Month: March 2018
Rainy Day Roshan
What do you do on rainy days?
Rainy days tend to make me lazy. I used to love to spend rainy days inside at home with large amounts of hot, black coffee and a good book. Ofcourse, since the late 2000s the internet has ruled roost and I tend to want to be online and watching Youtube instead of reading a novel.
I could use some really nice good food. Like hot fried chicken a la southern style. Something from KFC or Chick King or SFC Plus or MarryBrown will do just fine. Or a large pizza. Some vodka and Sprite on ice will go a long way to please my palate. And after that watch a couple of movies from my favourite genres.
What else could a guy want? I hope for some nice afternoon rains that last late into the night. Those are rather lovely.
Prompt from 31 DAYS OF MARCH WRITING PROMPTS at The SitsGirls
Get Out
Get Out is a 2017 American horror film written and directed by Jordan Peele. It stars Daniel Kaluuya as Chris, a black man who uncovers a disturbing secret when he meets the family of his white girlfriend (Allison Williams). Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root, and Catherine Keener co-star.
I didn’t feel like I wanted to watch this movie for the longest time, despite the really great reviews I kept hearing about it. I finally did watch it this afternoon. As you may know by now the movie’s plot is about this black dude, Chris who is dating a white girl, Rose, and after several months, she is taking him to meet her family. The racial undertones in this movie is awesome to note; nothing is overt or in your face. The sense of tension and dread is given a boost when just outside her family’s estate, their car hits a deer and as it dies, the couple call the cops. The cop’s racism is clear to see but Rose deflects the paper trail it can cause by standing up to the cop when he asks for Chris id (she was driving).
Despite her parents warmly greeting and welcoming him, Chris is soon feeling awkward as his blackness is clearly out in the open. Having just met Rose’s parents, neurosurgeon Dean and hypnotherapist Missy, and her brother Jeremy who is a medical student make discomfiting comments about black people. Missy helps cure him of his smoking with just one hypnosis session. Yet the strange behaviour of the black “help” housekeeper Georgina and groundskeeper Walter makes him feel on the edge. Dozens of wealthy white people arrive for the Armitages’ annual get-together, and almost all of them are rich white people who are so eager to meet Chris and comment on aspects of his blackness. Chris meets the only other black person there, Logan King, who acts strangely and is married to a much older white woman.
When he takes a photo of Logan to send to his friend & TSA agent Rod, but the flash causes Logan to confront Chris aggressively and tell him to get out. The others take Logan in a room and post a session with Missy, he is back to his calm self and Dean claims Logan had an epileptic seizure. While Rose & Chris talk away from the house, there is a silent auction for Chris. Rod recognizes Logan as Andre Hayworth. Suspecting a conspiracy, Rod goes to the police but is derided. Chris convinces Rose to leave but finds lots of photos of her with other men, all black. He tries to leave the house but is confronted by her family and she reveals that she is in on it too. What is the it?
Chris tries to attack Jeremy but Missy activates a post-hypnotic trigger that causes Chris to lose control of his body and fall unconscious. He awakens strapped to a chair in the basement. A video presentation featuring Rose’s grandfather Roman explains that the family transplants the brains of white people into black bodies; the consciousness of the host remains in the “sunken place”, watching but powerless. Hudson tells Chris he wants his body so he can gain sight and Chris’s artistic talents. Chris is able to overcome his situation and attacks and kills Dean, Missy & Jeremy and then drives away, only to hit Georgina – who is possessed by the soul of Rose’s grandmother. She awakes and causes the car to crash and Rose shoots at Daniel.
An armed Rose apprehends him with Walter, possessed by Roman. Chris awakens Walter with his phone flash. Walter takes Rose’s rifle, shoots her and then himself. Chris begins to strangle Rose but stops after what apparently is a police car arrives. However, it is revealed to be Rod, arriving in a TSA car, and he and Chris drive away. We assume that an injured Rose dies of blood loss.
