Uh-Oh, Two New Os

SpaghettiOs are 25 years old this year, and if all the empty cans from all the SpaghettiOs ever eaten had been saved and stacked up very carefully, they could reach the moon (says the Campbell’s Soup Company, which in point of fact has no experience in the aerospace field). To celebrate, Campbell’s is introducing its sixth and seventh variations on the theme of spoon-sized pastas for young eaters: TeddyOs, shaped like teddy bears, and SportyOs, shaped like skateboards, roller skates and bicycles.

Oh Boy, Two Old Handles

In what sounds suspiciously like the Coke Classic marketing strategy all over again, Popsicle is bringing back the two-handled Twin Pop it took off the market in 1986. Learned your lesson, eh?

Third Giblet’s the Charm

Foster Farms has started marketing a caldo de pollo package at Tianguis stores among others. To provide the traditional mixture of chicken parts for this Mexican stew, each package contains three legs, three wings, three backs, three necks and three sets of giblets.

Brother Adam’s Mite

Acarapis woodi is an extremely homely microscopic mite that infects honey bees’ breathing tubes and often kills 80% of a hive. Its days may be numbered, though. Last month the USDA received 15 queen bees specially bred for mite resistance by Brother Adam, the 90-year-old English beekeeping monk of Buckfastleigh Abbey. If breeding with American bees goes well, two or three years from now resistant bees will be available to beekeepers.

The Fools, the Blind Fools

Thousands of Mexican squid, lured north by unusually warm waters and unable to find parking places, were stranded on Orange County beaches Aug. 2.

You’re on Captious Camera

Who wants to be a fruit and vegetable grader in the ‘90s? Not enough people, and more and more fruits and vegetables are having to go to the supermarkets shamefully ungraded. To remedy the situation Dr. C.T. Morrow, a Penn State professor of Agricultural Engineering, has developed a system for automated grading: Two TV cameras shoot the produce and a computer program automatically recognizes and comments on every little flaw.

The Latest Fad: Milk

Milk has become a prestige drink in Asia, symbolizing even better than Coke or coffee the new values of a consumer society. Middle class people in Japan, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines are eagerly taking up the protein-rich fluid as they turn their backs on the high-fiber, low-fat diet their ancestors ate because they had no choice. The government of Thailand is actively encouraging local dairy farming to reduce dependency on imported milk.

Pasadena: Where Pies Go to Heaven

“Why is everybody buying pie tonight?” asked the cashier in a Pasadena pie shop Sunday night. “One lady ordered a cherry and a berry pie!” Didn’t she know that ABC was re-running the first episode of “Twin Peaks” with its pie-loving FBI agent Dale Cooper?

“Oh,” she said. “I never saw that show.” Thus does the unseen affect our lives.