YumSugar

Coffee Filters

Beachwalker — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:44:28 -0800

Coffee filters ..who knew! And you can buy 1,000 at the Dollar Store for almost nothing.

1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in the microwave.
Coffee filters make excellent covers.

2. Clean windows and mirrors. Coffee filters are lint-free so they'll leave windows sparkling.

3. Protect China
Separate your good dishes by putting a coffee filter between each dish.

4. Filter broken cork from wine. If you break the cork when opening a wine bottle, filter the wine through a coffee filter.

5. Protect a cast-iron skillet. Place a coffee filter in the skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust.

6. Apply shoe polish. Ball up a lint-free coffee filter.

7. Recycle frying oil. After frying, strain oil through a sieve lined with a coffee filter.

8. Weigh chopped foods. Place chopped ingredients in a coffee filter on a kitchen scale.

9. Hold tacos. Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for messy foods.

10. Stop the soil from leaking out of a plant pot. Line a plant pot with a coffee filter to prevent
the soil from going through the drainage holes.

11. Prevent a Popsicle from dripping. Poke one or two holes as needed in a coffee filter.

12. Do you think we used expensive strips to wax eyebrows? Use strips of coffee filters.

13. Put a few in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries, chicken fingers, etc on them.
Soaks out all the grease.

14. Keep in the bathroom. They make great "razor nick fixers."

OH YEAH .. THEY ARE GREAT TO USE IN YOUR COFFEE MAKERS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coffee: What brand do you most drink? Is it organic? Tell me about your favorites!

tdamji — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 22:02:05 -0700

I know a lot of people really love starbucks, but I am not one of them: no judgement, but its just not a place I go for coffee. Actually, I rarely have coffee out, unless i'm on campus and need it (or feel I do. who NEEDS coffee, really?) to get through my classes/studying or maybe when I'm at a restaurant - but I only get it if its organic/fair trade or the like and from a local coffee shop.
What about you guys? how particular are you about your coffee?
I almost always have a cup of coffee at home in the morning before heading to classes and then as soon as I get home and also usually around 7pm with dinner or something. I really notice, this way, how much coffee I go through! As background info - in vancouver I normally buy this brand: Ethical Bean
Ethical Bean Coffee Company roasts only 100% Fair Trade Certified and certified organic shade grown coffees from around the world. We're committed to ensuring small-scale farmers receive a fair price for their efforts, sustaining their businesses and providing a decent standard of living for their families. We believe fair trade is a better way to do business.
I have a grinder at home and always grind my beans just prior to making coffee. In north america, it is typical to have a drip coffee maker in your home but here in New Zealand everyone has an espresso maker - even small cafes have really fancy ones. Rather than a cup of coffee you get either a short or tall black - which is essential an "americano" with more or less hot water added. This makes for a much better coffee experience as even though the coffee here is a lot more bitter and just general not very good - if its made in espresso machine it doesn't taste nearly as bad, plus it is a lot stronger, which i like. I don't know if i'm making much sense with all of this. Anyhow - here is what I have been drinking here: bags of ground coffee typically come in 200g bags here, where as in Canada 450g is usual. price comparison in local currancy: 1kg ethical bean - around $10 vs. 200g scarborough fair coffee (this is one of the cheaper organic /fair trade coffee brands here) - $8.
here's a bit about fair trade coffee from the scarborough fair coffee company:

Good intentions don't change things, good business does!

Whether it's in the high, misty tea gardens in Sri Lanka, the green hills where coffee grows in Chiapas, Mexico or the red-earthed cocoa farms in Ghana, Fairtrade certification is providing growers with clean water, education, health care and a better quality of life for their communities.

This certification ensures fair trading practices by setting standards for each product, including common principles such as no child labour, a minimum wage that ensures a decent quality of life, minimum health and safety standards and democratic decision making policies within the growing communities. Fairtrade also aims for long term trading arrangements, credit extension to avoid debt and consumer awareness of the need for trade to be made fair.

Most importantly, Fairtrade teaches people to fend for themselves - giving those who grow tea, coffee, cocoa and other tropical crops in developing countries the ability and means to dictate their own futures. Fairtrade brings balance to the global playing field.

