Radio Data System

I never thought about how a car's radio displays the song title, artist, station name, and other information, but a recent discussion with a friend led to the discovery of the Radio Data System, a standard that was first published in 1984.  It uses RDS a 57kHz subcarrier, a frequency higher than the audio.  Among the many optional features, if a time and date are included, clocks can keep themselves current.  That's a feature used by, for example, an alarm clock that automatically keeps its time current.

The history and lots of details on RDS can be found at the link below.

https://www.mediarealm.com.au/articles/fm-rds-radio-data-system-guide

Voice Isolation

Sorry Android users, this feature is for iPhone/iPad only.  Bummer for me.

Voice Isolation is a feature that allows you to mute your background noise allowing your voice to stand out to the person you're talking to.  Gourmet Chef Elaine and I tested this out by cranking up some Kenny Chesney music on our Bose speaker and then I called her.  In normal mode, I could hear Kenny quite well, but after she turned on Voice Isolation, Kenny was gone.  It's like someone killed Kenny.  OMG.

Voice Isolation can only be activated during a phone call (or Facetime) and lasts only for the duration of that call.  Just swipe down from the top-right corner towards the middle of your screen, which opens your Control Center (left picture below).  Tap Mic Mode and select Voice Isolation (right picture below).  You might also see a Wide Spectrum option, which is the reverse of Voice Isolation and will magnify your background, which might be useful on an iPad Facetime when multiple people need to be heard.  

More details and prerequisite hardware and software levels can be found at this Apple Support link.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/101993

Zevo Flying Insect Trap

The insect trap shown below is the latest gadget to combat flying critters and is the result of returning home from a 4-day trip to find dozens and dozens of flies had infiltrated our house.  It uses blue and UV light to attract the bugs, which get stuck on disposable adhesive backing.   I don't plan to have this going year-round, just the times when it's needed.  More details can be found at the link below.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T869RNY

PB&J Burger

Gourmet Chef Elaine just had to try the PB&J Burger at 40 Thieves in Buffalo, NY.  You can see in the picture below the peanut butter but the jelly is hidden.  We've heard from several people that this is a really good combination, and while probably there won't be a repeat performance, it was good and worth saying she tried it.  It is a really cute bar with a good menu and many beers on tap, which you can see at the link below.

https://40thievesbuffalo.com

Golden Margaritas

Gourmet Chef Elaine and I have probably had a couple of hundred small pitchers of Golden Margaritas at Jorrge's over the last three-plus years and the owner just knows to bring us one with two, no-salt-on-the-rim glasses when we sit down.  The angle of the picture makes it hard to judge its size relative to the in-the-foreground glasses, but one pitcher is enough for two margaritas each.  Two pitchers would mean an Uber home...

https://www.jorrges.net

Give Us A Call

I spotted the phone number in the picture below from Tangles Hair Salon in the Fairmont Plaza Shopping Center in Kettering, OH then looked around at the rest of the buildings and found no one had listed their numbers.  I checked some other shopping centers and just a few had numbers on their signs.  Yes, I know nowadays we can easily search for a number on our smartphones, but listing it on the sign says to me "Please call us!".   

This is where Gourmet Chef Elaine gets her hair done and has for many, many years.  With that glowing recommendation, you can call or visit their Facebook page link below.

https://www.facebook.com/tangleshairsalonkettering

Favorite TV Series

I compiled the list of TV series shown below which we've watched from beginning to end over these many years.  From our favorites, I suggest Schitt's Creek and Kim's Convenience for comedy, Virgin River and Hart of Dixie for some romance, Game of Thrones and Outlander for intrigue, and Yellowstone and Ozark for family drama.  If you want to find out where they are streaming, try Just Watch at the link below.

I did not write the one-sentence series summaries.  I uploaded the series list to the Perplexity AI chatbot and asked it to write them, which I think did a marvelous job.  A link to Perplexity is also below.

