We’ve Moved!

And by “we”, I mean me.

And by “moved”, I mean to my brand-spanking-new blog.

And now I’m wondering just exactly what the search engines are going to think of my reference to spanking. (Good thing this isn’t Twitter, I guess — I’d be in for an influx of pornbots, for sure.)

I mean, I’m not picky about my readers, but I’d sure hate for anybody to be disappointed!

My Own Personal Beatlemania

If you’ll forgive the expression, The Beatles: Rock Band is, well… totally fab.




We finally cracked open our copy yesterday, and both immediately fell in love. The graphics are just beautiful. The gameplay is awesome, as you get to follow along with the history of the band. And the music is, of course, simply the best there ever was.

The most interesting part to me is the addition of harmonies, although it’s difficult to play. Otherwise, I’m doing pretty well with the vocals, due to a combination of my unfortunate tendency to sing male vocals better than female anyway, as well as the fact that I’ve been singing along with these songs for, well... we don’t need to go into exactly how long, now, do we?

EAToo is enjoying the drums as usual, and is more willing to sing than he normally is, because this time he knows all the words. We’re also both eager to try out the bass part — apparently, according to the difficulty levels, George Harrison was even more of a genius than either of us realized.

I’m also eager to get into the downloadable content. By the end of November, the remainder of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (my all-time favorite), will be available as DLC. DLC releases have tentatively been scheduled through the end of the year.

I’m planning to post a more detailed and technical review over at Suite101.com later today, and I’ll add the link to that when I do.

Suite 101 Is a Blast!

Sure, I haven’t been blogging. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. In fact, I just finished my first writing “challenge” at Suite101.com. The challenge was “Pump It Up: 14 Articles in 14 Days”.

The challenge was a bit daunting... it’s a lot of work to write that many pieces, especially when you’re juggling your writing with a full-time job and other responsibilities. But, armed with inspiration from a recent vacation and the new television season (Finally! Can I get an “amen”?), I put my mind to it and got it done. In fact, last night was the first night I’ve taken off from writing since I started the challenge. And it really felt odd not to stay up writing, although I certainly needed the sleep at that point!

I can’t take all the credit. My husband has been very kind in terms of reading all my stuff, finding the occasional typo, and not minding too much when I disappear for hours to write. I also need to thank Suite101 for being located in the Pacific Time Zone — that extra couple of hours before “midnight” definitely helped me stay on track!

Writing for Suite101 has been great. While I also want to get back to the more informal style of blogging, I’m really enjoying the structure the website provides me in terms of style. It makes the writing more of a challenge; writing as a “puzzle” that I have to put together, just so, is far more interesting to me. Additionally, it makes me think out my opinions on things and develop them further than, say, the “Squeeeee!” that was all I had right after I saw the season premiere of Dollhouse.

And, I might add that the people of Suite101 have been wonderful. A special thank you to Cindy McGlynn, who has been the most patient editor a girl could ask for and has never made me feel stupid for asking stupid questions.

So, if you get a minute, drop by Suite101 and check out the content. Not just my pieces — although I’d certainly appreciate it — but all of the other writers there, too. There’s a lot of great work over there.

More... of Me!

So... you’re thinking you’ve been disappointed that I haven’t posted in a while? You really, really want more of me? Well, more of my writing, anyway?

Well, you’re in luck! There are two other ways you can keep up with me.

First, check me out on Twitter. My username is @moodyredhead. There you can read all the articulate wittiness I can stuff into 140-character-long, grammatically inferior chunks. Food, pop culture — I even get political occasionally, which I’ve tried to avoid here. I’m excited to have reached (and now surpassed!) Twitterlibrium today. Come follow me and help work on getting to a milliWheaton!

If you’d like to read something a bit longer, I’ve also begun freelancing as a contributing writer for Canadian online magazine Suite101.com. And by “begun”, I mean that I’ve only got one article up so far. But I’m working on more, so keep checking out my page there!

I probably won’t have time to write long posts over here, although I will check in to keep you updated on my other projects, and maybe to write a bit about things I decided not to submit to Suite101.

Y’all come see me!

“Dollhouse,” “Sarah Connor” Benefit from Live+7 Ratings

Even geeks go out on Friday nights. And now, Nielsen is recognizing that.

I’ve been waiting eagerly for months for the premiere of Joss Whedon’s new show, “Dollhouse.” But my excitement was tempered when Fox banished it to 8:00 p.m. Central on Friday nights — universally known as the “Friday night death slot” where no show on Fox, save “The X-Files,” has ever thrived, almost all being cancelled within a single season. (And even “The X-Files” was moved to Sunday for the final six years of its run.) So I’ve been very conflicted the last few weeks; I love the show as much as I expected to, but as I’ve previously mentioned, Fox has a long history of disappointing me.

