The AM Forum

Ever noticed how many products have discretely been reduced in size lately?  For example, half-gallons of ice cream are now more like 3 pints, but of course the price is still the same if not more than the old larger size.

About a year ago I went to buy a sheet of 1/2" plywood.  I noticed that the size was marked: 15/32", approximately 1/2".  For many years a 2X4 has been 1 1/2" X 3 1/2" and even that size is being shaved down.  Whenever I am working on a long term building or house repair project and let it slide for a while, maybe over the winter, and return to it the following summer, if I need more material such as moulding, inevitably the size has been slightly reduced so that I have to shave and shim to get the new piece to match what I bought the year before.

To top it all off to-day, I got a flyer in the mail from HH Gregg, with ads for flat screen TV's.  Up to now, they have advertised 32", 42", 58", etc sizes.  The flyer that just came featured 32" Class (31.5" Diagonal) and 42" Class (41.6" Diagonal) sizes.

I thought about going to buy one of the 32" class TV's which sell for $499.97, and handing them $492 and tell them I'm paying with 499-class dollars.

But I decided I better not do that.  I'm afraid they might actually take the $492, and I don't need the damned thing.

Don,
Lumber prices have come up a bit since Winter but still very low. Good time to buy wire also. I need to frame a second bathroom in the new place and have been collecting materials. Just got a great deal on hardwood flooring. yea, ice cream scam. I like a tall 3/4 bowl of ice cream after working all day because beer or wine will knock me out.

Don,

Back in the 70's when the price of raw sugar suddenly increased in price one of the major candy companies shrunk the size of their bars rather than increase the price.  Coupled with the size decrease the wrapper proudly stated, "new and improved".   In response to this the FTC issued a trade regulation stating that for product packaging to contain the text "new and improved" it must have changed significantly and improved in a manner that would be beneficial to the typical buyer.  Charging the same for less did not meet that standard.

All companies have long been playing the "what can we take out that the consumer won't notice game" and auto manufacturers have been in the forefront.  Items like consumer convenience (extended sun visors), parts of the interior lighting, sound insulating materials, etc. have all been fair game for all of the global manufacturers.  On the energy side of things I have heard there has been discussion but probably no practical action on BTU content guidelines for a gallon of gas or diesel to discourage any "doctoring" of the product to cut costs.  Of course the EPA does its own damage, the fairly recent change to ULSD (ultra low sulfur diesel) apparently reduced the energy content per gallon resulting in lower mileage. 

Of course we are the prime example with AM  ;)  A full gallon on AM is certainly a smaller gallon than it was prior to the PEP output ruling.

Rodger WQ9E

 

Back when I was in college I worked for Morton's Food Company a direct competitor for Lay's.  I learned to pay attention to the size of the package of potato chips from that experience.

Later in college one of my classes required me to do research on products and the value for the price and how to advertise them.  What happens is there is a limit to size that is noticeable to the consumer and if you go above that or below it, they stop buying your product. 

For instance potato chips were, at that time 16 oz.  When prices started to climb they reduced them to 15 oz. but kept the price the same.  Over the years they played that game until today the price is about, 3 dollars but the size has been reduced to 12 oz.

Content and size of consumer goods is a good way to determine if inflation is around.  Have you noticed the width of your toilet paper is ~ 1/2 less?

One of my favorite soaps to use was Coast soap.  Coast was a Proctor and Gamble product. 2 or 3 years ago it was bought by Dial Corp.  For the first year or so the soap didn't change. Then the formula to make it changed and it didn't smell as good or lather up as well. A year after that the shape of the bar changed so it went from a 5oz. bar to a 4oz but the size of the foot print didn't change.   So what Dial did in an attempt to fool the consumer, was to carve 1 oz. out of the middle so it was a shallow U shape. It didn't look or feel like your standard bar of soap.  So I quit buying the Dial version. 

I still use the original whenever I can find it.  I found someone on Epay a few months back selling 150 bars of the original brand. The obsessive compulsive side of me got the better of me so with nearly 200 bars of soap I now have at least a 12 or so year supply.

I have noticed the gasoline I have bought lately, which used to be reddish orange, has been a yellowish green; looks more like urine or anti-freeze. You might not remark this when filling a car, but it is obvious when filling a lawn mower from a 5-gallon can.

Has anyone else noticed this, and know any story behind the change?

Summer Blend ..


73
Jack.

Gas has a different smell to it also.

Since when have they been color-coding it?  I think they have made summer blends for many years, but it was always reddish orange, regardless. 

I remember when real gas was purple

Well,..with the changes that gas and diesel have been going through we're lucky it ain't blue..I remember when Real Diesel had a Lubrication factor to it..Now it has None Zero, Striped of all the Goodies same with Gas and so goes the Power Factors.

