The Great International Baking Show

photo-1525678642543-94522bc9fdb2

 

It was a beautiful misty day in the U.K. The morning rain was getting lighter and keeping the air moist. “Misting” as we say back where I’m from. I had landed a spot on The Great International Baking Show, a pilot episode of a new program, so I was in the tent with my apron tied up all tight and my baking brain all ready for the day. They told us three days each week baking a variety of goods. They told us not to be shy of the cameras, just to face front and keep our chins up. I said, “Superb, guvnuh! Let’s go!” So they fired up the ovens and cranked up the cameras. We were given our first task. I heard Mel and Sue say it perfectly clear, “Make as many cookies as you like in the time given.” I mixed up some general dough faster than fast and modified it a bit to make chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, anise drops, frosted sugar cookies, and some hermits.

While I’m baking I like to listen to some music, so I lined up some great surf songs. I had Dracula from Houston, Surfin USA (Summer Mix), Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf), Make Mayan a Hawaiian, and The Jetty. I figured everyone around me would enjoy Surfin USA (Summer Mix) since those boys are straight out of Scotland.

Pretty soon I was cranking out the cookies. They paraded two people up in front of us and told us they were the judges, a Paul and Mary duo. They looked nice enough to me. The Mary character said, “Where’s the music coming from?” And I said, “Don’t judge me now, I’m not finished!” So they took her and the Paul character away, and I completed my plethora of cookies at the ding of the timer. I took them all out and started lining them up to cool when the camera crew came over and told me I couldn’t be done yet because they hadn’t filmed me doing anything. I said, “Who gives a rat’s, uh, I mean, sorry, I’m really trying to clean up my English, I can’t exactly start over. Once I’m done—I’m done. You want me to pretend to stir something?” They just shook their heads and started walking away, so I stopped them in their tracks and said, “Hold on, you haven’t sampled the wares yet. Have a cookie.” They started in on the hermits, and I had to stop them, “Actually, don’t eat those; they’ll be better tomorrow. Have an oatmeal.” They took my advice and loved the oatmeal cookies enough to have seconds. Anyway, long story short, after I pleased the entire camera crew with my delectables, I gave some to the other contestants, as well as Mel and Sue (those are some funny ladies, by the way, I love their humor, I mean humour).

Pretty soon everyone else was done with whatever they were making, it wasn’t cookies, and the judges came back out. They introduced themselves this time, as if we might have forgotten in the few minutes since they were gone. Mary once again asked, “Where’s the music coming from?” And I said, “Oh yeah, sorry, I got it.” And I turned it off so we could all hear what they were saying. Then Mary said, “Well, since you’re in my focus, why don’t you be the first to bring up your petit fours?” And of course I said, “Sure, if that’s what we’re calling them now.” I lugged up my tray of cookies which was considerably lighter since everyone helped me thin out the herd, if you know what I mean. I brought them up to the judges and they looked at the cookies that were left: the anise drops. You really have to love that licorice flavor to enjoy the anise drops. Paul said, “They smell delicious, but they don’t look like petit fours at all.” I said, “You can eat all you want though, none of the camera crew put their fingerprints on those.” He gave Mary a look that seemed to have a subdued scorn in it. I figured it was some sort of European tradition, so I gave Mary the same look. She glowered back at me. No words were exchanged.

While they were both stewing over something, I figured it was my chance to test my own poison. I snatched up one of the anise drops and chomped down on it. “Whew!” I said, “I guess I should have used the actual anise extract instead of Jagermeister.” Both judges gave me a surprised look and started chowing down like it was the first plate of cookies they’d ever seen. In between bites, Paul said something like, “This is why we asked for petit fo—om nomp chomp.” I didn’t know it at the time, but Sue explained to me later that the two judges had a love of Jagermeister that predated the company. If I had known, I guess I wouldn’t have made those particular morsels. If I had known those two were trying to kick the habit, I might have been more cautious, and I wouldn’t have been kicked off the show on the first day. I learned later that they decided not to open the show to international bakers, and they decided to change the name to something else.

