December 31, 2008

Ring In the New Year With Music

It's an American tradition to ring in the New Year with music, so one of the two videos I posted today here at ConnPost.com is a holiday treat I hope you will enjoy: a live appearance of Yesteryear, the poll-winning Connecticut Doo Wop vocal group. The story that goes with the video has been online here at ConnPost.com about a month, and it should appear in print very soon, so I thought it would be a good day -- New Year's Eve -- to see Yesteryear in action. Copyright laws allow me to use only half-minute chunks of the protected songs, though, not the entire piece, so the songs do not appear full-length. But even so, you can tell that Yesteryear is a truly terrific vocal group.
The second video I posted today, about the New Year's Eve snowstorm, also has a musical element: it is a slide guitar instrumental by the Canadian duo Santo and Johnny, called "Sleepwalk," from 1959, the year I was born. I had been meaning to use the classic mood piece as the soundtrack for a newsvideo during 2008, but never got around to it. Then, on the last day of the year, we had the snowstorm with its sliding cars, swirling snow, gray skies and somber, moody air, and I knew it was time to finally use the track.
So please enjoy the videos, drive safely, and Happy New Year!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 30, 2008

Guy Lombardo time again

I was working on a newsvideo today about champagne sales for New Year's Eve during the recession, and spent some time searching for good background music to mix into the soundtrack. I listened to a number of different artists perform their own take on the famous piece of music known as "Auld Lang Syne" -- I have to admit, James Taylor's version really grabbed me as the best of the contemporary readings -- but the one that seriously captured the whole essence of New Year's Eve was none other than the man who originally made the tune popular, Guy Lombardo.
Lombardo's Royal Canadians were the top dance band in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Their most famous number was "Auld Lang Syne." They played it with a little Dixieland-like droop in the high notes, a little Southern drawl with slurred notes in the horn section, that is highly suggestive of people drinking and thinking about both the past and the future.
It brought back so many memories for me -- Lombardo had played the song on New Year's Eve on radio, during the Depression, and in later decades, on television, which is where I first saw him as a kid in the 1960s. He died in 1977, but for decades after, my grandmother, Genevieve, always talked about how it can't really be New Year's Eve without Guy Lombardo. His way of playing the tune carried the most weight. She died in 2003, still wishing that she could see Lombardo play "Auld Lang Syne" the way she remembered it, from the Depression years of the 1930s when people had little money to spend but found their riches in each other.
I looked at some of the archival photos of New Year's Eve parties from the Depression years, and could see in the faces of the partygoers the same anxieties we face today, as we struggle with the deepest economic recession since that time.
So please enjoy the video, and good luck to us all in this last year of the first decade of the 21st Century.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 29, 2008

The comedy of shifting medical advice

I have just returned from the gym, with sweat rolling down the back of my neck and two pounds lighter than I was last Friday morning. I know it's going to do me some good, like it has for the past three years or so since I've been back to regular exercise programs, but I get a kick out of the shifting advice the medical community dishes out. One day such-and-such is good for you, the next day it's poison, lol.
It used to irk me to no end when I was in my 20s and 30s, and really fanatical about working out, and the standard advice from doctors at the time was "exercise moderately three times a week." Several of my own doctors frowned upon my heavy workouts and told me I was going at it too hard.
Now I'm pushing 50 and WANT to be moderate. I WANT to only go to the gym three times a week and do moderate exercise. I really want to do middle-aged things, like enjoy quiet dinners instead of boisterous parties and sip fine Kentucky bourbon instead of quaff from a cold keg of Milwaukee beer.
And what is the prevailing advice from the medical community now, when old Tony T has gray at the temples and salt in his mustache? "Exercise VIGOROUSLY at least five times a week!," lol.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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The most impressive high school band

If you've been watching the newsvideos here at ConnPost.com of high school football games, you will notice that I always try to give some footage to the high school bands that perform at the games.
Really, some of them are super. They deserve some recognition too, I would think. So let me say this: Stratford High and Bunnell High, you guys are terrific. Fairfield, you knocked my socks off.
Trumbull High? Lol, you know you are good, otherwise you wouldn't be performing for a national TV audience on Good Morning America.
But I have to tip my hat at the deepest angle to the Newtown High School band -- their performance at halftime during the Newtown homecoming game was nothing short of spectacular. I have played in bands and I know how much work is involved in getting a tight, cohesive bond like that so my respect goes out to you.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 28, 2008

