Chocolicious Wonkacakes

Loyal Cruft readers, I am quite vexed with you. It was only this Saturday that I stumbled across Chocolicious Wonkacakes at our local 7-Eleven. After reading my previous treatise on Sno-Balls, and knowing my love of gaily colored treats, not one of you had the decency to inform me that such a tasty new Wonka treat was on the market.
Note the freshness date is about to expire any day now. Had I not found the Wonkacakes, they might have been whisked off the shelves without any testing being possible.
Have no fear, I have done my research and can present the secrets of the Chocolicious Wonkacakes.


You simply can’t resist this packaging. I mean really, if it’s got Johnny Depp’s face on it, you have to buy it.

Looks like the standard Hostess cupcake except in purple and orange. The flavor was not different that standard chocolate & white frosting. I was eager to taste some unique Wokna flavor like a Snozzberry, but no such luck.

The true beauty of the Wonkacake is revealed once inside. Yes, a purple creme filling is at the heart of the Wonkacake. Once again, I hoped for a delightful new Wonka taste and strained my tastebuds for even a hint of berry. Alas, it tastes like the standard white creme filling.
You don’t think that Hostess is simply using the same recipe as their normal chocolate cupcake and only changing the food dye color? Naw…

A year with Prius

I recieved the new car registration sticker for the Prius this week. Hard to believe it’s been a full year since I first drove the Prius.


After 14,000 miles and a year of driving the car around town, to and from work, and several long road trips, I have to say it’s the best car I’ve ever driven. My Saturn, the first new car I ever had, still remains close to my heart from all the memories, but the Prius is a superior driving machine.
While the whole electric hybrid car is the first thing people think about when considering a Prius, I kinda forget about it most of the time. After spending the first few weeks watching the Info screen with the charging and mileage info, it got boring and I stopped doing. After Michele had the Prius up at 105 MPH on the I-5 with plenty left in the motor, I stopped thinking about performance.
For those that do concern themselves about mileage, I get 44 MPG pretty consistently. Yes, I know people can get 60+ out of a Prius, but I’m unwilling to do things like leave the air conditioning off, drive at 62.5 MPH, and fiddle with my tire pressure depending on the weather. That’s still phenomenal mileage for a sedan that seats 5, even several six footers.

The Good
What makes the car good is that it handles many of the little things well. There are three main tasks that the Prius handles in exemplary ways.

Keyless Operation
The keyless entry and ignition is fantastic. I simply walk up to the car and it unlocks. I don’t have to grab the keyfob to push a button. The car realizes I’m there, unlocks the doors and lights up the car interior. Once sitting in the car, I simply push the Power button and the car starts. Again, the keyfob can remain in my pocket. Once you do this for a while using a regular key seems old-fashioned and useless.
Bluetooth Integration
The implementation of Bluetooth in the car is nearly perfect. Once again, you simply start the car and it automatically connects to your mobile phone and now the car acts as your phone. There are buttons on the steering wheel to answer and hang up on calls. The car even accepts Bluetooth transfers of contact into a car based Address Book. There are three pages of one touch dial buttons you can configure.
The intergration of the phone is tight with the stereo so that the car mutes any audio, even pausing a CD, when a call is occuring. Hang up the call and your music starts right back up.
The only drawback is that you can’t switch between mobile phones while in motion. You have to be < 5MPH to get into the settings mode to do that. Not a problem for most people, but I carry a work phone and a personal phone, so it's an issue for me. Navigation System/Electronics
Toyota didn’t invent the GPS/Navigation system in the Prius, but they did integrate it well. Currently, I don’t like driving a car without a Nav system. It’s simply too nice to let the computer worry about exits and the details. I punch in where I want to go and the computer tells me how to get there and info about the the route. If I don’t like the route it chooses, it’s no big deal, I simply drive the way I want and the computer continuously reorients to the situation.
The deeply cool stuff is there in places like the location search. It’s easy to type in the name of a place and call up it’s location for use as a destination. But they went a step further and included the phone number as well. So when you call up a destination with a phone number the phone part of the car recognizes this and allows to dial that number directly. Who needs 411 when your car can do it?
The Bad
There are a few drawbacks to the car, but they are minor. Not enough to get rid of the car, but since you loyal Cruft readers are infohounds, I’ll include them.
Motion Lockout
When the car is in motion ( > 5MPH ) many of the menus are locked out on the display screen. You can’t enter a new location into the nav systems, dial a phone number, or adjust many of the car settings. The idea is that when you are driving you should not be typing. I agree to a point, but when you have a passenger in the car, they should be able to do this.
There is a third party mod you can do to the car from Coastal Electronic Technologies that fixes this, but I haven’t done it.
It’s not a computer
I use a lot of electronics in my daily life and most of them improve over time due to software revisions. Problems are fixed and slowly things get better. With automobiles it’s a different story. The car is forever locked into being a 2004 Toyota Prius. I’m not going get an email one day that says that an auxilary audio jack is been added if I just download a patch. I wish that the car could get more features over time without resorting to the 3rd party haxxoring. In theory Toyota could rev the software int he car and provide improvements, but it’s not in their plans. They’d rather have me buy a new Prius.
If you are considering buying a Prius, just do it. You won’t be disappointed.

Moen Revolution

A few weeks ago, I read about the Moen Revolution showerhead on Matt Haughey’s site. Our showerhead was seven or eight years old, so I decided to give it a try.
The install was a breeze. Just unscrewed the old showerhead, applied new teflon tape, and screwed the new Moen on.


I turned the water on and let the thing rip. The first thing you notice is the handle on the bottom to steer the water. It feels natural and moves smoothly. The dial on the handle is to change the kind of water stream flowing out.

