Speaking of gorging yourself, I just finished watching this amazing Ted Talk on Fois Gras. Fois Gras is a food that has seriously been under fire recently and with good reason. It's super fatty goose liver, made by force feeding geese tons of grain until their livers go hard and fatty. I have to say it's increadibly delicious, but a really sad way of preperation. This was the norm and it seemed like fois gras was going the way of Duck a L'orange...That was until this guy met us with the goose whisperer of Spain.
Check it out...you might want to make yourself a snack first.
My friend Maryanne and I dieted before the holidays in full anticipation of stuffing ourselves silly over several days. We started back in November with the South Beach diet, suffering by cutting out carbs and sugars. This ended abruptly almost 2 weeks later with an argument over cup cake consumption. She totally cheated. I felt so betrayed.
Anyway, I am a firm believer in gorging yourself at Christmas time. With a hearty cry of "First World Yo!" I demand seconds of stuffing and turkey and consume gravy as if it were a beverage! As you may or may not have noticed I'm an all-or-nothing kind of girl. If I diet, I diet. If I gorge I gorge. Moderation is for those who love their livers and kidneys, and I have no love to spare for my internal organs.
When I worked in a movie theatre it always blew my mind how contradictory people would be. They would order the extra large popcorn with extra butter layered throughout to be washed down with a diet coke. The irony of this consistently slapped me in the face. Did people honestly think that they cancelled each other out?
I bring this up because while I was at Starbucks today (I'm sorry my Barista Pals! I was desperate! I wasn't in my own mind!) I ordered a delicious delicious Non-Fat Peppermint Mocha. What blew my mind is that they still asked me if I wanted whip cream on it. When I asked them about it they said that's how people usually like it. Non-fat with whip. Contradictory Craziness. But because it is the holidays I'm willing to forgive this wishy washyness. After the new year...there will be no tolerance.
This holiday season I hope everyone takes the opportunity to enjoy what they have. MC y'all!
Head on over to my other blog, Ramen O' Rama where you can find a new installment on NongShim's Seafood Ramyun. It's an exciting evaluation full of surprises and snot! Don't miss out!
Who is Lloyd Dobler? Well, to make things easy he's this guy:
To be more specific he's a fictional character portrayed in the film Say Anything by John Cusack.
If you're unfamiliar with Lloyd, he's best known for the scene above where he stands outside of the home of the girl who was forced to reject him and blares the song that they first made love to. It's really sweet, tender and brings a tear to my eyes every time.
This is the gist of Lloyd - He's a sweet, lovable and intensely awkward human being, who combined with John Cusack's boyish good looks makes him utterly irresistible. Not only to me, but to women everywhere. Every girl I've spoken to about the film confesses a similar fantastical crush. Even the Washington Post printed an article a couple years ago about how women just can't get over Lloyd. I'm one of them and it's messed me up good.
The film came out when I was 3 years old, so I can't say that I saw it first round. I think I first saw it when I was in grade 9 and going through my, "Sweet Jesus! Why did no one tell me that Brat Pack movies are the best thing ever!" phase. I remember the phase started by watching The Breakfast Club in English class, and from there I was hooked. I wanted to be Ally Sheedy and make out with the Jock. I wanted to be picked up in a bright red sports car like Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles. I wanted a best friend like Duckie in Pretty in Pink. Most importantly, I wanted a man to love me and treat me with as much respect as Lloyd Dobler.
My opinions of Lloyd have changed over the years. When I'm feeling particularly feminist I get angry with him for objectifying Diane. He becomes a freeloader when he should just let her go free to England. He shouldn't get the girl. He should let her go on and live her life. When I'm feeling romantic and a traitorous towards Gloria Steinem, I revel in his need to be with her, to follow her no matter what she does and support her through out. They're 19 with their whole future ahead of them. She's going to be a doctor and he's going to be a kick boxer. How could things ever go wrong? No matter how I feel about his actions I always long for the way he treats her. The way he does respect her, her needs and most importantly, her brain.
I'm always glad the movie doesn't go on to show their inevitable decline. The older I've gotten the more bitter I've become towards the ending. I remember when I first watched it I thought that Diane and Lloyd had a fighting chance, it was them against the world an they were going to take it head on and together. Now I firmly believe that their relationship is doomed, as is every relationship that begins when one or both parties have a "teen" in their age. I'm sure they always looked fondly back on their relationship with each other and the lessons that they learned. I wish I could look back on my own lessons with such fondness.
It is only in the last year or so that I have noticed the Lloyd trend in the men that I date. On occasion they happened to have had an affinity for beige trench coats, Sometimes they insisted on singing Peter Gabriel songs in public. but usually they happened to trend toward the "lovable but aimless loser" category. They're always older, usually by five to six years. I guess I should take the hint that any man who still plays video games all day instead of working at the age of 26 is probably a poor horse to bet on.
I think I put my faith in the idea that if a man is awkward and someone unconventional and geeky he will treat me well. He will be so thankful that he has a woman in his life that he has admired from afar that he does everything to cater to her - write her letters, make grand emotional gestures - the works. This is not the case. They usually get used to you, use you, make you do all the work and expect you to be thankful that they're around. I'm now convinced that the "Lovable Geek" is a myth, joining the ranks of fictional Hollywood stereotypes. Men don't want to try and win you. They want to be won. Lloyd is a fictional charcter and I'm only going to find him when I pop in my DVD. No one will stand outside my window blaring anything. No one will give me his heart in return for my pen.
So...as the day goes on. I will sit and watch my Say Anything while Moses and Duncan chuckle at my futile desire and their girlfriends commiserate with me on the couch.
I don't watch a lot of sports but i think that I can appreciate a sport where the participants can suffer something called a "Groin Tweak." That's awesome.
I love winter. I always have. I grew up in Alberta, as my regular readers will know, so the snow and I are kindred spirits from way back. As you can see from the pic on the left, I was a lonely child, and making men out of snow who appeared to have been in a drive by shooting was my solace. For me, winter brings good times, beautiful snow, and Santa with his boundless and inexplicable generosity.
I come from a Christian background, so for us, Christmas is a biggy. A time of family, friends and love. There are dozens of photos of me in various holiday poses like the one seen here. In them I am a smiling, happy child. Bundled against the cold and with extra padding in case of coyote attack, I appear joyous in several winter wonderland settings. One thing struck me is that through all the holiday snaps there are none of me with Santa. I think it may be because of photos like that of my friend Robbie: Robbie currently has this as his Facebook photo. I'll admit, I laughed when I first saw this, and it certainly explains his conversion to Judaism (She Joked) but never having seen the fear in Santa I found it wonderful fodder for teasing him.
He has been very adamant that he is not alone in his childhood trauma. As proof, he discovered a photo essay by the good people at the Chicago Tribune called, appropriately, Scared of Santa.
It's a treasure trove of children with priceless expressions caught for posterity and Santa's with unshakable jolliness. Some of the pictures look like they date back to the early 60's. They're well worth you're time if you're up for finding joy in the childhood trauma of others. I know I always am!
Featured on Tokyo Mango this week is Magibon. She's a young girl from the States that makes Youtube videos where she stares wide eyed at the camera and waves or drinks soda or eats pizza. She's huge in Japan. Being a minor Japan-o-phile myself, I can psycologically understand why they like her, but my North American sensibilities find it hard to see her as cute and more as terrifying and sad.
so the snow and I are kindred spirits from way back. As you can see from the pic on the left, I was a lonely child, and making men out of snow who appeared to have been in a drive by shooting was my solace. For me, winter brings good times, beautiful snow, and Santa with his boundless and inexplicable generosity.
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