CntrySigns Blog 365

The big news in recalls this week was continuing recalls of Simplicity drop-side cribs. Since the company is no longer in business, in order to get the crib away from your children, return it to the retailer where it was purchased. Also, check your home for other problematic recalled Simplicity products.

Another big recall: four million Aqua-Leisure Baby Floats. The leg straps can break, and the baby fall into the water.

Wolfgang Puck Toaster Oven/Toasters - Heat element stays on after toast pops up; fire hazard.

Wagner Spray Tech Heat Guns - Heat element stays on after gun is turned off; fire hazard. That sounds familiar.

Campbell Hausfeld 20-Gallon Air Compressors (Walmart) - Thermal overload sensor doesn't work; unit can overheat and, yes, catch fire.

Epic Threads and Greendog Hooded Sweatshirts (Macy's) - Strangulation hazard

Children's Necklace and Bracelet Sets (crayons and shiny hearts) - Choking hazard

JGR Copa Body Boards - lead paint

SmartSpark Energy Systems Battery Equalizers - Fire hazard

Orangatang Skateboard Wheels - Blowout hazard; risk of injury

Poseidon Diving Wings - Air bladders can break.

Crane Whirlpool Bathtubs - Hair can get tangled due to drain cover design; drowning hazard.

Loyal Bedding Mattress Sets - Do not meet flammability standards.

DEWALT Framing Nailers - Can fling nails at user.

PowerPlus Generators - Can cause power surges that damage appliances and cause fires.

Tabletop Rope Cutters - Can overheat; fire and burn hazard.

Polaris Recalls Snowmobiles - Rider can lose control of and/or be ejected from the snowmobile.

Ionic Salt Lamps - overheating; fire hazard.

Intermatic In-Wall Timers - electric shock hazard when replacing the battery.

Knorr Chicken Vegetable with Pasta kosher soup mix - undeclared egg ingredients.

Stop & Shop nonfat dry milk - Possible salmonella contamination.

Recently, those buzzkills at Time published this mouth-watering article about the massive caloric content of fast food. Apparently, the Senate is considering federal legislation that would require chain restaurants to list calorie counts on menus.

Of course, Time put the usual alarmist spin on it, totally ignoring the incredible time-saving opportunities that these superfoods afford. Instead of lamenting that a Whopper with cheese is over half of a normal 2,000 calorie per day diet, they should have realized that such foods are a godsend to today's active go-getter. Cramming in 1 and 3/4 of a triple Whopper in your mouth takes care of all your daily calorie needs in one swoop! If you can keep it down long enough to wash down a handful of vitamin pills with a diet soda, you're done for the day! Free from those restrictive mealtimes to live every day to its fullest, you can play World of Warcraft until you pass out on your keyboard.

So, I'm going to light a candle where they just cursed darkness and give you on-the-go folks some quick combinations to fill your daly caloric needs at one sitting. (Keep in mind, you may want to save room for some Flintstones chewables so you don't get scurvy or rickets)

• 
  
• 1 Outback Steakhouse Aussie Cheese Fries (total: 2,140 calories): This one's easy! Eat most of it and you're done for the day! Except for the painful hours on the can.

• 2 McDonald's Chocolate Triple Thick Shakes (total: 1,160 calories x2= 2,320): Make sure to leave a bit in the second one to keep from going over. This one you can do with one hand and no teeth!

• 1 KFC Chicken Bowl (700 calories) and 1 Starbuck's Hazelnut Signature Hot Chocolate (600 calories) and 1 Dunkin' Donuts Sausage Supreme Omelet and Cheese on Bagel (690 calories; total: 1,990 calories): Hey, this one gives you 10 calories to spare, for you dieters out there. Best done if you have a strip mall handy with all three chains, which seems pretty likely.

• Taco Bell Chicken Ranch Fully Loaded Taco Salad (960 calories) and 1 Carl's Jr. Double Sourdough Bacon Cheeseburger (920 calories) and small fries (290 calories; total: 2,170): The salad comes in one of those crispy bowls-you-can-eat, so you can probably cram everything in there and eat it like an enormous, sloppy, cupcake.

• 2,000 cans of Pepsi One (1 calorie, total: 2,000 calories): Because you don't need to rush every day.

