Wednesday, December 24, 2008

The beckoning silence

This is another documentary based on one of Joe Simpson's books, this time about the 1936 4-person expedition that tried to make it up the North Face of the Eiger, and the parallels between Tony Kurtz's death and Simpson's ordeal. It's not nearly as gut wrenching as Touching the void, though I imagine it was just as emotional for Simpson to make as that movie was, but it's nevertheless incredibly impressive.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Touching the void

Touching the void is a documentary about two British climbers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, who made it up a very challenging mountain face in Peru, the Siula Grande, only to run into trouble on the way down. It's absolutely excellent and truly gut and heart wrenching. In my opinion it's up there with the White Spider. I swear I had to take a break and eat something and drink chamomile to get through it, my stomach was so upset.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Τέχνη αλυπίας 2004 and 2006

We had these two bottles of red wine over the last couple of nights with my parents and I found them both depressing, though the 2006 was worse than the 2004. They're from a city in Northern Greece called Δράμα. The '04 is described as a blend of cab sauv and merlot, which is reasonable, but the '06 adds syrah to the blend to disastrous effect. They both have nice legs, and color, and the '04 had a bit of sediment. But neither had a nose of anything, and the '06 especially was quite sour. I mean dry is one thing, sour is another. The lack of nose in the '06 was made especially sad by the fact that the label made some quite specific claims about what we ought to have been smelling, which I won't repeat here (too lazy to find the bottle).

Friday, December 19, 2008

McClean Syrah

When I went to UC San Diego for an interview -- and I'm taking that job, by the way -- my hosts took me out to lunch to a fantastic near campus that I will probably never be able to afford again, the Adobe Restaurant at the Estancia Hotel & Spa. Along with the meal we had a random bottle of Syrah. I suspect the place does not serve wine rated below 90 to begin with, but this one blew me away. Of course I was too distracted with everything else, the interview, the meal, the upcoming talk, to write down what the wine was. I thought it was a Santa Barbara Syrah, and I knew it started with "Mc", and I knew I thought the label was boring. I definitely didn't note the year. So today I took the time to do a little searching, and I'm pretty sure it was the McClean Syrah, which, however, is from Paso, not SB. The only real way to verify is to have a bottle sometime. *wink*

The Sacred and Profane by Soul Miner's Sister

I've spent a lot of time driving to and from the Eastern Sierra in Ben's car lately, which has entailed listening to his music over and over. The other night the album 'The sacred and profane' by Soul Miner's Sister came on for the first time, and, frankly, it stopped whatever conversation we had going. This album qualifies for inclusion under Pradyut's super-impressed category. SMS is a now defunct band from Atlanta, Georgia, headlined by Jennifer Nettles, who subsequently sold out and started making country music. Gotta pay the bills I guess. Apparently Ben saw them play live a couple times and scored the album way back. Nettles' voice has the same wrenching soulful quality as Lila Downs' voice, and she writes all her own music. SMS put out two albums, neither under a major label, and neither obtainable for a reasonable amount of money online in CD or digital form. This is a huge pity! Of course I copied this one from Ben...

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Frère Delas' Côtes du Ventoux 2006

Typical Rhone Valley offering. Light red so you should serve it slightly cooler than regular reds.

Quite delicious. Will stand up to salads, or even ginger which is not what most reds can do.

Most quaffable. At $9, it won't break the bank either.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

The Inheritance of Loss

Lawd, did this stink!!! I gave up half-way.

This is all part of the nouveau fascination with all things Indian.

PS :- Offspring of famous artists are frequently triple-flusher stinkeroos.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The Athenian Murders

This book by José Carlos Somozo is simply the best I have read in a very long time.

To say too much about the book would be to destroy it completely but you can argue endlessly whether this is a cracklin' mystery story, or a book on philosophical ideas or `ideas', or a meta-fictional philosophical mystery or ...

Incidentally, the original Spanish title La caverna de las ideas (The Cave of Ideas) is far better than the English version in as much as it echoes Plato's cave metaphor.

And it is far far superior to Eco's The Name of the Rose to which it is (very) superficially related. (It is clearly more influenced by Nabokov's Pale Fire than anything else.)

Can we create a "super-impressed" category? This one belongs there.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Slumdog Millionaire

Loved it, loved it, loved it.

Not just because I'm from Bombay (now Mumbai) but because it's a tight, slickly-edited modern day thriller + love story in a Bollywood guise via Lancashire and Hollywood.

It takes immense cinematic talent to not only keep the audience engaged but also on total edge when you know all along how it's gonna end. Danny Boyle pulls out all the stops for this movie which is Oliver Twist in all but name.

It would really help if you understood Hindi/Urdu which are known for their highly "creative" approach to swearing. Extraordinarily creative, Joyce-worthy creative. The subtitles lame out.

But the soundtrack kicks ass.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Bernard-Henri Levy - Left in Dark Times

This is a polemic. Based on the author, that is a given. However, due to Levy's amazingly eventful life and courage, just about everything he writes is worth reading. Particularly, his lucid passage about the conflict between tolerance and secularism (in the "Fascislamism" chapter) is alone worth the time required for the book. It is also interesting to read a perspective informed by the recent history of Europe rather than North America, to see which events resonate in different places.

