I couldn’t beleive it either so I made the ultimate sacrifice and started surfing Hooters’ website. Sure enough:

Today, Hooters of America, Inc. (H.O.A. Inc.) announced plans for H.O.I. Pvt. Ltd. to open up in major cities in India next year.

“Hooters is a strong and exciting brand name that has a very unique place in its industry offering a perfect atmosphere to have fun, relax with friends and enjoy great food. I am looking forward to the “recreation” of this dining atmosphere in India,” said Sunil Bedi, Managing Director of H.O.I. Pvt. Ltd.

Ummm. I think I am going to start taking bets right now on how long before somebody throws a brick through their windows. Any takers?

MRE stands for “Meals Ready to Eat.” This is what soldiers in battle zones survive on for weeks, even months at a time. They have a reputation for tasting like cardboard, and completely blah. Many times all you have to do is just add hot water. Although most people don’t realize it, MRE technology has come a long way since WWII. Not so long ago my office was above the lab where astronaut MREs are made, and let me tell you, I tried some great stuff. Now it seems that British soldiers will be getting chicken tikka masala as part of their battlefield rations:

An Army marches on its stomach and the British troops will soon have Indian curry, chicken balti and pulau rice on its ration instead of tinned cheese, stodgy casseroles and stale biscuits.

In the biggest change to the armed forces’ rations for 40 years, a new generation of meals are currently being tried out that are not only supposed to taste better, but embrace healthy eating as well, a spokesman of the Ministry of Defence has said.

Designed to last for up to three years in any climate, the new boil-in-the bag meals have been brought in by the ministry to try to calm discontent in the ranks over outdated menus, as well as complaints about the quality of British ration packs compared to the ones given in the US.

I’m not surprised. Indian food IS the most popular food in England. But won’t the soldiers need fennel seeds afterwards also?

In a cheeky act of reverse colonialism, Amrut distillery plans to sell its whisky in Scotland.

The whisky is made from barley grown in the Himalayan foothills and is malted in Delhi and Jaipur…. distilled in Bangalore, then matured for three years in American oak casks.

I loved this little blurb about the way the US vs. Canadian press covered the Games –

My dad once told me a story of which I don’t remember all the details now. It was probably from the ’84 games. An American was favored to win a race and didn’t, he came in second. A huge disappointment. The press ran up, immediately asking how he felt and how disappointed he was. In the same race was a Canadian athlete who finished last. The Canadian press rushed up to him as asked ‘You just achieved a personnel best at the Olympic games? How great does that feel?”

Bravo. Someone oughta teach this reporter a bit about sportsmanship – Indian sailors finish last again – Sify.com.

The Indian sailing duo of Malav Shroff and Sumeet Patel came up with yet another disastrous show to finish at the bottom of the table in the Mixed Open Double-handed Dinghy-49er Races in the 28th Olympic games on Monday.

The US-based Indians, Malav being the skipper and Sumeet the crew, proved no match at all at the highest level of competition at the Agios Kosmas Olympic Sailing Centre and they have been struggling to keep their head above water since race one.

With four more races to go in the 16-race event, the Indians, who came here with a wild card entry, simply stand nowhere and they would have to come up with spirited performance to leave Athens with their pride intact.

Sheesh.