Bon appétit!

Watch Julia Child Remixed - Keep on Cooking on PBS. See more from PBS Digital Studios.

I really enjoyed this when I first saw it on Julia Child's 100th birthday. PBS and John Boswell seem to be doing a lot of this lately (see the PBS Digital Studios Channel on youtube), and with apologies to all the sound engineers/mixers who've had their jobs made infinitely simpler by the tech, I think it's the only use of autotune I can fully get behind.

In other news, I updated my Safari browser and got an interesting surprise: the address bar has combined with the search bar. I'm pretty sure Internet Explorer has had this capability for a while, and Firefox calls their version of it "The Awesome Bar" - which, to briefly change the subject, is a name that annoys the hell out of me, because it's such uninterestingly simple marketing. It's like Mozilla decided, eh, just say it's awesome, that'll bring everyone on board. Simplicity is the new thing. And all of us consumers, we're supposed to say, Yeah, I'm not old, I'm hip! I have the Awesome bar! Just a second, I've got to go get a glass of Radical Milk to eat with my Bestest Ever Cookies and my bag of Super chips. If someone tried to sell me a So-So Bar, I'd probably drop dead.



And incidentally, I DON'T find Safari's version awesome or otherwise. Technically I suppose it can't be "awesome." If I find my user experience "awesome," does Safari have to pass some trademark/infringement cash to Mozilla? Hrm. I usually used the little search bar space to stick text I was planning to search, or text I wanted to copy format-free. But it doesn't matter. I'll get used to you, Awesome-or-Otherwise Bar.

Rerun of Aerosmith on 60 minutes! Eek. PBS is doing a special on rats. Time for The Wire, yep.

Laudy Libs

My laudations and libations is a little massive this time around, as I've been watching a ton of movies, reading a ton of books, and dinging around at work and in the kitchen.

To Hear the Laudation(s) of their Women

Watching:

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Slow-moving, enjoyable. Stellar performances by the whole shebang - especially Gary Oldman. And overall I thought they did a good job of condensing the original Alec Guinness miniseries. (Still haven't read the book.) But I did wonder what it was like for people who hadn't had the benefit of the book or the miniseries. I tried to watch it from that perspective, and I think it was confusing. Maybe the producers/distributors are banking on people needing to see it at least twice? One other weird note: unlike the miniseries, where Ann Smiley is capably played by Siân Phillips, we NEVER see Ann's face in this version. We see her hair, various body parts including her bum being groped, but never a look at her. Very unsatisfactory, and I spent most of the evening afterwards trying to figure out why, apart from the basic, oh, but she doesn't matter, see. She's not even a pawn, so she's completely uninteresting. Blech.

Sherlock. What a great show. So far I've only watched the first season because I'm anti-cable and pro-library (not to mention pro-cheap and pro-free) but I'd recommend it highly.

Silent Running. Decent movie, a little preachy, but I can see how it would not have been in its time. Interesting effects. Terrible Joan Baez screeching throughout, though. Bruce Dern reminds me a little of my husband's father, which is funny to me considering the first time I ever saw Dern in a movie, it was this one:

Marathon Man. Um. I'm not sure what to say about this one. It was very...speedy? I think I liked the scenes with Lawrence Olivier and Roy Scheider were good. Dustin Hoffman has never been one of my favorite actors, but he was good.

Incidentally: wow, the Oscars have gotten quite speedy in their way, too, haven't they?

Reading: I read Dead Until Dark, the first book in the Charlaine Harris Southern Vampire series. I know, I know, I'm perpetually late to the party. But it was enjoyable and quick. Speedy seems to be my MO these days. Am nearly finished with Anna Karenina and as A. and I went to the bookstore this weekend, I have a whole shelf of new and exotic (to me) stuff to read.

Eating: Ginger Snaps. They are delicious. This is obvious, yes.


And lo, the Libations


Had me some Farmhouse Wytchmaker Rye IPA (Austin, TX) and Böner beer (somewhere), both were decent.



Non-laud: our dishwasher. Damn thing is waaaay too loud.

