Tag: pickles

creating our own space laser inator

In the last post we talked about creating an explosion on the Moon.  The story ended with us lamenting the lack of funds to do such things.  It would cost millions of dollars just to create one explosion on the Moon, which is quite extravagant and wasteful.  So one of our resident genii (geniuses) suggested we build an “inator” that would accomplish this goal and be self-funding.  Why didn’t NASA think of that?

So we’re gonna build a giant solar-powered space laser.  Who hasn’t dreamed of carving their name into the moon with a giant space laser?  Not only could you customize the moon’s appearance — and sell advertising spots on it for large sums of money — but there would be many potential uses for a space laser, some of which would pay lucratively.

Burninating the countryside…

One obvious application is trying to takeover the world with it, like a classic James Bond villain.  (I think Cobra of G.I. Joe has tried that, too.)  But hopefully owning a giant space laser wouldn’t turn you evil.  (It takes a certain mentality to be a mad scientist / evil genius.  It’s not for everyone.  And that’s a good thing.)

You could use it for good also.  Here’s a few ideas:

* If someone needed to destroy a building but an explosion is too dangerous, you could melt it down with your space laser.
* If you’re camping and you don’t want to wait on a campfire to cook your food, use your giant laser — that is, if you can program it to the right power level.
* Of course there are obvious military applications.
* If someone wants to install a moat around their house, using a laser would be a lot easier than digging it out manually.
* If you can set it to “stun”, you could use it to deter bullies, thieves, neighborhood pets who poop in your yard, etc. This would also be great for practical jokes.
* If you could somehow make it look like lightning, have the remote for that functionality setup to fire whenever you say your name dramatically.  There are plenty of catch-phrases that could also be applied to.
* Use it to rid the world of evil pickles.
* You could protect the Earth from asteroids, meteors, and space junk (debris).  You could also make this into a real-life Asteroids game, which would be awesome.

I’m sure there are many other practical (or not-so-practical) applications.  I’d like to hear your ideas, so feel free to leave a comment.

burger bomb sauce

When I was Christmas shopping last month, I saw some type of burger bomb sauce, which sounded intriguing, like maybe some chipotle-based sauce.  (BTW, have you noticed that chipotle seemed to be the top food-related buzzword of 2011?  But I digress…)

I looked at the ingredients, and noticed that the first 4 ingredients are mayo, pickles, ketchup, mustard.  As we’ve discussed numerous times on the blog, pickles are not food, so they don’t belong in any sauce.  (I can’t stand mustard, either, but will acknowledge it’s edible to some people.)

So maybe this sauce is marketed as a practical joke type gift, in that it will result in the destruction of your burger, from an edible point-of-view.  I figured using the term “bomb” meant it would be the bomb, but obviously they meant it more literally.

Ironically, if someone had given me this sauce, I would probably blow it up…  🙂

the ultimate potato salad

If you view this full-size, it looks somewhat like an alien blob. It may not be ALIVE! but it's obviously not food.

Recently I had several home-cooked Thanksgiving meals, and for there were lots of great traditional foods — turkey, ham, dressing, mashed potatoes, etc.  But there is one traditional food that I just don’t understand — potato salad (or as some say, tater salad).  Actually, let me call it “food”, because I’m not convinced it’s edible.

Normally I’m all about potatoes, in just about any capacity, but why ruin it with pickles and mustard?  I just don’t get it.  We’ve discussed at length that pickles are evil and should not be eaten.  I don’t like eating mustard, but at least I can accept that some people like it.  Pickles just aren’t food.  Even just the smell of them is repulsive.

Fortunately my in-laws realized my dislike of it and left some of the mashed potatoes uncorrupted for my consumption this year.  So props to them for that.

But why ruin good potatoes in such a manner when there are so many better uses for them?  Nonetheless, I understand how tradition and nostalgia is important, especially this time of year, so if potato salad is a tradition that many people feel should be continued, let’s revamp it.

So here and now, let’s invent a new-and-much-improved “potato salad” (if one must exist).  First off, no pickles or mustard.  Let’s just start with mashed potatoes (with butter and milk, of course), then add cheese and bacon.  Or we could go with bacon and gravy.  (Or all 3 if you feel adventurous.)  This will be a hundred times better than regular potato salad!  (Actually, I’m not sure I could even put a number on the comparison, since in its traditional form it is inedible to me.)

If we make this change, it might be culture shock to a few people, but once they try it, there’s no going back.  People will forget about the previous version, and everyone will be happier for it!  If it makes you sad that family members will no longer say things like, “Grandma Bottlestopper made the best tater salad”, realize that now people will say YOU make the best potato salad.  YOUR recipe will be written into the legends of Thanksgiving cooking, to be discussed for generations to come.  How will you feel about that?

If you have any additional suggestions or have done research on this topic, feel free to share.  Together we could invent the world’s best potato salad recipe.

I need a portable incinerator

During a recent discussion on this blog, I suggested that pickles be shot into the sun or at least tossed into a local incinerator.  That got me to wondering if there are any local incinerators open to the public.  Probably not.

So I challenge our Research & Development team to invent a pocket incinerator.  Imagine how handy that would be!  If you have trash while you’re out and about, you just fire up your pocket incinerator and toss the refuse in, and instantly your garbage is vaporized into nothingness.  Then there would be no excuse for littering — and it would be fun to watch things be vaporized.  (I suspect it would be so awesome that people would start grabbing whatever nonessential items are around them, which if at work would include pens, paperclips, staplers, TPS reports, and whatever stuff you think your co-workers really don’t need that much.)

Alternatively, the trash could be teleported to an parallel dimension, but I suspect you’d need a mighty powerful battery to handle that, probably something powered with nuclear power, which you might not want to carry around in your pocket…