Thursday, July 17, 2014

Chips Ahoy...



You got to give those smart guys at the snack companies credit.  They’re always thinking.  

Maybe the king of snacks is the once humble potato chip (or crisps, depending on your location) which has been around since the mid nineteenth century.  Don’t know if you notice these things as I do, but there is an astonishing number of people who make them.  Gourmet, plain, wavy, baked (bad, bad), brown russets, thick cut, kettle cooked, the styles are endless.  And on top of that is the flavors.  Almost anything you can think of is made by somebody.  As testimony, one of my recent favorites is the “Dill Pickle” flavor by the Lay’s people.  Sounds bad, tastes good.  Speaking of Lay’s they recently (months ago) launched a “win a million bucks” campaign, asking consumers to submit ideas for a flavor.  When we were in Giant the other day, I spied a bag that announced the winner.  A Karen Weber – Mendham got the $1M, and will spend it on “college and braces for the kids.. then maybe some shoes for me”.  How cute.  Still a million is a million.  All because she came up with the suggestion of “Cheesy Garlic Bread”.  Naturally we had to get a bag, and since they were having a special of two for one we got another newcomer, Chicken and Waffles (!!)..





Cheesy Garlic Bread I can fathom, but how they came up with the Chicken and Waffles baffles me.  I think I am reasonably up on food culture, and for the life of me I don’t think I know of any traditional link between the two.  Since the picture shows fried chicken, I would guess that maybe it would be from the “south”.  Waffle houses began in the south, so there is maybe a link somehow there.  I have never eaten in one, but anyway.

As for the taste test, the Cheesy weren’t too bad and in fact MFO really liked them.  On the other hand (or mouth) the Waffle variety are (IMHO) really BAD!.  The waffle flavor comes through big time, but neither of us could get any hint of chicken.  And like their namesake, they were quite sweet.  The ones in the picture are from that bag.  The color is sort of off putting.. no more bags for us.  yuck. 

And yes, dear readers, I know that potato chips are not the best for you.. but they pair well (ha ha) with certain items…

Technology marches on

I think I mentioned that I have acquired a new tablet/laptop since the hard drive in this cumbersome laptop appears to be on its last legs.  The new Lenovo weighs but a fraction of this beast and I thought it would be my travel preference to handle the wonderful pictures I take while on the journey.  Accordingly I loaded the photo processing software on it with some help from a more savvy friend, and after the requisite amount of hassle it installed.  Well, in messing around with it, I found a curiosity that a certain amount of existing files would not load correctly.  Don’t need to go into the details here, but began to try to troubleshoot.  Finally I threw up my hands and tried to get on an Adobe site to ask a question.  I got in an endless loop of “need to register” and finally quit in frustration.  

Yesterday with the help of “get a human”, I finally got a phone number and called up.  Eventually, after a series of “for….press one, two, five, etc.” I was told an agent would be with me in 3 to 4 minutes.  After 30 of them, a person did come on the line. It was apparent that I was dealing with an “off shore” facility and then after proving who I was and a series of “excuse me? Could you repeat that?” exchanges, I explained what my problem was.  The person I was speaking with (not necessarily communicating) finally said I had to talk to somebody in the photography department..  Gee, you think?  

After another pause I was speaking to Sangeeta.  And although I am sounding snarky, she spent the better part of two hours sharing my desktop, changing this, changing that, she was really nice and patient with me.  During the lulls waiting for the electrons to move, I found out that yes, she was in India, it was two o’clock in the morning there, and she works from five thirty pm to about three five days a week.  She likes it, and agreed it was a bit hard on the social life.  I opted not to ask her age.  Anyway, she did everything she knew how (I think she did know LIghtroom) and in the end was unable to fix the problem.  She said it would have to be passed up the line, and I will get a call within the next 48 hours with the solution.  I am hopeful.  Adobe seems to be a pretty considerate company, and I have to thank Sangeeta for her efforts. 

At one point because she was browsing through my catalog, she remarked that “you have a lot of pictures of food!”, which engendered a short conversation about being a food blogger, etc.  We never did get to considering being


DFD

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