Quartino

If you're wondering where I ate lunch while in Chicago, the answer is in my hotel room: a Thomas's raisin bagel smeared with Skippy. Sad! I didn't have a ton of time so instead I ate a nice pizza dinner whenever I could. And when I left our dinner choice up to my ex-roommie, she wisely fed me Italian. No, not pizza this time, though Quartino apparently has nummy pizza, but Italian tapas. Where have these been all my life? Tapas are a non-commital eater's dream, and it was amazing to just get a little taste of all that stuff on the menu you might be curious about. A mini dish of bubbling hot eggplant parmigiana. A tiny plate of veal meatballs ("Yes!" I lied when my roommate asked if I ate veal. Sorry, lil' Elsie.) without a mountain of spaghetti to fill you up, so there's room for the fresh cavatelli with ricotta and tomatoes. Handmade pasta in my tapas? I say SI! They're also a wine bar so they served by the carafe, the half-carafe, and (the poor student in me rejoiced) the quarter-carafe. And I've gotta say, if you're a young twenty-something of a certain intellectual class and you're single and looking and in Chicago, you could do a lot worse than the patrons at this place, let me tell you.

(Photo courtesy of someone's awesome flikr)

RATING: 93%

Lou Malnati's

What, you think I only had pizza once while in Chicago? Get real. The night after Giordano's I went for pizza with a larger group of people, and the larger the group the more room left for freaky toppings like jalepenos and anchovies. So I got a little individual pizza. The place was small, and the wait was insane-o (I don't know if that's normal or if the conference at the Hilton was to blame), but 40 minutes after arriving I got my pizza. Um, I guess it was fine. You know, like a very tasty pizza. I can't imagine that anyone would cross the earth for a taste of this place, but it was a decent meal. Same kind of sweetish-dry crust, and the cheese was great, but there wasn't enough of it. On your way to this place you will probably pass like 10 Giordano's so you know, I'm just saying.

RATING: 73%

Orville Redenbacher's Natural Buttery Garlic flavor popcorn

For some reason when I bought this I thought it was the Paul Newman brand, and I felt good about that because they give all of their profits to charity or something. But it turns out this popcorn is actually from Orville Redenbacher, a ConAgra brand. You might know ConAgra from their raping the earth, discriminating against cripples and black people, doing some pretty awful things to turkeys, totally fucking ruining peanut butter, and just being generally shitty. The problem is that this popcorn tastes fucking amazing. It is not garlic-y as the flavor description would lead you to believe, but is instead the perfect amount (that is to say, heavy but not too crazy) buttery and salty. And it comes in these tiny little bags that are great because they don't lead to me eating a huge bag of popcorn all by myself, but are also not enough if I want to do some serious popcorn eating (which is why I ate two bags while watching The Office and 30 Rock on Thursday). In conclusion, this tastes like popcorn perfection and it is a real shame that my liberal guilt will never allow me to buy it again.

Taste rating: 80%
Company rating: 0%
Overall rating: Confusedandguilty%
Laurie's ability to take the fun out of everything rating: 40%

Giordano's

Since I'm starved for regular, palatable Italian food here in Houston, when I found myself in Chicago I went on a pizza spree. My second night in the Windy City (people are cringing, right? That's like calling NY "The Big Apple"? Perfect.) brought me to Giordano's. Which one? Who cares, because there are like thirty in the city. My companions and I went for the "stuffed crust," which meant "really fat crust" and not "crust with cheese coming out of it" a la Pizza Hut. The crust is drier and a little sweeter, even, than other crusts, but nice and crumbly and deliciously paired with the melty, ooey-gooey cheese. We opted for a veggie pizza, which you can see looks like a swarm of crops attacked our pie. We ate in silence, completely consumed with consuming. I made a joke about how we were eating in silence and still, no one talked. That's Giordano's.

RATING: 89%

Agharta by Miles Davis

Agharta was the second to last thing Miles Davis recorded before going on a six year retirement from music in order to spend more time doing drugs. It was recorded live, and I gotta say there's drugs all over this thing. It's a frantic, directionless cacophony in which Davis himself only plays the trumpet for about 8 minutes of the 97 minute run time. Still, it's pretty awesome, and like I said before if I had known about Miles Davis in high school I would have never stopped playing the trumpet.

