Movies to Get You Through

Despite my numerous objections, the holiday season is once again upon us. But there's one good way to make the most of it – by locking yourself indoors, away from the hustle and bustle, and enjoying some favorite holiday films. That's why I've compiled this short holiday playlist that everyone should enjoy!

You don't have to view them in any particular order, but here's what I suggest:

1) Trading Places (1983) – Starring Eddie Murphy (when he was still funny) and Dan Akroyd (near the height of his hilarity as well), Trading Places is a perfect way to jump in to the holiday season. There's plenty of cold weather apparel and holiday decorations as part of the scenery, and a great rags-to-riches/revenge plot all at the same time. Add in Denholm Elliot, a young Jamie Lee Curtis (as a loveable hooker, long before Julia Roberts), the early '80s requisite Frank Oz cameo, and you've got a holiday movie that doesn't make you want to spew with a bunch of feel-good crapola.

2) Keep the comedy coming with suggestion #2: Aqua Teen Hunger Force Season 1 Episode 17 “Mail Order Bride” - Tis the season to buy yourself a present, which is precisely what Carl and Master Shake do when they split the cost of a Russian mail order bride. Meatwad makes holiday gifts out of pine cones and twigs, Carl winds up in a neck brace while trying to get in to his own house...absurdity and hilarity ensue.

3) Die Hard (1988) and Die Hard 2 (1990) – Ah, on to the real meat and potatoes of any holiday viewing list. John McClane can't catch a break, even at the holidays. Fly clear across the country to be with your family for Christmas, and wind up getting caught in a terrorist plot to rip off the wealthy firm that your wife works for. And that's just the first movie. In the second installment, McClane's wife is trapped on a plane circling the airport and running low on fuel as terrorists have shut the airport down to free a dictator. McClane foils both of these plots, stabs a terrorist in the eye with an icicle, engages in a snowmobile chase, blows up an airliner full of terrorists, walks across broken glass (cue Annie Lennox song), swings from a fire hose, and drops Alan Rickman from the top floor of an L.A. high rise. All in all some kick ass accomplishments for a chain-smoking New York cop.

4) Lethal Weapon (1987) and Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) – Where the buddy cop action film was perfected. Los Angeles is the perfect setting for a Christmas movie, since it doesn't snow; hence, you can film whenever the hell you feel like it. Just toss some decorations on the houses and you're all set. Mel Gibson (before his tirade), Danny Glover (still too old for this $hit), Gary Busey (before he went extra super duper crazy)...awesome cast, international special-forces staffed drug conspiracy, lots of gun fights, explosions, a bit of martial arts...what more could you ask for? And there's just enough holiday decoration in the background to let you know when all this awesomeness takes place. Flash forward to Lethal Weapon 2 – add some South African bad guys, political undertones (anti-apartheid style, of course), Joe Pesci (for comic relief), Riggs pulling down a house with his Chevy truck (Like a Rock!), massive shootout on a cargo ship, and you've got yet another totally sweet movie to watch during the holidays that doesn't make you want to spew with any holiday hokieness.

5) Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005) – Writer/Director Shane Black, who created the Lethal Weapon series (and pretty much the genre) takes thematic elements and a good cast and combines them to spoof the genre he helped create. Career small-time criminal Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) stumbles in to an open audition while running from the cops...confusion ensues, and he somehow winds up in L.A. to study under private eye Gay Perry (Val Kilmer, giving a hilarious performance as a gay detective with little patience and a dry sense of humor). Before you know it, Harry and Perry are caught up in a swirling, ridiculous series of murders, crimes and events that all somehow manage to tie together at the end. Michelle Monaghan helps tie all the cases and crimes together, and even manages to rescue Gay Perry (in spite of herself). You've got L.A. For the holidays (again), being spoofed fantastically, an unlikely duo (or trio), absurd humor, some all-too-easy jokes as well...basically a spot-on spoof in any category. Kilmer is hilarious, Robert Downey Jr. plays the not-so-bright New York criminal well, and the movie even makes fun of itself at the end. If you haven't seen it before, put this on your holiday list for sure.

