Category House and Home

Shopping Math

Michael 9 Comments

It was the approaching the mid 1960s and I was nearing third grade in elementary school. Rumors began circulating around town that the school would be moving to “New Math.” We who would be the beneficiaries of such a momentous shift saw it as a bright star in the heavens of learning. Particularly those of us with older siblings who would gleefully taunt us with “wait till you have to learn long division!” Ha! We showed them. Arithmetic is dead. Long live new math!

Yeah, well, that’s why I spent 25 minutes in the toilet paper aisle Sunday afternoon trying to decipher Ultra Strong Mega Rolls and come up with the best buy for my cash challenged paper products budget. I might have once aced the exam on the difference between a number and a numeral but that didn’t help while I was trying to mentally multiply 348 sheets times 9 rolls divided by $9.45 all the while having visions of bears singing about how wonderfully clean their charming toilet tissue makes them feel.

tpIt doesn’t help that there are no federal guidelines for bathroom tissue roll sizes. Double, triple, giant, mega, mega plus, and super were the adjectives in use in that aisle but even when used by the same brands, the same moniker did not represent the same number (numeral?) of sheets per roll. One package of Mega Rolls boasted 308 sheets per roll while another claimed 348 sheets per roll. Double Rolls had either 148 sheets or 167 sheets. None of that made it easier to figure out if 9 rolls for $9.45 was a better value than 12 rolls for $11.45. New math said “x is greater than y when the intersecting sets represent the lesser value of the total compared to the greater value of the sum of the variable(s) represented by the equation,” but old arithmetic said “Hold on there, Baby Bear. That’s not just right.” (If you are trying to follow along without a program, although everybody used it as a basis for comparison, I never found a roll claiming to be “Regular.” Not a good thing not to be amidst all that toilet paper.)

By the time my daughter entered third grade I was happy to see basic arithmetic had returned to the school curriculum and I could look forward to having help balancing my checkbook. Unfortunately even old math was not her passion and anything other than straight addition, subtraction, or division by ten was, though not a challenge, not actively pursued as a Sunday afternoon diversion. And so, now these many years later, I was left standing in the toilet paper aisle pondering if I would rather have “ultra soft” or “ultra strong,” whether the shape of the package would fit in my closet, and finally just going for the greatest number of sheets per roll figuring that equals the fewest number of times I’ll have to change the roll on the holder.

Satisfied I made the most logical if not the most economical choice, I checked my shopping list for the next item up. Hmm. Paper towels. I have to start shopping with a calculator.

—–

Memo to self: Rerun this if stuck for a post on August 26, National Toilet Paper Day. Really, August 26, not the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November. Who knew?

 

 

Not for Nothing

Michael 2 Comments

This morning at 7:57 Eastern Standard Time, the temperature here recorded 0°. Again for the international, hopelessly metric-centric, or way too scientific reader, that’s Fahrenheit degrees. Celsius or Kelvin users feel free to calculate out your equivalents but believe me when I say it’s not going to add to your reading pleasure. (Does anybody actually use Kelvin?) Anyway, it got to zero degrees for the first time this year and it made me wonder, what does that mean?

I mean I know what it means but what does it mean? I’m a scientist and I don’t understand what happens when there are no degrees. (I don’t understand how radio works either so maybe I’m being too generous calling myself that regardless of what some university declared on a piece of paper way back then. That was a long time ago anyway.) So, anyway, again, what does 0° mean? Zero grams (hooray for metric!) means there is no mass. Zero lumens equals no light.  So does zero degrees mean there is no temperature? If there isn’t, how do we get negative degrees. Do we owe the air some temperature back? It may seem so but usually a heavy coat, warm gloves and a good hat keep our own degrees right where they belong.

thermzeroI really think somebody needs to get on this problem of where did all the degrees go and did they take the temperature with them. The next thing you know, the laws of physics are going to be broken left and right. Imagine if surface tension decided it wasn’t going to hold fluid in place any more. Your eyeballs would slide right out of your head. I’m sorry if that doesn’t paint a very pretty picture but you won’t be able be able to see it anyway. What if objects just stopped have equal and opposite reactions? The entire fireworks industry would come to a screeching halt. Actually it would just come to a halt. The screeching wouldn’t happen because things in motion like the fireworks industry wouldn’t experience momentum nor stay in motion so nothing would resist its stopping, thus no screech. (Ha! See, I can still science!)

