caption contest, spaceship for rent

What would Monday be like without one of our caption contests?   Actually, you can apply that concept to every day, because the caption contest makes every day better!   Of course we currently post only one per week, but you can come back to it every day, and there’s often new captions written for it every day (for its first week, anyway).  So it has lasting value.   (Speaking of value, have you ever realized that you get to enjoy the humor here absolutely free?   Yep, no strings attached, no cash monies required.)

Anyway, enough of my rambling — let’s get to this week’s photo!  This picture is of what appears to be an alien spaceship for rent.  That’s not something you see every day!  Surely there’s an interesting story behind this situation.  So write what may be going on.   And of course your caption doesn’t have to be a story — it can be a joke or commentary of any kind.  Just make it funny.

spaceship for rent

(To see the other caption contests, click on the “Say What?” category in the sidebar.)

what is locust bean gum?

Do you ever look at the ingredients of the pre-prepared foods you eat?   Occasionally I do.  And thus begins our story.

My wife recently acquired a coupon for a free package of Starbucks’ caramel macchiato ice cream.  It’s a mix of vanilla and coffee ice cream, with swirls of caramel.  I don’t care much for coffee, but she liked it.   We happened to look at the ingredients on the back of the label, and noticed that the last ingredient was “locust bean gum”.  I don’t know what that is, but the name of it doesn’t sound appealing.

Normally the lower-tier ingredients have scientific names, such that the average consumer has no idea what it stands for (and is too lazy to bother looking it up).   But with a name like locust bean gum, that just opens the door to a lot of questions.  Let’s start with, “What does that mean?”  Is it locusts ground up into beans, or do the locusts eat the beans and then “extract” the gum (a la a certain coffee), or is it locust-flavored beans?  I have no idea, apart from rampant speculation.

So it’s time for some research*.  I found that it’s a galactomannan consisting of a B-D-mannopyranose backbone with 6 branchpoints linked to a-D-galactose.  A detailed explanation of what that means is WAY beyond the scope of this article.  However, a quick summary in English is that it retards ice crystal growth by forming a structured gel at a solid/liquid interface.  I suppose it has to do with the texture and viscosity of the ice cream.  But that still doesn’t answer where it comes from.

But I’m not sure I want to know…  Sometimes it’s good to not ask too many questions.  Just enjoy your ice cream…  🙂

* My research consisted of a single search and looking at one link on the first page of results.

Hans Solo as Magnum P.I.

Do you remember the Magnum P.I. TV show?  Someone made a version of it featuring Hans Solo as Magnum P.I., and it also includes Chewbacca and Luke Skywalker.  Whoever did this put a lot of time into it.  Just watching it by itself, it’s neat, but you don’t realize just how good it is until you compare it to the original.  That’s why I’m including three versions of it, and you can watch them in whatever order you want.  The third video is a side-by-side comparison of them both, which reveals just how much attention the creator paid to detail.

Hans Solo as Magnum P.I.:

original Magnum P.I. TV show intro:

side-by-side comparison of these two:

I’m not sure what prompted someone to spend that much time to make the parody so similar to the original, but it’s kinda cool, in a nerdy sort of way.  🙂

caption contest, man creating rock sculptures

This week’s caption contest features a guy making rock sculptures, with several people watching.   As usual, explain what could be going on here.  Your caption can be from the point-of-view of anyone in the picture or even just commentary on the picture.  Where it comes from doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s funny.  So get to writing!

man creating rock sculptures

(To see the other caption contests, click on the “Say What?” category in the sidebar.)