But there is a ray of hope. As reported today, both “Dollhouse” and its lead-in, “Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles,” have benefited greatly from the Nielsen Live+7 ratings. This system, begun in January 2006, has allowed the Nielsen system to finally catch up with DVR technology. Rather than simply reporting how many viewers watch television shows as they air live, the Live+7 ratings also report data on how many people watch a show on their digital video recorders within a week of the episode’s original air date.

The Live+7 ratings may make a huge difference in ensuring that “Dollhouse” has a future. Ratings for the pilot episode were originally considered mediocre-to-disappointing, with middling ratings despite airing against reruns. However, the Live+7 ratings showed that the viewership was actually a full 30% higher when DVR viewings were included. In fact, among shows watched on DVR, “Dollhouse” ranked 28th out of all network shows for the week. Add to that the fact that the “Dollhouse” pilot ranked #1 on iTunes and #10 in online pirating for the week, and it’s clear that the old ratings systems alone are no longer getting the job done.

This is great news for those of us who have been underrepresented in Nielsen ratings for years — those of us who lead lives that are too busy to allow us to watch television programs as they air. It’s been a long time coming, but television ratings have finally caught up to the fact that the average American household no longer spends most nights settling in early in front of the television together after a family dinner cooked at home.

And it’s great news for fans of quality television, because the Live+7 ratings may just be the best hope for extending the lives of shows that would otherwise be cancelled before their time.

Playing With My Food: Crawfish Pie

I have a confession to make. I cheat in the kitchen.

My friends would argue with this. They’d tell you how I inherited a slightly-less-severe case of my mother’s Martha Stewart Complex. They would explain how I always insist upon making things from scratch that normal people just buy — coleslaw, potato salad, salsa. That I can’t just use the instant stuff to make banana pudding — I have to make homemade custard. They can tell stories of my constant criticism of things I’ve made, how I should have added more salt to this or cooked that longer. They know that I often make homemade cake (or tiramisu) for birthdays. They would tell you how I am nine different kinds of crazy due to my refusal to use canned frosting. (Buttercream is easy! I swear! And it tastes better! But I digress....)

And they’d be right about all that. But sadly, also, I cheat. And I don’t just mean buying cheese that comes already shredded or using cake mixes. Okay, so I’m not saying I’m a Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade wannabe. I mean, seriously — if that lady put half the time and effort into her food that she puts into her overdone “tablescapes”.... but I do take the easy way out sometimes. And up until recently, one thing I totally faked was crawfish pie.

Not only did I use pre-made pie crusts from the dairy case (I can totally make pie crust, I just don’t normally have the time), I even used a filling mix. Mam Papaul’s. All I did was make the sauce mix according to the box, stir in the crawfish, toss it in a pie crust that came from a factory, and throw it in the oven. Honestly, I felt a little dirty. At the very least, I didn’t feel remotely like I had really cooked anything. I might as well have thrown a frozen pot pie in the oven (Yes, I do that, too. Although I’ve also done it from scratch.)

But last week, I decided that was all over. No, not because I felt so bad about cheating. It was because I realized Schnuck’s had stopped carrying the mix. So I took the next logical step, and went to the internet looking for a recipe. I checked all the usual suspects — All Recipes, RecipeZaar, Cooks.com, even FoodNetwork.com — but couldn’t find a recipe I liked. They all had something that didn’t sound right; canned tomatoes here, cream of mushroom soup there.

And I realized it was time. I had to cowboy up and figure this out for myself. I decided my modified faux-étouffée recipe (I don’t take time to start with roux. Yes, I’m ashamed. Please don’t judge me.) was a good start, and went from there. I think it turned out pretty well, and I’m pretty sure EAToo didn’t have any complaints, because it disappeared pretty fast. You’ll notice that I don’t start with the trinity — I don’t like green peppers or celery. Feel free to swap out if you wish.

Oh, and I went ahead and used the pre-made pie crust anyway. And I didn’t feel the least bit ashamed of skipping the hand-made pastry. Much. Go ahead and do it the old-fashioned way if you get the urge — I’m sure I’ll eventually get all obsessive-compulsive and do it myself, anyway.


