All Blog Posts from The Rocca Files
The Darker Side of Jelly Beans
(CBS)
Jelly Belly President Bob Simpson showed us the portraits of Ronald and Nancy Reagan made out of jelly beans. He showed us how to mix and match beans to create even more flavors than they already have — e.g., one coconut and one lemon equal lemon meringue. And he talked about flavors that never made it, like spaghetti sauce jelly beans.
On a darker note, he brought us to the area of the floor reserved for "Belly Flops," the sad, deformed jelly beans that will never make it to consumers. I felt terrible staring at the mutant beans, some bloated or scarred, others discolored or sickly pale. I tugged at Bob's sleeve. Maybe the "Belly Flops" could be rehabbed, I chirped. You know, melted and reshaped into beans people would welcome into their mouths!
Bob bowed his head and said nothing. He didn't need to.
At Harvard things got especially future-y … and personal. It was here that Professor David Edwards showed us his invention of inhalable chocolate, called Le Whif.
As someone who has never smoked pot (and my mother is Colombian!) I couldn't wait to take a hit of Le Whif. It just felt so illicit … for a person who's never been baked. I found it pretty darn satisfying. (In the video you'll hear former NY Times Dining Critic Frank Bruni's take on Le Whif after we toke up.)
If you any thoughts or speculations on the Future of Candy, let us know. Enjoy.
Watch this week's "Tomorrow Show."
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Mo Rocca: Steve Nash Owes Me
Last night I appeared on the 10th anniversary primetime edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, hosted by Regis Philbin.
I've never understood why the show's title doesn't have a question mark at the end. Even if it's a rhetorical question, it at least calls for an exclamation point, a la the 1970s series What's Happening!! (With all due respect to Raj and Rerun, I'm not sure that show deserved two exclamation points. The far superior Good Times didn't even have one.)
What Who Wants to Be A Millionaire really needs is an interrobang: a question mark followed by an exclamation point.
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I've never understood why the show's title doesn't have a question mark at the end. Even if it's a rhetorical question, it at least calls for an exclamation point, a la the 1970s series What's Happening!! (With all due respect to Raj and Rerun, I'm not sure that show deserved two exclamation points. The far superior Good Times didn't even have one.)
What Who Wants to Be A Millionaire really needs is an interrobang: a question mark followed by an exclamation point.
Continue »
The Future Of Paper
This first episode of The Tomorrow Show, concerning the Future of Paper, was an adventure for us. And I never thought I'd use the words "paper" and "adventure" in the same sentence.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not one of those paper haters, blaming the sorry state of the environment on office workers with hair-trigger printer fingers. Yes, it's inefficient to print out the 24-page Wikipedia entry on the Beatles when a simple Google search will remind you that the name of Ringo's predecessor was Pete Best. (You really should know this without having to look it up.)
But paper consumption is not even near the top of our list of eco-threats. A sheet of paper can be recycled five times before the fibers grow too short. And while paper consumption doubled between 1980 and 2000, it's been on a slow decline since then.
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Don't get me wrong: I'm not one of those paper haters, blaming the sorry state of the environment on office workers with hair-trigger printer fingers. Yes, it's inefficient to print out the 24-page Wikipedia entry on the Beatles when a simple Google search will remind you that the name of Ringo's predecessor was Pete Best. (You really should know this without having to look it up.)
But paper consumption is not even near the top of our list of eco-threats. A sheet of paper can be recycled five times before the fibers grow too short. And while paper consumption doubled between 1980 and 2000, it's been on a slow decline since then.
Continue »
Stage Mommy Madness
(CBS/iStockphoto)
Anyway the cast includes a 2-year-old girl. While I was waiting to read for the director, three sets of blonde identical twin girls, all of them adorable, showed up. (The auditions were taking place behind a closed door just off the waiting area.) Each pair of toddlers was accompanied by her mother and at least one other person.
The first pair's entourage included the mother (we'll call her Mommy) and grandmother (we'll call her Grandma). The auditions were running behind but Mommy wasn't about to complain. Each time the casting director apologized for the delay, Mommy smiled tightly, as if to say "No problem! The girls love waiting. We only wish we'd been stuck overnight on that Continental jet on the tarmac in Minnesota. Hey, the family that waits together celebrates together!"
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Tomorrow Is Not Just Another Day
Now that I'm 40, I can say with authority that life's greatest challenge is living in the present. And that's too bad: Each day that passes is filled with tiny precious moments that disappear unnoticed into the past because we were preoccupied or too hard at work to stop and reflect … on the d?cor of the 60 Minutes offices, the smell of the CBS News cafeteria, the gardenia in my secretary's hair. (The remarkableness of the unremarked is at the heart of Thornton Wilder's theatrical masterpiece, Our Town. I insist that everyone in the NYC area see the current production at the Barrow Street Theater. It will make you rethink ... your life.)
Life is beautiful, yes, and a quiet tragedy.
Yet fixating on the Past doesn't do much good. It's whiny, pathetic, really unattractive. The best way to ruin a relationship.
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Life is beautiful, yes, and a quiet tragedy.
Yet fixating on the Past doesn't do much good. It's whiny, pathetic, really unattractive. The best way to ruin a relationship.
Continue »
Welcome
Tomorrow Show host and Sunday Morning Contributor Mo Rocca shares his opinions on a range of topics that concern him. This is the place to meet Mo, get to know him, share your thoughts, and maybe even establish a long-term relationship with him
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