Rants and Raves – Country Strong

First let me say that I CANNOT BELIEVE I am going to write a post about this movie. I had zero interest in seeing this film. It might have even been LESS than zero interest. The only thing worse than a cornball country music movie is a cornball country music movie starring someone who doesn’t even have a southern accent (I’ll admit there is a soft spot in my heart for Pure Country, despite its epically shitty nature). It was on cable last week and since there was nothing else on, all my DVR viewing was caught up and all the summer shows have reached finale-time, I decided to watch.

1. This is not a great movie. Probably it is not a good movie. It is an OKAY movie.

2. Garrett Hedlund makes the entire film worth watching, if only because he has the best songs in the whole damn thing.

3. Gwyneth Paltrow is fucking amazing. They gave her a bunch of shit songs and bad costumes but she does this AMAZING performance of a woman hanging on by the thinnest thread possible. She’s got about zero chemistry with Hedlund but she is so incredible in this role that it’s kind of a shame that she won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love since this performance is so much more worthy. (Not that this film should be nominated in any way other than her performance.) Whether you love her or hate her, this is a phenomenal performance.

4. The filmmakers made the brilliant choice of releasing a secondary soundtrack including all the tracks sung by the actual actors. I actually purchased all of Hedlund’s songs individually and it was completely worth it.

5. Leighton Meester was sort of wooden and not especially memorable, except that she was the only one with wardrobe worse than Gwyneth’s.

6. What the fuck is with that shit-ass title? FUCKING AWFUL.

Worth watching if you’re not paying more than $2 for it, for Hedlund’s songs and Paltrow’s performance.

The Distant Hours

I’ve wanted this book since I saw the cover. I read the back copy and was convinced I’d enjoy it but as it was $9.99 on the Kindle (the top price I’m willing to pay) I waited to get it for my birthday. Truth to tell, I’m not at all disappointed.

The Distant Hours is a wide-ranging story- vaguely gothic as only a story which begins with three spinsters in a castle CAN be – and reminiscent in tone to the writing of the Bronte sisters. Family, war, love, loss, responsibility and tragedy are sprawled across five decades and woven neatly together in a thoroughly compelling read. Highly recommended.

I’m about a third of the way through Beauty Queens but The Distant Hours brings me to number 40 (of 55 books I want to tell people I read) this year.

Horns, Joe Hill

I liked this so much that while I started reading this during my breaks at work today, I plowed through the rest of it AS SOON as I got home tonight. A seriously great book with all of the good, bad and ugly you could possibly hope for from a big story. Tragedy, misinformation, murder, guilt, good and bad decisions, impossible fallout. When god and the devil aren’t exactly what you think they are and you’re looking for reasons why people suffer, this book provides a pretty incredible and engaging tale.

Related, I’ve updated the recent book posts with the 2011 books tag again (including the vacation reading post from last week).

The Help

I finally got around to reading the book, largely because everyone on the planet has read it and it’s inspired passionate responses (positive AND negative) and I figured I’d see what the fuss was about. This is important mostly because when I first read the back cover of the book, I thought GOOD GOD, someone created a White Magical Negro story. I was not interested or even a bit intrigued. Mostly I was waiting for the fallout.

Many months have passed and the fallout has been more or less what I figured I’d see, with the multiplier of a film release. I have not seen the film. I’m not interested in seeing the film, as I’m fairly certain any nuance captured by the novel will be bludgeoned out of the screenplay but this is definitely worth a read. I’ll wait.

In conversation with some friends at a dinner party this weekend, we were talking about the danger of viewing our history through the perspective lens of now. Is it good to do? Sure. But in doing so, it’s important to remember that our history WAS. It was a living, breathing and fallible time of its own – not unlike those who lived in it. It’s difficult to point to any piece of art and say THAT IS BAD BECAUSE IT’S NOT HISTORICALLY ACCURATE. We can SAY it, but the truth is there isn’t much art that IS historically accurate, because everyone lives their OWN history. No one’s is exactly the same, despite sharing the same historical context and major events. We all live out our own melodramas with our complex relationships and interactions, our arrogance and colossal fucking errors. They are the things that help to shape us and our worldview. History is complicated and how we interact with it is moreso.