What a crazy concept. Although the social commentary is brilliant and the storyline original, I found the pacing a bit odd in the film. There are some genuinely scary – not ghost or monster related though – moments but I was bored through some of it. I give this film a 7.5 outta 10!
Opposite Of A Kiss
What is the opposite of a kiss?
I dunno. A slap in the face?
A spit on the face?
A kick in the nuts?
A kick up the ass?
A slap on the balls?
A punch in the guts?
A kick in the ribs?
I honestly do not know.
Home
What does home mean to you?
Home means a few things. It’s comfort and familiarity and it’s a sanctuary. It doesn’t matter how big or small, how posh or lackluster it is. It doesn’t matter if it’s a big ole house in the suburbs surrounded by flowers, trees and plants with a nice yard and big rooms inside. It doesn’t matter if it’s luxurious or just practical.
The comfort of sleeping in your own bed every night is rarely achieved elsewhere. Ofcourse a nice hotel with big beds and soft pillows can be lovely but it will never truly be yours. Unless you are filthy rich. The feeling of the bed that has adjusted to your body over time is a like nothing else. Having your things around you is comforting.
If it’s specific to me and my place, it’s where I know all my things are and I can easily choose what I want. I like my regular home delivery/take outs. Home means broadband internet and lots of movies or tv shows to choose from to watch. It means cold beer chilling in the fridge. It means going to sleep and dreaming about my fantasy & scifi adventures.
Prompt from 365 Blog Post Ideas and Writing Prompts at See Jane Write
New Burger Hut @ Ravipuram
Last night after work, I wanted to go to Dominos in Ravipuram but they were already closed (it was just after 10pm) and I was starving. I happened to see that there was a new, barely one month old, Burger Hut on the opposite side of the road. Alright, I’ll go in for their cheap and simple burgers. While I placed my order I also asked them what the deal was with this whole Burger Hut vs Burger Hutz thing. The guy there said that they were one franchise originally and then later they split up though their menu, logo and overall look was quite similar. Those Hutz do not seem to have fried chicken and wings while Hut does not have momos. Weird!
Anyways, I had the double cheesy burger with a mango shake and medium french fries. The shake was a very generic almost vanilla shake with mango syrup squeezed in. Tasted very bland. It was just about ok. The fries were fresh and hot and I liked them. It comes with a little mayo. Burger was ok, decent and not something you’d tolerate in one of the bigger places like TBJ or Cocoa Tree but still satisfying in a way. I hate that they add lots of ketchup in their burgers – I don’t like ketchup with burgers! Odd since I normally add ketchup with anything and everything. Fried rice, noodles, sandwiches, heck once I even added ketchup to a biryani (I know, kill me).
Light on the wallet and a good choice when you stuck to get something to eat late at night. They have delivery too!
Three Days
So after three days of working a regular kinda of shift with regular working hours, I will be back to the late evening shifts from tomorrow. It was nice while it lasted. Though today I was asked to stay back till 9 because of something that could easily have been done tomorrow. But NO!
I feel so good when I work in the day hours. The work gets done much faster, I feel like I am more productive. I get more things done. There are less distractions as we have majority of the work staff coming in from 6pm to 11:30 am and hence I don’t feel crowded and I can work in peace.
So, back to the grind once again. I am not too happy about it. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles I guess.
Food Review #217
McDonald’s McSpicy Paneer – a fried paneer (Indian cottage cheese) patty, instead of the chicken. French fries and Coke ofcourse on the side. The McSpicy Paneer is a bit bland but its ok veg burger to have. I gave it a 7 outta 10 but I am sure many vegetarians in India love it for fixing their McDonald’s cravings.
No Trust In Wenger
Eighty-eight per cent of Arsenal Supporters Trust (AST) members who responded to a survey say they do not support Arsene Wenger remaining in charge of the club beyond the end of the season. Why the fuck is he still here? The Arsenal board are a bunch of spineless and ball-less men who have their heads up their asses. They should get rid of Arsene right now! Now! Immediately and dump him on his ass.
