All posts tagged Miles22

Like always, I had no clue what to write about, but instead of looking around I asked my roommate Alexis what I should write about. The first thing that popped into her mind was a Pop-Tart! We have a pack in our room sitting on her desk….so maybe that’s why she thought of it. It is the chocolate fudge kind! I heard the S’mores flavor is the best though. Actually, Pop-Tarts were not frosted when they were first made and only had strawberry, blueberry, apple-currant, and brown sugar cinnamon. Now, Pop-Tarts are sold in more than 50 flavors.

The reason why they weren’t frosted was because it would pose a hazard when children or parents heated up these in the toasters. However, professor from Texas A&M, Patrick Michaud proved that Strawberry Pop-Tarts were a fire hazard by showing that they burst into flames if they are left too long in the toaster.

Did you know Pop-Tarts are named after Andy Warhol’s pop art? They were actually called fruit scones… I wonder how many people would actually buy it if they were called fruit scones…Pop-Tarts sound much more fun to enjoy as a breakfast bar or snack! Don’t you agree?

In the 60’s, parents were trying to feed their kids a fast, health, and easy breakfast. Companies wanted to include fruit into breakfast bars, but they had little idea how to preserve them without the use of a refrigerator. The company Post solved this problem, but decided to brag about its new invention before shelfing their product. Kellogg went right away and stole the idea and created Pop-Tarts before Post could sell their product. Pop-Tarts was a smash hit, selling out after two weeks  from their first shipment. Kellogg had to apologize to its customers for the shortage in 1964.

This idea for the Pop-Tart was actually inspired by dog food by Post’s dog food department. The dog food that they produced was semi-moist, which consumers wanted for their breakfast. Anyways, Pop-Tarts are still a hot commodity even though the world is slowly turning its head from chemically driven food products and to healthier options. I wonder if Pop-Tarts will revert to its old healthy recipe…

http://spoonuniversity.com/food-thought/history-kelloggs-breakfast-pastry-miracle/

http://www.listchallenges.com/pop-tarts-flavors/checklist/2

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/best-selling-poptarts-flavors_n_5836520.html

Today (Thursday) is such a nice day! It’s a nice a feeling when you don’t have to run back indoors after a few minutes of staying outside. I’m actually utilizing a bench, sitting outside to write my blog post. The breeze is blowing my hair softly while the sun warms my back. As I am writing this, I’m unsure what to write, what to talk about. I survey my surroundings. Watching people stroll by past the gardens with a destination in mind, whether a class or back at home. Anyways, I realized this weekend is Easter! Sadly, I can’t go home as I live all the way in Rhode Island, but I hope that everyone who does go home have a good Easter with their family.

Anyways how does Easter, if you are religious the resurrection of Jesus Christ, conjure up the Easter symbol of colored eggs and long-eared Easter bunnies. Perhaps it is because it is an ancient Pagan symbol of fertility and new life because the Pagan goddess of fertility or Eostre’s animal symbol is the bunny. Supposedly, the Easter bunny immigrated to America in the minds of the German immigrants in 1700s. This “Osterhare” laid colored eggs for children on Easter Sunday. The children just had to make nests for the hare to lay in. Children also left out carrots in case the bunny was hungry….Souunds like Santa Claus…rewarding them with their favorite foods. On a slightly unrelated note, why does Santa Claus get cookies..aren’t there more festive foods that he’d like. Back to Easter, this German tradition spread and influenced America. Now, Easter has substituted eggs for chocolate, candy, and stuffed bunnies, and other gifts. It’s not entirely forgotten…I hope! I still remember dying eggs as a child. Do children these days still do that?!

These Easter eggs are apparently linked to a Pagan tradition in that eggs meant new life, and the Pagans celebrated a spring festival. Also, the tradition to decorate eggs came from the ban to eat eggs during lent. People decorated and painted eggs so that they can eat them as a celebration of the end of lent when Easter came. Interestingly, people took decorating eggs so seriously that they even sold jewel-encrusted eggs during the 19^th century.

