Thailand’s ‘Real Cheese Burger’ is a surreal insult to food - "It’s always alarming when a fast-food chain says, “This is no joke.” But, first, a message to all cardiologists in Thailand: Take your vitamins. Get some rest while you can. I fear you will be very busy in the months ahead. In what may be the worst menu addition since Taco Bell unleashed bowel hell with its Waffle Taco, Burger King Thailand is now selling “The Real Cheese Burger.” Yes, “cheeseburger” is usually one word. That’s when it contains meat, toppings, condiments, sauces. This “cheese burger” is two words: absolutely disgusting. It seems the misanthropes at Burger King Thailand had a revelation: “What if we sold a cheeseburger that was an actual cheese burger? Forget the patty. Our customers will get 20 slices of processed cheese on a sesame seed bun. It could be magical!”... Cheese is delightful. It comes in a wide variety of tastes, textures and styles. An aged cheddar can make you feel young again. I was once dining with Frank D’Angelo at his bistro on King West and he said, “You gotta try the Parmigiana Reggiano.” Soon, a tiny barbershop quartet was harmonizing atop my tongue. A nibble of brie or Camembert at a garden soirée? Wonderful. Trying to unhinge your jaws wide enough to choke down what looks like a stack of Kraft Singles the height of a garden shed? Revolting. Why not just tie off a vein and mainline Velveeta? An unscientific review this week of the early customer reviews for the Real Cheese Burger are in the ratings range of “Queen Cleopatra” on Rotten Tomatoes. Those who dared to order the Real Cheese Burger found it hard to red-line past three bites. It was described as weird, dry, gross, horrid, scary and, for one customer, nightmarish. In other words, exactly what you might expect by looking at the revolting photo"
Summer’s war on taste buds starts with ketchup cotton candy - "Remember when ketchup was squirted on hot dogs and not molecularly engineered in a gustatory lab to flavour carnival treats? I miss those days. Condiments were condiments. Desserts were desserts. No menu item was revolting... Now food companies hire mad scientists who can devise ways to stir gummy worms into a Bouillabaisse. Big Food has gone Big Nuts. And this time they have gone too far. More proof of the empty-calorie apocalypse arrived this week. The press release would leave even an extreme eating champ feeling queasy. French’s, the sauce behemoth, has teamed up with Treats for Us, a Canadian confectionary... Their new gag reflex is called “French’s Ketchup Cotton Candy.” Per the release, it features “100 per cent Canadian tomatoes,” a coveted ingredient in all sugary treats. It also promises to be “curiously delicious,” which is the semantic equivalent of “pleasantly terrifying.”... “Why are so many bizarre foods launched in summertime?” Winter is the best grazing season. There is an evolutionary emphasis on hearty comfort food. When it’s minus 25, nobody wants tenderloin tiramisu. The cold helps our stomachs see straight. The hot makes us susceptible to culinary crimes against humanity such as Ghost Pepper Banana Splits or O. Henry Haggis... We need to take a stand against the bizarre foods foisted upon us every summer. Silence is palate violence. A milkshake should not contain rutabaga. A Neapolitan scoop should not be topped with dead crickets. This is not complicated. Improving cotton candy with a ketchup infusion is like trying to patch a bike tire with thumbtacks. You’re just making everything worse."
