funny

Sent to me by doondee. Well done. You got thee Pop Will Eat Itself medal of honor.

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Found at the Filipino Grocery Store

Ugh. Not very good. How can something purple on the inside - with the mass of lead - taste like nothing?

How many sauces can I get onto my Quizno's Steakhouse Beef Dip?

THREE!

French onion sauce

Au Jus Dip

Honey Mustard

'Israeli melons have AIDS'

"Beware of Israeli melons infected with AIDS arriving in Saudi Arabia!" is the latest rumor being spread throughout Saudi Arabia like a wildfire.

An SMS message being sent around the country this week said, "The Saudi Interior Ministry warns its citizens of a truck loaded with AIDS infected melons that Israel brought into the country via a 'ground corridor.'"

The Interior Minister's spokesman General Mansour al Turki responded to news of the message and made it clear to a-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper that the Ministry "did not issue any such announcement. This is just a rumor."

This is not the first rumor to spread through the country recently. Just last month another rumor had it that sweets containing carcinogenic flour were being sold in many stores.

Al Turki urged the public to ignore such passing rumors, and said that the authorities were doing everything in their power to ensure the citizens' wellbeing.

Head of the center for chemicals and toxins in Mecca, Dr Ahmad Elias also stressed that there was no truth to these rumors.

"The center is the first official body that would receive such information, if it were true, in order to investigate and inform the relevant bodies to take the necessary steps," said Elias.

"The HIV virus cannot survive in any temperature other than that of the human body, which cannot be reached in fruits," he explained.

The rumor, despite being denied several times, has gained so much steam in the Arab world that it made it to the front page of one of the most important Arabic language newspapers.

Very British looking Bacon Butty...

...that is, it looks undercooked.

A bacon butty (or sarnie) is a form of butty (sandwich) made from bacon (streaky or back), cooked to preference and placed between two slices of white or brown bread, usually with some form of sauce, such as tomato ketchup or brown sauce. With no sauce at all, it is referred to as a dry bacon butty. The bread may or may not be toasted or buttered.

Bacon butties are an all-day favourite throughout the United Kingdom. Many people in the UK prefer the bacon to be cooked longer, making it more crispy.

Items such as egg, baked beans, mushrooms, black pudding or sausages (any item commonly found in a full English breakfast) may also be added.

An American parallel to the bacon butty is the BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato) sandwich.

More Bacon Buttys...

'Best bacon butty' in forest cafe

BBC - I've never been in any doubt what I'd choose if I had to decide my last meal - it'd have to be a bacon butty. So I was as happy as a pig in mud when I was asked to give my verdict on the UK's best bacon sandwich, according to a good food survey by BMW.

But you will have to travel to the middle of a forest to find it.

The Oneplanet Adventure Cafe is in a converted log cabin at Llandegla, near Wrexham, surrounded by 40km of mountain bike trails.

Thankfully I wasn't asked to put the cycle track to the test to reach the cafe within the 650-hectare forest.

That just sounds like the way to ruin a perfectly stodgy sandwich.

Being married to a farmer's daughter, I like to think I know my meat.

And I can knock up a pretty mean bacon sarnie, even if I do say so myself.

Cafe manager Ian Owen was confident he'd win me over with one of his butties though.

And after churning out up to 500 a week, he's certainly had enough practice.

"All the bacon is sourced locally, as is all our meat. The beef and lamb we use is what you see in the fields around us," he said.

"For the bacon I set the griddle at number four - not too high - and drizzle on some extra virgin olive oil.

"I push down the fat on the bacon, so it crisps, and ends up more like crackling than a stringy piece of rind.

"We use white baps from a local bakery, and the finest unsmoked back bacon.

"It's just what you need after a long walk or cycle in the surrounding forest."

Well, if nothing else, Ian talks a good bacon sandwich. But, luckily for me, the proof is in the eating.

I was willing to overlook the use of toasted baps (for me a butty is all about plain white thick-sliced bread) and I even forgave Ian's apparent use of margarine, not butter.

I didn't waste time debating whether to have red or brown sauce - it's got to be both.

I had to hand it to Ian - this was one mean bacon butty.

The editors of the BMW 1 Series Good Food Ride said they "found no one more dedicated to the art of making such sandwiches than the staff here".

Clearly, they've never been to our house on a Saturday morning.

Making the ultimate bacon sandwich is an art, and I reckon Ian is almost there.

Best in the UK though? I'd need to taste the other contenders - another challenge I'd be more than happy to meet.

Scientists Perfect Bacon Butty

Note: A 'Butty' is just a sandwich. It's worth noting though that a bacon sandwich is a perfectly acceptable food in England. Their bacon is not like our bacon though. It's not long waffer-thin slices of fat there to provide a bit of salty pork taste. Brit-bacon is thick, meaty, and sometimes perilously close to being almost ham-like.

BBC - Scientists have created a mathematical formula of how to make the perfect bacon butty. Experts at Leeds University discovered the secret to the ideal sandwich lay in how crispy and crunchy rashers were.

They found that two or three back bacon rashers should be cooked under a preheated oven grill for seven minutes at about 240C (475F). The bacon should then be placed between two slices of farmhouse bread, 1cm to 2cm thick.

Four researchers at the Department of Food Science spent more than 1,000 hours testing 700 variations on the traditional bacon sandwich.

They tried different types and cuts of bacon, cooking techniques, types of oil and a range of cooking times at different temperatures.

A shortlist was then tested with computers to measure the texture of each sandwich.

Fifty volunteers also judged each sandwich according to its taste, texture and flavour.

Dr Graham Clayton, who led the research, said: "We often think it's the taste and smell of bacon that consumers find most attractive.

"But our research proves that texture and the crunching sound is just - if not more - important.

"While there was much debate within our taste panels on the smoked or unsmoked decision, everyone agreed that tough or chewy bacon is a turn-off."

The formula is: N = C + {fb (cm) . fb (tc)} + fb (Ts) + fc . ta, where N=force in Newtons required to break the cooked bacon, fb=function of the bacon type, fc=function of the condiment/filling effect, Ts=serving temperature, tc=cooking time, ta=time or duration of application of condiment/filling, cm=cooking method, C=Newtons required to break uncooked bacon.

Easter

by William Stout

backgammon motherfucker

Death 120 Proof

Images from the YPMTRGA meeting in San Diego

Here we are enjoying some claws at one of the many fine Town & Country Public Houses.