Weapons of Mashed Destruction
Tue, 2004-10-05 20:14
#1
Weapons of Mashed Destruction
We've probably discussed product labelling before but this one really cracked me up. We are going through a v. lazy phase at home and sometimes buy pre-cooked meals - especially as we all seem to like different foods.
Tonight, I have the convenience version of one of my favourite meals: Liver and Bacon with Fresh Mashed Potato. (Why is the word 'fresh' necessary? Is the rest of the meal stale?)
Now, on the ingredients list is the usual statements of the blindingly obvious, viz:
Fresh Mashed Potato: contains potato (96%), blah blah blah
Red Onion Gravy: contains water, red onion (21%), fresh lamb stock, onion (again), blah blah blah
Cooked Bacon: contains pork (I should bloody well hope so!), water, and a frightening list of things that end with 'ium' and then "natural smoke flavouring". Wtf is natural smoke? All manner of things smoke when lit (including me) but natural? Natural rubber tyre smoke?; Rothman's smoke?; Wood smoke?; and so on.
and now the penultimate best bit:
Fresh Lamb Stock: contains water, lamb.
What a whole one? Sorry, but I now have an image of a white fluffy creature floating in a pool. Which bit of lamb? Shouldn't it say lamb's liver? or is it its brain? I'm going off this meal.
And now the best bit. After the oven instructions there is the microwave instructions blah, blah, blah and then, instead of the usual "leave product to stand for 2 minutes" warning we get this (in bold letters):
Warning: Liver may explode after microwaving. Leave to stand for 3 minutes in the microwave oven with the door closed before removing the film lid.
What?
Explode?
I can't believe the CIA missed this opportunity (well, I can actually) ... all that money wasted on precision bombing ... all they had to do was drop frozen liver meals/microwave oven combos and leave out the warning ...
jeez, so simple.
Right, I'm off to explode liver, I may be gone for some time.
stormy
I hadn't thought of that Pi so I went to my Green Box (I am soo good these days) and checked the flattened package. It was NZ lamb.
Note to CIA: Forget Pakistan/Afghan mountain ranges ... Green Bin Laden is in NZ
Pioden
*makes a mental note NZ lambs*
must check out those NZ sheep shearers who come over ever spring just in case they are spies
they may be fleecing more than the sheep .....
*hides her own Green box inside her Blue one - I'm even better behaved than that -we've got two recycle boxes - I just didn't know that the green one was related to B L *
Tom Saunders
It'll all end up around the ewe bend.
justyn_thyme
When I was a little boy, Pillsbury first started marketing their 'crescent roll' mix. This was a lined cardboard tube of pre-mixed and ready to bake dough. Just remove the dough, separate into pre-cut pieces, bake, and oila: crescent rolls (croissant to the rest of us).
So far so good, but for some reason, from time to time, a package would explode in the supermarket, sending projectiles of soft gooey dough sailing across the store. It was great fun if you happened to be there when it happened. SPLAT! It could even happen at home sometimes. I'm not sure what their problem was, but the Pillsbury Dough Boy must have fixed it because there haven't been any exploding tubes of dough in a long time.
Pioden
oh I loved the Pillsbury Dough Boy - I adored him - he was my hero
He was an over grown jelly baby
I can remember the advert where that woman tickled him but with Mr T he was ....
you know he was wanted for murder -
put your volume up for this one
he was 71 when he died .......
JT just look what you've done nowwwww and I was going to behave myself as well
[%sig%]
Rachel
When I used to dye my hair all different colours I would use those chemist packets that smell revolting, make your ears look like they've been dipped in jam and leave your barnet a right streaky mess.
I never used to heed the instructions that when you've finished with the bottle, if there is any left inside, you should dispose of it in an outdoor dustbin. So I'd just chuck it in the bathroom bin. Until, one evening, damian was sitting on the toilet and the whole thing exploded: bin, bottle, all over the ceiling, up the shower curtain, all over the floor and most importantly, dyeing the top of daisy's head a sort of burned russet colour. Since then, bless him, he has never raised an eyebrow about the extortionate cost of having hair coloured at hairdressers.
So if we filled some liver with some sodium peroxide and left it lying around the killing fields, we would control the enemy and leave them with streaky bobs.
ely whitley
who's streaky bob?
stormy
I love all this stuff. Come on, there must be more stories about exploding food/whatever out there?
Tom Saunders
It's a little known fact that Barnes-Wallis also invented the bouncing meat-ball.
ely whitley
well I once had a huge argument about the dangers of microwaving a cup of water. I was tolod it would explode. I said that was utter tosh.
I was wrong.
I ended up with egg on my face which was better than super hot water.
I know I've mentioned it before on here but it seems apt:
I was told that fresh liver will curl itself towards a pint of fresh milk if left in a fridge together overnight.
