Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Monday, December 20, 2010

Espresso Making

Ever since living in Portland, I've grown to like good coffee quite a bit. However, I don't know anything about coffee and it's one of those things that people assume I know things about. Kind of like bikes. Only I know even less about bikes because at least with coffee I know what tastes good to me.

Anyway Amanda, fresh from her trip to Italy, though that probably has nothing to do with it, was making me some kick ass redeyes in Chiacgo and she showed me how those polygonal espresso makers work. She also explained to me that a macchiato is espresso with milk in it; it means "stained" in Italian, the milk staining the coffee. This was all previously a giant mystery to me.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

The Room

There has been much talk about this movie recently. It began probably around last year when Amanda and Sophie went on a much hyped-up date to the Music Box (where Amanda has an in with the manager, Sophie was very impressed by this) to see Tommy Wiseau himself present this horrendous piece of cinema. I declined to watch with Sophie when she rented it on Netflix to watch again. I had heard tell of the excruciating sex scenes and couldn't do it. But now my sister is inordinately obsessed and so we went last night to the Piedmont Theater for their monthly midnight showing of The Room. The trailer, in case you're not familiar:



I have to say that it was definitely more fun than watching it on the plane, which I had done to prepare myself. The two Asian women, one old and one young, sandwiching me really didn't appreciate the excruciating sex scenes. They both faced away and pretended to sleep. Anyway, there were a bunch of Oakland hipsters throwing spoons and footballs and pointing out inconsistencies, such as when Mark is being seduced by Lisa and he goes "the candles, the music, the sexy dress" to mention all of the sexy, seducer things going on, but there aren't any of these things present in the scene. So people yell things like "what candles? what music? what sexy dress?" That was pretty funny. People also did a lot of yelling of "who are you?" because people in the film are never introduced. And the guy who plays Peter switches half way through. Overall, it was a fun time and I think it was more fun for Maneka than laughing hysterically by herself over and over again.

It also occurred to me what an amazing soundtrack the movie has. Maneka pointed out to me that there are a few songs with some actual, really interesting and unexpected chord progressions. The sex scene songs are also so grossly appropriate. They gave away the soundtrack and I thought about what a great gift that might be. Here is the unexpectedly interesting song:



This sexy one sometimes gets stuck in my head and it's totally annoying and not something you'd ever want to be caught singing:

Missing Limbs: The Final Episode

If you never got to hear the radio show that Sam and I did together in our last year of college, this will give you a good idea. It also features appearances by Darin, Sophie, Kim and possibly others. I meant to put this up a way long time ago. For those interested, there is a Sophie song around 19:43.