New Year's Resolutions

So as this year comes to a close, I of course, as well as millions of others think back on the past year.
 
My 2011 wasn't so great.  In fact, a lot of bad things happened.

My grandfather died of cancer in the spring.

One of my good friends and friend of the family also passed away due to complications of cancer.  She struggled for a very long time and had a terrible family who didn't care for her.  Her son was an ungrateful, reluctant care-taker to his mother.  Her brothers and sisters only wanted money and things from her.  She died in the spring as well and I can only hope she is resting peaceful somewhere whenever her Heaven is.  I miss Rosemary dearly and think of her often.  I wish she was still here.

One of my other friends just completely flaked out on me and we are no longer friends.  He kept telling me he wasn't as good a person as I believed, but I never believed that.  I think he wanted to prove it to me this year.  I still only wish him the best of everything and hope he finds a place of happiness in life somewhere.  I still miss his friendship.

One of my best friends I lost as well to circumstance.  I always knew she was capable of being very cold to others, but I never thought she would be cold towards me.  It turned out, when I went to her to pour out my heart and voice concerns about our friendship, she never took any responsibility for her actions and she never apologized for hurting my feelings.  She laid the blame at my feet and said my lack of speaking up sooner caused the death of our long, close friendship.  I miss her everyday and wish things had turned out different between us.  I didn't want to throw away a decade long friendship, but, I guess she did.  She went out of her way to tell me she'd been fine without me and losing our friendship wasn't going to hurt her.  She shocked me as well by implying I was an ignorant racist, which couldn't be farther from the truth.  My speaking up has caused a lot of pain and misery for me, but I couldn't hold onto the things I had for so long.  I was just so disappointed in her reaction to me.  But, it's done, all of it has been said and I don't regret being friends with her for so long.  She was very close to me like a sister and I can only wish her the best in life.  I don't have any bad feelings towards her, I just have disappointment like I've never felt before, hurt, and I miss her.  I will always have a little hole in my heart where our friendship used to be, but I also have some wonderful memories of how we used to be, when things were good and we would laugh all night and have a ton of inside jokes.  Some really special times for us that I cherish and I won't ever forget....yeah I'm going to miss her a lot.
 
I continued to bounce between two different states and have a challenging relationship with my husband.  I continued to be unemployed and went back to my heaviest weight ever....170.

I faced some real health challenges this year as well as financial ones.  I am just glad that I got a clean bill of health from my doctors after all my hospital visits and office visits.  The finances...well...that's part of my new year's resolutions, which is what this post is about after all.

1.  I will not eat any processed sugar in things like cake, candy, cookies, cupcakes, brownies, muffins, etc. until September (my birth month).

2.  I will not buy anything unnecessary until August (when Halloween merchandise starts to be released).  Pay down some debt.

3.  I will not drink any kind of soda at all this year.

Then there's always the usual things I try (and one brand new one!): better myself any way I can, post right here on my blog every single day, swear less, take better care of myself, work out more often, eat more fruits and vegetables, tell my family and friends more often how much they mean to me, try to be more positive, try to find work and support myself again.

So what's your new year's resolutions?  Do you even bother making any?
Let me know.  I want to hear 'em!

This is why I don't like some movies today

IMDB.com is putting out some of their lists for the worst movie moments of 2011.  I was curious so I wanted to see what they had.  I was not disappointed only shocked that if some of this is a true moment in a movie I don't know how it ever got filmed.  These 2 moments sound very 1.) unbelievably bad 2.) disgusting.
Keith Simanton from IMDB put out this list for the top 10 worst movie moments.  I included the top 2 here:
 "#1 - "The Imprint Scene:" The first half of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn was like the Halloween edition of Bride magazine and the second half was Rosemary's C-section. It's in the latter half of the film wherein *SPOILER ALERT* Jacob (Taylor Lautner) locks eyes with the minutes-old succubus spawn of Edward (Robert Pattinson)and Bella's(Kristen Stewart) wedlock romp. Instead of thinking, "Hey, cute baby" he suddenly sees her mature before his eyes (kind of like Erica Kane's daughter Bianca in All My Children) into a redheaded Red Sonja and becomes her lifelong mate. It's the maraschino cherry on top of one seriously loopy movie. 
#2: "The C-Section:" More The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn SPOILERS!! Speaking of that C-section, it really has to be seen to be believed. In the book the baby that is growing inside of Bella claws its demonic little way out. In the film they come up with an even more unnerving solution for getting the little toddler out of her emaciated mommy. Edward, it appears, chews it out!!"

There is a reason why I don't like the Twilight series (other than the lack of it having an interesting story to tell and no talent actors in it) it's ridiculous and apparently sometimes completely vile and disturbed.
Peter Travers from Rolling Stone Magazine said it best, "One of the most nauseating successes.  The worst thing about America...people wanting to go see this vampire garbage." 

This is some of the worst movies of 2011 according to GQ magazine.  I had to include them 'cuz some of them are too damn funny not to:

The Worst Movies of the Year

This was the year Adam Sandler dressed in drag in Jack and Jill. The year they tried to bring back Conan the Barbarian. Hell, this year, Kevin James ate at a T.G.I. Friday's with a gorilla in Zookeeper. But none of those movies even cracked our list. Nope. These are the worst sins committed to celluloid in 2011

By The Editors of GQ 

War Horse
Some films are born bad with the audacity of cynicism: The fat-suit cash-grab Jack and Jill and its fellow copycat crappers Red Riding Hood, Beastly, Abduction, Conan the Barbarian, The Hangover Part II, Arthur, Mars Needs Moms, New Year's Eve, The Three Musketeers, and Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son were indisputably among the worst-executed, least entertaining, and most calculated films of the year. But their failures were not exactly shocks. I sighed, but I didn't howl. The film that left me sputtering and spewing and fuming was War Horse, thanks to the sour-milk surprise of seeing Steven Spielberg make a film so insultingly high-brow juvenile.
War Horse is both the worst sort of self-important Oscar bait and the most preachy sort of Caldecott kids-book award bait: A syrupy stunted-growth picture-book about how every gosh-darn soldier has a heart made of hay. The parents are local color, the soldiers are stock archetypes who seem to share bunkers with Elmer Fudd, and everyone, everywhere, is decent on the inside. The horse, of course, is the most pure of all, becoming almost comically sentient as it tends to other beasts and gobbles up all the best close-ups.

War Horse underestimates its audience in many of the same ways the year's other D-list tween and man-child duds do, only with an epic sense of self-importance. The overblown, manipulative-as-your-mom John Williams score tells the audience how it must feel from beat to beat with less subtlety than the soundtrack to an episode of 16 and Pregnant: It's such intrusive, nanny-state steering, Spielberg might as well screw training wheels into your heart. Every rough edge of the story (the father's alcoholism, the parent's flawed marriage, the animal abuse) has been sanded down so much there's nothing left but mushy sawdust. Character flaws are raised, then excused, and finally praised: Why does Dad drink so much and why is he such a jerk? First answer: He's having a tough time. Second: Actually, because he was a war hero, honey.
In the original stage production of War Horse, the Germans spoke German and the French spoke French. In the Lincoln Center adaptation in New York, they spoke in thickly accented English. In War Horse, the charming German soldier speaks such ridiculously good English that the director has no choice but to have another character feign shock at the Kraut's newscaster locution. What are the odds? In this film, no word, symbol, plot twist, or emotion will go misunderstood. The fog of war is hovered away.
Middlebrow wags like to complain a lot about how bad comic book adaptations imbue childish stories with grand social-political themes. It seems far worse to reduce the entirety of WWI to picture-book bathos about how everyone loves horses and it's a small world, after all. Yes, there have been worse casts. Sure, that big black horse looks great storming across the battlefield, but no number of pretty shots can save a concept so insipid. To put it another way, in 2070, do you want to see an Oscar contender about a sweet-hearted Baathist and a decent Blackwater contractor who, against the artfully composed tracer fire of Fallujah, bond together, and save a brave, noble camel?—Logan Hill

