I Could Do That

You know how much I hate that there is a world record category for "Most Expensive (insert food item of your choice here)"? Very much, that is correct. It's completely ridiculous because people make food that doesn't actually have food in it and then they call it expensive food and end up with some sort of a world record. Isn't that like if I took a chihuahua and put him on top of a ten foot ladder and called him "World's Tallest Dog"? I mean, it's not exactly the same, but it's pretty close.

Here, let me give you a real example. Over there at Yahoo! News, we learn about a one "renowned "Karat chef" Angelito Araneta Jr." Now, I knew that the article was going to irritate me because, as I'm sure that you've already realized, there is no such thing as a "Karat chef". Oh, sure, it's a thing...to that guy. But I don't know that if you put "Karat chef" on a resume or even if you brought it up in conversation that anyone would know what in the world you were talking about. This is important because this entire article seems to be about made up stuff that people are acting like is real stuff. It's NOT! (Please see my previous "World's Tallest Dog" example for elaboration on that concept.)

So Mr. Araneta Jr. is trying to make the World's Most Expensive Sushi. And just to be clear, that is a thing. That could be a thing. There are plenty of super pricey cuts of fish out there. But the problem I have with Mr. Araneta Jr's method is that he doesn't stick to fish. And that's really what I have contention with. If you're going to make the "World's Most Expensive" of any kind of food, I would think that the one requirement, the one minimum standard that you'd have to meet would be that what you prepared was actually food. And as I'm sure that you can guess by my tone, this is not actually food.

See, the "secret" to achieving the "World's Most Expensive Sushi" seems to be for it to be topped with not fish eggs or fish or anything of the sort, but rather to have diamonds and pearls sitting atop the little bite sized pieces (which, incidentally, also appear to be wrapped in some sort of 24-karat gold leaf thing)! Diamonds and pearls aren't FOOD. Since when does this count?! Since when can you just start putting jewels on top of food and get yourself in the Guinness Book of World Records?!

The sushi apparently appraises at $1,978.15 in US dollars. Why stop there? Why not set the sushi on top of a gold bar and park a Hummer on top of it?! That would obliterate that measly amount that this guy came up with. What's a Hummer going for these days? Fifty grand? There you go! How is that any different from what he's doing? It seems the same to me! Can't eat the diamonds and you can't eat the Hummer either. How would my way not count? And while I'm at it, I'll just use that same method for all food items. I'll put them on top of a gold bar and then park a Hummer on top of them and voila! I will OWN every "World's Most Expensive" food record that there is! World's Most Expensive Burger. World's Most Expensive Cheeto. World's Most Expensive Jolly Rancher. World's Most Expensive Churro. You name it, I'm gonna put a Hummer on it and go for the record!

I'm not sure if this guy has figured out some sort of loophole or something, but if he has, it's the most ridiculous loophole I've ever heard of. Diamonds aren't food! Why are they acting like they are? Why does this count? What am I missing? Guinness? Anyone? I'm listening!

Sphere: Related Content

Shopping For The Rich And Ridiculous

Looking to spend an inordinate amount of money this Christmas? Want to buy lavish and pointless gifts? Of course you do! And you're going to want to turn to Neiman-Marcus to help you do this! Let's see what we can piss away holiday funds on this year, shall we?

Up first is the ever pretentious Folding Electric Bike. In part, the description reads "From the trunk of your car to under your desk, this electric bike folds up to slip into tight spaces". Why would you want this in your car? Wouldn't this be in place of your car? The thing is $1,995.00, so the price is kind of in place of your car. And I'm taking an issue with how it "folds up to slip into tight spaces". Really? Behold!

Does that look all that compact to you? Me neither. It's certainly not fitting under anyone's desk. Moving right along, do you want "Supremely weird looking cool ice-like, self-powered speakers deliver 55 watts per channel with DSP optimized digital power amplification for (allegedly) amazing sound."? Then these are for you. You weirdo. With a thousand dollars to drop on this ugly crap. Are you Superman? Are they going in your Ice Fortress? No? Then why would you want these?