FURIOUS Arsenal stars are stabbing each other in the back over the club’s dreadful run of form. The blame game in the Arsenal dressing room began after Brighton condemned them to a fourth successive defeat. Arsenal have no hope of finishing in the top four of the Premier League and face a tough Europa League clash with Milan on Thursday. Wenger is under massive pressure at Arsenal, but remains hopeful he can still get back into the Champions League if they can go all the way in the Europa. There is zero chance of that happening.
This team has no leaders and is desperate of having a voice in the squad. Sell Xhaka, Bellerin, Cech, Mustafi, Welbeck, fucking Iwobi and well Mertesacker is retiring so that’s ok. Sell, sell or trade away and bring in better players.
Rune Stones
2018 Oscar Awards (Selected Winners)
Best supporting actor – Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Best makeup and hair – Darkest Hour
Best documentary – Icarus
Best production design – The Shape of Water
Best supporting actress – Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Best animated film – Coco
Best visual effects – Blade Runner 2049
Best song – Remember Me, Coco
Best director – Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
Best actor – Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Best actress – Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Best picture – The Shape of Water
Brighton & Hove Albion 2 Arsenal 1
Brighton beat Arsenal for the first time since 1982 to increase the pressure on Gunners boss Arsene Wenger. Lewis Dunk put Brighton ahead when he hooked the ball home from a corner after it dropped to him inside the six-yard box. The Seagulls added a second when Laurent Koscielny’s misplaced pass was intercepted and Pascal Gross teased a high cross into the box for Glenn Murray to head past Petr Cech. Arsenal pulled a goal back when Brighton failed to clear their lines. Granit Xhaka fed the ball into Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who cleverly flicked the ball home with the outside of his boot.
Arsenal dominated possession in the second half and had a late chance to equalise through Aubameyang but he could only shoot straight at Mathew Ryan. The Gunners were also fortunate not to have Sead Kolasinac, who had already been booked, sent off for a challenge that ended Ezequiel Schelotto’s involvement. Arsenal were meek in back-to-back 3-0 defeats to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley last Sunday and at the Emirates in the Premier League four days later. Losing to Pep Guardiola’s irresistible champions-elect is one thing, but to a Brighton side battling relegation will not be so palatable for Arsenal fans growing increasingly tired of Wenger’s reign. It was the first time the Gunners had lost four consecutive matches since October 2002 in a run that saw them beaten by Everton, Auxerre, Blackburn and Borussia Dortmund.
They were defending champions that season and ended the campaign as runners-up to Manchester United but retained the FA Cup. Over 15 years later and things are not quite so rosy for Wenger with the club seemingly in terminal decline. Wenger, initially at least, did not look like a man under pressure at the Amex as he warmly embraced Brighton counterpart Chris Hughton and shared a joke with a photographer. However, by early in the second half with his side 2-1 down his mood darkened and he nervously pulled apart a coffee stirrer as he sat on the bench.
The travelling fans, who held up ‘Wenger out’ banners at the final whistle, will want the Arsenal board to wake up and smell it.
The Chamber (1996)
The Chamber is a 1996 crime thriller film based on John Grisham’s novel of the same name. The film was directed by James Foleyand stars Gene Hackman, Faye Dunaway and Chris O’Donnell. Among the supporting staff are Robert Prosky, Raymond J Barry & Lela Rochon.
The book is a big favorite of mine. The story is about Klansman Sam Cayhall (played by Gene Hackman) who is tried and found guilty of bombing the office of Marvin Kramer, a Jewish civil rights lawyer in Indianola, Mississippi, in 1967, killing Kramer’s five-year-old twin boys and leading to the amputation of Kramer’s legs and his later suicide. After two mistrials Sam is tried again for murder in the bombing, and is eventually convicted and sentenced to die in the gas chamber at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. Enter Adam Hall.
