Pho and Engagement of Others

On a Saturday not long after the sushi I had a work responsibility that involved seeing the newest Tina Fey movie. I decided to go to the earliest possible show, and to try a new-to-me pho spot beforehand. It met my expectations though the broth wasn't as excellent as the Oregon Avenue location LW and I often frequent. If you want to know my basic thoughts on the movie, you can go here...though you'll be kind of confused, I would think.

Also on that weekend's agenda was meeting up with SP and CG, as they had let me know they'd be in the city weeks before. In fact, when I returned to NYC after my trip I met up with T. and his girlfriend A. and clued me into the high probability that SP was going to propose while they were in town. I wondered if this would result in my not actually seeing them, and I also wondered if T. should have told me, so I did email SP separately to confirm that even with a proposal there would be time to hang. He responded in the affirmative. At first we met at the Ranstead Room, but there was an unsurprising 45 minute wait, so we concocted a quick plan B and headed to the Bards, where we took over a table and hung out for some hours. This included seeing J., his girlfriend, and a bunch of folks I didn't know and didn't really get to know, though they seemed nice. So SP certainly did propose. And CG definitely said yes. It was a very celebratory evening with plenty of beer and darts.

SP recreating his proposal. Maybe.

CG, engaged and hitting what she aimed for.

Engaged.

My face needs help.

A good evening.

Happy Hour c/o Positano Coast, Movie c/o the Ritz

I returned from Brooklyn full of warm feelings for all the people I saw there. A few days later L. and I met up at Positano Coast for a little Happy Hour chat time before going to see a movie across the street at the Ritz. I wanted to try their crudo, as it seems the restaurant is best known for its seafood dishes, but that particular happy hour deal had gone away. So instead I went with the gnocchi.
L. is having seriously awful issues with her taste buds. Mainly that they have disappeared, leaving her unable to truly enjoy the subtlety (or non-subtlety) of anything she consumes. This makes me sad for her. She ordered the meatballs nonetheless. I wasn't blown away by either dish to be honest, but I liked the bar set up and would go back for a crack at their seafood.
So then we went and saw Blue Valentine. This movie is good. And sad. And real. Putting aside the merits of the actors and the filmmakers, I was personally affected by just watching the beginnings of a relationship. In one scene they're just laughing and dancing on a sidewalk, making jokes, glorying in each other's company and I couldn't help but be all 'I really would like a little of that in my life.' Even though you flash forward and things aren't quite as rosy. Also, again kind of besides the point in terms of the actual value of the film, Ryan Gosling is just too good an actor. While most of my angst was of the general sort, I also kind of just wanted to marry Ryan Gosling's character. Or at least form a domestic partnership with him or something.

Sushi Snacks c/o Umai Umai

On the same day as the Korean lunch, Mr. Ass contacted me and asked if I wanted to have dinner and see a movie with him and one of his friends. I said yes. We ended up eating at Umai Umai. This was my third or fourth time at the establishment, and this visit didn't really change my basic sense about the place: it's good, but maybe not as good as everyone seems to think? I went with the Kaki Oyster appetizer (Crispy panko crusted kumamoto oysters, blueberry balsamic reduction, cherry wasabi tartare, arugula), which had a lot of nice flavors and was satisfying though at $12 for three fried oysters, I don't know, I thought an extra oyster would have been a nice touch.
I also tried their tuna bruchetta (Sashimi tuna, piquillo salsa, dill aioli). My relationship with dill ebbs and flows and in this instance I liked the overall flavor profiles working their way to my tastebuds, but might have been happier with just a little less dill and just a little more bruchetta. So, perhaps it's fair to say that my issue with the place is portions and pricing, as well as simply not experiencing the same 'wow factor' effect that others seem to strongly feel at Umai Umai. Mr Ass had a soup and one roll and wasn't terribly impressed either, if I recall correctly.
After dinner we played some Scrabble before meeting up with Mr. Ass' friend S. and going to see Rare Exports. I hadn't read a thing about this movie, and Mr. Ass' description of it didn't really prepare me for what the movie was, but in a good way. It was like one part 'indie' foreign film, one part American action movie and one part heartwarming Disney film, but with blood and naked zombie santa type men running around. Mr. Ass and S. seemed to have more issues with holes in the plot, but when the premise is that Santa Claus is buried inside a mountain because he's not up to any good, I figure plot holes are bound to spring up.
I should also mention that in one game of Scrabble Mr. Ass had two bingos in a row; elixirs and feathers respectively. I was remiss in not photographing the board.