What about a wet/dry electric shaver? Sounds practical, yes? Of course it does. And Panasonic has one with a "...multi-flexible head that pivots 360°, pop-up trimmer, and a fully automatic self-cleaning and quick-charging system." What's not to love? Well, the $400 price tag for starters. Four hundred dollars?! For a shaver? What the hell does it do that makes it worth $400? Does it actually do the shaving for you? No? Next!

Want to stay dry during the rain? Want to do it with an umbrella with a barely discernible skull at the base of the handle? Want to do all of that AND part with $495? Oh, wait. Too pricey? Yeah, well, then the Alexander McQueen Skull-Handle Umbrella might not be for you. Then again, they describe it as "A menacing skull forms the handle of this Alexander McQueen umbrella— show it off in your umbrella rack." In my umbrella rack?! What now?! Shouldn't that say something about using it to keep precipitation falling from the sky off of you?

What about your pills? Got pills? Always losing them as they roll about? (No, I don't know why they're not in the provided containers. I'm stretching this here as it is.) Need a box to keep them in? A pill box, perhaps? How about one encrusted with a bunch of Austrian crystals in a multicolor parrot motif? Yes? For $695? No? What?

What if it was in the motif of a blue bird? Same price, different avian species depicted! How about then? No? Hell, no? What?

What about for your correspondence needs? Been looking for "...cards are an eye-catching pumpkin hue with a white border (and) are engraved with bordered monogram"? Want to spend over ten dollars per card? Mind you, these aren't gift cards or anything. There isn't even anything written on these cards with the "eye-catching pumpkin hue". NOTHING! And fifty of them will set you back $605! Behold!

Who are you people who are buying those? Seriously, I need to know. How much of a pretentious ass are you? Good Lord. I'm guessing that the people who buy those use them to send out announcements to people to tell them that they have just dropped $3,500 on this little musical Santa. Behold!

If that's too much for you to spend on something that you could probably find a reasonable likeness of for about $25, you can always opt for the $995 donkey. But be warned! I don't think that he's musical. So if you want to spend a thousand dollars on a figurine of a donkey that just sits there and sparkles, this might be the donkey for you.

Or if you prefer, there's also a handcrafted ox which Neiman-Marcus says you can use to "...complete your nativity scene". It will also complete your wallet being emptied, as the ox is $1,200. (By the way, what kind of sparkly nativity scene are they used to seeing over there at Neiman-Marcus? Just how gay was Jesus in their versions?)

Sphere: Related Content

We Have A Wiener

I knew this would happen. I do a post about the world's most expensive beer and the next thing I know, there's another story in the news about the world's most expensive hot dog. Really? A hot dog? See, this is what I mean by people just making stuff up so that it can be the most expensive. Trust me. There isn't much expense that goes into hot dogs.

According to the newsy folks over there at the NY Daily News, a local restaurant called Serendipity 3 (I'm not sure what's up with Serendipities 1 and 2) created the world's most expensive hot dog at $69. Now, if you're wondering what goes into a $69 hot dog (which they call the "haute dog" in a failed effort at being cutesy), so was I. Seriously, it's a hot dog. Do you know what goes in a hot dog? Everything but the oink, that is correct. How are you going to have a $69 hot dog? Easy. The same way you could have a $89 hot dog or a $109 hot dog. You charge that much and then you get someone to buy it.

And that's pretty much what happened over there at Serendipity 3. The owner of said establishment, a one Stephen Bruce, came across an awfully gullible tourist, a one Trudy Tant of Rock Hill, South Carolina, and "...asked her to spend her dough on the pricey frankfurter." If someone had asked me to spend almost seventy bucks on a hot dog, my response wouldn't have been "Sure!" It would have been more along the lines of something that I'm not overly comfortable typing here. It would not have been pretty.

But this soft headed woman was all for the idea! "The publishing company worker said she relished the opportunity "to do something out of the ordinary." (I'm sure that "relished the opportunity" was not on purpose because I can't imagine that someone who is dense enough to fall for this would be so quick to make an appropriate pun such as that.) I can think of a whole bunch more things that would have been "out of the ordinary" that would have left her less seventy dollars in the end. Some legal, some possibly not so much. Most of them would have been money better spent than on a hot dog.

