Not Hallmark, but ...

Wasting time, this time with one of the Superchannel productions that are, if at all possible, even *worse* than Hallmark movies, I was startled by a line that became a bit of a tagline, and even important to the plot (if these things actually have any plots).  This character says "if a woman makes you want to jump into water, you love her."

No, this line is not exactly profound.

The thing is, in one of the earliest times that I can remember meeting Gloria, I jumped off the Keats dock (fully clothed), as a kind of a goodbye sendoff for the Women's Retreat.

(see also https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/07/profundity-from-hallmark-movie.html ,

https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/11/another-one.html , and https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2025/07/another-hallmark-one.html )

Review of "How to Train Your Dragon," 2025 CGI version

Yes, many animated movies are now being redone in "live action," with photorealistic CGI.  In the case of "How to Train Your Dragon, I kind of wondered what was the point, since the animated version was relatively recent anyway.

Overall, the translation does hold up well.  Using live actors does allow for more subtle nuance in what is, after all, an emotionally complicated story.

There is, however, one caveat.  The use of real landscapes and CGI "dragons" does, often, strain credibility with the physics of various scenes, and sometimes only serves to point out the problems with scale and distance that the original, somewhat cruder animation, hides.

Vibe coding

I *love* this ad.  I mean, it's for a recruiter, and a gig economy one at that, but even so, it says all kinds of things about genAI tools that just ring so true.  "[A] no-code world that's too good to be true."  "[J]ust not tested through."  "I don't care about bugs."  "I don't need a backend if I've got the spark."

Non-kosher potatoes?

Potatoes get a bad rap from the "no carbs" diet crowd.  Potatoes are actually amazingly nutritious.  (The "Potato Famine" in Ireland was so bad not simply because of monoculture, a new pathogen, and amazingly short-sighted forced migrations, but because the *introduction* of the potato to Ireland allowed the populations to balloon ten times over in a very short time.)

So it is interesting to note a new study which indicates that tomatoes may be a genetic ancestor of potatoes.  Particularly in light of the fact that almost everyone eats the french fired version of potato chips (not crisps) dunked or covered in ketchup.

However, this may create a new problem for those seriously following the tenets of the Jewish faith.  There is that statement about "thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk," which has developed into a prohibition against cheeseburgers.  (You can't have meat and dairy in the same dish.)  Given this same logic, ketchup on chips no longer seems to be kosher ...