#90 - got milk?

i finally got around to watching milk the other night (for those who haven't seen the film, spoilers may be ahead), starring sean penn as gay rights pioneer harvey milk. to be honest, going in, i was watching it partly for the story but mostly because it's a gus van sant film & i've absolutely loved his last four films, even more than his earlier, pre-good will hunting stuff. they've made me more excited about the possibilities of film making than most films have recently. i was most interested in seeing how he handled a straight biopic, as he has a history of making films loosely based on actual events, films like to die for (the pamela smart murder), elephant (columbine) & last days (kurt cobain's suicide).

it definitely has the feel of a gus vant sant film. the titles play over black & white archival footage of gay bars being broken up & the title of the film is barely noticeable during its three seconds on the screen. early on, harvey meets scott smith (james franco) in nyc & van sant chooses to show them kissing in extremely extreme close ups. he shows them moving cross country to san fran in 72 via what looks like home video footage.

throughout, he works in actual news reports by walter cronkite (chi phi alum!) & actual clips of anita bryant, a powerful anti-gay rights advocate & all around evil bitch who was basically milk's antithesis. near the end of the film, there's a scene at harvey's 48th bday party with him & the desperate & drunk dan white (milk's assassin, played by josh brolin), where van sant initially frames them as these tiny figures in a large room...oh & there's the emotional pain of the characters. van sant loves pain.

i was discussing the film with a co-worker (sweet head shot!) yesterday & it turns out he actually worked on to die for in some capacity, so he's familiar with van sant & was curious as to my thoughts on the film. to be more specific, he asked me if there was redemption for the characters, as van sant doesn't often offer that up for his characters. in the end, milk's boyfriend has hung himself & harvey is assassinated, but he's been elected to office, created a protege in cleve jones (emile hirsch), defeated prop 6 & even heard from a boy in MN, who had years earlier called harvey out of the blue, saying he was going to kill himself over his parents' reaction to him being gay. it felt like redemption to me.

& just over 30 years later, here we are. after the shit storm that CA created with prop 8 last year, 2009 has been a busy year thus far for gay rights. NJ & NH recognized civil unions as of this year & after iowa made gay marriage legal two weeks ago, this week, ME voted to make gay marriage legal come september, the same month where it becomes legal in VT. D.C. voted to recognize gay marriages this week (subject to congress approval) & NH sent a same-sex marriage bill to governor lynch. his signature awaits & if he does sign, gay marriage will be legal in five of the six new england states & is recognized in RI. harvey's actions are starting to lead to something...perhaps eventually they will lead to the secession of new england from the u.s.?  i would totally move back there if that happened.

#90 - got milk?
snack: lindt kirsch m&ms with almonds
drink: rice dream supreme chocolate chai rice milk


the other day at the local polish grocery store, as i was walking in, i spied the lindt kirsch bar (pictured above) on the counter & figured i'd give it a shot. while watching the film, i finally broke it out. as the packaging depicts, you're basically getting a flat piece of chocolate with a little bubble on top that's filled with what you might assume is some sort of cherry liquid.

i didn't do my research beforehand to find out what exactly kirsch is & when i bit into the first piece, i was greeted with a flavor akin to taking the cheapest, hoboiest vodka you can find & soaking a couple of cherries in a glass of it overnight, before drinking the whole damn thing, cherries & all. then there was the crunch. oh the crunch. apparently, kirsch is a fruit brandy distilled from sour cherries & when placed in chocolate, they also put in a layer of hard sugar to compensate for its lack of sweetness...wasn't expecting that either.  at first, i'd thought it had gone bad & crystallized.  the approximate sound i made was mlaaaaaahhhhhchhhhh...followed by a series of panicked, rapid tongue movements.

the thought of eating a second piece never even crossed my mind, but i was having a serious chocolate craving, so i paused the film, ran out to the bodega & grabbed an old standby, a bag of m&ms with almonds. since i'm a slave to almonds, whenever i'm in a candy/double consonant/ampersand mood, i always go back to the almond m&ms. other than the obvious candy shell & chocolate awesomeness, there's just something about the size of them that makes them so damn appealing...much better than those wussy sized regular, non-nut flavored ones.

