Clarity
Toothpaste - A Fundamentally Flawed Product
Posted 28 Apr 2008
Daily Life, The Little Things | 4 Comments
Take as the premise for this post the fact that orange juice tastes terrible if consumed shortly after brushing with any mint-flavored toothpaste. If you are unsure if that’s true, go brush your teeth, drink some orange juice, and come back. If you want to know why this bad taste occurs, I encourage you to read this explanation on HowStuffWorks.com.
Now, I like clean teeth as much as the next guy and I certainly believe that brushing with toothpaste is a good step towards keeping your teeth clean. Furthermore, I am a fan of mint-flavored toothpastes (possibly because the flavor is so pervasive, but I bet it is so pervasive because a lot of people like it).
What I want to know is, why must toothpaste make orange juice taste so bad? Considering the fact that most people brush right after waking up, and prior to breakfast, it seems obvious that you would not want a product, designed for morning use, that combines so terribly with a popular breakfast drink. Why do we put up with such bad products? Why can’t toothpaste makers create a toothpaste that doesn’t make OJ taste so bad? Makes me wonder what other product flaws we live with every day that are just waiting for someone to solve them.
Name my bike please
Posted 19 Apr 2008
Commuting, Daily Life | 18 Comments
I name things. I have a mobile phone named Haley, a satellite navigation device named Tomasina, a car named Bing-a-bell (little person pronunciation of Miss Clavell) and a daily planner called Ian. These items help me through the day and I love them all.
Recently, I bought a new bicycle, having moved to a very hilly corner of Oxfordshire. A mountain bike. Goes up hills, and down, it does. Very sturdy. It replaces my old bike, named Joan of Arc. (See below for more on Joan.)
But I have no name for this bike. It needs one. My first thought for a name was Euripides, but I am not sure that it fits the new bike well enough. So please take a minute and submit your recommendation for my new bike’s name.
And now for a bit more about Joan of Arc, my faithful companion of old. She got me through the London Bike-a-thon. (By the way, I would recommend against using a folding bike in a 52-mile bike ride across London. Small tyres make for lots and lots and lots of extra pedalling!) Joan was a lovely companion and, in some ways, I miss her. She got me across London on many occasions. Below is a photo of her on Bow Road, in east London on her way to her new home. (My good friend Kim Sutton has taken in Joan, to help her get about.)
Straight Outta Compton
Posted 14 Apr 2008
I have it from a reliable source that the photo below was seriously considered as the cover art for N.W.A.’s ground-breaking album, Straight Outta Compton, released in 1988 on Ruthless Records.
Maybe someone needs to update the Wikipedia entry?
A day out at the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta, Georgia
Posted 13 Apr 2008
I took a trip to visit the Coke museum in Atlanta, Georgia a week or two ago and though the museum primarily traced the advertising history of Coca-Cola through the years, there were a few interesting items:
(1) Coke put a disclaimer on many of the displays to say that the views, opinions, and approach of the old ads are not to be associated with the current Coca-Cola viewpoint, and are only being displayed for historical value.
(2) They have a number of old Olympic torches on display, some of the coolest were from the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy (see picture here) and from the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway (see picture here). I was surprised that when I do a google search I can’t find any website that shows pictures of all the old Olympic torches. Read more
Please do not leave your reading materials here!
Posted 13 Apr 2008
Daily Life, Signs | Leave a Comment
At the office building where I work I saw a sign posted on the inside of the men’s bathroom door. The sign amuses me for two reasons:
(1) Ironic that reading material is left behind to ban the leaving of reading materials behind, in exactly in the place where such materials are banned from being left.
(2) Curious that one would be well within the rules to leave someone else’s reading materials in the bathroom, but is forbidden from leaving their own.
