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November 28, 2004

   On September 24, 2002, the now-never-online Jan made a post to his LiveJournal about a film he'd recently seen called waydowntown. His synopsis of the film and rave (however brief) review piqued my interest, and I made a note to see it. When I signed up for Netflix about six months later, I found that the film was, evidently not out on DVD in the US.
    To this day, waydowntown is not out on DVD in the US. I finally took the step of searching places like eBay for it, and found that a DVD was being released in Canada. Canada, thankfully, is also in Region 1 (note: DVD regions blow). I ordered the DVD from Amazon's Canadian site; it was refreshingly cheap.
    Thus it was that the waydowntown saga completed last night, as Alma and I, along with her sister and her sister's boyfriend, sat down and watched the film. It's very good. I'm not going to say "You must import this movie now!" but maybe your video store will have a VHS copy. I certainly could have done a lot worse for my first blind buy, though. Here's the review.

In other news, Northwestern will evidently not go bowling despite finishing at .500, due to some ridiculous eligibility rule I don't pretend to understand. Of course, the loss to Hawaii was the 12th game of the season, meaning that NU would have been bowl-eligible if this game had not been scheduled. Nice work, athletic department.

November 24, 2004

Food-y update. I've been writing down reviews of new pop and candy for a while now but haven't posted any of them here. So here, in one big burst, are new product reviews.

York Chocolate Truffle Peppermint Pattie - 9/10
Because I love Yorks, I give this 9/10. Reason to exist is 0/10, since there is no discernable difference between this and a regular York.

Domino's Double Melt Pizza - 7/10
Jesus Christ, did we really need more cheese? This thing tastes good, but it's rich as all hell.

Butterfinger Crisp - 8/10
Unlike a real Butterfinger, it doesn't get stuck in your teeth. And it tastes about the same. Something about it was curiously unsatisfying, though.

Pepsi Holiday Spice Cola - 6/10
There's really not a whole lot to distinguish this from regular Pepsi cola. It basically tastes the same except there's this mildly spicy, kinda cloves-like aftertaste. It's not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, but that's mostly because it's pretty much just Pepsi. Much like Pepsi and really any cola, I also could barely get through a 20-ounce bottle of it without starting to feel queasy. If you like cola and like to pretend that you're using it to wash down pumpkin pie, I guess this is the cola for you. Otherwise, feh.

Reese's Snack Barz - 7/10
I prefer Skippy Snack Bars (9.5/10), which deal more in smooth peanut butter, which I happen to enjoy quite a bit. The Reese's variety is more like a Rice Krispies Treat with peanut butter filling and a coating of chocolate on the bottom, which is to say that it's a lot like eating a Rice Krispies Treat and a peanut butter cup at the same time. There's nothing especially wrong with that, of course. It tastes good enough, but it could have been better if it didn't bother with the chocolate, though perhaps that would have limited the appeal.

Reese's Extra Smooth and Creamy Peanut Butter Cup - 9/10, but 1/10 for "needed to exist."
I don't know why Reese's keeps wasting money on new packaging, since their spinoff varieties taste mostly the same and the original is better anyway. Probably the best thing you can say about the Extra Smooth and Creamy edition is that it tastes about 99% like a normal cup (there is a slight feeling of creaminess, but it's pretty faint), as opposed to the White Chocolate variety, which even for someone who doesn't really like chocolate, like me, tastes really wussed out. At any rate, go ahead and buy this if you want, as I'm pretty sure it costs the same, but don't do it thinking you're really getting anything different.

Golden Oreos - 3/10
I expected to like these more than I did. They don't taste any different than Pathmark Sandwich Cremes did at all the lame in-class parties in high school, which kind of ruins the Oreo mystique. I mean, the chocolate cookies in regular Oreos are decidely better-tasting than the chocolate cookies used in any brand-X shit. But here there's no real difference. Plus without the contrast of the chocolate, the cream filling just doesn't have the same value - it gets lost in the taste of the half-assed shortbread that these cookies appear to be made from. I thought I'd love these because the chocolate cookie is my least favorite part of the Oreo, but it turns out that you need the chocolate cookie to make the cream good. I'll never look at Oreos the same way again. And I'll never buy Golden Oreos again.

Hershey's Cookies and Chocolate - 8/10
Considering how much chocolate there is in this - it's like a Krackel but with Oreo pieces instead of rice - you'd think I'd hate it. But it's actually quite delicious. The cookie bits make for good texture and the two shades of chocolate taste coexist remarkably well.

Kit-Kat Inside Out - 5/10
Just get a regular Kit-Kat. Even for someone who doesn't really like chocolate's richness, I think white chocolate is boring, and the chocolate wafer inside this just doesn't work.