The Future
So you're a cat. A stray cat, with a mangy, wooly, mane-like ring of fur around your collar. You're missing a paw, too. Still, you're a cat. Could be worse. Then this woman comes along. She's got a halo of brown hair and eyes like droplets from the clear blue ocean. And the affect of an electroshocked horse. She's going to put you in her movie, she says. Gonna be a big star. You're a cat, so whatever. Still, you don't realize that she's going to condescend to and objectify your pain. How? Well, she's going to assume your voice (remember, you're a cat and don't actually have a human speaking voice.) That voice is going to sound the way couples rapt by their own eensy-weensy baby talk sound. This is meant to seem adorable. It will make people want to hang themselves, minimizing your struggle. Then, she's going to represent you, during her otherwise unbearable film about adrift Los Angeles 30-somethings unaware of how to conduct themselves in the world, as a pair of puppet legs. Well, technically one puppet leg and one bandaged puppet appendage. This is all starting to sound bizarre and horrifying to you, I know. It gets worse—you're the whole point of this movie, but no one really cares for you. Instead, they use your imminent arrival in their home—you're not even in their home yet!—as an opportunity to discover that they are deeply shallow people who can sometimes bend the space and time continuum to their needs. Look, I don't get it either, cat. The worst part? The whole time, Droplet Eyes is calling you Paw Paw. That's not your name. It's probably Ralph. Or Tiger. Definitely not Paw Paw. Then again, you're just a three-legged cat. What right do you have to dignity?—Sean Fennessey

Straw Dogs
The message of this movie in one sentence: If Kate Bosworth would just put on a goddamn bra, six hillbillies might still be alive today. The worst thing about hack director Rod Lurie's pointless, stupid remake of the scandalously ultraviolent 1971 Sam Peckinpah original—in which a milquetoast academic works up the guts to defend his gorgeous wife from a home invasion by a crew of drooling local savages—is that Lurie actually thinks he's saying something honest about the primal nature of men. His only innovation (if you could call it that) is to stir in a splash of red state-blue state frisson, transplanting the action from the English countryside to the American Deep South and turning Dustin Hoffman's math professor into a Hollywood screenwriter played by James Marsden—and in the process converting Peckinpah's psycho-sexual tangle of urges into the year's lamest political allegory. The only part I liked: toward the end, during the bad guys' climactic siege, when James Woods—playing a mouth-breathing football coach whose decades of drunken, abusive behavior toward just about everyone in town is tolerated because, uh, he coaches football?—gets a pot of scalding hot water thrown in his face. At that moment, I laughed, because I thought to myself, "That's exactly what watching this movie feels like."—Devin Gordon

Green Lantern
I read comic books when I was a kid, but I wasn't a Green Lantern-ite. (A Green Lantern-head?) I wasn't a junior member of the Lantern corps; I didn't have a plastic emerald power ring I found at the bottom of a box of Kix. What I'm saying is that, I didn't have any expectations to disappoint. I just couldn't sleep.
So around 2 a.m., I got out of bed, scrolled through my OnDemand options, and thought, "Hey, that movie stars Ryan Reynolds, whom I've inexplicably adored since Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, as a test pilot who becomes a superhero and Blake Lively, who takes the nice naked photos of herself, as another test pilot and there are aliens and that seems all right." But the special effects were as muddy and floundering as Hubble Telescope images before they fixed the mirror; the jokes were a five year old's jokes; the plot was either too simple or too confusing; the villain seemed to be a big evil yellow blob. It definitely did not have “that Star Wars feel,” which is what Definitely Maybe's Ryan Reynolds kept telling people when it came out. And it definitely was not The Right Stuff with Superheroes and Aliens and A Naked Blake Lively.
I made it about 40 minutes in. Then I went back to bed, and stared at the ceiling, which was more entertaining.—Mark Lotto

We Need to Talk About Kevin

I saw director Lynne Ramsay's latest film a few months ago, and I was going to watch it again just to be sure I had all my facts straight. But. I. Could. Not. Bear. It. The first thing my friend and I did after watching the film was race to the nearest bar, which is good news for alcoholics. For us, it was simply the most expedient way to wipe the experience from our minds. Kevin is relentlessly, mind-numbingly, soul-crushingly—and, worst of all—pointlessly depressing. It's like a parody of an art film, without the benefit of one single laugh.

A woman (Tilda Swinton) and her husband (John C. Reilly) have a baby. The mother feels no love for her boy (the reason is never revealed). Kevin becomes a silent child who plays nice with dad while secretly torturing mom (Reilly, at his most doltish, is oblivious bordering on mentally slow). When Kevin (now played by the beautiful Ezra Miller) becomes a teenager, he goes on a killing spree at his local high school, possibly to hurt mom or simply because he is a psychopath. Much of the film is about Swinton dealing with the aftermath—her (I suppose) grief and guilt, as well as retribution from the community. Yes, she inexplicably (Idiotically? Passive- aggressively? Masochistically? Who knows why!) remains in the same town.

Swinton is mesmerizing—really, it's impossible look away from that translucent mask of a face—but the film isn't helped by her usual reticence, which compounds the film's ambiguity. The equivalent of cinematic quicksand, We Need to Talk About Kevin slowly suffocates the viewer with inexplicable...what? Grief? Anxiety? Boredom? In my case, the emotion was anger. The drinks, however, were excellent.—Mary Kaye Schilling

Larry CrowneThere were three in-flight movie options on Continental Flight 15 last month. The first was Monte Carlo, which stars that girl Justin Bieber is dating. The second was Larry Crowne, with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. Somehow, the third, which I cannot recall, was less enticing than the last two. I chose Larry Crowne.
You remember the previews. Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks) has just been laid off, so he goes to community college, where he meets Julia Roberts, a disaffected professor with a drinking problem. It's unclear which mega-star this movie was intended to be a vehicle for: The movie opens on Tom Hanks, and it follows him throughout, but his character doesn't change or evolve. He continues to be the same lovable loser he was in the beginning—except that, in the end, he gets the girl. Roberts's character, meanwhile, quits drinking, leaves her boring husband, and starts to care about her job again, all within the course of an hour and a half. In this movie, Man meets Slob, Slob becomes Woman, and then Man is ready to fall in love with Woman. (Woman is, of course, predisposed to like Man as he is, to demand nothing of him.) It's such a simple plot that you could watch it with the sound off and gather every major reveal from visual cues alone—which is actually what I did on my return flight, when faced with the same three movie options. My headphones had broken and I'd finished my book, so I sat and watched Tom ride his Vespa around the big, silent screen in the bulkhead between first in coach, for a second time. The Vespa symbolizes reclaimed youth—it is the vehicle of choice for cool kids who inexplicably populate this community college. Julia's blender full of ice and liquor is meant to symbolize depression and neediness. In reality, Vespas are only driven by douchebags and Europeans (and combinations of the two), and a blended drink full of ice and liquor is a delicious, refreshing thing. In fact, I've never wanted one more.—Mark Byrne

The Adventures of TintinI didn't hate The Adventures of Tintin because I'm biased against kid's movies. In fact, I was one of the lone souls in this office who liked Steven Spielberg's other animal-hero epic, War Horse (THAT HORSE!). I hated it because I'm 26. I'm 26 and I shouldn't have to try hard to follow the plot of a movie that is made for seven-year-olds. A movie that is also made by Steven Spielberg. But that is exactly what happened during Tintin.
So, there's, like, this treasure. But it's in another realm. And you can only see that realm if you're drunk or a ghost or something? I don't know! It's really complicated!
That's not the only reason I didn't like it. They made Tintin an animated boy-who-looks-like-a-lesbian, a recreation that is, first of all, not true to the legendary comic, and second, a two-year-old meme. The movie, in my limited understanding, also seemed to tacitly tell kids to go get hammered. Black-out drunk. Seeing-things drunk. The hero of the film is a pirate who receives these presage visions that lead to a hidden treasure. He only gets those visions when he is six sheets to the wind, though. It's like the Spielberg equivalent of a bonerific Disney priest.
There was one bright point: Every now and then a movie is so pissing bad that my body pays me a favor. It happens when I don't have the smarts to get up and leave mid-scene. Or am just too proud to admit I've wasted $12 on awful cinema. My brain, on some psychosomatic shit, will just stone-cold conk out. This happened only once this year, during this movie, for about five minutes.
I don't remember at exactly what point the reflex kicked in. But I do remember waking up from a blissful-but-belated slumber to find a drunk Snowy the Dog, burping, in 3-D. And that was impressive. That was not the worst.—Andrew Richdale

