Free Republic

"I was talking about my occassional forays in to deep frying.....that's when the olive oil doesn't work."

Yeah, that WOULD present a problem, not the least of which would be CLEANUP. In fact, cleanup is the one single factor which keeps me from maintaining a deep fryer. It simply isn't worth the effort.

Michael

I can't find the post right now, but I think it was you that said olive oil didn't work well for you in sauteing. My experience is just the opposite. Are you using extra-virgin? It sautes quite well if you know what you're doing. Of course, real butter does, too. I like, sometimes, to use both oil and butter in a saute. Just make sure you don't use too high a heat...

Michael

Your before/after photos are mahvelous. You've really made an incredible turnaround, and one of the best parts of the low-carb, natural-carb lifestyle is that recidivism is virtually zero. All the junk your body used to crave now has such limited appeal that it's no work at all to avoid it. I used to enjoy baked potatoes, for example, but now they are a disgusting waste of empty calories.

One of my treats these days is cashews. WalMart sells a 10 oz can of whole cashews for 2.88, and it lasts me about 10 days (an ounce a day). 28 cents for a yummy, healthy snack.

I'm the same way as you are about extry-virge olive oil - it's like mother's milk.

My hat's off to you, Sam!

Michael

"Of course he still complains that I haven’t given up cigarettes and booze, or become a Born Again Christian."

One of the most aggravating things about going to the doctor is listening to their self-aggrandizing sermonettes and adminitions to change your life. And this is after sitting around in the waiting room for a lost hour. And, after all this, you have to PAY for the annoyance.

I remember when a heavy smoker (drinker) was anyone who smoked (drank) more than his doctor did.

One of the best things about a low-natural-carb lifestyle is the decreased need to visit these prosletyzing doctors in the first place.

Michael

"Can you tell me what is the reason for the more and more frequent nasty practice of ruining yogurt, ice cream, etc with agar/xanthan gum additives?"

Xanthan gum is one of the more benign additives in foods, and it's there strictly as an emulsifier - to keep ingredients from separating, as in oil/vinegar salad dressings. The amount of xanthan gum required to perform its job is really tiny - a mere pinch will "suspend" over a quart of salad dressing. In other products, xanthan gum is used as a stabilizer, to keep ingredients from losing the texture they acquired during the preparation process.

Xanthan gum is, essentially, seaweed.

One of the funniest incidents in my life occured in a bar in San Diego where crowded conditions forced me to take the sole remaining barstool next to a nerdy plump guy in a green polyester leisure suit far past its - and his - prime. Asked him what he did, and he said, "I sell seaweed."

I said, "Oh, you mean like xanthan gum to food companies?" Had to pick the guy up off th' floor. No one in his adult life had EVER heard of the products he sold, mainly xanthan gum. He asked me how I knew about xanthan gum and I replied that I read a lot of labels and got curious.

Believe me, xanathan gum is the LEAST of your worries.

Michael

"My question is if the Iraqis want autonomy and want us out, why would they take this action to set back the whole process? It doesn't make sense."

That's because most of the hoodlums trying to destabilize the situation are not Iraqi, but Iranian, Syrian, Saudi, and from various other waystations across the dreck of Arabia Generis. If we succeed in Iraq, the power structure in Iran and Syria are in trouble and they know it - so they have a big incentive to make sure we don't succeed.

The Media is doing a pitiful job identifying the troublemakers.

Michael

"The hard part now is to organize some solid Iraqi power so as to not wake up in a few months and discover Al-Sadr or any other local tinpot dictator has established himself as a new Saddam. "

Actually, the hard part is showing the peoples of the Muddle East exactly what representative government means. They, by and large, have no real clue. They are a people who have more or less willingly been subjugated to a variety of dictatorial thugs of one stripe or another for thousands of years - to the point where many of them view democracy as "the right to vote for whom we've been told to vote." In a theocracy such as the repressed Shiites first proposed under Al Sistani, Sistani would issue an edict telling his followers for whom to vote - and then they would be "free" to do just that - vote for whom they'd been told to vote. Only with the fledgling local elections that have been taking place unreported by the Media, can these people begin to understand what a representative government is all about.

That's because the two major forms of government in the ME are primarily either tyranny or lawless anarchy. The Arab doesn't easily fall into the middle ground.