This isn't Gasoline no more. not like what alot us of knew. 


73
Jack.

Yeah cant find Platformate anymore...

I just go ping ping ping up the hill.


klc

to compensate for the lack of lubricity in today's diesel, put a quart (not a liter dang it, a quart) of non detergent 30 weight motor oil in every 50 gallons.

Don said:
I guess that changed moreso since they outlawed MTBE and replaced it with ethanol. I'm down here in Myrtle Beach and have noticed that all the pumps say "10% ethanol" on them as opposed to up in PA where it is 5%.

Maybe they dye it green to convince the public that their product produces "green energy".   ;D

Kind of like greasy pork that is touted as "the other white meat".

Actually, the problem with pork today is that it is NOT greasy -- has too little fat content.  Hormones, genetic engineering, diet, whatever it is, has resulted in a "modern" pork product that is largely dry, lacking in fat, flavorless, and hard to chew.  But it is generally "lean".

I long for the "good old says" when pork actually had fat and flavor (since fat IS the source of flavor).  It's supposed to.  It's PORK for goodness sake :-)

Chicken, heaven help you if you eat most of the bloated hormone enriched 'white meat' deep fried in FAT , loaded with water (which bulks it up nicely and makes it look BIG), and FAT.  Chickens DIE because they can't support the weight of their breast meat (although I know many of you, like I am, are fanciers of "breast meat".  "Flavor" mostly comes from the massive amounts of salt that's injected with the water.  Or the big honking yellow FAT globs and FAT laced coating graciously provided by KFC, in addition to all the other "healthy" stuff.

Give me a good veal rib chop any day :-)

Grant/NQ5T

Or lamb or goat meat.  But I can't stomach deer meat unless it is seasoned to oblivion.

When I was a kid my grandmother raised chickens that ran outside loose; they weren't even fenced.  I loved the taste of the grass/insect fed chicken, fried in lard.  But the factory produced stuff from the supermarket to-day is barely more palatable to me than is venison.

I love breast meat that is not chicken.   8)

Be healthy.

Some locally made potato chips in PA used to be made with lard.   Most of them have switched to something else, they may be healthier but don't taste as good (to me anyway).    I used to charcoal broil marinated pork chops, they were delicious.    Now when you do it, they are all dried out and have no flavor.    I don't eat the chips and pork chops anymore.

I wipe olive oil on the chops, season,  and then grill 'em... 

klc

Have you bought what is called "chicken tenders" at the grocery store?  It is a package of several strips of breast meat that has been cut so that it looks like the  chicken fingers you get in C stores or some restaurants.  We buy a package of them from time to time and they are slimy to the touch.  I don't know if the slime is a preservative or if the meat is bordering on old.  We wash them before cooking and bake them in aluminum foil with olive oil and lemon pepper seasoning.  In this fashion they have some taste.

If yunns seen how they, the way Chicken(s) are handled....and Smelled at the Stripper yards......LOL...Man you would run the other way....

73
Jack.

real men add Marvel Mystery Oil

Keeps your top end clean Frank?

and olive oil keeps my bottom end clean

olive oil and garlic are the 2 essential food groups! ! ! ! !

I had spag with olive oil and garlic for supper last night. Add some romano cheeze
(the good stuff smells like dirty socks) and itz heaven.   ;D ;D

Or,..Olive Oil, diced Garlic pieces, diced Onions, and Perogies in a Black Skillet.... ;D

Simmer till cooked not browned...


73
Jack.

It was a great smell too during the 60's

Fred

Oh man.  Don't even get me started on ethanol.  We've had the 10% blend here for years.  Can you say inferior gas milage with no pollution reduction (due to more gas being burned to travel the same distance as before [pre-ethanol])?   Sure you can!  I knew you could!

Besides the "gasohol" blend, down here we get the "oxygenated" blend in the summer to reduce smog emissions. It seems to do a better job of reducing mileage than reducing emissions. (and to slap you in the face even more they charge more for it!)  I get NOTICABLY better mileage during the colder months when they supposedly use the normal blend.

                                                              The Slab bacon

I remember "gasohol" from the 70's.  I assume to-day's blend is about the same stuff. Wasn't the price of gasohol something like 10¢/gal higher than the others back then, with the normal price of regular circa 75¢/gal?

I also remember warnings that ethanol was corrosive to certain engine parts and tended to dissolve gaskets.  I wonder if that problem has been addressed with the engines they make and the gas they sell now.

Maybe it's part of a plan to get "clunkers" off the road, to reinforce the "cash for clunkers" program.  Limit the only available fuel to a concoction that destroys engines built before a certain year.

