insomnia haiku

Oh Zach Braff, you and your self-involved shenanigans

Insomnia alert. It's been a while. I should consider myself lucky.

For some reason last night I stumbled upon a snarky TV/movie site called Videogum -- all the snark we wish, but they print! -- and now I'm a tad bit obsessed with it. Take, for example, the latest post in a running feature, The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time. The most recent film up for consideration: The Last Kiss.

I, for one, didn't hate The Last Kiss. There are far worse movies. I think I went into it with the attitude that a lot of people love love looooved Garden State, but I never really did, so I watched with a bit of an alien's eye, thinking, "Oh, then I guess this is the sort of scene and dialogue that people who liked Garden State will like. Got it." I walked out afterward and sort of thought, eh, that was ... fine, I guess.

And then the more I thought about it, the less I could remember why I thought it was fine, except for the fact that Rachel Bilson is cute as a button. And then I caught it on cable again and the whole thing was just so weighed down, and grim, and people were unhappy, and .... wasn't this pitched as something of a romantic comedy? Or at least a romance? There is neither in this movie. There is people yelling at each other and thinking of cheating and being mad and feeling sorry and complaining that life is very hard.

Anyway, everything that I have said above is expressed in  this hilarious post, except better because this guy HATES the movie and skewers it like it's a writhing vampire and he's Buffy. My favorite line: "Women! Can't live with them, can't fuck another woman in a dorm room without them getting so mad!"

Give it a read whether you liked The Last Kiss or not. (As a test, I sent the post to a co-worker who LIKED the movie and has a man-crush on Zach Braff -- and he thought it was hilarious.) For those of you who haven't seen it, you are both lucky and unlucky: lucky to have saved yourself the two hours, but unlucky because you won't get most of the jokes in this post.

Also in the feature are good rants on AI and the last Indiana Jones movie, both of which I had very serious issues with. But I think I'm going to nominate 88 Minutes, which I saw last year and, despite years of fence-riding on this particular issue, I'm finally going to come out and declare as the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. Worse, even, than Batman and Robin. Worse than Major League II.

One caveat: I didn't see The Happening, so if I'm really going to make this definitive claim, I may have to give that one a go for comparison's purposes. Is there a reward for this kind of voluntary suffering in the afterlife?

If a food has ever made your eyes roll back up in your head, it belongs on this list

Top five favorite foods in any one city/metropolitan area. Go.

Note: This should ideally be food that you could go back and get again -- and preferably that you have gone back and gotten again. Repeatedly. Also, this is food that if you died immediately after eating it, you would die happy.

Mine for New York (not in any order):

1. Pork bun at Momofuku Ssam
2. Pastrami on rye with mustard at Katz's Deli
3. Double Shackburger at Shake Shack
4. Porterhouse steak at Peter Luger
5. O-toro sushi at Blue Ribbon Sushi

Runners-up: prosciutto balls at Joe's Superette, thick-cut bacon at Peter Luger, beef marrow & oxtail marmalade at Blue Ribbon, crab and pork soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai

I'm positive I'm missing some.

'Wild Things,' you make my heart sing

When I first heard that they were making Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild  Things Are into a movie, and that Spike Jonze would direct and Dave Eggers would write the screenplay, I was intrigued.

Then I thought about it some more, and my intrigue turned to dread -- because how could they do anything but ruin one of my absolute favorite children's books, ever? (I say "one of" because the top spot is reserved, of course, for Corduroy.)

And then the trailer came out yesterday. And it is BRILLIANT. If the movie is even half as gorgeous and strange and ethereal as this trailer, it will easily contend to be one of the best movies of the year.

If you haven't seen it yet, watch it now.

Seth Rogen is adorable and funny and all, but, uh ... no.

My favorite new website by far: fmylife. I'd heard people mention it but hadn't actually looked at it until this weekend, and I tell you, it is both cathartic and addictive. I'm not even going to ruin it for you by quoting any of the stories here. Just go check it out. I guarantee you it'll make you feel better about you own life -- or at least laugh at the misfortunes of others.

Also: I interviewed Seth Rogen on Friday. Interviews make me nervous, to be honest; but I think this one turned out OK. As for the co-worker who said that she'd rather have sex with Rogen than Brad Pitt -- which, hand to God, she really and truly said -- she started retracting that statement the next day, claiming that if the two actors came up to her in a bar, she might actually go with Pitt, because how often is it that Brad Pitt offers to sleep with you? Whereas Seth Rogen is the kind of guy you might actually be able to get.

On the one hand, no fair taking back what you said! I don't care how much alcohol you'd had! On the other hand ... well, good point. (Of course I would have no such dilemma in the first place, because, duh, Brad Pitt.)

