I’m sure you all know that the Snowpocalypse ‘10 hit PGH pretty hard. It’s been awesome! I’ve been catching up on all sorts of movie and Northern Exposure viewing, and it made Nutella Day all the sweeter.
Even more awesome: BW’s work was cancelled today! The last time that happened was 17 GODDAMN YEARS ago! Sort of makes up for that morbidly depressing hockey game on Sunday. Sheesus. Sidney and JStaal HAND you guys a huge victory, and it gets pissed away. Must they do everything for you people?!?! This is why I hate team sports. I was so much more even-tempered and happy when I was a tennis fan. :(
Anyway, back to Nutella Day. The cookies were pretty dang good, I will try to post the recipe when I get the chance. But the Nutella French Toast was incredible! No recipe needed, I don’t think. Just make French Toast as you usually would, but spend the money on some extra-good bread…brioche or something…toast it lightly in the oven so it doesn’t get too soggy, then make Nutella sandwiches, dunk in your egg/milk mixture, and grill. Oh, a splash of Grand Marnier in the eggs n’milk is highly recommended.
In order to celebrate this day, you need exactly one thing: a jar of Nutella. Spoon optional.
But if you really want to get fancy about it, you should make something out of the Nutella. I found a recipe for Triple-Chip Nutella Cookies that I’ll be baking later today. If they turn out to be nommy, I’ll post the recipe.
Also thinking about making a weekend out of it and cooking up some Nutella-Stuffed French Toast for Saturday brunch….or maybe for Pens Game lunch? :) Nutella-Stuffed French Toast? You KNOW that would get the Marc-Andre seal of approval. Probably makes a batch whenever he gets a lazy weekend morning….MAF puttering in the kitchen with his Nutella and his Grand Marnier…sipping on a mimosa while Sidney sits around playing Wii in his jammies. *ssiiiiiiiiiiiiggghhhhhhhhh* I love those two.
Whut?! You people have no imaginations, that’s your problem.
Resolve to not root for Team Canada quickly melting away. Anybody needs me, I’ll be standing outside the newsstand/magazine store, waiting for the delivery truck.
Do you need another reason to love Joseph Gordon Levitt? Most likely not.
BUT, if so, you can add this to your list: JGL’s production company produced this cute and seriously awesome little School House Rock-style piece on the evils of the Supreme Court’s ban on broadcasting the Prop 8 trial.
Remember my hockey jersey conundrum? I deeply want to upgrade from my cheap “women’s style” STAAL jersey to a nicer one, and I was counting on 2010 Team Canada to provide me with that opportunity. BUT, being the raving pack of shitheads they are, I was denied.
For the past week or two, I’ve seriously been considering saying “Fuckit” and ordering a Canada 2010 jersey and getting the JSTAAL/11 embroidered on it anyway, because I do not believe in “jersey fouls.”
But THEN, Canada screwed me AGAIN. They announced which numbers the 2010 players will be sporting, and they gave away #11 to some dumb cunt!!! Curses!
If you read my Northern Exposure Retrospective a while back, this should not be an obscure one, but I recently stumbled across this purty photo of mah boy Darren. Love to see him looking a bit less wholesome and innocuous than Ed Chigliak.
Here’s a pic of my new BFF, Christian McKay aka Hottest On-Screen Orson Since Orson. I do love me a man who can wear a scarf and look dashing, but not gay. And a long coat. And quite nice shoes. Did I mention he’s British?
Question: Is it better or worse to stalk completely obscure people?
Pros: Much more accessible, willing to speak/sign autographs, less competition from other Stalkers.
Cons: Lack of fame makes it harder to discover the Stalkee’s schedule/comings and goings.
Sometimes, long after you’ve assumed that you’re just going to have to wait for DVD, a much-anticipated movie will eventually trickle its way down through the cracks of real civilization into the clogged drainage ditch that is Pittsburgh.
Such was the case with Me & Orson Welles, a pic that was released on Thanksgiving bloody week but just appeared here last weekend.
You know I worship Orson, and as a tangent to that, I am always fascinated about the representation of Orson Welles as a character in other people’s films. If I was a Film Studies grad student, that would be my thesis topic. I make a point to see every film I can find where Orson is a character, so I was dying to see Me & O.W. especially since I’d heard all good things about it.
This movie will cheerfully stoke all of your young-Orson-Welles-time-travel-sex-fantasies. What? Um….you’re telling me you don’t have those?? Really? Ummm…… *studies shoelaces* Let’s just say that if I got access to a magic time machine and could only go to one place, it wouldn’t be to stop the Kennedy assassination. I’d take it straight to NYC, fall of 1937, as the Mercury Theater was prepping to open 22 year-old Orson’s visionary modern/fascist dress, minimalist, ground-breaking production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. My ass would be camped outside that backstage door day and night.
And that is just where this movie takes us.
It’s told through the eyes of a stage-struck teen (Played completely inoffensively by Zac Efron. Yeah, I know, but really he’s not bad at all.) who lucks out and lands a small part in Caesar that fateful fall of ‘37. But the movie, like the play, is all Orson’s show, thanks to the damn-near miraculous talents of Mr. Christian McKay who doesn’t play Orson, but inhabits him. I’ve seen many actors’ attempts to portray Orsie on screen….some good, some meh, but McKay is the best hands-down. I’d never heard of him before this movie, but I’m going to start stalking him based on this one performance.
