Dinner: Impossible

Have you watched Dinner: Impossible on the Food Network yet? Tonight I caught an episode where the chef had to cook a dinner for 200 on a Maine island in 8 hours with two sous-chefs and a handful of volunteers. He had one tiny kitchen and one barely working oven. Right now there's 2 hours left and he hasn't raised his voice to anyone except to call for progress reports from his guys in the next room. All the food they're making looks really great too. Lobster mac & cheese? Yes, please.

Tax Experiment

Every year my taxes are so easy. I always file the EZ forms online. This year was no different. I filed both federal and state in a matter of an hour or so. Yea!

I usually get a few hundred dollars back mostly because I have my 403b contribution deducted from my paycheck before taxes are taken out while still using the same old withholding status. Last year after doing my taxes I decided to change it to S-02 so less would be withheld each month. I was very curious to see how it would affect my refund. Would I owe the government money this time?

I'm claiming an undeniable success. I owe the feds only $43!

I can't remember if I changed my state withholding to S-02. I don't think so because I'm getting $85 back from the state. So I'm going to get a combined net $42 refund. That might just about pay for my dim sum lunch today.

Dr. Bashir on 24?

As I was watching the four-hour season premiere of 24, I couldn't stop thinking that the possibly former terrorist who Jack saved from being blown to smithereens looked really really really familiar. So tonight I looked up who's playing Assad and it's Alexander Siddig (aka Siddig El Fadil) who was Doctor Julian Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Now that was a great show. Worf. Dax. Kira. The list goes on.

Turns out he's also in Kingdom of Heaven which I had just watched on Saturday. No wonder he seemed so familiar!

Check out his birthname: Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi. I'm not joking. Poor kid.

Movie Report: Kingdom of Heaven

Sal doesn't like pretty boys (like me) but she said she liked Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven so I put it on my queue and watched it last weekend. I was afraid it would be one of those "brown" movies that I can't watch because everything is sepia-colored as if the audience has to be reminded it's a historical picture. Luckily it wasn't. I thought it was beautifully filmed and acted. I enjoyed it a lot.

Kingdom is the story of Balian, the bastard son of a medieval knight of the crusades. After his wife and son die in England, he follows his father's path to the Holy Lands to serve the Christian king of Jerusalem. Part of me wished I knew more of the history of the setting, but I later read some reviews that said the movie didn't stick very close to actual people and events. So it was probably better for my enjoyment of the story not to know much. Next time I get it I might run the pilgrim audio commentary track to see what the movie producers have to say about the history the movie was set in.

As far as Orlando went, even with big muscles and facial hair, it was impossible for him to not be pretty. Mmmhmm.

A Rainbow of Phlegm

I can't get over how much phlegm (is snot in the phlegm family?) my body is producing. And in such interesting viscosities and colors. But just a continuous, never-ending river of the white/greenish/red-streaked-yellow stuff. Amazing.

I'm fairly certain I'm developing calluses on my nostrils from all the nose-blowing and tissue-wiping activities from the past week. I think I need some salve.

Gmail-Jackin'

Some dude (with my same initials) changed the email address for his Amazon account to my Gmail address. Oops!

I now know what he's been ordering (ink cartridges and an estate planning CD-ROM) and where he lives (Oregon). I graciously forwarded all the emails I've received so far to his old address. We'll see if he emails me back.

ETA: Just heard back from him and he changed it back. He was very pleasant about it too. I could've just made a new friend.

24

All I can say about the new season of 24 is OMGWTF!


For a translation of the above acronym, go to your local UrbanDictionary. Rated R.

Melodrama to the Max

I've been neglecting my NetFlix recently so when I woke up early on Saturday I decided to watch the two movies that have been sitting around here for awhile: Elizabethtown and Billy Elliot. I really enjoyed Billy Elliot though the disc was damaged and I missed a couple really important scenes including the "Dance of Defiance" when Billy kinda comes out to his dad showing him how good he can really dance. Maybe someday I'll get to see it. I saw part of the Dance by watching the special features. That's how I know about it at all.

I thought Elizabethtown was going to be a romantic comedy but it wasn't really funny and it really wasn't that romantic. I liked it but I think my expectations going in ruined it a little for me. Maybe I just liked it cuz it was Ooo, Ooo, Orlando the entire movie. I kinda like him juuust a little bit. Which may explain moving Troy and Kingdom of Heaven to the top of my queue. They were both in my mailbox tonight so I decided to watch Troy. That's where the melodrama comes in, not necessarily in this order.