Crawfish Pie

EA’s Crawfish Pie

8 oz. (1 stick) butter
1 red bell pepper
1 small onion
2-3 cloves garlic
12 oz. crawfish meat with fat
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. hot sauce
3 tbsp. flour
½ c. heavy cream
3 eggs
2 pre-prepared pie crusts

Preheat oven to 350°. Finely dice bell pepper and onion. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute pepper and onion in butter for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add garlic and continue to cook, stirring, for 5 more minutes. Vegetables should be soft, but not caramelized.

Stir in crawfish meat, salt, pepper, and hot sauce, and cook for another minute or so, until the temperature in the pan comes back up. Sprinkle flour over top, distributing evenly, and mix well, continuing to cook and stir for another minute. Add cream, mixing well. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes.

Place one pie crust in the bottom of an ungreased pie pan. Prick bottom and sides with fork. In a separate bowl, lightly beat eggs. Stir eggs into the cooled crawfish mixture, combining well. Pour crawfish mixture into pie shell. Top with second pie crust; seal edges well and cut slits or prick top with fork to allow steam to come out.

Cover edges of pie crust with crumpled strips of foil (unless you have these, which I want desperately) to prevent burning, and bake for approximately 45-50 minutes, until crust is golden brown. Allow pie to cool for a few minutes before cutting. Makes 4-6 servings.

Ingredient notes:

1. I like red bell pepper in this, partially because I like them and partially because it looks pretty. If you prefer green pepper, or orange, or yellow, feel free to substitute. If you want to get all traditional and use the trinity, go ahead. I just don’t see the point in celery.



2. The frozen crawfish I have found lately comes in 12 oz. packages. Up until very recently, it came in 16 oz. packages. If you can find the 16 oz., or find it fresh, great. But just know that a few months ago they were charging you the same price for 33% more meat.



3. As far as hot sauce goes, use whatever you have handy. I suppose Tabasco would be the norm, but I tend to use Sriracha, because that’s what I keep around. Feel free to substitute your favorite, and use more if you like that sort of thing.

Upcoming Movie Remakes Beg the Question — Why?

I’ve heard it put different ways. According to the Barenaked Ladies, “It’s all been done before.” Just recently, “Battlestar Galactica” reminded us that “This has all happened before and it will all happen again.” And of course, Christopher Booker (or William Foster-Harris or Stephen King or any number of other authors) told us how there are only seven (or six or 36 or 69, or insert-your-own-figure) basic literary plots.

But I ask you — does this excuse Hollywood’s abandoning all pretense of originality and falling back on the crutch of constantly “remaking” movies and television shows? Particularly those that the moviegoing public is noticeably not clamoring for?

That is not to say that remakes always fall short. But for every Chicago or The Dark Knight or The Blues Brothers, we’re “treated” to innumerable cheap copies of movies or television shows like Bewitched or A Night at the Roxbury or Blues Brothers 2000. And when surfing the ‘net this weekend, I was horrified at some of the “rebootings” that are scheduled to be inflicted upon us in the near future:

• Arthur — Warner Bros. has deemed it necessary to remake 1981’s Oscar-nominated film about a loveable, funny alcoholic. Setting aside the question of whether there is much nostalgia value in remaking a picture that a lot of moviegoers aren’t old enough to remember (or whether alcoholism can still be considered funny and charming), it turns out they’ve cast goofy Russell Brand of Forgetting Sarah Marshall as the title character. And let’s face it, when it comes to acting, Russell Brand is no Dudley Moore. I’m not even convinced he’s a Mandy Moore.



• CHiPs — Starring Wilmer Valderrama, making the interesting career leap from Fez to Ponch. Admittedly, I watched “CHiPs” when it first came on. On the other hand, I was six years old when it premiered. I’m sure the car chases will be great eye candy, but how do you develop a storyline based a television show that had no storyline?



• They Live — What? You don’t remember professional wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s 1988 acting debut? I do. But only because it was so bad that it scarred me mentally and emotionally and became the yardstick by which I have measured bad movies for over 20 years. The first time around, I truly regretted not just leaving the theatre and asking for my money back. Or just plain leaving the theatre. A remake might just qualify as a crime against humanity.



• Top Gun — This one’s mainly still in the rumor stage, but ideas floated have included Tom Cruise helming the project and casting himself as a now-flight-instructor-Maverick to Katie Holmes’ cocky young pilot. Do I really need to explain why this is wrong? Didn’t think so.



