The Giver Review

So for no particular reason I recently went and saw "The Giver" -- that is to say, I saw the movie, not that I live in some colorless, memory-free future where I am relegated to receiving my history from Jeff Bridges. Perhaps I am one of the very few people who managed to avoid reading this book as an adolescent, but after seeing the movie I am left with the distinct feeling that I didn't miss anything. Perhaps its the glut of movies about futuristic societies that are unreasonably reliant on/brutal to pre-teens and teenagers (see: Ender's Game, The Hunger Games, Divergent) that left me feeling like the Giver offered nothing new to the genre. I am aware, however, that it was actually one of the earlier dystopian teen novels and may be groundbreaking in its own right. (Note: I was slightly intrigued by the appearance of Katie Holmes. In light of the mysteriousness of her split from Tom Cruise I spend an inordinately large amount of time analyzing her movie roles to determine if they have a secret message about the religion-that-shall-not-be-named.)

Since I am not a teenager...or actually a pre-teen as the character in the original novel is supposed to be 11, not 16...I didn't really feel any particular connection with the main characters in the movie. It wasn't until the end of the movie ...... [SPOILER ALERT, I'M ABOUT TO SPOIL THE MOVIE] that I found a hero I could root for: Gabriel the Wonder-Baby! 

Gabriel appears to be just like any other randomly assigned baby in the movie, he cries, he looks around with wonder, he develops slower than he's supposed to, but it's not until Jonas decides to rescue him that we learn that Gabriel is basically the baby version of Bear Grylls. First Jonas picks up Gabriel in his special "I'm-about-to-be-murdered-and-put-down-a-laundry-chute" futuristic baby-pod and attaches him to the front of his stolen dirtbike (obvi! I mean who doesn't see that coming). Then Jonas with Gabriel/Bear/Evel Knieval JUMPS HIS DIRTBIKE OFF A CLIFF. Babies love the X-Games. I hope he did a superman seat-grab on the way down. 

After jumping the cliff, Jonas and Gabriel set off across a burning desert on the bike. Jonas has no supplies except for some mystery baby formula that magically appears. After the bike runs out of battery Jonas and Gabriel set off across the burning wasteland like Lawrence of Arabia (or Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman in "Ishtar"). After going some distance the pair come under attack by a drone which picks them up and dumps them in the middle of a river full of rushing rapids.  Naturally with nothing more than a baby bjorn and his natural cunning, Jonas somehow navigates the whitewater while carrying a 12-month old baby. All in a day's work. 

So if extreme motorsports, an arid desert trek, and class four rapids aren't enough to deter Jonas and Baby Bear Grylls, they then end up in an alpine snowstorm at Christmas time. While Jonas lies down in the snow, losing his strength and his will to go on, there is baby Gabriel sitting tight, blowing a snot-bubble out of one nostril, and waiting for that lazy, good-for-nothing, teenager to wake up and walk the 20 feet it will take to find the toboggan and rescue them. 

So thanks for nothing dystopian teenagers. The only thing that any of them were good for was providing some kind of escape vehicle for Gabriel the Wonder Baby. Now I desperately want to know about Gabriel's future and how he grows up in to the most interesting man in the world. Come on Lois Lowry, write about that!

The Secret to All Cusine

Because I am an old lady at heart, I recently watched Lasse Hallström's "The Hundred-Foot Journey" along with an audience whose sole drinking game consisted of taking a shot of Ensure anytime someone said "cardamom." Here's what I learned from the movie:

1. To cook you make ghosts -- mostly sea urchin ghosts. I don't know why this is relevant, as it is never brought up again.
2. English vegetables apparently have no soul
3. An entire family from India who speaks perfect, if heavily accented, English just happens to move to a small town in France where everyone speaks perfect, if heavily accented, English. How fortuitous!
4. No one in France, prior to the appearance of the Kedam family, had ever heard of any exotic spices, ever.
5. When in Northern France, near the Swiss border, it's a perfectly reasonable idea to have a restaurant with only outdoor seating. 
6. If you learn the five sauces of French cooking you can then become a culinary master within a year.
7. For a country known for surrendering the French have an unreasonably aggressive and bloody national anthem. 
8. Hassan's hands are impervious to having scalding hot soup poured into them by his mother, but are not so resistant to the contents of a molotov cocktail.
9. Molecular gastronomy is evil. Sugar coated beets and liquid nitrogen frozen foodstuffs takes away your soul, makes you drink, and causes you to blow off Michelin.

I can hardly wait for the sequel where Hassan does battle with Bibendum over the future of Le Saule Pleureur. It will inevitably be directed by Michael Bay.

