Things Plugged Into the Generator

• Coffee pot
• Lamp (1)
• iPhones (2)

Airport Security Line

Happy Thanksgiving!

According to this article, the three most popular Google searches the day before Thanksgiving last year were:

• Ham shop
• Pie shop
• Liquor store

Culture I Consumed Halloween Weekend

Finished Where'd You Go, Bernadette, a book I put on my to-read list so long ago, I couldn't remember why it was there. Then I finished it and read that the author wrote for Arrested Development, among other shows. I really liked it. The story was good, and I kept wishing I was original enough to have those kinds of hilarious little (little in the best way) observations on life. I do NOT recommend the audiobook, as the actor reading it is horrible. It's as though she doesn't speak English but can pronounce the words perfectly phonetically, but with emphasis in all the wrong places. Kathleen Wilhoite, whom I recognized as Luke's crazy sister from Gilmore Girls, in case you're wondering. Also, it's a weird format for audio. You'll see.
 

Saw Salt N Peppa in concert. Excuse me--saw a "Salt N Peppa Experience," which I'm assuming came about because they have about 5 songs anyone would recognize so they pad the show by testing the audience's "old school hip hop" cred by asking us to sing along to such deep cuts as "Tricky" by Run DMC. It totally worked on me. Quite possibly* broke my ankle walking from dinner to the show.

 
Started watching Casual on Hulu. So weird and good. 

Started re-reading Where'd You Go, Bernadette. Wanted to process some things that I didn't quite understand the first time knowing what I know now. You know?

*I didn't break my ankle. 

It's more like I jammed it, like a jammed finger. Is that a thing?

Cocktails at Bourbon and Branch (San Francisco)

On your next trip to San Francisco I highly recommend making a reservation at Bourbon and Branch. Pat, Alison, and I went this weekend, and among the three of us we had the following cocktails:

• Heavy Artillery
• Crooked Smile
• Seersucker
• Holy Smokes
• Dead Ringer
• Frank Lloyd Wright
• Fourth Regiment
• Revolver 

T-Shirts I saw at the Faith No More concert

Pearl Jam
Jason
Faith No More (obvs)
Napalm Death
"Kill for Weed"
Megadeath
Melvins
Bolt Thrower
Guns N Roses
Nirvana
Dallas Cowboys
Les Claypool
Tool
Black Lips
Slayer
Batman
"Talk Shit Eat Shit" "
Dress Like a Target"
"Beer"
Superjoint
Los Fantomas
Van Halen
"Hail to the King Baby"
Jimi Hendrix
Pigface
Nine Inch Nails
Primus
Motorhead

Fancybaby

My friend's two-year-old daughter eats only the following:

• Potato chips
• Smoothies with ice cream
• Cornichons
• White beans
• Artichokes
• Olives
• Manchego cheese
• Black Forest ham
• Chipotle mayo
• Mom and Pops popsicles

Things Carried By Cyclists in Montreal

Hi, y'all. I have a bunch of draft lists on my phone that P.Jenks told me I should post to try to revive List Anything. I will start with this one from last fall. Montreal is a huge cycling city, and our first afternoon there, we sat sheltered from a light drizzle drinking wine at a sidewalk cafe, watching a parade of cyclists carrying such bulky things in baskets or their hands. The funniest one was actually a little girl's look of absolute terror as she rode along with her parents, but she had no cargo (she carried...fear?). Anyway.

• Flowers
• Baguette (of course!)
• Lumber
• A dog with a ball
• Trombone
• 24-pack of toilet paper (in lap)

July-December 2014 MVPs

With no particular criteria in mind, I present to you July-December's list of MVPs. 

Gents of the half-year
Richard Burton (The VIPs, The Taming of the Shrew)
Manolo Cardona (Undertow)
Keir Dullea (2001)
Chris Evans (Captain America, Winter Soldier, Snowpiercer, Sunshine)
Spencer Tracy (Fury, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner)

Ladies of the half-year
Anne Bancroft (The Graduate)
Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow)
Essie Davis (The Babadook)
Sylvia Sidney (Fury)
Vanessa Redgrave (Coriolanus)

Movies I Watched at Home in 2014, Lists #7-12

Happy New Year!  Here's everything I watched since July 1, so 6 lists in one. Same deal as the others--chronological order of watching with a meaningless grade and not many comments because too many months and too many movies.

• Foreign Correspondent (1940) - B 
• Wings (1927) - A / I thought I'd get bored. I never did. 
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - A+
• Fury (1936) - A-
• Scarlet Street (1945) - B / Back-to-back Fritz Lang makes a good double feature.
• The Barefoot Contessa (1954) - C-
• Stop Making Sense (1986) - A
• Captain America (2011) - B 
• Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014) - B+
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) - C- / There is just no need for this. (And I would watch LOTR any day of the week.)
• Sin City (2005) -B- 
• Alice (1990) - C- 
• The V.I.P.s (1963) - C
• The Taming of the Shrew (1967) - B-
• High Moon (2014) - B- / Someone really should have produced/aired this as a series.
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962) - A / "The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts."
• Zodiac (2007) - B+
• All That Jazz (1979) - A
• Closer (2004) - B+
• Bonnie and Clyde (1967) - A
• The Graduate (1967) - A
• In the Heat of the Night (1967) - A-
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) - B
• Doctor Doolittle (1967) - C
• Enough Said (2013) - B+
• Snowpiercer (2014) - A / More movies like this, please.
• September (1987) - B
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) - B-
• Edge of Tomorrow (aka Live Die Repeat) (2014) - A- / Or like this.
• Julia (1978) - D / What a disappointment. Gah.
• Another Woman (1988) - B+
• The Big Country (1958) - A-
• My Darling Clementine (1946) - A
• Sunshine (2007) - A-
• The Babadook (2014) - A- 
• The Goodbye Girl  (1978) - C
• Lantana (2001) - A-
• The Story of Louis Pasteur (1937) - A-
• Ida (2014) - A-
• Blue Ruin (2013) - B+
• Undertow (2013) - B+
• Ascension (2014) - D
• Undertow (2004) - B+
• Coriolanus (2011) - B+