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The Rambling Insomniac
Tom is a 25+ year resident of Germantown and the surrounding community. He currently lives in Hubertus with his wife and two small kids on a hobby farm near Bark Lake. Tom's blog will likely not save the world, but hopefully, you'll get some enjoyment from his ramblings.
July 2008 - Posts
By Tom White
Monday, Jul 21 2008, 09:44 AM
I read over the weekend that the Village of Thiensville is considering banishing the tradition of candy tossing from future parades. This is a result of this year’s Fourth of July Parade there, in which candy tossing “was out of control” according to village trustee John Treffert (read the full story here). Apparently, a kid ran out to get some tossed candy, and was hit by another kid riding a bike in the parade. Although a sad situation, it’s just an accident, and I’m sorry, but accidents happen. Banishing candy from future parades seems like a rather brash solution to an isolated incident.
If a kid falls off his bike in next year’s parade, will they then ban bikes from future parades? Yikes…what if a horse or dog in the parade were to bite someone? Would they then banish them from future parades as well? And oh my, what if the blast of a horn from a fire engine scares some kids and makes them cry? They’ll certainly need to banish emergency vehicles from all future parades.
Here’s a thought…maybe Thiensville should just line up all of the parade participants and floats on a street and simply have spectators walk past the parade to view it. That sure would be safe now wouldn’t it? Of course, someone walking might trip on a crack in the sidewalk and…well, I think you get my point here.
Accidents happen.
G’Night G’Town!
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By Tom White
Friday, Jul 11 2008, 05:41 PM
Within the past month, I’ve heard several different people use the phrase “a pork chop in every can” when referring to beer. The premise being: "Why bother eating something, as you can get just as much nutrition from a can of beer than you can from a pork chop?"
Hmmmm…that’s certainly an interesting concept.
Any die-hard beer drinker clearly knows that interrupting a good beer drinking binge with some food will certainly absolve most of the mind altering properties one was hoping to achieve with downing a 12-pack in the first place. With that being said, it certainly supports the premise of “a pork chop in every can”.
One could also argue that the act of opening a can of beer is much simpler than cooking up a pork chop. There’s certainly no grill to light, no grease on the stove, no dishes to clean up and you don’t have to wash your hands after drinking a beer. And on top of that, have you seen the price of pork lately? Once again, these points all support the premise of “a pork chop in every can”.
Being the inquisitive soul that I am, I checked out the nutritional values of both the beer and the pork chops in question. Turns out that a can of beer has 1 gram of protein, and a pork chop has 20 grams of protein. Beer has 0 grams of fat and a pork chop has 11 grams of fat. Based on the nutritional value of both beer and pork chops, you can conclude that one would have to drink twenty beers to get the same protein content as one pork chop. And, in doing so, one would incur zero grams of fat in the process. It’s complicated math, I know, but based on my research, I now see where the phrase “a pork chop in every can” comes from, and I fully support the premise behind it.
I have to run now, as my kids are bugging me to make some dinner for them. Boy, this is going to be easy!
G’Night G’Town!
“This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption... Beer!” - Friar Tuck in ‘Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves’
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By Tom White
Tuesday, Jul 1 2008, 03:19 PM
A couple of nights ago, I was lying in bed thinking about the old Northridge Mall (yes, that is the sort of thing that keeps an insomniac up at night). Although I really haven’t been near Northridge since it closed many years ago, I still have a lot of memories from that place.
- I remember the tobacco store called “The Tinder Box”. They had a HUGE walk-in cigar humidor, way before cigar smoking became chic. Of course, back then, you could openly smoke pretty much anywhere in the mall. The Tinder Box also sold a great variety of snuff.
- I remember the incredible smell of cinnamon, butter and sugar that lingered on the north side of the mall from that bakery called Tiffany’s. This was way before Food Courts became standard fixtures in malls.
- While I’m on the subject of food, do you remember the café that was inside of Woolworth’s in the mall?
- I remember that obnoxiously long and dark hallway you had to walk down to get to a restroom.
- Remember the place up on the second floor called “Hickory Farms”? As a fat kid growing up, those big display boxes of various cheeses and sausages were always very intriguing to me. I’d often think to myself “Man, when I grow up and have some money, I’m buying one of those gift packs all for myself!”
- Speaking of a fat kids dream, do you remember the huge candy shop in Sears? That place rocked! Some of my favorites were the Candy Raisins and the Red Raspberries (tasted like Swedish Fish, but they were way better). If my memory serves me right, they also had a big candy store in Gimble’s when it was there.
- I remember going back and forth between Galaxy of Sound and Musicland to see which store had the latest KISS album for sale the cheapest.
- I remember frequenting that place called Captain’s Steak Joint. We’d go there for happy hour just because they had that awesome cheese fondue dip for free!
- I remember when the entrance for the movie theatres was on the lower level. It’s strange to think that a “Six-plex” back then was considered a HUGE theatre! I also remember having my buddy Brad’s mom swindling some guy to “smuggle” Brad and me in to see “Apocalypse Now” because we were only 14 years old when it came out. I also remember the midnight showings of Rocky Horror, Led Zeppelin’s “The Song Remains the Same”, Night of the Living Dead and various other movies. The smoky haze in the theatres back then wasn’t just from cigarettes!
Unfortunately, the mall took a turn for the worse in the 1990’s, and became somewhat of a scary place to go. It’s too bad, since I’m sure many others have a lot of good memories from there like I do.
G’Night G’Town!
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins, then run around the mall looking frantic. ~Steven Wright
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