And a Hero Will Crawl, Eventually

So for no particular reason I recently went and saw "The Giver" -- that is to say, I saw the movie, not that I live in some colorless, memory-free future where I am relegated to receiving my history from Jeff Bridges. Perhaps I am one of the very few people who managed to avoid reading this book as an adolescent, but after seeing the movie I am left with the distinct feeling that I didn't miss anything. Perhaps its the glut of movies about futuristic societies that are unreasonably reliant on/brutal to pre-teens and teenagers (see: Ender's Game, The Hunger Games, Divergent) that left me feeling like the Giver offered nothing new to the genre. I am aware, however, that it was actually one of the earlier dystopian teen novels and may be groundbreaking in its own right. (Note: I was slightly intrigued by the appearance of Katie Holmes. In light of the mysteriousness of her split from Tom Cruise I spend an inordinately large amount of time analyzing her movie roles to determine if they have a secret message about the religion-that-shall-not-be-named.)

Since I am not a teenager...or actually a pre-teen as the character in the original novel is supposed to be 11, not 16...I didn't really feel any particular connection with the main characters in the movie. It wasn't until the end of the movie ...... [SPOILER ALERT, I'M ABOUT TO SPOIL THE MOVIE] that I found a hero I could root for: Gabriel the Wonder-Baby! 

Gabriel appears to be just like any other randomly assigned baby in the movie, he cries, he looks around with wonder, he develops slower than he's supposed to, but it's not until Jonas decides to rescue him that we learn that Gabriel is basically the baby version of Bear Grylls. First Jonas picks up Gabriel in his special "I'm-about-to-be-murdered-and-put-down-a-laundry-chute" futuristic baby-pod and attaches him to the front of his stolen dirtbike (obvi! I mean who doesn't see that coming). Then Jonas with Gabriel/Bear/Evel Knieval JUMPS HIS DIRTBIKE OFF A CLIFF. Babies love the X-Games. I hope he did a superman seat-grab on the way down. 

After jumping the cliff, Jonas and Gabriel set off across a burning desert on the bike. Jonas has no supplies except for some mystery baby formula that magically appears. After the bike runs out of battery Jonas and Gabriel set off across the burning wasteland like Lawrence of Arabia (or Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman in "Ishtar"). After going some distance the pair come under attack by a drone which picks them up and dumps them in the middle of a river full of rushing rapids.  Naturally with nothing more than a baby bjorn and his natural cunning, Jonas somehow navigates the whitewater while carrying a 12-month old baby. All in a day's work. 

So if extreme motorsports, an arid desert trek, and class four rapids aren't enough to deter Jonas and Baby Bear Grylls, they then end up in an alpine snowstorm at Christmas time. While Jonas lies down in the snow, losing his strength and his will to go on, there is baby Gabriel sitting tight, blowing a snot-bubble out of one nostril, and waiting for that lazy, good-for-nothing, teenager to wake up and walk the 20 feet it will take to find the toboggan and rescue them. 

So thanks for nothing dystopian teenagers. The only thing that any of them were good for was providing some kind of escape vehicle for Gabriel the Wonder Baby. Now I desperately want to know about Gabriel's future and how he grows up in to the most interesting man in the world. Come on Lois Lowry, write about that!

Boring

Going through this, my third round of Barbri, is boring. It is this unique mix of knowing I should listen and being excessively tired of hearing the same crap over and over. For those who don't know anything about the bar exam, most states divide up their test into two (or more) parts. One part will be essays and one part will be a standardized test called the "Multistate Bar Exam." The essays may be on state law or general applicable law, but the MBE is based solely on generally applicable national standards in Criminal Law and Procedure, Contracts, Torts, Constitutional Law, Property and Evidence.

This is the third time, THIRD TIME, I have heard basically the same stuff on the MBE subjects. I'm only half paying attention to the lectures, and it's still mind bogglingly dull. It's kind of like listening to endless hours of lectures on the DMV rules. You know them enough to not really worry about them, even though you should be listening well enough to put a fine point on your knowledge. 

Ears, bleeding.  Ugh.

Christmas is Coming…

Christmas is officially one week from today and I'm still shipping. If there is one major benefit to having all my family and friends out of state, it's that I have to ship everything. It's expensive but at least I am always done with my shopping early. No sucker punching crazy shoppers for the last fondue set on December 24th for me! Still that nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach remains, telling me every day that Monday is the last day to ship here or there or that shipping charges will soon cost more than the  gifts themselves.

By tonight I will have finished with Christmas. All that will remain is to sit back, drink eggnog, and await the coming of baby Jesus ... Sweet, little, tiny baby Jesus (apologies to Ricky Bobby). Oh, and officially start barbri...vomit.

