Word of the Day

Smedium - Used when you can't decide between small and medium.

We live in the age of instant gratification. I think it all came about after the invention of the microwave oven. Where it used to take an hour to bake a potato in the oven, now I wait impatiently while it takes THREE WHOLE MINUTES. Six minutes if I'm baking two potatoes. I remember that we used to only have baked potatoes when we were also having some kind of roast in the oven. The roast took a couple of hours to cook and the potatoes could be thrown in at the same time. Potatoes take longer to cook at the lower temps for which the oven needs to be set for meat. Does anyone actually make roasts anymore? Besides me? I'm making a pork loin roast tonight. It's in the oven right now. I suppose I could throw in a few potatoes too but what with our diet...I digress.

Anyway, I heated up my coffee this morning in the microwave. I stood there impatiently. It only took one minute to heat up my coffee but that single minute grated on my nerves. It seemed to take forever. And then I remembered, my Grandmother would reheat their coffee in a saucepan on top of the stove. Now that took more than a minute. My Mom had a Whistling Tea Kettle which she used to heat up water for tea or coffee...instant tea or instant coffee. I remember that it would take forever for that thing to start whistling...and then it wouldn't shut up unless you took it completely off the stove. I guess that's where I learned the true meaning behind the phrase, "A watched pot never boils." And now not many wait around long enough to bother about whether or not that pot will boil.

Of course, this instant gratification thing may be like one of those chicken or the egg things. Which came first? Man's desire for instant gratification which caused someone to invent the microwave oven...or was it the microwave oven that made things so fast that I couldn't even wait even a minute for the my coffee to heat up in the microwave oven this morning without getting all irritated. Oh well...I still stick around to see if the pot boils. Somehow you just can't make spaghetti too well in the microwave. I know that the time it takes to bring water up to a rolling boil from room temperature remains the same as it has ever been, but, since the advent of the microwave, there's no way that I'm going to hang around to watch....because "A watched pot never boils" and I can't hang around forever waiting.

Murphyism of the Day

LaCombe's Rule of Percentages

The incidence of anything worthwhile is either 15-25% or 80-90%.

Dudenhoefer's Corollary

An answer of 50% will suffice for the 40-60% range.