RANTS AND RAVES…ACTUALLY, MAKE THAT RANTS AND MORE RANTS!

I have a bunch of things on my mind today.  Y’know the kind of stuff that makes you want to blow off some steam even though most of it is petty.  But, as Mom used to advise me: things that matter little, matter much.

The first little thing on my mind is a product that has gotten little.  It used to be a lot larger.  It’s the story of General Mills and some of their corporate know-it-alls who decided we stupid cereal consumers will never notice that they’ve radically reduced the size of Rice Chex.  The Chex series of breakfast cereals (rice, wheat and corn) have been around since I was a kid.  And when I was a kid, the individual Rice Chex appeared to be pretty much an inch in size.  They were nice and puffy too, like little pillows with a definite empty space inside.  The ones I poured out into a bowl this morning were flat with the sides smushed together.  They measured 3/4” by 5/8” –nowhere close to the size they had been 50 years ago.  It’s all because of the New American Way…the way of Corporate America which must (must they really?) maintain a profit margin so high they have no choice but to reduce the size or quality of the products they make…or the packages they put them in.  So goodbye to things like Rice Chex and, while I’m thinking of it,  goodbye Breyers Ice Cream too.  Oh, forgot, they are not allowed to call a lot of their selections “ice cream” anymore because they’ve cut back on the level of cream.  You will notice these flavors are called “frozen dairy desserts.”  It’s true, you won’t see the term “ice cream” on many Breyers cartons.  But, believe me, it doesn’t make any difference how they label their product, it is definitely inferior to the Breyers I was raised on.  There are plenty of other American products that have gone down the same path….the little path that matters much.

Okay, moving on to other steam.  I have three full-size desktop computers in the house.  I have two that I use (one PC and one iMac) and the third, another PC, is used by my wife and the grandkids when they visit.  I have Windows 7 on my old PC.  My wife has Windows 8 on hers.  Now, I want to think that professional, innovative people who design software are far far smarter than I am.  Why then did it take me over 20 minutes yesterday to finally locate the flash drive I stuck in the usb slot on the Windows 8 computer?  Now, I’ve been on computers since the first Apple with the little “chicklet” keyboard.  So it’s not like I don’t know how to use one.  But every time I get the privilege to use Windows 8 I want to cut off my fingers..  And now, they are so desperate to get me to move up to Windows 10 that they will give it to me FREE!  Why’s that?  Hmmm.

And my final tizzy for this posting is a new trend I’ve noticed on the great American highway.  Well, actually more on the city streets that I drive on most of the time.  It seems to me that more and more drivers are abandoning the use of turning signals.  I find myself guessing a lot more these days if the guy in front of me, or the one heading toward me, is planning to do some kind of maneuver with his automobile that may affect me. One thing I do know for sure—he has no intention of letting me know until he actually does it.

Okay, nuff venting for one day. I do feel better, however.  Now, if you will, please check out the ad below and if you have a Kindle or other non-Nook device, please take advantage of the offer on Tuesday, March 1st when you can download a FREE copy of my latest book, Anchor. Simply go to amazon.com any time on March 1st and search “Anchor, Kuhn.”  This will eventually lead you to the Kindle version that’s free all day.  By the way, Anchor is a murder mystery…0r is it a mystery whether or not there’s a murder?  Readers are debating that as we speak.