True Grit, Oysters and Lobster on Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve I went into work for a portion of the day before returning home and attempting to make order from the chaos that has been our 'living/dining room.' Once I felt some headway had been done, Dad and I met up and went to see the Coen Brothers' True Grit. It was a satisfying yarn, nice to look at and well paced on the whole. I liked the original movie as a kid, and I will say that I feel like the journey that Rooster et al took in that version felt more epic. No actual hate towards the movie though. That Jeff Bridges. That Matt Damon. That new actress.
Afterwards we went to Snockey's for another round of oysters. Dad had lobster in mind but our server let us know that no whole lobsters were left. Lobster fail. They did have a good selection of oysters, including two of my faves: Pemaquids and Kumomotos. These two types of oyster aren't very similar. Pemaquids have the snootfull of salt in your nose taste to them while the Kumomotos are more mellow. I was pleased either way.
Dad and I both ordered the split lobster tails as the next best thing to a full lobster, but I think we were both a bit disappointed. I know I was. Somehow I'm a bigger fan of a lobster boiled than a lobster broiled. At least in this case the meat toughened a bit and wasn't as tender or delectable as a lobster tail can be. I didn't even bother with the corn; I could imagine the large plastic bag of frozen cobs from which it came and eh.
So. The oysters were great, and the host that sat us was friendly and nice. The lobster was forgettable, and our waitress couldn't have been more disinterested in her work. A while after we sat down a family with two grown sons came in and I overheard the father figure getting a bit snooty/annoyed when she began to bring out their entrees before the oysters they ordered...mainly because she forgot to either pick them up or even put the order in. Not awful service, just, you know, unhappy-young-woman-working-at-her-family's-business service.

Salty Squid and Udon c/o Pagoda Noodle Cafe

Another day L. and I made plans to have dinner and then watch a movie. We went to Pagoda Noodle Cafe. I ordered their fried squid and pepper appetizer that was billed as spicy but was really just salty...but not entirely in a bad way.
I ordered the roast pork and seafood dumpling soup with udon. I really liked the dumplings and noodles. Probably could have done without the pork. I could have added more hot sriracha/pepper sauce.
Definitely an alright/cheap place to grab grub before going to the Ritz, which is exactly what we did. We had decided on Black Swan, which L. hadn't realized had a 'trippy' element to it and I hadn't realized would be ruined by my reading of most of the movie's reviews. I think I have this stubborn streak in me that makes it very hard for me to be impressed by things that other people are impressed by. It's not because I think I'm smarter than the work, no, it's that I think the work is smarter than me but that doesn't make me feel stupid as much as annoyed. Stubborn stupidity. Anyway. At least now I have an opinion to share with others at cocktail parties. Because I go to a lot of cocktail parties.

Dirty Martini and Quesadilla Somewhere in Doylestown

After the aborted kindling repopulation attempt I putzed about for the majority of the day. Mr. Ass and I had loose plans to watch the new Harry Potter movie at some point, so I ended up cozying up on a sofa and watching the first half of the first movie before taking a delightfully restorative accidental nap. Actually, it wasn't that restorative, as I woke up and remained sleepy for the remainder of the day. But the actual drifting off with the Hogwarts gang in the background really was pleasing to me. Anyways. I met up with Mr. Ass in the evening but L., the third of our movie going team, couldn't make the originally scheduled show so we had a bit of time to kill before we needed to be at the theater. So we went to a place, the name of which I cannot tell you. Their happy hour deal was still going on, so I ordered a dirty martini.
And chicken quesadilla. The quesadilla element wasn't all that special, but I liked the tomato garnish.
I liked the new Harry Potter movie well enough, though I hadn't envisioned Luna Lovegood's father looking like that, wished that Viktor Krum had, indeed, been at the wedding and generally wished that many of the book's details were in the movie (regardless of the fact that then the movie would be six hours long). Mr. Ass and L. were entirely unimpressed, but it turns out neither of them really care about Harry Potter so I can see how it wouldn't be all that compelling. The Harry Potter series is my media equivalent of comfort food and as such I can consume the books or movies over and over and over again, regardless of poor acting, needless exposition or my complete knowledge of what's going to happen next. And the nice thing about Potter is I can take in as much as I like without gaining a pound. What?

Horror of Horrors

Another new coworker's three things? Horror movies, pugs and running.

(Note: the text in red is a quote from the movie with one word inserted/changed, according to IMDB...I am not plagiarizing; I recognize.)

