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You are viewing the most recent 20 entries July 11th, 2009spectralbovine @ 12:24 am: There's Even a Guy Named Sunil in This Movie
 You have likely never heard of Shades of Ray since it was not released in theatres and instead is available exclusively on Amazon on Demand. But it stars Zachary Levi and Sarah Shahi and Fran Kranz and Bonnie Somerville and also features Rex Lee and Cristine Rose and Lucy Davis, so it is tailor-made for the audience of People Who Read My Journal! Half-Pakistani writer/director Jaffar Mahmood cast Zachary Levi as half-Pakistani actor/bartender Ray Rehman. And no, he doesn't look half-Pakistani at all, and it never really works, and the audition scenes where he's being "typecast" and forced to do funny accents don't come off right at all because he doesn't look half-Pakistani. But Mahmood was rejected by two production companies who wanted him to change the character to be half-black or half-Latino instead, and he walked away and raised the money himself so he could make the movie on his own terms, and if his own terms include choosing Zachary Levi, then so be it. Ray Rehman has a Pakistani dad and a white mom. Around the time he proposes to his white girlfriend, his dad shows up on his doorstep, having been kicked out. And since he's there, why doesn't he introduce Ray to a nice half-Pakistani girl? Now Ray has to CHOOSE! And also reunite his parents. Symbolically or whatever. As an independent film, it is perfectly enjoyable, if uneven; all the parts don't quite fit together, as if some of the pieces don't really know what their purpose is. But that's mostly the ancillary stuff; the main story with Ray and his parents and his lady loves is well done. But the main appeal, of course, is that ZACHARY LEVI IS BASICALLY PLAYING ME. Sure, he's only half-brown, but as someone who's all brown and mainly attracted to white girls despite his parents' wanting him to marry a brown one, I obviously identified with him and what he has to deal with. For instance, when he complains to his dad about being set up with a "random girl," his dad exlaims, "What 'random'? She's your uncle's best friend in medical school's classmate's daughter!" SERIOUSLY THAT IS HOW IT WORKS. There were times when I almost wanted to cry just because someone made a movie about South Asians. I just forget how goddamn rare that is. Bollywood is not my life. This is my life. American Desi is my life. Bend It Like Beckham is my life. The Namesake is my life. Except not. Like Born Confused, Shades of Ray tells the story of a South Asian who's allowed to date white folk until their parents force them to marry someone South Asian WHO JUST HAPPENS TO BE HOT AND AWESOME AND PERFECT AND HOW IS THAT ACTUALLY A CONFLICT? No one tells the story of the guy who was never allowed to date anyone, who wasn't even allowed to go to prom, who couldn't even date in college because he didn't want to be forced to lie his parents, who is now being set up with uncle's best friend's classmate's daughters who aren't even interested in him. Look, if my parents found me a girl who looked like Sarah Shahi and whose list of favorite TV shows on MySpace began with Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars, I would be set. (As a side note, HOLY CRAP SARAH SHAHI IS HOT UM MAYBE I SHOULD WATCH LIFE.) Maybe I really should write my experience, because who the fuck else is going to? Current Mood:  depressed Current Music: Ra Ra Riot - Can You Tell , desi arranged marriage notification, family, girls, movies, myspace is a canker sore on the internet, personal, pimpings
July 10th, 2009qwidjibo @ 09:07 pm: More on apnea
 Now this is what I call an apnea treatment. I hope the neighbors don't mind...
