09:26 – I’m still so busy building science kits that I haven’t had much time to do anything else, including work on the prepping book. There’s just no way I’ll have time to set a Santa trap this year, but I do have a Cunning Plan.
No Anti-Santa Gun this year, nor nets, nor poisoned milk and cookies. I’m just going to put up a large sign on the roof to announce that Santa and all his reindeer are eligible for amnesty under Obama’s plan to legalize illegal immigrants (like Santa), and that he and all his reindeer should sign up inside. Heh, heh, heh.
As part of the research for the prepping book, I’ve been ordering stuff from WalMart on-line. I’ve now placed several orders with walmart.com, and I don’t recommend them if what you’re ordering is even slightly fragile, like say canned goods. They just throw stuff in a box, without any attempt to keep it from being damaged in shipping.
USPS showed up yesterday with a box from walmart.com. I was standing with Colin in Kim’s front yard when the mail truck pulled up outside our house. The USPS carrier was obviously having trouble carrying the box up to our door. Barbara walked down to Kim’s house and said we’d just gotten a box full of dented up food cans, with the bottom coming out of the box.
Amazingly, everything that was supposed to be in the box was still in it: eight cans of Campbell’s Chunky Soup, four cans of Dinty Moore Chicken & Dumplings, three boxes of 100 Melitta #4 coffee filters, and a 3-pound can of Crisco butter-flavor shortening. There was no packing material in the box. Of the 13 cans, 9 were dented, several badly, but at least none fatally. Oddly, the four cans of Dinty Moore were supposed to be 24 ounces each, but were only 20 ounces each. I’m not sure why Dinty Moore makes two sizes so close to each other, or why walmart.com shipped me the 20-ounce versions when I ordered and paid for the 24-ounce ones.
Incidentally, although we sometimes have chunky soups and similar canned foods as quick meals, the real reason I stock up on them is as extenders for bulk foods like instant mashed potatoes and white rice. Those are pretty unappetizing by themselves, but one can make up a few pounds of mashed potatoes or rice, mix it with one can of soup, and end up with a reasonably tasty meal for half a dozen people.