Once can find many conversations with Levy on CharlieRose.com.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Parker Station 2007 Pinot Noir

I was indifferent to this one, which I picked up at Lazy Acres about a week ago.

Wine tasting at Fess Parker

Ben and I went wine tasting at Fess Parker yesterday. I liked 3/6 of the wines. There was a good Ashley's Vineyard Chardonnay, a great Melange Blanc, and a phenomenal "Big Easy Syrah". The not so memorable ones were the Riesling, the Pinot Noir and the SB Syrah.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

A Quantum of Solace

I was very excited to see this film, and in the end it let me down. Daniel Craig was absolutely brilliant in the previous edition, so I had high hopes for this one, but it fell flat for me. The plot was ludicrously simple, the directing was simplistic, the scenes really fragmented, almost to the point where I found myself dissecting the movie into segments and working out the logistics of filming them... The locations were cool, but not enough was done with that. The Bond girl was fantastic, but that was about the highlight of the film. M was quite reasonable, too.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Dissapointing Food Writing

Ever encounter a book (or books) from which you learn a hell of a lot but which leaves you disappointed?

Meet Russ Parsons.

Both his books How to Read a French Fry and How to Pick a Peach have been illuminating but seriously disappointing.

There's always something missing. It's not the knowledge or the writing. It's not the phrasing or the erudition. Perhaps it's the self-conscious effort to get people to buy it by including recipes which are actually seriously crappy.

Either way, if I had bought these books rather than borrow them from the library, I would be seriously pissed off. As it happens, I'm glad to read, learn a few things, and dump.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

WSJ

Well, every good financier know it is a rag. The "smart set" reads the Financial Times.

This is a more specific technology complaint. If the WSJ can't set cookies, it goes into a browser-spawning infinite loop.

Well, I don't allow arbitrary entities to set cookies on my computer.

Whoever thought this was a good idea deserves a special flogging in technology hell.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The Guru

This movie is "low-budget" and super retarded but it's a lot of fun. Reminds me of the days when it was best to watch such movies totally loaded.

Let me set the expectations here. We are not watching Bergman or Kubrick here nor do we expect coherence or rationality. We are watching an implausible comedy to get entertained.

Bonus to anyone who spots all the New York locations. Too much fun trying to nail the exact corner where it was filmed.

And why does Heather Graham play a porn star in so many movies?

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Melville 2006 Syrah

We had this and a bottle of Lafond 2006 Syrah last night with dinner. Loved the Melville -- very sea-like -- and I liked the Lafond, but didn't think it was nearly as memorable.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

New York Crapping

Recently it was explained to me that the "probable" reason that the NYPL did not have a "drop box" for returning books was that "people would just put crap inside it".

Sad, isn't it?

Monday, September 22, 2008

2006 Santa Ynez Valley Winery Cabernet Franc

This is a very dry wine, that paired very nicely with my salmon, asparagus and capers pasta a couple nights ago.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Ghostscript PDF Printer

Well, I've been mailing a lot of documents to all kinds of people, and I prefer to mail them in a "locked down" format so that no changes can be made for obvious reasons.

Business people like Word (the "smell" of LaTeX gives of an academic vibe whereby you might as well tattoo "sucker" on your forehead.)

Enter the Ghostscript PDF printer.

Like all free software, it's a pain in the ass to set up but once you do, it works like a charm.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Elegy

I had read good reviews of this, and so I went to watch it with my friend Jeff, who knows a ton about movies. I enjoyed it, though I can't put my finger on why, nor do I think it's going to be especially memorable. I didn't think it was particularly accurate, as I did with "Closer", nor deep, and it did get a little saccharine in places. But I especially loved the score, and I thought the photography was OK.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

NYPL

At some point, I just dumped my entire list of "books I wanna read but don't want to buy" into the New York Public Library "bring-it-to-me" scheme.

The local branch is just a few blocks away.

Better yet, you can just keep dumping things into the queue, and they keep bringing them. Alas, the queue can only be 15 long, and you can only have 30 out at a time.

So what? I'm having the time of my life. I think I finished 2.5 books today.

Let's not forget the important part. They bring it to you!!!

Friday, August 22, 2008

2005 Fess Parker Syrah

OK, I'm totally going to some hell reserved for wine defilers, but the Fess Parker Syrah is better chilled than at room temp. Go figure.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

The Wire

I'm totally addicted. I'm still watching Season One (don't own a TV.)

This is really good stuff, and those that know me know that I don't particularly care for TV (not having owned one for about 20 years at this point.)

I've tossed all the seasons onto my Netflix queue. (More when I resurface.)

Saturday, August 16, 2008

The White Spider

My friend Ben lent me this classic mountaineering book by Heinrich Harrer, which chronicles successful and unsuccessful ascents of the North Face of the Eiger, in Switzerland. This is a truly fantastic book, razor sharp, brilliantly analytical, incredibly diplomatic, and distilled from what seem to be vast amounts of research into the subject as well as first-hand knowledge. I enjoyed it immensely, and would recommend it whether you're interested in mountaineering or not.