hradzka @ 06:29 pm: APED: "junior G8"
 A girl in a wine-colored dress, a short set of stairs to walk down, and America's boss finds his eyes come acrossa booty that's worth much renown. She's a hot young Brazilian, she's one in a million, she's young and she's svelte and she's fair, she's quick-witted, keen, and -- HOW old? she's SIXTEEN?! ...um, I'll just have a seat over there. Tags: a poem every day
orbitalmechanic @ 05:48 pm: Kousa mabshoura (zucchini with onions, garlic and mint)
 Recipe 36: From Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Cooking. Not bad, for zucchini! The mint kept surprising me. I forgot that I was supposed to stir in another 2T of olive oil and couldn't bring myself to do it on a per-plate basis; probably would help. My primary thought as I was cooking: it's been so long since I cooked a pound of chopping onions in olive oil! Yum. With teeny-tiny lamb loin chops (salted and peppered and broiled for two minutes on a side) and a green salad, this was another in the sequence of Surprisingly Filling Dinners. Oh, and challah. Also, used up this week's zucchini so I'm off the hook for a week! (People elsewhere are complaining about their CSAs so just to be clear: I love everything about this CSA, much the way I love everything about the workouts that leave me exhausted and loopy for hours.) (As a note, this appears to be Roden's own transliteration, so who knows what the real name is.) Tags: 100 recipes
ultrafineflair @ 07:25 pm: Fruit of the Day: Acerola
http://ultrafineflair.blogspot.com/2009/07/fruit-of-day-acerola.html I've seen the packages of acerolas in the grocery store since the day we arrived in Brazil, and I've always walked right past them because I thought they were imported cherries. Turns out I wasn't totally wrong, as acerola also goes by Barbados cherry, or wild crapemyrtle. Wild crapemyrtle! These names just keep getting better and better, don't they? Acerola are tart little berries, kind of like sour cherries. Also, they're bright yellow inside, which makes me love them even more. They don't have a single pit like cherries; instead, the seed is divided into three pieces that you can cut in between pretty easily. I think this seed-thing would make them a lot more difficult to use in a pie, though, unless someone invents an acerola-pitter.  This afternoon I had a glass of acerola juice. I assume it was sweetened, because it was nowhere near as tart as the fresh berry I'd eaten earlier. The juice was super cold and frothy, and reminded me a lot of the Strawberry Julius drinks I used to get at the Orange Julius in Conestoga Mall in my youth. UFF Fruit Rating: 
dpolicar @ 01:36 pm: Inbox maintenance
 The latest timestamp on my inbox at work is June 19th. Which is to say, I am caught up on all email since then... dealt with, filed, and/or deleted as need be. This feels very strange. (There's a huge block of emails from the week of the 15th... I didn't do a very good job of keeping on top of my email that week) (Later: I'm now caught up back to the end of May. Which, OK, maybe there's more important stuff I could be doing.) Tags: work
orbitalmechanic @ 12:05 pm: 100 recipes: Zucchini-dill pancakes
Recipe 35: These are not pancakes; they are basically omelettes. The recipe is from a Brookfield Farm newsletter: grate two cups zucchini, grate half a cup cheddar cheese, mix together with two eggs, a 3 T flour, salt and pepper, and chopped dill. Maybe something else. They're omelettes. They were too liquid--next time I'll let the zucchini drain a little bit--but surprisingly tasty. I made a plain old green salad and chard with pine nuts and raisins and that was all of dinner. Cannot explain why it was filling, but it nearly used up last week's farm share! Tags: 100 recipes
dpolicar @ 08:52 am: Emotional body failures and other things
Some thoughts, while exercising this morning.
Man, you guys weren't kidding about elbow-plank as an abdominal workout! Yow. OK, it has replaced the sets of crunches... among other things, it's kinder to my neck.
Every now and again I'm reminded that I am seriously asymmetrical. Planks, and side-planks on my left side, I feel in my abs. Side-planks on my right side, I feel in my right shoulder and forearm. Humph.
