An emoticon seems perfectly appropriate here.

I saw a midnight showing of Wall-E last night… and it was fantastic. Maybe even the best film Pixar has made (at least since Toy Story 2). I also can’t remember the last time I saw a genuine love story that was this good. Believe it or not, they manage to capture a lot of subtle emotional miniuate just using two beeping robots.

But the great shame is there’s going to be a whole bunch of people who think this movie sucks and is pushing some stupid liberal agenda.

And that’s a horrible shame. The politicization of environmental issues drives me nuts cause the integrity of the issue should be exclusive from that stuff. But whatever the film works as part satire and to let your political bent prevent you enjoying a film is just ridiculous.

Take it the other way for example: a lot of films feature vigilantism or massive amounts of violence or assassinations, etc. All of which are things I’m obviously “politically against.” Just because this film deals with the environment and the laziness of modern man doesn’t mean you should politicize it and let it get in the way. Those elements are freaking satire anyway.

And the robots are cute as shit.

by Puddy - “ i dont want to put too much faith in the scruples of someone named ‘Honey’ “

Not referring to this:

Man this has been a couple of sad months for great people dying. Fuck that shit.

Saying George Carlin is funny is like saying… I don’t know… Something lame. I can’t even come up with a joke. But there was a period where Carlin was THE GUY in the standup world. To many (and a great deal of comedians), he still is.

The worst part of it is that he was still doing good work. He’s done three “really late age” comedy specials and the first two were “meh” but his last one was absolutely fantastic. He really dug into the subjects involved with being an old person and how nice it can be (”we got to go, grandpa’s tired”).

Something tells me he’s excited that his friends will give him the proper amount of respect and cross his name out of the address books in 3 months.

Okay, I’m pretty much just talking about Tommy Smyth.

And honestly, I don’t know enough about soccer to know if he has any idea of what he’s talking about. But I seem to know enough to understand what he’s talking about.

Plus he’s got a cool accent.

And let’s face it folks, accents are awesome.  His Irish accent is so pronounced it’s like listening to a Lucky from Lucky Charms announce a game.

That’s vaguely racist, but whatever, it’s awesome.

And soccer is awesome too. I’ve always paid attention to the world cup and the euro league stuff, but my dad finally got me into the EPL this year. You know a sport is good when there’s a team named after a beer. And newcastle is a damn fine beer.

Out, bitches.

Kevin Garnett: “Did I make you proud?”

Bill Russell: “Yes you did”

Got to be honest folks… there’s was a tear or two in my living room after that one.

Cossack Vodka.

The Vodka brewed in Sommerville Massachusetts. Why not “from the cool, clean waters of lake eerie!” or “from the rolling hills of Chernobyl!”? It is the worst tasting vodka in the history of history. Poor Siberian farmers made better vodka in their toilets. Seriously, it tastes like an awkward combination of sludgy and yet chalky. Basically, it tastes like elmers glue.

But there’s a bigger story here. Cossack Vodka is tied in with the story of the worst night of my life.

It was back in College when I lived in a two floor house with my 6 of my best friends from school. The night was none other than the disparaging game 3 of the ALCS in 2004 and the Red Sox had just got their asses handed to them on a silver platter by the Yankees. My roommates were also having a party at the time. It wasn’t a huge party, but there were enough people to constitute a large get-together. And most of them I didn’t know for some reason. I was extraordinarily depressed by the game and a number of other recent and decided to take out my sorrows with the time-tested approach of copious amounts of alcohol. I’m normally quite the merry drunk, but this night was bad news bears.

We didn’t have much of a choice. The liquor stores were closed and all that was left was a bottle of “Cossack Vodka” that had been sitting around for some reason. My good friend Little Mike and I decided to start taking shots in effort of comraderie. We started of with 3 quick shots to get that “quick drunk” buzz. What struck me immediately was the horrible taste in my mouth. It was Epic-Fail bad. The horror-striken taste was totally analogous to the terrible night. So we started drinking more in an effort to stop tasting it. It started an epic streak really where we consumed 11 shots in 30 minutes. I proceeded to take 4 more in the approaching 15 minutes to little mike’s two. That means in 45 minutes I had 15 shots of horrible vodka to Little Mike’s 13.

That’s a lot of awful booze.

Apparently somewhere during that home stretch we were going back and forth at our neighbors house. I don’t really remember much anymore, though I did remember this stuff the next day.

Anycrap, flash-forward a half an hour and I feel awful and I make my way to a toilet, to perform my santicmonious duty of throwing up. I immediately start thinking “this is good, just get it out, you’ll be fine”.

Thirty seconds into the proceedings Little Mike is being pushed into the same bathroom after throwing up on our friend. Needless to say, she wasn’t amused, but she was being a good sport. So there I am throwing up in the toilet as Little Mike pukes (rather messily) in the sink. It sounded like two horses dying in heat.

This went on for hours. It was not one and done. It was puke-fest 04. Getting up constantly in the night to hurl. All the next day, to hurl. I couldn’t get it off of the lining in my stomach. It was horrible. And all the while, I tasted that awful chalky texture of Cossack vodka.

