Stupid Google Trick

1. go to www.google.com
2. click on "maps"
3. click on "get directions"
4. type " New York " in the first box on the top left (the "from" box)
5. type "London " (works with Rome, Paris, Berlin, etc...) in the second box on the top right (the "to" box)
6. click get directions
7. scroll down to step #24

Movie Quiz

My buddy, "Z, The Last Letter" sent me a simple movie quiz. The instructions are just to pick one of the three in each group. I took 5 minutes to respond and thought I'd blog my picks. Movie opinions always spark interesting debates so feel free to comment.

1. Goodfellas, Casino, or Godfather? Casino shouldn’t even be in the running.

2. Star Trek, Star Wars, or Stargate? Star Wars was ruined by its creator, the Stargate movie was great, the series was OK, Star Trek still holds the crown.

3. Road Warrior, Waterworld, Escape from New York? Toss up b/t Escape from NY and Road Warrior – the Road Warrior series was better than the Escape sequel but Snake Pliskin is the man.

4. Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours? Tough category. All 3 were groundbreaking, but the chemistry b/t Danny Glover and Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon redefined the buddy flick.

5. Spiderman, Batman Begins, Superman? The 1980 Superman had incredible special effects for the day, which still hold up, the sound track rivals Star Wars and Gene Hackman gave a tour de force performance.

6. Hulk, Daredevil, or Ghost Rider? I refuse to pick one. (Note: I haven’t even seen Ghost Rider.)

7. The Patriot, Glory, Last of the Mohicans? Patriot was weak. Mohicans was good, but Glory noses it out. BTW – 3 Mel Gibson film out of 7 categories? Did this quiz come from Australia or the religious right?

8. Sleepless in Seattle, Serendipity, or A Lot Like Love? Kate Beckinsale > Meg Ryan > Ashton Kutcher.

9. Terminator, Robocop, Universal Soldier? Terminator wins for its vivid, apocolyptic vision of the future, the one-liners and Arnold at the top of his game.

10. Aliens, Predator, or ? No third option here. Aliens wins anyway. It was a great space thriller with a great tag line – “In space, no one can hear you scream.” or something like that.

11. Casino Royale, Bourne Identity, The Saint? Tougher category than I thought. I really like the Saint, but Daniel Craig is the best Bond since Connery.

12. Cars, Shrek, Incredibles? Another toss up. Shrek gets the nod for having more adult humor.

13. The Day After Tomorrow, Armageddon, Twister? If you’re going to make a formula “popcorn” movie your name had better be “Jerry Bruckheimer”. Also, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt suck.

14. Deep Blue Sea, Jaws, Open Water? Jaws would win based on the quotability of the script alone. Everything Quint says can be repeated in a bar.

15. Dodgeball, Anchorman, Old School? 3 great movies, but Anchorman wins on re-watchability. Honorable mention to Dodgeball for Jason Bateman’s performance as an announcer on The Ocho.

16. Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, We were Soldiers? Kubrik outsmarted himself a bit on FMJ. Great movie but Oliver Stone just made a more enjoyable film to watch. Plus, it paved the way for Charlie Sheen to play Bud Fox in Wall Street.

17. Saving Private Ryan, Flags of our Fathers, Pearl Harbor? In all honesty I haven’t seen Flags of our Fathers but I can’t imagine there’s a better scene in any modern war movie than when Adam Goldberg loses his hand-to-hand fight with the Nazi soldier and take a bayonet tip to the heart.

18. We Three Kings, Black Hawk Down, Jarhead? We Three Kings was a good story told well. Plus I have a soft-spot for George Clooney. Jamie Foxx ruined Jarhead.

19. Fight Club, Seven, 8mm? Tough call b/t Fight Club and Seven. I’ve only seen Seven once and I liked it, but after the initial shock I doubt it holds up as well as Fight Club.

20. Rambo, Commando? No question here - Over 20 years later, Stallone's Rambo is just slightly more dated/ridiculous than Schwarzenegger's John Matrix. This movie started the retarded practice of giving Schwarzenegger's characters uber-American names like "John Matrix".

