Friday, May 29, 2009

"I do not like the cone of shame" says Dug



Today was my day off, so I went to the movie theater to see what was playing. I had already seen everything except for two, and I wasn't about to plunk down money for Drag Me to Hell, although it sounds like fairly good camp according to Kurt Loder's hilarious review. So Disney-Pixar's Up in 3D was about the best choice, and I started to walk away, poo-pooing it as a kid's movie. Then I turned around and thought, oh what the hell, how bad can it be.

The theater manager assured me it was good, and that I would cry. I paid the extra four bucks for my nerdy little 3D glasses and although I didn't believe him, he was right on both counts. This movie is absolutely great. I was shocked how much I loved it. I even felt guilty for being such a grump and almost not having given it a chance. I deserved the Cone of Shame.



Here are some excerpts from reviews of Up.

Up is a breathtaking ride into the realm of pure imagination. Up shames the pap that now passes for family entertainment (yes, Night at the Museum 2, I'm talking to you). ~Rolling Stone

How much do I love this movie? If it were mathematically possible, I'd give it five stars out of four. ~Philadelphia Inquirer

Rarely has any film, let alone an animated one powered by the logic of dream and fantasy, been able to move so successfully -- and so effortlessly -- through so many different kinds of cinematic territory. ~L.A. Times

To watch Up with any attention is to be moved and astonished by the economy with which specific visuals are invested with emotion throughout. ~San Francisco Chronicle

An exquisite work of cinematic art that also happens to be the funniest, most touching, most exciting and most entertaining movie released so far this year. ~New York Post

As in their finest work, the Pixar filmmakers have created thrilling cinema simply by rifling through its history. ~New York Times

It feels nervy and adventurous and a little messy, the result of formidable creators and genuine wits working on an enormous budget, enormously well-spent. ~Chicago Tribune

Everything about Up is an up, in the most visceral and poetic ways. ~Baltimore Sun

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Scipps National Spelling Bee's gastronomic words



I am watching the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee and wow, talk about channeling my inner geek. I am so entranced with this show I cannot tear myself away. There are just a handful of kids left as I type. Here are some of the foodie words I should have known but would totally have bombed:
  • Neufchâtel (as in the cheese)
  • Caerphilly (as in another cheese, what's with the cheese thing?)
  • tagliatelle, pronounced "tallatelly" (as in the pasta)
  • palatschinken (jam-filled pancakes)

That last one tripped up my favorite kid, Kenyi. Bummer.

Speaking of food, I'm currently working with a French chef of international renown who's been written up in The Atlantic, New York Times, been featured on television, etc. and am gaining more gastronomic education about haute cuisine than people in chef school, but unfortunately my job leaves me no time to blog about my new foodie repertoire. One job perk is the geusioleptic aromas wafting in the kitchen. I just learned that word tonight courtesy of the spelling bee.

Below is the French-made oven the chef cooks with. Isn't it amazing? It's "The Chateau" model by La Cornue. I didn't know that forty-thousand-dollar ovens even existed. Surprise!

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Terminator Salvation's nude Arnold body double scene



Good lord, what a letdown. If you are looking for a way to kill some time and need an excuse to go out for movie popcorn, then fine. It's not painful to watch, but it would better suffice as a Netflix rental.

However.

There is one scene that is totally worth seeing for it's comic value. A door blows open with spectacular force. You see someone's feet and big muscular calves and then the camera pans up to show big muscular quads and suddenly there's this mist, or fog, or the smoke machine on the set has gone off by accident because why is there smoke who knows, and so the boy parts are enshrouded with opacity, and then the camera pans up to a major six pack and huge pecs and biceps and upwards we go and it's . . .



Arnold!

But is it? This body belongs to someone who is in Mr. Universe shape, and let's face it. Arnold is more like in Mr. Middle-Aged Average Joe shape these days. Obviously it can't be his body.



And as it turns out, it's not. It's this body double guy - Austrian bodybuilder Roland Kickinger.



