Where The Cute Girls Are

I've had two married men independently tell me the same thing, so I'm thinking it must at least be true among the men I know at work.  I'm now going to share their secret with the world, but only because I find it so hilarious.

Men scope out and keep a map (either in their heads or written down somewhere) of where all the hot girls at work sit.

I don't even know where the hot guys at work sit (Someone please tell me there are hot guys at my work!)!

And I thought women were the only ones who plot.

Movie Review - Robin Hood

Say what you will, I kind of liked the Ridley Scott take on the Robin Hood myth.  I would have much preferred the original conception of the film, which was to have the Sheriff of Nottingham be the protagonist (played by Russell Crowe), Robin Hood be the antagonist, and Maid Marion be the third side of the love triangle between the two.  Somewhere in the middle of development the plot changed to having Crowe play both the Sheriff and Robin Hood, and finally they decided to go with a prequel of the original Robin Hood tale.  Most of the film's faults could probably originated in the many script rewrites.

While not as good as Gladiator, the film is not awful and will probably improve dramatically if Scott gets to release a director's cut on DVD (or is it BluRay?).  The acting is superb, even though Crowe's accent is all over the UK, and the fighting scenes are well-shot, although there are not nearly enough guerrilla fighting scenes that I feel should be in a Robin Hood film.  Then again, if it was just another hash on what's been done many, many times before, the whole thing would have been boring, wouldn't it?

Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe have great chemistry together.  It's not an overt romance, and it's played delightfully.  As much of a cad as Crowe is, I'm still charmed whenever his eyes are lighted just-so and he smiles with his self-satisfied grin that he's done something nice to win the lady over.  And let's face it, the great favor he does for Marion *was* pretty amazing.  Excepting the last battle, Cate Blanchett perfectly nails her updated version of Marion.  Maybe it's because I'm getting older now, but I really wish Hollywood would just let women be women.  I'm all for female empowerment, but that doesn't necessarily translate to having a token woman fight alongside the guys.  I thought Marion's character was perfectly empowered for a woman of her time and situation.

Besides the "Marion does Joan-of-Arc" thread, the other thing I was fairly unhappy about was including Robin Hood in with the signing of the Magna Carta.  It felt a bit reaching and I'm certain most American viewers don't even know what the Magna Carta is, let alone its' significance in history.  I'm not quite sure how one would re-cut the film to minimize these scenes, as it's an fairly integrated subplot.

I did like how Robin Hood ends up in Nottingham to begin with, as it satisfactorily explains why the original stories have Robin with both peasant and noble roots.  The antagonist Godfrey is far more scary and dangerous than the Sheriff of Nottingham, and if they do make a sequel to this film, it will be hard to feel satisfied running around Nottingham when Robin and his men have fought off the French army on the shores of England.

While the film is all right and worth a viewing, it's probably all right to wait until you can rent it.  I would have much preferred seeing a film shot with the original version of the script, as it would have been ambitious and interesting without turning our protagonist into the Savior of England.

Also, here is a well-balanced review that I like.

Garden Update, Part Two

After I did my garden update yesterday I went to Home Depot and saw they had ARTICHOKE plants in stock.  Weeks ago my parents sent me these three Grow Boxes (Self Watering Containers that are supposed to be the best - and most expensive - you can buy; lots of people make their own though) that I hadn't yet planted with stuff.

Garden Update

Here's another garden update!
I've been meaning to do this for a while; I guess it's been around three weeks since my last update. I have lots of lettuce sprouts! You can see the rose has put out some new branches, and the Early Girl is getting tall!

No Kids?

Today is "Bring Your Child To Work Day" at my workplace.

This morning when I walked in, both of the guards (the one in the parking lot, and the one at the building), both asked, "No kids?"

Geez, I didn't think I looked *that* old. When I said that I was single and had no kids, both guards seemed embarrassed. I kind of thought it was funny.

Maybe I gotta start wearing my hair down at work or something!

Garden Update

Am I way in over my head?
I am running out of room for containers!
I cut off the Peace rose buds when I saw them infested with aphids one afternoon. Not a ladybug in sight. The rose hasn't been putting out new leaves or anything like that, so I decided to help it focus on growing roots. I didn't really want to see what an aphid-infested bloom looked like, anyway.

I finally caged my tomatoes! The Early Girl is growing like a weed; as tall as the rose is. The Better Boys have finally figured out how to grow up and have started to put out leaves almost as prolifically as the Early Girl.
I added a jalapeno pepper and a patio tomato today. The Patio is supposed to be a cherry tomato. So we'll see. I also added a white carnation today too; it was horribly root-bound and I thought I could try dividing the plant. I was horrified to discover it was one plant! So I hope it survives. I wanted to use the pot that came with the miniature rose my parents gave me for my birthday, but when I tried to pour out some rainwater it slipped out of my hand and broke. Thankfully it was in clean pieces, so I'm going to try to epoxy the thing back together this weekend. Then it can serve as a water catcher for one of the carnations (if either of them make it)

My herbs are doing well; you can see I gave the chives a haircut (for the mashed taters I made earlier this week). I think the bottom herbs are getting a bit waterlogged though; the Thai Basil is still unhappy and you can see that some of the chives are yellowing. So I'm going to cut back and just water once a week and see how they do.
I started some mesclun seeds today; that's what the plastic is covering over the one pot. After they've sprouted I'll pull the plastic off. The Lobelia seeds haven't sprouted yet so I'm not sure what went wrong there. I've kind of given up on that idea though.