So here’s what I’m going to say about The Help: it’s an engaging read. It’s a bit of a window into a place and time not many of us inhabited. Is it perfect? No. Is it historically accurate? Probably in parts and based on the afterword, it’s true to the writer’s own personal history. Should it make you think? Yes. And given all that, it’s worth the read.

Home Impairment Day

When I woke up this morning, I’d pinched something in my neck badly enough that I couldn’t turn my head. It might have been heavy lifting at work yesterday, or sleeping funny last night or – more likely- a combination of the two. At any rate, it didn’t seem wise to drive 45 miles over a mountain pass without the ability to turn my head and as a result I’m at home. Since we did a MAJOR housecleaning project last week, I find myself with nothing to do.

Said cleaning project even included the Disaster Room, also known as the room boxes go to die or never be opened or, once opened, never get sorted out and put in proper places. All of the aforementioned boxes were opened, sorted and (with the exception of the things we are donating)  have been sorted to their appropriate locations. I am very impressed with myself, which can only lead to bad things.

Since I’m at loose ends, I’ve put in the first disc of Justified and thought I’d catch up my reading list from vacation which required me to go back and see when the last book update was. It turns out it was Dreadnought and Little, Big and at some point I stopped using my ’2011 book list’ tag which was just dumb.

I’ll start with the most recent first, then.

The Raising by Laura Kasischke. I’d been eyeing this book for a while but it was still priced above my $9.99 threshold for the kindle (I just can’t see paying more than $10 for a book when the paperback is still going to cost $6-7). We happened to be in a Borders last week and I’d forgotten they were closing but I managed to find a couple of things (including this book) that I wanted to read that – shockingly- the 60% off price made reasonable. If you’re looking for why Borders went out of business, the APA style guide at 40% off was the same as Amazon’s REGULAR price.

The Raising is a ghost story, of sorts. Very atmospheric and and interesting plotline. I found that even though I predicted all of the turns and sometimes skimmed through the (what seemed to me unnecessarily) wordy parts, I REALLY liked the book. It’s the first time that’s happened that I can recall. It reminded me of the movie The Life Before Her Eyes and then, when perusing the information in the back of the book, lo and behold she wrote the book. So there you go. It’s a moody and langurous read, perfect for a hot and humid day. Sufficiently creepy and ominous and just in general a really good read.

The Dead and The Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer is a YA book that I got for about $1 at Borders and it had an interesting premise- a meteor hits the moons and causes apocalyptic climate change on Earth (not to mention obliterating a fair chunk of each coast).

[interjection  from Justified "You want me to kill 'em or wing 'em?" "Let's start with wingin'." I already love this show.]

I liked The Dead and The Gone, I REALLY liked the premise, and while the descriptions and situations were pretty great it just fell kind of flat for me. Like describing the day in the life over and over but ultimately not really GETTING anywhere. So it was good and sufficiently apocalyptic but (for me) lacked forward momentum.

Magic Slays, Ilona Andrews. Another solid book in a series that I love. The main character gets to grow up a bit (about time) and the story and action are slam-bang. I am, as usual, looking forward to the next book in the series.

Poison, Sara Poole. I thought maybe I’d talked about this but it was a free Kindle read and I dug it. A young woman takes her father’s place as Borgia’s poisoner while she tries to find out who killed him (and does various deeds for Borgia as well). The opening is one of the best scenes I’ve read in a while.

The Monstrumologist, Rick Yancy. I kind of loved this. It’s a straight up monster book and if you like those, you’ll love this. It’s one of the first books I got on my Kindle and I can’t figure why I got around to it so late but it’s got a varied cast of creepy and inscrutable characters, a fantastic narrator, plenty of action, suspense and general creepiness. I had no idea it was part of a series when I got it but I’ll definitely be picking up the rest. Love.

Territory, Emma Bull. This was slow going for me to start, possibly because Westerns don’t generally grab me right off. This takes place not far from my stomping grounds (Leadville gets a shout out) and I’ve been to Tombstone. I like the alternate take and the depiction of Wyatt Earp (safe to say you won’t have seen this before) and I especially loved Doc Holliday. That said, the ending felt… short. Unresolved. And while I liked everything that came before, it just seemed like either it’s meant to be a series and leaving you wanting or just unfinished.