Maybe the worst part of all of this was that Little Mike somehow still uses this as night where he “beat me” in a drinking contest. The first problem with this is that the drinking contests with myself and Little Mike didn’t develop til later on in the semester, all of which I won handily. The Second problem is I drank two more shots of vodka.  The third is if I knew it was a contest I could have easily handled the next thirty seconds and held it in. Fourth, I never would’ve puked on a girl. Ssssssssssorry Little Mike.

The only good thing about it is I think of it like my “baptism by fire” and the Red Sox went on to do the impossible, win 8 straight, win the world series, and lift the curse.

But damn. When I think back to that night. I can still taste it.

Damn you Cossack Vodka.

Damn you to hell.

Stan Winston is dead at 62.

Those of you who already know who he is, are more than likely incredibly saddened by this news.

To those of you who don’t know who he is, here ya go:

Stan Winston was THE BEST practical effects guy in modern Hollywood. What’s that actually mean? It means he was the guy responsible invention and creation for all those amazing images that you know and love? Don’t believe me?

This guy had his hand in EVERYTHING. His speciality was make/up and creatures and worked on every single Tim Burton movie (meaning he designed: Edward Scissorhands and the Batman suit). He worked on every single James Cameron movie (designing The Terminator, Aliens, and in the upcoming Avatar). He did all of Speilberg’s creature stuff (Jurassic Park, AI, etc). He designed The Predator from Predator for pete’s sake. He did a lot of workman-like stuff too with Consantine (the only good part of the movie). Most recently, he even did the incredibly awesome Iron Man suit.

Apparently he’s just the nicest guy, who happened to be the most enthusiastic worker too.

It’s really sad.

One comment on a me-fi thread (props to Kevin for this)

For crap’s sake it’s been a long time since I talked about food…

A good lobster roll is an amazing thing. I used to eat them all the time back in Boston. My father lived in Gloucester and there were three or four places you could get absolutely quality ones.

For a good traditional lobster roll, the key is fresh and full bodied lobster meat.  Most restaurants use awful pieces of stringy lobster meat. You know, those leftovers they figure they can just “throw in the rolls” and figure they can mask the taste in too much of the mayo. Also you want the pieces to be similar in size: not too large, not too small.  Just consistent, small chunks of great lobster.

The rest of the traditional recipe is just a simple combo of mayonnaise, parsley, celery, green onion, lemon, and a little salt. A little dijon and basil can go a long way too. A lot of ones use butter lettuce but I think it sometimes just gets in the way. Some fresh herbs can  But remember, the biggest flavor you want is lobster. That means you’re using the mayo to best disperse that taste throughout. Using homemade mayonnaise goes a long way in accomplishing that goal. Fresh mayo has an entirely different taste and structure which is perfect for any kind of seafood salad. Store bought ones are fine, but a little underwhelming.

Bread selection is important. Believe it or not, a nice simple toasted hot-dog roll can be perfect. It’s a nice gentle flavor that let’s the lobster be the star and the toasty-ness gets rid of that soft doughy quality that’s no good.

While traditional lobster rolls are one of my favorite comfort foods, I love gourmet rolls that have a different take on the flavors. Exciting stuff like: ginger, rosemary, soy, truffles, smoked bacon, champagne gelee.

I had a great one the other day that lumped crab on top of a toasted broiche that kind of tasted like french toast. The lobster was quality, but a little too shredded and matched nicely in flavor with fresh herbs.

I think I wanna make some lobster rolls.

Mmmmmm. Lobsters…. I miss new england.

That’s a blog vacation.

This shit is hectic. Plus, I’m writing a couple of really long-winded ones, so I’ll work on those.

So no bloggie today.

Out, bitches.

Send hate mail now.

I really don’t know what to say. It’s not like he’s a bad actor. He’s never sucked in anything he’s done.

It’s just he hasn’t been that good either.

Am I crazy? His breakout film Primal Fear, was a gimmick performance. Don’t get me wrong, he was more than serviceable in the role, but it’s a gimmick movie centered around a gimmick performance. We see them all the time on Law and Order, and CSI. It’s not all that remarkable. All those accolades heaped on Edward after the film’s release always left me puzzled.

Since then he’s showed up in every film, delivering his straightforward lines with the same bland, monotone voice. Sure, it’s not Keanu levels of absurdity or dumbassery, but the same even keeled delivery is there.

Edward’s big advantage is he seems like a pretty smart guy. I know he likes to write and contribute to the screenplays of his films. That I can respect (mostly because of the good results). He always seems to pick good projects and good roles, which again is a total compliment. In the age where most actors don’t seem to really get it, he gets it. For example, most actors like to mix it up between pay gigs with strategic prestige gigs… only they have no idea how to pick either. Instead Norton likes to do both but always approaches it from the strength of material perspective first. It’s nice to see.

I’m actually pretty excited for The Incredible Hulk (mostly cause I hear it’s pretty fun)

But still. As an actor? Just regarding performance?

He’s just not that good.

UPDATE: I saw the Hulk last Thursday, and dare I say it: I really liked him in that movie. He had a nice calm and focused performance. Good show ole’ chap.