say that I’ve often ventured into the right side of that flow chart more than the left side.

The Big Salad

Julie: Please come, Elaine.

Elaine: No, no. How about if you bring me back something?

George: Sure, all right, what do you want?

Elaine: Um, hum, I don’t know.. . . A big salad?

George: What big salad? I’m going to the coffee shop.

Elaine: They have big salads.

George: I’ve never seen a big salad.

Elaine: They have a big salad.

George: Is that what I ask for? The BIG salad?

Elaine: It’s okay, you don’t…

George: No, no, Hey I’ll get it. What’s in the BIG salad?

Jerry: Big lettuce, big carrots, tomatoes like volleyballs.

George: You know, if it was a regular salad, I wouldn’t have said anything. But you had to have the BIIIIIG salad!

Food Fight!

If this video starred people and not food, it would get an NC-17 rating for extreme ultra violence. You need to watch this a few times to get the symbolism — it starts off during World War II and works its way thru modern times. Each food item represents a specific culture, if you haven’t figured that out.

I’m not sure how to interpret the Felafel Attack on the Big Mac Towers though.