Daily Archives: December 5, 2018

MY CHRISTMAS GIFT TABLE IS NOW OPEN!

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Come on over and pick up a gift from my Christmas gift table. It’s first come, first served, so I recommend that you come sooner than later. The best stuff get taken first of course.
 
LAUNDROID.
 
I saw a Laundroid at a recent landlord convention. The salesman said: ‘All your tenants will want a Laundroid!’ I have no doubt that he was right about that; however, you aren’t going to see a Laundroid at my Christmas gift table. A Laundroid is a clothes folding machine. It works this way. You take your clothes out of the dryer and put them in a Laundroid. Using artificial intelligence, the machine figures out what each item of clothing is, folds it, and puts it in a neat pile with other clothes of the same type – shirts in one pile, pants in another pile, etc. It folds everything except socks. Apparently, folding socks is too complicated for the machine to figure out. A Laundroid is quite large, about the size of a stacking washer and dryer; however, that isn’t the reason I’m not putting a Laundroid on my Christmas gift table. It’s the price. A Laundroid is $16,000. So sorry, I know rent in Berkeley is high, put you are going to have to continue to fold your own clothes until the price and size of this machine comes down – a lot. Laundroid video.
 
GIFT CARDS.
 
If you get gift cards this Christmas, remember that gift cards do not improve with age, like fine Spanish sherry. If you have gift cards from troubled retailers or restaurant chains, you should spend them as soon as possible. Once a company goes bankrupt, its gift cards can become worthless overnight. Americans are holding onto millions of useless gift cards from bankrupt retailers. When Toys R Us declared bankruptcy and closed all its stores, their gift cards became worthless. Even though Toys R Us stores remained open for months after they declared bankruptcy to hold inventory liquidation sales, they would not allow customers to pay for stuff with Toys R Us gift cards. Now, what about Sears? Sears declared bankruptcy last month. For the time being, Sears continues to honor their gift cards, but if the company is forced to liquidate, Sears gift cards could become impossible to redeem. Sears is the parent company of K-Mart, which is also in serious financial trouble. I wouldn’t hold onto K-Mart gift cards either. My advice is to spend gift cards from financially troubled companies as soon as you can and for whatever you can get.

WHAT IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN THE U.S.?

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Is It Sharks? I know people who will not go into the water at Santa Cruz or Stinson Beach because of fear of sharks. Yes, there definitely are sharks off the California coast, and we see shark attacks on TV more often than we used to. However, that is not because there are a lot more sharks off the California coast than there used to be. It is because people now go the beach with cellphones and make videos of sharks, so now we can see sharks and shark attacks on TV, whereas in the past we only heard and read about them. But just how common are shark attacks? Fatal shark attacks in the United States are actually rare, averaging less than 1 per year. You are far more likely to be killed by many other animals than sharks. Here are the numbers of deaths by various animals in the U.S. per year.
 
Sharks. Less than 1 per year. Over 75% of all fatal shark attacks in the U.S. happen in Florida.
Alligators. 1. All in Florida.
Venomous snakes. 6.
Horses. 20. Almost all from falls. I knew a woman here in Berkeley who rode a horse to the edge of a cliff. The horse fell off the cliff, killing them both. That surprised me because the woman worked at a stable and rode horses every day. Many famous people died from falling off a horse, including William the Conqueror, Genghis Khan, Geronimo, and Christopher Reeve, the actor who played Superman.
Cows. 25. This one surprised me. People don’t think of cows as dangerous animals, but some farm workers and ranchers are gored to death by cows every year, and a kick from a cow can be fatal.
Dogs. 30. About half of all fatal dog attacks involved pit bulls and similar dogs.

Bees, wasps, hornets. 80. Mostly allergic reaction to stings.

Deer. 200. Far more Americans are killed by deer than any other animal, making deer the most dangerous animal in the U.S. Who would have guessed?! Deer commonly leap into traffic on highways, and when they see oncoming traffic, they tend to freeze in the middle of the road and just stare at the oncoming cars, a.k.a. ‘deer in the highlights.’ I almost hit a deer last week in the Oakland hills, which is what prompted me to write this. The deer keep running slightly ahead of my car, running onto and off the road. I nearly ran into the deer several times. When I slowed down, so did the deer. It was very frustrating. This went on for almost half a mile.
Sharks. Galeophobia (fear of sharks) seems to be built-in to our DNA. Donald Trump frequently tweets about his hatred of sharks, and he is not alone. Sharks have very few friends. However, fatal shark attacks are quite rare compared to other risks you face on a trip to the beach. So Yes, it is possible that you could be killed by a shark at Santa Cruz; but it is far more likely that you will be killed by a deer running across Highway 17 on your way home.
 
Mosquitoes. On a worldwide basis, mosquitoes are, by far, the deadliest animals on Earth. Almost 1 million people die every year from diseases they get from mosquitoes, mainly malaria and yellow fever. At the time of the American Civil War, malaria was one of the 5 leading causes of death in Louisiana and Florida. Scientists only figured out that malaria was caused by mosquito bites in the late 19th Century. Before that, people thought that malaria was caused by breathing hot, swampy air; hence the name ‘malaria’, from the Italian ‘mal aria‘, meaning bad air.

MOLASSES COOKIES.

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Have you tried my chocolate bottomed molasses cookies? They are one of my favorites. Molasses cookies are an old Southern staple, a little chewy, and flavored with molasses and ginger. Molasses isn’t as popular as it used to be. 100 years ago, everybody had a bottle of molasses in their kitchen, but the popularity of molasses has been on the decline for a long time. That’s too bad. Molasses has a lot of flavor to it, and molasses is far more nutritious than white sugar. During World War 1 and World War 2, molasses sales skyrocketed. That was because during the World Wars, white and brown sugar were strictly rationed, and even if you had the required ration coupons to buy sugar, stores were often out of stock. Liquid sweeteners, including honey, maple syrup, and molasses were not rationed during World War 2, so cooks made a lot more cookies and cakes with molasses and honey. The reason that liquid sweeteners were not rationed during World War 2 is because it was easy for the army to ship white sugar to the troops overseas, but liquid sweeteners like molasses are hard to ship and make a terrible mess if a bottle breaks. When sugar rationing ended in 1946, most people went back to using white sugar.

FACEBOOK & HOLIDAYS.

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Before you leave town for Winter Break, remember — tell your friends about your trip after you return, not before or during the trip on social media websites. Burglars scan Facebook, Twitter, etc. to find out who is away from home. Yes, burglars really do that! Also, ask a friend or neighbor to check your porch for parcels, newspapers, advertising circulars, and other things that might tip off passers-by that no one is home. Put a lamp on a timer. If you don’t have a lamp timer, see me, and I will lend you one.