Few Americans know the fascinating meaning of the iconic ice cream brand’s name.
I usually wait until someone’s had a spoonful or two before casually asking “You know what Häagen-Dazs means, right?”
Some people will pause and give it lots of thought, as if they knew what it meant at one point and the memory is almost within grasp if the right synapse fires.
Others will fabulate an explanation, confidently asserting that Häagen-Dazs is German, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish or Icelandic. The umlaut conjures up something vaguely Nordic when removed from the context of heavy metal bands, which seem to be obsessed with sticking it on as many letters as possible.
“Did you see Ülträŝláügĥʻtër Dööm at Black MëtälFëst, dude? They rocked out!”
From their new album, “Umlauts of Eternal Rock,” now available wherever fine products are sold.
Some people will just shrug and fess up to ignorance.
Depending on how invested the person is, I might invent something absurd before revealing the truth.
“Yeah, it’s German for ‘the moment when frosted perfection settles amicably upon your tastebuds,’” because we all love how German has words for some of the most obscure situations and feelings.
But nothing beats the truth.
Häagen-Dazs means absolutely nothing. It’s nonsense.
The now-famous ice cream brand’s founder, a Polish immigrant named Reuben Mattus, made the word up when he launched the business in 1960. He slapped an umlaut on it and added a nonsensical “zs” to give it an exotic, vaguely Danish connotation.
People won’t pay a premium for just any ice cream, but toss an umlaut in the name and claim it’s Danish, and suddenly customers are paying $3 or $4 more for a tub half the size, convinced that the Danes must know something about ice cream because their country is cold.
Score one for branding ingenuity and deduct another point from the American education system!
Sincerely,
Your friends at Pàin In The Büd
What’s a completely useless fact you love sharing?
Witnesses described the harrowing encounter as a woman fell into the silver-furred Buddy exhibit at the Bronx Zoo this week.
NEW YORK – Corey Anderson couldn’t watch as the woman tumbled into the zoo habitat.
The Manhattan man had taken his kids to the zoo and the little ones were pointing excitedly at the silver-furred Buddy exhibit when a woman climbed the barrier to get a better look, slipped and fell into the enclosure with the tiny apex predator.
“I grabbed my kids, shielded their eyes and had just turned away,” Anderson recalled with a shudder. “The sounds…it was horrific. It sounded like an enraged Elmo demolishing a plate of wings.”
Smartphone footage shot by other guests confirmed the grisly sequence. The woman landed awkwardly but was apparently unhurt as she stood and began to dust herself off, unaware of the intimidating shadow creeping up on her from behind.
“Absolute mayhem,” is the way Franz Muller described it. “Die mächtige katze! Das grauen! I have never seen ankles bleed as much as I have on this day!”
After initially shocking the uninvited guest with a swipe at her bare skin, the silver-furred Buddy proferred a single paw as if expecting something from the woman, “but when it became clear she was empty-handed, the Buddy flew into a rage and launched himself at her lower extremities,” Muller said.
Zookeepers arrived quickly amid the screams of shocked guests and held up a vacuum in warning, the footage shows. When the silver-furred Buddy hissed but showed no signs of retreating, one of the zookeepers flipped the power switch.
“The Buddy stopped, hackles raised, then bolted for the safety of his den,” said another witness, Eleni Xanthopoulou.
The silver-furred Buddy with Lyle, center, and Sir Malcolm Murray, president of the zoo’s board of trustees.
The victim, a 32-year-old interior designer, was rushed to an emergency medical clinic, where she was treated for “multiple lacerations to the ankles, feet and lower legs,” police said.
Bronx Zoo Officials said the silver-furred Buddy would not be punished for the attack.
“He did nothing wrong,” head carnivore keeper Ferdinand Lyle said as he cradled the deadly cat. “He’s such a good boy. Who’s a good boy? You are, aren’t you? Yes, yes, a good boy!”
Cheesy Photoshops glorifying my egotistical feline overlord are fun!
Since hopping off the AI image bandwagon I’ve rediscovered the joys of crappy Photoshops and playing with typesetting. I took the photo yesterday and thought Bud looked pretty regal and majestic.
