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At a relative’s birthday party, I was pleased to see that the gracious host and hostess had provided other desserts, not just the standard birthday cake. I am a fan of the ice cream candy bars. As I grabbed one, I noticed the marketing hype on the front of the box, claiming that each bar has only 90 calories.

Just for fun, I checked the nutrition information on the side of the box. It did not claim 90 calories per bar.

I assume the nutrition information is correct in listing 80 calories, and perhaps the brightly-colored promotion deal on the box front is outdated. Why leave that claim on there if it’s wrong? Who wants to make something have more calories? Since when is that a selling point?

I just had my second drive with rain-sensing wipers, and they are the greatest thing since intermittent wipers.

Before I bought my first car (at age 21 … my first motorcycle was at age 18, but that’s another story), I used to think that car ads were wasting their space by promoting intermittent wipers. Not only did all cars have them anyway, but even if they did have just off-low-high, the driver could just switch between off and low to handle inconsistent rain.

Then I got my first car. It was about 10 years old at the time, and I think the person who ordered the car forgot to hand in the page with the options checked. If it was optional or a convenience or a luxury, it was not on that car.

As you may have guessed, that car did not have intermittent wipers. After a winter and spring with snow and rain, I vowed never again to mock intermittent wipers (wiper no wiping, wiper no …). Okay, maybe I didn’t vow, but my appreciation of their usefulness greatly increased. Having to adjust the wiper switch every 15 seconds gets very annoying after a while.

Fast forward, umm, a few years to this year and now I’m in a vehicle (no, not mine, it’s for work) that has the rain-sensing wipers. I didn’t know the vehicle had the fancy-pants wipers (someone else was driving, otherwise I would have seen and used the wiper controls). All I noticed was that the driver wasn’t doing anything other than driving (both hands on the steering wheel) and the wipers were speeding up and slowing down based on how much water was on the windshield.

The intermittent wipers were a good improvement over the previous standard wipers, and the smart wipers are just as good a step after that. These days, I notice that I adjust the intermittent speed as the rain increases or decreases or stops. With the sensing wipers, you don’t even have to turn them on or off – just leave them on the automatic setting. When the rain starts, the wipers start going automatically, and when the rain stops, well, you get the picture.

Just do not, I repeat, do not, forget to turn them off when you go into a car wash.

Oh, if you’re looking at a vehicle, make sure that you can turn off the feature easily. If there’s one thing we learned from Wall-E, it’s that automatic features must have a manual override switch.

“When He set a limit for the rain And a course for the thunderbolt,”
– Job 28:26

While we were waiting for the real movie to start, we saw the preview for “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”. Note to self: don’t forget that the posted times for the movies are before the previews, so fight the urge to arrive early because the posted movie time is early for the movie.

As a fan of the book, I was surprised to see what they did with the movie. Of course, there is not much of a plot to the book, so they had to add something to make the movie long enough. The added element to the movie is the story of how the weather got to be the way it is – all foody and stuff.

Since most of the original movie storylines have been taken, they had to choose from one of the existing situations. The movie producers chose to have the food weather created by … the misunderstood genius, working alone. This option was also chosen for “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids”, “Flubber” (the original one, not the remake), “Back to the Future”, etc.

In case you’re wondering, here are the other options that were considered for “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” :

• secret government agency experiment gone wrong
• alien visitors looking to wreak havoc on the planet they are about to invade
• a radioactive spider
• an evil wizard who wants revenge on the boy wizard whose parents he killed years ago
• a grandpa telling a bed-time story to the grandkids

I know that last one is kind of crazy, but maybe they could give it a shot…

“But He replied to them, " When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ " ”
– Matthew 16:2

Being the nit-picky-about-some-aspects-of-English person that I am, I immediately found fault with the sticker on a shirt that my wife bought me.

The first points are fine; it is the last point that contributes to the deterioration of the English language. “No Tag Comfort”

What if I want tag comfort? I think most people do. I want a shirt that sells itself as having “Lots of Tag Comfort”.

It should have been “No-Tag Comfort” or “The Comfort of No Tag” or even just “No Tag”

“I have heard many such things; Sorry comforters are you all.”
– Job 16:2

We received a mass mailing from our health insurance company. Okay, we did not receive it – it was addressed to my wife. But it wasn’t a letter; it was a large brochure/folded-postcard-type thingy that anyone could read.

