Josh Versus the Dessert

July 6, 2010 6:02 pm

On Friday we had walked by the Nestle Toll House Cafe (OK, I’m feeling too lazy to add the accents to those words) and saw a sign for a challenge. Eat a 48-ounce ice-cream and cookie sandwich in 48 minutes and get it for free. Josh, feeling gastronomically unstoppable after downing the 1-pound burger in Idaho, wanted to give it a go.
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So you start with 2 freshly baked 9-inch chocolate-chip cookies:
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Place 6 scoops of ice-cream onto one of the cookies and cover in caramel:
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Add the second cookie; cover in hot-fudge and whipped cream. Notice how the cookie is actually collapsing under the weight of the hot-fudge. This is T = 0.
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T = 5 minutes
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T = 10 minutes
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At 25 minutes things are looking pretty good.
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But by 27 minutes we start to realize there might be a problem.
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Josh has hit the wall. He’s holding down what he’s already eaten, but isn’t making any more progress as the clock keeps ticking.
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He tries some meditation to bring his body temperature back up (he had been visibly shivering for several minutes now).
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But at 43 minutes he threw in the towel. He declared the cookie to be disgusting and vowed to vomit if he had to look at it any longer (Note: he said the cookie was delicious when he started). The official weight was 10.6 ounces remaining, unfortunately short of the less-than-1-ounce required for victory.
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Our conquered hero sought comfort by lying on the grass in the sun; waiting for his stomach to calm down.

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Perhaps another time.

Independence Day

5:28 pm

On Sunday we went to church and for lunch had a feast of steak, mashed potatoes, baked beans, and corn on the cob. Then we lounged about until dusk when we headed out to see fireworks. We grabbed a spot and played a game of Scrabble while we waited for the sun to set.
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Then we watched fireworks. I was going to try to get some really neat pictures, but then decided I’d rather just watch, so this is the best you get:
IMGP3088That was pretty much our day.

Alameda County Fair

July 5, 2010 7:31 pm

Josh flew into town on Friday to hang out for the weekend. On Friday we went and saw The Last Airbender. It was OK. It was incredibly rushed, which was expected since they took an entire season of storyline and tried to make a 100-minute movie. So that was a little disappointing. We found it strange that they decided to mess with the pronunciations of the names. We also found it strange how much they changed some characters, like Iroh. They also didn’t include almost any of the humor from the series. It’s too bad that so much of the things we didn’t like could have been so easily fixed. Extending the movie to 150 minutes would have provided a lot more time to let the story line flow along rather than being hurried. And leaving in the trademark humor that each of the characters’ personalities have would have been good.

Anyway. This post isn’t about the movie. On Saturday we went to the Alameda County Fair. Getting in had the completely stupid and pointless process of passing through metal detectors. Apparently someone thought that so long as you make everyone walk through a metal detector nothing bad could happen at the fair. We’ll just ignore the fact that the perimeter of the entire fair is unmonitored and consists almost entirely of chain-link fence. Surely someone looking to cause trouble wouldn’t be bright enough to toss over their supplies and then go get them or to have an accomplice toss over their supplies.

[sigh], That’s also not the point. Let’s get back on track.

We started by watching the Mutton Bustin’ competition. Which is where they plop kids (ages 3-6) on top of a sheep and then let it loose to see how long they can hold on. We then moved on to the chocolate-covered bacon on a stick:
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Jess even tried a bite and then proceeded to do her best not to vomit. Josh finished off the whole thing though.

After wandering around for a while we watched the All-Alaskan Pig Racing:
IMGP2975_smallBefore leaving we took an obligatory ride on the swings:
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It was a fun time. We bought some caramel apples on our way out that were incredibly good. They were Granny Smith apples, covered in caramel, with a layer of yogurt, and sprinkled in cinnamon. The flavor was called apple pie à la mode.