Last interesting fact, not every country sees the bunny as the symbol for Easter, some other countries see animals like the fox or the cuckoo bird to be its symbol for Easter.

http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/easter-symbols

http://time.com/3767518/easter-bunny-origins-history/

…on eggs…on rice..on sandwiches..on fries..burgers..nuggets..hotdogs..on everything!!

I was looking around my room, wondering what I should write about for this week’s blog post. I had a lot of potential ideas like Dr. Pepper, bubbles, etc. I researched these topics, and I found nothing very interesting. So, I continued my search to find the star for this week’s post. However, I looked around and eyed the ketchup bottle sitting on top of my fridge. Hmm…Heinz. I wondered if there was an interesting back story to ketchup! Lo and behold, I found an interesting tomatoey history. Actually, ketchup was not even made from tomatoes until 1812. Ketchup started from Asia, called kê-tsiap. This sauce was made from fermented fish…no tomatoes involved.

The British found this delicious delight and attempted to replicate the unique taste with many other spices and ingredients like walnuts and oysters. I can’t think of calling any dark weird concoction full of mushrooms, anchovies and other sorts of items ketchup. yuck…

Like I said earlier, ketchup didn’t include tomatoes until 1812. These tomatoes were not fresh red ripe tomatoes. Ketchup included tomato pulp which included mashed spoiling tomatoes. . Even then, ketchups didn’t taste like ketchup today because there was no vinegar or sugar involved. They started adding the vinegar to preserve the ketchup instead of using harmful chemicals like benzoate and coal tar (benzoate gave the red color to ketchup). They, mainly Wiley and Henry J. Heinz were the pioneers of unnatural preservative-free ketchup. Heinz was one of the few who used fresh ripe red tomatoes and used its natural preservatives (pectin) to preserve the ketchup.

What’s even more surprising, is that 97% of Americans surveyed that they have a bottle of Ketchup in their home. This widely popular sauce has sold ten million bottles annually in America only.

http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/21/how-was-ketchup-invented/

I was reading an article about the criticisms of the Barbie doll. They talked about how the Barbie is not proportional and encourages poor body image in girls, showing that an unrealistic body is pretty. The site showed pictures of potential barbies with a normal realistic body. By reading this article, I wondered how the idea to make a Barbie came from. So I did some research and found the most interesting results….

Apparently, Barbies were not first intended to be for young children. They were first meant for adult men. It was first called the Lilli doll, and men would bring them along with them wherever they go. Men gave Lilli dolls as bachelor gifts. Back then, young children played with pre-pubescent dolls, not mature, fully-developed female dolls. This Lilli doll was made in the image of Lilli. the hot sexy gold digger, searching world wide for the richest husband. She put out an ad to search for these kinds of men, and so she had a cartoon of herself advertised in tabloids. Among the men population, she was very popular, so popular that she was made into a doll.

These Lilli dolls sparked Ruth Handler’s interest when she traveled to Switzerland. This American women bought these for her daughter because she thought the Lilli doll would educate her child and prepare her for adulthood opposed to paper dolls that does not depict a real teenage female. She and her husband recently created Mattel, a new toy company. It was the perfect time to start the Barbie line as television created a new line of consumers, children. Handler made the Lilli doll with a little less makeup and sold it to children. She named it Barbie after her daughter Barbara. It didn’t start out as a hit because it was hard to market these progressive dolls to more cautious mothers.

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/barbie-history1.htm

Recently, my friend stole my phone and would not give it back to me. (I know…what a terrible friend right) She kept it from me for a whole day, and still I don’t even know why she did it. After attempting to grab my phone back from her hand for what seemed like hours, I gave up. She was much bigger than I was and a lot more powerful. If she didn’t want to give it back, I could do nothing. I accepted defeat and begrudgingly walked away. I tried not to let it bother me. I kept telling myself “it’s only for a day…I can’t believe how upset it is making you. Don’t let cell phones control your life…How about if I need to make an important phone call!? or an important email?!…I NEED my phone.” I was surprised how badly and unconsciously I needed my phone. Actually I heard that people are starting to have separation anxiety if they are away from their phones too long or that they feel better taking exams with their cell phone in view or in grasp. Interesting…..

