Wednesday Movies!

The movie theater in my home town has 5 dollar tickets all day on Tuesday. Since I eventually want to work in th movie industry I have decided that (when I can afford it) I will see a new release and review it.

Tonight's entry:

This is about to be my easiest review ever. Go see it! My faith in the creativity of Hollywood has been completely restored. The acting was on par, the special effects were minimal (which was surprising considering the material), the costuming was subtle, but for me the crowning achievement was the story and the telling of it.
The story was completely unique to me. And I know that there is nothing new under the sun but this is the first movie I have seen in a long time that didn't have blatantly obvious source material. Christopher Nolan is one of my favorite directors, Batman Begins was done so well and The Dark Knight was a satisfactory follow-up. He did wonders with this story the whole film felt so weirdly paced, fast fast slow fast slow, there was a distinct lack of pattern. It felt like dreaming. The tension was there the whole time and by 20 minutes into the film I felt such empathy for Leonardo DiCaprio's character. The climax had myself and my two friends literally on the edges of our seats.
So go see Inception and see it in the theater the visual effects are worth the immersion of the big screen.

PS. Speaking as a red-blooded woman Joseph Gorden Levitt was scrumptious in this movie.

Yummmm

(Photos from FilmoFilia and Reel Movie News)

New shirt and finished project

My lovely sister went to the Ann Arbor Art fair Thursday and all the boutiques that are normally outside my price range had huge discounts in honor of the event. Knowing I have been wanting a lace shirt she picked up this for me at a really low price:

In this picture I am wearing a flesh tone bra but no undershirt (it was hot and muggy today). Mother was not pleased and quoted her own version of the Bible verse saying not to cause thy brother to stumble, for no reason. The lesson I take from this is if I'm gonna be a ho I gotta do it for real. So no bra  next time!

In other news I finished a project! My friend's birthday is coming up and in true dirt poor student style I made her a present rather than buying something. 

In case it looks farmilar it is my own interpretation of the Chan Luu wrap bracelet. Which is on Amazon for close to 200$. 

 I created it using the DIY tutorial by Ruby Mines. Don't tell my friend but my version cost less than two hundred dollars. Though with how much work I put into it I would charge that much if I thought I could get away with it. 

Eventually (soon) I want to make one for myself with brown leather and jade colored beads, and possibly use a military inspired button. Frankly I love the military trend and plan to hop on it with full force as soon as it is cool enough to wear anything more than a bikini.

Shoes....

Once upon a time I didn't understand why women loved shoes and sunk so much of their hard earned money amassing collections of the things. Then earlier this year I experienced a revelation. I can't completely explain what did it, but right about the time I was looking for a new pair of winter boots I became enamored with the shoe "experience." While not nearly as sensual as my love for food there is a certain satisfaction that comes with scouring the internet for that perfect pair and then seeking it out in the store. It's like a treasure hunt! And it can get even sweeter when the shoe is on sale.

But now I fear that I have gone too far. Thanks to reading the entire archives of The Shoe Girl, I have begun to appreciate (and possibly covet) designer shoes. This appreciation makes my poor college student wallet recoil in agony, since I was raised to believe that everything you purchase should have multiple uses and anything you pay more than 50$ for should last you forever.

Therefore I solemnly swear that I would wear these shoes at every opportunity. I will wear them to my graduation. Even if things go down and I would be unable to complete my degree I will still attend graduation in these shoes. In addition I promise to incorporate these shoes into at least seven (7) years of Halloween costumes, and I will attend a bare minimum of three (3) events per year, excluding Halloween, that would justify me wearing these shoes. So help me God.

That being said can someone spot me $1300?

(Photo from Jak And Jil Blog, please don't sue)

Slice of Life: Flavors of the Weekend

I love food. That will quickly become apparent provided I keep working on this blog. But the whole sensual experience of shopping, preparing, and eating can be more satisfying than a relationship. (Sorry Boyfriend). Even if a dish eventually turns on you and results in some quality time with the porcelain god it was totally worth it about 95% of the time. 


This past weekend cemented my love for being home for the summer because I have eaten oh so well.


Friday: Mom had to run a 5k race Saturday morning so she wanted to eat something nice and light. I was fighting a monthly battle against the red army so I was more than happy to eat light. At the call for dinner I crawled up the stairs and my weary spirits were perked by the subtle scents that assailed my nostrils. Mom had made sautéed tilapia fillets with a lime/herb/red onion butter. It wasn't fancy or mind blowing but it was good clean food. The kind of food you could bring home to mother, wears argyle socks, has a stock portfolio, and comes from a good family. 

