All posts by PopCultureGangster

Games

No Eric and Daneille, But Still Pretty Good

1 Comment

"Amazing Race" is probably one of the better reality shows out there, as it requires some actual skill to win and takes both participants and viewers to fascinating locals all over the world.   It is one of those shows that you might consider participating in, but that means going through auditions and taking a lot of time off from work if you even do make it on the show, with no guarantee of a reward. 

This past weekend, we participated in an urban scavenger hunt that was like the Amazing Race on a much smaller scale.  Called High Trek Adventure, it takes you through the city – in my case, Boston – trying to solve clues and using only your feet and public transportation to get to each location. 

It turned into a very fun, exciting and tiring day, but one that we’d do again.  We didn’t do too bad – we hardly won, but we found more clues than a lot of teams, including doggedly finding what was the gift of the MIT class of 1892 (flagpoles in the main quad area, in case you’re wondering).   If you want a taste of adventure without taking a leave of absence from your work, this is a great option.  It also gives you a day of great exercise (my feet are still a bit sore) and makes you see more of a city than you normally would.  I had never spent so much time walking through the back streets of Beacon Hill or the North End and saw some parts of Boston that I hadn’t explored before.  I also now know the subway system better than I ever did and after studying up for the race, I now have about a dozen new places in Boston I want to go. 

My only complaint is that I wish it had more historical locals that you had to figure out.  The clues were riddles that you had to solve to find restaurants, stores, etc.  I was hoping for more Bostonian trivia leading you to the location in question. Another company called Urban Dare offers similar experiences and seems to concentrate more on those type of questions.   

Food and Drink

Yes, I WILL Have What She’s Having, As Long As Its the Pastrami

3 Comments

I recently have been traveling a lot for work, including three trips to New York City.  I"ve enjoyed the the delicious offerings of NYC delis on previous visit, but recently got to try Katz’s Deli for the first time.  Inspired by an "Cook’s Guide to New York" included as an addendum to Kitchen Confidential (incidently, an excellent book, especially if you have ever worked in the foodservice industry), I went not knowing the the movie history associated with the place.  I walked in and saw the many photos of celebrities who have eaten there and then saw the sign saying "This is where Harry REALLY met Sally – hope you’re having what she’s having!" referring to the famous "fake orgasm" scene in the movie When Harry Met Sally. 

Chick flick references aside, I went there for the pastrimi.  A relative of BBQ’ed brisket and corned beef, a good pastrimi sandwich is a glorious thing.  A bad one – much more common – is a disheartening gastrointestinal experience.  Katz’s has a unique serving system where you stand in line for a particular meat carver – clearly the regulars have their favorites – and while you are waiting for the meat for your sandwich to be carved (where it is corned beef, tongue, pastrimi or whatever), they offer you a small bite of the meat to sample and keep you occupied while hte sandwich is assembled by hand.  THe whole process is a little confusing, as it is a bit foreign, but the pay off is worth it.

The pastrimi is cut thicker here than at other NYC delis I"ve visited, and this is one piece of meat that can stand up to it.  Tender, juicy and flavorful, you could almost enjoy it without the mustard, if the mustard wasn’t so damn good. I don’t know what it is about deli mustard, but man, it is the only thing that can make a deli sandwich taste even better.   

There are plenty of fancy restaurants in New York City, lots of which will give you a long, luxurious meal at a white cloth-covered table.  But if you want some REAL New York food, you can’t beat a Pastrami sandwich from Katz’s.

Culture

Hint, Hint

1 Comment

The addition of tip calculators to just about every model of cell phone has made the basic math of leaving a tip in a restaurant almost obsolete for an entire generation.  I have always been a heavy tipper, not bothering to figure out that whole “before tax” thing – I usually just look at the bottom line, move the decimal to the left one space, and either add another 50% to leave a 15% tip or more commonly, just double it to leave 20%.  If the service was good, I’ll throw a little more in and if service was poor, I’ll round down.  Rarely is service so bad that I take the time to figure out something less or figure it out to the penny. 

Recently though, I came across one restaurant that had an interesting idea: at the bottom of the credit card receipt was a line that said “Be sure to tip your server” and then had the amounts calculated out for you at 15%, 18% and 20% increments.  Personally, I think this is a great idea, since I hate light tippers – I’ve never waitered and that’s for good reason, since I’ve worked in a kitchen and I know how miserable it is to be on the front lines.  Hopefully this gets people to leave a humane tip for these people who are usually otherwise sustaining on minimum wage and depending on tips to make their lives easier.

