Cocktails and Dinosaurs: News and Libations for the Weekend of September 23, 2011

Semi irregular posts meant to distract you from your regularly scheduled facebook stalking with unless information you heard about earlier this week.

Twitter / @GeorgeTakei: Everyone calm down about n ... via kwout

• Rumor has it Snoop Dogg will be starring as the father in a family sitcom. 
  (For some reason, this news reminded me about the spinach episode of Cookin' with Coolio.)
  
• Earlier this week Steve Martin tweeted some Oscar advice to Eddie Murphy who will be hosting the 2012 Oscars. 
  (I know it may seem as though I'm spending all my time on twitter and I am.)

• R.E.M. broke up this week.  (via Pitchfork) 
  
• Outtakes from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia from Season 6.  And have you seen any of season 7 yet?  Holy shit!  Watch it now!

Twitter / @joelmchale: The Vampire Diary isn't a ... via kwout

That's it, buster, no more military aide. 

One of the greatest parts of the movie Robocop is the commercials.  Thankfully someone has assembled them on youtube to enjoy at your leisure. (via Marginal Revolution)
BONUS:  Korean Robocop commercial for fried chicken

Twitter / @joelmchale: Tonight on Big Bang Theory ... via kwout

Have you seen the season premiere of Community yet?

Twitter / @joelmchale: Simon Cowell has not trimm ... via kwout

Tom Selleck's moustache making the world a better place. (via kottke.org)

Terrible Movie Idea of the Week:The Origin Story of Kuato from Total Recall

Kuato, giving dads the perfect Halloween option when they can't find a babysitter since 1987.


I take it back.  This is a great movie idea.

Recipe of the Week: 
Chimichurri Quinoa Stuffed Artichokes  (Excellent step-by-step photos)
While listening to episode 88 of  the podcast for Our Hen House, I heard them mention quinoa stuffed artichokes.  It sounds delightful and I need to make this immediately.

Cocktail of the Week:
Fresh brewed coffee with a splash of Pinnacle Whipped.

This cocktail help Tara and I get through our last blog-a-thon.  With the Silk creamer, this libation would probably work even without the flavored variety of vodka, but it has introduced me to the world of spiked coffee.  It just occurred to me, I need to get some of that Soyatoo whipped topping, that would makes this perfect.

Send any news tidbits and cocktails ideas to: monicatara@gmail.com

Cocktails and Dinosaurs: News and Libations for the Weekend of September 2, 2011

Quasi-regular posts that involve me skimming through my google reader and regurgitating it in list form on the blog.  Honesty hurts...


It's back to school time, so here's one of my favorite moments from Freaks and Geeks.

• I found myself checking out IMDB (internet movie database) to see what Nicolas Cage was up to because what else do you do when you're stuck at home during a hurricane.  I cannot believe I missed the chance to see Nicolas Cage in 3D!
  I have safely added Drive Angry to my Netflix queue, and mark my words, the next time I get the opportunity to see Nicolas Kim Coppola in all three dimensions of space, I will take it.  

• Milla Jovovich recently put up on twitter the new trailer for her upcoming movie, The Three Musketeers.

• Daryl Hannah was arrested earlier this week in Washington D.C. for protesting an oil pipeline from Northern Canada to the Gulf Coast of the USA.  Watch a clip of Daryl speaking out against this pipeline very eloquently to the likes of Bill O'Reilly.
  In lighter Daryl Hannah news, according to the database (of movies), which is located on the very same internets that blog 'scuse me? resides, a Kill Bill 3 is in the works?!?!?!

• Finally, a place to get vegan stock photos.  Vegistock becomes a reality. (via quarrygirl)

Items I found on Videogum:

• A promo for the upcoming season of Community.

• ABC is working on a 90's girl band sitcom... Be afraid, maybe.

• A Marilyn Manson video directed by Shia Laboeuf (NSFW). 
  However, did you know that Jude Apatow discovered Shia Laboeuf (this is a rumor I want to start!!!  Go with it!!)?  Here's Shia on an episode of Freaks and Geeks.  

Isn't that amazing how I took this thing full circle and bought us all back to Freaks and Geeks?  Have I mentioned that I like that show?


Terrible Movie Idea of the Week:
Speed 3: Savory Revenge... This time there's a bomb on the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile!