my beverage of choice for the evening was a tall glass of rice dream supreme chocolate chai rice milk, with a couple of ice cubes tossed in for good measure. i originally picked it up a few days back for #88 - (rice dream), but ditched it in favor of the rice beer, which i felt was much more appropriate to have with chips. since then, i've been using it in my morning coffee, instantly making it infinitely better.  coffee + mocha + chai = my secret to getting to work this week.  it's not only helped me in that regard, but along with the m&ms, it helped immensely as far as casting the demons of the kirsch taste away from my mouth.

i could definitely get down with rice milk on a regular basis, especially if it's all flavored & junk.  over the past week, i've actually drank milk outside of my coffee & cereal, so having it around, with all its vitamins & nutrients, is definitely having a positive effect...& you know what they say about milk & bodies.  it totally does them good.  if i keep this up, i'm going to be so awesomely buff.

nosh nook #24 - thursday, april 16, 2009

natural resource (link)
04.15.09 - san diego union tribune - by peter rowe

it's no secret that i like eating foods constructed in a method similar to that of a tonka truck as much as the next guy.  deep down though, i go 10x as crazy for something that's certified organic & actually good for me.  organic veggies?  mmm.  organic cookies?  love em.  organic beers?  i've tried a few and guess what?  they taste just like regular beers.  i just wish organic foods weren't so damn expensive.  i'm not all that low-income myself, but those high prices are definitely a reason behind low-income folks choosing crappy, unhealthy foods over organic foods.

snackwise, my favorite organic pleasure is the organic chocolate bar, with green & black's chocolate bars currently taking my top prize.  as peter rowe's article details, the organic chocolate bar industry is doing pretty well these days.  he visited anaheim & the natural products west expo, where, out of 1,900 vendors, there were "dozens of companies scrapping for limited supplies of organic cacao and for consumers of cacao's scrumptious byproduct, chocolate."

as he goes on to explain, back in the day, chocolate had a bad rep, before there were thousands of studies about the health benefits of dark chocolate.  these days, organic chocolate is "the nation's fastest growing organic snack – u.s. sales leapt 450 percent between 1999 and 2007."  still, most of the organic cacao supply is taken up by two companies--green & black's and dagoba organic (hershey's)--so there's somewhat of a supply problem.  something will have to change there if the organic chocolate industry expects to keep growing as demand does...& if they want more people to be able to afford the organic chocolates, something will definitely have to change.

#77 - chinatown.

why are chinatowns always so friggin full of way too many people & way too many weird smells & general batshit insanity? you might have a chinatown in your city, but i can't see how it could possibly hold a candle to the craziness of nyc's. of course, this assumes that i have no readers in shanghai & that the chinese government would block my blog anyhow.

for those of you who have never been to nyc's version, let me attempt to break down how chinatown works here:

the main street through chinatown is canal st, which runs from the holland tunnel on the west side to the manhattan bridge on the east side. back in the day, it actually was a canal, built to drain a disease-ridden pond into the hudson river. the area near the pond eventually became five points (the area made famous in gangs of new york).

nowadays, canal st is a major commercial way & the sidewalks are filled with tons of chinese people & tables with jewelry & blankets with bootleg dvds & copious bags of trash & slack-jawed tourists walking through it all in a daze, oblivious to the fact that their slack-jawedness inconveniences the other 300 people within the 10 foot radius around them, as those other people are usually trying to walk to other places.

the platforms at the canal st subway station are often scary places packed with so many people that you get the feeling that you (or a slack-jawed tourist) could very easily get bumped onto the tracks & into the path of an incoming train. boarding a rush hour q train here is often as close as you can get to a japan subway-style crush.

throughout chinatown, there's a lot of the same. TOO MANY DAMN PEOPLE! AND BOOTLEGS! AND BINS WITH WEIRD FLOPPING FISH! AND SKINNED CHICKENS IN THE WINDOWS OF PLACES! i don't mind the last three things as much the first.

