POLARITY 186
this entry brought to you by the arctic monkeys, "perhaps vampires is a bit strong, but..."
THE GOOD
The Mixed Twins So two mullatos-- that's half white, half black to you white folks out there-- get together, end up having twins. The thing is, one twin is obviously black, and the other is white. And I'm not just talking like, a little lighter, I'm talking one is black and the other is Swedish. In a one-in-a-million shot, a sperm cell carrying nothing but white genes happened to fuse with an egg with nothing but white genes, and the same with the sperm and eggs with black genes. Isn't that awesome?
Yunjin Kim, who plays Sun on Lost Since I've been obsessing over Lost cast members lately, it would be completely wrong of me to not mention Yunjin Kim, whose lovely pout and delicious complexion I delight in every time I see her. Did you see the episode in season one where she put on that sheer nightie because she was "too hot"? Yikes.
Pictochat There's a program that comes on the DS that's called Pictochat that allows you to chat with up to 16 different people wirelessly. You can search-and-peck on the digital keyboard, which is slow, unfun, but readable, or you can simply write/draw on the screen, which is quick, incredibly fun, but often unreadable. Inevitably chats devolve into obscene doodles, which you wouldn't think would be the case since everyone I've pictochatted with has been over 21 and with more females than males, but I've found doodling body parts to be a hilarious time waster when you can't talk directly to one another.
The Getting Married trailer A popular internet fad lately has been re-editing movie trailers so that they appear to be a completely different genre than they were before. The first time I saw this it was the brilliant Shining trailer made to look like a feel-good family film. There have been a bunch more since then, but this is a slightly different take on this. David Malki, who does Wondermark (which I linked to a little while ago and you really should be reading) edited some action film as a trailer for his wedding, and it's really clever.
Soy Marinated Flank Steak with Lemon Relish I've never pointed out a recipe on my page before, but then, I've never exactly had a dinner like this before. If you click the link, you'll see recipes for Poached Tangerines, Tomato Salad with Avacado, and the Flank Steak. The poached tangerines are made to be eaten with the skins on, and they are interesting if you have the time to make them but much too weird to be recommended. The tomato salad is completely bizarre, and might just be the most bitter thing you've ever tasted, but once your taste buds get the idea of what it is they're tasting, it's delicious and unique. But the Flank Steak... oh my fucking god. I've paid for a steak that was 20 dollars before, and that was good. But this was better. Much better. For one thing, the steak itself was the best steak I'd ever had in my life. But with the lemon relish, it became a 5 star dinner. Seriously, this is the kind of meal you expect to pay a lot of money for in a very expensive restaurant. It just might have been the best meal I've ever had. Extra props to my wife for finding this recipe and preparing it to utter satisfaction.
THE BAD
Brother Bear It's not that this is a terrible movie. For one thing, it's absolutely gorgeous; in fact, it's one of the best looking hand-animated films ever. So from a visual standpoint, it's definitely worth watching with your kids. The plot, on the other hand, is only passingly enjoyable, but so completely derivative of every other story like it and utterly predictable that it borders on banal. It's also frustratingly inaccurate, even for a Disney movie, which are never known for their historical accuracy. The natives appear to exist around colonial times Alaska, yet there are woolly mammoths. And what gives with the killer whales that appear to be in a river? The songs, most of which are by Phil Collins, are so stupefyingly wretched and obnoxiously cued that you'll curse the name of whoever thought this kind of drek would be acceptable in an otherwise unoffensive film. Other than that, the movie is acceptably entertaining and comes with more than a few chuckles (especially the testosterone-fueled mountain goats), but, unfortunately, Brother Bear is entirely forgettable.
No raise this year So. Verizon and MCI merged in January. MCI no longer exists-- we're now simply Verizon. And because merges can go bad, Verizon has chosen not to give anyone raises this year. Instead we'll get a 5% bonus check (approximately 1,000 for a full time employee)... next year. And that's pen ding on the company's performance meeting "expectations". The thing is, I've been in the workforce for about 10 years now, and I've only ever gotten two raises before (it's a long story), and the companies I've ever worked for gave pathetic 25 cent raises anyway, so I've never anticipated raises or thought much of them. The 20 dollars a pay check that I would have made from my raise at Verizon honestly won't be missed if it's not there. And I probably will be there for another year, so that $1,000 bonus will be nice. Still, investing a year in a company and getting nothing to show for it is frustrating.
The GTA:San Andreas Hot Coffee Mod controversy Of course, being a gamer, I would obviously be quite sick to hell of all this fuss over the Hot Coffee mod. Obviously I'm going to support freedom of expression, and obviously I'm going to support a medium I love. But in the most recent issue of Game Informer, it was reported that Take 2 Interactive, the company that owns Rockstar, which makes Grand Theft Auto, has had so much financial woes from the Hot Coffee mod and the ensuing bandwagon-jumping, nonsensical lawsuits, that it's put itself up for sale. Here's the thing. I'm an adult, and I don't blindly support video games simply because I enjoy them. But a company forcing to put itself up for sale because of problems brought up by a bit of code inaccessible without a special device (a device, by the way, not supported by any of the hardware manufacturers) that involves two consensual adults having sex with their clothes on is so stupid it makes me angry, especially considering what a child could turn on and see on cable at any point after 8 o'clock at night.
Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction I don't know whether I should be disturbed at such a head-smackingly obvious last ditch-effort at relevency for washed-up has-been Sharon Stone, or totally supportive of an over 40 woman who still looks smoking hot showing what she's got, something completely unheard of in Hollywood nowadays.
