Thursday, January 26, 2006

Mozart & A Bad Cough

Today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

I'm feeling better after having been laid low by bronchitis this past week. The cough has not yet subsided completely, but it is now not half as severe as it was two or three days ago, when each bark that emerged from my midsection sounded like the dying bellow of some prehistoric beast in a deep cave.

The weather has been mostly fine, though a bit cold for my taste, and there have been spells of rain.

Hope I shall be able to resume my morning walks before long.

* * * * *

Ketchup bottles nowadays are plastic, and some of them come upside-down, with the flip-top as the bottle's base. It's actually quite a sensible design, this upside-down bottle, for it saves the user the trouble of having to pound on the bottle (especially a half-empty one) to get the ketchup out. Mustard, sandwich spread, and mayonnaise containers have also taken on the upside-down configuration, and others are bound to follow suit.

This is the kind of ergonomic thinking ("outside the box", to use the currently fashionable cliché) that is the hallmark of American innovativeness in packaging.

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