Nestle Crunch with Peanut Butter - 5/10
It's okay, but like the Nestle Crunch with Caramel, there's not enough flavor added by the modification to really justify it. It's thicker than a regular Crunch bar, which isn't as good. The peanut butter flavor is pretty much buried. All the additional fat added by the PB doesn't help either, especially if the flavor isn't going to improve or at least differ significantly.

M-Azing - 6/10
Basically just a Crunch bar with M&Ms minis replacing the crisped rice. There isn't as much crunch here as in a Crunch bar or Krackel, so basically it's just like eating one of them that got gypped out of half its rice at the factory. Tastes fine, though.

Black Pepper Jack Doritos - 8/10
Basically just like any other flavor of Doritos, which means they taste pretty good. There is a hint of actual pepper jack cheese right as you start eating them, but after more than a couple it becomes pretty indistinct. Still, if you enjoy Doritos, you'll like these just fine.

November 23, 2004

P.S. Your movie is not so good. Review.

November 22, 2004

   Alma and I watched Around the World in Eighty Days with her parents tonight (aww). Not the 1956 Best Picture winner (widely considered to be one of the worst BPs ever), but the 2004 version. Here's the review; right now it's 25th out of 30 in films for the year. Yeah, it's not very good. Even the usually entertaining Jackie Chan doesn't do much to save it; even he seems to be just going through the motions. Ruining a classic novel by changing nearly every plot device and burying the whole affair under mindless cliché garbage is what made me really dislike the film, which otherwise is bland but at least not terribly offensive, a fact which kept it at #25 and not any lower (though I could only have justified dropping it one more spot, because after that we get to truly awful movies like The Forgotten and Shark Tale). And I laughed a couple times, even if they were cheap laughs. Enough talk; you can read the review if you want this bitching in any more depth.
    I keep almost buying Art Spiegelman's Maus at Borders and then not doing it. I used to have the books, years ago, but my eighth grade history teacher wanted to borrow them for something and I never saw them again. (Are you reading this, Ms. Pilchman?) Fascinating stuff, and not unimportant, but so heartbreaking it's tough to pick up even as it's hard to put down. I'm not sure I want to plunk down 30 bucks on something that depressing, even as I like reading it.
    The rest of the week in movies will probably see a couple indies; Alma and I have plans to see Primer at its last area location in Lincolnshire on Wednesday, and I was thinking of coming back down to Chicago after class tomorrow to see P.S. (with Topher Grace and Laura Linney, directed by Dylan Kidd of Roger Dodger semi-fame), whose trailer has me up for it (as well as the prominent involvement of Grace, whom I like a surprising amount, especially considering his presence as the jerk we're supposed to root for in Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, but I don't think it was his fault that his character was horrendous). It would be moderately more convenient to catch a film in Evanston, of course, but a 4:45 show in Chicago should be fine for travel time with class ending at 3, and the only films at Century I'm interested in are playing at times where I'd have to kick around for two hours before seeing them anyway.
    I've seen 30 movies from 2004 now, including 23 in the theaters, which is pretty good since the December/January rush hasn't even kicked in yet. I'd like to think I'm honing my craft, but who knows. In the meantime, I graduate in just a couple weeks if all goes according to plan, which means I'd better get on the non-review job train.

November 21, 2004

David Stern does not take crap. He's gotta be the most hard-nosed commissioner in pro sports when it comes to protecting the interests of the game. So it really didn't come as much of a surprise to me when the suspensions from the Pistons/Pacers brawl were announced today: Ron Artest is done for the year, Stephen Jackson will miss 30 games, and Jermaine O'Neal 25. Stern clearly believes in maintaining the biggest audience possible for the sport (as he should) - and if you're going to do that, you can't really have players attacking paying customers, no matter how much those people may have deserved it.
And deserve it they did. If I were handing out these suspensions I might have given them a couple weeks each, just on general principles, but I can't fault the Pacers for what they did. The Detroit fans were a bunch of goons, plain and simple. If you think you can throw stuff onto the court and at players with no repercussions, I hope Ron Artest's actions made you think twice about doing it again. And if you're actually going to come onto the court looking to pick a fight, after the whole thing had settled down and was about to be over, you deserve a punch in the mouth. You also deserve to be banned for life from sporting events. The crowd in Detroit wasn't made up of NBA fans - it was composed of probably drunken idiots who suddenly thought they were at a boxing match. Every single fan who got punched got no less than they deserved. And yes, suspensions were inevitable, but I think they're kind of harsh considering the provocation. If someone came to your job and threw a full cup of beer at you, and then came up to you looking for a fight, would anyone blame you for hitting them? I doubt it. Maybe the Pacers could have been bigger men, but it's still very difficult for me to blame them.

November 18, 2004

Reviews for Sideways and The Motorcycle Diaries.

November 15, 2004

Well, we qualified for TRASHionals. That's five straight years for me, which I think is a pretty good run for someone my age - and there was even a top five finish in there (2003).
In other news, review for The Incredibles, finally. I'm not thrilled with it but it gets the point across, which is that you should go see this movie.