Wine night wines

Hosted another wine night last night. This time the stats were a little more reasonable: 7 bottles finished, 7 unfinished, and a couple left over. Whites had more of a showing this time. Memorable wines for me:

* 2005 Cambria Syrah
* 2004 Blair Fox Syrah
* 2006 Erbaluce di Caluso -- a semidry white that Rob and Kathryn brought over
* 2005 Dashe Zin outshone the 2006 Coppola Red Label Zin in my opinion
* 2005 Liberty School Cab Sauv needs to be tried again...

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Asian Art

The Freer-Sackler Galleries, a pair of musuems that are internally connected by a quirk of fate (and contract law.) Housing mostly Asian art or Asian-inspired art.

The Freer contains the largest collection of Whistler paintings (him of "Whistler's Mom" fame) including the Peacock Room he designed for Frederick Leyland. The latter is not to be missed. If there's only one thing you can do in DC, you should go see this room.

As for why there are two museums and not one, Mr. Freer decreed that neither his collection be broken up nor outside pieces dilute his collection so when Mr. Sackler donated his large collection, even though the Freer was the logical space for it, they decided to construct a second museum on the side, and hook them up. (For all practical purposes they are one museum.)

Also not to be missed is the entrance to the Sackler, a masterpiece of architecture, particularly when viewed from the bottom of the structure.

As for all that Asian art itself, you have to go see it to believe it. No amount of words can do it justice.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

National Air & Space Museum

You'd think I'd love it? Especially me who's been a space geek since I was four or so.

However, the whole place is strangely disappointing. It's like a big ad for NASA or the military.

The only worthwhile stuff there is watching how cramped Apollo 11 was. They really flew to the moon in the human equivalent of a sardine can. Really!

Bonus points to the losers for giving the most lame stupid description of Bernoulli's Principle ever. This is supposed to be educational?

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Thomas Jefferson's Library

At the Library of Congress. Totally impressive. Completely a Renaissance man. The sheer range of books on every topic from philosophy to political thought to mathematics is stupendous.

They are organized by topic.

It is amusing to note that books by Bernoulli and Newton, and treatises on Euclid rub shoulders with practical books on how to construct a set of weights and measures, and surveying. No artificial distinction between theory and practice.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Modernist Art

The Hirshhorn Museum in DC. Not to be missed if you're into modernist art and sculpture.

The building is circular in nature, and you need to effectively make two rounds of each floor: the inside ring for the sculptures, and the outside for the paintings.

Building is a bit sterile and Soviet but you're there to see the art.

They own rights to the Peter Fischli and David Weiss video art "Der Kauf der Linge" (The Way Things Go.) It's a 30-minute Rube Goldberg machine. Try and get hold of a DVD of this. Also completely unforgettable.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Old man's war

I needed a sci fi that I could get a little lost in, so I picked this one up, and it delivered. Someone compared the writing to Heinlein's, but I think it's vastly superior. After all, I couldn't finish "The moon is a harsh mistress", but I finished this in two days.

Friday, July 18, 2008

AT&T (ass, tit & tit)

... because AT&T couldn't possibly be an acronym in any way related to anything technological.

I had the worst day today, in large part due to AT&T. I found out the SLO store had iPhone 3G's, so I headed up there, and landed the last 8GB box. Went through the whole shindig of divulging every piece of personal information you could imagine, got approved, but porting my number from T-Mobile threw an incomprehensible error. Got bumped up to the store's trouble-shooter, who got on the phone with AT&T. At AT&T nobody could figure out why the porting was glitching or what the error messages meant -- this last one I forgive them, I couldn't understand them either. Fine, so after 20 minutes of mumbling on the phone with AT&T, it's time to cancel the port request and try putting it in again. So we cancel it. But then the request can't be put in again, because that phone, the actual device, is now in the system (I assume the fact that the IMEI was attached to the previous request means now this phone appears to be activated), AND there are no more phones left. So, get this: they offer to take my name and number and call me when they get a new one. *chortle*

To recap: 100 mile trip, find iPhone, 3 apple employees and 2 AT&T employees on the phone, and they can't port my fucking number and sell me a fucking iPhone. Yeah.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Oreana 2005 red table wine

This wine has a big orange question mark up front, and is decidedly a blend. It's a little spicy, and pleasant to drink with dinner, and since it's cheap, it's bound to become a staple. Apparently they have a tasting room downtown, so I might head down there sometime...

