I stumbled on these two little doodads while scraping the bottom of Teh Intarwebz.
Frozen Ball and High Pressure espresso.
Just to make a small (okay, tiny) cup of overpriced coffee that’s too strong to actually drink and in the case of the first, lukewarm to boot.
Marketing at its finest.
In similar news, the other day I saw a new Corvette getting smoked from light to light (over a long block, too) by a Honda Civic R. True story. $85k Murkin V8 smoked by some $45k Jap rice rocket.
Also, my $400 Tissot manual wind watch keeps time as well as a $5,800 Grand Seiko over 24 hours.
Oh yeah, and the other day at the range I saw a $650 Springfield Operator shoot more accurately than a $3,000 HK Mod 23 — and I mean a LOT more accurately. Same shooter (not me), different gun, same .45 ACP ammo.
There’s a lot of overpriced marketing-driven bullshit out there, folks. Feel free to add your examples in Comments.
Several years ago, I decided to get semiserious about outdoor cooking, but was daunted by prices for quality gear, i.e. a Big Green Egg starts around $700 and climbing. So I ducked that for a Pit Barrel Smoker, for about $400 and get a perfect smoke every outing. And it’s pretty much idiot (me) proof.
I’m not sure what you mean by “several years ago”, but a big green egg of decent size these days goes for well over $1000, and heaven forbid you get any of the packages which will run several thousand dollars. Pricey, but I still want one. I doubt it’ll do any better than my $200 Masterbuilt cabinet style smoker but it’ll sure look nicer on the patio. Also Blackstone griddles are damned expensive when you can just throw a large cast iron skillet over a burner and get 90% of the same thing on the cheap.
I haven’t gotten into grilling or smoking food. We have a cheapo little grill that we use to cook souvlaki, lamb kabobs, hamburgers and various sausages.
Is there an entry level smoker that you’d recommend? I wouldn’t mind learning to smoke various meats and cheeses
I’m by no means any expert but I’ve owned maybe 6 or 7 of the el cheapo smokers over the past 30 years. First you need to decide – charcoal, propane, or electric? Charcoal is the most difficult but best tasting, electric is the easiest, and propane rides the middle rail. Both electric and propane generally work by heating a plate upon which you place various wood chips and chunks to sear and produce smoke. I’m using propane now but looking at charcoal for my next option. My last electric tended to throw the breaker on my garage outlet, so if you don’t have a good reliable outside plug that may force the issue for propane or charcoal.
Then you need to think about size – are you just looking to smoke a few chicken breasts, or do you want to jump right into briskets and pork butts? What I have now requires me to either greatly trim down a brisket or just cut it into two and smoke separately. However for a whole chicken or a family pack of pork cutlets it works just fine.
Finally, remember that the cheapest options can still produce great food but take more attention and they tend to rust out and/or go to crap after a few years.
The Old Smokey line is relative cheap but still good enough. What they call a charcoal “grill” can also be used as a smoker just by added a few wood chips to the charcoal and using a smaller fire to control heat.
The Masterbuilt smokers are a good mid-range for electric and propane options. That’s what I’m using now.
Weber kettles are nice but top of the line options if you got some money to burn.
Notes on charcoal (my current setup) cheap to start up, and agree best tasting, but if you want to do brisket (or really anything over 6 hours) not the way to go. Maintaining consistent heat requires more intervention. Electric/gas is the way for a home smoker to do briskets.
My workaround is to do chuck roast/arm roast if I crave smoked beef.
My neighbor and me decided to meet at the Atterbury range and shoot some gonz. He had to go somewhere else afterward so we drove separate vehicles.
I drove my FREE 2001 Blazer and he drove his 2023 $78k RAM with all the whistles. We both got there at the same time.
The diff was that his RAM costs $28 a day, every dam day of the year for the next 6 years, and my Blazer continues to be FREE!
we have typically bought Toyotas and it is wonderful having a car out live its payments by many many years.
$500 for a coffee maker?
I bought a hand grinder for about $30 on sale from some discount store, Ocean State Job Lot I think. A french press is usually rather cheap and that combination makes delicious coffee. For the daily grind we use some grind and brew drip machine made by Ninja I think. We also use a Kuerig from time to time.
I like good coffee and good tea but some of this trendy stuff is rather absurd
“There’s a lot of overpriced marketing-driven bullshit out there, folks.”
A. The Democratic Party
B. The Republican Party
Both promise Paradise. A delivers: Hell. B delivers: Nothing.
A delivers Hell.
B delivers Heck
The $45k Jap rice rocket probably has another $50k worth of engine modifications, just saying.
Also, we all know which one will pick up the hotter babes, too.
If he was beating a c8 vette, it was HEAVILY modified. Those mid-engine monsters are at 10-second quarters off the lot. And I’m not a vette fan.
I have a Walther PPX 9mm.
It was, at the time I bought it, the “cheap” Walther at $400.
I went to the range, and was putting holes in paper. The range safety guy walked over – he hadn’t seen one before, and asked if he could try it.
After a few rounds, he laid it down, and said it shot better and had a MUCH better trigger than his $2000++ Glock custom.
