ModestGeniusXL

Things to Be Grateful For

The Great Chili Cookoff

Okay...so it wasn't really "great" in terms of being some national competition or anything.  In fact, there wasn't even a monetary prize.  It was just for bragging rights.  The winner got to proclaim that they had the best chili out of anybody in the entire 50+ person company.  The winner out of the whopping seven people that entered the contest.  So I guess it was great for that person.

Today marked yet another food day for our department with the theme being chili.  You all know how I LOVE me some food days.  Especially one geared towards chili.  However, it would have been even better if the weather was seasonably cold like it is supposed to be this time of year.  For some reason, that seems to make hot food taste even better. 

The variety brought in was very interesting.  Colin Farrell who sits behind me brought in some chicken chili that his wife made.  He said he was worried that it turned out a bit soupier than he had expected.  That probably worked to his advantage.  That chili had a little bit of a chicken tortilla soup taste to it that put it among my favorite of all the selections.

Everyone kept talking about the crockpot against the wall that had some kick to it so naturally I had to try it.  I wasn't tasting "the kick" they were all talking about.  It just wasn't that spicy.  What it did have was a very unusual taste that I could have sworn was chocolate powder.  Would someone put chocolate powder in their chili in an effort to give it a unique flavor?  I found out later it was actually ginger.  Still not understanding that selection either, but to each their own.

There was another that had strange black things in it.  They weren't olives.  They weren't chunks of pepper.  Was that.....?  Yep.  Cloves.  I couldn't even bring myself to try that one.  Yet another interesting choice.  Are you supposed to even eat cloves?  I thought that's what was used to season holiday hams?

As expected, I was paying the price for all the spicy eats.  I at least figured it wouldn't be until later on this evening.  Especially given that I had taken plenty of  Tums and even Rolaids.  Not so much.  It wasn't even fifteen minutes after eating that I had to get it out of my system.  That was around noon and I feel round four coming on as we speak. 

So for the record, I now know that Chinese food, McDonald's and pretty much everything spicy goes right thru me.

Ma Reiner Heads to That Big Diner in the Sky

"I'll have what she's having."

It became one of the most well known movie quotes in the modern era.  Definitely just as renown as the infamous diner scene in "When Harry Met Sally" that preceded it.  The little known "actress" who uttered those famous words has now left us.

Estelle Reiner died of old age at her home Saturday.  She was 94-years-old.

Estelle got the part that made her famous because of her connections.  Director Rob Reiner knew that the right person for such role would be his mother so she was cast in the role.  Once Meg Ryan finished her fake "finale" that has already gone down in the lexicon one American cinema, Estelle was seen as a patron in the same diner who said those famous five words.

Reiner himself has looked old for some time.  Maybe it's because we remember him as a young Meathead on "All in the Family".  He seemed to age instantly as he lost his hair and gained about 100 pounds.  By contrast, his mother looked considerably good for her age.  She would have been in her mid-70s when she played that role yet didn't look a day past her 60s. 

Even if that one five second scene was the only acting Estelle ever did, she made it memorable.  Plus, it's not as if that was her only contribution to Hollywood.  She did also bring Rob into this world so it was thanks to her (and Mr. Reiner) that we have other classics like "Bye Bye Love" and, as appropriate for this time of year, "Misery".

 Rest in peace, Mrs. Reiner.

Thursday Throwback

Jason Goes to Arsenio

As much of a fan I was of Arsenio's show back in the day, I didn't catch every single episode.  That would explain how I missed this hilarious interview.  Fortunately, I came across it just in time to get it out here for the season...

Tell Me How Can He Breathe with No Air

I thought the days of having shorties with the asthma issue were behind us.  Mariah still has the problem every now and then but nowhere near as serious as it used to be.  She's down to an inhaler now.  It's very seldom that she will need a nebulizer treatment.  So basically, she grew out of it just like the doctors said she would.  I still marvel at how far she has come since the days that she was born three months premature.

Now it turns out G has the problem pop up periodically.  And it will come at the most random times too.  It's not like he'll be ripping and running and then gets out of breath.  He won't even be exerting himself and starts having issues.