Monday, July 7, 2008

Alone through the roaring forties

Alli got me Vito Dumas' classic for my birthday last year, and I only now got round to reading it. Dumas is famous for many things besides the solo circumnavigation about which this book was written. He was a big proponent of double-enders for blue water sailing. He was also an advocate of heavy displacement, but with as much of the weight in the keel as possible, to increase stability. He was against heaving-to in heavy weather, instead favoring running before the wind, which is how I found out about him: an old skipper of mine and I were having a disagreement as to whether heavy full keel boats or light fin keel boats are safer in a nasty blow, and I was advocating for the old stop-the-boat approach, while he was arguing for the planing-while-running-before-the-wind approach (which I've since come around to seeing the merits of, may I add). This was an incredibly fun and educational book to read, even if the speeds cited seem absolutely fantastically improbable. If Dumas is to be believed, he routinely dealt with winds over 40 kts, and, even more improbably, made 15 kts running downwind in the "Lehg II". This book also wins the prize for having one of the coolest double entedre titles ever: the "roaring forties" refers both to latitude South, which was the parallel that Dumas hugged through most of the circumnavigation, and the decade, the 1940s, while WWII was raging, when he undertook the trip.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Pacific Oasis 2005 Merlot

This Gehrs wine deserves special mention, because it is a bottle of the 2003 vintage, which Ian brought to dinner a couple years ago, that got me thinking I might want to learn more about wine. So when I recently found a 2005 bottle, at a Japanese market of all places, for $15, I scooped it up. I looked it up on the web, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that winemaker is almost geeky, and has data sheets for his wines. Awesome!
The roomies and I had this bottle during the power outage due to the Gap fire a couple nights ago. Immediately after uncorking, this is a harsh drink. It mellows out as it sits, but I still wasn't nearly as impressed with it as I was with the 2003 two years ago. It could be that it's a wine to be had with food, it could be the vintage, it could be the store kept it in a warm place and it went off, or I could be a little more discerning. We'll never know... but I was let down.

Three depressing wines

These have sat and languished on the counter, open, missing one glass' worth. So obviously I wasn't too hot about them. I did use one for making vindaloo, but that's about it. Two came from wine night:
Cline 2006 Zinfandel
Clos Du Bois 2004 Merlot
And one I picked up because I liked the label:
Novella Synergy 2005 Paso Robles

Monday, June 30, 2008

North Face Aleutian sleeping bag

I bought this sleeping bag a few years back for about $60, and I'm very conflicted about it. The weight-for-temperature-rating is nearly unbeatable at any price, and definitely so at this price. However, the temperature rating of 20 Fahrenheit is a little exaggerated. I've had this bag in 30 degree weather, and froze my ass off. The foot box can leak cold air, and there is no baffle around the shoulders to keep warm air in, so that you have to scrunch the hood really tight and close it up completely to keep the top air-tight. In addition, the bag suffers from an affliction common to all taffeta-based bags: it's loud! If you make the slightest move it rustles. I'm not so light a sleeper that light noises outside the tent wake me up, but if things are rustling right by my ear, I will wake up. This bag also has another weird property, to which I'm neutral: it creates a lot of static, to the point of glowing. This was initially a great source of amusement to me, but now I just ignore it. I remember on one occasion it even seemed to cause my indiglo casio from the 80s to phosphoresce longer when I checked the time. These days I've augmented the bag with a silk liner. This has taken care of the footbox air leak, and made the bag generally warmer and better-behaved. Unless you do as much backpacking as I do, in which case this bag's light weight will be a major plus, I would not recommend getting the Aleutian. Major points for the name, though!

Icebreaker merino stuff

I'm not the sort of person who gets addicted to things, but I am a little obsessed with Icebreaker merino wool clothes these days. I'm trying to remember what got me started... I think I needed a warm layer for Eastern Sierra trips, and I picked up a coral pink long sleeve crew-cut 260. Icebreaker gear is rated by the weight of the wool per square ... foot? I think it's foot, but you can check the website (www.icebreaker.com) to confirm. So far I have:
* the original 260 long sleeve crew
* a 200 short sleeve crew -- more about this one in a bit...
* a black 200 long sleeve zip neck ("Mako")
* a black 190 tank top
* a dark gray 190 tee with a cool as all hell print of a wave on it
* a light brown 190 vee-neck tee -- just bought this one, we'll see how I like it
Merino is simply superior to cotton! I have enough of these at this point that I probably don't need to wear any of my cotton t-shirts most of the time, and I just don't. Merino doesn't smell, so you can wear it many days before you need to wash it, it doesn't need ironing, it's washed in cold water, which is more environmentally correct, and it's more comfortable.
These are expensive clothes, but once I knew I was hooked, I started buying them heavily discounted at sierratradingpost.com, which is outstanding. Real story: I wore the 200 short sleeve, which was powder blue when I bought it, nonstop throughout the J/24 South European championship. Because you can only wash wool in cold water, it developed some serious pit-stains (foredeck on a J/24 is no laughing matter!). I didn't want to retire the shirt, but I couldn't very well wear it like that, so I dyed it! I picked up some midnight blue dye, soaked it for an hour, rinsed it in cold water, washed it and wore it on my trip to Bryce Canyon this past weekend. The color is definitely fast, and I didn't have any skin reactions to the dye. Bottom line, this icebreaker stuff is the shit!