I had that happen with my brother in law and his wife. They spent all kind of time bragging about his Glock and her Beretta. At the time I had a S&W 5906 in stainless. Great trigger, very accurate. Both shot it, set it down, and mumbled “It’s a nice weapon”, with a long face.
Ended up selling to him.
Back in the Before Time, when I was servin’ of His Majesty, the President, I took advantage of his needing me outside the confines of America and used the experience to purchase some very fine items at reasonably lower prices. Stereo systems, camera equipment, and a fine, high-end watch that I paid maybe one third of what it would have cost here at home. It had all the time-telling bells and whistles. It was accurate to closer than I could ever imagine, and it looked great on my arm.
Right up to the night some low-life sucker punched me outside a local tavern and relieved me of my fine watch, my just-after-payday wallet, and my truck keys. The truck was found, stripped and burned. I had a nephew who made a wallet for me as part of a merit badge requirement. I replaced the watch at a local big box for under ten dollars.
You know what? That “ten dollar Timex” kept time as well as I needed, it had some alarm functions which I used from time to time, and nobody ever tried to crack me over the head and take it away from me.
Buy what you want to make you happy, but remember that there are lessons out there, lurking in the shadows, just waiting to teach you something you might not want to learn.
I’ve told my watch story here before, and offended our host doing so. Oh well, here goes again.
Back in about 1979 Texas Instruments decided to exit the digital watch business and the local stores were selling out their inventory at what looked like attractive prices to this nerd. To the folks with taste, both the watches and their prices were CHEAP. The watches were black plastic with a single window that displayed the time. Were there options like a stop watch or an alarm? I don’t remember. I do remember that they were, for their time, extremely precise. Over three weeks mine would gain something like 10 seconds and, if you were a proper nerd, have to be reset. The preferred method was to use the CBS Radio Network time beep that preceded their hourly news broadcast. If you remembered how long ago you did the reset, you could subtract the accumulated error and be within a second .
When I’d had my TI watch a few years and understood its precision, we were getting towards the end of one of South Texas’ periodic oil booms and I was having supper at a Luby’s (Did I mention that I’m cheap?). At a nearby table a couple were comparing their brand new, matching, diamond encrusted Rolexes and decided to synchronize them to the correct time. They decided to use the larger men’s model because they thought it would be closer to the right time. I glanced at my $11.03 (including tax) Texas Instrument watch, which I knew to be about 3 seconds fast, as they settled on synchronizing at a three minute error.
My TI watch died many years ago, but my desire to know what time it really is did not. I currently wear my second (They live about 10 years.) solar powered Casio G-Shock that resets to the time signal from the Naval Observatory in Colorado every day. I don’t have to remember to wind it. It never needs my attention to stay on the correct time. And the maximum contribution to its error is the time it takes the radio signal to go from Fort Collins, CO to me every night. I can live with that inaccuracy. Cost was about $85 when I bought mine. Currently they’re about $100.
But I’m not signaling my membership in the upper class by wearing an expensive Rolex or Tissot watch. No, I’m signaling my membership in the nerd class; think what Dilbert would wear. At the engineering research labs where I’ve worked, the engineers usually drove cars that were considerably downscale from those that the techs drove. Why? We didn’t need to signal status; we were engineers. (Or maybe we didn’t understand the need to signal status because we were nerds.)
Come on, Does Anyone Really Know What Time It Is?
I still have the Bialetti moka pot I got in Italy in 1991. I’ve had to replace a gasket, but that was only .40 and I’ve been using it twice a day (Cafe Americano in the morning; 2% latte in the afternoon) for almost 33 years. I will splurge on coffee once in awhile (Alto Grande from Puerto Rico), but normally it’s the Colombian Supreme whole bean from Costco. I’m also a Tissot guy; when I wear a watch, it’s a Tissot Visodate Automatic for casual wear and a Seiko (SARBO65) Cocktail Time for the rare occasion I need to wear a suit.
American medical servicing system.
Promise paradise, deliver hospital and hospice.
The markup on Yeti mugs and coolers amazes me. And now there are entire Yeti stores popping up in chic shopping areas. Turn a mug into a lifestyle brand and raise the profits.
RTIC, Coleman, and Stanley are just as good, but they’re about to price gouge, too.
My other peeve is men’s shoes. I can appreciate paying for good quality of, say, Whites Boots or Alden dress shoes that will last 10 years, but have you seen $1000 “designer” men’s sneakers?
Prepare yourself for sticker shock:
https://www.bergdorfgoodman.com/c/men-shoes-sneakers-cat226105?navpath=cat000000_cat202802_cat501911_cat226105
Shoes made in Vietnam: $15 – $45
Label: $300 – $1,300
Being seen in these shoes wearing ugly skinny suit with no socks on red carpet: priceless, to some needy assholes
The nerd returns, this time with data.
My wife has a Yeti mug; I have the Ozark Trails (Walmart house brand) model. I once filled them both with water at about 34 F and measured their warming curves. There was no real difference.
With the advent of quartz movements, a $4.95 plastic stick-on button digital watch keeps time as well as a several-thosands-of-dollars brag piece. It just does.