Plus lines like:

Rae Dawn Chung: "What happened to Sully?" Matrix: "I let him go" (after dropping Sully off a cliff)

Matrix to flight attendant: "Please don't disturb my friend. He's dead tired." (after snapping the dude's neck and propping him against the plane window with a pillow)

21. Nightmare of Elm Street, Halloween, or Friday the 13th? I liked the first Halloween the best out of these 3, despite Jamie Lee Curtis.

22. Gladiator, Troy, or Alexander? This isn’t even close.

23. Fifth Element, Independence Day, War of the Worlds? Again, not even close. The 5th element was Luc Besson’s obsession and it shows. The other two were made to sell tickets and it shows.

24. Italian Job, Fast and the Furious, Gone in 60 seconds? Love the “Point Break” remake.

25. Godzilla, King Kong, Jurassic Park? None of these movies will ever make my NetFlix queue.

TGS Presents: Great Moments in Wikipedia

[Spikeditor's note: This is the second in an ongoing series of posts highlighting the best of Wikipedia, one of The Big Two's favorite websites.]

Recently, while reading up on the fine cuisine of Great Britain, I came across a dish of which I had been previously unaware: the Scotch Egg (left, obv). Has anyone heard of this? I'll leave it to the 'Pedia to explain. "A Scotch egg consists of a cold, hard-boiled egg removed from its shell, wrapped in a sausage meat mixture, coated in breadcrumbs, and deep-fried." Mmm... Infarctioriffic! Unsurprisingly, the sausage / egg / heart-stopping grease is not enough -- the delicacy is often served with ranch dressing. You know, to give it that "zing." I hate to admit it, but I would really have no qualms with trying one out.

The dish is actually not Scottish, but - as you'll see below - Scotland is the undeniable world leader in deep frying. Just in case the picture and description above insufficiently describe the dish, Ricky Gervais kindly expands upon how it is made.

This Great Moment in Wikipedia made me think about how much I enjoy a good deep-fried . . . well, anything, so long as it is deep-fried.* I considered the good ol' USA's contribution to the deep-fried food genre. We're big on a lot of deep-fried dishes: chicken, potatoes (in chip and fry form), mozzarella sticks, even chicken-fried steak. And many will be familiar with such gluttonous recipes as deep-fried twinkies and Mars bars. But to which of these and other great fry-inventions can the US proudly claim ownership? Here's a handy scorecard:

• Fried chicken. A delicious homage to the American south, right? Wrong. Originally Scottish (though the red, white and blue can proudly say that we have the vastly superior chicken nugget, first dreamed up by Professor Robert C. Baker of, ahem, Cornell University).
• French Fries. A powerhouse of an American dish, named in obvious mockery of those sniveling, rarely-bathed frogs, right? Wrong. Four countries (Belgium, France, Spain and the UK) lay claim to its creation.

• Doughnuts. These greasy rings o' goodness seem like they must have originated in the northeast, magically coming to life in a Dunkin' Donuts franchise alongside a 74 ounce cup of pipin' hot coffee. Although many countries have their own favorite versions of sweet, deep fried dough, I'm claiming this one for the Yanks! Burly mariner Hanson Gregory is commonly credited for putting the hole in the donut, and I ain't gonna tell you how he did it.

But those, while great, are just so . . . ordinary. Let's get extreme:

• Deep fried pizza. Oh hell yeah. We need to import this stuff by the boatload. Again, the Scottish beat us to the punch.
• Pork rind. Have you ever really thought about this? Crispy-pig-skin-in-a-bag? Ugh. I'll only eat these if I have a full vat of ranch dressing handy. From England.
• Fried pies. "[E]njoyed by many people who do not even like pie."
• Fried Twinkies. Made by a Brooklynite. Summed up nicely by the New York Times: "Something magical occurs when the pastry hits the hot oil. The creamy white vegetable shortening filling liquefies, impregnating the sponge cake with its luscious vanilla flavor. . . The cake itself softens and warms, nearly melting, contrasting with the crisp, deep-fried crust in a buttery and suave way. The piece de resistance, however, is a ruby-hued berry sauce, adding a tart sophistication to all that airy sugary goodness." Good lord am I hungry.
• Fried Mars Bars. Though the delicious main ingredient comes from the uber-secretive Mars, Incorporated in McLean, Va, the kilt-wearers outsmarted us on this one too.
• Fried Coke. Now we're getting somewhere. Some good ol' fashioned Texan ingenuity. Now watch this shot.
• Fried butter balls. OK, at this point, the namer has just given up. But when you look at the recipe, well, it is for fried butter balls. Note: the FDA has only approved this dish for service within 20 feet of an operating room. I can only presume that this is from Texas as well.
• And finally, the danger dog. This sensation is from south of the border. "There is a tradition in New Jersey of serving hot dogs that have been deep-fried in boiling oil until they rip apart ('rippers') or just blister lightly (an 'in and outer')." Dave Law, my esteemed colleague from Jersey, has often said that there is nothing he enjoys waking up to more than a good in and outer. However, I suspect that he really prefers to man up and take in a ripper.

