Okay, this Wanted movie really isn’t my favorite. I mean, I’d been prewarned by reviews that suggested somebody had seen Fight Club, *really identified*, and then made it even white boy wankier. And that’s just true. It’s like being trapped inside a 16 year old boy.
But here’s the thing, ignoring that.
What the fuck they do to Jolie’s voice, eh? She sounds like a Chipmunk.
One of her best features is her voice!
MEME-Y GOODNESS from Rachel. What will you stuff in your face?
The rules:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J Sandwich
14. Aloo gobi — I had to look this up on the internet, because I got confused. It’s the cauliflower and potato dish, not the traffic cone orange dessert.
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses - This is a cheese that does not appear to be blue cheese, so I would eat it. Because it’s CHEESE.
17. Black truffle - I just this month had truffle OIL. Does that count?
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns Oh, yum.
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries — There was one summer that my dad tried to derive the majority of his (vegetarian) diet from the wilds of Ontario. We ate cattails and puffballs ( a form of mushroom so delish with garlic butter that I want one right now ) and fiddleheads and flowers and berries.
23. Foie gras - Guh. Fatty organ meats. GAH.
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese - Said my grandfather to the vegetarian child: Oh, it’s cheese. The gagging was immediate.
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas - Didn’t like them, though.
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar - Brandy with a cigar, back in the day of my ex.
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O - The days of E’s Orange and Black Hallowe’en Vodka Shooters. We were so young and … drunk.
39. Gumbo - I was introduced to Okra in Gumbo. Slimy AND hairy!
40. Oxtail - I did grow up in the K-W. At a friend’s wedding reception, there they were.
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal - This is like HOTTEST CURRY KNOWN TO MAN, MELT YOU IN THE FACE food. I’m a spice wuss.
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more — no, but from a $70 bottle. No?
46. Fugu – this is the make your lips numb pufferfish. I’m not hugely marine adventurous. So, no.
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin - John had this. I’ve been warned.
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi - this is that pickley/salty red thing that’s in the middle of rice at White People Challenging Japanese restaurants.
53. Abalone
54. Paneer - It’s CHEESE.
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine - Okay, I know. Canadian, FRENCH-Canadian background, and no poutine. Even though it’s got cheese. I’m not terribly fond of fries, and I *hate* gravy.
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin - This appears to mean the mineral in Kaopectate.
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs (taste like chicken!)
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain - we ate a lot of this while I was growing up at my Dad’s, and I cannot make it taste good in my own kitchen
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini - Just recently, but I was sort of nauseated and not big on the caviar part.
73. Louche absinthe - I’ve had absinthe minus the wormwood, which can hardly be absinthe, right? Asses.
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom Yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. — What about helping fund friends to do so?
85. Kobe beef - I’ve had things that claim to be Kobe beef in Japanese restaurants, but internet research says that it’s all special grow’d up. So maybe I didn’t.
86. Hare (taste like chicken!)
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse — I am phobic about horses. But if I were starving, I’d eat one.
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft Shell crab
93. Rose harissa — I’m going to go with a strong MAYBE. We got this condiment at the old Ethiopian place that used to be near Topengas that was so INTERESTING and COMPLEX and I have no idea what it was, but the picture looks right.
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano - Did you know my mom makes the best Mole outside of Mexico? You do now.
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster thermidor
98. Polenta - Dirty polenta eating hippies!
99. Jamaican blue mountain coffee- with a real certificate. Every year a small number of pounds of Jamaican blue are grown and a large number are sold. At $75- a pound, the year I had it via our friends at Canterbury (while I was working @ blenz). It really was the perfect coffee.
100. Snake
58/100.
I got the magazine, today, with m’story in it.
The website still reflects the spring edition: I am in the summer edition. And you know what? I’ve read a lot of authors that say the moment that something gets published, you’re suddenly wishing like mad you could call do-over and do a rewrite.
Mmmm-hmmm. It’s different when in a format that looks like real writing. Sort of embarrassing, really.