#77 - chinatown.
snack: walky walky chocolate creme covered pretzel bits
drink: foco dragon fruit juice drink


on saturday, i met up with my brother at hong kong supermarket (in chinatown) & picked up a bunch of stuff, including but not limited to prawn crackers, rock candy that comes in pieces so big a hammer is required & a tag team of dumplings and dumpling sauce.

today, i dug into my chinatown booty. for a snack, i'm having walky walky chocolate creme covered pretzel bits. they're a japanese product & as you can see from the photo above, the packaging is awesome & coffee cup shaped. the bits look a bit like rabbit turds, but they have a nice dark chocolatey smell & the lid of the package flips open like a portable coffee cup, allowing you to drink them as if they were willy wonka's loveable nerds...sort of like a bunch of pieces of chocolate pocky. definitely tasty.

i'm having a foco dragon fruit juice drink, made in thailand, along with the rabbit turds. when i first poured it into a glass, i was definitely a bit frightened, as white chunks & pulp & black seeds of dragonfruit fell into my glass & floated around for a while before settling on the bottom. i'm glad the chunkiness has settled, because that means i don't have it sliming its way into my mouth as i try to enjoy the fruity dragonfruit taste.

in conclusion, the chinese grocery store has lots of weird, scary-looking junk, but some of it actually tastes good...i gotta be honest though...i can't finish this dragonfruit drink. those chunks have officially skeeved me out. sorry, thailand. i don't prefer feeling like somebody forgot to strain my drink.

#71 - the ring.

damn! double damn! south park is old! i used to be a huge fan of it, watched it all the time, even had an oversized cartman key chain hanging off my backpack at one point...then i got on with my life. i haven't watched it in forever, but this wednesday night was the lucky 13th season premiere, so i decided to check back on thursday night & see what's going on in the world of south park, co.

this week's episode begins with the boys in the lunch room, staring at kenny (not dead) sitting with his new fifth-grade girlfriend, tammy, the only girl in school poorer than him. the rumor is that she gave some boy a bj in the t.g.i.fridays parking lot. when the boys break it to kenny, he cheers & runs down the hallway to confront tammy. she confesses that the rumor is true, but only happened because she saw the jonas brothers (jo bros) on the disney channel & got all tingly...cut to kenny buying two tickets to the upcoming jo bros concert at denver's pepsi center.

the boys are disgusted at kenny's plan. cartman warns him that, "statistically speaking, the most bacteria-ridden place on the planet is the mouth of an american woman." so true. kenny & tammy go to the jo bros concert & there are tons of little girls freaking out to lyrics like "i'm ready to get it on, but there's no getting it on til i'm ready." after the show, tammy gets asked backstage with a group of girls & security gives kenny the boot. the end result...the jo bros get the girls (& kenny, by default) to wear purity rings ("the hip new way to roll").

it's a trying time for kenny & the guys see how lame he's becoming as he starts hanging out with other purity ring couples. he even starts watching greys anatomy.

at the same time, the jo bros are getting fed up with the purity rings getting in the way of their "music." after shooting a video, they storm off the set & are eventually confronted by the boss...mickey mouse.

mickey is pissed. the purity rings are important, because it's the only way disney can sell sex to little girls. when joe jonas tries to keep pushing the purity ring issue, mickey kicks him in the junk & beats him to the ground. later on, the jo bros are on "good morning denver," promoting their next show, at red rocks, where they will be "dousing girls with white foam." the boys show up & cartman interrupts the jo bros, until the boys are all shot by blowgun darts from mickey, paranoid that dreamworks & michael eisner are trying to ruin everything.

the boys wake up backstage & after mickey loses it, he accidentally announces, to the horror of the crowd, his plan for selling sex to little girls, whilst calling christians "retarded." when people disapprove, the whole promise ring scam collapses & mickey grows into a fire-breathing, float-sized giant who terrorizes the city.

in the end, kenny & tammy decide not to wear the purity rings...& kenny gets syphillis & dies for the first time since season 11, proving that sex is obviously wrong.