The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood. I love Atwood. Really, I do. There are a handful of authors whose work I’ll pick up just because they wrote it and she’s one (Alice Hoffman, Robin McKinley, Carol O’Connell) . I love the concept of this book and the execution was just as great as you’d hope. While Ulysses got to adventure, Penelope was trapped with a hundred men who didn’t really want her but pretended to and she was holding out hope for the missing husband she loved. Hearing her side of the story is kind of brilliant.

Zoo City, Lauren Beukes. In a South Africa where magic has erupted in a peculiar way, giving those who commit crimes an animal to which they are bonded for life (Animalled, she calls it). The dialogue is snappy, the imagery is great, steamrolling action and the story is unique. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

I think that gets me caught up and I’m still on track for 55 this year.

In the meantime, I’m madly in love with Justified based on a single episode. This is amazing.

Vacation

I can’t BELIEVE I haven’t posted since the end of July. In my defense, there was vacation and book reading and PLENTY of twitter and G+ posts. So while this is not a real post, there is soon to be a long post about vacation book reading and how I recently bought (*gasp*) two actual PHYSICAL books. Shocking!

It’s going to be a long week.

I’m traveling at the end of this week and it would be a lie to say I’m looking forward to airports, airplanes and rental cars.

Lately I’ve been on a mad Buffalo Chicken kick. Once upon a time I was a vegetarian for a couple of years and the thing that got me back in the meat wagon was the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich at Hooters. Ever since then, good buffalo sauce has been my Kryptonite.

This is my quick and dirty fix : (I’m partial to Frank’s Red Hot but you can use whatever you like in this recipe.)

1 boneless chicken breast, cut in pieces and cooked

Buffalo/hot sauce to taste

Palmful of precut cabbage mix

Diced tomatoes

Lt. Blue Cheese dressing to taste

Whole wheat tortillas

Heat the chicken and add hot sauce
Warm the tortilla and fill with all ingredients

Yoga Meltdown

Not THAT kind of Meltdown. The Jillian Michaels kind of Yoga Meltdown, which I do and review so you don’t have to (unless you really want).

Not that long ago (it seems like) I reviewed Bob Harper’s Yoga for the Warrior, for which the overall review was positive though not for beginners. Specifically there are a couple of transitions with twisting triangle where you can grievously fuck up your back if you don’t do it right and his verbal cues for how to do it right are… nonexistent. I liked the DVD, found most of the verbal cueing to be helpful and definitely felt challenged. Today I picked up Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown, mostly because it features two 30 minute workouts and of late I’ve been splitting my workout with running followed by yoga.

This DVD (vs. the hour long Yoga for Warriors) means I can run/jog for half an hour and then yoga for half an hour and feel like I’m hitting all the bases. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t watch The Biggest Loser. I’m not a fan of the show but I know who the ‘coaches’ are, obviously. The DVD is billed as “hard-core fitness techniques with the sculpting power of yoga, for an intense workout designed to melt away stubborn fat fast.” I’m down for power yoga, as evidenced by my fondness for the Yoga for Warriors (and the fact that I taught a power yoga class several days a week for more than a year) so I was interested in a shortened version and how effective it would feel.

First: this video is ABSOLUTELY NOT for beginners. If you’ve never done yoga, you need to get to an in-person yoga class before attempting this DVD.

Second: Even if you’re familiar with yoga, you need to watch this DVD AT LEAST once before attempting it. The reason(s) is that this is the worst verbal cueing I’ve ever experienced in any class or DVD. I couldn’t get through the DVD without having to watch the screen because half the time I couldn’t figure out where the fuck she was going AND I’M A YOGA TEACHER. I’m not sure if this is from a career of one-on-one coaching, but if Jillian Michaels has ever taught a group class it’s not evident by this disc. I was doing the Level 1 workout and the absolute lack of direction was shocking to me.