RATING: 72%

Bristol Palin

Who?

RATING: 15%

Abaeté Fall 2009 Collection

It's about time that I added something to the V3 component of R3, so I've decided to review a few shows from fashion week. (Maybe someone with strong feelings about the Betsy Johnson show will follow suit, nudge, nudge.) On first look, I found the Abaeté show to be well crafted but a little boring, but looking at it again I just had the realization that it is about 76% the embodiment of my own personal style. Occasionally funky, but very clean and put together (sometimes to a fault), and with lots of short skirts. (I dress this way because I am an artist masquerading as a lawyer. And because I like short skirts.) My favorite piece is the dress over there on the left, which is completely my style because the lines are a little crazy, but it is devoid of color (I wear a LOT of grey.)

View the entire show here.

Rating: 76%

Ultimate X-Men Vol. 3: World Tour

This is fine I guess. The plot is the Ultimate version of the X-Men are on a book tour for Professor X, but then Professor X's crazy superpowered son breaks loose and starts killing a million people. Nothing too remarkable except it's an interesting combination of my favorite comic artist Chris Bachalo and my least favorite comic writer Chuck Austen.

RATING: 61%

Jared Leto's New Look

Oh my god, has Kurt Cobain risen from the dead, bought a leather jacket and washed his hair? No, it's just Jared Leto looking like a douche. Is this guy still pretending to be a rocker? Jared Leto needs to sign up for some continuing ed classes and accept that the coolest thing he's ever done in his life was making out with Clare Danes in the boiler room.

RATING: 4%

Potted Meat

Ok, I would like a job now thank you.

RATING: 15%

This Racist Cartoon

No, that's not from the Savannah Gazette or some southern newspaper, but rather from the number one newspaper out of New York City, the New York Post. Ha ha, just kidding, I know the Post has a history of racism and bigotry, it's just astonishing that something like this is published in the year 2009. Which is what I said when this cartoon appeared in the University of Houston's Daily Cougar in 2005 after Katrina, but whatever. People are dumb eternally I suppose. Let's grow up, ok?

RATING: 1% (after all, it's better than an MS Paint drawing)

What Is Not To Love by Imperial Teen

Imperial Teen's first album, Seasick, is one of my all time favorites, so of course there is built in disappointment for all three of their followups. They get progressively worse, so since this is their second album, it is also their second strongest. They had a minor hit off of it, Yoo Hoo, which I don't care for, but the first two songs on the album are great. Poppy harmonies, cynicism galore, and tips to Oscar Wilde - am I talking about my life or this CD?

RATING: 71%

Dallas Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys are a little ol' team in the NFL from (you guessed it) Dallas, Texas. It seems unfair to be a fan of a team that's won 5 Super Bowls, is the most valuable franchise in America (2nd in the Universe, folks), often goes by the nickname "America' Team", and is known for doing a lot of fucking drugs; but I manage. I really don't understand why people have anything against some good ol' boys just having a good time. But people hate teams that win, and that's a fact (but I hate the Yankees because they suck). Then again, it's also hard to be a fan of a team that hasn't won a playoff game since 1996. So, I think it's time for people to lay off the hate and shut the fuck up. I'm talking to you, Richard Justice.

RATING: 100%

PS - I expect Viking Andrew to follow-up with a second review of the Cowboys (but don't forget to link mine!).

Too Much Internets

Internet John is taking a little vacation from the internets. He'll be back when he's found his happy place, made some friends, and gotten his reading done.

RATING: Hopefully better%

(Image from I forget.)

New Belgium's Fat Tire

Malt, caramel, and faint cocoa notes stand out immediately. The hops remain in the background. This is a nice beer, especially since it comes in quarts and you can drink it on Tuesday night to take the edge of Thomas Kuhn on Copernicus. Did you know Copernicus was gay?

Just kidding.

Rating: 90%

(Image from i.pbase.com. The name "Fat Tire" refers to the effect of the carbohydrates therein on one's midsection. I'm trying to pork up for speedo season.)