The song most heard at high school football games

It was a terrific high school football season, a season that produced many star players and MVPs who are probably going to continue in football at the college level. You can read all about them in today's Connecticut Post sports pages. But, as the videographer for ConnPost.com, I captured not only the action on the field but the excitement in the stands and the frenetic energy of the band pit.
Let me tell you about the song that was most heard by marching bands at high school football games: it was "Rock n' Roll (part 2)," by Banbury, England's Gary Glitter, a song that debuted on the American charts in the fall of 1972 and held on for an amazing six months, well into 1973. Glitter was a novelty in the U.S. but had a hit-studded career that lasted for decades in the U.K.
That three-minute jam song became an iconic hit that helped to define a moment in time and became a perfect soundtrack for football games. I know it must have made a fortune for Glitter, whose real name was Gadd. He is now 64, a goodly age for retirement for the average worker. Had he known that record from 1972 would have such a long shelflife, he probably would have tried to write other pieces like it, sort of like Connecticut's own Johnnie Marks, who wrote a sleighful of hit Christmas songs like "Holly Jolly Christmas" and Silver and Gold" even though he was Jewish.
What memories does that song by Gary Glitter stir in your mind? Write in and tell your story!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 27, 2008

A few favorite books of 2008

Joe Meyers, the Connecticut Post's book reviewer, said it would be okay if I wrote some mini-reviews of some books myself, because there really are so many books published that no single reviewer can possibly get to enough of them. I had to check with him first, of course, because journalists are very territorial and do not like it when other reporters invade their turf or snatch stories off their beats.
As a result, I've written a number of mini-reviews of non-fiction books this year. It has really been fun, but in all the day-to-day runaround, a couple of books I have truly enjoyed this year didn't make it into a blog. So before New Year's Eve hits and we're all thinking about 2009and what's to come I wanted to pull an Oprah and share my enthusiasm for some great books I've enjoyed in 2008:
+How the Barbarian Invasions Shaped the Modern World; an illustrated history book by Thomas J. Craughwell, Fair Winds Press. I love a good, solid history book, and this is one of the best I've seen in my life: an enjoyable, well-researched journey into the mindsets of the Vikings of Scandinavia, the Vandals of North Africa, the Huns, the Mongols, the Tartars, the Goths (lol, the Barbarian tribe, not the teenagers with black eye liner) and the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Normans and other diverse tribes that attacked Great Britain through the centuries.
This book is full of compelling vignettes, but one that captured my attention in particular was the story of the last emperor of fallen Rome, a 14-year-old boy named Romulus Augustus, who in the year 476 A.D. was spared execution by the Vandals and allowed to live the rest of his life in peace in southern Italy, at Campagna near Salerno. What a neat subject for a film that would be!

+Great New England Storms of the 20th Century, by The Boston Globe. A terrific illustrated book that helps us to recall the great storms we have lived through: I still remember the great New England flood of June, 1982, like it was yesterday -- what do you remember? And who can forget the fearsome winter of 1993-94? Lol, when I got married in 1985 Hurricane Gloria hit. These big storms are like markers in our lives, and help us to recall where we were, what we were doing, and what we were thinking. (Now that I mention that, what was I thinking?)

+The Last Human: A Guide to 22 Species of Extinct Humans, Yale University Press. I've always been a fan of anthropology so this illustrated book really grabbed me. The Yale Press does such a terrific job with illustrated non-fiction books -- the book they published a couple of years ago on the history of bicycles had me glued from the first page, as well. This is the kind of book that could easily be flipped into a history channel show.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Big Brother really could be watching

Here's a chilling thought: if you are like me, one single corporation owns your telephone service, voicemail service, cellphone service, personal Internet access service, Web browser, personal email accounts, personal newsgroup accounts, message board account, and even operates the personals listings where you keep your dating profile.
That company is AT&T.
We've come a long way from the breakup of Ma Bell.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 26, 2008

Finally some action on pirates

Over the summer, I had written several blog items about how Somalian pirates were embarrasing the world's superpowers by taking even Russian cargo ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden.
It was all done by armed thugs with speedboats.
That will likely change now that the United Nations Security Council has authorized nations to conduct land and air attacks against pirate bases. China, in a rare show of international force and authority compared with recent decades, has moved Naval ships to the region and is willing to pull triggers. The U.S. Pentagon welcomed China's bold move.
The pirates were asking for it from the Chinese, really. They attacked two out of 10 of the 1,265 Chinese ships that passed through the Somali area this year.
-- TONY SPINELLI

ADDENDUM: A day or two after the Chinese announced they are on the way to Somalia and prepared to destroy the pirate bases within the country, the president of Somalia has resigned. I don't think that is an unrelated coincidence.