Here is Buddy transformed to Cosmic Tiger Buddy in all his glory with his name rendered in classic wildstyle, like something you might see on the L in the 90s Bronx…if someone were corny enough to choose Buddy as their tag.
(*) The second typeset is a modified font called Knotted Center, which may not score many points for legibility, but looks pretty cool in the proper context. The third typeset is a font called TrashBrutal.
David Mosley wanted attention and allegedly killed a cat on camera to promote his Satanist-themed music.
What to do when you want to be a famous music artist, but your tunes are abominably awful and your gimmick is infantile?
If you’re David Mosley, apparently you beg the internet to notice you exist by allegedly murdering a cat.
The 26-year-old Bronx man was initially gleeful after sharing video and photos showing a dead cat in his Fordham North hovel surrounded by candles and a bunch of nonsense, including the word “SATAN,” spray painted on the walls.
“You should have heard the little bih squeal lol,” Mosley wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of a bloodied and dead cat in his apartment.
“I’m the king, n—a,” Mosley said in a follow-up video after mocking people who were upset that he allegedly killed the cat. “I can reach through the camera and put spells on you like that! That easily! I hexed you through the phone, through the camera. Ya’ll know I do f—ing voodoo, so don’t even call me delusional.”
Mosley during a live stream, during which he claimed supernatural powers.
A relevant question here: who adopted a cat out to this guy? I went through what felt like a CIA-level background check when I first went to adopt, and this Satanist who thinks he’s a wizard apparently had no problem just waltzing into a shelter and walking out with a cat.
Apparently angry that no one turned up to the first “show” in his illustrious music career, Mosley said he was going to take things to the “next level” with another “sacrifice” on Halloween night. In his musical endeavors he called himself Church of Ububal, with the latter word a reverse spelling of “Labubu” in reference to the viral toys.
“Be there or be square,” he wrote, per a screenshot posted to Reddit. “Like I said at my first show and no one came. But you will be at this one. Grab popcorn.”
When he got the attention he wanted, but not the reaction he wanted, he backpedaled during a live stream, claiming he found the already-deceased feline.
By that point, furious Redditors in a Bronx subreddit had closed in on his identity and exact location, and were pestering the NYPD to grab Mosley.
“Y’all are soft for falling for cheap parlor tricks” Mosley said during the live stream.
Incredibly, Bronx criminal court Judge Harold E. Bahr let Mosley walk free without having to post bail after a preliminary hearing this week, and adjourned a hearing this week after Mosley’s original attorney was not present. It’s not clear if that attorney will continue to represent Mosley.
Bahr must be confused about which decade this is. Constituents should (politely) register their displeasure with his office. People from several local cat rescues have already done so.
“We want the judge to take this seriously. We cannot wait for another crime like this to happen,” local animal welfare activist Rachel Ejsmont told News12 Bronx.
Mosley was initially charged with criminal mischief and aggravated cruelty to animals at his Oct. 30 arraignment. Activists are pushing the district attorney for more serious charges.
The court hasn’t set a date for Mosley’s next hearing after the Nov. 12 adjournment. We hope the scrutiny and his mounting legal troubles dissuade him from trying to get attention through violence again.
Lastly, I usually keep my mouth shut about this sort of thing because I know emotions run high and most people are well-intentioned, but already there are grifters latching onto this incident and using it to beg for donations for their activism, which amounts to little more than grumbling about this stuff on social media.
Be careful about who you donate to and make sure you’re giving to registered organizations with financials listed on Charity Navigator or Charity Watch. Donate your hard-earned money to groups that really do make a difference, such as the Humane Society, SPCA and local rescues that do outstanding work, like New Jersey’s Tabby’s Place. A transparent, effective charity will feature its IRS Form 990 on its website and use at least 75 percent of its revenue from donations on program spending. Be wary of “influencers,” people who say outrageous things for attention, clicks and donations, and anyone who claims they have special access to, or influence over, authorities.
“Start spreadin’ the news, I’m leaving today! I want to be a part of it, New York, New York!”
A stunned NYC woman can’t believe her eyes as she watches a man casually munch on a dead rat, exclaiming in disbelief, “This is fucking unbelievable. Look at this sh*t.” 🇺🇸🐁 pic.twitter.com/HE7s4xuvRu
