Recent Entries

Cal Tort and Pop Tarts!

California Tortilla is giving away free Pop Tarts today!

Today's spicy sauces on my burrito-in-a-bowl were "Ass in Antarctica" (rated a 9, which was a surprise, it's made from cayennes) on the left side, and "Rectal Rocket Fuel" (a 7, made from habaneros and scotch bonnets) on the right. Mmmmm...

For some reason, I couldn't taste the pop tart...

digital pinhole camera

I'm very amused. Here's an article about how to turn your $1000 SLR digital camera into a pinhole camera!

LotR MMORPG chicken!

Yes, in a new update to the Lord of the Rings online game, you can be a chicken, and (as this review article indicates, you can earn an egg-sclusive item by finishing a series of chicken quests.

Ouch, oooo, urph! Zoyzia!

( zoyzia replacement rant )

Kwik-e-mart!

Doh! As you may have heard by now, 7-eleven has changed a dozen of their stores to Kwik-E-Marts for the next month! They'll even be selling squishies!

(Kwik-e-mart is the convenience store on the Simpsons. This is a promotion for the upcoming Simpsons movie.)

The best part is, there is one here in Maryland, in Bladensburg (On Kennilworth Ave, just north of 450).

EDIT:

blueeowynjust sent me a link to some pictures of a Kwik-e-mart!

Current Mood: satisfied

Cal Tort -- spicy!

California Tortilla is probably my favorite fast-food joint. While not as cheap as McD's, they aren't too expensive, and a regular size Havana burrito in a bowl (no wrap, add some lettuce) is only 333 calories. And they have a rack of pepper sauces to die for! Or maybe, die from!

They have maybe 75 different sauces, often with names like "Ass in Space" or "Asburnin" or "Rectal Rocket Fuel" or "See Dick Burn" --you get the idea. They are rated from 0 (ketchup and "Hickory Heaven" to 10 ("Ass in Hell"). I generally go for the 7 to 9 range. I did a "10+" once. Probably will again someday, but not anytime soon. Many of the 6s and 7s have a good combination of flavor and kick, ranging from sweet mango to garlic to mustard. For reference, that red tobasco sauce that is fairly common is a 3 or 4, as are most sauces based on jalapenos or scotch bonnets. The hotter stuff blends in habaneros.

Usually I put two sauces on my burrito-in-a-bowl, each on half the bowl. Today's flavors were both 9s, and frankly, with 9s it doesn't matter too much what the flavor is. "Termigator" and "Ass in Antarctica" were their names. Termigator is a thick mustardy sauce, while A-i-A is more like tobasco but hotter.

Oh, for those who don't understand why so many of the names refer to one's exit port, you've never eaten hot peppers, have you? They're hot when they go in, and ...

Interesting article about cats

Here's an article about the ancestry of cats for all you felinophiles to enjoy!

On a licence plate

I saw this today on a Maryland licence plate:

TI 3VOM

(this was on a very large SUV, and don't forget: Maryland has plates in the front, too!)

Current Mood: geeky

(no subject)

A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.
—Attributed to both Alfréd Rényi and Paul Erdős.

Economic War on China?

Have you noticed the number of problematic products from China recently?

There was the melamine-tainted wheat and rice gluten that made its way into pet food.

More recently, a bunch of toys (including some related to Thomas the Tank Engine) were recalled because they were painted in China using lead-based paint.

This week I've heard about poorly made tires and shipments of poorly made electronics counterfeits all from China.

It seems that every time I turn on the radio, I hear about more bad Chinese products being recalled. What's the deal?

Current Mood: chipper

lumpectomy!

As many of you know (and some of you may not know), I developed a growth on my neck several weeks ago. A one-inch swollen area under the skin in the side of my neck. After antibiotics and a CAT scan, it was determined to be a mass of fatty tissue, a benign growth that would likely continue to grow slowly until removed. Yesterday I went to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, close to where Charles St. meets the northern part of the beltway, and had it removed. Turns out it was not a fatty growth after all, but a slightly out-of-control mass of veins. The procedure was done with a local, so I was awake throughout. Very strange, laying there for nearly an hour, trying not to move while people poke around inside my neck with sharp things. I tried to distract myself by reciting digits of pi, or trying to control my pulse rate (I could hear the machine going beep, beep, beep). My neck is a bit sore now, and I can't turn my head very far, but it should be much better later this week. The opening was only about an inch, and was closed with glue, not sutures, so I don't have to worry about having the stiches removed.

