Okra

Okra:   What can I say about okra that hasn't been said 100 times before.  Probably not much, but here goes nonetheless.

Whoever the first brave soul was that upon seeing an okra pod and after more than likely making a quick mental analogy between the okra and an insect cocoon still went on to say, "I think I can eat that", I salute you. [1]

Especially since they then busted open that okra pod and found out that it was completely full of small white beads that remind you of moth balls and snot.  And they still went on to eat it. [2]

I want to like okra.  Really I do.  But okra tries so hard to make you not like it.

First of all it's green.  I mean really green in a way that other vegetables don't quite manage.  It's green like a plump grasshopper.  [3]  The green-ness calms down a bit when you cook it, but of course that just amps up some of the other problems, like the fore mentioned snot.

This stuff is straight up gross.  Dang yo, that's like six kinds of nasty. [4]  I know I keep making the snot reference but it is so perfectly apropos.  Okra innards are simultaneously exceedingly sticky and super slickery.   You would think cooking the okra would break it down and make the stuff dissolve, but all it does is make it worse.  Because the water or soup or gumbo or whatever it is the okra is cooked in does thin out the snot, but at the same time it just makes the whole thing a bigger bunch of thinner snot that is still just as slickery. [5]

To be honest I'm surprised that somebody hasn't made a trillion dollars my making some kind of adhesive based on okra snot.  Heck, you could even call it that. [6]

Even if there's enough other things in whatever it is you're eating that you can no longer taste or feel the okra scum, it's still there.  Then after you are done eating your bowl of gumbo or whatever, you are left with a weird film coating the inside of your mouth that you try real hard not to think about.

And again, there's still those odd mini-moth balls that I haven't even talked about.

Taste-wise, okra's pretty meh.  It's not offensive, but it's not something to write home about either. [7]  However, it does somehow imbue an entirely different flavor into the other things it's cooked with.  So, while the actual okra in gumbo don't seem to have any real flavor at all, making gumbo without okra would be a fail.

Of course I suspect the vast majority of okra is consumed in the traditional southern manner anyway.  Battered, fried and dunked in a sauce or dressing that completely hides the okra all together.  Which, is really just fine with me.  Because while okra is meh.  Ranch dressing is awesome.

Okra: C

p.s. - Here's an update that is being written before this post was even posted!  How's that for service!

There are now Okra Chips.  They are evidently freeze dried okra cut into slices and meant to be a "healthy" snack.  I cannot express how nasty that sounds.  But I am will to bet that even the freeze dried chips still have that wonderful okra snot sensation.

[1] - Man was that a sentence.  Please to excuse the inevitable bad punctuation.
[2] - Desperation or inspiration, I'm not sure which.
[3] - And be honest, if you busted an okra pod open and found a grasshopper inside would you really be surprised at all?
[4] - Hat tip to Dave Kellett there.  He's brilliant.  Have you read all of Sheldon?  I have.  http://sheldoncomics.com/archive/090208.html
[5] - You know I'm not exaggerating at all.
[6] - Move over Gorilla Glue, now there's Okra Snot!  Sticks to everything!  Except perhaps televangelists.
[7] - Dear Mom, Okra is pretty blah.  With love, your son.

Les Miserables

Les Miserables: I suspect I might step on some toes here, but let me officially go on record as saying, 'meh'.

Having heard about this musical for years, I was expecting more.  Granted I have never seen the Broadway version [1] but I was moderately intrigued.  I had heard snippets of songs and such from various outlets. [2]  So, I had a small amount of preset expectations.

They weren't really met.

I'm led to believe that the movie version tried to make the singing more like acting and less like singing, [3] but whatever it it they were shooting for, it didn't thrill me.

For instance, I always imagined the "I'm Jean Valjean" song as being very emphatic at the end.  Sort of an "I'M JEAN VALJEAN!!!!!!!!!!!! and if the rest of the world doesn't like it, they can bite me!" vibe.  But when I saw it in the movie it was more like, "Say, does anyone know my name?  Oh yeah, that's right.  I'm [mumbles]."

Also sorry Russell, but stick to Roman warriors and crazy scientist.

In truth, at one point I thought to myself, "You know, I could fall asleep right now if they would just stop singing."   Okay it wasn't that bad, but I did find myself a bit bored at times.

I think part of the problem was that the scope of time covered caused them to go a pretty quick pace through the plot.  Thus everything felt way too full of emotions that were not yet warranted.  I'll see if I can capture the idea in a quick scene:

Bob and Carl walk down the street. [4]  They see someone on the other side of the road.

Bob: Who is that over there?  I don't think I have ever seen that person before in my entire life.
Carl: Me neither.  But I love her forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bob: I think it's a dude.
Carl: I hate him forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, that kind of captures it.

