Unusually, the first burger chain in India was an indigenous company called Nirula’s, which introduced fast-food burgers and chips during the 1950s. Menu items include the Nutty Paneer Burger (made of fresh cheese and walnuts), Mutton Maniac Burger (with chilli sauce), French Flip Burger (a chicken burger) and Crazy Pea Burger (made from dried peas).

p. 100-101, Andrew F. Smith, Hamburger: A Global History. London: Reaktion Books. 2008.
Here’s a current Nirula’s menu, including a Paneer Tikka Burger, which sounds delightful!

A series of portraits of Londoners commenting on the Olympics in In Focus:
1. Was he told about the portrait ahead of time or was he just WALKING AROUND IN THAT GETUP?
2. There’s some good-looking tubers there.
3. Is that a Matt Lucas vs. Sasha Baron Cohen mural?
4. She may need to invest in some fashionable collarbone padding.
5. I laughed at the hedge maintenance but I do want to know how you get to be retired at 57. Nice.
6. “fashion store staff member”? Perhaps he only seems like he should be a dungeon operator?
7. I was sorry that anyone else commented on the traffic issues because I wanted the crossing guard to be uniquely concerned about the roads.
8. So punchable.
9. I would make a comment along the lines of “graphic illustrator? Like the graphic illustrator in the right corner of the photo?” but he honestly looks like most of the graphic design guys I’ve met. Especially the carefully chosen shoes.
10. Is he allowed to speak?
11. “Dasha” the “21” year old “model” with “big boobs”. I’m surprised that a “model” wouldn’t welcome the tourist “trade”.
12. This guy is simply delightful and is so very carefully paint-splattered.
13. I think this photo just launched a new fetish: sexy motorcycle paramedic.
14. But not tennis :(
15. Yeah, yeah, English fishmonger, but look at the strangely beat up child-shaped charity box with the charity’s name removed! Creepy, huh?
16. This is what all of the phone-support technicians wear at his office.
17. So brick-walled garages AREN’T just in The Sweeney!
18. Questions like “how come you’re dressed like a zombie?” Though to be fair, even non-tourists ask her.
19. I’m hoping they clarified because they are delighted by her public-spiritedness and not because they are afraid someone might assume she’s handicapped in some way.
20. Would YOU buy fashions designed by the man in the Darth Vader jacket and flowery parachute pants?
21. Because Beth-Ann sounded like a hillbilly, but Bethan sounds like a building or neighborhood name (classy!).
22. “Ben Slow” must be rhyming slang for SOMETHING, right? (You must read the tribute to the mural subject, Charlie Burns. Utterly wonderful.)
23. I think he should consider being a suit model. Very dapper.

From the delightful book by Laura Shapiro, Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America (which I highly recommend for other food history and home ec history nerds like me), a poetic mixer interlude:

“Back in 1940, while [Gertrude] Stein and [Alice] Toklas were living in the country house where they spent the war years, a package had arrived from Chicago. Samuel Steward, an American writer they had befriended, had decided to send them a Mixmaster. ‘Gertrude had said she liked things that went around–gramophone records, whirling grouse, eggbeaters, and the world,’ he wrote later in a memoir. ‘The Mixmaster seemed like the perfect gift, a useful to Alice as well.’

Stein and Toklas were ecstatic. ‘The Mix master came Easter Sunday, and we have not had time to more than read the literature put it together and gloat, oh so beautiful is the Mix master, so beautiful and the literature so beautiful, and the shoe button potatoes that same day so beautiful and everything so beautiful,’ wrote Stein. She ended her letter, ‘Alice all smiles and murmurs in her dreams, Mix Master.’ Ten days later she wrote again: ‘Day and night Mix master is a delight….Now Alice works it all alone and it saves her hours and effort, she can write a whole advertisement for Mix master she is so pleased.’ Toklas was using it for everything she could think of, including spoon bread and mashed potatoes. Then disaster–Toklas dropped the bowl, and it shattered. Stein begged Steward to send a replacement:’…you see you can use other bowls but they do not twirl around in that lovely green mix master way and when they do not twirl their contents instead of staying down rise up and spill and therefore the mix master will have to be a mix master still.’ Steward couldn’t send a new bowl until 1945. He also sent new beaters, for Stein reported that the originals ‘got busted.'”

