[chronicles] A few food videos for your viewing pleasure!

For a few months now, I've been on a bit of a health kick. And I don't mean that I've given up my Twinkie habit -- I mean that I've been changing my life, utterly and completely, into something better.

It all started with a confluence of events. I stepped on a scale and realized that what had been a bit of extra weight had become a weight of over 200 pounds. I needed new jeans and had to face the fact that the only way they were going on was if I bought up a size. I adopted a dog named Trudeau who strongly encourages frequent exercise by begging for walks (and rewards running with an immense, tongue-lolling, joyful stride that is uplifting just to watch). I bought a pair of really crazy-looking shoes -- more on those and my newfound status as a runner in another post later on -- which turned exercise from a chore into a momentary return to youth. I decided that I was tired of being tired, and I was sick of being depressed, and I wasn't going to let my life pass me by thinking about how I wish I looked, the things I wish I could do, the life I'd lead when I found the time for it.

I'd like that life now, please.

One of the most difficult parts of this transition for me has been changing my diet. I never thought it was that bad to begin with; I ate fast food maybe once every few months, tops, and usually only in moments of desperation for sustenance. I'd long since cut out soda, and for a couple years I'd been living with a general rule that if I picked up something off the supermarket shelf that listed any form of corn syrup as an ingredient, I'd put it back down again. But it wasn't really enough. I started logging my meals on SparkPeople and started looking what was really in the food I was eating: it most mostly a lot of calories and not a lot of nutrition. So I started being more careful, buying more produce, trying to teach myself to cook, and here's what I found: in the average neighborhood supermarket, there is hardly anything on those shelves that is good for you. (Michael Pollan, author of such fucking incredible books as The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, puts it even more simply: stick to the edges of the supermarket. Supermarkets put all of the fresh food -- meats, produce, bakeries -- on the outside edges of the store, closest to the loading docs, where it's easiest to rotate in new deliveries.) I've utterly confused and confounded myself with the array of fascinating and opposing ideas of what constitutes healthy eating, but for the most part I've just settled into Michael Pollan's simple advice for a healthy diet: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

A big part of educating myself about food has also meant educating myself about food systems overall, about how we got into this mess and how we can get back out of it again. So in case you're also interested in these topics, I want to recommend a few video resources (I'll have some books to recommend later on):

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach Every Child About Food
Jamie Oliver (who I have been informed is in fact TV's The Naked Chef) gives an outstanding presentation as part of the TED Talks series about the relationship we have with food, and how we need to change it. You can watch the full presentation online at this link, or just watch the embedded video below (they're the same thing).

I was really struck by the video he shows of a classroom visit where children can't even identify fruits and vegetables -- and we're talking tomatoes here, not anything too exotic. It seems almost too incredible to be true, but having been one of those children (having been one of those children well into my mid-twenties) I can tell you that it is a fact. In fact, it's kind of still my reality. I tried to buy parsnips just a few days ago and walked away with rutabaga, and until you've been there you have no idea quite how horrible it is to realize that you're nearly 30 and you don't have the first idea what a parsnip looks like. Also, it's kind of humiliating when the checkout guy says, "Are these rutabagas?" and you're all, "Er, I think parsnips?" and he's all, "Uh. No. These aren't parsnips."

LOOK, I CAN'T RECOGNIZE A PARSNIP, OKAY? Maybe I should get a smartphone. I'll bet there's an app for that.

In any event, the filmed segments he shows are clips from his new show, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, which premieres March 26th on ABC. I'll definitely be tuning in.

We Feed the World

Years back I saw a film called We Feed the World. It's about the globalization of food, the ways in which our food systems have gone absolutely mad, and the brink that all of this is driving us to. This film is one of the most incredible documentaries I've ever seen; all my love to Food, Inc. and every other film on the subject, but We Feed the World is a film that has haunted me since the first time I watched it. There's an image early on in the film that's really stuck with me: a dump truck dumping a load of perfectly good bread -- harvested, baked, and then wasted -- while millions of people across the globe are undernourished or outright starving. This film will educate you not just about the global issues concerning food -- from GM crops to factory fishing to the damages of import/export foods -- but also about what exactly you're putting in your body.

You can watch the documentary in its entirety -- thereby completely blowing your mind -- for free.


Anywho, I'll be posting more about food and fitness and my crazy shoes and all that nonsense as time marches forward. I know there are some fantastic chefs and fitness nuts reading, so hopefully you'll all help me out. We don't want a repeat of the Parsnip Incident.

[horse.flicks] Previews: Gunless, Robin Hood

If you know me, people of the Internet, then you know that I am all about truth, and I don't hold back. So I'm just going to lay it out there: some men are just so beautiful, that the only way to make them more beautiful is to put them on a horse.

Yes, friends, Winston Churchill said it best when he said that "There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man." What he neglected to mention was that there is something about the outside of a horse that is pretty complimentary for the outside of a man, too.

So here's the deal, oh readers of random blogs including mine: every now and again on this blog, I will bring you a hot man on a horse feature. I might do a straight-up movie review of a cool movie with lots of horses in it. I might just feature an actor and show you stills of all the movies he's done with horses in them. Sometimes -- because I am all about equal opportunity hotness -- I will bring you posts of hot women on horses or just films with a bunch of exceedingly beautiful horses, whether there are attractive human beings around them or not. I will definitely recommend to you cool horse movies, because my inner former-video-store-employee just can't let go of the past, and insists upon trying to shape the viewing habits of others to suit my whims. It's a public service I'm providing, people, because somebody needs to bring you pictures of hot guys on horses, and believe me when I tell you very earnestly that you do not want to just Google that phrase.

