hand-packed pint

Along the lines of "small, medium, large" being replaced by "large, super-size and Gigantor," I recently went to a Friendly's in the Long Island town of Lake Success for ice cream. Having entered the restaurant so full from dinner that breathing was difficult, I was looking for size along the lines of "wafer-thin". Instead, the smallest cone size was "big," followed by "biggest," a description apparently only intended metaphorically, since the "hand-packed pint" was a yet larger option.

On a vaguely related we're-doomed-and-probably-deserve-it note, this NYT article describes how hybrid cars have become hip in part because they involve not changing consumption patterns, but if anything more consumption: spending more money on a high-tech status symbol. This explains why there's no contradiction when a young well-off friend of a friend bought a Prius after his last three cars were SUVs. (Not that this isn't positive; it's just a disappointingly small change in world-view.) Continuing the anecdotal free association, drug companies spend lots of money convincing us that cheap Canadian drugs are somehow unsafe, but only our own good sense tells us not to waste our money.