How do you spell once-in-a-lifetime delicious? M-O-M-O-F-U-K-U-K-O

Actual IM conversation with my friend Kelly, Wednesday afternoon:

Kelly: oh shit there's an open seat at ko tomorrow 930
me: seriously???
me: TAKE IT
me: that is awwwwesome

"Ko," if you didn't know, would be Momofuku Ko, the third restaurant from David Chang (after Momofuku Noodle Bar and Momofuku Ssam). There are only 12 seats, and it's nearly impossible to get a reservation. To snag one, you have to log onto the reservations site at exactly 10 am; and believe you me, I've tried. A lot. Those seats are gone before the clock hits 10:00:30. It's probably easier to work the Jeopardy! buzzer than to hit the exact, split-second timing on the Momofuku Ko reservations process.

But on Wednesday afternoon -- and I don't know if it's the recession, or the fact that checking in the afternoon means you're more likely to find a cancellation -- my friend Kelly scored that rarest of things: a reservation at Ko. And she was nice enough to invite me to share it with her. So the next night, giddy with anticipation, we went.

Interestingly enough, the majority of the 12 seats were occupied by men on what appeared to be man-dates. (It's hard to tell without interaction, but I don't think any of them were gay.) Maybe if you're a guy and you're not married or don't have a serious girlfriend, you wouldn't want to waste a Ko reservation on just a friend or a casual date? 

They wouldn't let us take pictures, so when each dish of the 10-course prix fixe arrived, I did my best to type the description on my iPhone; but the combination of my horrid iPhone typing skills and the sheer number of ingredients in each dish meant that I did a very poor job. 

At any rate, here's whatever I could capture of the menu. The meal itself? One of the best of my life, right up there with that time I ate at Chez Panisse for my brother's graduation. The food was so fresh, the preparation so well-executed, the flavors so clean and intense, the combinations of ingredients so unique and remarkable. It was dizzying.

My favorites: the biscuit, the poached hen egg, the fresh pasta with snail sausage and chicken skin, and the shaved foie gras with Riesling jelly and lichee. (Yes, I realize that's almost half of them.)

• Biscuit with mirin and black pepper; chicharron; raw oyster with cucumber [and something]

• Sliced Long Island fluke with spicy buttermilk and sesame seeds

• Chilled dashi with snap peas and pea shoots

• Lightly poached hen egg with caviar, onion, sweet potato chips and smoked fish

• Fresh pasta with snail sausage, chicken skin and pecorino

• Halibut encrusted with crispy ham shavings, over apple and cauliflower puree

• Shaved foie gras with Riesling jelly, lichee and pineapple (?)

• Aged sirloin with pickled shallots, brussel sprouts, parsley and black mushrooms

• Guava sorbet and cream cheese

• Funnel cake, black sesame ice cream, coconut and lemon

At the end of the meal, I asked the chef who was serving us our food what they do with the leftover chicken skin from the pasta -- secretly hoping, of course, that he would give me some. "We throw them away," he said. "Whaaatt??!!" I said, the taste of that glorious chicken skin still fresh on my tongue. "Oh my gosh, that's such a tragedy!" "Nah," he replied, "Without all the seasoning and other ingredients, they don't really taste that good. They taste like pennies."

I highly doubt that.

Review Haikus: Brio and bromance

Duplicity
Julia and Clive!
A thriller so smart, so sharp ...
That rare thing these days.

I Love You, Man
Surprisingly sweet
With hilarious nicknames
Rudd and Segel, zing!

Incidentally, I never wrote a review haiku for Coraline, but if you haven't seen it, go immediately -- and in 3-D if at all possible. Wondrous and beautiful and strange, it was my favorite movie of the year until Duplicity came along (and now they're pretty much tied). Just don't take your kids, because that shit is scary.

Fantasyland

Studying for my fantasy baseball draft, which is next Saturday. This is just like being back in school, yet nominally more interesting. But just nominally. I've written about this before, but I wanted to explain what I mean by "studying."

Unlike some of the other people in my league, I don't really follow baseball in the off-season, so I don't have the quick and easy knowledge they do. So when the draft approaches, I have to study. I'm in an NL-only league, which limits the number of players available, which means you have to know everybody. You have to know who's going to do well this year, who's going to suck, who's going to help you out in which categories, who's overrated, who's underrated. Who might get traded, who's injured, who could win Rookie of the Year but isn't even out of the minors yet.

It's a lot. And I haven't even thought about baseball in five months. So I've been reading websites, hoping that the more I read these names over and over again, the more they'll start to sink in. So far it isn't working yet -- and I haven't even gotten to outfielders and pitchers -- but, maybe if I sleep with a fantasy baseball magazine under my pillow? Or fall asleep with ESPN's fantasy podcast playing on my iPod? Then, after I've read it all, I'm going back and making a spreadsheet of all the players, with stats and notes, highlighting which players I should try to get. Well, that's what I always mean to do, anyway. I never really have time. I end up with a spreadsheet that has, like three first basemen and a pitcher on it.

