Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin. Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine has to go live with her working-class sister Ginger after her wealthy husband is arrested for fraud.
She says: At first I thought Jasmine would be this annoying character to spend two hours with, but she develops layers as we witness her current plight and flash back to what brought her here. That the two sisters are so different is explained by each of them having been adopted, which works. It’s interesting to see past secrets revealed as Jasmine desperately tries to adjust to no longer being ultra-rich. By the end, we still didn’t know quite what will become of her. But we care…
Naomi Watts, Robin Wright. Two 40ish women, best friends, become lovers with each other’s sons, which gets complicated.
She says: This was billed as “porn with good acting”, but I dunno. I think porn would have a lot more sex and fewer scenes after characters looking angsty as dramatic music plays.
The acting was indeed fine, and everyone involved was quite attractive and thus appealing to look at, and the ocean-side setting was pretty. I don’t have a problem with the age difference, and the fact that there was a “son swap” was merely weird, not disturbing, but the movie made it clear that the women had known these boys since they were little babies. That made their later relationship kind of ookey, and you had to ignore that part to enjoy the storyline at all.
He says: I had too much trouble ignoring that part. The movie wasn’t boring. That’s the best I can say about it.
I was joking the other day with Jean about my blogging persona. “I’m kind of jealous of her,” I said. “Nice life! Seeing all those art movies, going to concerts, eating at nice restaurants (while showing too much cleavage), traveling around, watching TV, drinking wine… Does she even work? Does she watch the news?…”
Now, clearly, I have never consciously tried to cultivate a brand for this blog as I’m not trying to monetize it nor achieve a particular readership level. Because to do that I would need to cultivate a niche and really focus on that one that area, rather than what do I do, which is just write about whatever I feel like.
But the fact is, I’ve realized, a quasi-brand has emerged anyway, and it’s one largely focused on the shallow side of life. It does not, or does not very often, touch on the following:
1. Big, weighty world issues
The world is kind of a mess. It’s not that I don’t care about this, nor that I’m uninterested in it. I read a lot of news. I fret, I fume, and I worry about it. I donate to causes. I sign petition. I tweet and retweet about certain outrages in the world.
But—although there have been exceptions, and may be again—I don’t blog that much about the issues I care deeply about, like climate change and other environmental problems; the erosion of democracy; and human rights infractions.
Because honestly, these things are just too depressing. I usually don’t feel that anything I say can really make a difference, and I generally don’t feel I have any new solutions to offer up.
I blog as an escape from all that, rather than to delve into it further.
2. My job
This one has been really conscious choice: to not blog about my employer (I certainly hope there haven’t been exceptions), and therefore not go on too much about my job, or my profession, even.
It’s partly that I don’t want to inadvertently get myself into trouble. But it’s mainly because that part of my life already consumes the majority of my waking hours. I like my job fine, but that’s enough. When I’m blogging, on my own time, it’s going to be on other subjects that interest me.
3. Personal problems
I have these, sometimes. If they’re minor enough, I may even rant about them here. But when something big is going on, when something’s really troubling me, I somehow don’t feel that telling everyone on the Internet about it is going to help in any way. Indeed, there is an inverse relationship: The more something is bothering me, the fewer the number of people I’m willing to share it with.
This is probably unhealthy, and I probably should learn to open up to people more, or more quickly. Not sure that will ever take blog form, however.
Shove me in the shallow water before I get too deep
My Netflix account remained sorely underused for a long time.
I was generally unimpressed with the selection of movies. Tunneling through to the US site helped—great to finally see Cabin in the Woods, which was a pretty clever, deconstructionist take on the horror genre, and fun to see Roger Daltrey play a gay man (albeit with no love scenes) in Like It Is—but overall, I’d still rather go to the Princess.
I’d be watching maybe one show a month on Netflix? So even though it’s only $8 a month, it still wasn’t great value for me.
So I was quite surprised the other day to discover that, somehow, I had watched every single episode of The IT Crowd on Netflix. That’s 4 seasons, folks. Now, it’s British show, so the seasons are much shorter than with American shows.
But still. I’ve clearly stepped up my Netflix usage. And it’s not because of the movies; it’s the TV shows.
The IT Crowd is hardly essential viewing. But it generally makes me laugh, sometimes quite a bit. So watching just one more episode was often appealing.