More Transformers

photo-1545548226-5fce973bef90

Photo by Arseny Tugolev

After reading a rather well-written review* of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I realized a few things. First thought, it was after that movie when lots of dudes started in with the disrespect of Shia LeBeouf. My opinion on those guys is they were just jealous that he was in, not one but, two movies with Megan Fox (then, of course, by the time the third movie was released, their jealousy must have escalated sevenfold).

I remember when the first Transformers movie came out, a lot of dudes were celebrating Shia. They were impressed by him getting the lead role. What could they have possibly thought was going to happen in the second movie? Did these dissin’ dudes think that Shia would be replaced? Did they honestly think that the role would be given to some never-tried-acting dude like themselves?

Second thought, the movie was as plotless as the review said. The movie rumbles through a couple of hours of explosions. It stumbles through some poorly-timed and poorly-executed jokes. A lot of the camera-work is messy, disjointed, amateurish. However, and this is a big however, you have to take in to account the demographic and the source material.

The original cartoons were fairly plotless. Giant robots did battle with each other. That was the main point of the plot. The demographic target for the cartoons, and the movies, are your average everyday boy. Not really the most picky section of society. They like robots. They like explosions. Plot lines are way down on the list of priorities.

As for the claim that Revenge of the Fallen is the worst movie of all time, I could easily disagree. There are movies that are truly difficult to sit through. Grandma Kisses. That one falls off most people’s radar. Or Spanking The Monkey. I can’t even get past that title. Why would anyone want to watch that? Or how about a more recent one? The Spy Who Dumped Me. Did they even try to sell that one in theaters? I never saw it, but I can tell from the title that it is laaaame. How is it that people who make movies can’t tell? Do they have a brain blockage? Are their senses dulled from hours of watching inane film footage? Whatever the reason, it still surprises me that so many movies get made and released and advertised that are obviously bombs. Not bombs as in explosive, but bombs as in standing on stage getting rotten vegetable bombs thrown at you. Anyway, I think by these three examples (and I could cite a lot more) I’ve shown that despite Revenge of the Fallen’s poor quality, it’s still not the worst movie ever.

*There are many, many reviews of this movie. If you like to read, you could read these for hours. The three below are fun to read, but they’re not the one I read that I really liked. Unfortunately, the infonet is a deep sea of text and images. It can be difficult to find things. If I find that well-written review again, I’ll cue it up. In the meantime, check these three out:

Rotten Tomatoes

Roger Ebert

Geeks.Media

The Obsolete Wall

Not so long ago…

“In our opinion the German people wish to have one united country. If the Soviet Union had lost the war, the Soviet people themselves would object to a line being drawn through Moscow and the entire country defeated in war. We wouldn’t like to have a line drawn down the Mississippi river.”

~John F. Kennedy

JFK was talking about the Berlin Wall, an infamous stretch of concrete supposedly put in place to keep the losers of World War II within the sight of Russian eyes. This wall kept the German people, mostly survivors of the war, not participants in it, from creating any more trouble. Although the tactic worked, the punishment was more severe than most of the people’s crimes. For decades the people of Eastern Berlin were oppressed. Their city was dreary and their eyes seemed to reflect that feeling. The opposite side, West Berlin, was a bustling, thriving hub of modernism. West Berlin kept up with the changes of the world. Its economy advanced. East Berlin remained stagnant. JFK was noting the distressing nature of the wall. I can’t help but wonder, “How would it have been different if JFK had succeeded in convincing the Soviets to tear down the wall?”

The analogy is not completely accurate for this day and age, I know. But I still love the quote. The idea of putting up a wall along the Mississippi is at once funny, appealing, and as ridiculous as a border between the United States and Mexico. And even though Mexico isn’t part of the U.S., it COULD be. If the U.S. didn’t incorporate and assimilate, we could at least be united in our goal to help the people of Mexico get better living conditions so they wouldn’t need to leave their homes. The two main problems they face are the drug pushers, and the government. Their government is unable to keep up with the drug lords. Either the drug lords have an invisible hand threatening the Mexican government, or the government is inept enough that they can’t control the malicious elements in their society. Either way, the result is the same: the mob rules.