So - i'd love to know what people think about their prefered brand of coffee and what made them choose what they did.

More Research in Defense of Coffee

Cassandra57 — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 14:11:37 -0800

We’re saved! Pass the coffee pot

Remember how we have been told for some time now that drinking coffee is bad for us. Well according to a 20 year study in Sweden and Denmark you can tell all those health
nuts to go take a flying leap because they’ll probably end up with dementia before you will.

The January issue of The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease features the results of this study which tracked some 2,000 people over a 21 year period. During the study period the participants self-reported their dietary habits; which included their coffee consumption. After the two decades more than 70% of the participants could be reached for follow-up evaluations. The fact that 1,409 now middle-aged participants out of the original 2,000 could be reached was concerned by the scientists to be an unusually high number.

During those 21 years it turns out that 61 people developed dementia and of those 61 only 48 developed Alzheimer’s.

After evaluating the effects of many health and socioeconomic factors, including high blood pressure and high cholesterol counts, the research team concluded the participants who drank between three and five cups of coffee a day were 65% less likely to develop dementia than those who drank less. Drinking even more than five cups a day was also associated with a reduced risk of developing dementia but the number of participants drinking this much coffee was too small to be statistically significant.

While not advocating someone start drinking coffee as a preventive measure, Dr. Miia Kivipelto, associate professor of neurology at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, suggests the following factors may be involved:

* Previous studies have found drinking coffee decreases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a disease that raises the risk of dementia.
* Animal studies have shown that caffeine reduces formation of amyloid plaques in the brain. These plaques are a distinguishing characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.
* Coffee may be a bloodstream-protecting antioxidant that protects the vascular system enough to reduce the likelihood of dementia.

Kivipelto also noted coffee consumption has been linked to decreased risk of Parkinson’s disease.

Source: Medheadlines

Well I definitely will feel better as my 12 cup coffee-maker does its job in the morning. How about you?

http://www.inquisitr.com/16379/were-saved-pass-the-coffee-pot/

To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity

ashleycakes — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:19:48 -0700

To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity
1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car with Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice!
3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, ask If They Want Fries with that.
4. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.
5. In the Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write For Marijuana.
6. Skip down the hall Rather Than Walk.
7. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
8. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is 'To Go'.
9. Sing Along At The Opera.
10. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party Because You have a headache.
11. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream ' I Won! I Won!'
12. When Leaving the Zoo, Start Running towards the Parking lot, Yelling 'Run For Your Lives! They're Loose!'
13. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, 'Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.'
And The Final Way To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity
14. PICK UP A BOX OF CONDOMS AT THE PHARMACY, GO TO THE COUNTER AND ASK WHERE THE FITTING ROOM IS.

For frugalists, bargain hunting is a lifestyle

tdsollog — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:09:08 -0700

For frugalists, bargain hunting is a lifestyle
For these extreme anti-consumers, your trash is their food, furniture
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24879628

By Allison Linn, Senior writer,MSNBC
updated 2:39 p.m. ET, Tues., June. 3, 2008

For Rebecca, browsing Dumpsters also is a way to protest the country’s rampant consumer culture. She has salvaged furniture, clothes, art supplies and even appliances.

It’s an unseasonably cold day in Seattle, and Rebecca is standing in her kitchen, preparing for her regular Sunday afternoon outing. As she gathers her backpack and grocery bags, her dog sniffs around excitedly, anticipating the long walk and treats that await.

In the course of their errands, Rebecca and her dog will visit several stores and coffee shops, a bakery and a chocolate factory. But instead of walking in the front door, she plans to head out back and go Dumpster diving.

Rebecca, 51, owns a small duplex and has a job running an art program for a health care organization. She’s also an artist in her own right whose accomplishments include a piece that hangs in the Seattle Art Museum.

And she gets 99 percent of her food from the Dumpster.

“It’s so easy to eat for free,” she says. “The only things I buy are butter and milk.”