He tries his best to be a trooper.  He woke up much earlier than normal the other day and came into the living room as I was watching Sportscenter, getting ready for work.  He had a little cough which was nothing, but I noticed he was really laboring to breathe.  I repeatedly asked him if he was okay and he kept saying yes.  Kept telling me it didn't hurt anywhere.  He could try to man up as much as he wanted, but  I had dealt with it with Mariah for so long that I knew it wasn't good. 

G ended up missing school yesterday.  I wish I could have stayed home with him; however, I don't yet have any sick time built up so that wasn't an option.  After a trip to the doctor, he was given some antibiotics and a nebulizer prescription.  They gave us a nebulizer machine that we could rent for a couple of days.  Fortunately, we still had our own handy travel version left over from Mariah's spells.

He's dong much better although he missed school again Wednesday.  The breathing problems are much less infrequent and he was down to just a couple of treatments a day.  Watching him use the machine was bringing back memories.  Not necessarily good ones.  Here we go again.

Not Quite a Ferrari

So I'm the equivalent of a mid-sized sedan?  I guess I can live with that at my age. ..

27.5 miles per gallon

Created by The Car Connection

Nice...

You Are Most Like Bill Clinton

No doubt, your legacy may be a little seedier than you'd like. But even though you've done some questionable things, you're still loved by almost all.

What Modern US President Are You Most Like?

One to Add to Your Collection - "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"

Yes, I understand this is clearly stretching the bounds of the requirements for "scary movies" just a bit for this one.  True, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" is a far cry away form a horror picture.  For all intensive purposes, it's really a family film.  However, for this time of year, it should be required viewing so it makes my list as a Halloween Fright Week classic.

This originally aired way back in 1966 as a special on ABC.  Ever since then, I don't know a single person who doesn't remember watching this as a shortie.  Today's generation may have been a little spoiled with cable and having so many other options.  When we were coming up and there were just four stations, having a cartoon come on at night was a pleasant surprise.

I didn't realize it back then, but as I look back now, I wonder if Schultz knew how far ahead of his time he was with that special?   You've got Linus worshiping a pagan idol in the Great Pumpkin which is already ironic in the fact that the whole holiday is centered in paganism.  More than that though, it's lampooning the fact that as a society, we create pagan idols to associate with holidays that have nothing to do with them at all.  Namely the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.

One thing I remember thinking even as watching it as a shortie was how jacked up they treated Charlie Brown.  Not his peers but the adults.  Remember how they went trick-or-treating and he always got rocks?  What adult would give a child a rock and everyone else candy?!  That was SO messed up.  An interesting bit of trivia regarding that is after special originally aired, children from all over the country sent candy to Charlie Brown out of sympathy.

It airs tonight on television again on its 42nd anniversary being just as fresh now as it was back when it first premiered.  Watching specials like this one is a stark reminder that no matter how hard different illustrators may try, we will probably never see great animated entertainment equivalent to the Peanuts ever again.

Yes, I understand this is clearly stretching the bounds of the requirements for "scary movies" just a bit for this one.  True, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" is a far cry away form a horror picture.  For all intensive purposes, it's really a family film.  However, for this time of year, it should be required viewing so it makes my list as a Halloween Fright Week classic.

This originally aired way back in 1966 as a special on ABC.  Ever since then, I don't know a single person who doesn't remember watching this as a shortie.  Today's generation may have been a little spoiled with cable and having so many other options.  When we were coming up and there were just four stations, having a cartoon come on at night was a pleasant surprise.

I didn't realize it back then, but as I look back now, I wonder if Schultz knew how far ahead of his time he was with that special?   You've got Linus worshiping a pagan idol in the Great Pumpkin which is already ironic in the fact that the whole holiday is centered in paganism.  More than that though, it's lampooning the fact that as a society, we create pagan idols to associate with holidays that have nothing to do with them at all.  Namely the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.

One thing I remember thinking even as watching it as a shortie was how jacked up they treated Charlie Brown.  Not his peers but the adults.  Remember how they went trick-or-treating and he always got rocks?  What adult would give a child a rock and everyone else candy?!  That was SO messed up.  An interesting bit of trivia regarding that is after special originally aired, children from all over the country sent candy to Charlie Brown out of sympathy.

It airs tonight on television again on its 42nd anniversary being just as fresh now as it was back when it first premiered.  Watching specials like this one is a stark reminder that no matter how hard different illustrators may try, we will probably never see great animated entertainment equivalent to the Peanuts ever again.

