A one-sentence rant

Carl Paladino is a loathsome shit.

Sentential Links #223

Linkage! Time fer linkage here!

:: Pie is more meaningful than old world family recipes. (I just found this blog last week. It's a blog by a woman who actually lives in the "American Gothic" house and likes overalls. And the title of the blog is The World Needs More Pie, which I always agree with. Overalls and pie? Awesome!)

:: I guess I'm just trying to say that while GRACE is my passion, my mission, I'm not always filled with it myself. I can be as ungracious as the next person.

:: Some of films most loved time travellers all come together to make me relive every high school dance I ever went to. (Love this. New blog to me, btw.)

:: What kind of world would we be living in if every selfish, self-infatuated little prick decided he was a Howard Roark or a John Galt?

Seemed to me Dostoevsky had already asked and answered that one.

A world in which selfish, self-infatuated little pricks take axes to the heads of little old ladies.

:: When people put me on hold and force me to listen to their music I should be able to force them to listen to my music. That’s only fair, right?

:: Arg. Reason # 34,567 why life in the 21st Century sucks...

:: Thanks to the many faithful readers who took time out of their busy weekends to email me the great news that millions of dollars are going to be spent creating a Family Circus movie. (The comments on that story I linked to are actually pretty great, my favorites being “Hell yeah! This means The Lockhorns can’t be far behind! Team Loretta!” and “Who asked for this? Ida Know. Who wants to see it? Not me.”) (Oh, no. No no no noooooo. Not a Family Circus movie. Please oh please. I beg of you, in the name of all the souls in all the world. Besides, what would that movie look like? Would the image be a circle projected at the center of a standard movie screen?!)

:: Fun comics fact: Uncanny X-Men #164 to Excalibur #24 take place over a single 365-day period, according to Chris Claremont. (Kitty Pryde’s 14th birthday takes place while she’s in space, infected with a Brood embryo, while her 15th birthday takes place right after she returns from the Cross-Time Caper.) This means that everything during that span, including both Secret Wars, Iron Man’s losing his company during his descent into alcoholism and his subsequent return to power as CEO, Spider-Man changing his costume from red-and-blue to black and then back to red-and-blue, Captain America being stripped of his super-heroic identity by the federal government and returned to power, several line-up changes in the Fantastic Four, the entire invasion at the hands of the Dire Wraiths and subsequent war, the destruction of Xavier’s mansion and the seeming death of the entire team of X-Men, the Mutant Massacre, and the temporary conversion of New York into a demonic outpost of the Limbo dimension…all take place in one year. Gives a new definition to “annus horribilis”, doesn’t it? (Aieee!)

:: The only thing I'm 100% sure about? I never want to see scattered hairs in a freezer again.

More next week!

Sunday Stealing

Time to steal from Sunday Stealing again!

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?

"Should I make the pumpkin coffee again, or go with espresso roast?"

2. How much cash do you have on you?

None. I'm at home, and therefore not carrying my wallet on me right now.

3. What’s a word that rhymes with DOOR?

Bloor. It's one of the major streets in Toronto.

4. Favorite planet?

Coruscant.

5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone?

No idea. It's a number I don't recognize, and they didn't leave a message on the day they called. Most likely a wrong number.

6. What is your favorite ring tone on your phone?

Whenever The Wife calls me, the tone is "All You Need Is Love". Everyone else is the main theme to Star Wars.

7. What shirt are you wearing?

My orange henley. (Underneath a pair of Key hickory-striped overalls, if you must know.)

8. Do you label yourself?

Everyday at work I have to wear a nametag, so I literally do label myself!

9. Name the brand of the shoes you’re currently wearing?

No shoes right now. I'm barefoot.

10. Bright or Dark Room?

Sometimes I'm in the mood for each.

11. Did you do anything to celebrate John Lennon's 70th yesterday?

I posted this on my blog.

12. What does your watch look like?

Black plastic band, digital face, silver bezel. It's a pretty basic digital watch.

13. What were you doing at midnight last night?

I was either finished up my reading for the night, or I had just turned out the light and was dropping off into slumber.

14. What did your last text message you received on your cell say?

It's from The Wife, reminding me to pick something up.

15. Where is your nearest 7-11?

It's about a ten minute drive away, in downtown Orchard Park.

16. What’s a word that you say a lot?

"Huh." In a tone of bemusement. Not "Huh?" as a question. A statement. "Huh."

17. Who told you he/she loved you last?

The Wife. We always close out phone calls to one another that way.

18. Last furry thing you touched?

Julio, our cat. He was in bed while I was taking a brief nap.

(BTW, "Furries" don't bother me. It's not my thing and I don't get the appeal at all, but who am I to judge? Do what you want! Live and let live, you crazy kids!)

19. How many drugs have you done in the last three days?

I don't do drugs, unless we count my blood pressure medication. I haven't even taken any ibuprofen in the last week.