(This whole post was written from my phone, via Swype!)

Eating Your Drinks is the New Drinking Your Dinner

Tonight I made Guinness Cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting. Okay I made the cupcakes and my Mom made the frosting. I hate making frosting. I feel the same way about wrapping gifts -- I love to wrap them in paper but I hate the ribbon/bow process. I think I'm a substance over decoration kind of person . . . and/or just horribly lazy. Also, no one wants to live in my world of un-ribboned presents and un-frosted cupcakes. Anyway the recipe was from Food Network and the Frosting Recipe was from a blog called Whisk-Kid.

It came out well but the cupcakes are VERY VERY Stout-y

Frosting, styling and photo courtesy of my Mom.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, plus more for dusting finished cupcakes
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups all-purposeflour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch fine salt
• 1 bottle stout beer (recommended: Guinness -- I used about 11 oz. of a larger bottle.)
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cup sour cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt.
In another medium mixing bowl, combine the stout, melted butter, and vanilla. Beat in eggs, 1 at time. Mix in sour cream until thoroughly combined and smooth. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.

Divide the batter equally between cupcake pans, filling each 3/4 full. Use cupcake papers or grease your pan depending on preference. Bake for about 12 minutes and then rotate the pans. Bake another 12 to 13 minutes until risen, nicely domed, and set in the middle but still soft and tender. Cool before turning out.

Recipe from the Food Network -- Click HERE

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Simple Bailey's Buttercream

• 1 c (227 g) unsalted butter, room temp
• 1/2 cup (95 g) shortening
• 1 Tbsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 lbs (6 cups or 678 g) confectioner’s sugar
• About 4 Tbsp Bailey's Irish Cream, mint or other flavor

Cream together the butter and shortening until lightened, about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla and beat to combine. Add the powdered sugar in about 1 cup additions and beat well before adding the next portion. After all the sugar has been incorporated, begin adding the Bailey's, on tablespoon at a time, until you reach your desired consistency.

Recipe from Whisk-Kid -- Click HERE (at the bottom of the page)

Scrabble in Real Life

So recently I've started playing online Scrabble with some of my long-distance friends. Okay, I lied. I've begun playing "Words With Friends" -- for Android and Facebook, but let's be honest -- it's Scrabble in a fancier package. In doing so, I've learned a few things:

1. I'm terrible at finding words.  Given seven letters I can usually muster a 4 point word. (Today I had "WHISKER" and no place to put it!). Hardly the stuff that Scrabble legends are made of.

2. Virtually all of my friends are arts & letters graduates who work in publishing, education, law, etc. AKA professions where words matter.  Yes, I'm a lawyer, but apparently not a very well spoken one.

3. My best friend is a scrabble beast. As is my Mom.

4. I had forgotten that I had favorite words. This is the side effect of playing scrabble . . . I sit for hours thinking of words I can use and then I realize that I have a lot of favorite words (most too long to play in 7 tiles).  So I thought I'd start listing a few just to get my word game juices flowing, and also to give a little shout out to some of the best words ever.

• Defenestrate - (v.) to throw through or out a window. Chris Brown tried to defenestrate a chair while making an appearance on Good Morning America. What a tool.
  
• Avuncular - (adj.) of or like an uncle. I learned the word avuncular when I was studying for the SATs. I can't remember anything else about the SAT but I remember this.
• Exsanguinate - (v.) to drain of blood. The victim on Body of Proof exanguinated after receiving a snake bite from a Gaboon viper. On a related note, I watch too many crime shows.
• Abecedarian - (n.) a beginner, someone who is learning the alphabet; (adj.) elementary, arranged alphabetically, of or relating to the alphabet. Abecedarian is derived from A-B-C-D or the initial letters of the alphabet, a word which references the beginning of the letters itself, or alpha-beta.
• Octopodes - (n. pl.) the technical plural of octopus, though octopi or octopuses are the proper word unless you have no friends, or want to have no friends. I learned recently that the plural of octopus is not "octopi" but "octopodes" (pronounced: oc-tup-a-dees) as it is Greek and not Latin in origin. I'm not a big enough ass to refer to many octopuses as octopodes in public, but I love the idea. Note: it is acceptable for hippopotamus and rhinoceros to be pluralized as hippopotamuses or rhinoceroses, particularly if you want them for Christmas.

You DO want a hippo for Christmas? . . . coincidentally so do these high school sign language students. I'm pretty much going to be doing the sign for hippo for the rest of my life.  (Bonus fun fact: Hippopotamus is Greek for "River Horse")

I am certain that I have more favorite words, and as I lose at scrabble . . . *cough, cough* Words with Friends, I will post more.