It was a Penny Kind of Day

I was in a Mom & Pop fast food joint the other day. When the cashier was making my change, he noticed an off-color penny sitting in the change drawer. He fished the penny out of the penny compartment and examined the coin. “Wow, this is OLD!” he exclaimed, showing it excitedly to a fellow worker. He put the penny back in the drawer. After a while, he handed me my bag of burgers and fries. I couldn’t stand it.

“Uh — just how old is that penny?” I asked.

“Nineteen eighty-five,” he said. “It’s older than I am!”

I sat down with my meal at a very tiny table, feeling a little less hungry and a whole lot older than I did a few moments before.

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It was a Cold and Rainy

Morning.

As I sat in my vehicle at 7:30 AM letting the engine warm up, my hands began to freeze on the steering wheel. Little by little, the defroster overcame the frozen patches of frost on the windshield; my seat warmer began to heat my butt up to driving temperature. It was December 14 and I was beginning my Lamb Quest.

Flaps down. Vehicle trim. Power on. Move from “P“ark to “D“rive.

“Ensign Crusher — engage!“

And there I was, walking into my grocery store, eyes straight ahead, la-la-lalling down the coffee aisle, headed straight for the meat coolers where all those day-before-expiration-date-price-reduced legs of lambs were waiting. Man, oh, man, I was psyched. Five of them! I grabbed the first one.

The red REDUCED FOR QUICK SALE price label was missing! I pushed up my trifocals, focusing on the label. The leg of lamb was so close to my face I could smell sheep lanolin and hear the bleating, “Bahhhh, bahhhh, BAH.” But it was not a lamb bleating I heard. It was a MOAN coming from — me. “Last sale Date: December 15.”

I was a day early.

Miserable and dejected, I clutched the steering wheel and began to drive home. The rain changed to snow.

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FFT: Luzianne Coffee

FRIDAY FOOD THING

I am somewhat of a persnickety coffee drinker. Recently, I have fallen under the spell of Dunkin’ Donut’s ground coffees. My favorites are “Dunkin’ Dark” and “Dunkin’ Turbo”. In fact, I like to blend them together or with “Dunkin Regular” as well. Trouble is, Dunkin’ grocery store coffees are $10.

Ouch.

Enter Luzianne, the famous Depression-Era coffee whose cheaper prices resulted from the inclusion of chicory. (I do NOT like chicory coffee!) Needless to say, cheaper coffee prices during the Great Depression were appreciated by a nation long-addicted to caffeine.  Many folks who drank Luzianne chicory coffee soon discovered they preferred the chicory-infused taste over the more expensive non-chicory coffee brands, perpetuating the success of Luzianne. To this day — as did I — most coffee drinkers still associate the brand name exclusively with chicory.

Until the other day.

Turns out, Luzianne offers an extensive, GREAT TASTING 100% premium Arabica  NON-chicory coffee product line, for about 6$. I gotta tell you, Luzianne “Medium Roast” coffee is quickly replacing my more-expensive Dunkin’ Donut brew for a lot le$$ money. (Luzianne Medium Roast blends quite well with my Dunkin’ mixtures, although Luzianne coffees — both their dark and medium roasts — have no problem standing on their own, the point of today’s FFT.)

Those Great Depression folks knew a good deal when they saw one.

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Plastic Wrats

I really hate the new kind of plastic packaging, the indestructible type that is heat-vacuum-shrunk around the purchased item; the type whose packaging design offers no means of opening it short of using a hacksaw. The plastic itself is so thick it is impossible to tear or pry apart. And I know that even if I am somehow able to slip a finger in-between the plastic joins, I run a very real risk of severing a digit or two on the wickedly sharp edges.  Every time I cautiously approach one of these packages, I wonder how many finger-related law suits have been filed.

Since kitchen shears are no help at all, I decided to purchase an inexpensive pair of tin snips. But when I found the pair of industrial-grade snips I wanted at my local Lowes Home Center — you guessed it — they were tightly cocooned in an impenetrable spent-plutonium plastic diaper.

“Would you please open this package for me?” I asked the checkout person after purchasing the snips. “My fingers aren’t what they used to be and I’d like to keep them that way.”

The cashier slipped her own pair of tin snips from under the counter. Snip, snip. A couple of dangerous daring finger maneuvers, and the metal snips separated from the packaging. She made it look so easy. “There you go sir. Works like a champ.”

They must. She still had all of her fingers.

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“Certain Prey” / Certain Letdown

I always get the jitters when a main actor/actress (in this case, Mark Harmon of N.C.I.S. fame as “Certain Prey’s” protagonist, Lucas Davenport) is also one of the movie’s “Executive Producers”. Executive Producers are usually money-people, financial backers, because they have a lot of it, and more often than not — if they happen to be actors or actresses — land big parts in the movie. Sometimes, that can be a good thing. But don’t count on it. Right from the opening scenes, it is terribly obvious “Certain Prey” Minneapolis Deputy Police Chief, Lucas Davenport was not going to be the author, John Sanford’s in-depth Lucas Davenport characterization we are all familiar with at all. Nope. Instead, this movie’s Lucas Davenport/Executive Producer is, uh — Mark Harmon, famous N.C.I.S. team leader turned character-actor in the flesh, fresh off the N.C.I.S. set. I swear, I kept waiting for the rest of the goofy N.C.I.S. cast to burst onto the screen.

“Certain Prey” is one of the most poorly-cast movies I’ve ever seen*. Period. The only character with even a smidgeon of the novel series’ authentic flavor is actress Athena Karkanis, who played the novels’ sultry sidekick cop, “Marcy Sherrill” character.

“Certain Prey” is a stinker. A real letdown. Here’s an online movie comment I fully agree with: “It sucked and then some…” Yep. It did that.

+ + + + +

Tim says: *Perhaps only to be eclipsed by an upcoming (author Lee Child) “Jack Reacher” novel movie, wherein the super bad-ass 6′ 5″ Jack Reacher charcter/protaganist is portrayed — amid a flurry of negative moviegoer criticism — by a wimpy 5′ 7″ Tom Cruise. More than likely, it will suck “and then some”, too.

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“Certain Prey”

I like author John Sanford’s “Prey” novels. You know, the ones that have the word “prey” in all the titles. The ones that are so difficult to remember if you’ve read or not. I like Sanford’s protagonist, Lucas Davenport. A lot. I like actor Mark Harmon, wizened team leader of N.C.I.S. fame. And I like movies.

Guess what I’m going to be recording tonight (May 2, 1012) at 2 AM, EST on the USA Channel? John Sanford’s “Certain Prey“. That’s what.

I’ll let you know what I think, later.

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