September 11, 2009

• Current Favorites

  my old friend, rf, posted on her girly blog about her current favorite things.  she makes lots of crafty stuff and generally very cute girly stuff.  check it out.  she’s cool.  so anyway i thought i’d brighten up your day with a few of my favorite things.  in other words, i could really give a shit what i type on this keyboard today.  minimum effort.  that’s the goal for today. 

  

  Snyder’s of Hanover Jalapeno Pretzel Pieces – remember, Pretzel Pieces, not Pretzel Nuggets.  the Pieces are way crunchier and have a far more favorable all-important “flavorings to pretzel dough” ratio.  the jalapeno flavor in particular is especially salty and spicy — intensely so.  so this is now my current favorite, just barely edging out the original favorite, honey-mustard.  i love crunchy things and these are like break-yo-teeth crunchy.  remember.  Pieces, not Nuggets, you piece. 

  
  Belgian Beers – my beer of choice until very recently was the India Pale Ale (IPA).  the robust, in-yo-face, fragrance and flavors of IPAs were always so refreshing.  plus, i like hoppy beers and IPAs are the hoppiest, i think.  try the Stone IPA for hoppiness that might melt your face off.  anyway, so i’ve been drinking intense beers like that for years, and have only recently mellowed out to appreciate subtler things like the Belgian Blondes.  Blonde Belgian beers are pretty good too.  nyuk.  beers like Leffe and Duvel are pretty widely available.  Affligem, the best of the three pictured beers, imo, is not and that makes me sad.  anyway, i just like these very well balanced, only slightly bitter, slightly wheaty beers that are pleasant like sunday afternoons are pleasant.  like slow riverboat pleasant.  like chilling out on the lawn pleasant.  like yo mama pleasant.

  
  Summer 2009 Movies – i’ve written about these before so i won’t repeat myself other than to say that this batch has been incredibly fun to watch and i haven’t even seen District 9 and Inglorious Basterds yet. 

  
  Fools’ Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe -  with titles like that, who needs book summaries?  i’m sure there will be no end of books on the current economic crisis and actually i’m usually partial to waiting a long while for the dust to settle before picking up a book on a topic, but this was recommend as a “read” by Time magazine.  i also find this topic extremely interesting and was just too curious about it to pass this one up.  i’m about halfway through and so far it’s been a great read.  somehow this talk about financial instruments and credit and all that numbers stuff is exciting in this book.  well it is to me anyway.  it’s been mostly history so far, back story about how credit default swaps (CDS) were created at J.P. Morgan like fifteen years ago and how those gave rise to the fucked upness that nearly killed the world.  so far it’s been very light on accusatory condemnation like the title might suggest though.  if anything, like many other financial books i’ve read, the author is so far having trouble letting go of her infatuation with the very people she set out to accuse with that inflammatory title.  oh wait…..  i just got it now.  “the bold dream” was corrupted, not J.P. Morgan.  hahaha.  this whole time i thought she meant to say she was accusing J.P. Morgan of corrupt greed.  *sigh*  i’m an idiot.  anyways, i’m having a great time reading this so far. 

  
  HBO’s Hard Knocks – fantastic fantastic fantastic documentary mini-series about an NFL training camp.  this year they picked the Cincinatti Bengals and i hope they stay there next year.  or follow Chad Ochocinco around to his next team if he switches.  that motherfucker is hilarious.  but that’s just fluff.  the show itself is just a sterling example of great documentary tv/filmmaking.  they get into the technical stuff of football, properly expose the players and coaches involved but they always manage to attach the human story without getting too shmaltzy.  even with bona fide football superstars to train the camera on, HBO always spends a great deal of effort highlighting the position battles as these no-name players fight their fucking guts out for their professional lives.  just watching the games on tv every sunday can be detached.  this brings it all home in a real way.  AND somehow they write, edit and produce each episode in just one week.  it’s amazing.  i bet most filmmakers couldn’t produce this level of quality if you gave them a year.  but HBO goes out there shooting hundreds of hours of footage every week and somehow compresses that into this great tv show.  my only regret is that it’s so short and this short season of Hard Knocks is over.  (btw look at that picture.  doesn’t that look a little inappropriate?  haha)

  • 12:24 pm
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