Unwanted Musings

I spent the morning really slowly eating a Yoplait Yogurt cup (by dipping the spoon into the yogurt but not actually scooping any of it out, and then carefully licking said spoon clean. Repeat ad inifinium) and pondering exactly how they are able to so accurately recreate the flavors that they offer.

I mean, yes, "Peach Cobbler" and "Key Lime Pie" are beautifully descriptive, in a way that delights the mind with possibilities of flavor, but in my Americanized mind I'm not expecting anything that would actually taste like what's being advertised. Except, it totally does. Peach Cobbler, despite containing nothing but peaches, still manages to have a cobbler-esque taste to it. And I'll be damned if I can't taste some pie-ness inside that Key Lime. This is uncharted territory for me and I'm not sure if I can get behind this truth in advertising.

When I was little, I was always enthralled by those 106 color Crayola boxes of crayons. I mean, with that amount of options it's like the world is at your fingertips, just waiting for you to grab the precise color that you need for any occasion. But I was always disappointed in the end result - "Raw Umber" and "Hot Magenta" were entirely superfluous versions of Brown and Red. And then when they added those descriptive names once I hit junior high, I truly became a cynic. "Macaroni and Cheese?" "Razzmatazz?" Yeah, really. No. Tell me another one, corporate America.

Was this going anywhere? I forget.

Anyways, so there was a good thirty to forty-five minutes of my morning, silently debating with myself the merits of flavors that actually were what they claimed to be. Somewhere near the end I decided that this was fine for yogurt, but most definitely needed to stop short of most anything else. In the real world I hate watermelon, but love what candy companies term "watermelon flavor." The same goes for Grape and Cherry. I mean, I love grapes and cherries in their real life manifestations, but would mourn the loss of the artificial versions as if they were my own children.

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After I wore out that line of reasoning within my own head, I moved on to other stimuli. I've gotten to a point of almost Zen-like reasoning with my Sudoku.

Congratulations! You solved the Sudoku in 9 minutes, 51 seconds!
Hard puzzles
solved:
32
Your average time:
15:42
Your fastest
time:
9:51

I can't quite place what appeals to me so much about ordering these stupid numbers. I mean, it's not even as challenging as, say, a crossword puzzle. It's barely a step up from the games of my past (say, solitaire. Or the dreaded minesweeper). It's essentially just applying basic logic to a tiny set of integers. But there's still a residual thrill I get from forcing a Hard puzzle to my will in under 10 minutes. (For the last 10 games I have abandoned the "How am I doing" button until my Sudoku is complete, deciding that fact checking is for the weak. Yes, I'm aware that I've hit rock bottom in terms of geekdom. It's like declaring that you do crosswords "only in ink." This is what we in the industry refer to as hardcore lame.)

The whole thing puts me in the sort of mindset that I used to have, when I loved math once upon a time. Back when that was my declared major and before differential equations left me actively detesting word problems. Logical underpinnings and things that just suddenly fall into place once the rules are applied appeal to me greatly. Which is saying nothing except that I like it when I have confirmation that my brain hasn't turned completely to a pulpy mush under the combined strain of American Idol and 8 million Blockbuster movies.