A leading chocolate company is reducing the size of its candy bars in order to assist with the fight against obesity.

In other news:

Light saber clashes deemed too scary for kids.  To be replaced by carefully choreographed “Rock Paper Scissors” duels.

The concept of Force as omnipresent, invisible energy field too confusing for kids.  New version: Force becomes personified as a cute, fuzzy muppet called “Gigi.”

Original trilogy: Han Solo refuses to join the attack on the Death Star because he’s a mercenary and there’s nothing in it for him.  New version: Han becomes a pacifist and marches around rebel base waving “MAKE GALACTIC WAR NO MORE” sign.

Restored Scene. Ben Kenobi: “Luke, I want to show you something that belonged to your father...a light saber.  But before I get around to that, let me show you a variety of action figures, games, and other Lucasfilm products available at better toy stores across the galaxy.”

To make trilogy more consistent, Ewoks digitally inserted throughout.  For example: an Ewok becomes bartender at cantina on Tatooine.  An Ewok pulls the lever that sends Han Solo into carbonite chamber.  Little buns on Princess Leia’s head become tiny brown Ewoks.

To make entire series more consistent, Darth Vader takes off helmet several times during each movie to reveal disheveled Hayden Christensen with really bad case of helmet hair.  He emotes at the camera, points to himself, and whispers “I used to be good.”

Scrolling exposition at the start of every movie deemed too confusing.  New version: All scrolling text is replaced by lyrics to feel-good southern classic “My Old Kentucky Home.”

All model effects replaced by CGI.

All actors replaced by CGI.

I came back from my trip with CDs from a cool band called Morcheeba.  Their sound was initially described to me as “trip hop,” and I figured, no problem, I know all about trip hop; that’s what I did that time I went to a square dance.

It turns out that the band’s sound is more like electronica flavored with a little funk, a little R&B, and overlayed with beautiful, wraith-like female vocals.  Their CDs go platinum all over Europe, although they’re relatively difficult to get in the States, and I asked my German friend and my French friend if this band was considered “cool” by European types.  I was assured: “Very.  If you’re in the know, you listen to Morcheeba.” And when’s the last time Germany and France agreed on anything?  I mean, except for that business in Iraq.

I returned home happy and tired and with Morcheeba songs playing in my head, which explains why, aside from jet lag, post-vacation depression hit me the strongest when I turned on American radio and was faced with the complete opposite of good music: the Counting Crows doing yet another ghastly cover.  For God’s sake, don’t they read this web site?  I was very clear the last time about this matter.  And why “Friend of the Devil”?  Why subject that gorgeous, bluesy song to such a slowed down, bleached out, moronic interpretation?  I already know that the Counting Crows are friends of the Devil.  How else did they get a recording contract in the first place?*

*And none of this vitriol directed at the band has anything to do with the fact that an ex of mine dated one of the members, although I’d point out just as a matter of general knowledge and insight, it’s difficult win points in such a situation by declaring “You know, my air guitar shows more musical technique than anything played by those talentless hacks.”

Working in an office hasn’t been so bad.  I’ve learned many important business skills.  For example, I’ve learned how to interview people.

There are good ways and bad ways to interview people.  Questions that may naturally spring to an interviewer’s mind can be the wrong ones to ask.  Sometimes, those questions can even be illegal.  It’s the hiring manager’s responsibility to understand the difference between a good and bad question.

Unfortunately, sometimes it’s easy to misunderstand which is which.  Therefore, today I’d like to discuss the difference between good and bad interview questions.

Bad Question: How old are you?
This seemingly innocuous question is actually forbidden by law.  It could lead to a charge of age discrimination.

Ask Instead: Do you like to watch reruns of “The Golden Girls”?  OR: What were you doing when General Robert E. Lee surrendered?

Bad Question: You have an interesting name.  Are you Muslim?
It is unlawful to ask about an applicant’s religious background.

Ask Instead: Compare and contrast Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ with The Koran.  Hypothetically speaking, which do you think is least likely to be deemed blasphemous and hurled into a pit of fire by the One True God that rules us all?

Bad Question: Are you married?
It is not legal to ask about an applicant’s marital status.

Ask Instead: Can you please hold up both your hands?  IF RING IS VISIBLE: So, who gave you that?

Bad Question: Who takes care of your children?
You may not use a candidate’s personal commitments as a reason to disqualify him or her from employment.

Ask Instead: Are you comfortable with a working environment in which those who stay late and work long hours are more likely to get promoted?