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Wanted: straight headlines

It's no secret that I am a news junkie, and that also means I am a critic, to a degree. I love a good, solid, straight headline and praise those who can turn them out, one after another, every day.
When headlines are not straight and solid, they can be damaging to people's feelings, with innuendos and double entendres like "moldy school teacher retires," and at the very least, can be as irritating as a sand pebble in your walking shoes.
Here are some examples of the irritating headlines I've seen recently:
+Question headlines that do not inform, but tease us: "Amazing Mars photos: what do they show?" That really irritates me because I want a straight, clean headline that just tells me, "Photos show ice on Mars," not "what's behind the third door?" like some kind of TV game show.
+Describing things poorly or inaccurately, on purpose, as if the truth is too ugly to behold. I'm sorry, cable news networks, but the mass shooting on Christmas Eve by a man dressed as Santa was not a "tragedy." It was a massacre. Let's call a spade a spade. When someone is killed in an avalanche that is a tragedy. When someone is killed by a flood that is a tragedy. When eight people are shot to death by a hellbent gunman crashing a party that is a massacre.
+Misrepresenting a hard fact. I have seen far too many headlines and news items that describe terrorist attacks as "senseless." In fact, they are carefully planned and orchestrated by dozens of motivated people who put a lot of thought into it; they have geopolitical objectives.
It would be a good new year's resolution for everyone in the news media to try to write cleaner, straighter headlines.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 23, 2008

Most Popular Blog Items of the Year

I have really enjoyed writing this blog! It reminds me of a couple of years ago, when Assistant Managing Editor Ted Tompkins had the "Talk of the Town" column that ran on Sundays, and I became a regular contributor to it. For me, blogging is a digital form of column writing, and I enjoy it so much I have even done it while on vacation time.
That being said, I have also enjoyed the feedback and input from the readers, or as we say on the Web, the viewers. I have found people who actually enjoy my sense of humor (I know my ex-wife didn't, lol) and that is worth a lot to me because I believe a sense of humor is a gift, and that comedy is everywhere.
And the blog items this year that created the biggest stir, with viewers writing in to share a laugh or add a comment, were:
+Anything about Bridgeport history. I have a great love of history, and I am a native of Bridgeport, having spent my early childhood on the corner of William and Arctic, just down the block from Washington Park. The first marching band I remember seeing in my life was at Washington Park. The first ice cream I remember eating was at Washington Park. The first pizza I remember eating in my life was from Jennie's in the Hollow. I still remember the ancient elevators in the department stores downtown, the mini-downtown that was East Main Street, and buying sports equipment at the Arctic Sports Shop to play pickup games on the Old Mill Green on Boston Avenue. I love sharing memories of Bridgeport, and the viewers like to add their own buck-fiftys worth.
+Charlie the Bum. I have written several blog items about Charlie the Bum, Bridgeport's well-known king of the hobos who died in 1965, when I was 6-years-old. Lots of people remember Charlie the Bum and like to hear and share stories about him. I have also written about Ernie the Pirate, who was famous for living on a houseboat, and these blogs hit the spot.
+Movies. Joe Meyers, our movie reviewer, is the wizard when it comes to reviewing films, but there are so many out there, like books to be reviewed, that he told me he wouldn't mind if I occasionally blogged about movies I'd seen. When I did it struck a nerve -- probably because movies are a point of culture we can all share and have in common, and everyone wants to know a little about them before renting them or buying a ticket.
Thanks for reading and viewing, and Merry Christmas!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 22, 2008

Winter Driving Tips For Small Car Owners

I saw so many smashed cars alongside the roads over the past few days, from the snowstorms that we had, that my teeth were on edge. Small, lightweight vehicles are typically the ones that get in the most trouble -- small cars like mine.
But I've learned a few techniques over the years for operating small, front-wheel drive cars in the snow, so I thought I'd share them since everyone is in love with small cars again:
+Keep the car full of gasoline, to add weight. That is easier to do now that gas is $16 or so a tank. Weight is your friend in a snowstorm because it adds traction.
+Another method of adding weight to a front-wheel drive vehicle is to put a few 25-pound barbell plates on the floor of the passenger side in front. The added weight over the right front drive tire will give you a little more traction.
+When driving through snow or icy conditions, drop down to second or first gear for extra traction.
+Drive very slowly in treacherous conditions. Twenty mph should be about right on the highway.
+Allow plenty of distance between vehicles for breaking and powersliding.
+Stay to the main roads that are most likely to be well-plowed, and plan your route to avoid as many hills as possible.
+Be sure your tires are not worn out. Even a snow tire is useless if the tread is worn out.
+Avoid driving in bad conditions as much as possible.
There are some other tips as well, but this should get you started.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Eating Out Is Sometimes Cheaper Than Eating In

