The other day I cooked for my dinner group, and I have to say I am pretty proud of how it turned out. First, I made a soup based loosely on this recipe, adding 1/2 pound of sausage, 1/2 a green pepper, some onion, and 4 or so stalks of celery.
Then, I made bread bowls, mostly following this recipe, except that I used wheat flour instead of semolina. The bowls turned out a bit smaller than I expected, but I think that that is due to my not having a good warm place for them to rise. Even though they were slightly smaller than I expected, they were really, really good. And pretty easy to make, even if they were a bit time consuming.
Top it all off with a salad, and call it dinner. It was very enjoyable.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Cold Souls
This weekend I went to the Sundance Film Festival up in Park City, and it was really terrific. I waited in line for a couple hours to see a film called "Cold Souls" starring Paul Giamatti.
Cold Souls tells a story about Paul Giamatti (playing himself), who is struggling to separate himself from an unlikeable character he is portraying in his job as an actor. His agent tells him about a new scientific procedure to remove the soul from a person, thereby relieving the pain of a tortured soul. After much deliberation, Paul goes through with the procedure.
I won't go into more of the plot, because a big part of the enjoyment in this movie is experiencing it. All I will say is that the rest of the movie goes into some of the interesting questions about what life would be like if there were such a way to remove and replace souls.
It is not a comedy, but it does have some great, great jokes. When Paul is discussing the procedure, the doctor tells him that they can safely store the soul right there in New York or, if Paul preferred, ship it to their warehouse in New Jersey to avoid sales tax. Paul shudders at the thought of his soul being stored in New Jersey.
I was there for the premiere, which means that after the movie, the director, the crew, and several members of the cast (including Paul Giamatti) got up for a question and answer session. I didn't have any interesting questions to ask, but I just thought it was neat that they were up there willing to answer questions from fans and hopeful filmmakers.
All in all, it was an amazing movie, and I sincerely hope that it is released to a broader audience.
Cold Souls tells a story about Paul Giamatti (playing himself), who is struggling to separate himself from an unlikeable character he is portraying in his job as an actor. His agent tells him about a new scientific procedure to remove the soul from a person, thereby relieving the pain of a tortured soul. After much deliberation, Paul goes through with the procedure.
I won't go into more of the plot, because a big part of the enjoyment in this movie is experiencing it. All I will say is that the rest of the movie goes into some of the interesting questions about what life would be like if there were such a way to remove and replace souls.
It is not a comedy, but it does have some great, great jokes. When Paul is discussing the procedure, the doctor tells him that they can safely store the soul right there in New York or, if Paul preferred, ship it to their warehouse in New Jersey to avoid sales tax. Paul shudders at the thought of his soul being stored in New Jersey.
I was there for the premiere, which means that after the movie, the director, the crew, and several members of the cast (including Paul Giamatti) got up for a question and answer session. I didn't have any interesting questions to ask, but I just thought it was neat that they were up there willing to answer questions from fans and hopeful filmmakers.
All in all, it was an amazing movie, and I sincerely hope that it is released to a broader audience.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Dream come true
I logged into Google Reader this morning and saw the following headline: Scientists weave invisibility cloak. Seriously, folks. The future has officially come.
Reading the article reveals that it is slightly less impressive than it looks at first blush, but only slightly. The "cloak" is not something mobile that you can just wear around, but something fixed to hide a bump on a flat surface from microwaves. But the idea is there. They can bounce electromagnetic radiation off of something and make it look like it's not even there. Now that's cool. Who knows, maybe the invisible motorcycle isn't that far away...
Reading the article reveals that it is slightly less impressive than it looks at first blush, but only slightly. The "cloak" is not something mobile that you can just wear around, but something fixed to hide a bump on a flat surface from microwaves. But the idea is there. They can bounce electromagnetic radiation off of something and make it look like it's not even there. Now that's cool. Who knows, maybe the invisible motorcycle isn't that far away...