I’m also finding the Netflix original series Orange is the New Black rather addictive. And Jean likes it too, which is a bonus. It focuses on a middle-class, white (race is very prominent in this series) woman who is sentenced to a year in prison after a youthful indiscretion catches up with her. It’s not Oz (in fact, that’s a direct quote from the series), thank God, in that it doesn’t have that intensity and violence. It’s much funnier. But it still makes it clear, lest I had any doubt, that I never want to go prison.
Most episodes end with Piper facing some new, unexpected dilemma in this very odd world (based on an actual memoir, by the way), so you really want to know what’s going to happen next. And it’s Netflix, so all episodes are available for… whenever.
As are all episodes of Friday Night Lights, and Louis, and House of Cards, and Derek, and Mad Men and… Yeah. With no commercials, and no download time. How TV should be?
Did not spend the whole weekend configuring my computer. In fact, we did a number of other activities, starting with attending Centre in the Square’s season opener event, featuring dance troupe Bandaloop. They specialize in what they call “vertical dance”, meaning they perform dangling from wires, off the sides of buildings.
So this free Centre in the Square event was outdoors. The weather was definitely nippy that day, which none of us were used to, particularly after the record-breaking heat earlier in the week (hottest day of the summer). But we coped, thanks to scarves and such. And it was pretty neat seeing the performance off the edge of the building. They did four numbers:
A couple performing a swing dance (of sorts)
A trio of women in red doing somewhat balletic moves
A solo piece to very modern music
A finale of six dancers, three on each wall (a piece normally done on one wall, but adapted for this space)
We then decamped for dinner at Sole Restaurant, where they were featuring (yet another) local food menu, this time a four-course, with matching wines—all from Vineland Estates.
It started with a smoked trout salad with green beans and almonds, served with Pinot Grigio. The fish had very nice texture but not a strong smokey flavor (not sure if that’s good or bad); the beans were just delicious in slightly sweet glaze.
The next appetizer was a roasted tomato tart with goat cheese, tapenade, and basil, served with semi-dry Riesling. The crust here was a little tougher than ideal. Jean found the filling a bit salty, but I don’t know; tapenade is meant to be salty—I don’t think they overdid it. I wouldn’t have picked out a semi-dry white with this, but it actually went very well. Nice balance.
Little tart! (This is Jean’s caption. Not entirely sure which subject he’s referring to.)
The main course was duck confit, with banana bread, cherry compote, and sugar snap peas, served with Elevation Cabernet. The duck confit was fantastic—great texture and flavor. The sweetness of the banana bread was intriguing, though the texture was a little too dry in parts. The Cabernet was impressively delicious, with chocolate notes.
Dessert was a peach trio of crème brulée, mini pie, and cheesecake lollipop, served with Cabernet ice wine. Best was definitely the crème brulée, all nice and creamy. The tart was fine. The lollipop was just kind of strange in texture.
Then Sunday morning, we participated in the Terry Fox Run for the first time, though “Run” should be in quotes, because we walked. But we walked briskly and made pretty good time, I think; not that it’s a race. I’ve just always wanted to participate in the Terry Fox Run, as he’s a hero of mine, so it was nice to finely do it. Especially as we didn’t get rained on.
Sunday afternoon, 2-4, we had yet another food event! For the first time in a few years, we went to Foodlink’s Taste Local event, whereby restaurants partner with a local food producer and create an appetizer. For $60, you get 19 items. Don’t worry; we didn’t take pictures of them all, nor will I describe them all.
A look at the Taste Local event. Despite the threatening sky, we didn’t get rained on here, either.
I will note a few of the highlights, though:
Pulled duck (from Top Market Meats) with red onion preserve and chèvre on potato rosti, by Little Mushroom Catering. Mmm, duck.
Cured trout from Caudle’s Catch with radish and cucumber salad, on tortilla, by Marisol Restaurant (a favorite of ours). Doesn’t sound that good, but tasted amazing. Perfect texture, great flavoring.
Nick and Nat’s chicken liver pate on toasted with fruit relish preserve. So rich and creamy, to me it tasted almost like foie gras.
Tomato milk shake with basil foam and balsamic reduction by Solé (them again!). As long as you like tomato, pretty nice.
Taco Farm taking Herrle’s corn and adding a Mexican touch of lime, cilantro, and cream. Really good. (And served to us by Lydia Herrle, which was nice to see.)
Waterloo Inn using OK eggs to make an egg tower: Frittata with pickled egg and bacon aioli. Great idea, well executed, quite delicious.
But really, everything was good.
The main problem with the event was the odd timing, meal-wise. We had breakfast but no lunch in anticipation, resulting in Jean initially rushing through the booths at breakneck speed, because he was really hungry! We did get him to slow down after the first five or so.
