Cake: More Useful Than We Originally Thought?

Yesterday I woke up with a sore throat. When I complained of it, everybody asked if I’d taken anything. But I don’t particularly enjoy being medicated, and I hate cough syrup. The most I’ll do is drink water, because you want your throat to stay moist.

But then I had an idea. If a moist throat is what you want, then why not just eat something moist? And what’s more moist than cake? Genius!

Now, I know what most of you are thinking. What about the calories? This is indeed an issue, and one I gave considerable thought. To that end I’ve decided that until my sore throat passes, I will simply confine my eating to the cake. That way, I won’t load up on too many calories. It’s a deceptively simple yet effective solution. Indeed, it was so simple that I questioned it myself. But really, there’s no need to re-invent the wheel here.

The only problem I foresee is that only fresh cake achieves maximum moistness. As such it is necessary that I bake cake on a regular basis. And to avoid wasting food, I must also make sure to eat all of the cake. I am pleased to report that so far this has not proven to be a difficult burden.

My throat feels great now. This new ‘cake therapy’ certainly deserves further research. I posit that the medicinal benefits of cake may extend to other ailments. As soon as the possibility presents itself I intend to study the effects of cake on minor psychological trauma.

Ron Paul: Compassionless Conservative?

Here’s proof that I don’t blindly agree with every word spoken or decision made by Ron Paul. Recently, the House of Representatives passed HR 1181 (“Expressing condolences and sympathy to the people of Burma for the grave loss of life and vast destruction caused by Cyclone Nargis.”) 410-1. Guess who the “1” was. That he was the lone voice of opposition in the House is not news. Why he opposed this symbolic resolution and which symbolic resolutions he hasn’t opposed may be. Andrew Malcolm of the LA Times Top of the Ticket blog explains:

“So Paul’s symbolic stand against symbolic silliness looks good.

“But then along come the sharp-eyed folks over at Radaronline.com, specifically Nick Curran, who finds out that Paul’s stand against symbolic silliness when it comes to Asians whose huts and hovels were erased by cyclone, is not quite so principled and a whole lot more enthused about dumb statements of sentiment when the silliness is closer to home.

“Come to find out Paul has voted in favor of similar empty resolutions to congratulate the University of Kansas football team for a swell season and winning the 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl, to the Louisiana State football team for, golly, winning the 2007 Bowl Championship Series and to celebrate the New York Giants for their come-from-behind victory in Super Bowl XLII. “

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Identity Theft Playground

The LA Times offers another reason to worry about overexposure on the internet.

Web social networks friendly to identity thieves

“Social networking sites, which let users create detailed profile pages and connect with friends, are becoming the hot new thing for identity thieves, both amateur and professional. As improved spam filters and skeptical consumers make bogus e-mail less successful, scam artists are taking advantage of the atmosphere of trust that exists within these online circles of friends.”

I Hate Decisions

I couldn’t decide what to hate today, so I decided (and I will be very sad if you couldn’t figure this out for yourself) on everything.

I figure, by hating everything I’ll pretty much have gotten whatever it was that I was going to hate. Kind of a bigger-hammer approach, but it’s effective.

Movie Review: Ironman

I just watched the Ironman movie. It was pretty good. Maybe I’m biased, because I like the core concept of the Ironman comic franchise, but I didn’t have any major complaints about the movie. The acting was good all around, the special effects and production details were good, and the writing was solid.

That last bit is where a lot of comic book movies fall apart for me. There’s usually some piece of writing that totally falls flat on its face. Sometimes it’s something fairly minor that I should probably get over, such as an Armageddon device (such as in Batman Begins). Other times it’s a joke that goes horribly long (e.g., Transformers). Or they feel the need to add something to provide comic book continuity that just has no place in the movie (Ghost Rider). Then it’s just a question of whether the rest of the movie was strong enough that I felt it justified the whole experience.

Ironman didn’t have many weak points. There were a couple of general plot points I thought didn’t play out as well as they could have, but overall it was pretty consistent and amusing. Action movies of the last few years haven’t taken themselves too seriously, and you can see that in Ironman. But even so, the humor is used effectively. They often use it to break up a fairly long origin story that might’ve been rather dry otherwise. It’s also used to wind down from a couple of minor action scenes. The overall effect works and gives the movie a rising-falling tension.

What else can I say? It was a good movie. The concessions were way too expensive. This may be the last time I buy a movie theater’s soda. Honestly, guys, I don’t mind paying a small premium. I know it’s where your margins come from, and we’ve all got to put bread on the table. All the same, I just can’t pay $5 for a soda.