Reading Offline: Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments
by Alex Boese
Really odd book about various "scientific" experiments, some gruesome, many just insane. Have't yet gotten to the elephants on acid part, but am definitely freaked out by the "let's decapitate an animal and try to keep just the head alive" chapter. Ugh.
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
by Nancy Milford
I never read much of Millay before, but Milford wrote a really interesting biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, so I was interested to see her next book. Still in the first chapter, but the prolog was amusing in itself. I always appreciate reading the background of how the author started on the book.
Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
by Anthony Bourdain
I gave this to Jon as a gift a while back and only just recently remembered I never did borrow and read it myself. Am very amused so far. Sadly it's not the updated edition I've linked to - preface in our copy's dated Nov. 2000. Wonder what's been added/changed/corrected.
The New Kings of Nonfiction
by Ira Glass
Collection of nonfiction articles previously published in various magazines. Bought a while back in an airport and there are still a few articles I haven't finished reading. I really liked the Bill Buford article that became Among the Thugs.
...About?...
Batgrl is a pop culture junky who loves to mess about with cameras and video games. And is constantly amused by Jon, who she did honest and truly did meet online. Though she's been blogging since the '90s, evil sp@m'rs managed to break the old blog, and thus there's only more recent stuff here. (No great loss, actually!)
So while gathering food trivia I bumped into a bunch of interesting pages...
Skittles has a link that shows you who is twittering about Skittles. I couldn't decide which was weirder - that Skittles has a whole page of that on their site - or that people are spending time twittering about Skittles.
And randomly I learned of a contest (starting June 1) that could win you a Skittles gift card. Yes, I'm actually going to look into that, so whoever in the marketing dept. thought that one up - it worked.
How Rock Candy is Made
This is the kind of thing that I can watch for hours on the Discovery Channel show How It's Made. That's the British rock candy by the way - not this kind of rock candy. This kind:
I'm actually curious enough to want to try the Twisted bar - though the "Goo on the loose" is not a phrase I think would go down well in the US. Wonder if it'll even be marketed over here.
...It does have its own Twitter account...
And Cadbury Creme Eggs have their own Facebook page.
Sometimes the 'net seems especially strange to me.
I do wish we had Cadbury Creme Egg Cars driving around the streets here though. That would definitely be amusing to see in your rear view mirror.
Also I really need to drink more chocolate. With churros.
And this Bubblegum Sequencer looks like it'd be a fun project to create. I'd have had trouble not chewing up the gum though.
After a bit more wandering around YouTube found these videos on making Dragon's Beard:
Those two segments gave the most through description of the ingrediants.
Here's a bit more explanation of the history of the candy:
I'm not going to embed this one because it's just too weird - but this is apparently a live demonstration of making Dragons' Beard. I have no idea what the woman is doing dancing around with the feathers, and that's definitely not the best version of Rainbow Connection I've ever heard. Yeek.
Of course even with that warning - I did watch the thing twice.