First there was the heaving, desperate romance of the beautiful Paris and Helen. Then there was the angsty, brotherly confrontation between the beautiful Paris and Hector on the boat leaving Sparta. Then there was the supernatural Achilles taking down a muuch bigger man with a single stroke. Then there was the yummy Odysseus trying to persuade a petulant Achilles to go to war with Troy. Then there was the saccharine reunion of Hector and his wife and son. Oh the longing glances. Oh the manly shoulders. Oh the flowing locks of gold.

Oh, then there was the petulant disregard of kingly orders. Then there was the bloody sacking of Apollo's temple. Then there was them thar fighting words. Then there was the heaving, desperate romance of Achilles and that dark-haired girl. Then there was the brave self-sacrifice then the cowardly self-preservation of the beautiful Paris. Then there was lots and lots and lots of fighting which I fast-forwarded through. (Did you know that even when fast-forwarding, if you have the subtitles on, they still show up? Ducky for me!)

Then there was the great big burning balls of fire!! Oooo! Then there was lots and lots and lots of fighting which I fast-forwarded through. Then there was the stupid bravery of Achilles' cousin and the aching self-doubt of Hector. Oh, the teary, kohl-lined eyes. Oh, the cute rosy baby. Then there was the heaving, desperate call of "Hector!" "Hector!" "Hector!" (not what you're thinking!) and then the fiercest, coolest, fight between men in skirts you ever did see. Then there was the dragging through the sand. Then there was the old man crying. Then there was the satisfying redemption of a soul.

Then there was the wily yummy Odysseus and the big black horse. Then there was the smart, beautiful Paris saying "Burn it" and the foolish old men saying "It's a present. Let's take it into our impenetrably walled city and dance around it!' Then there was lots and lots and lots of fighting which I fast-forwarded through. Then there was heaving, desperate running and running and running and oh just a little more running. Oh, the sad parting words! Oh, the beautiful Paris and his bow! Oh, an arrow through Achilles' Achilles' heel!

Whoo. I'm tired from all that heaving and running and fighting. I think I need some popcorn.

Yuck

I saw vomit on the stairs at the BART station on my way home. I'm not thinking I really need to eat supper tonight. Maybe some popcorn later. Maybe.

I Love Wiki

Wikipedia.org has a random article link that takes you to...you got it, a random article. It's cool like that. So follow along as I click "Random article" repeatedly.

Centennial (miniseries): a TV series from the late '70s based on the Michener novel that takes place in Colorado. I don't remember this show. It was probably a bit too mature for someone my age at that time. It starred lots of famous actors including Richard Chamberlain, Mark Harmon and Andy Griffith.

Happiness (film): a Cannes Film Festival award-winning black comedy from 1998, starring Lara Flynn Boyle, Jon Lovitz and Philip Seymour Hoffman, among others. I have to say I never heard of this film. I bet you have though.

Wisdom (surname): the names listed are Jack, John, John Minor, Norman, Olli, Peter and Robert Wisdom. Oh, man, I'm so tempted to click on the Olli Wisdom link but I will not. I'm on to the next Random Article!

Sensory neuroscience: which studies the behavior of neurons in our sensory systems in order to understand more about how the brain works. Cool.

S/2004 S 11: one of the satellites (moons) of Saturn. It's about 6 kilometers in diameter which doesn't sound very big in the scheme of things. Did you know that moons have an eccentricity as well as an inclination?

Landsbankadeild 2006: the elite football (soccer) league in Iceland in 2006. Included in the article are the top goal scorers. My favorite names from the list are: Tryggvi, Guðmundur, Sævar, and of course the winner, Björgólfur.

Hematon: part of the process of making blood cells. Other fun words in the article are: preadiposcytes, mesenchymal, megakaryocyte and haematopoiesis. Yea for science!

Dimocarpus: a genus of flowering plants in southeast Asia that includes longan fruit. Something else I've never heard of but I bet I'll be seeing longan fruit everywhere from now on.

Annemarie Moser-Pröll: an Alpine skier (downhill, giant slalom, combined) from Austria who won gold in the Lake Placid Olympic Games in 1980. She also got two silvers in Sapporo in 1972 not to mention lots of World Cup titles. She is now a grandmother and runs a café. Sounds like she's had a good life.

Karl-Maria Kerbeny: a 19th-century Hungarian journalist who came up with the word "homosexual" and wrote at least 25 books. He was inspired to argue for gay rights by a friend who was being blackmailed and then comitted suicide. Wow, so much information here. I could spend loads of time following all the links in this article. But onward...

Metaflow Technologies: a microprocessor design company in California. Not well-known to the general public. It was owned at one time by Hyundai.

WHIM (AM): a Florida radio station known as "Christian Heritage Radio" broadcasting since 1998.

Uses of podcasting: a list of reasons why you might want to create a podcast, including being subversive and communicating from space.

--oOo--

Well, that was probably too many pages of stuff. But it sure shows the variety of information on the great resource that is Wikipedia. Go Wiki!

