Like most Americans, I’m fascinated with the drinking culture of Great Britain. Not only do the British drink a whole lot, but more importantly, our friends in the UK seem to really enjoy drinking as much as anybody possibly can. In fact, the British Home Office paid for research into a safer pint glass that will make drinking even more enjoyable.
Imagine this, you are someplace in London drinking one of the 126 Million pints of beer severed in throughout the UK every week. Somehow you break your glass. This could have led to tragedy as official figures record 5,500 attacks a year with beer pint glasses (Nerdy Statistical note: this leads to a 0.00008394% chance that the guy next to you is going to attack you with his pint of Boddingtons). Does that seem like a lot to you? Now, however, the governments new hybrid safety glass (coming to a pub near you) can be broken, but held together like a car windscreen with a layer of plastic. That’s right – safety glass for beer pints.
Cheers to the Brits! Bottoms Up!
After hearing about a new kind of up-scale burger-joint opening up in the neighborhood, we decided to start by doing our homework. The online buzz was very good. A premium, custom built-to-order burger restaurant, with real drinks and a hip, cool look. The Counter guarantees their beef is 100% antibiotic and hormone free as well as being humanely raised and handled. They are a top pick by several reviewers and point out that their menu offers over 300,000 burger combinations. The company was started in Santa Monica, CA in 2003 and they have quickly grown to several locations, coast to coast and worldwide. [click to continue…]
The whistle-blower was Jimmy Fallon’s Drummer, Questlove from the Roots. Apparently the NBC cafeteria chef, Leslie Calhoun, who is black herself, thought it would be fun to have a special menu to honor Black History month.
However, many thought the menu, Fried Chicken and Collard Greens went a bit too far. Not that this is not a delicious menu, just that apart from excluding Grape Soda and Watermelon, it encapsulates the very worst in white stereotypes of African American culture.
Quickly caving to public outrage as the spine-less normally do, NBC apologized, removed the cafeteria menu and probably beat both the chef and the ?uestlove with rubber hoses.
Full Disclosure: I am a huge Conan fan from way back [EP is with COCO!]
Its not every day a young boy dies at a hot dog eating contest. Especially a 13 year-old middle school student at a supervised Boys and Girls Club charity event. Although the choking death appears to be an accident, the Police are investigating.
Call me a conspiracy theorist – but a few things in this story don’t add up. First, is that the food these 12 young contest participants were eating makes no sense. Apparently this wasn’t a contest to see how many hot dogs the kids could eat. Rather, it was contest was a “game” to see who could finish a cooked hot dog and bun covered with whipped cream. What the HELL? Not Fear Factor, but not Great Eats either [Hats off to our EPIE winner!].
Additionally, and weirder, the contest itself was part of a charity event to raise money for the Haiti quake disaster. That’s weird isn’t it? An eating contest as a part of an event to raise money for poor people to get. . .food. Lastly, the prize for the kids upon finishing the whip-cream-dog. . .is described as some “candy.” As in – you kids finish your whip-cream-dog and we will give you some candy.
That is just creepy. Although,I suppose back in the halcyon days of middle school I might have had a go.
The only good news is that the event reported raising $150 for Haitian Relief. Come to think of it. . .that buys a lot of hot dogs.
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