Chicklets

There are only a few companies today that still make chewing gum from natural chicle and other natural gums. Today, most chewing gums are derived from man-made materials that provide highly consistent chewing quality. Chicle continues to be the common word for chewing gum in Spanish. And, of course Chiclets gum, which is named after chicle.

Chiclets is another old-time classic gum brand that has been available for generations and can still be enjoyed today in its original form and flavor. Frank H. Fleer based his product idea on a confection that was popular around the turn of the 20th Century, candy coated almonds.

Peppermint Chiclets were introduced in 1906 and are the original candy coated chewing gum.  Over the years, Chiclets have been made in many different flavors and colors. In 1929 when a box of ten Chiclets cost a nickel, a billboards and print advertising called the product "Peppermint gum iced with candy."

In 1899 the leading gum manufacturers organized themselves into a conglomerate called the American Chicle Company.  Gum makers in the organization included Adams, Beeman, Primley, Curtis, and S. T. Britten.  In 1914, Fleer merged his company with the American Chicle Company.

Chiclets Tiny Size® were introduced in 1962, the same year that American Chicle was purchased by the Warner-Lambert Company.  Warner-Lambert became part of Pfizer in 2000, and most recently was acquired by Cadbury. That is a lot of gummy maneuvering.

Nano Sim

Those little cards in cameras and phones are about to get much smaller. At .47 x .35 of an inch, it is 60% smaller than the regular SIM cards in a majority of the devices out on the market. It is also 15% thinner than previous SIM cards. They will be out early next year. A few reasons why this is important - they are cheaper, also they are smaller so there is more room in devices (or the devices can be smaller), and they are faster. The best reason is they have nano in their name and I love anything nano.

Bacon Squeezins

The Bacon Squeezins Water Bottle is a stainless steel water bottle with screenprinted graphic of Mr. Bacon enjoying a refreshing drink of delicious liquid fat. It holds 20 oz (600 ml)

Baby-cut Carrots

Farmers know that even if an ugly carrot tastes better than any other carrot that ever existed, it won’t sell simply because it looks weird. Every year Mike Yurosek, a California farmer, culled and threw away tons of vegetables too ugly for supermarket shelves.

In some harvests, 70 percent of his carrots were tossed. Most culled vegetables wind up getting fed to farm animals, but pigs and cows can only handle so many carrots. After a while, their fat turns orange, and meat is about as useful at the market as a lumpy carrot.

In 1986, he came up with a solution to his ugly carrot problem. He would cut the carrots into smaller, sleeker, better looking forms, like a plastic surgeon for vegetables. He took the culled carrots and cut off any lumps and twisted parts. He was left with a perfect-looking mini-carrot just a few inches long, which he then peeled. They are often labeled as “baby-cut” carrots in stores.

There’s actually a second type of baby carrot available that’s specifically grown only to the “baby stage” and harvested long before the root reaches its mature size.  They’re usually more expensive than baby-cut carrots.

Kissing Under the Mistletoe

The Ancient Celts used mistletoe as an animal aphrodisiac, or more specifically, to increase the fertility of sheep. Such became the mythic power of mistletoe that in addition to bringing a lamb-ful spring, mistletoe was hung over doorways to ward off fire, lightning, and evil spirits. Despite its protective properties, mistletoe couldn't shuck its fertile past, and even though it was hung in people's doorways, it seemed as if something romantic should occur in its presence. Thus the kissing.

Did you know that mistletoe's power runs out? Every time a man steals a kiss under the mistletoe, he must pay by plucking one of its berries. When the berries are gone, no more smooching.

Happy Friday

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and not on our circumstances.
Misery runs out the door when I am disposed to have a Happy Friday!

Cadenas and Forks

Forks have been used for a few thousand years in various cultures, but its adoption in northern Europe was first described in English by Thomas Coryat in a volume of writings on his Italian travels in 1611). Some writers of the Roman Catholic Church expressly disapproved of its use. "God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks, his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to Him to substitute artificial metallic forks for them when eating."

Forks were common in France, England and Sweden by the early 17th century.The curved fork that is used in most parts of the world today, was developed in Germany in the mid 18th century. The standard four-tine design became current in the early 19th century.

The earliest forks usually had only two tines, but those with numerous tines caught on quickly. The tines on thee early implements were straight, meaning the fork could only be used for spearing food and not for scooping it.

When dining with nobility, it was proper for a guest to arrive with his own fork and spoon enclosed in a box called a cadena.

There are hundreds of specialty forks, such as Asparagus fork, Beef fork, Berry fork, Carving fork, Cheese fork, Chip fork(french fries), Cocktail fork, Crab fork, Dessert fork, Dinner fork, Fish fork, Fondue fork, Meat fork, Olive fork, Oyster fork, Pastry fork, Pickle fork etc., etc. We should not forget the knork (knife fork) and the spork (spoon fork). Despite all the specialty forks, some foods are still best suited to be enjoyed with the fingers, such as chicken wings and bacon.

Say What

There are over 7,000 languages spoken in the world today. Research shows that  one vanishes every 14 days when its last speaker dies.  In a hundred years, predictions are that half will disappear.

In Brazil, 4,000 people are left who speak Kayapo. Their language distinguishes between 56 types of bees. Of the 231 languages spoken in Australia, at least 50 have never been written. Forty languages are still spoken in Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, many of them originally used by Indian tribes and others introduced by Eastern tribes that were forced to resettle on reservations.

83 languages with “global” influence are spoken and written by 80 percent of the world population.  Lesser used languages will fall by the wayside, while English will become the most used form of communication around the world. More people in China speak English than in the whole United States. English is the official language of more countries than any other language.

The top five most spoken languages in the world, in order are: Mandarin, English, Hindustani, Spanish, and Russian.

