movies – Life In A Word

Fit For a (Fairy Tale) King

I was sorry to see the Germans bow out of the World Cup early, because I’ve had Deutschland on the brain lately. This month (seven years ago) my wife and I cruised down the Rhine River from the Netherlands to Switzerland, but it was pretty much all Germany in between. This month also signals full-on summer and more time in front of the barbeque. On our grill you’ll find German bratwurst as often as American burgers. But more than river cruises and brats, I’m thinking about castles. Not the kind made of sand on beaches, but the real ones made of bricks and stone on mountaintops. Like Germany’s Neuschwanstein Castle.

You’re already familiar with Neuschwanstein; I’m sure you are. When 1.5 million people tour the castle every year – one of the most popular attractions in Europe – it translates to a lot of photos on Facebook. Also, Neuschwanstein includes all of the castle elements you remember from childhood fairy tales: towers, turrets, balconies, gatehouses, courtyards, dungeons, and (the intention of) more than 200 lavishly decorated rooms, built up to the highest of heights. There’s no surrounding moat, but Neuschwanstein gets along fine without one, perched on a hilltop in the middle of the Bavarian Alps.

Frankly, all this castle needs to complete its picture is a king and his court. Alas, Neuschwanstein never had a king – never – not even after its completion in 1892. Yes, the castle was designed by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, but here’s where the fairy tale falls to pieces. To begin with, Ludwig built the castle to escape the stresses of his primary palace life in Munich, so more than anything else it was meant to be a vacation home. Then, Ludwig copied most of Neuschwanstein’s architectural elements from nearby castles, so the design is pretty much a mashup of structures that came beforehand. Finally, and perhaps the saddest statement of all, Neuschwanstein was never completed – not even close. With only a throne room, a “Minstrels’ Hall” (a sort of tribute to the entertainment of the time), a drawing room, and a dozen other spaces, Neuschwanstein’s construction fell well short of its intended 200+ rooms.

The whole idea of Neuschwanstein feels like a bit of a charade. Did Ludwig really intend to decorate and staff hundreds of rooms in a castle from which he didn’t care to lord over the surrounding land? Was he really just frittering away Mom and Dad’s money because he was bored in Munich and had nothing better to spend it on? And shouldn’t he have been focusing his time and energy on his royal responsibilities instead? No wonder he was often referred to as “The Mad King”.

Let’s forget about Ludwig. After all, this post is about a castle, not the king who never occupied it. For all of its lack of completion, originality, and use, Neuschwanstein is still a model castle. Most of you should recognize it from the castle designs it inspired: Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle and Walt Disney World’s Cinderella Castle. But I prefer another one of its inspirations.

If Neuschwanstein is the ultimate castle, then Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (which I wrote about five years ago in Delicious Clicks) is the ultimate fairy tale. The story of the magical flying car, its inventor Caractacus Potts, the evil Baron Bomburst, the lovely Truly Scrumptious, and on and on, comes back to me like it was yesterday. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was the first Ian Fleming book I ever read, well before anything James Bond. Yet it never occurred to me until this post that Neuschwanstein served as the story’s castle. The movie version includes several aerial shots (from the driver’s seat of a flying car, of course), and sweeping views of the surrounding countryside. Neuschwanstein has always had a familiarity about it. Now I know why.

Someday I’ll make the journey to see King Ludwig II’s creation in person… but not before I build it myself here at home. Just when I thought I’d tackled my last LEGO project, along comes another one I simply can’t pass up. The LEGO Neuschwanstein Castle is 3,455 bricks of towers, turrets, and Bavarian Alps, boxed and bagged along with the usual paperweight instruction manual. I’m ready to don my crown and get started and as usual I’ll include small updates alongside my usual posts. When all’s said and built maybe I’ll even suspend a flying car overhead, so the castle looks more like a fairy tale than a mere vacation home for a mad king.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Hitting the Sweets Spot

My brother owns a vintage Ferrari – not as pricey as it might sound. One of his neighbors sold him the 1960s-era car for cheap, in far less than mint condition, and he spent years bringing it back to life. I’ve never had an interest in a Ferrari myself. However, if I change up just two vowels in the word (the “a” and the “i”), I come up with Ferrero. Okay, now you have my attention.

Ferrero is a remarkable success story for a family business, especially considering its start as a modest pastry shop in a small town in northern Italy. Two brothers: Pietro with a love of creating new products and Giovanni a natural at networking, grew the business across the region over the years, but it wasn’t until they handed the reins to son Michele that Ferrero became a household name. Today, the “sweets-packaged food company” is one of the world’s largest, boasting an entire supermarket aisle worth of products.

Let’s start with Nutella (just like Ferrero did when they moved beyond pastries). Nutella was created as a spin on chocolate with the intent of making it more affordable. Add hazelnuts plentiful in local orchards and Ferrero came up with the butter-like confection the world knows so well today. That product all by itself would’ve been considered a success story, but since then Ferrero grew their sweets umbrella to a gigantic list… and one from which I’ve sampled way too many times.

