- Mos Def: Now even though Mos Def has kind of gone crazy recently with the whole Guantanamo Bay stunt; You have to keep it in perspective of all the other crazy shit he's also done, including believing the man made moon landing was faked. I mean what grown man in this day an age really believes Apollo 11 was a government conspiracy? Well Mos Def does and he'll be proud to tell you. His quirky personality in real life makes for some great acting in his films. He may play the classic black man geek trope in the Italian Job but that doesn't mean he doesn't put his own hilarious twist on it. In the film his nick name is Left Ear because he blew up a toilet when he was little and lost his hearing in his right ear. Needless to say he is the explosives expert in the pack
- Fast Cars: Okay so I know nothing about cars, but this does not mean I can not enjoy a good car chase. This film has one of the best car chases, three mini coopers being chased down by a helicopter. You just keep thinking the little suckers will give out. So if you are a fan of car chases this movie is for you. You won't be disappointed I promise.
- Seth Green: So you may notice a pattern. Half my reasons for loving this movie is simply the great cast. In this movie Seth Green plays your dorky, pervy, techie. Every Seth Green line in this film is well delivered and hilarious. His adorable expressions alone make me want to put him in my pocket. One of his best and less demeaning roles.
- Betrayal: I guess someone somewhere said that all heist movies have to have some form of betrayal in them. Personally I find this really obnoxious but I guess the media wants us to believe that all heists would probably work out if one of the members didn't betray the rest. I hate betrayal plots but this movie does it really well. Obviously revenge is a great unifying motif and the fact that they get it out of the way in the first 10 minutes of the movie is awesome. I don't have to spend the rest of the film wondering who is going to betray them because someone already did. First time I watched it I totally thought the girl was going to be a cop or something. Probably a different film.
- Mark Wahlberg: Mark Wahlberg makes a great leading man and unifying character in this film. Even though he doesn't have a shirtless scene (sorry ladies) he still makes for great eye candy. Who doesn't like a tight black shirt on him. Okay time to get my mind out of the gutter. As any action film fan knows you need a leading character who can fight, drive, and think on their feet. Mark delivers all of this in the Italian job making you want the Brazilian Job (aka The Italian Job 2) to come out soon.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
5 Reasons Why I Love the Italian Job
So I recently re-watched the Italian Job, the 2003 remake of the 1969 British film about a pack of thieves and their big heist. The movie is called the Italian job based on the strategy they use to steal the gold. If you haven't seen either the remake or the original, I would recommend both. They are both really funny. So here goes my top 5 reasons.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Star Trek Enterprise
So I've been rewatching Star Trek Enterprise episodes lately. I never did finish watching the series, can't remember why.
I find myself skipping episodes that don't have that much T'pol and Trip interaction. Guess every second viewing requires a new perspective. Like when I rewatch BSG I notice or follow one couple or pairing more than I did the first time I was watching.
If you haven't figured it out by now i'm a total trekkie. No I don't speak Klingon but I have seen almost every version of Star Trek minus the animated series. But lets focus on Enterprise. For those of you who are unfamiliar Enterprise is the latest in the Star Trek tv series conglomerate. Even though its the newest, timeline wise it falls at the beginning of all the previous shows. So this is pre red shirts, pre borg, the crew is still squimish about the transporter, the technology is so new.
Its a interesting new take on the Star Trek Universe. Personally one of the best parts of this show is just how primitive everything is in comparison to all the other shows. They truly are explorers and everything is so new that they mess up a lot.
TeaInACan called Trip the Why We Have The Prime Directive Guy. This show falls before the prime directive was created so lots of cultural boo boos are made. Roughly the prime directive says respect and don't mess with or alter other cultures. In the older Star Trek series this usually meant not sharing your technology with other species. Most of the time in Enterprise this makes for awkward and at times hilarious shenanigans, once in a while it gets really unfortunate.
I really appreciate some of the thought that was put in this show, like how Hoshi the communications officer is actually a linguist who seems to be to have special powers when it comes to languages. What I find cool about that is when the translator is down she tries her best to use her natural skills and talents. They all do this, since they can't rely on their technology all the time.
