Sunday Rerun: With six you get a free eggroll

 When I worked on the midnight shift in the Baltimore County Courthouse, I spent many a lunch 1/2 hour roaming the building. Just reading the legal notices that were posted in accordance with law was a fascinating pastime, and the postings of people who paid $110 to change their names legally were the best. 

A lot of these were women who were divorced and wanted their original name back (that should be free, IMHO) and some were people who disliked being called "Poindexter" or "Jor-El" or whatever, and some were the kind who were into spending that kind of money for a joke, such as the newly-christened "Bud" Wiser or "Dixie" Normus.

But would you change your name for sushi? Over in Taiwan, people have been changing their names, but enough is enough, say the local officials.

There is a sushi chain called  Akindo Sushiro. They offered free chow on Wednesdays and Thursdays to "whole tables of customers named Gui Yu, or  'Salmon'." All you had to do was to make "Salmon" part of your name. Local media called the resultant commotion "salmon chaos."

By the end of the first day, dozens of people had gotten their free suppers, and more than a thousand had eaten at half off just for changing their names to a name with aquatic associations. 

And the government offices reported that about 150 "mostly young" people had come in to change their names. 

"Salmon Prince," "Meteor Salmon King" and "Salmon Fried Rice" got their meals for free, and one freeloader changed his name to something that set the Taiwanese name for all-time longest name: "Chen Loves Taiwan, Abalone, Tuna, Salmon, Snow Crab, Sea Urchin, Scallop, Lobster and Beef, Mayfull, Palais de Chine, Regent, Hilton, Caesar Park, Hotel Royal."

One college student went with "Explosive Good Looking Salmon," and he and his squad gobbled $235 worth of sushi.

Another student who changed their name and their friends ate about $460 worth of sushi.

"I do not think we will want to eat salmon again for a while," they wrote online, per the local news.

Predictably, Taiwan officials didn't find all this very amusing as they coped with all the red tape. Deputy Interior minister Chen Tsung-yen said that the changes for free food were wasting time and causing unnecessary paperwork, according to AFP.

"I hope everyone can be more rational about it," Tsung-yen told reporters.

Diners with new names were telling reporters that were going to change their names back to their original non-sushi names after the free meal. The process fee for a name change and new ID card is less than $3.

And Taiwanese official Ann Chovy took to the airwaves to urge residents to "be careful to take good care of your name." 

The Saturday Picture Show, May 9, 2026

You can't say that Germany is not prepared for the next time it snows. This mountain is 400,000 tons of salt. Bring on the ice!

This week's free wallpaper is a beautiful spring scene just for you.

Yes it's May and yes, it snowed in Denver the other day. Live it up!

You don't see homemade vehicles like we used to. This one is a humdinger, boy!

I find it amazing that there were people alive in 1903 and 1969, people whose lifespans included the first airplane flight and men landing on the moon. Just 66 years apart!

I love munching on a raw carrot, and I recently found out they weren't always orange! Dutch farmers in the 16th and 17th century practiced selective breeding. They had white ones and red ones and yellow ones and even purplish carrots, and those farmers cultivated yellow and red ones to create orange carrots, which were considered sweeter, less bitter in taste, and also saluted William of Orange in his fight for Dutch independence.

Look closely - you'll see little red marks on this Egyptian tablet from 4,000 years ago. This is a school tablet and some scholar made lots of Egyptian errors. The red marks were made by the teacher, making corrections.

The warriors among us have always been resourceful...well, mostly. This attempt at making a fake tree to hide a soldier in France in 1918 was not all that great.

Someone somewhere ran one of those contests, an election to see which US state has the best flag. I have said this since I was a barefoot boy with cheek of tan: It's Maryland!

 And here's the reason why: Our flag works as a tie, a tote bag, a belt, a tee shirt...not just a flag!

Bag it up

People who think that only males have the brains or talent or initiative to invent things should learn about Margaret Eloise Knight, who had a mind for invention and used it!

Ms Knight was born on Valentine's Day, 1838 in York, Maine. Her dad died when she was but a child, and her mom moved the family to New Hampshire, where young Margaret went to work at a cotton mill at the age of 12 to help the family get by. That was the end of her formal education.

Cotton mills involved dangerous machinery, and - still a pre-teen - Margaret, having seen other workers injured, came up with her first invention to prevent machine injuries.

Of course, someone stole the idea. There was no way she could have accessed the patenting process, so she saw mills across the country using her idea without compensating her.

She moved on to Springfield, Massachusetts and found another factory job, this time at the Columbia Paper Bag Company. And again, she saw dangerous and inefficient conditions, and she put her mind to work. In 1868, she invented a machine that could fold and glue paper bags. It was she who developed the technology of making paper bags with the flat bottom that we came to see over the years when bagging up our grapefruits, ginger ale, and Vienna sausages at the ShopSumMor.

Ms Knight was not about to get burned again with the patent. She saw a man (I shouldn't mention his name) (Charles Annan) trying to rip off her idea, but she had her original blueprints and won a patent lawsuit in 1871.

This model of her bag machine is in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

And from this, she co-founded the Eastern Paper Bag Company in Hartford, Connecticut, and went on to patent some 25 more inventions, including a shoe-making machine and a clasp for robes. The woman who once said, “I’m only sorry I couldn’t have had as good a chance as a boy” was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.

