Thailand had cool mall art. Below is one example. This mall also had the coolest food court. Great variety and high quality. Did you know that fried chicken is popular there? And very tasty.

Why does it have a “Z” in it? Yes, I imagine it came from French. No, I don’t care to look it up. It messes me up every time. It is one of the few words that I just type as close as possible and learn on spell check to flag and correct it.

“Surprise” is another one. It is spelled like Gomer Pyle said it, not like most people (at least here in the Midwest) say it.

I know, I know. I should just learn to spell them correctly and it wouldn’t be a problem. Don’t wanna.

These things have a wide range of flavors and those of us that drink them usually like only a subset. I’m not a fan of sours on the beer list and Starbucks-style is too bitter for me.

We can have a narrow range of what we like and be more stressed about getting within that range.

I think that having a wide acceptable range and ranked preference is the lower stress lifestyle.

I tend to like darker, less bitter coffee. But I like most kinds of coffee, including Minnesota Lutheran see-through coffee they serve at my wife’s home church and the half-pound per cup brew we get at a relative’s house. So I’m happy anywhere.

Same with beer. I like most, but prefer darker beers. The can of Bud Lite I split with my mother-in-law is also nice.

Wine? Eh, maybe not as wide of an acceptance range, but most places have a variety and I can usually get a dark red of some sort.

When we were in Phuket (did you say it right?) the hotel had Oreos in the minifridge. We didn’t think must about it until one of our relatives brought it to one of the day trips. Sometime during the day my brother-in-law ate one and said it was different. He mentioned size and taste.

Knowing a bit about how global companies handle global brands, I wondered. Did they tailor to the local taste or was it the same. So, for no good reason, I grabbed several small package of Oreos sold in Thailand and, when we got back home, packages of Oreos sold in the US. We had also pick up a weird flavor in Thailand to try. More on that later.

A buddy of mine visited and he and I ran the experiments. My wife declined to participate because she is a normal person. This was not a highly technical evaluation and comparison, because these are Oreos, not a pharmaceutical.

Summary
Yes, there was a size difference. You could feel it and see it, but since all we had saw a sewing measuring tape because I don’t have calipers and was too lazy to go grab a tape measure, we could only tell the Thai Oreo was about an 1/8th of an inch in diameter less. Side note, we both felt that both cookies were smaller than we remember as kids. But that’s just life. Cookie patterns were the same.

It also visually appeared that, while the Oreos were the same thickness, the cream was thinner on the Thai Oreo.

There was a flavor difference, but very minor. The Thai version seemed a little grittier, like fine undissolved sugar. We agreed that the taste was different, but didn’t have the words to describe it. We needed a wine or beer snob to provide the better taste vocabulary. The US version seemed sweeter.

Conclusion: Yes, Oreo had different size and taste in Thailand. We expect a call from the Nobel people in recognition of our work.

On to the side quest.

We had no idea what this one was going to taste like. I could see some sort of cream cheese flavor. But the packaging leaned more towards actual cheese.

Turns out the filling was bland and underwhelming. I was expecting to taste something, but got, to my taste, nothing. There was no sweetness nor cheese.

Would not buy again. Will definitely buy plain Oreos again—in either country.

Thai: 1 5/8,thinner cream, little gritty,, crispier, different taste

Bought US 1 3/88, sweeter

Oreo Cheese-su. Same cookie. inside bland and underwhelming. Doesn’t taste like normal Oreo filling. Doesn’t taste like cheese

Cookie pattern the same.  

Measurements showed the same thickness however creams seem to be thinner on the Thai version

The first thing I am going to tell is a spoiler. If you read past this, it’s on you, not me. The director gives it away in the first minute of the film so I don’t feel too bad about it. The dog doesn’t die.

We like going to movies in the theater. It takes us away from all the stuff we need to do around the house. It forces us to keep our phones off. It immerses us more in the movie, letting us escape the world for a couple of hours. Large popcorn and a bottle of water and we are good to go.

This time of year, there aren’t many movies we can go to. We don’t do animation unless the grandkids are with (yes, I know we are missing out on a lot of good movies). We don’t do horror movies because, well, just no.

So we found ourselves at Heart of the Beast. It wasn’t really at the top of our list. It looked like Castaway with a dog instead of a volleyball.

But we really enjoyed it.

• They did an awesome job with the dog, giving it a personality right from the beginning. The dog was a fully-realized character.
• Any movie is improve by having J.K. Simmons in it.
• The story felt realistic with no stupid moves by the characters.
• Brad Pitt was excellent in this character.

Here is the synopsis of Heart of the Beast.