Now without a lawyer, Sam becomes a pro bono case for a team of anti-death penalty lawyers from the large — and ironically Jewish — Chicago law firm of Kravitz and Bane. Representing Sam is his own grandson, Adam Hall, who travels to the firm’s Memphis office to aid Sam in the final month before his scheduled execution. Although lacking experience in death penalty cases, Adam is determined to argue a stay for his grandfather. Sam, despite his violent past, is one of the few living links to Adam’s family history. Sam’s alcoholicdaughter, Lee Cayhall Booth, slowly reveals the family’s tragic past to her nephew, Adam.
As Adam tries to find a way to stay the execution he learns that Sam was actually the accomplice. Before the Kramer bombing, Sam usually used very basic bombing and planned them to minimize damage and not to kill but only to serve as a warning. Rollie Wedge, was the bomb expert and timed the bombing so that Kramer would be at the office at the time; the two sons were there only because their mother was ill. Sam refuses to coroborate this new evidence as he took an oath of loyalty to the Klan. At the same time, Lee, faced with the unearthed ghosts of the family history and having lapsed back into full-blown alcoholism, reveals to Adam that in the early 1950s, as children, she and Adam’s father had witnessed their father murder the family’s African-American neighbor, Joe Lincoln, during a fight that had started because Adam’s father, Eddie, had wrongly accused Lincoln’s son of stealing a toy soldier.
Eddie had blamed himself for the murder, as well as Lee, for failing to stop Sam, the guilt of which was a factor in Eddie’s later suicide and Lee’s alcoholism. Lee also reveals how their father had been indoctrinated into the Klan as a child, showing Adam an historic photograph of Sam as a young boy attending a Klan lynching. Wedge has his men beat up Adam when the young lawyer comes questioning but the Klansman is later arrested by the cops. Adam’s motions for a stay are denied by the courts, including the United States Supreme Court. Despite Sam’s finally authorizing the release of relevant Sovereignty Commission files, the Governor refuses to grant clemency. Sam is executed in the gas chamber, though Adam remains as a confidant and advocate for his grandfather up until his execution, and he and Lee embrace at the end, in the hope that maybe the ghosts of the past are gone.
There are several changes from the book though not for the better. The film is too short to make a compelling story and it suffers greatly due to that. I give it a 7 outta 10!
RIP David Ogden Stiers
Veteran actor David Ogden Stiers, best known for his role as the arrogant surgeon Major Charles Emerson Winchester III on “MASH,” died Saturday. He was 75. His agent, Mitchell K. Stubbs, tweeted that he died of bladder cancer at his home in Newport, Ore. He is also known for the role of District Attorney Michael Reston in several Perry Mason TV movies.
Stiers first appeared in the Broadway production The Magic Show in 1974 in the minor role of Feldman. Subsequent early credits include The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Kojak, and Rhoda. Stiers also appeared in the pilot of Charlie’s Angels as the team’s chief back-up. In 1977, Stiers joined the cast of the CBS-TV sitcom M*A*S*H. As Major Charles Emerson Winchester III, Stiers filled the void created by the departure of actor Larry Linville’s Frank Burns character. In contrast to the buffoonish Burns, Winchester was a well-spoken and talented surgeon who presented a different type of foil to Alan Alda’s Hawkeye Pierce and Mike Farrell’s B.J. Hunnicutt. Stiers received two Emmy Award nominations.
After M*A*S*H completed its run in 1983, Stiers expanded his work on television with regular guest appearances on North and South; Star Trek: The Next Generation; Murder, She Wrote; Matlock; Touched by an Angel; Wings; and Frasier, along with a recurring role in Season 1 of Two Guys and a Girl as Mr. Bauer. In 1984, he portrayed United States Olympic Committee founder William Milligan Sloane in the NBC miniseries The First Olympics: Athens 1896. Beginning in 1985, Stiers made his first of eight appearances in Perry Mason made-for-TV movies as District Attorney Michael Reston. He had guest appearances on ALF and Matlock. He appeared in two unsuccessful television projects, Love & Money and Justice League of America (as the Martian Manhunter).