No, this zero degree thing has to be nipped in bud and now before it happens again. We can’t have people walking around in a temperatureless environment. Although… You need heat to make calories. If no degrees means no temperature and no temperature means no heat then no degrees equals no calories. By George, I’ve just found the perfect diet. Eat anything you want but only in zero degree weather.

Now would you look at that. Every cloud really does have a silver lining. Even those clouds in a cold, cold, zero degree (F) morning sky.

Hats Off to You!

Michael 2 Comments

Earlier today I was driving to a morning appointment, stopped at a traffic light, looked over to the car next to me, and noticed the driver was wearing a hat. That was not unusual. It was early, the sun was not yet up, and the temperature was well below freezing. Very well below freezing. A hat was a good idea. I had a hat on. Everybody was who was anybody had a hat and was wearing it. Then for some odd reason I flashed back to a time 19 years ago when I was driving my boss to the train station, we were stopped at a traffic light, she looked over to the car next to us, notice the drive was wearing a hat, and commented “I can’t trust someone who wears a hat while driving.” I didn’t understand it but I also didn’t ask for an explanation. I considered it a positive that the station was just a block away and any inquiry might have been misinterpreted as a request for conversation thus delaying the drop off. Not to mention my solitude.

If anything, I think trust should be withheld from someone who doesn’t know enough to keep his or her head covered in 20° weather. That’s in F degrees. In C degrees that would be, umm, let’s see (20-32)*5/9 = -6.6666666666666, that would be like really cold. Why wouldn’t you wear a hat? Generally in those circumstances most of the rest of your body is covered. Shoes, sock, pants, shirt, sweater, jacket, muffler, gloves, ear muffs. Yep. It’s all covered. If you’re still cold you probably aren’t wearing a hat. Put a hat on! They are also practical in cold, wet, windy, hot, sunny, or arid weather (and there aren’t many other weathers).

Hats are also very accurate predictors of intelligence. Take the average no neck who wears his baseball cap backwards in blazing sun while simultaneously frantically shielding his eyes from the sun’s blaze. Not the type you want you want procreating. Baseball hats, like all other articles of clothing known to man, woman, or undecided are intended to be worn “not backwards.” Except for baseball catchers and then only during the defensive half innings of a game.

casablancaI think hats are fine. Yes it could be construed as shallow and unduly concentrating on appearances, but in my opinion there aren’t many people whose looks couldn’t be improved by covering parts of their heads.

There just aren’t many situations when a hat could not be stylish, practical, and appropriate. That’s provided you are outside of course. Hats really don’t belong on heads inside buildings except at hockey games where one always needs a hat at hand in the event of a hat trick and where better to keep a hat on hand than on one’s head. But that’s a special exception. Otherwise, and I’m talking to you men and others identifying as men, please identify with common courtesy and undoff those chapeaux à l’intérieur.

If you are wearing a hat, and you’re not indoors unless it’s a hockey game, you have my vote of confidence and trust. (But I might have to question why you’re reading this post at a hockey game). In a word, hats are cool. So be cool. And stay warm.

 

Driving Miss Befana

Michael 1 Comment

Sometime around the middle of November the battery in my car key fob died. No biggie was my first thought. Even though I had spent years pushing a button to unlock my car I started out in the day when unlocking a vehicle meant inserting a carved metal stick into a key hole. In fact, each car had two metal sticks (keys to you), one to open the doors and trunk, one to negotiate the options on the ignition cylinder. In fact in fact, if you didn’t negotiate the cylinder all the way to “lock” but stopped at the “off” position you could get a way to working the ignition switch with just your fingers. Far out (as we were sometimes known to say).

Still, it is convenient to push that button as you approach the car and have the door unlocked at your arrival. Some actually open the doors for you. My vehicle is approaching its teen years and merely locks and unlocks on command. Oh, but wait. It also starts on demand, a welcome option on cold, winter days when I prefer to rush from front door of warm, toasty living room to front door of toasty, warm driving room. Hmm. The fob had taken on more significance.

