Ken Nelson

Summary: Bland. Loud. Pricey.  Slow.

Location: By Pineview 10 Theaters

Longer:

When I eat ethnic food I want to taste it. I want the gyro meat to have pzzazz, the sushi to be fresh, and the Thai spices to be exotic.

Mad Pita, a newly opened place by the Pineview Theater, has great potential. A good location. Pleasant, if slightly inefficient,  staff.  And a great premise… Greek food, fast.

Except… it wasn’t fast. And it was bland.

It lacked pizzaz. It lacked… well it lacked flavor. The hummus from Costco tastes better. The mint in the gyro overpowered the meat. And the pita bread fell apart as I tried to eat the gyro.  It might have had more punch had the feta cheese intended to grace my gyro not arrived 10 minutes into the meal.

On the plus, the portions were large. Except that my wife told me she had paid extra, on the order of $8 bucks for the gyro “double double”. All of a sudden the value plummeted.

One can forgive slowness in an opening period, but our experience seemed excessive. We watched a slow trickle of food reach the table of people seated well before we arrived at the restaurant.   Eventually we got ours.

We had high hopes. In fact we had  dropped by three times hoping to find them open in the past few weeks.

Alas, I fear this establishment, in these tough times, won’t provide the flavor or value needed to survive much less thrive.

As for this frequent eater out… I’d just as soon spend 10 or 12 bucks for exotic cuisine Benja’s, or Samurai 21 or Basilas.  Three places that meet the test for pizazz and good service.

Summary:  Super easy. I’m making better presentations, quicker, and spiffier.

Details:

I’ve tried various free options for building presentations on the Mac, including Google Presentation, and Apple’s Keynote.

They were both adequate, but barely so.  So I picked up a copy of Microsoft’s Powerpoint for the Mac 2011 the other day.

It uses the Mac interface well, and they’ve really simplified handling transitions, especially of text.  I like to hide my bullets so people do get ahead.

I’ll try the remote sharing tomorrow night at a class I’m giving to our local ACM chapter.

Wish me luck!

I forget what it cost, somewhere south of $100. It was well worth the money.

Spyderco Delica 4

My wife got me this 4″ knife for Christmas. She’d seen me ogling at a knife shop in Seattle and, like most wives’ of men who have everything, took note.

Spyderco makes great knifes. They are sturdy, light, and have excellent blades. This one is no exception.

What is different about this knife is the way you open it.  That is the little “hook” thing on top. It is the “Emerson Opening Feature”. After folding the  knife, place it in your pocket, tip up. The hook grabs on the pocket and pulls the blade out as you extract the knife. Slick!

It goes everywhere, except on the other side of security at the airport, with me.

I recommend it highly.

Why We Get Fat (and what to do about it)

I never had to worry. I ate what I wanted. I exercised because I liked it, or to improve sports performance. Then my endocrine system got trashed in a bizarre accident in my kitchen.

And I started to gain weight. Not a lot, but a lot for me. I went from 6’ and 175 lbs, pretty much my lifetime weight since Army basic training, to 200.  It carried well, but I knew it was there.

So, for the first time in my life, I entered the arena of  limiting what I ate. And it sucked. Bad. And, I didn’t cheat. And yet, I gained weight.  It wasn’t supposed to work that way.

Ah…. and there is the rub. As it turns out it DOESN’T work that way. All those “expert” nutrionists, all those personal trainers, all those Surgeon Generals… they were wrong. Fat isn’t really about physics, but biology.  In fact, they were way wrong, global warming proportions wrong.

Gary Taubes explains this in his new book, Why We Get Fat (and what to do about it).  He explains that insulin makes fat, and carbohydrates determine how much insulin we make. Known science for, well, forever.  But ignored.  Lost in decades of fad (and war), while a “balanced” diet loaded with carbohydrates was recommended for decades.  But fortunately, rediscovered.

Taubes divides the book into two parts. The first part examines the history of “calories in/calories burned” and shows the science proving everybody was wrong. The second part explains how the body really works, how and why fat is made, and what general approach to eating you can take to avoid making fat.

