They're Round, So Can't Be Boxes, Apparently

Interestingly enough, tins are made of plastic now  

I don't even know when tins stopped being made out of tin.  Is there a history lesson somewhere?

Locating the full manufacturing history of containers dubbed to be "tins" is left as an exercise for the reader.  

Cheap cop out, Jeremy.  I like it!  

Not long ago, I realized that I was running low on mints at work.  I keep them in my desk drawer for after lunch and times that my breath just generally needs to be mintier.  In fact, in the middle of typing that last sentence, I decided to be mintier, so I grabbed a mint.  I go through them fairly quickly, but I'm okay with that.  It makes me more pleasant to have a conversation with.  

At least physically.  Mentally, having a conversation with you is just as mind-numbing.  

Most normal people would go to a grocery store or to a large chain box store where they have large displays of candy and mints right next to the cash registers in order to buy mints.  They also tend to have a larger candy-themed aisle dedicated to this sort of thing.  I am not most people.  I buy my mints online from a large retailer which, for strictly Blag purposes, we'll call Nile.com.  

I do this for several reasons.  

Liar. 

I do this for one reason.  It's ludicrously cheaper.  The exact same container of mints that I can buy at the grocery store for around $2.75, I can buy a case of on Nile.com fora shade under $2 each.  Of course, they come in a box of 8 containers, so I'm buying in bulk for the savings, but I'm okay with that.  Want to know why?  Because they're mints!  They won't go bad.  They'll just sit in a box in my office desk until I need them, at which time, I pull out a new container, open it up, and I'm good to be minty fresh.  I can do this 8 times before I need to think about it again...and I've saved six bucks.  Twelve if you count the fact that I bought two of them, but that's not important right now.  

Regardless of all of this, I noticed that the box my new mints came in specifically says that it contains eight "1.5oz (42 g) TINS."  They actually call the containers of mints "Tins."  One would think that the tins are made of...you know...tin, or at the very least some form of metal.  I mean, people still use the name "tin foil" to describe aluminum foil (or Aluminium, for our European readers), and that's generally considered acceptable.  But in this case, my mints are housed in containers entirely made up of plastic.  There is no metal, tin or otherwise, involved in my mint containers.  I feel I've been lied to. 

Brief Headline

My peach iced tea is the only one with an adjective  


Does that make it taste any worse? 


The adjective on the bottle has no impact on the product.  That doesn't stop companies from overusing adjectives on the descriptions of their products.

So, fairly often, I like to make iced tea.  When time is tight (like say...every day at work), I use those little bottles of liquid iced tea mix.  You squirt a little stream of concentrated goop into a cup of water, give it a little stir, and you've got reasonably decent flavored iced tea.  The goop comes in four flavors that I'm aware of: Lemon, Raspberry, Cherry Dragonfruit, and Summer Peach. 

Lemon is my favorite flavor, Raspberry is the worst (which is at least partially sad, because normally I love raspberry flavored iced tea), Cherry Dragonfruit just kinda happens, and Summer Peach is the only one that has an adjective.  I'm not sure what difference the summer makes when it comes to drinking peach flavored iced tea, but apparently, it's worthy of adding the descriptor on the bottle.  I'm at least a little curious what a winter peach tastes like.  I'm guessing it tastes like the exact same artificial peach-like flavor, but we'll probably never know. 

Why don't the Lemon, Raspberry, and Cherry Dragonfruit iced tea goops get adjectives?  Aren't they special enough?  Shouldn't the company be more consistent in their labeling?  How about Tangy Lemon?  Tart Raspberry?  Sweet Cherry Dragonfruit?  The whole thing makes no sense. 

Speaking of label descriptors that make no sense...Sun Chips.  They have a flavor called "Harvest Cheddar."  So uhmm...nobody harvests cheddar.  What's up with this one? 

I Refuse To Put The Store On Notice, Though

I’ll never again know if my sandwich has tomatoes or not.  The world is chaos  

It's always a safe bet to assume that your sandwich has tomatoes.  If it turns out there are no tomatoes, you're really not out all that much.  

