Random Politics Link

From the Canadian Press (via the Globe & Mail): Tory MP suggests jailing bad journalists.

Basically, it appears that he's upset about the media's opinion regarding the Conservative Party of Canada's media policies.  As the saying goes: somebody loosen Mr. Mayes's necktie; I think it's cutting off the oxygen circulation to his brain.

Of course, does his column violate the Harper policy of MPs only talking to the media about the five government priorities, and did he remember to clear this outburst through the PMO first?

Yes, yes.  I realise that his comments were likely (hopefully) not serious, but still: what a way to stick your foot in your mouth.

Butter Tart Recipe Attempt #1

The following is my attempt at a "traditional" (that is to say: corn syrup free) butter tart.  I meant to add 1/2 tsp. of vanilla as well, but forgot (as isn't unusual when I make up recipes).

• 1/2 cup of butter (softened)
• 1 cup brown sugar (lightly packed)
• 1 egg (beaten)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans/pecan pieces
• 12-18 pastry shells (see note)

Cream together the sugar and butter.  Add the beaten egg (at this point, I was planning to add the aforementioned vanilla).  Add in the pecans.

Spoon the resultant mixture into the pastry shells, making sure not to overfill.  Cook at 375°F for 10-12 minutes.  Let cool before eating.

Note: The store-bought shells tend to be rather tiny, and you're going to have to slightly overfill them unless you want to make 24 or have stuff left over.  In this case, cook them on a baking tray to deal with overflowing.  (It's essentially just butter and sugar, it is going to become liquid when it gets hot.)

I was lazy, and used store-bought shells, but I'd imagine a standard pie-crust pastry in muffin tins would work if you wanted to make your own shells.  In this case, you'd probably only end up with 12 or so tarts (due to the increased size).

Verdict: perhaps a bit over-greasy.  I may cut the butter next time to 1/3 of a cup, and see how that goes.  (But, then again, they are butter tarts.)  I think they also could have benefited from the added vanilla.  Ah well, there's always next time.

Posted by g026r at 20:44 | 4 comments | Most recent by g026r | 1 Trackback

It's Like the First Robin, But With More Swearing

Whilst out and about today, I saw my first road-work crew of 2006.  Spring is officially upon us.

Unfortunately, it's also currently > 26°C (the temperature at which my thermometer stops) in the apartment — and that's with the window upon.  Summer is going to be oh so uncomfortable (again).

I See You've Played Knifey-Spoony Before

I don't recall how I found this link, or if someone sent it to me, but here we go: Now the bloody Yanks are offended, from the Sidney Morning Herald.

Basically, for those who've never heard of the issue: there's an Australian tourism campaign whose slogan is "Where the bloody hell are you?".  CBC won't air the commercials during early time slots due to the word "hell", Britain originally wouldn't let it be aired due to the word "bloody" (but the regulator in charge of these things has apparently since relented), and the ever-vigilante-and-complaining American Family Association?  Well, they don't like either word.  However, I posted this not because of that exactly (after all, when isn't the AFA upset over something?), but because of a quote from AFA director Randy Sharp; to wit:

"I guess they use it [bloody hell] all the time in Australia, but it's a foreign language here so I think it'll have a negative impact rather than positive."

Foreign language?  I was under the impression that (for the most part) Australians and Americans spoke the same lingua franca.  Perhaps Mr. Sharp meant "foreign expression"?  Unless, of course, those anti-immigration groups were right about the entire offering government services in Spanish being a slippery slope leading to the elimintation of the English language thing; damn, that was fast.

Important Note:

When sick, I am no longer allowed to cook anything that doesn't consist solely of using the microwave.  I just walked out into the kitchen and thought "It's awfully warm in here," only to discover that the reason why was that I had forgotten to turn the burner off after I made soup last night.

Oops.

Posted by g026r at 13:02 | 2 comments | Most recent by g026r

Titles Are Hard

Because I'm feeling particularly mean today, it's time to inaugurate "mock the Flixster reviews".  (Actual username and profile links not included in the main text, as I'm not feeling that mean.  Nevertheless, all reviews are real, and all come from the same person.)

To start things off with this, our first entry, we've got a pair of reviews.  First off, a review of Alexander (which they gave 1 star), emphasis mine:

"I was so f***ing awsome! like 3 hours or w/e in the theater with Liam and Tom! btw the film sucked who tf is "Anthony Hopkins" it was staring Coling Farrell obviously, estupido!"

I'm not sure what to say to this.  Perhaps "Kids these days"?

Whilst I can understand not being able to name another role for an actor at times (despite the fact that Mr. Hopkins has had some fairly career-defining roles), not knowing who someone as iconic as Anthony Hopkins is is slightly baffling.  If the fractured English hadn't been enough for me to discount their reviews, this would have also done it.  (By the way, miss, there's a Mr. Lecter at the door.  He wants to know if you'd be interested in coming over for dinner and a nice chianti.)

