CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

Gimme my $3.50 matinee ticket price back!!

What a terrible waste of an afternoon out of the house!  At least we ate sushi.

When the ad campaign for Drag Me to Hell came out a few weeks ago, I was cautiously optimistic.  Over the years, Engineerboy has educated me in the way of Sam and Ivan Raimi: Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and even Army of Darkness.  Hilarious, silly, fun, campy, sly horror.  Classics.  I’ll watch them any time they come on cable.  Who can resist … uh… deciduous molestation, anyway?  And Raimi’s a big-time director now, and the three Spidey films to his credit have given him the stick in Hollywood to go back to his old schtick.   

If only he had. 

Drag Me To Hell isn’t a fun, campy Raimi flick.  It isn’t even a straight-up good fright of a horror movie.  There elements of each are there, but you can’t just toss frozen beef and an uncut carrot into a pan and call it stew.  Nor can you splash some wine and lob a cupcake in the pot and hope …

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Honest(ly huge) Abe

We had never seen the first movie in this series, Night at the Museum, but ended up watching it a couple of days before going to see the new installment, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.  We found the first movie to be enjoyable and forgettable, but funny enough that we decided to go out and see the sequel this weekend.

Battle of the Smithsonian is, quite enjoyably, more of the same, but on a larger scale.  Many of the familiar characters from the first film are back again, and a host of new characters are added.  Also, this film takes place across the campus of the Smithsonian museum buildings, and makes sure to pull some of the personality of the museum itself into the mix.  Smithsonian isn’t trying to hide a history lesson inside a Ben Stiller action-comedy, far from it.  There are historical references, many of which will fly over the heads of the young target audience, like Sputnik.

For example, at one point in the film a couple of the characters step into the life-size print of the famous Life magazine …

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Dear American Idol Producers,

American Idol...Reborn?

Sigh.  Another season has ended, albeit with a surprise ending (Kris Allen defeating Adam Lambert), but the finale wasn’t watched in my household.  Again.  We didn’t watch last year, either.  And although we watched most of the episodes this season, we still watched many fewer than last season.

Over the years there have been several consistent issues we have with the show which continue to drain our enthusiasm.  If you care to know them, here they are:

Issue #1: Obvious no-talents singing before the judges during tryouts
I can see you all huddled in your planning meetings, hoping to strike some more William Hung-like ratings gold by putting through idiots, freaks, sad losers, and people whose singing talent is measured in the negative range.  However, that schtick is old and played out and should be retired.  As the judges are so fond of saying, and what keeps me watching, is that this is a singing competition.  Having your screeners put through some croaking clown to sing before the judges is a ludicrous and transparent ploy, please stop it.

Issue

…

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Astronomical Coincidence

The Sun is 400 times larger, than the Moon, but it is also 400 times further away.  What this means is that, when viewed from the Earth, the Moon is *exactly* the correct size to perfectly obscure the Sun when they are aligned during a total eclipse.  As you can see in the picture to the right, the Moon covers the sun perfectly, leaving only the corona visible around the edges.

I have a compulsion, for lack of a better term, to understand things.  How they work.  Why they happen.  What they mean.  It took a few years for Marie to get used to me going into EngineerBoy-mode when she did something I didn’t understand, and so would begin quizzing her about it.  For example, if she drove a different route to a familiar destination I would ask her why she chose that route.  In the beginning, she interepreted it as me questioning her route choice - in the sense of doubting that it was the most correct/efficient route.

But what I was doing was actually paying her the compliment of knowing that she wouldn’t just absent-mindedly pick some unexpected route, …

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Boldly Going Again

We saw the new Star Trek movie today (opening night), and it was fantastic.  To give some context, I’m an old geezer and religiously watched the original Star Trek series during its initial run, and many more times in syndication.  I’ve seen the Star Trek movies that included the original cast.  I never really got into any of the subsequent Trek series, films, fanfic, spin-offs, books, conventions, etc, so I’m not a slavish Trek nerd, but I’m an old guard, indigenous Trek fan.

And coming from that perspective, my take is that J.J. Abrams did a great job of refreshing and updating the original Star Trek series with this prequel, and he was both faithful to the original and also daring enough to make changes in what felt to be a near-perfect proportion.  The new cast, playing younger versions of the original characters, do a pitch-perfect job of capturing the essence of their characters without seeming like they are doing imitations. 

The Original Star Trek (TOST) has been around for so long that I was skeptical that it could be refreshed in any meaningful way.  However, this new …

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10 stalks of fresh asparagus, top 4″ cut off (two 2″ sections will blend better)

1/2 carrot
1/2 ripe banana
fresh orange juice (highly recommend Tropicana Valencia or Simply Orange — anything not from concentrate)
splash of raw kefir
2-3 frozen strawberries
Turbinado raw sugar to taste

Blend the hell out of it and drink it like a shot.

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Fresh raw kefir
Frozen strawberries
Fresh strawberries (if available)
1-2 tbsp Naturally More peanut butter with wheat germ and flaxseed
1/2 ripe banana (or frozen banana chips)
mini-handful of fresh oats (i.e., Quaker Oatmeal - not the instant kind - uncooked)
frozen miniature chocolate chips
Turbinado raw sugar to taste

Man this one is so good.  It’s my favorite so far

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fresh raw kefir
frozen strawberries
1/2 banana (frozen slices or fresh) - just make sure it’s RIPE
1-2 tbsp of peanut butter
raw sugar to taste

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Fresh unsweetened kefir
5 - 10 frozen strawberries
2-3 fresh strawberries (optional)
1 tbsp or so of peanut butter
raw sugar (Turbinado) to taste

If you don’t like peanut butter (Engineerboy considers it food of the devil), orange juice is good in there instead.

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