Last weekend, one of very good and old friends from FL came to visit me and another long-time mutual friend. She's big into movies, so we hit the theaters twice in 2 days. So here's the rundown on:

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Are you a woman? Are you in the mood for mindless fluff? Do you find Matthew McConaughey attractive rather than dirty? Can you accept huge plot holes in exchange for 1 1/2 hrs of air-conditioned laughter? This movie may be for you.

Seriously stupid (as in, there are gaps in the plot that are so wide an elephant could step through them), but highly enjoyable. Mr. McConaughey may be a bit crazy, but damn he has a good smile. Basically, this is a Christmas Carol using girlfriends as his ghosts. Question: It's set in the winter, and based on a beloved Christmas story, so why wasn't it released around the holidays? That was a bit jarring. Also jarring: Jennifer Garner's cheekbones. She looked unhealthily skinny - it was sort of gross. My personal favorites: Breckin Meyer, who I've loved since he was the stoner dude in Clueless and Lacy Chabert, who is just so cute!

Night at the Museum II: Battle for the Smithsonian
Did you see the first one? Did you like it? Do you like the idea of the Smithsonian getting a cut of the profits? Maybe you will be able to stomach it.

A disclaimer:  I did not see the first movie. I was able to basically pick it up from the clues in the first 10  minutes, however. This movie was as lackluster as it's possible to be when you've got the run of the Smithsonians to choose from. They did a lot of cool stuff with some of the exhibits, and I really hope it boosts museum-going for DC like it did for NY, but the movie was lame. Lame, lame, lame. And the giant squid does not really look like that - I volunteer next to both of them all the time. Amy Adams, however, did a great job with a sassy Amelia Earhart.

On Monday we inherited tickets to see Peter Grimes at Washington National Opera. I was pretty excited, having never seen a modern English language opera before. Well, it was not exactly to my liking. The set was fantastic, and the singers were very good, but I found it hard to get into.

1. It's a horribly depressing opera. Oh wait, all of them are.
2. The English is just not that lovely to listen to.
3. It's very modern - I'm not so sure I like modern. Kind of...dissonant...at times.

There were some interesting moments (how can there not be? It's about a possibly homicidal fisherman!), and I did like the chorus effect. But overall not so much my thing.

OK, I realized I haven't updated in like a billion years, but instead of one big long blurb I'm just going for the recent fun stuff. On Friday night, I volunteered at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in their Ocean Hall. Normally I do this on alternate Sundays, but Friday was special. We had a Sustainable Seafood Tasting event, with ~25 of the top DC chefs...and Alton Brown was signing cookbooks!

So I got to be introduced and shake hands, wander around on his tour of the Ocean Hall, etc. What I learned, as he stared at the coelocanth - the bigger the scales, the less tasty the fish. Coelocanths never looked particularly good to me anyway. Their fins are too arm-y.

One of the best parts was that as volunteers, we did almost nothing. I directed guests (suckers paying $75 a head) to the wine, to the restroom, to some of the food stations, but generally I just ran around and ate things. OMG delicious cheese, ceviche, lobster rolls, octopus, trout, etc! And if any of you ever come to DC, go to Georgetown Cupcake for dessert - peanut butter ganache.

For all our "work", the volunteers were gifted with a cookbook from the chef of Restaurant Nora. Looks good! Maybe I'll try making something fancy.

I enjoy the Ocean Hall generally, but this was really super fun!

I type this on my new computer, a Dell. All is well in the world of Ubuntu, and my only complaint so far is the tiny little Shift key on the right hand side, which appears to be the only one I use.

Yay!

Florida beat the everloving hell out of Georgia today. Boo-ya!

If, like me, you are doing nothing tonight, please enjoy Sebastian (Sebastian!).



Make sure you catch the end with the hawk.

Kurt Vonnegut still sucks. I tried. I really tried. But I hate his writing.

Back from an enjoyable weekend in NYC. It left me wondering why I've never been before. Quick impressions:
busy
crowded
great food
exciting
smelly
really, really smelly.

It really is the city that never sleeps, which is both crazy and fun. I will go back.

Last night I had to do something with the sour cherries that A's mom gave to us, so I made a sour cherry sauce loosely based on one I found on the internet.

In a saucepan, combine:
3 cups pitted sour cherries
1 1/2 cups sugar
handful of dried orange peel

Cook over medium heat until the cherries get nice and squooshy and it comes to a boil. Stirring constantly, reduce it a little bit. Take off the heat and add a couple of teaspoons of almond extract.

I served it over angel food cake, then soaked blueberries in the remainder over night. I'm eating them now - yum!

You are in a mall when the zombies attack. You have:

1. one weapon.
2. one song blasting on the speakers.
3. one famous person to fight alongside you.

1. A high explosive splat rifle
2. Ace of Spades, definitely
3. Neo from the Matrix

I wish I had realized how precious weekends were when I was a grad student. Now they aren't long enough at all...

In other news, I made roasted eggplant with curry, garlic, and chili powders. Damn, it was good.

Hey, emzebel (and anyone else who cares)! We saw the Kirov Ballet doing La Bayadère, and it was NOT GOOD.

Why, you ask? Because it was so racist, or culturally insensitive (as A put it), or both. The story is based on a Sanskrit legend, so it was this horrifying caricature of the Indian caste system. The costumes were pretty awful (shiny, shiny, cheap satin), the sets were bleh, and the dancing was not terribly inventive. There were some great, athletic, spinny bits, but overall it was just lackluster. Very sad.

Then we were more saddened, when upon arriving back to our neighborhood, we found that all the restaurants were closed by 11. Boo!

Hopefully our next trip to the Kennedy Center will be better.