Thank You for Finding Puck

Is nothing sacred?

Some utter bastard stole one of the duckling statures from Boston’s public gardens. Police suspected that Pack, the second to last duckling in the Make Way for Ducklings piece might have been stolen to be melted down for scrap metal.

Fortunately, the duck was found 24 hours afterward and is currently at a Boston police station.

I want to thank the Boston police for rescuing a piece of my childhood. S’not one of the most important things they’ve ever done, but it’s one that I know means a lot to a lot of people who grew up in the area.




Found the story at: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/04/07/make_way_for_a_duckling_search/

less wining than dining

A question posed by my boyfriend has gotten me thinking about the role alcohol has in our society, at least from a culinary perspective. He wanted to know why I drank, on the extremely rare occasion that I do. Not that he doesn’t understand the appeal of alcohol, but he wanted me to think about why I do. He himself is a proudly dry individual, something I respect him for immensely. But it’s a subject we don’t often see eye to eye on.

He was more referring to sipping beverages, like wine. He and I have very different opinions on the subject. I come from a very Italian family and alcohol was often drunk at meals (by adults) and very common in my house. I’m very comfortable with it’s presence. When the wine comes out, it means I’m going to get all of the “good stories” from my relatives.

My experience with wine and alcohol is that it is an acquired taste. I don’t know anyone who specifically enjoys their first ever sip of wine. As children, when one of my cousins asked for a taste of wine, my aunts would smile knowingly and give them a sip. Their faces would screw up and eek the obligatory “blech”.

As I have not had a chance to acclimate my tastes to wine, I often find my taste for it waning after a few sips. I rarely finish a glass. I’m a very bad foodie in that respect. I just don’t have a grasp for alcohol. Not even enough to have a preference. Which considering my age is not necessarily a bad thing. I would have had to have started early indeed to have such an appreciation at my current age.

I understand the concept of beverages going with specific foods. But I’m not at all knowledgeable about it. My experience with alcohol has largely been sipping what ever has been purchased by my extended family, favorite bargain wines. I’ve never once had the opportunity to sip a beverage specifically chosen as a flavor pairing with what I’ve eaten.

But considering my limited experience with alcohol, this isn’t so surprising. I’m fairly young, haven’t been of drinking age for long (and by drinking age I don’t necessarily refer to the age at which one is legally allowed to drink but the age at which family members have say allowed me to have wine with dinner. You’re not getting my real age, folks.)

Non alcoholic flavor pairings, I have a rudimentary understanding of in that I know what I feel tastes good together. For example, I think nothing compliments food cooked with five-spice powder like a glass of soda. Five-spice is a Chinese bend containing spices that represent each of the five tastes—sweet, sour, salty, spicy, and umami or savory (like in the soy sauce commercial). I find that a soda takes you out of this blend and allows you to focus on the sweet, and then appreciate the other flavors further when you return to the food.

So to answer my feller’s question, it is not yet about taste. His opinions on alcohol being as they are, I know that he’d prefer it not eventually become about taste either. But I’d like to think as I become a little more experienced, that I learn to appreciate it.

A joke found on riddlesandjokes.com

Once upon a time, a beautiful, independent, self assured princess happened upon a frog in a pond. The frog said to the princess, "I was once a handsome prince until an evil witch put a spell on me. One kiss from you and I will turn back into a prince and then we can marry, move into the castle with my mom and you can prepare my meals, clean my clothes, bear my children and forever feel happy doing so." That night, while the princess dined on frog legs, she kept laughing and saying, "I don't think so."

A biographic piece

Me in a nut shell.



more animals

Order 66: Glomp All Clones

I may be one of the few people on earth who does not care that The Force Unleashed is coming out on September 19. Instead, I’m counting down for the latest installment in the Republic Commando Series. It’s not that I don’t care about the game. I enjoy a good round of storm trouper bowling as much as the next fan. And the demo was the very definition of awesome (see Eddie Izzard for definition). But I have no emotional stock invested in it. For books, on the other hand, I can get very emotional.

