Daily Archives: December 21, 2005

That's it for Firefly

Entertainment weekly reports:

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon looks back on 2005, he can take comfort in knowing that his film-directing debut, the sci-fi Western Serenity, resurrected his canceled-too-soon cult classic TV series Firefly, and was also one of the year’s best-reviewed movies. ”I should say I’m above reading reviews,” he says. ”But I would be lying.” Alas, Whedon’s fond memories are also tainted by Serenity’s status as a franchise nonstarter; despite Universal’s best marketing efforts, the film only mustered $25 million. ”In the end, it was what it was: a tough sell,” says Whedon, adding that it appears the Firefly saga has reached its conclusion. He has no regrets — and he’s moving on.

That’s a real shame. I wonder if the failure of Serenity has anything to tell us about the real sway that the blogosphere has? The free screening looked like a Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash, and we all wrote about the film in favorable terms…yet it flopped.

Maybe we’re up to facilitating change in the lesser world of politics, but we’re not quite ready to to take on the big time: popular entertainment.

That’s it for Firefly

Entertainment weekly reports:

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon looks back on 2005, he can take comfort in knowing that his film-directing debut, the sci-fi Western Serenity, resurrected his canceled-too-soon cult classic TV series Firefly, and was also one of the year’s best-reviewed movies. ”I should say I’m above reading reviews,” he says. ”But I would be lying.” Alas, Whedon’s fond memories are also tainted by Serenity’s status as a franchise nonstarter; despite Universal’s best marketing efforts, the film only mustered $25 million. ”In the end, it was what it was: a tough sell,” says Whedon, adding that it appears the Firefly saga has reached its conclusion. He has no regrets — and he’s moving on.

That’s a real shame. I wonder if the failure of Serenity has anything to tell us about the real sway that the blogosphere has? The free screening looked like a Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash, and we all wrote about the film in favorable terms…yet it flopped.

Maybe we’re up to facilitating change in the lesser world of politics, but we’re not quite ready to to take on the big time: popular entertainment.

Et Tu, Fructose?

Sure, we all know that yummy granulated white sugar is bad and and brown sugar is better but it’s still bad and saccharine causes cancer if you eat approximately two oil tankers of it a year and aspartame is not quite as nutra-sweet as we once thought it was, but come on.

This is just too much:

Fructose fruit sugar is not a harmless substitute for glucose.

University of Florida researchers have identified one possible reason for rising obesity rates, and it all starts with fructose, found in fruit, honey, table sugar and other sweeteners, and in many processed foods.

Fructose may trick you into thinking you are hungrier than you should be, say the scientists, whose studies in animals have revealed its role in a biochemical chain reaction that triggers weight gain and other features of metabolic syndrome – the main precursor to type 2 diabetes. In related research, they also prevented rats from packing on the pounds by interrupting the way their bodies processed this simple sugar, even when the animals continued to consume it.

The findings, reported in the December issue of Nature Clinical Practice Nephrology and in this month’s online edition of the American Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology, add to growing evidence implicating fructose in the obesity epidemic and could influence future dietary guidelines. UF researchers are now studying whether the same mechanism is involved in people.

If you read the whole thing you will learn that it may be more of a fructose + uric acid problem than it is a straight-up fructose problem. FuturePundit concludes with a call for help:

So how can one keep uric acid levels down? Anyone know?

Ah, criminy, so now I have to keep track of my uric acid levels and do something to keep them in check? Don’t I have enough to worry about? It’s enough to make me consider doing something really desperate and extreme…like give up sweets altogether.

No, wait. What am I saying? That’s just crazy talk.

UPDATE

El Jefe (a.k.a. Michael Sargent) adds some interesting thoughts:

Uric acid is the primary culprit in gout (something I’m familiar with due to my father’s affliction with same.)

Thus, a diet low in purines (the metabolic precursor of uric acid) might also offset this new-found hazard of fructose.

High purine foods include:

sweetbreads, kidneys, liver, brains, or other offal meats

sardines

anchovies

scallops

alcohol, especially beer because brewer’s yeasts are very rich in purine. (Alcohol is not itself high in purines, but acts as a solvent)

meat extracts, consommés, and gravies

(List from wikipedia.)

This is also beginning to look like “all things in moderation” might be the best advice.