Say Cheese

The root of the English word cheese comes from the Latin caseus, which also gives us the word casein, the milk protein that is the basis of cheese. Caseus is also the root word for cheese in other languages, including queso in Spanish, kaas in Dutch, käse in German, and queijo in Portuguese. Caseus Formatus, or molded (formed) cheese, brought us formaticum, the term the Romans employed for the hard cheese used as supplies for the legionaries. From this root comes the French fromage and the Italian formaggio.

Cheese consumption began as early as 8000 BC, when sheep were first domesticated. It is believed to have been discovered in the Middle East or by nomadic Turkic tribes in Central Asia, where foodstuffs were commonly stored in animal hides or organs for transport. Milk stored in animal stomachs would have separated into curds and whey by movement and the naturally present bacteria

The United States is the top producer of cheese in the world, with Wisconsin and California leading in production. Although the US produces the most cheese, Greece and France lead in cheese consumption per capita. Cheese consumption in the US has tripled since 1970 and is continuing to increase.

Charleston Dance

This short minute and a half video is pure fun. LINK It shows many of the steps and some variations from the the old time dance craze, the Charleston. It is an old dance set to new music. Who said the new dances are better than the old ones.

Bacon and Boobies

We all like bacon and we all like boobies. For some reason, many years ago man introduced pigs to tiny uninhabited Clipperton Island, about 800 miles off Acapulco Mexico. 

The pigs soon turned feral and began eating the eggs of the nesting Boobie sea birds. A few years ago, Ken Stager came to count the wildlife on Clipperton and brought with him a shotgun to shoot some birds for a museum. Instead, he saw what the pigs were doing to the birds and used his shotgun to kill all the pigs. True story.

Today Clipperton is host to 40,000 Masked Boobies and 20,000 Brown Boobies, among others, but no pigs and no men. Just goes to show you that if that island had been inhabited by man, who is naturally predisposed to bacon, then man, boobies, and pigs would have all lived in peace and harmony.

Wyatt Earp

There have been many stories, movies, and books about Wyatt Earp, but did you know he is buried in a Jewish Cemetery in California? We know many stories are from the old West. Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born about 1848, just before the Civil War and died in 1929, just before the great stock market crash.

Josephine Sarah Marcus ran away from her home in San Francisco with a friend and joined an acting company touring the country. When they played Tombstone, Arizona, she met Wyatt Earp. They fell deeply in love and were married.

It is true that he did have an extra long barrel pistol. It was given to him and a few others, including Bat Masterson by  pulp-fiction writer Ned Buntline, hence the name 'Buntline Special'. It was a Colt. Colt did not use that name until the 1950's when the TV series made it a household name. The foot-long barrels were made until the 1980s.

Wyatt, his brothers, and Doc Holliday went to trial for the famous gunfight at the OK Corral and were acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. The Clantons did not like the verdict and ambushed Wyatt and killed his brother Morgan. After that, Wyatt and Doc Holliday, along with others, raided various hideouts, killing anyone they suspected had a hand in Morgan’s death.

With the law after him for the killings, Wyatt and Josie moved to Gunnison, Colorado. They moved often and invested in mines, and real estate, and operated saloons and gambling parlors in Nome, Alaska, Eagle City, Idaho and others. For a while, they even lived with Josie’s parents in San Francisco. Later, they settled in southern California and raised racehorses and lived off gambling winnings and real estate speculation. In the 1920s, they invested in oil wells.

Wyatt Earp died in 1929 and his wife had his ashes buried in her family plot at the Little Hills of Eternity Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery in Colma, California, just outside of San Francisco. Wyatt Earp was not Jewish, but his wife was. Josie, his wife of fifty years died in 1944, and is buried next to Wyatt.

GPS Shoes

Here is a great idea for those who have someone with Alzheimer’s in the family. 5.4 million Americans are living with the disease with that figure predicted to rise to as many as 16 million by 2050, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. To make it easier for caregivers and family members to keep track, GTX Corp has partnered with comfort shoe manufacturer Aetrex to produce the GPS Shoe that allows real-time tracking of the wearer.

The company started out producing footwear for children with a miniaturized GPS chip and cellular device embedded in the sole that allowed parents to keep track via an online portal and then started offering similar shoes for long distance runners. It then realized the technology would also be beneficial in keeping track of those suffering dementia  and built its GPS technology into comfort and wellness shoes for the elderly. Sometimes technology is wizbang and practical.

Food Tidbits

Lemons contain more sugar than strawberries.
    The onion is named after a Latin word meaning large pearl.
    Potato chips were invented by a North American Indian, George Crum.
    During a lifetime the average person eats about 35 tons of food.
    Within 2 hours of standing in daylight, milk loses between half and two-thirds of its vitamin B content.
    There are about 100,000 bacteria in one liter of drinking water.
    Bakers used to be fined if their loaves were under weight, so they used to add an extra loaf to every dozen, just in case -- hence, the expression "baker's dozen.
    In France, people eat approximately 500,000,000 snails per year.
    It has been traditional to serve fish with a slice of lemon since olden times, when people believed that the fruit's juice would dissolve any bones accidentally swallowed.
    The first breakfast cereal ever produced was Shredded Wheat.
    Reindeer like to eat bananas.
    Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.
    Every year, kids in North America spend close to half a billion dollars on chewing gum.
    American's eat about 18 billion hot dogs a year.
    The oldest piece of chewing gum is 9,000 years old.
    The man who played the voice (Mel Blanc) of Bugs Bunny was allergic to carrots.
    Apples are more effective at keeping people awake in the morning than caffeine.
    Every time you lick a stamp you gain 1/10 of a calorie.
    Yams have 10 times more vitamin C than sweet potatoes.