No, seriously. Don't.

Today I'm bringing you a bit of a preview of horse-including flicks, finishing with Ripley Scott's new Robin Hood, and starting with the inimitable Paul Gross and his new comedy/western, Gunless.

There he is. Paul Gross: Canadian. Thespian. Hot-ass. We all know Paul Gross, because he played Benton Fraser, upright Mountie of uprightness, on that seminal Canadian series Due South. (It's still my favorite TV show of all time. OF ALL TIME.) He's also done a lot of other totally kick-ass things, like Slings & Arrows, Passchendaele (holy shit, I spelled that right on the first try!), H2O and Trojan Horse... the list goes on. (I would've put Eastwick on there, but it's not actually kick-ass at all. Paul Gross was kick-ass in it, but otherwise it was just sort of eh.) Paul Gross is arguably one of the most attractive men in the world, not just for his smokin' bod but also for his delectable brains. But you take Paul Gross, and you put him on a horse, and his hotness is multiplied exponentially. (Good job, horse! And also good job Mark Zibert, who took the photo for this enRoute magazine interview.)

Paul Gross was raised as a ranch kid, so he knows a thing or two about horses. (At some point in the future, I'll bring you some photos of Paul Gross on a horse from Due South and Getting Married in Buffalo Jump. I'm not going to give them to you now, though. That's how I'm going to get you to stick around. FIRST HIT'S FREE, PEOPLE.) And he looks mighty pretty on them. The photo above is a particular blessing, because though it's to promote Gunless, it doesn't feature Paul wearing the ridiculous wig that he sports for the movie.

And yeah, okay, Gunless is not at all my sort of movie. I mean, it seems to have a lot going for it... Paul Gross on a horse, for a start. It also reunites Gross with his former Due South costar, Callum Keith Rennie, who will hopefully also have at least one scene on a horse. (Please? Pleeeeease?) It has plenty of Canadian jokes by Canadians -- those are the best kind -- and in general seems to have a slightly more slapstick Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. feel to it. So it could be good. Maybe. I just don't have the hard-on for Leslie Nielsen-type humor that our friend Paul Gross does, so it might not be my thing.

Except for the part with Paul Gross on a horse. That's definitely my thing. Gunless comes out on April 30th, and if it's in a theater near you, it could be worth a look.

Next on our list is a film that I'm very much looking forward to: Ripley Scott's new Robin Hood film. This movie is full of lovely people, among them Russell Crowe as Robin Hood, Cate Blanchett as Marion, Kevin Durand as Little John, Matthew Macfadyen as the Sheriff of Nottingham (WOOT!) and even Great Big Sea's Alan Doyle as Allan A'Dayle. And if that isn't enough for you, we've also got Mark Addy, Max von Sydow, William Hurt, Mark Strong, and oh, did I mention it's a film by Ripley Scott, biiiiiiotch? Oh, yes, I did. Sorry, I didn't mean to be redundant.

I have a real thing for medieval period films, and I will not even admit how many times I watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves as a youngster. (Later on this blog: Alan Rickman! ON A HORSE!) This is partly because I can't admit how many times I watched that movie, because at some point I lost track. Suffice it to say that I could recite every line in the movie entirely from memory. And did.

ANYWAY, my horrific childhood aside, I realize that you are here for pictures of men on horses. Are you ready? I am about to lay it down. Brace yourselves.

War is hell, people. Just in case you didn't get the memo.


For awhile, I had trouble deciding who had the coolest horse in this picture. Then I decided it was the random background rider on that gray Andalusian-looking horse. But Kevin Durand still wins at "Best Awesome Goatee."


"Hi, I'm Robin Hood! Where is the Maid Mar-ion? And the Sheriff of Notting-ham!"


I have this theory that Kevin Durand is going to steal the show. He's just sort of... magnetic in this. It must be the goatee. The days of Zipacna are long gone.

But you like the Russell Crowe, don't you? Here, have a few more.






And finally, I was looking forward to Matthew Macfadyen on a horse until I saw this. WTF? Kevin Durand gets a hot goatee and Matthew Macfadyen becomes the bastard love child of a Sasquatch and a mountain man? Unfair. But take heart, gentle readers! I'll do a Matthew Macfadyen feature soon and show you glorious, glorious pictures of him in stuff like The Reckoning and Pride & Prejudice. Soon, my pretties.

I do not think it at all unfair to say that, on the whole, Robin Hood projects tend to be shit. I mean, there's Prince of Thieves of course, but then you've also got the BBC series Robin Hood which, though it has pretty of its own, sort of takes awful and cranks it up to 11. I haven't seen any of the early Robin Hoods, let's admit it, I have no appreciation for the classics. Still, I hope that this new film will live up to the glory of the legend and not the cheese of the adaptations. At very least, in Russell Crowe we have an actor who can ride a horse without making the poor viewer (and the poor horse) cringe. Russell Crowe (and Kevin Durand, and Matthew Machotness), we salute you!

Ripley Scott's Robin Hood will hit theaters May 14th, and I daresay it's more likely than Gunless to be showing at your local ultramegagoogleplex.