In case your a-clamoring to make your own $69 dog at home and see how many of your friends you can weasel into coughing up the dough for it, here's what you're going to need: Some truffle oil, a salted pretzel bed, truffle butter, duck foie gras, Dijon mustard, Vidalia onions and ketchup." Wait a minute. You're going to put ketchup on a dog that has foie gras on it? That's just gross. Foie gras in and of itself is gross, but to put ketchup on it? That's just wrong. But basically, the only thing worth anything on this dog is the truffle stuff and the duck liver. Other than that, you've got yourself some pretty basic hot dog fixin's. See what I mean? It's all just a ruse. And who wants their hot dog on a pretzel bun? No one. That's why it's supposed to be a pretzel and not a hot dog enclosure. Pay attention!

But here's the best (or worst) part of this dealio: "The restaurant racked up the priciest dog record right away; there was no previous titleholder." Wait. What now? There wasn't a record? So...basically, EVERY hot dog that was sold before this one technically WAS the titleholder?! This is why there can't be world records for things that you can just make up and put whatever price you want on them. I could take a Ball Park frank, sprinkle it with gold flakes and diamonds, say that it's a thousand dollars, and set it up with a friend ahead of time for them to "pay" me for the dog and then I have just sold the world's most expensive hot dog. Technically. Then again, I wouldn't want to be the world record holder of something so ridiculous. Not to mention so NOT world record-y.

Apparently, this isn't the first world record that Serendipity 3 holds and the other records are just as ridiculous as this one is. They hold the record for the the most expensive ice-cream sundae (which someone paid $1,000 for) and for the largest hot chocolate which was 4 gallons. No word on how much that was or how many morons paid for it. Back to you.

Sphere: Related Content

Getting A Little Squirrelly

I'm not a fan of "The Most Expensive ____" (put whatever you want in the blank) because there's no reasonable scale on which to judge something. I can say that I have a pair of socks for sale for one million dollars and that they are the most expensive socks in the world, but that doesn't necessarily make them so, you know what I mean? It's just like having "The World's Biggest (insert food item here)". If it's a food that you're growing in the ground or on a tree, that's fine. But if it's a food that anyone can make, that's ridiculous. Sure, you can have the World's Biggest Hamburger and have it weigh 750 pounds, but what is stopping anyone from having a 751 pound hamburger (other than sheer sanity)? Not much. World records that are the biggest and the most expensive should have a small degree of luck or chance to them.

That's all why I was not overly interested when I heard that, at $770 per bottle, a brewery in Fraserberg, Scotland, is selling a new Belgian blonde ale which is 55 percent alcohol. It's the process to make the beer which the brewers claim is the reason for the exorbitant expense. Apparently they need to keep the beer at far below freezing temperatures so that water separates from the solution. They apparently repeat that process a gazillion times and it takes hundreds of liters of the beer in order to make just one 330 ml bottle. Granted, it's a super boozy bottle, but it's still just one.

Is the process necessary? I have no idea. And while I have a fondness for beer, I don't have much of an interest in drinking a $770 bottle of beer. I just don't. That's not what beer is about. You know what else beer isn't about? Dead rodent road kill that are all taxidermied up with the bottle of beer shoved down inside them. Wait. What? Behold!

Oh, what the hell is that? That is the End of History Beer by BrewDog. According to AOL News the BrewDog co-founder, a one 29-year old James Watt said, "This is the beer to end all beers. It's an audacious blend of eccentricity, artistry and rebellion; changing the general perception of beer one stuffed animal at a time." OK, then. I'd definitely say that a $770 bottle of beer is audacious and reeks of a rebellion. But I'm not so sure that it changes the general perception of beer as much as it changes the general perception of anyone out there who is trying (sometimes desperately) to make a buck. I'm not much for gimmicks. I'm all for gimme, as in "Gimme my beer and leave me the hell alone". THAT I can totally get behind. A gimmick? Not so much.