BART Book: Break No Bones

Break No Bones
Kathy Reichs, 2006
ninth in the Temperance Brennan series
Kathy's site

After not really enjoying Cross Bones, the previous book in this series, I was curious to see if things got back on track with the latest Temperance Brennan story, Break No Bones. I was not disappointed. I loved this book. There's a great balance between Tempe's personal struggles in her relationships (estranged husband Pete, boyfriend Ryan, friend Emma) and her investigation into the mysterious forensic evidence found on the bodies of some missing persons in South Carolina. What she discovers is not what anyone expected.

Favorite part: I really liked the development of Pete's character in this book. We've seen him a few other times but we really got to spend some time with him as did Tempe, of course, which led to part of the tension that helped to make this book so good.
Least favorite part: There were a couple times that the story got bogged down in long explanations, especially at the end when the sheriff was reporting back to Tempe and Pete.

Next BART Book: ummm, haven't picked one yet
Previous BART Book: Four to Score, Janet Evanovich

Books on the Shelf:
The Family Tree, Carole Cadwalladr
One Good Knight, Mercedes Lackey
Hard Day's Knight, Katie MacAlister
Sins and Needles, Monica Ferris
Angel's Fall, Nora Roberts
Virgin Earth, Philippa Gregory
Books on Hold:
Mistral's Kiss, Laurell K. Hamilton

BART Book: Four to Score

Four to Score
Janet Evanovich, 1998
fourth in the Stephanie Plum series
Janet's site

Since I had so much fun re-reading Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone alphabet series, I decided to try the ever-entertaining Stephanie Plum books again. I got as far as the fourth book, Four to Score, and decided to stop. I just wasn't in the mood for the hijinks of Stephanie, Lula, Grandma Mazur and, new in Four, Stephanie's new puzzle-solving, transvestite friend, Sally Sweet. Even an appearance by her evil nemesis, Joyce Barnhardt, couldn't keep my interest. The whole series is hilarious though so the next time I'm ready for some comedic reading, I'll be sure to pick up with High Five.

Favorite part: eveyone in the neighbor thinking Stephanie is preggers
Least favorite part: that someone got scalped. Youch!

Next BART Book: Break No Bones, Kathy Reichs
Previous BART Book: Splintered Icon, Bill Napier

Books on the Shelf:
The Family Tree, Carole Cadwalladr
One Good Knight, Mercedes Lackey
Hard Day's Knight, Katie MacAlister (a trend in the making?)
Sins and Needles, Monica Ferris
Angel's Fall, Nora Roberts
Virgin Earth, Philippa Gregory
Books on Hold:
Mistral's Kiss, Laurell K. Hamilton

Going Off the Map

One of my Christmas gifts this year (thanks, Sal!) was a book called Off the Map. It's a collection of satellite images and commentary by two Scottish brothers who author GoogleSightseeing.com. The images are of natural formations, oddly-shaped buildings and even a sword-shaped swimming pool. They include coordinates so you can look up the images yourself in Google Earth or on Google Maps.

I was excited to see that my favorite satellite image was their first entry in Off the Map: the Richat Structure in Mauritania. I first saw this image on NASA's Earth As Art website and have used it as the desktop on my work computer for many years.

Earth, Wind or ???

My place just shook with a jolt and I thought maybe it was another quake (there was a 3.5 near here on Saturday), but then I remembered that they've been calling for rain and high winds for the next few days (maybe even a thunderstorm!). I just checked my WeatherBug and it said 22 mph. Wow. And that's from at station about 3 miles away. I live in a little valley that seems to be windier than closer to the bay (where the station is) so who knows how fast the wind is blowing here.

Guess What I Had for Lunch?

If you guessed chicken korma, you would be correct. Paul and went to the Indian place that had korma for $8 and it was pretty good. It wasn't as sweet and coconutty as I had in the UK but neither was it too hot to eat. I might go there again if only to have the roti that I ordered to accompany the korma. I usually get garlic naan but the menu said roti was whole wheat bread cooked in the tandoori oven. So I said what's wrong with that? Nothing! It was delish.

BART Station Face-Off

Now competing for your musical attention...

In one corner, a solo cellist outside the Starbucks is featuring the soothing melody of classical refrains...

While over by the exit to the plaza, a mariachi guitarist sings songs of his people.

Who will win? Or will the cacophony serve only to alienate the transit-riding public?

Thoughts of the Day

I'm still not at 100% and it seems the lingering super-phlegm is interfering with my ability to read comfortably on BART. So on the way home today, instead of reading -- and feeling nauseous -- I just sat there and thought about...