Catan-errific

Last weekend A2 texted me and let me know that Catan playing was about to go down at his and Ak's abode. I jumped on that bandwagon real quick and hurried myself right on over. It was a four person game, three of us knowing how to play, one newbie. The board that formed had clear challenges, but we figured we'd play a few rounds to let the newbie get a hang of it and then restart the board. But somehow we never restarted the board, which made for quite the challenging game. If I recall correctly, I was constantly in need of wheat, wood and ore. It was still good to play. I always forget how many rules there are to tell an iniate about, but it seems like she got the hang of it in the end. I did not win. A2's friend J. nearly did but, if I recall correctly, A2 clinched it in the end (I was blue).
On Sunday A2 texted and asked if I was interested in a rematch. To which I replied 'always,' because it's true: I love games, especially Catan. This is a picture of the jungle outside of their house.
This time there were only three of us, which made for a slightly faster game and a little more maneuverability of the board.
We played two games, neither of which I won, which made me weep and weep. Not really. Well, a little on the inside. No, not really.
Then J. left to catch a bus and A2 and I watched the new Star Trek movie, which I had been meaning to see but never quite did. Go me. It was a lovely late afternoon and evening.

I Spend My Life Consuming Stories

More than a month ago A. recommended (and lent me) Anne Michaels' The Winter Vault. It took me a while to get into the characters and story. I read it in bursts and that may have impacted how I related to and understood the plot. The principle relationship in the book is between a husband, Avery, and a wife, Jean. The story opens along the Nile, in Egypt, in 1962 (
1964?) and ends in Canada, with a number of other locations, Poland for example, heavily explored. There were a lot - a lot, a lot, a lot - of scenes with two people being in bed sharing long conversations about their past, stories of Warsaw's destruction and reconstruction through the eyes of a Jewish boy who grows up to be an artist living in Toronto and knowledge of plants comes into play. There are beautiful lines in this book and small moments that pack a punch, but there is also just a lot of remembering. It's funny that I feel this way about reading memories, since memory and nostalgia is a theme on which I like to touch in whatever little creative thing I have going on, but reading characters' rememberances for pages at a time became tiresome. It may just be as simple as my thinking that the nature of the conversations couldn't possibly be that meaningful and heavy all the time. There were very few moments of joy, and when they happened they were very quiet somehow. This line set up, simple as it is, was lovely to me:

"Jean led Avery a small way up the slope. They stood by a scattering of stones. Standing next to him, looking down at the river flowing in the white light of the generators she said: This very place we stand is where you first learned we will have a child. And she smiled at Avery's astonished face."
One of the reasons my progress on Winter Vault was so slow was due to my also deciding to re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I noticed Rowling's tendency to use people's hair as characterizations of their personality/inner life and thought it lazy. Still loved it. Kind of thinking about reading it again, but I'll hold back and try to read another grown up book.
A. also lent me the first season of Gossip Girl. What a ridiculous show. Chuck Bass continues to amaze me.
I watched the first two thirds of Wendy and Lucy and then the disc started skipping. I wanted to know what happened but I haven't actually asked for a replacement disc. Definitely on the bleak realism side.
I really enjoyed The Visitor. All the actors were really good and it wasn't overtly a political statement about the U.S. policies on illegal immigrants. The characters really stuck with me.
I'm jumping on The Mighty Boosh Bandwagon. It's funny and absurd and I laugh and laugh.
I watched the first season of This American Life as well. Though I haven't lived in a house with Showtime in pretty much ever, I found that I had seen a number of the episodes, or fragments of the episodes, at some earlier time. That night, my dreams were narrated by Ira Glass. I remember feeling comforted by this.
I also watched Demetri Martin's Comedy Centeral show. I laughed and laughed. I mean, not every jooke is super funny but the funny is right there often enough.
And that's all I've watched or read.