Moving on, Ultraviolet (which they gave 4 stars):

"It was good! In the first twenty or so minutes like 100 people died. There was like no swearing or blood. The story line was interesting. It's something I'd buy."

So, it would appear that mass killings are just peachy, so long as they don't break the skin (Hrm, she must be a cleric.), and so long as no one happens to let a dirty word slip out while they're busy being killed.  Clearly, this is a new and interesting set of moral values.  (However — as evidenced by her Alexander review — she would have been fine with swearing in the film had the characters pronounced the naughty words using asterisks after the first letter.)

So, to sum up:

• Mass killings = OK.
• Blood and/or swearing = Not OK.
• Anthony Hopkins = Who the f***?

(I feel the need to point out that the average Flixster rating for Ultraviolet (3 stars) is the same as that for Casablanca.  I'm sorry, Mike, but the people have spoken.)

Excuse Me While I Go All Fan-Boy For A Moment…

According to 4AD, there's a new Scott Walker album due out in May.  (Some sources say May 9th as the exact date.  According to these same sources, it's much in the same vein as Tilt.  That should make things interesting.)

In closing: Eeeeeee!

Pickelhaubes and Teddy-Bears

Some days I hate living in the cultural wasteland that is Fredericton.  (The last time I said this in public, it caused another patron at Chapters to start laughing.  However, it does sum up my opinion about this city.)

It's rather obvious when it comes to films.  It's a university town, but unless you want to download them, then finding somewhere to watch any sort of foreign film can be next to impossible.  Renting them?  Most video stores don't carry much more than a cursory selection of the classics (to paraphrase Curt: it's sad that Truro has a better selection of foreign films for rent than Fredericton).  As for the cinema itself?  Ha!  With the exception of movies that become a phenomenon (i.e. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), the local cinema wouldn't dare to challenge the average movie-goer's intelligence with anything short of a series of explosions.  (And if it involves any sort of subtitles (other than when it's the aforementioned phenomenon)?  Ooooh boy, you're not actually suggesting their patrons have to read?)  There is, of course, always the university film society, but they only run a few months of the year, and only ever have one showing of any given film.

(Before anyone accuses me of being an elitist snob: yes, I am.  And before anyone tells me that not all foreign films are good: yes, I am well aware of that.  It's just like anything: there's good, and there's bad; I just don't have much tolerance for the standard, clichéd, Hollywood popcorn fare that gets shown most of the time.)

Anyways, the point of this rant was a French film: Joyeux Noël.  (Which is actually in English, French, German, and Latin, according to IMDB.  Quicktime trailer over here.)  Ok, so it looks a bit sappier than my usual tastes, and I feel that the Christmas truce has been over-mythologised, but how many films get produced that have anything to do with World War I in any way?  (A subject I have an interest in.)  Besides, they appear to have actually done some research, as I didn't notice a single Brodie, Adrian, or Stahlhelm featured prominently in the trailer.

Of course, the fact that I'd like to see it means that the website for the company that owns the local cinema doesn't even acknowledge that it exists.

(For the curious: Pickelhaube and teddy-bear; both of which appear to be at least briefly visible in the trailer.)

Concerning, in Parts, the Author from Arragon

It's been almost three years since I bought it and originally started it, but it looks like I'm finally going to get around around to finishing Don Quixote, given that there is now only 50 pages left.  (In my defence: I didn't get past the first couple of chapters back when I first started it, and only just started it again in December.)  After this, I've got a 90-page essay I picked up from Owl's Nest to read, called Don Quixote: Hero or Fool?, that examines the two diametrically opposed viewpoints about the novel's central character, and then I'm going to have to find new bathroom reading material.

I know what I'd like to have: the spurious second part of Don Quixote, but I doubt I'd be able to find a copy of it.  (For the confused: following the publication of the first part, and while Cervantes was working on his own second part, another author — known only as Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, a pseudonym — published his own second part to Don Quixote.  As strange as it seems, this spurious sequel plays a role in the official second part; it's mentioned several times by characters, and at one point Don Quixote even changes his destination — after he finds out that the novel mentions him as going to the same city that he was originally journeying too — so as to show that he is not same Don Quixote as in the other author's book.)  So instead I'm looking at my bookshelf, trying to figure out what I haven't gotten around to reading yet, and whether or not I want to read it at the moment.

Really, it comes down to War & Peace, Les Misérables, the first part of Proust's In Search of Lost Time (so I can figure out whether I want to buy and read the rest of it), or the second part of The Divine Comedy.  However, I'm not sure if I really feel like reading sentences that are hundreds of words long (Proust, Hugo — although, in Proust's defence, his most infamous sentence isn't in this volume), keeping track of multiple names for each character (Tolstoy — damn those Russians and their patronymics!), and I'm just not certain if I'm in the mood for poetry (Dante) right now.

