…buy DHARMA Initiative Explorers Cookies.

I love this time of year—after ordering several boxes of DI Explorers Cookies via station computer (I think it’s code 2-4, then 1-6-4, or something), our supplies of DHARMA Initiative Chocolate Mint Cookies and Lemon Iced Shortbread Cookies arrived via PRD. The Explorers sell several other varieties of cookies, but Miss T and I like the chocolate mint and lemon iced ones the best.

If you were unable to get your order in on time (it only comes around once a year, you know) and you don’t see any of the DHARMA Initiative Explorers girls* around your neighborhood, you can modify Girl Scouts® Thin Mints and Lemonades™ with the following labels:

• DHARMA Initiative Explorers Cookies (variety)
• DHARMA Initiative Explorers Cookies (variety) (for 11×17-capable printers)

Girl Scouts cookies are pretty good, but they’re not quite the same as DI Explorers’.

*Why is it only the girls that sell cookies? What are the boys up to during this oh-so-important cookie sales season?

…staved off (just barely).

It may have been the DHARMA Initiative Mixed Fruit or the DHARMA Initiative Crackers and Cheese (or a combination of the two), but last week something had my stomach churning worse than an island jumping through space-time. Miss T suggested that I try to get to The Staff for a checkup, but first I checked through the last Periodic Resupply Drop crate that landed in the back yard.

Down at the bottom of the box I found this:

It took two doses of the pink stuff, but in an hour everything was gastrointestinally back on track—like a record needle settled firmly in its groove.

If you’re suffering from heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, nausea, or—heaven forbid—diarrhea, I heartily recommend DHARMA Initiative Bismuth Subsalicylate for stomach relief. If you don’t have DI Bismuth Subsalicylate in your station’s emergency medical locker, go ahead and use a bottle of Pepto-Bismol with the following label PDF:

- DHARMA Initiative Bismuth Subsalicylate (8 OZ)

Like this 1972 ad says, DI Bismuth Subsalicylate will help you achieve “a calm mind and a calm body.” Namaste.

…Miss T and I shared a rare roast beef sandwich at Il Cane Rosso. Later, we headed over to Macworld 2010—sans Apple Inc. but still worth a look-see.

Possibly the most spartan trade show booth I have ever seen.

Microsoft Office, uh, icons were on hand. I might have been able to get a better photo but was afraid to get too close to them.

After Macworld, Japantown for dinner at Tanpopo…

hiyayakko tofu…

wonton chashu ramen…

…and kyushu ramen. It was all delicious (though I overordered—the wonton chashu ramen was about three chashu too many).

There was also a fair bit of shopping in the Japantown malls and the NEW PEOPLE ARTIST VILLAGE Vol. 2 at the NEW PEOPLE building.

The Peace Plaza Pagoda.

The NEW PEOPLE building (with the ARTIST VILLAGE Vol. 2 scattered inside).

And, a snail that Miss T spied outside of Benihana. All in all, a good last Saturday.

…in Sacramento.

Chef’s sushi mix (above) and a River Cat roll (below) from Miso Japanese Cuisine.

Mmm… sushi.

…now in cans!

Last week Miss T and I snacked on some DHARMA Initiative food items while we watched the LOST season 6 premiere. Nothing fancy, just some DI Crackers and Cheese and DI Mixed Fruit.

If you’d like some DHARMA Initiative Mixed Fruit for tonight’s episode of LOST, making your own may be the only way to have them in time. (Unless you can somehow get a retroactively-timed product resupply drop—one that will arrive in the past.) All you’ll need are 4-ounce tins of Mixed Fruit and the labels from this link:

• DHARMA Initiative Mixed Fruit labels (4 OZ)

Bon appétit and namaste!

…one last time.

With LOST back on the air—for its final season *sob*—I was inspired to go digging through some of the old periodicals piled up in our station’s storeroom (a.k.a. the garage) for DHARMA Initiative stuff. A 1976 issue of Oceanic’s INflight had a DHARMA Initiative Travel ad which I’ve scanned and posted on Flickr.

As Season 6 continues, we’ll keep looking for fun DHARMA Initiative things to post. Namaste!

…and a little LOST cheese.

Sometimes you just want a snack. A small one. Not a sweet—something savory. And, you want to have to use a stick in the preparation of your snack. Yes, a stick. (These may sound like peculiar circumstances, but it comes up more often than you think.)

For those small, savory, need-a-stick snack urges, the DHARMA Initiative has you covered—try DHARMA Initiative Crackers and Cheese.

If you’ve searched your station’s pantry and come up short in the DI Crackers and Cheese department, you can restock with generic crackers and cheese, some self-adhesive label stock, cutting implements, and this PDF:

• DHARMA Initiative Crackers and Cheese (.95 OZ)

DI Crackers and Cheese might just be the snack for a LOST Season 6 premiere viewing party! If not, there are many more items at our LOST labels for your DHARMA Initiative needs.