A lot of authors also say things like “publication doesn’t really matter” and “you’ll just fret about something else”, and although I now understand that, having a first publication matters to me. It’s a baby step. It means I know subject from predicate, at least. It is a signpost that says there’s a path beyond the trees, if you just keep working at finding it and maybe have a little luck. The path may not lead to Man Booker, but it might lead to competence and more short stories in magazines.
However, in the REAL world, my fussy commas need trimming.
You know what’s cool? I wrote this story inspired by the painting style of a local artist. Storyteller magazine put (pencil) art with the story. The style that inspired me was transmitted through what I wrote and was re-interpreted by a different artist. So, so cool.
As part of this coming September, as I pry my life from my left brain, I am going to re-create this blog to be primarily about writing. Just documenting - the process, the exercises, the business - what it is to take myself seriously.
Whatever happens in terms of my ability to Write Fiction for Money, I am learning something big about paying attention. Regardless of where this journey takes me, I will come out of this working with words and stories and people in some combination, whether as a published author or somewhere else involved in the industry.
That’s most what matters.
I’m doing it this year. I’m looking forward to it, too. Getting the outline done, and I think I’ll be well prepared.
And I’ve got to get TinyMCE working again. Ignore me.
Tomorrow I’m going over the border for my yearly birthday road trip. I’m excited.
Ahhh! Can you imagine?
“Honey, I do.
Now, y’all can eat me.”
New favorite OMG site, Cake Wrecks: which only critiques the professional cake. In two categories:
well-done-but-why?
and
oh-my-god-what-is-that-thing!
I wrote to Scrabble, telling them I understood but didn’t agree with what they’d done removing Scrabulous from Facebook. That I recognized their legitimate right to the Scrabble game play intellectual property, but that moving from something that worked (Scrabulous) to something made by EA that isn’t great, looks like selling out the family kitchen in favour of McDonalds.
They wrote back, and then I replied.
Response (MO’R) 07/30/2008 07:26 AM (HASBRO)
Hi Arwen,
We understand your passion for the SCRABBLE brand. In fact, we have been hard at work creating a variety of great new ways to enjoy SCRABBLE, from the classic board game, to playing in the digital space on the iPod, iPhone, pogo.com online game site, and now, social networking on Facebook.
Some people have asked us why we couldn’t coexist with Scrabulous, and compete head-to-head. In the toy and game business, we have many legitimate competitors, and we welcome healthy competition as our industry strives to provide the best entertainment value for consumers everywhere. Scrabulous did not represent legitimate competition. Scrabulous was an infringement, it was unlawful, and we took the necessary action, similar to what the recording industry did when kids were posting music to illegal sites and allowing their friends to copy the music for free.
As you know, Hasbro filed suit on July 24 to protect our intellectual property rights. However, in deference to SCRABBLE fans like you, we waited to take this action until we had an authentic alternative to offer players. We know that many of you are closely scrutinizing the new SCRABBLE application developed by Electronic Arts. Please note that this application remains in a beta stage on Facebook, and both EA and Hasbro are monitoring feedback from fans, which will help us as we continue to improve the experience leading up to the official launch scheduled for the first half of August.
In closing, we want you to know that SCRABBLE is a very important game and brand for Hasbro. We value the passion of our fans, and we promise that we will continue to innovate in providing the best SCRABBLE experiences possible.
Customer (Arwen B) 07/30/2008 11:50 AM
Scrabulous was an infringement, it was unlawful, and we took the necessary action, similar to what the recording industry did when kids were posting music to illegal sites and allowing their friends to copy the music for free.
Really? You want to associate yourself with the RIAA? Really? They’ve got the same fuzzy image that Darth Frikkin’ Vader has, and you’re going there?
And you know, you’re NOT like the RIAA, whose overall point I even agree with, even though they’re acting like a bunch of ham-fisted, stumbling and confused, ossified and creativity locked lawyer-hounds. Who likes the RIAA?
But Hasbro could have made a deal. Deals can always be made. The difference between kids downloading and redistributing music and Scrabulous is that the developers of Scrabulous MADE A THING, it was a GOOD THING, and that thing was their work - they did your “remix” version. This is more like how the Backstreet Boys stole bits from The Police’s Roxanne than it is random teenager downloading Roxanne for redistribution. This is more like Weird Al than standard music piracy. There’s value added.