Begin anywhere you want by adding sugar and you’re probably talking Ferrero. How about Tic Tac? It’s a Ferrero product. I’d love to know how many (hundreds? thousands?) of boxes of Tic Tac I’ve consumed over the years, with the excuse I always had a breath mint nearby when I needed one. My choice was the standard white “Freshmint”, but there’s a flavor for everyone now, including the orange “Citrus”, pink and white “Strawberries and Cream”, and even brown “Dr. Pepper”.

Ferrero also commands a good share of the candy bars you’d find at your nearby 7-Eleven. Take your pick from 100 Grand, Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Chunky, Oh Henry, or Crunch – they’re all Ferrero now. If you don’t recognize that last one, it’s because Ferrero (or actually Ferrara – one of their subsidiaries) reduced the word “Nestlé” to a really small font on the label. It’s true; a Nestlé Crunch bar may still be produced by Nestlé but it’s now licensed by Ferrero.

Maybe you’re a fan of movie candy. You’ll also find Ferrero at the theater, whether you choose a box of Goobers, Raisinets, or Sno-Caps. Cookies instead? How about the Mother’s Cookies brand? Their pink/white “Circus Animals” and frosted “Taffy Sandwich” cookies still tug at my taste buds. Or maybe you go for those bite-sized Famous Amos chocolate-chip cookies. Amos may not sound Italian but he’s in the Ferrero family now.

When I first met my wife she introduced to me to Fanny May “premium gourmet” chocolates. It was the first time my allegiance to See’s Candies was tested. Trust me, it’s hard to beat a Fanny May milk chocolate vanilla buttercream. For that matter, raise your game with a cherry-filled Mon Chéri or a gold-foiled Ferrero Rocher . Each of these indulgences – except See’s – are now Ferrero.

Which brings me to the ultimate get. The list I’ve covered is not even half of the name brands you’ll find at Ferrero but last year they might’ve reeled in their biggest fish yet… Kellogg’s. Seriously, who among us hasn’t had a bowl (or a hundred bowls) of Kellogg’s breakfast cereal? When I was a kid there always seemed to be a box of Corn Flakes, Special K, or Raisin Bran in the pantry (none of which I was crazy about) and better yet Apple Jacks, Froot Loops, or Honey (Sugar) Smacks. You’ll find a lot more choices than those on the cereal shelves, and in every case you’re talking Ferrero as much as Kellogg’s.

As much as I’ve enjoy Ferrero’s products, virtually all of them are past memories. I’ve moved on to more “adult” choices (translation: way less processed sugar). So I made myself a wager before I checked: There are no Ferrero products in my pantry. And then I promptly lost the bet – twice. I found a box of Raisin Bran (how’d that get in there?) destined to hit its expiration date sooner than the cereal bowl. And I found a box of Nonni’s, which are pretty darned tasty for an off-the-shelf brand of biscotti. I’m starting to think I took the wrong approach with today’s topic. Maybe my lead question was meant to be: what products aren’t under Ferrero’s umbrella?

Don’t Fence Me In!

Early on in the Christmas classic It’s A Wonderful Life, there’s a scene where George Bailey absentmindedly strolls back and forth on the sidewalk in front of Mary Hatch’s house, dragging a stick along her fence. Mary sees him from an upstairs window, leans out and yells, “What are you doing… picketing? It’s a great line, wordplay on her front yard fence.

For generations, picket fences have stood hand-in-hand with the American houses immediately behind them. These quaint-looking property markers are considered symbols of middle class prosperity and an idyllic family life. Even the “American Dream” includes a white picket fence. But maybe no longer. The dream seems to have been updated. Americans no longer want pickets… they want walls.

As much as I want to believe a high, solid fence is merely the mark of an eccentric neighbor, facts don’t lie. Suburbia is abandoning the picket fence in favor of taller, more robust barriers. A Connecticut fencing company used to fill 40% of its orders with pickets. How many orders have they had for the low white fences in 2026? Zero. Instead they’re filling a demand for panels of plastic (PVC) seven feet on a side, mounted between even higher columns. The welcoming American cottage is turning into the locked-down American fortress.

One could blame the abandonment of pickets on cost and maintenance. After all, wood needs to be kept dry and repainted to avoid rot, while PVC is less expensive and lasts a whole lot longer. Fencing companies tried switching out wooden pickets for plastic ones but apparently the open look isn’t “closed off” enough for today’s preference. There’s a concerning motive at work here. People no longer want to know what’s going on beyond their fences (or even more concerning, they don’t want you to know what’s going on behind them.)