New Year's EveNew Year's Eve feels like the movie adaptation of a vodka ad. There's an orgy of pretty people wearing sparkly clothes, spewing lines of dialogue composed by a committee seemingly intent on selling things. They're slogans, really. Like: "How do you explain the entire world coming together on one night?" "The countdown begins!" "Let's do it!" "Somebody's gonna have a happy New Year tonight!" "Are you amazed yet?" And "You may have just found The One." Don't tell me you can't see every single one of these sentences on the side of a bus, printed in bold letters beneath a picture of a sweating bottle of vodka. Or hear them in the chorus of a Black Eyed Peas song—the auditory version of a vodka ad.
But you know what this movie is actually selling? OUR DIGNITY. (Along with those last few wisps of Robert De Niro's soul.) It's like returning a defective microwave to The Home Depot and having them put the same defective microwave in a shiny new microwave box for a repackaging fee of $12. You've seen New Year's Eve already. It was called CrazyStupidLoveActuallyValentinesDay. And this year's mutation doesn't try half as hard as last year's Valentine's Day at silly things like "plot," "character development," and "logic." Which is, I know, akin to saying "Hitler didn't try half as hard as Eichmann to be nice!" Please don't infer that Valentine's Day is good. New Year's Eve, though, defies even basic expectations. An example: Jon Bon Jovi stars in this movie. He plays a singer named "Jensen." I'm pretty sure director Garry Marshall just handed him the International Pain Scale and pointed to the face he wanted Bon Jovi to attempt in each scene. Every interaction with him begins with another character unsubtly illuminating his emotional status for us: "Jensen, you look sad!" or "Jensen, you must be so happy right now!"
Also—and this is where I would usually text-scream SPOILER ALERT, if there was something here to be spoiled—Robert De Niro plays a curmudgeon dying of cancer, refusing treatment for some inexplicable reason. The very professional doctors taking care of him say loudly, within earshot of his room, "I doubt he'll make it even minutes into the New Year" and "I'm surprised he hasn't died already! What is he holding on for?" Naturally, the Times Square ball drop. Because lifelong New Yorkers love Times Square on New Year's Eve. His last wish is to go up to the hospital roof and watch it. (In fact: "The only reason I picked this dirty, short-staffed hospital is because I know the roof has a good view of Times Square!") He gets to the roof. He dies with a smile on his face just moments into the New Year. Cut to Josh Duhamel, in a parallel vignette, waxing Hallmark poetic on the importance of hope to a bloated ensemble of dead-eyed actors who can't even bother to rouse themselves for the paycheck. Even the extras can't get up for this movie.
Here's the good news: At some point Marshall and his team will run out of holidays. Eventually. Until then, from the producers of Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve, comes Columbus Day. And Summer Friday. And, ultimately, Yom Kippur (Tagline: "We're hungry! For love.") and Veteran's Day ("Falling in love doesn't require legs.") Then this mind-numbingly pasteurized genre will expire. To quote New Year's Eve, "Let the countdown begin."—Lauren Bans

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I would like to add my own worst film of 2011.
Battle: Los Angeles was pretty damn terrible and I have a review of it in one of my previous posts.
There's lots of reasons it sucked but most of all you didn't ever get interested in the characters.  The story was interesting on paper.  I mean, who wouldn't want to see another movie about an alien invasion, but the movie fails to make you care about the people left to fight the battle.  Which means you end up not caring who wins.

A close runner up would be Justin Bieber: Never Say Never.  I've not seen the movie, nor will I waste a second of my life watching that little teenage snot-nosed no talent girlie-voiced boy who is grossly overpaid do anything.  I'm positive that this movie sucks because Justin Bieber does.

The surprise of the year for me was that I actually enjoyed the remake movie of the television series The A-Team.  I thought it wasn't going to be very good, but ended up being pretty enjoyable.


 

The Melting Pot

meltingpot.com

This place is one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE restaurants ever!  I've had so many wonderful experiences here and I can't recommend it enough to you all out there.

Here's the concept:
You sit at a table with a cooktop that heats up.  The crew comes around asks what you want and they start a fondue for you.  It heats up, you dip food into it, eat and enjoy.
If you have a full experience you can expect:
A salad of some kind
A cheese fondue of your choice
The entree of your choice
A chocolate fondue

If you go with a cheaper or abbreviated menu, you can choose just a cheese and chocolate fondue and it runs around $50.00 for 2.
The whole meal is more like $100-150.00 for 2.
It's pretty expensive, but it's so worth it.

There's an option all the time for the item called The Big Night Out.  This is usually pretty good if you want something new or different from the regular menu and could be different throughout the country.  It changes out at least twice every year and never repeats, ever, so if you want it, try it now.
Currently as I write this post this is what they have to offer specifically, but please remember this is a limited one time only menu selection.  In the past they've had French, Mexican, German, and American themed choices.  This time they have:
America - this includes:
Boston Lager Cheddar Cheese Fondue (Absolutely delicious with scallions, bits of bacon, and resembling the taste of a cheeseburger in a fondue.  This is the only thing I've had on this Big Night Out menu)
Wisconsin Wedge Salad and
an entree that includes Memphis BBQ, Pork Tenderloin, old bay shrimp, and Buffalo chicken.
For the chocolate fondue - a variation of the PB&J sandwich (don't ask, I haven't tried it & it sounds strange, but if anyone could do it well, they could!)
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Salad choices:
House salad - romaine, iceberg lettuce, cheddar cheese, tomatoes, croutons, sliced egg, and a choice of peppercorn ranch or sweet and tangy house dressing.  Haven't tried it but I'm tempted.

Spinach Mushroom - spinach, portobellos, red onion, chopped bacon, Roma tomatoes, and a warm burgundy shallot vinaigrette.  This I haven't tried and won't because of the mushroom.

Caesar - romaine, shredded Parmesan cheese, croutons, Parmesan encrusted pine nuts, with Caesar dressing.  This one is my favorite and absolutely delicious.

California - mixed baby greens, Roma tomatoes, walnuts, Gorgonzola cheese with a raspberry black walnut vinaigrette.  Haven't tried it.
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I should mention the things you dip into the cheese of course!
A couple kinds of cubed fresh bread
Vegetables like carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower
and Apple wedges.

Cheese fondue choices:
Spinach Artichoke - fontina, butterkase cheeses, spinach, artichoke hearts, and garlic.  Sounds yummy, but I have not tried it yet.

Fiesta - cheddar cheese with lager beer, jalapeno peppers and salsa as hot as you like it.  I tried this once, and I just didn't care for it.

Cheddar cheese - sharp aged cheddar and Emmenthaler Swiss cheeses, lager beer, garlic, and seasonings.  MMMMMmmmm delicious!  I've had it several times.

Wisconsin Trio - fontina, butterkase, and buttermilk bleu cheeses, white wine, scallions, and a bit of sherry.  Very, very good!

Traditional Swiss - Gruyere, Emmenthaler Swiss cheeses, white wine, garlic, nutmeg, lemon, and Kirschwasser.  Haven't tried it, but I really want to.
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Entree choices:
Here's where it gets a bit confusing.  You have choices of what to eat and how to cook it.  The menu gets a bit overwhelming for the first timer here.  It's not as hard as the menu makes it look. 

This is not you cooking your own food at a restaurant.  Some reviews on food & restaurant websites will show people complaining of how they paid a lot of money to cook their own food.  Fondue is just that, a preparation of hot fluid where you dip food into to eat.  This is a fun experience and not just eating out.  Yes, you do have to pay attention when you are cooking raw meat in a broth.  I do about 2 minutes for just about everything, but it's part of the fun!

Land & Sea - filet mignon, breast of chicken and shrimp.

The French Quarter - Filet mignon, breast of chicken and tender shrimp all seasoned with Cajun spices and served with Andouille sausage
Seafood Trio - Tender shrimp, sesame-crusted sushi-grade ahi tuna and cedar-plank salmon
Shrimp & Sirloin - Tender shrimp and teriyaki-marinated sirloin
Breast of chicken - that's it.

Cedar Plank Salmon - American classic with a perfectly-balanced smoky flavor
Pacific Rim - Teriyaki-marinated sirloin, tender shrimp, citrus-marinated pork tenderloin, breast of duck, breast of chicken and potstickers
The Vegetarian - Edamame or onion rings, artichoke hearts, Portobello mushrooms, Thai-peanut-marinated tofu, asparagus, spinach artichoke ravioli and our Big Night Out pasta

Teriyaki-marinated Sirloin - is at it sounds.

Filet mignon - 6 or 9 oz. size

Ways to cook the meat and veggies listed above:
Coq au Vin - Hot broth with flavors of fresh herbs, mushrooms, garlic, spices and burgundy wine

Court Bouillon - Homemade, seasoned vegetable broth

Bourguignonne - European-style fondue in cholesterol-free canola oil / 0g trans-fat oil
Mojo - Caribbean-seasoned bouillon with a distinctive fresh-garlic flavor and a citrus flair

Included in the meats and cooking styles there's a lot of sauces they give you to complement the finished meat.  Should mention here you don't pick them, they are given to you based on what things you choose to eat.  Here they are:

Curry - A mild, yogurt-based curry that complements fresh vegetables and salmon.
Green Goddess - A  blend of cream cheese, sour cream, onions, chives and parsley that is great on vegetables and makes an excellent stuffed mushroom. (This is one of my favorites)

Teriyaki Glaze - with garlic, ginger and onions.  For steak items. (pretty good)

Gorgonzola Port - A rich and robust cheese sauce that pairs well with filet mignon and fresh vegetables.
Ginger Plum - Own unique recipe with red and green bell peppers, ginger and just a hint of plum that is delicious on chicken and shrimp. (This one is very good as well)
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Chocolate fondue choices:
First I'll mention what they give you to dip into these:
Strawberries, bananas, cheesecake, brownies, rice krispy treats, marshmallows, and pound cake.