After Dark

I picked up this Murakami book during a 2-for-1 sale, as a follow-up to "Hard-boiled wonderland", which Will gave me for x-mas. "After Dark" seemed deceptively simple. I really enjoyed it, but I don't know what to make of it. The script-like writing was interesting, the characters were very cool, and the setting was fantastic. Did I get the point? No.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Wristcutters

This is a cute little love story, which I watched at my brother's suggestion. I especially enjoyed the fact that it was obviously filmed around here. It had a cool texture, and the fantastic plot device of a black hole under the passenger seat of a car. The soundtrack was also amazing, as one would expect from a movie that Tom Waits is involved in.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Battlestar Galactica 4th season

The mid-season finale of BSG happened last Friday, so I downloaded and watched it last night, and, I have to say, it was brilliant! They wrapped up pretty much every thread they had going in a nice way, gave lots to be happy about, and tempered it a little with some dystopia in the end. The scriptwriters are following the tenets of great literature to the letter, and the outcome is brilliant!

Getting stoned with savages

I went to the bookstore physically aching for a Murakami book, and alongside that I picked up "Getting stoned with savages" for half off. It's a really fun, quick read, along the lines of "A walk in the woods". It's the author's second book, about Vanuatu and Fiji, the first one being "The sex lives of cannibals", about Kiribati. I'll save "sex lives" for an airplane read sometime...

BV Signet Collection 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon

I'm a little confused about BV. I've had some of their wines during wine night, and they've been barfalicious, but someone brought this bottle to our house on some occasion and Jenny and I opened it and were pleasantly surprised. Is it because of the "Signet Collection" part? Anyway, this was a fine "jammy", as Jenny called it, cab, which also kept well refrigerated for a week after being opened. I haven't been trying many wines lately...

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Choke

I thought this was a pretentious and not universally insightful book. I did however find the comments about the Ren Faire workers entertaining.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Juno

This little indie movie had everyone up in arms when it came out. I got it a while ago, but postponed watching it because neither of my roomies was interested. In the end, I really enjoyed it. I think my favorite scene, unlike everyone else's, was the one where the boyfriend is explaining to Juno that she's full of shit when she says she slept with him because she was bored. Also, the step-mom character was the most likeable mom character I've seen in a long time. I hope this movie cost like $1,000 to make and made a million...

Pope Valley 2005 Merlot

This strikes me as a very inexpensive, simple, capable merlot.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Fussili and wine

Several points...
One: Schockingschadenfreude, you ass, why do you not live where I live so I could have invited you to dinner tonight?

Two: Fucking fussili. My mom was addicted to them, and as a kid I really didn't get it, but I think I'm beginning to. Tonight's dish: baked fussili with tomatoes, onion, super-hooper-dooper organic asparagus (*perfect* thickness stalks, thank you very much), black olives, capers, button mushrooms, olive oil and fancy black pepper, and crumbled feta on top. Basically what was in the fridge, minus the leeks which I'm saving for a frittata with turkey bacon -- to die for. Holy crap, is it good! And it's going to be better tomorrow. How do I know? My mom's fussili creations, which I positively dreaded as a kid, were always better the next day, after the tomato had lost its zing and the rest of the flavors (always black olives, always!) had melted together.

Three: Fucking Rex Goliath Pinot Noir! Total bullshit by itself, awesome, I mean epic, with a mediterranean dish.

Clearly I've had, like, half a bottle of the stuff :-)

Sunday, April 27, 2008

All the pretty horses

I started this book during my trip to Death Valley and just finished it. Whether because the setting in which I read it was perfect or simply because it sweeps you along with its impeccable pace, I really enjoyed it. It's hardly a deep book, but it was enjoyable, in a simple way.
Unlike Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy does not bother me with the liberties he takes with English grammar and syntax. I'm debating whether to read the remaining two Border Trilogy books. Probably sometime, but not right away.

My Blueberry Nights

The new Wong Kar Wai movie has received mediocre reviews in the press, but I thought it was amazing. This is WKW's first movie made in America with Hollywood actors, and he picked good ones: Jude Law and Natalie Portman were incredible together in Closer, and both do a great job here. Norah Jones is fantastic, and I love how her hair actually has a screen presence. Rachel Weisz is brilliant, as always, and David Strathairn, who was an unknown to me, impressed me. The most memorable thing about the movie is the grain, although the fact that "Try a little tenderness" is deconstructed during the first half of the second love story is up there too. Yeah, I don't know what the critics were complaining about: this is not an obvious masterpiece like "In the mood for love", but it's really really excellent.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Three memorable wines

I hosted a wine night last night, and we went through 3 bottles of whites and 12 bottles of reds. I didn't sample everything, because I was too busy talking to people, but I did try maybe 5 or 6 of them, and three stood out. I had the Orleans Hill Cote Zero (2006) early in the night, and liked it, despite the "organic sulfite free" label. I noticed the Stolpman 2005 Syrah later in the night, and Jeff told me a little bit about where it's made and who Stolpman is. And finally, I wrapped up the night with the 2005 Echelon Pinot Grigio, which I will come back to and try to cook for some time. All in all, a great success!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Point Break

BoingBoing has been doing a series of videos about a fictional French-German action-hero wannabe called Klaus Pierre. This Klaus Pierre dude is supposed to have come to LA because he wants to be America's next big action hero, and starts his quest by auditioning for a role as Keanu Reeves' character in Point Break ... which brings me to my post. Point Break was recently added to Hulu, so I had the opportunity to watch it a couple nights ago, and I really enjoyed it. Keanu has undoubtedly improved as an actor since, but Patrick Swayze was absolutely on top of his game at the time of this movie. The places, the atmosphere, the themes, they all made sense, and Isham's music was, as usual, fantastic. I especially liked the night surfing scenes, because they were really authentic as far as capturing the feel of a SoCal beach at night.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Honey Moon 2006 Viognier

I love this wine. I realize it's gimmicky, in the sense that you feel like you're drinking honeysuckle juice and not wine, but I could drink a bottle of it without realizing it. And tonight my housemate has made some really fancy iranian food, so I'm looking forward to reporting how it went with that...

