I'm right browned off.
Because. Every single of piece of fruit does NOT NEED A LABEL.
Like I need to be told that an apricot is an apricot. I know an apricot when I see one.
Trying to get the label off the apricot is tricky. Hungry for apricot... can't... catch edge of sticker with fingernail... Thrice-damned label! I will brook no delay! Curse you and all your scratch 'n' sniff cousins!
Once off, you have to put it somewhere. Find a garbage. Flick label into garbage. Oops. Label is still sticking to finger. Three or four more fruitless (ha ha!) attempts. Label has formed permanent bond with skin. Crazy-glued limpets would be easier to dislodge. Hokey-pokey. Shake it all about. Swear in technicolour.
At last the apricot has been decoupled from its label. Toss into mouth, finally. Gnash it completely up, minus the stone.
Conclusions
I think we must ask ourselves: "WTF?" The raw data in Appendix A speaks for itself.
Appendix A for Apricot
Time to eat apricot: 0.5s -- Time to delabel apricot: 3m 10s
Fig. 1A - Time taken, at non-relativistic velocities, for male hairless monkey to perform self-interested apricotacious tasks.
/* EVENTS */function onload(){var wiz = new wizard();
wiz.name = "Alakazool";wiz.level = 3;
wiz.alignment = "chaotic evil";wiz.spells = ["magic missile", "light cantrip"];
wiz.spellSlots = 2;
var unsuspectingBystander = new target();
unsuspectingBystander.name = "Durff the Goat Herder";unsuspectingBystander.hitPoints = 6;
if ((wiz.alignment.indexOf("evil") != -1) && (wiz.spells.indexOf("magic missile") != -1) && (wiz.spellSlots > 0))
{while (target.lifeStatus != 'dead' && wiz.spellSlots > 0)
{ wiz.castSpell("magic missile", wiz.level, unsuspectingBystander);}
if (target.lifeStatus == 'dead' || target.lifeStatus == 'unconscious')
{wiz.laughManiacally();
}
else {wiz.rest();
}
}
}
/* OBJECTS */function target(){this.name = "";
this.hitPoints = null;
this.lifeStatus = function() {
if (this.hitPoints < 1 && this.hitPoints > -10) {return 'unconscious';}
else if (this.hitPoints < -9) {return 'dead';}
else {return '';}
}
}
function missile(intDamage){this.target = null;
this.damage = intDamage;}
function wizard(){this.name = "";
this.level = 0;this.alignment = "";
this.spells = []; this.spellSlots = 0; this.maxSpellSlots = level; this.castSpell = CastSpell();this.rest = function() {setTimeout(spellSlots = maxSpellSlots, 8*1000*60*60);}
this.laughManiacally = function() {alert("mwa ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa!!");}
}
/* PUBLIC METHODS */function CastSpell(strSpell, intSpellLevel, oTarget){ switch (strSpell) {case "magic missile":
CastMagicMissile(intSpellLevel, oTarget);
break;case "light cantrip":
// do nothing useful break;}
}
function CastMagicMissile(intLevel, oTarget){ var count = getNumberMissilesFromCharLevel(intLevel); var missiles = generateMissiles(count);if (oTarget != null)
{fireMissiles(oTarget, missiles);
}
}
function RollDie(intMax){ // generate random integer between 1 and intMax var output = Math.floor(Math.random()*intMax+1); return output;}
/* PRIVATE METHODS */function fireMissiles(oTarget, missiles){ var count = missiles.length;for (var i = 0; i < count; i++)
{oTarget.hitPoints -= missiles[i].damage;
}
}
function generateMissiles(intCount){ var output = [];for (var i = 0; i < intCount; i++)
{ var intDamage = RollDie(4); output[output.length] = new missile(intDamage);}
return output;}
function getNumberMissilesFromCharLevel(intLevel){ var output = 0; if (intLevel >= 1 && intLevel < 3) {output = 1;
}
else if (intLevel >= 3 && intLevel < 5)
{output = 2;
}
else if (intLevel >= 5 && intLevel < 7)
{output = 3;
}
else if (intLevel >= 7 && intLevel < 9)
{output = 4;
}
else if (intLevel >= 9)
{output = 5;
}
return output;}
John's Noodle House serves Chinese food. John's Noodle House serves good food. Let's be clear about that. There's no doubt that John's Noodle House has fine noodles and an extraordinary war wonton soup.
They have, however, quite failed in their attempts to understand the concept of ambiance, a French word which means "try not to hang jade-look-alike plastic decorations up around the place with dental floss and scotch tape." It's just kind of underwhelming.
At a restaurant, one must have music. For some reason. (Is what I hear them say to each other in my mind's ear.) So they have one CD of the erhu (Chinese violin) playing soft Western favourites. It plays Edelweiss over, and over, and over again. It is never taken out of the CD tray. Ever. Edelweiss, hour after hour, day after day, year after year. I think the CD tray must be glued shut. I daren't ask. ("Could I help you unstick the CD tray?" I might enquire, and the owner lady would glare at me like I'd found a maggot in her fortune cookie, and I would never get to eat delicious war wonton soup again.)
At least they have their priorities straight. Wonton being number one, decor trailing somewhere behind no-toenails-in-the-steamed-rice.
UPDATE: WOR wonton. I meant wor wonton. Crap.
Had dinner at Mom's last night and pored over a most wonderful book which she brought back from a medieval conference in Toronto: Pleyn Delit: Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks.
Full of recipes from olden dayes, the fun was reading the original recipe in Middle English, and then puzzling out what the devil you were actually supposed to cook. The book supplied translations, but they were just best guesses which had to take into account modern ingredients and cooking methods. More convection ovens these days and fewer spits with entire roast boars turned by red-faced cooks eyeing up the scullery maids. At my house anyway.
A couple of my favourites were Compost and Garbage. The "pleyn delit" was in charting the journey of these words to current times.
Compost was a chutney. The modern relation is compote, I suppose, which is stewed fruit in syrup. The base meaning of compost is "a composite" or mixture. But you just don't see many recipes for compost these days. Funny how it's still kind of food-related; only just the rotting kind.
Garbage was a stew or stock made of all the bits of the chicken you normally throw out: the offal. I've made soup stock like this, but I didn't call it garbage. Although, if you've tasted my "cooking" you would be within your rights to reinstate the old definition.
The best part was, every recipe would go something like "putte ther-to Percely, eek othere erbes and oynons noyt to smal hakkyd & seethe hem wyl", or some such, and always end with "... and serve it forth," which we all agreed conjured up delightfully vigorous mental images of food on its way to the table.