Some funny quirks about this show. As usual the Captain can some how always have sexual tension with every alien female they encounter. The best moments though are when Trip and Malcolm get into bachelor hijinks with female aliens. This happens way more often than it should. Its one lesson I appreciate that they haven't learned.
My favorite character in this show is clearly Trip, he is the chief science officer. He is arrogant and intelligent but he's also some what of a hill billy. He always makes the human mistake in a series all about humans trying to prove humans can do better. Personally I think he is very lovable and so of course I want him to get with the person who mist emphasizes all those traits in him, T'pol.
Funny thing is I think the first time I watched this series I was more focused on Hoshi and Travis. Hey, we all need a love story to root for. My fickle heart likes to change it up sometimes.
I find myself skipping episodes that don't have that much T'pol and Trip interaction. Guess every second viewing requires a new perspective. Like when I rewatch BSG I notice or follow one couple or pairing more than I did the first time I was watching.
If you haven't figured it out by now i'm a total trekkie. No I don't speak Klingon but I have seen almost every version of Star Trek minus the animated series. But lets focus on Enterprise. For those of you who are unfamiliar Enterprise is the latest in the Star Trek tv series conglomerate. Even though its the newest, timeline wise it falls at the beginning of all the previous shows. So this is pre red shirts, pre borg, the crew is still squimish about the transporter, the technology is so new.
Its a interesting new take on the Star Trek Universe. Personally one of the best parts of this show is just how primitive everything is in comparison to all the other shows. They truly are explorers and everything is so new that they mess up a lot.
TeaInACan called Trip the Why We Have The Prime Directive Guy. This show falls before the prime directive was created so lots of cultural boo boos are made. Roughly the prime directive says respect and don't mess with or alter other cultures. In the older Star Trek series this usually meant not sharing your technology with other species. Most of the time in Enterprise this makes for awkward and at times hilarious shenanigans, once in a while it gets really unfortunate.
I really appreciate some of the thought that was put in this show, like how Hoshi the communications officer is actually a linguist who seems to be to have special powers when it comes to languages. What I find cool about that is when the translator is down she tries her best to use her natural skills and talents. They all do this, since they can't rely on their technology all the time.
Some funny quirks about this show. As usual the Captain can some how always have sexual tension with every alien female they encounter. The best moments though are when Trip and Malcolm get into bachelor hijinks with female aliens. This happens way more often than it should. Its one lesson I appreciate that they haven't learned.
My favorite character in this show is clearly Trip, he is the chief science officer. He is arrogant and intelligent but he's also some what of a hill billy. He always makes the human mistake in a series all about humans trying to prove humans can do better. Personally I think he is very lovable and so of course I want him to get with the person who mist emphasizes all those traits in him, T'pol.
Funny thing is I think the first time I watched this series I was more focused on Hoshi and Travis. Hey, we all need a love story to root for. My fickle heart likes to change it up sometimes.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Not Starving to Death
I'm not a very experienced cook. Or housekeeper in general. I tend to eat most of my meals out for either convince or laziness. My refrigerator is both barren and rotting, like the Blight from the Wheel of Time. But tonight maybe because I had accomplished nothing else all day, maybe due to some kind of inspiration, but probably just because inclement weather kept me from driving to get food, I cooked.
So for anyone else who can barely sustain themselves as an adult human, here is a very simple and fairly tasty recipe.
Step one: fry onions. Honestly this is step one in pretty much anything I cook. This time it was special since I decided to fry the onions in curry flavored coconut oil. Generally I use butter, but 1) coconut oil is supposed to be good for you (unlike butter) and 2) the coconut oil did not seem to have gone off (unlike my butter). Generally I would recommend cooking the onions for like five minutes until they get a little soft. But I rushed it since I was nervous/excited for step two:
Step two: fry other stuff. In this case, zucchini and lentils. The zucchini were the brave survivors of my refrigerator (unlike the broccoli and kale). As for the lentils I had originally envisioned making pasta, but having to boil the noodles in a whole separate dish which I would then have to wash seemed like too much of a pain. So then I thought of frying/cooking the pasta in with the sauce. I wasn't quite sure this was an actual legitimate way to cook pasta, and as I reflected on this I remembered that it was a normal way to cook lentils. Plus those lentils have been living in my cupboard forever. God bless dried goods. Anyway, keep frying those for a while.