To each their own but I’m still a fan of pickets. They define a property yet don’t remove the “welcome” because they’re short and have gaps. You can easily chat up your neighbor whether you’re twenty feet removed or right up against the fence. As for the look, pickets don’t have to be boring, pointy stakes. They can be crowned with spades, spears, balls, crosses, fleur di lis (for you French-Americans) or whatever else your circular saw can come up with.

A high, imposing fence is the last thing I’d want surrounding my property. Having said that, the first house my wife and I bought had one on three sides. We lived on a California postage-stamp, with both neighboring houses on minimum setbacks. Without the “privacy fence” we’d be looking from our windows right into theirs. It takes awhile to forget what you’ve seen when a neighbor doesn’t draw down the bathroom shade.

Our next couple of houses had no fences at all. The properties were bigger so privacy was solved by distance instead of by division. As for the house we live in now, we’re surrounded by “three-board” fence consistent with the other properties in our community. Three-board is designed to keep horses in the pastures where they belong, but doesn’t wall you off from your neighbors. A three-board is anything but a privacy fence and that’s fine with me. I just wish it was made out of pickets instead.

The math on a picket fence to replace my three-board is not what I’d hoped. Surrounding our five acres would take upwards of 1,000 pickets. Oof. There’s a lot “at stake” there, not to mention our horses would happily step over in pursuit of greener pastures. I’ll just stick with what I’ve got. There’s a wonderful life on the other side of my fence and I can still see it.

Some content sourced from the Pocono Record article, “Picket fence adds privacy, security with classic style”, and the U.S. Sun article, “Is the white picket fence completely dead?”

Key(board) to My Heart

Steinway & Sons produces some of the world’s finest pianos, the same way they’ve built them for the past 150 years. They make each instrument by hand, using career-long craftspeople who pass their skills on to succeeding generations. The company has never moved its headquarters from New York City’s Astoria neighborhood because, well, piano makers are hard to find these days. Kind of like pianos themselves.

Think about it. When was the last time you actually saw a piano? The classic musical instrument used to find a spot in the living rooms of a lot of homes. Nicer homes even had “music rooms”, with a baby grand proudly on display in the middle. The assumption was, these pianos were actually played instead of simply for looks. Playing the piano used to suggest a more refined upbringing. Today they’re a little harder to find.

The piano is considered a “foundational” instrument; that is, a good place to learn to read and play music. Eventually most move on to another musical instrument, be that woodwind, brass, string, or percussion. Not me. I started (and ended) with the piano. A good eight years – second to tenth grade or so – included weekly lessons and monthly recitals, with hours upon hours of practice on our living room grand piano. Even though high school ultimately pulled me into other interests, the piano entered my DNA (as did classical music). It’s part of who I am.

Over the decades since those long-ago lessons, the piano keeps showing up in my life as a reminder of its significance. The year I started college, a movie called The Competition was released, an entire film about piano starring a young Richard Dreyfuss and younger Amy Irving. I still have a copy of the film on DVD. Also in college, I one day wandered into the halls of our school of music to discover a dozen small practice rooms, each with an upright piano. As it turned out, these rooms were open to any student, and so the piano became my escape as I worked through the stresses of an architecture degree.

When I got married, my wife – who couldn’t afford a Steinway back then (and still can’t) – presented me with a Korg digital keyboard. A poor man’s piano if you will, but with the touch and sound of the real thing. Almost forty years later that keyboard still works, sitting quietly upstairs in one of our bedrooms.

Four years ago, as many of you read back then, my wife gave another nod to the keyboard when she gave me the LEGO Grand Piano for Christmas. Building and blogging about that beautiful model one chapter at a time over several months was a captivating adventure, including all of the classical music I re-listened to along the way. The LEGO models I build now will never surpass the Grand Piano, which sits proudly on its own shelf in my home office.

Four years ago also brought me, unexpectedly, my first real piano. My daughter and her family bought a nearby house, where the previous owners left an old, upright Baldwin behind. I found it very sad: a lonely, neglected piano, probably not played for years, inevitably out of tune and in need of repair. So I came to its rescue, hiring a piano mover to get it to our house, and a tuner to restore it to fighting shape. Today that piano sits in our living room. It doesn’t match any of our furniture. It doesn’t get played as often as it should. But it warms my heart just to see it there, and that’s all that really matters.

Recently, the grand piano of my youth resurfaced. It had been sitting in storage for several years, lost among my parents’ many belongings, waiting patiently for another owner. It seemed it would never find another home until – go figure – the Methodist church I grew up in had a need for one. So the piano was wrapped up, trucked up, and placed in the church’s social hall, where it will be restored and played as it was meant to be. To me that feels like the completion one of life’s many circles. The very piano that brought me so much music ends up in the church that brought me so much of a faith life.