Recipe(s) of the Week:
Who needs those stupid seasoning packs with WAY too much sodium?  Do more with your ramen!  I also like to make ramen with a quick peanut sauce, except I use agave instead of sugar and add a little hot sesame oil.  If you're feeling festive, add some chopped cilantro and/or peanuts.
...and for dessert, take the phyllo dough (you bought to make something awesome but than forgot about it in the freezer) and make these cute peanut butter and jelly cigars.

Cocktail of the Week:  Hurricane (too soon?)

Hurricane with rebellious lime wedges

 As per Emeril Lagasse's recipe on the Food Network website, a hurricane consists of 2 ounces light rum, 2 ounces dark rum, 1 ounce grenadine or passion fruit syrup, 1 ounce fresh orange juice, 1 ounce fresh lime juice or sour mix, one teaspoon superfine sugar, an orange wedge for garnish and one hell of a headache when you wake up.

As usual, we want/need your feedback, we cannot do this without you guys.

Send any news tidbits and cocktails ideas to: monicatara@gmail.com

Stream a Little Stream

I love Kindertrauma's Stream Warriors posts because they tell me what disturbing, non-sucking movies are available to watch instantly on Netflix. I think I'll be a copycat, as is my wont, and start my own series of streamer reviews.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is the equivalent of walking into a fabulous-looking mansion and discovering it's littered with human shit. A bunch of classless English gangsters with increasingly repulsive revenge tactics and the lead gangster's tormented wife gather at an opulent restaurant for dinner every night, where their Gautier-designed costumes change with the color of their environment to synch moods, the wife goes to great lengths to continue an affair with a patron, various adorable poochies wander outside, and a bleach blonde eleven-year-old sings soprano at the sinks before the gangsters torture him into unconsciousness:


The movie is gorgeously shot and staged to clash with the base, grotesque behavior of the characters. Having the good silver out doesn't matter when Tim Roth is vomiting on it. With all the slicing up and stripping of dignity that the gangsters do to the undeserving, it makes sense that the movie ends with the wife forcing her husband to cannibalize the roasted corpse of her murdered lover. Bon appetit! Three and a half stars.


Otesanek, a bit of horror/surrealism from the Czech Republic, is about a childfree couple who, because the husband is stupid enough to carve a tree-stump baby in jest while his wife is in shambles over their dual sterility, and because the wife's batshit-crazy waves are apparently strong enough to animate objects, become parents to a flesh-eating tree monster. No tenant in their building (or meddling visitor) is safe, even after the parents have locked the monster in the basement; a neighbor tot "adopts" the monster and keeps it fed, which at one point involves leading the pedophile who's stalking her to his death (she accomplishes a lot in a day).
She also has to work to outsmart a prophetic fairy tale that says her elderly neighbor will lay the death smack on the monster with a garden hoe.

I think the theme of the movie is parenthood as a disease. The ever-growing tree stump monster is disgusting, violent, and uncommunicative, and is ruining its parents' marriage and already meager sanity, but the parents' love and devotion hang on and ultimately cause their deaths. The monster's appetite is never satisfied, it leaves skeletal remains in its wake, and it ends up in cahoots with another child, the only one who really understands him. Sounds like the suburbs to me! Three stars.

Hurricanes and Goslings

Welcome to an informal late Friday night/early Saturday morning version of cocktails & dinosaurs because I don't blog enough, I have a stomach full of fabulous Foodswings nachos and a cold refreshing Indian Pale Ale.

Celebrity News:

• Ryan Gosling is a real life hero, but that was way back in June so let's move on. (via EV Grieve)

• January Jones is apparently a terrible person. I'm still trying to figure out who she is and why I care.

• Jimmy Fallon is a psychic that predicted hosting Saturday Night Live in 2011 all the way back in 1998. This video gives me chills. I nearly took a baldwin in my pants.

• If you had any question at all as to whether or not Nick Cave was the sexiest man alive, I think this letter to MTV should put them all to rest. (via kottke.org)

• Taylor Momsen is retiring from acting... (looks like someone has been getting career advice from Amanda Bynes.)
  But seriously, I can't believe the girl who taught me how to shake 'n bake has chosen to no longer share her unique gift with the world again. Come back, Taylor, we need you! I have a tofu cutlet that needs a crunchy exterior and you're the only one who can show me how.
  