What ever else can be said of Karen Travis, (cough*fandalorian*cough) she is very good at making you care about her characters. As several of them are Jedi, I’ve got this ominous feeling that this book is going to have a lot of character deaths. The non-Jedi characters aren’t safe either. I can’t see anyone in Omega standing by idly as Etain is executed. Not to mention the war, and Palpy’s clone death squads running around executing people. So essentially, I’m to busy worrying about Ordo and Fi Skirata to care much about how many yards Starkiller can hurl a TIE fighter. I’m sure I’m a disappointment to gamers everywhere. I blame my parents. They never let me have a gaming system as a kid. At least book addictions are cheaper to maintain…mostly.

Also on my list of nerdy Star Wars countdowns is of course the wait until the Clone Wars series airs. My idea of a romantic Friday night for the entirety of Cartoon Network’s fall season will be curling up with my boyfriend and watching the show. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Frankenstein Cereal

VS

Round one. FIGHT!

Being a Cereal audience member is great when your boyfriend is in the play and can comp your tickets every night, but when you’re not lucky enough to be dating the cast, it does tend to add up. I am a cereal audience member—someone who likes to see shows multiple times over the course of their run. One of the best parts of a production I watching it evolve, seeing what the cast does different, what each actor discovers each night.

This hobby, or perhaps addiction leads to my dilemma of the day. Does my desire to see how a show has evolved outweigh my desire to be frugal and not by a new version of it’s soundtrack? Do I purchase the world premiere soundtrack recording of the new Frankenstein musical when I have a perfectly good copy of the workshop edition?

I’m not talking about Mel Brook’s disappointing attempt to capitalize on the success of The Producers, but a musical based on the book by Mary Shelly. I have the workshop edition of the soundtrack, bought when the show was but a fledgling. I was on a Shelly bender at the time, and one of my favorite actors, Shuler Hensley was playing the creature.

Hensley wowed as usual, and the actor playing Victor had a beautiful tenor. The score was synthesized, but had the potential to be quite epic if ever played with live instruments. The lyrics were lacking or sing song in some places, but there were quite a few lines that were just damned powerful.

You are the Children of Hell,
Your children as well!

Its true potential lay in the fact that it captured the spirit and tragedy of Shelly’s novel, full of pathos, of characters you both hate and love, fear and sympathize with. I am a huge fan of Shelly’s Frankenstein, and have never seen an adaptation that did the story justice in the way that this musical did.

Now, the show is playing off Broadway in New York. There have been some changes in the cast. Hensley left to play the creature in Brooks’ production. I’ve heard a few clips of the new actor, and he’s not half bad, but between the demo CD and Van Helsing, Hensley’s become more synonymous with the creature for me than Boris Karloff.

The clips I’ve listened to clearly prove that the lyrics have been seriously reworked since the demo, and the change is clearly for the better. The CD also includes a live orchestra, which is a vast improvement. The vocals are also better in many places (even if they are Hensley free). Henry Clerval no longer sounds like a chick. There are also quite a few new songs. The creature gets more air time as well as Elizabeth.

Of course all of this has been gleaned from the clips provided on the show’s official website and amazon.com. And part of me—the frugal part—says that one CD aught to be enough. But I am a cereal audience. I want to see how the show has evolved. So tonight, I shall wrestle with my wallet. It’ll most likely lose.

Greatings Earthlings

Another attempt at writing a blog. I’m not going to bother with an introductory entry because I spend far too much time fumbling over what to write, run out of patience, get intimidated, procrastinate or find other counterproductive things to do.

So I’ll just say Hi for now until I have anything more interesting to upload. I'll probably transfer a few things from my Deviantart journal. I may have one or two things worth reading there.

You’ll probably get a better idea of what you might find from my bio. Probably I’ll end up writing about film, nerd culture, things found on the interwebs, literature, theater, college life, and perhaps politics if I’m feeling really ambitious.