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One more thing I'm not going to be eating.

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James Kibo Parry

unread,
Nov 13, 2002, 2:28:31 AM11/13/02
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Although it's rare, once in a while I find something at my local Asian
grocery store so strange that I refuse to taste it, even if it's cheese-free.

This time it's a marginally-bilingual vial from Thailand:


WATER GIANT BUG ESSENCE
ESSENCE DE WATER GIANT BUG


I figured it was a mistranslation, because it was part of a product
line which includes vials of various plant extracts (such as durian and
banana and pandan, two of which taste the same) and who would be so
crazy as to sell vials of a clear fluid made by squishing bugs in
some sort of tiny hydraulic press?

The ingredients list explains that it's "mangdana extract". So I went
to the Web to look up "mangdana":

[from Thailand's Office Of The National Culture Commission]
->
-> Thai Name: Mangdana
-> Common Name: Giant Water Bug
-> Scientific Name:Hemiptera
->
-> It is a bug with two pairs of wings. The feet of the front pair
-> are hard and the end is thin and soft while the hind pair are thin
-> and a bit shorter. It has a mouth which pierces and sucks. The male
-> has a pointed tail and is more fragrant when cooked than the female.
-> The female lays eggs on the grass during the rainy season. The bug
-> lives in swamps and rice fields. Since it likes light and moonlight,
-> it can be caught easily. It is eaten as food and the male is also
-> used for flavouring different kinds of spicy paste sauce. It fetches
-> a high price so it provides additional income for villagers.

Okay, so I guess I did buy a bottle of bug juice because I was thinking
"Ha ha, I can make fun of this because it's mislabeled as bug juice"
when really everyone in Thailand is saying "Ha ha, we made Kibo buy
bug juice by cleverly disguising our bug juice as itself." But the big
question is, what sort of bugs?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, that Web page has
a picture which says:

"COCKROACHES COCKROACHES COCKROACHES COCKROACHES COCKROACHES COCKROACHES"

...one hundred sixty-six and two-thirds times.

And I don't mean the little bitty New York cockroaches. I mean the big
chunky California cockroaches, the ones that look exactly like the ones
Archie McPhee sells, only bigger.

But of course on closer inspection, these aren't just cockroaches.
Real cockroaches would be too boring for Thailand to export. These are
some other similar insect similar to a cockroach with giant scorpion
pincers that look like devil horns. So I apologize to these bugs for
calling them cockroaches. These are bigger and more demonic.

A great Thai cooking site, ThaiTable.com (which has the same name as a
company which sells Thai entrees I used to enjoy) has more details:

=> The Thai water bugs are about 3 inches long, and look much like a
=> big big version of its North American buddy. The water bugs live in
=> the rice fields and farmers catch them at night by using a light to
=> lure the bugs into a net.
=>
=> The scent of the bug is important in Thai cuisine, especially in
=> nam prig or chili sauce type of dishes. The wings and head are removed,
=> and the rest of the body, including the legs, are eaten.
=>
=> Water bugs are very difficult to find at Oriental markets. So far,
=> I can only locate them at a few markets in California. However,
=> the artificial scent is a lot easier to find. It comes in a tiny jar
=> with a dropper wrapped in a tiny box that says "Mangdana essence".
=>
=> A few words on How to Speak Thai: Mangda has two meanings. One refers
=> to a water bug. The other refers to a pimp!

I checked, and the bottle I have claims to be real mangdana juice, not
artificial, and I got a no-frills vial with no box or dropper, and it's
the kind made from bugs, not pimps.

So, there's no way I'm putting this mystery ichor into my mouth.

OKAY, YOU GUYS TALKED ME INTO IT! I'm opening the vial now.

It smells almost exactly like turpentine. Given that the ingredients
involve a mixture of bugs, propylene glycol (antifreeze) and ethyl alcohol
(actually the last one is two ingredients: "ethyl, alcohol") I suspect
that I am smelling the solvents, not the bugs.