Step three: add other stuff. Basically this other stuff falls into two categories: flavorings and tomatoes. For some reason I love pretty much any tomato based sauce. Stir fry doesn't always feel like a meal to me, but by adding a can of tomatoes and putting on a grain, all of a sudden it's a meal. So for flavor I added salt, pepper, two chopped cloves of garlic, dried oregano and basil, and a cinnamon stick. The tomatoes were a simple can of diced tomatoes. I also added about a canful of water.
Step four: leave it be. Ok so first I stirred it and looked at it. Then I brought the whole thing to a boil (raise the temperature and wait) and then lowed the temperature and covered the wok with a lid. Then I went and watched videos on the internet for a while. At one point I added another spoonful of curry flavored coconut oil. But basically I just wasted time until the water had reduced and the lentils so longer felt like little rocks,
Step five: enjoy. I garnished (and by that I mean smothered) a bowlful with parmesan cheese. I would have liked to have had buttered toast, but sadly that was not possible. All in all it was tasty and not too stressful to make. Plus I hear lentils are good for you.
So for anyone else who can barely sustain themselves as an adult human, here is a very simple and fairly tasty recipe.
Step one: fry onions. Honestly this is step one in pretty much anything I cook. This time it was special since I decided to fry the onions in curry flavored coconut oil. Generally I use butter, but 1) coconut oil is supposed to be good for you (unlike butter) and 2) the coconut oil did not seem to have gone off (unlike my butter). Generally I would recommend cooking the onions for like five minutes until they get a little soft. But I rushed it since I was nervous/excited for step two:
Step two: fry other stuff. In this case, zucchini and lentils. The zucchini were the brave survivors of my refrigerator (unlike the broccoli and kale). As for the lentils I had originally envisioned making pasta, but having to boil the noodles in a whole separate dish which I would then have to wash seemed like too much of a pain. So then I thought of frying/cooking the pasta in with the sauce. I wasn't quite sure this was an actual legitimate way to cook pasta, and as I reflected on this I remembered that it was a normal way to cook lentils. Plus those lentils have been living in my cupboard forever. God bless dried goods. Anyway, keep frying those for a while.
Step three: add other stuff. Basically this other stuff falls into two categories: flavorings and tomatoes. For some reason I love pretty much any tomato based sauce. Stir fry doesn't always feel like a meal to me, but by adding a can of tomatoes and putting on a grain, all of a sudden it's a meal. So for flavor I added salt, pepper, two chopped cloves of garlic, dried oregano and basil, and a cinnamon stick. The tomatoes were a simple can of diced tomatoes. I also added about a canful of water.
Step four: leave it be. Ok so first I stirred it and looked at it. Then I brought the whole thing to a boil (raise the temperature and wait) and then lowed the temperature and covered the wok with a lid. Then I went and watched videos on the internet for a while. At one point I added another spoonful of curry flavored coconut oil. But basically I just wasted time until the water had reduced and the lentils so longer felt like little rocks,
Step five: enjoy. I garnished (and by that I mean smothered) a bowlful with parmesan cheese. I would have liked to have had buttered toast, but sadly that was not possible. All in all it was tasty and not too stressful to make. Plus I hear lentils are good for you.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Podcast 1 (Sad Songs)
TeaInACan and SardonicQueen present to you our long awaited recorded conversation about sad songs. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: No conclusions were made. We like to laugh at our own jokes so don't worry if you don't think we are funny
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Arrow
So it's my day off of work, and I have nothing better to do than to stay home and browse through daytime tv. If anyone else has ever attempted this with a basic cable set up you also know that there is nothing on television in the daytime. It is just reruns of shows you thought had gotten canceled. Long story short I ended up watching CNN all day. Hey, at least it was something new. You try watching the news for more then four hours straight. It gets depressing quick. Basically the world is a bad state of affairs and the politics in America might as well be the latest bad reality tv series.