Sweet story

I keep a jar (or a squeeze bottle that looks like a honeybear) of honey in the pantry. I sweeten my spaghetti sauce and iced tea with it, and I happily jumped on the hot honey trend with my fried chicken. I slather on Texas Pete hot sauce, then glaze it with honey, and boy howdy! That's good eating!

But - there is history "bee"hind all this....over in Egypt, archeologists have dug into the pyramids and found pots filled with honey that has never spoiled!

The AllRecipes website talked to a beekeeper name of Whendi Grad. Her husband Garnett Puett is a fourth-generation beekeeper at Big Island Bees in Hawaii. The two of them keep up with 2,000 hives using traditional beekeeping methods.

And Grad wants you to know, if you store honey properly, it will not go bad.

"Honey will darken and/or crystallize, but it is still safe to eat," she said. It may oxidize, due to being store in metal or plastic containers, and being around heat can change its flavor. So don't do that!

Grad says, to keep your honey from fermenting, seal it in an air-tight glass container. And be sure to use clean, dry utensils to scoop it out of the jar, because moisture will harm the honey.

Honey is low in moisture content. That thwarts any bacteria from surviving. And no bacteria means no spoilage. Plus, surprise! honey is acidic enough to get rid of  the bacteria and organisms that spoil other food.

And - adding to the marvels of nature - bees add their own enzymes to their honey.  Those enzymes produce hydrogen peroxide - the same stuff we use to treat wounds and dye our hair.

So that is why bees are half blonde.

 

Aunt Bee

Darling, darling

I missed seeing any live coverage of the Met "Gala" this year because I have no interest in it whatsoever.  I ignored the whole thing, even though the theme of this year's "Let's See How Weird We Can Look" shindig was "Fashion is Art."

Art who? Art Fleming, original host of "Jeopardy"? Art Donovan, beloved Baltimore Colt from 1953 -1962? Art VanDeLay, millionaire industrialist from "Seinfeld"? Garfunkel, Carney, Linkletter? The list goes on.

I feel that by saying fashion is art, one is also saying, "we're special because we put on these outrageous get-ups and prance around the steps of a museum." There's an art to knowing how to dress, I grant you. My summer uniform of polo shirt and cargo shorts is functional, and since the pants and the shirts are in different piles in my closet, it's only by pure chance that the colors match, if they do. Wintertime, I'll be in blue jeans, with a long-sleeved tee or sweatshirt covered by a short-sleeved tee shirt.

That's my fashion, and I am comfortable with it. 

But I have to throw a penalty flag at Sheinelle Jones on the TODAY show. The day after that big blowout, she showed a video of herself talking to some fashion icon on those fabled steps, and the important person she spoke with had some sort of equipment failure...a broken strap, some loose sequins, something popped out that should not have, I dunno.

But Sheinelle said, "Oh, the stars! They're just like us!"

It is TOO Heidi Klum!

No, they are not. We are home doing things, reading books, helping children or friends, calling sick friends, volunteering at food banks, baking bread, building models, playing online Parcheesi, doing one of a thousand and one things. We're not traipsing around in bizarre garmentry while people tell us how fabulous we are. "Fabulous" comes to us from the word "fable," meaning "made-up stories."

We keep it real real here in the real world. That's fabulous, darling.

Toss it

I keep telling everyone that I would be glad to eat a salad with dinner every night! I'm not fond of a lot of green things - keep your peas and your okra - but you pile torn up lettuce and cherry tomatoes and slivers of carrot and celery and bleu cheese crumbles and anchovies in a bowl, and stand back out of the way!

There's also the Caesar salad - romaine lettuce, croutons, and Caesar dressing. But with that, the dressing is the big star, which, to me, is like having your socks be the main focus of your clothing. And the way they make such a big deal of it! Rubbing a half clove of garlic in the bowl of your bowl, and all that commotion!

There used to be a guy I knew who made salads for a swanky eatery. We called him "Edward Garlic-hands." Ditch* the garlic, double the anchovies, and let's have extra tomatoes and bleu crumbles.

*I almost said "86 the garlic" but we don't want to upset you-know-who.

 

And again

I guess it means you've been around a while when you start losing friends in groups. That's my story. A friend of mine - a guy I've known since broadcasting school, who replaced me at the station in Salisbury when I got a job at a station in Baltimore, died on Friday.  Colin did radio very well and became an all-around fill-in guy at a couple of stations here in Baltimore.

And then on Saturday afternoon, a guy who joined our class in sixth grade and went all the way through high school, and then on to college and law school, was killed APPARENTLY by his son-in-law during a family domestic. Bob has been an attorney around here for over 50 years.

I'm told that disease took Colin, and the insidious disease of people resolving their personal differences with bullets took Bob from us. 

I looked it up, how to react to losing two friends at once or in close succession. The internet, font of all wisdom, says that sort of double blow "creates a profound, overwhelming experience known as cumulative or 'stacked' grief, which can lead to intense shock, deep emotional distress, and isolation."

I'm sad. I'm not in shock, because at this point the only shocking thing would be for nothing bad to happen to anyone I care about. Our lives take twists and turns, and we do well if we just happen to hold the bar on this roller coaster ride.

And this is another reminder to enjoy every day! Tomorrow is not promised to any of us, but it's a good idea to keep that in mind. I'm grateful to be around and grateful to have this (occasionally ham-handed) way of sharing my feelings. 

Thank you.