More Random Thoughts (entertainment, sports, tv, food)

This is what happens when I'm stuck at home (to watch the NCAA) over a long weekend. Lots of random thoughts.

Since The Lord of the Rings trilogy, there have been quite a few large-scale fantasy adventure movies. However, none of them have really been very good. Harry Potter is consistent but not breath-taking. The Chronicles of Narnia are just bleh. Pirates of the Carribean got worse and worse. So my vote for the best fantasy movie series since LOTR has never actually been in theaters. It is the God of War trilogy. Yes GOW is a video game, and it is completely animated. It also is not child-friendly because of its over-the-top gore and nudity. But the story is actually quite good and the visual effects are quite stunning. Someone finally put all the GOW3 cut scenes into a movie and it is definitely worth watching.

Also worth watching this year has been 60 Minutes. Maybe I'm just getting old, but the interviews this year have been very entertaining. Beyonce, Andre Agassi, Michael Lewis, Mikhail Prokhorov, etc. are all people I actually want to hear about. They also do a pretty good job when they report on medical discoveries. I don't care at all for Andy Rooney, but the main point is that every once in a while, 60 Minutes does come up with a can't-miss interview of someone really interesting.

Playing Bo Jackson on the old Tecmo Bowl or Tecmo Super Bowl (using a NES emulator online) is like watching the end scene of a Benny Hill episode. See here.

So I was eating my McDonald's Filet-o-Fish (hard to beat 2 for $3) and noticed on the box that they emphasized sustainable fish. Except that there's a little problem. McD's used to use cod, until cod catches declined and they needed to move on. Then they used hoki, and continue to use hoki, although they lowered its use as there began a decline of New Zealand hoki fishery sustainability. So they moved on to Alaskan pollock a few years ago, but now the catch numbers of that fish have declined as well. Anyone notice a pattern here? (information from wikipedia)

This is also a completely different problem from species such as chilean seabass, bluefin tuna, and shark (shark's fin), where they are endangered because of the high prices for them. I'm worried that we are going to approach a point of saturation. One where "normal" consumption habits of an overpopulated world would put too much stress on wildlife regeneration.

This problem will also spread to farmed fish. Cows that are not fed grass. Chicken feed that noone probably ever wants to know the underlying ingredients of. Fish need to eat protein too, and if fishing for smaller fish such as sardines also becomes unsustainable, we might see fish fed with chicken feed in the near future, if not already.