So enough of that.
After a day of CNN I was willing to watch Arrow. (Which, I believed to be a spin off show of one of the characters from the tv show Smallville.) Needless to say I didn't have high hopes for the show. Here's a rough breakdown. There are lots of spoilers.
Premise (at least the way I see it): Rich party boy gets shipwrecked for 5 years in which time he some how becomes a killing machine and formulates a plan to harm, kill, or discredit everyone on a list of enemies, that his father conveniently gave to him before he killed himself to save his son. Son gets rescued, and now he's secretly the Green Arrow, fighting back against crime in his city that looks strangly like a modern day Gotham city. Where else to have his Bat cave, sorry I mean Green cave, but his Dad's old abandon warehouse.
If you haven't noticed I have a lot of issues with the basic premise of this show. Oh and of course he can't be a supper hero without a love interest. Which in this case is a dogooder lawyer whose sister was also screwing our super hero when she supposedly drowned in the boat accident that left our Green Arrow stranded for 5 years.
Can we talk about what a terrible name for a show that is. Arrow. I mean really does it cost more to call it Green Arrow? Did you think it would sound less cool? Cause let me tell you something, I can't imagine telling someone that I am going to watch Arrow tonight and not have them give me a funny look. It's a bad name for a tv show.
All that said I still plan on watching it, that's until I get completely bored. Why you might ask, after all the disdane I just threw out at this show? Well i'll tell you.
1) Stephen Amell running around doing acrobatics that make him look like a monkey is sometimes shirtless.
2) Even though I had not heard of the Green Arrow until Smallville, it turns out the Green Arrow has been around in DC comics before the boy wonder ever appeared on the small screen. Don't take away my sci-fi credetials, you learn something new everyday.
So since it seems I have a lot of assumptions about this show I will it a chance to break some of them. I watched the pilot and the show has the potential to get better. You don't see archery in many tv shows, even though the popularity of the Hunger Games series has somehow brought it back into the spot light. Maybe in the up coming episodes the plot holes will be filled, maybe the action scenes will improve, maybe everything about this show won't be so predictable. If nothing else bring on the shirtless work out scenes and hopefully a better costume.
Watch the pilot for yourself and make up yout own mind on the show. I won't lie about why I plan on watching this show. I'm shallow and I have an interest in sci-fi/action advebture. Sue me. Enjoy!
-SardonicQueen
So enough of that.
After a day of CNN I was willing to watch Arrow. (Which, I believed to be a spin off show of one of the characters from the tv show Smallville.) Needless to say I didn't have high hopes for the show. Here's a rough breakdown. There are lots of spoilers.
Premise (at least the way I see it): Rich party boy gets shipwrecked for 5 years in which time he some how becomes a killing machine and formulates a plan to harm, kill, or discredit everyone on a list of enemies, that his father conveniently gave to him before he killed himself to save his son. Son gets rescued, and now he's secretly the Green Arrow, fighting back against crime in his city that looks strangly like a modern day Gotham city. Where else to have his Bat cave, sorry I mean Green cave, but his Dad's old abandon warehouse.
If you haven't noticed I have a lot of issues with the basic premise of this show. Oh and of course he can't be a supper hero without a love interest. Which in this case is a dogooder lawyer whose sister was also screwing our super hero when she supposedly drowned in the boat accident that left our Green Arrow stranded for 5 years.
Can we talk about what a terrible name for a show that is. Arrow. I mean really does it cost more to call it Green Arrow? Did you think it would sound less cool? Cause let me tell you something, I can't imagine telling someone that I am going to watch Arrow tonight and not have them give me a funny look. It's a bad name for a tv show.
All that said I still plan on watching it, that's until I get completely bored. Why you might ask, after all the disdane I just threw out at this show? Well i'll tell you.
1) Stephen Amell running around doing acrobatics that make him look like a monkey is sometimes shirtless.