#71 - the ring.

snack: chocolove cherries & almonds in dark chocolate
drink: avery brewing co karma ale

since i was worried about offending south park creators trey parker & matt stone & subsequently having my junk booted or city terrorized because i didn't have a proper theme, i specifically decided to have a snack & drink both from colorado tonight. a colorado beer was easy enough to find, but i probably freaked out a few store owners as i flipped over snack package after snack package in an attempt to identify the manufacturer's home state, eventually, i found the chocolove cherries & almonds in dark chocolate bar, made by a company in boulder.

i really enjoyed the taste of the cherry chocolove bar, even though the cherry taste wasn't very prominent. the dark chocolate was tasty enough & the almonds & slight cherry tastes here & there (rather than having big cherry chunks in the bar) made for some tasty chocolate consumption. plus, their wrappers contain verses from love poems. the one i got was from i love thee, by eliza acton (a poet & cook from the 1800s):

i love thee, as i love the calm
of sweet, star-lighted hours!
i love thee, as i love the balm
of early jes'mine flowers

...what a lovely, heartfelt chocolate bar.

to keep the colorado love going, i had an avery brewing co karma ale along with my chocolate & south park viewing. it's also made by a company out of boulder. to be honest, there isn't really anything special about this ale other than its implied ability to dispense karma. i'm even skeptical of that though, since we all know that karma must be inherited through our own actions.

let's end with a quick discussion about karma. for starters, we know that the instant kind is gonna getchoo. it'll knock you right on the head. we also know that if you talk in maths or have a hitler hairdo, thom yorke will suggest that the karma police come arrest you. a little known fact...musical superjoke the black eyed peas were once a pretty good group & once believed in karma, way back in the late 90s...then they let fergie into the group, pretty much guaranteeing a lifetime of negative karma for those fools..."ain't no running from karma"...sho nuf, will.i.am.

#69 - somebody please shoot me in the face.

oh snap! have you guys seen fox's show hole in the wall? it is a remake of the japanese show brain wall & it has been adapted all over the world & it is totally off the chain! hole in the wall brings the people of the world together!

in this u.s. version, teams of three, in various combinations & configurations, stand on a platform & then a wall is revealed with a section cut out of it & then it starts moving toward them & they have to line their bodies up so they don't break the wall or get pushed into a pool of green liquid, which i'm 90% sure is mountain dew. it's really dramatic! tonight's teams are "female gymnasts vs male acrobats" and "surfer boys vs surfer girls."

check out this scoring system. please try to keep up. the first round is a one-player wall. if you don't break it or fall into the dew, you get one point. round two is a two-player wall. it is worth two points. the third round features a three-player wall. it is worth three points. this is where the scoring gets tricky. after that, there is a bonus, catch-up round with a three-person double-speed wall. each person who makes it through the wall gets two points. then there is the bonus round for the winning team.

it's hosted by l.a. weather anchor mark thompson, who speaks to the people from high above on a balcony & brooke burns, who is apparently there to act pretty & interview the contestants with stupid questions. TOTALLY AWESOME stupid questions! wooooooo!

there's much use of the phrase "it's time to face the hole" in this show. also, in case you're tracking your vegas bets, tonight's two winning teams were the "handspring hotties" and the "beach bunnies." the beach bunnies even cleared the bonus wall, so they get $125K. then they all jumped in the pool of mountain dew to get wet & celebrate. go feminism.

#69 - somebody please shoot me in the face.
snack: frey tiramisu chocolate bar
drink: long trail brewmaster series coffee stout

i sure do have a thing for the swiss recently, even though they don't have a version of brain wall gracing their airwaves. tonight, i'm trying out the swiss-made, target-exclusive frey tiramisu chocolate bar while i watch fox's u.s. version of the most einsteinien game show ever invented.

i guess this tiramisu bar is about as close as you can get, in chocolate bar form, to a piece of tiramisu, so that's good. it has marscapone powder in it & that's totally the powder of the cheese that you use when making tiramisu. authentic! also, like with tiramisu, after you have eaten a few pieces, you feel so full that chances are that you won't be able to down another damn thing...well, maybe except for a cappucino or something.

since i don't have no stinkin' cappucino, a long trail brewmaster series coffee stout will have to do, i suppose. long trail is a vermont brewery & this beer comes in a 22 oz bottle that costs 11¢ less than the 12 oz canned stout i had just the other night. it's pretty much your standard coffee stout, with a dark complexion & a burnt, coffee-like taste. it goes really well with the tiramisu chocolate bar. flavorwise, they totally blend in mouth for good yum taste in mouth.

in conclusion, hole in the wall is a thinking man's game show. think jeopardy on steroids. NOT!!! [wayne's world reference]. next up on fox after hole in the wall: the simpsons! that's still a thinking man's show, right? [wayne's world reference].