ralston corn biscuit cereal

 for the better part of the past 2 weeks, i have been eating ralston corn biscuit cereal for breakfast. it got me curious about the top cereal making companies. one database listed companies by the number of brands they held, and the top ten had at least 30 brands. they are: general mills, kellogg, malt o meal, nabisco, nature's path, post, quaker, kashi, ralston, and barb's bakery. many of these i have heard of, and the easiest to name were the first two as 'big G' and kellogg dominate the market. it didn't occur to me how 'ralston' went back to the ralston- purina company of st. louis. there was mention of the 'ralstonism' movement of the late 19th and early 20th century, and the acronym standing for 'regime, activity, light, strength, temperation, oxygen, and nature'. it was hard to keep up with the company history, after mention of it creating the chex and cookie crisp brands, and how the company was once owned by general mills. a website called 'mr. breakfast' showed various brands of cereal, one of them being 'WWF superstars'. i guess this does fit with some cereals based on entertainment products, especially movies, as i also saw a cereal based on the movie 'bill and ted'. there was also mention of how this company once owned wonder- bread and hostess snack cakes. the purina part merged with nestle. the ralston part was eventually acquired by treehouse brands, based on oak brook, illinois, and is known for making private label cereals. so i understand this to mean 'store brands' where the grocery store name is usually featured and not the ralston name. when looking at images online i guess this is not the first time i have had one of their cereals, as i recognized their version of rice krispies with a bird singing on the box. as for 'corn biscuits', it is a gluten-free cereal, one of three mentioned on the box. the other two are crispy hexagons and rice biscuits. and there are recipes on the back of the box, for raspberry dessert bars and cherry pistachio chocolate clusters. looks like there is one day left of breakfast in this box, and then it is on to the cheerios box. usually i have oatmeal but when i find free cereal i will eat it. 

   at work there were two repairmen that arrived in the afternoon and worked on the printer, installing the maintenance kit. the two biggest files of any day to print were late, but once they arrived i got them printed right away and i was caught up by the time i went to lunch. the cleaning lady in the breakroom spoke of some former jobs, including working as a nurse's aide. i was also asked to re-route an overnight envelope, changing its destination from california to michigan. in the evening i went on a walk and picked up 4 cents. i also made it to hy-vee in eagan. while at the grocery store i liked hearing the song 'don't get me wrong' by the pretenders. and i listened to some of the st, paul saints baseball game on the radio, saints beat sioux falls 3-1. the 'big bang theory' reruns were when sheldon panicked when there was a birthday party in his honor, and batman's adam west showed up. it was followed by the one where the friends got to the renaissance fair and sheldon dresses up as spock from 'star trek'. 

the cheesewich

 i went to walgreen after lunch looking for a snack, and decided to try the 'cheesewich'. it is 2 slices of colby jack cheese and 1 slice of hard salami. it tasted fine. the company name and product is super- imposed on a spotted cow. the package also states the factory is in hodgkins, IL. it has 'proudly wisconsin cheese' as well. one of the trainers was in the check shop for a little while, and helped me with getting the supply order in. i understand this is done once a month, near the first of the month. there was more than 30 UPS labels to do as there was one batch that was all checks to be overnighted. sounds like my niece's graduation party/reception has been called off, and no plans to reschedule. i saw mention of it on facebook. in the evening i went on a walk and picked up 9 cents. the 'big bang theory' reruns were when the friends sing karaoke after bernadette announces she is pregnant, followed by one that made me laugh a lot. because the friends say 'tag, you're it'. this was the one where sheldon is passed around the friends when he was asked to keep a secret that penny didn't finish college. 

why i got voicemail

sometimes i have to call about checks i receive, and when i did today i got voicemail. found out it was due to the recipient being next door in the file room. she asked me after i had finished the call so i sent her the check. but i did not see her again for the rest of the day so i guess the check did not go out same-day. i also had my performance evaluation with my boss just before midday. 

  i went on a walk in the evening and picked up 28 cents. the 'big bang theory' reruns were when there was a valentines day edition of 'fun with flags' and it was followed by the one where sheldon tried to learn how to speak mandarin, related to chinese food orders.

bear naked almond bar

i went to walgreen for some snacks around midday and one of the things bought was a bear naked almond bar. it was chocolate chip banana. it tasted fine, and i noticed how a bear silhouette is part of the barcode on the wrapper. it is nut butter and bananas in the bar. work flowed better than expected, it is nice when all of the machines are working well. or i might just be better at realizing when i have the time to get caught up on things, using my time better for something like a UPS label. many times i just did them all at once. i got confused about two acronyms that were almost the same, on the business lines that are to be printed. and my boss called to explain a part of the check that had a long number on it. this was in reference to being asked to find a check that had already been stuffed as they wanted it sent interoffice. 

