December 3rd, 2009 nick
These movies have kept us well entertained during and after pregnancy. Not many surprises in here, but hopefully one or two that you haven’t heard of…
Kebab Connection — a cute German movie about an accidental pregnancy with subplot of Turkish-German relations. (Available on Netflix, in case you’re wondering)
Away we go — Dave Eggers is never as good as I think he should be, but this might be an exception. Not too hip, just funny enough, not too syrupy, this movie strikes a lot of the right notes.
Where the Wild Things Are – We laughed, we bawled. Beautiful puppets, if you can call them that (ok, so they’re computer enhanced), and beautiful scenery. The last three weeks have given a whole new meaning to the words “We’ll eat you up we love you so.”
Planet Earth — Amidst the breathtaking nature filming, there are lots of reminders of the parenting that goes on in every corner of this world every day. We’re still working our way through this series, but it has helped put our nesting instincts in perspective.
March of the Penguins — Ditto above, but even more so on how they make human parenting seem like a frickin’ walk in the park. We might lose a few hours of sleep here and there, but there’s none of this standing out in the cold for four months without food crap.
Babies — Okay, so we haven’t seen this one yet, but the trailer makes it look like a whole lot of fun. And it may or may not have reduced one of us to tears in our post-partum, sleep-deprived delirium.
No new Oscar pictures. Or rather, we just haven’t uploaded them yet. More are on the way, we promise.
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July 24th, 2009 nick
Trying out Shashin, a highly recommended Picasa plugin for WordPress — a good excuse to put some of today’s garden photos up online.
Sill-ripened.
Sill-ripened.
This morning’s harvest.
This morning’s harvest.
Hampden grapes.
Hampden grapes.
Peppers in place of Paul.
Peppers in place of Paul.
Curly cuke.
Curly cuke.
We got all kinds of seedlings growing in the baltimore sun.
We got all kinds of seedlings growing in the baltimore sun.
Posted in books & movies, gardening, home | 2 Comments »
September 22nd, 2008 nick
A nice and short (6.5 minute) segment from On the Media that captures what Wallace was all about pretty succinctly. Note also the set of links to journalistic pieces that he’s written.
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September 15th, 2008 nick
It took me a few days to pick up on the news that David Foster Wallace committed suicide this past Friday. What a loss. Just spent about 1.5 hours foraging in the forest of links that have followed his death. A selection:
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April 24th, 2008 nick
We hit up Yabba Pot last night for dinner. Best vegan buffet in Baltimore, without a doubt. The only one? Perhaps. It was the fastest date night on record, as the food was ready when we got there, they just had to dish up some plantains, fried tofu, gooey spinach stuff, garbanzo bean curry, etc… into a big bowl. The food was tasty but not great. Definitely a good place to swing by for a quick bite, though. Although it did seem to be a little expensive. $15 for the Royal Platter of 5 dishes, plus $2 for rice. This barely filled us both up.
Also, we both got ginger juice. It was strong! Johanna didn’t finish hers. A better plan would have been to get one juice and dilute it with some water. Next time…
To top it off, the woman behind us in line was Maria Bloom, the actress who plays Marla Daniels (Cedric’s wife) on the Wire. Our first Wire sighting!
Posted in books & movies, date night, food | No Comments »
April 7th, 2008 nick
The herons are back in Wyman Park. I saw six of them at once earlier this week. Today three four were hunkering down in the cool grey drizzle.
Kroody’s old Peugeot kicked the bucket this last week. The long piece that runs parallel to the chain snapped off clean at a joint. The frame is done. I’ll probably salvage whatever parts I can and maybe start fixing up the Mazzie — Johanna’s old fixie — to be my primary rider.
We finished the heart-breaking second season of the Wire tonight. We’re still getting used to (most of ) the bad guys actually getting away or getting off easy.
When will the Sox start winning?
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March 21st, 2008 nick
We watched the first two episodes of Season 2 of the Wire tonight. This is playing with fire, especially with only a few weeks to go before my orals — no time to get sucked into McNulty’s latest antics. And yet…
Posted in books & movies, miscellany, pastimes | No Comments »
February 28th, 2008 nick
Last month we started watching the Wire. About time, apparently, as it was all anyone asked about in Hawaii when I told them I was from Baltimore. Literally, three or four folks all asked whether I watch the Wire in those first five minutes of conversation where you’re uncovering things that you have in common. People feel like by watching the Wire they have an in on Baltimore. And they do, I guess. But while it portrays the poor, corrupt side of Baltimore, it misses the eccentric Baltimore art thing, the not-quite-new-york-hipster and family-raising punk crowd that enjoys Red Emmas, Velocipede, Normal’s Books, The Book Thing, and The Loading Dock.
But in any case, the Wire was pretty good. We got sucked into the first season and closed it down in less than two weeks. The side-by-side portrayal of the counterpart hierarchies of gangs and police struck home. The best line of the whole season was when Carver (a cop) says (and I paraphrase), “y’know the reason why we’ll never win this is because if they fuck up they get beat up, if we fuck up we get a pension.” The way to be a successful cop (at least in Wire-world) is to not do your job. The way to be a successful dealer is to do the best job possible because if you don’t, someone else will.
And, since we’ve been watching it, I’ve counted about five headlines in the Sun that are storylines lifted from episodes in season one (or vice versa, I suppose) — a murdered witness, raids on and arrests of minor players in a bigger game, police brutality, etc… Not much uplifting about it all, but they sure weave a compelling (and realistic) storyline.
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January 12th, 2008 nick
After spending the early morning mudding our new kitchen window frame, I went out for a scrumptious brunch at Miss Shirley’s with Jessie and Patrick. A little andouille sausage, blackened shrimp, tomato and cheddar omelete hit the spot. Then I had my ear talked off by a salesman at Soundscape, a local audio-visual store, where I went to start investigating a possible smaller audio setup for our living room. After picking up The Straight Story (supposedly a non-freaky, somewhat feel-goody David Lynch film), we all walked back to Hampden, strolling through Roland Park in the surprisingly warm sunshine.
But the excitement of the day came when I went down to Sisson Street dump to drop off the building materials from the wall demolition last week. Stopped in at Mill Valley Farmer’s Market and Garden Center which is right next door to the dump (since I had forgotten to go to the market this morning). As I was pulling out of the lot, local milk and cheese in hand, a feline-like creature darted across the exit driveway to the dump. All I saw was that it was bigger than a cat, moved quickly, had a tawny color and what I interpreted to be a black stripe on its tail topped off with white. Judging from the Fox Forest description, I had my first Baltimore red fox sighting. Apparently I’m not the only one seeing these critters around town.
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December 31st, 2007 nick
Need a distraction from the pending new year? Check out the Weng Weng Rap or Terminus.
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