What the blog!? The btjones.com staff are a lazy bunch…

A couple weeks ago I found what I thought was a bug in my bag of Utz potato chips. I took some photos and promptly sent an email to Utz:

Subject: I found a bug in my chips

To whom it may concern,
I am writing to make a complaint about something I found today in a family size bag of Utz Ripples (purchased at a Super Fresh grocery store in Philadelphia, PA). At first I thought it was a burnt potato chip, but then I realized it had legs. I believe it is a deep fried bug of some sort. This is no joke, please follow the link below to view the photos I took of it.

http://www.flickr.com/gp/57543543@N00/Fy63Cb

Is this a normal occurrence? If so, can you tell me what type of bug this is? I think it is quite disgusting, whether or not it is actually harmful. Is there anything you might suggest to rectify this potato chip tragedy?

The very next day I heard back:

Subject: Utz Ripple Potato Chips

Thank you for your email w/pictures of the foreign matter you found in the bag of Utz Ripple Potato Chips. We share your concern about this problem because it is very disconcerting to find something in an Utz package besides fresh chips.

The material you found is an accumulation of solidified potato chip starch, cooking oil and salt. A film of cooking oil sometimes mixed with bits of potato, builds up on the surfaces of the conveyors and frying equipment during the day. This deposit of oil normally doesn’t become thick enough to solidify. We inspect and wipe down all product contact surfaces at the end of each day. Some parts are even disassembled for a thorough cleaning and inspection on a weekly basis. In your case, a deposit of oil evidently built up, hardened and eventually broke away and was mixed with the chips to be packaged. This material is not harmful if ingested. However, we realize it looks very unappetizing and can understand your concern.

When we receive a complaint, we take it very seriously. We appreciate the time you took to alert us because we want to eliminate any possible source of problem.

We apologize for this inconvenience. We are happy to have you as a loyal Utz customer. If you still have the bag, can you please tell us the price/letter-number/expiration date from the front of the package? Also, if you will give us your mailing address we will send you some coupons you may use toward future purchases of Utz products.

The more I looked at my photos, the more I could see that it probably wasn’t a bug. Those legs are too big…and they were probably made when this gooey thing got pulled off of a conveyor belt (or whatever). I replied with the information they requested from the bag and my address and in a couple days I received my coupons… four separate $1 off coupons (limit one per purchase). Not exactly what I was expecting… but it’s not like there was actually a bug in my chips.

Did anyone else watch President Obama on the teletube? I thought he sounded good for the most part…but man was he long winded.

Google Talk thinks I’m sad. I’m not sure why, but it keeps telling people my status is “:(” while I’m chatting with them. My actual status doesn’t change, but mid-chat with people, it sends them my “updated” status and tells them it is “:(“. Kevin was the first to notice this strange happening and told me about it multiple times. Then today while I was one a different machine than usual, with a separately downloaded version of Google Talk, Dwayne pointed out my “emo filter” which had sent him my sad face status while mid-chat.

I have done a bit of googling…but have found nothing. In fact, searching for “:(“ turns up some rather…um…null results.

The could be related to having GMail open at the same time as GTalk because I almost always have them both open. This would be an easier problem to point to if I had the web based gtalk client enabled withing GMail, but I don’t. But still, it could be related. And why the frown face? What is GTalk so sad about?

Anyone else heard of this before?

And yes, I realize I told Kevin I was going to “blob” about this in the above screen shot. I just blobbed all over the place.

(screen shot courtesty of Kevin)

Freshman year at JMU my roommate Will got me into the computer game Counter-Strike. It’s a first person shooter that is primarily played online with two teams, the terrorists and the counter-terrorists. I was never that great and my crappy computer froze half the time. Flash forward to last Christmas and Katie got me the new and improved Half-Life 2 with Counter-Strike:Source – Basically, Counter-Strike 2. Well in the last few weeks I’ve been playing more and more CS:S.

I think I may have reached some point of saturation. A few days ago I had a dream…I was in a relatively small enclosed area with a few people. Something like you would play paintball in with a few small barriers to hide behind etc. Paul McCartney was chasing me with a pistol trying to shoot me…I don’t remember actually having a gun and shooting back – more just running and trying not to get shot by a Beatle.

Maybe there’s a deeper meaning to this dream….or maybe I saw Paul McCartney during a Saturday Night Live sketch a couple weeks ago and he just got mixed up in my CS:S dream. Anyone have any psychological input on this one? There was a little while during high school when I would write down all the details of my dreams…if I woke up in the middle of the night I would write them down right away, then when I woke up in the morning I would read what I wrote and usually didn’t remember the dreams at all…maybe I should start doing that again and put my whacked out dreams on this blog.

Speaking of first person shooters, Stan sent me a link to a new awesome PS2 game that is right up my alley: “NRA Gun Club”. Here are a few quotes from the review in case you don’t actually read it: “It’s disgustingly ugly, nearly silent, and shallow in a way that will put off anyone, whether a firearms enthusiast or not.”, “The presentation in NRA Gun Club is atrocious.”, “The awfulness stacks up, resulting in a nearly unplayable product.” I guess these are the kind of games that come out when a new generation console replaces what was once the hotness.