Category: Everyday life

Planned Obsolescence is defined as the policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of nondurable materials.

Put simply, designers of everything we buy spend a lot of money making sure that our products do not last very long.

I live on family farm and a lot of the stuff my parents and grandparents had is still here. My mother’s Electrolux vacuum cleaners from the 60s (model 1205) have outlived every vacuum I’ve ever purchased. So I use hers. The hoses that my grandparents had on the farm are still going strong as I throw away kinked hose after kinked hose because the are leaking. Even the oscillating sprinkers I bought have been trashed because they fell apart within a year, but the ones my grandparents used are still going strong. I use the copper bottom pots and pans my grandparents got as a wedding gift (thank you, whoever you were). All of the yard tools that have been here for 75 years are outliving every shovel, spade and hoe that I purchase.

Am I the only one that is infuriated with this?

I make it a point to write reviews for every product I buy, whether it be good or bad. If it’s bad, I complain to the company, return the item and stop purchasing anything from that company. If you call and complain, 95% of the time the company will send you a new product. If that one also breaks, I will call and complain again. I’m tired of paying for shit that falls apart a week after it was purchased.

I think a lot of poeple have become complacent about this type of thing and have come to expect that the crap that they buy will fall apart. I wish that more people would complain. The only way this will change is if we don’t accept it the way that it is.

I also write to the Better Business Bureau and complain when companies don’t stand behind their product. I have gotten resolution to my liking 100% of the time.

I don’t think planned obsolescence will ever fully go away. But there are some things you can do to send the message to companies that you are not willing to accept it. And we shouldn’t accept it – it’s contributing to global warming, excessive dumping and growing landfills, labor inequality and resource depletion. Here are some things you can do to fight back.

1. Return things that break too quickly. Know the warranty and return the item to the store where you bought it. If they won’t take it back, contact the company for a return or an exchange.
2. Write product reviews on consumer websites and the website of the stores where you bought the product.
3. Make a commitment to repair when possible.
4. Tell your friends about brands that fall apart and ones that stand the test of time. Word of mouth referrals go a long way.
5. Complain to the Better Business Bureau.
6. Don’t unnecessarily upgrade products that still have a useful life.
7. Shop at second hand stores.
8. Pass along items for which you have no more use for to others who do have a use for them.

Maybe a pipe-dream but I’d like to save a little money rather than having to replace all of my stuff all of the time.

If you know me, you probably have an idea about what this article is about. Well, I’m here to tell you that…..

This article is actually about Dairy Queen. You know the place. I go there a lot. I was there the other day and got a blizzard. They are probably my favorites because they can actually satisfy my need. The sundaes just don’t do it for me.

You’ve probably noticed that they do a funny thing before they hand your blizzard to you. They turn it upside down and look at you like “See?!?” What I don’t really get is what point they are trying to prove. See what? That your frozen treat defies gravity? That the desert Im about to put in my mouth is made of super-glue?

I’ve thought extensively about it and come to the conclusion that it probably is their way of letting you know that they just made it, it hasn’t melted cause if it had been sitting around it would be liquid by now and would fall to the pavement.

So I was at Dairy Queen getting a blizzard. The girl flips open the window, turns the blizzard upside down and it all falls out down onto the pavement. Like a sloppy bowel movement. She looks at me in horror and I’m already pissing myself I’m laughing so hard. She runs off to make another one and this time delivers it without attempting to turn it upside down. She just hands it over and shuts the window.

So whatever it is that they serve they want you to see that it behaves like ice cream. But you should know that no where on any menu, sign, document or drive through window will you find ice cream on the menu at Dairy Queen. They don’t serve ice cream, you see. It’s an ice cream-like substance but it’s not ice cream or you can bet that it would be on their menu. Look next time. It’s a Buster Bar Parfait, a blizzard, a dip cone, a cup, but it doesn’t say ice cream. Cause it’s not.

Do you feel a little deceived? Yeah, me too. Here are some other things that aren’t what you think they are:

• Truffle Oil
• Olive Oil
• Maple syrup
• Honey
• Anything with vanilla
• Wasabi
• parmesan cheese
• instant coffee
• crab meat

It’s called food fraud and it’s rampant. We are not eating what we think we are eating and what we are told is healthy is making us fat, lazy but much less likely to start a rebellion or over throw the government.

Did you know we are the ONLY species to drink the milk of another species? Most people are actually lactose intolerant, so the fact is that we take pills so that we are able to drink thed milk of another animal which is unnatural in the first place! Amazing what marketing can do.