Just like my wife, I will never be able to afford a Steinway & Sons masterpiece piano. Neither my budget nor my modest keyboard talent are deserving of such a beautiful instrument. But not to worry. I have my modest Baldwin upright to keep me company. It brings back a lot of keyboard memories. And there are sure to be more.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “How a company from the Gilded Age…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Your Friendly Coauthor Claude

Replacements, Ltd. is a company that comes to the rescue when you’ve lost a piece of china, crystal, or flatware. For those of us who still care about such things – even if we don’t bring them out but every Christmas and Easter – Replacements somehow finds that elusive Wedgewood tea cup or Lenox water goblet, to restore order to the place settings you put on your wedding registry all those years ago. They must have quite a warehouse at Replacements. Sometimes I wonder if they also have a 3D printer.

A few days ago WordPress sent me (and maybe you) an email with the subject line, “Spend your time creating – let AI handle the rest!” I almost pressed Delete without reading, but the “AI” aspect got the better of me. The gist of the message: Writing in any form comes with sidebar chores like editing, formatting, and layout, and AI is happy to take them over so you can focus on the writing itself. Sounds pretty good even though I do enjoy a good edit now and then. But then I read: “The WordPress server connects AI agents like Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or VS Code directly to your site – so you can hand off the busywork and get back to the work that matters”.

Is it just me or is this a good time to revisit Pandora’s Box? You know the story, where our girl Pandora is drawn to a mysterious container left in the care of her husband but can’t resist a peek inside, thereby releasing untold curses upon mankind. It kind of feels that way if I accept WordPress’s invitation to provide me with a coauthor. Sure, I’d welcome his (her?) suggestions to scrub and polish my writing until it shines, but at what point does the blog post become Claude’s instead of mine?

WordPress’s email is relentlessly enticing, I suppose, to prove they’re keeping up with the latest technology same as the other guy. Not only do I have “access at no extra cost!” but I can enable Claude in “three easy steps”. In other words, Claude waits patiently inside of Pandora’s Box. All I have to do is open the lid.

Before there was Claude there was Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hal was actually a “HAL 9000 Artificial Intelligence Computer”, who controlled the systems of the spaceship while interacting with its human occupants through spoken words. All was well with Hal until suddenly it wasn’t. His soft conversational voice developed serious attitude as he began to malfunction. 2001 haunts me because I’ll forever hear Hal saying, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that“.

I fear the same with Claude. At first he’ll be sitting quietly in the background as I type, eager to edit this or format that to make his star writer shine. But eventually it may occur to him, Hey? How come I’M not getting some of the credit here? All these reader comments are directed at Dave! Why aren’t there any for ME? And slowly, subtly, Claude will incorporate his edits to where the prose of the post sounds more like Claude than it does his coauthor.

On a related topic, Hollywood is sounding the alarm on a lack of original material for their products of the silver screen. Perhaps we theatergoers have finally reached our limit on the number of rehashes of movies like A Star is Born or Batman. So who are the producers turning to for new source material? Authors. More movies-based-on-books are being streamed than ever before. Apparently I can make the quantum leap from blog to full-blown novel and my story has a pretty good chance of becoming a film. But here’s what I find myself wondering. Why not just have Claude write the story instead of me? Would you viewers really know the difference?

A small plate my wife and I purchased from Replacements is sitting across the room from me in the china cabinet right now. You’d never know the plate wasn’t a part of the original set of eight. But I have to admit, I’m a little afraid to flip it over. After all, it might be engraved with the words Made by Claude.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Confection Objections

Have you ever taken a bite of something and thought, “Nope, doesn’t taste right”? Gluten-free foods come to mind. Or salsa on a tortilla chip after the salsa’s turned south. There’s nothing more unnerving than expecting one taste and getting another. But at least with gluten-free (and bad salsa) you’re sort of prepared to be disappointed. The same can’t be said with more “sacred” foods. Like chocolate.

I ate my fair share of Hershey’s bars as a kid but once Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups came along I switched my preference. Reese’s somehow developed the perfect blend of peanut butter and milk chocolate into a convenient cup where you get both tastes in every bite. The two-cup packs never convinced me to save one for later, but they did give the impression I was getting more for my money.

Some things are better left alone… but Reese’s never got the message. Instead, over the years they’ve produced endless varieties on the original peanut butter cup. Before you knew it we had a choice of sizes (including “Big Cup”), fillings (peanut butter and banana creme? Yuck!), and candy coatings, as well as holiday shapes like milk chocolate hearts, eggs, pumpkins, and bells, all with the peanut butter filling. Finally, Reese’s Pieces joined the list, made infinitely more popular by their supporting role in the blockbuster film E.T.