…the DHARMA Initiative way!

Everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day (you do know that, right?), and, despite being in an indeterminate place and time, life on LOST Island is no different—breakfast is important. So, when wild chicken eggs, boar bacon, and taro-flour bread are in short supply, make sure you at least have a bowl of DHARMA Initiative Cereal. There’s a wide variety available—from Sweetened Puffed Corn Cereal to Sweetened Multi-grain Cereal—and they’re great with milk or dry.

We were fortunate enough to receive a DI Cereal Individual Variety Pack in a recent resupply drop, but if your pantry is lacking in the DI Cereal department, you can improve ordinary individual-serving cereals the DHARMA Initiative way with scissors, tape, and the following PDF file:

• DHARMA Initiative Cereals (variety) (.81 OZ to 1.52 OZ)

Make sure to try them all! (DHARMA Initiative Cereal not your thing? More DI labels at LOST labels for your DHARMA Initiative needs.)

…Thy name is “Titanium.”

In 2001 Apple introduced its Titanium PowerBook G4. It was then, and remains now, my favorite laptop. The PowerBook G4 still wasn’t quite as fast as a desktop Power Mac G4, but it was much, much sexier.

This batch of 2001 Apple ads really only cover two subjects: laptops and DVD authoring. DVD authoring may not be as big a deal in these days of online streaming video, but the laptop lifestyle still seems to be going strong*.

You can fulfill your Apple ad nostalgia via the thumbnails below (and find more at maxpixpix on Flickr).

*Smartphones and mythical tablet devices haven’t supplanted laptops—yet.

…You’re not fully clean, until you’re LOST-fully clean.

And how does one get LOST-fully clean, you ask? By using DHARMA Initiative Soap (like Kate at the Hydra Station above), of course! And, it just so happens we were lucky enough to receive two types of DI soap in our recent PRD (product resupply drop): 4.25 oz bars in boxes and 3.1 oz bars in paper.

If your DHARMA Initiative supply cabinet is low on such health and beauty supplies, you can always make do with some locally-sourced bar soap and the following PDF labels:

• DHARMA Initiative Soaps (3.1 and 4.25 OZ)

Remember, cleanliness is next to Jacob-ness!

…from the days before gigahertz.

Another batch of Apple Computer ads from the late, great pages of MacAddict magazine. In the year 2000 we were still running laptops on 400MHz PowerPC G3s and desktops on 500MHz G4s. Just short of ten years later and smartphones—in this case, the iPhone 3G S—are running CPUs at 600MHz. Desktops are running Quad-core 3GHz chips, sometimes two to a machine.

You can peruse the ads via the thumbnails below or at maxpixpix on Flickr.

(No multi-chip machines in our household, though. Maybe by 2020.)

…(of the data storage variety).

More MacAddict-excised Apple ads from the late ’90s. Miss T actually had a Bondi blue iMac—her first computer!

My first laptop was a PowerBook G3 like the one in the thumbnail above. Good times.

…Apple ads from the ’90s.

In an effort to create more clear, horizontal spaces in the house, I’ve taken the small step of throwing out a stack of old MacAddict magazines. The stack starts in the late ’90s, at the lowest point of Apple Computer, Inc.’s mindshare and stock price—Steve Jobs had just returned to the company, the iMac (never mind the iPod or iPhone) had not been introduced, and business and technology pundits everywhere reported only doom and gloom for Apple and the Macintosh. At the time there were only two print publications that held out any hope for Apple’s survival: Macworld and MacAddict. Macworld’s editorial tone was reasoned and cautiously optimistic. MacAddict was irreverent and fiercely loyal.

Ten years later, the state of the print publication industry and the fortunes of Apple Inc. (Apple dropped Computer from its name in 2007) are very different.

In any case, I’m paging through old MacAddict issues, tearing out articles and Apple ads for the sake of Mac geekdom. If you want to share in the geekery you can see the ads at maxpixpix on Flickr.

More ad tearing, scanning, and posting to come.

…two persimmon, three persimmon, four.

My family has a persimmon tree which has, for reasons unknown, produced a bumper crop of fruit this year. Sadly, I’m not a persimmon consumer. For me, a persimmon tree is something more interesting to look at than to eat fruit from:

Fortunately, Miss T enjoys both viewing and eating persimmons.

…cashew redux.

After November’s Covered-in-Chocolate (CIC) meeting I wondered why my CIC choice, cashews, weren’t better. Our tasting group concluded that the cashews weren’t bad—just not very cashewy. A couple of ideas to bring the cashew flavor “up” included dark chocolate (vs. milk), a thinner chocolate coating, and saltier cashews.

A few weeks later, I came across a package of chocolate-covered cashews that fulfilled two of the three suggestions: dark chocolate and sea salt. The chocolates were better… but the cashews still weren’t all there.

I think cashews just aren’t up to the covered-in-chocolate treatment.