So since it seems I have a lot of assumptions about this show I will it a chance to break some of them. I watched the pilot and the show has the potential to get better. You don't see archery in many tv shows, even though the popularity of the Hunger Games series has somehow brought it back into the spot light. Maybe in the up coming episodes the plot holes will be filled, maybe the action scenes will improve, maybe everything about this show won't be so predictable. If nothing else bring on the shirtless work out scenes and hopefully a better costume.
Watch the pilot for yourself and make up yout own mind on the show. I won't lie about why I plan on watching this show. I'm shallow and I have an interest in sci-fi/action advebture. Sue me. Enjoy!
-SardonicQueen
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Kings
In 2009 NBC brought out a television show called Kings based on the Biblical Story of King David. Below is the promo that came out with it.
My mother was a fan of this show while it aired on NBC. While the show was on she was always glued to the tv, you couldn't get her to pay attention to you at all. I tried getting into it with her but i hadn't watched the first episode. I always like to start from the beginning with television shows.
So I had some time on my hands tonight and this show came to mind. I searched for it online and found that it was on Hulu. First episode in and I am already hooked. This show is written and acted really well, even to a degree that you rarely find with shows that have come out this year. The plot makes you intrigued with where they could possible take a modern day King David story. Adaptations of biblical stories usually don't go over well production wise in this day and age. The viewer wants to see where the characters portrayed will go next.
Watching this show and getting so wrapped up in what could possibly happen next makes me also really pissed off. Here you have an example of a really great show that got canceled. NBC tried cash in as much as possible on this show, moving it from one night to another, and eventually canceling and rejecting the idea of another season. Seriously NBC, you couldn't keep this well scripted, well developed, and well acted show, but you can play reruns of Two and a Half Men. Don't get me wrong, Two and a Half Men minus Aston Butcher is hilarious. It just riles me up to think that stations like NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox control what we airs on television but have the audacity to say that they base their decisions on viewership. I call bull on that one. The average American does not watch television anymore. You know what they do. They record their shows on DVR, they watch their shows online, they wait for it to come on Netflix.
Big stations are just looking for big money and I highly doubt they are making money off of television programs the way they used to. I am rambling but I really am pissed of that shows like Kings, like Firefly get cut off before their time for shows with more viewers. How about we keep the intelligently done shows and tell the people who want to be zoned out on Big Brother for an hour that they should go get some fresh air instead. I realize that my argument is not sounds but I mostly just wanted to pour out my outrage. Now I will go back to watching Kings. Try it you might like it too.
So I had some time on my hands tonight and this show came to mind. I searched for it online and found that it was on Hulu. First episode in and I am already hooked. This show is written and acted really well, even to a degree that you rarely find with shows that have come out this year. The plot makes you intrigued with where they could possible take a modern day King David story. Adaptations of biblical stories usually don't go over well production wise in this day and age. The viewer wants to see where the characters portrayed will go next.
Watching this show and getting so wrapped up in what could possibly happen next makes me also really pissed off. Here you have an example of a really great show that got canceled. NBC tried cash in as much as possible on this show, moving it from one night to another, and eventually canceling and rejecting the idea of another season. Seriously NBC, you couldn't keep this well scripted, well developed, and well acted show, but you can play reruns of Two and a Half Men. Don't get me wrong, Two and a Half Men minus Aston Butcher is hilarious. It just riles me up to think that stations like NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox control what we airs on television but have the audacity to say that they base their decisions on viewership. I call bull on that one. The average American does not watch television anymore. You know what they do. They record their shows on DVR, they watch their shows online, they wait for it to come on Netflix.
Big stations are just looking for big money and I highly doubt they are making money off of television programs the way they used to. I am rambling but I really am pissed of that shows like Kings, like Firefly get cut off before their time for shows with more viewers. How about we keep the intelligently done shows and tell the people who want to be zoned out on Big Brother for an hour that they should go get some fresh air instead. I realize that my argument is not sounds but I mostly just wanted to pour out my outrage. Now I will go back to watching Kings. Try it you might like it too.
Birchbox 3: July 2012
For the month of July, birchbox matched their theme to Glamour magazines and celebrated the five senses. I'm all about using beauty products to engage my senses, so this box was a hit with me.
I recieved the following:
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