The rest of the movie is fun, uplifting, charming, all of that. For me, it was like spending good times with old and dear friends. Besides Orson, there was his acting troupe that I know of love from Orson’s films; Joe Cotton, John Houseman, the whole gang. I’ve no doubt that I’m gonna buy Me & Orson Welles, and I have a feeling that it’s destined to become a “comfort movie” favorite in my house. But even the non-obsessed can and should enjoy it…please support this movie if it comes to your town.
Whew! As I suspected, A Single Man did the trick. Washed that Eli crap right outta’ my brain.
WHAT a good movie! Yes, maybe a little bit too meticulously art-directed, but if you love the look of retro things (the film is set in 1962) you will bask in it. And the performances…wow. If you (as I did) mainly know Colin Firth from Sense & Sensibility, Love Actually, and all of that other British period/rom-com/drippy schmaltz, then you NEED to see him in A Single Man. I was blown away. His performance was both completely restrained yet utterly devastatingly emotionally.
I’m telling you right now, no matter what happens in March, Colin Firth owns the Best Actor Oscar this year.
We saw Book of Eli over the weekend. 1. Post-apocalypse is one of my favorite genres, and 2. Gary Oldman.
But I’m here to tell you…..OMG…
JUST…..DON’T……GO!! I can’t even muster up a review; word fail. SO appallingly bad. Trust me on this. I took the bullet so you guys don’t have to. STAY AWAY!!
Thank gawd that I’m going out tonight to see A Single Man. Arty-arty Art film with jaw-dropping visuals, gay content, good acting (they say), directed by a fashion designer. If that doesn’t bleach the scummy residue of Eli out of my cerebral cortex, nothing will.
Last night…he deftly handed the puck to President and Cookie so they could score. Then he followed up with one of his own. That dead power play of ours? JStaal and pals brought it back to life.
Here’s some hot for your Friday morning. Sid’s humbleness is sooo sweet. Why does MAF always conduct his post-game interviews nekkid, and Sid doesn’t?
Carrying extra weight on your hips, bum and thighs is good for your health, protecting against heart and metabolic problems, UK experts have said.
Hip fat mops up harmful fatty acids and contains an anti-inflammatory agent that stops arteries clogging, they say.
Isn’t this old news? Britain’s scientists need to get with the times. But still…w00t!
Science could look to deliberately increase hip fat, they told the International Journal of Obesity.
Science?!? Y’all need science to do that?! Just get some Nutella or Chili-Cheese Tater Tots up in there! Where’s my grant money??
And in the future, doctors might prescribe ways to redistribute body fat to the hips to protect against cardiovascular and metabolic diseases such as diabetes.
Because I am a humanitarian at heart, I will donate some hip fat to the disadvantaged unhealthy people of the world, if I can get some breast tissue in exchange. Call me, Science.
Evidence shows that fat around the thighs and backside is harder to shift than fat around the waist.
*facepalm* JESUS, SCIENCE, NO DUH!!!!
The slower burning hip fat also makes more of the hormone adiponectin that protects the arteries and promotes better blood sugar control and fat burning. In comparison, carrying excess fat around the stomach, being “apple shaped”, raises the risk of diabetes and heart disease.
Lead researcher Dr Konstantinos Manolopoulos, of Oxford University, said: “It is shape that matters and where the fat gathers.
“Fat around the hips and thighs is good for you but around the tummy is bad.”
I appreciate the thought, but can anyone trust a scientist who uses the word “tummy”?
He said in an ideal world, the more fat around the thighs the better - as long as the tummy stays slim.
And the funding for this study came from a generous grant from The Sir Mix-A-Lot Foundation. *wa-ching!*
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/8451674.stm
We meant to go see Daybreakers, but then The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus hit the theater, but….we ended up seeing neither. Only reason I wanted to see Daybreakers was because I didn’t think there’d be anything else in theaters. Generally for me, Ethan Hawke=Rental, not ticket purchase. The man just gets skeezier-looking and more annoying to me with each passing year.
ANYway, so there was a time when I really couldn’t wait to see Dr. Parnassus, but with it finally here and staring me in the face, I couldn’t do it. This is the movie that Heath died while filming. The more I thought about sitting in a theater and watching it, the more I realized, I just don’t think I can handle it. It would be like watching the Zapruder film. I don’t want to have a fucking breakdown in the big soulless cineplex. Between grief at seeing Heath and simmering resentment/loathing of the actors who replaced him in the film (Colin Farrell, WHY DO YOU STILL DRAW BREATH?!?!! You too, Depp. I am SICK of you!!) it could get ugly.
Is there a 12-Step Stages of Grieving program for movie actors? Does anybody else even think about stuff like this before they go to a movie? Gah.
So we stayed home last night and watched the Pens get pantsed…again. :P Can somebody just offer Malkin a nice cushy job with the Russian Mafia and get his worthless hide outta my face, already? K thx.