Saturday: Post race for mom, post tae kwon do for me. I was working on a couple sewing projects all afternoon since my sister was visiting a friend's lake house for the weekend granting me unrestricted access to her machine. I learned at about 4pm that my grandfather would be joining us for an early dinner at 6. (6 is early for my family since dinner is usually on the table about 8:00pm -ish) For this occasion my mother made grilled salmon with a lemon-butter sauce. Unfortunately the salmon from the local meat market that day was rather wimpy and mushy, however the flavor was good and fishy. Our cat gave his portion rave reviews. To go along with the salmon I made a salad with tomato, avocado, red leaf lettuce, and corn. Fairly simple stuff but given a distinct pizazz by the home-made lime vinaigrette. (Lime is the new black, at least for food). So while the salmon was good, the salad turned out divine.


Sunday: Sunday afternoons are for NAPS! Instead of a nap I went shopping with my mom which is an expedition to find the thing that is "just right." These trek takes us to every store that could possibly carry "The Thing." So by Sunday night everyone who would cook was exhausted, and no one wanted to run to the store to replenish our sorely bare cupboards. Luckily there was some venison in the freezer gifted to us by one of our hunter friends this past winter. After some searching on the internet for a good dish my mother and I wound up modifying  this http://www.yummly.com/recipe/6EEE2908-E35C-4EE0-01E854C2987E7D9D?print=true and creating this:

We didn't do any pretty plating. But believe me it tasted way better than it looks.


Even though Monday does not count as part of the weekend it gets an honorable mention because my  sister made the most delicious toffee sauce for ice cream. The recipe is soooo simple and it can be found below. But the best part about this sauce is the nuttiness of the flavor and the sticky sweetness that haunts your taste-buds. Even now the ghost of that sauce is whispering "there's left overs in the fridge, come eeeaatt meeeeee!"


Frankly, food is one of my prime passions and this weekend has reawakened my lust for quality kitchen time. Look forward to something I created myself by the end of the week!


Sticky Toffee Sauce:

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon soft dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons dark corn syrup
• 3/4 stick unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• Serving suggestion: Vanilla ice cream

Directions

Put the sugar, syrup and butter in a pan and slowly bring to the boil, allowing the butter to melt and the sugar to dissolve. Let the mixture bubble for a couple of minutes before carefully adding the cream. Cook for another 2 to 3 minutes or until the sauce is thick, sticky and glossy.

Serve with a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream and sliced bananas

Now I Understand

My parents are in the process of starting a business in Africa manufacturing and selling BUV's or Basic Utility vehicles. (Go to their website Sahel Auto for more info) My Dad has been to Africa twice my Mom has only gone once, but in their time there they have become enamored with the need to pull the entire continent out of the third world.

In their fund raising presentation that they give to potential investors there is a short segment on the plight of women in Africa. Focusing on the fact that women to an inordinate amount of the work particularly when it comes to hauling goods, water, firewood, etc. Now like most members of the Western World, this comes as no surprise. Everyone has seen the pictures in National Geographic or a program on Discovery with the native women carrying loads of goods on their heads. So we accept that this is just a strange, quaint, native custom. 

The reality is far from quaint. I lack the words to properly describe the injustice that these women have to suffer through. However this short (less than an hour) documentary A Walk To Beautiful - NOVA shows more than I can say. It is truly horrifying that this is the way women are treated. The most devastating part for me was a girl saying that unless she could be cured from her obstetric fistula she would kill herself before going home to be ostracized by her family. The sad thing was she wasn't threatening to kill herself for the attention or to make a scene, it was simply matter of fact. 

This leads me to one very angry comment: Feminists in America need to get a life. I know women still make less than men for the same job, and hot damn women has the word "men" in it. These social "injustices" should make no difference while there are women and girls (little girls, as young as 8) who are forced into fulfilling the role of Mother, sex toy, and workhorse and cast aside when any one of those duties cannot be met. I understand the desire to be equal. In my relationships with men I like being treated with as much equality as possible (unless there's something on a high shelf I can't reach or a jar that can't be opened). But why should we care about the little things when all over the world women don't even get the privilege to be second class citizens.. 

Girly stuff

Remember the skirt I made of men's dress shirts from my local Goodwill?

Well here's me (at least the bottom half of me) in it!

Please ignore my sister's messy bedroom behind me.