Bad Question: What organizations do you belong to?
It’s not legal to inquire about personal affiliations that may lead a hiring manager to disqualify the candidate based on political or other grounds.

Ask Instead: After we finish this interview, I’m heading off to meeting of Men Who Shave Their Legs, Cook Dinners, and Save Whales.  Would you care to join me?  Why or why not?

Bad Question: Do you have any disabilities?
Disabled people are a protected class, and this question may not be asked.

Ask Instead: Do you get to park very near the supermarket and other public establishments?  Why or why not?

Bad Question: What are your sexual preferences?
This is a personal and highly inappropriate question.

Ask Instead: Do you like to have sex with geese?  (No one could possibly take such a ludicrous question seriously, and therefore the applicant will likely laugh, feel at ease, and cheerfully volunteer actual preferences.)

Here’s what I hate: people tell me that I don’t appreciate [such and such] because I haven’t experienced [such and such] in its most concentrated and potent form.

- Oh, you don’t like mushrooms?  That’s because you haven’t had mushrooms cooked really well with a side of mushrooms cooked in mushroom broth.  You have no reason to complain about mushrooms unless you’ve experienced their revolting texture and godawful smell in such a single, compressed dose that you throw up for a good two hours.  Seriously!  Try it!  Don’t talk to me again until you do!

- Oh, you hate Blink 182?  You haven’t seen them live!  When you get to hear their gut-wrenching, seriously hideous lack of talent blasting through your very soul!  Surrounded by low-lifes and criminals singing along to the lyrics!  It’ll change you forever!

Here’s what I say:

- Oh, you don’t like getting punched in the nose?  You need to try really getting punched in the nose.  With a sprightly, happy fist that pushes through the nasal cartilage and shoves splinters of bone back into your brain.  It’s great!  It’ll change your opinion forever!  You haven’t been punched in the nose until you try it!

The girls in your country are niiiiiiiice and easy.

Man who speaks with forked tongue, needs no silverware at dinner table.

You’re all kind of a poor man’s Australia, aren’t you?

If I don’t stop saying “No worries” instead of “No problem” or “You bet” in about a month, I’m coming back to tear this place apart.

For God’s sake, you’ve got a good thing going here.  Keep Shania Twain the @*&*@ out.*

*Shania Twain is paying $21 million to buy a sizable chunk of vacation land in New Zealand’s south island.  The transaction has created a huge controversy over the government allowing foreigners to buy up prime real estate.  They want the money, but some factions wonder if this is ultimately good for the country. Let me help settle this debate: It isn’t.  Selling crack on street corners would be a better way to boost the economy than parceling out beautiful landscapes to talentless rock stars.  I mean, couldn’t they have at least sold it to someone cool like Peter Gabriel?  I’d totally give him my spare bedroom.  I’d be all, “How’s it going?” and he’d be all “I just finished unpacking.  Mind if we chill out and listen to some world music?” and I’d be all “No worries, mate” “No problem, dude.”

I jumped off a bridge.

After falling forty meters, I felt a sudden, spreading sensation of wetness.

Fortunately, it turned out that my hand had briefly dipped below the surface of the river.

Because I thought it was something else, and I hadn’t brought a change of underwear.

If you look at human existence from the vantage point of your favorite Cosmic Deity and then speed up the picture to a countless power of ten, you’d see a bunch of little dots racing towards each other, colliding together to form tiny clusters, and then breaking apart and spinning away.  That’s all people do.  They come together and make families or communities, which then spin off into other communities or simply break apart to re-form somewhere else.

For a brief time, one of those blips wasn’t part of any cluster or community.  But he has since rejoined one.  This was the Unabomber, and he’s trying very hard not to drop any soap right now.

From our own vantage point, all of this results in an important truth: it doesn’t really matter where you are.  It’s more important whom you’re with.  And for that reason, I sometimes find my fellow travelers more interesting than the scenery around us.

Some of them have been traveling for months, even as much as a year.  They barely talk; they don’t get off the bus to see the latest waterfall or mountain range.  They carry food around in plastic grocery bags.  I can’t tell if they’ve been on the road so long that they’ve forgotten why they started in the first place, or if they’re involved in a very private bliss that I’m not allowed to understand.

People whom you get used to suddenly disappear, having decided to stay in one of the cities for an extra day.  It’s startling when you realize they’re no longer part of your group.  When one particular person decided to leave us, Tuan made a movie geek remark that was relatively out of character for him (but would have been totally in character for me): “The Fellowship is breaking up.”