The original - Features their signature milk chocolate with a swirl of crunchy peanut butter
(So SO good!  I just tried this for the first time last time and it was a knock out!)

Disaronno meltdown (formerly known as Amaretto meltdown) - Silky white chocolate swirled with Disaronno® Originale Amaretto and flambéed tableside (This one has been my favorite for years.  Recently they took it off the menu, but you can still ask for it)

Cookies 'n Cream Marshmallow Dream - Dark chocolate topped with marshmallow cream, flambéed, swirled together and garnished with crushed Oreo® cookies

Flaming Turtle - Milk chocolate, caramel and chopped pecans flambéed tableside (tried it, but didn't care for it much)

Pure Chocolate - Milk, dark or white chocolate melted for the most pure of all chocolate fondues
Bananas Foster - Silky white chocolate swirled with bananas and a dash of cinnamon and flambéed tableside
Yin & Yang - Half dark chocolate and half white chocolate artfully swirled for a perfect balance of flavors
Chocolate S'mores - Milk chocolate topped with marshmallow cream, flambéed and garnished with graham cracker pieces
Special Event - Create your own masterpiece. Select from milk, dark or white chocolate and make it a culinary work of art with your choice of Baileys, Cointreau, Grand Marnier, Chambord or Tuaca!
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Don't forget you can order any of the items separately from the Big Night Out Menu.  You don't have to order all of it, you can just choose the salad or just the cheese.  That's what I did last time with the cheese choice so don't be shy!
Also I should mention I just looked at the local menu for my area and it may be a bit different from yours.  Just look over the whole menu carefully and pick out what you really want to try.  Most times, you'll find something really fantastic even if you've been there 100 times and tried everything!  There's always something new.

Note: This is a pretty expensive restaurant and it does get very VERY busy for holidays and weekends.  Best to make reservations if you are planning something special and they also offer stuff like roses on the table, balloons, or cards if you want for a fee.  It takes anywhere from 2-3 hours to finish eating here because they let you take your time and never rush you.  The service and food that I've received at this chain restaurant has been consistently excellent all across the country.  You will not regret eating here, and there is no dress code (unless they are having a special event - i.e. ugly Christmas sweater night, or couples on New Year's Eve type things) so come as you are.

P.S.  Happy 34th Birthday to one of my dearest friends!

Coffee anyone?

Strange thing with me and coffee....I don't like the way it tastes, but I love its aroma.

Regardless of how I feel about it, recent studies are showing that 1 (and only 1, don't overdo it) cup of coffee a day is really beneficial to your health.  It even has more antioxidants than green tea!  If you have a heart issue (like I do) and can't have caffeine, you can still drink decaffeinated coffee, although the health benefit is reduced a little bit.

And don't forget these health benefits are strongest with plain black coffee.  If you start adding cream and sugar you cancel all the good stuff out.

I wished I liked the flavor of coffee just for the health benefits, but alas, I don't.  But still no reason not to pass along the info to you!

List of my Most Anticipated Movies for 2012

Around this time of year I love to look at coming attractions for the next year.
2012 is going to have some kick-ass movies.

I have a little rating system here to let you know how crazy with anticipation I am over these movies:
Through the roof - This means my highest level of anticipation
Crazy about it - Pretty excited but not the maxed out level
Very interested - Is as it sounds
Let's wait and see - I want to see it but maybe just to make fun of it or see how bad it really is.
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The Dark Knight Rises
My expectations: Through the roof!
Release date: July 20, 2012
Eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, the terrorist leader Bane arrives in Gotham City, pushing it and its police force to their limits, forcing its former hero Batman to resurface after taking the fall for Harvey Dent's crimes.
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway
Why I want to see it: Are you kidding me?  The Dark Knight should have won the Oscar for best movie because it simply was the best movie out there that year (2008).  Regardless of it being a superhero movie, (which the Oscar Academy looks down on) the plot was fantastic, writing - flawless, acting - terrific (especially Heath Ledger), soundtrack phenomenal, everything about it was absolutely incredible so it goes without saying that I can't wait to see another one.  IF Nolan follows the comic book, Batman will have his back broken in this film and will not be able to walk ever again, much less fight.  IF Nolan semi-follows the comic book and has this happen, I think he might well just kill Bruce Wayne all together and possibly the Commissioner as well.  Either way, I'm pretty sure I'll be crying at the end of this one for lots of reasons (heavy good drama, sadness of the series ending, the thought of Christian Bale dying).
What may suck about it: Well Anne Hathaway has no range.  All she can do well is play a fresh from college girl who falls in love with the wrong guy, or gets a big job she can't handle.  She has no depth and she cannot play a heavy so I'm really worried about her playing Cat Woman.  I know Christopher Nolan is capable of making mistakes, take Katie Holmes in Batman Begins for example.  She was the worst part of that movie hands down so I was just hoping he wouldn't make a mistake like that again.  At least she was gone for the second one, Maggie Gyllenhaal was so so much better.  It's also the last Batman movie coming out by Nolan and his team of incredibly talented people so I wished he hadn't limited himself to only 3 movies.  They are so awesome!



Mass Effect (This film is in development so details remain undisclosed at present)
My expectations: Crazy about it!
Release date: unknown, 2012
Mankind discovers ancient alien technology that enables faster than light travel. Using stored coordinates, mankind stumbles on a hostile alien race know as the Turians.
Director: unknown
Starring: unknown
Why I want to see it: Mass Effect 2 (the video game) has its own post on my blog here.  It stands alone as my favorite video game I have ever seen and played.  It was an INCREDIBLE game filled with great voice acting, a superb plot, and was cinematic already so making it into a full length feature film is a treat.  I've also heard that they are not going to take the original game story and just translate it for film so I want to see what exactly they're making a film about.
What may suck about it: Well, there's a lot of unknowns about this movie right now.  I have no idea who's going to star in it.  I played the female version of Commander Shepard in the game, but there was also the male version and I'm pretty damn sure they'll go for the male Shepard in the movie, so I can't relate as much there, but it could be ok.  It may completely fall short of my expectations as well, but there's always that risk when this kind of movie comes out.  Stay tuned for updates as I'm sure I'm going to hear a lot about this in the future!


Prometheus
My expectations: Very interested!
Release date: June 8, 2012

A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson, Guy Pearce
Why I want to see it: Ridley Scott is a very good sci-fi director and I look forward to seeing him do something with the Alien franchise.  This is not exactly supposed to be an Alien prequel, but it does reference the movie.  I like space movies in general but I love Charlize, Patrick, and Guy so that combo should be fun to see.
What may suck about it: Well, it may fall very short of my expectations, but I'll have to see some trailers first to get a better idea if it's going to be good or a little less than good.  In the end, it might rely too much on special effects and not enough on story and characters.



The Amazing Spider-Man
My expectations: Let's wait and see.
Release date: July 3, 2012
Director: Marc Webb
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone

Teenager Peter Parker grapples with both human problems and amazing super-human crises.
Why I want to see it: This is a reboot of the series starting over at Peter Parker's high school years.  I'd like to see how they handle it, but I was a big fan of Tobey Maguire's version so I'm a little bit cautious already.
What may suck about it: The above.  A lot of people have the other series in mind, so I really don't know how I'm going to react to this version.  It could be great, could be bad, we will all find out next summer.

Total Recall
My expectations: Let's wait and see
Release date: August 3, 2012

As the nation states Euromerica and New Shanghai vie for supremacy, a factory worker (Farrell) begins to suspect that he's a spy, though he is unaware which side of the fight he's on.

