Pig Farms

Still on the bacon thread!

Sure, we all love bacon! But who wants to live next to a pig farm? Not these folks in Massachusetts, who, according to today's Boston Globe (registration required), suffer smells like those "at the bottom of a dumpster." But this new Congressional report finds the EPA ready to relax their rules for such farms.

Here's an article about a manure lagoon spill in 2005 that released 3 million gallons of pig poop!

Posted By: Paul - Wed Sep 24, 2008 - Comments (12)
Category: Agriculture, Animals, Bathrooms, Disasters, Food, Scatology, Lawsuits, Excrement

Bacon Bloody Marys

After Baconhenge and Bacon Beans, what other odd bacon bits could there be?

Well, what about Bacon Bloody Marys?

For some reason I am reminded of Lisa Simpson asking Bart to please stop stirring his lemonade with a sausage.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Sep 23, 2008 - Comments (13)
Category: Animals, Fads, Food, Inebriation and Intoxicants

David Lynch Coffee

If you love David Lynch's films, you might also love his coffee which you can buy at his website. The Independent reports:


The other items for purchase at his site make a bit more sense to me: t-shirts, posters, DVDs, and a Distorted Nudes Book.

Posted By: Alex - Tue Sep 16, 2008 - Comments (2)
Category: Food

Smoke on the Water

I was supposed to attend a family BBQ today, but it was canceled because of rain.

I should have known it would be. I had already read this news about how weekends attract bad weather.

WEEKEND WEATHER REALLY IS WORSE

The most comprehensive weather study ever has confirmed what we all suspected - the weather really is worse at weekends.

Meteorologists at the University of Karlsruhe evaluated 6.3 million pieces of climate data from across Europe between 1991 and 2005.

Their conclusion: On weekends the weather is worse than on weekdays.

But even if the weather had been good, we would have suffered from this campfire phenomenon. As we are told in The Complete Book of Fire by Buck Tilton:

Q: Why does the smoke from a campfire seem to blow into your face no matter where you sit or how many times you change position around the fire?

A: Your body blocks the flow of fresh air drawn to the flames. You are then creating a low air pressure area with your body and the warm smoke moves toward the lowest air pressure. With no wind, no matter where you sit in relation to the fire, the smoke will be drawn toward you.

Sometimes you just can't win....

Posted By: Paul - Sun Sep 14, 2008 - Comments (3)
Category: Entertainment, Family, Food, Science, Weather

Follies of the Mad Men #26

[From Ladies' Home Journal for June 1957.]

You just know that the contents of those plates are the raw remnants of their fellow castaways.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Sep 12, 2008 - Comments (4)
Category: Boats, Business, Advertising, Products, Food, 1950s

Follies of the Mad Men #25

Didn't you enjoy the vivacious and perkily sexy Tad Tadlock in yesterday's DESIGN FOR DREAMING? How could anyone resist a sequel?

Let's watch A TOUCH OF MAGIC.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Sep 08, 2008 - Comments (8)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Domestic, Marriage, Family, Husbands, Wives, Food, Futurism, History, Inventions, Movies, Pop Culture, Technology, Sex Symbols, 1960s, Dance, Cars, Yesterday’s Tomorrows

Bacon Beans

A week or so ago, Alex told us how to make our own Baconhenge. But perhaps that's not enough bacon for you. In that case, why not nosh on some Bacon Beans as a snack?

Posted By: Paul - Sat Sep 06, 2008 - Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Food

Follies of the Mad Men #22

[From Newsweek for September 25 1950.]

Pure jittery brainbuzz in a handy grenade-shaped shaker.

Beware of putting anything in your mouth that comes from a company named "International Minerals & Chemical Corporation."

Posted By: Paul - Wed Sep 03, 2008 - Comments (2)
Category: Business, Advertising, Food, Inebriation and Intoxicants, Science, Technology, 1950s

Chocolate Teapots

Back in 2001, Simon Bradshaw and his colleagues published a tongue-in-cheek article in Plotka analyzing the utility of a chocolate teapot. They were inspired by the phrase (common in the UK) that something is as "useful as a chocolate teapot." Their conclusion was that chocolate teapots are indeed not very useful since they leak everywhere, and therefore they "serve as an excellent baseline of uselessness against which to compare other, similarly dysfunctional, items."

The article became a minor classic of scientific humor. (Yeah, science humor tends to be a bit nerdy) and was replicated by other researchers.

More recently, the Naked Scientists (authors of Crisp Packet Fireworks) decided that the problem was that the teapot was too thin. If you make the chocolate thick enough, it'll hold the hot water and brew tea. But how thick? Two centimeters proved to be enough. They note:

The main structural design defects were the lid, which melted, and the spout, which collapsed after the tea was poured.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Sep 03, 2008 - Comments (1)
Category: Food, Science

Albino Pretzel

Can you explain how one pretzel in a bag of pretzel sticks would end up white? I can't.

Via J-Walk, who offers this theory: "In the pretzel cooking factory, a new employee found an uncooked pretzel on the floor and tossed it into the pot soon before the others were done. Little did he/she know that you shouldn't do that."

Posted By: Alex - Sun Aug 31, 2008 - Comments (1)
Category: Food