It all made for interesting, if frustrating reading.  It is yet another story of how  fallible, corruptible, scientists and those that “interpret” science for us make a killing while having disastrous results for citizens and the world.

I recommend the book highly, especially the 2nd part about how it all works and what to do about it.

Short:

This is an excellent movie that you should see. In true Cohen brother form, the characters are delightful and exaggerated. Dare I say it…. better than the original? If not, it is close.

Detail:

I don’t really need to write a “long” version of this review. If you liked “O Brother Where Art Thou”, then you will like this. Yet, it is true to Western genre. Period detail, outfits, guns, everything is done just right. It is funny. It is scary. The bad guys are really bad, the good guys are really good, and the good/bad guy is really good and really bad. Just as a Cohen movie usually has them.

But where this movie shines is with the dialog. You will enjoy, believe, laugh and squirm at it.

Go see it. It’s a really good movie.

The 4 Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss

Short:  A chaotic, but interesting and perhaps life changing book. Read it if you want to lose weight, or gain muscle, or both of those. But also read it if you are just interested in the philosophy of doing the most with the least – with efficiency focused on the purpose of life, whatever that is for you.  There are also sections related to sex and extreme sports that I won’t be reviewing.

Long:

4 hours isn’t really the key to this book. That title just leverages off the success of Mr. Ferriss’ last book, the very successful “4 Hour Work Week”.

Mr. Ferriss compulsively measures and self-experiments questing to find how he can improve the most using the least.   The book is NOT a comprehensive guide for exercise and diet. Instead, it simplifies the recent paleo diet trend, down to simple, minimal, plans for weight loss without exercise, massive weight loss with minimal exercise, and weight gain with emphasis on strength.

Here is a summary of the diet from a “how to” I wrote for my family:

Only calories that reach fat cells matter. The diet has you eat as much of you want of foods, mostly proteins and slow carbohydrates, that do not reach fat cells easily. A binge day is encouraged, both to ease emotional needs and also to cause the body to reset in ways advantageous to the diet.  Simple pre-meal exercises move fat directly to the muscles on binge days.  The diet also requires you drink water almost constantly.

His goal is to make it simple and make it something you can easily stick too.  And he succeeds.

The book is not meant to be read comprehensively, although I did read it entirely. Instead, just pick your need, and read that section.

The book also has other sections unrelated to body composition that make it unsuitable for younger readers.

Summary:

I followed “the lose weight with no exercise” section for the week preceding Christmas.  I was never hungry, never uncomfortable, and I liked what I was eating. I lost 6 pounds.  And I felt GREAT. This, you should know, is a rare feeling for me since I’ve had endocrine system problems related to a head injury 2 years ago.

Christmas arrived with me dreading the departure from the diet. I was feeling really good on it.  I did eat as is typical on Christmas, pie, fudge, chocolate, calorie dense, fast carbs. I felt icky, lethargic, and longed to get back to the 4 Hour Body Diet.   No, compliance shouldn’t be a problem.

In the end three of our family decided to try this diet. My wife, my son, and me. To keep it simple, my son and I will do the “lose body fat/gain strength” diet, which is quite similar to the “lose weight with minimal exercise” version my wife will be doing.  

There is a chemical component to what Mr. Ferriss advocates, which my wife and I will be doing. My son, just 13, will stick to clean eating and exercise.

I’ll report as we go along.

I don’t like computer games. But I like Angry Birds. It fascinates, distracts, occupies, and frustrates.  It is a simple game, but designed precisely for the strengths and limits of mobile devices like the iPad, iTouch and Android.

Congratulations Angry Birds for being the #1 paid app in the iPhone App Store. You were quite possibly the best $5 bucks I spent in 2010.

To get Angry Birds, just search “angry” in the App Store or in the Android Market. Enjoy!

I like to eat. In fact, as I’m eating one meal, I’m often thinking about my next one!  Such is the curse of a high metabolism male.  I also believe, firmly, that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, along with lunch, dinner, and late night snacks.  I’ve reviewed lunch and dinner places on this blog, but never a breakfast place.

