The unusual fruit is the invention of Hiroichi Kimura, a farmer from Kumamoto, and his wife. The couple said they had tried for three years to create the perfectly heart-shaped fruit, which they say symbolizes their passion for farming and their affection for each other.
I’d like to see a Hello-Kitty-shaped pumpkin, carved into a jack-o-lantern.
Reader jde sends this from Japan.
Reader jde sends a link to Fancy Fast Food. These people took two Burrito Supremes and a Soft Taco and turned them into tortellini:
Think outside the tortilla. Carefully unwrap the Burrito Supremes and soft taco, and extract their stuffings in a bowl. Carefully rinse off each of the tortillas, and then briefly steam them in a steamer to soften and moisten them. Then lay each tortilla on a cutting board and cut circles in it using a small circular cookie cutter, or simply an empty tin can measuring around 2 1/2” in diameter. Take the filling and put a small amount in each small tortilla circle, then fold it in half and pinch it into a tortellini shape. The moisture should keep it sticky enough to stay put. Pile the tortellinis on a plate. Next, cut open and pour the contents of the sauce packets in a measuring cup, then generously drizzle the sauce over the tortellini. Garnish with parsley and serve with Sierra Mist in a wine glass.
Fast food trades quality for convenience. If you put a lot of effort into turning fake Mexican food into fake Italian food, you have neither quality nor convenience, just a piece of Ironic Culinary Performance Art.
Freaking News has some really strange pictures. I think they got the idea from Jake Tucker on Family Guy.
With spectacularly bad timing, Farrah Fawcett dies on the same day as Michael Jackson. Bam! The media shift gears and Farrah is gone, forgotten. The struggle with cancer is replaced by alleged pedophilia and drug abuse.
Having recently read Geoffrey Ashe’s Merlin: The Prophet and His History, I was interested in this British TV series, now showing on NBC. It turns out to be a teen soap opera in medieval costume. Merlin and Arthur are teens or barely adults, and the series is all about their relationships. Arthur has a distant father in King Uther, Merlin has his uncle Gaius and his mentor the Great Dragon. Merlin becomes Arthur’s servant, so there are class issues. There are also Guinevere and Morgana for female characters (Morgana is a royal, and Guinevere is her servant, in a reversal of the Arthur/Merlin situation). As far as I can tell from two episodes, the series is mostly about the male relationships.
Ashe’s book traces the Merlin legend back to Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing in 1135 and basing Merlin on a Welsh madman named Myrrdin. Geoffrey wrote in Latin, and Myrrdin would be Latinized as Merdinus. Geoffrey apparently thought that was too close to merde for his Norman French patrons, so he changed the name to Merlinus, which Anglicizes to Merlin.
Merlin, in the original myth, was a contemporary of Uther Pendragon, Arthur’s father. The TV series moves him to Arthur’s generation.
There is something insidious about drama. We want drama to be “based on a true story”. We don’t want a true story, we want something false, but “based on” truth. Merlin, the TV series, doesn’t even have the truthiness of “based on a true story”. I suppose it has “mythiness”, being “based on a traditional myth”.
The World Superhero Registry features real life superheroes. My first reaction was that these people are disturbed and pathetic. But then… the police wear costumes. Boy Scouts wear costumes. There’s a local “neighborhood watch citizen’s patrol” and they have costumes. Matching T shirts are kinda minimalist costumes, but they are costumes. So the superheroes… disturbed and pathetic maybe, but in degree, not in kind.