Director: Len Wiseman

Starring: Colin Farrel, Bryan Cranston, Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsale

Why I want to see it: Both this version and the original are based on the short story by Philip K. Dick called We Can Remember It for you Wholesale.  From the quick synopsis we get for this one, it already sounds different so I'd like to see if it's closer to the original first movie or short story.  I have yet to read the story so I'm a bit behind here.  I'm just really curious about this project.
What may suck about it: Well, to start, I loved the original movie and I remember going to see it in theaters so I'm a bit protective of it.  Second, I hate Colin Farrel.  I can't stand him as a human being and I don't like him as an actor either.  None of his performances are anything special and he could easily be replaced in all his films with someone else.  Plus this is his second remake in a row following, Fright Night released earlier this year.  I kinda' want to see Total Recall to see if it's going to be terrible and then I can rip it to shreds here later : )

The Hunger Games
My expectations: Very interested!
Release date: March 23, 2012
Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister's place for the latest match.
Director: Gary Ross
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth
Why I want to see it: I just barely learned of this project last night and it looks pretty good.  The child actors don't look too annoying and the story sounds intriguing.  Fighting to the death always makes for good drama, granted that characters actually die and the movie doesn't find some cutesy way around this.  There is a series of books about this which the movie is based on so I might want to read those before I see this one.
What may suck about it:  If the child actors or the story line is too kiddish and not mature, I will not enjoy this premise.  If the directors or the books found a way around people dying and they say that's what it's about, I'll be mad.  There's always the possibility that this may just be a bad movie to begin with, with kid stories, you never know.



World War Z
My expectations: Let's wait and see.
Release date: Doomsday! December 21, 2012 (I hope I can actually see it before the world ends!)
A UN representative, writing a report on the great zombie war interviews survivors
in the wake of World War Z.
Director: Marc Forster
Starring: Brad Pitt, David Morse, Matthew Fox
Why I want to see it: I like zombie stories!  I like end of the world stories as well so I'm pretty interested.  I just haven't seen any trailers because they don't exist yet so my judgement may change later on of course.  David Morse is one of my favorite actors and I haven't seen him in a bit so I'm looking forward to him.  He's just so talented! 
What may suck about it:  Brad Pitt is in it and he's nothing special.  I don't understand the hoopla around him.  I think he's good at playing goofball characters like what he did in Ocean's Eleven, but he lacks depth and range as well.  Plus if this is just people talking and they don't show flashbacks of what happened or try to make it too dramatic without enough zombies I'll be very disappointed.



The Avengers
My expectations: Very interested!
Release date: May 4, 2012
The S.H.I.E.L.D. agency brings together a team of superhumans to help save the Earth from annihilation by extraterrestrial invaders.
Director: Joss Whedon
I can't wait for this one, just look who's directing it, plus he co-wrote the screenplay.  You might recognize his name from the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as Angel.
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, and Scarlett Johansson
Why I want to see it: I really like Iron Man and Robert Downey Jr.  I love Joss Whedon and think he's very talented so it'll be interesting to see what becomes of this idea.  I think it could be really really entertaining.
What may suck about it:  It may fall into the trap of using too many special effects and not have a good story (but I doubt that Joss Whedon could write a bad story).  It may have too many superheroes in it for the time frame of one movie and just focus on Iron Man since that movie did the best out of the other Avenger characters (Thor, Captain America, The Hulk).  I mean, if you're going to do an ensemble cast spread the time about evenly.



Skyfall
My expectations: Crazy about it!
Release date: November 9, 2012

Bond's loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Daniel Craig,  Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes
Why I want to see it: I've never liked James Bond films until Casino Royale.  Daniel Craig is my perfect image of what this character should be mentally, physically, emotionally.  I really think he's the best one I've ever seen so it's exciting to see him back again.  Plus there should be a new Astin Martin in it!  Action, action, action!  I want to see some great fighting and car chases!  Javier Bardem can be simply evil (No Country for Old Men) and he's so good at it.  I can't wait to see him face off against 007!
What may suck about it: Quantum of Solace was not nearly as good as Casino Royale so that movie was already a bit of a disappointment.  Don't get me wrong Quantum was an excellent movie compared to what crap they put out now, by leaps and bounds, but since it followed Casino, it just wasn't up to par.  Hopefully, this movie can avoid the hole that Quantum left us in and return to its former script and storyline glory of Casino.



The Great Gatsby
My expectations: Through the roof!
Release date: December 25, 2012
An adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Long Island-set novel, where Midwesterner Nick Carraway is lured into the lavish world of his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Soon enough, however, Carraway will see through the cracks of Gatsby's nouveau riche existence, where obsession, madness, and tragedy await.
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher, Tobey Maguire
Why I want to see it: The Great Gatsby is one of my all time favorite novels!  I love the original movie as well with Robert Redford.  I love the era this story is set in, the drama, plus the symbolism that the writing is rife with.  I want to see what they do with my favorite classic.
What may suck about it: Where do I start?!  Leonardo DiCaprio?  I swear he wants to play every major male character in history, every book and every big memorable role in previously made movies.  This guy is in EVERYTHING lately and I'm just afraid he's spreading himself too thin to take the time that every character needs to be fully developed before he starts acting.  In other words, he's not the actor that he needs to be for this (and several other) role(s).  Baz Luhrmann?  He's the one that did that terrible self-indulgent movie Australia and another over-the-top movie Moulin Rouge.  Although I love Moulin Rouge with a passion, I can understand why other people did not like it.  Luhrmann has a way of taking movies and just going way way overboard.  I worry about how he will treat my Great Gatsby.  Will it be laughably bad? Garish? Outlandish? Ridiculous?  Or just completely re-interpreted into something not at all recognizable?  If this movie is to be any good at all it has to start with a lot of art deco architecture, the original story from the book, and has to have a luxurious feel to the entire movie.  Not to mention, incredible acting.



The Woman in Black
My expectations: Crazy about it!
Release date: February 3, 2012

A young lawyer travels to a remote village where he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals.

Director: James Watkins
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe
Why I want to see it: This is Daniel Radcliffe's first movie released since his 8th and final Harry Potter film.  Now that everyone knows he can act perfectly as Potter can he do anything else just as good?  I'm curious to see if I can forget he's boy wizard Harry Potter, and believe he is truly someone else.  Plus I'm always up for a good scary film.  There haven't been too many in recent years that were worth a damn.
What may suck about it: It may be the case that no one can take Radcliffe seriously as anyone else but Harry.  It would be an incredible distraction to this movie while watching it.  Think of it, me sitting there watching this movie thinking, "Harry would never do that!"  It could also turn out that this ends up being another crappy non-scary "scary" movie.


Spaceless
My expectations: Let's wait and see.
Release date: unknown, 2012

A man wakes up inside a spacesuit tumbling helplessly through space, with a computer designed to keep him company until his air runs out, trying to solve the mystery of his death.

Director: Cary Fukunaga
Starring: Unknown
Why I want to see it: Well, it sounds interesting as a premise.  Of course, a lot of movies sound good on paper.  There's not too much info on this movie yet so my idea of it could easily change with a preview.
What may suck about it:  Too many unknowns.  Another case of something that sounds good in theory, but the execution could be terrible.


Wettest Country
My expectations: Through the roof!
Release date: April 20, 2012
Set in the Depression-era Franklin County, Virginia, a bootlegging gang is threatened by authorities who want a cut of their profits.
Director: John Hillcoat
Starring: Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pearce
Why I want to see it: Ha!  I have an incredibly crude pun for this title and who's in it, but I will leave it to your imagination.  I don't even care what this movie is about I only want to see it for the extremely HOT men in it.  Shia and Guy will be constant eye candy throughout!  Yum!
What may suck about it: It may be a bit of a rip-off of the strong success of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire.  Although there has always been gangster movies and shows, Boardwalk Empire is specifically showing gangsters during the 20's and 30's, prohibition, crime bosses, violence, and themes that sound similar to this title.  I'm not familiar with the director, and it could be a very dull (storywise) film.  But like I said, there's always the eye candy to look at, and that's really my main reason for the excitement. 



Snow White and the Huntsman
My expectations: Let's wait and see.
Release date: June 1, 2012

In a twist to the fairy tale, the Huntsman ordered to take Snow White into the woods to be killed winds up becoming her protector and mentor in a quest to vanquish the Evil Queen.

Director: Rupert Sanders
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, and unfortunately Kristen Stewart
Why I want to see it: Really because of Charlize Theron.  I think she could be a great Evil Queen and she's super talented and uber beautiful so I'd like to see her character in this.  Um, Chris Hemsworth, HOT in a word.  He has one of the most exquisite body's in Hollywood and I would like to just look at him while he's on screen.
What may suck about it: Kristen (stupid, no talent) Stewart.  I cannot stand this girl.  I think she's constantly a droopy and depressed character, no matter what role she has given to her.  She is one sided, lacking any sort of depth, and is as interesting to watch as paint dry.  Couldn't they have hired someone else (besides Katie Holmes or Anne Hathaway of course)?  Maybe Rachel Weisz, Gabrielle Union, Evangeline Lilly, or maybe Sonya Walger (she was fantastic as Penny in the tv show Lost).  They needed a woman who could be strong and innocent at the same time, not dowdy and lifeless girl like Stewart.