20. How many rolls of film do you need developed?

Yeesh! None. Our film camera died a few years back. We're all digital now, baby! (I remember the first digital camera I ever saw, and wow, was that thing mindblowing -- all you had to do was pull out its onboard 3.5" floppy disc to transfer its 1 megapixel photos to your computer! Wow!!!)

21. Favorite age you have been so far?

This one.

22. Your worst enemy?

James Woods. What an SOB. Luckily, I am often able to distract him with pieces of candy. (Sorry...Family Guy reference there. I don't think I have any enemies.)

23. What is your current desktop picture (extra points if you post it.)?

Right now I'm going classic: the famous "Nighthawks" painting.

24. What was the last thing you said to someone?

"Would you get outta my way?!" (Said to Lester, who decided to walk right in front of my feet as I was on my way to the kitchen.)

25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly what would it be?

If I could fly, I'd bet I could use that talent to earn a million bucks. So, that!

Jaguars splat the Bills....

Jacksonville Jaguars 36, Buffalo Bills 26. So, for Bills fans, yet again:



The game was blacked out on local teevee, since (a) as the Bills get crappier and crappier, fans are more and more apathetic about them, and (b) the Jags aren't much of a draw anywhere, so you can't even count on fans of the other team to help fill the place up. (The Bills' game against the Steelers, later this year, will probably sell out, since Pittsburgh's one of the NFL's elite teams and since Pitt is only a 3.5 hour drive away, and fans will undoubtedly be able to get tickets for that game, cheap.) So I didn't see any of the game, which is fine by me.

Looking at the stats, then, it seems pretty straightforward. The Bills' games in 2010 are probably all going to split into two varieties: games in which the offense plays well but the defense can't hold the other team off at all, and games in which the offense stinks just as badly as the defense. Today's game was the former type of game, apparently; they ran the ball well (albeit not enough), and the passing game appears to have clicked, with Ryan Fitzpatrick completing 20 of 30 for 220 yards, 3 touchdowns, and no interceptions. He also spread the ball around, with seven different Bills making catches, and four guys catching multiple passes. Not bad.

The defense, however? A continuing train wreck. Only two sacks, one by a cornerback; over 200 rushing yards yielded yet again; et cetera. Thus, once again, despite a good day for the Bills on offense, it's pie-in-the-face time yet again.

Luckily, next week we can absolutely guarantee that Bills fans will not be pie-faced. Because next week, the Bills don't play. Oy....

Representin' against the Big C!

Pink!, originally uploaded by Jaquandor.

It's Breast Cancer Awareness month, so here's my pink t-shirt. Which I own because I like pink. Pink is nice.

No, I do not own pink overalls. Even I have limits!

"He's the darkness, reaching out for the darkness."

Oliver Stone's Nixon is an amazing film. I kind of wish Stone was still making movies like this: densely packed films that overwhelm the audiences with information and tell their tales in complex, non-linear ways. Well, maybe Stone still is making movies like this; in truth, I haven't kept up with his career much over the last ten years.

It's easy to see Nixon as a companion piece to the earlier JFK, and in many ways, it almost is. But it's also a very different film, even while using many of the same techniques of the earlier film. Nixon is more meditative, more of a character study, than a film interested in posing a particular hypothesis, as was JFK. (To a certain extent, anyhow – people often refer to "Oliver Stone's conpiracy theory" regarding the JFK assassination, but when you actually watch the film, no real, concrete hypothesis is ever actually advanced.)

Nixon seems generally focused on the way that the very strengths, or gifts, or skills that allowed Richard Nixon to ascend to the highest political office in the United States were the ones that brought about his downfall. A "tragic hero" will often have a bunch of good qualities, and one not-so-good quality that causes everything to fall apart. Nixon, however? His power came via his paranoia, and deserted him by the same route.

The film opens with a brief educational film about salesmanship ("What you've got to remember, Bob, is that you're selling yourself!"), and then we're into the story proper. The overall device of the film is Nixon, alone in his study during a series of nights toward the end of his Presidency, reflecting on the events of his past, most often by listening to his infamous tapes of his Oval Office conversations. The film is told in a series of flashbacks, then, and not always in the real order of events, but in the more real way in which we tend to remember things: the memories that surface as they seem relevant to the events of our present-day lives. At times, Nixon is remembering past political events, and at others, he is remembering past personal moments with Pat, the love of his life.

To me, the question of authenticity with regard to a film like this misses the point. I remember watching discussions of the film on news shows when it came out, back in 1995, and the topic always seemed to revolve around the extent to which Stone captured the "real Nixon". Some folks attacked the film on that basis, others praised it; I remember one commentator – I think it may have been Bryant Gumbel – who said, "I don't think it's the Nixon, but rather a Nixon". That seems pretty astute to me. Those closest to Richard Nixon seemed fairly adamant that Stone did not depict the "real Nixon", but even those closest to us don't know our real selves as well as they might think. Is Stone's Nixon a "real" Nixon? I suspect that he captures some of Nixon's qualities well, others not so well. I also suspect that Stone emphasizes some of Nixon's qualities a bit in the interest of making a better movie. I think that Nixon is to Richard Nixon as Henry V is to King Henry the Fifth.