Well, my blog isn’t about these studies. So look it up if that interests you. Today, I will talk about the history behind the cell phone. It all started with Martin Cooper! He made the first cellular phone in 1973 called the Motorola DynaTAC. This heavy device weighed 2.5 pounds and was 9 inches long. Interestingly enough, large phones are currently trending. Maybe it’ll reach up to nine inches. The Samsung Galaxy S5 is about 5.59 inches. It’s getting there! This DynaTac. Back then, Martin Cooper were rivals with Bell Labs as he was an executive at Motorola. One of his first phone calls were to his rival Joel Engel at Bell Labs. Engel at that time was building the technology for William Rae Young’s design of arranged radio towers to establish a cellular network.

Before the portable cellular phone, there was something called the radio telephones. They weren’t popular because they were incredibly expensive and heavy (up to 80 pounds). Plus, you had to wait for someone to finish a call before you could make one! How inefficient..

Martin Cooper can be accredited to building the first cellular device, but I must also mention Reginald Fessenden. He was the first to make a wireless telephone call. Without him, Alexander Graham Bell (made the first telephone), Joel Engel, William Rae Young, Martin Cooper wouldn’t be known for this contraption. Despite all the recent negative feedback about phones [separation anxiety and iPhones] , cellular devices and all the work leading up to it transformed the world. These are only some of the inventors responsible for that.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/inventions/who-invented-the-cell-phone.htm

Because its Chinese new year and I’m Chinese, I’m going to write about the origin of Chinese New Year and its traditions! Each year is marked by an animal. This is called the Chinese zodiac. It consists of the rat, ox, tiger, snake, goat, snake, dragon, rabbit, horse, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Interestingly enough, people call it the spring festival, which I never knew. Also, I decided to write about the origins of the traditions of Chinese New Year because I think its interesting for me to learn more about my culture and to share it with you guys. It’s the year of goat!

Here is what the Chinese zodiac says about people who were born in 1996, if any of you guys wanted to know.

Chinese New Year was mainly tied to the solar lunar calendar, but now it is more about tradition since China adopted the western calendar in 1912. Back in the day, Chinese new year was about honoring your family, elders and the deities alongside of celebrating the new year. There were certain things one had to do for the preparation of the New Year, including throwing firecrackers and putting up messages on one’s door to scare away the evil spirits. I know when I was younger I was never sure why my parents posted up red papered messages on our doors or what they ever meant. Now it makes so much sense…The household also has to make sure the house is clean so to clean away the unlucky matter and so that the gods who come down to Earth will be pleased with the inspection of the homes. From living in a Chinese household, I realized that the Chinese value luck and family highly. Most of these traditions that occur during the lunar new year are about keeping up with the superstitions. For example, adults who were married always give children money to bring luck to the family, specifically the parents. As a child, the day of Chinese New Year meant I feasted with my extended family, eating Chinese New Year foods which were eaten only once a year and are considered delicacies. There, I had to wish everyone a happy new year and say specific sayings that include wishing them good health, good education, good growth, luck, beauty, and many others. After I did that, they would reward me with a red envelope filled with money. Younger you are, the more red envelopes you get from others….but also each envelope contained less. If you are my age, you just get red envelopes from your extended family and family, but the cash is about 20$ each [for your immediate family, I usually 50$ per parent, there is no set amount of how much family and others should give you]. When I am even older, I probably will only get red envelopes from my immediate family, and when I’m married I don’t get anything, but expected to give money to all the littles ones my cousins and siblings have.

I know I didn’t talk much about the origin of Chinese new year….but it was hard to find accurate information regarding it. So I just elaborated on my traditions I encountered as a child.