November 9, 2004

Happy tenth monthiversary to me and Alma! Baby, you're the greatest. (I don't know why I keep posting this stuff just so Drew can amuse himself by making fun of me for it, but that's the way love is, I guess.)
In other news, TRASH Regionals was on Sunday. My new team, including the aforementioned love of my life, went 7-3 and tied for second, which I would almost guarantee should be good enough to secure a bid to TRASHionals... wherever that ends up being. For more, read the recap.

November 3, 2004

Why Those Who Voted for Bush are Fucking Morons

Okay. Even with the result of Ohio still technically up for grabs, things do not look good for John Kerry. He and Bush basically staged a blow-by-blow recap of the 2000 election, with Ohio and Florida switching places, and obviously that wasn't going to be good enough to win. I may have to retract these words in a week and a half, but I'm really starting to doubt it.
So, on to some words I never plan on retracting: Anyone who voted for Bush is a fucking moron.

   That's right, you. I mean, if you're a Bush voter, you really shouldn't be reading this site anyway, unless you somehow stumbled in through Google. But I digress.
    Here's what I don't understand. How could more people vote for Bush this time around than in 2000? I mean, in 2000, voting for Bush was excusable. Maybe you found Gore boring and Bush energetic, maybe you honestly preferred the platform Bush announced. I don't agree, but I'm willing to forgive.
    But in 2004? Okay, so Kerry isn't any more exciting than Gore and his platform was fairly vague for most of the campaign. But here's the thing: He didn't spend the last four years running this country into the ground.

Let's go over the reasons one might vote for Bush.

    1. Lifelong Republican/conservative. The Bush team did their best to portray Kerry as a tax-and-spend liberal. Whether this is true or not, isn't that better than being a cut-and-spend conservative, as Bush is? There's a reason the federal deficit is seven trillion dollars. Bush wants to offer tax cuts without doing much to cut spending - certainly he's not stopping an exceedingly expensive war. Thus, if you think Bush's economic policy is sound, you're an idiot who can't see more than two feet in front of his nose.
    2. Support the war. I don't think I need to go over this one. No WMDs, no connection to Al Qaeda, no reason to lose thousands of lives and spend billions of dollars. If you still think invading Iraq was in any way justified, you are a fool.
    3. Bush is tougher on terrorism. You need to stop getting your news from Republican talking points. The worst attack on American soil in history happened on Bush's watch, and he had all kinds of information at his disposal to potentially prevent it. Did he? No. Did he even come close to doing so? No. Unthinkably, much of this country still allows Bush to get away with invoking 9/11 as though he's a hero just because a similar tragedy hasn't yet happened (never mind that his vice president seems to be on the news every day promising that it will). It's total bullshit. And most of the reason we haven't had to worry about another attack inside the US is that Bush has made it so easy for Al Qaeda to attack our soldiers in Iraq. Yeah, that's really taking it to them.
    4. Bush is a better leader. Bush's foreign policy is so inept that he squandered the biggest reserve of international goodwill in US history after 9/11, to the point that almost everyone in the world hates us. He's overseen the loss of millions of jobs, and his tax cuts help companies that outsource overseas. If you think he's a good leader you must love the handbasket you're sitting in.
    5. Bush just seems more presidential. Please don't ever vote again. Or have children.
    6. "Moral values." This was cited as one of the biggest motivating factors in exit polls. It's also about the only one I can't blast to hell. Yes, if you're fervently anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, etc. - well, George Bush is your man. You have some nerve telling other people how to live their lives, but at least your choice of candidate makes sense. At least as long as you care more about them homos down the road than whether or not you have a goddamn job tomorrow.

In summary, it's astonishing how dumb so much of this country is. Why do poorer, rural areas go so invariably to Bush? His tax cuts won't help you and the job losses have to be worrying. The only possible reason, really, is the whole "moral values" issue. I'm not saying that people shouldn't care about that stuff if they're inclined to, but the fact that it supersedes an entire platform of foreign and domestic policy is both baffling and alarming. And if you think Bush was bad in his first four years, one can only imagine how fucked up this country is going to be after his administration gets four carte blanche years with no re-election campaign to worry about. If I could move to Canada, I'd be there in a heartbeat.

November 2, 2004

How can so much of this country be so fucking stupid?

November 2, 2004

In case you hadn't guessed, that ballot receipt on the front page is mine. Kerry/Edwards, Obama, and basically every Democrat on the ballot. I'm guessing both will win - Obama has a commanding lead and is facing the man who is to politics what Ann Coulter is to punditry. Good to live in a blue state.

November 2, 2004

The Packers did their job. So did the youth of America. Now it's your turn. Get out there and vote. And for God's sake, vote Democratic. This country can't take four more years of Bush's incompetence.

There's more! View last month's updates.

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This page last updated: Sunday, November 28, 2004 11:03:50 PM