Of special interest to me when I watched Nixon a couple of weeks ago was the way no one ever really spells anything out directly. Nixon himself seems to be talking in code with his assistants much of the time, and at no point does anyone say, "Hey, we should break into the DNC offices at the Watergate and see what we can find out." At no point does Nixon say, "We need to cover this up!" Everything is happening, or has already happened. This plays into one of Stone's themes of the film, which is stated outright in the scene of the odd moment (which really happened) when Nixon left the White House in the middle of the night, went to the Lincoln Memorial, and ended up interacting with the protesting kids there. Referring to the war, one girl says: "You can't stop it, can you? You're powerless."

Stone conveys this as well with a lot of fascinating cinematography. As in JFK< he employs a lot of different looks and styles throughout the film, sometimes shooting things "straight", while other times using black-and-white, or making the film very grainy in spots, or using lots of fades and superimpositions of stock footage to convey the magnitude of the issues Richard Nixon faced or the hugeness of his character. In many "Presidential" films or teevee shows, such as The American President or The West Wing, the White House is shot as a beautiful place where our patriotism and commitment to democracy is literally made physical. No so in Nixon; the White House here is an ominous place, and place of fear and dread in the face of historical forces that cannot be tamed.



Stone often frames scenes from odd angles, and many scenes depict dark shadows contrasting with brilliant light streaming in through windows. An early scene shows Nixon in his personal study, sitting beside a roaring fireplace while the air conditioning is on at full blast.

Nixon seems increasingly shocked, over the course of the film, to learn just how little control even a President gets to have over the forces around him, and by the time he really comes to grips with this, he is on the brink of ending his Presidency. Even late in that particular game, though, he continues to assert that a lack of control was what got them, in the end: "We never got our story out," he says to Alexander Haig. Nixon relishes the moments, all too few, when he gets to feel as though he is in control, such as when he puts a wealthy donor in his place or chews out Henry Kissinger. But he also reacts with increasing anger when his efforts at control fail, such as when a press conference goes awry or when his own wife tries to criticize him over dinner.



That brings me to the film's central relationship, that of the marriage of Richard and Pat Nixon. It's really an amazing relationship, as movie marriages go; it is not depicted as a relationship of blind love that is independent of everything else in Richard Nixon's life, nor is it depicted as Pat's Lady Macbeth to Richard's Macbeth, with Pat being ambitious and desiring of power all her own and only being in the marriage because it's the best route for a woman to real power in mid-20th century America. Pat Nixon is shown as being literally the only person in Richard's life who is ever willing to criticize him or tell him when he's wrong, but she is also there for him through everything, except for one brief period when she considers divorce. Even then, however, Richard brings her back from the brink, and even after all of her disgust during the long unfolding of Watergate, when Richard at last stands alone in the White House on that last night of his Presidency, ruined and emotionally drained and devastated, it's Pat who comes to him and gives him the only consistent shoulder he's ever known on which to lean.

Nothing in this movie would work without some great performances by the cast, and there isn't a single weak link among them. Stone assembles an astonishing supporting cast here; so much so that if this movie had been made in the 1970s, the posters would have included one of those rows of thumbnail photos of the stars along the bottom. James Woods, Bob Hoskins, M. Emmet Walsh, Saul Rubinek, EG Marshall, Madeleine Kahn, Tony Goldwyn, Mary Steenburgen, David Hyde Pierce, Ed Harris, and the like – Nixon might be the single most star-studded film of the 1990s to not feature Kevin Bacon in any role at all. But the two performances that center the film, that absolutely ground it, are Joan Allen as Pat Nixon, and Anthony Hopkins as Richard.

The film made a pretty wise choice as regards the "look" of Richard Nixon. They didn't go overboard in trying to make Hopkins look like the genuine article; they gave him roughly the same haircut and I assume some prosthetic teeth to make his smile look more Nixonian, but after that, they relied on Hopkins to do it all through the magic of acting. He plays Nixon as a somewhat hunched-over, physically awkward, gravelly-voiced man who never seems to exude much by way of charisma, but rather gets what he wants from others because he simply won't accept anything else. Nixon is a bundle of nervous energy, and Hopkins plays him as a man who sweats too much, grins at odd moments, and can't figure out what to do with his own hands.







