Clean Up on Aisle 5
Joelle said at some point on July 10, 2007 while listening to KSDS Jazz 88.3
I was watching a commercial the other night for paper towels. “New, Improved Clean-up Technology!” a voice boomed as I was taken IMAX-style through the inner-weave of the “most advanced paper towel ever created”.
Seriously? I find it mind-boggling that we have engineers, scientists and such devoting arduous hours developing the most effective paper towel known to mankind. What about… oh, I don’t know… cancer? I mean, really… Why bother investing the almighty dollar in something life-saving when you could carry an anvil in one wet sheet of scientifically-engineered paper towel? Then, of course, rinse and reuse it! Will wonders never cease?!
They’ll spend time creating maxi-pads with dri-weave wings, tampons with fancy braided strings, highfalutin paper towels, anti-bacterial everything — heaven forbid someone’s kid touch a garden-variety germ and develop an immunity or something. My god! The horror of the common cold! — they’ll give us all those things, but spending Big Pharm’s dollar on curing actual diseases… we couldn’t have that.
Really, how much can you do with a paper towel? It’s a paper towel. It’s job is menial and expendable. I’m not dedicated — I’ll buy whatever’s on sale. I’m just going to spill something and rub it on the floor anyway. Does it need to be developed by NASA to get the wine off my tile? As far as I’m concerned it just needs to be wet and available.
Heh. I almost went back and deleted that last line because I really wasn’t going for that, but I just can’t bring myself to do so. 
I’m easily amused. On that note…
Moxie Design Studios™
from Houston • Cocktail: Mango Mojito
UCLA just did a study that showed women prefer muscular men. No shit sherlock! Do straight women prefer men with penises too?
My take on curing Cancer is this: so long as the drug companies are making the money they make, it will never be cured. Face it, diseases are way more lucrative when they don’t have cures. Who was the last guy to make a buck on Polio?
Pretty soon, I think they’ll start saying you can use your paper towels as pads. I mean, they’re so absorbent and you can just wring ‘em out and reuse them.
The Husband and I have a good friend who is the head of R & D for a major brand name paper towel. That’s right. He does research and development on paper freakin’ towels. And gets paid to do so. He said to us once that “The sky’s the limit on what we can do with paper towel”. I tried to hold in the laughter, but I just couldn’t. Thankfully, our friend laughed just as hard. Surprising what some people do in their 9 to 5 life.
from SoCal
I have this same problem with the space program. Why must we waste millions on something that doesn’t mean crap when we have diseases that need cures, children who need educating and people who need insurance? Pisses me right off…
This must be why we need to have better math & science education in our schools… to develop better paper towels!
I’m happy to see that I’m not the only who has these thoughts about the newest technological advances.
from Houston • Cocktail: Mango Mojito
Oh, but Faithstwin, we simply MUST know if life exists on other planets so that we can debate whether it evolved or was divinely planted.
from San Diego, CA • Cocktail: slightly dirty Grey Goose martini
@faithstwin: I have to disagree about the space program, though. I think space exploration is necessary, but I think government spending isn’t being done well. if less was spent on irrelevant things like wars we can’t win or to line pockets, we might have more money. but I understand where you’re coming from.
Also, a LOT of stuff has come about from the pursuit of space exploration. LEDs, computers, Tang, as three examples.
What really gets me is the development of stuff like Viagra and the latest thing to medicate your kids so you don’t have to actually deal with their energy and stuff. Do we need this stuff? Couldn’t we divert at least half that R&D money to curing Alzheimer’s?
On a completely unrelated note, but to address Deltus’ comment, Viagra came about while developing a medication for high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. The drug turned out to not work so well for blood pressure, but had a side effect that produced the physical condition we all know Viagra for now.
But I agree with Joelle, I don’t think we need a scientifically engineered paper towel unless they’re going to make one that cleans for me!
from Houston • Cocktail: Mango Mojito
I’m trying soooooo hard not to get all Feminist Regime about Viagra.
Curing doesn’t produce revenue. Right there--that’s it in a nutshell. It doesn’t pay to cure disease or invent stuff that is perfect the first time ‘round. Unbreakable glass or a car that never fucks up wouldn’t continually produce revenue. Drugs to fight symptoms--revenue. Glass to replace broken glass--revenue. American cars and the 13488765290283746645 mechanics it takes to service them--major revenue.
This is one conspiracy theory that I truly believe. I think that people are researching and doing what they can to cure diseases but I also think there are forces stronger than those researchers that filter or altogether block progress in actually curing diseases because of the revenue factor.
from SoCal
I suppose I’ll just have to keep praying to be cured by a higher power then.
Meanwhile, I’ll create the next safe car and space shuttle built entirely of paper towels to bide my time.