Horizon Zero

How To Drink Like Your Favorite Authors

Fun article, although I'm not sure any of my favorite authors do drink. Now that I think of it, a surprising number of them are Mormons, actually. Odd.

Yeah, they also have the Twilight chick.

Overweight NYC Councilman Wants To Ban Happy Meals

The Nanny State at work.

I've lost 70 pounds in the last year. I didn't need government - at any level - restricting my freedom of choice to do so. Hell, I went to McDonalds for breakfast today.

You can have my double cheeseburger when you pry it from my cold, dead hands, food fascists.

The Water to Tip Ratio

I have a fairly simple set of rules when it comes to restaurants and tipping and the primary one is this: the likelihood of receiving a maximum tip(*) is inversely proportional to the amount of time my water glass is left empty.

It's always interesting to see what others view as absolutely important in their dining experience - there's one such list available for viewing here. You'll notice that the water thing is up there at number three.

I'll quibble a bit with number four - when it's lunch time and things are hopping I'd rather get my check as quickly as possible instead of potentially get stuck waiting because of surge of incoming diners.

What are your rules when it comes to service and tips?

($2.00 or 20%, whichever is higher. Pizza Hut waitresses love me. So I tell myself.)

But Will It Taste Like Despair?

Via Instapundit, research continues apace on producing lab grown meat. You would think this would be a big cause amongst the enviro-left, seeing as how it would kill two climate affecting birds with one stone.

First, lab grown meat doesn't need acreage for grazing, destroying the economic incentive behind slash and burn deforestation of the rain forests in South America. (It also destroys the ranching industry in South America, but omelets and eggs...)

Second, with less need for the real deal, the total population of domesticated cattle can be downsized. The UN tells us that methane produced from increased cattle production is a contributing factor to global warming. So, less cows, less cow poop, less methane.

But Artificial Meat isn't a big to do in the Green world. Why? Well, there are a number of possible answers. Most people simply don't buy into the idea that it would be feasible. Others just don't think the public would accept Facon or Shamburger. (And major thanks to Walter Russell Mead for adding those terms to my lexicon.)

A less charitable reason might be that simply substituting fake meat for the real thing doesn't make anyone change their ways, just their food source. And there are a lot of people waving the Green banner that seem more interested in bossing around their fellow man than they do in actually, you know, saving the planet.

Creeping Inflation

CNN Money takes a look at how rising costs are getting you less bang for your grocery shopping buck.

I once had a crazy idea about how to save Kraft money on Kool-Aid. Grape Kool-Aid is only purple because they add food coloring, right? Same with cherry and the other flavors. That food coloring adds to the cost per unit. So why not eliminate it? You'd have the same flavors, and could market it as "Kool-Aid Mystery Flavors!" to the kids. You may only save pennies per box sold, but in aggregate that's almost real money.

Suddenly, it doesn't seem so crazy...

My Arteries Hurt Just Looking At It

The Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheeseburger.

Unlike the original poster, however, I don't view that monster as a sign of our inevitable decadent decline. I choose to look at it instead as a mature society throwing caution to the wind and laughing at danger.

Yeah, that's it.

This Food Thing I Invented

Well, probably not invented - I'm sure someone somewhere has done this before. But it's new to me.

Take one bag of Uncle Ben's microwavable rice, heat it up. Dump in a bowl. Open two pouches of Chicken of the Sea salmon. Dump in bowl. Add four tablespoons of A1 steak sauce. Mix.

Makes two servings, 200 calories each.

Om nom nom.

C-Squared?

I'm not a marketing guru, but did it ever occur to anyone at Coca-Cola that naming their new, lower carb, lower calorie soda C2 might cause some people to think that it actually had more of the bad, as in Coke to the 2nd Power? (Similar to Jolt - All the Sugar, Twice the Caffeine(TM))

Wouldn't it have been better to call it Coke/2? How about Coca-Cola, Service Release 2?