With out really giving away anything that might happen in a musical entitled, "The Miserable", one of the characters commits suicide.  When that was happening, I was a bit perplexed.  From what I could tell the character seemed to have a pretty good life, except that every few years he would bump into one of the other characters.  Suicide seemed a trifle bit of an over-reaction.

I understand that I've completely misinterpreted the relationship between the two, but that's sort of my point.  It wasn't really developed.  Everything in the musical happened so fast, with no real build up.

You have a job.
You're fired.
You're a prostitute with no teeth or hair.

Say what?

Also, now that I'm thinking about it, in that scene I made up, I should have actually called Carl by the name Marius.  I don't think there has ever been a more mercurial character in a movie.

I'm ready to die for the revolution.
Ooh! A pretty girl.  Forget that, I'm in love.
Wait, give me a gun, let's fight!
My love is true forever!
To the barricade!

He was like an otter spying a succession of shiny objects.  I don't envy Cosette trying to keep him faithful. [5]

I could write more about this and that, but I'll let it go.  Let me just finish by saying that I hope Russel and Hugh hit puberty soon.

Les Miserables: C-

[1] - Neither live or otherwise.
[2] - The radio, the Internet, the Pook.
[3] - Or some sort of nonsense like that.
[4] - I swear I picked those names at random.  Any relevance to janitors, sci-fi or otherwise, is purely coincidental.
[5] - Or alive.

New Years

I was a bit late on the Christmas post, so here's a nearly equally late post about New Years.

New Years: On the whole this holiday is kind of lame from pretty much all fronts.  Let's start with . . .

The Time Perspective: As somebody once said, "time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future. [1]  Also it's been noted that time doesn't have a start or an end, it just keeps right on going.  Nevertheless, we [2] arbitrarily picked a day to mark as the end/beginning of the period of time it takes the Earth to orbit the sun.  Then we made it into a party.  We could have just as easily picked March 13 or September 25. [3]

I realize that it probably had something to do with the symbolism of winter representing dying and the end.  Combined with the birth of the new year with spring, but if that was really what we aiming for then January should have started on the first day of Spring. [4]

The Holiday Perspective: We just had Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Festivus. It's only been one week!  We realistically can only celebrate so many holidays in a year and the winter has so many of them.  Look at August.  There's nothing.  I'm just saying.

The Celebration Perspective:  And how do we "celebrate" the new year anyway?  Did you do anything, anything at all that actually had any relevance to a 'new year'?

Granted some of you may have made a resolution, but what does that have to do with a new year?  I mean I get it, new year, new chances, new choices.  Or rather that's what it's supposed to be.  Instead it's more like, new year, new chances, same old behavior. [5]

For most the holiday was an excuse to drink to much and wake up in a fog wondering what happened. [6] Of course, that's probably the real point of the holiday anyway.  New Years is like Christmas' drunk step-father.

And the reality of it is that most people are not looking forward to or actually celebrating on New Years at all.  Everyone gets together on New Years Eve.  They party it up and then once midnight hits, Jenny McCarthy kisses some random stranger and we all go home.  The arrival of the supposed point of the celebration is actually the signal of its end.  Seriously when you were anticipating whatever fun you were anticipating for the holiday, I'm willing to bet that what you were thinking of was stuff that you did on New Years Eve and not on New Years Day.

How most people really "celebrated" actual New Years Day was they watched some football and watched a parade.  Which might have actually been exciting if you hadn't just finished watching parades on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

New Years: D

[1] - No, it was not Seal.
[2] - Meaning Humans.
[3] - Except then of course those days would have been January 1st, but whatever.
[4] - a.k.a. March 20th
[5] - Be truthful now.  As I write this it's January 14th.  How many of you who made them are still following your resolutions?
[6] - And thus no different from any other weekend, except that it could actually be Tuesday.

Christmas

I've been rather busy and somehow have managed not to write anything here for almost a month.  I know some of you were probably anxiously awaiting my post on Christmas, so even though it's come and gone, here you go:

Christmas: I like Christmas a lot.  A lot a lot.  More than any other four holidays put together.  Nevertheless, I can appreciate that it's a holiday chock full of weirdness.  if you take a step outside of your cultural niche and look at Christmas traditions as an outsider [1] and there are some real head scratchers.  So here are a few of the things about Christmas that when you take a closer look at them are really quite strange.

1) Christmas Trees: We have spent a lot of time, effort and money to keep our houses secure.  In essence to keep what's inside our houses in and to keep the outside world out.  Nevertheless, once a year we go out and chop down a perfectly healthy tree and drag it inside.  There we cover it in pretty glass balls, lights and other decorations until it dies.

Then we throw it away.

Why?  Because it's tradition.