   in the evening i went on a short walk and found 12 cents. it was short because i fell asleep listening to the saints baseball game on the radio, a comeback win of 3-2 over fargo moorhead. finally they played a home game in st. paul instead of the hub city, sioux falls. the 'big bang theory' reruns were when sheldon's grandma visits, followed by when howard goes to the hospital as part of leonard's birthday party. 

weigh station

i passed by a dumpster tonight and saw two bathroom weight scales. so i weighed myself on both, and it is hard to know for sure how much weight i have lost since i started walking way more in march, but it is likely to be 30 pounds. hopefully i can keep it off. during the walk i found 30 cents. the 'big bang theory' reruns were when sheldon went on an apology tour, followed by when sheldon's sister visits. 

   work was a weird day, kind of slow for a while. i called about when a part might arrive for the printer and the repairman spoke for quite a while, until the call was disconnected, not sure how it was though. but i really needed to get back to work so i didn't mind too much. 

   i did a virtual open-mic tonight, many things were covered as usual. one of those was about drive-up windows. the flautist was absent from this edition, but there still were some other musicians. 

barton fink movie

i watched a DVD movie near midday, 'barton fink'. it is a coen brothers vehicle. i recognized john goodman, steve buscemi, john mahoney, and tony shaloub in it. john goodman does not play barton fink, but his neighbor in the hotel. he is listed second in the closing credits. it is about a rookie hollywood writer. he suffers from writer's block for a while. notable was seeing fast talking hollywood executives in it, and i don't think there were many scenes showing people driving cars. most scenes took place indoors. also weird seeing people leave their shoes in the hall for shoe shining. the ending was anticlimactic. i know i have said this before, but sometimes it is true. 

  there was not much to get done today, the main thing was laundry, which i did after the movie was done and after having lunch. then it was on a walk to find a little free library. during the walk i picked up 26 cents. i wanted to find it because it had a charlie brown theme, it was snoopy and woodstock playing hockey. i found 2 books inside of it that were of interest to me and claimed them. one was top ten lists from the letterman show, the other was cartoons by tom tomorrow, the 'this modern world' series. so of course i had to say 'worth it!' in the evening i watched a DVD i had bought this weekend, 'super bowl shuffle'. i recall having it on LP record, so i am thankful i have it again. it is a short video, 30 minutes in all. then of course i did the dishes. 

survive the night movie

i watched a DVD movie, a redbox rental, this morning, 'survive the night'. i recognized bruce willis in it. although the posters promoting it are misleading as bruce never wears a police uniform in this movie. he is an ex-cop, specifically a retired sheriff. he plays the father of the main character in it, a physician that was hit with a malpractice lawsuit. then he is asked to perform surgery on a criminal with a gunshot wound. i liked seeing bruce driving a classic car in it, a dodge challenger. i knew somebody in high school that had one. i kept rooting for bruce to do something about the situation and get out of the predicament, but as my old man would say, it is all about what is in the script. one of the ads on this disc was for a movie i had already seen, 'trauma center'. i do have some more ideas for the next redbox rental, it helped to look at the display next to the kiosk. and go online to see what is at this gas station as well. one of them is a bio-pic with shania twain, called 'i still believe'. i do like biographies. 

    this was a busy day with errand running. i had 6 stops on my list and i liked how i got to everything on my list. there was going to the post office to pick up e-bay and amazon orders, and i heard from the loopy employee even though i never went to the window. don't know how he could tell it was me. when i returned the movie to the gas station, i also picked up some snacks such as cheese, and candy bars. one was eaten right away, and i knew the other would melt some so it was put in the freezer when i got home. there was dropping off recycle, finding a DVD and some CDs at cheapo, printing some things as fedex office, and finding plastic spoons for work at walgreen. in the evening it was to get groceries at aldi. and i watched some of the baseball game on fox, red sox-yankees, but the yanks were already up 5-2 when i started watching and this score held up. i went on a walk and found 61 cents. i placed more orders for postcards on e-bay, after picking up some today. i was worried about running out of space in the photo albums, but i moved some around to other albums and tossed some as well. a few were just space fillers, often free cards used for advertising, so some of those didn't appeal to me as much as ones i had bought.