It’s no secret that American culture is a consumer culture. We like big cars, big houses and big bags of things bought at big malls and big-box retailers. On the opposite end of the spectrum are the few people who call themselves anti-consumerists, freegans, frugalists or just plain Dumpster divers. Whatever the moniker, these people delight in drastically reducing their consumer spending, finding life’s essentials at bargain prices or paying nothing at all.

“I like getting stuff free. It’s like a treasure hunt,” says Ran Prieur, 40, who lives in Washington state and whose extremely frugal life includes occasional Dumpster diving. “It’s kind of similar to what you get from gambling.”

It’s hard to say how many people are trying to live this way, but frugal communities say they are seeing more interest. A couple years ago, a group of friends in San Francisco made a compact to try not to buy anything new for a year; now there are “Compactors” all over the world. The Freecycle Network, through which people give away stuff they no longer need rather than trashing it, boasts thousands of participants.

Freegans - whose efforts to live outside the conventional economic system may include hitchhiking, foraging for food and eschewing regular jobs - say there is growing interest in adopting at least parts of their philosophy.

“A lot of people are recognizing that there are a lot of ways that people can provide for their needs,” said Adam Weissman, a spokesman for the main freegan Web site.

Being thrifty
Rebecca, who asked that her real name not be used because she worries she could lose her job if her employer knew about her Dumpster diving, doesn’t need to get food for free.

She says she likes the thrill of the chase, and the surprising bounty of good food she finds. And despite holding a steady job and having grown up in an affluent family, she says she sometimes worries she won’t have enough money. She also likes to “save a little here, save a little there,” so she can afford splurges like a laptop computer and keep funding her art.

For Rebecca, browsing Dumpsters also is a way to protest the country’s rampant consumer culture. She has salvaged furniture, clothes, art supplies and even appliances. Still, even she isn’t totally immune to the culture she avoids - feeling blue recently, she went in for a little retail therapy and bought a new pair of sneakers.

Rebecca grew up in Greenwich, Conn., the daughter of an ad man. As early as high school, she remembers searching through garbage while walking the streets of New York City. Her mother would walk ahead, pretending not to know her. Nobody else bothered her.

“That’s when I really started liking things cheap,” she says.

After high school, Rebecca went to art school, but in 1979, she decided to drop out and head to Seattle. Her artwork includes materials she’s found in the garbage or on the street.

To many first-time Dumpster divers, the most surprising thing is how much good stuff is out there.

Prieur, for example, says his trash bin excursions have netted him smoked salmon, high-end bacon, olive oil, plenty of produce and other goodies. Prieur, who owns a piece of land but has no permanent home, estimates that when he’s staying with his sister in Seattle, he gets 20 to 30 percent of his groceries from garbage bins.

His habit elicits mixed responses. A favorite item at his sister’s house is “Dumpstered” apple pie. But he’ll sometimes invite people over for dinner and get the cautionary response: “Just promise not to put any Dumpster food in it.”

Says Prieur: “There’s a big emotional thing attached to not eating out of the garbage.”

Baby squash, popcorn and granola
When Rebecca reaches the grocery store, she moves with purpose across the parking lot to a fenced-in Dumpster. With practiced nonchalance, she opens the gate and walks in, closing it behind her. On the ground, she immediately finds a bag of baby squashes. They go in the backpack to be steamed up for dinner.

Next, she hikes herself up and peers in the Dumpster itself. Out comes a bag of popcorn, a bag of granola and a package of rice. All are torn, but the contents appear clean.

“Aw darn,” she calls from within. “A box of chocolates - but they’re empty.”
Rebecca passes up pasta and a few other items, explaining that she prefers ready-made food because she doesn’t like to cook.

The granola isn’t her taste, either - she’s a self-described picky eater - but she can give it to her boyfriend.

She also passes up a bag of flavored potato chips, explaining, “I don’t like salt and vinegar.”
Climbing out of the Dumpster, Rebecca opens the gate again and heads out.

In 10 years of serious Dumpster diving, Rebecca says she’s never gotten sick eating food from the trash.

She has only occasionally been hassled by a store manager, but she will usually talk her way out of it by spinning a story that she recently lost her job. People sometimes lecture her, telling her eating out of a Dumpster isn’t good for her. She generally plays along with the spiel, “because most people assume that’s who you are - either homeless or mentally ill,” she says.