For efforts as the narrator and as of Disney’s enormous hit animated film “Beauty and the Beast,” he shared a Grammy win for best recording for children and another nomination for album of the year. In 2002, Stiers started a recurring role as the Reverend Purdy on the successful USA Network series The Dead Zone with Anthony Michael Hall. In 2006, he was cast as the recurring character Oberoth in Stargate Atlantis. I will forever remember Stiers as the lead guest character in that thought provoking TNG episode that is at the heart of great scifi.
Stiers was gay but never spoke publicly about his sexual orientation until 2009, as he feared that public knowledge of his sexuality would harm his career; much of his work would consist of family-friendly roles.
Urban Platter’s Roasted Potato Chips
I love potato chips as an evening snack with coffee. I like it with beer or vodka. I like to eat it while watching a football match or a movie. It’s a favourite thing for me to munch on as it is for millions of others. My favourite brands would be Lays and Pringles. There are a few others and even locally made, no-name brand chips is great as well.
I’d like to try newer brands and give everything a fair shake. One brand I will never buy again is Urban Platter. I saw this brand on Amazon.in and thought I’d give it a try. Hey, I love chips! It’s more expensive than Lays or Pringles but less expensive than some others I have seen. So I order this one, Tangy Tomato and a cheese & herbs one. How bad can they be? Turns out that they are really bad. The taste and texture is like flavoured cardboard!
It doesn’t even have the feel of potato chips. It actually tastes more like “kadachakka” or breadfruit! But it doesn’t have that taste. It’s vile. I will never buy them again. Yuck!
Three Snacks At The Movies
What three snacks do you always get at the movie theater?
Since I started going to movie again (after a gap of 11 years) in February of 2016 I usually only get two things. A soft drink and popcorn. I am struggling to think as to what third item I could possibly get so let’s just go with this.
I love popcorn at the movies. Flavoured popcorn and my choices are usually cheese or caramel flavoured. I love both equally well. For a drink it’s usually Coke or Pepsi but at times I also get 7up but not if it is caramel popcorn that I am eating. 7up or Sprite is way better than cola.
So for the third item, I’d have to say an item that I haven’t had in a theatre since 2005 and that’s candy. Chocolate bars to be precise. It’s great as long as it’s not melted.
Prompt from 31 DAYS OF WRITING PROMPTS FOR MARCH at The SitsGirls
Food Review #216
Fish n Chips with Parmesan shavings, mayo and spicy mayo, French fries and a little salad at Cocoa Tree. To wash it down I had a Banana Vanilla Shake. Delicious, juicy and succulent fish even though it was really small.
Arsenal 0 Manchester City 3
Manchester City produced a scintillating performance to comprehensively beat Arsenal for the second time in five days and extend their lead at the top of the Premier League to 16 points. With just 10 games remaining, City need five victories to clinch the title. “We are close. It’s in our hands, we can’t deny it,” manager Pep Guardiola said. “These are the last steps to be champions. You keep going until the end.” After beating the Gunners 3-0 in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday, City dominated in a toxic atmosphere at a half-full Emirates Stadium.
Bernardo Silva opened the scoring in the 15th minute, beautifully curling in a left-footed strike into the far corner after Leroy Sane’s mazy run. David Silva finished off a fine team move in the 28th minute for City’s second before Sane did the same five minutes later. Arsenal had the opportunity to cut the deficit shortly after half-time but Ederson saved Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s penalty.
“We played with low confidence, you could see that at the start of the game and we paid for it,” Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger said. “We lost to a team that is the best in the country at the moment.” The result sees City pull further away from Manchester United at the top of the table and marks Guardiola’s 100th game at the club with a win. Arsenal, meanwhile, stay sixth, 10 points off the top four.