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I’ll be the first to admit that I go near-ballistic where cigarettes are concerned, from sprinting by smokers on a sidewalk to springing up to turn our window fan to exhaust mode. But, rude though I may be, I’m not as bad as the AMA. An R rating for smoking? Even when the smoker is an evil character, or when a would-be teen smoker lights up and doubles over coughing? What about random guy in the background on a busy street scene? How the hell are filmmakers going to deal with that?

Unfortunately, I have a guess, and it doesn’t involve parental permission cards. If this rating-system change does happen, the industry will know that any film involving smoking has no chance of hitting the PG-13 sweet spot for audience draw. Rather than making something like Forrest Gump inauthentic by leaving out the ubiquitious Vietnam cigarettes, they will instead add footage and sound that they may have held back on before, simply because they have that freedom under the measure. We will see films that are more violent and more full of sex and cursing where there is no cause for it, because there is nothing to lose. Imagine biographical movies about well-known smokers–Churchill, FDR, Einstein–done by John Woo, and you’ll have an idea what we’d be in for.

Now think of all the foreign films we import. Continue reading →

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Today’s pathetic recipe:

*******
APPLE YOGURT

2 c fruit-flavored yogurt
4 apples, cored and sliced

Spoon yogurt into 4 serving bowls and top with apple slices. Serve chilled. Serves 4.
*******

Now let’s look at just how craptastic this is. First off, it’s labeled a dessert. Secondly, 4 apples?? Unless we’re talking miniature Galas off your tree, this is not only difficult to spoon up but also way too much fruit for the yogurt. Laying the slices on top would overflow the dish and completely obscure the yogurt. I suppose one could arrange the slices standing up in a flower pattern and use the yogurt as dip, but why serve that chilled? Thirdly, this is the second recipe in the calendar for basically the same thing; the first one was with orange yogurt and tangerines. However, put some orange blossom honey (and possibly a little finely chopped candied ginger) on that and you’ve got something slightly resembling dessert. For this one to fly, you’d need to use Yoplait Whips (or a similar product) and some caramel sauce. Oh, and half the apples.

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I have a page-a-day calendar at work called “The Quick Cook.” It advertises itself as containing a variety of recipes with low prep time and uncomplicated ingredients. After five months of it, I think I know what their sourcebooks were:

  • Desserts Kids Will Hate
  • The Dijon Mustard Council Cookbook
  • Imitation International Cooking
  • Midwestern Weirdos’ Aid Society Cookbook, 1967 edition
  • I Can’t Believe They’re Vegetables
  • White Trash Family Favorites
  • The Precooked Seafood Association Cookbook
  • Quick Country French Cooking

There are a few gems of the actually good kind, like an actual workable recipe for avgolemono soup and one for panzanella, but otherwise it’s less hit than miss. Continue reading →

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Maybe it’s egotistical to keep a list of who you would want to play your characters in a visual media production, but I do it. Some characters started out looking like celebrities; others grew into them. Sometimes I’ll see a star I’ve never seen before and think they look familiar, and a second later it’ll hit me that they’ve lived in my head for lo these many years.

So I’ve got this running tally. Last night, I added one to it and another character–there’s no other way to describe it–got jealous. Continue reading →

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On the way to work, Kelson and I often end up pacing a red Mustang with license plate letters ZAR. This would be very cool if I could find something to go with it, but so far I’ve had no luck. This is partly because there are so few choices of matching plates and partly because commuter traffic tends to have the same cars going to the same place at the same time every day. It’s also partly because the black generic small car with letters TMN that takes our route is in the batch of cars on the road about 15 minutes before the Mustang.

There is hope, though. Until yesterday, I’d never seen ZAR on the way home. Now I know that it’s on the road again between 5:30 and 6 pm, and it follows the same route we do for about half our trip. This could be cool…..though it remains to be seen whether I’ll be able to get the camera out in time should the need arise.

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Just imagine……

Trakand Leadership Services
Aybara Industries
Al’Thor Wrecking, Inc.
Al’Vere Management Consultants
Al’Meara General Hospital (and the Flinn Specialty Clinic)
Mandragoran Security Personnel
Kinderode, Mosalaine & Larisett, Attorneys at Law
Telamon Landscaping, Ltd.
Farshaw Vocational Consulting (“Be all you’re gonna be!”)
Mervin’s of Cairhien

and many more……