Red Lights
My expectations: Very interested!
Release date: unknown, 2012

Psychologist Margaret Matheson and her assistant study paranormal activity, which leads them to investigate a world-renowned psychic.

Director: Rodrigo Cortes
Starring: Robert De Niro, Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver
Why I want to see it: This could be a good sci-fi crime drama.  Cillian Murphy is an exceptional actor as well as Sigourney Weaver so their performances could be very memorable.  It sounds like a new idea and Hollywood for the last decade or so has really been lacking those.  I'm tired of vampire movies or rom com's that are neither funny nor romantic.
What may suck about it: Despite a great cast, I do not know the director and that could be the scariest thing about this film.  Without a good director good movies can be terrible to watch.  That's about the worst I can say about this one.  I'm hoping it's really good though.

So that's the list.  I'm really very excited about some of the flicks coming our way next year.  What are you looking forward to at the theaters?  Did I leave something out?  Let me know!

Sign of the times?

Obesity rise prompts Wash. ferries capacity change

By DOUG ESSER

SEATTLE (AP) — The Washington state ferry service isn't going to start turning away hefty passengers, but it has had to reduce the capacity of the nation's largest ferry system because people have been packing on the pounds.

Coast Guard vessel stability rules that took effect nationwide Dec. 1 raised the estimated weight of the average adult passenger to 185 pounds from the previous 160 pounds, based on population information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States and about one-third of American adults are now considered obese, the CDC says on its website.

The state ferry system has complied with the new stability rules by simply reducing the listed capacity of its vessels, Coast Guard Lt. Eric Young said Wednesday.

"That has effectively reduced the amount of passengers by about 250 passengers or so depending on the particular ferry," said Young, who is based in Seattle. "They generally carry about 2,000, so it's down to 1,750 now."

With that many passengers, the ferry wouldn't tip over even if everyone ran to the side at the same time to look at a pod of killer whales, he said.
The state operates 23 white and green vessels on 10 routes across Puget Sound and through the San Juan Islands to British Columbia. Carrying more than 22 million passengers a year, it's the biggest ferry system in the United States and one of the four largest in the world, Coursey said.

The ferries themselves could be contributing to passenger girth. The galleys cater to customers looking for fast food they can eat while looking out the windows at the scenery and seagulls. Calorie counters typically aren't buying the hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken strips.

"We do serve light beer," said Peggy Wilkes who has worked 20 years for the food concessionaire, Olympic Cascade Services, which serves food and drinks on 12 of the state ferries.
News reports of overloaded ferries sinking in other parts of the world are sometimes a topic of discussion, she said.

"I think it's cool the Coast Guard is keeping up on that," she said. "Not that we overload them. A couple of times, like for a Seahawks game, we've had to cut off passengers and had to leave them at the dock."

Carol Johnston, who has been riding the state ferries since 1972, said she found the rule change perplexing.

"The ferries are not listing, they are not sinking," said Johnston, who was onboard a Seattle-bound ferry from Bainbridge Island Wednesday afternoon. "How are you going to establish how much weight there is on the ferry?"

Johnston worried about the potential loss in revenue, which could cause ferry fares to increase further. And she joked she may alter her eating habits.

"That means I will not have popcorn with my wine," Johnston said.

The reduced passenger capacity is unlikely to have much practical effect on the spacious ferries, system spokeswoman Marta Coursey said. The ferries often fill up with vehicles, but the number of passengers, especially walk-ons is seldom a problem, she said.

The new stability rules may have a bigger impact on the smaller charter fishing boats, such as those that take anglers fishing out of the Pacific Ocean ports of Westport and Ilwaco, Young said. Any vessel that carries more than six paying customers has to be inspected and certified by the Coast Guard as a passenger vessel.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article, while trying to be funny at times, breaks my heart.  It's very very sad to see that statistic - 1/3 of all Americans are now considered obese.  I've also heard that 60% of Americans are at least considered overweight, but not necessarily obese. 
Being overweight is not a disease, yet I hear a lot of complaints from overweight people about how things are so much harder for them to do because no one considers their needs.  Things like chairs at restaurants or movie theater seats.  Seats in airplanes are too small or they are required to buy two seats.  What bothers me about this is that the overweight use "complaints" like these as an excuse that it's ok to be overweight.  It's not.  That somehow people should treat them as if they have an incurable disease like cancer or AIDS.  That somehow people should feel bad for them and make special concessions.  That it's not the overweight person's fault that they are overweight, like it's out of their control just like getting cancer. 

It's extremely unhealthy to be so overweight, and dangerous to organs like the heart, liver, brain, and various other body parts - things like joints.  The reason that engineers and designers who create things like standards for seats in theaters or planes don't make them big enough for big people, is because that has not been the standard size of a human adult since the beginning of humanity, nor should it be accepted now as standard.  The human body is not meant to carry an extra 200 pounds and up on our tiny skeleton frames.  The standards should continue to be what they are and the weight limits of elevators, escalators should continue to be what they have been in the past.  Theater and airplane seats should not get bigger because all it will do for the overweight is enable them further to continue to eat way more than they should and not be physically active.  It's another example of why I feel ashamed of being American.  Look at some third world countries where children are dying from starvation.  There simply isn't enough food to go around there and then look at us.  We have so much food that we have a term like morbidly obese where someone is 500 pounds or more overweight and cannot, simply is not physically able to get out of their own bed, cannot bathe themselves, can't use a normal sized toilet, can't walk at all.....It's just so embarrassing.  And the morbidly obese is not so isolated an event anymore.  It is getting more and more frequent and it's just so sad and shameful. 

As someone who has had weight issues myself (I'm about 35 pounds overweight currently), I can understand that getting to the gym is not always convenient.  It's not easy to get started, but I've lost 35 pounds just by eating less and healthier, plus going to the gym 5-6 days every week of every month of every year.  It becomes routine.  You feel better about yourself when you can fit into clothes you never thought you could.  You have to give your old bigger clothes away.  People compliment you all the time.  You feel sexier, healthier, more confident.  You sleep better, you reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer, diabetes, improve your immune system, and you think, man, I should've felt like this a long time ago.  Why'd I wait so long to get started?  It's awesome and nothing else feels as good as that.

Merry Christmas To All!

Well, the title says it all.  I hope all my readers have a wonderful Christmas today and that this post finds you healthy, happy, and safe.

What did you guys get?  Everything you wanted I hope.

My family is not yet all together so I'm waiting to open presents.  Most likely, my real Christmas will be on Tuesday or so.

I'll tell you what I got when I do get to open presents.

Favorite Christmas Carols

I just wanted to make a quick post this Christmas Eve.
I think my favorite Christmas song of all time would have to be Carol of the Bells.
Its driving fast paced tempo just completely matches the rush of getting everything done before Christmas and I think it is the best one out there.  I like dramatic songs.
A close second is the Carpenters Merry Christmas Darling.  It's very sad, but still beautiful and original to them.  There's just not that many contemporary Christmas songs that are that good.  Most of the ones that we all enjoy are pretty old if you think about it.
Anyway, there's a ton of songs out there.
So which one is your favorite?  Do you even have one or are all of them good to you as long as it gets you in the spirit?  Or do you think the music is overplayed and you're tired of it after a few days? ( I have heard this complaint recently, but it's only played once a year for about a month so I never get tired of hearing them in between Thanksgiving and Christmas day.)

Well all my guests have left for the night.  No creatures are stirring, not even our fruit flies, so with that I wish you all a good night and a peaceful sleep.....dream of sugar plum fairies and lots of gifts under your tree.

Christmas Wish List

Ah one of my favorite times of year.  I love the tamales, the shopping, the baking, and the presents!  Of course, I also enjoy spending time with my family and friends.  What's not to love during this time of festive year?  And since the day is almost upon us, I figured I would share my list of what I asked for this year.

Halloween stuff.  Well, I do like my Halloween decorations....
Stuff like what a mad scientist would have on a laboratory table:
beakers, stir sticks, petri dishes, Bunsen burners, measuring cylinders, Erlenmeyer flasks and such.
Plus a lot of other Halloweenie type things.

Juicy Couture, Soma, White House, Black Market, Chico's, and Shopbellabeach.com gift cards.  I need my fix of charms, and clothes.

Money!  Who doesn't need a little more of this festive greenery!

Technically that's it.  The specifics are a lot longer but this is just an idea to give you of what I really wanted.

As always, world peace is also on my list....Health, safety, wealth, good luck, all that.

