Month: June 2004

Widescreen Lives!

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

Slate reports on a new trend in the video-rental industry: widescreen. I’ve watched widescreen videos and DVDs for years, but I never thought that it would catch on with the general public. I really thought that Joe Moviewatcher would remain forever oblivious to the portions of his videos that simply weren’t there.

Apparently, widescreen is now the preferred format for DVDs at Blockbuster these days. The way Slate phrases it, “the chain was conceding what cinephiles had argued for years: that widescreen was the superior way to watch a movie at home, even if it left black bars at the top and bottom of your television screen.” They mention the black bars like it’s a bad thing ;).

I gotta say that I’m completely surprised by this — I figured that Blockbuster was simply content in stocking the film industry’s lowest common denominator. All the same, I don’t think I’ll be renting from Blockbuster anytime soon; I’m boycotting them for their anticompetitive business practices.

They set up revenue sharing agreements with the major movie studios which gave Blockbuster discounts on videos and DVDs in exchange for sending a share of the profits back to the studios. Normally, I’d wouldn’t have much problem with this, but these were exclusive contracts and the smaller mom-n-pop video stores had no choice but to pay the higher prices.

Well, hold on a moment… After doing some research, it appears that Blockbuster has cancelled its revenue sharing agreements. The guy at FilmJerk (from the previous link) isn’t too pleased about this, but I see it as another pleasant surprise in Blockbuster’s favor. First this widescreen news and then the revenue sharing cancellation — perhaps I should stop by Blockbuster more often <g>.

Nectarine Pie: The Music Video

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

Josh Baugher passes along what’s essentially a music video for foodies. In Katy Bakes a Nectatine Pie, Katy goes through the steps of baking a pie, including commentary on the cooking process. Considering that it’s a Quicktime file (a .mov), it may have even been edited in iMovie.

To some, this may just be a pleasant diversion, but I really enjoyed it. In some ways, it was like watching an engaging movie but with the director’s commentary track playing as well. I’m only disappointed that I couldn’t find a reference to the recipe itself (especially since the pie-eaters at the end of the clip appear to be really enjoying it). The movie is hosted on The Amateur Gourmet blog, but I only saw it listed as a link in the sidebar without a proper entry to go along with it.

I was a bit dismayed at the use of shortening in the pie crust. Not that I’m surprised, really — shortening is a common ingredient in pie crusts — but shortening if full of trans fat. Trans fat is probably the worst kind of fat since it both lowers “good” cholesterol while raising “bad” cholesterol (even saturated fat doesn’t affect “good” cholesterol).

Now that the government is requiring trans fat labeling on foods (beginning in 2006), companies are all of a sudden reformulating their products to reduce their trans fats. In particular, I’ve noticed that there's a trans-fat free version of Crisco shortening now. But, I’m still skeptical — if a 2% increase in trans fat can really increase a women’s risk for heart disease by 93%, then I’d feel most comfortable with a shortening which actually had 0g trans fat, not just 0g trans fat per serving :-/.

Update 06/03: It appears that J.M. Smucker (the makers of Crisco) create the trans-fat free version by fully hydrogenating the cottonseed oil. And, much in the same way that partial hydrogenation turns oil into a semi-solid form, fully hydrogenating it turns it completely solid. So, they then add sunflower and soybean oils to soften it. I’m not sure whether fully hydrogenating an oil creates any trans fat, but if not, this trans-fat free Crisco may not be so bad.