The Official French Fries Pages
Contest Winners
April, 1999

The question for the April, 1999, contest was:

Tell us the 23rd best thing to do with French Fries.

We got a lot more answers this month.

As in each contest, it was easy to rule out a few entries from people who didn't read or follow the rules. Not even the simple rules. Like "Only one entry per person" or "Don't answer the special question wrong."

Jordan who doesn't have a last name from Yakima, Washington, didn't bother to fill in the answer at all. No dice, Jordan. You gotta play to win.

Dave E. from USA wrote ideas like "French Fry Moisturizer", "French Fry Dress", "French Fry Potato's [sic]" and other such similar things. Just like that. And submitted it twice. We need to know how you would make a dress OR moisturiser out of French Fries.

Scott K of USA (don't people know where they live?) answered the Germany question incorrectly but may be forgiven since he's in the 5th grade. However, he dutifully summarised the original 22 Things and placed his entry following that. While "pick your nose boogers" is certainly humour of a sort, it didn't quite match the style of the OFFP. Sorry Scott.

Jenny J. wrote that she doesn't know what her address is, and thinks one could "randomly throw them at your enemy and run." Huh? Why would you waste good French Fries? And anyway, anyone throwing French Fries at us will quickly become a friend so there'd be no need to run. The projectile theme was also favoured by Kim P., of Martinsville, Indiana.

Christi K. of Jonesboro, Indiana, needs to FIX HER CAP LOCK KEY and answered the wrong contest, telling us how she always eats French Fries.

Ella A. of London, England thinks covering them with cranberry ketchup and sticking them in our ears would be a novel use, but we're not sure what purpose that would serve and frankly, we're afraid to ask.

Themes:

Different people in different parts of the world will often come up with the same (or similar) idea. This contest had a few.

Annie McC. of Centerville, Ohio, and Nancy no-last-name of Brant, New York, thought they'd make good skis or fireplace logs for Barbie and her home.

Andy L. of Burlington, Vermont, and Nicki no-last-name of Waretown, New Jersey, both thought of letting a couple French Fries hang out of your mouths. Size matters -- Andy thought of being a French Fry Dracula while Nicki went for extra-super-long and said walrus. The problem is French Fries are so good you wouldn't be able to let them hang out of your mouth for more than a few seconds before devouring them.

A few people thought French Fries would make good model-building material, including Pat G. of Augustine, Florida, Jack K. of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada and Barry McC of Kettering, Ohio. So what's wrong with real Lincoln Logs?

Scary:

We are used to getting very strange mail and now the contests are beginning to frighten us. Sarah no-last-name of Cupertino, California, said to put them in the fridge and eat them the next morning. Eeeeeewwwww! Anyway the contest was for something to do besides eating them.

We cannot advocate violence on this site. So we can't pick Gary S. of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, who thinks they'd make great torture devices when inserted into someone's nose á la A Fish Called Wanda.

Mary C. of Decatur, Illinois, thought of pest control in a Rube Goldberg sort of way and wrote, "French Fries cand be used for pest control. Simply drop a 5# bag of French Fries on the floor. Early the next morning, before the sun comes up, any ants crickets, roaches etc will be feast ing on this extradordinary delicacy. Suggest you prance on the the French Fries for a minmium of two minutes before sweeping up!!" Linda D.'s solution (from Wilmington, North Carolina) was to simply use them in mousetraps. We're betting that neither Mary nor Linda is a Hindu, but at least the pests would have a great last meal.

Debra G. of Winter Park, Florida, probably watches too much South Park and may be a friend of Ella A. She thinks that one could use French Fries to become a human Mr. Potrato Head. If Deb had stopped at "moustache" instead of adding the WWII reference, there might have been a chance.

We can't give an honourable mention to Lura W. of Knoxville, TN, because there's no need to French Fry fight (like snowball fighting, only with ketchup and French Fries) with her brother.

So who won?

Good question. We had an even harder time answering this. We originally thought maybe a dozen people a month might enter the contest. Hah! The decision took two judges quite a bit of time and arguing and one of the judges now has to sleep on the sofabed for a week. But the contest has been judged and here are the results:

Here now are the winners of the March Contest:

The assorment (27367 bytes)

First prize goes to Olca of Shanghai, China

You can use [French Fries] as dummies [pacifiers] for babies to get them to be quiet for at least a few minutes.

We were really surprised to get an entry all the way from China and we feel bad because we don't know if we can actually send the ketchup to China due to mailing restrictions but we will try. This entry made each judge laugh out loud immediately and was the clear winner.

And once again, there are four Runners up, not three:

Tammy Strickland of Baltimore, Maryland (Cranberry Ketchup)

Small fries can be used as an edible bridge over a moat in an ant farm.

Ant farms are cool. Maybe someone can do a Web site all about ant farms. Unfortunately, it won't be us.

