Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Herb crusted fish, broccoli, and rice pilaf
blondie. I was good though!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
North Augusta boat launch and dock
it. So beautiful :)
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Product placement
The Cross Game manga is seriously cracking me up with all these fourth wall-breaking gags. For example (read right to left):
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Witches' Fingers
I slightly modified this recipe, using tips from the comments and my own decorating flair. Here's what I did:
Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Green food coloring
3/4 cup whole almonds
1 (.75 ounce) tube red decorating gel
Directions
1. Beat the butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla extract together with an electric mixer; gradually add the flour, baking powder, and salt, continually beating. Fold in the green food coloring, adding enough that the dough turns pale green. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.
2. While the dough is chilling, blanch almonds: Heat a pan of water to boiling, then boil the almonds for one minute. Drain. Once the almonds have cooled enough to touch, squeeze them out of their skins.
3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Lightly grease baking sheets.
4. Remove dough from refrigerator in small amounts, allowing the rest to stay chilled. Pinch off enough dough for a ball an inch to an inch and a half wide. Roll the dough between your hands to form a finger shape. The spaces between your fingers will cause ridges to appear on the cookie. Lay the cookie on the baking sheet and mold it slightly to play up the look of a finger--slightly wider and taller at the knuckles.
5. Press one almond into one end of each cookie for the fingernail. Adjust the "knuckles" so that they are proportional with the nail. Use a sharp knife to cut tiny lines on top of the knuckles to give the appearance of skin.
6. Bake in the preheated oven until the cookies are browned slightly, 20 to 25 minutes.
7. Paint around the almond "nail" with red gel while the cookies are still warm for a bloody effect. Then dab the "blood" with your finger, smearing it around and trailing it down the length of the cookie.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Kajika and Lee-Leng
If it wasn't obvious these two are meant for each other before, it is now, with this lovely image from Hanasakeru Seishounen's new ending animation. Click to embiggen.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Review: Where the Wild Things Are
This movie, like the book that inspired it, is written in the language of children. I had a little trouble immersing myself in it and was really only able to grasp how it made me feel hours later. Being grown and accustomed to stories with a different structure--more complex, perhaps, but also with more obvious fundamental truths--I was at first put off by the seeming lack of foundation. After some time to think it over, though, I would have to say this is a good film for parents to watch with their children, if not something that's going to entertain adults.
The film tells the story of a boy learning that his way isn't necessarily the best way and that sometimes it's hard to understand or do anything about other people's pain. It's a story of growing up. But more than that, it's a story of finding and nurturing happiness through caring about others.
These conclusions aren't immediately obvious. There's no narrator, and no character steps up and says "treating people badly is wrong, and here's why". Instead, we see the moral obliquely, through the characters' actions and their consequences.
When Max's sister's friends destroy his igloo, he's hurt and angry. The boys have crossed a line--a line that is only visible to Max. To Max, retaliating to snowballs with snowballs was perfectly acceptable, but he doesn't comprehend why they'd chase him back to his igloo and then break it in to get to him. The audience can see that the boys think it's all in good fun, but Max interprets their actions as maliciousness, and his sister's lack of understanding as abandonment.
Later, Max urges Douglas to throw dirt clods at Alexander. Alexander protests, but Max pays this no mind and has Douglas throw more dirt. It's only when Alexander becomes extremely upset that Max realizes anything's wrong. He comes full circle in this scene--now he's the boys, and it's all in good fun, except someone inadvertently got hurt. And like the boys, he doesn't know what to do until much later, when he finally apologizes.
Having seen hurt from both perspectives, Max realizes it's not as simple as he thought it was. It's not that people choose not to do things Max's way because they don't like him. It's that everyone has their own wants and needs and feelings that are different from Max's.
The Max/Carol relationship is very important. Carol is Max's analogue in the Wild Things family--he's the one who feels lonely and scared and fights those feelings by acting out.
Max feels lost and alone at the beginning of the film. His dad's gone, his mother's busy, and his sister is going through her own kind of growing up. When his mom splits her attention even more, inviting a man over, Max feels abandoned. This is similar to how Carol feels about KW running off to hang out with Bob and Terry. Max feels that his mother should focus her attention on him. Likewise, Carol wants all of KW's attention.