Celebrity Feud of the Week:
Okay, so get this... Anthony Bourdain comments on a few Food Network chefs/cooks in a recent interview with TV Guide and happens to call Paula Deen "the worst, most dangerous person to America." Not completely shocking considering she's the woman who gave us the recipe for bacon cheeseburger meatloaf in a world where childhood obesity has nearly tripled in the last 30 years and heart disease remains one of the leading causes of death.
She responded with,"You know, not everybody can afford to pay $58 for prime rib or $650 for a bottle of wine. My friends and I cook for regular families who worry about feeding their kids and paying the bills . . . It wasn’t that long ago that I was struggling to feed my family, too." Interesting, how she turned Bourdain's comments about the American health crisis and her "unholy connection with evil corporations" into a conversation about feeding a family on a budget, which last time I checked a classy rice and bean dish was a lot cheaper and healthier than a hamburger topped with a fried egg and bacon and sandwiched between two donuts, but I've been proven wrong before.
Bourdain's point remains valid. She's selling a lifestyle and it just happens to be a lifestyle that's killing millions of Americans.

Blog of the Week:
Have you ever lost a pen or found a pen? Well then, I've found the perfect blog for you! I found your pen

Stupid Movie Idea of the Week:
Okay, so... Mushroom cut from No Country for Old Men and Leather Face from Texas Chainsaw Massacre meet in a sort of When Harry Met Sally kind of romantic comedy.

Recipe of the Week:
VEGAN Deviled Eggs (via vegansaurus)
I cannot wait to make these for my next party!!!

To all of our Northeast American/ Canadian readers, stay safe this weekend as Hurricane Irene works her way up the coast we can't afford to lose either one of you.

A Good Horror Movie Made After 1992? NUH UH.

It's true. After 15+ years of avoiding new horror releases because they're, you know...this, I read a recommendation of the 2008 direct-to-DVD release Trick' R Treat on Kindertrauma and thought I'd check it out. It's currently streaming on Netflix so give it an instant nosh while you can; it's a ghoulish, blackly comic, straightforward collection of overlapping stories that would be right at home in 1989. There are dashes of CGI, which subtracts one star, but the performances and running theme of sweet revenge balance things out. Plus, we all know it's not Halloween until a curly-haired teenaged dumbbell is vomiting blood onto the school principal's front steps.



Side note: A great opportunity to check out an adult Anna Paquin before she became "Always and Forever Sookie".

My Girl Crush

I'd like to take a moment to talk about my new girl crush, Alison Brie. If you are not familiar with her, you need to start watching Community on NBC right now.



Okay, now that we're familiar with the show, let me explain why she's awesome. Aside from the fact that she was in an episode of Hannah Montana (which gives her instant blog 'scuse me? cred), her twitter feed is a constant source of entertainment for me. I'm having one of those Rebel Girl things with her character Annie on Community. You know, it's like she has the hottest trike in town and I just want to be her best friend, yeah.

Speaking of twitter, did you know that Annie Edison's boobs have a twitter account? I really wish Annie's boobs would tweet more. I'm just saying...

Hormonal Bitch? Lap Up Some Cow Torture

The New York Times ran an article on July 21st announcing the end of the "Got Milk for your PMS-ing Whore of a Girlfriend/Wife?" ads that drew the ire of sexism-sensitive types.


The ads perpetuate the assumption of our cock-controlled society that women are the only ones to experience hormonal upheaval that makes life hell for their significant others. Okay. Where are the ads with the haggard-looking career woman frowning over the caption, "I'm sorry I forgot to DVR the Jets game. You're right, I'm totally a stupid c-word. How 'bout an ice cold Miller?"

To ice the cake, these are effing "Got Milk?" ads. The ads that for 18 years have shown a variety of celebrities staring with bedroom eyes after their upper lips have been smeared with the fluid produced after cows are raped by machines. Health! Fun! Despite numerous contradictory reports urging women to focus on plant-based, animal-friendly, anti-carcinogenic treats rather than fat-pumped dairy products to mitigate the symptoms of PMS, Goodby, Silverstein, and Partners decided to launch this misogynistic series of ads. After the shut-down, Goodby made sure to state to the press that he thinks the campaign has "served its purpose" and that a similar ovary-hating campaign that his firm launched in 2005 was allowed to survive because "it was a different world in 2005". 'Tis true.