I know you're thinking, Jesus, who cares? Way to go, geek! But it's a competitive league, and I CANNOT show up to my draft unprepared. There is this one guy in the league who always shows up unprepared (perhaps not coincidentally, he comes in last every year). For some reason he always ends up sitting next to me, and "borrows" all the magazines and cheat sheets that I've brought. This pisses me off. Those things cost $7 each! Not cool! Reminds me of my friend Megan in high school who used to call me up and say, "So what'd you get for number 6? How about number 10? What about number 11?" This year, I have resolved: no magazines, no paper whatsoever. Sink or swim on your own, bub.

I always get super nervous about draft day, and afterward I always feel slightly ill. Pretty much exactly the way I used to feel taking tests in school. We do it auction-style, which means someone calls out the name of a player, and everyone bids until somebody "wins" that player. You get $260 to start with, and you draft until everyone has all the spots on their roster filled. You know the scene in Knocked Up, where Leslie Mann catches Paul Rudd in the middle of his draft? It's like that, except we don't have a big white board.

But here's where it gets interesting and psychological-experiment-ish. The marquis players always go for a lot of money, like $40 or more. And you have to spend money to get the good players, obviously ... except I can never bring myself to do it. I always freak out when the bidding gets too high, and I drop out, thinking that I need to save my money for other things. I am careful, only buying bargains -- picking up players who go for less than they're probably worth. And then, when it gets to the end, I have no stars and a ton of money left over, and I end up paying $14 for some scrub who isn't even going to play this season, because I have one spot to fill and all that money. This happens EVERY SINGLE YEAR. And I think, god, what an idiot I am. Why didn't I spend the money on players I really wanted, the ones who were worth it?

And the thing is, this pretty much mirrors my spending habits in real life. I have had the same crappy, breaking-down IKEA furniture for over a decade. I don't buy clothes, and when I do, I buy them at H&M and feel like I shouldn't spend more than $10 on a shirt. I rarely go on vacation. I still rent my apartment. Buying expensive stuff makes me nervous, and I don't do it, even when I have the money.

But that's all going to change, you hear me? This year, I am going outside my comfort zone and spending like I'm white trash and I just won the lottery. I will get Albert Pujols no matter what it costs me. For those of you who don't follow baseball, let me put it in terms you might understand: In the world of first basemen, Pujols is a Lamborghini, and James Loney is a Honda Civic. Last year, I had a Civic. In 2009 -- recession be damned! -- I'm going for the Lamborghini.

Well, it's a nice theory, anyway. We'll see how it goes.

The evolution of Jen

Not that long ago, somebody asked me why I feel sorry for Jennifer Aniston. My answer was that it must suck having to see your ex-husband and his girlfriend splashed on every magazine cover everywhere, and listen to them blabbing nonstop about how they fell in love while you were still married.

But there's another reason, as exemplified by the following two interview excerpts.

From her September 2005 Vanity Fair interview, post-Brad breakup:

"It's out there. It will happen. There's an amazing man that's wandering the streets right now who's the father of my children. In five years I would hope to be married and have a kid."

And from her interview with the UK's You magazine, published just three days ago (and let's keep in mind that shortly after she gave this interview, John Mayer dumped her):

"Whoever said that every relationship has to last for ever? That’s hoping for too much ... I have never been a woman who dreams about getting married and having children and having that house in Connecticut. On the contrary, I’ve always gone with the flow."

Wait ... what? Aren't those two sentiments exactly the opposite? Really, I think two things are pretty clear. 1) She used to be impossibly, heartbreakingly (perhaps stupidly) idealistic, and 2) JOHN MAYER BROKE HER. Either way -- sad.

Insomnia Haiku: You're So Money Edition (Plus Watchmen)

Sleep not forthcoming
Maybe it's daylight savings?
But ... Swingers is on.

God, I miss thin Vince Vaughn (when he had hair, too).

Oh, and I know it's way too late for this now, but I'll throw it in anyway:

Review Haiku: Watchmen
Sigh. Grrr. Zack Snyder
Has no imagination.
Faithful, dull, cheesy.

It's a shame, because I did like the book (though not as much as some of my friends did), but ... well, on the one hand, it's so densely layered as to be unfilmmable. On the other hand, I never liked Snyder's 300, and didn't think he was capable of pulling off anything requiring nuance or intelligence or grace. Aaaand... I was right. A lot of that stuff doesn't translate well when you slap it directly on the screen -- it may satisfy some fanboys, but it doesn't make for a good movie. There was far more violence in the movie than there was in the book, mostly because Zack Snyder seems to like nothing more than a good blood-splattering. And the music was heavy-handed and obvious and horrible. I couldn't help but wonder what someone like Terry Gilliam or Paul Greengrass (both of whom were at various points assigned to direct) would have done with the movie instead. I KNOW what they would have done. They might have failed, but they might also have made a great movie, not this artless, mindless, ham-handed imitation of the comic book.

