A few weeks ago, my housemates and I were watching CNN, and they were running yet another "gee, gas is more expensive than it was in the past!" story. Clearly, however, they had run out of interesting angles from which to cover this unexpected, totally inexplicable event, as the entire content of this particular 5 minute spot focused on the sudden shortage of big plastic number fours. It seems "4" was not commonly found in gas prices at the $3.99-and-below level, and yet here we are, in a $4-a-gallon world. Needless to say it was a hard-hitting story, complete with testimonials ("Yeah, we never carried many of them fours, figured we'd never need them! Now we do.") and a few examples of the inextinguishable ingenuity of the human race ("I just took some of them big plastic ones, and a roll of electrical tape, and made them into fours"). Bravo, CNN. Bravo.
Apparently the plastic four shortage has swept the nation, and increased in severity, since the New York Times has now got in on the action. And people say the quality of news media is on the decline.
Really, what these stories illustrate is that we have a more immediate problem than Peak Oil, and that is Peak-Transparent-Plastic-Number-Fours. Luckily, America's finest corporate scientists have found huge natural reserves of big plastic fours buried under some environmentally fragile coastline near Bermuda. Now, the only things standing between the USA and relief for the beleaguered gas station sign supply companies are a few whiny leftist-types, and some starfish. Don't worry though, while we're digging up those fours, we'll also be planning for the future by figuring out a way to synthesize big plastic fives from plentiful, worthless food.
(NYT link courtesy of the great Ken Jennings)
Monday, July 21, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Dr. Horrible
Imagine a musical sing-along supervillain blog starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Filion, directed by Joss Whedon. That sounds like it might be the coolest thing ever.
Turns out it is. And it's available free online until Sunday... which is, like, right now. Watch quick.
Turns out it is. And it's available free online until Sunday... which is, like, right now. Watch quick.
More Bent Objects
After watching that food art video, I checked out the guy's website, Bent Objects, and his stuff is genius. Submitted for your perusal: ice cubes and orange hunters.
Basil Leaves, Crushed Rosemary
If there's one thing I love more than anthropomorphic food art, it is food puns. This video satisfies both loves.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Slider
Today I have seen the culmination of the entire history of human culinary progression, and its name is Slider. Before I get into a description of this juggernaut of deliciousness, though, I need to talk about the Swedish Beaver.
The Swedish Beaver is an institution at Queen's University, and has been for the past several years. For those of you who aren't from Kingston, the Swedish Beaver is a large, blue-and-yellow painted food truck that parks itself in front of Miller Hall every day from mid-morning until late afternoon. To call it a mere chip truck, however, is to do it great injustice. This is the chip truck perfected. In fact, the fries usually take back seat to the rest of the menu, which is made fresh, with high quality ingredients, and at mind-bogglingly reasonable prices. The whole thing is made better by the fact that the Beaver serves some really out-there food for a chip truck, on top of the standard fries, hamburgers and sausages. Take the Gordon Special, for example. It's a grilled chicken breast, rubbed with some secret concoction of delectable spices, sliced up and put into a garlic pesto wrap with tomato, lettuce, red onion and potato salad. But not just any potato salad. Swedish potato salad, which is to say, potato salad perfected. It's got the perfect creamy consistency - not so thick that it feels heavy, not so thin that it gets all runny in a wrap, just the perfect level of ephemeral creaminess to bind the salad and wrap together in perfect unity. Also, it's got capers in it. Amazing. And it's four dollars. I can barely get a bottle of juice for $4 at the rest of the food service outlets on campus.
Now that you have some context, I need to describe the Slider, and for full effect, you really need to pause and visualize just how unbelievably satisfying this would be for lunch. The slider is a whole wheat wrap, filled with poutine and grilled bacon. That's it. It's fiendishly simple in its arrangement, and yet the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts. For starters, poutine is a world-class dish. I've written before about the elements of a good poutine, and this poutine had it all. The fries were moist and fluffy on the inside, yet incredibly crispy on the outside. The cheese was fresh white curds, and the gravy was salty and gooey and excellent. Now, that's all well and good, but I've always found the tactile experience of eating a poutine to be somewhat less than ideal. You've got this styrofoam container (unnecessary waste), and, typically, some crappy plastic fork with tines that bend when you try to spear a fry. Now, take that same delicious food and throw it in a wrap, and you have a highly portable, edible container that lets you devour your poutine with one hand. Also, it's whole wheat, so it's healthy... right?
Poutine in a wrap is borderline genius on its own, but when you throw some bacon in there... I mean, come on. I'm not sure that's even legal.
In the interests of fairness, I should point out that there are two potential weaknesses of the Slider. One: by virtue of the incredible freshness of the fries they serve at the Swedish Beaver, the Slider can be a bit hot to hold. This is mitigated by the fact that your brain's sensory centres are completely overwhelmed by poutine and bacon, so you probably won't notice. Second, squidgy (that is to say, non-crispy) bacon tends to want to be consumed all at once. It can be hard to bite off half of the bacon and leave some for the bottom of the wrap. Crispy bacon would be better.
Overall, though, I think the Slider might be chip truck junk food perfected. As a pleasant bonus, the Swedish Beaver is parked a mere one block from the Kingston General Hospital, so when your ensuing heart attack kicks in, you don't have far to go.
