I'm gonna get along somehow

[austin_dern]

Miscellaneous observations on the U.S. after my first day driving around and unsuccessfully shopping for various things:

• New Jersey has put up on looks like every highway signs reading, ``Safe Corridor -- Fines doubled -- Speeding and other violations'' (the first two words in yellow). What's this mean? They put it up on a lot of the highways, says one brother. They're doubling fines and [ whichever township we were in at the moment ] is using it to rake in money,'' says another. Thanks; I saw the signs.
• Man, the DVDs that are out now. Singapore stores stock Video CD, Region 1, and Region 3 discs, crowding out the more eccentric selections like The Best of Jack Paar, or the Mister Magoo cartoons. I'm sure I can pick up the Disney shorts collections when I'm back in the Lion City; but the Hail Sid Caesar set? And don't the releases of The Dukes of Hazzard, Barney Miller, Three's Company, and What's Happening on DVD make Nick at Nite and TV Land completely unnecessary?
• I accept 1.5-Liter soda bottles in Singapore, because it's a small island and would sink under the weight of 2-Liter bottles. What's this nonsense of putting 1.5-Liter bottles in U.S. stores?
• The Freehold Raceway Mall is renovating. They do need a new look; they opened in August 1990 and their stylings were very firmly set to that time.
• The Freehold Raceway Mall Carousel Ride, however, is already closed and hidden for renovations, so I can't give bunny_hugger any pictures of it. I'm sorry for that, but I probably predicted months ago that I wouldn't be able to show her what it looks like anyway. I just didn't know the exact reason.
• If I'm not careful going overboard buying eccentric DVDs, I may go overboard buying Jerseyana books.
• Any time I start either parent's car, WCBS-FM is playing Frankie Valli's Walk Like A Man.
• They've done something wimpy to Cheez-Its.
• There's a baby bunny living in our front yard! It's barely bigger than a hamster right now, and hops nervously from one bush to the other on the walkway out front whenever you walk past. I'm going to have to spend an afternoon photographing him.

Remember the Venus Transit Rainstorm, tomorrow at sunset (Singapore Time) or sunrise (U.S. Time).

Trivia: Skylab went 46 revolutions of the Earth (about three days) without ever passing out of sunshine around January 18, 1974. Source: Living and Working in Space: A History of Skylab, W. David Compton and Charles D. Benson, NASA SP-4208. (Note: Because Mir and the International Space Station have similar orbital inclinations and altitudes they have the same seasonal effect of several days' worth of continuous sunshine.)

Currently Reading: Maps and Civilization: Cartography in Culture and Society, Norman J.W. Thrower.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

# I accept 1.5-Liter soda bottles in Singapore, because it's a small island and would sink under the weight of 2-Liter bottles. What's this nonsense of putting 1.5-Liter bottles in U.S. stores?

I've yet to see these. I can't see the price advantage for them over 2-liters.. and as mighty a thirst as I often have, 1.5 liters is just too much for a single serving.

Hurrah for baby bunny! We had rabbits in out yard from 2000-2002, quite often, under the big pine tree; haven;t seen them for a while, though.

--Chiaroscuro

[tracerj.livejournal.com]

That's the point; there is no price advantage. They're essentially trying to use a couple cheesy marketing tricks to soften up the American market for smaller bottles, because unlike gasoline, they can't up the price any further and expect people to willingly pay it, so they're shrinking the bottles hoping folks won't notice.

This would be a prime moment for someone else to come in with a strong marketing blitz (especially something anti-marketing-esque, like 'who cares what the bottle looks like, it's the taste, stupid!') and remind the Big Two that they are at the consumers' mercy. Of course, that wont happen, because the truth is people really will just roll over and take it; what're they gonna do, give up Coke? *insert laughter here*

[moonfires.livejournal.com]

Supposedly these bottles are only in the NYC area for now, (to "see how it goes") and are "supposed" to cost slightly less than the 2l bottles did, but people aren't seeing it. Pepsi used to market their size advantages when Coke only came in 6 oz. bottles and they came in 12 oz. for the same 5 cents. Right now, Pepsi isn't marketing a smaller bottle in the area.

Oh, and NJ is raising just about every motor vehicle thing it can. Registrations are up, and there's been a big hullabaloo about a tripling of the fines for not having your license or registration or insurance card (it became more than reckless driving - but it's being lowered to being just doubled).

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The 1.5 Liter soda bottles are pretty plainly an effort to sell less at the same old price, although at the particular Shop and Save they actually were charging more than the old price for the root beer I like. I hope this goes down to a deserved crushing failure soon.

Thanks for giving some insight into what's going on with the New Jersey roads. I don't hear anything, and my family's terrible about passing on little news, or big news. The brothers' engagements, for example, I heard about a month or more after the fact (``Didn't you know?'') and I fully expect some time to come home and be told ``Oh, your sister's been a mermaid for three months now; didn't you hear?'' Things like road construction I don't even hear about if I specifically ask.

[moonfires.livejournal.com]

More on the "safe corridors" http://www.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/governor/njnewsline/view_article.pl?id=1299

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Too bad you couldn't get a picture of the carousel, but I understand. Baby cottontails are very cute. They leave the nest as soon as they can graze; as a rabbit rehabber once told me, that is when they are "about the size of a tennis ball." We saw a tiny one at the Toledo Zoo recently, in their formal gardens (which was deserted near closing time, and thus a good quiet spot to sit down).

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That's just about exactly this one's size -- barely bigger than a chipmunk; my dad thought it was a funny-looking chipmunk until he got a good look at the rabbit's ears. He's really cute, though, and if I may be permitted to anthropomorphize he's got a nifty look of innocence and modest experience in his eyes. I bet before long he's driving the cats crazy. (They're strictly indoor cats, and there's a squirrel who already taunts them mercilessly.)