In a recession, stretching a dollar is one of the most important skills one can have.
That being said, I have found that eating out at fastfood restaurants where no tipping is involved can sometimes be cheaper than buying food in a grocery store and preparing it at home. Here are some examples:
+The McDonald's Dollar Menu. Let's face it, you can't make a fried chicken sandwich at home for a buck. But you can buy one at McDonald's any day of the week for a buck. I used to be a huge fan of Burger King chicken sandwiches, in the 1980s, but then McD came out with the McChicken for a buck, which has to be one of the greatest values in American fastfood, right up there with the buck chili at Wendy's.
+The Deli counter at ShopRite. ShopRite is one of the very best low-priced supermarkets you will find. Their deli counter offers deals on foods you could not honestly make at home for the low price they charge: for $4.75, you get an enormous grinder stuffed with expensive deli meats. It is so big, you can have half one day and half the next, getting two lunches out of it for a little more than $2 each -- an amazing bargain.
+The pizza counter at ShopRite. We live in a time when the typical pizza parlor charges $2.50, or even more, for a slice. But that is not the case at ShopRite, where you can buy a slice of sausage pie, (my favorite, bar none) loaded with sausage and not skimpy on cheese either, for 99 cents. I can say in all honesty that you could not buy the ingredients and make pizza at home for that low price.
+The produce section at Food World and X-pect Discounts. The doctors advise us to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables each day, but produce is one of the more pricey items at a supermarket. Discount supermarkets are the answer to that problem. Learn to enjoy apples, instead of the fancy stuff, and you'll save a bundle. Apples also have the best fiber.
+Chinese takeout. In a recession, it is simply amazing that you can go to a Chinese takeout kitchen and pay $3.75 for an order of chicken, broccoli and rice, or beef, broccoli and rice, or whatever. It is a well-balanced meal, containing a respectable amount of protein as well as the all-important vegetables, and the price is unbeatable. It can honestly be said that you could not make a meal of chicken, vegetables and rice at home for that low price.
+Some things are cheaper at fastfood restaurants than making them at home, but coffee is not one of them. If you drink three or more cups a day, like I do, coffee can be a considerable out-of-pocket expense when examined on a weekly or monthly basis. So the best thing to do is learn to make it to your own liking at home, buying brands that are on sale, and learn to enjoy non-dairy creamer powder, which is a cheap commodity that can be picked up inexpensively at a discount store like X-pect and is a great bargain compared with buying milk or cream. Learn to use a thermos.
+If you want to go on a diet, a recession is a bad time. You are struggling to have enough food to eat, never mind specialty diet foods like boneless, skinless chicken breasts and albacore tuna steaks, much less protein supplements. So don't try to be a swimsuit model right now -- there is no such thing as cheap diet food.
Of course when times are good you don't have to make an art out of stretching a buck, but times are not good right now. If you have any ideas or tips on stretching a buck please write in!

-- TONY SPINELLI

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Get That Recession Laptop

We are in the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, one that makes the recession of 1989-1993 look like a warmup lap, true. (I don't remember the entire American automobile industry on the brink of bankruptcy in that recession; even the economy car champ Japanese are not safe -- Toyota expects it's first-ever annual loss.)
So, in a distressed economic time, what do you do if your home computer needs to be replaced, or your printer buys the farm? What do you do if you need a laptop computer?
The answer is one that I gave in a couple of articles done earlier this year on the occasion of national recycling awareness month: the answer is, Bridgeport Area Youth Ministries.
BAYM refurbishes computers and peripherals of recent vintage and resells them at a discount price -- much less than you would pay at even the deepest discounts among retailers. The equipment is guaranteed to work properly.
It is all for a good cause, as well. BAYM is a Christian mission that hires young teens from the inner city and trains them. And it provides local people and businesses on tight recession era budgets an opportunity to buy computer equipment they otherwise could probably not afford, with credit markets frozen the way they are and personal loans and credit so hard to come by. Sort of like the Goodwill, for computer equipment, except that the equipment is guaranteed to be in working order and sound in every way.
It's called getting the most bang for the buck.
You owe it to yourself to visit BAYM's store on Bridgeport's East Side, in an old brick factory building on Logan Street.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 21, 2008