What else? The strawberries are really taking off too; the flowers that were there a couple weeks ago are now baby strawberries, and there are lots of other blooms and baby strawberries on their way as well.

More Gardening Links

UC Davis has this great list of gardening articles. I've noted my favorites.

Expert Urban Gardener - 218 pages (I haven't read the whole thing yet) of gardening info. Lots of scientific stuff in this one.

Grow Vegetables in Containers - Basic gardening info, but has a container depth guide.

Trace Elements and Urban Elements - Information on Urban Gardening. Good points on growing in containers to avoid stuff like lead and cadmium that is in the soil.

What to Grow in Containers - Nice graph on what to grow, in what size container, and how much sun said plants need.

Delicious, Delicious Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes is one of my favorite comfort foods. Okay, anything with potatoes, because when you combine them with fat (in the form of real butter), you get the perfect triage of starch, salt, and fat that makes for supreme bad-for-you deliciousness.

Francis Lam (who is fast becoming my favorite food author) just wrote an article on Salon covering the mashed potato, and his technique of preparing them.

I like to make mine by hand with a masher, and I leave the skins on. I use real butter (but some of the comments suggest olive oil, which I will definitely try) and milk. I usually cook a clove of garlic with the potatoes, and now that I have fresh chives from my garden I can add those in too.

Some of the other comments suggest a dash of nutmeg, which sounds interesting and I'd like to try that too, but I'm not so sure how well that will go with garlic.

Garden Update

I transplanted the Peace rose today, as well as a pepper plant from Home Depot and a rose my parents sent me for my birthday. I also fertilized all the plants that I didn't transplant today, using Miracle Gro's Shake 'n' Feed plant food. It comes in a smaller shaker jar than the one in the link. I just read the FAQ on the product and it says not to use it for container plants. Oops. If anyone has any helpful gardening feedback they can give to me, I'd sure appreciate it!

On the left is the rose; I planted Lobelia seeds around the edge of the container. On the top right is the Early Girl and on the bottom right are Better Boys I planted from seed. I need to get tomato cages for these soon. These are all 7 gallon containers. You can get them at Home Depot for around $10.

The Early Girl tomato and the California Pepper I bought from Home Depot both have flowers on them. The strawberries have lots of flowers on them and I'm hoping I'll get to eat some fresh strawberries in May!

Movie Review - Clash of the Titans (2010)

This update of the 1981 cult classic isn't bad when taken at face value. I'm honestly not sure exactly what all the critic hate is about. The original isn't exactly a gem, and already runs fast-and-loose with Greek myth.

I did take the critics' warning and shyed away from the 3-D theaters, since that seems where the bulk of the hate is centered. The film was intended as a 2-D picture, and the rushed up-conversion probably won't be worth your extra $5.

In all, I really enjoyed Clash of the Titans, which goes into the same campy/cheesy guilty pleasure bucket that films such as 300 belong to. Outside of the Kraken, I really liked all of the CGI character designs, my favorites being the Pegasus and Medusa. They really made horses fly, and it's absolutely fantastic. (I want one! My birthday is next week - can I have one for my birthday please?) The animators and character designers for Medusa really took the essence of her myth and brought it to the screen. She is both beautiful and hideous.

The throne room at Olympus is updated in several ways; the Greek stage human clay figurines "play" on has been converted into a satellite's view of the ground in the middle of the throne room, complete with cloud cover and water features. The clay figurines remain, but I didn't feel it was as hokey in this incarnation.

As much as people like to give Sam Worthington a hard time, I like his Perseus better. He's not nearly as silly Harry Hamlin's insipid version. I am both intrigued and annoyed with Gemma Arterton's Io. She's beautiful, we get that already. Using her as an expositionary device just makes her acting grating to watch (I can't imagine she'll be any better in Prince of Persia, where she plays a similar role). She does have the cheesiest line in the film, for whatever that's worth.

For fans of the original, Bebo is in the new film.

If you want to go see something fun and a bit mindless, I'd say this is a good film for that. It's definitely enjoyable if you don't expect it to be the next best thing to come out of Hollywood. Remember it's a remake of a cheesy flick, and it runs fast and loose with Greek myth. But then again, myths have changed to suit the teller's needs (one of the reasons so many versions of the "canon" myths exist). Buy popcorn and watch this from the back of the theater. And go see it in 2-D.