Symbolic of what?

I have a small complaint.

 

It's nothing major, especially in the big scheme of things, but it IS an irritant. It is also one that isn't going to go away any time soon, no matter who I complain to or how many times I do it, so I'll just vent here and move along.

 

Why is it that there are symbols for everything now? There's no "on" or "off," there's no "lo" or "hi," it's all pictures of things. Sometimes I can't even tell what the picture is supposed to be..."Is that a face? A star? What does it MEAN?!" The one that ticks me off the most is my Krups egg cooker. It's a fine product, don't get me wrong, Eggs were on sale this week, so I bought another dozen. I cook the entire dozen, so Ken has a hard-boiled egg to take in his lunch a few times a week. If this egg cooker came with a manual, I've lost it, but I'm thinking that it just came with instructions of where to find the instructions online (if that makes any sense.) Here's the switch:

 

See those two little symbols? One means "cook" and the other means "keep warm." But which is which?

 

One the left, you have an egg in an egg cup. Is the egg supposed to be completely hard-boiled, ready to serve in the egg cup? Or is the egg cup indicating that this choice will cook your egg so that you can serve it up? On the right, you have what appear to be heat rays coming off of a surface. Does this mean that THIS is how I will heat my egg and cook it...or does it mean that once it's cooked using the egg in the egg cup choice, I will switch it here to zap it with heat waves to keep it warm until I'm ready to eat it?

 

I'm not kidding, every single time I pull out this egg cooker, I cannot remember which is which, and I have to go to the Krups website to see the instruction manual. I had finally had it today, and got out a Sharpie and underlined the appropriate symbol.

 

I rarely use my blender, but the Osterizer leaves nothing to the imagination: "mince," "blend," "puree," "frappé." Now if I only knew what "frappé" actually does....

 

I haven't finished my book yet, but I read a really good one today--one that is right up my alley! Hephaestus (he fest' us) was the Greek god of smiths, or blacksmiths, shown working at his forge. His Roman counterpart was the god of fire and forge, who worked in the depths of Mount Etna, the volcano found on Sicily. His Roman name was Vulcan, and in fact, that's where volcanoes get their name!

 

And here's where it gets really cool. Astronomers had noticed that the planet Mercury (the one closest to the sun) had a small unevenness in its orbit. The French astronomer, Urbain J. J. Leverrier, hypothesized that there was a planet even closer to the sun than Mercury, and this planet was what was causing the uneven orbit of Mercury. Since this would be the closest planet to the fiery heat of the sun, Leverrier proposed calling the new planet Vulcan. That's right...the planet Vulcan!!

 

Sadly, although astronomers searched for Vulcan for years, they were never able to find definitive evidence. In 1915, Albert Einstein proposed a theory that accounted for Mercury's orbit, and it was shown that there was no planet Vulcan.

 

But WE know better, don't we?

 

They were just looking in the wrong place! Five years after Asimov published this book, the original "Star Trek" series debuted, the planet Vulcan was immortalized, and it lives on over forty years later. It's only logical.

 

Live long and prosper, my friends.

 

 

 

P.S. Natalie, thanks for your comments, hon, but you might have me confused with another journal. I know there are a couple of Betty's out there, but I'm Beth. :)

 

P.P.S. The symbol for actually cooking the eggs is the one with the little heat waves. Which one did you pick?

Tags: Krups egg cooker, Hephaestus, Vulcan, Urbain J. J. Leverrier, Planet Vulcan, Star Trek