online cultural question

Where did the expression "nom nom nom" come from? And when? I don't think I'd ever seen it before 2007, maybe late 2006. Was it connected with the lolcats, or something as self-consciously cutesy? Now it's escaped into the wild, and I've seen people using it to mean simply "yum yum."

I know it's so pervasive now that people use it without intending to be disgusting about it, but I still hate it.

not the breakfast of champions

Last month, I went to Mansfield for a job interview with a small medical device company. The opportunity looked good on paper, but 5 minutes into the interview, the person I was talking with asked about my experience this past winter, where I worked with such appalling people and grotesque management. He named my department head, the frightening bully, and said he was a great engineer and a great manager. He used to work for that department head, and still considered him a mentor. Well. I didn't walk out of the interview. I was polite, and I played the role I was expected to play, for another 20 minutes or so. But I was no longer interested in the job.

Being in Mansfield on a Wednesday afternoon, I went to the big supermarket on the highway exit to Mansfield. I was pleasantly surprised to find they had a kind of Bob's Red Mill porridge that none of my usual grocers had been selling for months. I didn't know if they'd stopped selling it altogether, or if most stores considered it a winter item. (It's the "High Fiber Hot Cereal with Flaxseed." I like the taste because it has wheat, oats, and flax, but no rye. And the combination of fiber and protein keeps me from getting hungry before lunchtime. And it's microwavable.) I bought 4 bags, and figured that would have to be the big take-home benefit from my interview trip to Mansfield.

The first time I made porridge from one of the Mansfield bags, it didn't taste quite right. Migraine aura? Was I using bad soymilk? Did I need to run hot water through the dishdrainer again to make the kitchen smell better (at the cost of heating the apartment)? No. Or not only that. The porridge grain is slightly rancid. The sellby date is 12/28/2008, but the hot weather must have turned it early. This bag is compost. The other 3 were probably stored under the same conditions and suffered the same fate. When I'm feeling braver, I might try them, but I'm not holding out much hope. I smelled one, and it's wrong. I really liked the Bob's Red Mill stuff when it wasn't rancid. Do you think they stop selling it in summer because it turns so readily? Or is this just bad luck?