Roll the cameras already: Here's another possible Thin Mints plug

Not long ago I mentioned Thin Mints, the world-famous, to-die-for, to-perhaps-fight-for Girl Scout cookie. Some roommates in Florida fought over them, one whopping the other upside the head with various blunt objects and the roomies chasing one another with scissors because of some stolen Thin Mints. Remember?

This photo crossed my transom the other day:

Here's a little background: Last year some friends and I were hiking up Mount LeConte, one of the bigger mountains in the Great Smokies. Wore my butt out, as I recall. Fairly steep in places, but worth it.

Now, on various trails there are people who make it a practice to hand out goodies to hikers. I saw this at a section of the Appalachian Trail (the trail former Gov. Mark Sanford made famous) by Max Patch in North Carolina. It's tradition, anyway.

On this hike, we're about halfway up when we ran across this lady passing out treats/energy food. Of course I had to make my cookie grab, and fellow hiker Rick Moore recorded the moment for posterity.

Of course, the lady had Thin Mints.

I almost fell in love that day.

What would a person do for a Thin Mint? Climb a mountain, perhaps?

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Majority of mortgages are underwater in Vegas, other growth areas

Where are people losing their butts on their mortgages these days?

I found this in USA TODAY, and it shows that a tick more than 71 percent of the mortgages in Clark County, Nevada, are underwater. That means more is owed on the house than what the house is actually worth.

Clark County, where you'll find places like Las Vegas and Laughlin, has also been one of the highest-growth areas of the country for at least the past decade.

Here is a partial list of counties where home buyers might do well to just junk the mortgage, take whatever lumps they get on their credit ratings, and walk away with what's left of their posteriors:

Rank County State Mortgages under water 1 Clark Nev. 71.1% 2 Osceola Fla. 66.5% 3 Merced Calif. 63.1% 4 St Lucie Fla. 62.4% 5 San Joaquin Calif. 59.6% 6 Stanislaus Calif. 57.5% 7 Clayton Ga. 56.1% 8 Orange Fla. 56.1% 9 Solano Calif. 55.6% 10 Maricopa Ariz. 54.4% 11 Washoe Nev. 53.3% 12 Pinal Ariz. 52.6% 13 Flagler Fla. 52.5% 14 Pasco Fla. 51.5% 15 Riverside Calif. 50.5%

Interesting mix. A whole lot of Florida. Several counties in California -- including Riverside County, where I grew up. Several Arizona counties, particularly around the population centers -- Maricopa County is basically Phoenix.

And unless I'm mistaken, nearly every one of these counties has experienced off-the-charts population growth for about the past three decades. The Inland Empire, which encompasses Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, was THE high-growth capital in the nation before the Las Vegas metro area took over.

Coincidence? Forget it. There ain't no such animal, you should know that.

That's one weird-looking bug ...

...anyone know what it is?

This ugly bugger was seen at work. About three inches long, big ol' legs, and some sac or tube running the length of its body. It just sits there, and nothing seems to faze it. Considering we do shipping at work (containers by rail, by truck, and by ship) the bug could be from anywhere.

What say you?

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Website breaks down the In-N-Out secret

This is one of the things I miss from out west -- In-N-Out burgers.

I got this from Lifehacker:

Make Your Own In-N-Out Double-Double Burger at Home [Recipes]: "

You already know how to make your own Shake Shack burgers, but if In-N-Out is more your style, food blog Serious Eats has once again reverse engineered this well-known burger so you can make it at home. More »

I fell in love with In-N-Out burgers in California, but only after laughing my (_|_) off at the name first. Two double burgers and a chocolate shake -- now, that was the perfect meal when I was on a heavy deadline.

Sonic makes some really good burgers; I discovered them in Kingman, Arizona. There's a Sonic a couple of miles from my house, but they can't touch In-N-out.

How good are these In-N-Out burgers?

I'll tell you. When I lived in Arizona, the closest In-N-Out place was in Las Vegas, 100 miles away. And I made the trip a time or two, just for burgers.

I repeat that: Just for burgers. Not even playing a slot machine, or to hear a band, or visit, or anything like that. I just wanted burgers.

People still don't believe me when I tell them that. (I wonder which part won't they believe?)

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Freaks! Freaks! Freaks!

Are you one? Test yourself ...

This is a rather interesting quiz, although one tends to know early in life if he is one of those nonconforming freaks.

By the way, I scored an 83 overall. Again, no surprise. The test actually has three grades -- on the need to be unique, on the need to not conform, and the willingness to express dissent (also known as stirrin' the puddin'). My scores were fairly consistent across the board, ranging from 79 to 89 in the three categories.

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No 5-Second Rule in my kitchen

I saw this in The Consumerist, and it kind of rang a bell.

I'm a little funny about my food. While I'll eat just about anything, my food has to pass some strict decontamination tests. Hairs or unidentifiable black specks make it instantly inedible in my book, and I'm usually going to pitch it. I can't even be bothered with trying to pick the substance off; it's going out. I'd thoroughly inspect my food before eating it (as a kid I often heard Dad's "don't analyze it, eat it"), and I've considered washing the food like a raccoon or something.

Hey, you never know what those black specks are.

Fly ash from somewhere? Roach turds? Something ... ugh ... living?

I don't know, and I'm not about to give it the taste test.

But some of my friends adhere to the five-second rule. It's like catching food on the first bounce; allegedly it's still good to eat. They'll drop something, call out "five-second rule," and pick it up. This five-second rule is somewhat elastic, kind of like the "long count" in the Tunney-Dempsey fight back in 1927. Do you start the count immediately after impact, after the food finally stops moving, or after everyone else retreats into a neutral corner?

So I felt a little ... what, vindicated? ... when I read this article.

Do You Follow The 5-Second Rule?:

We've all dropped that freshly buttered piece of golden brown toast on the floor, yes? And many of us have contemplated whether or not to just pick it up and eat it. That's why there's the 5-Second Rule, the completely unscientific belief that food left on the floor for less than five seconds is sufficiently ick-free. But scientists at Clemson are trying to call BS on one of western society's core beliefs.

Says Paul Dawson, a food scientist at the food science and human nutrition department at Clemson University, where he and his team of students tested the Rule:

In the case of the five-second-rule we found that bacteria was transferred from tabletops and floors to the food within five seconds, that is the five second rule is not an accurate guide when it comes to eating food that has fallen on the floor.

But can science change your mind on this?

That's why we're conducting this incredibly unscientific poll:

Do You Follow the 5-Second Rule?online survey

Sadly, the 'five-second rule' is not really safe [Houston Chronicle]

Ych!

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