Mr. Triceps himself even played Arnold in the 2005 A&E biopic "See Arnold Run."

Back to the point, which is what is this naked Arnold Terminator doing in the scene? Who knows. It's never explained. He simply goes after Christian Bale and slams him around a bit. Bale escapes. We see Arnold's shadow coming around the corner and . . .

POOF. That's the end of Arnold for the rest of the film. Where did he go? To find some clothes? To find the men's room? To find a good Cuban cigar? We never know. What was he doing there? Don't know that either. He simply appears out of the mist/fog/smoke, and then disappears -- much like the plot and continuity.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Maureen Dowd's plagiarism excuse


Harvard Crimson/Alexandra P. Kass

You'd think a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer could come up with something better than the PR equivalent to "the dog ate my homework."
"josh is right. I didn't read his blog last week, and didn't have any idea he had made that point until you informed me just now. i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column. but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me. we're fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow."
This is what Maureen Dowd told the The NYTPicker.

She lifted material from a blog published last Thursday on the Talking Points Memo (TPM) website. Here's the original post by Josh Marshall:

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."
Now here's Dowd's from yesterday's New York Times:
"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

And this is the woman who blasted Joe Biden for plagiarism in one of his speeches. I wonder what repercussions she's going to face from the editors. What they should do is publish an op-ed about the incident, titled, "An Echo from a Blog."

Saturday, May 16, 2009

The Big Bang Theory's tribute to Leonard Nimoy

Seeing Leonard Nimoy in Star Trek made me wonder how all the Trekkies are handling their flames of geek passion seeing him in action again. Which made me think of this episode of the Big Bang Theory, one of my favorite shows.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Star Trek: a gathering of actors from great TV and films



Mitch Yost has gotten back in the game.

The new Star Trek is so good! I love the fact that they cast Bruce Greenwood as Captain Christopher Pike. If you were a fan of HBO's short-lived "John From Cincinnati," you'd remember him as the cool, not-yet-over-the-hill surfer Mitch Yost.



Then there's White Castle Harold as Sulu, played by John Cho. He put on a pretty impressive, very un-Haroldish sword-wielding fight scene.



And of course Sylar, I mean Zachary Quinto, who is perfect as a young Spock. I still was half-expecting him to finger-saw Romulan skull, though.

I had a frustrating "who-IS-that-I-know-I've-seen-him-before" moment when trying to figure out the actor playing Kirk. I racked my brain before remembering him as . . .



. . . wild-child oenophile Bo Barrett in the wonderful film Bottle Shock that came out last fall. Chris Pine is more smoking in Star Trek without that heinous wig, channeling a young Brad Pitt on the Enterprise.



The sexiest character (and my sister who saw the movie with me concurs) was Romulan villain Nero, played by Eric Bana. Remember him starring in Troy and Munich years ago?



Not me. I didn't recognize him at all, and had to cheat by visiting IMDB for that "aha" moment.



Besides the great talent, the film as a whole is fantastic, especially the editing and special effects. It not surprising that it's full of time travel and discussion of quantum mechanics, as it's directed by J.J. Abrams, who produced "Lost." Definitely one of the best Star Trek films, and worth seeing on the big screen. And supposedly the actors have signed on for two sequels, the first of which is planned for a 2011 release, which will probably bring back William Shatner.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

The stuck-in-the-dungeon riddle




Okay, smarty pants.

You are stuck in a dungeon with two doors. One leads to freedom, the other to death. You may ask just one single question of the two guards standing by the doors in order to escape. One of the men always lies and the other always tells the truth, but you can't differentiate the liar from the truth-teller.

What one question can you ask that will guarantee your exit through the right door?

Give it some thought before you scroll down to the answer . . .

you are so cheating . . .

Give up? By the way I wonder if the dungeon has rats . . .

