The 'Hungry Man' Dinner Fallacy

For some reason my mother decided to show up at my condo and stuff my freezer with odd bits of food. This is not the first time I've lived alone however my mother seems to think that I cannot cook for myself (like my brother) and decided to put an entire lasagna in my freezer, amongst other things...

One of these articles of food she decided to leave me was a couple of these "Hungry Man" dinners made by Swanson. Now, I'm not sure who's bright idea it was to give this "food" the name of Hungry Man. Perhaps they were thinking that you'd have to be a VERY hungry man in order to eat one of these things--Women wouldn't eat them, that's for sure. First of all, the box is all about false advertising, especially when they have photos of actual food on the front of it. Prominently written on the front of the box it says "over 1 lb of food" and then written in smaller text it says "455 g". Now I'm not great at conversions, but even I can look it up on Google and I see that 455 g equals 1 lb exactly, so I guess the "over" part is the weight of the box and the packaging. The box also features a lurid photo of a Duncan Hines brownie, so you know who they're marketing these things to... Bachelors.

Next the cooking instructions themselves are sheer genius. "Step 1: Remove plastic cover from chicken, french fries and brownie. Poke holes in plastic over corn." Now you know no guy is going to do this, he might poke a couple holes in the plastic with the fork he has sticking out of his mouth, or he may just want to see if it'll explode when he puts it into the microwave. "Step 2: Microwave on high for 5 minutes. Carefully remove brownie with a fork; set aside. Return tray to microwave oven." Ok, so this translates to "throw it in the oven and nuke it until its steaming". No guy is going to remove the brownie and set it aside, unless by "set it aside" you mean "remove brownie and eat immediately while waiting for rest of dinner to thaw". Next, "Step 3: Microwave on high 1 minute. Step 4: Let stand 1 minute in microwave." Or, "after eating brownie, nuke it some more until the corn is wrinkled and hard." Step 5 should be, "Eat first meal while nuking a second meal because there ain't no way this is going to fill you up, man!"

More amusing things include the Nutritional Facts that are printed, by law, on every item of prepared food today--Per package, 455 g we have 980 calories. Of these 455 grams, 46 grams are fat (71% of the daily recommended allowance), so about 11.5% of your "meal" is fat. Cholesterol 110 mg--Mmmmm. Now this part is amusing, Sodium 2520 mg or 110% of the recommended daily allowance--Shouldn't that throw up some flags in people's heads? I bet the people at Swanson are thinking "What guy is gonna read the nutritional information? Throw some more salt in there! They'll never know!" Fibre 9 g, Sugar 25 g, Protein 33 g. So...what's the rest of the stuff? Sawdust? Recycled paper? I'm not quite sure myself, it certainly isn't flavour. Ironically, at the bottom of the box it states: "Promptly refrigerate any unused portion." Uh... unused portion? Who's gonna have leftovers? Besides, there's enough salt in it to preserve it for 100 years just sitting on the counter.

In any case, this "Hungry Man" is now eating a bowl of cereal and wondering how he can get rid of a couple frozen dinners without anyone knowing...


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I should really write things down when I think of them--I often have these long, philosophical thoughts that I figure I should add to my journal and then when I actually get down to writing a journal, I've forgotten what I wanted to say!

Little Boxes of Life
Anyway... I'm still working on settling into my new home. Although it doesn't really feel like a home yet, it feels more like living in some strange hotel room somewheres. My life still sits around me packed into little cardboard boxes...

I have so much junk. You go through life picking up little bits and pieces that you think might be useful for some reason and it collects in the corners of my office in small piles, maybe it breeds secretly? I have so many little bits and pieces of "stuff" that have little memories attached to them that I can't bear to throw away just yet--a brochure I picked up somewhere, a postcard from a friend, a guidebook, or even a freaking ticket stub and I can't seem to get rid of anything! I've been spending the last couple of weeks since I moved in opening up boxes that I had packed away for years and finding the detritus that is my life. I just can't understand how some people manage to have such minimalistic apartments when my junk seems to multiply on it's own. Have you ever seen pictures of people's houses where their bookcases have about 6 books on them   with space for "objet d'art"? Where do these people come from? My bookcases are always overflowing! Speaking of which, I still need to get to IKEA and pick up some more bookcases...