Mr. Watt went on to say, "We want to show people there is an alternative to monolithic corporate beers, introduce them to a completely new approach to beer and elevate the status of beer in our culture." Well, that's all fine and good, but I don't know that you're going to elevate the status of much by cramming it down roadkill. I'm just saying. Mr. Watt added that (referring to beer drinkers in the United Kingdom) "are constrained by lack of choice; seduced by the monolithic corporate brewers' huge advertising budgets and brainwashed by vindictive lies perpetrated with the veracity of propaganda." I really wish he had given an example of the vindictive lies by corporate brewers. What could a brewer lie about? This beer won't get you drunk even a little bit? I don't get that. As for the constraining lack of choice, you DO live on an island, my good man. It's hard to have much variety when there isn't a lot of choice to be had. That doesn't mean that one needs to create variety by shoving a bottle of beer down a....what is that? A chipmunk? Never mind. All I'm saying is that you'll adjust the the drudgery of no variety.

Fortunately, there are only 12 bottles of The End of History. Unfortunately, they've already sold out of them. Of course they have. (In case you were wondering, the one creature is a stoat and the other one is a squirrel. There were 8 stoats available and only 4 squirrels. Apparently, stoats are more prone to getting clobbered by traffic than are the squirrels.) This is only going to make them try to do something of this nature again. They'll just strive for something a little more outrageous, is all. Maybe they'll cram a keg of ale inside of a hippopotamus or something. Or have a whole variety of beers on tap being poured from a cow's udder. Who knows? I only wish that I wouldn't have to find out.

Sphere: Related Content

Wind Blows

As I'm throwing a bunch of stuff in the recycle bin, I'm looking through a stack of magazines just to make sure that there isn't a Barry Obama covered one in there (history, nostalgia, some crap like that. I'm certainly not saving them because I think I'm going to make a fortune selling them on eBay next week like the 40,000,000 other people in the country who have the exact same magazine. News flash folks: TIME Magazine has gone nationwide! It's true! Check it out at a newsstand today!), I see on the cover of the December 1, 2008 issue of TIME the question "Should You Buy a Windmill?" To which I did a Scooby-Doo head tilt and I thought, "Rooo? I don't know. Should I?" And I started to read. I should have just kept recycling.

Of course, inside on Page 71 is the story titled "Going Green" (which is just enough to make me see red these days) "Got Wind? These days, the coolest eco-savvy accessory is a wind turbine for your home." Huh. It is? Are you sure? I did not know that. And there's a reason why I didn't know that. It's because it's an asinine notion. It might be "cool" (if you're the little Dutch Boy, longing for the fields of Holland or something) and it most certainly would be an "accessory", but "eco-savvy" is questionable. "Useful" is a term that would not come to mind when speaking of the wind turbine notion. "Scam" comes to mind, though. "Softheads" comes to mind, too. And following those comes many, many questions.

Remember, I went into this with an open mind. I wanted to know if I needed a wind turbine. (I like to be prepared.) The story talks about this guy (who I'm not going to name because my comments are not exactly favorable. Granted, there's a full color photo of him that accompanied the story and it's not like you can't look it up online over there at TIME.com, because you can. I'm just going with "the guy" for now.) who "installed solar panels on his house (in Michigan) and was eager to get a little greener". (Now, I should have known when I saw the term "greener" that this would not bode well.) So he goes out and buy himself a 33-foot tall wind turbine with blades that span 7 feet in diameter and puts it 100 yards from his home.

The purpose of said turbine is to convert the energy of the wind into electricity. Electricity, as you know, is important. It's also freaking expensive because we're getting reamed by the utility companies (who have all been surprisingly quiet during this economic downturn...hmmm.....), so I could understand why someone would want to generate their own power. I'd love to put solar panels on the ol' walled-off compound roof here, but again, they're what? Freaking expensive, that is correct. So I'm still with this whole concept at this point and I'm also still waiting for the answer to the burning question "Do I need a windmill?"

According to the article (and I am not making this up), on days with a "decent wind" (and the dude lives in a place where he can feel the breeze from Lake Michigan, also known as the Breeziest of all Lakes or, if you're local, its simply Lake Really Breezy) the "wind turbine can generate 1.5 kWh" (that's kilowatts an hour for those of us not in the business of meter reading and who are simply in the business of yelling at the top of our lungs when our electric bill arrives each month). Wow! The prefix "kilo" means "thousand", so if this amount is in kWh then that has to be HUGE right? Well, that depends. It depends on whether or not you're Amish because 1.5 kWh is (and I freaking quote) "enough to power the average light bulb for 15 hours a day. Wait. What?