‘I hope that Starbucks has some decaf’
As she heads further into Seattle’s University District, Rebecca’s on the lookout for coffee.

“I hope that Starbucks has some decaf because I’m out of decaf,” she says.

But after rifling through several garbage bags, she only comes up with a pile of breakfast sandwiches. She feeds one to her dog.

In her escapades, Rebecca has found CDs, a $100 bill, an answering machine and a five-pound bag of coffee. It often amazes her to come across perfectly good things in the trash, and she will find herself speculating about what personal decision - a fight with a boyfriend, maybe? - would cause someone to throw out something like a CD.

Around the end of the school year, Rebecca will spend more time in the neighborhood near Seattle’s University of Washington to forage for things that people throw out when they move - art supplies, coffee makers, that sort of thing. She also likes to hit the fraternity houses.

“Good God,” she says, “they’ll throw out everything.”

251 million tons of trash
The same could be said for Americans in general. Americans produce about 4.6 pounds of waste per person per day - or nearly a ton a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

For many who get their essentials secondhand or for free, one motivation is that they are disgusted by such waste. But their lifestyle is dependent on the consumer culture that they reject.

If Americans didn’t demand pristine produce and bread baked fresh daily, there would be little for Dumpster divers to find. And if we didn’t lust for new couches long before the old springs had gone soft, and new jeans months before their current ones had developed holes, there would be little for thrift store aficionados and garage sale lovers to buy.

Frugalists say they there are plenty of places to find stuff, if you know where to look. They get things on the sidewalk, through Internet posts and at organized giveaway events.

Laura Thompson, 57, does most of her “shopping” in the bathtub, with a stack of catalogs that she never orders from. When she really needs something, she either goes to a thrift store or tries to find it for free. Recently she lamented that she needed a raincoat, and a friend who likes secondhand shopping gave Thompson the one she was wearing.

Thompson is most meticulous about one thing: paper towels. She’s had the same roll of Costco paper towels since March 2006, and she estimates that there’s still about an inch left. If a houseguest asks for a paper towel, they most likely will be turned down.

Thompson only uses paper towels for “icky” jobs, like getting oil off anchovies. She relies on rags and cloth napkins for most other needs. She does have a little bit of a cheat, though: If she goes to a restaurant and is given a stack of paper napkins, she will take those home and use them.

Thompson, who also lives in Seattle, has been trying to conserve paper towels for about 10 years, motivated by a combination of environmental activism and lifelong frugality.

‘Down to the underwear’
Jacqueline Blix and David Heitmiller once held high-powered telecommunications jobs and were self-professed yuppies. Then in the mid-1990s, they read a book called “Your Money or Your Life” and had a revelation: They could just stop working.

Since then, they have lived on investments, occasional sales of Blix’s crafts and, in recent years, Heitmiller’s part-time work as a handyman. They are so enamored of their simple lifestyle that the Seattle couple even wrote their own book about it: “Getting a Life.”

One day in early spring, Blix was dressed in a pink sweater, turquoise turtleneck, khaki pants and knit socks. Everything she was wearing had come from a secondhand shop, “down to the underwear,” she noted - except the socks, which were knit by a friend.

When Heitmiller asked his wife whether everything he was wearing had come from a secondhand shop, too, she looked him over quizzically and said she didn’t know what underwear he was wearing.

Blix and Heitmiller started their post-regular work life living on about $30,000 a year. Lately, their budget has crept up to about $45,000, largely because of rising costs for health insurance and a decision to eat more organic food. They also travel more often to California now to visit their grandchildren.

To maintain their lifestyle in a comfortable three-bedroom, two-bathroom duplex, the two have become avid secondhand shoppers, as well as what Blix calls “curbside shoppers.” That means that they find things, like their coffee table, sitting outside with a “free” sign on it. Other items, including a television and kitchen table, were inherited.

The hardwood floor in their house was salvaged from another house, and Heitmiller bartered his handyman skills in exchange for some leftover carpeting they used elsewhere in the house.
Blix keeps a list of things that they would like to have, and she says she’s often surprised at how things fall in her lap. Recently they were considering buying some items for their front yard when a friend called with some mulch to give away.