Singapore’s Disappearing Ice Cream Sandwiches Are Thriving in Vietnam - "“Ice cream? From Singapore, this one,” an employee materialised beside me, brandishing a laminated menu. Familiar flavours such as corn, taro, and durian greeted me. Besides the requisite wafers, the stall also offers the classic sweet rainbow bread to pair with the ice cream. Just like how it is at home... one of the stalls I’d seen in Hanoi—Hawker Star—is part of a chain founded by Vietnamese couple Thach Van Thang, 39, and Dang Thi Thanh Hoa, 38... The business launched in May 2020, and they claim to be the first to bring the local dessert to their country. Not without some help from Singaporeans, though. A team of three Singaporean entrepreneurs, Ng Shi Yang and Pang Daowei, both 36, and Lin Hansheng, 41, hatched the idea. The execution was a different matter. They needed someone with intimate knowledge of how things are run in Vietnam, along with connections to local suppliers. The Singaporeans reached out to the importer of Magnolia ice cream in Vietnam, who happened to be Thang’s family friend. Thang had a background in engineering but had always wanted to start a business. The partnership took off from there. To say it’s doing well would be an understatement. In just three years, the chain has grown to 23 outlets spread across Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, as well as smaller provinces such as Vĩnh Phúc and Kon Tum. They also deliver the ice cream sandwiches straight to doorsteps, GrabFood-style... Vietnam has their own version of the dessert: Ice cream banh mi, a delectable concoction of ice cream scooped into a banh mi baguette, topped with condensed milk and roasted peanuts. On TikTok, Hawker Star calls the Singapore-style ice cream sandwich an “upgraded version” of ice cream banh mi with imported ice cream. Hoa tells me that they gravitated to the Singaporean ice cream sandwich as they loved the taste of ice cream banh mi as children but found the quality of their own local ice cream brands lacking... A Voice of Vietnam article spotlighting the trend says that locals are a fan as they are fruity and “not too sweet” (the quintessential compliment for any Asian dessert). In Singapore, on the other hand, the ice cream sandwich isn’t doing so well. A large factor is the dwindling number of ice cream street hawkers. Over 20 years ago, there were 30 ice cream hawkers along Orchard Road. Now there are just seven. New licenses aren’t being issued as the intention is to phase out street hawking, then Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli said in 2016. With the number of street hawkers whittling down as they retire or pass away, seeing an ice cream uncle around your neighbourhood is like striking the lottery... I ask Thang and Hoa if they are aware of the dwindling ice cream hawker numbers in Singapore. They both nod, offering up wry smiles. They obviously can’t do anything about the situation here. What they hope to do is keep the legacy alive in Vietnam, Hoa says. Though they haven’t spent a significant amount of time in Singapore, they still feel an affinity for the country. And with ice cream banh mi becoming harder to find nowadays, they can relate to keeping a culinary tradition alive... Keeping them as close to the original taste as possible is key. They import the exact same Magnolia ice cream that hawkers in Singapore use. They hunted far and wide in Vietnam for a supplier who’d be able to replicate the iconic rainbow bread... Setting up actual ice cream sandwich shops would definitely cost more than a hawker stand and might not be sustainable given the high overhead costs in Singapore. It’s just sad because the ice cream sandwich is still well-loved here. Singaporeans were quick to jump to the dessert’s defence in 2016 when a Buzzfeed listicle dissed it... It’s lamentable that a nostalgic Singaporean dessert might soon be more common on the streets of Vietnam. But at the same time, it’s comforting that ice cream sandwiches will live on in Vietnam, even if they disappear from our streets."
Vietnamese ice cream must be really shit for Singapore ice cream to be considered good quality
Meme - Mirax @miraxpath: "Think of the kind of mind that produces this filth. Joker uses the word "becoming" as if kafir females have choice. We have #yazidi women & girl children who were enslaved in recent years as evidence of what kind of utter degenerates these people are."
Amaar ⚔️ @amaaralmadani: "Why becoming a concubine is the best thing to happen to a kāfir woman after a war with the Muslims. ( a thread 🧵 )"
Meme - Hunter📈🌈 @StatisticUrban: "Wait the US Secret Service has a “take your kid to work” day and it’s actually really adorable. *kids dressed as agents*"
I Think Everybody Should Get Rich and Famous So They Can See That That’s Not the Answer – Quote Investigator® - "In December 2005 Canadian actor and comedian Jim Carrey spoke with journalist Jay Stone, and “The Ottawa Citizen” of Canada printed the following remarks from Carrey... 'He says that earlier in his career, he believed that making just one more film, getting one more hit, would be enough, but he got tired of being emotionally disappointed. “You just go like, ‘Yeah, it was a fantastic hit, but what now?’” Carrey’s advice: “I think everybody should get rich and famous and everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that that’s not the answer.”'... During subsequent years the phrasing of the quotation has been altered."
Meme - "THE 80'S. When you can have a cartoon that heavily features rainbows without people thinking the main character is gay. *Rainbow Brite*"
Meme - "sorry but I dont think this Is gonna work out our age gap makes me uncomfortable :/"
"? Im 21 and you're 20"
"wtf stop pressuring me into something i dont wanna do. youre literally a groomer *skull* i dont"
Meme - "Never forget what they did to her
Galadriel from Lord of the RIngs: "Needless were none of the deeds of Gandalf in life. We do not yet know his whole purpose."
Galadriel from Rings of Power: "tHerE iS a tEmPeSt iN mE!"
Meme - ROP Season 2 Galadriel - Scowling Black Woman with pink pussy hat: "There's a tampon in me!"