• The Rocky Horror Picture Show — Oh, wait. Never mind. I’m actually willing to give that one a chance. Especially if I get to do the Time Warp and throw toast at the movie screen again.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not against remakes on principle. In fact, I think they work really well. On television. For example, with “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Joss Whedon had a unique “do-over” opportunity, getting a second chance to show just how complex and layered his dramatic vision was compared to the campy movie that the studio once “fixed” for him. “Smallville” consistently manages to both work within and rise above the Superman mythos, giving viewers access to Clark Kent’s origin story that would not be possible in a theatrical release. SciFi’s “Battlestar Galactica” took the basic structure of what amounted to a ‘70s throwaway kids’ show and truly did “re-imagine” it, giving rise to a well-written, well-acted drama that is both wonderful television and startlingly relevant social commentary.

But these remakes worked for a reason. The nature of television provides more time for expanded storytelling. There is an opportunity to expand upon the characters and the world they inhabit, which is entirely different than a rote re-telling of a story we’ve already seen. (This is why I’m looking forward to the day the BBC creates an unabridged miniseries that does real justice to the Harry Potter books. I believe it’s inevitable.)

No, there’s nothing wrong with examining existing stories and checking to see if there’s any life left in them, any new directions to explore. But the studios underestimate their audiences — and their own continuing profitability — when they assume that moviegoers are simpletons who will cling to the familiar and spend increasingly limited entertainment dollars to see the same stories told over and over again.

One More Reason to Buy a Kindle

As many of my friends know, I covet the Amazon Kindle. It’s not that I don’t love actual paper books. Far from it — my ownership of books borders on the pathological. But I love the idea of buying books literally anywhere, anytime. And I love the idea of saving a bit of money. And I’m beginning to think I’d be better off buying a Kindle than buying another half-dozen or so bookshelves.

The only thing stopping me? The fact that instead of lowering the price, Amazon instead came out with a new, fancier model. Mind you, I did the math last week, and if I had enough self-discipline to stop buying books for a couple of months, I could afford a Kindle easily. Unfortunately, I have more willpower when it comes to food than books.

Yesterday, though, when getting my daily dose of webcomics, I found yet another compelling reason to own a Kindle. After reading this from xkcd (“a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language”), I may just have to bite the bullet and save up for one of my own:



(Click on the image to see the full-size version.)

I hadn’t thought about it before, but the Kindle probably is as close as I’ll ever get to owning the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That and a nice towel, and I’ll be all set.

In the meantime, I’ll keep looking at webcomics, since they’re free. If you’re a complete geek like me — the kind of geek who appreciates references to Hitchhiker’s Guide and enjoys the occasional Microsoft bashing — check out xkcd. You’ll be glad you did.

Website Explores “Deliciously Gross” Food: thisiswhyyourefat.com

Please note: What follows in this post is NSFL!

No, not “NSFW.” It’s totally safe for work. It’s “NSFL.” Not Safe for Lunch.

Some of the images that I’ve included (and definitely those I’ve linked to) may contain graphic scenes of food abuse. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Generally, I don’t spend a lot of time reading the local newspaper. But while I’m not happy with the majority of their coverage, I do occasionally breeze through their website to check out local food news. While poking around this morning, I ran across the most wonderful website, entitled This Is Why You’re Fat.

Our local food reporter described it as “revolting… in a train-wreck, can’t-look-away way.” But really, it’s so much more than that. Billing itself as “where dreams become heart attacks,” it doesn’t really answer the question of why anyone is fat — mainly because most people wouldn’t eat the majority of these foods, and certainly not on a regular basis if they did. I looked through all of the entries, and just couldn’t help sharing. I found that the food pictured mostly falls into three categories: things you can’t believe a human would eat voluntarily, things that really aren’t so bad, and things you would only eat at the fairgrounds. (I know that last bit may not make sense if you’re not from around here. But southerners know that all bets are off at the fair, at least in terms of civilized eating.)

Granted, there are some really horrifying things shown — this website is not for the weak of heart (or stomach). People have done some really, truly evil things with food, including chocolate-covered bacon and hot dogs topped with macaroni and cheese. One of the most horrifying was the “Big Mac-Chicken” — a frightening Frankenstein of a sandwich, cobbled together by replacing the bread on a Big Mac with chicken patties from McChicken sandwiches. (Yes, sadly, you read that correctly.) The version shown on This Is Why You’re Fat is horrifying enough:

Picture © 2008, Grocery Eats

I’ve stuck with the tame version here. But if you need real carnage, check out the original article, complete with a picture of this monstrosity in its half-eaten form. If you dare.

On the other hand, there were a few things that didn’t sound half bad. Taking poutine and topping it with bacon? I’d totally do that. Chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick? Doesn’t sound like it would be horrible once in a blue moon, especially shared with someone while walking down the carnival midway. Bacon-flavored mayonnaise? Honestly, doesn’t sound so bad.