Obama's Elf YouTube video

This gets funnier every time I play it, but something tells me it won't last and soon I'll think it's completely lame.

Rating: 60% (for now)

1000

1000 is a number that I probably would lose patience if I had to count to. If I had $1000 that would be pretty sweet, but if I got a ticket for $1000 I bet I would run away from the cops. The Roman numeral for 1000 is "M," but you can also use the letters "K" and "G" to represent it. One time we all said it was the Millennium and got scared, but really it was like the beginning of the third millennium since year zero CE so who cares Mathman. Anyway, it's nice to get to post 1000 on a blog if you have one, but the downside is there's not really another milestone for 4000 more posts so get cracking.

RATING: 1000% duh.

PS - Maybe in the comments you all could link back to some of your favorite reviews from the past year. Kind of like a retrospective except I don't have to do any of the work.

AWP Conference

AWP is a yearly conference in which a lot of writers, mainly poets, get together and pretend that if they make it as a poet they will be "famous." They all walk around acting like top shit kissing everybody's ass even though if they were the most famous living poet in America nobody would care outside of the ten thousand people gathered at that one conference. The most ridiculous phrase I've ever heard in my life is "rock star poet" used to describe some young poet who had two moderately successful books. But the thing is that a lot of these poets branded with that asinine label will act accordingly - doing drugs, sleeping with poet groupies (the lowest of all groupies), and showing up an hour late for poetry readings. The demise of poetry in America can only be blamed on poets. AWP is the most wretched display of delusions and sycophancy outside of a graduate workshop but I'm still sorry I couldn't make it this year.

RATING: 24%

Comic Three-In-One

Another triple set of comics that I didn't feel like reviewing individually.

Transformers Generation 1 Volume 1

I guess it's interesting that terrorists stole Megatron, but that's about it.

RATING: 31%




Sleepwalker Comics (1991-1994)

A hundred times less derivative than Darkhawk, and a hundred times less interesting.

RATING: 40%


Supreme Power Vol. 2: Powers And Principalities

Shit gets crazy, boobs, explosions, general awesomeness.

RATING: 83%

ECONOMIC DOOM

OH MY GOD THERE'S NO HOPE *pant pant pant* WHAT ARE WE EVER GOING TO DO???? THINGS ARE GOING TO HAVE TO CHANGE THAT MEANS WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! SAVE ME JESUS THE BIBLE FORETOLD THAT UNEMPLOYMENT WOULD RISE BUY SOME GUNS! BUY THEM NOW! NOTHING'S EVER GOING TO GET BETTER WE'RE DOOMED AMERICA IS DONE FOR HOLY SHIT I'M PEEING MY PANTS EVERY TEN MINUTES! I CAN'T BUY TEN CARS ANYMORE! HOLLYWOOD MOVIES ARE SLIGHTLY WORSE! OUR STANDARD OF COMFORT IS ONLY 80 TIMES GREATER THAN OTHER NATIONS NOT 100 TIMES ITS THE APOCALYPSE WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA shut the fuck up.

RATING: Ratings%

James Buchanan

Jimmy Buchanan was the 15th President of the United States and apparently our worst ever. Why the worst ever you ask? Is it because he's the only President to remain unmarried and originate from the blue-collar state of Pennsylvania? No, he's generally considered the worst because he was a "doughface" Northerner who supported the South, and failed to avert the Civil War (I'd argue that it was an inevitable result of the times). I think that's kind of unfair because George W. Bush is easily worse than Buchanan. Post your words of support for J.B. this President's Day.

RATING: 17%

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Season 2 Disc 5

"Playing God" - The interesting story of a pocket universe's expansion threatening to destroy DS9 is sidestepped for the boring story about Dax and some lame dude.

RATING: 39%

"Profit And Loss" - Love story between Quark and some Cardassian broad. Should have called it "Forehead Bump and Forehead Bump."

RATING: 58%

"Blood Oath" - A trio of Klingons from TOS come back to join Dax for some revenge killing, only guess what, she cops out at the end. "Starfleet" is futurese for "pussy" no offense.