A Week in 20 minutes.

Since it has been a week since I last posted I am going to try to recount the events of this past week in twenty short minutes. Starting.... Now!

Tuesday: TKD at noon, arguments with the BoyFriend during the afternoon and into the evening, dancing in Lansing with the gorgeous Melissa in a bar with no AC but really good music. 

Wednesday: Driving home from Lansing at 6:30am, more arguments with the Boyfriend, nap, TKD at noon, random crap around the house, working on my next sew project, and reading my book The Girl Who Played with Fire.

Thursday: Sick all day, allergies drained every bit of interesting from my brain. Arguments with the Boyfriend, arguments with mother (she made me go to the store to buy her some DVD-R's Verbatim 96166 4.7 GB 16X LightScribe DVD-R, 50-Disc Spindle, then argued with me when I told her she didn't own a lightscribe DVD burner and thus it would be cheaper to get just regular DVD's but dammit all she wanted lightscribe) * On the plus side I bought a really cute note book (I love notebooks especially the ones with leather binding. But then I feel so unworthy and rarely use them because I can't think of any writing that is of leather notebook quality). I managed visited the Boyfriend for about 1/2 an hour because he had nodded off while driving and had gotten into an accident.

Friday: Still feeling cruddy but I got a lot of work done for a project and become addicted to a browser game,  Echo Bazaar. I catch up with my little Brother who has recently returned from a week in Kentucky, we have yummy yummy salmon for dinner Yummies! and I get to talk to Zeh Demon for almost an hour!  

Saturday: TKD in the morning we practice flying side kick which brings on a feeling of nostalgia. Do random house stuff that doesn't involve cleaning my room, visit the Boyfriend for more arguments (these ones resolve in a more positive manner), then head to a party at my aunt's house, followed by a dance party at the house of some family friends.

Sunday: Church, clean the house, mini date with the Boyfriend (I got a coffee and Pie!), and running with my mom and my TKD instructor. 

Bam! A whole week recounted in exactly 20 minutes. I started at 11:15am EST and finished at 11:35am. I feel as though there should be some meaningless award for this....

*Apparently I tend to use run-on sentences when exasperated. 

When Being a Nerd Backfires...

This morning I was shaking off symptoms of allergies while aiding my family in cleaning the house. The Parents had some potential business partners come over to look at their project and to prepare for this we (my sister and I)  had to spend every moment between waking up and noon cleaning and prepping lunch. So I was operating at less than full capacity (what with my brains trying to escape through my nose) when I received the following text:
"I was wondering if you'd like to see eclipse with me this afternoon"

Now this text was from a dear dear friend whom I have known since I was a mere eight years old and I love spending time with her since we so rarely get to hang out. Plus my brain assumed "There's a solar eclipse today and I didn't know about it?!" Immediately I replied to the text with "Sure. What time?"

It wasn't until I got the reply, "I was thinking a matinée..." That a warning went off in my head telling me that something was rotten in the state of Denmark. At that time I was already committed and a tad confused. Roughly half an hour later, I was scrubbing the tub in the main bathroom that I made the connection and realized that what I was going to see was not a fascinating  natural phenomenon, but a movie inspired by Stephanie Meyer's self-insert fan-fiction the Twilight series.

I have read the first book of the series. After finishing it I declared the plot insipid and useless and a literary castration of some of the greatest villains in fiction both written and on the screen. The original vampire, Dracula by Bram Stoker, was such a great foe because he embodied all the vices of humanity that we so often want to lose ourselves to; despite the danger and potential consequences. That's what made him so seductive. Dracula was powerful in his ability to appeal to the sub-conscious desires of his victims. This made him simultaneously scary and alluring.

If I were a patient woman I would give you a blow by blow account of what is wrong with the premise of these movies. Luckily there are enough people in this world who agree with my feeling that they can argue for me.
The biggest issue is the relationship between Edward and Bella: http://kar3ning.livejournal.com/545639.html
And the other issue is Stephanie Meyer's writing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

