I always wanted to know the connection between SPAM, the ‘food’ and Spam, the e-mail. To start, we must look at the food. Not literally.

SPAM was originally named Hormel Spiced Ham. That name is not catchy, so they had a name contest with a $100 prize. SPAM (which, as the food has all 4 letters in caps) probably stands for Spiced Ham, but has also been claimed as being called shoulder ham – since pork shoulder is one of the chief ingredients. Interestingly, SPAM is cooked in the can. Which is why you can eat it cold… if you were bold enough to do so.

Before we can get to the e-mail, we need to make a detour to Monty Python’s Flying Circus. One of their most famous sketches was about a couple who go into a restaurant that has SPAM in almost every item on the menu. Only one person in the restaurant doesn’t want SPAM in her food. Sounds like a hilarious plot to me!

When the internet was becoming populated, people kept recounting the sketch on various forums. Due to the overuse of the word “spam” on the forums, and recounting the repetitive and unwanted presence of Spam in the sketch, the term Spam became associated with abuse of electronic messaging systems.

It was a long journey from Austin, MN to my junk mail, but I think we made it.

Source: 3 different wikies named “Spam.”

The phrase “The Writing on the Wall” has biblical origins.

It comes from the Book of Daniel.

The king of Babylon, Belshazzar (immediately preceded by Nebuchadnezzar*) used some ancient Jewish artifacts in a ritual praising the gods of gold, silver, and other non-god like things.

During the ceremony, a disembodied hand appeared and wrote a cryptic message, which the Babylonians couldn’t read.

Daniel, a Jew, is summoned, and he tells the king that the writing portends the fall of his kingdom.  Later that night the king dies.

So, when you can’t read the writing on the wall, it means you can’t see that something bad is going to happen.

* I only included the reference to Nebuchadnezzar so I’d have an excuse to use the name Nebuchadnezzar in a post.  Because it’s one of the best names of all time.

Please forgive the post-Halloween Halloween post, but I only learned the legend of Stingy Jack last night.

Stingy Jack was a trickster who lived in Ireland.  No one was safe from Jack’s pranks, even the Devil himself…

Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.

Sadly, Jack died soon after that.  He tried to go up to Heaven, but God wasn’t interested in hosting such a notorious stingy prankster.  So he had no choice but to go to Hell.

But there was a problem.  The Devil had already agreed not to claim Jack’s soul.  Plus, Jack was too much for even the Devil to handle.  So the Devil sent Jack back from whence he came.  But there was another problem.  It was too dark for Jack to see.

So he asked the Devil for a light.  The Devil, being an obliging fellow, tossed Jack an ember from the fires of Hell.  Jack stored the ember in a hollowed out turnip, which he of course had on him.

Jack has since been doomed to wander in the darkness alone.  In an effort to ward off the evil wandering spirits, the Irish townsfolk began carving their own turnips.

When Irish immigrants made it to America in the 1800’s they discovered the pumpkin, which was much better for carving than a turnip.

And that, my friends, is how we got the Jack of the Lantern, or Jack-o-Lantern.

Happy belated Halloween.

Source: History Channel Website, here, and here.  But originally on the National Geographic Channel.

While at a party on Saturday, Ep0pee mentioned that he read in a Lutheran Cookbook that Sloppy Joes are called “Spanish Tavern Sandwiches.”  He also mentioned that he knew a few nutty folks who call them “BBQs.”  So that got me thinking… what’s with the name?  I mean, sure ‘sloppy’ is descriptive, but who is this Joe.

Turns out, the origin of Sloppy Joes traces back to a bar in Old Havana.  Sloppy Joe’s is now an historic bar in Key West, FL (Foreign Leadership Camp?).  According to the wiki, Sloppy Joe’s is mentioned in Citizen Kane when one of the men interviewed lists a few places that are “down south.” The last place mentioned before he remembers the right name is Sloppy Joe’s.

The Sloppy Joe sandwich is an American dish, “of ground beef, onions, [and] sweetened tomato sauce.”  Turns out Korndog is making them wrong (no onions!).  In various other parts of the country, they are also called:
Loosemeat sandwich
Looseburgers
Maid-Rites
Wimpies
Yip Yips
Slushburgers
Barbecues
Hot Tamales
Taverns
Steamers
Gulash

I call them… delicious

The Wife^® apparently doesn’t drink Snapple anymore because I haven’t seen any Snapple Cap posts in a while. That, compounded with my Trivial Pursuit calendar from yesterday, let me to investigate some Snapple Trivia.

The Unadulterated Food Corporation was founded in 1927 in New York by 3 Jews. Snapple is kosher; there is a small “K” on the label because of this.