That said: even Level 1 is a fast paced workout that is plenty challenging. Unfortunately because so much goes unexplained and changes are poorly cued, I felt like I was playing catch-up for about half the video. Not great when it’s only 30 minutes long. Not only that, there are some moves that beginners should NOT be doing without quite a bit more explanation (the Camel series, for example). There are a lot of potential injuries in this thing. In point of fact, I wouldn’t recommend this video to anyone unless I was pretty confident in their strength and anatomical understanding of how to protect their joints. There’s a Warrior II flow which made me shudder thinking about how many people probably do it incorrectly.

End result? It was a solid workout that could have used a better cool down stretch. I think once I memorize the sequence it might even be a great workout, so I’m going to give this one a while before I move on to Level 2.

So. Yoga Meltdown. 3 out of 5 stars because it’s a great workout but hard to follow.

Why I love cooking

Unlike baking, recipes can be more of a guide than a ‘you must use these measurements’ step by step.

My latest favorite thing is the Hungry Girl books. Yes, they’ve got a fairly hideous name that was probably cute when she started the blog/website/email but now rather unfortunately pigeonholes her product. No chance my husband would even pick UP one of those cookbooks, let alone BUY THEM.

To be clear, that’s the only downside I’ve found with these cookbooks. The design is pretty great, kind of a fun retro font and my absolute favorite thing is the “pantry list” of frequently used items in the front of each book (200 under 200: 200 recipes under 200 calories & 300 under 300). They’re basically the same list, but the latest cookbook (300) has some updates with new brands available.

Here’s the story of why I bought the books:

The Spouse and I are just looking for healthier ways to eat things we already like, rather than dramatically changing our diets. We’re both active and neither of us have a TON of time to cook. I picked up the 200 book and the very first recipe was for Banana Wheat Mini Pancakes. If you remember my post about The Delectable Egg and their AMAZING Banana Wheat Pancakes, you can imagine that I was pretty intrigued. I picked the book up and put it down about a half dozen times. Then I picked up the 300 book and saw that it had an entire “International Favorites” section – including a Chicken Pad Thai recipe. SOLD. I did something I NEVER do; I bought both cookbooks at the same time.

I started with the Egg Mugs. Basically, egg substitute and a variety of vegetables/cheese/bacon added to a large mug and cooked. Takes less than 5 minutes and means I get a hot breakfast on my way to work (in a nearly non-spillable container). Spouse has also gotten on board with these in a big way.

The Banana Wheat Pancakes are just as awesome as I’d hoped – I made them Saturday AND Sunday morning. I double the recipe and it makes about 7  palm-sized pancakes, which is perfect for us (4 for Spouse, 3 for me) and instead of using the sugar-free maple syrup we have agave syrup. They’re delicious and VERY easy to make.

The Chicken Pad Thai was fantastic, but this entry is about tonight’s adventure with Fish Tacos.

I used the recipe for the marinade/rub and purchased vacuum-sealed frozen Mahi Mahi. After my workout, I made the marinade and threw it in with the thawed fish while I got the other stuff ready and heated the grill. Instead of making the Avocado Cream according to recipe, I used an entire avocado and a matching amount of fat free Greek yogurt (rather than sour cream). I was a bit more heavy handed with the chili powder and garlic powder, but it was DELICIOUS. Add chopped tomato, coleslaw mix cabbage and wheat taco-sized tortillas and it made a pretty excellent dinner.

The absolute best part of these cookbooks is that the recipes are designed for 1 or 2 servings: no having to shrink the recipe OR leftovers for a week. I suspect this is designed to help with portion control (smart) but if you don’t have kids, it’s wicked awesome to have MY family-sized recipes.

The author states pretty clearly that the recipes are not designed for extreme caloric limitation/dieting. They DO however make it easy to combine several dishes for a larger meal or to have several small meals throughout the day.

Everything has been very easy to prepare and the only really esoteric item (I live in a rural area) was pasta-shaped Tofu noodles that I found at Whole Foods. They’re kind of an awesome substitute for regular pasta, though pricey enough that I wouldn’t probably use them in place of all pasta recipes.

