Food: Chicken Feet

Eating it requires that you put the foot in your mouth and chew on it until the ligaments and skin fall off so you can swallow them, and then you spit out the bones. I had much trouble with this maneuver. I ate one (1) foot. She ate three (3) feet in the same time period. I think it takes practice. The best part is the fatty yellow padding on the soles of the feet.

Recommend: Surprisingly similar, in taste, to a pig's foot, but much much smaller.

Movie: Marebito

So I love Japanese horror and I rent any one that I find that doesn't sound warped in a bad way. So I rented this one. Before I watched it, I found out it was filmed in eight days while the guy making it was making another movie. At first it totally reminded me of the Hard Boiled segments of Hard Boiled Wonderland by Murakami. Then it didn't. Then it reminded me of crap.

Recommend: It was totally rocking while the videotaping guy descended through the subway into the subterranean netherworld while talking with a dead man and chasing after those weird guys that crawled around on all fours and were painted white and tattooed. Once he finds the chained naked chick, however, it kind of goes downhill. AND THAT is a statement, my friends, that it takes a really badly handled movie to allow.

Movie: Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austin classic. Remake. Haven't read the book. Maybe it was faithful. Maybe not. Pretty though. Well acted if a bit stilted, perhaps intentionally so.

Recommend: Pithy at times. I'm sure there's some commentary on the roles of women. Maybe something about quintissential Englishness.

Movie: Good Night and Good Luck

Clooney, politics, McCarthy, blah, blah, blah. I thought this movie was really good until I realized it was over. Then I realized that none of the sub-plots ever went anywhere, that none of the characters ever change, and that the film completely lacks climax.

Recommend: The most unexpected part of the film was when I suddenly realized the credits were rolling.

Movie : Failure to Launch

It made me feel really lame.

Recommend? If you are a boy and you still live with your parents you might feel really lame.

Food: Stinky Cheese

So, every time I go to the grocery store, I habitually wander by the fancy cheese island and sniff the Limburger cheese, because it's got such an amazingly terrible smell, and because I could never imagine what I could possible do with it. So, I never bought any. But, what do you know, Wednesday night Jingping and I go to the store and she says I should buy it because she thinks it would be a simple matter just to fry some tofu and throw the cheese in there. Today for lunch we get to try it.

Recommend: If you like smells/tastes which remind you vaguely of locker rooms, dog food, and really old beer, then buy up! It also makes you and your apartment smell perpetually like locker rooms, dog food, and really old beer. It wasn't bad, though. And I still have like 3/4 of the block left, anybody have any ideas?

Movie : The Hills Have Eyes (the new one)

Truly, I have never seen a movie where so many people got pick-axed in the head. This movie also had a crapload of blood. In one scene, a deformed mutant killer man suckles at this lactating young mother's teats while she watches this other deformed guy try to rape her sister.

Recommend? Hell yes I do. But don't go thinking it's scary. Because it's not. It's just really violent.

Comics : JTHM

Fun to re-read after not having read them in about eight years. Who besides Nny would drill into your skull, and then, since it's taking longer than expected, offer to make you a sandwich? He's such a nice homicidal maniac.

Recommend: Yes. Especially if you are in a mood.

Food: Pig's Feet

Tonight for dinner: Bean soup with pig feet, chicken hearts and gizzards with vegetables, and tomato and egg soup. I have never eaten a pig's foot. No, no, I *had* never eaten a pig's foot. Now I have certainly eaten a pig's foot. And chewed on pig foot bones. And sucked squishy pig foot skin off of boiled pig foot toes. Those things are complicated. It's not really meat, see; it's lots of bones, 'cause you see feet have lots of bones in them. And there's skin and lots of tendons and ligament and things, which are all soft and gelatinous. And there's a little meat, which is precious, precious, precious. I will say what I said to Jingping: I am not disappointed by these pig feet. These certainly meet my expectations.

Recommend: I have definitely now eaten a pig foot. Or at least, half of a pig foot.