While searching for information on how big the party was at the fall of the Berlin Wall (so I can teach the Wende to some cute 'lil 13-year-old 'hood rats -- don't ask), I serindipitously discovered a link to Weird-Food.com. Wahoo! Just in time for the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which I'll be attending on Saturday. Garlic frogs' legs, here I come! I never did eat frog while in France.

I don't know when I became such an adventurous eater, but I take it as a compliment that my sister-in-law told me I should go on Fear Factor.

American favorites listed as culturally-specific Weird Foods include iceberg lettuce, peanut butter, oysters, lobster, American cheese including Cheez-Wiz, spam, what passes for beer in America, iced tea, Jell-o, chewing gum, and marshmallows.

So as not to spoil the appetites of sensitive readers, I'll leave you to explore the rest of the site on your own if you wish. A few of the entries made even me go a little wobbly in the stomach, and I didn't even give the site a thorough reading. Rick, you'll be happy to know gefilte fish is listed as a European Jewish oddity and that the Yiddish word for it is "yuch."

I'm finally reading Fast Food Nation. I'd been expecting an expose on how gross fast food products are, but it's actually yet more evidence that big, greedy companies are ruining the American Dream(tm).

For instance, I've joked before that the heads of companies that hire illegal immigrants should be deported along with the immigrants when La Migra shows up. Employers LOVE illegal immigrantion because it helps them get even richer, but the immigrants get all the blame for "taking jobs away from Americans" and blah blah blah. Here's proof of where the blame should really go, or at least be shared:

"As in so many aspects of meatpacking, IBP [a meat company now known as Tyson Fresh Meats]was a trailblazer in recruiting migrant labor. The company was among the first to recognize that recent immigrants would work for lower wages than American citizens -- and would be more reluctant to join unions ... IBP now maintains a labor office in Mexico city, runs ads on Mexican radio stations offering jobs in the United States, and operates a bus service from rural Mexico to the heartland of America."

Not that meatpacking is a much of a career -- it used to be, and the destruction of skilled, well-paid trades is another story of corporate evil. But now you have to wonder how many corporations are pulling this type of crap.

Here's some more big business antics:

In September of 1994, GFI America, Inc. - a leading supplier of frozen hamburger patties to Dairy Queen, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, and the federal school lunch program - needed workers for a plant in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It sent recruiters to Eagle Pass, Texas, near the Mexican border, promising steady work and housing. The recruiters hired thirty-nine people, rented a bus, drove the new workers from Texas to Minnesota, and then dropped them off across the street from People Serving People, a homeless shelter in downtown Minneapolis."

There's more, but you get the idea. A big company trying to take advantage of a homeless shelter. Dude.

Call me a pinko commie, but I've been saying for a while that misappropriation of our national wealth is the number one problem in America. Fix that, and we could fix most of our problems (move the money from pointless military quagmires into any number of social ills, for instance). On a smaller scale, we need some corporate reform, now. It won't happen now, but whoever we get in 2008 had better crack down on capitalist scumminess, or we're going to be a third world country with the super-rich at the top and everyone else scrambling for crumbs. It's bad enough I already live in a third world city.

So much for that particular love story

Ouch:
"...it turns out that famed local writer Terry McMillan -- whose celebrated romance and subsequent marriage to a man 23 years her junior became the subject of her fictionized best-seller "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" -- actually got her groove back with a man who now says he's gay...McMillan, 53, said in court documents that the marriage was based on a "fraud'' because Plummer lied about his sexual orientation -- and married her only to gain U.S. citizenship."

A whole new drug getting pushed in the 'hood

From Craigslist:
Jealous friends will wonder how you got such an awesome job. You could tell them a genie appeared and granted you three wishes. Your first wish was to become a member of Red Bull's East L.A.-based Mobile Energy Team. As a MET, you'll find people in need of ENERGY, offer them a Red Bull, explain the product benefits and, hopefully, create new Red Bull believers. If you are outgoing, approachable, have a passion for life, as well as a passion for Red Bull, then bring it! You also need to be at least 18, have a flexible schedule, a current driver's license and a good driving record. Fluency in Spanish is also really important. Oh yeah. Tell your friends that wishes #2 and 3 had something to do with how good you'd look in a pair of Wiiings! We'd almost hate to call working at Red Bull a job, but we will since you get paid.

1) "C'mon, try it. The first one's free"
2) Wow, someone drank a whole lot of the product before writing that ad.
3) Does this job also involve bars, and vodka?
4) I'm very surprised this ad does not request a headshot. I'm sure that comes later in the application process.

