Sunday, August 21, 2011

Oops...Sunday Summary

My bad. Completely forgot what day it was yesterday.

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Baked: I've been baking eggs daily now, God, it's so tasty...in fact, I think I'm going to do a recipe post and see how that goes. Lisa has a cooking blog, by the way, and it's awesome. I don't read it as often as I should, but to be honest I end up missing her too much. Give it a look, though, she's a charming girl that makes tasty food. She hasn't baked eggs, though...oh, man, now I want an egg. A baked one.

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What Upppppp: Salami & Orchids is now a full-fledged member of the Blog Catalog!! See our shiny new badge at the bottom of the column on the right-hand side. I definitely need a header picture now...I'm working on a few designs, I'd like to get something up in the next month or so.

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Project Runway!!: Holy cow, Nina's a bitch. Did you see it? The new episode's challenge was to make a dress for Nina Garcia, who wears essentially the same 2 things over and over again in one of maybe four different colors. So after the designers had time to sketch they each had an individual meeting with Nina herself where she changed everything about the designer's designs and, I think, didn't give them enough range to actually design anything! Heidi was a much, much better client that...one...time. The poor designer's choices were reduced to "sheath dress" and "pants and blouse" with sedate colors and patterns. Complete snooze fest. Especially since there's so little drama this season! The "coming next week" commercials show more clashes between the designers, and while I'm not looking for another Wendy Pepper I'd like somebody to show a little personality.

And can I just say that Anya is freaking awesome or a total liar? According to her she only learned to sew 4 months before starting Project Runway? She's either a genius or she's faking it...I mean, really, it doesn't make sense, "I never dyed fabric before but I just managed to turn a nasty mustard fabric to a gorgeous, rich chocolate"..."I don't really know how to sew but let me put out perfect pieces every time." I'm kind of excited to see how this ends, is she really a prodigy or is she Project Runway's biggest fake ever?

Sometimes, when I'm really stressed about my lack of job and job prospects and plummeting financial situation (got a letter yesterday from my credit card company...apparently I'm not allowed to make charges anymore, so add that to the list of Internship from Hell fallout), I wonder about just pulling out another student loan and going to grad school for either fashion design or library/information science...things are going to get worse before they get better anyway, so why not pretend to have a little freedom? I mean, if I did the online course for library/information science, I could still substitute during the day and make a little cash...I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what to do. Anyway, at this point I'd have to wait until the spring semester, so I guess I'll just see how this semester goes before I make a decision...anyway....

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Air Supply: The Hershey Air Delight/Aero bar is killing me, knowing it's out there so freely available and I haven't had it yet. I'll have it...in the next week, I swear I'll have it. Don't know what I'm talking about? Here (7th paragraph) or here.

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Comedy's Guardian Angel: There's a couple of celebrity deaths that get to me every once in a while, and Phil Hartman is one of them. I forget if I StumbleUpon'd this or what but it made me cry. Phil sent this letter in response to a fan that had sent a letter and tape of his stand-up in 1997, at the height of his career. The fact that Phil took the time to listen and respond like this just underlines the fact that we didn't just loose an incredible comedian, but an amazing human being as well.

Plus his analysis of amateur comedy matches that of mine and Blanc's (Point Blanc), and I can't help but feel a little proud of that. Here's the letter, and it's handwritten, to boot.

Oh, Phil, wherever you are, you're missed.

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Skunk Update: Holy crap. We've now caught 6 skunks, my neighbor's dog (Eppy) was sprayed the night before last (the night we caught the sixth skunk), and last night we saw two more. Two more. I can't even tell you how bad the back yard smells since Eppy got sprayed. It's like the stupid wilderness out here.

My mother taped a car freshener to the wall of our porch.

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I Blame Jesse Eisenberg: Whoever put games on Facebook was an evil genius. And you know who the evilest of those geniuses is? Zynga. Zynga Games actually hired a behavioral psychologist to ensure their games are addicting. And not like as a consultant, I mean they have a behavioral psychologist on staff. Time Magazine did an article on it here. Farmville, Cafe World, FrontierVille? Designed to be addicting and they produce their own publicity as gamers need to ask their friends to send them "items" a hundred times a day in order to advance in the game-- that or pay cash to buy those "items". Actual cash.

Evil. I wasn't kidding.

But, believe it or not, there are games on Facebook that don't require the harassment of everyone you know in order to progress in the game. My favorite is The Secret Plant Society, a farming puzzle game where you don't need friends. Seriously. You don't have to have a single friend and you can play the exact same game as those people with a million friends playing. The good news is that it's not annoying. The bad news is that since it doesn't generate ridiculous amounts of crap all over people's newsfeeds it doesn't get the attention it deserves. Really, give it a try.

Also, friend me! Plum Jo now has a Facebook account, and you can bet she plays The Secret Plant Society. Sooner or later I'll come up with perks for Facebook friends because you'll totally deserve them.

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Catinca Untaru: First off, how awesome is that name? Catinca Untaru. Anyway, if you haven't seen The Fall you absolutely should for the incredible cinematography, the absolutely gorgeous scenery (and I'm not just talking about Lee Pace, who couldn't possibly be more adorable), and for Catinca Untaru.

There has never been a performance like hers in the history of cinema. She was nine years old during filming and she delivers the most natural characterization...ever. She makes Gary Oldman look like a ham and Tom Hanks a scenery chewer.

If her performance is so great, you say, why wasn't she nominated for an Oscar? I'll tell you why. She's Romanian. A film's producer fills out the forms that get a film recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who then send the producer's...let's call them nominations, to the members of the appropriate branch of the Academy who then vote on whether or not the producer's nominees are actually nominated.

Here's where Catinca's nationality comes into play. How many Hollywood roles can you think of that call for a young girl with a Romanian accent?

Exactly.

So the producers don't want to give her the free publicity of an Oscar nom because, really, what could she do with it? Better to give it to an actress they may be able to use again and therefore use the "Academy Award Nominee/Winner" title where they can get some mileage out of it.

Which is sad, because if anyone deserves it, it was her.

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Speaking of movies, Blanc's got a movie review theory that's just genius. To paraphrase, why not have different critics per genre? An Oscar bait sucker isn't going to like the latest superhero movie, and the two really shouldn't be judged by the same criteria. Read the awesomeness here.

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Upcoming Posts: I will get the FC analysis up at some point...I will. And a review of Philippa Gregory's The Queen's Fool, and the baked egg recipe because I have to share the deliciousness. The world deserves to know how to get the tasty.

Have a beautiful week, dolls.




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