It was a generic announcement that said “If a baby could be in your future” then you should call their program, as they can answer questions and make sure that the mom and baby are off to a good start, health-care wise. Enroll in our free program, it said, and get this information and that information and access to such-and-such, etc.

What caught my attention was the disclaimer.

For those who can’t read the text: it says “This information has been sent to all female plan members in your age group in order to make them aware of the program. By sending this mailing, we are not implying that you are pregnant or intend to become pregnant.”

I know pregnancy is a discreet subject. If you think someone might be pregnant, you don’t usually start on that topic. But I think this disclaimer goes a little overboard. Why do the people at the health insurance company think they need this footnote?

Maybe they had too many complaints from women who definitely did not want to be pregnant and wanted to make sure they knew that as well. But this is a tiny disclaimer that would not likely be noticed by those who would take the whole flyer the wrong way anyway.

Maybe they did have some legal action against them, and this legal-looking disclaimer might be a good way of thwarting other future legal actions.

Maybe they had some calls from irate husbands, demanding “What do you know that I don’t?” or something. But I think that’s not likely.

I know – I’ll complain that they didn’t send me a flyer too! After all, their program “offers helpful tips for dads”. I’m a dad – why wasn’t I notified of this program that can offer me helpful tips? Why are they discriminating against me? Just because of my gender? I demand equal treatment! I demand equal rights!

No, I don’t really want to be included in female-specific mailings. I just thought I would worry a few corporate policy and disclaimer producers over there for fun.

“One of the lawyers said to Him in reply, ‘Teacher, when You say this, You insult us too.’ ”
– Luke 11:45

There is a series of Ford commercials that I have been hearing on the radio lately. They all involve some guy talking to a part of his car – the brakes, the dome light, etc. In this particular case, the part is the odometer – “A Word From Your Odometer“.

The odometer is counting off mileage while talking to the driver. “Twenty-two thousand one hundred five point one, twenty-two thousand one hundred five point two” and so on.

I thought to myself, “Self, that odometer seems to be counting off tenths of miles faster than I’ve ever seen my odometer go. I wonder how fast this radio commercial guy is driving.” So I timed it. Here is the commercial:

Narrator: “Genuine Ford and Lincoln Mercury Parts and Service Presents: Your Odometer”
Odometer: “.1 … 22,105.2 … ”
Driver Guy: “Thanks Odometer, I …”
O: “22,105.3 … ”
DG: “So you’re telling me I should go …”
O: “Go-to-your-Ford-dealer-for-scheduled-maintenance point four”
DG:”I will, thank you. You know, …”
O:”22,105.5”
DG, along with O: “five point five”
N: “Get the Works Fuel Saver Package: oil change, tire rotation, multi-point inspection …”
and the narrator goes on with the rest of the spiel.

Odometer counts off 4 tenths of a mile in 13 seconds (starts 22,105.2 at time = 7 seconds into the commercial and finishes 22,105.5 at t=19s (assuming that 22,105.6 would start at t=20s)). That makes 1.85 miles in one minute, which equals 111 miles per hour (111 mph = 179 kph, in case you’re wondering).

I am not aware of any roads around here with a speed limit above 100 mph, so I wonder where this guy is driving. Plus he’s discussing vehicle maintenance and service with his car while he’s going this fast. I would like him to concentrate on the road, and also he should not distract the car from its job.

“He said to him, ” Go in peace.” So he departed from him some distance.”
– 2 Kings 5:19

While reading a computer/electronics catalog (yes, something I do for fun), I noticed a description of one particular item for sale.

Of course, the catalog tries to hype accurately describe the items for sale. I think they may have been reaching a bit far with this one though.

A video camera the size of a credit card? Now that would be impressive. I’ve seen some things the size of a credit card, like that handy magnifying glass thing that you can fit in your wallet. I’m sorry, but there’s no way that camcorder will fit in my wallet.

And it’s convenient that they have the credit card right next to the camcorder so you can see how close in size they really are. From my perspective though, I’d say the camera is about as large as 50 credit cards.

Giving the copy editors the benefit of the doubt, I will say that I think they meant that the footprint of the camcorder is about the same as the credit card. It occupies the same area, not the same volume. But why stop there? Stand the camcorder on its end and claim that it is smaller than a credit card! That impressive claim would last only as long as it took someone else to stand the credit card on its end…

“You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measurement of weight, or capacity.”
– Leviticus 19:35