If you’re wondering whatever happened to me, I’m livin’ on the air in -

No, that’s not it. If you’re wondering whatever happened to the wooden pallet on which the mulch arrived, it went to Menard’s. Not back to Menard’s, since that wasn’t the origin. They just take pallets. I’m sure there’s a national shortage of pallets, or was, or will be. The Giant Swede helped me, by driving me, and the pallet, in his capacious Jeep. We put it on a flat cart and pushed it to the front door, where we asked an employee where it might go. He pointed to the absolute farthest point: back of the store, other side. Thank you my good man.

Upon entering the store we were prevented from moving into the store, since we’d entered through the main exit. Okay, head left to the main entrance on the other side of the store. Ah: this area is also accessible, because turnstiles prevent egress. Okay, head out and around the building.

And I mean, around the building. Here is a helpful graphic.

The Google Eye in the Heavens can see the pallet dropoff location:

Inside the store I had some keys made by a machine. It was fast and simple and cheap. Then the Giant Swede wanted to look at water fountains, noting in advance that he wouldn't like any of them. I found one right up his worldview, but he didn't agree.

It works if you're a fan of old Case Tractors, too.

The overhaul of the office continues, but the discard pile has been removed. I took some pictures before everything went in the trash. Someone threw away a batch of old WIRED mags, and it's a good look of how this cadre of sharp tech-minded futurists thought things were going to go:

Uh huh. Well, next issue:

Love Arnie, but no, he did turn out to be the future, anymore than Branson was the future of rockets. Let's try again:

Aside from its built-in inflation-boosting ability? I assume it's because it pushes us to renewables. I wonder what they meant about Star Trek Resurrection, since Enterprise had been cancelled in 2005.

The perfect slogan for a doomed tech platform trying to pivot:

I have no nostalgia for ATEX, although I do wonder what happened to the one remaining ATEX keyboard that used to be in the office. I would show it to the Kids who got hired, to show them what the tech used to be. Might as well have been showing them a clay tablet with a stylus.

This made me sad.

There was more of her, as you might imagine. She used to stand in Features. Don't know where she came from, and don't recall when she was moved elsewhere. Possibly the photo studio.

The new building design, as noted, includes lots of new offices for management types. Lots. They've been constructed in the middle of cubicle rows, making everything look a lot more dense. It doesn't feel like a newsroom anymore.

Nothing particularly profound or important today, and it's even something I've said before. It's not as if I have to talk about TV on Tuesday, but somehow that got added to the mix along with everything else.

This isn't a review, although if it were I'd be grafting arms on my torso so I could give additional thumbs up.

Does this look like a human building? A style you might find on earth? It does. And it doesn't. Perhaps something in some Spanish town where an idiosyncratic architect worked in 1920. You read it as an apartment building, because it has balconies, and people like balconies.

This could be any sci-fi show, but it has a certain vibe. Of course, it has more than old cities with gloomy weather. There has to be an urban elite somewhere, and when we meet them, the composition is perfect:

The ruling class has an elegant life with private transport. We recognize the back seat of a limo:

Meanwhile, back on the Not So Nice planet, we glimpse some tech that immediately reads as a public communication device. It's worn, utilitarian. The clothes indicate variety and style. By now you're thinking: every other sci-fi show, probably.

And then.

You know exactly where you are.

But! You've never quite seen it like this. For one thing, you have the working-class guys who signed up to run missions and pursue criminals. They're fairly smart and committed to the system.

(Too much so, in the case of the guy on the left.)

Then there's the citizens stuck in a shuttle, making a descent into another town on another planet to do some business. It's shabby this far out.

If it sounds like another dour drab series with grimdark excesses, I am here to tell you no. After we get the story-setting done - takes about two and a half episodes - it's a heist story. And then it's a prison drama.

I haven't enjoyed anything like this in years. And I'd completely given up on it.

Ergo: imagine what's still possible in all the old stories, and ask yourself why they never managed to deliver it.

It's 1949.

Grocery day ads from the Los Angeles Times.

No, no, no, no

Were these new in 1949? Seems like they would’ve come along earlier, spurred by wartime necessities. Well:

Those dehydrated flakes wouldn’t come to be until the mid-twentieth century. In the early 1950s, the R.T. French Company, now known as French’s, created a product it called mashed potato granules. These flash-dried mashed potatoes became the major instant product in stores until the early 1960s, when Canadian food scientist Edward Asselbergs pioneered a different process for preserved potatoes. That method resulted in potato flakes, which soon dominated store shelves. The potato flakes broke down into hot liquid more easily, providing a smoother, richer finished product than granules. Potato granules are still carried by some companies, but Asselbergs’ invention has so far proven to be the lasting one.

I don’t know what to believe.

Twin Cliche Chefs endorse this common product:

C&H stands for California and Hawaii. Might as well be just C now:

The refinery at Crockett, California, formerly relied on sugar cane from Hawaiʻi. However, the country's sugar cane production faced increasing competition from other cane producers in countries such as Brazil and Vietnam. In 2016, citing a loss of profitability, the last Hawaiian cane grower, the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company harvested its final Hawaiian sugar cane crop, and ceased refining operations there. Lands still owned by the company will be converted to other crops and uses, such as sorghum and biofuel crops.

Oh boy, a Pioneer Process:

Named after a Spanish Queen, with pioneer tech. Okay.

Mr. Utt was bought out in ’31. The business folded in 1973. That’s all I can find from two articles that put up paywalls before I could read any more.

		ENJOY THIS SOLUBLE COFFEE PRODUCT With that many modifiers, it doesn’t seem to be actual, you know, coffee.

This I did not know:

In February 2005, the Associated Press reported Nestlé lost a lawsuit and was ordered to pay US$15.6 million to Russell Christoff for using an image of him without his permission on their Taster's Choice label for approximately five years (1998–2003). The $15.6 million judgment was subsequently reversed in its entirety by the California Court of Appeal. On October 31, 2007, the California Supreme Court, with a vote of 6–0, granted review. On August 17, 2009, the court reversed the judgment and remanded the case to the trial court to consider whether the ad campaign covered a "single publication", which would have prevented Christoff from suing because the statute of limitations would have lapsed, or multiple publications.

I wish I knew how that ended up.

It’s still around!

Thermo-regulated roast, yes, that’s the secret.

Schilling was a name people might have associated primarily with spices, like McCormick. But:

Schilling was born in Bremen in February 1854.[1] He left Germany when he was 16 and settled in San Francisco, California. There he worked for the coffee company J.A. Folger & Co. Due to his skills and ambition, he rose to become a partner in the company after only five years. He bought the shares of Otto Schoemann, a wealthy merchant who was initially brought in as a partner after a $10,000 investment.

In 1878, the company was renamed as Folger-Schilling Company.

In 1881, Schilling broke with Folger and together with George Volkmann, a friend and fellow German immigrant, established A. Schilling and Company, a coffee roasting business.

McCormick bought Schilling in 1947. For some reason, I remember that it was McCormick in the East, Schilling in the West. They dumped the Schilling brand entirely in the 90s.

This ad stretched the entire width of the page:

It looks rather illiterate.

I mean, why not just use the correct word?

That will do. NOTE: last week was the last Eddie's Friends, but today we have . . . Eddie's Friends, sort of. There's a page of the versions that came before the square single panel. One page, so don't bother clicking on unless you never bothered to read them before. And why would that be?