Fast Food: Would You Like 1,000 Calories with That? [Time]
Top 10 Worst Fast Food Meals [Time]

Carrie McLaren & Jason Torchinsky are coeditors of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. In previous lives, they worked together on the hopelessly obscure and now defunct Stay Free! magazine .

The Fendi sale is underway in Chelsea, and per some shoppers' Tweets, the line to enter is epic. One Racked informant made it inside, though, and has a report for interested parties: "Ready-to-wear selection is kind of blah. No shoes. Furs/shearlings/leathers are drool-worthy. Canvas bags going fast, lots of leather left. Line was not awful between 8am and 9:30am. Absolutely nothing for men." Our tipster also sent over the markdowns: "current season handbags/accessories/belts are 60% off, furs and shearlings are 75% off, leather jackets/outerwear is 70% off, ready-to-wear is 70 to 75% off, and watches are 50 to 60% off." [Racked Inbox]

Adobe AIR is a runtime environment that, at its most basic, allows you to run lightweight programs on your desktop. The advantages are several – installing and uninstalling applications is easy, they’re simple to use, they’re standalone apps that interact with web and so on.

But the coolest thing about Adobe AIR apps is that they often add new functionality to web apps and allow you to interact with those apps just like you do with desktop programs. Adobe Air Apps often make those websites even more useful.

For media junkies like myself, this is fantastic. Watching movies gets easier, as does looking for photos and listening to music. Here are three of my favorite media-based AIR applications.

Bookmash

Bookmash does a little bit of everything – it’s got media on the Web pretty well covered. It’s basically a multi-platform search engine that lets you search through YouTube, DailyMotion and Metacafé for videos, Last.fm and Seeqpod for music, and through most social networks and news sites to find what’s going on around the Web.

The social stuff is great, but the media is where Bookmash shines. The search is impressive, and everything can be watched, listened to or downloaded right from within the Bookmash interface. I wish it offered more search possibilities, but between YouTube and Last.fm, you’re pretty set for most of your media needs.

My Media Player

One of my favorite sites on the Web is Hulu (unfortunately, it’s only for the US at this point but you can learn how to access it from other countries here). It’s a fantastic portal for legally watching TV shows, movies, and clips of great shows like Saturday Night Live that have historically been unwilling to share their material on sites like YouTube.

My Media Player plugs into Hulu, and doesn’t offer playback of anything that Hulu doesn’t already. But what it does do is: make it a separate window, with no toolbars or anything like that, that appears just like any other media player and can be resized or docked to fit your needs. It makes watching Hulu videos (particularly if you’re a multi-tasker without a huge screen) a much easier proposition.

Stefan wrote about Hulu Desktop, even if it isn’t an Adobe AIR application, you should give it a whirl.

My Media Player also hooks into Twitter, which means you can tweet about what you’re watching – making TV and movies a lot more social.

(A bit of warning: Hulu appears to have made a change that is causing some issues with My Media Player. I’ve used it with no problem, but it sounds like some have. If it doesn’t work immediately, that’s why – stay tuned! I’ll find announce a workaround in the comments if I know about it)

zflick

According to all three browsers I use regularly, Flickr is the site I visit most. I use it for blog posts, wallpapers, and a whole host of other things as well. It’s a great tool, but isn’t the easiest to navigate.

zFlick makes finding and downloading images easier than ever. Search for an image, or browse through the impressively attractive interface of photos, complete with awesome transitions. Once you’ve found the photo you want, you can just drag-and-drop to download it. You can drag it straight to a number of other applications as well – Photoshop, AIM, and the like – if that’s where you’re using the photos. The more I use Flickr, the more I appreciate how simple, quick, attractive and useful zFlick is.

For a more powerful Flickr search tool, Ann Smarty has the lowdown with 16 Flickr Search Tools That Are Fun to Use.

Increasingly, I’m watching, listening, and viewing my media on Adobe AIR, using a growing number of applications. These are the three I couldn’t live without, though – I need my music, my zone-out videos, and the incredible resource of pictures that Flickr has become. Adobe AIR makes all of those better.

What’s your favorite AIR app? Share with us in the comments.

Photo: YngveNilsen

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