Game : Super Mario Galaxy.

I can't think of a reason why you wouldn't buy this game other than if you don't own a Wii. Really, the other Wii games are neat, but this is the game. The graphics are way better than the other Wii games, and the controls are tight as hell. The Wii comes into its own now! Seriously.

Recommend? Hells yes, beats the pants off of Mario Sunshine. Haven't had this much Mario fun since 64!

Movie: Green Snake

Excellent Hong Kong mystical fairy tale kung fu type movie by someone whose name I have heard but know nothing: Tsui Hark. There are snakes pretending to be people, and a super powered stuck up buddhist monk who flies around defeating monsters and shouting 'Bo Ye Ba La Hung!' or something like that, really fast, exploding his enemies and causing his cloak to grow very large.

Recommend: Yes, yes.

Food: Borscht

I don't think it was exactly borscht. I think I cut the pieces of beet too big, and was supposed to shred them. Anyway, I wanted to make pickled beets, that's why we bought the beets, but then sort of chickened out what with the complexity. So made borscht, kind of.

Recommend: It has made everything neon purple. Everything. It's been three days.

Food: Borscht

I don't think it was exactly borscht. I think I cut the pieces of beet too big, and was supposed to shred them. Anyway, I wanted to make pickled beets, that's why we bought the beets, but then sort of chickened out what with the complexity. So made borscht, kind of.

Recommend: It has made everything neon purple. Everything. It's been three days.

Movie: Howard the duck

I recently re watched this glorious cinematic movie remembering the fondness i had for it as a kid. It should have remained buried, there were so many things i could rant on about it but that would give the movie even more time than it deserves. Don't get me wrong it was enjoyable on some level but that escapes me right now.
On some positive note Tim Robbins was in the movie along with Lea Thompson and Jeffrey Jones.
So i say watch it if you are bored and have nothing else to do on a rainy saturday morning and want to turn off the old noodle.

Movie : Harry Potter 5 in IMAX 3D

I had the fortune to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on an IMAX screen, and the last 20 minutes or so were in 3D. The movie was pretty good, considering they had to cut about 85% of the book out to make it fit. It's a shame that Sirius, Lupin, Ron, Hermione, Snape, Malfoy, etc. didn't have much screen time at all.

Here's my impression of Harry Potter in this movie:

"Grrrr. Grunt." *Kicks Something* "Grrrr."

But I don't think I gave too much away.

Recommend? Yes! Especially in IMAX 3D. It made me smile and bounce my legs.

Movie : Alien

Gosh, I hadn't seen this movie until last night. Half a century old and still pretty good! There were tense moments. And moments I thought afterwards "I have seen this parodied 100 times over the course of my life and this is where it came from." It was like watching the President Lincoln assassination!

Recommend? Yes, very much! But it was nothing like watching the President Lincoln assassination.

Movie : Transformers

The pros: cool robots, I liked the kid, Jazz danced like in the cartoons.

The cons: lame political humor, shakey-cam, and what was up with the hacker people in the middle of the film that just disappear from the movie in the end?

And... um, it's silly, but I want a beat-up yellow classic Camaro now.

Recommend? Yeah, it's fun.

Movie : Flightplan

Whoa, a surprisingly good movie! Jodie Foster's daughter disappears on a big airplane, but maybe she's imaginary! A little bit of corniness, maybe a tad overacting at parts, but I imagined this movie would be a bore, and it wasn't.

Recommend? Yeah, surprisingly I do! Don't let excruciating mommy facial expressions through you off though.

Movie : Lord of War

A movie about an illegal arms dealer. A GOOD illegal arms dealer. Good as in he's good at it.

Recommend? Well, I'm sure everyone can guess how a movie about an illegal arms dealer will end, but this one kinda tricked me. It's a pretty good movie.

Movie: Transformers

I went to see the Transformers movie. I went expecting it to be terrible, and so I was actually not too let down when it turned out to be kind of funny and to have robot fights. There were too many silly human plotlines that had no point. The US Army was prominently and beautifully featured even though it did absolutely nothing in the context of the movie. It is very clear to me that I should join the Army and buy a Chevrolet.

Recommend: The robots looked excellent, and so were the transformings. There were almost no Transformer conversations; maybe a total of 45 seconds of Transformers talking to Transformers. This means that there were no arguments between Starscream and Megatron; the Decepticons were pretty scary, but when they all said "Hail Megatron" in unison, it was in some foreign Transformers language, which is too bad.

Movie : The Prestige

It's a decent movie about dueling magicians. It's funny how they keep thwarting each other, but it may not have meant to be funny. I like how the surprise goons of the movie are Thomas Edison's men. Take that, Tesla!

Recommend? It's a good one to watch at least once.

Movie : An Inconvenient Truth

The scariest movie I've seen this summer. I'm glad Mr. Al Gore sees an optimistic future, because I sure don't. But I DO recycle pretty hardcore. And this movie made me turn off my air conditioning. Yikes.