Doritos X-13D

You may have seen the black bags of "Doritos X-13D" -- being promoted as a taste experiment where consumers are encouraged to send in possible names for the product. Well, I don't normally eat Doritos, but I was intrigued, and I like naming contests, so I bought a bag.

Names that come to mind:

Fish taco
Toe jammin'
Onion vomit
Hogsbreath

More than anything else, they tastes like someone took regular Doritos, scraped most of the cheese and spice off, then added a nice thick coating of onion powder. Of course, I'm drinking a Slurpee, which makes me belch regularly. And I thought X-13D tasted bad on the way down!

You've just gotta wonder...

There is an ad banner for the online version of Settlers of Catan which asks, "Got wood for sheep?"

sigh.

New ride at six flags? Ummm..no...

Oddly enough, this is no urban legend. A semi was pulled over because he was pushing a man in a wheelchair down the highway at 50mph. The man in the wheelchair only suffered a spilled soda.

article link

ren fest silliness?

Suppose the year is 3572, and they're having a 21st century festival -- they'd have a quaint little city on the ground! with shopping malls, football stadiums, theatres, lots of archaic displays of two-dimensional television, sidewalks that don't move, etc., and maybe a ren fest!! A ren fest within the 21st century fest. Hmmmm...

Imagine being Will Riker and beaming down to what you thought was a post-industrial planet, only to be confronted with Henry VIII and grovelling peasants!

Imagine having a Roman Festival at a Tudor ren fest. Maybe a 1/2-hour or 1 hour series of events on the joust field, all in chitons (is that the word?). There could be an archery contest (here, deputy, hold this target), a short Roman play, racing (didn't they do that in the nude? Or was that the Greeks?), bear bating (Um...we couldn't find a bear, so we're using one of the deputy reeves), chariott racing (the jousters won't let us use their horses -- oh, deputies!)

3D printing

This morning,

blueeowyn linked to a site about 3D math art produced by a three-dimensional printing technology. Similar technology has been suggested for use in manufacturing computer chips and some drugs products. Sounds great, right? Like a slow replicator from Star Trek. But the legal woes may be ahead of us...

Here's an article that suggests that such technology could lead to "Napster for devices." Why should you pay for a new DVD player if you can print one for the cost of the "ink" after downloading the digital plans?

If digital music and books screwed up copyright, what will 3D printers do to patents?

(no subject)

An interesting list of bad "healthy habits" on MSN today:

Slide show of healthy habits gone zoopty.

Among them: using antibacterial soap, drinking 8 glasses of water per day, and taking antioxidant pills.

feeling naughty...

I was feeling naughty last night -- sure 'nuf, I looked down and there was a zero next to my foot!

He was truly complex. To know the real him was only half the story. He was seeking a conjugate pairing, knowing that the product of their multiplying would be real, but all he found was too imaginary...

I saw a man stuffing his coffee cup into his donut, and immediately knew he was a topologist!

Borders Rewards Program -- a review

Any avid (rabid?) readers out there? You probably know about the discount programs currently offered by Borders and B&N. The B&N program is very simple: pay $25 per year, get 10% off of everything.

The Borders program last year was as follows:
5% of each purchase was given back as Holiday Bucks, to be spent in November through January. (A lot of customers were confused, thinking they were supposed to get a discount.) What you didn't spend of the holiday bucks during that time went *poof*.
Also, if you spent at least $50 in a month, you earned a 10% day the next month.
The program was free.

The current Borders program:
For each $150 spent during a calendar year, you get $5 in Borders bucks, to be spent during the month after they were earned.
No more 10% shopping days.
The program is still free.

The original Borders program was great -- by being patient, you could make most of your purchases once a month on your 10% day, and get 5% back for later use.

The new program has no 10% day, and provides at most 3.3% back, which you might forget to use. If you spend at least $375 per year at a major book store, you're better off giving B&N the $25.

One final note: Borders has been giving really nice coupons (20 or 30% off of one item, etc.). So my recommendation (if you prefer brick-and-mortar), do the B&N program for regular purchases, but use the coupons at Borders.

Current Mood: amused

Vader plays bagpipes!

This is so stupid, I just had to share.
;)

Vader playing bagpipes at stupidvideos.com.