Yes, they didn’t get your permission. You’re being right rather than being smart, here.
Scrabulous was work that enhanced your product - I got a scrabble branded calendar and bag for christmas last year, can you believe that? Why? I was playing Scrabulous. Scrabulous gave me brand loyalty for Hasbro’s Scrabble, including purchasing a Scrabble board and getting Scrabble items, that I’d never had before. It rebranded you: previous to that you were my GRANDFATHER’S game of choice. I wasn’t going to suggest to my friends - Hey! Let’s play Scrabble!. Right. Scrabulous, though? We’ve been playing that.
Your reply seems … well, it’s my Grandfather’s reply. It’s not playing to your strengths and getting creative; it’s a defensive strategy that makes you look tired and scared. Which takes you back to unhip.
You may own the idea of wood tiles making words on a board, but there are a lot of word games out there. If the makers of Scrabulous twist the game play just enough to get it out of your IP range, what do you think will happen?
MTV is going to remake Rocky Horror.
High-larious.
Just found this from the beginning of June.
————————————
Life by Blogocracy — thank you all for vanquishing Sensible with me.
Now, I will realize my dream of becoming a feral balalaika player in Peru! Hah hah!
I have never spelled the word balalaika before this very post, and so I went off to search it out. Even though it has more vowels than should be legal, I spelled it correctly. Life is already looking up.
John enjoyed the first day at his dream job. It’s a pretty cool company. I won’t write too much about it, that being his story to tell.
However, I am thinking laterally in the meantime, because making Sensible leave makes for much more Creative in the headspace.
It seems to me I may enjoy helping people learn how to use their computers, for example. Perhaps I could tutor Conversational English for the ESL Massive Computer Geek, where conversation means discussing XKCD and Bumph from ThinkGeek. Like the umbrellas with the light up handles, just like in BladeRunner. Which is perfect for Vancouver, don’t you think? Especially with the fact that it’s June and the rain still comes in at us cold and pointy and grey?
( Which reminds me, in today’s cold downpour during rush hour, I saw a young woman with one of those huge golf umbrellas wandering under the awning while I and a guy on crutches, umbrellaless, were sent out through the rain to make room for her. I would have been frustrated at her but she was far away from the rain and the awning, leaving behind only her excited bit-lip smile to mark her place, while her whole body seemed to quiver with “I just got the part/got into college/got the job/won the lottery” excitement. How do you get frustrated with that? You don’t.
Well, maybe the guy on crutches would. I might, in that scenario. But I wonder what was the good news?)
Ahem. Geek culture. I’d be interested, in Conversational Geek for the ESL Student, to see what different countries do with their geek and nerd cultures. Not all the geeks on the planet will get BladeRunner references or wish to rub their bodies with caffeinated soap.
I bet they all have action figures or other small sculptural representations of fictional or mythological characters. It’s almost a requirement.
Which leads me to another observation. A LONG one. About nerdly sex.
Everywhere you go, it seems there are sex and costumes geeks who are having sex-and-costuming meetups, and these same geeks are likely to quote Red Dwarf and have Star Wars figurines. In my house, the joke is that burlesque has become the new Society for Creative Anachronism.
I have settled on my favorite co-factors in my Hypothesis of Obesity Epidemic. First, some background, loosely paraphrased from Gina Kolata’s analysis of the CDC data in Rethinking Thin: fat people are more obese than fat people used to be, but overweight and normal folks are only a wee bit pudgier. And there are suddenly lots of people called “overweight” who in the sixties would be considered “normal”, because they moved the goalposts: but then they went and showed that the best health outcomes for most things go to “overweight” people, making it all a sort of meaningless semantic slosh. Over what weight? Over the weight desired for optimal health?… Uh - no. So over WHAT weight?
Anyway, these co-factors are the ones less fun to talk about because there’s no blame attached. Which, in these individuals-are-everything times (it’s fun to judge our neighbours for being weird!), get very little media play.