Certainly the fob battery could be replaced. Batteries in all sorts of battery powered accessories lose their battery power every day, and every day batteries are replaced. There are retail establishments dedicated just to replacing batteries (bulbs too I hear) but apparently not key fob batteries. Certainly the fob could be replaced. And indeed a new fob for the old car could. For about 50% of the cost of a new fob that comes with a new car I could get a new fob for my old car which comes to about 150% of the current value of the old car. Oh well, I know how to work a car key as a key and the doors unlock just as well that way. One at a time but I only go in one door at a time so that still works.

keyfobThat’s when I had my epiphany! Umm, epiphany with a lower case “e” as in “ah ha!” not the upper case “E” holiday we just observed. So… when I purchased the vehicle it came with two sets of key and fob. Since there had been only one of me since the purchase date that meant there was still a fob out there with unpressed buttons and therefore, based on my limited knowledge of battery power, quite nearly a full charge (quite near fully charged?). But where?

A search back around the middle of November proved fruitless. Then, you’ll recall, I had a series of medical issues requiring several emergency room visits and outpatient procedures, the holidays were on the horizon, and a powerless key fob lost much of its clout.

To make a long story short (all together now — too late!), today while I was transforming the living room from Christmasville to regular old Winter Wonderland and was looking for an unbent paperclip in a seldom used cubby in the old roll top, I found the second key and fob set!

I knew la Befana wouldn’t let me down!

 

 

 

 

Being Glitterati

Michael 2 Comments

The dozen or so Christmas cards I’ve gotten so far are bad for my health. All but one of them is glittery. Glitter. I still shudder at glitter. (You do remember that glitter is even stronger than loofah, don’t you?)

I’m sorry, I just don’t like glitter. I willingly accept it has its places- the inside of a snow globe, the Barbie section at whatever theme park owns her rights (its rights?), strip clubs – and glitter isn’t the only reason I try to avoid those places, but it certainly doesn’t enhance them for me.

What’s become majorly disconcerting is now either due to age (apologies to optimists the world over, but no, it’s not just a number, 7 is just a number), health, or drug to maintain health, it’s not unusual for me to experience a fine tremor in my hands. Do you know what happens to a glitter gilded card when the cover of the card in all its glittery glory is scraped against the inside of the envelope while being withdrawn in a motion usually used with very fine sandpaper?

My usual mail opening spot is at the dining room table and with my newly lost manual stability my dining room table is now the perfect spot for a 21st century disco opening, for very tiny dancers.

Glitter.pngI’m not sure how I became a glitter magnet but I am. I can’t even drive past a Pat Catan’s or Michael’s without the stuff flying off the shelves, out to parking lot, through the car vent, and forever attached to me. It won’t wipe off, rub off, wash off, or as previously noted loofah off. Typically it wears off  8 to 12 weeks after bonding, so as long as I can stay out of glitter’s way on New Year’s Eve and Ground Hog Day I should be glitter free by St. Patrick’s Day and just in time for green glittered shamrock headbands.

The FDA recently issued a glitter alert. Don’t eat non-edible glitter. That’s pretty obvious yet apparently enough people eat non-edible glitter to warrant a warning. And those are people who have choices. I’m sure Hallmark isn’t using edible glitter on its greetings. I’m being glitter dusted across my eating space and not even given a choice!

So if you care for my health, when you slip my card into its envelope please scrape off the glitter. I’ll still recognize you for your sparkling addition to my holiday mood.

Don’t Wait for the Movie

Michael 2 Comments

The people at My Recipes put out their Christmas Cookie Christmas Movie pairings this week. The question why do we need to pair things notwithstanding, nor the other question why are these mostly just different shapes of sugar cookies neitherwithstanding, we really need to address, like as in once and for all dammit, is “Die Hard” a Christmas movie? Let me say, I like Die Hard. I even like its four sequels (and there aren’t a lot of people who can say that). But “Die Hard” is no more a Christmas movie even though it takes place on Christmas Eve yet was released in July, any more than “Die Hard 2” is a Christmas movie even though it also takes place on Christmas Eve yet also was released in July. Why doesn’t anybody ever argue to include “Die Hard 2” in the Christmas movie debate? You actually get more of a sense of at least winter in “Die Hard 2” than in “Die Hard” but it just hangs out there with all the other movies set at Christmas time that nobody willy-nilly-y sticks in the Christmas movie category.