“If you put a need out there in the universe, you’ll be surprised,” she said.

Blix doesn’t think she spends more time shopping than most Americans spend at the mall - the very mention of which makes her physically shudder. The couple goes out for a meal about once a month, and they’ll occasionally visit a coffee shop. Heitmiller has a cell phone for his handyman business; Blix does not want one.

‘A leftover from previous thinking’
Blix, 58, and Heitmiller, 62, say that, in deciding to live simply, they also are forced to talk honestly about money, something many couples don’t do. Still, like any couple, they have the occasional financial disagreement. The difference is that their most memorable disagreement is one that most couples wouldn’t remember at all.

What happened is this: Blix took a Costco gift card she’d received and bought a new set of flatware, to replace the set Heitmiller had had since his first marriage in 1968, without so much as a word of discussion beforehand. To Heitmiller, it was an “oddity” that she would buy something new to replace something that worked just fine. To Blix, it was her money and she wanted new flatware.

On the rare occasions Blix has spent money like that, she calls it “a leftover from previous thinking,” when she was more beholden to money.

The idea of not working sounds great to a lot of people, but there are downsides. Health care costs have risen substantially, and without an employer the couple is left to foot the bill themselves until Medicare kicks in. They have a high-deductible policy that doesn’t cover prescription medication.

Over the years, the couple also has noticed that they have grown away from many of their old friends, although now they have a new group of friends who think more like them, including those active in what is called the Voluntary Simplicity movement.

Blix says another problem she has is “time management,” meaning what to do with all the time she has because she doesn’t work. “You really are faced with, ‘What am I going to do with my life?’ ” she says. “It’s something that I definitely work on.”

Three Dumpsters of bread
It’s looking more and more like rain as Rebecca walks along the water and through a park, pausing briefly to admire the view of Seattle’s downtown. The aroma of rosemary and yeast fills the air. She is nearing one of Seattle’s favorite artisan bakeries.

Behind the bakery sit three tan Dumpsters, each filled with nothing but bread - every type you can think of, bagged and looking as mouth-watering as they do on the shelves at Whole Foods. It doesn’t even smell bad here - the store’s other Dumpsters, containing actual trash, are around the front of the store.

Rebecca pulls out a loaf of ciabatta for herself, and then roots around for a whole-grain loaf for her boyfriend of 18 years. He’s not much of a Dumpster diver himself, but he will eat some things she finds.

A white hatchback pulls up and three young guys get out and head for the Dumpsters. Methodically, they begin gathering bread for themselves and their friends. They pause, arms and mouths full of bread, to discuss the merits of ciabatta vs. olive bread. No one comes out of the bakery to bother them.

Next, Rebecca heads toward an outpost of the local food co-op. Behind the shiny new building are two large Dumpsters, and next to those someone has set aside produce boxes. Rebecca says the good fresh fruits and vegetables are usually in there, but today they are empty. No matter; hiking herself up on the large Dumpster, she finds the mother lode - a breakfast burrito, samosas, pulled pork sandwiches and vegetarian burgers, all individually wrapped in tinfoil and some still warm. They aren’t set to expire until the next day.

“This is a nice catch today,” she says.

It’s raining as she begins the long uphill trek back to her house, her backpack filled with enough food to last a couple of days, until her next trip through the city’s Dumpsters.

“I’m a working girl,” she says. “I have a job. I own my own house. And I Dumpster dive. So there you go.”

TOP SIGNS THAT YOUR STARBUCKS IS ABOUT TO BE SHUT DOWN

Great Sommelier — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:01:24 -0800

TOP SIGNS THAT YOUR STARBUCKS IS ABOUT TO BE SHUT DOWN

--The guy at the Starbucks one block over told you so.
--They've slashed the price of a small coffee to six bucks.
--The warning on their cups now reads: "Burn yourself, we don't give a crap!"
--Their cleverly decorated tip cups are now just used for begging on the corner.
--The customers on their MacBooks are actively looking for another place to craft brilliant screenplays.
--Every mocha-Frappuccino comes with a resume.
--The barista dude seems even huffier than usual while pointing to the tip jar when you ask for a stirrer.
--The new, Starbucks-only James Taylor album is called "You've Got a Friend . . . But You'll Have to Start Meeting Him for Lattes Someplace Else".
--All those coffee cups, coffee makers, and candy that are usually half off? Now 75% off.
--They can no longer afford a fancy stereo system to pump in pretentious indie rock.
--The employees now freely admit that the tall, grande, and venti sizes are just a big joke.
--There's a huge rise in job applicants at Dunkin' Donuts.
--The only "drip" you can get on that corner is gonorrhea.