Some of My Favorite Newsvideos of the Year

As you probably know by now, newsvideo is a new element in journalism that has swept the United States in the past year or two: newspaper Websites, such as your very own ConnPost.com, are crafting newsvideos to report stories, appealing to those viewers who perhaps grew up watching television news and enjoy a multi-media approach to news reporting. It is a new, digital form, a cousin to television news, and sometimes even a cousin of the documentary form, but done with simpler equipment (no $70,000 cameras) and a format that typically features no on-camera reporter or anchor. You hear the reporter narrating the story but don't actually see him. It's not because the reporter is camera shy -- it's because the reporter is also the camera operator!
As you can imagine, I've spent a lot of time watching the newsvideos that are made in the U.S. by my colleagues in the industry. So here are a few of my favorite videos of the year:
+The Louisiana Crawfish video, produced as a travel video piece (wouldn't I love to do a travel piece!) by the Ventura County Star in California. I was fascinated by this nearly five-minute video about how Louisiana eats crawfish like crazy during the Lenten season, and it inspired me to do a series on Connecticut clam chowder; because we are situated in New England but close to New York, Connecticut has not one but three clam chowder traditions: Rhode Island, Manhattan, and creamy classic New England. That will be coming in the new year!
+The children's vocal solo tryout by the Washington Post. When I saw this video, of kids trying out for a vocal solo, my jaw dropped: it showed about 20 kids, edited down so that each kid sang one line or two of a song, and it was all edited so perfectly that the song didn't miss a beat. It was a brillaint piece of video editing, and don't you know, I wanted to give it a try: so I did. When a bunch of kids tried out in New Haven to sing the national anthem at the Pilot Pen Tennis Tournament, I used this technique I had seen on the Washington Post Web site and it was a lot of fun. A lot of work, but a lot of fun.
+The California wildfires newsvideo by the Associated Press. The AP is very big on producing newsvideo. One of their efforts, from early this year, caught my eye with its smooth transitions from narrated video passages to on-camera interviews. It is a straight, hard news format that I have used numerous times, such as when the former Remington Arms factory in Bridgeport caught on fire.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 20, 2008

Super Saturday And It Looks Like Christmas

Today, as lovely as it is with all that snow, just happens to be Super Saturday, the second largest retail spending day of the year, just behind Black Friday.
It is called Super Saturday because it is the last Saturday before Christmas, and anyone with any presents left to buy sort of feels compelled to get out there and buy them before it gets any later.
So, my plan today -- after I've shoveled my car out of the 10 inches of snow that fell here in Seymour -- is to go to a couple of my favorite stores and see what bargains can be had.
Here are a few of them:
+Ocean State Job Lot/This chain of liquidators has a store in Seymour that offers great deals on small items like calendars ($2 or so, compared with $12 or more at the mall), reading glasses ($3 or so, compared with $20 or more at the drugstore) and even low-budget Oriental rugs. (Great for dressing up a room. I am a fan of Oriental rugs, which I combine with decorative pillows to dress up my digs.)
+Sym's/This chain of clothing discounters has a branch on Black Rock Turnpike in Fairfield that is without question the very best clothing store I know of. I have been a loyal customer of Sym's, for things like shoes, sport jackets, suits, ties and coats, since I first went there in the 1990s because I heard they had an excellent shoe department, which of course they truly do. Their prices are so low they will knock you out and their selection is unbeatable, in every size, which is important to me because I take Big & Tall sizes and most department stores do not carry my size.
+Burlington Coat Factory/This chain of clothing discounters, like the name implies, is a good place to buy a coat, but they have lots of terrific stuff in general. There's one in Stratford on Barnum Avenue Cutoff I've been going to a long time.
+Marshall's/You never know what you're going to find at this discount chain; I have found some really nice deals on sport shirts and casual wear.
+Wal-Mart/Don't underestimate Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart, in a recession, is like an oasis.
+T.J. Maxx/Like Marshall's, you don't know what you'll find at this discounter. I have found great deals on gymwear at the Maxx.
What are some of your favorite stores, and why? Drop a line and talk about them!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 19, 2008

Possibly the Worst Movie of the Year

I thought the movie Babylon A.D. was bad, with over-the-top violence only a sociopath could love; then along came a film that reviewer Joe Meyers and I both agree is one of the dullest and most ill-conceived pictures imaginable: "The Day the Earth Stood Still."
As you probably know, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is one of those old-time science-fiction movies from sci-fi's golden age that is fairly memorable. But this remake is such a yawner, it is difficult to believe that the script was even approved for shooting.
Your movie money would be better spent renting a copy of Tom Cruise in "War of the Worlds," which ranks right up there with "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "The Terminator" as films that take the sci-fi genre to new heights.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 18, 2008