There are 6 places to consider for breakfast in St. George:

• Denny’s
• IHOP
• Dorthalea’s
• Fairway Grill
• Bearpaw Cafe
• St. Helens

Of these options, the best ones and the spots I hit regularly, each week, are St. Helens and the Bearpaw. By a narrow margin, I think St. Helen’s is the best breakfast in town, so I’ll cover St. Helen’s today,  and tomorrow, the Bearpaw.

St. Helens – on Telegraph Road in Washington is my favorite spot for breakfast in town. I eat there weekly. Once a week for a business get together, and then on Saturday mornings before our pistol matches.

While everything I’ve ever had has been good at St. Helen’s, I go there for three reasons:

• scones – fried dough, with honey butter or regular honey
• bacon   – the best bacon I’ve ever had eating out
• service – friendly staff that know me, my friends and work hard.

From the outside St. Helen’s isn’t particularly impressive, and the interior is dated, but who cares.  They have SCONES! and BACON!

If you haven’t tried it, go. You won’t be disappointed.  St. Helen’s is the best breakfast in St. George/Washington county.

Short: On par with others, a must see to understand cultural touchstone.

Longer:

Nothing really more to say. You have to see it.  You JUST have to. And if you haven’t read the books you’re weird and unabomberish.

I have to wonder, though, if it is a cultural touch stone anymore.  Opening day and the theater was not full – maybe 2/3rds full.   But there was a line for the next showing.

I may have been among the first Americans to read Harry Potter, having encountered it when introduced in England. I got two UK copies of the first book, one for me, and one for a friend’s kid, who now is off at college. Time flies!

I like the stories, but I’m not a huge fan. I don’t dress up. And I understand the story isn’t “Wuthering Heights”.   But I like it.

This movie is a bit odd, they took one book and divided it up into two movies. They picked an okay spot to end this episode, but it didn’t leave me hanging.

Also, purists, like my beloved wife, SWEAR that thre were things in the movie that were NOT in the book. Sacre bleu!  Say it isn’t so.  Well… I’ve no clue. I’ve read about 200 books since I read this one, so I’ll take her word on it. She is usually right about these things… I always pick Sports not Entertainment for the final Trivial Pursuit questions. She never gets sports and that gives me most of the night to wait for easy Literature questions so I can beat her.

Anyway… it was a Harry Potter movie. Great effects. Okay acting. And you know the story already.  But go see it.

Short:  Excellent. Easily the best pizza in town. A little slice of New York, right here in St. George

Longer:

My son and I were in Georgia a couple weeks back. We went to a Mom & Pop pizza place there and wondered “why the heck can’t we get this kind of pizza in St. George”…

Turns out.. we can.   Bella Maria’s Pizzeria, in the Tonaquint area of St. George, offers superb New York style pizza, plus excellent Italian appetizers, entrees and desserts.

My family devoured the Caprese, and the Bruschetta.  And when the pizza arrived, we grabbed slices, folded them in half and dug in.

So what is different about the pizza?  Flavor.  Brick Oven, or Pizza Factory have okay pizza, but they don’t hit the full pallette of flavors that pizza can reveal. They don’t use good cheese, the dough has no flavor, and the mix of oils and spice doesn’t have pizazz.  Bella Maria’s make’s their own dough from scratch, and you could taste it in every bite.

Bella Maria’s pizza hits on all cylinders. We loved it.  It certainly compared favorably to the pizza we ate at John’s Pizza in the Village in NY last summer.

Price.. compared to Olive Garden, it is cheaper, compared to Dominos, a bit more.  But well worth it.  And you can order by the slice if you like. So, for 6 bucks you can get a couple slices and a drink – and walk out full and happy.

They’ve arrived in St. George at a tough time. I hope they make it. I know we will be eating there regularly, even though it is a bit of a drive for us.

 
Bring an empty tummy

Short: Excellent. Exactly what they say great food, generous portions, fair prices.

Long: We were first referred to Good Wood by fellow USPSA shooter, Farley Collins, whose taste in food I have implicit trust in.  He was right. We eat regularly at the Good Wood in the Salt Lake valley (Murray).

I’ve not had a bad meal at Good Wood. Or anything less than a great meal. Ribs, Pulled Pork Sandwich, steak, barbecue chicken, all have been terrific.