Senior Thoughts :-)

Shiloh Jolie Pitt — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 15:34:21 -0800

THE SENILITY PRAYER :
Grant me the senility to forget the people
I never liked anyway,
The good fortune to run into the ones I do, and
The eyesight to tell the difference.

My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.

I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape,
So I got my doctor's permission to
Join a fitness club and start exercising.
I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors.
I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But,
By the time I got my leotards on,
The class was over.

Just before the funeral services, the undertaker came up to the very elderly widow and asked,
'How old was your husband?' '98,' she replied.
'Two years older than me'
'So you're 96,' the undertaker commented.
She responded, 'Hardly worth going home, is it?

Reporters interviewing a 104-year-old woman:
'And what do you think is the best thing
About being 104?' the reporter asked.
She simply replied, 'No peer pressure.'

The nice thing about being senile is
You can hide your own Easter eggs.

I've sure gotten old!
I've had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement,
New knees, fought prostate cancer and diabetes
I'm half blind,
Can't hear anything quieter than a jet engine,
Take 40 different medications that
Make me dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts.
Have bouts with dementia
Have poor circulation;
Hardly feel my hands and feet anymore.
Can't remember if I'm 85 or 92.
Have lost all my friends. But, thank God,
I still have my driver's license.

Know how to prevent sagging?
Just eat till the wrinkles fill out.

It's scary when you start making the same noises
As your coffee maker.

These days about half the stuff
In my shopping cart says,
' For fast relief.'

Now, I think you're supposed to share this with 5 or 6, maybe 10 others. Oh heck, just give it to a bunch of your friends…if you can remember who they are!

Always Remember This:
You don't stop laughing because you grow old, You grow old because you stop laughing

Weird Jobs

amh678 — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:45:24 -0700

Source: MSN Careers

DID YOU KNOW THESE JOBS EXISTED?

By Rachel Zupek, CareerBuilder.com

Do you ever wonder whose job it is to do some of the less desirable things in life? If you think about it, there’s a job doing almost anything, no matter how exciting, disgusting or just plain weird it may seem.

For example, remember when you stuck your wad of gum underneath the seat of a roller coaster so you wouldn’t choke? That sticky mess didn’t just disappear – a gum buster scraped it off, using a special steaming tool that removes gum stuck to various surfaces.

Think about all those times your golf ball didn’t make it over the water. Did you think the fish ate them? Nope, a golf ball diver, who scours the depths of bodies of water on golf courses to find lost golf balls to refinish and resell, got it.

Many Americans dominate the corporate working world, but don’t forget about those who took the road less traveled. Through photography in her books, “Odd Jobs” and “Odder Jobs,” Nancy Rica Schiff portrays people working jobs you probably won’t find in the Sunday classifieds.

They aren’t your run-of-the-mill doctors, lawyers and the like. Some are simple, some complex; some are common, some one in a million – but one thing’s for sure – they are all (extremely) unusual.

Here are 20 odd jobs portrayed in Rica Schiff’s books.

1. Breath odor evaluator
What they do: Odor judges smell nasty morning breath or breath “insulted” with strong scents, like garlic or coffee. They rate the breath on a scale from one to nine, one being the worst. To test odor-reducing products like gum or mouthwash, they smell the breath again and assign it a new rating.

2. Diener
What they do: Prepare cadavers for the pathologist before autopsies are performed in hospitals.

3. Ribbon candy puller
What they do: After a heated combination of sugar, corn syrup, water and coloring agent has cooled, batches of different colors are laid out side by side. Someone then pulls the candy thin until it’s about an inch wide. The final product is a multicolored hard candy.

