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toastykitten

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toastykitten: (Default)
Rachael Ray - San Francisco episode of $40 a Day

So on this episode, I discovered that Ray-Ray knows jack-shit about Chinese food, which is baffling to me, because doesn't she live in New York? They don't have dim sum over there? They have no carts! It is not dim sum without the carts! The man who prepared food for her gave her fucking potstickers and egg rolls. No one ever orders potstickers. And egg rolls are the worst thing on any Chinese menu; I only get them at buffets because I am masochistic and hope that this time, they will be crunchy and contain yummy vegetables that aren't days old, but no. Inevitably, Chinese egg rolls are soggy, filled with days-old napa cabbage that tastes bitter. If you want egg rolls, order in a Vietnamese or other South Asian restaurant. Crispy, with fresh veggies and just the right amount of grease.

Oh, and the kicker was that she passed over all the items that I consider "authentic" dim sum food - she looked at barbecue pork bun and went "What's that?" in a way that only Rachael Ray can. What does it say it is, genius? She passed over the har gow. No shrimp dumplings, chicken feet, sticky rice, yada yada. Bleh!

The French restaurant she went to looked good, though. It's called Le Metro - $12.50 for a 3-course meal? I'm so there.
toastykitten: (Default)
I just watched it. The finale of 30 Days irritated and infuriated me. I wanted to smack the daughter, who, apparently, is studying to be a nurse on a full scholarship. Does that make you want to run to the hospital or what? And the mom, who, for some reason, let her daughter walk all over her. Had that been my child, ignoring me while I'm trying to have a serious discussion with her, I would have taken the cell phone away and stepped on it. I am vindictive like that.

I didn't get what this episode was supposed to accomplish. Mom's going to drink for 30 days to show how her daughter how much it sucks, but then daughter isn't even around most of the time to see it? Why didn't they make the daughter sober up for 30 days, or at least go to one AA meeting? I kind of wish they did let Morgan do all the shows, because only the first one, where they live on minimum wage for 30 days, had any sort of impact on me. At least Morgan's got personality, which is more than the people they chose to highlight.

Part of the frustration is watching these people say stupid-ass things, but then the main characters don't say anything to rebut them. Mom: "How much are you drinking?" Daughter: "Long list of shots, and then when I wake up I don't remember what happened. But I'm responsible."

Any other parent with a half a brain, would have said, "And how the fuck do you think you're being responsible if you can't even remember what happened most of the time?" But no. The mom just sat there. And then she wondered why she was having no effect on her daughter. I wonder if the daughter realized how stupid she came off in this episode.

Morgan Spurlock's next show will be on Comedy Central, called Public Nuisance. Includes gay robots.

The FX forums have the worst interface EVER, but you can read some reactions from the stepson of the mom, who I liked.
toastykitten: (Default)
But packing is no fun.

Irritations:

Xanga - For Chrissakes, people, stop it with the media. I like looking at pictures, but do not make the site start playing a song without a warning. Any song. Kill, kill, kill.

McAfee - First of all, I paid for your friggin product already. Second of all, your pricing is deliberately misleading, because I had to read the fine print in order to find out that my $25 rebate is contingent on me keeping the box, which I don't have because it was bought over a year ago. And third and worst of all, you made me use Internet Explorer to update the goddamn product. Ew, gross. Next time I'm buying Norton.

Traffic. When does traffic not irritate me? I reiterate, driving in San Francisco is like being stuck in a live-version of Grand Theft Auto with no gun. Driving in the rest of California is playing a game of "Who's gonna be the bigger asshole?"

The Observer book reviews suck.

A Cook's Tour, by Anthony Bourdain - finished maybe 2 weeks ago? I think I'm in a reading rut. I have plenty of unread books on my shelves, but I don't want to read them. Anyway, this book is awesome. Bourdain, a "rebel" hotshot chef in NYC, who also wrote Kitchen Confidential (behind-the-scenes look at four and five-star restaurant life), travels all over the world in search of the perfect meal. If that sounds like a gimmick, that's because it is. How else are you going to convince somebody else to pay for your trips around the world? A Cook's Tour is also a TV show for Food Network, which Bourdain is kinda ambivalent about.