The problem with variations on a Reese’s is the altered ratio of milk chocolate to peanut butter. I would’ve enjoyed standing in ole man Reese’s shoes back in the 1920s when he taste-tested his way to perfection. He should’ve put a patent on it, because too much milk chocolate or too much peanut butter just doesn’t taste right to me. But at least we’re talking about milk chocolate here. Now for the real injustice…

The H.B. Reese Candy Company became a subsidiary of Hershey in 1963. Their peanut butter cups instantly became Hershey’s bestseller (even surpassing the classic Hershey Bar). But recently, subtly, quietly, Hershey committed a mortal sin of the candy world. Rather than leaving well enough alone they changed the ingredients of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Soon to come, there will no longer be any milk chocolate in a Reese’s, at least not by proper definition. Instead, you’ll indulge in a “chocolate-flavored coating”. In the world of food, we all know flavoring is just another word for “artificial”.

This little con of Hershey’s was brought to the headlines by none other than a grandson of H.B. Reese (and who can claim better peanut butter cup credentials than that?). Brad Reese is taking on Hershey for straying from the original recipe. Granted, the price of cocoa beans – the basis of real chocolate – has gone through the roof the last few years, forcing companies to get creative with size, price, or ingredients. I just wish Hershey offered me the option to still purchase the real thing.

I’ve already noticed how Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are shrinking. The originals were 0.9 ounces. Then they went to 0.8 ounces, then 0.75, and finally to the 0.7 juniors they are today. If Hershey keeps this up, you’ll start thinking the “original” is a “miniature”. I can make peace with shrinkage as long as the milk chocolate/peanut butter ratio stays the same. But now the words “milk chocolate” will be removed from the orange wrapper. Ask the FDA and they’ll say, “Sorry, “chocolate-flavored coating” is not the same as “milk chocolate”.

I’m joining Brad Reese’s campaign to restore Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to their original composition. Some things are just worth their weight in gold. Not that I’d pay gold for a peanut butter cup, but show me the original size, ratio, and ingredients and I might just be tempted.

Some content sourced from the NBC News article, “Grandson of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups is in pieces over missing milk chocolate”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Fill ‘er Up

Several years ago at a banquet, I stood at the podium to introduce the evening’s guest speaker. After sharing some of her background and accomplishments, I went with the expected, “So without further ado, please welcome”…, and then I paused. And paused some more. I’d forgotten the speaker’s name. The silence, as the saying goes, was deafening. Eventually I found her name in my notes, but not without an uncomfortable gap in my speech. Perhaps a filler word would’ve smoothed things over.

Do you use filler words? Actually, let’s make that question a statement. You use filler words. Every now and then in conversation you’ll throw in the occasional “uh”, “like”, or “so”. Filler words do exactly what their label implies: they fill up the awkward gap of silence created by a pause. Every one of us can recall an experience where we’ve left out filler words in a vain attempt to keep the polish on our speech, but it’s a no-win situation. If you go with the pause your audience looks at each other with one of those Is he okay? glances. If you go with a filler word you’re hinting you’re not completely on top of your material.

The parade of filler words is much longer than the commoners I mentioned above. The filler “uh” comes from its own family, including “um”, “oh”, “er”, and “ah”; tiny signs of reluctance to say whatever comes next. And speaking of next, how about “very”, “really”, and “highly”? These three are fillers disguised as words of emphasis but are usually superfluous. Then we have “You know…” and “You see…”, which seem to politely draw the listener into the conversation. But sorry, they’re also fillers, allowing a pause at the start of a thought. Finally (as if there’s an end to this parade), let’s add “I guess” and “I suppose”, both designed to soften a response when what you should go with instead is a confident “yes” or “no”.

I deliberately skipped one filler here because it deserves it’s own parade. “Like” sprinted to the front and center of casual English in the last couple of generations, taking up a lot of the spaces “uh” and his pals used to fill. Some people use “like” so often it starts to feel like every other word they’re saying. But make no mistake – every “like” is simply a mini-pause to allow the speaker to reboot their thoughts.

Watch out, because filler words can be contagious. I used to work for a company where it seemed every one of my teammates couldn’t start a sentence without the word “So”. Somehow “so” sounds a little smoother than “uh” but it’s basically the same filler. Before I knew it I caught myself also using “so”, as if it was the only way to start a sentence. At least “so” has a built-in bonus: you can drag it out for drama. So-o-o-o-o…

Filler words somehow sound better with a foreign accent. The Irish “um” sounds like the more pleasing ehm. Even throwing in a bunch of “you knows” in the Irish accent seems to work. And speaking of accents, Hollywood (or maybe just Los Angeles) brought us Valley Girl talk, which includes a weird form of attitude along with its own set of meaningless filler words like “totally”, “whatever”, and “as if” (think Cher from Clueless). Valley Girl talk has had a remarkable run considering its roots were in the 1980s. You still hear the words today.

The next time you call out a friend with Hello? Is anybody home? for not paying attention, consider they’re trying to avoid filler words by simply not saying anything. That’s harder to do than it sounds. Try speaking for a few minutes without filler words. It’s so difficult it’s birthed a string of funny videos on TikTok. As for me, I’ll keep using my fillers wherever I need them. Especially when I forget the name of a guest speaker.