Black Rock Welcomes Wendy's

When I'm on assignment shooting sports video in Milford or Stratford at night, I try to make a point to stop by Wendy's for a fast-food bite, because when I'm on the go fast is the only speed I know. I have long questioned why one of the best fast-food restaurants in the world has no location in Bridgeport, the state's largest city.
That's all changing now: there is a new Wendy's opening soon on Fairfield Avenue in Black Rock, and it is a welcome sight.
Wendy's offers one of the best-priced quarter-pound hamburger meal packages going -- it only costs about $5 and change for a quarter-pound burger, fries and soda, so it isn't going to break the bank. And the hamburgers are good, no lie. Good and cheap.
Wendy's also offers some terrific alternative side dishes, when you just don't want to eat French fries. You can order some of that famous Wendy's chili, which is very reasonably priced, and of course you can get a baked potato instead of fries.
So welcome to Black Rock Wendy!
-- TONY SPINELLI

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A Neapolitan Biscuit Recipe for Christmas

I had promised I would write a blog about Grandma Genevieve's Double-Baked Neapolitan Biscuits, aka "Biscotti," aka "Anisettas," so in the spirit of Christmas past, here it is.
First a little history. The Pirelli family came to Connecticut from Caserta, a suburb of Naples, Italy, in late Victorian times. The youngest daughter of the large family was Genevieve, my grandmother, who lived to be 93. (She married my grandfather, Pat Spinelli, the barber, whose family was from Faeto, a mountain village in the bootheel of Apuglia.) This is the Pirelli family's original recipe for "Biscotti," biscuits that have a festive edge for the holidays. They are also called "anisettas," because they are made with anise.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Gather: six eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp anise flavor, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 stick butter, 3-1/2 cups flour sifted with 4 tsps. baking powder

+In a large bowl, (use a modern electric mixer at medium speed if you like), beat together butter and sugar until well blended. Add eggs, anise and vanilla extract. Beat until smooth.
+In a small bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Sift into wet ingredients and lightly beat until dough is formed.
+On a floured surface, knead dough into a ball and cut in half. Press each ball into a 10x4 loaf and place each on a buttered cookie sheet. Use 2 cookie sheets.
+Bake about 30 minutes or until golden brown.
+Remove from oven, let cool on cookie sheets for 5 minutes.
+Cut each loaf DIAGONALLY with a sharp knife into 1/2 inch wide slices, roughly 1-1/2 fingers thick. Return them to cookie sheets, cut side UP, and bake 10 MINUTES MORE PER SIDE. (This technique is known as double baking)
+Let cool on wire racks.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 17, 2008

Cinematic Moments of 2008

As you probably know by now, I love good movies and have been known to collect classic films on DVD -- although some of the movies like "Plan 9 From Outer Space" are more kitschy than classic, lol.
So here are some of the movies I've seen this year that stand out. I've already blogged about Hulk, Spider-Man and Ironman, etc., so I won't repeat myself.
W./A well-made and superbly-acted story of our outgoing president, George W. Bush. His popularity rating is low, and many people would question why there should even be a biopic about him, but it is a good piece of filmmaking that takes us behind the scenes of our own times and the events that have shaped them. We may not like these times but they are the times of our lives, as someone once said .
Ratatoulie/Although technically released in 2007, I didn't see this terrific animated picture about a rat who wants to be a French chef until 2008, which happened to be the year of the rat. It's a cartoon, true, and great for the whole family, but it is interesting enough to entertain even the adults in the crew, much like Shrek did a few years back.
You Don't Mess With the Zohan/This has got to be one of the stupidest premises for a comedy film ever. Zohan is an Israeli agent who has a rockstar-like status which makes no sense because agents usually work secretly. To top it off, he is quite invulnerable; bullets bounce off him, like Superman, although the movie does not explain a plausible reason for how this could be, like Clark Kent being from another planet, so it makes no sense. Zohan fakes his death so he can move to New York and become a hairdresser, along the lines of Warren Beatty in the 1970s film "Shampoo," and there are some hilarious moments. This is not one of Adam Sandler's best -- for that you need to see "Little Nicky" or "The Waterboy," but it is outrageous in its complete lack of a believable storyline.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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Good News For Tight Grocery Budgets

If you are struggling to find money for Christmas dinner for your family next week, take heart: the King's Pantry food ministry in Bridgeport probably has a frozen turkey for you.
Just show up at the King's Pantry, on Florence Street across from the Salvation Army thrift store on Connecticut Avenue, on a weekday from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and show your photo identification, and a frozen turkey, courtesy of some generous donors, is yours.
Hurry while supplies last.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 15, 2008