http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/chinese-zodiac/goat.asp

http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/chinese-zodiac/rat.asp

http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/chinese-new-year

Seeing as Valentine’s Day is on Saturday, I figured I should find out how Valentine’s Day came to be a global holiday for love. Here are some things I found. Valentine’s day started with the ancient Roman festival Lupercalia. This festival is three days long starting from Feb. 13-15. It is believed that this festival wards off evil spirits along with increasing fertility. To do this, men had to sacrifice a dog and a goat along with beating women with the sacrificed animal hides. Women thought being beat by the sacrificed animal hides would make increase their fertility. Pope Gelasius banned this Roman festival because of the pagan practices involved. Although this festival was shut down, most of its activities transferred to another holiday, St. Valentine’s Day. The church honored the two men Emperor Claudius II killed by naming the holiday after their name, Valentine. This was its own holiday of love because Valentine believed in marriage between two young people not only focused on their ‘honeymoon’  love for each other, but also to remember that God is the center of the marriages. One of the guys married couples within the Christian church without Emperor Claudius II’s command, and so therefore Claudius murdered him. However, when Pope Gelasius banned the Roman festival, the festival’s activities moved to St. Valentine’s Day. Soon, Shakespeare, Chaucer and many other romanticists made Valentine’s Day a day of love and romantics. It gained in popularity first in Britain, then all over Europe. Paper cards to show your love was created during the Middle Ages. Since the start of the commercialization of Valentine’s Day and to show your appreciation for your loved ones, businesses have been gaining sales drastically throughout the years. In 2011, the sales reached to about 17.6 billion dollars.

Interestingly enough, I think Valentine’s Day is a trap in that the sales will just increase every single year because the meaning behind Valentine’s Day is one’s appreciation. People cannot skip out on lavishing their loved ones on this particular day or the loved ones will be offended of some sorts. People may appreciate their loved ones in simple small ways, but during Valentine’s day one must spend excessive amounts of money for their loved ones to show that they care. I’m sure not everyone feels that way or does spend excessive amounts of money, but most people do. That’s why the sales during Valentine’s day has increased over the years. I wonder if or when the meaning would ever stop correlating love with the amount of money spent.

http://www.ucg.org/bible-faq/where-did-valentines-day-come-it-wrong-christian-celebrate-it

http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133693152/the-dark-origins-of-valentines-day

I found it difficult to pick a topic to choose about because I had to make sure there was enough information to write about. Even if I did find enough information, the info that I found was not that interesting. Sooo… I went through many different topics until I got tired of searching through so many topics. I went through the history of hipsters, the history of the water bottle, history of the toilet…….Anyways, I found myself looking at the history of online dating. It slightly peaked my interest because of this conversation I had with my friend about online dating. She wrote a paper about how there are so many divorces today in the world mainly due to factors like online dating. I looked at some credible sites and I found some info on it. Here it is!

The history of online dating virtually spans all way back to the beginning of the web. Actually, similar features of online dating can be even found in the 1700s. Back then, people put themselves on newspapers and commit themselves to matrimonial services to find a spouse. People met each other via the telephone, videos, and today, online. In the 18th century, it was not socially acceptable to find love this way. Even today, it is not seen in the highest regards, although the modern day culture is changing its perspective towards online dating. Because it wasn’t socially acceptable to find love via ads and matrimonial services, it was kept on the down low if you found a significant other via these methods.

So unofficial online dating started when the world wide web was first created matchmaking activities hosted by newsgroups and bulletin board services. People met on bulletin boards and communicated with each other, eventually matching with others and dating. Because this was already happening, internet service providers realized they could make a profit out of it. They too offered forums and chat rooms for specific interests to help matchmake. These lead to actual websites being created solely for matchmaking. Match.com and kiss.com was were the pioneers of the many other online dating websites found today. Nowadays, they cater to any interests possible. Here are some funny/ SUPER SPECIFIC ones

http://www.uglyschmucks.com/  Have you ever thought to yourself, I am ugly? All around us we see gorgeous people, on television, in movies and magazines. We see ugly people too, but they’re not the main actors. They’re the dishwashers, the janitors, or the bad guys! The whole perception of ugly people is that they are of lower stature than everyone else. I find this perception amazingly ugly.

http://www.stdmatch.net/ 100% anonymous, safe, secure and comfortable.

http://saladmatch.com/ Find your salad soulmate today!

http://www.amishdating.com/ MEET BEAUTIFUL AMISH SINGLES FOR DATING, LOVE AND ROMANCE, TONIGHT!

http://www.clowndating.com/ Everyone loves a clown… Let a clown love you.

