Jun 29, 2012

Belfast Sparkling Cider

This drink found in many Chinese restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, dates back to the Gold Rush of 1849. According to the story, gold prospectors and sailors would frequent San Francisco’s bar scene in search of a good time.

The sailors treated the bar girls to what they thought was French champagne, but which was actually Belfast Sparkling Cider, a lightly sweetened drink introduced to the region by Irish refugees who immigrated to the US during the potato famine.

Ship captains apparently paid the bar girls to play along and watched their sailors become intoxicated to the point that it wasn’t a struggle to get them back to sea.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, it can be found in almost every large Chinese restaurant in San Francisco and to retailers throughout Chinatown. Belfast is especially popular in the month of the Chinese New Year.

Secret Camera Symbol

Most cameras have this strange symbol imprinted somewhere on the case. If you read the camera's manual, you know what it is but if you didn't, that circle with a line drawn through it marks exactly where the sensor of the camera is located.

It is called the 'film plane mark' and is helpful for people who take macro shots. Knowing exactly where the sensor plane (or film plane or focal plane) is inside the camera's body let's photographers know the exact distance between their subject and the film plane.

Jun 22, 2012

Happy Friday

To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity.

I have made mistakes and stumbled along the way, but today I am laughing, because it is a Happy Friday!

How Many Kinds of Beer

Here is a great poster of the many kinds of beer and how they relate to each other. You will need to expand it to see the detail. Very interesting. LINK

Useless Inventions

Hot dog and banana slicers.

Seven Un-American Brands

Firestone tires was bought out in 1988 by Bridgestone, a Japanese rubber conglomerate based in Tokyo.

Dial
soap was bought in 2004 by by Henkel KGaA, of Germany.

Shell Oil
Company is the US-based affiliate of Royal Dutch Shell from Netherlands.

Church's Chicken
was sold in 2004 Arcapita of Bahrain (it removed bacon from its menu due to Sharia law).

Holiday Inn
is now owned by British InterContinental Hotels Group PLC.

The Chrysler building in New York is now owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Council.

Budweiser
is now owned by Belgian company InBev.

Also, GM, Walmart, Symantec, Kodak (what's left of it), and McDonald's now get the majority of sales outside of the US.
In fact, 53.6% of total sales from all the S&P companies were made outside of the US.

What's in a Name, BVD

This men’s underwear maker was originally founded by a group of New Yorkers named Bradley, Voorhees, and Day to make women’s bustles. Eventually the trio branched out into knitted union suits for men, and their wares became so popular that “BVDs” has become a generic term for any underwear.

Stuffed Shirt

Someone who is pompous and conceited is called a ‘stuffed shirt’. Their description goes back to American women’s fashion in the early 1900’s. At that time, women wore ‘shirtwaists’. These were dresses or blouses tailored like shirts.

As dummies were not yet in existence, stores displayed the garments in their show windows stuffed with tissue paper. They may have looked good from afar, but on closer inspection they proved to be flimsy, without substance.

Spuds, Potatoes, and Fries

Among other definitions, a “spud” is a “sharp, narrow spade” used to dig up large rooted plants. Around the mid-19th century (first documented reference in 1845 in New Zealand), this implement began lending its name to the things it was often used to dig up, potatoes. This caught on throughout the English speaking world and this slang term for a potato is still common today.

The word “potato” comes from the Haitian word “batata”, which was their name for a sweet potato. Potatoes were grown about 2000 years ago in South America. This later came to Spanish as “patata” and eventually into English as “potato”. Potatoes were first introduced to Europe through the Spanish.

Exactly who introduced French fries to the world isn’t entirely known. Among the various theories, historical accounts indicate that the Belgians were possibly frying up thin strips of potatoes during the late 17th century. It was very common for the people to fry up small fish as a staple for their meals. However, when the rivers froze up thick enough, it was difficult to get fish. Instead of frying up fish in these times, they would cut up potatoes in long thin slices, and fry them up as they did the fish. Today, the Belgians still eat more French fries or Frites than any country in Europe.

The French originally thought potatoes caused various diseases. In fact, in 1748, the French Parliament even banned cultivation of potatoes as they were convinced potatoes caused leprosy. However, while in prison in Prussia, Antoine-Augustine Parmentier was forced to cultivate and eat potatoes and found the French notions about the potato weren’t true.

The French appeared to be the ones that spread fries to America and Britain and it, in turn, was the Americans, through fast food chains, that eventually popularly introduced them to the rest of the non-European world as 'French fries'. Because of this spread by American fast food chains, in many parts of the non-European world, 'French fries' are more often than not known as 'American fries'.