Check Me Out on Bites

I know, I know—I've been slacking. But I have been blogging everyday over at Bites, the Nashville Scene's lively food blog. Check me out over there for your fix.

These Eyes Were Not Tearless...

Printed today in the New York Times:

Requiem

It came to me the other day:
Were I to die, no one would say,
“Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise — depths unplumbable!”

Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
“I thought he died a while ago.”

For life’s a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.

— JOHN UPDIKE

LOST: Will Someone Please Get That Man a Shirt!?

But wait, there are more important things about last night's episode of LOST than Sawyer's glistening chest! After the premiere's time traveling madness, it seems like this video (released at 2008 ComicCon) includes some serious clues:



First off, that is definitely Faraday working the camcorder—and now we know he was most definitely in the Dharma-era past at some point. Secondly, could all the problems Chang seems to have with his hand/arm be connected to the hand-chopping-happy crew Sawyer and Juliet encountered in the jungle in the premier?! (TFJ io9 for that connection.)

Grrrr....Arghh

All this inauguration stuff is making me nostalgic for the campaign. Remember this indelible pic?

The best part is that I found it by searching "McCain Obama Debate Monster."

(Nothing better for my blogging productivity than having an interview to transcribe.)

OMFG: LOST Tonight!

It's been a big couple days on the television set.

Quote of the week about LOST:

Brian: "Remember when this was a show about polar bears."

Embrace change young man.

The group I might be most excited to learn more about are our three young freighties—all still on the island or in its vicinity. Remember this exchange:



(Forgive the subtitles.)

Miles is sassy.

Though Fairuza Balk Does Make Me Think of This...

Which makes me happy. Return to Oz is the raddest. Or, most rad.

Why...

...am I watching The Craft right now? I gotta get a job.

It's A New Day

I've been pretty truant with this blog because I've been so under the weather. But today I got to watch Barack Obama be sworn in as President. It was pretty special.

Top Ten Things I Ate In Asia

In no particular order:

- Barbecue squid with crazy, tangy, awesome orange sauce on Langkawi: I don't know what was in this sauce, perhaps the tears of angels.
- Samosa in Georgetown, Penang's Little India: This samosa was unlike any I've ever had—an intensely thick shell stuffed with shockingly verdant whole peas and strings of fresh herbs. That samosa to your average samosa was like brick oven pizza from a place with a line out the door to Pizza Hut.
- Pad Thai from the hole-in-the-wall on Sulli's block: I ate a fair amount of Pad Thai in Thailand, but this version was the paragon—high ratio of bean sprouts to noodles, plenty of peanuts, big strands of green onion and plump, perfectly cooked shrimp. The $1 price tag didn't hurt.
- Stir-fried red curry with mixed seafood at our bungalow on Koh Lanta: Our home on Koh Lanta had excellent food. Once, we tried to expand our horizons and ate in town—big mistake. We ordered this dish at least three times. The curry was hot, the squid was tender and the balance of flavors was perfection.
- Shrimp with marinated cabbage in Krabi Town: This dish was kind of unexpected. I ordered it on a whim and was blow away. The cabbage was thick and tangy, with a pleasant crunch. It didn't hurt that our dinner also featured the best green curry I had in Thailand.
- Fried chicken on the waterfront in Krabi Town: Crunchy, slightly spicy, and freshly fried—it was the best fried chicken I've ever had.
- Som Tom, everywhere: There is nothing I will miss more than the searing pain of freshly made som tom. Women on the street make it with a mortal and pestle, stuff it into plastic bags and pass you the tangy, crunchy, spicy magic. Oh, and it comes with sticky rice.
- Satay in Georgetown, Penang: I thought I knew satay, but I knew nothing of the tender little chunks of marinated meat served with a peanut sauce that put anything made stateside to shame.
- Barbecue eel in Narita, Japan: This meal was vastly improved by the experience of eating in a bustling little restaurant as men cleaned eel in the window and waitresses squeezed between tables toting pots of hot green tea.
- Fruit shakes, everywhere: Most fruit shakes in Thailand are done simply with fruit, a dash of sugar water and ice—pure heaven.

Crappy with a Capital CRAP

Yesterday I felt so crappy that I was forced to look up "jet lag" on Wikipedia to make sure that was all that was going on. Not only was I up one full night, I was up two straight nights thanks to my ten hour layover in Narita and my complete inability to sleep on planes. And I am trying to adjust to a 12 hour difference, which must be the worst possible shift. Anyway, after a 3-hour afternoon nap, a 2-hour nighttime nap and 9 hours of sleep, I'm hope I'm seeing the light at the end of this crappy jet lag tunnel.

Brrrr...It's Cold in Here

One of my favorite all-time lines in any rock song is from Spoon's "Rhthm & Soul." Britt Daniel sings—with his signature heartbreaking nonchalance—"Winter, it gets cold in ways you always forget." It's a simple statement (and obviously an emotional metaphor) but sooo true.

Needless to say, it's been on my mind over the last two days. When I left for Thailand we had yet to experience real winter temperatures. And, after a month in a tropical paradise, I had no idea what 25 degrees would feel like. It feels cold. In your bones. And it's only gonna get colder.

But even harder to adjust to is the greyness of American winter—the overall lack of color. Good thing I have Doug, and a hoard of loose green tea I bought in Japan, to keep me warm.

"Don't Ever Leave Me"

Tonight I fly back to Nashville and reunite with Doug. It might take him a few sniffs and a couple headbutts to remember me, but I think it will go something like this:



Brian is Miss Minchin.

Bad Things I Watch: Rock of Love Bus Welcomes Me Back to America

Last night, after a quick pizza dinner with my little bro (thanks Eli), I crashed. Hard. I slept a deep and dreamless sleep until I awoke around 6 a.m. and couldn't find my way back to slumber. I decided to turn on the TV and then give it another try in a couple hours.

What I discovered on that illuminated screen was probably the most depressing welcome home I could have received from American popular culture: It was Bret Michaels, his hair, (lots of) fake breasts and the lewdest, most degrading behavior we've seen yet on the three-seasons-running marathon of debasement we like to call Rock of Love. And this season, they're taking it on the road resulting in the clumsily titled "Rock of Love Bus."

I don't really know when Rock of Love went from being good cheesy fun to simply distressing, but I do know it happened well before one woman took a shot out of another woman's hoo-ha. This season, the blonds are blonder and the boobs are bigger, while the size of the skirts remains very, very small. It's funny to think back on season one when Heather was depicted as the drunk, trashy, stripper lady—she would be the Angelina Jolie of this bunch.

As the women poured drinks on each other, divided themselves into cliques and exposed their bodies for a washed up rock star in what could only be called a parody of mainstream sexuality, I really missed Thailand.

One more complaint. Any time things started to get really gross and creepy, Michaels would inevitably reply: "That's just rock n roll." Someone get that guy a fracking time machine and transport him to 2008, please. No wonder they're confining Rock of Love Bus to Middle America, where there are still plenty of folks who haven't yet realized that yesterday's corset top is today's huge old lady glasses and who learned all they ever needed to know about irony from that Alanis Morisette song.

Good Things I Watch: T-Minus One Week Til LOST

It's official. In one week we'll begin to find out what happens after this:

Me