Things I didn't know, part 2

As I have mentioned here before, the TVs in clinic waiting rooms drive me gently berserk. Now that I know about TV-B-Gone, though, all that is going to change!

TV-B-Gone Hoodie

I'll make an exception if there's a rerun of Sally Jesse Raphael, but that's all, folks.

Just try THAT in hyperspace!

Long ago in Internet years, from Metafilter (and I think I originally saw it on Boing Boing?), here's some Star Trekky goodness:

"He might have read the document when he was tired, at the end of a long day of being tied to a whale."

Discusses the creation and evolution of Star Trek: Insurrection (the quality of which I cannot debate, as I have not seen it. Some Trekkie/er, huh?) and the comments warmed the cockles of my cold geeky heart. They also made me laugh so much that I think my gut also ulcerated a bit more, and it was worth it.

I love The Next Generation. I remember if we were watching an ep that didn't end before dinner, Dad would carry out the bedroom b&w TV and set it up (precariously) so that we could watch while we ate.* (Everyone in my family likes Star Trek, obviously because we all KICK ASS. Or is that tangential? And anyway.) Later, when I was going to community college but still mooching around my folks' house, I'd stay up late on nights I didn't have theater rehearsal and watch reruns of TNG on WCCO. Still later, when I lived in Syracuse, my friend Tea sold me her family's collection of TNG videocassettes** for twenty bucks, I watched the entire run and realized how many horrible Troi outfits (and plotlines, sheesh) I'd missed, how funny Jonathan Frakes looked without a beard, how unfair that shit with Tasha was, how the uniforms changed, how Patrick Stewart went from hot to hotter the older he got, and just how many crappy episodes they got away with without being cancelled summarily. It's a good thing that networks used to have big tough vaginas back in the day, huh?

Wow, that's going to get me some weird hits. "Captain big tough Star Trek vaginas" sounds more like an interpretation of a TOS episode, though.

These days I don't see too much TNG on the networks. One night when A. was out of town and I couldn't sleep, whether due to fear of not having warm accessible A. body to sleep beside or to paranoia of not having warm expendable A. body to sleep on the outside of the bed,*** so I turned on the TV. Guess what's on at 1 a.m. in my town?



If you're not into watching the whole thing, it's this episode from season 1. Parasites, woo!

But I love that show. Relatedly, I'm about halfway through the first season of Deep Space Nine. Gotta get back to that - I enjoyed what I saw. But I also like Voyager, and apparently that should make my head explode. Oh, well.

I <3 U, Jean-Luc.









 


^{* It certainly had a scandalous effect on me; these days A. and I watch TV with dinner all the freaking time. Sick/product of this rare Dad-induced thing or sad and lonely and dining-room-less?
** JVC Video Home System, motherfuckahs! Two episodes per tape! What. WHAT? Oh, shut up.
*** Just kidding, sweetie - I'm all over those midnight home intruders with our lil Slugger, er, minigun, minigun, yeah.}

Recently I watched the first season of Castle.* I thought it was cute and that it would have been forgettable if I wasn't a Nathan Fillion fan. Well, the little scifi injokes are great, too:



YEAH! Moving on=overrated.

Anyway. So A. and I were in Target the other day in search of this hilarious yet useful item when I saw this book sitting on the bestseller shelf:

Heat Wave

"But. It's fake," I protested.

A. laughed at me a lot when I turned it over and screamed at the Ruggedly Handsome Richard Castle author photo on the back cover, and at the Patterson and Cannell plugs on both covers. I suppose there have been other ridiculous book tie-ins before. This bit from the synopsis cracks me up, though: Heat's murder investigation is complicated by her surprise reunion with superstar magazine journalist Jameson Rook. In the wake of their recent breakup, Nikki would rather not deal with their raw emotional baggage. But the handsome, wise-cracking Pulitzer Prize-winning writer's personal involvement in the case forces her to team up with Rook anyway. Heh.

Naked Heat is number 27 on the latest NYT bestseller list. Sheesh.