The Swedish Beaver is an institution at Queen's University, and has been for the past several years. For those of you who aren't from Kingston, the Swedish Beaver is a large, blue-and-yellow painted food truck that parks itself in front of Miller Hall every day from mid-morning until late afternoon. To call it a mere chip truck, however, is to do it great injustice. This is the chip truck perfected. In fact, the fries usually take back seat to the rest of the menu, which is made fresh, with high quality ingredients, and at mind-bogglingly reasonable prices. The whole thing is made better by the fact that the Beaver serves some really out-there food for a chip truck, on top of the standard fries, hamburgers and sausages. Take the Gordon Special, for example. It's a grilled chicken breast, rubbed with some secret concoction of delectable spices, sliced up and put into a garlic pesto wrap with tomato, lettuce, red onion and potato salad. But not just any potato salad. Swedish potato salad, which is to say, potato salad perfected. It's got the perfect creamy consistency - not so thick that it feels heavy, not so thin that it gets all runny in a wrap, just the perfect level of ephemeral creaminess to bind the salad and wrap together in perfect unity. Also, it's got capers in it. Amazing. And it's four dollars. I can barely get a bottle of juice for $4 at the rest of the food service outlets on campus.
Now that you have some context, I need to describe the Slider, and for full effect, you really need to pause and visualize just how unbelievably satisfying this would be for lunch. The slider is a whole wheat wrap, filled with poutine and grilled bacon. That's it. It's fiendishly simple in its arrangement, and yet the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts. For starters, poutine is a world-class dish. I've written before about the elements of a good poutine, and this poutine had it all. The fries were moist and fluffy on the inside, yet incredibly crispy on the outside. The cheese was fresh white curds, and the gravy was salty and gooey and excellent. Now, that's all well and good, but I've always found the tactile experience of eating a poutine to be somewhat less than ideal. You've got this styrofoam container (unnecessary waste), and, typically, some crappy plastic fork with tines that bend when you try to spear a fry. Now, take that same delicious food and throw it in a wrap, and you have a highly portable, edible container that lets you devour your poutine with one hand. Also, it's whole wheat, so it's healthy... right?
Poutine in a wrap is borderline genius on its own, but when you throw some bacon in there... I mean, come on. I'm not sure that's even legal.
In the interests of fairness, I should point out that there are two potential weaknesses of the Slider. One: by virtue of the incredible freshness of the fries they serve at the Swedish Beaver, the Slider can be a bit hot to hold. This is mitigated by the fact that your brain's sensory centres are completely overwhelmed by poutine and bacon, so you probably won't notice. Second, squidgy (that is to say, non-crispy) bacon tends to want to be consumed all at once. It can be hard to bite off half of the bacon and leave some for the bottom of the wrap. Crispy bacon would be better.
Overall, though, I think the Slider might be chip truck junk food perfected. As a pleasant bonus, the Swedish Beaver is parked a mere one block from the Kingston General Hospital, so when your ensuing heart attack kicks in, you don't have far to go.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
On Persistence
I'm pretty sure everyone's heard the old standard, "to err is human, to forgive is divine", first written by Alexander Pope in his work "An Essay on Criticism". However, I came across an interesting tidbit in perusing Wikipedia's "List of Latin Phrases (C-E)" (for my thesis... knowledge of latin phrases is a bit too arcane and dry for me, which is saying something).
It looks like Alexander Pope's phrase was a retooling of an older phrase attributed to Seneca the Younger, a Roman philosopher from the wee years of the first millennium (he lived from 4 BC to AD 65, which preceded Pope by about 17 centuries or so). Seneca originally stated "errare humanum est perseverare diabolicum", which translates to "To err is human, to persist is of the devil", which is certainly as true as Pope's phrase. Of course, our less poetic 21st century language would probably be a bit more blunt about it.
It looks like Alexander Pope's phrase was a retooling of an older phrase attributed to Seneca the Younger, a Roman philosopher from the wee years of the first millennium (he lived from 4 BC to AD 65, which preceded Pope by about 17 centuries or so). Seneca originally stated "errare humanum est perseverare diabolicum", which translates to "To err is human, to persist is of the devil", which is certainly as true as Pope's phrase. Of course, our less poetic 21st century language would probably be a bit more blunt about it.
Aesop Rock: Master lyricist, cereal critic
I've posted before about my love for the music ofAesop Rock, but it turns out his wordsmithing talents aren't limited to impressionist rap. Check out this recent post over at the Def Jux blog, wherein Aesop Rock lists his top 10 favourite breakfast cereals, along with detailed justification, and it is awesome. Seriously, I could listen to Aesop Rock describe cereals for hours. Here is a taste:
#2. Fruity Pebbles: This is amazing shit, and occasionally can hold the #1 spot. This cereal blows any other fruity cereal out the box. Fuck a Fruit Loop straight up. The flakes are small too, so every spoonful has a ton of actual cereal on it. It gets soggy in milk (in a good way) and turns the milk all sort of colors. Shit looks like a sweet, sweet oil spill, AND if you're fast, it'll still be cold by the time you "step into liquid". Blizaow.
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