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Meetings, Agendas, and Duct Tape
So, I've got a new calling in the ward out here. I'm Sunday School president again, which is really one of my favorite callings to have (next to plain old Sunday School teacher, which I like a bit better). This morning we had stake training for all ward leaders. In my stake these are usually dreadfully boring meetings, but I went out of good faith and hope that I would be able to say something that would be useful.
Not the case.
After a brief "Hurray for us!" meeting, we split into groups (all the Sunday School presidents to one room, all the Missionary Council chairs to another room, etc). I hoped that this would be my chance to give some good input to other people in this calling, since I think I have some pretty good ideas. The meeting ended up having basically nothing to do with teaching, or helping other people teach, but instead focused on how to lead a meeting with our council (in my stake, somebody read Ballard's talk/book about councils, so they renamed all callings "council"- so instead of being a Gospel Doctrine teacher, they are members of the Gospel Teaching Council).
When Brother Johnson asked for input about how meetings should be run, I raised my hand to comment that they should be as short and efficient as possible, to allow the teachers more time to prepare better lessons. A couple words into my response, I could see Brother Johnson (and several other people in the room) scowling at my blasphemy that meetings should be short. It felt like in the movies where somebody is kidnapped, and the kidnappers take the duct tape off their mouth so they can talk to their loved ones on the phone- I tried to shout out as much information as I could for anybody who was listening before the duct tape went back on.
Giving a training on how to lead these meetings wasn't a horrible idea, but it was just so poorly done. The most memorable part was where Brother Johnson was talking about agendas. He asked if "preparing" meant we should go into a meeting with a set agenda and stick strictly to it. The obvious answer (according to him) is no. We should go into a meeting with a rough idea of what should be done, but just sort of let the meeting lead itself. "The best leaders are the ones who let the people they lead do the actual leading."
So frustrating. You can lead a Mormon to an agenda, but you can't make him drink...or have a short meeting...or something like that.
Not the case.
After a brief "Hurray for us!" meeting, we split into groups (all the Sunday School presidents to one room, all the Missionary Council chairs to another room, etc). I hoped that this would be my chance to give some good input to other people in this calling, since I think I have some pretty good ideas. The meeting ended up having basically nothing to do with teaching, or helping other people teach, but instead focused on how to lead a meeting with our council (in my stake, somebody read Ballard's talk/book about councils, so they renamed all callings "council"- so instead of being a Gospel Doctrine teacher, they are members of the Gospel Teaching Council).
When Brother Johnson asked for input about how meetings should be run, I raised my hand to comment that they should be as short and efficient as possible, to allow the teachers more time to prepare better lessons. A couple words into my response, I could see Brother Johnson (and several other people in the room) scowling at my blasphemy that meetings should be short. It felt like in the movies where somebody is kidnapped, and the kidnappers take the duct tape off their mouth so they can talk to their loved ones on the phone- I tried to shout out as much information as I could for anybody who was listening before the duct tape went back on.
Giving a training on how to lead these meetings wasn't a horrible idea, but it was just so poorly done. The most memorable part was where Brother Johnson was talking about agendas. He asked if "preparing" meant we should go into a meeting with a set agenda and stick strictly to it. The obvious answer (according to him) is no. We should go into a meeting with a rough idea of what should be done, but just sort of let the meeting lead itself. "The best leaders are the ones who let the people they lead do the actual leading."
So frustrating. You can lead a Mormon to an agenda, but you can't make him drink...or have a short meeting...or something like that.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Taken
Tonight I watched Taken, with Liam Neeson. I know that it doesn't come out in American theaters for another couple weeks, but as it is a foreign film, it is already out on DVD in Europe.
I give that movie an enormous A+. As is pretty obvious from the previews, Liam's daughter is kidnapped, and he tracks her down. But what you might not get from the trailer is how amazingly awesome Liam is in this role. It's like if Jason Bourne decided to kill everyone he met, not just the other secret-spy guys.