So what did you ask Santa for this year?  Do you think you've been naughty or nice?
Good luck on getting whatever you wanted this Christmas!

Another Earth!?

First True 'Alien Earth' May Be Found in 2012

By Mike Wall, SPACE.com Tue, Dec 20, 2011

While 2011 was a huge year for alien-planet discoveries, 2012 could bring something even more exciting: the first true "alien Earth."

This year saw the tally of confirmed exoplanets top 700, with NASA's Kepler space telescope flagging thousands of additional candidates that still need to be verified. And just this month, Kepler scientists announced two landmark finds — the first two Earth-size alien planets, as well as a larger world in its star's habitable zone, that just-right range of distances where liquid water (and possibly life as we know it) could exist.

These and other recent discoveries suggest that the prized quarry of many exoplanet hunters — an "alien Earth" — could be just over the horizon. In fact, such a planet may well pop up in the next round of Kepler candidates, which should be released next year, researchers said.

"I'm guessing that this next planet catalog is going to see, finally, some numbers of points that are really, truly Earth-sized and in the habitable zone," said Natalie Batalha, deputy leader of the Kepler science team at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "That's something that I really look forward to, is getting those candidates." [Vote Now! Most Intriguing Alien Planets of 2011]

Alien planets piling up

The year has seen a huge increase in the number of known exoplanets. At the start of 2011, astronomers had confirmed 528 alien worlds, according to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, a database compiled by astrobiologist Jean Schneider of the Paris-Meudon Observatory.

Less than one year later — and just 16 years after the first alien planet was found orbiting a sun-like star — the count now stands at 713. And thousands more are waiting in the wings.

On Dec. 5, Kepler scientists announced the discovery of 1,094 new exoplanet candidates, bringing the mission's total tally in its first 16 months of operation to 2,326. So far, just 33 of these potential planets have been confirmed by follow-up observations, but researchers have estimated that at least 80 percent of them will turn out to be the real deal.

These huge numbers are exciting by themselves, but the search for alien planets isn't really about increasing the tally. Rather, it's a quest to better understand the nature and diversity of alien worlds, researchers say.

"You can only understand the diversity of systems if you have enough numbers that speak to the statistics," Batalha told SPACE.com. "You really want a large sample, and that's where Kepler's going to make a huge contribution."

The diversity of alien worlds and systems appears to be high. Astronomers have found one planet as light and airy as Styrofoam, for example, and another as dense as iron. And in September, the Kepler team announced the discovery of an alien planet that circles two suns, like Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine in the "Star Wars" films.

Researchers have also confirmed several planets in their stars' habitable zones. None of them can be considered true alien Earths, since they're significantly larger than our home planet. But the search for Earth's twin may bear fruit as early as next year, researchers say.

Hunting for alien Earths

The Kepler space telescope, which launched in March 2009, hunts for alien planets using a technique known as the transit method. It looks for the tiny, telltale dips in a star's brightness caused when a planet transits, or crosses in front of, the star from Kepler's perspective, blocking a fraction of the star's light.

Kepler needs to witness three such transits to flag a potential planet, so it's not terribly surprising that the telescope has yet to find a true Earth twin, researchers have said. If an alien version of Kepler were pointed at our solar system, after all, it would take three years for the instrument to detect our home planet.

The longer Kepler operates, the better its chances of detecting a truly Earth-like world get. And now that the instrument has nearly three years under its belt, the finds are getting especially intriguing.

"We're really starting to get down to smaller planets with longer [orbital] periods," Batalha said.

So far, none of those planets have been both Earth-size and in their stars' habitable zone. But that could change with the next announcement of Kepler candidates, which Batalha said might come in June or July.

"You've got to be patient, got to wait it out another six months or so; hopefully we'll see those trickle in," Batalha said. "This is going to be an exciting spring."

Batalha and the rest of the Kepler team aren't making any guarantees, of course. And any alien Earth candidate spotted by Kepler would still have to be confirmed, a process that usually takes months, so predicting timelines of official announcements is difficult.

But the rapid pace of exoplanet discoveries suggests that the first Earth twin will be found relatively soon, researchers said.

"What I will tell my freshmen this year is, you know, that these discoveries may unfold while they are students here at the college. And so, whether they're happening in six months or whether they're happening in four years, you can't say," Kepler science team member Dave Charbonneau of Harvard University told reporters today (Dec. 20). "But it's a really remarkable time."

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This I find very interesting.  An announcement of another possible place to find life, intelligent life, that may come next year?  2012.  Remember the Mayan prophecy is that one of their Gods would be coming back to Earth next year on December 21st.  This may be some foreshadowing that they were onto something.

We must find alternative fuel sources now

I found this article right next to the one with Eva Longoria showing up at a red carpet event in the same dress as 2 other celebrities.  It makes me embarrassed and ashamed to be an American where we live in a culture that would rather discuss such meaningless topics as clothing and celebrities than to talk about how to save the world we live in and stop hurting the planet for our own selfish reasons.  America's priorities are totally screwed up, but you probably realize that by now. 

I had no idea that Russia is the worst polluter of the environment with oil. 

I know that all of us have a car, but I am mindful to use it only when I can't walk to a location.  I do walk daily to the grocery store, gym, and other close by locations to run errands and get things done.  Stories like this make me want to reduce my footprint on the environment even more so.

What also bothers me is that a story like this is reported on and at the end, the author gives no suggestions as to how we, as a people, can do things to help the problem get solved.  Realizing that us normal folk can't do everything ourselves, I wish the government would step in on matters like this one, and take actions on their own for our behalf.  The American public is never going to trade in their blinged out, oversized, overdone vehicles for environmentally conscious vehicles.  I can think of at least three big oil consumers that could be eliminated - SUV's, Pick-up trucks, and minivans.  Registered farmers could continue to use pick-ups, since I think they actually do need them for work, but the rest of us should downsize (voluntarily or not) to vehicles that do the same things using less gas.  Granted, car makers are also to blame as they are not making new cars that use less gas or that use alternative fuels en masse that are affordable to the public.  Prius' are a great start but they are expensive and they are still using gas as a back up to electricity.  Even deeper into the problem is that the government is corrupt with rich people pulling the strings on what happens or doesn't, and a lot of those rich people made their empires with oil so..... 

I'm the first to admit, I have an SUV that is now almost 7 years old.  It is paid off and I try to take good care of it so that I do not need to buy a new one.  I cannot afford to sell it and buy a new car, but when I do, it will be something that uses a lot less gas and is not an SUV, minivan, or truck.
I have a lot more to say about this but I feel like I'd never be done speaking about it.  It's just so frustrating and damn depressing that things like this (story below) happen. 
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AP Enterprise: Russia oil spills wreak devastation

In Russia's northern oil fields, an environmental tragedy, drip by drip

By Nataliya Vasilyeva, AP Business Writer

• This Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011 photo shows dying trees next to an oil spill near the town of Usinsk, 1500 kilometers (930 miles) northeast of Moscow. Komi is one of Russia's largest and oldest oil provinces but ruptures in aging pipelines and leaks from decommissioned oil wells make oil spills in the region routine. Environmentalists estimate at least 1 percent of Russia's annual oil production, or 5 million tons (35 million barrels), is spilled every year. That's equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon-scale leak about every two months. Crumbling infrastructure and a harsh climate combine to spell disaster in the world's largest oil producer, responsible for 13 percent of global output. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky) PART OF A 14-PICTURE PACKAGE BY DMITRY LOVETSKY