So that’s my latest  schedule addition and it’s been pretty good for the budget. Cooking this many meals at home has saved more money than I’d have expected.

In related news, I had a Coke Zero for the first time in over a week and it turns out I didn’t really miss it. I didn’t have any crazy caffeine withdrawal – in fact I haven’t ever since the first big caffeine boycott when I was in college (now THAT was miserable).

In thoroughly UNRELATED news, I’m kind of looking forward to SyFy’s new Legend Quest show.

Sons of Anarchy FTW

TV can save your life.

This morning I got an email from my mom. Leaving aside the unlikelihood that it’s REAL, I’m going to copy and paste some of it:

While driving on a rural end of the roadway on Thursday morning, I saw an infant car seat on the side of the road with a blanket draped over it. For whatever reason, I did not stop, even though I had all kinds of thoughts running through my head.  But when I got to my destination, I called the Canton PD and they were going to check it out.  But, this is what the Police advised even before they went out there to check….“There are several things to be aware of …. gangs and thieves are now plotting different ways to get a person (mostly women) to stop their vehicle and get out of the car. “There is a gang initiation reported by the local Police Department where gangs are placing a car seat by the road…with a fake baby in it…waiting for a woman, of course, to stop and check on the abandoned baby. “Note that the location of this car seat is usually beside a wooded or grassy (field) area and the person — woman — will be dragged into the woods, beaten and raped, and usually left for dead.  If it’s a man, they’re usually beaten and robbed and maybe left for dead, too.

Dreadnought and DroidX

Let me start with the good – once the story gets underway, it doesn’t slow down. Set in Cherie Priest’s Clockwork universe, the Civil War is still raging and the country is carved into (at least) 4 distinct regions all with their own baggage, complications and torn loyalties. For those who’ve read Boneshaker (which I liked a bit more, I must admit) the Sap won’t come as a huge surprise but the story ticks along with plenty of acrobatics.

The bad: it took me FOREVER to get into this book. I started it and stopped at least a half dozen times and I don’t really have a good explanation why. Maybe I liked Mercy (the main character) less than the characters in Boneshaker? At any rate, once I got through that first stretch it was much more smooth. In comparison, I DID like Boneshaker better. I found the story more compelling and latched onto all the characters a bit more tightly.

All things considered, I’ll keep on with the Clockwork books because they’re entertaining and make a nice change of pace from the usual mass-publishing.

On the DroidX front, Verizon customer service (win again!) thought the update may have b0rked my SD card and fo sho,they were right. They mailed me a new one post-haste (and free as it’s still under warranty) and as of installation today all my apps and my camera seem to be functioning again. Yay! Once again I have to give love to Verizon for great service, although their new data plan stuff seems to indicate I’ll make a change when our contracts are up.

I’ve been using Google+ on it quite a bit (more than twitter, to my surprise) and despite all expectations, I’m enjoying the Google datamining pointing me to people I might/will like. The only thing the app is missing is connectivity to Google Reader, where I could share the articles I like on GReader with G+ (which in retrospect is a failure of the GReader app). Because I AM doing that (like, share in Greader), if you follow me in the Buzz tab you’ll see the stuff I share but that only seems accessible on the web – please correct me if I’m wrong.

Also, anyone still wanting an invite please feel free to hit me up.

Updates

New header photo for the blog.

Google +1ification buttons, among others.

Finished Dreadnought, back into Territory (still ahead of my 2011 goal of 55 decent books read).

20 miles logged walking this week.

We’ve got apps for that

Since I go on AT LENGTH about my phone and how generally awesome it is to live in the future, I thought I’d share my favorite apps and (aside from the obvious) how I use them.

Sudoku Free – This is my number one time killer. At work, on break this is my go-to distraction. For whatever reason, maybe late adoption, I don’t find Angry Birds all that addictive. This game I use every day.

Dolphin Browser HD – This is my go to browser, in no small part thanks to the Last Pass add on. Easy to use (swipe to the right for bookmarks, to the left for add ons) and it opens new tabs rather than new windows (unlike the default android browser).