Thread by @JoshDaws on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Everyone who disagrees with me does so because they watch cable news 24/7 (the bad network) and can therefore be dismissed. This one dedicated to @edstetzer & @philvischer The tribe I disagree with has turned the leaders on my side into villains so they can play the hero. They are villains and I am heroically warning you about them. Leaders who make decisions I disagree with are abusive. Organizations that aren’t run the way I want them to be run are toxic. Some people who disagree with me have been deceived by evil grifters and deserve my pity. I grieve for those rubes. Anyone that disagrees with me about how to best love their neighbor doesn't love their neighbor. Christians that disagree with me have never read their Bible and probably don’t go to church. This one is dedicated to you, @DavidAFrench. People who disagree with me prove my point. They also demonstrate how weak they are. The issues that concern me are gospel issues. The issues that concern the people I disagree with are distractions from the gospel. My arguments are irrefutable. IR-RE-FU-TA-BLE... I get amused when people disagree with me. That's because it reminds me that I'm smarter than them. I'm really smart... in case that wasn't clear. Everything you grew up believing about Christianity is a lie. I explain this in my new book which you can purchase for $120. Until you fork over the cash to read it, you should just assume I'm correct. Everything that concerns you is a boogeyman to distract people from what concerns me. Congrats, @martyduren! You made the list! The comedy you find humorous is unfunny, hateful, and reveals your emotional baggage. It is nothing like the brilliant satire that makes me chuckle and speaks truth to power. The more people disagree with my argument the stronger it becomes. You only disagree with me because you don’t have any friends of a different ethnicity. I have lots and lots (well, a couple) of them and they all think the same… way I do. #satire It’s wrong to critique my friend based on what he’s said publicly. Everyone who does that is wicked, immoral, and foolish. The gentleness of Christ does not dwell within them and they can go jump in a lake for all I care. Make it a fiery one. People who rethink their opinions and come to agree with me have listened humbly and done the work to become educated. People who rethink their opinions and come to disagree with me have become radicalized by dangerous misinformation peddled by extremists. Evangelical leaders who lend their platform to the administration I voted for are doing a public service and promoting the common good. Evangelical leaders who lend their platform to the administration I voted against are dangerous Christian Nationalists who want theonomy. I’m not going to respond to your well-researched and thoughtful critique of me and my friends, but I will pray for you and encourage you to read my new TGC post about how to be nicer online."
Meme - sensei @seupo: "retweet if you have big npc energy"
"TOP DEFINITION
npc energy
When you only talk to people if they talk to you.
Person 1: why don't you ever start conversations
Person 2: because I have npc energy"
Meme - "When my parents take my phone away so now gotta text her on my fridge"
"bro how r u recording"
"Another fridge"
Song Ji-ah: The Perfect Korean Celebrity - "Many of her critics point out she used brand-name fashion to construct her persona as what Koreans call a 'gold spoon' (geumsujeo 금수저). They assert that she attempted to appear as something she isn't—a privileged child of high society—and is a fake. It's a strange charge against her considering the country's current media landscape. 43 million people use YouTube in Korea, equalling more than 80 percent of the population. And 1 out of every 529 Koreans earns ad revenue from running a channel, at a ratio seen nowhere else in the world (other countries may have more YouTubers but also bigger populations). With even many elementary school students saying online "creator" is their dream job, the competition to stand out on social media is cutthroat, and embellishment and deception by YouTuber make the news not infrequently. Abusing animals for a channel that advocates animal welfare, falsely claiming a delivery worker has eaten the food on the way, and not declaring sponsored contents are only a few recent high-profile examples. In 2020 a married YouTuber couple named Peter Park and Jenny had to apologize for "not correcting the viewers' impression that we are chaebol [members of rich entrepreneurial families]." They ran a channel focused on high-priced automobiles and had fueled the gossip that they had been early investors in Tesla and had connections to British high society (both appear to have ben untrue). And just last year a minor celebrity named Ham So-won came under fire after her homes in China were revealed to be rentals contrary to her telling. Her Chinese husband in turn was accused of exaggerating the scale of his garment business, compelling her to say sorry. What makes Song's crimes so worthy of condemnation from the Korean view is itself food for thought. To begin with, she represents a new breed of influencers nurtured and managed by specialist agencies, like Milanonna, a beloved 70-year-old YouTuber who was revealed only last fall to have been groomed into a star by Chosun Biz, the business arm of the country's biggest newspaper Chosun Ilbo... Showing off in Korea has reached such an absurd level that some kindergartens are doing craft projects making paper Gucci and Louis Vuitton handbags, and parents are reportedly buying imitation designer handbags for their preschool-age daughters so that they can post "couple looks" on social media. One astute scholar of Korea, who asked to be anonymous, remarked while following the scandal, "Koreans hate Ji-ah because she reminds them of the parts of themselves they hate." Song is an authentic representation of the fake life that's taken over contemporary Korea, and now Koreans want to take her down for it."