But there’s also people who stay with the entourage.  And some of them you get to know.  Martina, a tall, beautiful German, has become our friend.  We’ve learned a lot about her.  She’s getting a Ph.D. in economics, hates seafood, drinks three cups of coffee a day, has a place that overlooks Roman ruins, and loves to ballroom dance. She scoffs at the notion that Germans love David Hasselhoff, but is nevertheless able to name the title of his big hit single.  She surprises me by laughing at my jokes--one because it means her English is good enough to get them, and also because people whose first language is English tend to not laugh at my jokes.  But, I mean, she’s German. They need to laugh, what with the state of their economy and the fact that they have to go around saying words like “bratwurst” all day.

New Zealand is nice.  But we could just as easily be in Cleveland, Ohio. Or Siberia. Or floating in outer space like astronauts.  Drinking beer concentrate out of plastic pouches.  Listening to pub music piped in through our space helmets.  Snapping pictures of ringed planets.  At least, for a few more days.  Until we break apart and spin away.

I enjoyed hiking across the face of the Franz Joseph glacier, but as soon as I saw the guide pull out the tramp-ons and demonstrate how to attach them to our boots, I knew I was in trouble.

Tramp-ons are important; they provide sharp metal tongues underneath your boots that allow them to connect to the icy surface.  But putting them on involved a complicated lacing pattern.  The laces had to be looped a particular way, anchored by the ring in the back ("One ring to rule them all,” the guide said).  I knew I’d have trouble with it.  I can’t follow those kinds of visual instructions, given at a rapid clip.  I was suddenly back in junior high, trying to make an elephant in woodshop and having it come out looking more like an aardvark.

Sure enough, after about ten minutes of struggling with the tramp-ons, one of them was hanging around my neck and the other one was dangling off my ear.  “You can’t go up the glacier like that mate,” the guide said.  I was all, sure I can.  I’m an American, dammit, and if there’s one thing we know, it’s invading countries and hiking across glaciers.

For some reason, I was chosen out of a bus load of people to serve as the “tribal leader” at a Maori dinner/concert/festival.  I believe I was given this honor because I’m strong, virile, and clearly a man among men.  And perhaps also because I was the only one wearing no clothes except for some animal skins and a whale bone necklace.

I am surprised that I was chosen, though.  The tour guide could have chosen a leader from many other countries--Britain or Germany, for example.  Isn’t everyone sick of American leaders?  I’d expect the New Zealand bus driver would be all, “Hey, they want to back out of the Kyoto treaties, that’s their business.  But they better not expect to be chosen as tribal leader when they come around playing their tourist games.”

I represented our “tribe” by being greeted by a Maori elder, who also greeted four other hearty leaders from various buses.  The elder tested our mettle by sticking out his tongue, grimacing, and cavorting madly.  We were carefully told before this not to laugh, although the Maori greeting looks a little funny to our eyes.  To laugh would be a great offense.

I stood stock still.  I watched in complete solemnity as the elder danced and hit his chest and made his eyes bug out.  But once he was satisfied, he made a peace offering and the evening’s festitivies got underway.

Afterwards, Tuan said “I’ve never seen you look so serious.” It wasn’t any big deal.  I go through the same ritual every time I ask our I.T. department at work for a memory upgrade.

Tuan and I watched a theatrical, musical version of “Whale Rider” at the Auckland Civic Center, and on either side of the stage were a pair of carved lions.  You see those kinds of decorations at countless theaters and auditoriums, but these lions were different: their eyes glowed a piercing, cobalt blue.  I went up to ask the usher if I could take a picture of the statues.  “No,” he said, “We have a copyright on the inside of the theater.”

Obviously, one might well ask why taking a picture violates a copyright--don’t you have to actually build a copy of the theater for that to make a lick of sense? But I gradually realized the wisdom of his words. There’s really nothing cooler than lion statues with glowing eyes. If the word gets out about this, I swear that every major theater in the world is going to swipe the idea.

I really hope this post doesn’t violate any copyrights.

The most popular tourist attraction in New Zealand is the Waitomo caves.  You can explore them via a tour-guided boat, or you can encase yourself in a wetsuit, snag an inner tube, and get a more visceral experience.  Tuan and I chose the second option.

At times it’s so tight that you can barely squeeze inbetween the rocks. At several points, you cascade over a tiny slide/waterfall, barreling down into blackness and splashing into the cold water at the bottom.  At other times, your tour guide (barely old enough to shave) leads you in a rousing chorus of “I’m a Little Glow Worm”:

I’m a little glow worm
Short and stout
Life is not very glum
Because light shines out my bum.