The Secret Life of Bees

Despite the fact that this one starred the likes of Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys and Jennifer Hudson, that wasn't what cinched it for me.  It also wasn't the fact the story takes place during my favorite time in history, the Civil Rights era.  It was that it the second major release from director Gina Prince-Bythewood.  The woman responsible for making one of my all-time favorites, "Love and Basketball".  I couldn't wait to see what she would do with her sophomore attempt.

Prince-Bythewood's adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's novel The Secret Life of Bees stars Dakota Fanning as Lily, a fourteen-year-old growing up in a small southern town in 1964. She is haunted by memories of shooting her mother when she was a young girl. Lily lives with her emotionally distant father, and her best friend is their African-American housekeeper, Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson).

After locals beat Rosaleen for attempting to register as a voter, and Lily's Dad goes one step too far during an argument with Lily, she and the housekeeper set out to find the place where the only picture Lily has of her mother was taken. That place turns out to be the home of the independent Boatwright sisters, a trio - August (Queen Latifah), May (Sophie Okonedo), and June (Alicia Keys) - who make a very successful living producing honey. Lily and her friend move in with them, and soon the girl learns about both beekeeping and life.

I am  fairly certain we were supposed to empathize with Lily as we witnessed what she was going thru.  I was looking at it a little different.  She was almost like a bad luck charm.  Every life she touched had something bad happen to them.  She goes to town with Rosaleen and Rose gets beaten.  She goes to the movies with Zach (Tristan Wilds) and he comes up missing.  Then May does something drastic as a result of that incident.  These folks were better off by not having Lily enter their lives.

There's one scene in particular that really disturbed me.  As far as I'm concerned, it was even worse than watching the racist locals go off on Roasleen.  Although given the current news, that moment in the movie was a little too surreal.  Hudson just recently found out that her mother, brother and now nephew were murdered in cold blood.  To see her character getting physically abused on screen seemed like watching her feel the pain of that terrible news.

For me, the scene in question was when August introduced Lily to the sisters' mode of praying.  You would have thought it would have been to God.  Nope.  They had a pagan statute in their living room of a little Black woman looking Sojourner Truth with a raised fist.  When they needed inspiration, they prayed to her and rubbed her chest for strength. What, what, WHAT?!  It is moments like those where I would hope something is lost in translation from the book to the movie.  Maybe the book explains it more so as it doesn't look so sacrilegious.  Otherwise, the way it was portrayed in the film came across as praying to a false idol and just didn't sit right with me.

Nate Parker as June's suitor, Nate, is quickly making a name for himself.  This is now the second film he's been in less than a year where the story is takes place prior to the 21st century.  He's turning into our version of Orlando Bloom.  If your movie doesn't take place in the modern era, he's your man.  I'm not even trying to hate though because just as he did in "The Great Debaters", Parker blew up the spot in his role. 

I always wondered what would happen to Fanning as she got older.  Would she go the Macaulay Culkin route where she would burn out as a child actor then grow up to have nothing left in the tank?  To be fair, Fanning had MUCH better material to work with than Culkin did.  Not to mention that she was immensely talented for her age.  Heck, she was more talented than some actors MY age.  It turns out that as she enters that awkward age where her looks are transforming from a child to a young woman, her acting chops remain intact.  She brings her usual sensitivity to the Lily character and continues to show signs that she will indeed be around for years to come.

Getting a book to transform into an excellent movie can often be tricky.  It was never more obvious than with "The Secret Life of Bees".  There were just so many characters that you get the feel a book could have done them more justice.  I'm not so sure this was a wise choice for Gina's second major motion picture, but I will commend her for her effort.

My rating:  B-

1 - 6

They are actually televising the Chiefs/Jets game today?  That's almost unbelievable.  Oh wait...Bret Favre is the quarterback for he Jets now.  He used to play for the Packers.  Lots of Green Bay fans around here.  The local market is thinking the fans here would want to see him play.  That had to be it because you KNOW it wasn't because of the Chiefs.

Thanks to Larry Johnson's off the field antics last week, he didn't play today.  If the Chiefs were smart, they wouldn't play him next week either.  He needs to learn a lesson.  You don't just go around spitting on people all willy nilly like you don't have no dang sense.  I know LJ said in the press conference that he's disgusted with himself and he should be.  Still, it should cost him more than just one game.  It's not like it would make a difference if he played or not anyway.

