Enotes

I think that if we wanted to wrap the world with receipt tape, we'd only need to buy a couple of loaves of bread and a gallon of milk for maybe a week. That ought to do it. If we ever run out of firewood in this country, I am blaming America's retailers. Their receipts surely must be killing trees by the truckload. Have you looked at receipts lately? I could decorate our Christmas tree with one trip to Target. Receipts are getting longer by the day. In fact, receipts are about as long as the day is long. At my local CVS, the spitting out of the receipt by the register is tantamount to a winner at a slot machine. It keeps going and going, to the point where I am expecting to hear sirens and bells go off, and a spotlight shine on me from the ceiling. You think you're the store's lucky customer of the week, as the receipt flows out of the register and spills onto the floor until the clerk is covered in white paper from head to toe. But alas, 95% of what is on t...

Self-promotion time---sort of. I've added a new link to the Blogroll---the official, re-launched blog from my employer, Hansons Windows and Siding. But it's not what you think, I don't think. Yes, there will be articles about home improvement and tips about how to maintain your home, but there are also going to be human interest pieces like the one from August 8 , which tells of 98-year-old Keiko Fukuda, who recently became the first woman (and fourth person overall) to achieve the rank of tenth-degree black belt, in Judo. We'll also blend in some guest bloggers to pontificate, some of whom will have instantaneous name recognition. So drop on by and check it out !

Geez, how stinky ARE our homes, anyway? It's appearing that the technology propping up the air freshener industry is rivaling that of home security systems. Just saw an ad on TV for a product that is equipped with motion detectors , so that when "traffic is heavier in the house"---or words to that effect---it knows when to spritz more of the smelly stuff into the air. Wow. Several years ago, someone let the air freshener people off their leash and now they're running wild, developing one product after another in an effort that we should all, as law-abiding, non-stinky Americans, take offense to. To me, it's like if someone offers you a mint. Isn't there something subliminal about that? I know there is, because I've been that person offering the mint, and I can tell you that there was definitely an ulterior motive in doing so! So here's an entire industry offering us various ways to "freshen up" our homes. What are they trying to tell us? It s...