There you have it. All the titles I can come up with for now. Sure, they're great any time of year, but they have just enough holiday in them to justify watching them between now and the end of the year. Plus, none of them will bore you or sicken you with sugary sweetness. You can get that from ABC Family, I would imagine.

Have an explosion-filled and hilarious holiday! Oh, and I guess you can add your suggestions below too.

Dispatches from the Jobless

Today's title may be a tad misleading, but we'll get to that shortly.

Beginning on January 20^th of this year (an historic inauguration day, coincidentally), I joined the ranks of thousands of my fellow Illinoisans and Americans as one of the painfully unemployed. Or, in my particular case, painfully under-employed. In spite of my better wishes and hopes, I had remained employed part-time in radio, even after having gotten a “real job” with a salary, paid vacation, etc. As such, I had a negligibly small cushion to help with padding the less-than-generous unemployment insurance.

But after just over seven months on the job hunt, I've had a bit of a revelation that I wanted to share with you, the crew members here at Port Awesome. While monetary obligations and financial troubles are often the immediate concerns when it comes to unemployment, there is something far more disconcerting to those of us in search of work. Something that weighs on your being more than car payments or health coverage.

It is this – the fundamental difference between having work, and searching for work. This is the great divide that my fellow job seekers wish to cross; a threshold over which sanity and security beckon.

Those of you who remain gainfully employed at this moment are in one category – you have something to do. You have tasks, and goals, and accomplishments, however small or large. And, with any luck, you have them every day. Granted, you may be less-than-pleased with your present position, or with the lack of upward career mobility at your firm, or you may just be plain fed up with working for idiots (Flying Spaghetti Monster knows I was). But all that being said, you still, at least subconsciously, enjoy a brief moment of accomplishment. The satisfying feeling of crossing something off on your daily to-do list, or the pride that comes along with completing a team or group project in spite of the ineptitude of those around you. It's a damn good feeling, even if you don't often consciously acknowledge or notice it.

On the flip side of that coin, however, are the job seekers. That same sense of purpose, of accomplishment, having been taken from them (in some cases, unfairly), they are on a quest. Yes, of course, there is an initial mourning period. A bit of anger or resentment. But then, with resolve and purposefulness not often seen, the job seekers dive headfirst into the task at hand – finding something to do.

Herein lies the distinction, the separation, and the major problem that faces the job seeker: Not having something to do, but instead having to search for something to do.

And this is what is worst. Particularly when that search, that yearning for something to do, drags on and on with little to no light at the end of a long, long tunnel. Quickly approaching 200 job applications sent since my unfortunately “layoff”, with nothing promising in the immediate future, I speak from experience. Searching for something to do is, as far as I am concerned, worse than having something to do and not being entirely satisfied with it.

So, to my fellow job seekers I offer this advice – Don't fret about the finances. Quit letting the worry about money and bills consumer your thoughts and energy. Instead, focus your energies on remedying the real issue – find something to do. Whether it occupies your mind for an hour or for a weekend, it damn sure beats the hell out of staring at a list of job vacancies. Particularly as that list gets thinner and thinner.

There will be jobs, to be sure. The economy will turn around. But in the meantime, don't let the present situation drive you stir crazy. I already have, and I don't recommend it.

The Attic is Clean. We Found Stuff.

I am Extremly in love with Amanda Palmer.

I Am Extremely Excited About the Season Finale of LOST

So I am making a vegetarian feast for the Port Awesome gang for the last LOSTmas of 2009. Season Five, you are like a candle in the wind or something. A freaky, time-traveling candle.

Feast On Deck:

Minted Pea Wontons (a sort of mashup of this recipe and this recipe, and a total experiment on my part, with pics forthcoming).

Spaghetti Squash Salad Italian

2 Spaghetti Squash (which are roasting as we speak!), cooked and separated
2 pints of cherry/grape tomatoes, halved
2 English cucumbers, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 Large Fennel Bulb, sliced superthin on the mandoline, green feathery tops reserved
1-2 Medium Red Onions, also sliced superthin on the mandoline
1 bag o' fresh Baby Spinach
Fresh herbs: fennel tops, basil and dill
Fresh mozzarella, tiny pearl size or larger, sliced
Lemon vinaigrette (whatever you like, or make your own)
Toasty pine nuts

Toss together in order listed. Pics of this tomorrow!