**Leave me some ideas on what to write about next week in the comments section!

References

http://www.buzzfeed.com/paulf24/20-ridiculously-specific-online-dating-sites-that-b5ra#.chlGnq9lQl

http://brainz.org/history-online-dating/

When I came home from my last class, I sat myself down thinking I should get some work done. I didn’t eat all day so I figured I’d have a snack before grabbing some dinner after finishing my blog post. I took out my second favorite type of chips, Mesquite bbq kettle cooked Lay’s chips and started chomping away. By the way my favorite food is the potato because it is so universal. You can eat it in so many forms! I’ll never get sick of eating potatoes. Anyways….. While filling my tummy with potato goodness, I scrolled through articles like “ten accidental inventions that were discovered” to find a topic I would like to write about. One article named the top ten things that they thought was the best accidental invention. While I was scrolling down the list, number 8 was the potato chip. I looked at my hand filled with this delicious invention. I found what I was writing about. So today I will write about how the potato chip was invented. As you already know, it was accidental. However, it was made with revenge in mind. The potato chip was made in a fancy restaurant in the Moon Lake Lodge at Saratoga Springs, New York. On August 24, 1853, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt had a complaint about his french-fried potatoes. He sent his potatoes back to the chef, Native American George Crum. It was too thick, and it was soggy too. Then, chef Crum cut Cornelius’ potatoes thinner and gave him the dish to eat. Still, snooty Cornelius thought they were not thin enough. By this time, Crum was aggravated. In his anger, Crum cut the potatoes paper thin, fried them to a crisp and dumped in a bunch of salt. Also during that time, eating with your hands was shameful, and Crum’s vengeful potatoes were difficult to eat with utensils. However, his devious plan backfired. Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt absolutely loved it. He called it “crunch potato slices”. Gaining popularity, these Saratoga chips became a house special, and later Crum created his own restaurant and packaged his chips.

People always say that nothing good comes from revenge. Also I hear that food made with love tastes so much better than food made with hate. However, almost 161 years later potato chips have become America’s favorite snack. I find it interesting that a new food was created through revenge.

 SOURCES:

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/potatochips.htm

http://www.thenibble.com/REVIEWS/main/snacks/chip-history2.asp

For my first psychology 105 assignment, I had to read two chapters of my psychology book. In these chapters, I learned about how society sees psychology as a humanities, not a science. Some people relate psychology with ghosts, demons, and other parapsychology. Others relate psychology with self-help books to improve your own life.  Essentially, psychology has a bad rep in that it is a part of the Liberal Arts college which implies it’s a super easy major along with a hopeless career in the future. Anyways, I learned about the term recipe knowledge while studying the text. The textbook informed that the psychology associated self-help books were full of recipe knowledge. If you do not know what this term means, it “is the knowledge of how to use something without knowledge of the fundamental principles that govern its functioning” (Pennsylvania State University). For example, I know how to use my iPhone, but I don’t understand all the mechanics behind how it works. Anyways after learning this term, I realized that there are many things in my daily life that I just do or say, but I do not know its origin/background or how it’s made. I am interested in learning how things work like computers or those sorts of things. Besides my interest in learning how things are made, I am also interested in how the idea was thought up, like if there was an interesting story to the creation of the item. For example, who made the first gummy bear? It was Hans Riegel of Bonn, Germany. He made the first gummy bear or “dancing bear” when his new business of hard candies were not selling as well as he had hoped. He is the founder of Haribo; the name is a compilation of his first two letters of his first name and last name and Bonn (Burt). As seen, I am going to dedicate my blog to finding the answers to different things I associate with in my daily life. [ I love gummy bears. I eat them probably every week.] Maybe one week I’ll learn and blog about how the word f**k was chosen to become a swear or how weddings rings became a symbol of love. This origin idea seems very interesting, so hopefully I’ll be able to find enough information for my topics and keep this blog idea.

Pennsylvania State University, comp. Thinking About Modern Psychology. 2nd ed. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, n.d. Print.

Burt, Jaqueline. “A Brief History of Gummy Bears – Bon Appetit.” Bon Appetit. N.p., 10 Oct. 2014. Web. 22 Jan. 2015.