And after two hours of this, we were all really full. (A lot of meat involved in these.) We attended with Kristi, who commented that we seem to be making a habit of marathon eating together (like Verses 20 courses), which maybe isn’t such a good thing. Anyway.
So clearly we didn’t have dinner after that, and facing a fairly long evening ahead, we went out to a movie. But I’ll save that for another post.
It’s been a couple of weeks with the new Windows 8 computer, and while the relationship between us remains a bit tense, at least we aren’t fighting with each other quite as frequently anymore.
Let’s just say I do sympathize with people complaining about Windows 8. Admittedly, day to day, you don’t have to poke around in the bowels of the OS that much, and otherwise it’s not that much different than Windows 7—at least in desktop mode. And it does seem to start more quickly, which is nice.
But when you first setting up a computer, all you’re doing is poking around in the bowels of the OS, and the fact that everything has changed there just makes all those non-fun tasks that much more frustrating. So you do develop this initial, and growing, hatred for Windows 8 as you run through a series of Google searches such as:
How do I map a network drive in Windows 8?
Where is the Control Panel in Windows 8? (Actually, I didn’t figure that one out! I just installed the Star 8 app to put it back in its Windows 7 place on the new computer!)
How do you select which speaker to use in Windows 8?
How do you shut down a Windows 8 computer?
Yes, shut down. I mean, seriously. Microsoft put the Shut down command in the Settings menu, three clicks deep. I’ve now realized that my PC manufacturer added a one-click taskbar menu with Shut Down and Restart options. Yay! But they shouldn’t have had to. That’s just terrible UI design for a super-basic, very frequently used feature.
Put the pointer in the bottom-right corner of the screen to get the side menu displayed, click Settings [and, oh look, there‘s the Control Panel], click Power, and there is Shut down! Nice and inconvenient.
And why the heck doesn’t the ESC key let you out of those “app” windows? That’s exactly what that key is supposed to be for!
Instead, you have to click the right Windows key to get out. This is not a usability improvement!
Mind you, I do make things tough on myself because—I’ve realized—I don’t seem to like the default settings on anything, which means I have a lot of tweaking to do on new computers—something normal people (with lives?) don’t bother with.
And, I now have things mostly working, except for ongoing troubles with my display settings. They’re pretty much set as want them. I’ve made peace with the opaque title bars. I still think they’re kind of ugly, but I do find myself entertained by the fact they change colors with my desktop background to match it better. I also like that you can display different desktop background images on each monitor.
So my only issue now, really, is that the computer keeps losing these settings. Whenever it goes to sleep, I “awaken” it to find, for example, that the resolution is all out of whack, and all the desktop shortcuts are a weird size—or have all moved on to my big-screen TV! Rebooting usually fixes things, but not always completely. To be fair, I’m not sure if this really a Windows 8 issue, or more of a hardware problem. All I know is, my old computer never did that…
I’m managing, for now, by greatly extending how long the computer waits before going to sleep. Longer term, we have a much better display driver from an older computer that we’ll probably install in this one (because, as mentioned, I’m not a fan of the defaults), to see if that helps.
Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley, Brie Larson. On the rebound, popular teenager Sutter Keely unexpectedly takes up with the decidly less popular Aimee Finecky, and the relationship develops in a way neither expects.
She says: Apparently we’re seeing all the indie movies about teenagers this summer. Like The Way, Way Back, this one also focuses on a teenage boy, but he’s three years older and couldn’t be more diffferent in character than Duncan in that movie. Sutter is charming and outgoing and fun and apparently at ease with himself—but appearances can be deceiving.
Sutter planned to just mark time with Aimee Finecky while trying to woo ex-girlfriend Cassidy back, but to the surprise of both of them, the relationship turns into something real and meaningful. This movie is hardly schmoopy and simple-minded, though. Sutter has his issues—including alcoholism—and his confronting them isn’t always pretty.
All the young actors in this are very good, and while certainly attractive, notably look less movie star-like than I can remember seeing in a long time.
He says: Yes, that had enough plot for me; I definitely got into the story. It just seemed to real, and that made the sad parts sadder. And I loved that open ending.
Sunday night, when I returned to the computer I’d been working on just fine all day, nothing was displaying on either monitor, beyond a brief Analog / Digital message. The usual step of just rebooting produced no better effect, and checking all the plugs found nothing loose, nothing amiss.
The next morning, the computer didn’t entirely seem to even be booting anymore (though it’s quite hard to tell what’s going on, with no display).