Still Time To Be A Hero To Needy Children

I stopped by the Valley Toys for Tots store on East Main Street in Ansonia this morning, while I was out running errands on a Monday off from work at ConnPost.com, and helped one of the workers lug a load of toys through the foyer. The toys were in a giant box: he pulled on it and I pushed from behind.
I checked in to see how the toy drive was doing, and whether they had enough.
Bob Bohannon, a vice president at TEAM, the services agency in Derby that runs the Toys For Tots program, said he was grateful for a lot of volunteers and there were some generous people -- someone actually donated a brand new Nikon digital camera -- but altogether, the recession cut into the usual amount people give.
As a result, poor children whose parents cannot afford to buy Christmas gifts for them will probably get four toys each from the program, rather than last year's five toys each.
But Bohannon was hopeful that latecomers would make some donations, even though it is late in the game, and donate some toys.
"If by some miracle we get more donations over the next couple of days, then we'll be able to give five toys per child like last year," Bohannon said.
If you can help please lend a hand and share the joy of Christmas with fellow Americans in need.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 13, 2008

American Cookbook With An Edge

It's no secret that I love cookbooks, and one of the best I've ever seen is the one I'm reading right now: "America Eats!," by Pat Willard, from Bloomsbury USA, distributed through Macmillan.
The book takes us on the road throughout the U.S. with the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression of the 1930s, looking at the foods Americans liked to eat, the way they cooked them, served them, and a glossary of terminology of the '30s for the names Americans gave to their foods. (A root beer and ice cream float was called a black cow. A C.J. was creamcheese and jelly on toast. An A.C. was a grilled American cheese sandwich.)
This book is a combination of non-fiction writing about the people of the time, by the likes of Ralph Ellison and Saul Bellow, with period photographs that tell a thousand words the way they're supposed to, and of course, great recipes, like one for fried chicken that requires the cut chicken pieces to be marinated in buttermilk for at least an hour before being rolled in the traditional flour, cornmeal, salt and pepper mix. Maybe that's Colonel Sander's secret!
-- TONY SPINELLI

ADDENDUM: Here are some more of the slang terms from the '30s, as they appear in America Eats!
+Thin man/Someone who only tips a dime.
+Uncle Ezra/Slang for Alka-Seltzer.
+Sweet Alice/Slang for glass of milk.
+Lump/A Camel cigarette.
+Paint It Red/Cherry Coke.
+Sinkers/Slang for doughnuts.
+Brunette/Black coffee.
+Blond/Coffee with cream.
+49/Means look at that beautiful girl.
+Jersey cocktail/Glass of milk.
+14-1/2/Slang for an overweight but pretty woman.
+Vanilla/Slang for good looking girl.
+Vermont/Means maple syrup.
+95/A customer who leaves without paying.
+Sand/Sugar.
+Murphies/Potatoes.
+Lake Whitney/Glass of water.
+66/Means look at that good looking woman.
+Juggling dishes/Waiting tables.
+Starving/Not getting any customers.
+Bottle of red/Ketchup.
+86/Means supply is gone.
+81/Slang for customer.
+Nervous pudding/Jell-o.
+Bool/Bowl of soup from the table d'hote menu.

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December 12, 2008

A Survival Plan for the Big Three

The American automobile manufacturers are on the brink of bankruptcy and the situation is dire: so many jobs are at stake, directly and indirectly, that it is frightening to consider the consequences.
For the short term, the Big Three are asking for some financial help. President Bush is reportedly at work on a plan. For the longterm, they are going to have to get back into the business of making affordable passenger cars in the spirit of the Falcon, the Nova, the Maverick, the Chevette, the Fiesta, etc., instead of the big gas-guzzling SUVS and pickup trrucks.
But I think they'll need more help than that. For the longterm, I think what they really need is a tax incentive for Americans to buy domestic cars. For example, the ability to write off your interest payments as a deduction on your income tax if you own an American vehicle. This would help, I believe.
If American car making fails, this economic recession we are in will certainly get deeper than anyone imagined. The effect of lost advertising revenue in the news media, for example, would be horrific.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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A Tough City To Drive In

When I was a kid, growing up in Bridgeport, I always looked both ways before crossing the street and always avoided stepping out in front of a moving vehicle. Makes sense, right?
But a drive through Bridgeport today is an experience that will set your teeth on edge; people routinely walk, and even run, out into the path of your moving vehicle as if they have no regard for their own safety. It gets worse at night, when you can't see as well. There are people who ignore it when cars have green lights, and walk out in front of moving vehicles.
As a driver, I believe those irresponsible pedestrians should be ticketed for their dangerous behavior, the same way drivers are ticketed for driving improperly. And it's not just Bridgeport's problem -- it seems to be endemic.
It only makes sense to improve safety on our roads.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 7, 2008