Hopkins's performance is endlessly fascinating to me, coming as it does in the same period as a number of other performances by him that are all unique: there is nothing of Hannibal Lecter to be found in Hopkins's Richard Nixon; nor is there to found any of Mr. Ludlow from Legends of the Fall, CS Lewis from Shadowlands, or anyone else. Hopkins's Nixon is really a singular creation, so much so that the spell is actually broken twice over the course of the film, both involving Oliver Stone's use of archival footage from the Nixon years. One is of a Nixon mask, being paraded about at a protest rally; the features are distorted, but we can still see that it's a mask of the real Nixon; the other is at the very end of the movie, when Stone shows us footage of the real Mr. And Mrs. Nixon walking to Marine One for their final departure from the White House.

Joan Allen's Pat Nixon is equally remarkable, because hers is a quieter performance as the only person who gets to talk back to Dick Nixon and not only get away with it but be able to stick around afterwards. She is, by turns, thrilled by him, devoted to him, angered by him, disgusted with him, and in the end, deeply empathetic to him. We can see the pain on her face when she sees him, alone in the White House, talking to the portrait of John F. Kennedy, in one of the film's finest moments ("When they look at you, they see what they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they are.") The keenest moment of insight as to Nixon's character – as the film depicts it – comes when Dick is gearing up for his 1968 run for President, six years after he's sworn to Pat that he's done running for office. She is angry that he has been making plans without telling her, but she still feels the old hunger and the pain from the last two losing campaigns has mostly faded, so she is willing to stand with him once again – in fact, she even hungers for it herself, telling him "This time, we're gonna win. I can feel it." And Dick takes her in his arms and dances, in the best Nixonian fashion: awkwardly and gracelessly.



John Williams's score for Nixon is, to my mind, one of his more underrated efforts. He juxtaposes a cheerfully optimistic Americana sound with more downbeat and dark music as Nixon begins to spiral out of control. Stone closes the film with a musical choice that seems odd, at first, but is really amazingly fitting: the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's a capella rendition of Shenandoah. There isn't much in the film by way of period popular music, as instead Stone relies on Williams's sound world to help immerse us in the world of Dick Nixon.

As with JFK, a companion book was released for Nixon, containing the film's screenplay, a number of archival documents (including transcriptions of the Nixon tapes), and essays by the filmmakers, historians, and figures from the Nixon administration (John Dean and E. Howard Hunt). Here is an excerpt from an essay by Christopher Wilkinson, one of the film's writers:

The more we got to know Nixon, the more it struck us how odd he was. He was a man who referred to himself in the third person and called his wife "Buddy". He was physically awkward, socially graceless, and sexually repressed. Other than Bebe Rebozo, he had no real friends. When he needed to relax, he would just sit silently with Rebozo. For hours. Bob Haldeman was with him for nearly twenty years and never shook his hand.

The was a strange man, an extremely strange and mysterious man.

I cannot remember the precise moment when we started to empathize with Nixon. To begin to understand the tragedy of his life. To appreciate the true dimensions of his character.

Nixon came from nothing – the wrong schools, the wrong clothes, the wrong parents – and, by dint of hard work and self-sacrifice, rose to the heights. In many ways he is the American Dream incarnate, the self-made man who tortured himself to be a Somebody. And he never gave up. He came off the canvas again and again, rehabilitating himself, reinventing himself. Admittedly, the notion of Nixon the Indestructible is often trotted out to evoke sympathy for him.

But it's true.

There are other poignant and peculiar details that reached us, that slowly eroded our contempt. The emotionally distant mother who rarely touched him. The brutish father who directed fits of blind rage at him. The lonely, clumsy boy who was sure that no matter what he did, he would never be good enough.

And the dead brothers. First his beloved little Arthur. Then Harold, outgoing, attractive, a boy Richard idolized. A boy whose lingering death allowed the family to afford Richard's tuition to law school.

The guilt.

When Nixon fell in love with Pat, he drove her on dates with other boys to prove himself to her. He wore her down with a barrage of flowers and letters. He would do whatever it took to win her and he never let up until she was his.

Classic Nixon.

The only clean campaign he ever ran was 1960. Kennedy (like Harold) was everything Nixon was not – handsome, charming, articulate, witty. Nixon could have used any number of smear tactics against him; the religion, the Mob connections, the women. But he didn't. He respected Jack Kennedy more than any opponent he had ever faced. So, for the only time in his political life, Nixon played it straight.

And Kennedy stole the election from him.

The fact that he didn't completely come apart during the crushing pressure of the final days of Watergate is a testament to his bullheaded resolve. To his perverse brand of courage. Everyone was against him. The country wanted his head on a pike and he wouldn't give it to them. A lesser man might have run screaming and drooling down Pennsylvania Avenue. Or had a stroke. Or committed suicide. But not Nixon. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

As President, he did more to desegregate the schools than any of his predecessors. He created the first and most effective Environmental Protection Agency. He has few (if any) Presidential peers in foreign policy: the spectacular opening of China, achieving detente with the Russians. Accomplishments that Nixon, the quintessential Commie hunter, was uniquely suited for. If a liberal Democratic President had tried it, he would have been crucified.

