Tooltime

So I fixed the kitchen sink.


Not quite up there with building a twin seat turboprop in your backyard, but still.

I fixed the sink.

Growing up, my father handled all the repairs around the house. He could do oil changes, winterize the boat, put wood paneling up in the den (not such a good idea once we all escaped the ‘70’s and realized that paneling sucked), and in general did all the manly stuff.

Unfortunately, that part of the “Y” chromosome seems to have skipped a generation. I can assemble Ikea furniture (that’s how I learned all those cool Swedish swear words). I put Megan and Devon’s cribs together. I can change the vacuum cleaner bag, but the DIY channel won’t be giving me my own show any time soon.

Some reptilian part of my brain thinks I should be able to strap on a tool belt and make a six piece dining room set out of a single oak log. Especially if I cut it down with my own chainsaw, but it’s not gonna happen.

Every time I manage to make the smallest repair around the house it gives me an entirely unreasonable amount of pleasure. I have been turning the water on and off all afternoon and if I listen carefully I can actually hear the crown roar.

Of course since I am a geek at heart I have to confess I looked up instructions for changing a ball faucet on a YouTube video which cuts down on the macho factor by at least 50%. I especially appreciated the tip about blocking the drain so you don't send the parts for a tour of the sewer system.

The Horror

When I was a kid I used to love to watch Creature Features. Creature Features was shown on Channel 5, one of New York’s then low-rent independent TV stations. It used to be broadcast at 8:30 on Saturday nights and I would tune in while my parents played canasta with our neighbors.

I never got too scared by the movies- though "The Blob" did give me a nightmare or two. Ever since then I have always enjoyed a good scary movie and I still love the campy 1950’s stuff, but it’s hard to find on broadcast TV. For some reason the Sci-Fi Channel hasn’t re-run “I Was A Teenage Werewolf” recently, even though Michael Landon makes a more convincing lycanthrope than Michael J Fox ever did.

I remember bits and pieces of these movies (I really can’t call them films), and one of the scenes that made an impression on me was a movie on featuring New England Witches. And I mean real witches, none of this eco-friendly wiccan crap- 100% genuine EVIL (and kinda hot looking at least to my 11 year old libido) WITCHES. I don’t recall any of the plot, but I clearly remember the hero of the film using the shadow of a cross to make all the witches burst into flame. Now if we were living back in the stone age (like say 1999), I would probably never be able to find out the title of that cinematic classic. But now thanks to billions of dollars in technology, countless hours of research from some of the finest minds in the world, I was able to type the words “film cross shadow witches burst flame” into the search window on my Google toolbar and I instantly discovered that the film was called “The Horror Hotel.” It’s also known as “The City of the Dead”- one title just wasn’t enough.

I tried to Netflix “Horror Hotel”, but as a result of some bizarre corporate oversight, no copy was available. I am going to have to go to Amazon and plunk down $9.99 for this little trip down memory lane.

As I recall the Creature Features portfolio leaned heavily on the 1950’s radioactive monsters. Channel 5 used to also run a lot of horror movies on Saturday afternoons, that’s when they also worked in a lot of Japanese Monster movies. The original Godzilla is a blast, watching how they inserted what appear to be almost random clips of Raymond Burr for the American audience is almost as much fun as watching Godzilla incinerate Tokyo. (For the record I prefer my Godzillas to be evil. No helpful Godzilla with cute offspring fighting off Monster X for me.) Channel 11 seemed to specialize in the more traditional Dracula and Frankenstein stuff, which I also like.

Anyway, I hope “Horror Hotel” arrives soon so I can see if it measure up to my memory. Maybe I can even get Debbie to watch it with me- but probably not.

Wilderness Adventures

Well, our big trip into the wild is over. The laptop I borrowed didn’t have an antenna or a wireless card, so I couldn’t make any real-time updates, sorry to disappoint my thousands of loyal readers.

Kudos to the folks at Brookside. They run a nice little operation. It’s not a heavily wooded place, but there was plenty of stuff for the kids to do. They had a nice pool, a couple of mini-playgrounds including a thirty foot long replica of a wooden pirate ship. We split most of our time between the pool and the small brook than runs through the back of the campground.

If we had been staying for more than a weekend we probably would have made the trip over to the HiWay Drive-In Theater over about halfway between Catskill and Coxsackie. Debbie and I love the Drive-In and the kids are about old enough to give it a shot. They had a great compromise at Brookside, though. They show a kids movie on a big inflatable screen in the area that just happened to be next to our cabin. Big win for us, Debbie and I could stay by our campfire while the girls got to watch Ice Age 2. They felt very adult doing that by themselves (and we could still see them).

