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New and Improved - 4/15/2010 4:50:53 AM

twistedwillow

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I was reading the 'Anything from the past that isn't available now...' thread
When Termyn8or said

quote:

Most recently as far as food an entity called Market Day had these chicken breasts stuffed with cheese and brocolli. They were great until they became new and inproved

Has anybody else noticed that when products become 'new and improved' they might be new, but they are far from improved?
I was only last week lamenting the new and improvedness of a cuppa soup that I used to adore, but now tastes like the proverbial.
And nesquick, it used to be totally yummy, great in milk, on icecream, or just by the spoonful, but now it has a weird sickly sweet but floury taste ... what is up with that?
Not to mention many other things.

So ... what are your not so improved new and improved items?

twisted

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RE: New and Improved - 4/15/2010 4:57:43 AM

pahunkboy

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I try not to consider the package-

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RE: New and Improved - 4/15/2010 3:12:34 PM

Termyn8or

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"what are your not so improved new and improved items? "

HA, how much time do you have ?

Now if it not limited to food I guess I would have to start alphabatically.

Aluminum, more specifically chrome plated aluminum. I have a naked Lady ashtray stand that is over fifty years old. There are only five of these in existence, mine happens to be chrome plated and it is still perfect. Have a look at the chrome plating on a ten year old car.

Baker's pans. The old cast iron ones once well seasoned will not stick to your goodies. New ones must be sprayed with who knows what's in it or you might as well throw it out. I tried scrubbing the living hell out of one once and it actually sprung a leak.

Cans. Food cans generally no longer open from the bottom, and therefore it is harder to smash them to save space in the trash. Garbage cans as well, at one time you could use a garbage can lid as a grill. Try that with the newfangled plastic ones. And don't gimme that "they don't rust", they do worse, without warning they split open. I have also noticed it is hard to get he garbage collectors to take the cans, no matter how delapidated they may be.

Drugs, both legal and illegal. Actually pot may have improved but even if it has it is the exception. Prescription drugs with very few exceptions. They don't even call it medicine anymore, they call it medication. Half the time the side effects are worse than what they were supposed to cure, no wait, treat, not cure.

Earth. It took me a minute to think of that one, but it certainly fits. I have no desire to stay on this planet, but there is noplace to go. It is to the point if someone pointed a gun at me and said "Do what I say or I'll shoot you" I would say "OK". Subsequently I might choose the latter option.

Should I go on ? There are alot more but I don't want to get overly loquatious.

The point is that everything on this planet is junk. My TV down in the basement is about 21 yers old and it is not old enough for me. My car is 15 years old and it is also too new. To get what I want I have to go back to the 1970s models, and people are catching on so the values are up there. If I had my first car today it would be worth as much as a new one.

A quick jump to the Ms - Meat. It has no meat flavor. So you must spice it. Spices are now exposed to radiation because of a huge rodent problem in the spice industry. One must think - should I be eating this ?

That's enough for now, I could go on all day. (I don't need the comments LOL)

T

PS; Sorry if you meant food. If you want a list of just foods I can do that, but it might take a bit more time. And the letter X is always a problem of course.

T

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RE: New and Improved - 4/15/2010 3:57:08 PM

divi

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I love how they improved sweetners... I so love Splenda
And PA doll its all about the package .. sheesh

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RE: New and Improved - 4/15/2010 4:43:41 PM

MasterG2kTR

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How about any soda on the market in the US. They (now) all use HFCS instead of sugar. There is a local mexican market that has Coca-Cola imported from Mexico that still uses REAL SUGAR.....WOW!!! What a difference and definitely better taste!

The only thing that was "improved" was the corporate profits!

< Message edited by MasterG2kTR -- 4/15/2010 4:44:17 PM >

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RE: New and Improved - 4/15/2010 8:16:18 PM

ThatDamnedPanda

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quote:

ORIGINAL: twistedwillow
Has anybody else noticed that when products become 'new and improved' they might be new, but they are far from improved?

I can't think of a single "new and improved" product that was actually improved when it was newed. All they're doing is chasing their competitor's demographic, or downsizing the product to disguise a price increase. Proctor and Gamble tried that trick on me a few months ago. All my life, I've been using Ivory dishwashing detergent, and when i went to buy a bottle a few months ago I saw the big sign saying "Check out our exciting new packaging" or some shit like that. I took a close look, and saw that they'd redesigned the bottle and made it 15% smaller. For the same price. I said, "fuck that" and bought a bottle of the store's generic brand, just to see if it worked.