And Nixon would have brought the nails.

Nixon stretched our idea of what greatness is. He is a huge character who embraces the entire American landscape from its loftiest ambitions to its most malignant schemes. To understand Nixon is to understand what we have been. To understand Nixon's destiny is to understand what has happened to us. To understand Nixon's life is to understand the history of our times.

What strikes me now, on reflection, is the way the Nixon political playbook has come to dominate American politics in our day, forty years after Nixon held office, with its dirty tricks and coded appeals to our baser instincts. But Nixon's actual policy goals now form the farthest boundary to the left that our politics are willing to allow voice. It's amazing to me that if a Republican candidate came along now, espousing Richard Nixon's policy goals, that candidate wouldn't even make it out of the primaries. Things that a Republican President did forty years ago would be labeled as unforgivably liberal -- Socialist, even -- if a Democrat did them today.

What a great, disturbing film this is. Just like Richard Nixon himself.

Sunday Burst of Weird and AWESOME!

Oddities and Awesome abound!!!

:: A couple I'd have never thought belonged together, until I saw them: Jack Skellington and Betty Boop. (Second photo.) Awesome!

:: Little girl writes letter to Johnny Depp, asking him to help her mutiny against her teachers. Depp obliges...well, except for the mutiny part. Johnny Depp: Awesome!

:: Interesting article about Designing the Enterprise-E for Star Trek: First Contact. I did like that Enterprise more than the Enterprise-D (the Next Generation ship), and I've always thought it too bad that that ship was only around for three films, only one of which was really good. Oh well! Although one thing in the article stands out: the Enterprise-E was designed to "fight the Borg". That kind of sums up, in my mind, the degree to which Rick Berman either lost his sense of what Star Trek was all about, or never had it to begin with. There's no way that Starfleet would design an entire enormous ship like that for the purpose fighting a single enemy in a single war!

:: xkcd revists the Map of Online Communities. I think that to depict me on the map, the map would have to be a globe, and I'd be a space probe launched from that globe several years before.

More next week!

Happy birthday, Mr. Lennon

Wherever you are!

Ideas that didn't need to happen

This may be the strangest candy I've ever seen:



Ewwww.

From above....

Looking down...., originally uploaded by Jaquandor.

Looking down on myself...whoa! I took this with my cell phone, just holding it up over my head with my left hand whilst sitting in my arm chair using the Interweb to distract myself from the awful football being put on display by the Buffalo Bills. Hey, I gotta have fun some way, don't I?

Something for Thursday

Amongst my many musical discoveries during my college years was the German electronica band Tangerine Dream, which has been around in one form or another -- always fronted by synthesizer genius Edgar Froese -- for over 40 years. That's quite a long time, and TD has been through many shifts in its musical style in that period. Many fans seem to think that the early to mid 1990s represent a low-water mark for TD, but that's the TD music I knew first, and I still return to it fairly often. This lovely track finishes up their album Melrose.

Here's "Cool At Heart".

A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

Everybody tells me that poetry is a dying art. Is it? What does it even mean for something to be a "dying art"? People still read and write poetry, and I think they always will, as long as language exists. Maybe poetry won't have as strong a command on the cultural landscape ever again that it once did, but is that the same thing as saying an art is "dying"?

Are there any arts that are truly dead?

Teevee Notes

So, how's the new season of teevee shaping up?

:: New show I like: Hawaii Five-0. I've said this before, but I do like the chemistry amongst the leads and the cantankerous relationship between Garrett and Danno. I just wish the show's production design wasn't exactly like CSI:Miami. Of course, Grace Park goes a long way.

:: I kind of liked the pilot episode of Outlaw, the new Jimmy Smits show, but I didn't like it enough to not forget about the show for two weeks afterwards. I'm a big fan of Jimmy Smits (The Wife is an even bigger fan of his!), but my favorite show of his was Cane, the soap opera he starred in a few years back in which he was the head of a family whose fortune is made in making rum in Florida. Unfortunately, that show didn't last long.

:: Shows I like that I haven't started watching yet this year: Grey's Anatomy (wow -- it's been a fave of mine ever since Season One), 30Rock, and House.

:: Shows I'm not liking as much as I used to: The Office, CSI:Miami. Both have, in their own way, become just too farcical to take even remotely seriously.

:: Reality: The new season of Hell's Kitchen is just OK. Maybe it's too soon after the most recent season, or maybe this go-round's competitors are lacking, but the show seems to be amping up the lunacy and taking the focus off the cooking as much as possible. This disappoints me. I know that the show's main selling point is watching Gordon Ramsay blow a gasket every week, but it gets a bit old.

I've noticed, by the way, that Ramsay's favorite adjective is "amazing". As in, "Today you will cooking with the most amazing fresh salmon!" "You're to prepare a dish using the most amazing Kobe beef!" "My wife and I just had the most amazing...."