The memes mocking American kids for wanting to be Professional YouTubers always contrast them with Chinese wanting to be astronauts
The Secret Of The Bayeux Tapestry's 93 Penises - "The Bayeux Tapestry can arouse obsessiveness of many kinds in modern historians. One type involves tallying the number of images. There are, we are told, 626 humans, 190 horses, 35 dogs, 37 trees, 32 ships, 33 buildings, etc., in the tapestry. To the best of my knowledge, no-one has yet tallied the number of penises, except in the negative sense that the human ones were systematically edited out, and the equine ones shrunk to dimensions compatible with Victorian decency, when Elizabeth Wardle and her team of lady embroiderers produced an English replica of the whole tapestry in 1885. By my calculations there are 93 penises in what survives of the original tapestry. Four of these are attached to men, and what may be a fifth appears on a soldier’s corpse in the margin below a late stage in the battle of Hastings, as his chain mail is stripped from him. There is also what appears to be a pair of testicles, the penis itself being concealed by a discreetly positioned axe handle. All of these human male genitalia are confined to the upper or lower borders. Men shown wading in the sea in the main action do so with bared legs, presumably to save their clothes from getting wet, but all of them have taken the trouble to cover their modesty. There are 88 penises depicted on horses, all in the main action; and curiously, none on dogs, or on any of the other many creatures in the main frame or borders. With the possible exception of the dead soldier, all the human members are shown tumescent. A small minority of the equine ones are too... Does the profusion of penises reveal anything more than a male adolescent mentality on the part of the tapestry’s designer? It seems to me that it does. The penises depicted on certain stallions might be thought to demonstrate no more than the designer’s scrupulous anatomical accuracy. But it cannot be simply a coincidence that Earl Harold is first shown mounted on an exceptionally well-endowed steed. And the largest equine penis by far is that protruding from the horse presented by a groom to a figure who must be Duke William, just prior to the battle of Hastings... The clear implications are that the virility of the two leading protagonists is reflected in that of their respective mounts, and that William was in this respect much the more impressive of the two... The images in these borders have recently been the subject of an extremely important paper, by Professor Steve White. He has shown that three of them are not simply gratuitous erotica, but learned literary allusions to Phaedrus’s Latin versions of Æsop’s fables"
Meme - "2017 Chevrolet Express 4500 Box Truck $29,990
Listed about a month ago - Punta Gorda, FL
*Woman's photo*"
derek guy on X - "thinking about the time i showed my hairdresser the haircut i want and he said "derek, that's the same haircut i give you, that guy is just better looking". dude basically said "i only work with 1/5th of your head, i don't work with the rest of it""
Rebecca📖 on X - "I saw an idea recently that I thought was lovely…public libraries that are open late every night so ppl can socialize, as an alternative to bars or sitting alone at home. Would be especially perfect for introverts to socialize comfortably and for older people who are lonely."
Apex🌲🏴☠️ on X - "All of these places close early in no small part because they don’t want to attract the kinds of crowds that are milling around at 11pm or 1am. Until you solve *that* problem, we cannot have such nice things... Fundamentally, you either orient society around the 20% trying to take advantage of other people (thieves - whether in a boardroom or on the street, thugs, and worse) or the other 80% just trying their best to live decent lives Compassion for wolves is damnation for lambs"
Dr. Rupert, Archbigot on X - "There are an awful lot of prog wish list items that would work with beefy authright grade despotism. But with shitlib governance and enforcement? Lololol no. It’s why we can’t even consider nice things."
President of Kansas on X - "There's an issue where relatively intelligent, well-behaved, well-educated people vastly overestimate the regular population's ability to self-regulate behavior"
Chad 🇺🇸 on X - "libraries already have problem keeping out troublemakers during the day you want a nice quiet library you can go to at night? make it private and charge a member fee oh wait, i think we just invented member clubs, im sure Rebecca is ok with those"
Wilfred Reilly on X - "The problem, when Chicago tried this, was bums and college kids having sex in the stacks. You need hard order for anything nice."
AlBooBoo on X - "City spent 15 million to remodel a library, that is mostly used by druggies and homeless. This is why."
Portland fentanyl hot spot moves outside Central Library - "Jordan McCormick, who is homeless and addicted to fentanyl, doesn’t have to go far to find his fix. When he needs fentanyl, he knows just where to go... "It's out of control," said Sierra, who manages a store across the street from the library. "The library is a big resource for the houseless community, where they have a place to go to the bathroom, where they have shelter … People are just using this as a segue to deal drugs, to camp out and be strung out."... some of the business owners asked police for a stronger presence... Voss said they are looking to improve lighting around the Central Library to disturb dealers, as well as sending outreach teams to connect with users."
