Chicken Little's 3D-effect is Cool, its Misleading of an Entire Generation is Not

This afternoon Terry and I went to see the Chicken Little animation movie in 3D at the Garden State Loew's. The glasses were slightly tinted (and plastered with warnings "These are not sunglasses--they do not protect from UVB rays") and made us each look like Chicken Little while we were wearing them. That was kind of cute. And this digital 3D is waaaay better than the old 3D. Remember the 3D with the paper glasses with red and blue plastic film for lenses? Kids today will have no idea how good they've got it.

"When I was your age, I had to look through crinkled colored saran wrap held loosely onto my face by a piece of cardstock only to watch something that had two or three 3D moments but the rest of the time looked pretty regular, but only if you managed to keep the paper glasses on the whole time so you didn't see two blurry images in green and red overlapped and give yourself a headache. . ."

The Chicken Little was pretty much all 3D, all the time. And used tasteful restraint with the objects-flying-out-into-the-audience-shots-which-make-the-children-yell, although that was kind of cute also.

I liked the fish best--the fish was fearless and lived life with gusto. Terry liked the physically unattractive yet emotionally mature young swan.

He referred to her as a duck, and to be fair and her last name in the movie is Mallard. But she played the proverbial "ugly ducking" and so she is by my reckoning a swan. Terry thought she was a duck who hadn't turned into a swan yet, but I explained the point is that she was *always* a swan, and this was just not *recognized* until later. The movie did not make any attempt to fit that particular morality tale into the film so children watching will come out of there thinking that anytime someone refers to an "ugly duckling" they are just talking about someone/something ugly, and that's that. From a movie-watching perspective it would have been waaaay to much to add that subplot. But now there will be an entire generation of children who will grow up missing the poignancy behind the label of "ugly duckling" and just use it as a synonym for "buttface" or whatever they're using nowadays.

But there is hope, because there is plenty of room for a sequel that would include the transformation tale (a coming-of-age Chicken Little movie) that could remedy this situation.

Living in a Palace Wearing a Platinum Monkey

Terry and I were on our way to lunch when I mentioned that there was an art opening at the Iron Monkey here in Jersey City. We wondered if its name had anything to do with Brass Monkey or if it was a coincidence. Perhaps there are just all kinds of metallic monkeys? Steel Monkey, Copper Monkey, Gold Monkey, etc. I considered this and decided I am not really interested in a gold monkey, but I would like a platinum monkey. I would like a pin in the likeness of a monkey, something about 1.5" in diameter. The monkey pin would be made of platinum, and the monkey would be holding a jewel (probably a 1/4 carat of a colored gem) in each hand. And the monkey would have bejeweled eyes and maybe be sitting on a colored ball made of pave rubies or something. Gold could be used as an accent.

Terry asked why I wanted a bejeweled monkey pin, and I said because then I will be more special. He said I couldn't possibly be more special than I am already (5 years of husbandry has taught him the appropriate responses), but I argued that no, with a bejeweled platinum monkey pin I would be just as special as I am now PLUS with added specialness for having such a flashy* pin.

Later that afternoon we watched the old film "Public Enemy" in the old Loews movie palace near Journal Square. It was my first visit to the venue and I thought it was spectacular. Very much in disrepair, but it appears to primarily need renovation rather than reconstruction (not that I'm a qualified inspector or anything). But then I thought how fun it would be to buy an old movie palace and restore it into a private home. Then I could LIVE in a palace even though I am not a princess. And that would rock.

I spent some time this afternoon looking up abandoned movie palaces on the web (a handful of sites dedicated to listing them), but all the ones in VA were too far away to be convenient to Crozet or already renovated. But we have enough room on the farm to build one from scratch. Then I could do away with the whole nuisance of all that seating and just have a nice big residential palace. Terry suggested I go back to full-time work for about 10 years if that's what I wanted to spend money on. I'm going to read some architecture books about existing palaces to get a feel for the traditional floorplans, and think about it. It might really be worth 10 more years of work to get to live in a palace.

Wearing a bejeweld platinum monkey pin.