RATING: 71%

"The Maquis, Part One" - Some farmer colonists start being terrorists, and Sisko and his pal Gul Dukat get captured by them to be continued.

RATING: 78%

Being forced to listen to poetry on interminably long elevator rides

A great way to make people detest poetry.



RATING: 3%

Flying

When I tell people I am afraid to fly, they often roll their eyes and offer the same insightful quip akin to “Smoking is bad for you.” They tell me I am more likely to die in a car wreck than in an air disaster. And they’re right, statistically.
According to Plane Crash Info’s website: “…the probability of a passenger being killed on a single flight [is] approximately eight million-to-one. If a passenger boarded a flight at random, once a day, everyday, it would statistically be over 21,000 years before he or she would be killed.”
What I don’t understand is why people are so enraged by my aviophobia. For the record: I do not hate airplanes; I do not hate pilots (my uncle is a Captain for AA; my grandpappy was a crop-duster and my father has a pilot’s license); I do not protest / detest people who do fly, or love to fly. I simply don’t like it. And yes, I know it stems from control issues (the same reason I hate YOU driving); I know it is irrational.

What I’d like to ask of you pro-flying-types is this: Please stop using the flying-is-less-dangerous-than-driving line. First, you are making a claim based on quantitative risk (no time to go into it here). Second, I can’t smoke on an airplane, but I can damn-well smoke in my pickup truck. In conclusion, while your phobia forces you to screech like a fucking pussy every time you see a spider, I am overcoming mine with a handful of Klonopins and a fifth of rye whiskey.

(first photo courtesy of planecrashinfo.com. Second photo courtesy of some redneck from the University of Toronto's personal website.)

Rating: 15%

Hurrah by Versus

Versus was an indie band from the 90s, but they've been broken up for years so stop living in the past. Just kidding - their last album, Hurrah, is really strong. It's full of catchy melodies, but they've got that small bit of oddness that makes them stand out from Creed or Radiohead or whatever other bullshit was on the radio when I was a sophomore in college. It's as though the Pixies crashed into the Zombies while driving on the road of common sense and decency. Hey, it's great fun, so if you're just going to waste your evening away in front of the computer you might as well watch this entire live show from 2000, poindexter.

RATING: 81%

Open Relationships

Since I've never cheated on anyone and am a perfect angel, I don't have anything to contribute to the cheating conversation. But one conversation I have had constantly with my friends is why, when it seems like nearly everyone has either cheated or been cheated on, open relationships aren't more common. After dating a particularly possessive psychodude, I decided that I didn't want to tether myself to another human being for a long time. I was single for six years. I dated a bunch of people, and dated some of those people while I was dating others. It wasn't a secret, I wasn't lying, I wasn't getting off on thinking I was hot shit because I had (this is probably a bad time to say something like "two irons in the fire," right?) more than one date at a time. One person, who I liked significantly better than many of the others, I even dated for 3 years. But we weren't exclusive -- he saw other people, I saw other people, and although we never talked about those other people to each other, we were both being honest about what we wanted. And for those six years, I watched as friends cheated on their lovers, found out they'd been cheated on, and cried and cursed and were crushed and all the while I doled out sympathy to them while living a comparitively stress-free life and shopping for condoms. If I ever said "open relationship" to anyone, I got the same response: "I couldn't do that. I'd be too jealous." Breaking news: jealousy can be overcome. Your insecurities can be overcome. If you feel like you're going to want to screw a bunch of other people while you're in a relationship, then why honor the monogamy charade? In my experience, it's been rare to find someone I've wanted to be monogamous with; rather than lie to myself and to someone I'm supposed to care about, I prefer to be honest, be safe, and (maybe) be a little jealous while I'm being true to myself and the person I choose to spend time with.

Why am I alone on this one? And this time, the question's not rhetorical...

(photo courtesy of stuffflypeoplelike.com -- punny!)

RATING: OBSESSEDWMYSELF% (translation: roughly 64%)

Shameless Self Promotion

Writing a post on one blog and putting a link to it on another blog is pathetic, and I don't know why anyone would ever do it. But let's say Thomas Benton wrote an article about how people shouldn't go to humanities graduate school, and you wanted to write a response to it, that wouldn't be so bad, would it?