Michael

"They've done the first ep. of each season "commercial-free", though they did a long commercial spot before and after the show. It was very easy to get hooked on 24 in season 1 with a very movie-like first episode without all of the commercials."

I'm looking forward to Season Three - haven't seen a minute of it when it airs. It should be on DVD probably come September.

Season Three of CSI will be out, too, but I've seen every ep on tape delay, so I don't know if I'll rent that one. The problem is that there are very few TV shows on DVD that I have much interest in. It might be fun to see a bunch of LA Law, but it's not available. CSI is great, but CSI: Miami leaves me cold, thanks to my distaste for David Caruso.

Speaking of DVD's, my Netflix Queue is empty so I gotta go pick some more things to watch...

Michael

"Didn't the standard used to be 20 minutes per hour?"

It still is the unofficial norm - around 41 minutes of program, 19 minutes of non-program. MOST shows in Crime Time hold pretty close to that ratio. There are exceptions, of course.

I tend to rent DVD sets of hit TV series, and shows like CSI and "24" normally run 41 - 41:30 of program per episode. An exception was the first ep of Season Two of "24" which ran something like 53 minutes. Fox gave up a lot of avails (commercial time) to hook the audience into the beginning of that season. They probably did the same with Ep 1 of Season Three, the current one.

TV shows are GREAT on DVD, being completely devoid of commercials and promos. Oh, they still go to black where the inserts are made, but a second later the show starts up again. With a show like "24," you can watch the entire 24-episode season in just a few viewing sessions. An entire DVD of 4 eps lasts less than 3 hours, a typical long movie. Plus the video and audio quality is better.

Michael

"Donna Summer also sang "MacArthur Park" on the results show."

Yikes, thanks for reminding me. These days I tend to ignore that syruppy Jimmy Webb concoction and blot it from memory. The only thing that made it a hit - other than the huge promotional push the industry gave it back then - was Richard Harris' performance and personnae.

And even he couldn't hit the last note. They brought in...ah, I forget who dubbed in that final note.

Michael

"I even suspect that the guest judges (Manilow, Summer, etc.) have record deals tied to Fox, and thus get more publicity for upcoming records and tours."

It wouldn't be the first time. However, with Donna Summer, it's different. Unless you live in Nashville, you may not be familiar with her situation.

Donna lives in Franklin, a well-to-do suburb of Nashville, and some time back, completely RENOUNCED her disco days, the music and debauchery that went with it. She still makes the occasional music appearance here and there, but she swore never to perform disco again. She says she's a Born-Again Christian, and doesn't feel comfortable with her old music.

Which brings us to AI. Why did she do the show, and a Disco Night to boot? There hasn't been anything about it in the local media, but one would guess that the income from appearances on the show might have something to do with it. Fox pays their guests VERY well.

And, the one song she DID sing on the show - Last Dance - has lyrics that COULD (with the changes she made to them subtly) have strong Christian connotations. And notice that she steadfastly refused to DANCE.

All of us in Nashville were very interested to see her appearances on the program. Very interested.

Michael

"They really stuff as many commercials as they can into the program, don't they."

They stuff in precisely the prime-time limit of 12 commercial minutes per hour. Aggravating this, however, is the fact that they can run as many minutes of PROMOS for other Fox programs as the audience will tolerate. So if they do six breaks per hour, that's 2 minutes (4 :30 spots) of commercials and probably another 1:30 to 2:00 of Fox promos per break. That comes to 24 minutes of non-program material per hour, which is really pushing it. Most breaks don't have that many promos, but I've seen some that have come close. SeeBS is the worst - I've seen them frequently run SIX show promos per break, albeit :10's and :15's.

Michael

"She seems to be consistently off-pitch--nerves, perhaps?"

See my post above about performers unfamiliar with how they sound standing on a stage with a loud house mix and trying to hear yourself on the stage foldback monitors (those upward-facing speakers on the floor of the stage). People who have experience with this know how to compensate for the situation - and those who haven't done much of this can easily be tricked by the physics of sound into over-compensating and, thus, be out of tune.

Michael

Your analysis of the commercial appeal of the various contestants is pretty much dead-on. However, as for whose album comes out first - there is the little matter of the American Idol CONTRACT to be considered.

