Winter. Bah.

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:25:13 GMT

My Best Picture nominees viewing continues!

Beasts of the Southern Wild: Loved it. I can't believe Quvenzhane Wallis was 5 years old when she was cast! Love the story, the directing, everything. It reminded me a lot of Whale Rider, which is a movie that I love to pieces. However, like Whale Rider, I suspect that the various nominations this movie got are its "awards" -- as in, congrats that you made a wonderful movie, we'll acknowledge it with these nominations, but we're going to give the actual awards elsewhere. Not having yet seen Life of Pi or Amour, right now I'd give directing to Benh Zeitlin for this movie.

Lincoln: I wanted to think it was amazing, but I just didn't. I found it really boring, actually. I have the greatest appreciation for Abraham Lincoln himself, but I'm just not that interested in the Civil War (I'm more of a WWII buff). It's one of those time periods that I don't particularly enjoy reflecting on for entertainment purposes, watching people try to defend slavery, countrymen killing countrymen, etc. Daniel Day-Lewis probably has Best Actor in the bag, but I'd love to see Bradley Cooper pull off an upset, he was so impressive in Silver Linings Playbook. It's not going to happen, though.

Other than Life of Pi and Amour, I still need to see Django Unchained and I'll be done!

Met K for dinner last night. We went to Brave Horse Tavern to try their Sunday night fried chicken dinner. It was OK. The chicken wasn't as good as at Ma'ono, the collard greens were too sour, and the biscuits and gravy were way too heavy. What was really good was their homemade soft pretzel with three different kinds of mustard, and their plain cheeseburger. Yes, we ate all of it. Stop judging us.

Talis still has an ulcer in his right eye. :/ Poor little thing has been wearing one of those Elizabethan collars for more than a month now. I was hoping it'd heal up on its own while we were in LA, but it didn't happen, so now he has to have a "procedure." That's been scheduled for Jan. 25. Meanwhile, I've been buying his antibiotic eye drops from the vet's office for $30/bottle. While in LA I needed it replenished. Rite-Aid wanted $40 for it and they couldn't get it until the following day. I ended up going to Costco, which not only had it in stock that very day, but it only cost $12.80! Crazy.

I completely forgot that I have a cooking class tonight -- Singaporean chili crab -- and took the bus in to work today. D'oh!! Now it's going to be a mad rush trying to get home and take care of the pets before heading out again. >

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She has a boyfriend. Like, really, really, really has a boyfriend. The nuclear bomb of boyfriends.

Fri, 11 May 2012 18:44:08 GMT

Soooooo I finished City of Lost Souls. It's one of the best "middle" books I've ever read... and in YA, potentially the best. Middle books -- or maybe I'll even say, second books in a series -- tend to be some of the weakest. It's sort of treading water in between the beginning and the end, and consequently not much happens. TOTALLY not the case with CoLS. :D ( Major spoilers! )

Last night I went to a PCC Cooks class... except it was less a cooking class than it was that they served us dinner. It's the first time I've ever done anything through PCC Cooks (which K. loves), so I didn't realize the distinction, I guess. It was good, but not worth the $50 I paid, even with the recipes they gave us. :/ I mean, the theme was "Madame Butterfly," the cuisine was Japanese, and it was REALLY simple. Nothing I couldn't have looked up how to make elsewhere, and with it being so simple, there wasn't a ton of technique to learn either. We started with a lovely dashi soup, followed by seared ahi tuna and shrimp tempura, followed by teppan-style filet mignon (TWO CUBES, so it's not like the portions were all that generous), followed by cherry sorbet and an almond pirouette. Each course was also accompanied by a wine pairing, a teeny amount that was just right for me. When I realized there would be wine I took a Zantac, which helped me not turn into a total lobster. (There's a tip for those of you who tend to get the "Asian flush"!) In a way it was a good thing that there wasn't a lot of hands-on stuff involved, because I wasn't really feeling up to it. I've been dragging a lot lately. :/

Awesome news... Community's been renewed for 13 episodes. I'm trying not to be bummed that it's only 13 eps, but imho they'll only order more eps if ratings improve, and there's no reason to suspect that they will. Sigh. Everyone should be watching this fantastic show!

If all goes well, tomorrow there will be Boiling Point with adelagia, Tilth brunch on Sunday, and hopefully The Avengers w/ K. sometime during the weekend. Wheeeeeeee!

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It Started with a Journal

Winter. Bah.

She has a boyfriend. Like, really, really, really has a boyfriend. The nuclear bomb of boyfriends.