RATING: Gotothepnakoticmanuscriptsandfindout%

(Image from www.mocoloco.com.)

Valentime's Day

A lot of people hate Valentime's Day. Lots of single people hate it because it makes them feel like total losers who are going to die alone, and lots of married people hate it because they have to have sex, which isn't easy on a full stomach. But I think single people should appreciate Valetime's Day as a reason to get really drunk and have a good cry, which is something people don't do enough. And married people should be happy about the sex, because otherwise the only ones getting laid would be teenage girls, rock stars, and people on welfare.

RATING: 84%

(Image from deviantart.com.)

Star Trek: Nemesis

Star Trek Nemesis is not only the worst Star Trek movie ever made, it is one of the worst products ever created by man in any medium. The plot is some ridiculous bullshit, I don't know, some clone of Captain Picard takes over the Romulans and then is going to destroy Earth but guess what, the Enterprise stops them. The dialogue is awful, and sounds like the juvenile fanfic. "Oh, remember when they mentioned Romulan Ale in the old Star Trek? Let's mention it 90 additional times here!" Also, at Riker and Troi's wedding, they have this awful band that sounds like public domain grocery store music. This is the kind of music the future holds? Jesus, somebody provoke China into starting World War III already and get it over with. And why does Worf, a space alien from 300 years in the future, know who Irving Berlin is? I barely know who Irving Berlin is and I was born in the same century and on the same planet as he was. Look, I could really complain about this movie for 20 more pages, but the lesson is it's awful and I'm glad they'll never make another TNG movie because they definitely don't deserve one after this piece of shit.

RATING: 2%

American Family Association

If there's anything worse than Christian values it's conservative Christian values. I don't have anything against Christianity, but I do have problems with anyone who uses rhetoric such as "homosexual agenda" and publishes a journal filled with anti-Semitic propaganda. When the first Muslim Congressman, Keith Ellison, was elected in 2006 they issued an "Action Alert" condemning the first swearing-in on the Koran. My Allah, what has the world come to? Anyway, these dudes have boycotted everything from Burger King to Microsoft to Hallmark for their support of anything that recognizes the equal rights of others. I don't know for sure, but I think Jesus don't appreciate ugly.

RATING: theamericanfamilyisdead%

M. Gary Neuman, Twat

M. Gary Neuman is a charlatan and an idiot. He apparently knows next to nothing about how men think, and even less about infidelity. I can't decide if he's actually stupid, or if he's exploiting women's insecurities in order to make money and get on Oprah, but either way his advice on why men cheat is spectacularly full of pastel-hued shit. Women who are interested in why men are actually unfaithful might want to read Matt Ridley's The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature or some other book that addresses human mating behaviour from an evolutionary psychological perspective. Some men undoubtedly cheat because they feel "emotionally disconnected" from their partners. Most men, however, cheat because 1) cheating makes them feel like they're winning the Game of Life (which, for better or worse, isn't an entirely zero sum affair) and 2) they're opportunists and they think they might be able to get away with it. The implication here is that HE DOESN'T WANT HER INSTEAD OF YOU, he wants you AND her AND whoever else he can get his dirty paws on. Following Neuman's awful advice and applauding when he burns the toast at breakfast like he's a retarded child is likely going to give him an ego boost that puts him more in the mood to cheat on you, not less. Forcing your man to talk about his feelings with you more will only motivate him to strangle you in your sleep with a bungee cord or a length of piano wire. If you really don't want him to cheat on you, 1) don't leave him alone with other women, not even for 10 minutes; 2) let him know how much it hurts you, and be serious, not melodramatic; and 3) be prepared to accept that he might still do it anyway, or be ready to leave him if you can't. If that doesn't work for you, ladies, I recommend homosexuality or self-abuse.

RATING: Primate%

(Image from www.oprah.com. Of course, not all men are pigs and heartless bastards; some are pussies, ugly and/or broke, and the rare man just has excellent self-discipline and doesn't want to jeopardize a good thing. And has a 10 inch penis. And wins the lottery every year on his birthday.)