<sup>*Got it from the local library! You can, too! (Maybe. Go check. Or, um, ask them to order it. I'm sure it won't be a problem, right? Sigh.)

**So far, dog does not like. The smell of her own claws burning makes her sniffily depressed.</sup>

He who smelt it.

My gas is off the charts. Other than that, I feel great, but it's as if I'm going to blast off. At the same time, my digestion is tip-top, I've been off the Devil Pred for two days now without any sign of blood, pain or frighteningly explosive diarrhea, and I feel spectacular if a little sore from walking/running with A. and the dog. Maybe the excess of gas is serving to balance out all this goodness? At any rate, I scared the pooch last night while carving my jack-o'-lantern; I think she thought there was something ominous under the floor, like an earthquake.

Things I've been enjoying lately:

- Ghost stories. In celebration of Halloween, I picked up some M.R. James (so far, very creepy), Peter Straub's Ghost Story (so far, engrossing and very creepy), and a collection of Solomon Kane stories (so far, uncracked; therefore creepiness/interestingness unknown). I have a perpetual case of spine chills but luckily, a dog who (while she might love up home intruders for a scratch behind the ears) will probably bark at ghosts and/or demons. So, that's coming along.

- The Good Wife. Just starting watching this one. I don't watch much TV because we get six or so channels and whenever I'm home my choices always seem to be limited to Two and a Half Men or Jose Luis Sin Censuras. So if I watch TV, it's usually on DVD. But I'm really liking this show. For one thing, the cast is amazing. Julianna Margulies, Christine Baranski, Josh Charles, and Alan Cumming? Yesss. And the last episode I watched had Anika Noni Rose - I don't know if she's a regular or recurring character. (Unfortunately, the last ep also featured Vernon Jordan. I can't take him seriously, though it's not his fault. OH CONAN.)

- Sherlock. Don't know why Benedict Cumberbatch looks familiar. You'd think I'd remember a name like that. A. and I caught most of episode 2 last night. While I like this idea, I'm really bored with the whole CSI/Bruckheimer zoomy-whooshy forensics editing that crime shows seem to feel they need to employ these days. Seriously! I don't need jerky, blurry jump-cuts on a business card, a bloodstain or an envelope logo! Throw away the sunglasses and give me a return to understated elegance! Ahem. I'll be watching to, uh, see if you listened.

Still more evidence that I am a dork

I was at the public library yesterday before my Fun Hour Wait at the Pharmacy, and I spied the complete As Time Goes By sitting on the DVD shelf.

FIST PUMP! I said, and grabbed series one.

I don't know if it's cool yet to like this show, or if it was ever cool, or if it transcends cool, because Judi Dench, obviously. But probably not, if I like it. It definitely doesn't have the same nostalgia factor for people my age as, say, Little House on the Prairie. What it really reminds me and my dad of watching whatever late night British television import was on WCCO (usually Black Adder, but I think there was some Fawlty Towers and others in there) on the big old black-and-white upstairs.

When A. and I lived in Syracuse the local PBS station ran ATGB every Saturday night following an episode of Keeping Up Appearances. (I claimed I watched those shows because they came on right before Classic Movie Night, which, in addition to the library, was our poor man's answer to TCM/AMC/Cable TV in general. We still don't have cable. Go us, what rebels.) But really I just loved them, especially ATGB.

Oh - quick plot summary (if you don't want read the wiki one I linked to) since I'm starting the show from the beginning now instead of catching a random episode every Saturday night:

Lionel Hardcastle is a 50-60 something (I think?) writer editing his new memoir, My Life in Kenya. He hires a secretary from a local service to help, and is flabbergasted in a mildly polite way to discover that the boss of the business is none other than Jean Pargetter, a woman he met nearly 40 years earlier, when she was a nurse and he was a soldier. They had a brief romance, and then he shipped out to Korea and they never spoke each other again...UNTIL NOW. (There was some thing with a letter, but it got lost, okay?) My glee at typing this can somewhat be expressed by this.

It sucks you in and there's no defense. Remember that if you're flipping through the channels some night and you see something like this:



Well, just gird your loins for the awesomeness.