Cooking and other observations

Friends with Money

I saw a ticket stub from this movie tucked in between bags of "Cranberry Circle" cookies at work the other day. Maybe somebody was trying to, you know, hide the evidence. It said "Friends With M." I don't know what that means. Friends with M&Ms? Good to have, I guess. Friends with Mangos? Get a life. Friends with Mojo Nixon? I'm two hundred percent jealous.

FWM is Jennifer Anniston's latest project! You know it's gonna be crappy, despite the presence of (Academy Award Winner) Frances McDormand. What the hell is she doing in a movie with Jennifer Anniston, anyway?

OK, so, Jennifer is poor, but she has a lot of rich friends. Here's the catch: Little Jen has a real job working as a maid, but she's marginally happier and a lot better looking than her rich friends. From the trailer, I can't tell where these women are supposed to have met, or why they know each other. Maybe Jen cleaned somebody's house, and they all decided that being friends with the maid would be a nice community service project.

Whatever. That's the movie.

I'm completely serious. I mean, I guess it's about why these women are friends with each other, but who can really tell? Because Jennifer Anniston is in it, and that's all you need to know. It could be deep and meaningful, I suppose... but I'm thinking it's not. I'm thinking this is just another chick flick designed to part women from their money. Probably not as maudlin as "Stepmom" or as stupid as "First Wives' Club."

(Well, all right, I haven't seen First Wives' Club, but Stepmom scarred me for life, even though I was messed up on pain killers when I watched it on TV. But the idea of FWC made me want to put out my own eyes, Oedipus style.)

Bottom Line: In the name of all that's holy, don't.

New Phone!

I finally broke down and purchased a new cell phone. I got the one that died yesterday some time in 2003, I think. The thing that sucks about it is that the manner of my former phone's death leaves me with no record of my friends' numbers. So if you know me, and if you're anybody other than Jesse, ZZ, or Fedward, I don't know your number any more. Sorry, my brain was stored in a water-logged sim card.

(I know Jesse's number because of a mnemonic, same for ZZ's. I know Fedward's cell number because I made a really stupid joke about it when he changed it to a local number back in 1997. Yes, I can remember my own material from nine years ago. I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your server, or she'll spit in your last drink.)

The manner of my old phone's death goes something like this: Saturday, Amanda purchases a travel mug. Sunday, Amanda fills said mug with coffee and leaves for work at the inhuman hour of 5:30 a.m. At work, she refills the mug and places it near her register, where she leaves it all day. Now, since Our Heroine has been operating on two hours sleep, she does something really stupid: when she is preparing to leave work for the day, she places the half-filled cup in her purse. The top is secured tightly, but being a modern travel mug, it has a switch that will close it; unfortunately for everything in the main compartment of her purse, the switch was set to open.

The good news is that an old, battered Coach bag will hold liquid. It could double as a wine skin, if need be. I'm not sure that information will ever come in handy, but you know, lesson learned. The other good thing is that my iPod was in the exterior pocket of the bag, and because of the superior construction of old school Coach bags (I've had this one for about 15 years), it stayed perfectly dry and was not damaged.

And I have a new phone that has a lot of features I probably won't use. But it also has a 1.3 mp camera, which makes me happy. Or it will make me happy when I figure out how to use it. I wanted to take a picture of the butt end of the SUV I parked behind, to document the bikes attached to it and the sign that said "Honk if you see parts falling off." The camera function wasn't obvious, although I did find the rotating lens; I just couldn't figure out how to make it take pictures.

That sign on the vehicle was weird. It appeared to be a professional print job, and that made me curious. I mean, bike parts aren't that big. I probably wouldn't notice one flying off a bike strapped to an SUV unless a derailleur happened to hit my windshield. (Note: "derailleur" is the only bike part I can name, and I know that only because my brother is a bike guy. I don't actually remember what the part does, or where on a bike you would find one.)

So I got to wondering: what happens when the driver of the bike-laden SUV with the sign hears honking? Does s/he stop and scour the last quarter-mile for parts? Maybe the trailing driver just wants the bike carrier to get out of the way. Or maybe the honker is simply feeling the mischief and wants to see what would happen post-honk.

I don't think this has anything to do with my new phone, except that I couldn't figure out how to make it take a picture to illustrate my not-all-that-funny-without-it story.

So, if you want me to have your phone number, you can email eyeroll@eyeroll.net and that will take care of it, assuming my mail forwarding works.

Quick Trailer Reviews

Now that my domain is back up and working properly--thanks, Typepad, for changing how things work after the last time my domain forwarding failed and I changed it because you changed some stuff on your server--I thought I'd do a couple of quick reviews. Well, that, and none of the trailers I've seen recently have left enough of an impression to make them worth in-depth mocking.

Art School Confidential is the story of a skinny guy who can't get laid. That kind of figures, now doesn't it? I mean, he wears vertical striped shirts, which make him look that much skinnier. This movie stars nobody I recognize, and was directed by the director of Bad Santa. Huh? I must have missed Bad Santa at my local multiplex.

The "art" is predictibly ironic, which also figures. Might or might not be funny. I think it's supposed to be a comedy, though.

United 93 is probably not funny. I'm going to hug the guy who makes a comedy about a terrorist event. Anyway, you know the story, don't you? If not--like, if you're four years old--this is a movie for you. Again, starring nobody I've ever heard of and directed by the director of The Bourne Supremacy and something else. Why do the people who put the trailer together think I care?

It's not like we didn't all know this sort of thing was coming, but at least the trailer doesn't make too much of the hero aspect, meaning that nobody says "Let's Roll."

Anyway, I don't need to see this one.

Continuing in the same vein, we conclude with Snakes on a Plane, starring Samuel L. Jackson. Bless you, Samuel L., for being famous! This movie looks like a ride at Universal Studios. (Note that I have never actually been to Universal Studios, but now that I've watched this trailer, I feel like I have.) Anyway, Sam's got a gun, and there are snakes, and a lot of screaming-jostling action. Oh, and a cat in a carrier, who is also screaming.

Why are there snakes on this plane? What idiot counter agent said that was OK? And how did Sam get that gun on the plane? None of these questions are addressed in the trailer. I'm thinking that's a good thing.

If you like theme parks, you'll probably want to see this movie.