An Online Journal - by Clake and Klake

AN ONLINE JOURNAL_
by Clake and Klake

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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

News, information and a hot stack of flapjacks!
posted by clake at 3:01 PM

Here's a roundup of the latest news from the home of Clake, Klake, Plake, and Penelope Rabbit:

Local HyVee starting to blow noticably harder
The HyVee supermarket in Coralville has always been a less-than-stellar manifestation of this quality franchise. It's a little dirtier than other HyVees. It's laid out in a rather inefficient way. The system of managing carts leaves much to be desired. Yesterday, when Klake and I stopped by on our day off to pick up a couple of staple food items, we emerged from the bitter cold wind into the store only to be greeted by a table blocking the already too-narrow entrance area. At this table were several volunteers from a local food bank. Standing next to this table was a man whose duty it was to step out into the flow of traffic and annoy passers-by. When he confronted me with unsolicited information about his food drive, I opted to make no eye contact and walk briskly by, since this is the polite alternative to screaming "Fuck you!" at a stranger.

Ray Smuckles has recently taken on the role of acting Mayor of Achewood, and has proposed some measures to address this issue.

Following the initial grueling experience in extreme annoyance that accompanied simply walking into the store, we were immediately aware that the store had seen fit to install flatscreen TVs hanging above the aisles in various locations. So instead of shopping in peace we now get to enjoy a bunch of yammering from a television screen as we go about our business. Thank you, HyVee. This is was my shopping experience was missing: constant chatter and needless visual clutter!

HyVee is supposed to be a cut above other stores. You're supposed to walk in and immediately feel special just for being there. You don't mind the higher prices on certain items because the overall experience is geared much more toward preserving the sanity of human beings. At this particular store, though, you find yourself thinking you might as well try your luck at Super Walmart. At least there the prices are low, even though the atmosphere is psychologically toxic and the lines are impossibly long.

On a related note, I made another trip to the Mormon Trek Blvd Fareway store this afternoon for fruit, milk, and a few other things. I continue to be happy with Fareway. The selection isn't always so great, but the prices are very competitve, and they match other stores' ads.

Big date yesterday
Being the primary caregivers of an infant and dealing with the boredom of another Iowa winter, Klake and I decided to use yesterday's day off as a break. Plake's daycare was still open, so we dropped him off and then proceeded to have a nice lunch and a restful afternoon. Despite the HyVee fiasco, it was quite a success. Kim got a chance to get a bit artistic, while I hauled out the old N64 and kicked around a bit more with good, ol' Mario. I'm finally at 50 stars, and I had a hell of a good time getting there. I was off in an ice world doing some mad shredding on a turtle shell. Gnarley.

Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper
My verdict: kinda weird tasting. It isn't unpleasant, but I think I have much more of a tolerance for the weirdness of artificial vanilla flavor (much more common) than artificial chocolate flavor (tastes like a scratch and sniff sticker).

Coast to Coast AM

I've finally bothered to figure out the timer record function on the cassette deck of my stereo (haven't had much use for it). I'm using this new super power to occasionally catch a bit of Coast to Coast AM, which is an overnight radio show that my high school/college curiosity about aliens and the occult drew me to. Guests are various alien, ghost, conspiracy or paranormal types. (Ian Punnett, the Sunday night host, teased ahead to a guest with the phrase "He's a wizard, and he knows what he's talking about!") Callers are often people who've seen ghosts, aliens or bigfoots, been possessed, been cursed by a ouija board, etc. or feel they need to weigh in on such topics. I'm a very different person that I was in high school - I am skeptical as hell about all of this stuff now - but it still entertains.

As an example: one recurring guest of the show has been a man who claims to have found a bottomless hole on his property. You can listen to this guy talk to Art Bell about throwing shit down this hole at this website, where someone has archive a couple of entire Mel's Hole episodes. Also, see this installment of the comic strip Overcompensating, which pretty much describes what we're talking about here.

I am tired of winter
Just get warm again, okay?

Comments:

So I hate all the grocery stores in Indiana. My biggest pet peeve: monitoring our purchases through a "member card". It completely f's us over with or without it. Can't get the weekly specials without it, and prices go up with products found to have "loyalty".

Hope HyVee doesn't do this. If not, beware they may soon!
# posted by freckles : 10:39 AM

@Jurk: WHAT?? Prices go up with loyalty? So your price is different from someone else's price because you buy the product more. That is wrong!

@clake: Any way, sorry to hear about your unpleasant experience at HyVee. There are some bad seeds out there. The closest to Hy-Vee to our house isn't my favorite either so I try to lump the grocery shopping with errands to other parts of town. I buy a lot of exotic groceries that ol' Hyl-Vee #1 just doesn't have room for ... like 70% dark chocolate with hazelnuts and toffee, and Tazo chai ... yum! Oh, and don't forget that every other Hy-Vee in town has a Starbucks right inside the door ... the benefits far out-weigh the inconvenience of driving a bit farther.
# posted by Anonymous : 12:21 PM

kristine - it's not based by customer, but averaged over all customers. One example of a product with high fidelty: not-from-concentrate orange juice. It costs almost $4 for 2 quarts (I think in Iowa is only about $2).

This member-card phenomenon is throughout the eastern states as far as I can tell, not just IN.
# posted by freckles : 2:09 PM