The other night I was watching a documentary on Killer Whales, or Orcas, on TV. I don’t remember what channel it was on. That happens sometimes when you are channel surfing. You’ll come across something like this that you think is really cool, and you want to come back and see this again, but you can’t remember where you found it. I think maybe it was Discovery, or maybe Animal Planet. I can’t think of any other channels that would show a documentary on Killer Whales.

I couldn’t help but remember the move from many years ago called “Orca.” This fisherman accidentally killed a mother Killer Whale’s baby, and the mother made it her life mission to hunt down the fisherman like she was some angry ex-mafia contract killer who had been wronged and was using her whale assassination skills on him.

One of my favorite lines from the movie was when the fisherman was starting to realize what was up, that he was being hunted by an angry mother whale, and he went and asked the priest if it was possible to commit a sin against and animal. The priest (of course and Irishman) responded:

“You can commit a sin against a blade of grass.”

Naturally, being a kid when I saw that, I made sure to inform my dad of the horror of sinning against blades of grass, so I could get out of mowing the lawn. It didn’t work.

The other day I was in a new sandwich shop downtown. It had the appearance of a chain submarine store (submarine sandwich, not the Red October kind) but I was pretty sure it was privately owned. The specialized in this giant subs that were filled with all kinds of meat, and these really good looking triple and quadruple decker club sandwiches. There were a lot of people, and it smelled really good. They made their own bread, and their oven wasn’t so big so they kept pulling out trays of freshly made bread, which of course made people want to buy more sandwiches. An effective marketing strategy to say the least.

While we were waiting, my friend started telling me some weird convoluted story that he read in some dieting book. He said that the secret to discovering any solid weight loss plan that will serve you for the rest your life is to understand how you layer your pleasure. Some people only focus on immediate pleasure, how good eating will make them feel in the next few minutes. These people are only satisfied in the short term, and are always looking for a sugary fix. These people generally live off fast food and ice cream. Then there are people that focus way out in the future, and are considered by most to be health nuts. They put their pleasure just out of reach, so the present is always a means to and end, and not an end it itself. These people are usually found in the oatmeal and granola area of the supermarket, and wouldn’t be caught dead in a Baskin Robbins.

The trick, he said, was to layer out your pleasure in even amounts between now and the future. You need enough pleasure now so you can enjoy what you are eating, but you don’t want so much that you will rob you of your future pleasure. Conversely, if you rob your present pleasure and put it all out there in the future, it will always be out there in the future, simply because the nature of the future is that it is never now. When you can effectively layer you pleasure between now and then, you will really be able to enjoy your food in a healthy, constructive way.

I got this huge pastrami sandwich, which was really good. The only drawback was that there were so many people there; we couldn’t find any place to sit, so we had to eat standing up. I’ll definitely be hitting that sandwich shop up several times in the future, when hopefully it won’t be so crowded.

I think my favorite part about Orca was the very beginning. They showed these swimmers that were in danger of getting eaten by some sharks. Then out of nowhere, a killer whale came and head butted (or nose butted) the shark and sent it flying out of the water. I guess it was to frame the movie to show that Orcas are really friendly, and won’t hunt you down unless you murder their children. The term “killer” whale is really a misnomer. I’ve heard from more than a few people who’ve been on Alaska cruises that they are one of the main draws. They look really beautiful when they are swimming together.