Now I am putting a drop of it on my finger... Hmm, it has no taste.
Oh, wait, nothing came out because there's a plastic stopper jammed
into the mouth of the vial. Uh oh. I suspect it's going to smell
REALLY turpentiney when I get the vial all the way open.

Excuse me a moment, I'm going to go open this over the bathtub.

Ecch! Know that clove oil the dentist swabs on your gums before sticking
in the hypodermic needle? And the flash of pain immediately afterwards?
This manages to achieve a flavor similar to a clove-turpentine-banana
smoothie with a twist of agony from both the awful flavor and the idea
that liquid bugs are now circulating to every cell of my body.

Because this is an extract, of course it tastes lousy by itself.
The question is, would this stinky bug squirt taste good if I put just
one drop of it into a yummy durian cake? Well, first of all, I'm not
going to try doing that, because it would be too much work, and secondly
I'm not even sure the durian cake would be yummy even if it was
uncontaminated by bug broth.

So, I've tasted pure bug extract. Now you people owe me.

-- K.

The previous item I bought which I will never, ever eat
is another bug-based product from Thailand. ThaiTable.com
informs me that in Thai the name means "express train"
although my can just says "bamboo carterpillar".
It's a whole can of pickled worms named after Jimmy Carter.
I need to find some way to seal the can in a block of
clear plastic so I can't accidentally open it.

(If these are what express trains look like in Thailand,
I'd hate to see the slow trains.)


Fun fact: While spell-checking this article, my computer insisted that there
is no such word as "ichor" and demanded that I change it to one of these:

itcher
rich
chair
minor
Escher
iPod
either
into
inbox
other
Corel
court
ITC
Kibo
Kino
Osco
TiVo
Viacom
biform
limo

...for some reason, when I say a word its tiny little brain doesn't know,
it thinks it probably should have been one of the other words I used that it
didn't know, because about three-quarters of that list are words I taught it. So it tends to try to change everything to "Kibo", "durian", or "shazbot".
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go flush bug juice down the toilet.

-- K.

This stuff's aftertaste is so
vile that it's making me lose
count of how many times I've
ended this article.

-- K.

ECCH!

talysman

unread,
Nov 13, 2002, 3:40:35 AM11/13/02
to
ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) writes:

[ kibo licks the bug juice, then proclaims ]

>
> The previous item I bought which I will never, ever eat
> is another bug-based product from Thailand. ThaiTable.com
> informs me that in Thai the name means "express train"
> although my can just says "bamboo carterpillar".
> It's a whole can of pickled worms named after Jimmy Carter.
> I need to find some way to seal the can in a block of
> clear plastic so I can't accidentally open it.

I am picturing kibo RITE NOW be-bopping through his apartment
and noticing a small can, then murmuring to himself "I vaguely
remember seeing that can before, but I forgot what's in it..."

and then he opens it, and a whole bunch of express trains come
flying out.

wackiness ensues!

Joseph Michael Bay

unread,
Nov 13, 2002, 4:24:30 AM11/13/02
to
ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) writes:


>Because this is an extract, of course it tastes lousy by itself.
>The question is, would this stinky bug squirt taste good if I put just
>one drop of it into a yummy durian cake? Well, first of all, I'm not
>going to try doing that, because it would be too much work, and secondly
>I'm not even sure the durian cake would be yummy even if it was
>uncontaminated by bug broth.

>So, I've tasted pure bug extract. Now you people owe me.

Okay, so here you go:

In a small bowl blend some ginger, garlic, shallot, sugar, lime juice,
fish sauce and water. Chop up some of those little tiny Thai
mouse turd chiles, add some mangda (bitch betta have my money),
and possibly cilantro, if you don't think that's gross.

Et voila! You now have a delicious Thai condiment, which has
some bug crud in it.