Of course, for various reasons some people don't want a real tree, so we invented an entire industry in which businesses make fake trees out of plastic for us.

2) Santa Claus: Those same houses that we built to keep nature out are also supposed to keep unwanted guests out.  However, once a year we wait in anticipation for a complete stranger to invade our houses while we sleep.  He eats our food and then leaves us gifts.

If this were to happen on any other day of the year, you would call the cops and you would eye with a lot of suspicion and such "presents" that were left.  And if those presents were food in any way shape or form, there is no way we would eat them.

However in this case, we allow our children [2] to gobble down anything left behind by this midnight invader.

But wait you say, he's not a stranger.  He's Santa Claus!

Really, what do you actually know about him?  Let's start with looks.  What does he look like?  Have you ever actually seen him yourself?  His modus operandi is that you don't ever see him.  He could actually be a 10' tall Chinese woman and you wouldn't know.  All that we supposedly know about Santa is 100% stuff other people told us.  The kind of testimony that every court in the country would throw out as hearsay.  [3]

Another darker side to the Jolly Old Elf is that he's the ultimate stalker.  Whatever it is that you are doing, he knows!  He's sees you when you're sleeping!  He knows when you're awake!

I've seen this movie, it was called Sliver and it didn't go so well.

3) Fruitcake: I think I've met two people in my life who actually claim to like this stuff.  However, I don't think that I have actually ever seen a fruitcake in my life.  So for all of its purported ubiquitousness, it's quite possible these are about as real as #2 above.

Christmas: A+++
Christmas Behind the Curtain: C-

[1] - An alien from Alpha Centauri say.
[2] - Who it is our duty to protect.
[3] - In the end, I'm not sure if it speaks volumes about our kids gullibility or faith in us that they believe any of this stuff at all.  Last year when we were explaining it to the Bear, I swear the look he gave us was more akin to, "Do you really expect me to believe that?" than anything else.

Skyfall

Warning this post has some serious spoilers.

Skyfall: Before I begin in the interest of full disclosure I should say that I am a huge Bond fan. But less you think that means I will somehow be unable to impartial and/or to critique the film, have no fear.  I have left Bond films before so disappointed I was close to demanding my money back or at the least wanting to give someone a good talking to. [1]

I was thrilled when Casino Royale was made and they decided to change the Bond movies from a self mocking, low brow waste of time, more worried about cramming as much advertising, locations, retarded gadgets and skin as possible than about making a movie that made any sense whatsoever [2] into a more serious movie.  Not serious as in Schindler's List, but serious as in we're telling a story.  Sure it's an action story, but it has a plot and everyone is acting their part and none of those parts are intended to be comedic relief.

Anyway, this review is about Skyfall and not Casino Royale.

I had a few problems with the movie. [3]

Let's start with the Excavator on the train.  What exactly was he going to do with it?  Was he planning on slamming the bucket into the bad guy?  Because while they didn't exactly say that he was a super genius, I don't think he would have just stood there and watched it hit him.  Excavators don't exactly move at lightning speed.  Also they have limited reach.  Here's my idea of what would have happened.

Bad Guy sees excavator moving at him at max speed. [4]
Bad Guy thinks to himself: Is he seriously trying to hit me with that?
Bad Guy spends some time pondering his career choices and whether this is worth it.
Bad Guy reminds himself that Bond has run out of bullets and thrown his gun away.
Bad Guy reminds himself that he has already shot Bond in the shoulder and thus Bond is hurt.
Bad Guy spends some more time wondering about career.
Bad Guy scratches itch.
Bad Guy takes two steps back out of range and either waits for Bond to get out of cab of excavator or simply walks away.

But instead the script had him shoot the coupling between cars.  Another option.  But perhaps not the best.

Another problem was the whole point of Silva's plot.  It seems to me the thing he wanted to do most of all was to kill M.  So why didn't he just do that?

Why exactly did he need to set everything up so that he could get arrested and get the British Secret Service to move their base into the underground bunkers?  As far as I can tell the answer was so that he could then escape and kill M.  This all could have been achieved much more simply.  He could have simply waited for M to actually get back to her office and then blown her to kingdom come.

But he wanted to talk to her face to face and then shoot her, you reply.  Okay, then he could have come to London and shot M in her house.  It doesn't seem like that would have been to hard.  Bond broke in no problem.

Also, how and why exactly did he blow a hole in the ceiling so that the subway could fall in and not really come close to killing Bond?  When exactly did he have the time to set up those explosives?  And assuming we can get past that problem, why did he do it?  Or rather how did he know that Bond (or anyone for that matter) would be chasing him and catch up to him at that exactly place and time.  And that there would be a train coming by at that point.  And as previously stated, it didn't really succeed in doing anything.  Bond took the tactic Bad Guy in the train scene should have.  He just stepped to the side. [5]  If Silva actually knew Bond (or whoever) was going to be there at that time, then he should have put the bomb where it would have exploded and killed Bond (or whoever).