Semi-annual business news post: the ex-CEO of WorldCom has been sentenced to 25 years. That's about half a day in prison for every person who lost his or her job because of him. Seems more than fair to me.

What if all executives had to spent half a day in jail for every layoff (or, possibly, outsourcing)? Suddenly, slashing a few thousand jobs to boost the bottom line might not seem like such a good idea anymore.

The latest mess out of LA: a guy uses his baby daughter first as a hostage, then as a shield, and they are both killed by police.

Oh yeah, and it turns out I know some friends of the 14-year-old who was famously shot execution-style, 19 times, while begging for his life.

And I ask myself, well, how did I get here?

(My new career STILL beats corporate).

Martin asks, "What the hell is a drive-by drill?" and wonders if it's as effective as sitting under a desk during a nuclear attack.

In case anyone isn't familiar with my American terminology, I'll start by saying that a "drive-by" is a drive-by shooting, in other words, someone rolls down their window and shoots out of it. Sometimes it's because they're after someone specific and happen to see him on the street, and more rarely it's a gang initiation and it doesn't much matter who gets shot, as long as someone does.

In our drive-by drill, campers who are outdoors hit the ground as they would in an earthquake drill, and campers who are inside stay inside while staff lock the doors. The "lockdown" is a common thing in and around LA; it happens when there is major police activity in the neighborhood and no one should be entering or, particularly, leaving buildings to add to the trouble. I've not actually experienced this yet, though apparently the tutors at my "rival" middle school got one on their first day.

I've also been asked how you can possibly know there's a drive-by going on, other than by watching bullets whiz past. The idea is that someone will hear gunshots from elsewhere (the other side of the block, say) and that will allow time for preparation. Obviously, by the time you SEE someone pointing a gun out the car window, it's too late for any emergency procedures other than wetting your pants. So, yeah, duck under your desk to protect yourself from the mushroom cloud. As with most emergency procedures, the main purpose is to reassure people that there's a procedure.

By the way, my favorite piece of media in the world right now is Chappelle's Show, Season 2, Episode 10. It's an impressively vulgar send-up of children's TV shows, and you'll either find it side-splittingly hilarious or amazingly offensive and puerile. Perhaps it helps to work with small children in an unsavory urban environment.

I heartily recommend the whole Season 2 DVD, but here's an uncensored video clip if you can't wait (the really good stuff starts with the Oscar the Grouch parody.)

Like Rick said, we're going to frickin' Italy. I can't even afford the plane ticket but I don't give a good goddamn. EuropeEuropeEurope! I haven't left North America since I moved out of Germany in 2002, so this is long overdue, as cool as the domestic travel has been.

Sardinians, for what it's worth, eat some really screwed up food.
* Baby animals (suckling pigs, baby goat)
* Gross body parts (heart, diaphragm, etc.)
* Gross body parts of baby animals (calf's testicles, sliced, battered, and lightly fried)

Other standouts are horse, donkey, and a certain type of cheese about which I must quote Lonely Planet Sardinia in its entirety:
"Want a nice cream cheese in Sardinia? Ask around for formaggio marcio or casu marzu, literally 'rotten cheese.' You won't find it in shops but farmers have a tried and true method for making it. They take a block of cheese, make a hole in it and insert a drop of oil to attract the cheese fly (Piophila casei). The fly leaves behind its larvae (a less polite word would be maggots) that happily start chomping away at the cheese. As they squirm around, they turn the cheese nice and creamy! Hmm!"

And if the sky and water are as blue and clean as they look in photos, I'll eat maggots or anything else you want me to. Just get me there.

You know I'm distraught about a political issue when I start coming up with conspiracy theories to explain it.

As an answer to my weekend wail of "Sandra Day O'Connor, how could you?" I decided at some point (wine was involved) that someone had something on her. It makes no other sense that a moderate would unexpectedly hand Bush her spot. Clearly, someone was threatening to picture incriminating picture of her with a horse.

I know, her husband supposedly has Alzheimers. CNN said, "In a letter to President Bush, O'Connor said she needed to spend more time with her husband." BUT the text the LA Times published said no such thing. The three-sentence note said so little its terseness was a bit suspicious. Are high-level resignation letters usually this short?

Oh, I'm sure I'm full of crap and this really is a simple family health issue. I'm just so upset I can't think clearly about it. Between this and Rehnquist, the reprehensible human being in the White House will likely get to appoint TWO Supremes. For life. And we somehow have a significant number of people in this country who think Gonzales is too LIBERAL.

So, how's the science in Canada, Rick?