Chinese runner’s win invites suspicion after rivals appear to step aside - "Chinese runner He Jie’s victory Sunday in the Beijing Half Marathon is facing a probe after his win was called into question by Chinese internet users because a trio of African runners appeared to deliberately slow down to let him win. A video clip of the finish to the race shows Kenya’s Willy Mnangat turn toward He and gesture him to move ahead as the four men run neck and neck just meters from the finish line. Former 5km world record-holder Robert Keter, also of Kenya, then appears to wave at He to overtake the pack while signaling for his compatriot and Ethiopia’s Dejene Hailu to hang back. The Chinese runner crossed the finish line in 1:03:44 to claim the $5,500 first prize, with the African trio just one second behind in joint-second place."
Maybe they didn't want to "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people"
Meme - "My cousin texting this girl. apparently she on punishment so she got no phone. My cousin created a google doc and they talk by editing the doc. Don't ever say you can't talk to someone"
Polish charity gets huge phone bill thanks to stork - "A Polish charity has received a huge phone bill after it lost a GPS tracker that it had placed on the back of a stork, it's reported. According to official broadcaster Radio Poland, the environmental EcoLogic Group placed a tracker on the back of a white stork last year to track the bird's migratory habits. It travelled some 3,700 miles (6,000kms), and was traced to the Blue Nile Valley in eastern Sudan before the charity lost contact. EcoLogic told the Super Express newspaper that somebody found the tracker in Sudan, removed the sim card and put it in their own phone, where they then racked up 20 hours' worth of phone calls. Radio Poland says that the organisation has received a phone bill of over 10,000 Polish zloty ($2,700; £2,064), which it will have to pay."
Shabani: The making of a metrosexual gorilla - "Since March, Japanese women have been swooning over a gorilla called Shabani in the Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens. It's not the first time Japanese popular culture has fallen in love with a large inarticulate creature (see Godzilla)... Visitors began posting photos on social media back in March this year, commenting on his brooding good looks. Since then, Shabani has been a regular in domestic news and social media and the words they have used are interesting... According to local media reports, many women who flock to see Shabani in action are using words of admiration often attributed to the likes of George Clooney or Hugh Jackman or Japan's own Ken Watanabe - "shibui" (meaning "bitter") and "nihiru" (derived from the English "nihilistic") both used to describe "dark and brooding" men. When Western media picked up the story this week, they posted multitudes of pictures of Shabani looking "handsome" and "thinking deep thoughts". The words being used to describe him are "hunky" and "heartthrob" and "hot". He "flexes his muscles" and he stares broodily into the distance. Many Japanese would probably not object but the gorilla's "hunky" qualities are not what it's all about. It's not his metrosexual qualities but his "spornosexual" qualities that seem behind this coverage. In any case, zoo spokesperson Takayuki Ishikawa says gorillas have always been popular among regular zoo visitors, with some elderly couples coming to visit almost every day. But with the recent rise of Shabani's popularity, the crowds around the gorilla enclosure have doubled with more young women."
YANSS 157 – The psychology behind why people don’t speak out against, and even defend, norms they secretly despise – You Are Not So Smart - "pluralistic ignorance. In a “Does anyone have any questions?” scenario like this, each confused individual waits to see if anyone else raises their hands, not wanting to be singled out as the only person falling behind. When no one does, each then assumes they must be the only person who has no idea what is going on and decides to remain silent. After a few seconds, the speaker moves on, and the result is a shared, inaccurate view of reality in which everyone thinks that everyone else has no questions. The speaker thinks the room is following along just fine, and everyone begins living a lie. There are several ways to define pluralistic ignorance, and that’s because it’s kind of a brain twister when you try to put it into words. Psychologist Deborah Prentice says, it’s “a phenomenon in which you feel like you’re different from everyone else, but in fact you are exactly the same. It’s a kind of illusory deviance, a sense that you are not with the majority that everyone in the majority can have simultaneously.” And this phenomenon scales up to the level of norms... Everyone in the group, at the same time, gets stuck following a norm that no one wants to follow... As sociologists Hubert J. O’Gorman and Stephen L. Garry once put it, in situations like these, people often “unintentionally serve as cultural carriers of cognitive error.”... Many scientists bring up the parable of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”"
Poland's kids rejoice over new rules against homework. Teachers and parents aren't so sure
DanielTech 📟🧭 on X - "hackernoon: RT @wakefield00: a lot of tech companies are just adult daycare at this point"
From Jul 2022, pre-layoffs
Meme - Angel Eduardo @StrangelEdweird: "..who's going to tell him?"
Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan: "If you use Nazis and benign in the same sentence, any sentence, it's Nazi apologia."