https://www.justwatch.com

https://www.perplexity.ai

• Schitt's Creek: A wealthy family loses everything and rebuilds their lives in a small town they once bought as a joke.
• Grace And Frankie: Two women form an unlikely friendship after their husbands reveal they are in love with each other.
• Kim's Convenience: A Korean-Canadian family runs a convenience store in Toronto while navigating cultural and generational challenges.
• The Good Place: A woman mistakenly sent to a heavenly afterlife tries to become a better person to earn her place.
• Last Man Standing: A conservative father navigates family life and work in a world increasingly dominated by women.
• Modern Family: Three interconnected families deal with the challenges of contemporary life in this mockumentary-style sitcom.
• The Kominsky Method: An aging acting coach and his agent friend cope with the challenges of getting older in Hollywood.
• Virgin River: A nurse practitioner moves to a remote California town for a fresh start and finds new relationships and challenges.
• Hart of Dixie: A New York City doctor adjusts to life as a general practitioner in a small Southern town.
• Game of Thrones: Noble families vie for control of the Seven Kingdoms in this epic fantasy series.
• Outlander: A World War II nurse is transported back in time to 18th-century Scotland, where she falls in love with a Highland warrior.
• Lost In Space: A family of space colonists struggles to survive after their ship veers off course.
• Flash: A forensic scientist gains superhuman speed and fights crime as the superhero Flash.
• Manifest: Passengers on a turbulent flight discover they've landed five years in the future.
• Wednesday: The daughter of the Addams Family attends a boarding school for outcasts and investigates supernatural mysteries.
• Ozark: A financial advisor relocates his family to the Missouri Ozarks when a money laundering scheme goes wrong.
• Dexter: A forensics expert for the Miami police leads a secret life as a serial killer who targets other murderers.
• Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: A 1950s housewife discovers her talent for stand-up comedy and pursues a career in it.
• Yellowstone: The Dutton family fights to protect their ranch from land developers and Native American reservations.
• 1883: A prequel to Yellowstone, following the Dutton family's journey across the Great Plains to Montana.
• 1923: Another Yellowstone prequel, depicting the Dutton family during Prohibition and the Great Depression.
• State of Affairs: A CIA analyst briefs the president on critical global issues while investigating her fiancé's death.
• Code Black: Medical staff at a busy Los Angeles County Hospital emergency room face overwhelming odds daily.
• House of Cards: A ruthless congressman and his equally ambitious wife rise to power in Washington, D.C.
• Designated Survivor: A low-level cabinet member becomes president after a catastrophic attack kills everyone above him in the line of succession.
• Homeland: A CIA officer becomes convinced a rescued American soldier is planning a terrorist attack.
• Longmire: A Wyoming sheriff solves crimes while coping with his wife's death and political pressure.
• Bosch: A Los Angeles homicide detective pursues justice while fighting a system full of politics and corruption.
• Your Honor: A judge goes to great lengths to protect his son after he's involved in a hit-and-run accident.
• Blacklist: A former U.S. Navy officer turned high-profile criminal surrenders to the FBI and offers to help catch other criminals.
• Jack Ryan: A CIA analyst is thrust into dangerous field assignments as he investigates global threats.
• Firefly Lane: Two best friends support each other through three decades of ups and downs.
• Billions: A U.S. Attorney goes after a brilliant hedge fund manager in a game of power politics.

Swiping

I'm a little jealous of those Gen Z'ers who can bang out words using only their thumbs, but spelling words swiping one finger across a keyboard is a close second but it takes a bit of brain rewiring to master.  For example, in the images below I spell the word "instead" by placing my index finger on the "i", dragging that finger to the "n", onto the "s", etc., tracing out the word never lifting my finger off the screen until touching the last letter "d".  It's critical to get the first letter touched correctly, but most often sliding your finger close enough to the other letters so its algorithm can properly guess the word is enough.  Various apps have provided this capability for years, but when Apple added it to iOS 13 back in 2019, it went mainstream.  I find it's most useful on small screens like an iPhone or my Pixel 7, less so on larger devices like the iPad.

If you try this, you will understand my earlier comment on brain rewiring.  Your brain is used to your fingers tapping keys and remembers where the keys are in that context.  But it doesn't know where those keys are in the context of swiping, so it takes some time to build up that mental pathway.  

More information can be found at the link below.

https://www.howtogeek.com/509020/how-to-swipe-to-type-on-an-iphone-or-ipad

Pesto Butter

Gourmet Chef Elaine came up with the idea of combining butter and pesto to lather on our fresh, summertime corn-on-the-cob, and wow, did it deliver the flavor.  It's simply a combination of softened butter and homemade pesto in a two-thirds, one-third ratio, but you can make it as strong or mild as you like.  Further insights into pesto butter can be found at the link below.

https://swirlsofflavor.com/basil-pesto-butter

Worth A Shot

I took the photo of the sign shown below while walking along Penn Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh, the humor obviously being the double meaning of the word "shot".  Fifty more witty tequila sayings can be found at the link below.  My favorite is "Don’t be a chaser, be the one who is chased. You are the tequila, not the lime.”

https://liquorlaboratory.com/tequila-quotes