Survivor's Wednesday timeslot blows. Haven't seen it yet this year, except for the first one.

The Amazing Race is off to a good start. The Race looks pretty demanding this year. Typically they'd spend several episodes in Europe before moving on to another continent, but this time, they were in England for one episode, and then BAM! They're off to Ghana. Wow!

The Apprentice is also in bad-timeslot hell for me. Oh well.

:: I still like The Mentalist, but I wish more and more that Patrick Jane would be wrong once in a while, and that they'd either ramp up the "Red John" storyline to a conclusion soon or just forget the whole thing. Endlessly dragging on the tale of the "superkiller who continues to elude the hero" gets old after not as long a while as many teevee writers seem to think. (Witness the wonderful NBC show from the 90s, Profiler, which dragged its own "superkiller after the heroine" mytharc thing for so long that by the time it was resolved, it had pretty much lost all of its steam.)

:: I need to watch at least one episode of CSI:NY, just because I want to see Sela Ward again.

:; The prospect of a new Wonder Woman teevee series would make me happy, if it wasn't being developed by David E. Kelley, whose work I have always hated. Ugh. To know that there's a Joss Whedon script out there for a Wonder Woman movie that will never be produced is bad enough, but David E. Kelley? That would be like announcing the filming of a new Star Wars trilogy, to be written and directed by Michael Bay.

:: I'd like to see the new J.J. Abrams spy show on NBC, but I don't think I'm gonna get time for it.

That's about all for right now in Teevee Land!

The "Three Things" Quiz

I guess I'm feeling kind of "quizzy", because here's one from Monday Mayhem.

3 Places I Would Pack My Travel Bag For

Disney World
Pittsburgh, PA
Portland, OR (even though I haven't been there in 30 years)

3 On-Screen Characters I Love To Watch

Han Solo
Rick Blaine
Chef Gordon Ramsay

3 Moods That Describe Me The Best

Hungry
Sardonic
Curious

3 Things I Always Think Of Doing On A Weekend

Sleeping
Reading
Writing

3 Things From My Childhood That I Can't Forget

This kid named E.J., from first grade. He was a really good friend, but he moved away halfway through the year.

The first girl I had a crush on. Her name was Beth. She hated me. Oh well!

This movie that my sister really wanted to see, and I got dragged along for the ride. The movie? Star Wars.

3 Things I Would Never Say No To

Free pizza
Coconut cream pie
A trip to a used bookstore

3 Things I Can't Live Without

The Internet
Ice Cream
My family!

Time Traveling

I'm stealing this from Sunday Stealing. It's been a while since I stole from them, but I liked the way this one looked.

The rules:

1. Depending on your age, go back 10, 15, 20, or even more years.
2. Tell us how many years back you have traveled and why.
3. Pretend you have met yourself during that era, and tell us where you are.
4. You only have one "date" with this former self.
5. Answer these questions.

Okay, as we start, what year is it and how old are you?

I've gone back 22 years, to myself at age 17 as I'm entering college.

1. Would your younger self (YYS, from here) recognize you when you first meet?

I greatly doubt it. He might think there's something vaguely familiar about this guy, though.

2. Would YYS be surprised to discover what you are doing job wise?

Extremely! He'd be shocked to learn that I ended up in retail, instead of in music; he'd be stunned, in fact, to learn that he wouldn't even finish getting his degree in music but switch to Philosophy. He'd be shocked to learn that years from now, he'll develop a fascination with tools (both hand and power) and find a desire to take up woodworking as a hobby. I don't think he'd be surprised at all to learn that the desire to write is still there.

3. What piece of fashion advice would you give YYS?

"Look, son," says I, "at this point in your life, that hairstyle you've got going in is utterly Godawful. You're fascinated by the idea of having long hair, right? Well, clearly you gave in, so you might as well go ahead and give in now."

His eyes are wide. "Wow!" he says. "And I can grow a beard, too?"

"Well...eventually. For whatever reason, it takes a few more years past the college age before any beard you grow won't look Amish because your mustache refuses to come in. It'll get there."

"OK, I'll wait on the mustache. What about all these shirts and stuff?"

"Burn them."

"Well...all right...."

"You got something else to ask?"

"Yeah. Are those overalls in style in 22 years?"

"Not really. But you'll realize that you don't care."

"Oh, cool."

4. What do you think YYS is most going to want to know?

"Am I ever going to have a girlfriend?"

5. How would you answer YYS's question?

"Yup. But first, stop doing that 'creepy stalker' thing. They hate that."

"Wow! Is she really pretty?"

"Yes, she is. And the best thing is, she'll get prettier every year you know her. Oh, and she'll wear overalls too."

"Wow...."

6. What would probably be the best thing to tell YYS?

"You will live to see a black President. And he won't be a Republican."

7. What is something that you probably wouldn't tell YYS?

"How about kids?" he asks. "Because right now I don't think I want kids."

