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Ramen 7: Reboot!

Monday, June 7th, 2021

The long-awaited day has arrived: I found more chicken ramen! A lot more in fact, so the series will now resume. Let’s go…

Tradition Noodles Soup Chicken Flavor (290 Calories, 6 g fat, 960 mg sodium)

This is a kosher product which has artificial taste. My hopes were high since the king of all chicken ramen (Gefen) is similar, but when I opened the cup I was surprised to see no flavor packet. It was just noodles, with perhaps the slightest trace of flavoring dried onto them.

I followed the instructions and it cooked well, but there was just no taste. It was just hot water with flavorless noodles in it. The definition of empty calories. Was mine a defect? Who knows, but I didn’t eat it and based on what I did try this is an easy 0/10.

Tradition Ramen Noodle Soup Chicken Flavor (360 Calories, 16 g fat, 1540 mg sodium)

Let’s try the brick version of the same product. Compared to other bricks this seemed to have a lot of calories/fat/sodium so the taste potential was high. Given the seeming absence of flavor in the cup I was surprised by the size of the flavor pack in this, which was about twice as big as in other bricks.

They noodles cooked well and everything seemed good until I opened and added the flavor. It smelled absolutely awful. Our entire kitchen was filled with a vile smell like rotting vegetables and it took quite a bit of fortitude for me to actually try the finished product.

Surprise surprise, it was dire. It tasted as bad as it smelled: more like dirt than chicken. It’s hard to understand how this is even marketed as a chicken product, or who would enjoy this. One bite was more than enough for me! Since it was worse than the cup I have to give -5/10

Gefen Noodle Soup Hearty Chicken Flavor (300 Calories, 13 g fat, 1200 mg sodium)

I have more products by Tradition, but after the two above they will have to wait. It was time to try the alternate flavor of Gefen that recently appeared in stores.

‘Hearty chicken’ it says, but the nutritional info is identical to their plain chicken flavor, and aside from the nifty purple packaging everything about it looks the same, including the contents.

I eagerly cooked it, waiting to see how hearty it was compared to the other. I even used the included fork for the full experience! One taste was all I needed: this is exactly the same as the ‘normal’ chicken Gefen cup!

But that’s hardly a critique, since a Gefen chicken cup is the King of Ramen. This therefore is the king in another gown, just as regal, and just as delicious. Without a doubt, this is another 10/10!

Next installment you can look forward to some more unusual (but still plain chicken) products, as this taster ventures into culinary areas he may have never visited before. Stay tuned…

Posted in Blog, Food, Miscellaneous | Comments Closed

Waterfall and Crackers!

Saturday, June 5th, 2021

Today we drove two hours south to Pennsylvania. Our first stop was Raymondskill Falls, a few minutes south of the town of Milford (which itself is about 10 minutes across the border).

Although we arrived early, it was already popular and one of the two car parks was full. We found a spot in the second and started the brief walk through the woods to the falls. The trail was labeled with this scary sign:

Luckily no bears were to be seen 🙂

Mysteriously (considering the full car parks) the path and falls were almost devoid of people and we had the viewing platforms to ourselves. It’s a beautiful waterfall, and has several stages that drops about 40 meters in total.

Here’s a panorama that attempts to show the two distinct main falls, but there are more both above the right one and below the left.

It was lovely, and absolutely worth the visit.

That said, our true reason for the drive was more fireworks! They’re legal year-round in Pennsylvania and there were three stores very close to the border. We visited all of them.

As with previous visits, we were dazzled by the selection. All the stores sell fireworks to professionals as well, so you could buy all sorts of items including launching platforms and even equipment to control remote launching systems. You could even get the required licenses in one shop! (Of course we couldn’t do this, since the laws in our state are different.)

Fireworks can be extremely expensive, especially for items you quite literally set on fire. The most expensive single-fuse item I saw today was this:

It’s an amazing firework (search on YouTube to see one being let off) but $375 gets you a firework that lasts for 41 seconds after you light the fuse 🙂

The priciest item I saw was this:

It’s a box of 120 mortars that requires a launching system (and license) to fire off. Basically it’s a near-professional show in a box! For only $700 🙂

The shops were very busy, and we saw people filling shopping carts with all sorts of items, and I’m sure they were spending hundreds or even thousands. Two young guys behind us in line had five 180-shot launchers in their cart, as well as loads of other stuff, and were talking about going back first thing tomorrow morning to buy a 660-shot launcher that had sold out today!

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On the other hand, items like those above are incredibly cheap. That ‘Saturn rocket’ with 100 shots is under $10, and those 144 bottle rockets were only $5! I bought none of these, since I don’t like firing off noisy, high-flying rockets.

The most unusual items we saw were the first officially licensed fireworks:

I’m sure The King would be proud!

While we avoided anything with ”high flying’ or ‘loud report’ in the description we still managed to spend about $200 today on a large variety of different items (including the ‘Dark Soul’ shown earlier).

July 4 will be fun this year 🙂

Posted in Blog, Home, Miscellaneous, Nature | Comments Closed

The Sky Is Falling

Friday, May 14th, 2021

Back in July 1979, I feared that I might die because of Skylab falling on me.

Skylab was the first ‘space station’, built and operated by the USA for 10 months from mid 1973 until early 1974. When the final crew departed they put Skylab into a higher orbit with the intention of leaving it in space until 1983 when the (in development) Space Shuttles could service it. Ultimately nature had other ideas and by 1979 it was clear Skylab would fall to Earth.

NASA’s calculations suggested it would land in the eastern Indian Ocean somewhere. But they didn’t know precisely where or when, and in Australia we were very aware there was a chance it would land smack on us! I can still recall schoolyard doomsayers predicting it could land on someone’s house, and to 7-year old me this was (very briefly) the new big scare to replace King Kong snatching me out of a window one night.

