I distinctly remember as a kid in the early ’80s that my grandfather had a little plastic cup next to the sink in his basement that had a bird on it and said “Beep for Breakfast.” I had no idea what it meant, but I thought it was cool because I was big into Looney Tunes and I equated the bird and the “beep” to the Road Runner.

Apparently, “Beep for Breakfast” was the slogan of a Tang-wannabe drink called Beep, which is still available in Canada. But try as I might I cannot find an image of the “Beep for Breakfast” cup online, only some vague references to the slogan.

If you own one of these cups, or have seen an image of one online, please post a comment below!

I had noticed for some years that it was increasingly common to see, in the Mexican food sections of most local grocery stores, stocked in amongst the numerous flavors of Jarritos soda, a few glass bottles (the old-time returnable kind) of Coke. Mexican Coke. I never really “got it” or, frankly, cared too much to figure out what might be different about it and why it would be sold here, but lately it seems that the Cuba Libre (more commonly known simply as a Rum-and-Coke, or, if you prefer, a Rum-’n'-Coke) is becoming trendy… for some reason. But along the way to that discovery, I also learned what’s different about Mexican Coke and why people, especially those who are used to it, would bother to buy it instead of the American version. The recipe still includes cane sugar. Read more »

Know Mark Summers? He hosted the messy Nickelodeon game show Double Dare way back when, and these days he’s the host of Unwrapped on Food Network, which I am, unfortunately, watching as I write this. (Hey, it was that or the routine weekly post-SNL broadcast of the Guthy-Renker infomercial for the Midnight Special DVD collection.)

The show is moderately interesting as a glimpse into the operations of various quirky businesses in the food industry (such as the one they’re talking about now, whose corporate office is a 7-story replica of a wicker picnic basket that would put Beebe Gallini’s powder puff factory to shame). But the most distinctive thing about it is the maddening, Shatner-esque start-and-stop cadence of Mark Summer’s voiceovers. I’m sure he doesn’t really talk that way, at least I hope so, but on TV, he’s so programmed into this particular way of speaking — which presumably originated long ago in broadcasting schools with the desire to sound enthusiastic and engaging, and be easy to follow — that, ironically, I can barely concentrate on what he’s saying due to the way he says it. Read more »

I am pleased to announce that the new Room 34 Online Store is now officially open for business!

I’m still toying with keeping some of my designs up on Spreadshirt as well, since I like some of the shirt styles they offer that CafePress doesn’t, but CafePress simply offers a broader selection of products and a much better user interface (which is kind of sad, because it’s still not that great) for managing the store. Anyway… enough of that crap. Buy my stuff! I have some new designs posted along with my “classic” designs, and some more are on the way soon.

Harken back to the days of yore, when we all kept our NCSA Mosaic “hotlists” up to date with our latest favorite links. Come to think of it, a blogroll (a term that is quickly becoming just as antiquated) is no different. But since I generally keep my sidebar link lists (a.k.a. the “blogroll”) limited to top-level pages of sites in which I have a broad interest, but these items are specific sub-pages or blog posts, I am just going to list them out here for my own future reference, and yours.

First up we have a cool coffee mug for type aficionados, and it even ties in with the excellent Helvetica documentary.

Next, some Useful WordPress Tricks… the title says it all.

And then we have… well, actually that’s all we have for right now, but if I think of, or stumble upon, anything else pertinent and/or interesting before the stroke of midnight, I’ll just add it here.

Last night I couldn’t sleep (maybe it was the 200 mg of caffeine I consumed during the day), and while I was tinkering with my website at 1 AM, I watched a Jim Gaffigan special on Comedy Central. I’ve been a fan of Jim Gaffigan for quite a while, but I hadn’t seen his full-length special before. I was literally in tears over the following bit, exploring the wonders of Hot Pockets.

I’m pleased to announce that my 2008 RPM Challenge album Unnatural Disasters is now available on iTunes!

I worked with CDBaby to get the album on iTunes, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody, and several other digital distribution sources. So far, I am very pleased with the results. So please, if you’re considering buying my album digitally, support my presence on iTunes with a purchase… and a review!

Update June 18, 2008: The album is also now available for download on Amazon MP3.