An advanced twitter search screen is available, or use these operators from any search box:

General: Searches tweet text unless you toggle to people search.
Can toggle results between Top/All: Top is “most relevant” (don’t yet know how this is selected/ranked and behaves oddly if you click on Top multiple times), All is everything sorted newest to oldest (though if it isn’t everything, I’m not sure how I would know)
Search terms in tweet are in bold.

default operator is “and”
search in quotes for phrase search Punctuation is ignored within phrase.
OR for or operator, can use in lowercase to search for word “or”
-searchterm for NOT operator
#searchterm for tag search
from:username for tweets from that user
to:username for tweets to that user, only if username is first in tweet or only after RT and MT, not if listed later in tweet
@username for tweets mentioning that user
near:cityname searches for tweets from that city, does not work for countries/regions or cities within a larger region.
near:cityname within:distance limits by distance in mi or km
since:2010-12-27 for term since date in year-month-day format
until:2010-12-27 for term until date in year-month-day
searchterm :) Twitter says “for term with positive attitude” but looks like this is a search for :) :-) or :P (search for :-) and :P also work the same)
searchterm :( Twitter says “for term with negative attitude” but looks like this is a search for :( :-( (interchangeable in search, same as above)
? for question mark in tweet (other lone punctuation seems to be ignored)
filter:links for tweet with URL
filter:images for tweet with images (not yet listed?)
filter:videos for tweet with videos (not yet listed?)
source:twitterfeed (or any other posting method) to search by posting method
lang:en for tweets in English, lang:fr in French, etc.

What I imagine the content is for the article headlined
The 9 Most Dangerous Health Foods
9. Yogurt, glass shards and fruit at the bottom
8. Tack-flavor energy bar (now with real tacks)
7. Lowfat weasel (live)
6. Lowfat weasel, rabid (live or cooked)
5. Low-sodium sawblade, radial
4. Explosive granola
3. Bottled arsenic water (all-natural)
2. Kale chips fried in motor oil (summer weight, cholesterol free)
1. Raw milk, now with added cholera

Things I like about the babies, toddlers, and preschoolers I meet at work:
When you can sort of see what parts of their face they will still have as a grownup.
When you can see how they resemble their parents.
When they concentrate really hard, but because they are babies, it is often on something fairly simple like standing or eating a cracker.
When they start picking out their own clothing and exhibit a wild baby style.
That they want to try things out, even if those things are a little bit out of their ability.
When they are just getting comfortable with locomotion and have to stomp or lunge everywhere.
When they are just being casual, eating a bagel or some Cheerios.
That baby accent, before they can pronounce all the sounds very well.

Another in an intermittent series of comments on The Atlantic’s photo feature, this time on the anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

#5: I know that I have to take the photographer’s inclinations to portray local color and things that are poignant or exotic into consideration– after all, these are not a random sampling of images by a long stretch, but I am quite interested in the religious reaction to the event, which has its own schedule.

#9: Those oven-mitt hats don’t look like they would protect your noggin from debris any heavier than a paperback book, and not a very long one, either. Perhaps splitting the difference between something cheap and easy to store and an actual helmet?

#10: Now THIS looks like the earthquake drills I know.

#11: hard to imagine wandering through so many photographs, looking for familiar faces.

#14: I guess celebrating the only tree left standing is seeing the glass as 1% full instead of 99% empty.

#16 & #23: those car or boat on roof images are going to stick with people

#17: warm knitwear on statues is a thing in Japan, like a more emotion-laden yarn bombing.

#21: sad and also nice, a shrine for a daughter

#23: another kid with a somber birthday, joining all of those kids born on 9/11

#34: tiiiiiiiny apartment! And I bet the photographer’s flush against the door

#36: My union maid persona is concerned about people working for free for a seaweed packing company

#37: the Edith Prickley of Japan (or maybe Lola Heatherton? Haaaaaaa ha!), with a quite fetching sweater. Note the combination space heater/tea heater in the background, too dangerous for US houses due to insulation.

