Graduation Groans

I have come to the startling realization that my degree is useless. That's not entirely true, but my career of choice is really childish. And like... teeny. Because (with any luck) I am going to be an assistant, answering phones, getting my boss coffee and driving his/her car to get the oil changed, and things that I could have done when I was 16...

I don't have a problem with that. It's the path I must take. But then I remember that my classmates at home who are graduating are going to be like... legit lawyers. And accountants. And actually have responsibilities. That mean something.

And that is pretty scary.

I should at least write my cover letter soon.

Pretending to be Indie-Musicy-Cool

Last night, I skipped class to go see Jenny Lewis with NB. She was amazing, her vocals didn't waver at all throughout the night, unlike Fergie who sounds frugging awful live. Not that I've seen her, but when she performs at award shows she's pretty bad. The chick from Paramore had great vocals too but she almost sounded like a recording where as Jenny Lewis somehow sounded much more... there.

Anyway, she's sexy as hell. Actually, she looks like some Mischa Barton Jennifer Garner hybrid, but she is adorable and makes me want to go out and buy a hat and cut my bangs again. I think I will visit supercuts this afternoon.

Please enjoy this youtube performance of Rabbit Fur Coat from her first album, which she tried to play last night and messed up on. Apparently it's a true story.

Alfred Hitchcock - Notorious (1946) - Part 1 of 11

If you don't feel like renting it... the whole thing is right here on youtube!!! Fantab.

Notorious (the Alfred Hitchcock version, not BIG)

I have always maintained, a little arrogantly, that I hate Alfred Hitchcock. There's a couple of reasons for this: (1) I saw Birds, and bits of Psycho, and they are def not my idea of an enjoyable afternoon. (2) He and Quentin Tarantino are the gods of the pretentious film student, and I try to stay away from their stereotypes.

But pairing Ingrid Bergman with Cary Grant? Well played, Alfie.

I had to watch some clips of this in my production design class, and I paid special attention since in my production class I have been all Noir-obsessed. The three clips I saw kind of fit in with my short film's story really well, so I could steal some of the cinematography. Tonight I finally got around to watching the whole thing, because NB wouldn't let me have the TV on (it was distracting him from work) and I wanted to feel like I was doing homework without actually having to do anything...

Anyway, I would strongly recommend this, for when you are in the mood to feel cultured but watch trash (let's face it, these things are essentially thriller pulps...), and when you want to cry about how people back in the day were so much better than they are today. Especially the men. And the women had sweet clothes and got to be drunk all the time... oh. No change there.

Plotty: After Alicia(Ingie)'s German-sympathizer-actual-German-war-profiteering-or-something father is thrown in prison, Devlin (Cary), an American agent, recruits her to use her connections to dig up dirt for the Americans. Her job is to seduce Alexander Sebastian, an old friend of her father's who happens to already be in love with her and is also a big bad German. Natch, she and Cary have fallen in love so things go all topsy turvy.

I don't want to give a good/bad, because all the things that I might consider bad are so retro-fun that they kind of make the movie for me. Such as long panning shots where you can feel the camera man walking around. The 'binocular' viewpoint. The rear projection for the exterior 'Rio' shots that were actually filmed on a sound stage. And that point at the end of the first act when the two leads proclaim their love for each other and everyone in the modern audience is like ... whaaa?! Didn't you guys JUST meet???

Other than that awkward moment, the romance was fantabulastic. I adore Ingrid, yes, because she had a great trenchcoat in Casablanca, and who can resist a good trenchcoat? I'd like to say I love Cary Grant, but as it turns out, I haven't seen anything on his IMDB. Although he is 'First Sailor' in a movie called Singapore Sue, so that gets him mega props right there. Whatever it is, the two of them make a great couple.

She is all 'I love you and I know you love me, I won't sleep with this other man if you say so...' and he's like 'I won't say I love you, see if I care if you sleep with him, if you want to sleep with him GO AHEAD' and she's like 'fine eff you I will!' and then he is all bummed. In real life (um, the real lives of my friends?) this situation either ends with her going 'oh no I would never' and he continues to not love her, or she says FINE and then... he really doesn't care.

(Actually, it's probably movies like these that make women believe that men are more noble than they are when they are being douchey. Because we/I would love to believe that they are pining inside but have to hold their feelings in to be manly, when actually they have completely forgotten about you since they have some weed and video games to hang out with instead...)

(Yea... I got pretty personal with all this... projecting...)

Even as individuals, they are pretty bad-ass. She is drunk all the time and taunts him by hinting about sex, and he is completely blase about the fact that she is drunk driving him around town, or that he just made a HUGE mess and has 5 seconds to clean it up before the bad guys catch him. Speaking of, the bigbad, Sebastian, is quite a sympathetic bad guy. He is quite genuinely in love with her and romantic, and doesn't seem terribly evil. And his creepy-ass mother is also pretty understandable. She might be a bitch, but she's always right. And she wants the best for her son. So... characters? Thumbs up.

