Corn pwn

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“It’s one of our average-to-smaller mazes,” said Brett Herbst, who counts that maze among the 2,000 he has designed in the past 16 years. A typical visitor should expect to complete it in about 20 minutes, he said.

Still, a local family had to be retrieved by the police on Monday when they were unable to find the exit to Mr. Connor’s maze before the sun set. The parents, toting an infant and a small child, panicked and called 911, setting off a chain of events that soon turned them into a target for late-night jabs from television hosts like Jay Leno and Chelsea Handler. (The punch line, Mr. Connor said, was that the family was about 25 feet from the exit when they called for help.)…

“It’s not like 100-acre field out there,” he said. “Just cut through the corn.”

– Douglas Quenqua, N.Y. Times.

I don’t know what Leno or Handler went with, but I’d go with this:

You called 911 to rescue you from a corn maze.

You called 911 to rescue you from a corn maze.

You called 911 to rescue you from a corn maze.

It’s like that movie Open Water, except instead of getting stranded in shark-infested waters miles from shore, you called 911 to rescue you from a corn maze.

Incidentally, this is an aerial view of the 2009 version of Mr. Connors’ maze:

Bold Flavors Snack of the Week

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This one’s pretty involved. The recipe is as follows:

1) Make plans to go to the zoo with your parents and nephew on a Sunday. Emphasize that you’d like to be home in time for the Jets game.

2) Go to the zoo. How awesome are elephants?

3) Before you head home, stop by your parents’ car to pick up the bag full of awesome fried Italian things your mom bought for you at her local farmer’s market, and the Tupperware container full of pizza sauce she made so you have something to dip the fried things in.

4) Go home and fry those bastards up. My wife heated hers in the toaster oven but screw that. I heated about an inch of oil in a big pot and threw some in. I went with four mozzarella sticks, three fried artichoke hearts and two “fried mini calzones.” With the sauce on the side, of course.

Here they are:

The so-called calzones are the big winner here. And I imagine you could figure out how to make them at home pretty easily. They’re just large shells (as in the pasta shape) stuffed with ricotta, mozzarella and ham, presumably dipped in egg then rolled in bread crumbs and fried. And they’re awesome.

I know most of the time when I eat a calzone I think, “man, this tastes way too healthy.” To think, all this time I could have been frying them!

I don’t know that it’s actually proper to call these calzones, since to me the word calzone implies there’ll be pizza dough involved. But whatever they are, they’re great. There’s a nice, seasoned crunchiness to the outside from the breadcrumbs, and then of course the soft, creamy ricotta and chewy mozzarella on the inside. I was not expecting the ham, but hey, bonus ham!

Oh, and the mozzarella sticks and fried artichoke hearts were pretty great too.

This happened

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The early morning Oct. 1 exchange happened at a Taco Bell in Jensen Beach. A manager said a Chevrolet pick-up was in front of the drive through lane and the driver may have fallen asleep. The manager told dispatchers the driver’s foot was on the accelerator, the engine was revving and smoke was coming from the vehicle.

A deputy asked for his ID, and he said, “No.” Asked again for ID, Falkner stared, laughed and started to reach in his Taco Bell bag and take out a taco. Another deputy told Falkner they asked not for a taco, but for his ID. He shrugged and laughed again, and eventually began trying to eat the taco….

Falkner was told to step out. He put down his taco and taco bag, and deputies noticed the pick-up’s engine was on fire. Fire extinguishers were used to squelch the small blaze.

– Will Greenlee, TCPalm.com.

There’s just nothing I can add.

Remind me again why they’re testing for HGH

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NFLPA officials said the World Anti-Doping Agency refused to share all the information they requested during a three-hour meeting in Montreal on Aug.24. The union wants data about the athletes who were used to originally set thresholds for positive tests so it can compare that information with a study of its members’ HGH levels.

The union believes football players may have higher HGH levels than other athletes. WADA has not shared the data because it says there is plenty of information about the test already available.

Goodell, meanwhile, is scheduled to meet Friday with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the panel’s minority leader, to discuss HGH testing. Baltimore Ravens union representative Domonique Foxworth and union official Ernie Conwell, a former NFL tight end, are expected to attend the meeting. Travis Tygart, the executive director of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, is also expected to participate in the meeting.

– Michael O’Keeffe, N.Y. Daily News.

Remind me again why they’re testing for HGH. I know it’s cheating, but why is it cheating? Is it because it’s illegal to use HGH without a prescription? Because that’s true; it is. And we know from Ricky Williams that the NFL tests for marijuana. So maybe owners just want to know if the players in which they’re investing tons of money are engaged in illicit drug use, fearing the inevitable effects of that criminal lifestyle. Or something.

Are they testing for HGH because of the longterm health effects it might have on players? That seems like by far the best argument for testing, but if that were the case, man, you’d think the NFLPA would be all about it. NFL players have enough long-term health problems as it is, you’d think their union would want to work to protect them from inflicting more upon themselves.