Correct. A light bulb. For 62.5 percent of the day. A light bulb. OK, well, then it has to be expensive right? You'll naturally be saving a huge pile of money, won't you? That depends and again, whether or not you're Amish because to run a 120V/75W light bulb for 24 hours will run you approximately (and this is just a rough estimate, so don't freak out or anything) twenty-two cents. For 15 hours a day, that's going to save you right around 13.75 cents a day! Oh, and did I mention that the turbine cost $16,000? I didn't? It did. Sixteen thousand dollars. Um, WTF??

At that rate, the thing should pay for itself after about, oh, say....313 years. That should do 'er! Are you kidding me?! I'm so confused by this article and by this concept and mostly by this guy who spent sixteen thousand dollars to run A light bulb!! The article says that "most household turbines will produce 10kW at most." Ooohh! Six and a half light bulbs! Who, other than that guy, thinks this is a good idea? Oh, let me guess. The people who make wind turbines, perhaps? Let's see, "US firms control 98% of the small wind market." Oh, this is all making perfect sense to me now. There's some air being generated here. HOT air.

Look, I understand that the more alternate sources of generating power that there are, the more stress that it takes off of the power grid. I totally get that and I am totally for that. I am also totally against paying sixteen thousand dollars to have a giant pinwheel outside the walled-off compound to run A light bulb or to save me a little over 13 cents a day! THAT I am against.

The article warns that "buying your own windmill isn't cheap". Really? Yeah, I kind of got that right around when I read that they were sixteen grand. Thanks for that. "A turbine that could produce most of your family's electricity might cost as much as $80,000 and take as long as two decades to pay back, depending on wind strength and state subsidies." Now, of course they have just mentioned earlier that most household windmills will produce 10kW at the most, but they're just throwing out the numbers for the magical windmill that will generate almost all of the power that you need? Why are they telling me that? Oh, and the 30% federal tax credit that is offered for small wind projects? Yeah, that's capped at $4,000, so if you want to maximize that, your windmill is going to have to be $13,333 or less, otherwise you'll still get the $4,000 tax credit, but it will be less than 30%. I love it when lawmakers do that. You know, make us think that they're doing something to help us out when in reality, the great numbers that they're giving us are at the low end of the scale for something that you'll need to acquire at the high end. Morons.

It goes on to say that "What's really held back residential wind power has been the lack of federal subsidies..." Um, NO, what's really held back residential wind power is a) you can't have a freaking pinwheel jutting thirty feet up in the air in a residential neighborhood, b) they cost, on the low end, over $10,000 for one of them and c) they power up A light bulb!! That is what has held back residential wind power! Not the lack of subsidies! Look at the picture below! That is what has held it back! Would you want that as your next door neighbor? Of course not!! No one would!!

Everyone that was quoted for the article was somehow commercially involved in the wind turbine business. Shocking that they were all very optimistic and enthusiastic about the future of wind as a realistic alternative energy generating source. This has the feel and the smell of the ethanol powered vehicles that were going to be the answer to shedding our dependence on foreign oil. Yep, I think the federal government purchased a fleet of about 190,000 of these vehicles that run on ethanol. The problem is that there are virtually NO ethanol fueling stations anywhere that the cars are. Thus, none of the cars have ever had ethanol in them (yet they were, naturally, more expensive than a regular car than runs on regular gasoline). Oh, and they were supposed to be such a wonderful fuel saver when, in reality, when running on gasoline, the vehicles would get around 24 mpg and when running on ethanol the vehicles would get around 18 mpg. What a great idea. Wow. Who was in charge of THAT debacle? Whoever he/she was, I'm sure they were re-elected.

Wind is not the answer to getting off of the power grid. Wind is not the answer to a low-cost alternative energy source. Wind is not the answer to generating your own power. Wind is just that. It's wind. It would be nice if we could do more with it for residential power needs, but we can't. Get over it. I'm sure that it can be used for plenty of other things that will actually benefit from the wind. I'm not saying stop studying how to harness the powers of the all mighty wind. That's not it. I'm saying stop putting all of this effort into pushing the ridiculously costly and highly inefficient wind turbines for residential homes. All of the hot air that's gone into that could generate more power than all of the wind turbines combined, I have the feeling.

Bottom line? Wind blows.

Sphere: Related Content