Adventures in Food Packaging: Potato Chip Diaper Bags

No need for congratulations, they're just snacks.

Hello friendly readers! Today we're launching a new series called Adventures in Food Packaging. This is where we send our interns out into the grocery wild and they report back to us on the most ridic'lous food packaging currently taking up shelf space.

Our first installment is a real doozy. See that fellow up there with the bags of diapers? That's me, and believe it or not, those AREN'T diapers. It's how they're packaging chips now. Crazy, right? When I'm eating Cool Ranch Doritos I want my focus to be on the unique combination of exotic spices, not visions of some loud-mouthed baby's runny stool. RIDIC'LOUS!

On a somewhat related note, while doing research for this article I came across the following actual items. Please enjoy...

Cute or sad? I encourage you to vote in the comments section below.

Did The Four Tops get their name from the food service industry?

The table that inspired a Motown legend.

A couple nights ago, while waiting for a table at one of our favorite Portland pizza places, Dove Vivi, I was struck by a striking revelation: It's possible, and quite likely, that beloved Motown act The Four Tops got their name not from the fact that there were four people in the group, but rather that one of them was a restaurant host familiar with the term "four-top." You see, we were having problems getting seated in the restaurant because there were four people in our group, and we had to wait for a four-top (in restaurant terminology, a table that seats four) to open up. Doesn't it seem obvious now that a similar restaurant experience inspired The Four Tops to take their now-famous name? I think it's time for a Wikipedia update.

And the winner is...

Well folks, it's time to bring our latest Erasable Pen Reader Challenge to a merciful close. We let this contest run for a couple months, in part because I was too lazy to update the blog, but also because my wife was leading the competition for a while. She'll be the first to tell you that I rarely laugh out loud (LOL) when she speaks, so it would seem somewhat disingenuous for me to hand her the prize. Instead I had to wait for someone else to enter the contest. Thankfully Jill Aki did, and she's our winner!

Rather than just sending Jill the Hickory Farms catalog we had promised as the first-place prize, we decided to go ahead and actually order her something from the catalog. Here's Jill with her haul!


You see, it pays to enter the Erasable Pen Readers Challenge! To recap, we asked our faithful readers to explain what Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was appealing for in his recent flurry of banner ads. Here's an example of the ads Wales was running:


Jill's winning entry?: "skoal - always there in a pinch"

Yeah, I don't know what it means either. But somebody had to win.

Reader Challenge: What does Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales really want?

If you've spent any time on Wikipedia lately, you're probably quite familiar with these perfectly-lit photographs of the site's founder Jimmy Wales. Jimmy is making a personal appeal to us, but from the look of these images it's hard to know what exactly he wants. Thankfully, that's what Erasable Pen Reader Challenges are for! What do YOU think Jimmy wants? Please provide your answers in the comments section, preferably in the voice of Jimmy Wales. The winner will receive a free copy of the 2010 Hickory Farms catalog.

To get things started, here's what I think might be on Jimmy's mind:

Do you think I'd make a good high school health teacher?
Please say yes.

I'm thinking of starting a Radiohead cover band.
Is it OK if we practice in your basement?

The mathematical impossibilities of How I Met Your Mother

When you own an outdated television set that only picks up three channels, every show gets placed under the microscope. This week I've decided to direct my gaze at How I Met Your Mother. And by "direct my gaze" I mean recognize that the show exists and pass judgment without having ever seen it.

So let's get started! OK, well, from what I can gather this show is all about a father sitting down and telling his children the story of how he met their mother. As he's recounting this story at their bedside, actors recreate momentous scenes from the courtship on screen. Unfortunately this seemingly innocent premise has a tremendous flaw: It's not sustainable. Think about it, this show is mathematically impossible.

Let me explain. So How I Met My Mother is in, what, its 7th season now? Say there are, oh I don't know, 20 episodes per season, and each episode is 30 minutes long. So that means each season technically covers 10 hours. Multiply that by 7 seasons and now we're talking about 70 hours of show all together. 70 hours! That's a seriously epic bedtime story this father is telling his kids. Are you picking up what I'm putting down?! At this point, the father in How I Met Your Mother has literally kept his kids up for 70 straight hours telling this story! Who can sustain a story for that long? Bill Cosby? Maybe? I'm pretty sure Bill Cosby is not the narrator in How I Met Your Mother, and even if he was I still doubt the kids would stay awake for the entire story. Yeah, no, this show just doesn't add up. Sorry folks. I ain't buyin' it.

The sleeping arrangement in Medium

Anybody seen this show Medium? I don't get it. I mean, I understand the lady with the bangs has special powers that allow her to talk to dead people and solve mysteries in her sleep. Seems reasonable enough. What I don't get is why her husband puts up with her waking him up every night to tell him about her dreams. If I'm him I'm thinking "Seriously? It's 3 am and you're going to wake me up so I can listen to you yammer on about some freaky dream? Every single night of our now 12-year marriage?"

Things are so bad, dude doesn't even bother putting on his PJs anymore.

Sure, he'll complain a little bit. But then the next night it just happens again and nothing ever changes. Here's an idea. Buy your wife a moleskin notebook and tell her to write down her dreams rather than rudely shaking you awake every night. That way she can get everything down on paper and wait 'til breakfast to tell you about it. I guarantee her stories will be more enjoyable when you have a bowl of cereal and a sports page in front of you.

New Series! - Judging Judge Parker

Today we're kicking off an exciting new series called "Judging Judge Parker." You know Judge Parker. It's one of those comic strips that's been running since the dawn of time, with an ongoing plot that's impossible to follow unless you're one of the select few who actually makes a point to read it every day. Who has that kind of time?!

Well, here at Erasable Pen we're going to do our best to make things easy on you. Every three months or so we'll present you with the most recent edition of Judge Parker, and then we'll attempt to fill in the gaps between the current strip and what happened the last time we checked in on the ol' Judge (is Judge Parker even one of the characters? Has anyone ever actually seen him in one of these things?). This is a much more realistic way of reading the comic strip, and hopefully together we'll be able to make some sense of it all.

To get things started, here's today's Judge Parker:

What the f***??????!!!!