4. Ocularist
What they do: In short, they paint artificial eyes. It sounds easier than it is, since as with real eyes, no two are exactly the same.

5. Flatulence smell-reduction underwear maker
What they do: Create underwear that protects against bad human gas for people who suffer from gastrointestinal problems. The underwear is made with various materials and filters to help remedy hydrogen sulfide gases, the main offender in foul smells.

6. Beer tester
What they do: Taste – and spit out – beer all day to approve new and existing flavors.

7. Crack filler
What they do: Using a silicone sealant, they repair the wear and tear inflicted on monumental structures, like Mount Rushmore.

8. Ball tester
What they do: Assess basketballs, footballs, volleyballs and soccer balls for air-retention, inflation, roundness, weight and reboundability.

9. Video game tester
What they do: For eight hours a day, five days a week, a group of males and females of all ages play video games. They repeat levels, games and characters, looking for any bugs and/or glitches in the software.

10. Tampon tester
What they do: Check all sizes of tampons for absorbency and cord strength in accordance with Food and Drug Administration standards. Most testers check up to 125 pieces per day.

11. Gold reclaimer
What they do: Scour old teeth for fillings, melting the gold from them with broken gold jewelry into tiny gold pellets, which are then resold to jewelers.

12. Dog sniffer
What they do: Once a week, they analyze the odor of dogs' breath to test the effect of the animals' diet on their teeth. Breath is graded on a scale of zero to 10 and is categorized as sweaty, salty, musty, fungal or decaying.

13. Potato chip inspector
What they do: Search for overcooked or clumped chips to discard as they come down the assembly line.

14. Porta-potty servicer
What they do: Like regular restrooms, portable toilets need maintenance, too. Once a week, service workers clean these single-stall facilities to achieve certain standards of sanitation.

15. Barbie dress designer
What they do: Fashion designers at Mattel Toys, the company behind Barbie, create hundreds of new styles for Barbie and her ever-expanding entourage.

16. Wax figure maker
What they do: Mold wax to create figures, often for, but not limited to, the human form. Figures are often made in the likeness of people who have achieved historical or celebrity recognition.

17. Safecracker
What they do: When combinations are lost or forgotten, safecrackers use their ears and fingers to open the safe.

18. Wig maker
What they do: Put simply, they make wigs, but the process is anything but simple. First, wig makers create a plastic model of the wearer’s head and hairline, and then they transfer the mold onto a padded canvas similar to the client’s general head size, covering it with wig lace. Using a needle, they knot and pull thousands of hairs, one by one, through the mesh cap. Once all the hairs are in place, the wig is styled to the wearer’s preference.

19. Paper towel sniffer
What they do: Paper towel manufacturers prefer their products to be odorless before, during and after their use. Naturally, paper towel sniffers ensure that once a paper towel is used, there is no noticeable scent.

20. Foley artist
What they do: Use whatever they can find to create and record the noises used to make the sound effects in films, like heavy footsteps, rolling thunder or creaking doors.

To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity

Grandpa — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:56:48 -0800

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice!
3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, ask If They Want Fries with that.
4. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks . Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.
5. In the Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write ' For Marijuana.
6. Skip down the hall Rather Than Walk and see how many looks you get.
7. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
8. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is 'To Go'.
9. Sing Along At The Opera.
10. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party Because You have a headache.
11. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream 'I Won! I Won!'
12. When Leaving the Zoo, Start Running towards the Parking lot, Yelling 'Run For Your Lives! They're Loose!'
13. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, 'Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.'
And The Final Way To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity

14. PICK UP A BOX OF CONDOMS AT THE PHARMACY, GO TO THE COUNTER AND ASK WERE THE FITTING ROOM IS.

Did You Know...?

Beachwalker — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:13:44 -0800

More than 100 years ago, the felt hat makers of England used
mercury to stabilize wool. Most of them eventually became
poisoned by the fumes, as demonstrated by the Mad Hatter in
Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

***

The average cup of coffee contains more than 1000 different
chemical components, none of which is tasted in isolation
but only as part of the overall flavor.