Category: Culture

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From my film vault

I was doing some spring cleaning this weekend. One box had a VHS tape that had a video transfer of a couple of old Super 8 movies I did more than 20 years ago. One I did for fun in 1983 and the other was my final project for a film production class I had in college back in 1990. I replaced the titled cards, sprinkled in some sound effects, added some royalty free music, and uploaded them to my YouTube Channel.

The video transfers are bad. It looks like the place where I had it done just pointed a video camera at a screen while they projected the movie so there is a lot of jitter and the title cards are pretty much unreadable. The picture quality is also poor.

I was able to fix some not so great editing I did on the 2nd the film. If I remember I was crushed for time so I did the edits quickly without making sure the pacing was right so one scene would run too long before a cut to another where the actor was standing around before I said action. Editing it digitally helped tighten those edits so the pacing looks better today.

The Pepsi Chaser (1983)

The Guide (1990)

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Eat better with fresh food

On Friday, March 26th, ABC broadcast “Jamie Oliver Food Revolution”. It is a show where British chef Jamie Oliver tries to change the eating habits and ideas of the people of Huntington WV which had been labeled the most unhealthy city in the US. The primary villain in this drama is processed food.

Processed food, also known as “convenience foods” are those items that are either frozen, canned, or boxed and require little to no preparation time. If you didn’t have to do much to cook the food then it is a processed food.

What is wrong with processed food? Except for the time saving – everything.

Not all convenience foods are created equal. Most convenience foods on the market today are laden with saturated fats, sodium and sugar and provide little to no nutritional value. Even foods touted as fat free or low fat are usually poor alternatives to an already low-nutritional value food such as fat free ice cream and olestra-laden potato chips.

Convenience Foods: A quick and healthy guide for those on the go

Due to some personal health issues I wanted to eat better so I decided to cut down on fat. I also wanted something easy to fix so I naturally looked at processed food.

The one thing I noticed is the sodium content of those foods were off the chart. A well known “healthy” version of a TV dinner had more salt in it than a Big Mac although the fat content was lower.

It is much harder to avoid the huge amounts of salt than it is the fat in processed food.

The hard truth is if you really want to eat healthy it must be freshly made by you in the kitchen where the fat, sugar, and salt can be strictly controlled. There is no short cut right now.

A side benefit is that the cost of the ingredients of freshly made food combined can be cheaper than the processed food one is replacing.

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Weekend Ear Candy – In the air tonight – Phil Collins

It’s late one summer evening and I’m lying in a lean-to tent during a camp out weekend with my Scout troop back in 1982 I think. I am alone in the tent since I was so “popular” every one wanted to bunk with me. My only real friend was my small transistor radio. And a storm was moving toward the camp.

The sky flashed with lightening and low rumbles of thunder shook the ground as the storm drew closer.

I HATED thunderstorms so I turned on the radio and laid it on my ear to muffle the storm. “In the air tonight” came on and at just the time it seemed to sync with the storm noise and actually made it more enjoyable – it added a freaky twist to the song and the storm. Now when I hear the song it transfers back to that time and place.

In the air tonight – Phil Collins

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