Department of Settlements

SO THIS was an experi-ment, much in the same way that my nephew Josh's pouring a glass of water down the back of a television when he was four was an experiment. (I kid you not, that was his explanation for it.) The Wifey has been on a Pad Thai kick for awhile, and so decided to take advantage of the offer in the local mega-mart to buy one Annie Chung product and get one free. The product she got was not Pad Thai, but the one I got was most certainly not hot and sour soup. The bits of it that were not offensively bland were downright nasty. The noodles tatsted like factory dust. The dumplings, which were of an entirely different brand, were better, but still not as good as I would have gotten had I called out to our local joint, which is excellent. The beer at least was good, Harpoon Summer Beer followed by their Bohemian Pilsner. A nice light lager followed by a ridiculously over-hopped pils, which went great with the chocolate cookies I had for dessert.

This was less and experiment than a requirement. I have been a big fan of Mary Elizabeth Ellis' work on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia ever since I started watching the series in its third season, and I had heard good things about this movie in researching the cast of that show-- and that she was one of the writers. And it was pretty much precisely what I expected. A rich slice-of-life drama in which pretty much everyone gets their turns, good and bad. The script seemed to have been crafted on the basis that every one of us is a screw-up, given the proper motivations. There was only one plot point that I found somewhat implausible, but it was pretty well set up beforehand, such that it was not completely implausible, so I let that slide. And it had a drop-out-bottom ending that was just terrific, in that it both negated and amplified the entire plot in one fell swoop.

Took a damned long time getting there, though. Life is full of dull moments. Kudos to the writers for sticking 'em in.

This, on the other hand, was about 90% better than it had any right to be. That had largely to do with the New York & Long Island settings and the deeply commited performances, especially from Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy, who were both adorably commited to their roles, so much that I almost bought Sheedy as a cop. (Ally Seedy as a cop. Let that percolate a little.)
Watching Alan Alda and Joe Pesci duke it out was great fun, but it was even more fun watching Anthony LaPaglia stretch his New York Mobster cliche of a character all out of shape, and then Burt Young-- hell, what's there to say about Burt Young? Always good to see Burt workin' it. Every single element came out the Big Book of Hollywood Cliches, but damn if it didn't end up being a great deal of fun.

So do I recommend it? Hell no. Chinese, Thai and Mexican food should never be attempted at home. Maybe if you have a gourmet or industrial grade kitchen, but I'm not even sure about that. And Annie Chun can go to hell with an anchor around her neck. If your have an afternoon free, relax, stretch out, and don't expect any of the characters to behave perfectly-- and be prepared to be angry and dissapointed with each of them at some point. And stay 'til the end, that droput ending is a killer. And if you want and example of why the 80's ended early, you can't do much better than Betsy's Wedding. There were a few juctures where several of the actors clearly thought they were in a different kind of movie than the others thought they were in, and that made it as much fun as anything else.

We Now Return You To You Irregularly Scheduled Program

Sorry. Been busy.

This isn't even today's lunch. This is last Tuesday's lunch. I half-meant to post it then, but I had nieces down from up north, so there was some strictly scheduled Uncle Jim Abuse to be attended to.

There's also no movie of the day, not just because I have been busy, but because I recently sat through the entirety of season 3 of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia in the space of a week, which is actually to say four days, with the result that . . .

Well, I don't know. There are all kinds of different levels on which the show is funny, a couple of dozen others on which it's completely objectionable, it can be appreciated for the sheer audaciousness of the show, it can be dismissed as morally reprehensible . . . And then there's the absolute commitment shown by the writing and the performers, the absolutely take-it-to-the-wall, kamikaze drive, which, I think, and I could be wrong, indicates the presence of a very deep and accurate moral compass . . .

Which is a rather unsettling supposition, since the show's characters get away with morally reprehensible behavior by dint of an absolutely fluffy-light self-consciousness.

