8th Wonder of the Fast Food World

Google has failed me.

I cannot find any proof of this one, incredible culinary innovation that rocked my world.

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No joke.

One evening, my friend and I passed by a McDonalds and did a double take. "Does it say Potato Dippers!? And Tangy Tomato Sauce?" By George, it did.

Now, like 75% of the US population, I am a huge french fry fan. They're crispy, salty, and taste great with ketchup. I loved them for who they are.....but I had no idea there were bigger and better things out there.

Namely Potato Dippers.

It had never occurred to me that such a simple but incredible meal staple could be any way improved on. But McDonald's had taken it to the next level. They engineered a french fry that was perfectly ergonomically compatible with the [Tangy Tomato] sauce that it complimented so well.

Seriously, guys, this was awesome. Instead of the stick-like french fries, the potatoes were hollowed out so that they were a trough meant for dipping.

Unfortunately, the only proof I have is this one picture I took in haste before I started eating.


But imagine the cross section of the french fry is something more like:


Ingenious.

BUT the next time I went to the same McDonalds (Two weeks later. Tops.), I was told that the promotion was over. Worse, I have not been able to find any other evidence that these existed. I don't understand why something so wonderful would exist for such a short time.

The moral of the story is twofold.

Just because something has been around for a long time doesn't mean that it can't be improved upon.

And also, get it while it lasts.


Image from Trendhunter.

If you give a college student....

If you give a college student the internet during finals week, they're going to want to check their e-mail.

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If they check their e-mail, they might find a notification from Facebook.

They're going to want to see what the notification is, so they're going to sign onto Facebook.

Once they go onto Facebook, they're going to respond to the notification.

And if they want to gossip about the notification, they're going to have to sign on to AIM.

If they're signed onto AIM, they might as well listen to their iTunes.

After they've been on AIM for a while, they're going to start to wonder if they've gotten any more e-mails....

Live East, Die Young

I went to the opening of POW (Pictures on Walls) this weekend in Shoreditch and discovered two new artists to fall in love with.

The POW festival was a great communal effort to launch a street art gallery/ store.

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Of course, there was a Banksy exhibition there.

The entire road was closed down and full of little modifications (in addition to big additions).

Anyway...to the two artists! Btoy and Simon Munnery.

By the time I got there on the second day of the exhibition, everything from Btoy's collection had been sold.




Simon Munnery wrote pamphlets titled "How to Live." I loved the short, witty collection so I bought it (plus it had an excellent list of security guard jokes). Here are some quotes:

What do you get for the man who has everything?
Might I suggest a gravestone inscribed with the words: so what?

All men are brothers.
Hence war.

and finally...

You can't fool all the people all the time. But you can try. It's called advertising.

Overactive Imagination

You know that teased hair look that's trendy right now?

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That one. Yeah, I always thought it makes your head look like Gossamer from Looney Tunes.

It's True....

Germans really ARE obsessed. Found this delight in Berlin:

Those Who Don't Know History...

Good thing I know random, irrelevant history. It seems to come in handy never in blog postings.

I read today that Dr. Pepper is almost accidentally giving away Dr. Pepper until Feb. 28. All you have to do is get a coupon on Sunday at 12:01 a.m. I'd have my calendar marked because I LOVE free stuff, but unfortunately (?) I'm going to be in Berlin this weekend.

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So why the free soda?

Dr Pepper is making good on its promise of free soda now that the release of Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy" is a reality. The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. "Chinese Democracy," infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday.

-The Associated Press

I think that's a hilarious compilation between the two parties. But hey, it gets some people free soda and others the amusement of a new Guns N' Roses album. Win win.


It's similar to something that happened in the 1920s + 30s that I read about a few years ago and somehow managed to recollect. Burma-Shave, a shaving cream was famous for it's had a series of clever poems on roadsides. Eventually, they crafted half-joking promotions like this one :

Free Offer! Free Offer!
Rip A Fender
Off Your Car
Mail It In For
A Half-Pound Jar
Burma-Shave

Not surprisingly, people actually sending in their fenders. The amused employees traded the junk yard scraps or toy fenders for jars of Burma-Shave. The next series, the company believed, would surely be realized as spoof.

Free — Free
A Trip To Mars
For 900
Empty Jars
Burma-Shave

Arliss French, though, Chicago's 1920s BAMF managed to procure the necessary jars. After a series of rhyming telegrams (web 0.0)....

Burma:

If A Trip
To Mars You Earn
Remember, Friend
There's No Return

French:

Let's Not Quibble
Let's Not Fret
Gather Your Forces
I'm All Set

Burma:

Our Rockets Are Ready
We Ain't Splitting Hairs
Just Send Us The Jars
And Arrange Your Affairs

.....Burma-Shave agreed to send French, his wife, and 12 children to a German town pronounced "Mars."

Of course, all of this amounted to massive publicity to Burma Shave (obviously, because almost 100 years later I still know about it). I think it's a great story of a company that was years ahead of it's time.



Cheers!


Burma info from Snopes. com + pictures from Digital Media Library and couponcravings.com

Interaction in London

Two of my less-strange but still diverse interests* are technology and art and I've gotten to see some interesting public art in London recently. There's a great and surprising exhibit in Trafalgar Square right now called Under Scan by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.



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Lozano-Hemmer set up two projectors that create videos in passerby's shadows. It's a strange concept because when people in Trafalgar Square look down, they are greeted by an image of a person waving at them. The exhibit is set up so that the projected people look directly at a viewer, interact with them, and appear to lose interest as the viewer walks away.

Neato. And a lot less eerie than the exhbit I just saw in the Saatchi Gallery, where aged models of world leaders in electric wheelchairs roll around in the basement.



More information on Under Scan here.




* Example: I'm graduating with a Minor in Visual Art and a Liberal Arts Concentration in Political Science. Woooo.

Pictures from BBC, Three Cities and the Saatchi Gallery