Trends for July 16, 2001

Lisa Ferguson

Monday, July 16, 2001 | 8:29 a.m.

Lights out

Summertime and the livin's easy unless, of course, you live someplace where rolling power blackouts have become common place.

Then you can forget about air conditioning. And TV. And the Internet. And don't open the refrigerator if you don't have to.

The next time you find yourself sweltering in the dark it might be a good time to break out some cards not the playing variety, but the collectible kind. Fittingly, speciality publisher industcards has produced sets of trading cards featuring power plants from around the globe.

Southern Nevada's Hoover Dam was included in the five-card set, released in June, of several of the world's largest hydroelectric plants. The flip sides of these picture cards list facts and figures about the plant.

Did you know that at commercial operation, the Ertan plan in China was "the largest hydroelectric plant in Asia? Didn't think so.

Also, the Itaipu plant is on the Rio Parana, "north of the Friendship Bridge linking Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, and Ciudad del Este, Paraguay."

Think about that the next time you forget to turn the lights off when you leave a room.

For more information about the cards, visit industcards.com.

Cool month

Nothing hits the spot during a power blackout like ice cream. (Granted, it's probably going to be a little mushy, but it'll still taste good, right?)

July is National Ice Cream Month, so designated in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan, according to the International Dairy Foods Association's website (idfa.org).

But you've missed National Ice Cream Day that was Sunday (or was it Sundae?)

In any case, the IDFA reports that last year 1.4 billion gallons of ice cream (and related frozen desserts) were produced in the United States. That translates to 20.25 quarts per person.

What flavors did people chow down on? The most popular were plain old vanilla, followed by chocolate, followed by something called "vanilla/chocolate"(for ambiguous folks, we suppose) and fruit flavors.

Pain in the head

Be careful: We all know what happens when you eat ice cream too fast you get one of those nasty ice cream headaches.

Calm down those pounders hurt like nobody's business, but usually don't require medical attention.

That's not the case with all headaches, however, and the National Headache Foundation in Chicago wants to spread the word about when headaches really are serious.

In the style of comedian Jeff Foxworthy's "You Might Be a Redneck if ..."routine, we present the following tips: