Help, I'm alive ... and I'm in concert withdrawal

This is one of the rare times that I wish my kids were teenagers. In fact, the only time I've wished, as far as I can remember.

Because if they were, I'd make them take me with them to this.

Tokyo Police Club are the hottest thing to come out of Newmarket since, well, 80's sensation Glass Tiger. They've just been featured on Desperate Housewives, so they're not "bleeding edge" anymore. But they're good.

And Glass Tiger ... well, I've met Alan Frew (sans mullet) at a couple of corporate gigs. He's still an awesome singer, and I didn't forget him cuz I guess he's never really gone.

But METRIC, that's who I'm excited about. Listen.

Can't wait until their new disc comes out.

Gasp: the movie reviews

Woo-ee-oo, I look just like Buddy Holly.
Oh-Oh, and you're Mary Tyler Moore.
I don't care what they say about us anyway.
I don't care 'bout that.
-Weezer

Warning, after this post, you’ll probably never think of me the same way again. But we’re still friends, right?

Who would have thought that this 100 day cough (well, I exaggerate, which is part of my M.O. according to Ian), would morph into major bronchospasmic activity in the New Year? Ack, well at least it isn’t serious, it just sounds annoying ghastly. This dry, hacking followed by desperate gasping for air that just won't come from a deflated balloon.

Which causes major air suckage into the belly, manifesting in … you guessed it, the BELCHING of which has never been experienced nor heard from through these lips. EVER. Until this past week in Tremblant. Apparently cold beverages and extremely cold temperatures can bring on these spasms, as my lungs are inflamed from all the previous coughing activity of the weeks before, and can’t expand as usual. The burping part, well, I think that was my own little creative twist on things. Lovely.

TMI, I know, but I’m actually quite proud of the fact that I’ve been fairly belchless for 42 years. What a lady. So now I'm on orciprenaline, a drug commonly used for asthma, emphysema and other lung disorders. I think mine is called "getting old and harder to shake illness" syndrome. Hopefully with this drug, all should be normal again in a couple of days. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Speaking of ladylike tendencies, I’d like to share with you my report on three 2007 movies that I watched over the holidays.

#1: Knocked Up

So what was all the fuss about? It was a pretty good movie, I wouldn't say it was GREAT, but it had some moments. I thought it could have done with a little editing though. It was a tad long, at least for me. I did take some exception to the way women in general were portrayed, but then I put that in the backseat of my mind so I could enjoy the film for what it was worth.

Katherine Heigl (Izzy from Grey's Anatomy; Allison here) plays this up and coming entertainment reporter who just gets a big break for on air duties. She goes out to celebrate with her sister (a funny Leslie Mann, who also happens to be Mrs. Judd Apatow); gets drunk and parties then sleeps with Seth Rogan's character (Ben), then finds out she's pregnant. Big problem because it was a one night stand, she doesn't remember much, and Ben is a bit of a loser, trying to start up a website that offers stats on how quickly the A-list film actors get naked. Along with a group of loser (and looks like all Canadian) pals.

The film, of course, has a happy ending, our slovenly hero wakes up and takes a real stab at being responsible, and our heroine takes it down a notch from shrew to make it palletable. I found Seth Rogan quite likeable in this role. I suppose that's what made us decide to pick up...

#2: Super Bad

This was written by Seth Rogan and a friend Evan Goldberg when they were 13, then further refined at 16, and apparently the story has been waiting for years to be picked up. Yes, a superlong time...Seth is ancient at 25. And yes, that explains a lot of the type of humour that can be found in the movie.

The connection here, of course is Judd Apatow, who also made "40 year old virgin" and I think "Anchorman" with Will Ferrell. Seth had small roles in each of those films as well. As he does here, in a hilarious turn as a lazy-ass rookie cop with a lazy-ass partner

This movie brought me right back to high school. And gave me a bittersweet reminder of what it was like to be a geek. Behind the crude jokes, the fixation about sex and the crazy way-out there antics, there lies a coming-of-age tale that sends the message that life really does go on after high school. Things can't really stay the same, but they can evolve in a good way. I get the feeling that this is more than semi-autobiographical; it's autobiographical fantasy at teenaged finest.

The two boys (Seth and Evan) are in their final year of highschool, and they've been best friends since about Grade 3. They have been inseparable since. With graduation looming, we find out that they didn't get into the same college. And they're both apprehensive about that and dealing with it in their own ways. They've never been to any parties, never been invited, and would never have thought to crash. But they get their big opportunity this time by offering to get fake ID and round up booze for this big bash-up that Seth's crush is having while her parents are away.

I remember some parties where the parents were away. Once while my parents were away, my sister had a party that started out pretty civilized, but somehow these kids wanted to get into my folks' jacuzzi; some kids got onto their bedroom balcony and were threatening to jump into the ravine backyard. OMG, crazy times. Although still not as crazy as depicted here. My favourite drink when I was 16 was a brown cow. Tia Maria and milk, yum. I wasn't into the beer yet. Certainly not as poured from a tanker sized container of Tide (you've got to see this to believe it!). And no, my parents don't read this blog, but if they do they're in for a surprise, I suppose!

Something about the way the scenes were shot, the neighbourhood, the whole vibe of the movie spelled "Scarborough" to me. There just seemed something uniquely Canadian about the whole thing, which would make sense as Rogan and Goldberg are both from BC. I felt a similar way when I watched those Wayne's World movies (and Mike Myers DOES hail from Scarborough).

The casting was great. Michael Cera played Evan - this is a young superstar from Brampton, Ontario of all places. You probably recognize him from Arrested Development, and he's currently starring in the movie "Juno" which I really want to see as well. He has this quality about him, a certain sweetness that comes through, even as he's acting as a total goofball. He reminds me a lot of the singer Beck, perhaps it's the way he dances. He's all of 19.