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with love from CRS @ 8:25 PM
Monday, March 27, 2006
THE GOOD
The Mixed Twins So two mullatos-- that's half white, half black to you white folks out there-- get together, end up having twins. The thing is, one twin is obviously black, and the other is white. And I'm not just talking like, a little lighter, I'm talking one is black and the other is Swedish. In a one-in-a-million shot, a sperm cell carrying nothing but white genes happened to fuse with an egg with nothing but white genes, and the same with the sperm and eggs with black genes. Isn't that awesome?
Yunjin Kim, who plays Sun on Lost Since I've been obsessing over Lost cast members lately, it would be completely wrong of me to not mention Yunjin Kim, whose lovely pout and delicious complexion I delight in every time I see her. Did you see the episode in season one where she put on that sheer nightie because she was "too hot"? Yikes.
Pictochat There's a program that comes on the DS that's called Pictochat that allows you to chat with up to 16 different people wirelessly. You can search-and-peck on the digital keyboard, which is slow, unfun, but readable, or you can simply write/draw on the screen, which is quick, incredibly fun, but often unreadable. Inevitably chats devolve into obscene doodles, which you wouldn't think would be the case since everyone I've pictochatted with has been over 21 and with more females than males, but I've found doodling body parts to be a hilarious time waster when you can't talk directly to one another.
The Getting Married trailer A popular internet fad lately has been re-editing movie trailers so that they appear to be a completely different genre than they were before. The first time I saw this it was the brilliant Shining trailer made to look like a feel-good family film. There have been a bunch more since then, but this is a slightly different take on this. David Malki, who does Wondermark (which I linked to a little while ago and you really should be reading) edited some action film as a trailer for his wedding, and it's really clever.
Soy Marinated Flank Steak with Lemon Relish I've never pointed out a recipe on my page before, but then, I've never exactly had a dinner like this before. If you click the link, you'll see recipes for Poached Tangerines, Tomato Salad with Avacado, and the Flank Steak. The poached tangerines are made to be eaten with the skins on, and they are interesting if you have the time to make them but much too weird to be recommended. The tomato salad is completely bizarre, and might just be the most bitter thing you've ever tasted, but once your taste buds get the idea of what it is they're tasting, it's delicious and unique. But the Flank Steak... oh my fucking god. I've paid for a steak that was 20 dollars before, and that was good. But this was better. Much better. For one thing, the steak itself was the best steak I'd ever had in my life. But with the lemon relish, it became a 5 star dinner. Seriously, this is the kind of meal you expect to pay a lot of money for in a very expensive restaurant. It just might have been the best meal I've ever had. Extra props to my wife for finding this recipe and preparing it to utter satisfaction.
THE BAD
Brother Bear It's not that this is a terrible movie. For one thing, it's absolutely gorgeous; in fact, it's one of the best looking hand-animated films ever. So from a visual standpoint, it's definitely worth watching with your kids. The plot, on the other hand, is only passingly enjoyable, but so completely derivative of every other story like it and utterly predictable that it borders on banal. It's also frustratingly inaccurate, even for a Disney movie, which are never known for their historical accuracy. The natives appear to exist around colonial times Alaska, yet there are woolly mammoths. And what gives with the killer whales that appear to be in a river? The songs, most of which are by Phil Collins, are so stupefyingly wretched and obnoxiously cued that you'll curse the name of whoever thought this kind of drek would be acceptable in an otherwise unoffensive film. Other than that, the movie is acceptably entertaining and comes with more than a few chuckles (especially the testosterone-fueled mountain goats), but, unfortunately, Brother Bear is entirely forgettable.
No raise this year So. Verizon and MCI merged in January. MCI no longer exists-- we're now simply Verizon. And because merges can go bad, Verizon has chosen not to give anyone raises this year. Instead we'll get a 5% bonus check (approximately 1,000 for a full time employee)... next year. And that's pen ding on the company's performance meeting "expectations". The thing is, I've been in the workforce for about 10 years now, and I've only ever gotten two raises before (it's a long story), and the companies I've ever worked for gave pathetic 25 cent raises anyway, so I've never anticipated raises or thought much of them. The 20 dollars a pay check that I would have made from my raise at Verizon honestly won't be missed if it's not there. And I probably will be there for another year, so that $1,000 bonus will be nice. Still, investing a year in a company and getting nothing to show for it is frustrating.
The GTA:San Andreas Hot Coffee Mod controversy Of course, being a gamer, I would obviously be quite sick to hell of all this fuss over the Hot Coffee mod. Obviously I'm going to support freedom of expression, and obviously I'm going to support a medium I love. But in the most recent issue of Game Informer, it was reported that Take 2 Interactive, the company that owns Rockstar, which makes Grand Theft Auto, has had so much financial woes from the Hot Coffee mod and the ensuing bandwagon-jumping, nonsensical lawsuits, that it's put itself up for sale. Here's the thing. I'm an adult, and I don't blindly support video games simply because I enjoy them. But a company forcing to put itself up for sale because of problems brought up by a bit of code inaccessible without a special device (a device, by the way, not supported by any of the hardware manufacturers) that involves two consensual adults having sex with their clothes on is so stupid it makes me angry, especially considering what a child could turn on and see on cable at any point after 8 o'clock at night.
Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction I don't know whether I should be disturbed at such a head-smackingly obvious last ditch-effort at relevency for washed-up has-been Sharon Stone, or totally supportive of an over 40 woman who still looks smoking hot showing what she's got, something completely unheard of in Hollywood nowadays.
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