They do a great job with this film of making the bad guys really despicable. This is important because when the good guy goes on a killing rampage (as he does in this movie), you sometimes lose the vision of him as a good guy. These bad guys are so contemptible that my only regret was that Liam couldn't have killed them more. Or more painfully. Or again.
Anyway, this movie was awesome. See it if you want to see a couple hours of awesome rampage.
I give that movie an enormous A+. As is pretty obvious from the previews, Liam's daughter is kidnapped, and he tracks her down. But what you might not get from the trailer is how amazingly awesome Liam is in this role. It's like if Jason Bourne decided to kill everyone he met, not just the other secret-spy guys.
They do a great job with this film of making the bad guys really despicable. This is important because when the good guy goes on a killing rampage (as he does in this movie), you sometimes lose the vision of him as a good guy. These bad guys are so contemptible that my only regret was that Liam couldn't have killed them more. Or more painfully. Or again.
Anyway, this movie was awesome. See it if you want to see a couple hours of awesome rampage.
Mistborn 3
Well, I finished reading Mistborn 3: The Hero of Ages this week. It was really hard to put down, so I figured that the safest thing to do was to just give in and read it as much as I had time for so that I could finish it before school got too busy.
I must say that I am extremely pleased with this book. The twists and surprises are very twisty and surprising (with a few exceptions), but not so much that I feel like Brandon was just trying to shock us. In short, satisfyingly surprising, without resorting to LOST-esque cheap shocks.
The whole idea of this series is very interesting. I can't really explain it here, because it would take too long, but I will give a brief overview. If you are someone who hates surprises, like Dad or James (who am I kidding- neither of them know how to get to my blog), read on. If you like to enjoy books, stop reading now and pick up Mistborn at the library.
Mistborn takes place in a ruined world ruled by an evil despot (so, the same setting as 2/3 of fantasy books). In the first book, a group of thieves set up an elaborate plot to overthrow the Lord Ruler, the god/emperor figure. They manage to free the slave-caste of people and kill the Lord Ruler. As he dies, he tells them that in killing him they have doomed the world. Bummer.
The second book focuses on the "now what" question that most books ignore. The world has had a thousand years with no questions about who is in charge because the Lord Ruler kept order by force, killing anybody he had to. Now that he was gone, who should rule? How do you keep order in a world whose god was just killed? The empire falls apart, with various noble families grabbing what they can and some members of the Lord Ruler's old administrative body taking power in other places. This book asks interesting questions about right and wrong ways to keep order.
In the third book, we start to find out that the Lord Ruler wasn't that bad of a guy. He was in a very tough situation and, although his actions weren't ideal, he was generally trying to do the right thing. He (and the whole world around him) were in the middle of a war between the Gods (no one else knew about this war, because they thought that the Lord Ruler himself was god). He ruled by force in order to ensure that he stayed in power, because he was the only person capable of destroying Ruin (one of the two Gods) when the time came. The story follows the same crew of criminals as the other two as they begin to discover their roles in this battle. In the end, of course, good triumphs over evil (because that's what's supposed to happen), but it's not a cheap super-happy Scooby-Doo ending.
In all of these books, Brandon Sanderson takes jabs at standard fantasy cliches. For instance, the Good Guys and Bad Guys are often related, but seem to have no qualms about killing their father, mother, best friend, etc. as long as they were on the other side. In Mistborn, you have a married couple of Good Guys talking:
I think my favorite thing about these books is how consistent they are. The way things work in the first book is the same way they work in the later books. That is not to say that there is no development, but just that there's no Harry Potter magic that works this way in one book and that way in another (but that's a rant for another post).
In conclusion to a very long post, if you haven't picked up Mistborn, you should. It's on sale for the next week or so at Barnes and Noble.
I must say that I am extremely pleased with this book. The twists and surprises are very twisty and surprising (with a few exceptions), but not so much that I feel like Brandon was just trying to shock us. In short, satisfyingly surprising, without resorting to LOST-esque cheap shocks.
