Thanks, Tech, I appreciate the quintessentially beta gesture of an offer to bond ... ;-) You can't win that one, but you don't have to. Humans don't have to be slaves to primatology, and realizing that frees us to play with our natures and find the humor in possessing ridiculously elaborated monkeybrains.

So, monkeyboy, my first impression of that photo was stranger than you intended, because the hills in the background made it look, at first, like the next place I lived after Long Beach. Then I spotted the "Palm Springs" on the store and concluded that you probably haven't actually been stalking me for 40 years. Though I haven't completely ruled it out yet...

On a more serious note, here in California Safeway's pretty much accomplished a Full WalMart, and driven all the independents and all the smaller chains either completely out of business or on to a terminal financial death-spiral. They drove the Albertson's that's within walking distance out of business, and now I have to drive a mile to a Safeway. At the present time the upscale yuppie stores like Whole Foods are still doing well, but a relative working inside Safeway revealed that Safeway intends to kill them too, by upgrading their stores to appeal to the same yuppie sensibilities. That's the Brave New World: Food controlled by Safeway, all other commodities by WalMart, energy by BPConocoMobilXon of Dubai. (I didn't forget water: Safeway bought Arrowhead too, after Arrowhead had bought out most of their competition).

You're right, mergers and acquisitions bring financial economies of scale, but product quality and consumer value inevitably suffer. Van de Kamp's was good, Entenmann...well, in the words of Atilla the Republican delivering a Winger bon mot as he passed the pastries at the breakfast table, "Here, have an Enema!!". Nyuk nyuk nyuk.

Since when should pastries stick to the roof of your mouth like peanut butter??? Tip: If you're starving and there's nothing else to eat but an Entenmann pastry, put it in a toaster oven for about half an hour to bake out the excess moisture that gives it the texture and consistency of a cow flop. Don't hesitate to caramelize the corn syrup and augur coating, it can only improve the taste. Especially the ones with the plastic "almond" slices and a half cup of artificial almond flavoring; the heat bakes the solvents out of the flavoring so that there's hardly any chemical aftertaste. As for the Danish...well, see also "American Pie".

Time to get back to work:

Tom: "Dammit, Robert, this fine food-like product is a testimony to the ingenuity and know-how of American industry, and your objections to it are totally irrational! Here, look at this list of ingredients: None of these chemicals have been proven to harm humans, and it's as plain as the nose on your face that laboratory rats are nothing like humans. Use your head! And the other ingredients, why, they're all carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, in various combinations, hell, that's CHON food, boy, everything you need! What's this silly "taste" thing you keep going on about? Tastes fine to me, and everybody else has tastebuds identical to mine, and in any case, if you don't like it, you're perfectly free to switch back to Van de Kamp's or bake your own from scratch. The facts prove that you're being totally illogical!"

Better Living Through Chemistry!