Current Affairs

Saving Money On Your Electricity Bill And How To Spend It

I’ve recently written about the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" and did a follow-up post saying how it has really impacted the way I live day-to-day.  It has actually impacted those closest to me as well.  From replacing regular light bulbs with more energy efficient ones, to recycling more. 

My family would regularly have 3 or 4 trash cans out at the curb on trash day.  Since seeing this movie we’ve made a real effort to recycle more – nothing out of the ordinary, just making sure that all the junk mail and catalogs and cardboard packaging goes into a recycling bin.  Since doing that, we haven’t had more than two barrels out at the curb.   So we’re recycling more, saving ourselves some work when it comes to putting out the garbage and saving on garbage bags (surprisingly expensive things).  All while doing something good for the environment. 

Today brings an article about an engineer in New Jersey who has built a house that is completely off the power grid – he doesn’t have an electricity bill and is completely self-sustaining with no carbon output. 

I found myself asking one question while reading it: why is everyone asked about the house so negative towards it?  Obviously the guy went to the extreme and it cost a lot of money – more than the average citizen would be willing to spend on it or could probably be paid back by the savings on electricity.  But it was built by an engineer and it simply shows that it CAN be done.  Naturally, for it to become more common, it has to be cheaper, which will happen.

Consider that when VCR’s came out they cost $3,000.  So did DVD players.  A 32 inch flat screen TV would have cost you $5,000 a few years ago – we recently bought one for $600.  It takes people like this guy in New Jersey to move technology forward.  In 5, 10, 15 years from now, this guy may be a hero or may be forgotten, but I bet his house will be an important step towards cleaner living.

If it isn’t living completely off the electricity grid, then maybe it is living 25% off it, or 50% off it, complementing it with your own solar panels or hydrogen manufacturing.  That is the part that really gets me -they say that making the hydrogen isn’t efficient, so it’s not worth doing.  Well, what does it matter?  He’s using solar power to do it, so it could be only 10% efficient, it still isn’t creating any pollution!

Think about how much you spend a year on electricity for your house.  Imagine not having to sorry about that.  Or only half of it.  Or maybe only a quarter of it.  Do you still think that this guy is crazy?  Do you really not want him to be successful and move the technology forward?  That’s what I thought.

So what do you do with all that money you save from your electricity bill?  Well, you save it up, get on a plane to Cologne, Germany, and buy yourself some sex.  And if you’re over 66, you get it half-price.  I do feel like they may have missed an obvious marketing opportunity here: shouldn’t the age limit be 69? 

If you’re looking to cash in on this idea yourself, here’s how to do it: become a AED equipment sales rep there.  You know there’s gonna be some heart attacks going on with all those senior citizens having cheap sex!   

Food and Drink, Television

Your Guide to the Food Network

2 Comments

A lot of people hate Rachel Ray, but we’ve been making meals out of her cook book 365: No Repeats and they have all been great.  I know she’s not a cook and a lot of purists get pissed at her shortcuts and lack of deep culinary knowledge/skill, but whether it is her or someone else behind the scene doing her cookbooks, the meals are good.  We had a shrimp and scallops with a pumpkin ginger peanut soy sauce that was fantastic. 

At the same time, I’m starting to get sick of the food porn that is running rampant through the Food Network.  Barefoot Contessa makes me feel dirty with all of her juicy closeups of chopping garlic and onions.  Giada DeLaurentiis needs to stop smiling NOW.  She is a scary, scary woman who apparently has about 20 extra teeth than normal human beings and doesn’t do anything or go anywhere in a blouse that doesn’t show off her jiggling boobs.

Right after her is Semi-Homemade with Sandra Dee, who always cooks while wearing white and working in an all-white kitchen and never gets dirty.  Who the hell does that?  I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I have to hose things down. 

However, the prize for worst show on the Food Network goes to this new British chick who has started popping up:  Nigella Bites, which might be the most unfortunately yet appropriately named shows in the history of television.  I encourage you to watch this show just for the laugh factor: in each episode this crazed woman does at least 5 recipes, usually more like 6 or 7, and in the process makes such a mess, that they must have at least a dozen people on set just for clean-up.  Watching her juice a lemon is like watching an elephant rape a seal in shallow water: ugly, scary, lots of thrashing and liquid everywhere.  If you watch carefully you’ll see countertops covered with chopped up bits of vegetables, rinds, and oil all over the place.  I don’t know if Nigella Bites, but she better fucking clean up!

