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Lately, it seems as if news about Sriracha has been as ubiquitous as the much-loved hot sauce itself.

First, there was the panic over a potential shortage, after a judge ordered the California factory where Sriracha is made to partially shut down, as our friends on the Two-Way blog have reported.

Now, this red hot culinary phenomenon is starring in its own documentary.

Released this past week on Vimeo, Sriracha is a 33-minute movie from filmmaker Griffin Hammond that traces the origins of the incredibly popular condiment, a pureed blend of garlic, red jalapenos, sugar, salt and vinegar that has addicted many a palate.

"Sriracha" documentary trailer from Griffin Hammond on Vimeo.

South Korean Kim Dong-hwan, a professional StarCraft II player, has received a special U.S. visa, normally reserved for baseball players and other athletes.

The five-year P-1A visa given to the video game player last week is for "internationally recognized athletes." This follows another visa given to a Canadian League of Legends player earlier this summer.

The move could bring more professional gamers to the U.S. and grow an already booming industry. This October, the final match for the game League of Legends almost packed the Staples Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers, with more than 13,000 people. The combined prize money for the three StarCraft II world championship series next year is $1.6 million.

For the past three years, Kim (aka "viOLet") has been traveling back and forth between the U.S. and South Korea under a visa waiver to compete in live matches, says Andrew Tomlinson, who is Kim's manager. Kim lived at Tomlinson's apartment when not competing.

At live matches, Kim would play against his opponent inside a soundproof glass booth. Thousands of spectators watch these tournaments in person, along with professional commentators narrating for millions of online viewers. But last fall, Kim was told that he had been coming in and out of the country so much that he couldn't come back without a visa.

That's a big problem, says Marcus Graham, a senior manager at the gaming media site Twitch and a competitive gamer for 14 years.

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The role earned him his first Oscar nomination, though he lost to Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. That established something of a pattern in O'Toole's career. He would be nominated for eight Oscars, but never won until he was awarded an honorary one in 2003.

"Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, my foot," O'Toole said as he accepted it. "I have my very own Oscar now, until death us do part."

O'Toole said that the magic of the movies entranced him as a child. Born in Ireland to a wandering bookmaker and raised in England, he didn't start acting until after a two-year stint in the Royal Navy.

It was there that he decided to chase his childhood dream. He described the experience on NPR's All Things Considered after the release of the movie Venus in 2006.

"I mentioned that I wasn't particularly satisfied with what I was doing in civilian life, which was working for a newspaper," he recalled. "And the skipper said to me one night, have you any unanswered calls inside you that you don't understand or can't qualify? I said, well, yes, I do. I quite fancy myself either as a poet or an actor."

From there he entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and started a career on stage that would carry him to London and eventually, to the silver screen.
In 2012, 50 years after his launch into stardom and a month before his 80th birthday, O'Toole announced his retirement from acting.

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Kansas citizens are proud of their barbecue, their Chiefs football, their national champion soccer team and Boulevard Brewing, a Kansas City brewery that's built up quite a local following since its launch in the late 1980s.

"It's our thing. You know, like la cosa nostra, it's our thing," says Char O'Hara, a Kansan resident who, like thousands of other local 20-somethings, grew up with Boulevard.

But soon, it will be a Belgian thing, too. Any day now, Belgian beer maker Duvel is expected to finalize its purchase of the Kansas City brewery.

The deal to buy Boulevard Brewing says a lot about the transformation of the American craft beer industry — and just how much the world now values a product with a firm sense of place.

O'Hara is a little leery about Duvel taking over her brand. "These people came from the outside, and took something that's native to us, and it's kind of a bummer," she says. "It makes the future uncertain."

But John McDonald, Boulevard Brewing's founder, sees things differently. "I think a lot of people were kind of shocked at the news, and I kind of knew that would happen."