I’ve a feeling the degree of Brent’s eventual fame will be determined primarily by his tolerance for it.  He’s a tremendously talented singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, and I’m pleased I get to enjoy his music so often.  (Antoine, you’re not so bad yourself, and you picked a good partner.)  Good luck, guys!

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I’m not proud of it—it’s particularly embarrassing given the disdain I have and regularly express for a lot of base pop culture—so I try not to go too often.  Consequently I’m not sure how long this has been available, but it’s awesome:  how about a “constantly updated feed of civilian booking photos“?

Dig:  click a thumbnail and it opens the mug shot, but it also drops you into one of 24 categories (like Cleavage, or Hawaiian Shirts, or Weepy).  You can also select one of those categories to go straight there.

Finally, you can also browse just the celebrities, like you’ve always been able to.  Joyce DeWitt, 25 years past her 15 minutes, arrested on suspicion of drunk driving?  Check.  Tawny Kitaen, looking very un-writhe-on-my-Jaguar?  Check.  Closing on a dozen choices just choosing between Lindsay Lohan and OJ?  Check.

Enjoy.

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The New York Times article—which I somehow was able to read an hour or so ago but which is now demanding login credentials, therefore preventing me from linking to it— disingenuously and snobbishly avoids any mention of what is surely Gazzara’s greatest role:  that of Brad Wesley in the masterpiece Road House.  (The briefest of mentions can be found here.)

(Note that Patrick Swayze and Jeff Healey are gone already.  Is there a Road House curse?  Mind yourself, Kelly Lynch.)

RIP.

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Have you ever attended a murder party?  I can access a vague memory of playing a drug dealer with slicked-back hair for one of these with an old girlfriend, but that’s been 20 years ago now.  Further, I’m confident the scope of this one dwarfed the other, both in the game’s design and Beth’s quest for total environmental immersion when decorating for something of this nature.  (Wow, what an effort, too!)

I’m really a pretty smart fellow, but to play this game well requires a degree of mental plate-spinning of which I’m apparently incapable.  It’s necessary to keep up with three or four times the amount of information than I can manage.  This manifests as a) one character asks me about trading information or items; b) I put him off so I can flip through my packet and see what he’s talking about; c) I figure out I need to do what he said; d) I go back to him and say let’s do it; and finally e) he’s already gone a different way.  This happened to me at least twice.  (I had most of what I needed to know well in advance, but the pacing and the amount of simultaneous interaction buried me.)

It concerned me enough that I pulled Beth aside and told her I was worried my ineptitude was messing the game up, but she assured me there was enough flexibility designed in to accommodate such.  (You know, I can also generate some guilt thinking about the fact that she gave me an extroverted character that I never really did enough with because I was having to try too hard to keep up!)  She’ll swat that down too, because she’s gracious and she’s my friend.  Then she’ll say that she just hopes I had a good time, which I certainly did.  It was food, drink, and lots of laughs with folks I enjoy very much.

If we do it again, though, I think I should probably tend bar.

Thanks so much for all of the trouble and the invitation, Beth.  It was a blast!

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So, apart from trying 30 minutes of the first film on HBO and turning it off bored, I just never played.  I got what anyone would get through osmosis.  I knew he was a magical kid with a lightning bolt on his forehead (though I’d have probably called it a birthmark and not a scar).  I knew he went to a school called Hogwarts.  I knew non-magical people were called muggles, though I question whether I’d have even known that had it not been for geocaching.  I could have come up with Dumbledore as a character name.  I doubt I could have come up with Voldemort, though if you said it I could have identified it as part of the Harry Potter universe.  Dig?

Then my friend BamaDan ordered the whole series on Blu-ray, and when he complained to the vendor about a couple of cases being damaged, they sent him a new one and told him not to worry about the old one.  So that’s how I came to own the film series in high-definition for nothing.  (Thanks, man!)

So who’s ever watched these movies without having turned a page of J.K. Rowling?  Well, I have, now.  Thanks to yucky weather and a three-day weekend, the boys and I have consumed the first four films.  They’re really having fun with them.  Aaron, in particular, is enthralled, which I’ve loved because he’s rarely an especially enthusiastic “fan.”

I am enjoying them well enough.  They’re classic good-and-evil fantasy stories.  I would have expected the production design to be pretty lights-out, and it is.  The special effects mostly deliver.  The writing isn’t particularly sharp, but it does a reasonable job remaining accessible to children without alienating adults (and that’s not the only way I’ve been reminded of Star Wars).

