Am I the only one disturbed that the “gourmet Chinese” restaurant, Panda Express has decided to name their newest dish after a Japanese warrior? I mean, I know, I know, it’s a stretch to call Panda Express Chinese food anyway, but c’mon… Weird vegetarian pandas getting excited over a mostly meat dish named after a Japanese warrior ad...

BOOM! There it is! Another flash of lighting and a crack of thunder. Nothing says summer quite like a big old thunderstorm, and while the lightning can be amazing to watch, it can also be quite dangerous. Some spectacular shots have been caught on camera and these videos, are, well, shocking! Say, let’s get out our camcorder and take some video of this thunderstorm – until lightning strikes that tree 20’ foot away! Love the slow-mo and the stills! That tree is totally lit up! In this next video from Australia, a crew of photographers is shooting an approaching storm when a large bolt strikes about 250 meters away. Check out how the dirt flies during the slow motion close-up! The Empire State Building was built to withstand lightning strikes as most skyscrapers are. Without the lightning rod on the top, the electric current would seriously damage the building, but being one of the tallest in New York City – it gets struck all the time. . In this shocking video from South Africa, lightning strikes during a live soccer (or football) game broadcast on TV.  Many of the players go down, some requiring CPR, and several being carried off the field in a stretcher. Next to Japan, where the local news has video of an elderly pedestrian getting struck by lightning in a crosswalk! Forward about 18 seconds in. Amazingly, the man is only dazed and walks off. In Texas, where severe lighting and storms knock out the power to a neighborhood. A local resident is recording video of the mass amounts of lighting strikes when one nails his neighbor’s house across the street. Fast forward to 1:05 to see the hit. Caution: the language is rather colorful. Here’s super-cool video of a passenger airplane taking off in San Francisco...

It’s Memorial Day weekend and not only does this mark the unofficial start of summer, it also marks my third SEASON PREMIERE! This blogumn officially kicks off my third year on F & N. Since we’re 93 blogumns in (plus 5 filling in for Ryan Dixon’s Fierce Anticipation), it’s time to update some of the great things we’ve talked about over the past two years. MOUNTAIN DEWMOCRACY May 7, 2010 [FIERCE ANTICIPATION: THE JERSEY JOE EDITION III] In my third blogumn filling in for Ryan, PepsiCo, the bottlers of Mountain Dew released three test flavors for the summer of 2010, allowing fans to vote on which they liked best to join the line permanently. They had tried this experiment in 2008 and it was a huge success. Mountain Dew White Out was the winner and went on sale on October 4th and is still on sale now.  For a brief time, Wal-Mart Supercenters also sold 2 liter bottles of Mountain Dew: Typhoon, one of the losing flavors.  In addition Mountain Dew: Game Fuel Cherry Citrus and Mountain Dew: Game Fuel Tropical were also on sale last summer to tie into the video game release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.  They were discontinued in December. PepsiCo has hinted that it has no plans to test more flavors, but a few new releases have gone on sale.  Mountain Dew Xtreme (grape flavored) in available in Saudi Arabia and Mountain Dew Grape is currently on sale in Japan. For summer 2012, a new flavor will appear in stores: Mountain Dew: Dark Berry as a promotion for the movie The Dark Night Rises.  It will have a mixed berry flavor and the cans will change color when chilled.  It goes on sale June 18th. THE SMURFS MOVIE May...

How do you like your potato salad?  What’s your favorite condiment on a chicken sandwich?  Growing up in Western Pennsylvania, I was raised on Miracle Whip.  A recent conversation with friends seemed to inform me that I was brought up missing out on pure mayonnaise.  So, what’s the difference and which is best? Mayonnaise is condiment sauce made up of oil, egg yolk, vinegar or lemon juice. Early accounts say that as long as there has been olive oil, there has been some form of mayonnaise.  Another account says it was discovered accidentally by a British woman in 1459, who was trying to create a custard. However it happened, it appears the French first exported it into their country after defeating the British in a port battle in 1756.  The name was derived from the word moyeu, which is French for egg.  Another account says it may have finally earned the official name mayonnaise after Charles de Lorraine, duke of Mayenne, who finished his chicken dinner with the sauce on the side before being defeated in a major battle. While the are various reports of its creation overseas, the product’s roots in the United States is much more clear. In the US, mayonnaise was first sold in New York City’s Upper West Side. In 1905, the first ready made mayo was on sale at Richard Hellmann’s deli on Columbus Avenue. After being a local success, it was mass marked 7 years later and introduced as Hellmann’s Blue Ribbon Mayonnaise. At the same time on the West Coast, Best Foods created their own version of mayonnaise which became very popular on their side of the country.  Best Foods eventually bought the Hellmann’s company in the early 1930’s, but the demand was so high for both products...

It’s certainly been a rocky couple of years on planet earth.  Every continent has experienced at least one (if not more) major disaster(s).  With all the cameras and technology out there, the power of Mother Nature has been caught on tape. And based on these jaw dropping videos I found… she’s one mad mother! I don’t remember seeing many of these videos on the national news broadcasts.  Usually, after a few days, they move onto another topic and these images are left to live to the web.  With the technological age we live in, we are able to beam images of a natural disaster seconds after they happen.  When an area is struck particularly hard, it can take time for the infrastructure to be repaired and lives to be rebuilt, before these have a chance to be seen. On March 11, 2011 Japan was the epicenter of a massive 9.0 earthquake. Almost every citizen in this densely populated country had their cameras on at the time and now we can all relive those horrifying 60 seconds. Much of the rocking, rolling, and destruction was captured on everything from security cameras to cell phones.  But, the massive tsunami that followed brought us some of the most shocking footage of all. Check out this video from a car’s dashboard camera of the quake and the car suddenly being engulfed and floating in the wave! Take a close look – there are people still inside many of those cars! Here’s more rare earthquake footage.  A guy is walking in the park as the earthquake happens and he captures the ground moving and cracking apart! So, what would a massive earthquake look like inside a casino?  Check out this video from the Chilean earthquake in 2010. Casinos don’t miss...