*Thursday night I was out with my friends Nora & Trey and they kept referring to things as "flashy". Not necessarily because there was anything gaudy or sparkly or eye-catching but just as a synonym for "cool" (or groovy, neat-o, wicked, hot, sick. . .). I mentioned I hadn't heard of "flashy" being the new trendy word and they said that's because it is not and only they used it. But they are a flashy couple and I wouldn't be surprized if it will be the new hot word soon, so I'm giving it a whirl.

Candy Data

It is an intriguing problem, finding candy to approximate the nutrition of a "healthy" breakfast. I looked up the nutrition information about a bunch of the leftover Halloween candies I have in the house (plus a few other favorites I'd be happy to purchase), and compared it against the nutrition information of my usual healthy breakfast (1/2 bagel, 1 oz neufchatel, 1/2 peeled orange).

This first round of analysis I aimed to keep grams of protein & % daily value of vitamin C the same in both meals while keeping vitamin A within 5% of its daily value. The good news is that I came up with a candy combination that acheives these goals, as well as provides an extra 5% of the daily value of iron, an extra 16% of the daily value of calcium, and an extra gram of fiber while keeping cholesterol and sodium levels equal to those in the healthy meal. The only negative is that to get these health benefits from candy one must consume an extra 585 calories (pretty much evenly split between calories from fat and calories from sugar) more than the traditional breakfast.

The meal plan? Eat 119 grams of milk chocolate (about 7 of the snack-size Hershey Bars) and 50 skittles (roughly the amount in a 2 oz package). Surprizingly, the skittles are very high in vitamin C--packing more vitamins per gram than a fresh orange!

In days to come I'll hold different values constant and see what I can come up with to match (between candy & traditional breakfast) calories, or grams of protein, or grams of fat, or grams of carbs. Because just chocolate and skittles is a bit dull, even though I suspect it is the healthiest choice. Although for people who would like to avoid fat and don't care about the calories, the fig cookies are a pretty good choice. I'll run the numbers and post the results when I'm done.

Candy for Breakfast

I'm still (happily) eating leftovers from my Halloween party, and that includes candy. I got two big bags of chocolate candies from Sam's Club, one of Hershey's brand candy and I think the other is Mars' brand candy.

So it's around 10am on a Sunday morning, and although the fridge is fully loaded nothing in there stimulated my appetite. But when I walked into the living room and saw the pumpkin-head full of miniature candy bars, my taste buds awoke in anticipation. Once I decided that I was going to eat candy for breakfast, I did try to make a healthy choice within that parameter. But what is the best candy to eat for breakfast?

I started with a Kit-Kat, since it has that crunchy stuff in the middle that is probably made of something similar to frosted flakes cereal, which is clearly breakfast food. Then I decided I needed some protein to keep from getting the sugar low later, but I wasn't sure which of my candies has the most protein. I started with a Reese's peanutbutter cup, because peanuts were listed higher on the ingredients list than sugar (but only if you don't count the sugar in the milk chocolate). Not sure if that would be enough protein I ate an Almond Joy also just to be safe. Although now I have a very slight stomach-ache and I'm going to eat some peanut M&Ms to try to fix that.

Aaargh! There are regular M&Ms in the mix, but no peanut M&Ms!! So I'm eating a Snickers bar since that is very substantial with peanuts and all sorts of stuff. Yum. Anyway, so I've got milk, protein, and grains consumed so all I need is a serving of fruit. Chocolate-covered-cherries are all I can think of off the top of my head, but they aren't in my pumpkin-head. Do individually wrapped chocolate-covered-cherry candies exist? Wouldn't it have been great to get *those* when trick-or-treating? I've got some cherry Twisters, but I don't think there is any actual fruit in those. Maybe next year I'll get some fig Newtons. Do they come individually wrapped?

I've got a few chocolate-covered rice-crispies ghosts & bats left, but I usually eat one of those for an afternoon snack or evening dessert, not breakfast. Despite the cereal. They're a little heavy for breakfast, I think.

The Snickers bar has not helped alleviate my stomach-ache, so an all-candy breakfast might not have been as good an idea as I thought. I bet I'd be fine if only I had some fig Newtons. So this leaves me in the unfortunate position of having to eat *two* breakfasts to get me through to lunch which is not good for my figure. But the leftover pizza is going to be just the thing, and I've got just enough time to eat a slice before I get ready for church.

More later when I check the nutritional facts about these little candies and see if an actual balanced meal is possible with the right combination of candy.