#39 & #40: A lovely project, with some religious significance maybe (see photo on the shrine in #21). See some of the photos at the 3.11 exhibit at UBC in Vancouver.

#41: I had forgotten that Cat Island might have been affected!

#42: This picture made me realize the feature was a natural for The Lighter Side… Fish oil tank painted to look like a giant whale meat can. Japan!

Where can I get a pharmaceutical that would make me feel like this crazy video? And would I have to wear a red velvet jacket and waistcoat to take it?

Say, do you want to destroy traditional marriage? Sure, you say, but I can’t gay-marry, I’m already married to someone of a different gender, or hope to be some day. What can I do? I say you can do plenty! Here are some helpful strategies you can try in your own home, inferred from the talking points on an anti-same-sex-marriage pressure group’s web site. (I’m not going to link to them, but dollars to doughnuts you’ll be hearing their thoughts sometime soon. Gross.)

1. Don’t have kids.
Even delaying having children may be sufficient to destroy traditional marriage, since this is apparently the only reason you’d want to spend any length of time or emotional commitment on interacting with another adult.

2. If you already have kids, have a hobby or other adult interest in common with your spouse that doesn’t involve the children.
Try to spend a little bit of each week making it clear that you have a non-reproductive reason to live. Maybe go see an R rated film and then drink an alcoholic beverage while discussing topics that bore children.

3. Be a person of color who doesn’t hate.
For some reason, depriving someone of civil rights is totally OK if you heard one time that a black person had the same impulse. Now not being a complete dick is another delightfully easy way to destroy marriage!

4. Be a single dad.
Make it abundantly clear that you don’t need to have a religious contract with a god and a woman to take care of your own flesh and blood. Give your kid a bath, feed them breakfast, or just hang out together.

5. Be a dad.
You may not even need to be single to destroy marriage while driving the carpool van! Simply parenting of your own free will without any apparent pressure or threats proves that it’s possible!

6. Be a single mom.
Did you know that denying marriage to same-sex couples was so “women don’t get stuck with the enormous disadvantages of parenting alone”? If the reverse is true, your mere existence will make same-sex marriage happen!

7. Use gay love in your different-gender relationships.
The love between two people of the same gender is radically different from the love between two people of varied genders. Try using gay love for a day, a week, or even longer! Spice up your weekend! Alternate and see if your partner can tell which kind of love you are feeling for them at that moment!

8. Use gay-parent love on your kids.
Try feeling the kind of love a gay woman or man feels toward their child on your own offspring. Like Folger’s crystals, see if they notice! Go to a parent-teacher meeting or to the park while feeling the way a gay dad feels about his kids!

9. Bedroom fun.
Do something with your partner that doesn’t lead to procreation, if you catch my drift and I think you do. Anything other than Tab A into Slot B! This makes sure that no babies are born, ever, to anyone.

10. Alone time.
Bedroom fun on your own may lead to the end of all civilization, traditional marriage included! Disrupts space-time so that some people were never born in the first place.

11. Swap mom and dad roles.
It will either be a refreshing change of pace or exactly the damn same.

12. Both parents act like a mom or both act like a dad.
This will also probably be undetectable to the kids, but will destroy most traditional marriages within a 3 mile radius.

13. Make your roles in your marriage or partnership interchangeable.
Is there someone in your relationship who is always in charge, always has the last word and rules with an iron fist? I bet there isn’t! If you relate to your partner with love and respect and act as though you are both capable adults, you’ve been doing this one all along!

14. Spade-calling
A helpful tip from the introduction to the anti-gay talking points is the admission that using the phrase Ban Same Sex Marriage while they are trying to ban same sex marriage “causes us to lose about ten percentage points in polls.” So perhaps we can work that phrase into discussions of these legislatively-mediated slo-mo hate crimes as often as possible. Fun!

Joseph Backholm, filing a referendum against same-sex marriage said today “There are lots of meaningful relationships that are not called marriage. Marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman and the children they raise.”

Does the inclusion of children mean that Backholm also wishes to make a legal distinction between children born in a marriage and those that are not? Or is under the impression that this is already the case?