toastykitten

I am making Chocolate Oreo Bars right now for a dinner party tonight. My friends have nicknamed this "Kim-crack" and coworkers have called it, among other things, "Death by Chocolate and Marshmallows" and "Heart Attack Brownies". It is some good stuff, but definitely not recommended if you are on a diet.

We went to see A History of Violence last night, after a disastrous Chinese dinner. More later on that. It is a great movie, and utterly depressing. I am plagued with silly thoughts whenever I am watching a serious movie, so much so that it can get distracting. Among the ones in my head last night:

Did they just show these people 69ing?
Hee! Butt shot! Viggo Mortensen has a scrawny ass.
Viggo is a brilliant actor, as is Maria Bello.
Really, when you want to kill someone, just shoot them in the head. Any other weapon is stupid, especially if your intended victim is also known to be an excellent murderer himself.
There are less shallow thoughts: Cynthia Fuch's review and Ebert's review.

The disastrous Chinese dinner, which I ended up paying for, because I have a job now so it's expected of me:

We were taking my aunt out for her 93?rd birthday. (It's one of the restaurants near the stinky tofu place.) We'd eaten at this restaurant before with no trouble. We liked the food, the service was your standard Chinese combination of friendliness/rudeness, and it was overall okay. Right before we entered, my dad suggested entering another nicer-looking restaurant, where they probably had cloth napkins because he knew the cook there. He hesitated, though, because he thought it might be too expensive for us to pay.

First off, they brought us four forks. I hate it when Chinese places assume that just because we're ABC, we don't know how to use chopsticks. It's so insulting. If I want a fork, I will ask for it. Second, they brought us the wrong soup, and the server kept trying to serve us the wrong soup, even though we made it clear to him that it was wrong. We had to yell at him in order to get him to take it away, and he only listened to some other waitress that told him it was wrong. And the soup we ordered turned out to be awful. We ordered sizzling rice soup, which, in addition to the sizzling rice, should contain: shrimp, eggs, carrots, mushrooms, tofu, and a bunch of other yummy stuff. Instead, this one came only with mushrooms and a few cubes of tofu. You know what the weird thing is? The night before I also ordered sizzling rice soup, and it only came with mushrooms, too. I'm starting to wonder if it's a trend of Chinese restaurants cheaping out on an already cheap soup.

The scallops and veggies dish we ordered was wrong, but the waiter kept insisting it was the right one. We let it go, but dude, my dad worked in Chinese restaurants for 20 years; he knows what it should look like. The scallops weren't fresh and they had an odd taste, and the portions were small, about half of what you would get on a normal lunch plate. The crispy chicken was late and came after everything else was eaten, and when we reminded the hostess about it, she said that "oops, it'd been forgotten, but it's coming." It came out, dry, and the chips, which are the easiest thing to make, sucked. They tasted like cardboard.

Oh, also, when we were trying to order, they announced that they were out of half the vegetable plates we wanted. It was only 6:30PM.

My aunt, though, is a darling, and insisted that everything was great and ate a lot. She thanked me for paying and proceeded to give us all red envelopes anyway, even though we were paying for the meal and giving her money for her birthday. She's starting to walk with a cane now, which makes me feel a little sad.

Lesson learned: Next time, eat at a restaurant where my dad knows the cook, regardless of price, because the cook will definitely take care of us, and the meal won't be wasted.

Other stuff bouncing around my head:

Art relieves constipation. Thank you, all you artists, for making life less poopy.

Josh Rushing, whom you probably know from Control Room, is now working for Al-Jazeera. And if you haven't seen Control Room, you need to rent it right now. There's also the NPR interview with him. I hope he does well.

Odd contraceptives from history - elephant dung?! Ew.

Composer Adam Guettel and screenwriter William Goldman will collaborate on a musical version or the hit fairy tale film "The Princess Bride," the New York Post reported. My first thought was, William Goldman is still alive? I'm such a dork.

This article is critical of the Tibet art exhibit because it's being sponsored by China. Note the ad at the top of the page.

As for this statement: "Politics and art need to be kept separate," she (Terese Tse Bartholomew) says. "The Chinese government would definitely close the show" - it's one of the most ignorant statements I've ever read. Most art IS political, even more important, most GREAT art is political. She's never heard of Guernica?