The handle does drop down a bit and was bumping into the highest shelf of the shower caddy thing. I finally removed the top shelf and all was well. Michele decided that this would ‘not do’ and is now on the hunt for a new shower caddy thing that can accomadate the size of the Moen.
This is what I would consider the main showering mode. Plenty of water and not a lot of force. The children and I both think this is better than the old showerhead.

Next I tested out the special mode. It’s described as “Moen’s patented Revolution technology takes ordinary water, spins each drop, then twirls the entire shower stream.“. Well, it’s kind of like one of those kiddy toys for the backyard that whips around in all directions. Fun the first time, but no use for washing. And the flow isn’t strong enough to be considered a massage mode.

This mode is the massage mode. But it’s not much of a massage. The stream is just more than an inch in diameter and just doesn’t have enough force to be considered a real massage mode. Now, maybe some dainty princess type might like it, but it was a disappointment to me.
Conclusion: The Moen Revolution is a nice showerhead, but it’s not revolutionary in any way except the handle. If you like the way it looks, get it. If you are looking for one of those back-massaging showerheads, this ain’t it.

Walmart

I’m on vacation here in Duck, North Carolina.
Part of the fun of being here in North Carolina is that I get to visit stores that I don’t regularly visit. The closest large store to our rental house is Walmart.
At home I don’t go to Walmart. California doesn’t have a lot of Walmart and none in my immediate vicinity. Furthermore, Michele has decided that we are Target people, not Walmart people. Not one to argue with my wife, I have not been to a Walmart in recent memory. Recent memory is the last 15 years, or the time since I moved out of the fraternity.
I was first shocked when I entered Walmart and they had boogie boards on sale for less than $10. ‘Wow, that’s a deal.’ I thought.
As I walked through the store my eyes began to glaze over like a zombie as my mouth said the words ‘Wow, that’s a deal.’ over and over. From chicken feed to video games to air conditioners to shotguns, there was nothing that Walmart didn’t have for a good price.
If not for the stern direction of my wife, all the cash in my wallet would have been sucked out into the Walmart registers. I still can’t get the image of the first-aid kit for $9.82 out of my mind.


Photo courtesy of cousin James

Here’s just one side of the sunscreen display. Amazing isn’t it?
How in the hell does someone shop regularly at a Walmart and not end up endlessly wandering the aisles looking for yet another deal?
I wonder how early Walmart opens and if those first aid kits are still on sale?

A Tale of Two Spams

I was at the supermarket the other day, in front of the Spam section and I noticed two new versions of Spam. Of course, it’s my duty to you, the loyal Cruft reader, to test them out.
Without hesitation, I picked up the cans and I now bring you, a Tale of Two Spams.


Yes, it’s the new Hot & Spicy Spam and the new Spam with Cheese.
To read the full story, click More…

Continue reading “A Tale of Two Spams”

From the closeout store

Near our house is a book closeout store. It used to be a regular Crown Books store, but at some point it transitioned into a closeout only books store. The prices are rock bottom and there’s plenty of interesting stuff. The girls and I often browse and I encourage them to choose books there.
In our last trip this book caught my eye and I decided the $4.99 price was probably low enough to take a risk.
Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics – Julius Schwartz, Brian M. Thomsen
To readers of DC Comics, Julius Schwartz is a familiar name. He was with DC Comics from the beginning when it was still All-American Comics. As an editor, he is best know for helming both Batman and Superman for long runs in the 60s and 70s. He’s less well known as the man behind the Silver Age of comics, reinventing core heroes like Green Lantern and the Flash into their modern incarnations.
Reading the book, I was suprised to learn of his huge involvement in the early science fiction scene and his role as the agent to many of the greats such as H.P. Lovecraft, Alfred Bester, and Ray Bradbury.
He played a critical role in creating the science fiction genre that I was unaware of completely. The book goes into great detail about how much money was made in those days, a half cent per word, for science fiction. This section of the obok is quite interesting, with insights into famed sci-fi writers from someone that was truly their friend.
Julius brings up a comic fact that I had never heard before. Most comics readers take it as fact that Bob Kane created Batman. the truth is that Bob Kane drew the art for Batman, but Bill Finger wrote the stories and developed most of the mythos that we associate with Batman from the Utility Belt to the Batmobile to the Joker. Props to Bill Finger for his work with Bob Kane to create the World’s Greatest Detective.
Some of the things that Julius did in the comics, I hated. He was responsible for killing Alfred and having Clark Kent work as a TV reporter. I really hated these things as core elements of the comic mythos were changed. Both plot lines were eventually ‘fixed’, but all is forgiven for two main reasons.
One, He edited the Ambush Bug comic, the greatest comic book ever written. It was the pet project of my favorite comic artist/writer, Keith Giffen.
Second, he is responsible for the proliferation of gorillas in DC Comics. Julius found out that if there was a gorilla on the cover of a comic, it sold more than comics without a gorilla. Julius didn’t need to know why, but if it sold more copies, he’s do it. For long time DC Comics readers, this should be an aha moment as to why Gorilla Grodd shows up in so many books.
The book itself seems a bit rushed in places. The creation of the fundemetal DC concept of Earth 1 and Earth 2 is breezed through in a couple of pages. You also get a taste for Julius’s feeling toward other comic book legends, but only a taste.
Julius Schwartz died in 2004 and DC rereleased several of his most famous comics in tribute. You would enjoy them if you picked them up.
For comic book and sci-fi fans, this a fun book to read. I’m now interested to pick up some books about Stan Lee and Steve Ditko to see what went on in the Marvel side of things.