Note Everything and the NE GDocs extension - A recent addition, which is pretty whip ass. It takes text notes, voice notes and paint notes (which means you can doodle on the screen). Two best features: note from barcode – when there’s a book you’re interested in (or other item) and don’t have time to write it down. What I use most often: Note from Google Docs. See, I like my phone but it’s not the easiest method for creating a shopping list. I like to do that when I’ve got my cookbook nearby, so I can also note the page numbers of the recipes for which I’m purchasing. I do this with Google Notes and then, at the store, I open my Note Everything and access the shopping list (which is formatted by department) to make sure I get everything I need. LOVE.

PowerAMP – A pretty awesome music player which scrobbles data to send to iTunes (number of plays, playlists) and vice versa, it’s also got an excellent equalizer.

Stitcher – Live updating podcasts,no downloading. Great for when you’re in the signal zone and, depending on how long you let it buffer, it can survive my 40 minute commute where my signal is gone for at least 20 minutes.

I feel like maybe I’ve already raved about Gentle Alarm but it’s good enough to merit revisiting. It’s got 4 different customizable profiles for different kinds of alarms. It’s got the pre-alarm feature where a sound of your choice will play a half an hour (or a time of your choice) before your actual alarm. I use the rowing boat and set the volume to 15% so that my brain hears it and I don’t. You can also adjust the light settings so the light on your phone comes up and to what percentage. The alarms fade in and out based on how long you want, sound of your choice, number of snooze options AND snooze-kill options. In short, it’s a fantastic and easy to adapt app. My alarm hasn’t woken my husband – a very light sleeper- even once.

iSyncr and iSyncr WiFi (worth the tiny add-on cost) are what keep my Droid talking to iTunes. It also allows me to upload items I download onto my phone from the Amazon cloud so that I can share all my music cordlessly.

I’ve got the Kindle and Nook app, but I only use them as a last resort – stuck somewhere and I don’t have my Kindle.

BBC News – Maybe the best news app in the market, honestly. Customizable to the topics you want to read about and not a space hog. It also looks pretty.

Calorie Counter by Fatsecret – I started using this last week because I’ve gone cold turkey off soda and I find it helps if I’ve got a monitor to keep me honest. This is great because not only does it have a huge item database, it also searches by barcode. The absolute best part: you can choose how you want to use it – weight loss (fast or slow) or maintenance. Not only that, it’s got a TON of exercise options to enter – everything from driving, standing and deskwork to running and badminton. It’s kind of cool to see what your body needs to run and be able to graph what you’re giving it.

I use a Jorte calendar with a 5×4 screen so I can see the month at a snapshot. It’s clean, easy to update and syncs with my Google calendar. Especially nice when you want to let other people add events.

Goodreads allows me to update on the fly or add books to my TBR list without needing scratch paper.

PasswordCard is a fantastic way to create safe passwords on the go, if you don’t have access to something like LastPass. I’ve used it a lot.

Real Simple’s No Time to Cook – Another cooking app, great for when you’ve got a protein (or not) and aren’t sure what to do with it. Press the screen, choose your protein, choose how much time you’ve got to cook it and you’ll get pages of options. Every Real Simple recipe I’ve ever used has turned out fantastic, so for me this was worth the cost of a single magazine issue.

These are the apps that all have shortcuts or widgets on my screen, aside from the Amazon MP3 and Amazon shopping apps. I also have a shortcut for Voice Commands.

Sync – free audiobooks all summer

If you haven’t already checked this out, you should. Sync has free audiobooks (totally painless sign up and they don’t spam you with email) and their selection tends to be one current(ish) novel and a classic. I’ve still got my downloads from last summer and was really disappointed I hadn’t found them sooner. This summer’s offerings have been pretty great as well.

In related news, DoggCatcher has decided to STOP WORKING on my phone. Mother fucker. So I’m open to your podcatching app recommendations. Currently I’m using iSyncr to grab some of my faves from iTunes and Stitcher for the ones that update while I’m at work.

Awesome internet part 2

I got another voicemail played on The 404 podcast this week, which means I am probably the only female caller they’ve had. And then today, someone sent a video voicemail mentioning my Leadville call (even though he thought I was a guy) and posted from Mount Massive.

Yay mountain towns!