Month: November 2006

Weird capitalist Christmas: I don’t know why the local Key Food supermarket has 6 different brands of egg nog. They only carry 3 different brands of milk, so that doesn’t make sense. Three of them are pictured in the flickr bar above. I bought the Lactaid version, and it wasn’t bad at all, and no gastrointestinal revenge afterwards.

If you would believe it, there is actually a legal definition of egg nog. Apparently under FDA rules, it is illegal to add yellow food coloring to egg nog, because it can give the impression that there is more egg yolk in the product than actually has been included.

Brooklyn Youth Chorus is having their holiday concert next Saturday in Brooklyn Heights. I went last year and this Grammy winning children’s singing group is always wonderful.

I love a capella in general and I tried searching around YouTube for some performances. Apparently U Penn has a gazillion a capella groups, including ones that do exclusively Chinese (PennYo), Korean (PennSori), and Indian songs (Penn Masala). I really liked PennYo’s covers of Jay Chou songs. They were full of expression and excitement.

PennYo: Jay Chou – Jian Dan Ai/Savage Garden – Truly Madly Deeply melody

They also did an Infernal Affairs spoof:

They had a performance in New York in October – I wished that I knew about it.

Let the holiday madness begin.

Saw Casino Royale on Thanksgiving Day – quite a movie. Plot was… well, it’s a Bond movie; plot doesn’t get in the way of making a visual movie. But, there is more of a plot than there has been in a while – bad banker takes money of terrorists to set up a wild poker game; British Secret Service wants banker taken in for his info; banker turns out to be more trouble than he’s worth, as Bond realizes that his work is sucking his soul away, whatever his soul once was. Action sequences were really something. Daniel Craig is Bond, James Bond. He’s not classically handsome, but he’s hot. And, Bond as a human being – thumbs up that we got o see this side of him. You watch him do the dangerous stuff and you actually feel his pain (yeah, Bond – jumping off buildings and trying to kill bastards ain’t easy, even if your Connery/Moore/Brosnan versions made it seem effortless). M as Judi Dench – still cool as ever. Eva Green as Vesper Lynd – um, ok -but I see her as a bit of a cipher. Jeffrey Wright as Felix, the CIA guy – cool. He had a great line; wish he was in the movie more and actually got to do stuff. Anyway, ultimately, I recommend watching it (not like anyone needs my approval to do that!). As the Entertainment Weekly review by Owen Gleiberman says:

Yet Craig, speckled with facial cuts, plays Bond with an almost bruised virility, making each of these actions an expression of unruly will. Casino Royale, the most exciting Bond film since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, has everything you want in a pop entertainment: physical audacity, intrigue, romance, but also a charge of personality that stayed with me for days.

I agree with Gleiberman – Craig as Bond was something.

Thanksgiving dinner – much food; leftovers to enjoy for the rest of the week.

Interesting article – an impromptu hoc book club on the No. 3 subway – I do notice that: sometimes, people in the NYC subway definitely read some interesting (and some rather loopy) reading.

So, how do you close your e-mails? “Your truly” isn’t enough, apparently.
Got to love Entertainment Weekly:

EW’s on-line coverage of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic book effort.

Monday P- took me to Lupa, Mario Batali’s Roman themed restaurant, for my birthday. We ordered the antipasti, which were Batali’s homemade sliced meats, as well as an array of seafood salads. They were wonderful – it’s one thing to have things like sardines from a can, and a whole other thing when they are prepared fresh. We followed with pasta – she had tripe sauce with rigotini, and I had tagatale with pork ragu. Didn’t seem so big, but boy were they filling! The desert was concord grape sorbet and ricotta gelato. Far more delicate than you would think. Definitely worth it.

Thanksgiving dinner today was at P’s mom’s house. It was early because P’s brother had to go to work at 6. We had all of the traditional foods – she even made cranberry sauce from scratch – we’re so full.

Amazing Race 10 – The Cho Bros turn out to be too nice and get dumped by Team Alabama. It’s too bad – I really liked them. I also got to see the first 2 episodes of Amazing Race Asia – pretty good. They put the non-elimination in the first leg, which is great because we get at least two episodes to get acquainted with everyone. I’m rooting for the M & M brothers fro Jakarta, Mardy and Marsio. Not exactly the most athletic team, they have to play smart instead.

Maybe I’ll be able to wake up early and go with P to Macy’s tomorrow. We’ll see if I can manage it.