Mr. Toy's Mental Notes

Here's a topic of absolutely no importance. Does anybody remember that the confection we know as Hostess Ho-Hos was originally named Yo-Hos?  If you're under the age of 45 , you probably don't. According to the official Hostess site , the treat was introduced in 1967, but the company makes no mention of the name change. If memory serves, the change occurred two or three years later with absolutely no explanation. To this day I have seen no official acknowledgment that the change ever actually happened. Yet, it did! I saw it with my own eyes!!! Now there's a subject for conspiracy theorists to ponder. Why, in the dead of night, when nobody was looking, was a perfectly good product name changed by one letter? Was it political correctness? Perhaps pirates complained that Hostess abused their lingo and played on unfair stereotypes. Or did someone think it sounded like a pimp calling one of his girls? Did Santa Claus and the Jolly Green Giant use  their political a...

Tuesday evening KSBW News ran a 30 minute showdown interview with Monterey County Sheriff Mike Kanalakis, and Fred Garcia who is running to replace Kanalakis in the next election. If you have followed the local news lately, you know that Garcia held, until recently, the rank of Commander in the Sheriff's department and he was head of the Homeland Security division until the Sheriff demoted Garcia two steps in rank for insubordination and improper campaign practices. Shortly thereafter Garcia resigned, and Monterey County politics got very interesting.   After watching the interview, I am thoroughly dismayed with Sheriff Kanalakis on this matter. Yes, Garcia exercised poor judgment in using a county copier, mailing list, and rubber stamp to prepare some campaign materials. But that minor lapse of good sense pales in comparison to Kanalakis demoting Garcia for insubordination just because the two had an honest disagreement about the affordability of a helicopter. The helic...

With the recent passing of Alexander Haig, a famous old soundbite has been dragged up once again, and misinterpreted once again.   On the day when President Reagan was wounded in an assassination attempt there was, understandably, a fair amount of confusion in Washington. Al Haig spoke at a press briefing in the White House to explain what was happening. One of the things he said was "I am in control, here at the White House, pending the return of the Vice President." I remember it well. I watched it on live TV. He was trying to reassure everyone that in the President's absence White House affairs were being attended to even though the president was in the hospital and Vice president Bush was en-route and temporarily unavailable.   In the days that followed, the only part of the quotation anybody talked about was the "I am in charge" part. By taking the phrase out of context, Haig was widely criticized for assuming Presidential powers in violation of th...

A good friend of mine, Sarah Ward, is setting up shop as a freelance wedding and special event planner. I had the privilege of working with Sarah for about three years in a local hotel. At the time she was the hotel's wedding coordinator. I worked for the in-house audio/visual department and operated sound equipment for most of the wedding ceremonies she set up for her clients. It never ceased to amaze me how the wedding coordinators managed to, well, coordinate a thousand details and create a fabulous event for all, sometimes dealing with as many as five or six wedding parties in a single weekend! Sarah was no exception, and I was particularly impressed with her ability to maintain her cheerful disposition and calm, orderly manner under a wide variety of challenging conditions. Even behind the scenes, when nobody was looking, she maintained her positive attitude.   Sarah was particularly enthusiastic about the job, more so than any other wedding coordinator I worked with, s...

Every now and then someone invents a product or service that convinces people that the old fashioned way of doing things is much harder than it really is. By so fooling people they get them to spend much more than they need to. Microwave popcorn is a perfect example. Making popcorn in a saucepan is almost as easy and just as fast as putting a paper bag of seeds into the microwave. But nobody knows that anymore because the stores have six tiers of shelves stocking microwave popcorn, and 12 inches of shelf space for plain seeds that cost about one-fifth as much per pound. Another such product came to my attention today. A service, actually, called Sunnygram.com . It's for people who have grandparents that don't own computers. If you want to e-mail Grandma, you just e-mail Sunnygram, which will take all of your e-mails for Grandma, print them out (complete with photos) and mail them to her via the good old United States Postal Service . Sunnygram provides this helpful service f...

I recently posted a new page in the Bits-O' History section of the Monterey Peninsula Toy Box . It provides an accurate and reasonably complete history of the crosses overlooking local beaches, focusing particularly on the Monterey cross that was vandalized last month, and which was the subject of my September 23rd entry. The new page is called THE TRUE MEANING OF THE CROSS . I decided a new page was necessary to counteract the misinformation that has been spreading during the debate over the constitutionality of the cross. After all, one can't have a good argument without good facts. I was particularly dismayed to read in the Herald , once in an article and twice in an editorial, that the cross marked the site where the Portola expedition "landed." Since they came by land, and not by sea, there was no "landing." The Herald should be ashamed for failing to do such basic research, especially since part of their argument against repairing the cross was base...

On October 28th the Transportation Agency for Monterey County will decide how to develop the Monterey Branch Rail Line between downtown Monterey and the junction with the Union Pacific Coast Line at Castroville. The choices are to restore the tracks as a light rail corridor, or pave it over for a dedicated bus rapid transit line. I cannot stress strongly enough that we need to support the rail option. The original reason TAMC purchased the Monterey Branch Line was to restore intercity rail service between Monterey and the San Francisco bay area. Frankly, I have grown dismayed that TAMC has strayed so far from this goal, favoring mere enhancements to existing local transit services. I never hear people asking for more bus service, or local rail service, but I hear many people wondering when they'll be able to ride a train to San Francisco. Only the light rail option would eventually allow for intercity rail service, so there should be no question on this matter. The rail right of...