The great soup test
Wintertime is soup time, so I tested five brands of split-pea soup for you, pictured below from left to right: Healthy Valley (instant), Fantastic Foods Big Soup (instant), Imagine Organic (carton), Healthy Valley (canned), and Amy's (canned). The winner? Amy's. But Fantastic Foods's Big Soup came in a close—and at $1.89, more cost-effective—second! On a related note, you might want to read a transcript of the famous split-pea soup scene of Will & Grace episode 1-18, "Grace, Replaced", where Grace's role as Will's best friend is temporarily usurped by the mentally unstable Val. Read that transcript here.

posted December 18, 2003, 9:15 pm

Still more on "Diva"
"Diva" has enough circular resonance to keep lifetime English majors busy for years. An example:

Priest, the thug who doesn't like anything, is always listening to an earphone.

The music pirates' money, which Jules throws out a window, lands in front of a blind accordion player.

Later, a closeup on Priest's earphone (after he is appropriately pushed over a ledge) shows that he was listening to a recording of accordion music.

It was nice that Priest liked something after all.
posted December 18, 2003, 9:03 pm

Music pirates
My friend and I watched the now-classic French art film Diva last night, and like the director said in the interview included on the DVD, it isn't dated at all. At its most essential level, the movie is about an artist confronting the implications of her work being recorded, duplicated, so that, in the words of the movie, commerce comes before art. An article that appeared today on Yahoo! news about music piracy, which you can read here, as if to affirm what the director said. But I like "Diva" for its scenes of people sitting for hours staring into space, emoting, while limpid piano music plays in the background; I found it very peaceful. ¡Très français!
posted December 15, 2003, 10:05 am

New and improved!
Even if you're among the dozens of visitors who have visited That There Paul before, look around. You'll notice each and every page has been subjected to improvements, all designed to make the That There Paul website, in the words of Frau Farbissina, more "ruthless, efficient, brootal"! Little highlights include: the posting of a ridiculous satirical article about Celine Dion, my Marshfield hike, an unnecessarily complicated e-mail form, an insulting mailbag, and a re-vamped photo page.
posted December 7, 2003, 11:49 pm

What kind of industrial solvent am I?
That There Paul readers can now know the results of the "What Kind of Industrial Solvent Are You?" Spinnwebe quiz I took: it turns out I am SOYsolv®. Take the quiz for yourself here.

posted October 12, 2003, 10:10 am