The relationship between mood and sleep continues to amaze me. I've been having some sleep issues the last few weeks... partly being too lame to go to sleep earlier, partly waking up earlier than I have to and being unable to go back to sleep. Nothing noteworthy by community standards -- I'm still getting 6-8 hours of sleep a night -- but by my local standards it's a shortage; I need a lot of sleep since the stroke. Which, OK, fine, it is what it is. But I had just had a completely self-indulgent little hissy fit over the fact that my right shoulder/forearm gave out during right-side planks, of the "Fuck fuck fuck fuck why isn't it better why aren't I fixed yet snarl crash bam boom" variety, which I haven't done since February. No getting around it: getting enough sleep on a regular basis improves my mood. Which reminds me yet again of the absurdity of how I spent most of my twenties and thirties. (About which, predictably, I am experiencing an incipient "Fuck fuck fuck I suck well OK maybe I don't suck now but I used to suck and I should really obsess over that now snarl crash bam boom" meltdown.) The most reliable consequence of the last year seems to be that I don't identify with that mood quite as much. It's a fatigue-induced system failure, no more fundamental than having my knee give out when I'm running. Just something to take into account, is all. I'd appreciate being reminded of that, if I ever seem to be forgetting it. Tags: exercise, mood, recovery
spectralbovine @ 03:21 am: Terribly Listy LiveJournalcore
 So a week and a half ago, I asked ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) water_of_fire (L) to come see Nightmare of You with me. Luckily, she was currently in the habit of accepting bizarre invitations. Even more luckily, she did not wake up the next morning and decide it was a horrible idea, and instead we e-mailed in the interim. I told her to remain deliberately ignorant of Nightmare of You (and I did not listen to any songs but the one Pandora have given me), which meant she didn't even look at the opening bands...one of which was Plushgun, a band she had recently discovered through this video portrait of Zachary Quinto being covered in milk. Now she was really excited! And we had a great night. Check out all these gerunds and participles, yo. - hugging L for the first time and discovering she's a great hugger
- examining the menu at La Mediterranee and having no clue what to order because everything looked good
- having a hibiscus cooler ordered for me because, according to L, I was having one
- drinking a sweet, red liquid that was like drinking perfume or a flower
- being asked what I did when I wasn't listening to bands that didn't exist yet
- enlightening L about the violation of point-of-view in The Eyre Affair that pissed me off
- explaining what unreliable narrators are and how much I heart them
- L tasting my lemon chicken soup and deeming it terrible, she would finish it for me
- trying the very tangy, tart lemon chicken soup that was interesting for a few sips but too sour to finish
- devouring chicken pomegranate with meat that just fell off the bone
- convincing L to watch Lost because it is just that awesome (and explaining OMGWTFPOLARBEAR in the process)
- mocking opener Brian Bonz, who L thought looked like a wildly overgrown nine-year-old and I thought looked no older than fourteen
- attempting and failing to appreciate his overblown, I-wish-I-was-Ben-Gibbard sincerity
- watching L's delight at seeing Plushgun live
- declaring Plushgun to be totally adorable, as during one song the lead singer threw glowsticks into the audience and during another, he played ukulele while the guitarist playing the portable glockenspiel
- rather enjoying the fun, catchy synthpop, which L described as "terribly emo cuddlecore" because she wanted to punch them and put them all in her pocket
- getting some air and avoiding the hipsters
- convincing L that she had to buy the shirt designed by the guitarist who would totally steal her eyeliner
- seeing L actually talk to said guitarist and admire his tattoos
- patiently holding various layers of clothing as she removed them to show him her own tattoo
- the guitarist pulling his shirt up to display the backwards Gothic lettering across his chest
- telling L she had to wear the shirt the next time I saw her since it was clear there would be a next time
- getting complimented on my shirt by the merch guy
- being poked by the guitarist of Plushgun before I left so he could tell me he liked my shirt
- L declaring that she would be my pet Goth
- declaring that I would be her pet fanboy
- sealing the deal with a high-five and a fist-bump
- being thanked a million billion times for bringing her out
- enjoying Nightmare of You's performance of "My Name Is Trouble," the one great song I knew and none of the others lived up to
- realizing that "I Want to Be Buried in Your Backyard" sounded like it could be a Smiths song
- L agreeing and pegging the next song as a Cure song
- leaving before the show was over but picking up the first Nightmare of You CD since all the songs I liked were on it, whereas I was meh on all the songs he said were new
- pleasing L by noticing how clean her car was
- getting a burned copy of the Plushgun CD
- agreeing with L that we should see other again
- remembering how exciting it is to make a new friend
Current Mood:  sleepy Current Music: Deftones - Xerces , concerts, food, girls, in a world without threads, lists are less time-intensive, music, personal, pimpings, real life friends
scribblemonkey, posting in stripteasecomic @ 12:20 am: comic #886
 is now up! two weeks until comic con. I'll be at booth 1230 with Aeire, Jenny, Randy, James and Mel. should be a riot in a 10x10 enclosed space.
