Kooking Kornir - Deep Fried Shapes.

This week, America celebrates Fictionalized Settlement Day, and that means food, food , food. But, as you know, not everyone likes their food to come in so many different forms and textures! Turkey can be so "slicey" and "meaty". Cranberry sauce can be so "sauceful" and "fuitish". Stuffing can be so "variable" and "seasoned". This Fictionalized Settlement Day, reinforce your family's comfort zone the American way by serving up this super-comforting platter of deep fried shapes, all with the most reassuring texture of all - friedness!

Start your Deep Fried Shapes platter of the right way - with a platter. Our serving suggestion shows the platter served raw, but for proper theming, you may want to deep fry it. Platter fryers can be rented by the hour from any VFW hall if none of your fryers can accommodate your platter. A cast iron platter like this one needs to fry for thirty seconds, but aluminum models only need to be in the grease for twenty seconds. Don't overdo it!

Next comes the fun part - shapes! Look at our picture for ideas. Gosh, it could be anything in there! Those stick shapes could be fish sticks or cigarette lighters or whatever. Those round things could be cream puffs, golf balls or maple syrup cysts. Everything's delicious if you deep fry it enough!

Choose your shapes based on the diameter of your eaters' mouths. Measure their "nutrient inlets" while they're sleeping. Hopefully, your family has a nice, healthy snoring habit. This makes it easy to slip in a pair of calipers to measure the inner diameter of their mouths at full gape. You want shapes that fit into their mouths whole. If they can fit the shapes in their mouths without biting, this makes it easier for them to enjoy their Fictionalized Settlement Day dinner while playing video games or wielding a lawn chair in an impromptu "backyard wrastlin" match.

Some good starter shapes are "circle", "rectangle", "oblate spheroid", "ovoid", "thin squiggle" and "thick squiggle". Some of these are pictured in today's serving suggestion. Can you find them all? Fry your shapes in your best deep fryer set to "very crunchy". If some of your shapes come out a different shape than they went in, fry them again. What have you got to lose?

Arrange your shapes on your platter segregated by shape and size. This will minimize hunting and ensure that  eaters who enjoy only one shape know exactly where to find their favorite. Garnish with the barest suggestion of vegetable matter. Not too much now. The steaming crispiness is the star of the show. Serve your shapes with several tubs of dipping goos. Consider traditional flavors like yellow and flesh-toned. White flavor goo is best served with some kind of lumps in it.

Your eaters may start arguing and biting each other. This is a classic indication of Not Enough Food. Only empty mouths can bite. Fry up another fried platter of crispy orange comfort shapes and revel in your happy, gorged family. Aloha!

Ivory Soap - Little bubblyyyyy!

Today the IT and Swearing Team installed our new Pitney-Bowes ScanTron color image scanner. So, there will be no more - shall we say - "racing stripes" in our images. In the Images and Scanning Them department, there was a mighty throwing of hats into the air and many shouts of "Huzzah!" For the curious, the Okidata Adequate Scan620 will now be retired to the museum wing of GO! Tower. It will be on display during business hours from now on, or until somebody walks off with it under their arm. For the Pitney-Boweses (sp?) maiden voyage, we bring you this tender domestic vignette from a 1938 ad for Ivory soap.

Ah, yes. I have only dim memories of my mother teaching me to blow spit bubbles, but I'm pretty sure there was a crease running vertically through that day in my life, too

Babies don't come out of the packaging knowing how to make bubbles with spit. Like everything else, they need to be taught by their mother. Here we see a pretty mother wearing a pair of pink curtains, showing a larval Alan Hale to blow spit bubbles with her clay leprechaun pipe. It couldn't have been easy for her to pull off a bubble of this diameter. See, babies' saliva nearly always has the viscosity needed for spit bubbles because they are in a near constant state of just-having-eaten-ness. Their mouths usually have a thick coating of creamed peas, creamed carrots, or creamed perch mixed in a 50/50 ratio with spit.

Adults, on the other hand, brush their teeth and drink acidic or astringent things like soda pop and coffee, which tend to make for very thin spit. Maybe the woman in this ad is just getting over a cold? When I'm sick, I can drink lacquer thinner and my mouth will still feel filmy. Sick person spit is nearly always a viscous blend of Nyquil, chicken broth and sinus drainage that could be used to hang wallpaper. Blowing a bubble big enough to encapsulate a baby would be a snap. Hell, you could probably do it just by accident if you doze off watching How It's Made on your next sick day (my favorite flu delirium sick day show). You'd wake up and wonder who draped you in a polyethylene drop cloth. Then you'd sheepishly realize it was just an ordinary flu-virus-sponsored spit bubble.

If you ask me, this lady is cheating by using the leprechaun pipe to assist. See the baby's hand about to make a grab for the bubble? Don't do it, little buddy. The viral cocktail in that bubble will make a "pox party" seem like child's play, and there's no mixture of coconut milk the Professor can make to defeat it.

Sidebar Ads - Can't break them up.

