Category: Random

a toast to continued success here

We have now finished the calendar month of September, and in terms of site traffic it was the most successful month ever here at Buffet o’ Blog.  There were 2,539 pageloads in the month, which doesn’t include any while the administrators are logged in.

So I would like to say thanks to all of you who are here reading this blog.  It’s really a lot of fun to put this together, and I’m glad some people are enjoying it.  Let’s have a toast to our continued success.  (What?!?  We’re all out of toast?  Who let this happen?!?)  Well, I just heard from an ex-employee that we are out of toast.  So here’s what we’ll do.  The next time you eat toast, think of this blog.  To make this celebration more special, go ahead and load your toast up with all the butter and jelly you want to, and consider the calories on us.  Or if you want cheese toast, feel free to melt some cheese over your toast.  And you can add bacon, too.  Go all out.  Don’t worry about your diet, because it’s a special event.

eating too many colorful foods

I was perusing the Internet the other day, and I found a blog about food.  I like blogs, and I like food, so it just about has to be good, right?  Well, it was a good time.  But I found something that I had never heard of, and it’s gross, yet it’s intriguing, yet it’s gross…  Okay, if you keep reading, you have been forewarned.  Now onto the unusual comment…

Did you know that if you eat a whole bag of Oreos in one day your poo will be jet black?  Well if you didn’t, you do now.

I’ve eaten a lot of Oreos, but I don’t know if I’ve ever eaten a whole package at one time.  And turds are somewhat brown and blackish most times anyway, so it might be easy to overlook that phenomenon.  But this reminded me of a true story about a former roommate — he went to Cracker Barrel, got the 6 vegetables plate, chose all colla’ greens, and it turned his poop green.  He was excited about this, too…

a new promotional idea for restaurants

I thought of a great marketing scheme for restaurants that have foods with a particular olfactory “signature”.  By that, I mean they have a certain recognizable smell that makes people think of that restaurant.  The example I will provide is Arby’s, where I ate earlier this week with some of the Buffet o’ Blog staff.  Their curly fries are scrumptious, and even the smell of them is good.

So I think places like Arby’s should give promotional (read: free or discounted) meals to a few folks at each company in town every so often, around 11:15, with the restrictions that they eat it at their desk.  Imagine the smell of Arby’s curly fries wafting over the cubicle walls, causing co-workers to drool over the appealing aroma.  This would surely increase sales at Arby’s, because some people would go that day because “it just sounds good” (even though they were unknowingly coerced), and some people would get the idea in their head and start looking for the next convenient time to stop by there.

I think this would work.  They spend a lot of money on TV commercials and other ads, and they have their place, but the smell of curly fries and one of their famous roast beef sandwiches would bring in more people, I think.  It’s easy to overlook TV commercials and radio jingles, but it’s difficult to put aside the idea of Arby’s after smelling those curly fries.

I volunteer the services of the entire Buffet o’ Blog staff (all 3 of us) to participate in this venture.  We will conduct market research and report the effectiveness of our campaign.  Arby’s just needs to provide the food on a recurring basis.  (So if any Arby’s rep is reading this, have your people contact my people.)

What would life on Mars be like?

Could there be life on Mars?  Scientists have long speculated (and continue to do so), although there’s more hope than ever.  They also wonder if humans might ever have a colony there.  But now the question is more like, “Would we want to?”

One of the reasons it’s improbable to find life on Mars is that the atmosphere doesn’t contain oxygen.  And it was thought that all organic life requires oxygen.  But a few years ago an organism was found that can live without sunlight and oxygen.  It’s a methanogen.  They eat hydrogen, breathe carbon dioxide, and belch methane.  A group of these were found in Idaho, living 660 feet underground.  They also exist in the digestive tracts of humans, causing gas.  If these bacteria are what life might be like on Mars, it might be a stinky place.

But there’s more.  Mars stinks naturally.  The surface of the red planet contains a very high concentration of sulfur.  Combined with other acids and minerals on Mars, it forms hydrogen sulphide (H2S), which is that rotten egg smell you may have experienced before.  And not only does it stink immensely, but it can cause headaches, and it is also explosive and poisonous.  So if you were living on Mars, you might be tempted to light a candle to reduce the stench (as some people are accustomed to doing), and KA-BOOM!

I’m thinking I’ll just stay here on Earth.  While there’s a few bad smells to deal with here, it’s not nearly so bad as it would be on Mars.

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