Per Se

Per Se reminds the CC of why he doesn't go out to eat in the "white tablecloth" restaurants.

Pitch perfect food but emotionally frigid.

The CC assumes readers have heard of the above restaurant and Thomas Keller. There was a 9-course menu, etc. and it was excellent. However, it was the equivalent of dancing with someone who spends all their time more concerned about their hair not falling out of place than having a good time.

The CC will also note the nosebleed borderline-larcenious prices.

Mr. Keller should note that at those prices errors are not forgiven. A waiter trying to take away a course before the diner has finished not once but four times is clearly not acceptable particularly when the restaurant is 60% empty for "second seating" on a Saturday!

Leaning over to refill water and coffee in front of the diner while he/she is speaking is pretty much a no-no straight out of the Culinary School 101. That it happened repeatedly is simply unforgivable.

The idea isn't that Mr. Keller isn't brilliant (he is, and the CC is competely and utterly in awe!) It's that now that "sous vide" and "shaved salt" has spread far and wide into the repertoire of the average talented culinary student, and that Mr. Keller's discoveries are accessible to the average homecook, he needs to amp up his game, or drop the prices (or both.)

Let's turn to some current pop songs to finish the review.

Is the CC sorry he went?

Non, je ne regrette rien!

Would the CC go again?

Don't take me back to Per Se, no, No, NO!

Monday, March 17, 2008

Ian Banks' "Use of weapons"

Woolly recommended it, so I read it. Maybe it's because I haven't read the first couple books in the Culture series, or maybe it is genuinely disappointing, but I was depressed by it...

Saturday, March 15, 2008

In Bruges

I went to see this movie cold turkey, knowing absolutely nothing about it, simply because I'd been to Bruges as a child and loved it. I was astonished at how good it was, and predict it will become a favorite. I don't know whether this has any basis in fact, but I thought this movie could have its roots in theater of the absurd. When I was a teenager I was quite involved with theater, and my favorites were Beckett, Ionesco and Pinter -- Pinter's "The Birthday Party" is my all-time favorite piece I've acted in. Watching "In Bruges" brought the feel of The Birthday Party back, and it was so weird and powerful that I had to go back home and watch an episode of numbingly familiar and comfortable X-Files, and drink a bottle of wine to wash the taste from my mouth. Don't get me wrong, it's a good feel, to some extent, but that was a tough and formative time, and it's hard to feel like you're back there again.I may have to go watch In Bruges again ... I don't remember when the last time I did that with a movie was. LoTR maybe?

Coppola 2005 Rosso

This is a blend of 51% Zin, 29% Syrah and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, according to the label. Aside from the ridiculousness of specifying the blend to an accuracy of 1%, this blend also doesn't seem to work. I had a glass of it a couple nights ago, and I'm not thrilled to go back to the bottle. It might be time to make chicken vindaloo!

Update: a few days later I went back to this bottle... and was confused. This time around it seemed much much better, tasty and aromatic to begin with. However, 10 minutes into sipping, it had devolved again. I don't mean it had gone bad in the glass, but rather in my mouth. There's some bizarre chemistry going on with this wine and my palate...

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Father's office -- Santa Monica, CA

Returning from a conference last week, we stopped for a burger at "Father's Office" in Santa Monica. This place has apparently won every award imaginable for the quality of its burgers, and though the Florian burger circa '99-'02 has a special place in my heart, this was in fact the best burger I've *ever* had. The place has open seating, meaning you have to wait until someone leaves and then fight everyone else who's milling about for a seat. It's also very very loud, so it's not a great place to have a conversation -- but they bill themselves as a reimagining of the local pub, and when did you go to one of those to talk?

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Pasta, Pasta, Pasta

There is this amazing place down in the Village called Raffeto's that makes fresh and dried pasta.

They supply half the restaurants in the city. Dried pasta is $1.25/lb. This is some amazing stuff, y'all.

I bought nine pounds. The Italian dude looked at me a little funny but he grinned and winked when I went to pay up.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Brokeback Mountain

I watched this last night for the second time, and it held up incredibly well. This movie made me cry the first time around, and it set the tone for my whole day today. It's incredibly beautifully made, the lead actors are brilliant, and the supporting actresses kick ass. It's a real shame people think of this as the "gay cowboy movie", because it's just a damn good love story, gay or straight. In fact, I'm getting this vibe lately that gay cinema is doing the love story more justice than straight cinema, which, frankly, is kind of trite. Plus, there's always the exploitative way to view this film: just as dudes get all turned on at the idea of two women together, so can women get turned on by the idea of two men together. Two men so in touch with their feelings that they can be passionate *towards each other*. Whoa! We're talking mythical creatures here. But I digress... This movie has made it into my top 5 favorites.

