Monday, October 08, 2007
Strange News from the Food Front (10/8/07)
A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:
- No Naked Lunch A Greenville, ME restaurant is getting into trouble over a promotion: a free sandwich (nicknamed the skinny dip) to anyone willing to plunge en naturale from the establishment's dock into the lake behind it. (AP)
- Don't Drink and Trim Police pulled over a man in West Virginia for drinking while driving - a rider lawnmower. (AP)
- Poisoning Pigeons in the Park Owners of the stadium where the Cincinnati Bengals play had been looking for permission to shoot pigeons. Apparently the birds had been dropping deposits into the drinks of patrons. Given that it's major league baseball, wouldn't an extra charge for a clean drink been more appropriate? (AP)
- Professional Cooking Pot The founder of a California factory that made a line of food stuffs all laced with marijuana faces federal drug charges. Talk about making your customers happy. (AP)
- Gritty Contest The wave of competitive eating competitions continues the first World Grits Eating Championship. A chef from Chicago ate 21 pounds of the stuff in 10 minutes. (AP)
Labels: drinking, driving, grits, lawnmower, marijuana, pigeons, skinny dip, weird
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Strange News from the Food Front (9/3/07)
A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities, posted a day late because of Labor Day:
- You're a Jerk When You're Drunk It's a new slogan that Finnish brewers are using to deal with young adult binge drinking and goes with a web site with pictures of a woman vomiting into her handbag. (Independent Online)
- Designated Driver A drunk man has his 11-year-old son drive him home. Police stopped them when the boy was driving the wrong way down a one-way street. (Arizona Central)
- What Am I Eating? The Beijing Tourism Bureau has released a list of proposed names for foods that have received such odd translations as "steamed crap" and "virgin chicken." Wait, those weren't ... literal translations, were they? (AP)
- What Do They Do for Scotch? A group of Missouri men had a plan for stealing beer from a package store: have one of them wear a mask and do a naked hula as a distraction. Had they maybe had success getting beer earlier that day? (AP)
- No-Stench Zone A Taiwan restaurant apparently served so much of a southern Chinese dish called Stinky Tofu that it was fined for exceeding smell limits three times. (Reuters)
- The Punishment? Seconds Four Swiss prison inmates escaped when one of them squeezed through the food hatch in his cell door and released the others. Guess when he said he didn't get enough to eat he was serious. (Ananova)
Labels: China, driving, drunk, Finland, Switzerland, Taiwan, tofu, weird
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Strange News from the Food Front
Odd stories from the previous week:
- Where's the Beef? EwwwThe company that owns Carl's Jr. and Hardee's chains is suing Jack in the Box for suggesting that their Angus burgers come from bovine anus. (Miami Herald)
- WWI - Wheelchairing While Intoxicated A wheelchair-bound German man decided to drive himself home after a party in Pennsylvania - and a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit. No news as to whether the police checked if he could roll a straight line. (Independent Online)
- Think of the Size of the Straw The Coca-Cola Company broke the previous world record for an ice-cream float. Theirs was 10 tons, sitting in a 15-foot high glass. But they didn't let the spectators consumer it ... spoil sports. (RedOrbit)
- McDonald's in a McSniff The Oxford English Dictionary defines a McJob "an unstimulating low-paid job with few prospects." McDonald's is taking offense and launching a petition to change the definition. Next step is redefining the word food to mean "the McStuff they sell at McDonalds." (ABC News Online)
- But It's Just a Go Cup An Atlanta package store gets into trouble for selling cups of ice along with bottles of liquor at the drive-up window. The Georgia Alcohol Dealer's Association thinks it's ok so long as the cups have lids. (KMGC, Channel 7 in Denver)
- Quick, Pass the Fire A Cornish man claims a world record for sleep deprivation for saying awake 11 days and nights. He attributes his ability to a "Stone Age" diet of raw food. No wonder prehistoric people discovered fire - they were desperate for a good nap. (Anova)
