It's going to be a thin week. Holidays and all that. We're all busy; who has time for interminable Bleats?
Good weekend, aside from the horrible game which we watched in sad acceptance of sure defeat, unable to muster a moment of enthusiasm for the possibility of something that was not complete humiliation. Saturday was brutally cold, and contained another disappointment so great I'm still trying to figure out. It concerns the matter of ice cream.
See, I'm off ice cream, as part of the general become leaner scheme. My modus vivendi. Moses supposes he's doing ketosis, and all that.
What? Sorry, that came to me the other day, for some reason. I was thinking about "Singin' in the Rain" or I was thinking about ketosis, can' t recall, and that came up in my mind. The elocution scene.
The absurdity of the ending never fails to delight. Any more? Sure. I'm cuuuuuting out the grain! Just cutttting out the grain! What a wonderful feeling, there is not weight gain! Any more? Ah: You take my candy bar. It would my diet mar.
Anyway. Friday and Saturday I used to have a dish of ice cream. Chocolate with thick deposites of peanut-butter. Well, some day. for the meantime, I've been eyeing the "carb-cutter ice cream" brand called "Halo," the name of which suggests the moral imperative of dieting. You are a better person for eating this and will be rewarded with a circle of gold over your head. I finally bought some, and was eager to try it.
The package says it comes from a creamery. I don't think so. I believe it comes from a chalkery.
I left it out to softten a bit. Proper ice cream, thus prepared with some time adjusting to room temperature, will yield slightly to the scoop. After 10 minutes I tested the top, and it was still stiff. I gave it another ten, then got out the small dish. In my indulgent times I told myself that the small dish was a form of portion control, even though I heaped it high. I plunged the scoop into the container.
The ice cream . . . shattered. It broke into chunks and crumbs. It had the mouthfeel, to use that ooky word, of chalk. I mean, it was inedible. If you made someone eat it while blindfolded, "ice cream" would not be their first guess, or their sixth.
Of course, the internet reviews are spectacular. Five stars! I'm shook! There are reviews on sites like "junkbanter.com" and "Snack-girl.com" and "influenster.com" and "dailynexus.com" and other sites you've never heard of. Also "reviewingthis.com" and "shespeaks.com" and "sweetyhigh.com" and "theimpulsivebuy.com" and so on. All rave, although a few note that the substance can be gritty, which is just the word you want appended to your ice cream description
Someone at "spoonuniversity.com" wrote a piece called "I Tried The Halo Top Ice Cream Diet and This is What Happened."
An ice cream diet?
About a month ago, I read GQ’s article on a 10 Day Ice Cream Diet. Long story short, one of their writers ate five pints of Halo Top ice cream a day for ten days straight. After five days he lost 5 pounds; by the end he’d lost 10.
The author who tried the diet lost almost nothing over five days, and did not recommend the diet. Obviously it's a stunt diet. The author notes that no crash diets work, and I suppose it depends on your definition. Drive your car into a phone pole and you'll probably shed a pound or two. But I don't know anyone who eliminated sugar, diet soda, and reduced carbs to near zero, and didn't shave off a lot.
But it's not sustainable! Well, inasmuch as it requires fantastic willpower to never eat french fries again, yes. I have every intention of eating french fries again. Life's too short and so am I.
Ah, you ask, what of Thanksgiving? Will I abjure the pumpkin pie, turn away from the pecan? Pass the stuffing without ladling a moist clot on my plate?
Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of late middle-aged man uses "sudden committment to 'fitness'" as a means of suffusing the days with unexpected purpose, coming to a blog near you.
The last one I have. There are more. Thought I'd forgotten, eh?
What? Not taking notes? Didn't think about it one way or the other? FINE
As is usually the case, we start with an expansive locale before settling into an endless series of two-shots in small rooms. (I'm leaving out a scene at a race track with a cliche of the era, the Dotty Vain Dowager.) Behold the Swank:
Goofy novelty song, of a sorts. I thought she was mugging a bit too much, but it turns out - well, here.
As a baby, she was winning beauty contests; as a teenager, with good looks and an attractive contralto voice, she was singing with big bands. She met Rudy Vallee, her first husband, on the radio where she also enjoyed a brief stint as a singer. At age 15, an attack of palsy left her face partially paralyzed. She claimed that it was through facial exercises to overcome the paralysis that she learned the efficacy of facial expression in conveying human emotion, a skill she was renowned for using in her acting.
It's a charming performance.
The nightclub is also a radio station, of course.
Yes, you're correct.
Rather surprised to see him here, for some reason.
As for the movie, it’s fine. The interior sets remind you how frou-frou the 40s could be:
A little inadvertent documentary:
The Olympic nails down the address. Unrecognizable today:
But the buildings are all still there. The Olympic is looking good:
But the corner where the Maxwell House Coffee Shop kept them perkin' and buzzin' awaits a new hero.
