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When It Comes To Kitchen Gadgets, Keep It Simple

31.12.69

Have you ever seen the late Billy Maes hawking the chop-o-matic? Or how about Ronco's set it and forget? The Magic Bullet ? Jack Lalane juicing it? Kitchen gadgets are a multi-billion-dollar industry. Every one is in such a rush. Chop it faster, dice it, slice it, whip it.

Bam, bam, bam!

Honestly, a real chef needs three knives, a slicer, a chopper, and a parer, to do just about any job needed in the kitchen. So why all the gadgets? First of all, most people aren't real chefs.

Secondly, most people ARE gullible. If you think its bad at home, you should see the crazy inventions the restaurant industry throws at us every day. Save time, save labor, lower insurance premiums with less accidents, easy to clean, no drips, no waste, eliminate this , gain that, its endless.

I will say, however, as much as despise all the modern conveniences of today's kitchens, I love checking out all the crazy technology (not that I ever buy any of them). The industry calls them profit boosting gadgets. I call them a waste of money and one more thing to break.

Source: Patch.com

Back In The Saddle In New York City

31.12.69

My back wheel skids out from under me on the rain soaked leaves, my body lunges forward as the pedals spin freely in the split second it takes the tire to find fresh purchase, I brace myself in the drops, stiffening my arms and arrest my fall. My balls come to rest millimetres from the crossbar. Leg muscles that have laid dormant for more than twenty years have screamed back to life, pain courses through my calves, my thighs, my abdominal muscles, my back, my forearms, my lungs. Fuck, everywhere hurts. Long Hill Road is kicking my arse, again. I’m soaked, a mixture of sweat and rain, covered in mud, the obligatory wet stripe from my ar*e to the nape of my neck, cold and hot at the same time, short of breath, despite swallowing up great gulps of precious, beautiful, polluted New Jersey air. Strangely, I feel more alive than I have in years.

At 44, I’m back in the saddle. After years, hell, decades of struggling to justify spending the best part of a week’s wage on a bike I finally bit the bullet and put down $800s on a steel framed road bike. A retro styled number from Bianchi. Cages on the pedals and down tube mounted shifters mean it’s not that different to the bikes I rode in my teens and early twenties. But, even though it’s the base model in the Gran Fondo – Italian for Big Fondo, I guess? –  range, it’s by far and away the best bike I’ve ever owned. Until a few weeks ago that last sentence would of ended, ‘…by far and away the best bike I will ever own,’ but I’m hooked, I know this is just the start. After a few short months I’ve extended my average ride from 10 to 20 miles. My day feels incomplete without a ride – there’s a joke in there somewhere my Mrs may or may not appreciate. I feel the healthiest I have in years, despite the pain which, in fairness, is temporary, I’m sleeping better, much better and, rather than altering my diet, I’ve developed a twisted logic that means I can justify fry ups, curries and the like by virtue of exercising excess calories away. Life, as those cheesy t-shirts smug fuckers everywhere wear is good.

Source: Sabotage Times