One of its first products was a carbonated apple juice, which was described as having a “snappy apple taste.” Snappy apple lead to the name “Snapple,” which replaced their even worse name in the early 80’s.

The brand became popular in the early 90’s because of “the Snapple Lady” commercials. Her name is Wendy Kaufman. The story goes that when she was young, she sent a letter to Greg Brady that went unanswered, which inspired the commercials.

Wilford Brimley’s favorite company, Quaker Oats, bought Snapple in 1994 for $1.7 billion (at which time, Wendy was fired for some reason), but then sold it to Triarc in 1997 for $300 million (ouch!). Triarc sold it to Cadbury Schweppes for $1.45 billion in 2000, and was spun off into the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group in 2008.

In 2003, Snapple paid off the city of New York to put Snapple machines in all New York schools and public buildings. Snapple is the official drink of New York City.

According to wiki – which is always true – about 28 of the Snapple cap facts are wrong. At least 3 of them were debunked by Mythbusters, and 1 by Snopes (see next post). Reading some of them, though, I wouldn’t call the caps “wrong” per se.

I personally find Snapple overpriced and pretentious… That’s about it.

Source: My TP calendar, wiki, and briefly wiki.

Functionally equivalent to “Jump The Shark,” but for Movies instead of TV.

Comes from Indiana Jones and the Last Spaceship of Doom.

Source: Urban Dictionary

The term godspeed, used in such popular culture situations as The Simpson’s, “Godspeed, little doodle,” or Spider-man, “Godspeed, Spider-man,” has nothing to do with wishing for god-like-speed.

According to my best friend,

The Term “God Speed” originated in the Old Testament part of the Bible, in the
book of Genesis 24:12 in the King James Version, when Abraham’s servant,
Eliezer, prayed for success when he was sent to find a wife for Abraham’s son
Isaac. The original Hebrew word for “speed” in this verse is הַקְרֵה, pronounced
“Haq-rei” and it means “to encounter” or “to meet” in the causative form: “And
he said O LORD God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this
day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham.” (Genesis 24:12 KJV).

Furthermore, it means:

1) An expression of good will when addressing someone, typically someone about
to go on a journey or a daring endeavor.
2) A Christian substitute to the otherwise sacrilegious “good luck”, which implies that anything can be random and out of the hands of God. Used to express concern and prayer for someone.

I think this is all very misleading…

The name ‘March of Dimes’ was coined (pun intended) by Eddie Cantor as a play on the newsreel feature, The March of Time.

Before that, The March of Dimes organization was called the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and founded in 1938, during FDR’s presidency. FDR was supposedly paralyzed from Polio, though apparently some people think that was a misdiagnosis. The original idea of MoD (then NFfIP) was for everyone to give one dime to the charity.

After the Polio vaccine was discovered in 1955, the charity decided to broaden its original scope to involve the improvement of all baby related health.

The dime was first minted in 1796. FDR was added to the obverse of the coin shortly after his death in 1946, mostly in homage to FDR’s involvement with the March of Dimes. At the time, the dime was the only US coin to not have a president on it already. It had a pretty neat looking Winged Liberty Head, nicknamed Mercury, as it looked like the Roman goddess of the same name.

Then, in 1998, Blade robbed a vampire to fund his crusade. The kinda hot girl, who was a blood-doctor for some reason, accused him of doing something wrong, and he told her “This ain’t exactly the March of Dimes.” That ended that discussion!

Source: Wiki/wiki

Five. Five dollar. Five dollar not-even-a-good-deal!!!

The B.M.T. in Subway’s Italian B.M.T. stands for Biggest, Meatiest, Tastiest (LAME name). In the early days of SUBWAY® restaurants, it was a promotion that was based on the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit system in New York City that went along with the subway theme.

Source: Lemm told me this around Halloween time, but had his facts wrong. I found the answer here, and followed the link to here.

There is a little bit of salt and some water in the recipe, but the name is mostly a mystery. What is known is that the confection was first made popular in the vacation areas of New Jersey in the late 19th century, and spread from there.

Here’s the best story anyone could come up with on the name:

A guy was selling his taffy in a little shop by the sea shore. There was a huge storm that flooded his shop. As he was cleaning up, a customer came by and asked if he had any taffy for sale. The guy responded with something like “yeah, but now it’s salt water taffy.” And the name stuck.

That’s probably not true, at least not exactly. But it’s all we’ve got, so we just have to go with it. Some guy tried to trademark the name in the 1920’s, but lost.

For the record, this recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of salt and 3/4 cup water for a batch.

Source: History Channel (Modern Marvels) show on Candy