Miniature cooking channels fascinate me and leave me with so many questions.
Where do all the tiny supplies come from? Is that a quail egg? Does the tiny oven really work, or is it just for show? Who takes the time to figure out the tiny portions and how long they should cook? Why are you feeding your hamster people food? Does the food actually taste right?
These channels are also weirdly soothing as they show the process of cooking the miniature food, with the exception of some of the weird sounds and playacting as though the person making the food is tiny too.
If I had more spare time and money, I might try making tiny food if for no other reason than to see how it tastes and maybe use it as a party trick.
I haven't watched miniature cooking in several years—the main reason I watched originally was because watching miniature cooking was a pastime my sister had—but being reminded of it this week and looking at videos for research has made me interested in watching again.
Dove Cameron's cover of "Genie in a Bottle" has great vocals and performance quality, but it sort of lacks when it comes to the way Disney changed the lyrics to be more kid friendly.
The music video sees Dove acting as her "Descendants" character Mal and looking for her genie friend Jordan. Then she wishes aloud that she had Jordan's kind of magic and rubs Jordan's lamp, which causes Mal to shrink down inside the lamp and become a genie as the song plays.
I really enjoyed Dove's performance as she explored the lamp and her singing fit perfectly with the song, which isn't surprising since she's a solid singer and actress. But those kid friendly alternate lyrics threw me off the first several times I listened to the song.
I see the value in cleaning up the lyrics for a child audience, especially with the standards Disney is held to, but some of their replacements didn't quite work from a sensical perspective.
For instance, the original lyric "my body's saying let's go / but my heart is saying no" is replaced with "my mind is saying let's go / but my heart is saying no." It fits the flow, but it doesn't really make sense considering the fact that in mind vs. heart scenarios, the mind is usually making the wise decision.
I also don't know why "needs me" is replaced with "gets me." It doesn't make things more or less kid friendly, and I don't think it addresses another issue. And while I can understand why "you're lickin' your lips" has been replaced, I don't think "thinking of rain" makes a lot of sense as the replacement.
Likewise, while I acknowledge that "rub me the right way" is being used as a seductive double entendre in the original song, rubbing someone the right or wrong way is also a common saying that isn't inherently suggestive.
On the bright side, "ask me the right way" is a good alternative if they really had to change the line. It still fits the non-suggestive meaning and flow, and it reinforces the importance of consent, so I'll give them that one.
I've grown accustomed to the lyrical changes over time, and I never planned to let that stop me from enjoying a good Dove Cameron song anyway. Listen for yourself to see how you feel about it.
"Horton Hears a Who!" is one of Dr. Seuss' more memorable works. It sees Horton the Elephant trying to keep Whoville, a community living on a small speck of dust, safe from other animals who don't believe his claims that Whoville exists.
The prominent theme throughout the story is that "A person's a person, no matter how small." This is a powerful message of equality that rings true even now, let alone when Dr. Seuss published the book in 1954 as a call to treat Japanese people equally and show that he'd changed his previous anti-Japan views.
"Horton Hears a Who!" is a fun, impactful story for children to read, and adults could do with an occasional reading too, just to remind themselves of the message of equality. The idea of tiny people living on a speck of dust is also creative and trippy.
Likewise, I generally tend to like adaptations of the narrative, particularly the 2008 Blue Sky film. After all, who doesn't love a good Jim Carrey performance, or a bunch of characters singing their hearts out about how they "Can't Fight This Feeling" anymore?
In one medium or another, I'm sure you'll enjoy "Horton Hears a Who!"
"Love, Death & Robots" is an anthology series with a lot of intriguing episodes, but "Ice Age" is among the most memorable from the first season.
Gail (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Rob (Topher Grace) move into a new apartment with an antique refrigerator. When they begin cleaning the freezer out, they discover that an entire tiny civilization is living inside, progressing from medieval to industrial to modern in a matter of minutes.
Much like the episode's viewers, Gail and Rob are fascinated by the tiny civilization in their freezer. Unlike viewers though, the two are pretty calm and casual about the situation after the initial shock. Literally, after Rob is blasted with a tiny nuke, they decide to order pizza and wait out the war.
Tiny or not, I'd be concerned about radiation after being nuked in the face. And while they are confused, Gail and Rob never really seem to question anything about where the fridge came from or how it's capable of holding a tiny civilization.
Regardless, the episode captures a certain sense of childish wonder in much the same way as "The Indian in the Cupboard." Maybe that's part of why Netflix reordered it as the third episode even though it originally aired as episode 16.
Either way, it's a fascinating episode that I highly recommend to anyone who likes short stories and intriguing plots about tiny civilizations.
When I was a kid, I was fascinated with the idea of miniature people and how fun it would be to shrink down and play with my toys as though they were regular sized. Like how fun it would be to ride inside my dad's Christmas train set, for instance.
"The Indian in the Cupboard" captured that same feeling when I watched it, along with the added intrigue of interacting with history.
A young boy puts regular toys into a cupboard, then after locking and unlocking it, they come to life with all the knowledge of real people from various times in history. The most prominent toys to come to life are the titular Iroquois Little Bear (Litefoot) and a cowboy named Boohoo Boone (David Keith).
The idea of a cupboard bringing toys to life by plucking real people out of their time period is a fun and fascinating idea that's been stuck in my brain so long that even thinking about it gives me '90s nostalgia.
Another thing I find interesting is that Litefoot insisted on having an Onondaga expert to make Little Bear's performance as culturally accurate as possible. That sort of representation is always interesting to me.
I admit, even with the nostalgia, I still found the movie boring sometimes. But it's worth watching at least once for its creativity and how it invokes a sense of childish wonder.
"Daz & Dave Survival" is a series of videos chronicling Daz Black and BitMoreDave's attempts to survive while stranded on an island, which is something they chose to do because they've played a lot of survival games together and they wanted to see how they'd do in real life.
Right now, the series consists of two episodes, the first of which is shown in the video above, covering their trip to a deserted island in Malaysia last year. They were each allowed to bring three items for survival, and they had a camera man who was free to come and go after filming concluded each day.
They only spent a week at the location due to mounting hunger, sunburns, and fatigue, and they built a raft to get themselves back to inhabited territory, which was one of their goals. This was essentially an extreme camping trip, which was wild enough given their lack of experience.
But now, they've filmed a second season of sorts with even more extreme conditions.
According to Daz's most recent video, he and Dave traveled to the middle of the Indian Ocean, possibly without any of the equipment they had last time, to survive and move between 10 islands, nine of which are uninhabited and usually restricted.
Likewise, they needed to get to the single inhabited island within a certain timeframe in order to be flown home on schedule. After two weeks of filming, they managed to get home safely.
I did some searching with Wikipedia and Google Maps and I think I might know where they were. Based on Daz's description of 10 islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean that aren't usually open to the public aside from one inhabited island, I think they were in the British Indian Ocean Territory.
Most of the islands in the British Indian Ocean Territory are nature preserves that are usually closed to the public, they're right in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and Diego Garcia fits their description of being the only inhabited island with a single airstrip.
The location seems odd given how strict the status is for the islands' nature preserves, plus there are technically at least 11+ islands if you count more recent additions such as Resurgent Island and the tiny isles of the Egmont Islands, but it fits the bill in every other sense based on Daz's description.
Either way, this year sounds more risky and I'm just glad Daz and Dave got home safely.