Unfortunately, I can't find the recipe for "nematode surprise",
which I vaguely remember from my early college biology lab as
being meatloaf except that the meat was ground up nematodes.


--
Joseph M. Bay Lamont Sanford Junior University
www.stanford.edu/~jmbay/ DO NOT PRESS

Pugg

unread,
Nov 13, 2002, 1:51:46 PM11/13/02
to
[Up from the depths, 40 stories high, head in the clouds, breathing
fire...Kontext Away! Kontext Away! KONTEXT AWAY!!!!]

>Fun fact: While spell-checking this article, my computer insisted that there
>is no such word as "ichor"

Kibo's spell-checker makes baby H.P. Lovecraft cry! Baby Gary Gygax,
too!

pugg
--

David DeLaney

unread,
Nov 14, 2002, 6:40:32 AM11/14/02
to
James "Kibo" Parry <ki...@world.std.com> wrote:
>Although it's rare, once in a while I find something at my local Asian
>grocery store so strange that I refuse to taste it, even if it's cheese-free.

Ten'll get you twenty this isn't correct...

>The ingredients list explains that it's "mangdana extract". So I went
>to the Web to look up "mangdana":

"part of a class of rhyming words that includes 'fermata' and 'ma\~nana';
see also Menomena (doo do, du du du)"

>[from Thailand's Office Of The National Culture Commission]

...and yet the webpage was in English. ENGLISH! AWBT?

>So, there's no way I'm putting this mystery ichor into my mouth.

...


>OKAY, YOU GUYS TALKED ME INTO IT! I'm opening the vial now.

We wuv ouw Kibo, es we duz!

>It smells almost exactly like turpentine. Given that the ingredients
>involve a mixture of bugs, propylene glycol (antifreeze) and ethyl alcohol
>(actually the last one is two ingredients: "ethyl, alcohol") I suspect
>that I am smelling the solvents, not the bugs.

Uh-oh, pure ethyl has been known to cause Wacky Mishaps! May be you need to
rethink...

>Now I am putting a drop of it on my finger... Hmm, it has no taste.

That's because the finger has to go in the MOUTH first - I didn't see any
DMSO on that ingredients list...

>Oh, wait, nothing came out because there's a plastic stopper jammed
>into the mouth of the vial. Uh oh. I suspect it's going to smell
>REALLY turpentiney when I get the vial all the way open.
>
>Excuse me a moment, I'm going to go open this over the bathtub.

Another in the "sentences you thought you'd never get Kibo to type" contest,
gone forever...

>Ecch! Know that clove oil the dentist swabs on your gums before sticking
>in the hypodermic needle? And the flash of pain immediately afterwards?
>This manages to achieve a flavor similar to a clove-turpentine-banana
>smoothie with a twist of agony from both the awful flavor and the idea
>that liquid bugs are now circulating to every cell of my body.

Mmmmmm, bugs. BUGS! Get'em off me!

>So, I've tasted pure bug extract. Now you people owe me.

WEE OW(n)ES JOO!

> It's a whole can of pickled worms named after Jimmy Carter.

Peace. Out.

>Fun fact: While spell-checking this article, my computer insisted that there
>is no such word as "ichor" and demanded that I change it to one of these:

Clearly you have not been posting to other alt.* groups enough with this
current incarnation of p00ter... Try it on "squamous"!

>...for some reason, when I say a word its tiny little brain doesn't know,
>it thinks it probably should have been one of the other words I used that it
>didn't know, because about three-quarters of that list are words I taught it.

You're corrupting the virtue of a minor! Get that computer enough RAM to
make it legal IMMEJITLY, young man!

>Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go flush bug juice down the toilet.

NOOOO! THINK OF THE ALLIGATORS!

