Bizzare Japanese Lunch boxes

Earlier we blogged about those weird Japanese ice-cream flavours… and now I know how the Japanese get their kids to eat this weird stuff… they make it look cool. Root Coffee has fabulous photos of Japanese Bento Boxes – A bento is traditionally made in a 4:3:2:1 ratio: 4 parts of rice, 3 parts of the side dish (either meat or fish), 2 parts of vegetables, and 1 part of a serving of pickled vegetables or a dessert. However, almost anything can be used to make a bento. And here’s how you get a kid to eat raw fish:

Wouldn’t you love a mum who made a lunch box like that?

Bangkok’s ghost buildings

On our tag-along tours we often pass semi-completed sky scrapers that have been abandoned after the money dried up during the Asian financial crisis. With no money to complete the buildings (most are structurally unsound due to exposure to the elements) and costs of demolition too high, these buildings dot the skyline. Here’s an interesting video taking you on a tour of these ghost structures:

Inside Out Champagne Glass

I just love good design… at $60 for a pair, these won’t be appearing in the restaurant any time soon.

via Charles & Marie: InsideOut Collection

ICE ROCKS

When bottled water first came out I thought things were getting a bit crazy… imagine buying water!

Now comes ICEROCKS® which are hermetically sealed ice cube trays made from spring water drawn from the Vendée Region of France in the Massif Central. Wow!

You can buy them from ICE ROCKS

Which nation wastes the most water?

Australia.
We use water in the most unusual ways. It takes about 8,000 litres of water to make a pair of leather shoes. Each kilo of steak took about 16,000 litres of water to produce. A friend of ours works on a think-tank (no pun intended) on water usage in Qld and was telling us about the problems facing coal mines – apparently they use huge quantities of water.

Even a simple bag potato chips use or COST about 185 litres to make. We are so dependant on water that it is easy to see how many civilisations have collapsed because of water shortages. Even in this modern age, our economies and industries are totally entwined with our water resources. 10% of our water is consumed domestically, industry gobbles up the rest.

This is why the Queensland government is so desperate to control the water… it’s not about water… it’s about jobs and the economy.

Read more at theage.com.au

Fast Food: Photos vs. Reality

You have to love food photography… it’s a real art that can turn the ordinary into something extraordinary.

Wouldn’t it be great if our fast food really looked like what the advertising agencies would have you believe… here are some more great pics:

Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

How much energy was used to make your food

We all know to check our food labels for fat content etc… after all, fat is important to us. But what about the environment? Open the Future have the sort of food label that will affect your kids, grandkids etc. It’s how much energy and fossil fuel is used to make your product. Just a concept at the moment:

We are so obsessed with ourselves that we forget about others and the future. Bottled water is another energy wasteful product. Water is taken from a place like Fiji or Mount Franklin, bottled in plastic (which is an oil based product) then shipped to your supermarket or shop (burning petrol or diesel on the way) and then the bottle is thrown in the trash where it takes hundreds of years to break down. The most economical and environmentally friendly water delivery system is the pipes in the ground… maybe we just have too much money, after all, we pay more for water than we do for petrol and yet we complain about petrol prices.

Glad to get that off my chest this week.

What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

A plate of broccoli has the same amount of calories as a small spoonful of peanut butter… why does the good tasting stuff have to be so bad?

What Does 200 Calories Look Like? has a neat photo collection or different foods to give you an idea on what 200 calories looks like.

Curing lane-merge traffic jams

It amazes me what a waste the channel 10 traffic helicopter is. It gives detailed traffic reports to people who are in front of a TV… which doesn’t help any of the cars actually stuck in traffic. This isn’t news at all… what they should do is show us how to speed things up and luckily we have a computer modelled solution for you:

A computer geek works out a great way to solve those stopped or slow lanes in rush hour traffic. He stumbled upon this by accident when he was driving into a city in rush hour and found that leaving a large gap in front of himself actually helped traffic speed up behind him and clear the congestion in front. Read more on this fascinating subject that affects us all at amasci.com but below is a neat animation and some great tips:

MERGING-LANE TRAFFIC JAMS…

A SIMPLE CURE

ON THE LEFT: normal drivers who close up the gaps whenever the traffic slows down or comes to a stop. Nobody can merge except at the end of the jam… traffic travels very slowly

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ON THE RIGHT:Drivers behaving unusually… they encourage others to merge ahead of them and they leave large spaces ahead of themselves EVEN if traffis slows to a crawl. merging is easier and they travel much faster.

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Traffic jams on highways are often triggered where two lanes must merge into one. Lanes of cars cannot merge if there are no large gaps between cars. Therefore, drivers who create large gaps between cars will ease this type
of traffic jam.

To CURE this type of jam:

• Maintain a large space ahead of your car.
• Encourage one, two even three cars to merge ahead of you.
• If traffic slows to a complete stop, KEEP TWO CAR-LENGTHS OF SPACE OPEN AHEAD OF YOU.
• Never “punish” merging drivers by closing your gap.
• Other suggestions

Amazingly enough, it is not necessary that EVERYONE do this. If only a
few drivers will maintain large gaps during heavy traffic, then merging
traffic is not forbidden, and the situation in the left-hand diagram can
be prevented.

Rock music lullabies

There’s something strangely hypnotic about Pink Floyd tunes performed as lullabies… think glockenspiel and your favourite rock band. I want one of these albums and I’m 40… if you want your kid to be the coolest child in preschool then check out samples at Baby Rock Records – Transform your favorite rock music into baby music.