Recommend? If there is one movie you watch before global warming ends the world, I guess this is the one that will make you say "doh."

Er, please recycle. And plant a tree.

The Avett Brothers!!!

Yesterday afternoon i watched one of the most enjoyable concerts that i've been to in a while. i only got to catch the opening act called the mad tea party on their last song which was pretty good. their band consisted of a upright bass player who doubled as a kick drum player a ukulele and guitar player also. when the avett bros came on they opened with a tune off of their new album which was really good. the thing that really amazed me was that the banjo player was using a kick drum an the guitar player was using a cymbal, which was blended very natural into the performance. during the show their were parts where i was feeling like i was attending a wild punk rock show ( the banjo player stood on the kick drum). also there were parts were they used their instruments as percussion in very energetic break downs.
so over all if you like bands that put on one hell of a fun show then remove thy asses from the couch and go watch them if they come around your town.

Movie : Babel

This is a rough movie and it gave me a stress headache. It is the slightly interlocking story of an American family, a Mexican family, a Moroccan family, and a Japanese family. The Japanese school girl shows all of her naughty parts many times, but in ways that will make you uncomfortable. The Moroccan little boys do naughty things that will make you uncomfortable. The American couple will have a kiss that makes you feel very uncomfortable. And the Mexicans are pretty cool.

Recommend? Yes, but please have some aspirin nearby for when it is over.

TV Show : The Office, Season One (American)

I bought the first season of The Office, and it was funny. There were many moments that made me cringe and feel uncomfortable, and if a TV show can do that to you, it's got something, right?

Recommend? I do, but at $19 for just six episodes, the pricing is a bit high.

Movie : Night at the Museum

Arg, I wanted to like this movie, but it was way to predictable. It was like a Ben Stiller movie except Ben Stiller didn't get to write the script, so every line seemed phony, and every joke seemed thin. And the effects didn't even look that great on my little tiny TV.

Recommend? Well, I guess it's a kids movie.

Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean 3

I saw the first one, and it was pretty entertaining. I didn't even know there was a second one, but I saw the third one. It was pretty confusing, and very long. Some of it just didn't make any sense at all. There was lots of fighting and sailing and mystical stuff.

Recommend: If you have 2.5 hours free and aren't too picky, why not?

Movie : Spiderman 3

It wasn't a bad summer movie, but it lacked the spark of one and two. I liked sandman though.

Recommend? I think this is the 200th review! Sweet!

TV Show : Battlestar Galactica (the new one)

This so is so frakkin' sweet I could frak myself. So frak off.

Recommend? If you don't start watching the first DVD like now, you're totally frakked.

Movie : 300

Does anyone come here anymore?

Recommend: THIS ... IS ... TOTALLY VAGUE REVIEWS!!!!!!

...and yes.

Cookie: Peanut Butter Cookie

So, over the past year I've gotten to introduce Jingping to the magic of cookie making. We've done chocolate chip, macaroons, oatmeal cookies, all the basics. But we still hadn't made peanut butter cookies! So we made some, Sunday night, as a final New Year's gesture. Man, it was a tiny recipe, only like 18 cookies in the end! I.. um, we, ate almost half of them that night, and we took the rest to our respective labs to... hm... share... with others.

Recommend: Between chewy and crunchy, peanut buttery, not too sweet, a bit salty: an excellent cookie. Good with lukewarm office coffee.

Movie : The DaVinci Code

This movie stars Tom Hanks, and I had a little bit of trouble identifying him as a professor and not an island outcast with HIV. The beginning of the movie followed the book pretty closely, but right about the time they were going to break out of the art museum, my head started really hurting and so I went to go lie down and I kinda fell asleep during the middle part. But I kinda recall some action noises and maybe a rise in the tempo of the music? And then at the end they strayed from the book and I thought it was a little bit corny, but maybe it fit the middle part of the movie?

Recommend: I got more out of the book.

Movie : Little Miss Sunshine

The ending definitely wasn't expected. But I liked this movie in the same kind of way I liked Life Aquatic.

Recommend? If you liked Life Aquatic, maybe you'll find similar enjoyment here?

TV show: LEXX

LEXX is excellent! I've been working in episodes in between... working... here in the lab. Someone at YouTube put all the episodes on in 10 minute chunks. I'm halfway through the second season. It's all very funny and very weird.

Recommend: Of course! I don't know what else to say. Somebody has to review something.

Scientist: Meteorologist

If a meteorologist, or a team of them, or a TV network full of them, or a government agency staffed with them, tells you that there will be two days with a 90-100% chance of snow with accumulations up to maybe 3 or 4 inches by the end of the second night, what they really mean is that there will be about 45 minutes total of snow with an accumulation of about .35 inches by the end of the first afternoon. This is because they are experts.

Recommend: No! Stop checking the weather reports. You will only be disappointed. It will only be cold outside, and snow will be a mysterious surprise.