USINSK, Russia (AP) -- On the bright yellow tundra outside this oil town near the Arctic Circle, a pitch-black pool of crude stretches toward the horizon. The source: a decommissioned well whose rusty screws ooze with oil, viscous like jam.
This is the face of Russia's oil country, a sprawling, inhospitable zone that experts say represents the world's worst ecological oil catastrophe.
Environmentalists estimate at least 1 percent of Russia's annual oil production, or 5 million tons, is spilled every year. That is equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon-scale leak about every two months. Crumbling infrastructure and a harsh climate combine to spell disaster in the world's largest oil producer, responsible for 13 percent of global output.
Oil, stubbornly seeping through rusty pipelines and old wells, contaminates soil, kills all plants that grow on it and destroys habitats for mammals and birds. Half a million tons every year get into rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean, the government says, upsetting the delicate environmental balance in those waters.
It's part of a legacy of environmental tragedy that has plagued Russia and the countries of its former Soviet empire for decades, from the nuclear horrors of Chernobyl in Ukraine to lethal chemical waste in the Russian city of Dzerzhinsk and paper mill pollution seeping into Siberia's Lake Baikal, which holds one-fifth of the world's supply of fresh water.
Oil spills in Russia are less dramatic than disasters in the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea, more the result of a drip-drip of leaked crude than a sudden explosion. But they're more numerous than in any other oil-producing nation including insurgency-hit Nigeria, and combined they spill far more than anywhere else in the world, scientists say.
"Oil and oil products get spilled literally every day," said Dr. Grigory Barenboim, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Water Problems.
No hard figures on the scope of oil spills in Russia are available, but Greenpeace estimates that at least 5 million tons leak every year in a country producing about 500 million tons a year.
Dr. Irina Ivshina, of the government-financed Institute of the Environment and Genetics of Microorganisms, supports the 5 million ton estimate, as does the World Wildlife Fund.
The figure is derived from two sources: Russian state-funded research that shows 10-15 percent of Russian oil leakage enters rivers; and a 2010 report commissioned by the Natural Resources Ministry that shows nearly 500,000 tons slips into northern Russian rivers every year and flow into the Arctic.
The estimate is considered conservative: The Russian Economic Development Ministry in a report last year estimated spills at up to 20 million tons per year.
That astonishing number, for which the ministry offered no elaboration, appears to be based partly on the fact most small leaks in Russia go unreported. Under Russian law, leaks of less than 8 tons are classified only as "incidents" and carry no penalties.
Russian oil spills also elude detection because most happen in the vast swaths of unpopulated tundra and conifer forestin the north, caused either by ruptured pipes or leakage from decommissioned wells.
Weather conditions in most oil provinces are brutal, with temperatures routinely dropping below minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit) in winter. That makes pipelines brittle and prone to rupture unless they are regularly replaced and their condition monitored.
Asked by The Associated Press to comment, the Natural Resources Ministry and the Energy Ministry said they have no data on oil spills and referred to the other ministry for further inquiries.
Even counting only the 500,000 tons officially reported to be leaking into northern rivers every year, Russia is by far the worst oil polluter in the world.
—Nigeria, which produces one-fifth as much oil as Russia, logged 110,000 tons spilled in 2009, much of that due to rebel attacks on pipelines.
—The U.S., the world's third-largest oil producer, logged 341 pipeline ruptures in 2010 — compared to Russia's 18,000 — with 17,600 tons of oil leaking as a result, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Spills have averaged 14,900 tons a year between 2001 and 2010.
—Canada, which produces oil in weather conditions as harsh as Russia's, does not see anything near Russia's scale of disaster. Eleven pipeline accidents were reported to Canada's Transport Safety Board last year, while media reports of leaks, ranging from sizable spills to a tiny leak in a farmer's backyard, come to a total of 7,700 tons a year.
—In Norway, Russia's northwestern oil neighbor, spills amounted to some 3,000 tons a year in the past few years, said Hanne Marie Oeren, head of the oil and gas section at Norway's Climate and Pollution Agency.
Now that Russian companies are moving to the Arctic to tap vast but hard-to-get oil and gas riches, scientists voice concerns that Russia's outdated technologies and shoddy safety record make for a potential environmental calamity there.
Gazpromneft, an oil subsidiary of the gas giant Gazprom, is preparing to drill for oil in the Arctic's Pechora Sea, even as environmentalists complain that the drilling platform is outdated and the company is not ready to deal with potential accidents.
Government scientists acknowledge that Russia does not currently have the required technology to develop Arctic fields but say it will be years before the country actually starts drilling.
"We must start the work now, do the exploration and develop the technology so that we would be able to ... start pumping oil from the Arctic in the middle of this century," Alexei Kontorovich, chairman of the council on geology, oil and gas fields at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told a recent news conference.
The same academy's Barenboim said, however, that Russian technology is developing too slowly to make it a safe bet for Arctic exploration.
"Over the past years, environmental risks have increased more sharply compared to how far our technologies, funds, equipment and skills to deal with them have advanced," he said.
In 1994, the republic of Komi, where Usinsk lies 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of the Arctic Circle, became the scene of Russia's largest oil spill when an estimated 100,000 tons splashed from an aging pipeline.
It killed plants and animals, and polluted up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) of two local rivers, killing thousands of fish. In villages most affected, respiratory diseases rose by some 28 percent in the year following the leak.
Seen from a helicopter, the oil production area is dotted with pitch-black ponds. Fresh leaks are easy to find once you step into the tundra north of Usinsk. To spot a leak, find a dying tree. Fir trees with drooping gray, dry branches look as though scorched by a wildfire. They are growing insoil polluted by oil.
Usinsk spokeswoman Tatyana Khimichuk said the city administration had no powers to influence oil company operations.
"Everything that happens at the oil fields is Lukoil's responsibility," she said, referring to Russia's second largest oil company, which owns a network of pipelines in the region.
Komi's environmental protection officials also blamed oil companies. The local prosecutor's office said in a report this year that the main problem is "that companies that extract hydrocarbons focus on making profits rather than how to use the resources rationally."
Valery Bratenkov works as a foreman at oil fields outside Usinsk.
After hours, he is with a local environmental group. Bratenkov used to point out to his Lukoil bosses that oil spills routinely happen under their noses and asked them to repair the pipelines. "They were offended and said that costs too much money," he said.
Activists like Bratenkov find it hard if not impossible to hold authorities to account in the area since some 90 percent of the local population comprises oil workers and their families who have moved from other regions of Russia, and depend on the industry for their livelihood.
Representatives of Lukoil denied claims that they try to conceal spills and leaks, and said that no more than 2.7 tons leaked last year from its production areas in Komi.
Ivan Blokov, campaign director at Greenpeace Russia, who studies oil spills, said the situation in Komi is replicated across Russia's oil-producing regions, which stretch from the Black Sea in the southwest to the Chinese border in Russia's Far East.
"It is happening everywhere," Blokov said. "It's typical of any oil field in Russia. The system is old and it is not being replaced in time by any oil company in the country."
What also worries scientists and environmentalists is that oil spills are not confined to abandoned or aging fields. Alarmingly, accidents happen at brand new pipelines, said Barenboim.
At least 400 tons leaked from a new pipeline in two separate accidents in Russia's Far East last year, according to media reports and oil companies. Transneft's pipeline that brings Russian oil from Eastern Siberia to China was put into operation just months before the two spills happened.
The oil industry in Komi has been sapping nature for decades, killing or forcing out reindeer and fish. Locals like the 63-year-old Bratenkov are afraid that when big oil leaves, there will be only poisoned terrain left in its wake.
"Fishing, hunting — it's all gone," Bratenkov said.

Had to repost this article

Origin of Stonehenge rocks discovered

 

By Eric Pfeiffer | The Sideshow 

The origin of some of Stonehenge's ancient stones have been discovered

Researchers in the United Kingdom have finally solved a major piece of Stonehenge's enduring mystery: the place of origin for some of the ancient structure's most-famous rock formations.
The National Museum Wales and Leicester University have identified the source as Craig Rhos-y-felin, located more than 100 miles from the Stonehenge site. But this discovery, of course, just opens on to another mystery--namely, just how and why an ancient culture carved and transported the giant stones over such a great distance.
"Being able to provenance any archaeologically significant rock so precisely is remarkable," Dr. Rob Ixer of Leicester University told the BBC. "However, given continued perseverance, we are determined that we shall uncover the origins of most, if not all of the Stonehenge bluestones so allowing archaeologists to continue their speculations well into a third century."
This past year has offered a wealth of new research and discoveries at the Stonehenge site, including last month's announcement that the worshipers at the ancient monument had erected "sun worship" sites there.
Over the past nine months, the researchers compared mineral content and textural relationships of the rhyolite debitage stones found at Stonehenge and were finally able to pinpoint the location to within several meters of their source. Ninety-nine percent of the samples could be matched to the rocks found at Craig Rhos-y-felin, which differ from all others found in south Wales.

Further research should help the researchers eventually understand how the rocks made the long journey to Stonehenge sometime between 3000 and 1600 BC. "Many have asked the question over the years, how the stones got from Pembrokeshire to Stonehenge," said Dr. Richard Bevins, National Museum Wales. "Thanks to geological research, we now have a specific source for the rhyolite stones from which to work and an opportunity for archaeologists to answer the question that has been widely debated."
Some working theories speculate that the rocks were transported over water up the Bristol Channel and River Avon. However, recent efforts to recreate the voyage, including one in 2000 sponsored by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, have all ended in failure.

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I am so fascinated with this as well as other natural ancient structures that we really don't understand the purpose of.  A great show to watch is Ancient Aliens on the History channel.  They discuss stuff like this in an unbiased intelligent format and I've become completely addicted to the show.  At first, it really sounded crazy to me, but the more evidence that they show, the more compelling the ideas are.