We left a bit early today, stopped off to laugh at the hippies in Woodstock and were home by mid-afternoon. All in all a great weekend.

The Great Outdoors

This weekend is our first family camping trip. I have taken Megan camping twice before; we had a nice tradition of going with my cousin and his two sons. Unfortunately our weekends are both so full with birthday parties, T-Ball and soccer we haven’t been able to coordinate another trip.

Since Devon is now three (as she would say “Three and a half” accompanied by a look that implies I only have four functioning brain cells), she is ready for her first trip to the woods.

Well, not exactly woods. While the Brookside Campground has plenty of trees, it also has indoor plumbing. At Debbie’s insistence we are renting a trailer for the weekend. No need to share one of those communal bathrooms that bring back memories of college dorms. Megan and especially Devon are most definitely City kids. They are convinced that bears, and maybe lions and pumas may be lurking behind every tree. I’m a little more concerned with ticks and poison ivy. We’ll all smell like we swam in an “OFF” lake all weekend.

Still, I love sitting in front of a campfire toasting marshmallows. Debbie enjoys throwing them into the fire and watching them burn. (I've actually made my own marshmallows, quite deliciousand easy to do with a stand mixer). The campfire is the best part of these trips, global wrming be damned. Even without fire, there’s a lot to do in the area. If I can get our Wi-Fi connection to work, maybe I’ll make some trip-in-progress posts.

Indy Kicks Commie Butt

Sorry for the delay in my review of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. I have been overwhelmed with a flood of requests for my views. Since Indy only took in $375 million since Thursday, I’m sure Spielberg and Lucas are quaking in their boots.

I liked it.

Oh, you wanted more? I liked it quite a bit, there. Happy? As I said in my earlier post I went to opening night at Manhattan’s Ziegfeld, the perfect place to watch a “big” picture. The place was sold out; it’s always fun to watch an action movie in a packed theater with an excited crowd. This can sometimes mask an awful stench (yes, I’m thinking of Roland Emmerich's Godzilla), but a high energy crowd adds something to the experience as does top quality projection and sound.

The movie opens with Cate Blanchett as Irina Spalko, a dominatrix-cum commie leading a crew of Stalinist drones filling in quite nicely for the now vanquished Nazis. They are raiding the massive government warehouse holding every secret treasure from George Washington’s underwear to a familiar looking Ark. Blanchett makes a great Eastern Ice Queen/Villain, and is supposed to have some kind of mind control powers, forever endearing her to Comrade Stalin himself. I don’t know what kind of “paranormal” research the Soviets did, but the Nazis actually did perform what passes for “research” in the field. Himmler was especially interested in this stuff, many of the top Nazis were big believers in Astrology. I wonder if the expanded DVD- (and there will be several expanded DVD’s) will have some deleted scenes of Irina doing the whole mind control thing. Maybe bend some spoons or tell us these are not the ’droids we’re looking for.

Interesting aside--- Some whack jobs are actually managing to be offended by Spielberg/Lucas portrayal of Soviet KGB agents as villains. I guess those tens millions of people starved, shot or sent to the Gulags were just a bunch of whiners.

Anyway I’ve always viewed the Indiana Jones movies as comic book fare. And no, that’s not an insult. I’m not looking for a deep exploration someone’s inner torment, I don’t want a radical re-examination of post colonialism in a neo-Marxist light. I just want to see Indy kick the crap out of the villains, kiss the heroine and maybe dump Short Round off at an orphanage- hopefully one run by some really angry nuns- never could stand that kid.

The plot, such as it is, involves Indiana and his son, Mutt (Shia LaBeouf) looking to rescue Karen Allen and John Hurt from the clutches of kidnappers in South America who are trying to learn the secret of the crystal skull. Of course the kidnappers turn out to be Cate and her merry band of Stakhanovites.

Indy and company travel up the Amazon and encounter a lost tribe of tomb guarding Amazonians (not the good kind, the all male poison dart blowing kind), ants with a taste for human flesh, monkeys with Shia LeBoef haircuts and, oh yeah, space aliens that seem to really, really like archeology.

It’s all held together by great chase scenes, a couple of pithy one-liners (my personal favorite is Indy choosing “I Like Ike” as his last words in front of a Russky execution squad). I’m glad Spielberg won the fight over using real stuntmen rather than the CGI stuff that overwhelmed the Star Wars prequels; it’s an old-school movie- it needed an old-school vibe.

