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LittleTnCo
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Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 12:10 am

Thanks Anii; I never thought of dat. You ish right. It would be flippin' amazing!!

Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:43 am

I read this in a astronomy article, they have deduced that there is something extremely massive just outside the observable universe. Kinda wild.

Hazumu-san
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Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 12:45 am

Gweener

Square Watermelons

Japanese grocery stores had a problem. They are much smaller than their US counterparts and therefore don’t have room to waste. Watermelons, big and round, wasted a lot of space. Most people would simply tell the grocery stores that watermelons grow round and there is nothing that can be done about it. But some Japanese farmers took a different approach. ”If the supermarkets want a space efficient watermelon,” they asked themselves, “How can we provide one?” It wasn’t long before they invented the square watermelon.

The solution to the problem of round watermelons wasn’t nearly as difficult to solve for those who didn’t assume the problem was impossible to begin with and simply asked how it could be done. It turns out that all you need to do is place them into a square box when they are growing and the watermelon will take on the shape of the box.

This made the grocery stores happy and had the added benefit that it was much easier and cost effective to ship the watermelons. Consumers also loved them because they took less space in their refrigerators which are much smaller than those in the US - which resulted in the growers being able to charge a premium price for them.

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The images are genuine and have not been manipulated.

In fact, square watermelons have been grown in Japan for a number of years. According to a BBC news article published in June 2001, a Zentsuji farmer came up with the innovative idea for a space-saving square watermelon some twenty years earlier. Since then, the square fruit has been sold in various selected outlets across Japan, but they are prohibitively expensive to buy and their potential market is therefore quite limited. The BBC article noted:
Today the cuboid watermelons are hand-picked and shipped all over Japan.

But the fruit, on sale in a selection of department stores and upmarket supermarkets, appeals mainly to the wealthy and fashion-conscious of Tokyo and Osaka, Japan's two major cities.

Each melon sells for 10,000 yen, equivalent to about $83. It is almost double, or even triple, that of a normal watermelon.

"I can't buy it, it is too expensive," said a woman browsing at a department store in the southern city of Takamatsu.

According to another 2001 news article about the square fruit, it was doubtful that there would be much of a potential market for them in the US. However, in 2006, British supermarket chain, Tesco announced plans to sell square watermelons in the UK at much more affordable prices than those sold in Japan. An August 2006 Food Business Review article noted that the square fruit was being produced in Brazil especially for Tesco and was grown using wooden boxes rather than glass containers.

Garden hobbyists have also dabbled in square fruit production. A North Carolina resident has even grown square tomatoes after hearing about the square watermelons grown in Japan. And an August 2007 Lansing State Journal article offered gardeners instructions for growing square watermelons using cinder blocks.

Oh I have heard of them! I even poked one....xD. They're really cool...but they look hard to eat.

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 7:57 pm

Are FRENCH FRIES Really FRENCH???

It turns out the answer is actually no.

They are Belgian.

Historians state that potatoes were being fried by at least 1680 in the Meuse Valley of Belgium. Locals would eat small fried fish with their meals, but when the river was frozen over, they cut potatoes lengthwise and fried them in oil to use as a substitute.

So why are they called French Fries?

There appears to be 2 main lines of thought on this one. The first is that 'French frying' is the name given to the way in which it was prepared, so regardless of it being potatoes or anything else, if it is lightly fried in oil as such it can be referred to as French fried.

The second is that of a Belgian legend which claims that when British and/or American soldiers arrived in Belgium during World War I, upon tasting the fries they referred to them as 'French', as the official language of the Belgian Army at that time was indeed French.