I jumped right into season 3 with little trouble; I had seen a couple of eps from earlier, and I knew a fair amount about the writers and the characters going it, but it wouldn't have presented much of an obstacle if I had gone in clean. The episodes are pretty much self contained, and stuff carpetbagged in from previous seasons is either unpacked pretty nicely or funny enough for obvious enough reasons to stand alone. Also, Seasons 1 and 2, which were packaged together, one assumes, on the assumption that the thing would have run its course by the end of the second season, has been listed in our Blockbuster Online queue as status "very long wait" for about four months now. Which is not to say I have given up on said seasons, just that I figured I could stand not to wait. I am glad I chose not to, for I have now seen season 3. And I enjoyed it. And that either makes me a very good person indeed, or Pol Pot.

So, go watch Season 3 of It's Always Sunny! Or don't! Either way, you can be pretty sure you will feel good about it! Or bad. Very, very bad. Have some soup.

Embgellishments & Grace Notes

A coupla months back, in one of my perenial Ramen noodle experiments, I added leftover barbecued rib meat, oven baked, to the soup, with delightful results. This inspired today's concoction, which you see here: Ramen noodles with snow peas and . . . Canadian bacon.



I know what you're thinking, or at least you should be: That's wrong. Just . . . wrong. But wait! Let me explain.



Canadian bacon is essentially a low-impact ham. So this is a preserved pork, which is not at all uncommon to Asian cuisine. Also, I woked the ham and snow peas with sliced garlic and peanut oil while the noodles boiled, and let the mix rest while I fixed the soup and added the requisite soy and chili-garlic sauce. Then I slung the stuff together and VOILA! It reminded me a bit of something I picked up in New York's Chinatown once many years ago, but only in a vague way. Still, it did make for quite a satisfying lunch.


Still didn't really go well with the beer, which once again was the Kona Longboard Lager. I still can't quite say why, but Ramen noodles, as far as I am concerned, just don't go with beer. Can't say why.

The film of the day was going to be A Night To Remember, but, eh. I know why I like it, but I don't feel like defending it. And it also begs a larger question, that of whether James Cameron's Titanic was a masterwork or a travesty. I mean, the reason I think it might be the latter-- the special effects, the scope, the depiction of the rising disaster-- are wholly at odd with the reasons that it became the biggest box office grosser in history, which is the bullshit romance Cameron tacked on and the treacly framing device and those cockememe Riverdance scenes down in steerage where all the Noble Poor are getting justifiably out of their skulls on Guinness. I'm the king of the wooooooorld!

Things Not To Mess With

The title say it all.

Really. Don't mess with the Zohan. And not because it could be hazardous to your health. More because it's just not worth it in the long run.

We messed with the Zohan because we had a couple of hours to kill before the Wifey was due to board a plane on a Sunday afternoon. This is kind of analagous to watching a movie on a long flight. (Not that there's any way in Hell any airline would ever show this flick. It's just too offensive.)

They Wifey's two comments were most astute. About 45 minutes in: "And yet we're still watching it."

About an hour and ten minutes in: "And it just keeps going."

I have to admit that I laughed out loud many times, but about two thirds of that laughter was the kind of morose laughter that comes from knowing that anyone who said something like that out loud in a public place would almost certainly get the shit kicked out of them. Some of that laughter was, however, the kind that comes from acts of pure comedic genius. There were many nuggets of such mired in the muck here, but I don't really think that it was worth wading through all the muck to pick up the nuggets.

Another thing not to mess with is a permanent crown. Which is not to say don't get one. It is to say if they give you one, LEAVE IT THE @#$% ALONE. I had this thing installed a shade over two weeks ago, and I have been probing it with the tip of my tongue almost constantly since then. First just because it was sensitive, and then because I am hugely paranoid and I keep expecting to reach back with my tongue and find the thing has popped off.

So this is why I have not been blogging lately. I simply haven't felt very interesting.

This is also the reason there has not been a lunch of the day recently. What I have been making at home has not been very interesting, and I have been forced to go out for lunch fairly often to make up for the lack of caloric intake at home. The closest thing to "interesting" I have had at home recently would probably be the Hot Noodle Bowl, which goes like this:

Eh.