It was actually the first time a computer had just up and died on me. Of course, I was not pleased. But really, thank goodness it happened in 2013 and not in, say, 2003. Or 1993.
Was a time when losing a PC meant potentially losing an awful lot of data, stored on that hard local drive, not necessarily all backed up.
Now, we store pretty much all the files we care about—songs, documents, spreadsheets, photos, videos, sheet music–on a network drive, with backup . And like everyone else, we’ve moved to keeping some stuff “in the cloud”–email, agenda, blog posts, Evernote lists that organize my life—making them accessible on any tablet, smart phone, or computer. I may not have a computer right now, but I still have basically all my content.
So, this is really more of a bother than a trauma. Despite the above, there are a few things on the old hard drive that I’d like to retrieve if I can, so we’re going to bring the old computer in to get the hard drive taken out and stored into an USB-connected external drive case, which I’ll be able to attach to a new computer.
Did you catch that? Despite this being just a bother (for heaven’s, we have another computer! And two tablets!), I have already ordered a new computer.
I guess the greater speed and power will be nice. Just too bad it’s Windows 8. I swear, the biggest issue these days in having to upgrade hardware, is in then having to relearn software.
I know Windows 8 has its fans. The problem is, Windows 7 is hardly leaving my life. All day, every day, of my work life, I am on a Windows 7 computer, and that won’t be changing soon. And our other computer? Also Windows 7. So it’s not as if I can really move on and switch over to the Windows 8 way of doing things. I fear being in permanent, irritated “learner” mode on my own PC.
Windows 7 desktops are still available, by the way. (Yes, desktop, not laptop. I don’t see the point of a laptop when I have a tablet.) Jean kindly (or, more likely, fearing he’d otherwise have to go back to sharing a computer with me) did the online research and found one decent Windows 7 option, and one Windows 8. I was trying to decide which to get–the Windows 8 one was more powerful, but the Windows 7 one was Windows 7!–when I thought to dig into the question of HDMI ports. The Windows 7 PC didn’t come with one.
“That’s it, then,” I said. “Because HDMI is an absolute necessity!”
And then we both looked at each other laughed at my having put high-definition signals on the same level of importance as food, shelter, and oxygen.
But I still bought the Windows 8 one. Because I do really love being able to connect the PC to the big-screen TV and watching online video super-sized, with great sound, from the comfort of my couch.
And I have found an article called How to make Windows 8 look and feel like Windows 7 , which I’m hoping will be of some help in the transition. And at least iTunes 10 is still available, so I can avoid the transition to iTunes 11 (shudder) a little longer.
I’m just mentioning this because many people seem surprised by it, and Ontario corn on the cob is really good right now.
You don’t have to barbecue or boil corn on the cob. You can microwave it. Doesn’t require a dish or anything; you can just stick the whole thing, husk and all, into the microwave. For one cob, 3-5 minutes; for two, 4-9.
And—this is something I just learned—you can then get the husk off really easily. Just cut the end off, either before or after you microwave it, then you can just shake the corn out. Or for more fun, wack it on the counter, and the corn will slide out. No hair, no problem, ready to eat.
Here’s video proof, albeit without the fun “wacking” method:
This wouldn’t work if you have a whole lot of corn to cook, but for smaller amounts, it’s fewer dishes, faster, and doesn’t heat up the kitchen. And very tasty results!
Comments on two films I recently watched, sans Jean…
20 Feet from Stardom is a documentary profiling backup singers, a group of people I hadn’t given much thought to before—which is what made it interesting. Though a few male backup singers are interviewed, most of the time is devoted to the women who dominate this profession.
What they all have in common is talent. No “weak but interesting” voices here; they all sing with range, power, pitch, and control. So the question is, why are they just supporting the stars?
The answers vary. Darlene Love was long cheated out of stardom by producer Phil Spector, who would not release her performances under her name. The incredible Lisa Fischer had a successful record—even won a Grammy—but ultimately decided she was frankly happier in a supporting role. Many others tried and failed, because of having the wrong look, poor material, lack of promotion… Or just because.
Through their stories, we get the history background singing in pop music from the subdued style of the 1950s to the increasingly expressive 1960s and 1970s (“rock’n’roll saved us”) to its diminishing popularity in more recent years. It’s a reminder of how important those backup vocals are to many of the songs we love, like “Walk on the Wild Side”, “Thriller”, “Young Americans”, “A Little Help from my Friends” (Joe Cocker), and “Gimme Shelter”. (I had the lines “Rape! Murder!” in my head for days afterward, which was somewhat disturbing.)