It’s -1° outside right now. That’s not a windchill. That’s the temperature. The low today is -11. There is supposed to be a storm starting today lasting for three days and the wind chills will reach up to -40°F. Why am I still here? I’m not sure, but I keep saying this is my last winter here and I think I mean it this time. I don’t want to rent this house out full time, but I can’t just leave it. I’m thinking that it will be a winter airBNB rental. There aren’t any hotels around here so I know it would rent. As soon as the bathroom upstairs is done, I’m listing it and I’m out of here.

I had a friend tell me recently that she hated cinnamon. Really? How do you hate cinnamon? I felt like asking her if she also hated puppies, flowers and presents but I knew she wasn’t being contrary just for the sake of being contrary. I’m all to familiar with that behavior from my recent roommate from hell experience, so I knew she didn’t fit that bill. She is probably the best person I know. She is definitely the best mother I’ve ever seen, and does not have a negative bone in her body. She is kind, respectful, loving, thoughtful and generous, and her behavior never sway from these qualities. She must really hate cinnamon, which I can’t understand. Cinnamon is one of the most amazing flavors I can think of. I love to make cinnamon ice cream, put cinnamon and sugar on my toast, load up an apple pie with it or use it in a scent burner when I’ve had a particularly explosive experience in the loo. To each their own, they say.

I have a little beef I need to work out here. Usually I’m not for airing the dirty laundry, but I’ve tried to resolve this beef directly and I have gotten no response. Here’s what happened: The day after my last roommate moved out, he was supposed to come over to get one last load of stuff in the morning. I waited, an nothing. The afternoon came and went with nothing. The early evening came and went – still nothing. No text, no call, no show. I got tired of waiting and went to Brushy Creek to do some metal detecting with my friend Jason. When I arrived back home, he was there accompanied by a Webster County Sheriff. He had showed up after I left ( I think he had this planned out and was waiting for me to leave) and when I wasn’t there, called the Sheriff. He convinced the Sheriff that I had locked him out, and the Sheriff let him break into my house to get the last of his stuff. He broke in by trying each window on the main floor until he found one that wasn’t locked, damaging screens along the way. When I got home, I was super angry as one would be and the Sheriff wouldn’t listen to me as I explained how he and my roommate had broken the law by committing a class B felony. After the dust settled, I wrote a letter addressed to the Webster County Board of Supervisors outlining my complaint and I have yet to hear anything back. It has been 5 months now with no word. Not sure where to go next, the governor’s office?

The reason I’m so upset is that there is no way he could have proven he lived there, because on that day he did not. He never signed a fucking lease in the first place and I have written statement from the person who he was staying with that he did indeed move in there the day before. Does the Webster County Sheriff just allow anyone to break into a house that says that they live there or was this an isolated incident? I’m still pissed. Ok, enough said I just contacted a lawyer.

We have a big old walnut tree in the back yard. It been there for close to 100 years. Every year it dumps thousands of walnuts off of the ground and we pick them up and put them in buckets. Some dude comes and picks them up.

In my quest to explore options of making money off of the land that comprises the yard and is about 1.75 acres, selling the walnuts popped into my head last year so I started collecting them little by little.

Bucket after bucket was filled. Any empty container that I could find became full. Finally I started using the truck and after a few weeks, the truck was full. Time to go sell them.

As it turns out, the black walnut market ( as opposed to the legit one, I suppose) is dominated by Hammonds in the midwest. California is the largest producer of walnuts in the US, contributing 99% of all walnuts grown in the US and 38% worldwide. Hammonds has several hundred buying stations around the midwest, and there happens to be one about 15 miles away from our house.

So I take my full truckload of walnuts that I probably have spent 20-30 hours collecting to the walnut buying station. I’m required to shovel all of the walnuts out of the truck into a hopper that takes off the shell and bags them up.

My back is nearly broken in two when I’m done, but the satisfaction of doing all of this is strong and the reward is forthcoming. As the nut collector pulls out his checkbook and starts to write, he says “Well, that was about 560 pounds, so let me see here” as he clacks on his calculator. He hands me the check and it’s written for $45. I nearly shit myself. $1.50 per hour for that.

So what does a pound of black walnuts cost at the store? Around $12. So. Of that $12, 8 cents is what goes the farmer. That just pisses me off and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I’m having peanuts on my ice cream tonight.