Some folks have complained about the whole Alien thing, but is it any weirder than vengeful ghosts springing from the shattered Ten Commandments?

Two Thumbs Up.

Indy Cinema

Tune in tomorrow for my review of the new Indiana Jones movie. My birthday present to myself is a night at the Ziegfeld in Midtown for the real premiere (the one where you don’t have to be named Turtle or Drama to get in).

The Ziegfeld is probably New York’s last single screen movie palace; most of the others have been either torn down, converted to other uses or made into multiplexes. Radio City is still operating, but hasn’t shown a regular schedule of movies since 1979. If they had held on a few more years they might have been able to ride the second wave of Disney animation, or they might have shut down entirely.

I’ve been to the Ziegfeld twice. Once for The Phantom Menace and again for Hannah Montana in 3-D. In retrospect Hannah was better. At the time I hoped the Star Wars prequels would improve instead they only sucked more.

Let’s hope that Lucas has done a better job with Indiana Jones. I saw the original and loved it; I even brought my then six year old brother to see The Temple of Doom- he was probably about six. Watching Amrish Puri rip someone’s still beating heart out might not be the best thing for a six year old, but since he never tried it out on any of the neighborhood kids no harm no foul. The third movie with Sean Connery was cool; the best part may have been River Phoenix playing the young Indiana where we learned exactly why he hates snakes (and where Indy got his fashion sense).

Anyway, will post a review tomorrow.

I Confess

I confess. I am a food geek. I don’t have the time or the money be a foodie, so I’m inventing my own term. To be a foodie, you have to eat out six nights a week and order $100 entres. Not for me.

I’m not sure how I got started on this slippery slope. I used to cook back when I lived in my fraternity house. We were a little unique in that we didn’t have a professional cook. The brothers signed up to cook during our Sunday House Meetings. The $5.00 (Lunch) and $15.00 (Dinner) payments added up- do a couple of meals and you had beer money for the weekend.

I pretty much gave up cooking anything more complicated than a steak after I graduated, but about three or four years ago I started cooking again. I can’t really remember what set me off, but before I knew it, I was gazing longingly at pictures of Viking Ranges and All-Clad copper core pans (and yes I am aware of how pathetic that is).

Maybe it was reading Tony Bourdain’s book, Kitchen Confidential. Maybe it was to distract myself from the hideous implosion that is Syracuse Football.

One of the advantages of living in New York is that we have access to all kinds of food and produce. The Union Square Greenmarket and its’ numerous mini satellites bring incredibly fresh fruits and vegetables; many of the farmers sell heirloom varieties of produce that you will never see at the Wal-Mart superstore. You know you’re shopping at the right place when the guy next to you is wearing chef’s whites and he is being followed by a couple of commis with handtrucks.

No matter how good the fruits and veggies are, there is no danger of my becoming some kind of demented vegan. New York also offers easy access to top cuts of meats at places like Ottomanelli’s or Florence Meat Market. The kind of stuff that just isn't for sale wrapped in plastic in your supermarket. And every ethnic group on the planet has a New York based outpost selling the most obscure (and occasionally delicious) ingredients for their native dishes.

I have been aided and abetted in my newfound obsession by the Food Channel. Quite frankly most of their shows are pretty lousy, but there are some gems hidden in there. Last night I made zeppoli from a Giada Delaurentis recipe. (I did have to explain to Debbie that Giada's stripper-like low cut dress was actually NOT the reason people refer to the Food Channel as Food Porn). While the Megan and Devon were unimpressed, Debbie, our friend Lucy and I all enjoyed the zeppoli- much lighter and doughier than the little balls of cement you get at San Gennaro. I use a great steak recipe for coffee rubbed rib eye from Bobby Flay, I think I made some good Mario Batali minestrone once or twice.

My favorite TV chefs are Alton Brown and Jacques Pepin. Brown has been with the Food Network since almost the beginning. He mixes some great tips with all the science behind the cooking, which also give my inner science nerd a thrill. I got my fried chicken recipe from Good Eats, his show. Brown has so many rabid fans they actually post transcripts from his shows on a fan website- I’m not sure even Star Trek fans are that obsessed. While AB worked in commercial kitchens, Jacques Pepin is a classically trained French Chef who spent decades cooking professionally. Pepin does a great series called “Fast Food My Way,” the recipes are generally simple, really fast and pretty tasty.

My hobbies used to be much more macho- wreck diving, skiing, and watching SU sports (OK that one is not so macho). Still the logistics of making great sausage and peppers are slightly easier to manage than a trip to the Coimbra. Not that I’m getting old. Or boring.