Flannel Shirt

Seventh Annual Fluff Festival!

You're missing it. I'm not sure how my daughter missed this. She travels the world to attend all sorts of cutting edge celebrations of humanity. How'd she miss this? How did you miss this? 

Ocean Ave Pops has partnered with Pretty Things Beer for their  “Hop on Pop.” It  features a hop-brewed tea, orange, fluff and some Jack d’Or wort (beer before it has fermented).  We’re most excited for the Lickety Split, available only on Saturday.  It features banana, chocolate, cherries, locally produced peanut butter and, of course, fluff in a cool popsicle.

We’ve got savory covered with Brazilian barbeque, Latin tapas, Indian fare and traditional hot dogs from local businesses.

Well, there's always next year!

 

Chick-fil-A

The Rude Pundit has an interesting and vaguely obscene take on the Chick-fil-A kerfluffle. Here. I won't cite any of it because I try to keep a level of decency here; however, Pundit pretty much craps on all sides of the argument. 

I get a little nervous about boycotts. I mean, when I discovered that Coors was funding ultra-rightwing wackos with links to Nazis hiding out in South America as well as funding anti-gay stuff I stopped drinking their swill. Coors, to my taste, is crappy beer, so that was easy. Long ago they made up with the gay community, going as far as to sponsor stuff like SF's gay freedom day parade and gay softball leagues, so I'm not boycotting them but I still don't drink their watered-down beer. I remember I didn't buy Shell gasoline for awhile because they supported Apartheid in South Africa, and I still don't buy it because it's notoriously more expensive out here on the West Coast. I don't buy BP because of the crap that they dumped in the Gulf of Mexico, but they may have changed their name. But then I've got a Unocal card and they've been killing indigenous peoples in South America and were behind the pipeline through Afghanistan deal back in the 90s that got that whole ball of wax rolling.

It's hard to boycott all crappy corporations because so many of them have done crappy things to workers, consumers and the environment and economy, and half the time you just don't know. Then again, if you do know you don't go out of your way to support people who are supporting hating a group.

There are no easy answers. But there aren't any Chick-fil-A franchises in this part of the country so my caloric intake won't be influenced either way.

Here's a picture of people praying for non-gay chicken sandwiches:

Here's an op-ed by a lesbian who works at Chick-fil-A.

Here's a piece saying that Chick-fil-A's brand name has suffered by its owner's public stance against gay equality.

Jon Stewart also checks in on this cultural armageddon. Unfortunately, since being gay has nothing to do with culture but with biology this deep-fried piety isn't going to change anything. People are born gay. If you believe in God then ask how come he created gays. Or have a chicken sandwich. 

More calories, more jealousy

Another scientific discovery.

 If you're meeting an ex lover, plan on coffee instead of lunch if you'd like to keep the peace at home.

When it comes to consuming calories with a person of the opposite sex, sharing meals sparks significantly more jealousy than meeting that same person for coffee.

"Our research suggests that sharing lunch involves more than the physical consumption of calories," conclude co-authors Kevin M. Kniffin, a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University's Dyson School of Applied Economics, and Brian Wansink, the director of Cornell's Food and Brand Lab, in their new paper, "It's Not Just Lunch: Extra-Pair Commensality Can Trigger Sexual Jealousy," which appears in the peer-reviewed journal, PLoS ONE.

Research by Kniffin and Wansink measured the amount of jealousy reported by current romantic partners if one of them were contacted by an ex lover and subsequently engaged in several food- and drink-based activities.

"We consistently found that meals elicit more jealousy than face-to-face interactions that do not involve eating -- such as having coffee," Kniffin said. "These results are consistent for both men and women."

For couples who are attuned to relationship risks, this study suggests that men and women who "do lunch" run the risk of a jealous spouse or partner at home.

"It's key to remember that from your spouse's perspective, it's not 'just lunch.' While meals can strengthen social relationships, they can also destroy them," Wansink said.

 

FIre on the mountain, pizza in the belly

When I was dumping my iPhone pix into my computer the other day I discovered this pizza.

It was at Fire On The Mountain, which is a pizza/microbrewery. Portland has microbreweries all over the place and lots of pizza places, and this was both.

It's a fig and prosciutto, with blue cheese and carmelized onions. And mozzaella. I like good old-fashioned pizzas with a good red gravy and sausage and pepperoni and peppers and mushrooms. But this pizza was undoubtedly the the best pizza I've ever eaten. We also split an order of hot wings too. I particularly liked the Jamaican jerk sauce for the wings. And the beer was delicious. Wonderful. Those are Joan's arms offering up that pizza goodness like Demeter at harvest time. Mmmm.

All the weight I'd lost during the stress of my move to Oregon from California seems to be finding its way back to me.

Pee guitar

In my neverending search to find important developments in mankind's growth I give you Pee Guitar.

Reminds me of a joke by George Carlin that involved a group of men, a keg of beer and a Kent micronite filter.

 

a most curious legal defense

Here.

In this case the legal defense was so good that Pepsico chose to change its attorneys.

Plaintiff Ronald Ball filed suit against the Pepsi defendants two years ago.

He claimed that after buying a can of Mountain Dew at a vending machine at work, he began to drink it only to spit out the soda, finding a dead mouse within.

The plaintiff then alleges he sent the mouse in a Mason jar to Pepsi which then allegedly destroyed the mouse's body.

Ball's suit also included the owners of the Shop n'Save grocery chain where the soda was purchased for the machine.

However, those defendants were dropped from the suit.

Pepsi had at one point sought summary judgment in the case.

It cited the testimony of a scientist who testified that if the mouse had truly been in the soda since its bottling, its body would have dissolved into a "jelly-like substance."

Attorney Steven Danekas of the Swanson firm also withdrew on Feb. 17.

Original story in the Madison Record.

Readers want to know

A reader named "FGF" which I believe stands for Former Girlfriend has asked if those plump nutria are edible.

I personally don't know. I've never seen them on any menu. However, after my first reference to nutria here at Flannel Shirt, another friend of mine wrote to say that the only time he'd seen nutria was at an alligator farm down south. The owners had frozen nutria and when it was time to feed the beasts they threw the nutriacicles into the gaping jaws of the gators.

The nutria remind me of the mythological shmoo.

It was a creature in the "Lil Abner" comic strip about fifty years ago. Shmoos reproduced rapidly, tasted great and wanted to die to serve the purposes of mankind. Anyone else remember shmoos?