Pogs, Progs, and Malty Dew

Yesterday was supposed to be cool and sunny. It clouded over, and it rained. Yesterday the icon in the weather apps had a thunderstorm for Wednesday, and it was supposed to be 87 degrees. It's sunny and 70 right now Here's the problem with those icons: they give the entire day a bad rep, or something to live up to. If it thunderstorms between 2 and 5, that shouldn't count.

In the fifties, this newspaper didn't use icons. They had this:

Couldn't do that today. Well, maybe in vita.mn, but they'd have to rotate the genders.

UPDATE on that "Name the new Mountain Dew product that contains the extreme attitude of tart apple" contest. On twitter, Dew said they "lost to the internet," adding "It was a local customer program, not a Dew one."

No idea what that means, unless it means the Green Apple flavor was a regional delicacy, not something intended for national consumption. I know, I know, the idea of regional Dews fills you with confusion and anger - why can't we have that? Does this mean Code Red is a Midwest delicacy unsuited to the palates of the Northeast?

When I went to the Dew's twitter account, lo:

No. Really? Yes. Here's a video put up by Mountain Dew, in which Mr. Target Market attempts to drink the new beverage without conspicuously wincing, and fails. Their spokesman, it should be noted, does not augur well for the cumulative effect of drinking lots of Dew.

POGS GALORE It's a good thing the brain has plenty of unused storage capacity, because I'd hate to think I'd erased some important memory in favor of useless pop-culture trivia. Can't remember the name of my best friend in elementary form, but I can remember Milhouse saying "It's Alf! He's back, in POG form!"

The name comes from a drink called Pog, which was made of juice from Passion Fruit, Orange, and Guava. Anthropologists date the game back to the 20s, but it really seized the attention of pre-adolescent males in the early 90s. You may wonder: what ever happened to the billions of POGs produced and forgotten? Is there a thin stratum in the landfills that will help future archeologists precisely date an era, like certain minerals indicate ancient meteor strikes?

Here's a clue. POGS galore. A veritable truckload. A reminder: POGS are not to be confused with Tazos. Please make a note of it.

Speaking of the Simpsons: Please don't anyone ever do this again.

MUSIC I love Dave Weigel's piece about Prog Rock, and not just because it reminded me that Pink Floyd's "Money" in in 7/4 time. But it's too short, doesn't have enough themes, and should contain at least 3,500 words about the importance of minor-key lute music in late-70s folk-prog. Otherwise, yes.

Meanwhile, what do your musical tastes say about you? Depends; if you like nothing but thudding simplistic ranting tripe, you lack the ability to process or appreciate complexity and nuance in music. Doesn't mean you can't be a perfectly nice and upstanding scientist or fighter pilot. There's no moral value attached to musical preferences. But some boomers seem to have there's something marvelous about their musical preferences, because their youth coincided with the Greatest Music Ever, which was everything between Presley and Disco. That disco crap ruined everything. And then it was that electronic stuff, man, what is that? Robots speaking in Dutch?