| Memetic Rick Semi-regular ramblings from a Los Angeles transplant, science geek, and home-brewer all rolled into one guy. |
Current Terror Alert Level |
| Memetic Rick Semi-regular ramblings from a Los Angeles transplant, science geek, and home-brewer all rolled into one guy. |
Current Terror Alert Level |
from Yahoo news:
"Chocolate Factory" theme park to open in Amsterdam
Thu Jun 29, 9:46 AM ET
REUTERS - Amsterdam will get a theme park dedicated to chocolate and inspired by Roald Dahl's children's book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," city officials and entrepreneurs said on Thursday.
Just like Dahl's fictional "Chocolate Factory" owned by Willy Wonka, the main part of the "sweets park" will be located underground, in a disused railway tunnel which was handed over by the city of Amsterdam in a ceremony on Thursday.
The attraction, which is expected to open to the public in two to three years, will feature a glass elevator and a chocolate fountain, similar to the book. It will also produce small amounts of chocolate.
"Ten years ago I made a radio play of the 'Chocolate Factory' and ever since I've been fascinated by it," said audio books publisher Maurits Rubinstein who started the project.
The city of Amsterdam and Dutch construction company BAM are supporting the plan, which will cost 20 million euros ($26 million), partly raised with bonds that parents and grandparents can buy for their children and grandchildren.
Amsterdam is the world's biggest cocoa port, processing around 30 percent of the world's cocoa beans from countries like Ghana and Ecuador. It supplies the key ingredient, cocoa paste, to major chocolate manufacturers throughout Europe.
Amsterdam is also the place where Coenraad Johannes van Houten invented the hydraulic cocoa press in the 1820s, enabling the production of eating chocolate alongside the already available drinking and cooking varieties. He also came up with the process known as "dutching" to create a mildly flavored cocoa powder that mixes more easily with water.
An impression of how the Chocolate Factory will look can be found by clicking on Impressie on www.dechocoladefabriek.nl.
You might want to view this first (if you are not yet one with the badgers), but I just found a great update of the concept for World Cup. I hadn't realized before that the Weebl and Bob folks were the creators of the original!
For extra fun, simultaneously play both, since they just loop endlessly...
Phooey. The wonderful food porn blog, The Great Taco Hunt, posted recently about the passage of a new LA city council ordinance that will destroy the time-honored tradition of the taco trucks permanently parked on the street all over town.
Effective July 23, 2006, "catering trucks" will be limited to one hour of parking in commercial locations (and a half hour at residential locations) "for the purpose of dispensing victuals" (hee hee). Then, they have to move at least a half mile away and can't return to the same location for a full hour.
Reading the relevant legalese (here and here [PDFs]) I can't be sure that this doesn't effect trucks like the tasty one at the bodega down the street from home, too, since that one is parked in the store's parking lot.
I kinda agree with Jen's assessment that this is part of the current backlash against the brown people... So I say again: Phooey!
Remains of a 9-year-old pirate boy discovered off the coast of Cape Cod!
A Pirate's Life for a Wee Lad [LA Times]
Kinkor added there were "a variety of reasons why a pirate's life would have appealed to a youngster -- a free and easy lifestyle, and a classless democratic subculture."
There is a primary/local election in California tomorrow. I am sick of the statistic that more people voted for American Idol than for President in 2004. For anyone in LA unsure of what to do, especially since there are a lot of folks on the ballot for "superior court judge", here is some light reading:
LA Times Endorsements
Race for the Gavel (1 of 3) [blogging.la]
Race for the Gavel (2 of 3) [blogging.la]
Race for the Gavel (3 of 3) [blogging.la]
Also:
LA County Polling Place Finder (with interface by Billy... leave off street or avenue to find your street?)
Dang, if I am a little sad inside that I missed the first television broadcast of the National Spelling Bee last night!
Yay for nerdy jersey girls! Of course, I am biased...
(coverage on CNN)