Or, I could just restate what I said to my friend Glenn afterward: "It could have been worse ... but that doesn't mean it was good."

All that said, my colleagues generally liked it. But my friends didn't.

Oh no -- that scene in Swingers is coming up where Jon Favreau calls the girl six times. Great, I came out to the living room to try to get some sleep, and now I'm going to have nightmares. DON'T CALL HER, MIKEY! STOP, BEFORE IT'S ... too late. Oh, it is so, so too late.

~~~~~~

(2 hours later) And then there are the times, like now, when Ambien doesn't work. Oh, you did all the things right -- took your half a pill, watched a little TV, maybe typed some things on your blog ... and when you started to see things double and type things wrong, and you got up and you felt like you were walking on a ship, that's when you knew sleep was nigh.

And yet. You lay down on the pillows and closed your eyes, and while your thoughts were no longer filled with fantasy baseball scores and the news of who got laid off today and that song that was playing on your iPod half an hour ago, now they were filled with .... strange things. Calming things, even. Tonight, I remember there was a snake that I was desperately trying to feed water. I turned the corner and then I was in a bright white bakery where every round table had its own cute stack of cakes. There was another scene, but I don't remember it now. These aren't dreams. These are half-dreams, almost-dreams, dream-lets, if you will. They have the potential to become dreams -- they don't require any thought and are very dreamlike in nature -- but you're still awake, only visiting, not living there.

And then I opened my eyes, and while the snake and the pretty cakes were all nice and good, here I was an hour and a half past Ambien and still wide awake. What to do? I can't take the other half of the pill... we all know where that went when I did it before. I was hoping I could come out here and watch my motor skills deteriorate some more, which would be a sure sign to go back to bed; but if anything they're getting a little better. So I've got nothing. Guess I'll just head back, defeated in more than one way, and attempt to dream of feeding water to a snake.

When Bacon Explosion meets SausageFest

As some of you may know, every year my friend Greg has his annual meatapalooza known as SausageFest, which is basically an excuse to make a) sausage, and b) all the same double-entendre sausage jokes, year after year. Because jokes about "grinding" and "stuffing it" and, well, "sausage" just never, ever get old.

This year, SausageFest was nearly (and tragically) canceled when it was thought that we couldn't top last year's truly awesome bacon-and-sausage nativity scene, but then the gods intervened, in the form of the Internet sensation known as Bacon Explosion. Bacon, sausage and barbecue sauce? Bring it ON!

First, we had to make a bacon weave. Little did I realize that my first-grade crafts skills would someday come in so handy.

Then the sausage patty. Deviating from the recipe, we decided to assemble it separately from the bacon weave, and not directly on top of it.

The remaining bacon got fried up in a pan (and I never, never, never let you forget ... uh, never mind).

Whatever bacon we didn't snack on got spread atop the sausage (so, like, half of it).

Next: barbecue sauce.

Then the rolling. It's like a bacon burrito!

Now it got rolled with the actual bacon weave.

And here's how it looked all purty before we put it in the oven.

The cooking itself did not go without mishap. There may have been flames, and shouts of "Ack! Ack! Fire!" But eventually, Bacon Explosion emerged, golden, glorious:

Sadly, there was only enough for one slice per person. But given that each slice contained bacon, Italian sausage, more bacon, and barbecue sauce, maybe that was for the best. For the record ... it was delicious.

As for my own contribution to this year's SausageFest, perhaps the less said, the better. Oh, OK, fine. Briefly: I decided to make Hawaiian sausage, using pork butt, pineapple, scallions and teriyaki sauce.

It sounded like a great idea and looked nice, right? But sadly, I failed to realize that the pineapple juice and teriyaki sauce together created too much moisture, which would cause this lovely mixture, even after injected into the casings, to break down completely in the broiler.

SAUSAGE FAIL.

Total bummer. It tasted good, but who the hell was going to eat that? (Note that I don't have any pictures of what they actually looked like coming out of the oven. I was that depressed.)

Because I am nothing if not a perfectionist, and I had some leftover ingredients, I tried one more batch. I squeezed as much juice as possible out of the pineapple pieces, and added much less teriyaki sauce. The resulting sausages still didn't quite set as they should have -- but at least this time they vaguely resembled sausages.

And thus ended another SausageFest. Next year, NO SAUCES WHATSOEVER. I'm thinking maybe ... turkey and pear?