The King of Incredulity

I arrived early at the championship football game Saturday afternoon and took a seat at the top of the bleachers, along the 50-yard line, right next to the steps leading to the field and right in front of the entrance to the observation deck stairs. I thought it was the best place to set up my camera for the opening shots of the game.
A guy came to sit across from me, and he started some small talk. But whatever I said to him, he reacted as if it were some far-fetched made-up story that couldn't possibly be true. The man was incredulous to the bone.
"Yea, at the Thanksgiving game there were about 10,000 people in the crowd," I told him.
"Oh really?," he said with a chuckle, as if that couldn't possibly be so.
He was from New London -- maybe football crowds are smaller there.
He remarked about how cold it was, just above freezing, and I told him it would be worst if it werre wet.
"On the first night of the season, it was pouring rain," I told him.
Again, he reacted as if I were telling a tall tale.
"Is that so?," he said, as if I had just told him the Brooklyn Bridge is for sale.
That was the last straw. If got up and moved to another spot in the stadium.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 6, 2008

High School Football Matters

When someone plays for the New York Giants, that doesn't mean they are from New York.
When somebody plays for the UConn Huskies, that doesn't mean they are from Connecticut.
But when someone plays for Stratford High, you can rest assured that the guy is actually from Stratford. He drinks the local water; walks the local roads; knows most of the people and places you know; he is from that place, no doubt. And that's at least part of the reason why high school football matters.
I videotaped a lot of games during the season that just ended tonight, with the state championships, and I have talked with a lot of fans. They went to see Shelton, they went to see New Canaan or Ansonia, not because their sons were playing, or because their nephews were the starters, or because their neighbor was on the defense, but because they lived in that town and had a sense of local pride about the team.
"I've been coming to these games for 40 years," one older guy, probably about 70, told me one night at a Bunnell game.
There's an authentic local pride in a high school football game that doesn't really exist in higher echelons of the sport, where recruits from out-of-town play against other recruits from out-of-town, and that's probably why tens of thousands of people pick up the newspaper or go online to read about high school football each day when the season is on.
I'll buy that.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 2, 2008

Celestial Event Goes Barely Noticed

In the movie "The Color Purple," one of the lead characters says something along the lines of: "God gets really mad when He makes a beautiful purple flower and nobody stops to look at it or notice it."
That's probably the way it is with celestial events, as well. There was a major celestial event last night -- a triangular formation of the crescent moon, the planet Venus and the planet Jupiter, and a number of people I spoke with today did not bother to take a look at it.
I have to admit, I looked at it. I saw it, and admired it, but I could find no articles online anywhere from any astrological experts as to what meaning it may have, if it has any meaning at all.
So if you have any ideas on what it means, if anything, drop a line. I'd love to hear it.
-- TONY SPINELLI

ADDENDUM: LOL, could it have presaged the $1.87 per gallon that I paid for gasoline today?

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The Funniest Moments of 2008

Some funny things happen when I'm out shooting video for ConnPost.com. I'm coming up on my one-year anniversary of shooting and editing these videos, and thought I'd share a couple of the screwball moments:
+While videotaping a chef cooking a gourmet meal, I noticed a grease smudge on my camera lens and asked if she had any alcohol. She handed me a bottle of wine.
+While videotaping a doughnut-eating contest, a little old lady asked if she could get the World Wide Web in the Valley. I told her, "ma'am, you can get it in Hong Kong."
+A high school principal was afraid to appear in a video on the Web because she thought someone would electronically undress her. "All the kids know how to do that," she said.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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December 1, 2008

Our President Elect Is Right: We Need Change

President-Elect Barack Obama is right: we do need some change, and probably in more ways than one.
For me, I've had a change in my workout routine at the gym and I have to say it feels great.
I had done the same routine -- walk a mile, exercise moderately with the weight machines three times a week -- for probably a year or more, and it was getting so boring, so predictable, that I wasn't looking forward to it anymore.
So when I went to the gym this morning, I changed things up: while watching the headline news on the treadmill's TV monitor (yes, I am a news junkie. I love that news at a glimpse channel on satellite where you can watch like six mini-screens of televised news simultaneously) I walked for a full 30 minutes at a brisk pace, rather than stopping at one mile, and then I completely avoided the usual weight machines and instead did some basic barbell work in the free weight room.
The basic barbell work (clean and press for reps) got my legs working, my back into the mix, my shoulders, triceps, etc. It felt invigorating, and I can't say that it was boring. It felt good and I hadn't done them in years.
So, as I watched our new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, on the TV in the weight room at Peak Fitness in Seymour, I felt good about our new national direction, and my own as well.
-- TONY SPINELLI

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