I just don’t have any emotional connection to these characters.  I think “soulless” is too strong, but “cold” is in the ballpark.  Now part of me says “if I’d read the books…” and I’m sure some of you said that too when you started this paragraph.  But really, should that be necessary?  Is it advisable to make a movie assuming someone has read the book on which it’s based?  Shouldn’t it be its own thing?  I think that both the recent Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings movies do a good job with that, though I can’t be certain because I’ve read those books.

So we’re through Goblet of Fire, which means we’re as far as Nathan has read (and wow, I’m grateful for that, because he has stayed just about to pop wanting to tell you what’s going to happen next).  We’ll finish them in another week or so.

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We’ve had our Ruth’s Chris in Huntsville for five years or so, and I’d heard about it probably that much longer again on talk radio, but neither of us had ever been.  I accidentally selected the same night Ron “Tater Salad” White was in town, but our reservation and valet parking effectively mitigated any pain there.  We checked our coats and were seated promptly.  There are no continuous walls separating you from the hotel lobby at large, but the space is designed thoughtfully enough to provide suitable intimacy.

So the signature touch at Ruth’s Chris is that its USDA prime steaks are served to you at a temperature of 14,000,000,000,000,000 degrees.  (OK, it’s really “only” 500 degrees Fahrenheit, after having been seared at 1800 degrees, but still, when she says “hot plate,” she means it.)  They sizzle at the table because they’re bathed in a tablespoon of butter.

The other thing to know is that Ruth’s Chris side dishes each serve two to three people.  I’m sure this works well in a group of four or more, but for two, it essentially means you have to be on the same page for your potato and any vegetable accompaniment.  This seems needlessly constraining, but we dealt with the limitation mostly satisfactorily.

Lea and I are not big wine drinkers, so we didn’t spend any time with the impressive-looking list.  I was a little surprised that not only was there not anything comparable for available beers, there didn’t seem to be a listing of any kind anywhere.  Our server Jay assured me that they had “pretty much anything domestic,” so I settled on a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which arrived promptly with a chilled glass.  Unfortunately, it was the last one in the restaurant, so I wasn’t able to continue with it.  Failure to inform me of this in time to change my selection was the only (minor) service offense of the evening.

(And a switch to Sweetwater 420 Pale Ale isn’t a bad jump.)

Our appetizer of crab-stuffed mushrooms arrived perfectly halfway through the Sierra Nevada.  The four golf-ball sized portobellos were tasty enough to hold our attention without being distracting.  I also appreciate interesting flavors that don’t rely on salt overload, which has (sadly) become the norm for appetizers.  These delivered nicely.

For dinner, Lea selected a New York strip, well done, while I had the filet, medium-rare (and that’s a stock Ruth’s Chris photo and not one of my particular steak, but it could be).

These came out sizzling as advertised, accompanied by the garlic mashed potatoes and fresh asparagus we had selected.  After making a joke about being careful not to touch our tongues or ear lobes to the plates, we began.

Now given the shtick and the price, the steaks were going to have to be memorable, and they delivered.  They were very high-quality cuts, cooked perfectly to order and with only the subtlest seasoning of salt, pepper, parsley, and the aforementioned butter in order to better showcase the corn-fed flavor.

I haven’t kept a list of the best steaks I’ve ever had, but there was absolutely nothing to complain about with this one.  I hadn’t even a minor gripe with its quality.  I’m certain it was a 90th-percentile steak for me; I think it might have been 95th-percentile.  I cut it with my fork.  The flavor was marvelous and long-lived.  I started taking slightly smaller bites as the steak diminished on the plate, just so I’d have one or two more.

The asparagus was fresh, flavorful, and accompanied with hollandaise.  It was cooked just a bit more than I prefer, with only a slight crispness, but still well within reasonable expectations.  The garlic mashed potatoes were tasty, with only an occasional lump to assure authenticity, and (again) no salt overload.

For the close, Jay set a mountain of chocolate mousse pie between us, which was creamy, delicious, and artfully presented.  We managed about two-thirds of it, I think, and I enjoyed an excellent French press black coffee with it.

The service experience, start to finish, was excellent.  The meal was paced perfectly.  Jay was polite and genuinely conversational (and I really dislike that rehearsed, straight-from-corporate-training quality there is to far too much server communication anymore).  He, the hostess, and the valet all greeted me by name.  It was all warm and attentive, with a good understanding and avoidance of what grates.