On July 11, 1979, during its 34,981st orbit, NASA made a last minute adjustment to prevent Skylab from falling on the USA. Later that night it entered the atmosphere and while most of it burned up as it fell some parts eventually rained down on remote areas of the western Australian outback.

It didn’t fall on our house, or anyone’s house for that matter. At best it may have given a kangaroo a bit of a start.

The madness quickly transitioned from ‘Skylab will fall on you!’ to ‘If you find Skylab pieces you’ll be a millionaire!’ and treasure hunters of all stripes descended on the outback to find what remained of the space station.

Some were successful, finding many pieces including some very large ones. Much of it is on display now in a museum in the town of Esperance, but some made its way into private collections. While the USA claimed that Skylab was still its property, it never made any attempt to claim debris. Quite the opposite actually: president Carter apologized to Australia and NASA gave memorial plaques to those that found the first pieces of debris!

In the end Skylab was a successful mission, the falling to earth didn’t hurt anyone, and everyone emerged smiling. The world moved on.

There have been many more cases of spacecraft raining down in the years since, and every time it happens (as recently as last week) the media reminds us once again that they might land on our houses! Let’s hope, like Skylab, that when our space trash does fall back to Earth it’s careful enough to land far away from any of us 🙂

Posted in Australia, Blog, History, Retro, Science | Comments Closed

Vaccinated

Thursday, April 22nd, 2021

We went for our second shot of covid vaccine today. Our city is using a downtown stadium as one of several vaccination sites and it was where we went today.

There were about 2000 people getting their second shots in the morning, and then the afternoon was for others getting their first shot. Lines were long but fast moving, so our wait wasn’t excessive.

One of the reasons for the long lines (which snakes up and down stairs and spanned two levels) was social distancing, and they had cute entertainment-themed signs to remind us where to stand.

It was quite a sight to see the floor of the arena (that we’d been to before for wrestling shows) converted to a vaccination clinic. Even the led signs up on the seats had vaccination messages on them!

And then, very quickly, we got our second jabs and joined the crowd of ‘fully vaccinated’ (yes I know technically it takes 10 more days…)

A quick wait just in case of side effects and we were good to go.

Speaking of side effects some people get them and some don’t, and they’re more common after the second shot. I read the rate is about 55%, so statistically one of us will wake up feeling crook tomorrow (since the side effects are more common the next day)!

Albany has done a good job with vaccinations, and we are above the national and state rates. But as with most parts of America supply has now exceeded demand and theres still many that haven’t yet become vaccinated. Some just need a gentle push toward a clinic, but there’s a non-trivial amount of Americans that say they’ll never get the vaccine (and even still deny covid) which will seriously hamper this country’s ability to overcome covid.

Let’s hope they understand this and go and get a shot soon. It’s easy, it’s free, it’s fast and it’s safe. And it’s what we all need to do to move on from this pandemic.

Posted in Blog, Time | Comments Closed

When Will I Be Famous?

Saturday, April 3rd, 2021

For seven years between 1982 and 1988 I competed in an annual mathematics contest for high school students. In the earlier years this was held at school, but later on we went to a different location to take the exam. I recall in 1988 (when I was in 11th grade) we all sat in an indoor stadium somewhere.

I was awarded commendations in every year I entered, and actually won prizes three times. The first time this happened (in 1982) I made the newspaper:

Yes that’s the original cutting, which I still own. I placed second the following year (year 6) and in 1985 – when I was in year 8 – I won! Neither achievements apparently warranted a mention in the papers, although the prizes were better.

If I remember correctly I got $50 for second place and $100 for winning. The winning prize was given in the form of a bank account, which was my first bank account and the very same one I used until the day I left Australia!

Alas despite my photo being in the paper in 1982 I was not recognized on the street and hardly showered with respect and adoration from strangers. Celebrity, I was learning, was an elusive beast.

Luckily I had a second shot at stardom in the works, and for several years also competed in a young writers contest. Once again I received commendations for all/most of my short stories (which were no doubt awful) and in 1988 I was again in the paper:

This was a small big deal at my school if I recall, and netted me lunch with the principal (which perhaps influenced me becoming captain the next year?) but this measly name drop in the Newcastle Herald didn’t lead to free meals at fancy restaurants or designers sending me their clothes for free. Once again I learned a lesson on how difficult it was to become famous.

I also recall once competing in a spelling competition at Garden City mall, probably when I was in primary school. My memories of this are extremely vague but I think I won a gift certificate so I must have done well? There was a crowd watching but I doubt it made the papers.

Anyway after two appearances in the newspaper it had become clear to me that television was the true path to stardom, and that became my next goal. To facilitate this I became school captain (in 1989) and leveraged my newfound political power into appearances on local TV. But that’s a tale I’ve already blogged, and you can read about it here.

After two newspaper mentioned and three spots on tv I yet remained an average guy with nary an atom of celebrity to his name. In late 1989 I realized there were only two more paths open to me if my goal was superstardom. I rejected motion pictures as unfeasible, and instead looked seriously at a political career. But that’s perhaps a blog post of its own (if not one I already made)…

This tale would be incomplete without mentioning Bernards brush with stardom. During one of our weekly library trips in early 198X he posed for a photograph that featured in a story about Teletext. It was printed in a local paper and I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a lovely shot:

He still has the newspaper clipping, alas not the text that went with it. In terms of column inches his newspaper appearance dwarfed my own, but I can assure you that he still had to pay for his movie tickets and his Big Macs. Even a feature story photo as large as this wasn’t enough for him to become a star!

Posted in Australia, Blog, Celebrity, Family, Time | 2 Comments »

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