Greg Hunt's Blog

I stopped by the grocery store after work today and as I was leaving the parking lot I passed the International House of Pancakes, otherwise known as IHOP. It's a wonderful restaurant, to be sure, but tonight I laughed out loud at its lit sign. A few letters had burned out and those that were left read: Internat Use of Pancakes.

At first glance I misread the words as Internet Use of Pancakes and that's what made me laugh out loud. What possible use could pancakes have on the internet? And then I got to thinking about the possibilities.

• Since pancakes or pancake-like food items are part of just about every culture on Earth, we could use pancakes as the international currency for trade on the internet instead of money. When someone sells something on EBay people would pay in pancakes instead of cash. The buyer would send the appropriate number of pancakes in payment and the seller would send the goods that were purchased.
  
  The seller would get a cool surprise when they received payment because they wouldn't know if they were getting traditional buttermilk pancakes, blueberry pancakes, tortillas, or some tasty Indian flatbread.

• Since internet gambling isn't legal in every state, folks could gamble with pancakes instead of money and then it would be legal. I can just hear the betting now - "I see your two buttermilk pancakes and raise you one banana and walnut pancake."

• Movie ratings posted on the internet could be rated by the number of pancakes a movie earns. A one pancake movie wouldn't be very good while a five pancake movie would be top notch! Yum!

• And then there's the picture below that I've seen in several discussion threads on some forums. It's used when someone has no idea what the discussion is about. I think it's very funny.
  

  This is actually a picture of a real bunny named Oolong who lived in Japan with his owner. The owner, a rabbit lover, discovered Oolong had the amazing ability to balance things on his head so the owner began taking pictures of Oolong's adventures. This one picture of Oolong with a pancake on his head got widely circulated around the internet for some reason, then someone stuck the captions on it and Oolong became a celebrity.
  
  You can check out this English description of Oolong's story and visit the owner's website to see more pictures of Oolong and the owner's new bunny, Yuebing. Please note this webpage is in Japanese.