"Yeah, well...there are gonna be some curveballs there. Best you find those out on your own."

8. What do you think will most surprise YYS about you?

That real love isn't as distant as he thinks.

9. What do you think will least surprise YYS?

That he will live in Buffalo.

10. At this point in your life, would YYS like to run into "you" from the future?

Maybe not. I think that on some levels he'll be disappointed, but that's because of things he doesn't know yet.

Sentential Links, deferred

Sorry about the lack of posting today, but I'm getting back into the swing after taking a brief vacation last week. Sentential Links will return next week, huzzah!

It's me...Bayified!

It's me...Bayified!, originally uploaded by Jaquandor.

So, what could possibly be going on here? Why would I be walking toward an orange sports car with Shia LaBeouf sitting in the passenger's seat, with explosions behind me, a fighter jet bearing down, a bomb on the ground, and a gun hanging in the hammer loop of my overalls?

What on Earth could be happening here? It's like I was cast in...a Michael bay movie!

Jets 38, Bills...a lot less than 38.

A new week, a new opponent, a new game...and the same result for our lovely Bills fan.



Sigh...although I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the game, really. I stepped out to do a bit of shopping before the game started, so I didn't tune in until the 2nd quarter was underway. Turns out I didn't miss much. A few notes:

:: For some reason, it seemed like the color was off on my teevee, because a lot of the reds were showing up a vibrant pink. Turned out that they were actually pink. There was a lot of pink stuff at the Stadium today, from the players' shoes and gloves and even their towels, to the pom-poms held by the cheerleaders, even to the cords for the refs' whistles. This was apparently a "Breast Cancer Awareness Month" thing, as that month is October.

:: I still think that any possible bright spots for this team are to be found on the offensive side of the ball.

:: But that's kind of like saying "Hmmmm, the turd floating in that punch bowl seems a bit smaller and less stinky than the turd floating in this punch bowl." I like the effort that receivers Steve Johnson and David Nelson display, and obviously CJ Spiller is a star waiting to happen. Hopefully he's still got something in the tank when the Bills finally manage to put together a team capable of controlling the line of scrimmage.

:: Ryan Fitzpatrick tries really hard to play like an NFL quarterback. He's got the mindset. He doesn't have the physical tools. That's a shame.

:: I've never hated Dan Deirdorf as a color guy, personally, even though I've never once met anyone else who didn't think he was a giant windbag. But today he said something so dumb that it really caught my attention. LaDanian Tomlinson raced right up the middle for a long TD run (25 yards or thereabouts), on which Donte Whitner completely whiffed. Deirdorf then said, "Donte Whitner is one of the best tacklign safeties in the NFL." How the CBS Sports people let him say stuff like that without fining or firing him is beyond me. Whitner is not, and has never been, a good tackler. What Whitner does well is...yeah, we'll get back to you when we figure out what that is.

:: The Bills gave linebacker Chris Kelsay a contract extension last week for quite a lot of money. He then promptly went out onto the field and did what he always does: miss the play, each time. Why they felt the need to extend his deal is one of the great mysteries right now of Buffalo sports.

:: Buffalo's secondary did a lot of trash-talking before the season as to how good they thought they could be. Four games in: zero INTs, lots of bad tackling, bad coverage all around. Yes, a pass rush would help them. No, the Bills do not have a pass rush. None of that matters.

:: 2011 Draft First Overall Pick Watch: the Cleveland Browns got into the 'win' column today, which makes the Bills the last remaining team in the AFC with zero wins. In the NFC, the 49ers, Lions, and Panthers are all sitting on 0-4 records, just like the Bills, so Buffalo still has to continue losing in order to stay at the top of the First Overall Pick heap. Now, assuming that this group of teams forms the top of the draft pecking order in some way, the Bills can still get a break, even if they draft fourth behind San Fran, Detroit and Carolina, since each of those teams already has the quarterback they probably want to go ahead with (barring a career-ending injury to Alex Smith, Matthew Stafford or Jimmy Clausen, respectively). Yes, Cleveland might be dangerous to move into that group as well, but they've got one win already...and they play the Bills later this season, so they've got at least a 2-14 season in the bag! Let's go Bills! Keep that season circling the drain!!!

:: Next week: the Jaguars come to town, bringing Buffalo's recently-jettisoned former starting quarterback, Trent Edwards, along for the ride. The Jags aren't usually all that great, but they're coming to Buffalo, folks. Better get ready for some more pie!

Sunday Burst of Weird and AWESOME!

Oddities and Awesome abound!

:: OK, I like Krull too, but let's not go crazy here, folks. (Especially if you can't even get your LOTR facts right!)

:: I'm not the biggest fan of steampunk in the world, but it's a fun little subgenre that does yield some awfully nifty stuff from time to time. Case in point:



:: One subset of blogs that are always fun to follow are what I call the "One man's obsession" blogs: blogs which are devoted to a person's singular pursuit of something, be it a hobby or particular area of interest. A great example is Slice Harvester, wherein a guy is blogging his way through a slice of pizza from every pizza joint in New York City. Don't read this blog on an empty stomach, of course.