The whole idea of this series is very interesting. I can't really explain it here, because it would take too long, but I will give a brief overview. If you are someone who hates surprises, like Dad or James (who am I kidding- neither of them know how to get to my blog), read on. If you like to enjoy books, stop reading now and pick up Mistborn at the library.
Mistborn takes place in a ruined world ruled by an evil despot (so, the same setting as 2/3 of fantasy books). In the first book, a group of thieves set up an elaborate plot to overthrow the Lord Ruler, the god/emperor figure. They manage to free the slave-caste of people and kill the Lord Ruler. As he dies, he tells them that in killing him they have doomed the world. Bummer.
The second book focuses on the "now what" question that most books ignore. The world has had a thousand years with no questions about who is in charge because the Lord Ruler kept order by force, killing anybody he had to. Now that he was gone, who should rule? How do you keep order in a world whose god was just killed? The empire falls apart, with various noble families grabbing what they can and some members of the Lord Ruler's old administrative body taking power in other places. This book asks interesting questions about right and wrong ways to keep order.
In the third book, we start to find out that the Lord Ruler wasn't that bad of a guy. He was in a very tough situation and, although his actions weren't ideal, he was generally trying to do the right thing. He (and the whole world around him) were in the middle of a war between the Gods (no one else knew about this war, because they thought that the Lord Ruler himself was god). He ruled by force in order to ensure that he stayed in power, because he was the only person capable of destroying Ruin (one of the two Gods) when the time came. The story follows the same crew of criminals as the other two as they begin to discover their roles in this battle. In the end, of course, good triumphs over evil (because that's what's supposed to happen), but it's not a cheap super-happy Scooby-Doo ending.
In all of these books, Brandon Sanderson takes jabs at standard fantasy cliches. For instance, the Good Guys and Bad Guys are often related, but seem to have no qualms about killing their father, mother, best friend, etc. as long as they were on the other side. In Mistborn, you have a married couple of Good Guys talking:
"You have to admit that you're unusual, Vin.... Plus, you've managed- in our short three years together- to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiancee. That's some kind of homicidal hat trick."
I think my favorite thing about these books is how consistent they are. The way things work in the first book is the same way they work in the later books. That is not to say that there is no development, but just that there's no Harry Potter magic that works this way in one book and that way in another (but that's a rant for another post).
In conclusion to a very long post, if you haven't picked up Mistborn, you should. It's on sale for the next week or so at Barnes and Noble.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Mmm...pot roast
So, there were two great things that happened today.
First, I made a delicious pot roast. I was very proud because I've never made one before. It was surprisingly easy. First I made a rub with garlic powder, onion salt, and a couple other random spices (I think I used cumin as one). Rubbed it on the roast, seared the sides, and put in a bit of beef bullion (plus about half a packet of Lipton onion soup that I had around). I put a lid on it and simmered it for about 2 hours, then added a whole onion chopped up and 4 chopped up garlic cloves. Simmered for another hour, and added 5 quartered potatoes and 4 or 5 carrots. Simmered till the carrots were done and made gravy out of the juice.
It was really good.
The second thing was watching one of the best Robot Chicken shorts ever. I hate to post another one of these, but it's just so darn funny.
First, I made a delicious pot roast. I was very proud because I've never made one before. It was surprisingly easy. First I made a rub with garlic powder, onion salt, and a couple other random spices (I think I used cumin as one). Rubbed it on the roast, seared the sides, and put in a bit of beef bullion (plus about half a packet of Lipton onion soup that I had around). I put a lid on it and simmered it for about 2 hours, then added a whole onion chopped up and 4 chopped up garlic cloves. Simmered for another hour, and added 5 quartered potatoes and 4 or 5 carrots. Simmered till the carrots were done and made gravy out of the juice.
It was really good.
The second thing was watching one of the best Robot Chicken shorts ever. I hate to post another one of these, but it's just so darn funny.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
