Monday, January 30, 2006

chickenortuna.com: Test Your Knowledge of Chicken and Tuna

Surprisingly difficult.

taquitos.net: Worst Chips Ever

From the curiously obsessive taquitos.net: the Worst Ever. OK, Crispy Fried Chicken Skins I can see; but Monster Munch Pickled Onion the fourth worst ever? Nooooo: generations of English schoolboys disagree.

SFGate.com: Americans' Savings Rate Declines in 2005

Americans’s personal savings rate was negative last year; for the first time since the Great Depression. *boggle*.

Friday, January 27, 2006

Official Google Blog: Google in China

Google squirms on the censorship hook. See also Charles Miller’s quietly devastating A Tale Of Two Googles (elegantly sidestepping the E-word); Shelley Powers’ truthfully resigned Green, Green, The Grass Is Green (“Google issues another beta or releases another new toy, and the pundits stop in mid-indignant outburst with murmurs of ‘Oooo, shiny. New toy.’”).

NME.COM: Grandaddy split up

Aw. But were they ever going to be able to live up to The Sophtware Slump, anyway?

Signal vs. Noise: Four things

Popping the tedious meme, and about time too: there's nothing more tedious than lists of lists.

Wikipedia: In-N-Out Burger

Oddly obsessive; see also Snopes on the subtle Bible citations on In-N-Out packaging.

Badmouth: in-n-out’s secret menu

In-N-Out’s secret burgers; as seen elsewhere on the web, but these come tried and tested with photographic proof. Animal Style looks like a winner to me. (Taken too far, things turn ugly: the 20x20; the 100x100. via BoingBoing.)

Thursday, January 26, 2006

The Amateur Gourmet: What I Can Tell You About The Taping I Attended of "Iron Chef America" Without Having To Pay The Food Network $1,000,000

...it’s (mostly) a setup: “These people know or at least have a very good idea of what the secret ingredient is going to be. And with all the stops and starts and editing and lack of music, a live performance of Iron Chef America is as tense as watching two 90 year olds play a game of hopscotch.” No big surprise, given that we never see the chefs pausing to plan recipes or timings: something which I would find as interesting as the cooking…

but she’s a girl: Plastic peril

bsag rants on the increasing trend towards welded-shut plastic packaging: “This breed requires some kind of bolt cutter (or other fearsomely sharp tool which can exert tremendous force), heavy leather gloves and a safety net or mattress.” These annoy me too, particularly when a tiny item—most recently, an SD card—comes surrounded by enough plastic to encase a largish book…

MediaGuardian.co.uk: BBC's Jesus sings Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

Manchester Passion: “The BBC plans to mark the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ this Easter with an hour-long live procession through the streets of Manchester featuring pop stars from The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays and featuring songs by The Smiths and New Order.” So weird it must be true, unless the Guardian is pulling some sort of TVGoHome-inspired hoax… (via Metafilter, who make the obvious I Am The Resurrection suggestion.)

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Phil Gyford: A trip to the Falkland Islands

Offbeat tourism; the journey sounds awful, the destination terrific. “Like many of my formative memories, there are grown adults alive now who weren’t even born when these things happened. So I guess there are people in the UK who haven’t heard of the place.”

Famous for 15 megapixels: Beware the Eight Passion Proteins

Now hey; I wouldn't say I was “old London”—I lived there from 1988 to 1995—but I remember the “LESS PASSION FROM LESS PROTEIN” guy very clearly. (And how utterly cool that the Museum of London has preserved his placards…)

Thursday, January 05, 2006

MercuryNews.com: Freeway becomes a runway

Plane lands on southbound 680 — my commute route, about 10 minutes away from work. I’m amazed they found a clear enough stretch. “You see a lot of things on the freeway, but you never think you’re going to see something like this.” (via Jeremy Zawodny)