1) Diets can add fat. You tend to gain all and more on the rebound. I’d be interested in seeing some real research on this, tho’: I think it’s capped, and likely body type dependant - I’d guess some bodies will react more hoardingly to diets than others.
My anecdata: I have been on 9 different diet schemes. I started attempting restriction at 10, finally clicked in to how it was done really at 12, and between 12 and 31 participated in a diet every year of my life but 4. So, I had 14 to 16 years of variable restriction, but I’m not 5 pounds times that many failed diet attempts larger than my genes suggest I should be. Of course, it could be my great-grandmother went hungry to feed her kids during the Depression and my mom dieted, so maybe we all have restriction weight. (I’m ignoring the men because they carry their weight differently and have more play in their wheels; I can’t easily compare them to me.)
2) Anti-depressants. There are 118 million anti-depressant prescriptions out there. Not everyone gains weight, and not every AD encourages it, (some people even lose) - but anecdata and AD side effect warning labels suggest more weight gain experience.
3) Birth-control. I’m down 3 pounds from removing this Mirena a week ago; the fora were reporting gains STARTING at about 15 pounds, and going as high as 80. I have too many factors complicating to accurately guess for me, but I have seen some of my thinnest friends get a wee bit softer on the pill, although I also have some friends who hormonal b/c hasn’t affected at all. Still, hormonal b/c showed up at about the same time that we started getting on average softer.
4) Perception and Media Hysteria. Seriously, it’s the zeitgeist to hate our Fat Consumer Culture, because we’re all freaked out that we’ve killed the planet. Fat Bodies have become the personification of this.
( SUPER YAY! We the Fat get to be the mascot of the degredation of our ecosystem! Go Homer, Eat a Donut, Go go go! )
…. and I imagine it’s not just Fat, but Fat and Poor, that are the true mascots of degredation, and there’s a racial theme there too. It’s about McDonald’s toys and Walmart crap and fast food and fat bodies and bad lighting and subprime mortgages and big houses we can’t pay for. Not Donald Trump and his jets and diamonds and high end caviar and grain fed steaks…
But per person we’re not that much fatter. We are bigger, taller, and fatter, yes: but epidemiologically fatter is not the same as the Caught-Eating-On-Film! media depictions of the obesity epidemic. You know the images - those of the heaviest of our headless bodies caught eating crap food in public. My size is recognizably linked to my maternal great-grandmother’s (relative to height), yet I’m sure they could use me, headless, to scare people on the TV. Booga booga. (I have even, occasionally, eaten an ice cream in public.)
However your average thin person - even if sedentary and eating McD’s - is unlikely to become me, even IF they’re at the heaviest side of their genetic range, no matter if they consume ice cream on the beach once in a while - barring eating disorder, psychiatric, or medical issue. (As per the previous commentary - you’ll notice me putting those in. I recognize them, and they exist - but they’re currently driving ALL the dialogue on weight around, as it were.) Thin people eating badly are more likely to become sick given an unhealthy lifestyle, but that’s a different thing.
That said and we will all, someday, become unhealthy with something. Everyone will get something, everyone will die. Other people’s ill health is not evidence of their moral failing, or their inability to steward their own bodies effectively. In systems this complex, *stuff breaks*.
4.01) Changing Fashion Perceptions… I think part of the blame for all this has to rest on those ultra low rise pants. These pants are designed to make women look fat. If you’re overweight, they’ll make you look gargantuan. If you took any of my “stout”, Mennonite, dress and covering wearing paternal great aunts and stuffed them into ultra-low-rise jeans - creating that pooching double hip and muffin top tummy - they’d stop looking solid and start looking obese.
Also, incredibly humorous.
5) Quitting Smoking. I really have taken to watching Turner Classic Movies. Those people smoked CONSTANTLY, holy cow, and they’re our baseline. The 60s are what we’re compared to.
I didn’t experience gain when I quit; not everyone does. But some do gain weight after quitting. It’s hard, with smoking, to seperate out the metabolic vs. psychiatric effects - gaining weight after quitting is a mixture of your metabolism changing AND a propensity to eat more while withdrawing. The second will likely eventually be removable, the first not-so-much.