Liana
and ive mentioned it before as well, but...
.. i was told that too, by a hysterical flatmate who hated liver. I used to eat it daily (fried with garlic and onions then steeped in red wine... mmm) She insisted it was kept in a sealed container in the fridge, in case it "drank" her milk.
One night, i stuffed a skinny bit of lambs liver in the neck of her bottle of milk.
"My god you were RIGHT Wendy! Who'd've thought it!" i said, in answer to her 400 DB scream.
Tom Saunders
You'd HAVE to put Dylan Thomas's liver in the fridge before it would drink milk.
radiodenver
A 400 db scream would explode every head for a 40 mile radius...wouldn't need a microwave for that.
Rokkitnite
'A 400 db scream would explode every head for a 40 mile radius...'
Just out of interest, would it be possible to construct a device that emitted such a scream? Hypothetically speaking, of course.
radiodenver
Well, it wouldn't work in a vacuum, you would probably have to build it on Jupiter.
Consider, 3db increase is double the power. So, assume 120 decibels is the point of hearing loss (is that right), 123 db would be twice as loud, and 126 db would be twice as loud as 123 and so on... There are no instruments that can measure such a pressure change, it would be destroyed. (anyone got their HP calculator handy), logrithms, we're talking logrithmic functions here....
I don't think there's enough atmospheric pressure on the earth to accomplish this. The earths' atmosphere would vaporize and we'd all be sucked iinto space as hydrogen atoms or something...
Liana, you sure about that scream, was it really that loud?
Dan
I once built a gunfire simulator that measured 110 db at 10 meters, we really wanted it to do 120 db but the biggestl car stereo amp we could find combined with a maplins pre-amp and two rather crappy all weather speakers only got to 110.
So no, my guess is 400 db is the sort of volume only obtainable by doing things like putting liver in peoples milk.
radiodenver
My son once registered a fart at 118 db.
Dan
I get confused by decibels. I was already taught that it was just a logarithmic measure of attenuation but audio types hijacked the word to measure volume relative to a sine wave at soandso hertz with an rms amplitude of yadda yadda yadda. I'm never that sure which one people are on about.
radiodenver
DB is easy... when dealing with voltage, db is 1x20 Ein/Eout, or when dealing with power IxE, db relates to 1x10 Pin/Pout...
You can calculate anything in decibles, I work in RF so we typically use it to reference power levels of transmitters, EIRP, (effective isotropic radiated power), but it is very handy when making measurments usinig oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers in panchromatic resonance and other highly ambient domains.
There, does that clear it up for you?
"Arf she said"
Dan
That's about what I understand by them. But talk to an audio engineer and he'll tell you they're an absolute measure of loudness.
radiodenver
That's because they don't know anything except which Led Zeppelin song is loudest.
radiodenver
Oh, I made a technical boo boo above...that should be 10log or 20log not 1x10 or 1x20, I just write it wrong so I can remember it hehehe...Surprised nobody caught that! Silly me....
*my guitar wants to kill yo mama*
stormy
So, let me get this straight. You put some liver (I assume NZ since Wales no longer exists) into milk and feed it radiodenver's son. He goes for a rythmic log but only farts. A nearby db counter techie records this and creates a Led Zep greatest hits CD and Morrissey explodes?
Is that it. Sorry, my attenuation spans decreases as I get older.
radiodenver
that bout sums it up.
Rokkitnite
'I don't think there's enough atmospheric pressure on the earth to accomplish this. The earths' atmosphere would vaporize and we'd all be sucked iinto space as hydrogen atoms or something...'
So, how would one go about building such a device? (let's call it a 'Doom Machine' for the sake of convenience) How do you make a noise so loud that it ends the world?
stormy
Amplify mississippi
radiodenver
I think we've already found it, If Liana is correct...look no further...
radiodenver
If a man says something in a forest and a woman doesn't hear it, is he still wrong?
fish
i am enjoying the idea of streaky bobs ...
Tom Saunders
They were going to drop the Barnes-Wallis bouncing meat ball into Mussolini's spaghetti in a daring evening raid over Rome. The Benito Busters, as they became known, were a squadron of slightly soiled chefs flying specially adapted Wellington bombers (hence the expression "like a meat ball up a Wellington"). The payload of meat balls were kept hot in a special vat of toxic sauce suspended in each aircraft's bomb bay. Several bombers were lost to explosions, one even covering most of Swindon with lethal levels of tomato and onions.
[%sig%]
Hox
Morrissey doesn't even get a mention.
[%sig%]
stormy
Whats the point of a warning when, if you fail to heed it, nothing consequential occurs?
I shall be writing a letter of complaint.
It tasted OK, especially the natural charred-baby smoke flavouring.
Pioden
Exploding lambs - were the Welsh ?
or from New Zealand ?
not that it makes any difference