Push button, receive bacon!

So Amy and I were in Orlando a few weeks ago for the annual Institute of Food Techonologists (IFT) convention. Alton Brown was the keynote speaker, and his talk was a bit weird, but interesting. Basically, he stated that if you (as a scientist) want to get people to listen to you, you have to explain yourself in terms that everyone can understand, and if you can use examples that people are familiar with (making it “sticky”) then that’s even better.

Orlando must be one of the levels of hell, because it was hot and humid, it thunderstormed every day, and it is in the middle of a culinary wasteland. We snuck out one afternoon to go to Disneyworld, and as soon as we got inside the park and were at Cinderella’s Castle, it started pouring. Eventually we recognized that the rain was not going to stop, so we bought some panchos and walked the park. Most of the rides were closed due to the rain, so we jumped in the “It’s a Small World” line. Boy, that ride sure does suck!

Anyway, back to the reason why I’m posting this. We had just finished our best meal of the trip at Capital Grille, and we got into a cab to take us back to our hotel. After chatting with the cabbie and her boyfriend, the owner of the cab company, for a while, he busts out this statement - “Do you remember G.L.O.W.?” Now how could we have possibly forgotten the spectacle that was the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling! So it turns out that our cabbie was none other than Matilda the Hun AKA Queen Kong. Apparently she had fallen on some hard times and eventually moved to Orlando.

While her boyfriend was gassing up the cab, she told us her life story. I think in the span of only a year or two, her mom, husband, and son all died. I think her mom died of cancer, and her husband and son died in a car accident when they were living in Las Vegas. Only her new found faith in God kept her from ending her time on this world. Quite a story to lay on a couple of complete, slightly drunk strangers, don’t ya think?

So the home of my Alma Mater is apparently the birthplace of the ice cream sundae. Who knew? You’d think every restaurant in town would want their patrons to know (or at least have a plaque at Purity). I only learned about this nugget of information because Ithaca is now in a sundae war with Two Rivers, WI. Every Sunday in July, Ithaca restaurants are offering free ice-cream sundaes made with Purity ice cream, to celebrate the town’s claim to being the birthplace of the sundae, and Two Rivers, the”Birthplace of the Ice Cream Sundae,” is fighting mad, going as far as insisting that Ithaca relinquish its claim and “cease and desist” from its promotional activities surrounding the invention of the sundae.

This excerpt is from The Arizona Republic

The gist of Ithaca’s claim is that advertisements in the Ithaca Daily Journal, starting May 28, 1892, promoted “a new 10 cent Ice Cream Specialty” called the “Sunday,” available at Platt & Colt Pharmacy. Subsequent articles document how Chester Platt and the Rev. John M. Scott, a Unitarian pastor, created, named and ate the first “Sunday,” named for the day they invented it, according to the Ithaca contingent.

The Two Rivers resolution contended that the Ithaca date of 1892 was “a full eleven years after Ed Berner’s sundaes began broadening children’s smiles and adults’ waistlines in our community on the shore of Lake Michigan.”

The only trouble is that Michael Turback, who wrote “A Month of Sundaes: Ithaca’s Gift to the World” and the new “More Than a Month of Sundaes” ($12.95), both published by Red Rock Press, says the Two Rivers story — as well as one about Manitowoc — were bandied about by the late journalist H.L. Mencken, who reported on the matter in the first volume of “The American Language,” published in 1919, but later admitted it was a hoax.

The Two Rivers tale (this is a story, mind you, I offer no proof) goes that George Hallauer came by Edward Berner’s soda fountain in Two Rivers and asked for chocolate sauce, then used only for ice-cream sodas, on the ice cream he had in a dish. Berner recounted this to the Two Rivers Reporter in a 1929 interview. (Had he read Mencken?)

So Two Rivers states that they invented the ice cream sundae in 1881, despite their only source for this date comes from someone who admitted that they made it up? What gives, Two Rivers? Oh, and apparently the first sundaes were made with cherries, not hot fudge sauce, and did not have whipped cream on top since that wasn’t invented until 20 years later.

So on Sunday the Windy City Rollers played their second bout of the season, and we thought it went much better than the season opener. The sound was better, but not great. I think we will have to rent bigger speakers that get mounted on the lighting truss for next time. The skaters were better prepared for skating on this surface, which made for tighter gameplay. Also, we refs seemed to be more in sync (not ‘N Sync). We tried out the yellow/red cards, which helped show the fans and announcers that a penalty was called.

For one bout I was the clipboard ref, which means that I was responsible for keeping track of all of the skaters’ penalties. I spent so much time looking around at the other refs and writing down penalties that I really didn’t even get to see the game being played around me. Plus both teams are constantly asking which skaters are in danger of getting a major penalty.

For the other bout I was a jammer ref, which meant that I had to keep up with my jammer - not an easy task! I think I made all the correct calls though, despite sweat dripping down my face the whole time due to the temperature of Cicero Stadium. Wow, was it ever hot in there!

In the end, the XXers were victorious against the Hell’s Belles, and the Manic Attackers beat The Fury. After rushing home to take a quick shower, we headed out to Liar’s Club to celebrate with a couple of drinks.

So I was working out last night at the gym, and the TV in front of me was tuned to CLTV, which I sadly do not get anymore as it’s only available to cable subscribers and not DirecTV. Anyway, up pops a picture of John Stroger’s resignation letter, complete with his post-stroke “signature”. I turned to Amy and almost fell off the elliptical machine because that was the funniest thing I’ve seen all week. For those of you who have not seen it, please feast your eyes on this -

So for over 3 months now, Todd Stroger has been saying that his dad is perfectly capable of running Cook County, despite the fact that no one has seen or heard from him since his stroke, and now we get a resignation letter from him which shows that he obviously not well enough to sign his name, much less run Cook County. But despite this fact, John Stroger was able to write a letter to Cook County Democratic Party Chairman Thomas Lyons recommending that his son, Todd, replace him as president? How stupid does Todd Stroger think we are?

Edit - Apparently the Democratic committee has made Todd Stroger their nominee for Cook County Board president in November.

So my first official bout as a new ref for the WCR went pretty well, especially considering that we are in a totally different venue. The few complaints that I did hear from people were:

1) The announcers, especially Phil McKracken, were impossible to hear.
2) People who came late didn’t get seats.
3) People couldn’t see the scoreboard.
4) Girls seemed to go to the penalty boxes at random.

I think the wireless mics weren’t working very well; maybe we should stick to wired mics. We might also think we might have to put something in the program about the 4 minor penalties = 1 minute in the penalty box. Other than those complaints, everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

There were a couple of hiccups when Dr. Vroom and I were jammer refs. When the clock was reset to ten minutes, it looked like it said 10 seconds so that caused some confusion. Also, Tex Ann yelled at me for not calling the jam off right away when she signaled. I forgive her though!

Afterwards, we went to Liar’s Club for the afterparty. Can’t wait ’til this Sunday for the next bout - Red, White, and Bruise!!!

There are a couple things we are going to do to make this Sunday’s bout go more smoothly. We are going to start waving yellow cards for minor penalties and red cards for major penalties. That way the crowd knows that a penalty has been called, even though they may not know who it is on. We are also going to try to make the stadium darker by covering up more of the windows so that the scoreboard can be more easily seen, along with trying to rent better wireless microphones.