Red Quinoa with Pan Braised Mushroom and Sunchoke

12 oz. dry Red Quinoa, cooked
4 cups of sliced mushrooms--any mix of button, cremini and porcini
1 lb. Sunchokes (about a dozen), sliced
1 lb. fingerling potatoes (b/c I had some to use up, can be omitted)
1-2 red onions
2-3 garlic cloves
Salt and Pepper
Thyme
Fresh Parsley
Balsamic Vinegar
Toasty walnuts
Crumbled feta or goat's cheese

Cook your quinoa and set aside. Heat some olive oil and cook mushrooms over medium-high flame; add sunchoke and potato, if using, and saute to soften. When nearly done, add onion, garlic and thyme. Cook until onion is soft, stir in parsley and drizzle with balsamic. Salt and Pepper to taste and serve over quinoa. Top with walnuts and cheese.

Note: I just made this recipe up from things that sounded earthy and tasty in my head. I make no guarantees as to its awesomeness until I actually attempt to execute it tomorrow.

Food! LOST! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT!!!

My Body, My Government, My Self

To be filed under: Difficult and Not So Difficult.

Issue One: Health Incentives for Workers (link)

I already quit smoking (six months yesterday! w00t!), but I still contend that smoking is disproportionately demonized because it's highly portable and highly visible, much more so than practically every other vice--you can smoke cigarettes during the work day and not be impaired. It's arguably much more dangerous to, say, solicit hookers for unprotected sex, but you can't do that on a five minute break, so it's not something your employer can easily incentivize against.

Food is a much more difficult issue though, because you can't start hampering your employees with monetary or other penalties if we're not going to take a concurrent top-down approach to agricultural subsidies and a whole host of other business-end food issues that make the least healthy foods the cheapeast. I worry less about whether the cost of an employer-sponsored gym membership is taxable income or not and more about the fact that most workers still don't have paid sick leave, and that no women in our country have paid maternity leave. Money and health are inextricably linked, and until we address the whole picture, sticks and carrots will just be sticks and carrots.

Issue Two: Female Circumcision/FGM (link)

My first impulse here was to check my liberal self and wonder if I was inclined to impose my ugly American values on another culture. Screw that.

My beef lies with this statement, quoted within the article:

"Part of what I do here in the United States is to bring down that sensationalistic perspective -- oh my god, these are barbaric individuals, how horrific, how can parents do this to their daughters," Nour said. "When you truly understand the issues of female circumcision, it's a tradition, it's a rite of passage, it's something that is celebrated in a lot of these places."

You know what used to be a part of American culture? The "confinement" of pregnant women. Child labor. Slavery. You know why we don't do those things anymore? Because they're WRONG. Full stop. "Because it's tradition," is a BS argument, used by conservatives to argue against gay marriage. These kinds of things are just self-evidently wrong. If that makes me some kind of arrogant American imperialist, I'll own that.

The real question then becomes how we encourage these cultures that practice female circumcision to change, and I am at a serious loss for good ideas there.

At Home with the Mayweathers

Mrs. Mayweather: Eats leftover lentils and rice* for dinner, drinks red wine, watches Rachel Maddow, peruses her blogroll.

Mr. Mayweather: Leads a two hour GotoMeeting teleconference while sitting at home in his boxers, earns sweet consulting fee.

Mayweathers FTW!

* Lentils and Rice: Cook some lentils and (separately) cook some rice, equal parts. Fry up some onion and garlic. When it's soft, toss in salt, pepper, coriander, cumin and a little cayenne, all to taste. When your pan starts to go dry, sprinkle on some lemon juice and/or red wine vinegar. Toss in some thawed frozen spinach or kale. Toss with rice, lentils, and dressing of 1/2 cup tahini, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 1/4 cup water, and 2 to 3 crushed cloves of garlic. Top with chopped cilantro or parsley if you like. Eat until stuffed.