For instance, when did you last hear an argument for including “The Poseidon Adventure” among Christmas movies. At least on the boat they made use of the Christmas tree. Technically “The Poseidon Adventure” and its sequel “Beyond the Poseidon Adventure” were set on New Year’s Eve and Day, but still. A Christmas Tree. As a ladder. Really. Now that’s Christmas don’t you think?

“Three Days of the Condor” didn’t have anybody climbing a Christmas tree but Good King Wenceslas and Silver Bells are unmistakable on the soundtrack. Like “Die Hard 2” it is clearly cold and snowy out there and wherever Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway go, Christmas decor is in full swing. The movie is based on the novel “Six Days of the Condor.” Nobody ever explained where those other three days went but I bet you’ll find them in somebody’s stocking hanging by the chimney with care.

The Oscar winning “The Apartment” starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine is so filled with Christmas images there is even a scene with people decorating their Christmas tree. So what if the plot has nothing to do with the holiday. By the “Die Hard” measuring stick, “The Apartment” decks the halls more than many modern “real” Christmas movies. If you haven’t seen this classic give yourself an early Christmas present or late Hanukkah present or whatever present getting holiday you celebrate and put a copy of this movie on your TV screen now! Spoiler alert, nobody is going to mistake Jack Lemmon’s bosses for the Wise Men.

And how can we leave “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” out of the discussion. George Lazemby’s only portrayal of the venerable Bond, James Bond portrayed him in pre-Christmas Switzerland rescuing the world from biological weapons released by 12 unsuspecting women who go home for the holiday from the villain Ernst Stavros Blofeld’s allergy treating institute. And yet nobody considers that a Christmas movie. Tsk, tsk!

GManOn the other side of the ledger, “You’ve Got Mail” and its grandmovie inspiration “The Shop Around the Corner” are probably the most Christmas centric movies that never get credit for being Christmas movies. The story of two people who cannot stand each other’s’ physical beings but are head over heels over the inner selves they anonymously reveal in letters between pen pals (in 1940) and by email (when we get to 1998) culminates on Christmas Eve with each pair expressing their love for the people they really are, not the people they thought they knew. That’s the spirit Christmas.

Proof several times over that just taking place in late December is not enough to propel a movie into the ranks of Christmas fare. Maybe if we culled the chaff we can get some movies that really do capture the spirit of Christmas back in the theaters this time of the year.

For the record, My Recipes paired “Die Hard” with Snickerdoodles. Apparently we’re going to have to begin the discussion what constitutes a Christmas cookie.

 

 

Join the Club

Michael Leave a comment

Last week was special for me. I got mail, real USPS delivered mail that wasn’t addressed to “occupant,” wasn’t a bill, and didn’t include a detailed accounting of all medical procedures from the previous month. Oh, and it wasn’t a Christmas card either although we’re getting to that time when all the businesses I deal with send their cards out. After those come the cards from real people. But I digress. But that’s not unusual.

So, back to my tale, the mail came and therein was an envelope and within was a check. Not a bill. A check! Somebody was giving me money! It wasn’t a lot but it was mine. Coming to me. Income, not outlay. I felt so special. I practically beamed!

Now to be perfectly honest, this wasn’t anything unheard of. It happened before. In fact, it usually happens about once a year. The check in question was a disbursement from my insurance company. (Home and auto, not health or life. Those guys never give anything back. Well, technically life insurance does, but it’s usually too late to be much use.) Usually around this time each year I get a little check from the insurance company that reflects something they saved because they had fewer claims than they expected or some such thing. I don’t understand. I just spend. It’s like a Christmas Club.

ChristmasBankAh ha! Now we get to the heart of this post. Christmas Clubs. Do they even still exist. Those of you under 40 may have to find an even older adult to explain Christmas Clubs, right along with Broken Records. To be fair to the financial institutions of America, most credit unions still offer Christmas Clubs although Vacation Clubs are by far more popular. But neither have the favor they did before the credit card explosion of the early 1970s.

So when I opened the mail that day last week and pulled out that little check, my first thought was, “Wow, just like a Christmas Club.” My second thought was, “Wow, just like a Christmas Club.” My third thought was, “Okay, now you’re sounding like a broken record.”

And then I went out and spent.