Dave "malone" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

James Kibo Parry

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 1:48:24 AM11/15/02
to
[on tasting a vial of insect flavoring for insect-based pastries]

David DeLaney (d...@gatekeeper.vic.com) wrote:


>
> James "Kibo" Parry (ki...@world.std.com) wrote:
> >
> > It smells almost exactly like turpentine. Given that the ingredients
> > involve a mixture of bugs, propylene glycol (antifreeze) and ethyl alcohol
> > (actually the last one is two ingredients: "ethyl, alcohol") I suspect
> > that I am smelling the solvents, not the bugs.
>
> Uh-oh, pure ethyl has been known to cause Wacky Mishaps! May be you need to
> rethink...

Is this going to be the episode where I have to do the Jitterbug at
Club Babalu while I'm going blind? Or is it the one where I get
locked in my personal walk-in meat locker that smells like bug juice?
I don't care, as long as it isn't the one where I alphabetize everything
in Gale Gordon's hardware store and then he carefully leans over the
pasta machine so that I can accidentally put his paper necktie into
it in slow motion and then he reminds me not to turn on the soap suds
machine and then I turn on the soap suds machine. (It's just like the
"Pull Rope To Drop Walls" segment of Bob Hope's worst movie, except
that it ends with soap suds all over the place.)

By the way, Darla, I checked at another pet store today, and I still
can't find your favorite bacon-flavored soap bubbles for dogs.

Fun fact: Years ago, I bought a bottle of insect flavor that was
intended to be used by people who were having trouble getting their
pet iguanas to eat regular meat -- sort of a Hamburger Helper for
lizards. But I can't remember what it tasted like, so it probably
wasn't as bad as this insect flavor for humans.

-- K.

Some of the local Star Markets used to
have pet departments where they sold
live goldfish, but they eliminated all
the edible pets, but at least the
Super 88 still has live fish and the
occasional Death Crab.

James Kibo Parry

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 1:57:34 AM11/15/02
to
Pugg (pug...@hotmail.com) wrote:
>
> James "Kibo" Parry (ki...@world.std.com) wrote:
> >
> > Fun fact: While spell-checking this article, my computer insisted
> > that there s no such word as "ichor"

>
> Kibo's spell-checker makes baby H.P. Lovecraft cry! Baby Gary Gygax,
> too!

Hey, you already made one followup to my article. Stop making two
followups to my articles! Only I get to do that! I'll explain why
in my two followups to this article.

Does anyone else think it would be fun to get trapped in an elevator
with Gary Gygax and ask him lots of questions about logical inconsistencies
in "Dungeons & Dragons"? Especially if it's the crappy movie and not
the board game? And has anyone else here actually played the board game
version? (Yes, there was one. It was "Dungeons & Dragons" without all
that hard math -- "Is the number on the die less than 20? What do these
two dice add up to?" -- was replaced by a spinner and some cards.)

Also, why won't Matt McIrvin write us "Stanley Kubrick's H.P. Strangelovecraft"?

-- K.

I practically had to tie my hands
down to avoid going off on a rant
here about historical inaccuracies
in Nethack... Also, the REAL
Gary Gygax knows that there's no
such thing as Hobbits, only Halflings!

talysman

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 4:41:28 AM11/15/02
to
ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) writes:


> Does anyone else think it would be fun to get trapped in an elevator

yes!

> with Gary Gygax

oh wait...

> and ask him lots of questions about logical inconsistencies
> in "Dungeons & Dragons"?

or "Lejendary Adventures"?

(I lie. I read some sample chapters and "explanations" of the Lejendary
Adventures rules (his second game after being ejected from TSR) and
it seemed completely incomprehensible, so I never bothered to buy it.)


> Especially if it's the crappy movie and not
> the board game?

now, here, you're just being a crazy man!

because gary gygax is actually quite a nice person, despite his penchant
for superlugubrious elucidations and copious verbalisations of... stuff,
he has avoided commenting on the movie in detail, other than to say it
resembled something that came out of a horse's behind.

(yes, gary gygax is incapable of saying "horse shit" in public. he's
that nice. however, he sends one female friend of mine various sexist
jokes. I dunno what *that* is all about...)