. . . or Iron Maidens. Haha. Okay here's the answer:

The question you'd ask either guard is, "If I had asked you if this was the door to freedom, would your answer have been 'yes'?" If it was the honest guard, it's a no brainer. If it was the liar guard, he'd have to lie about what his original answer would have been. Voila.

I love that riddle.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Abstinence-only sex ed: hopefully a thing of the past



Here's baby mama Bristol Palin in February 2009 telling Fox News that teen abstinence is not "realistic at all." Now, she's done a 180 and is being promoted as the poster child for abstinence by the Candie's Foundation. This abstinence-promoting foundation is, ironically, the philanthropic branch of the Candie's clothing and shoe brand which advertises its "just-say-no" philosophy like this:



Girls, do dress and act a whore, but don't have sex!

What I'd like to know is how much Candie's is paying Bristol Palin. According to Anderson Cooper's 360 show, the Candie's Foundation compensated the teen mom for her "time" and travel expenses but she is not a paid employee. Here is the Foundation's founder and Candie's C.E.O. Neil Cole with his two teenage spokeswomen, Hayden Panettiere and Palin.



I can't believe the continued prevalence of moronic abstinence-only sex ed in this country! Why don't people like Cole do their research before touting a philosophy that does not work on teenagers and ends up misleading them, and allowing them to get STDs and pregnant because they were not properly educated on how to protect themselves? It's sad and preventable.

Since 1996, the United States government has poured more than 1.3 billion dollars into ineffective abstinence-only sex ed programs. Thankfully, President Obama decided to put an end to this idiocy and will use federal money for a more balanced and realistic sex ed program. The PDF version of his sex-ed budget is here, beginning on page 39.

"It's about time that evidence-based management - and sanity - return to family planning programs," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan).

In January, an article was posted on OpenEducation.net titled "Abstinence-Only Sex Education Statistics - Final Nail in the Coffin." The piece references three separate independent studies on the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education. And the results of the three were all the same: abstinence-only sex ed does not work.

The Cochrane Collaboration was the first to do a study. Then the Mathematic Policy Research Inc.'s published its findings, a pdf version of which is online here. I blogged about this study a couple of years ago when I first heard about "purity rings."
One group had been part of the Christian brainwashing program, and the other group had been spared. Yet both groups of kids behaved exactly the same sexually: 23% in both groups had sex in the previous year and always used a condom, 17% had sex only sometimes using a condom; and 4% had sex never using one. About a quarter of each group had had sex with three or more partners.

Finally, a researcher at Johns Hopkins wrote about her results, available here in the American Journal of Public Health. A summary from OpenEducation.net about the last study states:

. . . youngsters who took the virginity pledge were not only just as likely to have intercourse, they ultimately were more likely to take part in sex in an unsafe manner. This has led experts to conclude that the lessons students take from their abstinence-only education programs is a negative and/or faulty view of contraception.

It will be interesting to see if teen pregnancies will diminish from the 750,000 per year in the U.S. that occur now. I'm sure once kids learn the facts about contraception instead of being brainwashed by Christians that they must wait until marriage, there will be a lot less unwanted newborns being birthed by children.

Tying it up is a recent South Park's take on Purity Rings. Great stuff.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

The wingnuts' Poupongate: new lows of desperation



The hilarity of the hoopla that ensued after this burger video came out earlier in the week is mindboggling. All I see is a cool guy buying a round of burgers and leaving a nice tip in the jar.


I could not believe my eyes when I saw this clip of Fox News' Sean Hannity dredging up old Grey Poupon commercials. How dare the President order an elitist European condiment? The nerve. You know when all you've got on the President is spicy mustard versus yellow mustard, you may want to rethink your job as a political critic.

How do people this asinine get news shows? Can you imagine the graphic artist who came up with the President Poupon graphic? Did he think it was cool? Did he want to kill himself from the shame? Does everyone have their head up their ass at Fox? It's all too pathetic. No wonder the Republicans are wandering out in the wilderness.

