This is really the best blog ever.
Working out again…
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…for the first time in almost half a year. Yep, haven’t been to the gym since December.
Found my old YOGA FOR REAL GUYS discs, started with a Diamond Dozen/Energy work out. Used my new yoga mat (well my only one, but one I just bought last month, yay, Amazon gift cards!) A great workout, and looking forward to getting serious about working out again.
Ordered a heart rate monitor (yay, Amazon gift cards, yay surveys) so I can use that to properly do the workouts, too.
Movies watched in March 2012
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11) Bunraku (2011) – 10/10 – 3.?.12 – A totally awesometastic movie, visually stunning and super-quirky.
12) Wizards (1979) (RW) – 10/10 – 3.8.12 – Love this movie, haven’t seen it in years.
13) Murder by Decree (1979) – 6/10 – 3.11.12 – This was a well done story, but didn’t really feel like a Sherlock Holmes story at all. Great cast, wonderful sets, costumes, etc. Just didn’t feel like Holmes at all.
14) Casablanca (1942) (RW) – 10/10 – 3.21.12 – 70th anniversary, one night only on the big screen. Too fucking cool for words.
15) The Dead (2010) – 7/10 – 3.25.12 – Good zombie movie set in Africa. Nothing exceptional, but quite enjoyable and not too much of the stupid.
16) The Naked City (1948) – INC/10 – 3.26.12 – boring, gave up halfway through.
17) Repeaters (2010) – 7/10 – Neat little indy dark drama about three youths (late teens, early 20s) in rehab, who find themselves repeating the same day over and over, with full memory of what’s happened before. What happens in a bit predictable in general, but not always specifics.
Best movie is Casablanca, easily. Best new to me movie, Bunraku. Phenomenal movie, certainly not for everyone.
Worst movie, The Naked City – slow and boring.
Again, not many movies, because I’m investing much viewing time for my Classic Doctor Who year long viewing blog.
Movies watched in February 2012
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Holy shit, I only watched two movies in Feb?
9) Blackthorn (2011) – 10/10 – 2.19.12 – A wonderful movie, great western, excellent drama and outstanding acting. Win.
10) Transit (2012) – 5/10 – 2.26.12 – A completely mediocre movie, not bad but nothing really that great. Some decent excitement, but too many elements that didn’t make sense. Ultimately disappointing.
Well, the best/worst movies of the month is easy. So easy, I’m not gonna bother listing ‘em. If you can’ t figure it out, I don’t want to talk to you.
Don’t forget, the reason I’m watching so few movies this year is because of my year-long classic Doctor Who blog, where I’m watching and review/recapping EVERY serial from the original TWENTY-SIX seasons of Doctor Who.
Meme: Unconscious Mutterings
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Stolen from Mari Adkins
I say … and you think … ?
- Quit :: never
- Solace :: arms
- Suggest :: decide
- Meteor :: burning
- Zombies :: want
brainsequal rights - Birds :: owls
- Canceled :: too many good tv shows
- Compatible :: lack of compatability
- Alarmed :: startled
- Word game :: fun
(Whoa, my first post here in over a month. Bad blogger, Terry. I need to do my February movies list, still.)
Guestblogging over at French Fry Diary
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Just a quick post to let y’all know I’ve been guest-blogging over at Glenn Walker’s French Fry Diary. Clicky and check it out. Today’s my third post this week. At this rate, when Glenn comes back, people’ll think he’s the guest-blogger!
(Also, don’t forget my year-long Doctor Who blog over at One Year, 26 seasons, Seven Doctors. We just finished up the First Doctor today with The Tenth Planet!)
Movies watched during January 2012
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A lot shorter list than last year, but then I’m watching a lot of Doctor Who for my year long blog project – One Year, 26 Seasons, 7 Doctors – please visit if you’re a Whovian, or share with those who are!
The usual – each movie has a rating (scale out of 10 – 1-3 bad, 4-7 are varying degrees of good, 8-10 are excellent) and a couple lines (pretty non-spoilery) about it.
1) Rare Exports (2010) – 9/10 – 1.2.12 – What a fun movie – not quite a horror, more like a dark fantasy/comedy, the tale of what happens with then real Santa Claus is unearthed in Finland. Dark, violent and twisted, so of course it appealed to me. And the ending is just perfect.