*Please note: the author was once served deep fried vegetables by his fraternity's cook. The vegetables consisted mainly of carrots and green beans. Believe it or not, even the author refused to eat this horrible food.

Is this Ironic?

A question for the readership: What is the official overcompensatory testosterony ultraheteromale party line on Alanis Morrissette?

This question (obviously) has two main subparts: music and hotness.

First, the music. Are we allowed to like it? The first that any of us non-maple syrup types heard of her was "You Oughta Know," which I'll go ahead and say is a pretty kick-ass song. Yeah, yeah, I know. Joey Gladstone and all. But still, she rips through it with more testosterone than most of the Hootie and the Blowfish-inspired drivel that passed as rock at the time. Also, she seems like it would be fun to go with her to the theater.

Its not that I think about her or her music very often - which reminds me, the whole impetus of this post was this fantastic video that she put out:



The video reminded me of part of the reason I like her. She's always pretty creative and somewhat ballsy. Although I don't like the way that she does the weird overpronouncing thing when she sings.

Anyhow, wanted to get the official line on whether I should change my tune re: the Alanis music question.

Now, as to the Alanis hotness question, you'd think I could answer that with no problem. But again, I'm confused. There are times (like the above pic) when I think she looks good. She's not a model, not a sexpot, not conventionally "hot," but she looks very good (I think). The answer to the question (you know what question) is "Yes." Then there are times when seeing her makes me want to stick my head in the microwave.

Nevermind. I think I just made my decision.

Resolution

AJ sure seems to be the focal point of the picture above . . . I'm just sayin'...

Thunderupdate: 05 in '07 ... Oops

[Spikeditors note: BT has foolishly vowed to complete 6 - erm, I mean 5 - half marathons during 2007.]

I'd like to smugly report to my fans that I've been training hard, that my weight is falling and that my performance is improving, but sadly that is not the case. Soon after my first miserable half marathon, my training grinded to a halt. Life got in the way. Oh, wait, no. Strike that. Laziness got in the way. It started with a couple of extremely busy weeks at work, followed by the unexpected news that my entire apartment building was being evicted in order to sell the units. This necessitated finding a place, packing, moving and unpacking, a process which pretty much became final yesterday (new apartment picture post to come). However, I certainly could have continued running. And I didn't. I went for a stretch of about 4 full weeks without a workout.

So where does that leave me? Out of shape. And in a bit of trouble. Last week I re-started my training. Yesterday I huffed and puffed through 6 slow and painful miles. Today I pulled up my training schedule (created in early February) and found out that, in order to be on pace for my next half marathon, yesterday's run was supposed to be 9 smooth and easy miles. Uh-oh. I've got some catching up to do.

Also, during my hiatus from exercising, I gained back a number (not all) of the 14 pounds that I lost in January. Not unrelated, over the weekend of my 30th birthday (that's right, I was born with the Apple II. And Takako Matsu), I will be reuniting (and it will feel so good) with a number of my Ivy League law school classmates. And I need to look at least as good as I did during law school. OK, so I'm setting my goals low. Sue me. Therefore, I am instituting a sub-theme of 05 in '07:

Thunderloses: 30 by 30.

That's right. 30 lbs by the time I turn 30. I started last Wednesday at X pounds. So, from that date, I had 72 days in which to lose 30 lbs. That may be a stretch, but its a worthwhile goal. I was losing at about that rate in January when I lost 14.5 over 30 days. So why not go for it? So far I've lost 3 lbs in 5 days. An ok start, but I am just now really beginning to fight. No bad foods, no lazy days, nothing but good health until the reunion (at which point I gorge myself on food and booze). I'll be keeping you Spikeheads up to date over the course of this project. Wish me luck!