Happy Monday to all. Some news items leapt out at me this morning, grabbing my attention like a double latte with foam at a drive-through Starbucks. None of them is directly related to storage, but astute readers might sense parallels and/or connections to the topic.
First up: Pringles. It is a potato chip. According to the venerable newspaper of record, the New York Times, Proctor & Gamble cannot claim that its Pringles product is something other than a potato chip, as ruled by the Lord Justice of Great Britain. Quoth the NYT:
“In Britain, most foods are exempt from the value-added tax, but potato chips — known as crisps — and ’similar products made from the potato, or from potato flour,’ are taxable. Procter & Gamble, in what could be considered a plea for strict construction, argued that Pringles — which are about 40 percent potato flour, but also contain corn, rice and wheat — should not be considered potato chips or ’similar products.’ Rather, they are ’savory snacks.’ ”
This attempt at legal hair-splitting (potato slicing?) didn’t go down with the UK VAT and Duties Tribunal, which took a practical view that if it looks like a potato chip and tastes like a potato chip, then it’s a crisp by another name.
Pixar’s new movie “Up” flying high. As GigaOm founder Om Malik discusses in personal blog, Om.Is.Me, despite many dire warnings that the new animated feature would flop, opening weekend sales indicate the movie about a grumpy man and a flying house is floating into the stratosphere, with $68.2 million in sales. This puts it in the top 5 Pixar movies.
A laugh riot. Finally, all the best comedians to follow on Twitter have been collected and listed in one place. Web 2.0 blog Mashable has posted a list of 85 comically-inclined folks who will keep you laughing while you tweet. As a result of this list, I for example am now following British badboy comedian Russell Brand, who recently tweeted the following:
“I may start “utopian island” soon, then we can recline while the robots and the animals do our bidding. Within reason. No monkeys in bras.”
And with that, I wish everyone a productive and storage-o-riffic week.