I also need to remember how to cook for myself again. I've gotten lazy the last few years having someone cook for me all the time. Cooking is such a chore most of the time, sometimes it almost seems like too much effort to cook just to eat. And then there's clean up afterwards...I have a dishwasher in the condo but I've yet to use it, I just wash up my dishes by hand. It seems like a lot of effort to go to, this living alone thing. I also get bored very easily lately--I've had to stop myself from just going to work for a few more hours because I was bored and work is just 5 minutes down the road. I need to find myself some new outlets...

Also Xmas is coming...not my favorite time of year.

<img src="img.photobucket.com/albums/v22…"  alt="Second Life icon" title="Second Life icon" />Second Life -- What is it?
Now that I have high speed Internet access, I decided to check out this new-fangled Second Life thing. So far I'm not exactly sure what Second Life's purpose is--It's advertised as a 3D social networking world, but so far in my explorations I've only discovered large empty areas that people pay real-world rent on and large areas where people seem to gather to earn "Linden dollars" (which can translate into real US currency) by dancing or just sitting. Although at L$3 for 10 minutes of "dancing" it would seem to take a long time to earn anything worthwhile. Presumably there's a reason that the owners of this virtual land want people go gather in large numbers in their constructs, but I haven't yet discovered why. I also don't understand why people would want to enter into an online 3D world just to have their little avatar animate itself "dancing", or just sit around in a large room full of chairs with a bunch of other avatars who aren't doing anything. I mean, I think they would be talking to each other or "interacting" or something, but they're just sitting there. Oh, and you can also have 3D interactive "sex" in Second Life too for some reason, although I'm not sure why you'd want to. And the funny thing is...people pay money for this.

Oh, speaking of paying money, Second Life sent me an automated email saying that they couldn't bill me for this month's access because my billing information was incorrectly filled in--Well, that's mostly because my billing information is blank, I'm using a FREE account! And then when I tried to send them an email via the online "help" desk, they sent me another automated email saying that they couldn't answer my help request about billing because I was using a free account and they apparently don't answer requests from a free account. Well what I wanna know is if I'm using a free account, and you know I'm using a free account, then why are you trying to bill me!? Sheesh.


I haven't gotten back to this yet, but I hope to do so soon. I need to get back into a creative groove soon, I'm spending too much time working lately. I'd really like to start scanning the slides my Grandfather left me from his around the world tour in the 60's. There should be some interesting stuff in there.


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The most amusing thing I've seen in a long time: Written on the bottom of a novelty coffee mug, "For best results, use other side." I almost bought the mug just for that.




     <img src="img.photobucket.com/albums/v22…"  alt="The Global Geek Podcast" title="The Global Geek Podcast" align="center" />  

These are some of the podcasts I listen to on a regular basis.

Cameron Reilly is a 30-something Australian lad who does this little podcast called G'Day World, first launched in 2004, where he talks about everything and anything under the sun. Cam has been branded as "Australia's First Podcaster" and is CEO of The Podcast Network and Australia's #1 digital media guru.

Scott Sherman and Michael Stein host The Digital Photography Show under The Podcast Network banner. Scott and Michael do a great show all about digital photography and have some great contests and prizes from WACOM. The Digital Photography Show is very popular and constantly at the top of the iTunes Store listing of photography podcasts.

The Global Geeks talk about everything tech, from Web2.0 blogging, the internet to product reviews and software even what they did on the week-end. Global Geek Podcast sits on it's own with the quirky attitudes and pithy, humour between the hosts and their content! Another happening podcast from TPN.

Portfolio is by deviantART's own jademacalla. Portfolio is all about exploring ones creativity and Jade does a great job of hosting. Jade has done interviews of some of deviantARTs more popular names, including lockstock, LongStock, and Nisori. Keep an eye on Jade's Journal or Jade's Blog for more good stuff. We're waiting, Jade!








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