 

 

Day In and Day Out

Michael 3 Comments

Yesterday was a glorious day in my neck of the woods. Sunny and warm, with temperatures in the mid 60s. Very April-like which was a relief from the February-ish November we just escaped. If you didn’t know better (unless you live in south Florida) you’d not know there were only 23 days until Christmas.

SantaWhen I was a kid we always knew how long till Christmas. That goes with childhood. You could have asked any random 9 year old on May 6 how long till Christmas and without hesitation would have gotten “only 233 days!” in reply. Parents got a little extra help. Beginning the day after Thanksgiving the morning paper posted a happy Santa holding his nice or naughty list proclaiming “20 Shopping Days Until Christmas!” That’s what yesterday’s paper would have printed. Yes, back then there was a difference between days until Christmas and shopping days ‘til Christmas.

This isn’t a post about how great things were in those good old days. I just want to point out that back then the stores weren’t open on Sunday and on Christmas Eve it wasn’t unusual for many to close before dinner time so the employees could be home with their families. Not every day was a shopping day. Of course today the stores can be closed and still shopping gets done through the magic of on-line retailers and electronic charging or cash transfers. Still those places with real doors will be opening them every day until Christmas.

Except …

Not everything is open on Sunday. And I don’t mean the post office. You can receive and they do deliver mail on Sunday. No, I mean banks. Banks, those financial institutions that try very hard in their ads to convince us that they are just ordinary people like the rest of us mere mortals working to make our money work hard for us. Uh huh.

Over the years they’ve made it handy enough for us to do most banking without their input. Automated teller machines have been around for years along with on line money transfers and automated recurring payments. Just like you would expect in the 21st century. Then why in a day when a merchant can determine whether you have enough in your checking account to cover that new OLED TV with your debit card even if it is 2:00 on a Sunday afternoon, and manage to reduce your balance by the price of that TV (plus tax and extended warranty) they still make you wait three days with you make a deposit “for the check to clear.” And why do they never tell you what they are doing with that money in the interim. It seems like they don’t have to long for the good old days. They never left them.

Back to shopping though. With now just 22 days till Christmas (and if I recall last year some retailers were actually guaranteeing same day delivery of select items ordered by noon on Christmas day making it now 23 shopping days till Christmas) I better get myself in gear. I have a lot of preparations to make. No, not a lot of shopping to do. I don’t do much shopping for Christmas. I’ll still put together a small stocking for my daughter (after 29 years the Santa fantasy is now more mine than hers), but otherwise the gifts to and from the rest of the family are our love and company.

The preparations I have to make are keeping my recycle bin empty for the daily onslaught of printed “gift guides” and my “Delete Finger” limber for elimination of the electronic version of those same and similar guides from my email inbox. Has anybody noticed those gift guides all seem to bear recommendations for anybody on your Christmas list with gifts from the same store? Who would have thought your 96 year old aunt and your 7 month old great nephew can be satisfied in a single trip to the same hunting and camping emporium. And no I am not receiving that email because I requested it. I never heard of you before and where is the “click here to unsubscribe” line?

One thing I don’t have to prepare for is an unusually warm Christmas. In fact we get back to December weather later today with falling temperatures and snow by morning. For those of you living in south Florida that’s the white stuff Frosty is made of.

All Washed Up

Michael 1 Comment

I have an absolutely, completely, positively, almost surgically clean apartment. Vacuuming, dusting, mopping, disinfecting, and laundering (yuck) are all done at the same time. Actually these were done all at the same time yesterday. Today I went to the hospital to have that pesky fistula declared kaput and a new one fashioned in my “other” arm. But wait! This is NOT a depressing “oh I’m so sick” post. If you want to read about my latest medical escapades, go read the kidney transplant journey posts. This post is about lint.

Right. Lint. I’m sorry, I’m starting in the middle again. Let me back up a few steps. You see, because I have an embarrassment of available time I spread housework out over the whole week. Typically each day has its own domestic torture. Oh I will wash, dry, iron, and put away the laundry all in one day, but usually it’s one day, one job. But because of this morning’s procedure I can’t lift or carry anything heavier than say, oh, a toilet brush. But I can’t really reach or swing with either arm so even if I wanted to pick up that toilet brush, the most I could do with it is gesture with it. So this place is so spotless today because for the next week the most strenuous activity I can pull off (like that word choice?) is manipulating the lever that raises the footrest on the recliner. So if I didn’t want to live in progressively slovenly environs, I did the next week’s work all in one day.