Highlights of the TV show - Bourdain being forced to try the weird Asian foods, including, but not limited to durian, bird's nest soup, and balut. He should be happy he wasn't forced to try the stinky tofu. I think that stinks more than durian does, which he ended up liking a lot, describing it as similar to eating stinky cheese.

Highlights of the book - Bourdain eviscerating Berkeley vegans, beginning a rant with "And not one of them knew how to cook a fucking vegetable." His bitching about not being able to smoke in San Francisco restaurants is classic. I don't have much sympathy for him, though, because I hate cigarette smoke. Bourdain going to the Sahara and going crazy because he wants to eat a lamb but no one has any. So then he buys one himself. Bourdain snarking on other Food Network personalities, and an obvious hatred of anything having to do with Emeril and Bobby Flay.

I find Bourdain's melodramatic tone really funny, because he obviously watches way too many gangster movies. There's a lot of places where he's like, "And this reminds me of the scene in Goodfellas..." and then follows it up with, "Oh my God, we're going to die."

Now I am waiting for someone to lend me Kitchen Confidential.
toastykitten: (Default)
Fantastic Four annoyed me. How are these people superheroes? Bleh. They don't even *save* anyone!

30 Days - Straight Guy living in the Gay, Gay, GAY Castro district - I wanted to whack Straight Guy over the head with a brick; he was so stupid. Do you tell everyone you meet that you think they're the equivalent of murderers, but hey, as long as you don't touch me, it's ok? Especially veterans? Ugh. To his credit, he did wise up a little, but not until Day 29.

I've been following the forums a little over this show, and while most people are able to have rational discussions (I am incapable of having rational discussions about intolerant people, so I don't participate), I find the whining by the red-state, conservative contingent really, really aggravating. "Why don't they do a show where they send an atheist/liberal/leftist [apparently all these are interchangeable] to live with a conservative Christian?" Because they DO IT EVERY DAMN DAY! "I think Morgan Spurlock has an agenda! He's trying to impose his view on me! He thinks all red-staters are ignorant, backwards hicks!" Um, Morgan is FROM WEST VIRGINIA! If anything, I think he's way too nice, especially to people like Fred Phelps. Boohoo, he's trying to convince you to be more tolerant. You want to be stupid, watch Fox.

Anyway, I'm done ranting.

I just finished His Dark Materials, the trilogy by Philip Pullman. These books blew me away, like no other book has done in years. He rewrote Paradise Lost! (And by default, the story of Genesis.) I love these books, and am surprised that they haven't been banned yet, considering how much fuss has been made over Harry Potter and witchcraft. (J.K. Rowling, you wish you wrote like Pullman.) These books are like crack - I couldn't put them down, even at work, because I absolutely had to know how it ended. I described it to people as kind of like an "atheist Narnia", but that's not really true. It has other worlds, and it deals with faith, and the possibility of a vulnerable God (hmm...maybe I can somehow tie this to my reading Killing the Buddha, but I am not writing a paper, so whatever) who can be killed. I loved the protagonists - headstrong Lyra and the determined Will, and the premise of the books shocked me, because it turned Paradise Lost upside-down and made "God", or "the Authority" the bad guy, but then, I couldn't tell, and the protagonists couldn't tell who was "good" or "evil" for most of the books. These books contained some of the richest and most complex characters I'd come across in years.

Other good things include: really exciting fights, a great quest story, gay(!) angels, Mrs. Coulter (one of the best-written female characters, who you can never figure out), interesting world-building, and the religious stuff is very, very convincing.

The books are aimed at a young adult audience, and it makes me wonder whether the kids will *get it*, or have everything fly over their heads. I actually read the Chronicles of Narnia a while back, and really liked it, but I don't think I love it. The last book - I wish I could pretend didn't exist, because why am I supposed to feel glad that they all died?

