it's very simple: get off your butt and WALK! (and don't eat crap)

i watched "super size me" yesterday, or rather, i watched it and fell asleep towards the end. here's the deal: a rail thin man who used to only munch on his wife's (girlfriend's?) vegan meals gorged himself on mcdonald's for a month. he also forced himself to take taxis rather than walk. he didn't eat a normal amount of this unhealthy food either: he regularly ate the super size (i.e. the "normal people can't finish it" portions) - three times a day - and this stuffing of face amounted to over 5,000 calories a day. basically, he lived an extremely unhealthy lifestyle for a month, and he got a little portly and, at the end of it all, felt pretty grody.

and this film shocked WHOM exactly?

even a pre-schooler knows that if you eat too much you get fat. if any of you would like to dispute this, please take yourselves back to preschool and remember the taunts aimed at the fat kid - "fatty! stuff your face! porky! pig out! ha ha!" or any permutation thereof.

anyway, right before i fell asleep, my girlfriend and i noted that the mcnuggets looked rather tasty and that mcdonald's fries were definitely a cut above burger king's. :D

however, i usually avoid fast food, because unless you eat it immediately, it tends to smell like oil and sewage. the smell after a greyhound stops at a roy rogers, and the entire caravan brings back greasy meals on board is simply revolting. not only that, the smell clings to your clothes with more tenacity than the smells of a korean restaurant. plus, i'd rather cook a homemade meal. and frankly, even the "healthy choice" tv dinners taste better than a filet-o-fish.

but i do love bojangle's and popeyes. just don't bring it into an automobile. i like me some fried chicken! (hold the kfc - that stuff is just gross)

anyway, i digress. i thought the premise of "super size me" wasn't very clever, nor was the execution.

i have some documentary ideas that are on par with "super size me."

1) "frogger: the reality series" - a man walks back and forth crowded highways in an attempt to prove that automobile makers make cars that are too big and that drivers drive too fast. throughout the film, he suffers broken limbs, ribs, and eventually ends up in a coma from various injuries.

2) "seven year itch" - a man pours five times the amount of detergent into every load of laundry and puts the machine on "quick" cycle. he blames the resulting rash on the additives in laundry detergent.

3) "dude, where's my teeth?" - a man eats nothing but hershey's bars, m&m's, and skittles for six months, and he doesn't brush his teeth. when he ends up with severe tooth decay, candy makers are portrayed as scary. the m&m candy figurines occasionally dance in and out bearing fangs and wearing devil's horns.

perhaps something more effective would be to eat mcdonald's once or twice a week for a year, keeping to normal portions. just like a normal person. if mr. vegan man starts getting visibly more unhealthy, then there might be something to the documentary. however, as it is, the film is nothing but a publicity stunt with a stunt so extreme that the outcome is incredibly predictable. and the explanatory inserts like the melodramatic cartoons of elderly chickens getting gored and processed are too ridiculous to be taken seriously.

to sum up this film in six words: upton sinclair the filmmaker is not.