(I did begin to wonder what the fascination with bacon is, though. You will, too. Out of the 87 current entries, at least 25 use or misuse bacon. I say at least, because you just can’t tell from some of the pictures whether bacon is included or not.)

There were a few odd items that I didn’t realize would bother anyone. I’m not sure what’s exactly disturbing about welsh rarebit. And I thought apple pie topped with cheddar cheese was pretty common, although maybe not so much here in the south. King cake isn’t necessarily pretty, but totally traditional. Even the tongue-and-pastrami sandwich didn’t seem terribly outlandish, although admittedly not my cup of tea:

Picture © 2008, The Phenthouse

I think my ultimate favorite, though, was the Frito pie. Come on, if you’re from the south, you’ve probably had it before — Fritos topped with chili and cheese, amongst other things. There’s even a chain in East Tennessee, Petro’s, that sells them as its main offering. Generally, they’re not too bad, if somewhat unhealthy. But the reason this was my favorite was the picture, specifically because of how the Frito pie was assembled:

Picture © 2008, Drunk Brunch

Um, just so you know... I think you’re doing it wrong.

What I’ve shown here is only the tip of the disgusting culinary iceberg. Go see for yourself, and take some time to explore the links and see how some of these people explain their crimes against food. (Although I don’t believe there is any justification, at all, for a “Happy Meal Pizza.”)

Just PLEASE don’t go looking if you happen to be eating in front of your computer. Trust me on this one, y’all.

Blog — Version 2.0

You know how you keep thinking about how you need to start working on something, and you even have a few good ideas, but then you realize you really aren’t going to be able to concentrate until you get something else done that’s been bugging you, but then you realize that you don’t really know where to start on that either, and it’s very frustrating and doesn’t go well when you try to get started, and the whole thing starts giving you kind of a headache, and then you decide to just go play sudoku instead?

Oh. Just me, huh?

Anyway, I haven’t been so much intentionally not posting as spending way too much time trying to redesign the blog. (I heard that! I was not procrastinating. This time.) The old layout had really been bugging me, so much so that every time I even considered writing, I’d start thinking about how much I didn’t like it and how I really needed to fix it before I posted anything else.

So, after a lot of starting and stopping, several completely failed ideas, and quite a bit of time considering how badly I hate Blogger sometimes, I’ve finally done it.

So, loyal readers, let me know if you love it, hate it, didn’t notice, don’t care.... Seriously. I expect to hear from both of you.

And stop back in soon. I’m going to get back to work, I promise.

I Blame Facebook

Okay, so it’s not entirely fair to blame Facebook for my lack of posts for the last couple of months. Sure, there were other factors — one of my busy times of year at work, lots of personal commitments, and perennial time-eaters Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour. And let’s not forget Christmas (although I’d certainly love to).

But Facebook certainly hasn’t helped. I started on Facebook last August, although I wasn’t really that interested. Peer pressure kicked in, though, and as more and more of my friends got involved, so did I. (Although I still refuse to post a picture of myself for my profile. I hate pictures of me.)

Wikipedia describes Facebook as “a free-access social networking website.” Basically, Facebook has two main functions. One is keeping up with people in your life. I’ve reconnected with people from high school, but I also use it to keep in better touch with my mom and my best friend. I’ve even spent time chatting with my five-year-old “niece” on Facebook — whenever the princess is able to convince her mom to type for her.

The second function of Facebook is wasting time. Even if there’s no one online to chat or trade snarky wall comments with, there are plenty of quizzes to take (and challenge others to), pictures posted by friends to look at, and groups to join. Just today, I became a fan of “Memphis music” and the television show Dexter, and joined the groups “When I was your age, Pluto was a planet” and “I judge you when you use poor grammar”.

There are, of course, down sides. For example, while I refuse to post pictures of myself, others have no such qualms, and have “tagged” said pictures such that others can easily find me in them. Also, while it’s great that your friends can find you easily, so can anyone else, whether you want them to or not.

Apparently, I’m not the only one to concede a chunk of my life to Facebook. Just today, I was reading this article on Time.com, questioning whether Facebook really connects people, or just allows them a false sense of connection without face-to-face contact. Maybe I’m deluded, but I feel like I’m more in touch now than I was a few months ago. And since I’m going to spend time online either way, if I can do it in a way that allows more human connection, so much the better.

But I do have one piece of advice for anyone considering joining Facebook. Be forewarned: somewhere out there is a person with a copy of your sixth grade class photo and a scanner. And that person may just be on Facebook, too.