And the service has been excellent as well.  I had a minor different opinion of what the menu meant when I ordered a combination. The manager came out, said – good point – and then chatted with us at length, including comping us a free dessert.  Exactly the right response.

We encouraged them to open one in St. George… fingers crossed.  In the meantime, if you find yourself in Boise, ID or Salt Lake City, (or Orem), give it a try, you won’t be disappointed.

Short: Excellent movie. My wife and I quite enjoyed it.  PG-13 but not for kids.

Long: Take the Scarlett Letter, replace the heroine with a super smart, witty, and engaging teen, throw in absurd situations and you get an 80’s Hughes flick that even a GUY can like.  With clever dialog, overt and subtle humor, skewering those that need a skewering and empathy for those that could use a bit, the movie moves steadily along to a predictable (but that is okay) conclusion – especially when they conclude it with a burlesque number at a school assembly.  

Now… the whole thing is about sex. Not of sex. Not showing it. Not even really talking about it. But it is about it.  So the PG-13 was a gift because there was no F-bomb. There was scatological and street cursing (beeeotch), but, it wasn’t gratuitous and felt appropriate to the characters and the situation.

Emma Stone aced her role, as did Amanda Bynes in a supporting role as a self-absorbed Christian.  Oh… and you will not get Pocket full of Sunshine out of your head for at least an evening.

Go see it.

Short version:  Run away!

Long version:

I assumed this movie was a film rendition of the recent popular novel “The American”. It isn’t.

It has been some time since audience members have left a movie I’ve attended. The viewing I saw was sparsely attended, but lost about 1/3 of the audience before the movie ended.

It wasn’t that it was so bad… just that it was BORING.   Really boring.  At least I had some onscreen gun assembly / silencer building that could interest me, pity the rest of those suffering with me.

Anway, don’t go.

Short: I loved it. If you are 30 and  younger you will really get it. If you are 50 and younger and have some tech/game savvy, you will really get it.  If you don’t match these… give it a try anyway, you will catch on.

Long:

What if real life was a video fight game?  What if you had to move through levels to earn the right to date “Ramona”, the new girl to Toronto (fresh from angst in New York)?

This is the premise of Scott Pilgrim vs The World. I absolutely loved this movie, one of my favorites of recent years.   I’ll see it again because like other great satirical comedies, for instance Airplane!, there are many levels of humor/satire/homage that you miss the first time.

After 5 years, or so, of “well that was okay” movies, Hollywood finally has hit two in a row for me (Inception and Scott Pilgrim).

Kids:

Well… hmm… nope. It isn’t overt, or even specific, but there are situations not appropriate for the kids. I wouldn’t recommend this for anybody under 16, or for any adults that ban face cards in their home (sort of an inside LDS standard, they will know if it applies to them).

Geddy, Alex, and Neil rock

Last week my brother, son and I went to see Rush in concert at the USANA Amphitheatre in Jordan, UT.

Short Take:  They still rock. USANA, however, doesn’t.

Longer view:

This tour, called the Time Machine tour, was not in support of a new album, although they did play some songs from an album in progress. The premise, basically, was play as much as they can from their 30 stellar years. And they did. 3+ hours with a short intermission.

They played tight, as usual – rendering their amazingly complex, rich, and literate songs with relish and except in a few cases true to their original forms.

As a guitar player, I don’t understand out Alex Lifeson can remember much less play these complex tunes – but he does.  And how the heck does Geddy Lee play that bass that intricately, as well as sing, trigger effects with foot pedals, and play keyboard?  Neil Peart… to me he defines drums and how they can contribute to songs.  Oh.. and he writes the lyrics, and not a love song amongst them.

Amazing talent *3 yields **3 the music. We loved it!

I’ll definitely see them again. As long as they want to bring it, I’ll watch it.

But… not at USANA. The location has real potential – a lovely setting, easy parking, easy access to vendors. But it has one HUGE flaw… it is too flat. I’m 6’ tall, had great seats and struggled to see. Those around me shorter couldn’t and were pretty pissed about dropping money on “good” seats. Rush delivered, but USANA didn’t. I’ll not go back there, period.

Oh… and RUSH should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.