Because the Waitomo Caves are some of the only caves on the planet where glow worms secrete on the rocky ceilings, which results in an amazing visual effect.  Despite the splashing and the tubing and the singing, the best part of the caves is when you float along quietly in the dark, your neck craned upwards--where, somehow, worm shit has created dazzling, iridescent galaxies.  Stunning graffiti.  Angel’s facepaint.

Greg having given me permission to post, just in case he’s not able to find web access, it looks like the reading public will have an opportunity to read the Goose Master and Papa Goose at the same time. (Please do NOT comment on the alternative meanings of Goose Master) We 60 plus types are sometimes taken aback by the modern technological age. You have to remember that I was a practicing physician and a father before the first computers became available to the general public.  I had a pager, but all it did was alert me to the need to call my answering service to find out what was up. I had all the pay phones in Pasadena, Anchorage and Ukiah memorized. Cell phones, coffee makers you can set in advance, TV recorders you can set up to record every program in which you have any interest for the next month, and a multitude of other wonders just did not exist except in science fiction.

People who know me well will agree that one of my major characteristics is that I am a fanatic reader. I have been known to retreat from family gatherings to get a twenty minute reading fix, and to take paperbacks to the opera, ball games, etc.  (OK, I’m getting to the point)

Now I have the discovered the greatest thing since the credit card.  In two weeks I will be at a medical meeting for continuing education, and then taking a ten day vacation trip to attend a family wedding. Taking enough books for that long a trip would mean adding a great deal of weight to my luggage, EXCEPT I have discovered e-books.  I have FIVE novels in my PDA as we speak, and room for several more.  Does it matter that they are not all good novels?  No, some were free and I expect them to be pretty bad. But, free and fitting into my PDA is good. One of them is Vanity Fair. I haven’t read that since high school, but I’ll be Becky Sharp is still living up to her name.

I’m a pig in heaven, wallowing in the printed word, awash in prose. Neat! Cool! 

I foolishly declared my hiking boots during customs, because my passenger card said to, and this caused a big ruckus. I had to take off my boots and give them to the lady.  She actually took them into a nearby lab to be examined.  Boy, did I feel sorry for her.  Imagine, if you will, the sheer vileness of the evil wind swirling from boots that have endured a 12-hour flight, countless security lines, and a 4 a.m showing of Raising Helen aboard New Zealand Air.

Eventually, though, she brought them back to me--holding them in the tips of her fingers as though they were a pair of dead rats--and said something very cryptic to me. She said, “Be careful when you walk in the mud.”

So now I’m traveling around this country in fear. I read the history books, I read the guide books--and no one said anything about a carniverous New Zealand mud monster. I have a very stern letter to write to Lonely Planet when I get back.

In other news: I’m pleased to report that my friend Tuan and I are traveling very well together. The only way that we’re bad for each other is how we both love coffee.  And we keep encouraging each other to drink more.  So, today, we were discussing our plans:

“THAT WAS A VERY NICE TRIP TO THE WAR MUSEUM.”

“YES, AND A FINE VISIT TO UNDERWATER WORLD.”

“PERHAPS NOW WE SHOULD TRY BUNGEE JUMPING.”

“NO, I BELIEVE THAT IS LATER IN THE TRIP.  WE DO NOT HAVE THE PROPER EQUIPMENT.”

“IT IS OKAY.  WE CAN JUMP INTO THE AIR AND WE WILL NOT BE CONCERNED ABOUT THE LACK OF EQUIPMENT UNTIL WE ARE VERY NEAR TO THE GROUND.”

“I AM PERSUADED BY YOUR WORDS. BUT LET US HAVE ANOTHER COFFEE FIRST.”

“THAT IS AN EXCELLENT SUGGESTION.”

Some famous people are known for the lies they told. Think Presidents Kennedy, Eisenhower, Nixon, Clinton, Reagan.  To that list, add Papa Goose who said there would be no Papa Goose blogs. And here we are.  As usual, Greg does wit and humor, while I do pith and rumor.  For today, I offer my special champions list.
Actress with greatest beauty and least talent: Rae Dawn Chong
Actor with greatest beauty and least talent: Keanu Reeves.
Politician with greatest beauty and least talent: George W. Bush
Politician with least beauty and least talent: John Kerry
Politician with greatest beauty and greatest talent: still looking
Politician with least beauty and least talent: too many to count
Movie with greatest hype and no cattle: Catwoman ( other contenders too many to count)
Movie with least hype and most cattle: Lonely are the Brave (you’ll have to look hard to find this one) Many other contenders.