PITTSBURGH — Jordan Staal scored twice, Ruslan Fedotenko ended Pittsburgh’s power-play slump, and the Penguins halted a season-worst, five-game losing streak, beating Atlanta 5-2 on Tuesday night for the Thrashers’ ninth consecutive loss.
Winter break means a bit more time for reading. I never seem to get as much done as I hope. I find that, as an adult-going-on-middle-aged person, I read a lot more slowly than I did in my teens/twenties. I also find it MUCH harder to concentrate. I used to be able to read in the same room as someone who was watching tv. Now I’d get up and stab the offending person. Even without distractions, it’s just so much harder to focus. I don’t know if it’s that the quality of the books I read these days can’t hold my attention, if I’ve gotten harsher on judging books (Ok, I know that has happened), or if there is a physiological explanation….reduced brain capacity with age? Fewer sensory neurons to absorb incoming data? What? Anybody know if this is a common phenomenon, or should I get my brain scanned?
ANYway, with that said, here’s what we’ve been reading.
BW got a shit-ton of books for Yule. He likes books set in Olde Victorian Tymes for some reason, so he’s reading a novel about a Victorian murdering sociopath called The Meaning of Night. Looks kinda good. Even though that’s not my preferred setting, I may give it a try if I ever put a dent in my own reading stack.
Before and during break, I read a bunch of books about how gay Walt Whitman was. Namely, Walt Whitman: A Gay Life, and Calamus Lovers. The things I wish I’d known back in 11th grade American Lit class! WTG Uncle Walter!
Before that I read Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and like all of his books, it’s a real test of your will to live to get through it. Seriously, it will leave you broken, lying on the floor wishing for a Glock to put in your mouth. But, also like all of his books, the prose is so soul-stirringly beautiful that it is worth the ordeal. The man writes like an angel; an angel who will grimly disembowel you with a rusty hacksaw.
After that I needed something light, s0 I decided to try reading the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series. It’s for kids, but a lot of trustworthy adults I know seem to enjoy the occasional Kid Lit and I wanted to give some a try. BUT I will NOT read Harry Potter. I have an intense loathing for HP as a result of the movies, and from what little I absorbed by osmosis about the books when BW read them. Percy seemed more up my alley; less twee about itself than HP, and deals with Greek myths which I always liked as a sprog. My other ulterior motive is that there is a movie version due out in Feb. that features SeanBaby as Zeus, and I like the young actor who will be playing Percy…so I wanted prep before seeing the flick.
Overall….hrmm…maybe I’m too snobbish but it was just too juvenile for me. Yeah, I know, but it’s a children’s book! *sigh* But I couldn’t hack the simplicity of the plot, and the kid-level humour. Also, for a book about adventures with demigods, it profoundly lacked a sense of the epic. But I can see how kids would enjoy it, and it would be a great way to sneakily get a child interested in Greek mythology. I have a feeling that I’ll enjoy the movie much more; not only for SeanBaby, but because in the movie the kids are all 16ish instead of 12 as in the book. Hopefully the tone will be less immature; the trailer makes it look like they found that missing sense of epic…see for yourself.
Well, it’s been a nice long break. Hope yours was good if you had one. If you didn’t, perhaps you should consider getting a different job.
Pretty much spent it doing very little. We:
finally painted the bathroom
bought a new toilet
watched movies (The Big Lebowski and The Thin Man are the New Year’s traditions in our home)
of course did the obligatory Xmass thing
met up with out-of-towner cousin for dinner
consumed much wine
took down all the Yule decor…ahhhh! As much as I like the decorations, I love the feeling of when they’re all put away and the house is back to uncluttered normality. OCD > Holiday spirit.
watched a bunch of Northern Exposure
worked on gaming geek shit
Went to see Sherlock Holmes. It really wasn’t as bad as I was afraid of. And that’s not because I’m a Holmes purist, far from it….I just think that Guy Ritchie can’t direct his way out of a paper sack. It was very, very entertaining, RDJ and Jude are freaking sexy together, and I want to see an unrated director’s cut. But it could have been much better…like if they had pared down the over-long fight/action scenes by about 20 minutes and put in more homoerotic/action scenes instead. That said, it’s worth your $6 matinee ticket absolutely!
Did some reading. More on that in a separate post.
In other news, Baby J GOT FREAKING ROBBED!!!
STUPID, STUPID CANADA! They did not pick him for the 2010 Olympic team!!! AARRRRGH!! WOE BETIDE THEE, Canada! They picked freakin’ ESTAAL instead! WTF has ESTAAL done all year except breed, miss a bunch of games from some pansy injury, and lead his team to overall suckage?! THE HELL?! Whereas JSTAAL has been awesomeness on a plate, got his poor little nose broken and STILL kept playing and kicking butt. Screw you, Canada. Keep your dang overpriced jerseys.
As we speak the peasants and the villeins and the scabrous lepers of Philthadelphia are packing up their meagre belongings, running to the hills, boarding up their crude, flea-infested hovels because they know. They know what fate shall soon greet them, sword-bloodied, grinning, implacable.