Identity
The new gameshow, Identity, premiered last night. The premise is to match up 12 strangers with 12 identities which may range from sumo wrestler to shark attack victim to professional bull rider to retired English professor. If you match all 12 you get $500k. Some of the strangers have obvious visual clues (a sumo outfit or cowboy hat) which the player can easily match to one of the identities on the list, while others are less obvious but still have visual clues (white-bearded, argyle-sweater-wearing older gentleman, dark-haired woman in a bikini top with a long Hawaii print wrapskirt).

Then the potential matches get harder and it's pretty much just guessing at that point. I found it entertaining for a little while but the easy matches irritated me with their predictability and the hard guesses annoyed me because really there wasn't much intelligence involved with guessing. I won't be watching it again, I don't think.

Korma Revisited
Yesterday while walking to the burrito shop, we walked by one of the four Indian restaurants within a few blocks of my office. I checked out the menu in the window and they have chicken korma for $8. Woo hoo!

The place I went to for lunch last week didn't have korma so I ended up getting chicken tikka kabaab which was too hot even when I told the guy I needed it mild. Paul got the chicken tikka masala and his was milder than mine. Plus the Bollywood music was hellaloud. We checked out the closest place to the office on the way back and they're quite pricy with korma at $13. Paul and I will be going to Little India on Thursday and I will report back on the $8 korma. I hope it's good! There's only one place to go after that.

Loud Music on BART
I like listening to my iPod on BART. The headphones discourage strangers speaking to me and the tunes provides a nice background to whatever I'm reading or thinking about. I don't listen to it very loud; I like being able to hear any announcements that might come over the PA system, you know, in case of emergencies. There aren't any signs banning it or anything but most people know it's not nice to play a boombox or radio out loud on BART.

Unfortunately the guy sitting behind me this morning didn't get that particular memo. I don't like calling attention to myself so I wasn't about to turn around and ask him to turn it down. No one else was brave enough to do it either so we all suffered through his jams the whole way in. It's sad because the more we let people like him get away with being rude, the more he's going to think he can do it. Or he just doesn't care.

The Nerve
Speaking of not respecting social boundaries, my phone rang on Saturday night around 10pm and the second ring was a higher pitched tone meaning the number was known to me. Now all my close relatives live in either in the Eastern or Central time zone and I don't really talk to my friends here on the phone that much so I couldn't think of who it might be. Of course, my first thought was that something bad must've happened somewhere to have someone calling me that late (which would be much later for most people I talk to).

But it wasn't a friend or a family member. No, when I checked my Caller ID the phone number was my office number. Say what??! Just who would be at work on a Saturday at 10pm much less calling me from work on a Saturday at 10pm!! Obviously, someone really really needed my help.

I thought, well, maybe our new IT guy wasn't back from his father's funeral in Oregon yet and something serious had happened to a computer. I could see someone calling me for that. But no, there was no computer emergency. There was no emergency at all.

In fact, as I listened to the never-ending message being left, I couldn't understand why this person would be calling me at all. It turns out she was asking about a situation she had talked with me about on Friday. She had shown me a letter to see if it made sense. It seemed okay to me but I had no experience in the matter so I didn't see how I could help her that much. I just don't know why she thought calling me about it, much less on a weekend, late in the evening, was appropriate. Really, the nerve.

Up & Down Day

This morning...
I was late leaving the house for work...
but then...
I got green lights the whole drive to BART.

At noon...
I saw some drunk guy pissing right on the sidewalk*...
but then...
The steak burrito I had for lunch was delicious.

Tonight...
The BART car was full when I got on after work...
but then...
I got a seat at the next stop.**

*Seriously! We were walking back from picking up our burritos when all of a sudden this guy pulled it right out and starting peeing right into the base of a tree. It was so disgusting. I nearly lost my appetite.

**Another woman and I were about equidistant from the open seat and she made a move towards it at about the same time as I did but she caught my eye and mouthed "Do you want to sit down?" Now I could've been nice and said no, but I had six more stops to go and I wasn't about to stand the whole way if I didn't have to.

BART Detour

Just my luck tonight I got stuck behind a train that had a medical emergency. I was in a full car and people weren't very happy. We had to go three stations north of where our route normally goes, then reverse back through those stations to get back on track (so to speak).

BTW, I really don't think you need to be calling your friends every five minutes to give them an update on which station you're at and bitch and moan about still being stuck on the train. Take a chill pill! It's not like you can do anything about it. Just relax!

Of course, I had my iPod on and my nose in a book. Sure pays being prepared.

I'm cold

I think I have a cold. I'm sneezy and my sinuses are achy and stuffy. I woke up with a sore throat this morning though that's better now. I'm taking some cold medicine and have been drinking tea all morning. I should've bought a teapot as a souvenir in England. I keep having to heat up the water to refill my mug.