The role of Seth was nailed by Jonah Hill. He played a very annoying character in Knocked Up, and although he bordered on annoying in parts of this movie, he was able to let a little vulnerability sneak through in his performance. Not your typical "fat-guy" role. He was excellent. I think he was the old timer at 24, but he was very convincing as a 17 year old.

The writing, despite the exceedingly foul language at times, had a lot of comic genius to it.

I thought this was a great movie. Just won't let my kids near it until they're 18 or so. And I won't be going away without them while they're teenagers. I'd like to keep my house intact until they're off to university themselves.

#3: Shoot ‘Em Up

I was thrilled when hubs brought this movie back from the video store. Now, I'm not often a shoot-em-up movie loving gal. Ian picked this up because he likes Paul Giamatti, and, well, just look at those guns on the cover! I was focussed on CLIVE OWEN's guns... LURVE that man. So hot that Clive is, so nice of my man to bring this one home.

This film really belongs in the black comedy genre. I didn't really know what to think of it at first, and didn't really care. I'm not usually into dark-haired guys, but there's something about Clive that's exceedingly sexy. I know I'm not the only female on this planet who thinks that way.

The plot is basically this; our hero sits at a bus-stop and watches a pregnant woman run past him, followed by a man, with a gun. Hero thinks, oh crap, I've gotta go help this damsel in distress. And then shooting begins and does not let up throughout the whole movie. I think Clive pegged off two dozen leather-clad bad guys in the first shooting scene alone. I stopped counting after that. For the rest of the movie, he's eating carrots, uttering fabulous one-liners in his oh-just-so perfect British accent, and keeping a tiny baby safe

For the guys, there's gorgeous Italian actress Monica Bellucci as a hooker with a heart of gold. She is beautiful and a VERY talented actress (I first saw her in Malena, where she was hauntingly effective as an erroneously tagged village harlot). But she's just having some fun here, I think. Clive and Monica, what a smokin' onscreen couple. You've got to see the love scene to believe it - sexy and outright hilarious. I don't know how their real-life spouses handle this stuff.

And Paul Giamatti, let me tell you, he looked like he was having such a ball with this role as Villain. Don't think he'll ever be pigeon-holed into "Sideways" type of roles. He was great.

But Clive, he played this to perfection. I need more Clive.

Manic Monday: Gravy

Oyster sauce + corn starch + water = No Fail Gravy

It's amazing the things you can learn by osmosis.

I'm almost reluctant to admit this, but I'm one of those few who lived at home and didn't move out until after I got married. Mind you, it was pretty shortly thereafter (moved into the condo the next morning after the wedding reception). I commuted to university. I stayed after I got my first job, after I got my first car. I guess my mom cooked with too much cheese (touch of Canadiana here). And when things got more serious with Ian, I toyed with the idea of moving in with him, especially since we were living in different cities for a while. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. Being the firstborn, there's always this niggling sense of responsibility, an innate need to set the good example. And living "in sin" wasn't necessarily the best example, growing up with the double-whammy guilt in a Chinese-Catholic household.

But if I'm really honest, I was never comfortable with that whole concept for myself. Sure, it's fine for others, and it does work as millions of couples have done so for years, and will continue to do so. It's almost become a relationship norm these days. A lot of Ian's friends were living common-law. Funny enough, none of my friends were living common-law. We saw a few couples break up, and for me, co-habitating before marriage didn't cement the relationship enough. Not that I didn't feel the commitment, it just didn't sit right with me. At least this way I was able to save enough to contribute to a half-decent downpayment on our first house. Maybe I was just paving the way for all these young people these days who are moving home to do just that.

My mother was and still is an amazing cook. You would never know that she couldn't even boil water until she was 18 years old, when she herself had left home to study in England. So while living at home, I never did the cooking. I was always delegated to prep-chef, or the clean-up crew. I clean a mean dish. I did enjoy trying to cook the odd meal, but it would always be inevitably taken over by Mom at some point. After all it was her kitchen, and I could never quite do the things her right way. So I was content with my role. I wasn't at home for a lot of the meals anyway, once I got going with work and running around town with Ian.

My sister, on the other hand, decided to get her second degree at the other end of the country, in lovely B.C. While I knew I would miss her, it also gave me a wonderful excuse to go visit her out there, several times during the period that she went to school, lived and worked there. I remember one visit with her, we were cooking dinner and she didn't know how she wanted to do the vegetable side dish. I checked her cupboards and sure enough, she had those key ingredients. I poured some of the oyster sauce into a bowl, added some water and then about a teaspoon of corn starch for a fairly thin consistency. I didn't make it too thick because we wanted a little gravy to go with the rice as well. I threw it over the veggies in the pan, watched it bubble up, and we were set. My sister looked at me and was impressed.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" she asked.

"Haven't you seen Mom do that all the time? " I replied.

"No, not that I recall. That was pretty good, Missy" (her nickname for me).

This came from my sister, who is also now an amazing cook. And by amazing I mean that she can throw things together without a recipe. I don't know if it's the scientist in me, but I need a recipe for everything, and I treat every recipe like a lab experiment. Everything is measured out exactly, timed to the millisecond; I've been known to keep cooking something in the oven even if it's obviously burning, because it's got another five minutes to go according to the recipe. Nope, I'm not a chef. But for this gravy, nary a measuring spoon or cup is ever used.

So whenever I'm in a gravy crunch, those three ingredients do it for me. One of the reminders that living at home with the parents for all those years wasn't so bad after all.