MTBE needed to go away and I don't think lead is good since we have a surplus of stupid people. When I lived in LA I tried a number of things including water injection. Ethanol works fine but I agree the price sucks.

All I know it's Junk Science...it was the last time too.....

73
Jack.

With ethanol 2 things occur.  1. BTU or energy is lowered so low gas mileage.  2. Ethanol and oxygenated fuels increase the oxygen content in the exhaust.  The ECU will "see" this increased oxygen and subsequently start dumping additional fuel because it "thinks" the engine is running lean.  So both situations cause a reduction in fuel mileage.

When I was messing around with blowing hydrogen and oxygen (HHO) by electrolyzing water  last year when gas prices were beyond $4.00, unless you can dump a crap load of HHO (at least in a Ranger) mileage would drop considerably because the ECU saw the extra O₂.  The key was to dump so much HHO so that the ECU or oxygen sensor was maxed out so it couldn't compensate any longer then one would see an increase in fuel mileage.  I saw up to a 12% to 15% increase in fuel mileage. I didn't push any further because the current draw was beyond 20 amps.  The caveat was it beat the crap out of the alternator.

Some information indicated that about 100 amps was necessary for doing the HHO thing right. Noting the site here:

http://hytechapps.com/

this guy has some data from a vehicle at that power level.

About the gas now. We used to bale hay each summer with an old gas powered Allis-Chalmers tractor. That thing used to have plenty of power to pull and run the baler and pull the wagon at the same time. When they started putting ethanol in the gas, we could tell because this thing's power dropped so much that it doesn't have enough power to do what it used to. We now use an old Long diesel (which was made in Romania) to bale with. And I've never smelled a diesel engine that had that strong of a smell. The old A-C was also designed to run on leaded gas, I now use that thing to run wagons in from the field and have to give it more throttle to go up the hills around here because it doesn't have power. I think there may still be some potato chips that are cooked in lard, most I think use a blend of oils. And if you eat the dark meat in the pork, it's not too bad.
Shelby KB3OUK

Amen.  I used to like pork but it is little better than chicken these days.

>Chicken, heaven help you if you eat most of the bloated hormone enriched 'white meat' deep fried in FAT , loaded with water (which bulks it up nicely and makes it look BIG), and FAT. 

The only eatable part of a chicken these days are the wings.  It never ceases to amaze me how gullible Americans are.  They let advertising and propaganda determine what tastes good instead of their palates. Chicken breast is the Budwiser or Wonderbread of meat.

Moving on, try to find sausage or lunch meat made without chicken or turkey.  The reprocessed garbage left over after the breasts are removed have found a home in sausage. There is only one brand of balogna or summer sausage in most delis or supermarkets still made with pork; the rest are all chicken garbage.

For an example of the extent to which I go to make poultry eatable check this out:

   http://schmidling.com/turkey.htm


>Give me a good veal rib chop any day :-)

Yuch!  Lamb is/was king.  It is also becoming tasteless and by the time you read this it may not even be available in your neighborhood.

Jack

When I lived in Ethiopia, I ate a  lot of goat meat.  I knew it was not factory-made, because they would kill the live goat and dress it the morning before the meal.  Part of the ritual was to slit the goat's throat and let some of the blood drip on the sill of the doorway that was the main entrance to the house.  This was supposed to keep evil spirits away.

Maybe vegetarian is the way to go.

Good Old Isalys Chipped Chopped Ham....Man that's the stuff there...they don't make that down south, Great Cholesterol Fix..... ;) with helmans....

73
Jack.

Jack you need connections to New Britain CT.  Heavy duty Polish community who know how to make the best bolognas, sausages, kielbasas, etc. with the very best ingredients.

Hi Bob,

 LOL..I know great food up there :D, I threw that in there being the mention of lunchmeats.....ah man good old chipped ham... :D


73
Jack.

The closest thing is corned beef or de-viled ham.

I'm glad I wasn't suffering from a hangover when I read that.

Don't forget the commonly available chipped beef used for SOS.  My mom used to make SOS.  I don't think I have had it since I was a kid.  Need to ask the YL to make it sometime.  I dimly remember it tasted pretty good.  :D

http://www.hormelfoods.com/brands/hormel/HormelDriedBeef.aspx



http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Chipped_beef_on_toast

Good old Spam Too.... ;D Champion Sandwich maker...

There is a big difference between the good and bad.    My wife's SOS is delicious, but the stuff I had in the service made in a field kitchen was garbage.    For years I could not eat hot dogs because of getting sick from the military version.    The military version was dyed red, but you could see where they missed and it was white.     I think they made it from Mississippi fish chum.    Now I love Nathan's hot dogs.