Class.

Yes, I sometimes stick the piece of gum that I'm chewing on the back of my hand so that I can eat a snack and then continue chewing my gum afterwards.

 

And yes, sometimes I eat food directly off my knife.

 

But I will also separate myself from a group to break wind.

 

Because I have class.

Inauguration.

I'll write more about my time at the Inauguration later. But here's a few vids I took to give you a sense of what it was like:

Aretha singing.


The Oath (to be later redone).


The Speech.

Wonders Never Cease.

In line at Subway today, a woman said she was allergic to lettuce.

Concert.

I braved the cold with some friends to attend the We Are One concert yesterday at the Lincoln Memorial. We never made it to the Reflecting Pool area; instead, we were diverted to the Washington Monument to watch the concert on Jumbotrons. It was a little weird though, because we were still close enough to hear the concert, and the sound was already delayed on the monitor -- so we ended up hearing, then seeing, then hearing again the concert.

I'm curious, is there a competitive market for jumbotrons? The ones we were watching weren't exactly jumbo, and I wonder if that was a failure of the market.

My take on the concert? U2 was briliant, Garth Brooks was amazingly entertaining, and Beyonce didn't sing Single Ladies.

On a side note, of course there were people protesting socially liberal stances -- you know, berating the gays, the abortions, and the sports nuts. What? No really, "sports nuts" was one of the categories of heathens that are going to tear apart the fabric of society.

I Have No Original Ideas.

With the extra coverage of Eric Holder's confirmation hearings recently, there have been more photos of him popping up over the interwebs. I started to see a vague resemblance to Oprah's onetime boytoy Stedman Graham, but I thought I was surely crazy.

Until Google confirmed that others think as crazily as I do.

Sigh. Someday I'll be original.

Huh.

Gmail is still a beta. Wikipedia says it's been around since 2004, it's used by millions, and-yup-it's still a beta.

You'd think they'd figure out email by now.

I'm a Bad Person.

Is it wrong that I laughed when I realized that the sexologist that was being interviewed on the Today Show this morning has a lisp?

He Won!

Awesome! I was rooting for him from the beginning, and I was rooting for him even more after I saw the movie. And now Colin won best actor in a musical/comedy at the Golden Globes! Sure, they're voted on by a group as random as the National Board Review, but recognition--especially for an awesome film--is always a good thing.

The Best Guacamole Recipe in the World.

I originally found this via Alton Brown at the Food Network, but that website doesn't keep all recipes online for some reason. Thankfully, some people are awesomer than I and didn't lose their hard copy version of the recipe. I've now used this recipe at my second social gathering (New Year's Eve), and it received a response as enthusiastic as its debut (Super Bowl Sunday). If the Food Network won't do it, then I will:

3 Haas avocados, halved, seeded and peeled
1 lime, juiced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin [<---- THIS IS THE MONEYMAKER.]
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 tbsp chopped cilantro
1 clove garlic, minced

In a large bowl place the scooped avocado pulp and lime juice, toss to coat. Drain, and reserve the lime juice, after all of the avocados have been coated. Using a potato masher add the salt, cumin, and cayenne and mash. Then, fold in the onions, tomatoes, cilantro and garlic. Add 1 tbsp of the reserved lime juice. Let sit at room temperature for one hour and then serve.

EDIT: Holy carp! I put the moneymaker tag on the wrong ingredient. It is now correct.

Button Backlash?

Thanks to Adam again, for linking me to this comparison of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Forrest Gump. I was upset at the repeated pee motif. I didn't realize how much deeper the conspiracy went.

Double Takes.

As Adam pointed out, the screenwriter of Forrest Gump, Eric Roth, wrote the screenplay for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. And in both, a character abruptly changes the subject of the dialogue by exclaiming their need to pee. While Gump's two and a half hour running time isn't as egregious as Button's three hours in terms of having to hold it in, Roth needs to be a little more sympathetic.

And this doesn't even get into the fact that the two movies are very similar in other respects.

In other news, I watched Newsies. Why you ask? Because for the past two Halloweens, I've dressed up as a newsie (newsy?), and I figured I should at some point see the inspiration for my adorableness each October 31st. Other than having Vinnie from Doogie Howser and Justin from Party of Five when they were knee high to a button, the movie is sort of terrible.

Something I noted, though, is that some of the theme in the score is reminiscent of (read: exactly the same as) Beauty and the Beast, which came out just a year before it. The composer for both? The awesome Alan Mencken.

Merry New Year!

I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button yesterday. Although I liked it in general, my biggest beef is with one line in the movie that Cate Blanchett's character says.

About halfway in to this 3 hour movie, she says, "I have to pee."

Totally took me out of the movie. Not fair that her character gets to go pee (and it's act-pee no less!) partway through, and we the audience can't.