Peachy Canyon 2005 Zinfandel

This is the "Incredible Red", as the bottle goes...
I really really love Peachy Canyon's Merlot. In fact, that's the wine I brought back to Greece a couple Christmases ago, so my family could try a California wine, and we all loved it. So, naturally, I decided to try the Zin, and I wasn't disappointed. It's really sort of thin, which I think American wines are in general afraid to be, even if it's true to form, and very peppery. It went exceptionally well with a dish I made the other night: brown rice rotini, with shrimp, roasted red pepper, capers, lots of garlic and black pepper.

Monday, February 18, 2008

"Flannel Pyjamas" and "Easy"

These are two relationship movies from the early oughts, if I remember correctly. The first is an unhappy ending and the second is a happy ending. I liked the second a little better than the first, but then again it had Emily Deschanel in it, and I'm very fond of her.

9 1/2 weeks

When I was little my family had the soundtrack of 9 1/2 weeks in CD, and I remember asking my mom if the movie was worth watching; she said no. My mom's and my tastes aren't always aligned, but in this case I'll have to agree. I can see why this was such a big deal when it came out. I can also see Mickey Rourke's appeal, though to me it looks cocaine-fuelled and I learned in college to be very apprehensive of that. But it wasn't a very good movie overall...

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Airlink 101 KVM switch

I recently sold my mac mini to a dear friend and went back to just my windoze laptop and linux homebrew desktop. Having 3 OSes at home was overkill and just the difference in control keys was driving me insane. I wanted a KVM switch so that I could use my laptop and desktop with the same kb, mouse and monitor, and after wasting an inordinate time at Fry's trying to cook up a low cost solution using $5 USB hubs and a 2-to-1 USB switch, plus $4 A-to-B USB cables, the corner of my eye caught the Airlink 101. This is a USB kb and mouse, VGA monitor, and 3.5mm audio in and out KVM with a button on top through which you choose computer 1 or 2. There is also the possibility of using hot-keys to toggle, but I think you need special drivers for that. When I opened the box my heart sank, because the connectors are completely nonstandard. On the KVM end of the PC side both VGA and USB go into a single DE-15 connector. The audio in and out come from standard headphone jacks into a mini-USB connector. Clearly whoever designed this was a connector freak. So I figured this would definitely take special drivers to work, and good luck with linux. Wrong! It just does. Monitor, audio and input switching work flawlessly for both windoze and linux. I'm SO impressed!

Friday, February 1, 2008

Venus

I watched this a couple nights ago on DVD, and thought it was a masterpiece. The recursion and irony of Peter O'Toole half-dead, playing a half-dead actor, who plays a dying man in a sitcom to pay his bills was too too sweet. And the cruelty of the young woman, recast halfway through the film as victimization, was also brilliant. And O'Toole's wheezing throughout, and the way he dies. It was friggin brilliant!

Lust, caution

I watched this at Campbell last night, and I was lukewarm on it. I thought it was technically flawless, but brutal. It was the second movie I've ever seen which had serious amounts of sex, yet wasn't hot. However, I know a few people who violently hated it, and lots of people who plain didn't get it.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

10 items or less

Just finished watching it, at Tad's recommendation. This movie made me think of the phrase "an actors' movie". Boy, that was one of them, if one ever existed! I thought it was interesting and probably unpretentious, though you can never be sure when actors are involved...

Lie with me

Watched this the other night and I have two comments: a) what was the point of this movie? and b) Eric Balfour is undoubtedly one of the hottest men alive.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Parker Station 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon

Had it at a friends' place the other night, and was blown away. Granted, I'm not a cab connoiseur, but my good taste was confirmed by someone who is, so there! Very very smooth, not tannic, not acidic, not angry at all!

Into the Wild

Watched this (for free!) at Campbell a couple nights ago. Overall I liked it. It was faithful to most facts, but I didn't think it was terribly faithful to the point of the book. Nevertheless, it had a point of its own. You can hardly fault a movie-maker for taking something other than what I did from a book. I found the nature photography only so-so, and it's bugging me that I can't pinpoint what bothered me about it. Other than that, I thought it was well acted, and I thought the leading actor's avoidance of pregnant pauses and looks was remarkable.

The Kite Runner

Watched this at the Riviera last night, and I was quite impressed. It's not often you see a movie that makes you feel delight, sorrow and fury in any meaningful order. I absolutely loved the setting of this film, the photography, the storyline, and the performance of the actor who played the hero's father. I could have done without the last 15 or so minutes, but it seems most people have a very different notion from me regarding what constitutes a good ending. I would have been perfectly cool had we not come back full circle to the kite running theme, complete with rehashed lines...

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Anchovies from Collioure, France

Manufactured by Roque. Pricy as hell ($13-ish) but worth every penny (link.)

Two words: adult candy.