Following the final Idol ep this season, as in all seasons past, all 12 Finalists will embark upon a tightly-controlled 52-stop tour of the country, and any studio time any performer has can and will be within the scope of the performer's contract with the show. While Spike Seacrest says that the person voted out "goes home," that's not really what happens. They might go home for a visit, but they are still under contract. They'll do the tour, and then - THEN - they are free to pursue contracts and record deals if they haven't already gotten them from the show itself.

Michael

"The "system" is broken because of the ballot-stuffing. It cannot be hard for the computers to only record one vote from each phone number each week."

The system isn't broken because the producers of AI WANT it to be this way. It's a popularity and LOYALTY contest as much as a talent search. The performers who can motivate viewers to dial like a maniac for a full two hours are the ones the producers want to win, because it produces viewer loyalty and top ratings which transfer into big profitability. The finals this year will probably draw 40 million viewers, and it's 30 mil each week right now. Interest in the show is so high that Fox and the producers can play all kinds of tricks to increase ratings and advertiser rates.

For instance, why would the show begin at 7:54 instead of 8:00? To take advantage of a quirk in the Arbitron and Nielsen ratings systems. A program is awarded credit for a full quarter-hour if a viewer watches it for at least FIVE MINUTES. Hence the Average Quarter Hour numbers. NBC has also been taking advantage of this quirk during Sweeps Month, but to a lesser degree. For instance, last night's final Frasier ep started at 7:54 as well - to get a higher AQH Rating. Tonight's repeat will start at 7 CDT and run to 8:06, spreading an hour show over five quarter-hours.

Fox is now able to run just about any Idol-related shows they wish to produce, and the viewers will watch them.

Michael

"All the people who voted for Jasmine also bought William Hungs' CD.."

I was at Wally World on Weds., and on the omnipresent TV monitors I saw one William Hung pitching for Wal-Mart. He has indeed found at least a temporary source of income.

Michael

Your logic could be pretty close. Amongst the universe of AI viewers and voters, there is probably a finite number of people who will always vote for the dynamic black diva. However, this year we had THREE dynamic black, church-taught gospel-flavored bellowing divas - so that segment of the vote continued to be split, no matter how much inate talent the three of them displayed. LaToya is a very fine singer, but at 29 is probably too old to be an "idol." Fantasia is more flashy, but as an unwed mother with 'tude, she's going to alienate a voter segment or two. And Jennifer Hudson was simply the least dynamic of the divas, thus was the first of the three to go.

As for Ruben, he is intrinsically a very likeable guy. None of the three divas this year are anywhere close to him (or Clay) on the Likeability Chart. Of the remaining gals, Jazz and Diana are both very very likeable with Diana having a huge edge in the Chops Department. Jazz needs some serious training to help her overcome her pitch problemos.

There's one other factor that isn't mentioned very often - the singers in this competititon that are used to the acoustics of being on stage with a very loud house sound mix and used to singing with cues from the foldback speakers are the ones that are singing the most in-tune. Some of the younger ones, lacking that experience, have been at times woefully out of tune because they don't know how to hear themselves in such situations. Every good singers can easily be tricked by the sound system into over-compensating for perceived pitch problems.

Michael

"Flight Attendant: "Let's all congratulate Captain ____. This was his first solo landing. And his second and third!"

I was on a SW flight that had a difficult time getting reacquainted with the ground, and the FA said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've just landed ... landed ... landed in Nashville."

Michael

Oopsey! You might want to ask El Moderador to snip part of your article post. The Tennessean is Gannett, and we can't post from their publications. Which is why I only referred to their article.

Michael

"note how this AP story is more about the protestors than about Condi's statements...."

Well, it really isn't, but it's a great deal more tilted the protestors' way than the story that appeared in AP member The Tennessean's morning editions. In fact, it's obvious that the AP didn't like the Tennessean story and wrote its own, contrary to the usual practice of the AP of picking up members' stories.

Had not Chancellor Gee's wife provided the press with the craven irony they lusted for, the protestors' side of things would have been greatly diminished. And the local fraudcast network TV affiliates openly lamented the fact that the protestors were not allowed to set up a giant PA sound system so they could attempt to drown out Condi.

A letter writer to The Tennessean this morning pointed up the hypocrisy of the protestors in noting that Al Franken spoke at Vandy last year and none of the protestors seemed too concerned about his hard-left political speech.

Michael