Le sigh.  What's a boy to do?

Actually, I think I've just made this entire entry a moot point, as I've suddenly figured out what I want to read: The Collected Writings of Ambrose Bierce, although I'm not sure whether I'll skip over The Devil's Dictionary (which I've read before), or not.  I'll figure that out once I reach that point.

*Urp*

Important note to self: no matter how good of an idea it sounds like at the time, it's probably not in my best interest to purchase and consume discount pastries, that are made almost entirely out of whipped cream, at eleven o'clock at night.

Paddlin' the School Canoe?

Hold onto your hats everyone; if you thought Merrill Keiser Jr. was an out-there political candidate, then you have yet to encounter independent candidate for Texas governor, Larry Kilgore.

How is he crazier than Keiser?  Well, just look at his stance on the issues:  Abortion?  That's a stonin'.  DWI? That's a stonin'.  Adultery?  Also a stonin'.  Stonin' someone for a crime, when you haven't been vested the authority to stone them?  Oh, you better believe that's a stonin'.  (Well, at least he's consistent.)

Porn or strip clubs?  Up to 40 lashes, and no, not the kinky kind of lashes.  Although that does make me wonder: does lashing someone who was engaged in making BDSM porn really count as a punishment?

The prison budget?  Eliminate it.  (Of course, when you're executing or whipping people, you don't exactly need a prison to hold them in.)  Illegal immigrants?  Deport them, but only after whipping and fining them.  ("Yes, I understand that you fled your home country to escape crippling poverty, but you don't perchance have $3000 dollars on you?  No?  Oh.")  Oh, and dating isn't a good idea either.

So, what's he going to do if elected and then informed that he can't do these things?  Why, he's going to ask the president nicely not to do anything.  (See: the first FAQ question.)

But perhaps most confusing of all is this one:

What do you think of democracy?
Democracy and Terrorism: Two Faces Of The Same Evil.

If that's the case, isn't he supporting terrorism just by running?

Posted by g026r at 20:38 | 2 comments | Most recent by g026r

Generic Film-Related Entry Title

I've been spending some of my spare just-browsing the-'net time on Flixster.  Basically (for those who haven't already heard of it), it's a site where you rate movies, and then it uses these ratings to determine compatibility between your listed friends' movie tastes, and your own.

It's not without flaws though.  Foremost among these is the way in which friends are added.  If you don't know someone's profile, you enter an email address and it sends a message off to the person inviting them to join Flixster.  If you do know the profile URL, you click on the add friend link, and then... it sends off an email asking the person if they want to let you add them as a friend.  (All friend relationships are mutual; adding someone as your friend automatically places you on their friends list as well.)  To be blunt: it's email-flood-tastitc!

Secondly, among its flaws, is that you can't trust the overall user ratings.  Unless, of course, you believe that Ultraviolet (described by a connoisseur of bad movies as "quite possibly the worst movie I've ever seen in the theater") is as good as Casablanca (as both have a rating of 3-stars).  To sum up the problem, I'm grabbing one review each from When A Stranger Calls and Final Destination 3 (neither of which I have ever seen).  To quote from a 1-star rating for Stranger: "i dnt no dis 1 aint seen it", and a 5-star rating for Destination: "it's look's so good want 2 c it so much!!".  (The later is incredibly confusing, as there is a Want To See rating included for just that purpose.)

But yes, it would appear that you don't even have to have heard of a movie to rate it one star.  (Something which appears quite common, unless it's normal for someone to have seen several thousand films, most of which are worthy of one star ratings.)  What's even scarier though?  The fact that those ratings aren't even close to the worst.  What does "dis film izn brill" mean?  "This film isn't brilliant" makes the most sense, except that it was paired with a 5-star review.  So that terminal n?  It appears to serve just to make the two-letter word longer (in contrast to all the other mangled spellings).  English teachers everywhere weep.

But anyways, if you're still interested after this (it's not as bad as all that), you can find my profile using either my MSN or my Google Talk account addresses.  Don't let the fact that the real name isn't what you expect fool you; Ed Black is in fact myself.

Freaky

So I'm entering names into a database.  First and last names, the idea being that I can then do SELECT fname, lname FROM firstnames, lastnames ORDER BY RANDOM() LIMIT 1; to get a new random name for use when I'm making up a Call of Cthulhu scenario.

I enter a handful of first and last names (about 30 of the former, and 15 of the later), and decide to give it a shot.  I type in the command, and what does it spit out?

Ramsey Campbell.

I think that's an indication that I should paint an elder sign around my bed before I go to sleep tonight.

Schadenfruede

My two favouritest coporations (one private, one crown), who seem to base business decisions around the question of "what do you think we can get away with today?" caught in a scandal involving a secret contract with terms that make no sense at all?  What's not to love.  Well, except the fact that, given that this is New Brunswick and involves the Irvings, this will likely quickly disappear without a trace.