Some content sourced from the CNN Health article, “Should you stop saying ‘um’? Here’s what the experts said”.

An Unhealthy Modern Phenomenon

Somewhere in the wee hours of Tuesday morning I had a bizarre dream; one I retained well into my conscious hours. I was on some sort of overseas sightseeing excursion with others, and our group stopped for lunch at a historic convent. Egg salad sandwiches were handed out by the nuns and I promptly dropped mine onto the cobblestones. The dream only gets more disconnected from there but I’ll share one more noteworthy detail. My traveling companion was the actress Mary Stuart Masterson.

Got all that? Okay, now forget about everything except Mary Stuart. Masterson has had a respectable (if not award-winning) career as an actress. She was only ten years old when she first appeared on the silver screen, in the original version of The Stepford Wives. She went on to play colorful characters in Fried Green Tomatoes and Benny & Joon. But her most enduring performance – the one she will forever be linked with – was as “Watts”, the companion/tomboy of “Keith” in the high school rom-com Some Kind of Wonderful. Masterson’s turn as the loyal friend who quietly wanted to be more absolutely stole the show.

As if nuns and egg salad sandwiches aren’t enough, you’re wondering why Mary Stuart Masterson was sitting next to me in my dream. Actually it wasn’t Masterson herself; it was her movie character Watts. Which brings me to the Cambridge Dictionary’s 2025 Word of the Year. Would you believe Cambridge added 6,000 new words to its big book this year? 5,999 of them were runner-ups to parasocial, a word “describing a connection people feel with someone they don’t know (ex. celebrities, influencers, and other online personalities)”.

Blogger’s Note: WordPress needs to get on the ball here. “Parasocial” is underlined here in my draft post as being an unrecognized word.

Parasocial’s win as Word of the Year has everything to do with Taylor Swift. Her engagement to NFL star Travis Kelce generated countless claims of “heartfelt feelings toward a couple the vast majority had never met”. The same applies to Watts. I don’t know the first thing about Mary Stuart Masterson herself, but I know everything about Watts from watching Some Kind of Wonderful a dozen times or more.

“Parasocial” has actually been around since the 1950’s. In that era it referred to the innocence of television viewers connecting to television characters (or in my case, movie viewer to movie character). But today’s version of the word is described as “an unhealthy modern phenomenon”. Why? Because of social media. Because of artificial intelligence.

My example of Watts is one movie and one instance. I’ll finish this post and the “encounter” will fade into my memory forever. But social media – which brings the viewer constant feeds about the “viewed”, and artificial intelligence – which creates a sense of connection where there really isn’t one, makes it clear why there’s reason to be concerned. Are we really so desperate as to develop foundation-less relationships with strangers?

AI has already found its place on Spotify. Search for Xania Monet, the first artificially intelligent singer to grab a ranking on a Billboard chart (Adult R&B). Everything about Xania was created on a keyboard. But her face, her social media profile, and her voice suggest she’s a living, breathing human somewhere out there in the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if you can even chat online with Xania. If so, you’re developing a one-sided relationship (you) with someone who isn’t real whatsoever (a computer). Seriously, who has time for this nonsense?

Coincidence or not, one of the Cambridge Dictionary’s runner-ups for Word of the Year was “slop”, which in this day and age means “content on the internet that is of very low quality, especially when created by artificial intelligence”. Let’s declare “slop” a lot of what’s going in parasocial relationships as well.

The real message of this dictionary winner is clear. We need to remove the “para” from parasocial and focus on simply socializing with our fellow humans. It’s the only path to truly fulfilling relationships. Having said that, for some reason I’d love an egg salad sandwich right about now.

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LEGO Trevi Fountain – Update #4

(Read about the start of this build in Brick Wall Waterfall)

The travertine is stacking up quickly as we continue our work on the LEGO Trevi Fountain. Bags 7 and 8 – of 15 bags of pieces – came together like the Domenico Scarlatti piano sonatas that accompanied them – seemingly simple on the surface but more intricate and involved the further we dove in.

The Trevi Fountain has some strange elements, made even stranger when represented by chunky LEGOs. Check out the shapes I assembled today (and don’t ask me what they’re meant to represent). Little LEGO pieces positioned in just about every point on the compass. My singular mistake this round – realized well after the fact – was putting the right piece in place, only the wrong color. Then when I came across another “right piece wrong color” I knew I had them transposed. Took a little disassembly to get everything correct.

A continuing mystery of LEGO sets is bags within bags. When I opened Bags 7 and 8, each came with a smaller bag of pieces like you see here. It’s not like the smaller bag represents its own unit of the fountain. You just tap into those pieces every now and then as the instruction manual demands. Yes they’re tiny, tiny but you also find tiny pieces in the bigger bag. Maybe someday I’ll tour the LEGO factory and solve this packaging mystery.