> And has anyone else here actually played the board game
> version? (Yes, there was one. It was "Dungeons & Dragons" without all
> that hard math -- "Is the number on the die less than 20? What do these
> two dice add up to?" -- was replaced by a spinner and some cards.)

I don't remember there being a board game version, unless you mean
"Dungeon", which was a very simple-math game that used a pair of d6ers
only. you moved your pawns around a board representing a dungeon and
occasionally had to draw a "chance" card to see if you were attacked
by a monster or had to go directly to jail. also, if a monster knocked
you down, on your next turn you could stand up, but only if you hummed
jethro tull's "new day yesterday".

> Also, why won't Matt McIrvin write us "Stanley Kubrick's H.P. Strangelovecraft"?
>
> -- K.
>
> I practically had to tie my hands
> down to avoid going off on a rant
> here about historical inaccuracies
> in Nethack... Also, the REAL
> Gary Gygax knows that there's no
> such thing as Hobbits, only Halflings!

he must know this, since the paragraph describing halflings in the
original brown-booklet D&D is in a completely different font than the
rest of the text. same mysterious font change happens in the section
on "treants".

it's almost like he had to change something!

the funniest thing about the original brown-booklet D&D is still the
part where the monster chart lists "% LIAR" as a column heading. from
this chart, we can determine that skeletons and zombies always tell
the truth, while nixies never do. too bad D&D was published after
watergate!

also, I confess that when I was 12 years old and got my first glimpse
of the D&D monster chart, I thought "staff elementals" were courtly
retainers made of earth, water, fire or air.

I am 11th level now! that means I can write my own scenarios!

Eli M. Balin

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 2:49:00 PM11/15/02
to
In article <kibo-15110...@ppp0c011.std.com>,

James "Kibo" Parry <ki...@world.std.com> wrote:

>it in slow motion and then he reminds me not to turn on the soap suds
>machine and then I turn on the soap suds machine. (It's just like the
>"Pull Rope To Drop Walls" segment of Bob Hope's worst movie, except
>that it ends with soap suds all over the place.)

...while Holst's "Mars, Bringer of War" blares, and Martin Landau looks
concerned.


--
elib...@panix.com http://www.panix.com/~elibalin/
"From Rangoon to Qatar...the haggis is piped in..."
-Smithsonian Magazine, March 2001

Rich Holmes

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 3:33:54 PM11/15/02
to
ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) writes:

> (It's just like the
> "Pull Rope To Drop Walls" segment of Bob Hope's worst movie, except
> that it ends with soap suds all over the place.)

I still think casting Bob Hope as "Hot Lips" was the biggest mistake
Robert Altman ever made.

--
- Doctroid Doctroid Holmes <http://www.richholmes.net/doctroid/>

Sewing buttons is just about the easiest thing you can do with a
needle and thread, aside from hurting yourself. -- Ben Wolfson

Matt McIrvin

unread,
Nov 16, 2002, 12:20:57 AM11/16/02
to
In article <kibo-15110...@ppp0c011.std.com>,

ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) wrote:

> Also, why won't Matt McIrvin write us "Stanley Kubrick's H.P.
> Strangelovecraft"?

Somebody called Proc already mentioned "H. P. Lovenstuff,"

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=378a8777.9406855%40news

so I restricted myself to doing a print crossover in which I misspelled
the Mad Arab's name, but so it goes:

http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/kibology/lovecraft.html

--
Matt McIrvin http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/

talysman

unread,
Nov 16, 2002, 1:51:27 AM11/16/02
to
Matt McIrvin <mmci...@world.std.com> writes:

> In article <kibo-15110...@ppp0c011.std.com>,
> ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) wrote:
>
> > Also, why won't Matt McIrvin write us "Stanley Kubrick's H.P.
> > Strangelovecraft"?
>
> Somebody called Proc already mentioned "H. P. Lovenstuff,"
>
> http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=378a8777.9406855%40news
>

I think he was really thinking of the B'na-hNa Splits.