I know for many, because of work and family obligations every week’s household chores get done in one day but I’m old and feeble not to mention lazy by nature and as I said, with a lot of time in my hands. Being faced with a week’s worth of cleaning in just a few hours significantly challenged my efficiency. A big loser to my running around with my head threatening to be cut off was the dryer lint trap. Thus, today’s post about lint.

Right. Lint. (Sorry for repeating myself but the post really cried out for a couple extra and those fit the bill nicely.) (Speaking of words, I was thinking of you Angela when I worked “fistula” into a post about lint. Not bad, huh?)

You see, I have this love/hate relationship with fall/winter laundry. I hate how cold weather increases the volume of dirty clothes but I hate doing laundry in general. Hmm. I guess you could say I have a hate/hate relationship with fall/winter laundry. (Go back and check out “Visions of Fall” for more on that.) Regardless if I hate it or hate it, I had a lot of laundry to do. In a typical week laundry actually gets two days so yesterday I not only doubled my laundry activities, I did that on the day I was doing everything else.

So in order to get all the laundry plus everything else done I spent the day multitasking. I’m not a fan of multitasking. To me, multitasking is akin to compromise which to me is just another way of saying “nobody wins.” (If you are wondering, even though I don’t care much for compromise, I am a huge fan of collaboration. Someday I’ll do a post on that. Stay tuned.) (If you don’t understand “stay tuned,” find an old person to explain it along with “broken record” and “let’s go to the tape.”)

Well, to make a long story short (but then if I ever really did that all my posts would be just shy of 10 words), early in the laundry portion of our domestic extravaganza, I missed a tissue in a pocket. Ugh.

Launderers know the significance of that. If you don’t, go ask your mom!

LintTrap

Disbelievable!

Michael 2 Comments

The suspension of disbelief, so Aristotle says, is that theatrical principle which allows the audience to accept fiction as reality and fully experience the moments. I’ve always thought it should be the suspension of belief because what’s so hard about not not believing. Fiction by definition is that which is not real (though not necessarily unreal, at least as of the mid-1960s), or as Lawrence Block so well put it, “telling lies for fun and profit.” But I guess if you’re willing to shell out the money to have someone lie to you, whether at a play or through a novel, you’ve already surrendered at least some of your beliefs. To give up disbelief is the willingness not to stand up in the middle of Act III shouting “Oh come on now!”

Of course the author has some responsibility to make it not absurdly unbelievable except perhaps in a good farce. I thought of this while watching television the other night. It was a new age television drama that is supposed to reflect life itself. But I’ve seen this particular problem is lesser dramas, comedies, and even movies of the theatrical release type. That is the vibrating cell phone.

I am willing to disbelieve when our hero shoots it out with 5 or 6 bad guys all outfitter with automatic weapons against his pistol compact enough to slip into his tuxedo breast pocket. I can disbelieve with the best of them that someday man will fly faster than the speed of light. It even doesn’t stretch my discredibility that a fresh faced girl from Kansas can move to New York and beat out the actresses who have trained since they were 4 for the lead in the new Broadway musical winning a recording contract, and a Tony, in the process.

CellPhoneBuzzingBut I cannot disbelieve close to enough that everybody on TV and in the movies can hear their phones on vibrate from 2 rooms away. Seriously.

Seriously, is it only the programs I watch and the movies I go to that even the actors take the notice when we are instructed to mute our pagers, phones, and other electronic devices?

Maybe in the movies I can see the director being paranoid that if he or she were to call for a real ringtone too many audience members would reach for their phones and miss whatever nuance is playing out in the screen as we watch the character carefully traverse the rooms to the buzzing handset. I guess on the television shows a ringing phone would distract us to the point of missing the next commercial. Although I might be tempted to go looking for my phone thinking a) nobody in the show has a phone on them and b) holy crap, where did my phone get to?!

So I’m willing to not disbelieve in ghosts that run roughshod over New York, to take on non-unfaith that mild mannered bartenders double as CIA operatives, and to really buy that a computer can inhabit the body and soul of a foreign exchange student. But…

If anybody out there is working on a screenplay, please keep in mind that the suspension of disbelief goes only so far. And it stops at the end of my cell phone.

Bzzzzz bzzzzz