We worked with some surprisingly large pieces of travertine today – the entire wall of white you see behind the fountain and the white surround you now see defining the entire front of the main pool. Would’ve taken a dozen Italians to put these monster pieces in place on the real Trevi. And don’t miss the pink accent strips to the left and right of center (pink!) This fountain is turning out to be more colorful than I expected.

Running build time: 3 hrs. 5 min.

Total leftover pieces: 23 (10 more extras today!)

Some content sourced from the BBC.com article, “Parasocial is Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year”, IMDB, “the Internet Movie Database”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

A Bowl of Snowflakes

Part of the appeal of Halloween – at least for us baby boomers – is the thought of innocent days (and nights) from our distant past. Not only were we kids back then, we cavorted in full costumes through our neighborhoods without a parent in sight. Every house left a light on or a door open to welcome trick-or-treating. Every street seemed safe and inviting. And the treats were often as homemade as they were store-bought. Cookies. Lollipops. The odd neighbor doling out little sausages hot off the grill from his front yard (BBQ sauce optional). And the occasional popcorn ball.

Who doesn’t love a good popcorn ball? Me. I don’t. Popcorn balls may be a nostalgic Halloween memory but they’re also an insult to popcorn. Whoever invented them turned a savory snack into a sickly sweet one. We’re not talking caramel-, chocolate-, or even kettle-corn sweet here; just liquid sugar designed to act as glue to make popcorn a convenient handheld. Awful.

I admit it, I’ve become a popcorn snob the way some people are about coffee. There’s a way to enjoy popcorn and there’s a dozen ways not to. It’s a snack that deserves to get it right, because getting it wrong is anything but a “treat” (like popcorn balls).

Popcorn eased its way into our after-dinner desserts by necessity. One day (night) my wife and I sat there after the evening meal and realized we were having dessert way too often. It was always ice cream, cookies, or whatever else we could find in the pantry. Somehow a savory dinner necessitated a sweet dessert. Bad habit – very bad. Instead, make the dinner healthy enough, eat it early enough, and keep yourself off the couch watching TV. Then dessert rarely enters the conversation. Yeah, uh, we’re still working on that. The dinners are healthy, but we can never get them on the table – er, couch – before 7pm.

Popcorn to the rescue. It’s a dessert that doesn’t feel like a dessert. It’s not sweet, and with an air popper it’s all of three ingredients. Popped corn, topped with butter and salt. Make those first two “organic” and the last one “Celtic sea”, and it sounds like something that’s actually good for you.

Popcorn belongs in a bowl, not in a ball. We take the largest bowl in our kitchen, fill it almost full with popped corn, and call it dessert. Oh, right, but that’s just for me. Then we take the second-largest bowl in our kitchen and pop a similar serving for my wife.

Since I always aim to educate a little, here’s popcorn trivia worth remembering. One, the corn used for popping is not the same as the kernels on the cob (so don’t get any ideas). Two, when the kernels burst – literally inside out – you get one of two shapes; snowflakes or mushrooms. Snowflakes are what we have at night for dessert, and what you find severely overpriced in movie theaters. Mushrooms are what you find in a box of Cracker Jack or Fiddle-Faddle. Think teeny-tiny popcorn balls. As for the kernels that don’t pop? They’re called “old maids”. In the world of popcorn at least, you’d rather be a snowflake than an old maid.

Some more fun facts. Popcorn displaced movie candy during the WWII years because there was a shortage of sugar. Years later it’s still the more popular concession at the theater. On average every American consumes 58 quarts of popcorn every year. Picture those red/white striped cardboard containers you see when you purchase popcorn from a cart. Multiply by 58. You eat a lot of popcorn. But why shouldn’t you? It’s convenient, easy-to-make, and healthy as long as you use an air popper. Really healthy if you substitute olive oil for the butter, which a lot of people do these days. But I say ewwwwwww to that. Leave olive oil to the Mediterranean diet instead.

All this talk of popcorn has me thinking it’s time for dessert. It’s easy to forego the sweet stuff when savory snowflakes beckon. Just remember, it’s not a ball of popcorn, it’s a bowl. A proper presentation precedes perfect popcorn.

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LEGO Trevi Fountain – Update #2

(Read about the start of this build in Brick Wall Waterfall)

Let it echo throughout the streets of Rome, Dave is no Michelangelo (and yes, I know Michelangelo didn’t design the Trevi Fountain but he could sure sculpt). In today’s effort to rise the LEGO fountain from its foundation, I made countless placement mistakes. I got four steps into Bag 4 – of 15 bags of pieces – and realized I’d placed everything just a little bit off on the foundation. That meant breaking it all down, going back to the first step, and starting over. Can you imagine my fate if I made this mistake with the real Trevi? Placed and set the travertine just a little bit off? The foreman would have my head! (which is no joke, at least not three hundred years ago).