Movie Time

This movie is all quirky and New Zealand-y. It's like an even less funny version of Napoleon Dynamite had the sex with a less compelling, but equally depressing, Muriel's Wedding. Maybe they did it on purpose. It's a movie to watch just so you can remember what you actually do and do not like in a movie.
Last night I won the right to see a sneak preview of Paper Heart. The main question of this movie is 'how do you know when you're in love?' The documentary part isn't overly revealing, nor is the fictional part featuring Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi. I laughed a few times, I teared up, ever so briefly, a few times too (but this is because of my ability to make everything about me, not because of the actual touching-ness of the content). I got a free notebook and pen as a promotional gift. Worth watching but not as sweet, quirky, funny or insightful as you might think it would be.
I also saw the new Harry Potter film two Sundays ago with A. and her bro Z. (whoa it's rare to have a Z. initial). I was excited about seeing it but couldn't remember the book that well (it was my least favorite) so couldn't glory in my superior vision and understanding of what the movie should have been. Didn't cry like I thought I would.
Happy Go Lucky is an interesting character-study type movie. There were moments when I thought I would not want to be the main character's friend because of her outlook, but then there were other moments when I realized that having someone like that around might be a benefit. It's not like she was stupid.
500 Days of Summer was the most successful of the indie-romantic-y movies I've watched in the past week. Zooey Deschanel is very pretty and she can act. Joseph Gordon Hewitt is not without cuteness and he can act. I have further thoughts.
Last night I watched The Covenant. I don't know how I lived so much of my life without this experience. Ridiculously attractive 'teenagers' at a boarding school that has no curfew or adult presence except when the plot absolutely makes it necessary, some of whom have magical powers and can be traced back hundreds of generations? Count me in! Did I mention the ridiculously attractive 'teenagers'?
I just looked at my Netflix queue for the last month and a half, pretty much since late June, and it was all Battlestar Galactica all the time. The series finale severely disappointed me, but the series as a whole felt like a good way to spend some time. Smarter people would talk about why this show is smart. I'm not that smart, so I'll just say that you should watch it and not be all judgy about the space/sci-fi angle.
My new bff (boyfriend forever). He and I dated throughout his time acting for Friday Night Lights, but after watching The Covenant I finally had the nerve to ask him to go steady...and he said yes!

Close

I'll just have to say it:

Nights of Rodanthe may very well be in the top five of the WORST movies I have EVER seen.

And don't even think about giving me shit for watching it.

Also, while I have you:

Bloglines' customer service is for shit.

Movies and Books, Oh My

I won tickets to see a sneak preview of Duplicity a few weeks back. The tickets were care of Philebrity. L. came along. This movie was like Oceans 11 only without as many funny guys. The method of story telling, of giving the viewer one set of information, then rewinding and filling them in...well, it was done one too many times for my taste. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen did good jobs of acting...Roberts is definitely older now, I was sort of surprised by how they didn't hide some of the signs of this (not that they should exactly, just that I would have expected they might). But the movie went on too long, and though the acting was good, I didn't really care about any of them. Never good.

Last night I watched What Happens In Vegas. It was entirely predictable. Cameron Diaz is buff as hell, as is Ashton Kutcher. There were a few laughs, no tears.
Terry Gross loves Richard Price, so I figured I should give one of his books a spin. It was a mystery, but not in that formulaic sense exactly...transcending that in favor of themes of redemption, or something. I need to be quiet.
This movie made me decide that Michael Cera is probably gay.
I love cheese. I love eating cheese with other people. I really wanted to like this movie. But it was like the first 2/3 of the movie was going one way, then all of a sudden the movie was pretty much over but completely different. I like Bonnie Hunt.
This movie was ridiculous.
This movie was not good either.
Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle really reenforced my not-so-secret desire to live in the country with a spouse and children and animals, which was totally not the point of the book. It also made me very aware of how the choices I make in my eating could be better, and certain steps I could take to be at least a little better. I don't think I have the capacity to be as strenuously local as Kingsolver's family was (especially with my new found love of grapefruit) but I'm hoping to do right by the city's local farmer's markets this summer...and maybe get better at making huge batches of things then freezing them for later in the year.
This movie was entertaining.
Here is a passage from Jasper FForde's The Big Over Easy. He is clever. Really, really clever.

"Dog Walkers Face Body-Finding Ban

Citizens who find a corpse while walking their dog may be fined if proposed legislation is made law, it was disclosed yesterday. The new measures, part of the Criminal Narrative Improvement Bill, have been drafted to avoid investigations looking cliched once they reach the docudrama stage. Other offenses covered by the act will be motorists declaiming in a huffy tone, "Why don't you cathc burglars/real criminals for a change?" when caught speeding, if there is a documentary crew in attendance. Civil liberatarians, motorist groups and dog walkers are said to be "outraged.""

Oh Jodi Picoult and the tangled webs of point of view and terrible things and court room drama and teenage occult you weave. She's good at it. Whatever.
James Macavoy is cute, but it's clear that he is short. How short is the question I'd like answered. How short?
Relatively entertaining...not really in terms of story, but in terms of individual actors' performances.
Craig Ferguson's Between the Bridge and the River was surprising. I don't know what I expected from a Scottish late night talk show host, but this wasn't it. The book definitely has a Tom Robbins feel to it, but with a Scottish twist?
Oh man, I finished the third season of The Wire and I feel a little empty inside.