Lynette O'Brien of Anaheim, California (Roasted Red Pepper Ketchup)

French Fries scattered on plain white paper for a few minutes will create novel personalised gift wrap.

Will Lynette get her own show like her namesake Ms. Jennings? With more ideas like this it's a safe bet!

Steven Gibson of Wellington, New Zealand (Roasted Garlic Ketchup)

If you had several different types and sizes of French Fries (e.g. waffle, steak, etc.) and some paint and canvas you could paint a "nouveau art" style painting and sell it for millions of French Fries.

And we thought only New York "artists" came up with ideas like this. Honestly, we expected a Kiwi to write something like "alternate, economical needle for Maori pattern tattoos" or something like that.

Laura Bandoli of Davis, Illinois (Roasted Garlic Ketchup)

French Fries make great hair pieces for special dates like prom, and if your cheap date who didn't take you out to eat gets hungry during a slow song, he can just lean into your hair and have a snack. (Not to mention, who doesn't love how French Fries smell?)

We should've thought of this one a few years back. It sounds like Laura's prom was a memorable experience but for the wrong reasons. Maybe the Roasted garlic Ketchup will help ease any sad memories.

Honourable mentions (but unfortunately no ketchup) go to quite a few people this time, including two of our past winners (well.. runners-up, anyway): Alex West of Hebron, CT; Joyce Falk of Columbus, OH; Donn Kelly Sr. of somewhere in the USA; and LaDonna Huckaby of Bonaire, GA, who would use French Fries and tasty ketchup as a bribe to get her daughter to clean her room. Would that the parents of the judges had such an idea some years earlier...

Matt Hurley of Hanson, Massachusetts

"Conduct an orchestra with them."

A French Fry Baton? You'd need a really long one and a conductor who promises not to eat it.

 

Laura Busenlehner of Bryan, Texas

"Use the extremely crispy "shorts" to prop open your eyes during your early morning quantum physics class after a long night of partying. (WARNING! Do NOT use salted fries!!)"

It sounds like Laura feels like Schrödinger's Cat. Are French Fries quantum? Could they be?

 

Jo No-Last-Name of Olympia, Washington

"Lay them out and play tic tac toe with them...eat them after you win."

 

Sean Wood of Charlotte, North Carolina

"Instead of spending alot of money to go out and buy a toy airplane/glider make one out of french fries stuck together with toothpicks or glue."

Glue? Would you use a large Steak Fry for the wings?

 

Denise Moskovitz of Skokie, Illinois

"Use them as the corsages and buttoniers for your wedding. Everyone can try to catch the bride's bouquet -- and a tasty snack -- at the same time."

Should the bride wear a French Fry garter so the men can try to catch some French Fries, too?
Private note to Denise: Poutine-inspired homesickness is only a little sad.

 

Timothy Hodges of Oakton, Virginia

"There are certain obvious ingredients to a spud car. Giant hollowed out potato chasis, tater tot wheels, and tater skins containing mashed potatoes for seats. Where the real genius comes in is those long skinny fries for windshield wipers! They would get soggy, unless you drive in condiment world, in which case they deftly wipe away the ketchup rain from your translucently thin potato chip windshield. Oh, and curly fries make decent cupholders."

A spud car???

 

French Fry Steve of Manassas, Virginia

Steve had a long entry about a French Fry version of the Jenga tower game.

Note to Steve: Most kitchen shops have potato cutters for thick fries, and an apple slicer makes nice wedges fro thick steak fries; you can halve or quarter the core cylinder so you don't waste anything.

And finally...

Caroline Flynn of Fairfax, Virginia

"Use them as betting chips while playing poker, instead of using real money."

"Chips" as chips -- we love it! The short ones would have to be the low value "chips" though or people would get very rich nibbling the long ones down.

 

We want to thank everyone who submitted an entry (even the ones we teased). It's not much of a contest if there aren't any entries, and this was at least as amusing for us as it was for you. Feel free to enter future contests.

By the way, everybody who entered got the Germany question right (or checked the box that said Not Applicable). We were pleased to see that people take such interest in foreign affairs.

he Official French Fries Pages states for the record that we are solely responsible for this silly contest and probably deserve any problems we have as a result. Unless you mean "probably deserve" in a strictly legal sense, in which case we plead Not Guilty of whatever the charge is and plan to use ignorance and anything else we can come up with as our mitigation. Actually, we only thought of this disclaimer at the last minute and even then had to write it without the luxury of a boilerplate or legal counsel.

The maker of the ketchup, Califrance, is only involved in this contest inasmuch as it is providing the prizes and paying for the shipping. It has no authority or control of the contest nor of the content of any pages on this Web site. None. It's our site. And in case you're wondering, no, we didn't "kiss up" to them by writing a great review just to get free ketchup.

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