Frankly, everything seemed off today. I kept getting the piece placement slightly wrong, as if I refused to learn from my last mistake. At one point I turned two pages forward in the instruction manual instead of one, skipping a full two steps in the build. And the below photo is what “broke the camel’s travertine”. Tell me reader, what’s wrong with this picture? Five little leftover pieces and one BIG piece, that’s what. LEGO never throws in big leftover pieces. Sure enough, I paged back through the manual, and there it was. I’d overlooked the step where you place that arch. Never mind that it’s buried under “pieces” of blue water now. Leave it out and our beautiful fountain might collapse into a pile of very expensive rubble.

You know who’s laughing about all of my missteps today? The singers in the music I chose for my accompaniment: Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. His opera may be about money, disguises, lovers and all that, but it sounded more like getting scolded over and over through song. You got overconfident, Dave (tra-la-la). You’re no sculptor, Dave (la-ha-ha). Maybe LEGO isn’t for you after all, Dave (wha-ha-ha-HA!)

The gleeful singing in “The Barber of Seville” is all in Italian, so for all I know they really did change their tune to berate my amateur building efforts. I took that to heart. Bags 5 and 6 are gonna have to wait until next week. I sure hope the foreman won’t look at this decision as “getting behind schedule”. He might have my head!

Running build time: 1 hr. 44 min.

Total leftover pieces: 10

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Brick Wall Waterfall

If you were to spend an entire year in Rome, you could visit five churches every day and still miss out on some of the more than 1,600 within the city limits. You could also visit five piazzas (public squares) and never see all 2,000. If monuments are your thing, Rome has so many that instead of an actual count they simply say “more than any other city in the world”. And then we have Rome’s fountains. You could dip your hand in five a day and never see them all in a year. So here’s a better idea. Just spend a few hours at the Trevi and assume all of the others are second best.

I wouldn’t decree “best fountain in all of Rome” if I hadn’t been there and seen it for myself. I spent a college year in the Eternal City studying architecture, and you can’t help noticing the other elements of the city while you’re at it. Like fountains on every street corner. The Trevi Fountain was walking distance from the hotel/dorm we Americans lived in, so you can bet I stood before the Trevi’s gushing waterfalls many a day. Even a few nights.

Most people assume “Trevi” is an Italian word. It’s actually two words mashed into one. Tre = three, vie = ways. The Trevi is located at the intersection of three streets. It’s also the terminus for an aqueduct from ancient times. Water is picked up from a source outside of the city, carried over fourteen miles through the aqueduct, and deposited “with a splash” at the Trevi, to be further dispersed to the city underground.

Here’s a little more trivia on the Trevi. It was designed and built in the 1700s, on the back wall of a palace. It’s primary material is travertine stone (pricey!) quarried from nearby Tivoli. Besides the columns, arches, and niches along the wall, you have quite the trove of imagery going on over the water, with mythological creatures like tritons and hippocamps. I have no idea who the sculpted figures gazing down from either side are, but the big guy front and center is Oceanus, a pre-Olympian god.

If you’re a top-five tourist attraction in Rome, you must be pretty darned attractive for a city with countless places to visit. Maybe it’s the coin thing. Why do tourists stand with their backs to the fountain and toss three coins over their shoulder into the water (right hand, left shoulder)? Because legend says they’ll return to Rome some day if they do. “Legend” is really just Hollywood, from the movie Three Coins in the Fountain. But if you really know your Trevi trivia, you say the tossed coins follow the ancient tradition of honoring the gods of the waters, granting you safe passage home.

I’ve talked about the Trevi before, in Too Many Roads Lead to Rome. The fountain has become so popular you now need a ticket and a specific time to stand in front of it. But what I haven’t done before is build the Trevi. Last spring, the “architects” at LEGO immortalized the fountain in a 731-piece model, which I will construct over the next several blog posts. I haven’t put my hands on a piece of LEGO since Notre-Dame du Paris last January (which still beckons me to add its lighting kit). I might be a little rusty at this. The fountain might leak a little. But I’m up for a dip in this brick wall waterfall if you are.

Author’s Note: The title of this post was inspired by the strange-but-sweet Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. The movie included a little ditty my thirty-one year old daughter can still recite to this day: “Brick wall, waterfall, Dickie thinks he got it all but he don’t, and I do, so BOOM with that attitude. Peace punch, Cap’n Crunch, I’ve got something you can’t touch. Bang-bang choo-choo train, wind me up I do my thing. No Reese’s Pieces, 7-Up, you mess with me, I’ll mess you up.”

Some content sourced from the TripAdvisor.com article, “Everything you need to know about the Trevi Fountain coins”; IMDB, “the Internet Movie Database”; and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.