Kindle 2: a good way to save money on college textbooks

(Amazon)

Amazon yesterday introduced the bigger, better, and more expensive Kindle 2. Retailing at $489, it seems a bit pricy, right? But if you're a college student, you will actually save money if you buy the Kindle 2 and download electronic textbooks instead of buying physical textbooks.

According to NPR:

For students, the biggest advantage [of buying the Kindle 2] could be the lower cost of electronic textbooks. Reading material on the Kindle is consistently less expensive than printed versions, with new releases of mass-market books typically costing $10, for example.

A 2005 Government Accountability Office report said the average [textbook] cost is $900 per year for students at four-year public colleges, though the textbook industry argues the figure is closer to $625. Typically the prices are high because publishers are trying to capture as many sales as possible in the first year of release, before students can buy used versions.

Though Amazon currently sells physical textbooks, Bezos says he believes electronic versions will eventually dominate. "It just makes so much sense," he said.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon's C.E.O., unveiled the Kindle 2 at Pace University. The New York Times writes:

Geoffrey Brackett, the provost of Pace, said the university would distribute the new Kindles to about 50 students and compare them with 50 studying the same material using traditional textbooks, to see differences in how the two groups learn.

Mr. Brackett said he expected the university to split the cost of the Kindles with Amazon but said whether the students would get the devices on loan or as a gift had not been determined.

The new version has a screen more than twice as big as the original Kindle. It will be available sometime this summer.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Funky spring veggies: Fiddlehead ferns



I went for a walk in the Amherst woods yesterday while the rain took a break for a few hours. It was so green! There are great hiking trails here at the seven mile-wide Mount Holyoke Range State Park.



Fiddlehead ferns are in season now here in New England, but they're around for only a few weeks. They grow near water and are ready for harvesting around the first week in May. Fiddleheads aren't a specific type of fern - the name refers to the shape of the budding unfurled fronds.



My sister laughed at me, foraging for fiddleheads in the woods like some crazy backwoods mountain person. I'd never eaten them before and found some recipes online. I sauteed mine with garlic and butter and was surprised how good they are. Kind of like asparagus. I plan on harvesting more of these little delicacies to freeze and use later in cream-based soup.



Fiddleheads are great with Hollandaise sauce. You can also use them in quiche. Here's a recipe that Emeril Lagasse made up:

Morel Mushroom and Fiddlehead Fern Ragout

Ingredients
  • 1 1/2 pounds fiddlehead ferns
  • 2 shallots, minced
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 2 sprigs fresh thyme
  • 1/2 pound fresh morels, trimmed and rinsed well
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3/4 cup chicken stock
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1 tablespoon chopped chives
  • 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
  • Salt and pepper
  • Parmesan curls, for garnish

DIRECTIONS

In a saucepan, bring 1 1/2 quarts of salted water to a boil. Add fiddleheads and return to a boil. Using a slotted spoon, transfer fiddleheads to an ice bath and chill. Drain and pat dry, removing as much of the outer brown, tissue-like membrane as possible.

In a skillet saute shallots in butter until softened, about 2 minutes. Add thyme, morels, and garlic and continue to cook until morels have softened and given up their liquid, about 3 minutes. Continue to cook until almost all liquid is evaporated, about 2 more minutes. Add chicken stock and cook until reduced by half. Add fiddleheads and cook 2 minutes, add cream, chives, and parsley, and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste. Serve immediately, garnished with Parmesan curls.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

The X-Rated Job Interview



It was cracked, alright.

Yesterday I had an job interview at a sprawling, just-built private estate. I was sitting at a table with the Estate Manager in a room that housed a pool table and a beautiful fireplace. I guess one could call it the den, although it was more like a hall. Above the mantle mounted on the wall was huge flat-screen TV, about six feet wide. CNN was on, muted. My seat faced the windows looking out onto the sprawling, manicured grounds. The Estate Manager sat across from me, facing toward the TV.

As the interview progressed, I noticed the TV was off. I figured one of the housekeepers who'd been passing in and out may have shut it off.

