I’ve been seeing a lot of advertisements for the new McDonald’s Fruit & Walnut Salad so today I thought I would give it a try.

The fruit in the salad consist of a number of apple slices with a handful of grapes thrown in for good measure. For some reason I expected more then this. It’s probably because they bill it as a Fruit & Walnut Salad so I expected it to have multiple types of fruit. I guess technically two type of fruit constitutes “fruit” but I must say I was a bit disappointed.

The quality of the apple slices were decent, nothing spectacular here; just average quality apple slices. The grapes were a bit on the tart side and did not have a lot of flavor, but this could vary from salad to salad so your experience may be different.

The walnut portion of the salad is a small bag (0.75oz) of Diamond Candied Walnuts. These were tasty, but again nothing to kill for. I’ve had better nuts on plane flights. They also add significantly to the caloric content of the salad, the small bag coming in at 140 calories.

As a dipping sauce for the fruit, McDonald’s includes a small container of their low fat yogurt. Since I really love McDonald’s yogurt, this was the high point of the salad for me.

With tax included, the Fruit & Walnut Salad …

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Adam Sandler : Paul ‘Wrecking’ Crewe
Chris Rock : Caretaker
Burt Reynolds : Coach Nate Scarborough
James Cromwel : Warden Hazen
Directed by Peter Segal

I went to this movie with full expectations that it was going to be a total disaster but I ended up really surprised; it wasn’t half bad. Don’t get me wrong; this movie will most likely not be nominated for any Academy Awards, but it’s a fun movie to watch and worth a couple hours of your time.

This summer season has been filled with remakes and the 2005 version of The Longest Yard is a remake of the 1974 picture of the same name that starred Burt Reynolds. I had seen the original movie and really liked it. (although I was pretty young at the time so I liked just about any movie that had lots of violence and scantly clad women), but I had big doubts that this movie would live up to the original. Really, Adam Sandler, playing the part of a tough football player? It just didn’t seem like it would work.

But it did work.

Adam Sandler was able to pull of the part of Paul Crewe, an ex-quarterback with a reputation for point shaving who ends up being sent to prison after stealing his girl friends car and running from the police.

Sandler did …

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by Alexander McCall Smith

Tears of the Giraffe is the second book in Alexander McCall Smith’s, No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series. I wrote a review for the first book a few months back, and was pretty positive about the book with the one caveat that even though it was billed as a mystery, it was actually pretty skimpy with the mystery aspects of the book. I speculated that this was a result of it being the first book in the series and that in future books this would probably be less of a problem.

I have to report that I was wrong. The depth of the mystery in this book is only slightly greater then that of the original book. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Tears of the Giraffe is an absolutely wonderful book; far better then the first, and what it lacks in mystery, it makes up in color and character.

The story centers about Precious Ramotswe, owner of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency and her life in Botswana. As in the first book, she is hired to solve a number of cases. One case is brought to her by a mother searching for her long lost son and a second by a man who is wondering about some strange behavior involving his wife. Both stories are left unresolved for pretty much the full duration of the …

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by Alexander McCall Smith

I kept hearing all sorts of great things about “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”, and since my wife already had a copy I thought I would give it a try.
“The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” is about a middle aged African woman, Precious Ramotswe, who decides to go into business for herself as a private detective. She funds the operation by selling off the cattle left to her by her late father. Her fathers’ plan was to have her start her own business upon his death but he had hoped that she would enter into an area a little more proven; like opening a store or a butcher shop. Precious has no experience as a private detective, but she figures that with a little common sense and a good book to guide her she should have no problem with her new business.

The business starts out slow which leads her to worry that becoming a private detective may have been a mistake, but soon things pick up and she’s dealing with all sorts of different clients and cases.

This is an interesting yet totally different type of book. The cases handled by Precious are pretty basic; there is no great intrigue or complicated plot going on here, yet it was a really fun book to read. Most of the entertainment comes …

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Gracie Hart : Sandra Bullock
Sam Fuller : Regina King
Jeff Foreman : Enrique Murciano
Stan Fields : William Shatner
McDonald : Ernie Hudson
Cheryl : Heather Burns
Joel : Diedrich Bader

Why do they make bad sequels?

More important why does an actress the quality of Sandra Bullock get involved in a bad sequel?

I suppose it could be for the money, but I doubt it. She’s had a successful enough career for me to believe that money in not an issue.

I suspect the real reason goes something like this;

Hollywood Executive (Imagine Jon Lovitz at his sleaziest) - Have we got a great idea for a movie!

Sandra - Tell me about it.

Hollywood Executive - You know that movie you were involved in a couple of years ago.. What was it? Oh ya, Miss Congeniality.

Sandra - Ya.

Hollywood Executive - It was a big hit. Made the studio lots of money. Well, we’ve decided to make a sequel.

Sandra - A sequel. OK. Can I see the script?

Hollywood Executive - Ah, ummm… Well we don’t really have a script yet.

Sandra - No script?

Hollywood Executive - Ah… No. But we have some of the greatest writers in Hollywood working on it.

Sandra - Well, OK. What’s the premise of the story.

Hollywood Executive - Ah, ummm… Well …

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