Posted on 02/26/2011 1:38:34 PM PST by Squawk 8888
Im not the wiener peeler, Im the wiener peelers son, And Im only peeling wieners, Til the wiener peeler comes.
I apologize to pheasant pluckers sons everywhere for stealing their tongue-twister.
But who can resist when my Internet fairy, Irene, drops this job ad on my desk? Get out your resume, she purrs.
I pause in processing Moonlight Lady submissions, and take a boo.
Full-time Wiener Peeler, says the ad.
Wazzat? I ask. A red-hot stripper?
No. As in weenie. Its got you written all over it, says Irene, and she flutters off.
Well, Im getting sick of grinding out daily columns like hamburger. So I read on.
Opportunity. Excitement. Teamwork. Respect.
At Maple Leaf Foods we are committed to attracting, rewarding and retaining talented people who are passionate about making a positive impact in their professional and personal lives every day.
A noble mission. What better way to pursue it than as a bona fide full-time professional wiener peeler. The opening is at Maple Leafs hotdog plant in Hamilton.
Imagine the awe when you tell fellow partiers your occupation.
Picture the lineup of schools recruiting for career days.
The teachers may giggle, but the kids will scream for free samples.
Youre on Price Is Right and Drew Carey says, What dya do for a living up in Canada, Mikey?
I peel wieners, Drew.
Good for you. Wiener peeler. Hmmm. reminds me, folks, get your pets spayed or neutered.
Anyway, I check around and find yet another job opening at Maple Leaf. Wiener stuffer. Hit it ...
Im not the wiener stuffer
Im the wiener stuffers son
Im only stuffing ...
(Ed. note: Stop that, you hotdogger, or well make you pose for a picture like Gilles Duceppe in the silly hairnet.)
NO! Not that! Ill do anything, boss.
The photo of Duceppe in a cheese factory was a body blow to the Bloc. He looked like a weenie. Un chien chaud. Un hotdog.
I wonder. How do wiener peelers and stuffers look? All dressed?
I call Linda Smith at Maple Leaf Foods and ask: What company wit came up with those job titles?
Theyre in the union contract, she says. Theyre really a kind of food-processing operator.
So machines do the actual stuffing and peeling. Thank God. I cant imagine sitting there all day, fingers numb, going, hundred thousand and one weenies, hundred thousand and two weenies, hundred thousand and ...
The wiener stuffer fills the tubular collagen casings with hot dog sludge. Since you asked, the ooze typically comprises mechanically separated chicken, pork, beef, water, wheat gluten, salt, sodium phosphate, spice, dextrose, corn syrup solids, sodium erythorbate, garlic powder, onion powder, sodium nitrite and smoke.
If you need to ask what mechanically separated chicken is, dont.
Or go eat a veggie burger.
Once the dogs have been divided and smoked and solidified, the wiener peeler removes the casings.
The stuffer and peeler look like hazmat officials or Apollo astronauts.
They wear blue rubber and plastic head to toe, with hairnet, hardhats and mask. Plus earmuffs. Yes. All those dogs barking.
The hirings, says Smith, are to gear up for summer, when 60% of wieners are sold.
What a great job, eh?
I assume you get to take home any bent, twisted or otherwise defective wieners.
And youd be in the pantheon of careers with chicken sexer, pet food tester, bounty hunter, odor reader, fortune cookie writer, golf ball diver and newspaper hack.
Plus, youre wrapped in a soft, warm union. The Brotherhood of Bun Fillers (BBF), or whatever its called.
I can picture the negotiations:
We want a raise, a longer lunch, three weeks holiday, dental coverage and pension improvements.
But hold the mustard.
I am painting, Well I will be if you read this a little later, but if you read it after I quit it won’t be painting any more. I will be looking for a hour I lost somewhere.
I got it. Listened to the album about five times last night. Very good.
I didn’t mind eating it, but it gave me a horrible rash. And then I had to stay awake half the night after taking two Benadryl.
Didn’t like it all that much, anyway. They had salmon at the same meal which was much better.
What are you planning to do with it?
And then tomorrow you'll lose another.
You're killing a lot of time. You should try to be more productive.
I seem to be missing a lot. Not anyone’s Fault but mine. For now, I think I need to head for the euphemism called bed.
Maybe tomorrow will be better.
G’Night, all!
Can you do that again in english?
Ditto.
I was hoping to use it tomorrow morning. I did get a dog door installed. The dog doesn’t seem to quite understand concept yet. Somethings are best learned on an empty stomach.
You could fasten the door open, and then hang an old towel or something over the opening.
Soon the dog will learn that the obstruction is pliant, and will yield to his yearnings. After that, the more-substantial door will also be seen as a portal.
I fold.
Took Gorm Mor out for a freeway run today, to assess gas mileage. Same as in town, 11.7. Of course, "in town" is mostly cruising to and from town at 50 - 55 MPH.
What magnitude was it? 6.8
Have you heard any news about the people you know in Japan? No, but my only contact is his work email.
Wise man. And saying that, I’m off to bed with my sickie self.
Have a good evening!
Get well!
LoM found a video from my friends’ area. They got a pretty rough shaking.
There’s been at least one fatality in Japan’s nuclear troubles. But they have a well-coordinated emergency response going on. They’ll get through it.
Some of the reactor coolant has had to evaporate into the pressure vessel. It’s that that they’ve had to release because of the build-up of pressure. It includes a modest amount of radioactive material, but it isn’t anything on the scale of TMI or Chernobyl yet, even though numerous reactors are involved.
Reactors shut down at first opportunity, as per protocol. But backup diesel generators to run the cooling may have been taken out by the tsunami.
I think some site and procedure review will be in order once everything is under control again.
I believe some radioactive material has been released -- whether more or less than TMI I do not know. But this is not likely to be anything like Chernobyl -- VERY different designs, I gather.
Boric acid with the seawater is an effective reaction inhibitor.
It's ironic too. Boron may be an efficient fuel for fusion reactors once we learn how to get the temperature high enough. We'll be combining one proton and one boron eleven ion to produce three (count them!) ions of helium! Those are going to be some great power generators!
After my "freeway mileage run" I was looking at the fillup/mileage history and noticed one week during which I had much higher mileage than the others: 13.9 MPG as opposed to the generally around 11.8 MPG. Traced it to an "emergency" fill-up at a Shell station instead of the usual (rather lower-priced) Arcos.
Running the numbers to get miles/dollar, I bracketed the Shell fill by Arco fills because of changing prices, I got for three consecutive weeks: (arco $3.31/gal) 3.54 mi/$ -- (shell $3.47/gal) 4.01 mi/$ -- (arco $3.57/gal) 3.28 mi/$.
I didn't expect to see an 18% increase in miles/dollar across brands, but there it is. The more expensive gas might actually provide better economy. More tests are in order, and LoM will start feeding me numbers for Ealabhan, which she is driving now.
Try to watch, if you can determine it, the alcohol content of your fuel.
Ten percent ethanol may run cooler and have combustion advantages, but its energy content is lower than the higher octane gasoline.
NnBob, I am impressed. I have not looked at reactor physics in a LONG time.
But isn't part of the issue keeping the temperature high enough, or is that 1970s thinking? Did the Tokamak concept fail? I know they're looking at pulsed generation, but beyond reading about the construction of an immense laser "compression" system at Lawrence Livermore Labs at some time in the dim past, I know nothing.
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