Anyway, I'll try to find some stuff tomorrow to link to; it's time to sleep for me.
toastykitten: (Default)
The Christian-guy-living-as-a-Muslim episode terrified me and made me not want to leave California. I do not want to know that people are that fucking ignorant, and dumb enough to ask, "Have you observed any terrorist activity?" Also, dumbass radio host - Muslim is not a synonym for Arab, nor is it necessary for you to coddle dumb callers in that NPR voice by pretending they are legitimate questions.

Really, this episode broke my heart. I wish it had been two hours, and then we could have had more time to discuss David's struggle between the two religions, an explanation of why Islam is not the same thing as Arab and more on the Pakistani culture, the difference between condemning an act and apologizing for it, why no one in that entire hour seemed to understand that the Muslims ARE Americans, why certain people commit terrorist acts, etc. It frustrated me that as soon as the conversations went somewhere, we would move on to the next day.

According to a poster on the TwoP Forums:

Here's what I found sad: I could tell by the landmarks that that scene was actually shot in Brighton, where I grew up. I recognized the Asian man as one of my childhood Sunday School teachers. I happen to know that he was in an internment camp during WWII because he is Japanese-American. I was primed for him, of all people, to be the voice of reason against race-based discrimination. But no, you saw what he said.

Yeah - I'm disappointed, but not surprised. I've had to grow up with some ignorance (I remember people trying to "educate" me on why Rodney King had it coming to him) in my life, but wow. These people scare me. David, I liked up to a point. He gets stupid and obnoxious sometimes without realizing the things he's saying and implying, but overall I liked him. I liked that he went out on his own and tried to learn Arabic. I loved the family he stayed with; they were so devoted to their family and so damn American.
Jun. 28th, 2005 07:57 pm

30 Days

toastykitten: (Default)
I was listening to NPR today - did Rumsfeld actually say what I think he said? Because that was basically an admission of failure.

Ordering Chinese food.

My favorite new TV show now is 30 Days, produced and hosted by Morgan Spurlock, the happy-go-lucky dude who did Supersize Me. Supersize Me was, in Spurlock's own words, "a really great bad idea" in which he decided to experiment on himself and eat McDonald's food 30 days in a row. He's been compared to Michael Moore, favorably and unfavorably, but I think he's a lot more fun. He takes so much obvious joy in what he does - it's like he lucked out into the best job in the world and is wickedly gleeful about it, like a little boy running around after being told he can have all the video games he wants.

30 Days is about taking random people and placing them in other people's shoes for 30 Days. It's like they created a show just for me! Originally Spurlock wanted to do all the experiments himself, but his girlfriend told him he wouldn't "have a girlfriend for long" if he did that. Which is just as well. He and the girlfriend did do one episode - the opening, where the two attempt to live only on minimum wage for a month.

I think everyone needs to see this episode. It is so great, and sad, and brought back so many memories. All I could think was, I am so glad I'm not poor anymore.

One of the things that they brought up was the fact that during this time, they were basically living from check to check. They didn't have any money for anything, including the unexpected health care issues.

While I was watching, I couldn't help thinking that they weren't strategizing very well. They go to a dollar theater, but then Morgan stocks up on a bunch of snacks that cost as much as at a regular theater. I was like, fool, sneak the food in! This sparked a fight between the couple that was pretty familiar-the money fight. (Parents don't necessarily want to have this fight in front of the kids, but they're so tired and stressed and cranky that they do it anyway.) I cringed as I watched the vegan chef girlfriend chop up some broccoli and totally throw most of it out.

I cannot wait for next week's episode, where a hardcore Christian guy has to live with the Muslim family for a month. From the preview:

Christian guy walks away, waving his hand.
Muslim guy: "Did he just flip me off?"
Muslim girl: "No, he did like this. That was the peace sign, dude."

For some reason, that just totally cracked me up.

Alton Brown has a new show! Feasting on Asphalt follows Alton Brown as he tries road food on Route 66, traveling from Chicago to Los Angeles. Dammit, I want his jobs. I want to get paid to eat and travel.
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