Time's a little short today, but something is better than nothing... usually. This something is a vertical strip of black and white ads from a 1959  issue of LIFE. At first, I thought it was all one large ad, but they're four different ones - for Gum Turpentine, 3 in 1 Oil, Tums, and Carter's Glues. There's some great character art in the  3 in 1 and Carter's ads, and the Turpentine ad has art that could be an engraving, or an ink drawing imitating the look of an engraving. These ads look so good together, they deserve to be posted as a group.

After looking at the 3 in 1 ad, you may want to recall how horrible those kind of skates were. You know the ones: they had metal wheels and clamped onto your shoes. This was fine if you had the stiff leather kind from the forties, but if you had soft rubber sneakers, they threatened to slip off your foot, leaving you with sudden traction on one of your feet at nine miles per hour. Man, eff those things.

Have a good weekend!

Horse Ride - Fufner and Dorette

Please forgive yesterday's lack-of-postiness. Go! Tower had to be vacated due to a fourth-floor toilet issue, and subsequent what-the hell-is-that-dripping-from-the-ceiling issues on the first through third floors. Those responsible have been referred to one of several volunteer recovery organizations and also a gift basket of Metamucil products.

Joke #1 - "Honey, you can't keep yanking on the reins like that, he's not a puppy, you know."

Joke #2 - Dorette, please stop yanking on the brakes so hard. I just had a new jaw put on this thing, and it cost a fortune."

Joke #3 - "Well, Fufnir, if you're going to keep spouting nonsense about how all numbers greater than five are the sum of two odd primes, I'll just turn this horse around and go home. Do you think I've never heard of Goldbach's Conjecture?"

Joke #4 - "No, darling. Pulling on the reins is how you make him stop. It's not how you do a wheelie. You're thinking of a bicycle."

Joke #5 - "Dorette, the sky is all mauve. When we left, it was pink. We'd better get back before the carmine comes."

Joke #6 - "Easy on the throttle, dear. You're going to stall him! His battery is low, and you don't want to know what it takes to jump start one of these things."

Joke #7 - "(Knock knock knock) Excuse me, miss? Do you know how fast you were going? License and fecal sample, please."

[Commenter jokes will be added to the post.    -Mgmt.]

Ethyl - Really? Drain bamage?

Look at these happy squares - Mister and Missus Dandy, out for an afternoon's shopping and general consumption. First stop, a new suit. Then, some sparklies for her, then a tank full of Ethyl, with delicious, smooth-running lead. Mmmmmm, yummy in my engine. Feeling antisocial?

I love ads like this. In 1941, nobody understood that lead caused brain damage, right? Well, not so right. The Wikipedia article on the subject is well-referenced and smells not a bit of fabrication. Tetraethyl (a lead-based fuel additive that's good for engines but not good for pretty much everything else), had been identified as a public health threat in 1924, after "refinery accidents left workers dying from violent insanity". Holy wow. Don't worry, the U.S. Public Health Service swooped in and convened a meeting (a year later) about the whole argy-bargy of lead toxicity. It lasted a day. Their conclusion was that lead did not pose an immediate threat, also there were no alternatives, even though private memos discussed ethanol as an alternative, although it was more expensive than lead. The U.S. Public Health Service concluded that the matter deserved further study and called for lunch. Thanks guys.

Here are some effects of lead poisoning:

-Lowered I.Q.
-High blood pressure
-Hearing problems
-Angry violent behavior
-Stunted growth

"Git 'r dumb!"

Leaded fuel was still used in Nascar as recently as 2008 when they switched to unleaded fuel. This explains the popularity of Larry the Cable Guy among Nascar loyalists and their acceptance of driving in a circle as "sport".

So who was the Ethyl company? General Motors trade marked the name Ethyl in 1924, because even then, "lead" was a dirty word and would make the product harder to market.

Everything's fine now, though. The EPA's phase-out of leaded fuels began just thirty years later, in 1972. But the process was interrupted when Ethyl Inc. sued the EPA. It took four years for the EPA to win the case and the actual phase-out began in 1976. A 1994 study showed that concentrations of lead in the blood of Americans had dropped by 78%.

Here's DuPont (makers of Styrofoam and Teflon) mentioning how awful lead is for your brain.

I'd probably be smarter if I hadn't gotten into Dungeons and Dragons when I was ten. The little miniature dudes we used for the game were still made of lead back then. Now I think they switched to some other metal. Sure I never breathed my miniatures, but I spent lots of time re-carving them to exactly match my character, to impress my big brothers. That may have had some kind of effect thingy on my brainular region or something. What, was I supposed to use a figure holding a longsword when my character sheet clearly stated he had a scimitar? Maybe you're the one with brain damage? Heh. Good one, Phil.

Nurse Dinka

Joke #1 -"Heyllo, you are here for doktor? Please sign paper while I get doktor, tank you... Okay, doktor ready to see you now... Heyllo, I am doktor."

Joke #2 - "Aah, you are new patient? Very nice. Doktor is almost ready for treat you. Please sit. Won't be long now. Still a little sober."

Joke #3 - "Heyllo, you are ready for annual finger-in-bottom checkup? Right this way, tank you."