To try and get that prized attention, Max acts out in the kitchen. His mother doesn't react the way he wants her to so he fights her. It ends with Max biting his mother, and his mother screaming "What's wrong with you?" It's a total rejection, one that sends Max running out the door and down the street and through the fence and onto the boat.
Later, Max sees similar behavior in Carol, behavior he can't understand or control. He's afraid...and that fear causes him to withdraw from Carol. At that point he begins to understand his mother.
While these are the two examples of role-reversal that stuck out to me the most, the film is rich with them. The structure is therefore quite simple: introduce a perspective, then answer it with an opposing one. But the conclusions are never expressed. Max leaves the island without teaching the Wild Things anything more than basic love. And we don't see Max and his mother talking about what happened; all we see are looks passed between them and a strong embrace. We are left to find the lessons Max learned on our own. The closest we get is Max's comment to the Wild Things, "I wish you guys had a mother."
Because the moral of the story isn't obvious, I imagine many parents' gut reaction will be to not show this movie to their children. If you ignore the reversals that teach Max to see more than one side of a problem, you're left simply with a string of wild and violent behavior, many times frightening, overlaid with the grim prophecy of Max's teacher about the death of the sun and the human race. It's a dark picture that parents might feel they want to protect their children from.
But the movie is highly teachable. It's certainly not a film to let children watch by themselves, and it absolutely must be discussed afterwards. But the structure of the film allows for some very good instruction on the nature of human relationships, what it's like to make tough decisions, and how to find happiness in an uncertain world.
I would suggest parents ask their kids questions about Max's feelings and motivations at different times in the movie. "How did Max feel when the boys smashed his igloo? Why did he act out in the kitchen? Why did Max run away? Why did he decide to go home?" Through discussion, parents can help their children reach the conclusions Max did.
The film tells the story of a boy learning that his way isn't necessarily the best way and that sometimes it's hard to understand or do anything about other people's pain. It's a story of growing up. But more than that, it's a story of finding and nurturing happiness through caring about others.
These conclusions aren't immediately obvious. There's no narrator, and no character steps up and says "treating people badly is wrong, and here's why". Instead, we see the moral obliquely, through the characters' actions and their consequences.
When Max's sister's friends destroy his igloo, he's hurt and angry. The boys have crossed a line--a line that is only visible to Max. To Max, retaliating to snowballs with snowballs was perfectly acceptable, but he doesn't comprehend why they'd chase him back to his igloo and then break it in to get to him. The audience can see that the boys think it's all in good fun, but Max interprets their actions as maliciousness, and his sister's lack of understanding as abandonment.
Later, Max urges Douglas to throw dirt clods at Alexander. Alexander protests, but Max pays this no mind and has Douglas throw more dirt. It's only when Alexander becomes extremely upset that Max realizes anything's wrong. He comes full circle in this scene--now he's the boys, and it's all in good fun, except someone inadvertently got hurt. And like the boys, he doesn't know what to do until much later, when he finally apologizes.
Having seen hurt from both perspectives, Max realizes it's not as simple as he thought it was. It's not that people choose not to do things Max's way because they don't like him. It's that everyone has their own wants and needs and feelings that are different from Max's.
The Max/Carol relationship is very important. Carol is Max's analogue in the Wild Things family--he's the one who feels lonely and scared and fights those feelings by acting out.
Max feels lost and alone at the beginning of the film. His dad's gone, his mother's busy, and his sister is going through her own kind of growing up. When his mom splits her attention even more, inviting a man over, Max feels abandoned. This is similar to how Carol feels about KW running off to hang out with Bob and Terry. Max feels that his mother should focus her attention on him. Likewise, Carol wants all of KW's attention.
To try and get that prized attention, Max acts out in the kitchen. His mother doesn't react the way he wants her to so he fights her. It ends with Max biting his mother, and his mother screaming "What's wrong with you?" It's a total rejection, one that sends Max running out the door and down the street and through the fence and onto the boat.
