Review #34: Root canals

I don't know if it's because the entire nerve in the tooth was dead already, but root canals, while irritating and annoying, don't live up to the horrible reputation they have. It may also be that the way they did them back in the day took forever, from what the dentist told me. A needle had to be put into each root, like in the picture, then an x-ray taken, then developed, then resised if it didn't fit...argh!!!. Everything's automated now and a lot easier. There wasn't much pain, so I didn't get any cool pills. Bummer. Also, the dentist told me that I might have four roots in the tooth instead of three, and that they might all be the same length both of wich are rare. But alas, two of the roots connected at the bottom, so it wasn't a true fourth root. Double bummer.

Review # 33: Dryer's Fruit and Yogurt Smoothie Bars: Strawberry banana

So my roomie Is always buying Dryers Fruit bars which contain a whole serving of fruit (I think). I've tried them and like them. Strawberry's the best, but lime and lemonade are good as well. The other day she brings home a slew of boxes of these things because they were on sale. This time she also got the Fruit and yogurt smoothie bars. I was relatively excited about this because, as I've said before, I love strawberries and while I don't like bananas much, I love strawberry-banana flavors mixed. If you've ever had strawberry banana yogurt or even mixed the fruits together in a blender, this smoothie bar is pretty much what you'd expect. And that is a very good thing. I don't know how much a box costs, so I don't know if they are a deal. I'll probably never get them myself but as long as they appear in my freezer, I'll eat them.

Review #32: Simply Asia Garlic Sesame Rice Noodle Bowl

The biggest problem I have with this product is that I’m not sure where a garlic-sesame rice noodle bowl comes from. China? Japan? Taiwan? The answer…Simply Asia. Let’s just lump ‘em all together, just like McDonalds Asian Salad ad where a CG black woman says “Think asian…” I may not be totally right here, but aren’t PEOPLE asian and THINGS are oriental? To-MAY-to, Toe-MAH-toe, I guess. The formula for this soup is very similar to the old Cup o’ Noodle that everyone loves, except the seasoning, freeze dried veggies, and some oil all come in different packets. Empty them, add hot water, wait 3 min, etc, etc. The flavor of the soup isn’t bad. I don’t know what authentic rice noodles taste like but after years of ramen I have to say they are a little firm for my taste. The little carrot bits were still crunchy which is fine if they were fresh, but with freeze dried, I just expect more…squishiness. This soup bowl was okay. I think it was only $1.15, but next time I’ll go with Maruchan.

reveiw#31: Cephalexin (antibiotic)

I’m getting a root canal this week. Last week, the dentist dug out all the dead nerves and bacteria and prescribed me Cephalexin, an antibiotic. Now I can’t tell you how well it’s working, but I thought I had a sinus infection and if that was the case this should have cleared it up, right. It didn’t so something else is wrong with my ears nose and throat. The biggest problem with this drug is that I have to take one pill every six hours. That means setting my alarm to wake me up before I usually do just to take the pill. That happened today and I went back to sleep without taking it. I also often leave the house without taking any with me, and miss another dosage. It can be a pain. Hopefully I’m still taking it enough to thwart off infection. If it does, this stuff is okay by me. Note: There are no cool side effects of this medication.

Review # 30: "Filthy Gorgeous" by Scissor Sisters

I’ve wanted to hear this song since my friend Betsy, playing off my nickname Filthy called me Filthy Gorgeous, also adding a variation on the name, Filgore. The song has a driving disco beat that is usually good for listening to headphones and walking down the street. The lyrics, mostly about drugs and sex, don’t quite apply to me as I am only filthy in the sense that I am a humongous slob. The vocal styling also started to grate on me about two minutes into the song. Then there was a spoken word part that leaves much to be desired, as most spoken word peices do. After that there is a breakdown that makes the song just too long, then back to the verses. So, to sum it up, I don’t really dig the song.