Suddenly, the Estate Manager stops talking mid-sentence with a horrified look on her face. "Oh my God!" she says, looking above my head at the screen behind me. I turn around to see what she's watching.

PORN is on the television. Nasty, dirty, hardcore, hetero porn with lots of closeups of the anal sex that is being vigorously performed by two adult film stars. Close-up shots + a six-foot screen = much more detail than I needed to know. I think my jaw dropped onto the table. At least the system was still on mute and there weren't any squeals and grunts to accompany the visuals!

"Oh my God!" the estate manager says again, as she jumps up and hustles across the room and grabs the touch-screen universal remote off of its charger. And because it's a brand new home with a brand new AV system, she doesn't know how to work the remote. Have you ever seen one of these things? So crazy! It probably cost more than I've had in my savings account in the past year.



She yells for the French chef, who is nearby in the kitchen. He enters the room, unaware of the chaos onscreen. "Turn off the TV!" the Estate Manager says to him as she jams the remote into his hands. He fumbles with it too, looks up at the TV, sees the anal show, his eyes widen, he exclaims in a thich French accent "Ooh Monsieur!" and continues to randomly push the buttons.

Finally, the TV goes off. I cover my mouth and try not to burst out laughing. We all start laughing. The chef returns to cooking. The Estate Manager apologizes profusely. We get back to business, but there's palpable change in the air. The incident seems to have leveled the field, and I'm actually glad the porn mishap occurred. My future employer got to see that I am not uptight and don't get flustered, and I got to see that she's human and mistakes happen.

I assume the "Mister" of the estate was sequestered in his master bedroom somewhere in one of the home's many wings, enjoying what he thought was some quality private time watching one of his plethora of televisions. Hopefully he might read up on the operation of his audiovisual system before hunkering down next time on "Anal Alley."

Sunday, May 3, 2009

More cowbell



Last night my nephew's band The Young Flyers opened for a band called Living Things who are touring the East Coast. When Living Things were playing, nephew drummer Andrew came marching through the crowd up to the stage playing a cowbell high over his head. Andrew is six feet six inches, so you couldn't miss the cowbell spectacle eight feet up in the air. The frontman gave him the nod, and up he jumped on stage for a minute or two, rocking out with his cowbell. I was dying laughing, and if you haven't seen the Saturday Night Live skit "More Cowbell" starring Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken, you are missing out on some seriously funny cowbell humor.



By the way, Living Things is a great rock band and are playing Tuesday night at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC. If you're around, they are well worth checking out. They're also at Lollapalooza this August. Here they are on Jimmy Kimmel a few months ago.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Conservatives, Steven Colbert is laughing AT you, not with you!



Last year I dated a Russian guy with broken English who was surprised that I was such a huge Stephen Colbert fan. I said, "You do know he's joking, right? He's not really a Republican. It's satire!"

He looked confused. Did I burst his bubble? Maybe he didn't know what the English word satire meant?

"Are you sure about that?" he asked me. Before presuming his idiocy, I decided that his confusion instead had to be the result of his not understanding English well. Then again, this was a guy who made lots of dough working at Goldman Sachs, most likely a very conservative conservative. Obviously I was channeling Cleopatra, the Queen of da Nile.

Lo and behold, HuffPo uncovered a story about an Ohio State researcher's study called "The Irony of Satire" revealing that conservatives don't know Colbert is joking.
. . . there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements. Conservatism also significantly predicted perceptions that Colbert disliked liberalism. Finally, a post hoc analysis revealed that perceptions of Colbert's political opinions fully mediated the relationship between political ideology and individual-level opinion.

This doesn't surprise me in the least. I just wonder what explanation they have for Colbert's 2006 roast of Bush at the White House Press Correspondents Dinner. Some of my favorite gems:
"Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!"

"We're not so different, [Bush] and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say 'I did look it up, and that's not true.' That's 'cause you looked it up in a book."