I'm flaggin on Dunkin

Turns out the Dunkin Donuts Coolatta drink isn't really worth it as a caffeinated beverage.

A small Coolatta, at roughly 16 ounces and eleventy squirteen dollars, contains just about as much caffeine as... Half a can of cola.

I have to admit, I was wondering why I didn't get much of a pick-me-up this morning.

Radio Noir, or possibly Radio Jaune.

There's an episode of the old radio show version of Phillip Marlowe entitled "The King in Yellow."

I'm... kind of afraid to listen to it.

Hash Browns

A new Dunkin Donuts/convenience store has opened up near my Humble Abode (well, the donut part is open, anyway-- the convenience store was still setting up as of this morning), and they have accordingly sent out copious couponry to... well, the entire county, near as I can tell.  But I was enticed thereby, so I stopped in for breakfast.

I used one of the aforementioned coupons to acquire an order of their hash browns, and purchased a small hot chocolate to go with it.  The hot chocolate was completely uninteresting-- moderately chocolaty, very sweet, and, well, hot.  It is of the hash browns that I wish to speak.

The hash browns were shaped as thick rounds-- slightly larger than a Double Stuf(tm) Oreo.  They were served to me hot, in a waxed paper sleeve, with some extra napkins, which I appreciated since I intended to eat them in the car on my commute.  Not best practices, but I only had so much time, and the DD was actually slightly out of my way.

The flavor was good-- very potato-y, with a substantial and not unwelcome oniony undertone.  There were good salt levels, too; well seasoned without being overpowering.

My only objection is that they were not especially crisp, except for right around the edges, and that only on the topmost browns.  The rounds that had the misfortune to be on the bottom of the paper sleeve steamed a bit, and were decidedly soft, if not quite soggy.  I prefer a nicely crisp hash brown, so that was a bit disappointing.  Still, I'd be willing to try them again (and I have another coupon for a free order so I well may), and see how much of their condition was due to the particular preparation this morning.  After all, it was a new location, so perhaps the operator of the fry station (I assume they were somehow fried and not just microwaved) simply needs a bit more experience.  We shall see.

Ages 8 to 88

Apparently, the recommended age ranges on board games reflect more than just the designer's idea of how complicated the game is.  In order to qualify for an age rating of less than about 10 years, a publisher has to pay to have the game officially tested for safety, which is not a cheap process-- not only would it be tested for size of components (choking hazards), but I imagine there are chemical tests for toxicity and heavy metals and the like.  So some smaller publishers will just shrug and label the game "for ages 12 and up", even if the game is actually pretty simple and could easily be played by the average 10-year-old.

Source: a thread on boardgamegeek.com.  This does seem to be the conventional wisdom (I saw references to it in a couple of places), but I couldn't track down an authoritative statement, so take with the usual sodium chloride.

Argentinian ants

Once upon a time (as the story so often goes), there was a small colony of ants.  These ants lived in a somewhat unusual place, at least as far as ants go.  It didn't seem that unusual at first glance, perhaps-- simply a little chunk of floodplain in Argentina where a few rivers converged.  But that flooding meant that the ants were regularly washed out of their nests.

One side effect of this regular displacement is that the weaker, slower ants were weeded out fairly rapidly.  The rest relatively quickly evolved a somewhat more aggressive approach to their neighboring colonies.  You see, normally, ants aren't completely xenophobic.  They'll capture enemy ants, add them to their colony, sometimes mate with them, etc.  This means that the genetic makeup of the colony will slowly drift over time, which is generally a good thing for the species.  However, these Argentinian ants, bred by the rising waters for exceptional fierceness, simply don't do that.  When they meet an enemy ant?  They kill it.  To death.

All of which would be a minor entomological curiosity, except that sometime, back in the 1800s, a few of these ants made their way onto a ship, and were carried up from Argentina to New Orleans, where they started a new colony.  And started killing.  And spreading.  And remember, no fraternizing with the enemy!  So (and here's where it starts getting really interesting) these newly spreading colonies maintained the same basic genetic makeup as the original.  If an Argentinian ant from the motherland meets one from Louisiana?  They recognize each other, and coexist.  Genetic purity FTW.

And now, since they're so very aggressive, they've spread over pretty much the entire globe.  There are Argentinian ants everywhere, all more or less part of the same supercolony.

Primary source: http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2012/jul/30/ants/

Word for the day -- Dead stock

I've heard of livestock.  Everyone's heard of livestock.  But did you know that there's also dead stock? Dead stock is, basically, all of the farm stuff (tools, equipment, etc.) that is not livestock.  So a tractor is dead stock.  Or a harvester.  And an ax handle is dead stock woodstock, maybe.

Tuvaluvaleroy

So it turns out that the .tv domain (as seen on such sites as MTV.tv) is actually Tuvalu's country domain.  They're getting paid about 2 million per year for its use by television companies, which amounts to something like 5% of their GDP. (5% of the USA's GDP would be something like 750 billion dollars).  Apparently there was a rumor going around a few years ago that it would be canceled, since "the Island of Tuvalu is sinking!"  This was about as serious as you would expect.  Although, now that I look around, there really aren't a whole lot of .tv websites anymore-- MTV.tv is a mirror of MTV.com, Hollywood.tv redirects to a YouTube page, etc. etc.  It's still a viable domain name, but I guess it's not very popular right now for some reason.

The title of this post is a REALLY damn obscure reference.  I highly doubt that anyone who isn't living in my head will get it, but if you do, please let me know.  Then get out of my head.

Alas, earwax

Apparently, when the makers of the earwax flavored Jelly Belly jelly beans (courtesy of Ms Rowling) went to formulate the flavoring, they started by tasting some actual earwax. And supposedly, it wasn't awful enough. So the guy on charge sent the flavor tech out to get a big supply of Worcestershire sauce and bitters with instructions to amp it up a lot.

So, accordingly, there're now thousands of kids who think that earwax tastes like Worcestershire sauce, and/or vice versa.