Joke #4 - "Heyllo, welkome to library. You want book? Oops, someone check out book already. Come back maybe tomorrow, tank you."

Joke #5 - "Yes, I be right wit you, one moment pleiz... Uuh, how to spell 'leprosy'?"

Joke #6 - "Heyllo, one moment please. Almost finish drawing pikture of escaped patient with perfectly normal missing-liver scar for police report. Will be right wit you."

Joke #7 - "Heyllo, welcome to Mister Fancy Super Moscow Hair Salon. You are ready for annual finger-in-bottom checkup? Right this way, tank you."

Joke #8 comes from veteran commenter Craigf. Thanks, Craigf! Take THAT, Dinka!- Good Mornink, wealthy Amerikan businessperson! I am Honest Ledvinka, Russian doktor of finger-in-bottom! We have many young Russian girl who can perform test! Ha ha ha!

You like Nadia, former Vladivostok Beet Harvest Queen, circa 1983! Nadia is build like brick house of shit, if you hear what I am joking! Ha ha ha!

Perhaps not liking Nadia? You like Vladlena! Vladlena first woman in Russian space program, also first woman to spend 12 years in Russian MIR space station! Wealthy American Kosmonaut drink Tang, Vladlena drink own urine. Vladlena capable of sucking cantaloupe through 50 feet of GAZPROM line, if you are hearing my saying! Ha ha ha!!

Joke #9 has been brought to you by the letter M, and by Anonymous. Thanks, Anonymous! - The last known photo of Dinka Yankinov, military volunteer for Russian "коричневая нота"
(Brown Note) Infrasonic Subwoofer Experiment.

Clad in her Krapenov "sack-suit" & notepad at the ready, the amplifier aimed directly at her mid-section for the 6.5 Hz wave.

Dinka spent her final months in a modified Chernienko Iron Colon. The test facility was subsequently deconstucted & buried in a limestone pit(c. 1954) 
[Commenter jokes will be added to the post.    -Mgmt.]

Japlac - What the duck?

Purely by coincidence, today is Veterans day. This has nothing to do with the fact that the Snark Materials Acquisitions Team dropped this copy of Picture Post magazine on my desk and I flipped randomly to this ad for Japlac. Double-you tee, eff. Really?" "Japlac"?

This ad is from 1951, when, (you would think) there was still a bit of a sore spot in England when it came to Japan. Although, maybe Americans had more of a problem with the Japanese, due to the whole Pearl Harbor thing. England probably liked the Germans less than they did the Japanese. Still, double-you double-you eye-eye was only six years past when this ad ran. It's a bit of an eye-opener to see "jap-anything" sold commercially so soon after "the icky bit" between nations.

So, what's the deal with Japlac? Well, when you think about it, it makes some sense. The word "lac" can be traced back to an insect which was so numerous in India and China that is was given the name "lac", which was the root of the word "laksha", meaning "one hundred thousand". Lac bugs contained a resin that could be used to make the shiny painty stuff called "lacquer".  Ta-da.

Lacquer is very glossy, and generally dries harder than other finishes, such as enamel. The lady in the ad had better have a window open - lacquer tends to smell a lot while it's wet.

In Asia, lacquer production became something of an art, and they were good at it as far back as 4500 B.C. So, while in '51, it was no longer made from squashed bugs, but polymers and petroleum just like everything else in the world, the name had already stuck. In people's minds, Asia is still The Shit when it comes to lacquer furniture and shiny black things. Remember the shiny black furniture in The Eighties that looked kind of Asian? That's the lacquer look. It's a shame that The Eighties had to go and rub it's stink all over an ancient and beautiful art style, but "tasteful restraint" was a dirty word in The Eighties.

Actually, it's kind of understandable to use the prefix "Jap" to sell your lacquer in 1951 England. But still, that font. Wow. Kind of racist. You can download MP3s of WWII news reports from about a hundred places on the web, and it's really bizarre to hear an otherwise professional reporter talk about "pushing back the Japs" in a battle on some island or other. That's kind of an indicator of how much Americans hated them. They didn't think anything of calling them "The Japs". You don't get that kind of slanted hate speech in the news now without resorting to Fox News... but then again, that's not real news, is it? Heh.

It's easy for us here in The Future can look back on the word "Japlac" and exchange awkward glances. But at the time, it worked. Yes, Japlac is still around, but they've changed their logo to something a little less "me so solly". Good job, there. I'm kind of surprised to see they're still using the name at all. But if you must keep the name, at least lose the Nixon In China font.

So what would be an equivalent product in the future? Something that turns out to be racist but seems fine now? Let's see. Who do we "sort of not like", as a nation? Someone we'd be surprised to find we're friends with in a few decades?  "Tali-Ban Roll-On: Issue a fatwa against body odor!" Not really. That seems tacky even now. Gosh, peering into the future sure is hard.

Some other unfortunate household products from history that seemed like a good idea at the time:

-Philips' Milk of Rhodesia: Go like a Rhodesian!

-Kraut Kraut

-Babycham Lite - Now with much less baby!

-Irish Times Bathtub Whiskey - Everyone's a little Irish sometimes!