short fat guy online

The database updates were finished last night, which means all entries now have proper titles again.  And for the last week I’ve been working on an audio/video podcast, which you can subscribe to in iTunes.  For the most part, it’s the same video files already available here; but there are also three newly created audio podcasts.  I know I said I wasn’t going to start a podcast, but I have to admit it’s fun having my own page in the iTunes Music Store.
    But I digress.
    The big news is that with these instructions and keypad codes I am now king of the snack machine at work!  80¢ candy bars?  Your days are numbered!  85¢ for a bag of chips?  I don’t think so!

The West Coast’s Del Taco chain has finally opened a franchise in Michigan—and it happens to be a few miles from where I work.  I haven’t had the opportunity to try them out yet (and I need to drop some pounds first before I can treat myself), but the Free Press however has done my website work for me by running a comparison taste test between Del Taco and Taco Bell.
    Here’s the link to the article.
    And these are some reader responses.
    At first glance, it looks like Del Taco is cheaper but Taco Bell provides more food.  I’m not sure however how useful the article is for me, what with its emphasis on chicken rather than beef.  And, by the way, how helpful of the Free Press to point out Del Taco’s Chicken Works burrito “includes chicken”. 

According to the Southeast European Times, “The advocate general of the European Court of Justice announced Tuesday (10 May) that in his opinion the name of feta cheese is a typical Greek name and deserves legal protection.”  Germany and Denmark had been using “feta” to describe their own version of pasteurized goat’s milk cheese but Greece was demanding exclusive use.
    The EU Observer takes up the story:

The difference between the various types of feta cheese—claimed as an original product by Athens - is in its way of production.
    While the Greeks make feta from unpasteurised sheep’s milk, or a mixture of sheep’s milk with goat’s milk, and then curdled with rennet, the Danes and Germans make it from pasteurised cow’s milk.
    Copenhagen and Berlin have been trying to overturn the European commission’s 1996 decision to give the Greek cheese the same protection as Italian parma ham.
    However, on Tuesday (10 May) the advocate general to the European Court of Justice, Damaso Ruiz-Jarabo Colomer, advised that feta was not a generic name and should be seen as a traditional name, based on a product of which quality derives from the geographical surroundings where it is made, reports the Guardian.
    Therefore, its traditional name should be preserved across the EU member states.

• KFC to be “Kentucky Fried Chicken” again.  Is it safe to use “fried” now or is “drawing on its Southern roots” a way for the company to woo the Christian right?  (Maybe they could darken the Colonel’s beard too.)
    • News of a different kernel: scientists strive to leave no popcorn unpopped.