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Entries for July 2009

Fancy Fast Food

Love this: the chefs at Fancy Fast Food take fast food items and reformulate them into more delectable looking dishes. Here is just a portion of the directions for turning a White Castle meal into a tasty looking assortment of tapas.

Next, deconstruct everything and separate them into separate plates: french fries, onion rings, fried clams, beef patties, buns, cheese, bacon, and chicken. Using a paper towel, squeeze and dab each bun dry of its oil and ketchup. Then place all the buns on a baking sheet and bake them for ten minutes in a pre-heated oven at 400° F.

Meanwhile, using a food processor, blend the french fries into a pulp with a little water. Do the same with the beef (no water necessary) until it’s ground and moldable. Hand-roll the ground beef into meatballs, then pan-fry them until they start to brown.

(thx, paul)


Robert McNamara dead at 93

Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense during a large portion of the Vietnam War, died early today at 93. Errol Morris’ documentary on McNamara, The Fog of War, is well worth checking out if you haven’t seen it.


Capturing Reality

Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary is a documentary film about documentary films.

Errol Morris, Werner Herzog and over 30 of today’s top documentary filmmakers provide an in-depth look at non-fiction filmmaking and the steps to making a documentary. These masters of the craft reflect upon the nature of documentary as a form of storytelling and offer insight into their approach to the ‘truth.’

The trailer is here and there are lots of clips up on the site; here are two featuring Errol Morris and Werner Herzog. (Man, I could listen to Herzog talk all day long.)


Loose tweets sink fleets

If World War III started tomorrow, these would be the propaganda posters.

Someone Tweeted


Uncanny babies

The only thing creepier and more irritating than those E*TRADE babies are these Evian rollerskating babies. (thx, bb)


Moneyball movie dead for now

The combination of Pitt and Soderbergh and Lewis wasn’t enough to keep the Moneyball movie afloat…Sony canceled it “days before shooting was to begin”.

Accounts from more than a dozen people involved with the film, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid damaging professional relationships, described a process in which the heady rush toward production was halted by a studio suddenly confronted by plans for something artier and more complex than bargained for.

Sony was probably looking for something more BIG RED TEXTish.


Salary vs performance in baseball

Ben Fry just updated his interactive salary vs performance graph that compares the payrolls of major league teams to their records. Look at those overachieving Rays and Marlins! And those underachieving Indians, Mets, and Cubs!