More next week!

In the Garden of Eatin'

I haven't done a food-related post in a while, so here's...a food-related post.

:: Every summer, as we reach the final weeks of August, the sweet corn starts to get really good 'round these parts, and we have corn-on-the-cob with just about every meal. (Well, not quite. Never tried it with pancakes.) And our favorite item to feature alongside the corn is the good old BLT sandwich. But we take our BLTs fairly seriously; no thin-sliced bacon cooked to death served on boring white bread with iceberg lettuce here, nosiree! It's whole grain bread, nicely toasted; lots of richly green leaf lettuce; thick slices of fresh (and local) tomato; nice-sized slices of red onion (technically making our sandwiches 'BLOTs'); and, of course, slices of thick-cut bacon cooked just to the point where it's starting to crisp.



We'll serve this menu two or three times in just a couple of weeks. And then, we won't have BLTs again until the waning days of next summer.

:: Picnics are another pleasure we like to indulge in the warmer months, pretty much like everyone else. Our picnic fare is similar to everyone else's: sandwiches, chips, and some fresh fruit. We like to buy nice, crusty rolls, like Ciabatta, and put fine meats and more green leaf lettuce (or Romaine, depending on what we have) and some Provolone on the roll. Serve with chips, it's an entire meal.



:: Chips with cheese dip:



No, we didn't make these. This dish is from a local Mexican restaurant which we've tried a few times and have found...OK. The place is decent enough, and it has a great looking interior and the service is never a train wreck, but it hasn't really wow'd us of yet. In truth, we're still looking for a place to fill the void in our lives left behind by the local departure of Don Pablo's. Sigh....

:: This one, however, I did make. One weekend we were grocery shopping, and we realized we had no dinner plans for that Sunday evening. So I grabbed a fairly cheap roast of beef, and the next morning, I mixed up a batch of this barbecue sauce, dumped it in the crockpot, submerged the beef in the sauce, and let the thing simmer away on "low" for ten hours. When I removed the roast, it looked like this:



Then I took a couple of forks and shredded the thing. It was so tender, this only took about a minute and very little effort; the meat was falling apart, which is exactly what we wanted.



We served the meat on toasted rolls. Shredded meat sandwiches are awesome! On the side, roasted potatoes. Yum! Seriously, this was about as low-effort a meal as I've ever made. So easy.

:: I've mentioned this joint before, but I always like to repeat myself. Some of our favorite places to eat are "road food" joints, the places that are plunked on the side of the street, where you order and pick up at a window and eat at an outside window. Our favorite such place is Taffy's, which is very well-known in the Buffalo Southtowns.



There actually is some indoor seating here, but that amounts to three or four tables and three spots at a very tightly cramped counter. The attraction here is the outside, the benches that rock back and forth, the oldies on the stereo, and watching the cars go by at one of the area's busier intersections. The food is your typical fare at such a place: burgers, sausages, fries, and an enormous menu of milkshakes. (In the photo, see the lady with the backpack there? To her left is a white menuboard. That menu is nothing but milkshake flavors.) Taffy's was actually in the news recently when a customer received a single curly fry that was several feet long. We've never been that lucky, but it's still fun to eat there.

Here's what I had last time, the "Western Philly Cheesesteak sandwich":



The "Western" part is the barbecue sauce poured onto a standard cheesesteak. Still, this thing was Teh Awesome!

:: Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, dessert. Which is usually ice cream. Hooray for ice cream!

Firstly, I was thrilled to see that a flavor The Wife and I dearly loved but which disappeared from the freezer cases across Western New York years ago, is finally back. Behold...Perry's White Lightning!



If you can't read the label, it's dark chocolate ice cream that has a white chocolate and mint swirl running through it. Oh man, is this stuff good.

Our favorite place to go out for ice cream is a little roadside joint called Route 20 Ice Cream, which is just down the road from us.



It's done up in the style of a gas station from the 1940s or thereabouts, complete with a couple of antique cars nicely fixed up and parked there and antique pumps, like this one for "Sky Chief" gasoline:



(Sky Chief was a premium gas blend put out by Texaco years ago. A friend told me this over on Flickr, and that's indeed the case, according to Wikipedia. Cool!)

Of course, the ever-present danger in a place like this is choosing what to have. You spend a lot of time behind people staring at the menu, like these two ne'er-do-wells:



Rapscallions, I say!

:: And of course, at the end of the day, you just want to ease into relaxation mode by quaffing a nice beverage.



I don't remember what beer I was drinking when I took this, but I got that gorgeous mug at the Sterling RenFest this year. It's now my favorite implement for the consumption of fine lagers and ales. Huzzah!!

And that's the recent story in food here at Casa Jaquandor.