The best shows on the Food Network?  They are still Good Eats, Unwrapped, Iron Chef America (though I still miss the original Japanese version), and Food Network Challenges.  Ace of Cakes and Throwdown with Bobby Flay are pretty good too, though even I’m starting to feel bad for Bobby Flay – he never wins!

Books, Current Affairs, Film, Food and Drink, Music

So Let’s See Here…

I haven’t exactly been putting the blogging world on fire here recently.  Things have been busy at work and all, but there are a few things that I would like to point out that I’ve been up to lately:

First of all, I just finished the book Who Are You People? by Shari Caudron.  If you’re a fascinated by the deep recesses of pop culture and how people can be completely obsessed with one thing, then you must read this book.  If you have any interest in human psychology or behavior, you should read this book.  If you just like a good, enjoyable, interesting read, then yes, you should read this book. 

The new Shins album is as good as everyone says it is.

I watched Borat for the third time recently, this time on DVD.   It continues to be as funny and shocking as the first time, though on the third go around, it struck me that the same people who came across as the most bigoted in the movie were some of the most understanding at first.  Watch the dinner party scene carefully and those people put up with a lot of shit (literally) before loosing their temper.  The guy at the rodeo should still be slapped around for being a moron though.  And the extra 30 minutes are golden – rent or buy the DVD to watch it – its worth it.

If you haven’t tried Pink Truck Wine, you’re missing out on one of the best pink wines you’ll ever have.  This isn’t some candy-ish white zin – this is real wine with acid, and flavor, and character.

Marketing

Where’s “Other”?

I just took a survey and the last question was asking me to indicate my gender, as shown below:

Suvey_clip 

Now, I’m sure that there’s a perfectly good reason for them feeling the need to tell us survey takers to select only ONE answer for this, but I’m not sure I want to know what it is.  Did this particular survey designer have an issue with a lot of people trying to click on BOTH genders?  At least with that little bit of instruction I can narrow down my answer.  I have a 50-50 chance of getting it right!

Film

Inland Empire Of Crap… or Art?

So this originally was going to be a scathing diatribe against the movie Inland Empire by David Lynch.   After going to see it in its Providence, RI premiere and expecting a weird but interesting film, we ended up walking out on it half way through, right around the time the dozen prostitutes started dancing in unison to "Do the Locomotion" in the lead character’s alternate reality or whatever it was.  I’ve never walked out of a movie before, but this one was just leaving me completely lost and befuddled.

In the time since then, I’ve read more critical reviews and some more fan reviews and spent time thinking about.   It has also intrigued my girlfriend and I to see the end of the film.  Given what I’ve read and our desire to finish watching the film, it has started to make me think about whether this is truly a rambling, non-linear piece of art school high-falutin’ pretentious crap or umm… just art.

Here’s the thing – if you’re looking to be entertained or enjoy anything even close resembling a normal movie, this isn’t the movie for you.  I am pretty broad-minded when it comes to art and culture, and I enjoy some pretty different movies.  One of my favorite directors is Stanley Kubrick and I’ve enjoyed movies such as Kayaanisqatsi, Madness of King George, Punch Drunk Love, and even Muholland Drive.  I enjoy movies that are challenging, creative, thought-provoking and original.  My favorite movie all time is still Pulp Fiction.  However, I have my limits and if it is simply too far out there, then I typically have a hard time enjoying it.

However, it has got me thinking about the role that such movies – and music and art for that matter – plays in the creative evolution of their genres.  Many of the classic movies that can seem dated and old fashioned now were cutting edge and controversial at the time.  Each has played a roll in the development of film and while some can still seem edgy, some have become much more mainstream as they have introduced a mainstream audience to innovative storytelling and camera techniques.  The aforementioned Pulp Fiction was certainly not the first film to utilize non-linear storytelling, but did it in such a masterful way that now many other films can do the same thing and audiences are OK with it in a way that they weren’t before.  However, there were other, arguably more innovative, films that came before it and laid the groundwork.  Watch the deluxe DVD with the subtitled commentary and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

So where does that leave a film like Inland Empire?  Like still-presiding President or a war not over yet, it is up to the history books.  It could end up being a art house film that only a very small group of people can even appreciate, even enjoy.  Or perhaps, 10, 20, or 50 years from now it could be considered a breakthrough in cinema.  For me, it is an absolute far-out piece of pretentious of artsy film making that made me walk out of the theater but yet strangely left me wanting more.