Ali Hassan

There is a full size replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee (“Athens of the South”). In some ways it is more impressive than the original Parthenon. It is in much better condition than the original, for example. Also, inside there is a 42 foot staue of the goddess Athena. But perhaps the most extraordinary feature of Nashville’s Parthenon is that it is constructed entirely from Edam cheese.

You’d be surprised at the number of people who believe me when I tell them that. Teachers. Lawyers. Graduate students. It is of course ridiculous—the only sort of cheese suitable for exterior contruction work is Velveeta.

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Can anyone tell me if Geno’s and Pat’s are really serve the best cheesesteaks around. Are they really that much better than anywhere else, or am I placing too much trust in my Frommer’s guide? Is it possible to get a comparable sandwich without driving all the way to Philadelphia and queuing up?

This is Foamhenge, a replica of Stonehenge constructed entirely from styrofoam that is located on Route 11 in Natural Bridge, Virginia. I’ve never been to the original, so I can’t make any sort of comparison, but for me it was a surprisingly eerie place.

Unlike its prototype, there is no mystery as to how Foamhenge was constructed. According to the informational plaque at the bottom of the hill (the heelfoam?):

Foamhenge completed in six weeks using beaded styrofoam blocks weighing up to 420 lbs. Delivered on 4 tractor trailer trips from Winchester, VA 100 miles north. It took 4–5 Mexicans and one crazy man to construct.

I usually give a book one hundred pages before I give up on it and put it back on the shelf. But in the case of very long or very short books this rule has its limitations. To account for these cases, I have devised the following formula to determine the point where it is acceptable to give up:

(Where p is the number of pages, and RRP is the recommended retail price.)
For example, if you’ve been trying to read Blood Meridian (352 pp, $14.95) and have been finding it a little tiresome, you’d need to make it to page seventy-four before you could quit it legitimately.

I moved to Pennsylvania last weekend. I rented a truck from Budget to cart our stuff up from DC. The truck was to be returned to “Shurgard” at 126 Wilmington Pike. They sent me a nice little Mapquest map to show me where it was. I drove there. There was no Shurgard. I drove a mile down the road. Then back again. And then back up. I rang the number they gave me. The recorded message told me they weren’t answering. I asked a guy. He poiinted over the road and said, “Try Public Storage”. The guy at Public Storage took the truck off me. A friend pointed out that his business wasn’t called “Shurgard”, and wasn’t located at 126 Wilmington Pike. He said, “Yeah, they changed it.”