So with no LJ, that made KC's already thin running game even more questionable.  That meant it was time for their passing attack to step up.  Fully anticipating that, you would have thought Kansas City would have went out and brought in Daunte Culpepper, right?  That would have been nice, but Herm admitted that although they talked to him, they never even brought him on campus.  Nice.  Good to know you all are so committed to winning.

No running, no passing...that means the defense had to step it up.  I will give them their props because they did come thru a little.  They managed to get three picks off Favre and one of them ran back for a touchdown.  However, this is Favre we're talking about.  He's been known to throw multiple picks in a game as part of his gunslinger persona.  So it wasn't so much the KC defense showing out as it was Favre trying to show off.

Unfortunately, the same thing that causes Favre to throw a few interceptions is the same thing that allows him to pull off comebacks.  I was celebrating right along with KC when they ran back that third INT for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter.  Of course that sealed New York's fate, right?  Maybe with another quarterback at the helm, but not with Favre.  He rallied his squad for his 14th come-from-behind victory to sink the Chiefs 28-24.

What's ironic about the whole Favre thing is he could have been in KC.  He should have been there.  It wouldn't have been that far from his home in Green Bay.  But NOOOOOooo...he wanted the Packers to trade him to the Jets.  Yeah I'm bitter.  I never liked him anyway.  Stupid Favre...

Even with all that transpired, the Chiefs STILL had enough time to make a last minute run at a victory in the final seconds.  All they had was have Tyler Thigpen drive them down the field for a score.  The problem with that?  Asking Tyler Thigpen to drive them down the field for a score.  I don't care that the had his best game as a Chief going 25 for 36 for 280 yards.  He didn't' come thru when it matters and that's what KC needs.

Mirrors

The show "24" has been successful for so long that some people forget Keiffer Sutherland used to be a movie star first.  Maybe he wasn't a huge one and that his biggest accomplishment was being the son of a major movie star, but the big screen was where he lived.  He was even a part of a vampire classic with "The Lost Boys" so it was no surprise that with his latest return to film, it was in a horror flick.

In "Mirrors", it has been about a year since NYPD detective Ben Carson (Sutherland) has been suspended for accidentally shooting an undercover cop.  Finding work has gotten so difficult that he has to take a job as a security guard working in a fire-damaged department store.  Because, you know, department stores that have been ravaged by fire need a lot of security.

While working the graveyard shift, Carson begins noticing something sinister lurking in the mirrors of the the store.  The same type things that drove the former security guard there batty and caused him to take his own life.  The same things that end up following Carson home to his family and continue to haunt him while at work as well as while away.

The first thing I was trying to figure out was why are they even patrolling this old department store anyway?  Were they trying to make sure there were no bums staying in it?  If so, so what?  The place was burned up so bad that it should have been condemned and boarded up anyway.  Tear it down.  Big as that property was, it should have been taken out and had a bigger and better store put up.  Of course, then they would have had the problem of building a new property on the ground where folks had died and they would still haunt the new place too.

There is NO way being a security guard would pay enough to put up with the mental torment Carson was experimenting.  If you hear/see ghosts in your house, it's time to get out.  Don't care how long you been living there.  But if it's at some job that you JUST started?!  You couldn't get me to quit that job fast enough.  Naturally, they made Carson's occupation a former cop so that would justify him being nosy enough to stick around and see what was causing all the strange happenings. 

Playing off the concept of mirrors was a fantastic idea for a horror movie.  How many times have you gone to the restroom in the middle of the night and the shadow of an image in the mirror startled you because you're half asleep and didn't realize it was only you?  Now imagine if that wasn't the case and it was really a ghost of some sort?  Or worse yet, that it could force you do things you had no control over?

They did a great job here of getting across some good chills intermingled with disturbing images to make an excellent horror flick.  It started off things grisly right from the start as we found out how the original security guard committed suicide.  What was even better was the frights stayed consistent throughout and it got to the point where just the sight of any reflective surface was cause enough to make you jump.

"Mirrors" is yet another movie I find out later was another remake.  The original was a Korean movie called "Geoul sokeuro (Into the Mirror)" that was released in 2003.  Which once again means if I want to see if the original is better, I have to subject myself to more subtitles. This remake did a good enough job leaving me satisfied as a horror fan so I'm good. 

My rating:  B+