So the movie...
In order to make this review as complete as possible I had to wikipedia the movie to learn the names of the characters. I may never recover.
The Actors/acting:  I despise Kirsten Stewart and Robert Patterson equally. Their acting is wooden and their appearances are as bland as Kraft Singles (without the benefit of being sandwiched between two pieces of bread, lightly toasted in a pan, and dipped into tomato soup). The fact that they play the main characters in this saga does not endear me to the films in the least.
Edward's family were quiet and supportive and apparently act as vampire homeland security for the state of Washington. Bella's dad was the "grr I hate your boyfriend" stereotype to provide you a excuse for overly dramatic proclamations of love. The werewolves played the people of the earth blue collar metaphor to contrast with the Cullins high brow aristocratic metaphor.
However, Bryce Dallas Howard (the antagonist) and Taylor Lautner get points for being the most attractive members of the cast. Wolf-boy's abs made this a little less painful.
The Plot: First off I should mention I have neither read the second book or seen the second movie I was able to skip an entire installment with out being affected at all. Obviously the quality of this story is earth-shattering. Bella (poor innocent helpless Bella) is the target for an evil vampire's plot for revenge against Edward for killing her lover. However I distinctly remember that Alice (the tiny cute vampire) was the one responsible for the only worthwhile moment in the first film when she leaped on  the bad guy and ripped his head off. So Bryce Dallas' character should have been gunning for Alice's mate, Jasper.
Speaking of Jasper, he provided one of the more interesting plot points in the movie. With the exception of an ill -advised imitation of General Patton and an even worse southern accent (that was noticeably absent in the first film) the back story to his character was actually interesting.
Rosaline's three minutes of character development felt less forced than Jasper's and was just as entertaining. Frankly with a voice coach and some muscle tone for Jasper, and better dialog for both side-plots I would gladly pay to see both stories get their own full length film (with an R-rating to amp up the gore and horror elements and with an appeal to an older audience). Especially since the characters actually act like traditional vampires.
Film production: The director did what he could with what he was given and frankly given such puerile material did not opt to confuse the simplistic target audience with fancy directing. (BTW loved David Slade's Hard Candy, not a film for the weak of heart or stomach). I was impressed with the sound effects. The sound of vamp 1 ripping the limbs off of vamp 2 had enough other-worldliness not to be gross but enough similarity to the sound of cracking bones that most of the action could take place just outside of frame. Special effects, the wolves looked fake and the vampires still sparkle. (My heart goes out to all men who's S.O.'s have Twilight fever and pray you are not allergic to glitter) The soundtrack was actually really good.

To sum up I  did get to see a strange phenomenon. The rate at which these girls flock to the films and devour the books is nothing short of a natural wonder. In fact I still wonder what redeeming value can be found in this series at all.

Allergies, and Spiders.

Oo. I skipped a couple of days there. Well it was for good reason. Thursday I was laid out flat with a full on allergy attack. I did everything right that day too. Nasal rinse, went for a run (I still hate running but I like what it is doing for my endurance and the fact it makes my muscles stand out *flexes*), went to tae kwon do class, and managed to work through it all. Turns out it only delayed the inevitable. So I was laid out on the couch with my brain leaking from my nose and nothing I could do but take a benedryl and a nap.

Friday I spent the morning cleaning the basement. Due to my family's variety of projects the spring cleaning has been occurring in segments. I got a head start on the basement. Frankly it looked as though Morticia Adams, Lily Munster, and Wednesday Adams had a tea party. I vacuumed up so many spiders and spider webs it began to feel like inter-species genocide. After a quick 20 minute visit with the boyfriend I headed off to tkd once again. When I returned my father had found time to work on one of my projects. Namely my car.

Since finals week back in late April my car has been dead in the water due to a cracked oil pan that occurred on my one night off. The best part is I don't even remember hitting anything. But thanks to those projects that have kept my family from maintaining our household my car got little to no attention once my father and his friend towed it back to Midland from Lansing (yup stuck with MSU students during U of M's finals week. It was a swell time)

Originally my plan had been to return home from tkd and head out again with my bikini in hand since a friend had invited me out to her lake to enjoy the last few hours of sunlight. But I couldn't leave my car and my father (mostly my car). With some wiggling and some googling and a lot of bolts to unscrew we (mostly my father since at a hundred pounds I can barely force a bolt to turn in any direction) managed to remove the oil pan. While my father was hoping we could repair the oil pan, I knew that because of the location of the crack it would have to be replaced. Luckily it is fourth of July weekend so everyone is having a patriotically inspired sale. Score one VW oil pan for a 2000 Jetta  for the low low price of $42 (significantly less than the $275 the dealership wanted for the part).

There are days I love the information that can be so readily accessed on the internet and that was one of them.

Today I am accompanying my sister to work so that I can use her car rather than being stuck here with out transport. There are a couple of vintage and fabric stores near her place of employment and I am hoping that I will stumble across something cute and cheap and usable.