SSH on Mac OS X

So, whose brilliant idea was it that OS X should pop up a window in which one enters their SSH pass phrase, instead of doing it in the cmdline? Must be boy genius, Mr. Jobs again.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Babel

More perplexed than impressed or depressed by this one. I suspect it was masterfully dome, but I have no clue what the point of this movie was.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Like water for chocolate

I watched this last night and loved it. I haven't read the book, but I think I would enjoy it. So far magical realism has treated me well in books. I had never imagined it would be possible to pull it off in a movie, or rather pull off a movie based on a book of this kind. My only quibble was with the sound production: at times it was all too obvious that you were watching voice-over, and at times it was too stilted. I loved the fact that the dark scenes had the orange glow that dark scenes have when photographed with a fast lens on a still camera... But what does the title mean?

Pola X

I tried to watch this on Netflix streaming service the other night and I couldn't finish it. OK, so Guillaume Depardieu is gorgeous, and Catherine Deneuve is haughty as ever. But the movie was fake and annoying. This was a far cry from some of the fresh new French cinema that's been making the rounds lately. Also, what's with the French obsession with incest?

Avilla 2005 Syrah

I'm a fan of this SB Co wine, and it's just incredibly cheap at TJ's. I was having a conversation with my friend Jeff the other day about how it's much easier to get good Syrah for cheap, than any other red wine.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Deep Water

I watched this documentary last night on a big screen and I was *bawling*. I mean driving home on the 101 and sobbing! It's a very very good documentary, throughout, but the end is masterful. I was particularly impressed by the gale footage -- I'm going to look into how they got those shots -- and the footage of England in the 60s. I had never imagined it to have been so drab. Robin Knox-Johnston has always been a hero of mine ("Sea, Ice and Rock" having been one of the first books I ever read in English), but I now have a minor crush on the Frenchman Moitessier, as well. I'm watching every documentary this director has made.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Apple Finder UI

Sometimes I get *so* pissed at UIs. For instance, evidently Apple does not share my opinion that my application focus should never be taken away from me unless I relinquish it. If I'm on one app, and another one wants my attention, the latter should not steal focus from the one I'm working on. This is pretty basic shit, people! User-friendly my ass!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Tokina 28-70mm f2.8-4.3 lens

I bought a Tokina 28-70mm f2.8-4.3 zoom lens used for $20 from Samy's in SB (btw, the majority of the people working there are a bit on the asshole side, they all seem so bothered by customers it's like I'm back in Greece...) This is a ~20 year old lens, from the SZ-X series, so the middle-of-the-road series by Tokina (which, I found out, was founded by Nikon engineers, and therefore shared Nikon's quirks regarding their lens qualities and naming schemes). I took it on a two day backpacking trip on my *ist DS, thinking it might be a decent all-around lens -- good focal lengths, sensitive enough for night shooting. Nevertheless, this lens had a few difficulties, some of which have to do with its age and consequent lack of coatings, and some of which have to do with my using beyond its intended capabilities:

a) high contrast areas have blue halos, especially if they're not exactly in focus -- I was told this is due to lack of coating. I compared its performance at 50mm to my pentax 50mm f2 and the blue haze issue is not present in the pentax. However, the tokina seems to have a deeper DOF at the same focal length and aperture. This stumps me, because I thought DOF was not affected by number of elements in the lens...

b) the tokina systematically overexposes sunny shots

c) the tokina suffers from very strong flares in wide-angle sky shots

Where it did excel (but no better than my 50mm f2) is low light indoors shots.

This is the album shot with it.

Memoirs of a Geisha (the movie)

I watched this last night and I wasn't disappointed. I'd actually read the book years ago (borrowed from Ian or Heather, I think) and liked it, too. The movie changed some bits and made the story overall more fable-like, but it worked. The actual memoir had some gritty, disconcerting things, and, while it ended on an up note, it didn't run with the certainty that it would all along.

Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Woolly got me this book by Haruki Murakami for Christmas, probably in return for the fact that I introduced him to the Takeshi Covacz series by Richard Morgan. To say that I was impressed is an understatement. Thinking back, I don't think there has been a single Japanese author I've read who hasn't impressed me, but I suppose that is not surprising since I've read very few and they're supposed to be the cream of the crop. The translation for Wonderland is fantastic. I don't presume to know whether it captures the style of the original Japanese, but it does have a style. The book is wholly engrossing and very hard to put down. The sci-fi bits are the dumbest, while the little pithy analyses of everyday things are the best (for instance the bit about couches, or the bit about how people can be split into two categories according to the breadth of perspective). I'm left wondering whether the whole unicorn fixation on Boing-Boing has anything to do with this book...

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Love Actually

Loved it. How did they manage to pack so many likeable characters in one movie? This was a total feel-good flick, and any conflicts were really really tame.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

98 Toyota RAV4 2-door soft-top

If you've ever wondered whether two-door SUVs lack something compared to their 4-door counterparts, let me paint a mental picture for you of the capacity of a 2-door RAV4 soft-top: 4 adults, a german shepherd, 4 mountaineering backpacks for 40 miles of winding up- and downhills at 4000-6000 ft in the middle of the night in 4th gear. Yeah baby!