Guess what? My dishes are still as clean as when i used Ivory. I'll never buy Ivory again, and Procter and Gamble lost a lifelong customer.

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RE: New and Improved - 4/16/2010 6:33:11 AM

Termyn8or

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Panda, sometimes you just make my fucking day. That is an excellent point and was literated I believe in the words "less is more". I never read that book but I've heard about it. I have no reason to read it actually. Freedom is slavery and ignorance is bliss. See, if you were ignorant you would simply swoon over the new packaging and be blissful paying more for the same old thing.

I really am too old. I remember "Oh Fab, I'm glad, they put lemon freshened borax in you". Borax is boron ore, does it make anything cleaner ? It was all the fad for a time, what ever happened to it ? There were borax additives for laundry soap sold separately, like bleach.

Speaking of bleach, it may disinfect but it does not clean anything. When was bleach invented ? Surely it made things look cleaner, and killed a bunch of germs, but was it really cleaner ? Now we can make dogshit tasteless, odorless and undetectable, does that mean it is not there ?

That is the root of it. They use manipulation of peoples' perception to make more money.

And other factors are at play, which occlude the issue. I know it would cost thousands of dollars to build a TV set like they did in 1978, despite the relative simplicity. Some say it would cost a fortune to build a car new from the exact design from the 1960s. I am not so sure actually. Cars are one thing that that have really fallen under this new and improved bullshit.

There is one thing and one thing only better about newer cars - fuel injection. Of course it was invented long before it came into common use. It is actually an advantage to be able to just hop in and drive because the mixture is so precisely controlled, it beats waiting for the choke to open and the idle to "kick down" before you can really drive down the road. And in most of the better cars there is an oil pump of a better design that has such volume output that you don't even have to worry about your bearings. You hop in, turn the key and put it in gear.

But then there are furnaces. I have two in this house, one is over fifty years old and the other was new in 1995. Well the old furnace (A) is only 80% efficient. Every ten years I have to go clean the orifice for the pilot so it can heat the thermopile and run without electricity. It is totally silent. Furnace B (1995 Rheem) announces it's initiation many times a day with the sound somewhat like a jet engine because of the induction fan. Then the "afterburners" get going when the gas goes on and is ignited. It is sucked through a tubular heat exchanger and really sounds like a jet engine at that point. Then the blower motor kicks in after the timer says so and the vents whistle and rattle due to the oh so efficient heated air BLASTING through. That is as long as ther is electricity.

But it's improved because the efficiency of furnace A is only 80% while the efficiency of furnace B is a greatly improved 80%.

While we are on the Fs, flourescent tubes. Gotta love them. Those old nasty energy wasting four foot forty watt tubes are so 60s. They only lasted about five years and only put out triple the light of an incandescent. These new ones are so much better. They last about six months and only pull thirty two watts, and put out near double that of an equivalent incandescent. What's more you can get a whole case of them for only like twenty or forty bucks every couple of years. Shit, with the old bulbs they would be so dusty by the time you change them your hands might get dirty, but now you are changing and discarding nice new tubes. Who wants those nasty old five year old germs all over the place ?

Holy shit, now I got an entry for the G category - germs. Think of the advances made. With drugs germs are much more resilient and can kill us more effectively. They adapt to new antibiotics etc. so very quickly. Truly a new breed. Now they fuel a significant protion of our robust and healthy ecomony. (more on that some other time. Sorry I am already past E).

Perhaps someone else can handle the entry for H. I am old and tired, in desparate need of newing and improving.

T

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RE: New and Improved - 4/17/2010 2:44:32 AM

Termyn8or

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Rather than let the thread die, I will make another entry - in the letter Z.

ZZ Top. The song LaGrange has two versions, It is not easy to tell the two versions apart, the easiest way is in the beginning. There is more echo on the intro. The whole thing sounds different, but not very different, to the point where I wonder why they even did it. I have the original version of course.

A few other songs have become new and improved as well. Gary Wright - Dream Weaver, I got both and I can't stand the new version. Then there's Kenny Rogers - The Gambler. I got both versions of that as well and I prefer the old one, although the new version is not so bad like Dream Weaver.

In my quest of the last several years for old music I've found that even some of the tunes I thought I heard first were remakes or covers. I mean old songs from the fifties and sixties, I find were remakes from the fifties or forties, maybe even earlier. But in due consideration, I would have to admit that in some things I am actually used to the new and improved, and sometimes prefer it. Perhaps it is all a matter of perspective.

T

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