2) The Stone of Destiny (2008) – 7/10 – 1.5 – Cute movie, based on the true story of Scottish nationalists and their plan to steal back the Stone of Destiny from England.
3) The Ledge (2011) – 4/10 – 1.6.12 – Ultimately disappointing; if you’ve seen the preview, you know the entire plot of the entire movie, only the very end isn’t spelled out for you. The scenes of getting there aren’t good enough to make it an enjoyable enough ride. There’s one surprise in there, but still, in the end, it’s a highly disappointing film, considering the cast.
4) Macbeth (2010) – 10/10 – 1.13.12 – Amazing performance, production values, acting, casting, everything. This is Shakespeare done right.
5) What I Want My Words To Do To You (2003) – 10/10 – An amazing documentary on a womens’ prison writing group, using writing as a form of therapy and acceptance of responsibility. And that summation falls flat. Just an amazing, powerful story.
6) In Time (2011) – 7/10 – 1.23.12 – Definitely a popcorn flick, but a lot of fun, just don’t over-analyse it.
7) Office Space (1999) – 10/10 – 1.30.12 – Saw this about a decade ago, haven’t seen it since. Even better than I remembered. Milton and his stapler, man.
8) Mutants (2009) – 6/10 – 1.31.12 – Not bad – more of a biological rage/mutation movie than a zombie movie, but close enough. typical of these movies, main characters make decisions that make it hard for you to sympathise too much with when the shit hits the fan.
Best movie of the month – easily, Macbeth.
Worst movie of the month – sadly, The Ledge; still, as that wasn’t horrible, it was a good month for movies.
Reminder – I’m blogging the original 26 seasons (series as the Brits call ‘em) over at One year. 26 seasons. Seven Doctors. Still on the First Doctor, 21 serials in. Would love to get some comments/discussion going over there.
Recipe and Pics: Salmon BLTs
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Ingredients:
One box (2 fillets) Gorton’s Grilled Salmon (Classic Grilled)
Four slices reduced calorie natural grain bread
Three slices of bacon
Four slices of tomato
Spinach leaves (or your lettuce of chocie)
Two slices of jalapeno jack cheese
Prep/cooking time, about 16 minutes. Start your salmon in the oven; while it’s baking, cook your bacon, slice tomatoes, toast bread, add mayo (I recommend Hellman’s Low Fat Mayo), and let nommy time begin.
Pic of everything awaiting the salmon:
With salmon just out of the oven added:
And ready to eat:
The Bestest Boy In The Whole Wide World
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When I first started working at the shelter, we had a former bait dog named Slim. Slim came to the shelter as a puppy. He was nearly dead, and was not expected to make it through the night. He was a pit bull puppy, I don’t know how old, but not a year, I think somewhere between 3 and 6 months. (He was at the shelter several years before I started there.) My director and her husband took him home and he made it through the night. Every day they’d come to work, they’d bring him with them (and his wounds needed constant tending) and my director’s husband, who is 6′ tall and 380#, would crawl into the not huge kennel and lay down and curl around the puppy as he laid on his blanket, and talk to him and tell him he was loved. To this day, they swear that had Gary not done that, they do not believe Slim would have lived.
Slim never got adopted – he was too unsure around so many people, and there was no way he could be in a house with other dogs. The first day that I worked there, the day I met Slim, he greeted me with such a nasty, furious growl and bark that I thought “now there’s a mean dog”. Later that day, I was scooping feces out of the kennels and I had to do his. I stepped in, prepared to offer him my boot (so that he could attack it and not harm me, while I cleaned up his kennel) and he looked at me with those big eyes, and I said, “Hi, Slim” and his tail started a-wagging so much his whole body was wagging. From that day on we were best of friends. He passed away several years ago, ultimately because of the trauma he’d suffered as a puppy – there was irreparable damage to his organs that shortened his lifespan. He’s buried at the shelter, behind the dog kennels, and we placed a dog house on top that reads ‘Slim’s House’. I still talk to him, when I walk by.
I have a special name or title for each of my favourite critters. Slim’s was “The Bestest Boy In The Whole Wide World”, and he was and always will be. (Gonna go dry my eyes now.)
(This post and thoughts of my Bestest Boy In The Whole Wide World came about after seeing this short video on Duke, a rescued bait dog)
Terry’s Kitchen Adventures: Steak TerTer
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I’m a pretty fine cook. (And I’m kinda handsome, too.) I’m gonna try to food blog a little more often, especially when I create something. I’m not big on recipes and all, for me cooking is more of a constantly evolving thing. However, I will give the recipe as I did it this time – next time I make this, there’s every likelihood it will be done differently, whether on a smaller or grander scale.
