Is that from a bourbon bottle?

Hey Friends,

Good morning to most of you, except if you work in R&D for an appliance company.

If you are a long-time reader of The Lorem Ipsum, you know I am appliance challenged. I’ve written about it here. For example, the handle broke off of our microwave and I replaced it with a cork from a bourbon bottle.

Take a look. Are you impressed?

I don’t know if any visitors have noticed it yet, but I hope not because it looks terrible. It’s not even straight. It’s probably the worst interior design decision I’ve ever made.

This topic has become top of mind this week because, after eight years of glaciation bliss, we discovered the cooling feature on our fridge was not operating. This was unfortunate timing because there is no good time to lose your primary cold storage for your food supply.

After a swift purchase of a new one, we learned about a discreet button on the panel that turns off the cooling feature when you lean on it during a conversation for more than three seconds. This feature is there in case you want to keep your fridge’s power on, but make sure it’s not working.

Make sense?

So now we have even more perfectly fine refrigerators.

On that note, let’s get to The News.

Hot Takes

Week 50 of 2021

Deadly in December. A large system of tornados plowed through four states last Saturday. The largest one traveled the length of Taiwan and had a funnel the width of that little piece of Massachusetts that sticks out in the water. It plowed across Arkansas and through Kentucky but dissipated before arriving at fossil fuel-loving West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin’s house.

The storm ranks as the worst on record, especially for December. We don’t tend to name tornadoes like hurricanes, but some weather enthusiasts suggest the name Marjorie Taylor Green, although Georgia seems to be intact, she’s still ruining things for the rest of us.

Cuss Words in Congress. Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was found in contempt late Tuesday but it’s not like he did something wrong. It’s just that he was subpoenaed by Congress and blew it off.

The committee read his text messages (which would irritate me too). It seems that on January 6th, his phone was blowing up with people telling him to get Trump to do something to stop the Capitol attack, and I suspect he’s the kind of guy that doesn’t clear out his notification bubbles. Liz Cheney’s dramatic reading included the S word at least twice.

Clandestine and Clerical. In bookkeeping news, a federal judge said Trump is no longer allowed to block Congress from seeing his tax returns. Supposedly the documents reveal how much of a tax write-off he’s been taking for spray tans and hair coifing. Trump is being investigated for fraud in his home state of New York.

Breaking up with Baboons. Do you need tips on how to break up with someone? Well, it looks like baboons have the answer. If you’re trying to figure out how to separate from a friend group, look no further than primates. Maybe when everyone grabs bananas, just say “I’m just going to lay here and scratch various body parts.” We know some people pattern their life after monkeys, but this study is particularly insightful.

Survival of the Toastiest.

In honor of my new fridge, and the old one that now goes in the garage, and the garage one that now goes in the bar, and the bar one that now is for sale, I thought I’d highlight an old article where my now demoted fridge made an appearance. I’m saving some articles that are in the works for future issues.

The article: “When was the last time you threw out a toaster?"

Out of respect for you as a reader, I’ve updated the article with a new illustration (replacing the free stock image that I used several months ago). I hope you enjoy it and learn something from my disquisition.

As a spoiler, this article is actually about wastefulness. Why do we design stuff to be thrown away, especially when it’s the size of a fridge? It might not be better for business next month, but it would be better for us all in a generation if we could stop eroding our wealth by replacing stuff that should’ve lasted longer. Read the article.

That’s it for this week.

I hope you have a great week of Christmas shopping for more things to throw away.

Have a great weekend!