Steak and Ale was started in 1966, according to the back of the menu I read the other day, and it looks like they haven’t changed a thing since. Which is a good thing, mostly. I don’t eat here often, as I have never been one of those people that love steaks above all things. I had the Prime Rib and baked potato, and had the general feeling that I could have made them at home and they would have been just as good. Maybe that is my trouble with steaks in general, I want to go to a restaurant…
About Schmidt-I know it’s old, but I never saw it
This is the story of everyman Schmidt who retires and finds that he has nothing to live for. Soon after his wife dies and the only person in the world that gave a damn about him is gone. His only daughter is marrying a loser and there is nothing he can do about it. His only hope of making any kind of differance in anyone’s life is when he watches a Save The Child ad on TV and decides to sponser a child. He has money, but it does him little good. He can travel, but just ends up reliving…
Zen and Juggling
Zen-doctrine that enlightenment can be attained through direct intuitive insightJuggling-throwing and catching several objects simultaneouslyZen Juggling-Enlightenment through throwing and catching. Ok, not really an original idea, there was a book about enlightenment through juggling that was kind of a fun idea, but ended up being totally silly. Kind of like, well, what did you expect?I’m not sure. Maybe it was just me that was silly. After a while you read enough books on finding wise and important people at gas stations or flying planes or selling robes that you just kind of expect all books to hold some kind of…
Showtime’s The Tudors
This is a very pretty show to watch. The costumes all look brand new and the actors are all scrubbed and beautiful beyond words. I know they are all supposed to be royalty and high members of the Catholic Church, but it still seems a bit odd that everything is as pretty as a freshly minted coin. I grew up watching all the classics in PBS with my dear old mum, so I watched The Six Wives of Henry the VIII at an early age and found it baffling, but entertaining. I feel much the same here.For starters, I was…
Juggling, Magic and The Path Not Taken
In the seventh grade I checked a book out of the school library on juggling. It was an odd little book filled with cartoon diagrams and curved arrows indicating where the balls were to go. I bought a can of tennis balls to juggle with and in three weeks of chasing boucning balls all over the house, I learned to juggle. The book also covered clubs, rings, and fire-all of which I juggled with a fair amount of success. And yet there were still no calls from Ringling Brothers.Not that I really expected there to be. A few years later…
Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl
I don’t eat at fine restaurants, but that didn’t stop me from throughly enjoying Ruth’s book on being a critic. Being a food write, as with most jobs involving writing, has been one of my passing fantasies. But it takes only a casual listen to this wonderful book for me to realized that I am out of my depth. My favorite foods are pizzas and BBQ, not truffles and foie gras. Also sad to say I had never heard of a sommeil before, which seems to be someone who knows a lot about wine. Of course, I don’t drink wine,…
It’s so just a job
I don’t know what I expected, but the new job, new as in less than a year old, is much like all my other jobs. I am good at the job, not that taking portraits is exactly rocket science, but it does take a bit of practice to get it right. I am fast and have a bit of fun and I am making more money than I have ever made before. And yet, that doesn’t really matter as much as I had hoped it would. Before enlightenment, fetch wood and carry water-after enlightenment, fetch wood and carry water. I…
Made to Stick
Walking around the library I find my way to the new books shelve and start scanning the titles. It’s the usual suspects, latest bestsellers and graphic novels, stuff for the restless mind that wants to get away from it all. Then there is a book with a fairly convincing bit of duct tape on the cover. Why some ideas survive and others die. Hmm, sounds like my kind book. And it is. Covering everything from the urban legend of the stolen kidney to the success of the Jared Subway commercials, this is really way cool stuff. Ok, saying really way…
28 Weeks Later-Die Die Everybody Die
28 Weeks Later picks up where 28 Days Later left off. It is full of pointless violence and gruesome gore splatters the screen. The general theme here is that the threat has past and life can return to normal. Of course, it doesn’t quite go that way. The discovery of a sole survivor gives a doctor the hope of a cure, but this survivor is more Typhoid Mary than savior. Cue the blood thirsty zombies. . .Like the first movie it is basically one long chase scene following a group of people that gets smaller and smaller as the film…
You don’t know what it’s like to be black
I was talking to a co-worker not too long ago and she started a standard rank about how hard it is to be black in America. She is twenty-one years old and in my humble opinion, she doesn’t know what it is like to be black in America either. She was born at least thrity years too late. I am a mostly white guy, a mixed breed with a father that looked like Juan Valdez of Colombian Coffee fame and a mother that looked a bit Irish. Dear old mom would tell stories of not being served in restaurants when…