If you know anything else about Ruth’s Chris, you know that we’re not talking about the Golden Corral budget-wise.  Now I think I paid a little bit more one time in Destin, but this visit definitely joined my American Express hall of fame for a single meal for two.  With a shared appetizer, three alcoholic beverages, and dessert and coffee accompanying our steak dinners, and adding a 20.1% tip for our server and a fiver for the valet, the start-to-finish experience checked in at $184.

Now eating out is a luxury in the first place, so I’m not going to say that’s too much.  It’s a pleasant evening at a premium restaurant, and that’s what that one cost.  Our previous closest analog is probably Pauli’s, and I’m now interested in returning there soon for a head-to-head.  (I’m reasonably sure I remember that a comparable visit is 20-25% less there.)

Nevertheless, we enjoyed ourselves very much, and I suspect we’ll return occasionally.

8/10

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(No, I didn’t watch it with my boys.  No need to call DHR.)

This is the first one not directed by Eli Roth (or “presented by Quentin Tarantino”), and the fact that this was a direct-to-video release effectively lowered my expectations.

Dig:  it’s not awful, but it’s a definite step down from the first and second installments.  There is a lot less budget here.  There is insufficient novelty value in moving the setting to Las Vegas.  There’s a well-done scene in which rich, well-dressed people drink expensive liquor and use their computers to do despicable things, but you know what?  It was better in Taken.

Basically, the first film was a well-produced, mostly well-acted introduction to the unthinkably horrific concept of a murder retreat.  The second film took the same setting, but added a marvelously understated sense of black humor and a wickedly powerful heroine.  (I’m a big fan of Hostel:  Part II.)

What sticks out is that this installment just doesn’t bring anything compelling of its own to the party.  I mean, it’s a gimmick franchise, you know?  It has one trick.  And given that it has one trick, there has to be payoff beyond plot; bonuses that stand on their own.  They just aren’t here.

(And if gorno is your thing:  this is nowhere near the first two.)

The biggest potential liability is one of audience assumption.  It’s inevitable that some people are going to happen into this film first and draw conclusions about the franchise at large, and that’s a mistake.  This is a skillful knockoff, not a legitimate spiritual successor to the first two chapters.

If you’re a Hostel completist—as disturbing as such a concept is—then see it.  Like I said, it’s not a disaster.  It’s just a shame that that the first two films stood so much taller.

5/10

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As I type at midday on Christmas Eve 2011, I have—this entire season—completely avoided every single annoying Christmas song there is.

I mean completely.  I’ve not heard “Feliz Navidad” once.  Not a single piercingly annoying bar of “Wonderful Christmastime” has sullied my auditory canal.  That stupid hippopotamus song?  Nope.  And any cackle you’ve had at that wacky Grandma having too much eggnog has not been shared with me.

I’ve even avoided the minor irritations.  Seems like there’s some Mariah Carey song with Macaulay Culkin acting a fool in the video I used to hear. “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree?” “Jingle Bell Rock”?  “Santa Baby,” which is good for two listens and then grates forever?  All absent from my Christmas season experience this year.

Are you jealous?

I didn’t set out to do it.  I just noticed about a week ago that it had happened that way.  Looking good to be able to maintain it, too.  Headed to church in a bit, with a budding Christmas Eve dinner tradition to follow, so the rest of today seems safe.  None of our usual Christmas Day activities necessarily include third party-selected soundtrack, either.

I like it.

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As for me, dudes and dolls, if it’s not in my sphere of Christmas concern by 7:30 on the morning of December 19, it’s probably not going to get in there.  I apologize in advance for any slights, both perceived and genuine.

Lunch with Carol today.  Movie and pizza with BamaDan on deck later in the week.  Only marginal proximity to retail in each case.  Lea has asked that I take the boys all day Thursday, so we’ll be doing that.  We’ll go have lunch somewhere fun, and I haven’t worked the rest of it out.  (I haven’t watched any of my Christmas movies yet; alas, the boys aren’t even close to old enough for any of them for at least another couple of years.)

Mainly, I’m trying to take my foot off the accelerator a little bit.  It’s a silly time of year, but I’m trying to appreciate that freneticism is still a choice, and I’m trying not to make it.  Join me, won’t you?

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James Lileks is at it again, and anyone with a sense of humor should be grateful.  This is from the The Price Is Right section of his new (beta, actually) ’70s portal.  Enjoy.  Be careful with any beverages you may currently be enjoying.

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