Stars are also interviewed in the film, including Sting, Bruce Springsteen, and Mick Jagger. But it’s nice to see the spotlight finally turned on the talented performers behind them.
I finally got my hands on Game Change, the HBO docu-drama about Sarah Palin’s campaign for the vice-presidency, starring Julianna Moore. It’s somewhat old news now, but maybe it’s best to watch it when Palin is at a low point in her political popularity, because man…Otherwise it would be terrifying.
Admittedly, some scenes may have been slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect, but I did some research, and the essence of what was presented is true. The depth of this woman’s ignorance about the world was astonishing, as though she’d had no historical or geographic education whatsoever.
It’s not an entirely unsympathetic portrayal, either. You do kind of, sometimes, feel bad for her as she struggles to cram in mass numbers of facts in a very limited and very high-pressure time, while being made fun of on SNL. I did find myself rooting for her in the Vice-Presidential debate (which was certainly not the case at the time).
But when on more of an upswing, oh my God, she comes across as arrogant and self-centered and just… entitled and horrible. The way the woman herself often strikes me.
John McCain, by contrast, is given a very sympathetic portrayal throughout. But it’s not really his story anyway.
No longer a current event, but this is still fascinating and well-scripted biopic with a great cast. You get behind the scenes to understand how this could have happened: How someone so unqualified was running to be a heartbeat away from the most powerful office in the world. It’s not the easiest thing for the HBO-less to get, but well worth tracking down.
This region has a Twitter hashtag, #kwawesome, that seems a little needy to me. Places that are truly awesome don’t need to proclaim that fact.
Still, they truly do some things well. The initial, widespread criticism over uptown Waterloo’s public square has long since died down. While certainly not as pretty as downtown Kitchener’s City Hall site, it has proven itself as a great location to hold a wide variety of public events that do bring uptown. This weekend, it’s the Waterloo Buskers Festival.
It’s the 25th year of the event, so the city sponsored a special opening event: a free concert by Steven Page, formerly of the Barenaked Ladies. I got on the iExpress right from my office door to uptown (you see I was determined to fully partake of regional services) to take it in, on what turned into a beautiful summer day.
Mr Page played with one other musician, a cellist who also sang backup. He naturally did some of his solo material, which I admit I didn’t know, but that did demonstrate he hasn’t lost his ability to write catchy songs with clever lyrics. But he also offered a generous dose of Barenaked Ladies material as well, including “The Old Apartment”, “Enid”, “What a Good Boy”, “Jane”, “It’s All Been Done”, and of course, “Brian Wilson”, the closer (before an encore). In between, he offered amusing commentary. He played for about an hour, which is quite reasonable for a free show!
Why Steven Page, a Toronto guy, for this? Because—and while I think I’ve heard this before, I’d forgotten—the Barenaked Ladies played at the Waterloo Buskers Festival way back in 1990, when no one knew who they were. Not only that, but while they arrived a trio, they left a quartet, because they met drummer Tyler Stewart at the Festival. Unlike Page, he remains in the band to this day.
Jean joined me for only the last part of the show (work!), then we walked over to Solé Restaurant to try this year’s Summer Dishes menu: three courses for $33, using local ingredients.
There was no going wrong with the first course: Tomatoes and feta with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and fresh basil. Lovely. For the main, I talked Jean into taking the pork with apple and sausage stuffing, sweet potato mash, and sugar snap peas, while I stuck with the trout with potatoes and corn that we’d both been eying at first. Lucky for him, as that turned out to be the better offering—really delicious all around. As for the trout, it was nicely cooked, corn is amazing this time of year, and potatoes are pretty decent, too. The problem, to me, was the remoulade on the fish, which just seemed too heavy, disguising the fish too much.
They weren’t offering wine pairings this year, so we figured it out ourselves. I started with a glass of Cave Spring rosé (local, local!), while Jean had a French sparkling of Blanquette (not Champagne). For the main, we shared a half bottle of Tawse 2010 Pinot Noir. It wasn’t as rich as we thought it might be, given that 2010 was a pretty warm summer, but it was still a nice wine.
For dessert, we both opted for blueberry yogurt from Whole Lot-A Gelata, another local restaurant, and it was just delicious. (Maybe even awesome.)
Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin. Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine has to go live with her working-class sister Ginger after her wealthy husband is arrested for fraud.
** Adore (September 2013) – Theatre