My issue here lies not in the presence (or lack thereof) of tomatoes, it's with trustworthiness.  See, I like tomatoes.  I've eaten many tomatoes in my lifetime, and will certainly eat many more, on sandwiches or otherwise.  But when I'm told there are tomatoes, and then told that there are not, and I find tomatoes...I just don't know who or what to believe anymore.  Perhaps I should explain.   

So not long ago, I stopped off at a grocery store/farm market place in the Greater Jeremy Area.  I won't say the name here, since I happen to very much like this store and intend to return there frequently, so I'm going to actively avoid badmouthing them too much.  For strictly Blag Purposes, we'll call them, "Eve's Reasonablehectare Farm Market."  Anyway, I stopped in briefly to pick up a sandwich and a snack for dinner, since time was in short supply that day and I was in the neighborhood.  In the deli area, I managed to secure a small container of marinated mozzarella balls (which were amazing, BTW), and a ham wrap sandwich.  For the record, I don't want to get into YET ANOTHER debate as to whether or not wraps are sandwiches and vice versa.  I'm calling it a sandwich, so just suck up and deal. 

Anyway, later on, as I happened to look at the container in which my sandwich came, the ingredients clearly stated that the sandwich not only came with tomatoes, but on a hard roll.  Now, argue all you want about wraps being sandwiches, but the actual wrap part is clearly not the same as a hard roll.  I'm already being lied to by my sandwich.  What's also important to note here is that the ingredients list included tomatoes.  On the side of the container was a yellow sticker which proclaimed in large red letters "NO TOMATOES."  

What's going on here?  

There's a discontinuity in my sandwich labeling.  The ingredients label says tomatoes, but the sticker next to it says none.  Do stickers supersede labels?  Was there a misprint on the label or the sticker?  I'm already at odds with the label, so maybe at least I can have a little faith in the sticker?  Only one way to find out!  I bite into the sandwich, and get a big, juicy bite of tomato.  I just don't know which end is up anymore.  All I ask is for a little sanity in my sandwich, and I can't even get that.  Chaos, I tell you.  Pure chaos! 

The Power of Parsley Compels You

Up until recently, I was completely unaware of the Power of Parsley

Oh yeah...that stuff's the best!  You can put it on the side of your pasta dish, or on the side of a steak, or on the side of some other dinners too!  

Sure, but did you know that it's actually useful too?

Parsley?  No...I wasn't even sure you were supposed to eat the stuff when it's used as a garnish.

Well, wonder no more!  Behold, Parsley Plus All Purpose Cleaner!  It's an earth-friendly cleaning solution which...and now I'm quoting here...Cleans with the Power of Parsley!  

I often wonder about various foods, and how it came to be that somebody actually decided to put it in their mouth.  Carrots and potatoes, for example, grow in the ground.  They're pretty difficult to find, leave alone figure out that they're tasty and good for you.  Then you get other weirder things like ginger root and Whatever This Thing Is.  Herbs are along the same lines.  Here's some grass-looking stuff that smells good when you crunch it up...let's make seasonings out of it!  I can't imagine how parsley came to be...it doesn't really smell like anything, or taste like anything.  I've never put it in a recipe and later pondered, "gee...should have used more parsley."  It's a completely nothing herb.  Sorry, parsley lovers of the world.  It's the sad truth for you. 

So how it happened that somebody realized they could extract the juice from parsley and use it to clean stuff is completely beyond me.  It apparently makes everything smell good, and it's vegan for those of you who drink your cleaning solutions.  (Editors note: We here at Jeremy Is In The Office do not condone the practice of drinking cleaning fluids, nor do we endorse any of them based on flavor)  All we know now is that parsley has some kind of magic power for cleaning.  I, for one, would like to see a graph showing the Power of Parsley as compared to say, the Power of Steam, Citrus, and Pine.  Let's go ahead and throw bananas in there too!