Later, Max sees similar behavior in Carol, behavior he can't understand or control. He's afraid...and that fear causes him to withdraw from Carol. At that point he begins to understand his mother.
While these are the two examples of role-reversal that stuck out to me the most, the film is rich with them. The structure is therefore quite simple: introduce a perspective, then answer it with an opposing one. But the conclusions are never expressed. Max leaves the island without teaching the Wild Things anything more than basic love. And we don't see Max and his mother talking about what happened; all we see are looks passed between them and a strong embrace. We are left to find the lessons Max learned on our own. The closest we get is Max's comment to the Wild Things, "I wish you guys had a mother."
Because the moral of the story isn't obvious, I imagine many parents' gut reaction will be to not show this movie to their children. If you ignore the reversals that teach Max to see more than one side of a problem, you're left simply with a string of wild and violent behavior, many times frightening, overlaid with the grim prophecy of Max's teacher about the death of the sun and the human race. It's a dark picture that parents might feel they want to protect their children from.
But the movie is highly teachable. It's certainly not a film to let children watch by themselves, and it absolutely must be discussed afterwards. But the structure of the film allows for some very good instruction on the nature of human relationships, what it's like to make tough decisions, and how to find happiness in an uncertain world.
I would suggest parents ask their kids questions about Max's feelings and motivations at different times in the movie. "How did Max feel when the boys smashed his igloo? Why did he act out in the kitchen? Why did Max run away? Why did he decide to go home?" Through discussion, parents can help their children reach the conclusions Max did.
Today's adventure, part 2: Downtown Aiken
Went in Plum Pudding, a kitchen store I like better than Williams-
Sonoma (more charm), then strolled down Laurens Street.
Today's adventure, part 1: Henderson Heritage Preserve
the way through it started drizzling, but fortunately I had a poncho.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
So...yeah.
After that low point with the cheeseburger, I just wanted to let you know that I'm redoubling my health efforts. (Again.)
I've been a member of SparkPeople since February, but yesterday I decided to really use the site. Here's my SparkPage, which among other things lists my weight. Got to motivate myself somehow.
The fact that I can't afford to eat out anymore is hopefully going to help me pack lunches regularly again. Aside from the burger slip-up on Tuesday, I have packed my lunches this week: frozen dinner on Monday, frozen dinner plus veggies on Wednesday, and today I crumbled the leftover hamburger from the dinner Sean made last night into some stroganoff noodles and packed some leftover spinach to go with.
I'm also going to make sure to work out in some capacity every day except Sunday. Yesterday I took a half-hour walk at Riverwalk over my lunch break. It wasn't much, but it was far better than nothing, and it put me in a much better mood for the rest of the day. Tuesdays and Thursdays I see my personal trainer in the morning. My trainer is going to give me a yoga video to do at home. I also have those TurboJam videos and my Wii Fit to keep things interesting. So I should have no excuse not to keep myself moving.
I've started over and failed so many times now. I hope using SparkPeople will make the difference this time, by giving me that extra push I need.
I've been a member of SparkPeople since February, but yesterday I decided to really use the site. Here's my SparkPage, which among other things lists my weight. Got to motivate myself somehow.
The fact that I can't afford to eat out anymore is hopefully going to help me pack lunches regularly again. Aside from the burger slip-up on Tuesday, I have packed my lunches this week: frozen dinner on Monday, frozen dinner plus veggies on Wednesday, and today I crumbled the leftover hamburger from the dinner Sean made last night into some stroganoff noodles and packed some leftover spinach to go with.
I'm also going to make sure to work out in some capacity every day except Sunday. Yesterday I took a half-hour walk at Riverwalk over my lunch break. It wasn't much, but it was far better than nothing, and it put me in a much better mood for the rest of the day. Tuesdays and Thursdays I see my personal trainer in the morning. My trainer is going to give me a yoga video to do at home. I also have those TurboJam videos and my Wii Fit to keep things interesting. So I should have no excuse not to keep myself moving.
I've started over and failed so many times now. I hope using SparkPeople will make the difference this time, by giving me that extra push I need.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Demented
miles away when it happens.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
New BBQ place
to Walmart. Arturo says there are several in Columbia.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
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