David DeLaney

unread,
Nov 16, 2002, 9:44:08 AM11/16/02
to
talysman <taly...@globalsurrealism.com> wrote:
>ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) writes:
>> Does anyone else think it would be fun to get trapped in an elevator
>yes!
>> with Gary Gygax
>oh wait...
>> and ask him lots of questions about logical inconsistencies
>> in "Dungeons & Dragons"?

I can be Overbeared at work thanks, I don't need randomer strangers than
most to do it for me.

>or "Lejendary Adventures"?
>
>(I lie. I read some sample chapters and "explanations" of the Lejendary
>Adventures rules (his second game after being ejected from TSR) and
>it seemed completely incomprehensible, so I never bothered to buy it.)

I only bought the Mythus Magick book from it, because I collect alternative
magical systems, and I use it every so often as bedtime reading. (NO not like
that, but as material that is guaranteed to make me drop off to sleep in a
bit...)

>because gary gygax is actually quite a nice person, despite his penchant
>for superlugubrious elucidations and copious verbalisations of... stuff,
>he has avoided commenting on the movie in detail, other than to say it
>resembled something that came out of a horse's behind.

Well, I guess he does have his several good sides too...

>the funniest thing about the original brown-booklet D&D is still the
>part where the monster chart lists "% LIAR" as a column heading. from
>this chart, we can determine that skeletons and zombies always tell
>the truth, while nixies never do. too bad D&D was published after watergate!

That's not the funniest part; the funniest part is the Arduin Grimoire guy
picking that up directly out of the pamphlets for use in Grimoire, Arduin,
Volume I thereof, and not realizing what it was actually supposed to be.

>also, I confess that when I was 12 years old and got my first glimpse
>of the D&D monster chart, I thought "staff elementals" were courtly
>retainers made of earth, water, fire or air.

That's the fun part: they -can- be in your world!

>I am 11th level now! that means I can write my own scenarios!

Dave "tieflings to the stars" DeLaney

Stacia

unread,
Nov 17, 2002, 11:16:43 PM11/17/02
to
ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) writes:
>Pugg (pug...@hotmail.com) wrote:
>>
>> Kibo's spell-checker makes baby H.P. Lovecraft cry! Baby Gary Gygax,
>> too!

>Hey, you already made one followup to my article. Stop making two
>followups to my articles! Only I get to do that! I'll explain why
>in my two followups to this article.

>Does anyone else think it would be fun to get trapped in an elevator
>with Gary Gygax and ask him lots of questions about logical inconsistencies
>in "Dungeons & Dragons"? Especially if it's the crappy movie and not
>the board game? And has anyone else here actually played the board game
>version?

Several years ago the local Waldenbooks had a big pile of the remains of
three RPG board games, tied together with twine and marked down to $20.00.
We got the D&D board game, Dragon Strike WITH the nasty ass video, and a
third game which was so beat up the box was entirely missing. We figured
the parts would be good for the real RPG we played (GURPS).
The D&D board game didn't have a spinner like the one you saw, it had
dice, even a 20 sided, which you barely used. The game comes with
faux-lead Ral Partha figures and dumbed down D&D rules. Yahtzee is more
complex.
Dragon Strike was the sad attempt to challenge the Milton Bradley/Games
Workshop hybrid games which came out at Hmasses for several years in a
row, games like HeroQuest and Battle Masters, all of which I of course
own.
The video that came Dragon Strike the game features HyperReality!
Which is just painting fake aurae over all the characters. The acting is
so bad it's like watching porn, but without the sex, and without the plot.
Never figured out what the extra 3rd game we got was. Just had some
plastic dragons, a couple dice, and a map.

* * *
Stacia * sta...@world.std.com * http://world.std.com/~stacia/
"it's the department of explodiations, sir.
we've come to detonate your buttocks."

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