And the best thing about thrillers, especially the ones where you know everything is going to be alright in the end: those moments where you are literally squeeling with worry, 'no, no, you STUPID cow! He's going to see you!'... and that sort of thing.

Ok, ok, the actual bad: The 'mystery' plot is pretty thin, like many James Bond's. 'Hey pretty lady, go um... find out... something. German.' 'Oh wow, (magical discovery), well at least now we know what's going on. Now you... find out where they're getting it from.' Really, does knowing they have uranium really tell me anything? Is this a secret no one let me in on?? But really. That's the only kind of annoying thing about it.

YAY! Because even if you don't like it that much, you can always go hang out with a crowd of film students and be all 'oh yea, I love the use of size in Notorious, you know, that was an enlarged model so they couldn't show her drinking out of it without cutting...'

Lots of ' ' and ... today. What's up with that?

What's for Dinz?

Lemon-thyme-garlic chicken and mashed cauliflower.

(I didn't take a picture, but it's not like it would be a good picture anyway.)

Now you know what I needed my cauliflower for. Mashed cauliflower sounds weird, but I was inspired by one of the Food Network Chefs who said it was a great substitute for mashed potatoes. No carb, ya know? I want to say it was Bobby Flay, but I don't really know, I was far away and I can't find the recipe on foodnetwork.com, so no clues there. I had to wing it, only knowing that I was meant to boil the cauliflower in milk for 20 minutes.

So here you go:
(serves 2)

Cauliflower:

1 head of cauliflower, cut into fleurettes
2 cups of milk
2 cups of water
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp crushed rosemary
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp parmesan
salt n pepper

Bring the milk, water and nutmeg to a boil. Simmer the cauliflower for 20 minutes. Strain it, leaving a little of the liquid behind. Stir in the butter, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper in, and mash it all together. It'll be a little soppy, so return to the heat, stirring until it's your desired consistency. Top with parmesan and stir.

Chicken:

2 boneless chicken thighs / breasts
2 tsp thyme
Juice of half a lemon
2 tbsp olive oil
salt n pepper

Marinate the chicken in all the ingredients over night. Pan fry the chicken for around 5 min on each side. (Mine took a lot longer because it wasn't totally thawed yet, so that was a guesstimate... I might be wrong)

Ta da!

No Wonder Poor People Are Fat

And by poor people, I really mean lower middle class. And starving college students. And um, people hit by the depression, and general depression. Because being poor makes you depressed (don't deny it, money can't by happiness but it can by lots of things that combat unhappiness, like cable tv, chocolate and pedicures) and being depressed makes you want to eat comfort food. And comfort food is fatty food.

But I'm not even talking what you crave. I'm talking what you can afford. With less money, you are just destined to either starve or eat badly.

First, eating out. Fast food is like zero dollars for something fattening and delish, like a double cheeseburger for $1.20 or something. The tacobell menu is also amazing and generally under $2 for pretty much anything. In comparison, a salad at a fast food place is like $4. Why the eff would you buy a salad at a fast food place, you ask? Fair enough. A regular deli has sandwiches and salads for $6 plus plus plus depending on where you go. So obvi, fast food wins.

But then, everyone knows that to save money you must eat at home. Fine. Let's go grocery shopping. I'm not even going to LOOK at the organic food and free range beef, because that is waay out of the budge. I am talking simple matters of veg vs carb, fresh vs preserved. A head of cauliflower is over $3, a pack of mushrooms is like $2, 2 leeks is again over $3... which isn't a LOT of money... but an ENTIRE bag of potatoes? 99c. Frozen vegetables are way cheaper and last longer. But the best: Ramen (slash instant noodly yummy nom noms) is 20c a packet. How can you beat that? Seriously healthy food, HOW?

MSG doused carbs are clearly the way to go here.

Just a little friendly rant. Your thoughts?

A BoyCrime Against Girlhood

The biggest boycrime is a boy with abs having his shirt on. That's how you know that Legend of the Seeker is a good show. Richard only wears a shirt when he absolutely has to.

Babyface used to have a hot bod. I don't know anymore, because all his pics as of late have been shirted. I think he might be having body issues because he's always the only shirted boy amongst a sea of flesh (and also sea of ocean, or sea of an effing hot sunny day). It's not like all of them have great bodies either.

Poor Babyface.

Turning Japanese

Have I raved about JustBento yet? I love it, although I wish they updated more. It makes me want to make bento boxes every day, except I usually eat at home unless I'm interning so I really don't need to. I made this miso chicken last night for dinner, it was like 5 min prep time and 15 min cooking. And cheap. Do it.