ESPN recently gathered a complete list of health inspection summaries from 2009 for the pro sports ballparks around the US and Canada. The reports are, to put it mildly, nauseating. While my home state of Massachusetts made a decent showing (just 4% of vendors at Fenway Park had critical violations, while none at Gillette Stadium did), other places were much more disgusting.

Take New York, starting with the brand-new Citi Field, home of the Mets:

Citi Field
New York Mets
Vendors with critical violations: 45%
Inspection report excerpt: Inspectors found 20 pounds of grilled chicken registered at 70 degrees in a refrigerator, about 30 degrees warmer than allowed.

How does something in a refrigerator get to 70 degrees? That's room temperature – was the fridge even plugged in?

The Yankees also had a brand-new stadium in 2009, but apparently, it's being overrun by fruit flies:

Yankee Stadium
New York Yankees
Vendors with critical violations: 48%
Inspection report excerpt: Five hot dogs registered 91 degrees in a hot-holding unit when they were supposed to be no cooler than 140. Inspectors also had a vendor dump a bottle of Chivas Regal whiskey containing dead fruit flies.

Whatever you do, don't buy food at a stadium in Florida. Of their 8 venues, not a single one had fewer than 67% of vendors with critical violations. The hellhole that is Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, had 100% of vendors with critical violations.

If you're looking for more to be disgusted about, here's a sampling of some of the foulest notes:

• At one bar, inspectors found phorid flies, sometimes called coffin flies, in a bottle of cognac.

• In one of the arena's higher-end clubs, inspectors found a live cockroach on top of a soda dispenser holster behind the bar.

• Inspectors saw an employee scraping food debris from a spatula using the trash bin and then trying to continue using the same spatula without cleaning it.

• In June 2009, an employee complained anonymously that small insects and other debris were blended into frozen alcoholic beverages at a stand where equipment wasn't being cleaned. When inspectors checked, they issued a critical violation for a buildup of slime inside the frozen drinks machine.

Ultimately, even the good news is iffy at best, like this note from Anaheim:

"Most recent inspection reports show improvements on rat-related violations that occurred in prior visits."

Yes, head on down to Angels Stadium – now with fewer rats!

Mockery of Taco Bell is not a new thing here on OFT. The Drive-Thru Diet was laughed about back in January and the absurd response to the passing of Taco Bell founder Glen Bell was chronicled in February. If there's a good joke to be made at the expense of Taco Bell, I won't hesitate.

The current front page of Taco Bell's website, however, leaves little room for additional comedy:

"It's not food. It's fourthmeal."

Taco Bell, you are deserving of praise for your honest and forthright marketing¹. This ad isn't actually revealing anything to the general public, of course, as we all knew this. We just didn't know that you knew.

Footnotes:

1. Lest you think the above image has been doctored, I've grabbed a full screenshot of their front page from the early morning on July 27, 2010.   ↩

While visiting Hawaii, you may find yourself waiting for your bags to be unloaded from the plane. In the baggage claim area of Honolulu International Airport, you can find a helpful terminal provided by United, for determining which baggage carousel will be used by any of their flights. Very handy.

If you happen to be waiting for a friend's flight, however, and you punch in his name prior to his flight's arrival, the response is a bit stranger:

• Per our records your flight has not yet landed. We request you to kindly wait for your flight. Thank you for flying United.

Wonderful.

In part 1 of this guide to visiting Hawaii, you learned about getting lei'd, Hawaii's vowel shortage, and their currency exchange rate. Today, we'll discuss evolution, as well as a few of the sites you may wish to see on your visit.

As it's so different from the rest of the world, Hawaii abounds in science. At Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island, you can learn about the peculiar turns evolution took due to the islands' isolation. For example, raspberries were not heavily eaten by animals in Hawaii, and thus had no need for defensive traits. Because of this, Hawaiian raspberry plants never developed deterring thorns. As well, mints in Hawaii lost their characteristic and protective 'minty' flavor, meaning Hawaiian mojitos are simply awful.

If you wish to explore the underwater world, snorkeling at Hanauma Bay on Oahu is a great option. Hanauma is Hawaiian for "sheltered bay", which means this is actually "Sheltered Bay Bay". That's funny in print, but even funnier if you say it aloud. Listen to you, sounding all British-y!

You can also relax on dozens of fantastic beaches in Hawaii, in all the colors of the rainbow. Well, some of the colors of the rainbow. Specifically, red and green. And some colors that aren't in the rainbow, like the traditional sand, and also black. So there are four beach colors in total. Still, that's a lot more beach colors than most places!

Hawaii also has many historic sites, but don't be fooled by imposters. When driving past the sign for the "Mark Twain Monkey Pod Tree" on the Big Island, I opted not to stop, because those are just common English words strung together to form gibberish. Supposedly, this is the site of a "monkey pod tree" American author Mark Twain planted well over a century ago. This is, of course, complete and utter nonsense. Monkeys do not come from pods, and like money, they do not grow on trees.

Speaking of Mark Twain, however, he was incorrect when he said "Buy land, they're not making it anymore". In Hawaii they are making more land. It's an incredibly slow process though, so I suppose his point is still well-taken. Nevertheless, my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids are going to be awfully grateful I had the foresight to buy that timeshare on the currently-forming ninth island of Hawaii.

There's plenty more to know about visiting Hawaii, but like flying a plane, it's best learned by just throwing away the books and getting out there to do it on your own. The information in this guide has given you the essentials for your visit, so now you're ready to have some fun.

Finally, since part 1 of this guide, I did some more research on Dick Cheney. It turns out he's had several heart attacks, five, in fact. It seems possible his health problems may actually be related to a lifetime spent pumping hatred and greed through his own veins, instead of the travel plans of random strangers. I'm going to need to run some more tests, and possibly travel to Hawaii again, but I'll be sure to report back with any conclusions.