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Catching a duck is a very entertaining folk game in the festive life of Hanoi people. If you go to festivals in Hanoi in the days after the Lunar New Year, you will probably have the opportunity to participate in this game. https://hanoidiscover.com/

Reminds me of our local county fair chicken drop contest.

Do you have lots of Thanksgiving leftovers? The Mad Mex in Pennsylvania is at it again with a Thanksgiving favorite: The Gobblerito. I made my own version last year with my Thanksgiving leftovers, and it was great. It looks like they have tweaked it a little by making them square and flat.

It seems like they’re still made of turkey, corn, black beans, stuffing, and the wrapped in a burrito and smothered with gravy with a dollop of cranberry. I can confirm they are Mmmm delicious!

If you can’t make it to Medieval Times, maybe try Tournament of Kings at Excalibur in Vegas.

If that’s too tame, perhaps check out one of the growing Medieval MMA tourneys?

Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine – “If you see me, then weep”

Inscription on a rock in the Elbe River near the northern Czech town of Děčín, close to the German border

Not only is Europe battling astronomical fuel prices, but also one of the worst droughts in almost 500 years. How bad? Historically bad – and we know because it’s literally written in stone.

Water levels are at their lowest in decades – and rocks are appearing from under the shoreline with grim and frightening inscriptions. These rocks inscribed with dates and warnings even have names. They’re called Hungerstein or Hunger Stones. These stones were embedded into a river during droughts to mark the water level as a warning to future generations that they will have to endure famine-related hardships if the water sinks to this level again.

The earliest readable year on the Děčín stone is 1616. Traces of inscriptions relating to much earlier droughts, including 1417 and 1473, have been largely eroded over time. Ten later dry years, between 1707 and 1893, are also recorded. Most hunger stones are found on the Elbe, which flows from the north of what is now the Czech Republic through former Bohemia and then Germany before reaching the North Sea near Hamburg. Others appear on the Rhine, Danube and Moselle.

Links:

• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/19/hunger-stones-wrecks-and-bones-europe-drought-brings-past-to-surface

Le Petit Chef brings projection mapping to your plate! I first ran into projection mapped dinners when I was at Inamo in London. One of the best aspects of Inamo wasn’t so much the projection mapping on the plate that showed their different dishes – but the fact you could order more food, drink refills, and even hail a cab and see a livestream of the front door cam to know when it arrived – all from the interface and without having to call over a waiter. Just make your selection on the simple table interface and a runner would bring you whatever you wanted. THAT was a fabulous dining experience.

Saudi Arabia is planning to construct a mirrored building that will be 656 feet wide, 1,640 feet tall, and 105 miles long. It’s called The Line. It will house 9 million people in a eco-friendly paradise. It’s part of a $500 billion Saudi building project called NEOM being plaanned in the country’s Tabuk Province. It’s become a controversial initiative from the start because around 20,000 people will be forced to relocate by its construction – along with the unknown environmental impact of such a structure.

It’s remains to be seen if it will even get off the ground or will end up like many of the other utopian-like efforts that have gone south in Dubai.

Tens of thousands of people arrive at the coastal city of Durban South Africa for the annual Durban July – Africa’s biggest horse-racing and fashion event. Much like the pomp surrounding the Kentucky Derby, Durban also turns into an impromptu fashion show.