Tag: Nick Offerman

We All Swim With The Pout-Pout Fish in the Deep Blue Sea

It’s worth diving in with a yellow submarine to view the life found underwater in The Pout-Pout Fish. This adaptation of the bestselling series by Deborah Diesen and illustrated by Dan Hanna offers plenty of action, along with a thoughtful look at courage in the face of environmental change.

The Pout-Pout Fish PosterThe Pout-Pout Fish had me wondering if Mr. Fish is somehow a distant cousin of Red from Angry Birds. Their personalities are not quite the same, but both characters exist in worlds that seem determined to tell them to cheer up. Here, the glum Mr. Fish (Nick Offerman) has his solitude interrupted by a very chipper young seadragon named Pip (Nina Oyama), who mistakes his home for a safe refuge. When trouble hits their stretch of reef off the Meanjin coast, located off of Brisban, the two have little choice but to work together.

An overgrowth of seaweed drifts in with the tides, turning the area into a maze of thick kelp that leaves the local marine population struggling to navigate. This spreading plant also creates a darkness that other marine life find unsettling.

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The Founder does not Flounder the History of McDonald’s

The world can either love McDonald’s or hate this fast food franchise chain even more after watching The Founder.

cezgbkauyaa20xxBy Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

The world can either love McDonald’s or hate this fast food franchise chain even more after watching The Founder.

Myself, I find myself in the position of thinking this company had a huge share of problems when Ray Kroc was in charge during this company’s heydays. The fictional version is wonderfully and perfectly played by Michael Keaton. He oozes sleaze and I kept on being reminded of Donald Trump. When Kroc saw the potential of what Dick (Nick Offerman) and Mac (John Carroll Lynch) McDonald — the true innovators — tiny operation could do: to provide fast food in a timely and tasty manner. Their expertise set the standards other operations now imitate and nobody can patent the assembly line process (If they could, I’m sure they’d be raking in the dough). Instead of having an expansive menu, they provided the basics and the people of San Bernardino, California loved it.

Kroc was a struggling travelling salesman working for a manufacturer of kitchen aids, Prince Castle. As the story introduces him trying to sell milkshake makers that can churn out eight of them at a time, nobody was interested. His shtick was to show them how progress has to be handled through efficiency. But his snide tactics had many a restaurateur closing the door on him. When a large order came from the McDonald’s operation, he drove all the way from Illinois (using route 66) to see what’s up. When he got there, he saw the potential of how the brother’s operation can become nation-wide.

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