Steak TerTer (if you follow me at all on any other social network, you know I’m all about wordplay, and this applies to my recipes. This is not a version of Steak Tartar, mind, just trying to be clever.)
You will need:
1 boneless shoulder steak (approximately 8-9 oz, uncooked), Diced garlic (several tablespoons), bottle of BBQ sauce (I used Bullseye Texas style), 1/4th of a white onion (diced), 1 baking potato, salt (baconsalt recommended), sour cream (fat free recommended), 3 strips of bacon, 3 slices of jalapeno jack cheese.
Prep/Cooking:
About 6.5 hours before you plan to eat, sautee the 1/4 onion and several tablespoons of garlic in a pan until good and carmelized. Place the steak in a bowl and pour the mixture over the steak, working in with your hands (be careful it’s not too hot on your fingers). Set in fridge for ~30 minutes, then add enough BBQ sauce to cover both sides and that the steak is sitting in a nice thick puddle. Return steak to fridge for another 5.5-6 hours.
90 minutes before you plan to eat, pre-heat your oven (I go with 350F), and prep your potato. I do the many stabs with a fork, rub down in oil and season liberally with baconsalt. Once oven is preheated, cook potato for one hour.
About 20 minutes before you eat, fry up the bacon slices until they are nice and crispy. Pour the grease over the steak, as you will have taken it out of the fridge while cooking your bacon.
You want to start cooking your steak about 10-12 minutes before you eat – cook to your specifications. Brush on the BBQ/garlic/onion mix as needed. When you have about 3 minutes left, place the bacon strips on top of the steak and cover it with two slices of cheese; let it melt to perfection and remove from the grill.
When the potato is done, take out of the oven, cut open, mash it up nice, tear up your final piece of cheese, stuffing it in the potato. Top with sour cream.
Ending the year with mah critters (with pictures!)
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So I ended the year at the shelter, spent the night, just hung out there, me and the critters. I’d done it for several years (New Year’s Eve on 2007, 2008, 2009) and missed doing it last year (as I was not working at, or frequenting, the shelter then.) I worked Saturday, then headed out after closing up to grab a burger from a (relatively) new place in DeLand called Flippers. I got the BBQ Bacon burger, fries and macaroni salad (seen below):
The burger was most excellent – very thick (easily over 1/2″ thick) and the bun was definitely not your low-end burger bun. The fries, while certainly frozen, were cooked well and salted just right (not too much, not too little), and the macaroni was a bit of a surprise – I’m used to the creamy/mayo based mac salads, this was more of a pasta salad – oil based with bits of ham in it as well – quite good, once I got past the initial surprise.
It was still light out when I got back (I ate at the shelter, so I’m posting out of order) – here’s the shot from the front gate:
The rest of the evening was doing some organizing of supplies, checking on the critters, spending some time with them. About 8pm, I was getting hungry again, plus I knew I wanted to get something for dessert at midnight, so I ran out to a local Publix and bought some sushi for my meal, plus some potato chips to nibble on, juice for the morning’s breakfast, and a half of a mango key lime pie from the bakery. (Sadly, I did not take pictures.) O’Malley the office cat watched as I ate my sushi and hoped for some:
Then we settled in to watch some stuff on my computer – brought a couple movies on DVD, got in some wrestling (which O’Malley sat and watched with me, as the next picture illustrates):
About 11pm, I made my bed (in the front office); Charley, the office dog (the little guy you see sleeping in the corner) would spend the night under the blanket with me:
Stayed up through midnight, toasted in the new year with mango key lime pie and a Mike’s hard Lemonade, and was in bed by 12:45am. Slept well, woke up several times during the night, got up about 7:15am, broke down my bed, fed the dogs, and started making breakfast for myself and my coworker, who came in at 8am:
Then, worked half a day and went home. Was a good way to end the year/start off the new one. Hope everyone else found a fun/special way to celebrate/honor it. I spent a lot of time in reflection – 2011 was not the best year for me, but better than 2010 was. The holidays were especially hard on me this year, and one of the deeper dips on the emotional rollercoaster I’ve been on… well, most of my life, if we’re honest.