wondermark @ 05:23 am: Check out: Away We Go
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wondermark/~3/xJyFTe9ABGM/ http://wondermark.com/?p=4108 
I highly recommend the movie Away We Go, the newest from director Sam Mendes. I don’t think it’s for everybody, but for me, a dude really close to 30 who is in the first sort of nascent stages of starting a family yet who’s still waiting to discover what Adulthood is supposed to feel like, I think this movie was utterly, totally for me.
I won’t link you to the trailer or anything though, because with all due respect to my friends who worked on the marketing, this movie (like pretty much every movie) is better off seen totally cold, without anticipating the big moments that the trailer and commercials give away. So, don’t watch the marketing, but do see the movie. (Oh, and if you don’t like it — well, there’s no accounting for taste. I liked it. Let’s not argue about it, huh?)
Finally: take a look at John Krasinski up there. What do you notice?
He’s bearded.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is the only mainstream, non-period American movie in a great while in which the primary romantic protagonist wears a full beard. Leave me a comment if I’m wrong; I’d like to know if there are others!
July 9th, 2009hradzka @ 10:04 pm: all-female superteams
 So Marvel's got MARVEL DIVAS and DC's got DC SIRENS or something, apparently. I haven't been paying attention to it, but neither of them seem to be pleasing my flist. The only one I've glanced through is MARVEL DIVAS, which is kind of tooth-grating in that there are a couple of glimmers where you say, "Oh, hey, I see how this could be a half-decent comic, if they only changed pretty much everything about it." DIVAS is a laughably transparent SEX AND THE CITY rip, and Marvel apparently thought this would appeal to the female reader. I won't deny that a lot of women apparently really like SEX AND THE CITY, but the flaw is that *the vast majority of these women do not read comics or find themselves in circumstances where they might buy one.* So, of course, Marvel's doing promotion that reaches outside traditional comic avenues for this untapped audience, right? ... *crickets* Yeah. So this makes no sense. The people who would like this don't even know it exists, and the women in comic book fandom are going to find it annoying as hell. I really wish that Marvel would just pick up that bit from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN SUMMER SPECIAL with MJ, Clea, Scarlet Witch, Millie the Model, Hellcat, Marvel Girl, and She-Hulk taking on the Enchantress. Oh, well. So, a question: who's on your all-female comic book team? I think for DC I'd go with Power Girl, Mary Marvel, Empress, and Onyx. Mary Marvel and Empress both having magic-based powers might be a little bit eh, but I think it could work. And I liked Onyx's appearances in the Batbooks; it'd be fun seeing her as the only non-super person on a superpowered team. Maybe they could recruit Spoiler, too; get her out of the Batbooks for a while and be her own character. Or go the other way, and have the superpowered person be the odd one out. Okay, maybe I'm crazy, but listen to this line-up: Manhunter, Mary Marvel, Onyx. Two cynical-as-hell normal people and one peppy, optimistic super. Bonus points if they all have to live together, and Onyx has to put up with Mary being chirpy at disgustingly early hours while Onyx fumbles for the coffeemaker. Marvel, I'd go the other way. Have a team of A-list superheroines... who don't fight crime. They act as mentors and advisers for young, up-and-coming superheroines, who do. Or decide they're not cut out for it. Basically, a coffee-club organization to give advice to girls developing superpowers. The focus is on the kids, who form and dissolve various efforts at superteams, but the big heroines make guiding appearances. (To me, this organization is something that the Invisible Woman would head up.) Tags: comics
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