Anyway, there are a couple of other things like this that strained the bounds of contrivances and made Occam's razor rusty, [6] but let's move past that.

I still liked the movie.  I am fully prepared to admit that that fact is probably because I like me some Bond movies, but whatever.  I do disagree with some articles I read about the film that said it was the best Bond movie ever.  Casino Royale was easily far superior (imho).  But it was other engaging and fun.

Perhaps the thing I like most about it is how it managed to both continue the Bond mythos on it's already set path at the same time it managed to reboot it as well.

They brought back a car from an old film linking this one to the past at the same time they introduced a new Moneypenny as if she was there for the first time.  And there's once more a stuffy British dude sitting in the red chair and if his mode and manner are very similar to the man who used to sit there so much the better.

Skyfall: B

[1] - For instance, Die Another Day was aptly named, because anyone who watched it died a little bit that day.
[2] - But then I already talked about Die Another Day.
[3] - Betcha didn't see that one coming.
[4] - Something roughly in the neighborhood of 3 m.p.h.
[5] - Okay jumped, but the train was actually moving fast, as opposed to the excavator bucket.
[6] - Like even a first year agent knows you don't hook a strange computer up to your network.  Nevermind somebody who's supposed to be a computer maestro.

Henry's Louisiana Grill

Henry's Louisiana Grill:  If you like Cajun/Creole food at all, go to this restaurant right now.  Seriously, stop reading this blog.  Get in your car and go.  It is that good.

Why are you still reading this?  Large portions of amazingly good food for a fairly cheap price.  What more do you want?

Go now!

For the record the Pook and I had between us:

Shrimp Creole
Red Beans and Rice
Jalapeno Hush Puppies
Corn Bread (w/ Jalapenos)
A side salad with Blue Cheese dressing and Blue Cheese Crumbles.

See, even the side salad was worth mentioning.

Seriously.  Go! Now!

As soon as we find some money and someone to watch the kids, we're going back.

Henry's Louisiana Grill: A+

Moby Dick

Moby Dick:

Call me Mr. B Grades.  Some weeks ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my wallet, and nothing particular to interest me on my shelf, I thought I would go see about that watery part of literature that people often talk about but nobody has ever seemed to have actually successfully read. For instance, my brother has assayed the task twice and given up. [1]  But I've come across the first chapter in several places previous and have thought that I might be up to the task despite others failures.

And so I set out on my journey. [2]

The truth is, the story of Moby Dick, Ishmael, Queequeg and Ahab is really rather short.  But wait you say, the very version you have linked to is just shy of 600 pages.  How can you say it is a short tale!?

Well the book may be ~600 pages, but only about 150 of them are given over to any type of story. [3]  The vast bulk of the book [4] is nothing short of a primer on whales.  Identification and categorization of whales.  The biology of wales.  How to harpoon and kill them.  How to dismember them and then how to get the various and sundry things that one might be inclined to find in whales out of the them.  The history of whaling.  The relations ship of whalers and whaling ships to other ships and other people.  The economics of whaling.  And lots and lots of pages about why wales (and the sperm whale in particular) are awesome.

In truth the book should be titled: Herman Melville's Cetology Primer (Now with a free short story entitled Moby Dick!).

So, if you ever wanted to know how to separate a whale from his head or how to peel a whale like and orange, then I highly recommend the book.

If you want a story about whaling.  The actual story is pretty good.  But you've got to wade through a lot of stuff to find it.  In fact, a fair amount of what does make up the "plot" of the book, is merely a device for Melville to move from talking about how to boil whale blubber to talking about how to throw a harpoon.

Also the first 100 pages or so occur before Ishmael even makes it onto the boat.  So when you are all said and done the actual story can pretty much be summed up like this: [5]

A bunch of whalers set out to kill whales.
The captain is nuts and wants revenge on a whale that bit off his leg.
They sail all around the world looking.
They find the whale and it kills everyone except the narrator.
The end.

There you go.  And I didn't really leave much out at all.

Oh yeah, and Moby Dick himself is only in about 10 pages tops. [6]

Moby Dick: B-
Herman Melville's Cetology Primer: A-

[1] - And it seems to me that is twice more than 99.9% of the rest of the population.
[2] - Of reading the book.  The journey to get the book was a simple one of walking to the bookshelf in the garage.
[3] - And I'm probably being generous by saying 150.
[4] - And boy is it bulky.
[5] - Warning huge spoiler ahead!  Not that you're going to read the thing anyway.
[6] - And it's the last ten pages.


 P.S. - You can get the book on Kindle for free.