People in America worry that the drug smugglers will have an easy time getting their drugs into the U.S. These worriers want to put up a wall because it makes them feel more secure. Unfortunately, a wall will not help the people who resort to drug smuggling to make a living wage decide to get a normal everyday job. It will only slow them down a little. In other words, a border wall doesn’t correct any bad behavior, it only creates a delay. A wall won’t promote aptitude in the Mexican government. It will only hide the lack of skilled governance. In fact, and sadly, a border wall would be a blatant exhibition of a lack in U.S. governance. A border wall would show how much the American people lack in empathy for their southern neighbors. A border wall would show the lack of control the American people have over their own government. A border wall between Mexico and the U.S. would show how the people of the U.S. have a lack of courage.

In conclusion, it is my opinion that an open border is not the problem. Lack of caring, lack of skilled and competent governing, lack of empathy and compassion, and lack of courage; these are the problems.

Saturday Morning Cartoon Time

photo-1521220546621-cf34a1165c67

When you’re  a child, time is divided into categories: breakfast time, school, recess, dinner time, bed time. Time is this nebulous concept, because there seems to be no standard for the divisions. It’s only when we learn about hours, minutes, etc. that we start to develop a sense of length in time.

There’s time enough in a day to do a lot of things. But there’s also time enough to waste. One great stress reliever is to just veg-out in front of some cartoon fun.

Cartoons even have their own sense of time. I was watching Transformers with my boy and the Decepticons and the Autobots both have ways to travel through space and time. Its fun to imagine what you would do if you had one of those portals. My day job would be so much easier. Flying through space as if there’s no time barrier at all. That would be amazing. And vacation time? Forget about it! We could go visit our family and friends all over the world with the travel time at its ultimate minimum. Leisure time at maximum.

In fact, as far as Saturday morning leisure time is concerned, if I had a portal system, I wouldn’t even have to leave the couch ever. I’d open up a portal big enough for the cereal cupboard, get the cereal out, then open up portals to the bowls and spoons. And forget the fridge, I’d open up a portal to the cow and get milk on my cereal straight from the udder!

glass-925858__480

Well, and now with that thought, I’ll leave you to have fun with your own imagination…What would YOU do with a portal through space and time? The possibilities are immense!

Love Is A Sandwich

Sandwich

Don’t quote me on this, but I’ve heard that within the Japanese language there is no word for love. They have words for respect and admiration and even extreme like, but no word with a direct literal meaning of love.

OneQuarterSandwich

This is interesting to me (and you, my one Japanese reader), because we know that love is inexpressible. Unlike my mustard calligraphy above, love is not so easily spelled out. By the way, for my non-Japanese reading readers, the word in mustard is the Japanese for sandwich. And yes, I misspelled it. According to my friend Shin, I missed a character in the middle. Funny…like an incomplete sandwich.

HalfSandwich

But you were probably wondering why a sandwich is love and why love is a sandwich. You’re probably thinking lunch is a sandwich, not love. Love is love, unless you’re really hungry, and then you might embrace a sandwich like a long lost lover. That’s what you’re probably thinking. That’s what I was thinking. If we just thought of it that way, we’d be right, but we wouldn’t be very philosophical.

Let’s consider how we make a sandwich: we build it.

So the Japanese language isn’t necessarily incomplete with its lack of the word love, is it? Since love is built, we could possibly start with admiration, and advance from there to respect. These are only concepts though. Love can’t be given in words alone, like a sandwich can’t be made with bread alone.

ThreeQuarterSandwich

Love has to be shown through actions. At least in my philosophy, that’s how it works. You could tell someone you love them their whole life, but if you never did anything to show it, would the words even be true? Isn’t compassionate service is one of the highest functions of love? For love to be complete, like a sandwich, you have to put all those layers together, put it on a plate, and serve it.

FullSandwich

Oh yeah, and add a little cheese. 🙂