Review # 29: Summer Rain

I know it's not officially summer yet, but the weather the last few days has just about felt like it. Then I woke up today and it was overcast. It started raining while I was at work and it was beautiful. The air was warm but the cleansing power of the rain was washing all the bullshit off of the street/planet. Maybe I'm being romantic, but it was perfect, the kind of weather I could fall in love in. I'm as single as I've ever been right now, but that didn't get me down. It just made me think of the infinite possibilities there are.

review # 28: Hostel (2005)

I am a great fan of horor movies. I don't know why, they are NEVER scary. Maybe I just like bad movies and horror is a genre that lens itself well to being poorly executed. Hostel is, by far, no exception (does that make sense?). The movie starts as what could easily be a buddy comedy, another automaticaly bad genre, with three college like dudes cruising Europe in the biggest cunt hunt since, umm,...Meatballs 4? The horror movie formula is met by me not caring about any of the characters and, in fact, making want them dead. The character Josh, who I thought was the main character, only wins my favor because he is relativley cute. However, he plays the ugly American, shouting about how he's better cuz he's american when he gets in a fight at a bar. Dilhole. Now the general male audience would love the,oh, 40 minutes of the red-light district dolls and hostel honeys, all more than willing to display their mamories. However, by the time we get to the spa at the hostel I'm hoping that the gore to come will be enough to get the image of all those tits out of my head. I have nothing against breasts, hell, women are beautiful, but it's like being bombarded with advertisments for things I just don't want to buy. One cool thing about the movie is the gang of street kids, all like eight years old...It reminds me of my friend Bob's stories of when he was a kid in Turkey in, I think, the 50's. He got in good with them because he had leverage...tootsie pops. Another good thing is the music at the clubs. It's awful foreign rock/pop, but it's better than american because a) I don't know what they're saying and it seems mocking and b) They seem to have a lot more passion in their voices that's not polished away in the studio. Maybe it's just me. Cut forward, the girls fuck the guys over and sell them to killer artist rich guys or something, and Josh ends up in his underwear. This would be cool if he wasn't tied to a chair and made swiss cheese of with a power drill. So just the lame-ass Paxton is left who ends up escaping through a series of very fortunate coincidences. He saves a Japanese girl he met at the Hostel because of some back story where he didn't save a little girl a long time ago. This poor girl getting mutilated made me thing of Battle Royale and the Suicide Club, cool movies, but they just made me feel real sorry for her. In a nutshell Saw 2 was stupid and Hostel was boring.

Review # 28: Strawberry Chapstick, others

I never put a lot of stock into lip balms or what have you. They help a little but are never worth the price to me, especially since I keep loosing them. The best they tend to do is add a gooey feeling to the soreness. Upon the advice of many friends I have tried Burts Bees, as well as Dr. Bonners. Both were OK, but neither really helped all that much. The worst was Jones soda. I got the Green Apple flavored lip balm and it tasted just like the soda but did absolutley nothing to relieve my dry lips. The last time i needed moisture on my dry, cracked lips I hopped over to the corner store and saw Strawberry Chapstick. This was a new idea on me, and I thought at first it might be like the candy-esq Jones soda Balm. I love strawberries, even artificial strawberry flavor which doesn't really taste like strawberries, and knowing fake strawberry flavor all I could think of was sugar. I am happy to announce that this Chapstick(R) works just as well as any other Chapstick(R), but, hey, it tastes like fake strawberries. Oh, I think it was $1.89.

Review # 27: Bird's eye Steamfresh Broccoli and cauliflower

As well all know, or have been told, when you steam vegetables they loose all of their nutrients. Keeping that in mind, I guess it doesn't matter what condition your steamed vegetables are in. However, I tend to steam them anyway because they just lend themselves to dishes better that way. I've always liked broccoli and I love cauliflower. They are best raw with ranch, but in this case I was looking for something to mix into my Annies shells and aged white cheddar dinner. Sometimes I don't go with the fresh vegetables because you usually have to buy an entire head of cauliflower which for me is not cost effective. I also usually get the store brand of couli-broccoli mix, but today the QFC was sold out of the Kroger brand, which I usually steam on a colander. Lo and behold, they had this Bird's eye steamfresh mix that you nuke in the microwave on sale for $2.00. What the hell? I have to say, it's not much worse ( but still a little worse) than steaming the other frozen vegetables. It is a hell of a lot faster, though. They were all a bit soggier than the other usually are, but they didn't get in the way of me cooking the pasta, which can be a problem when steaming because we only have one pot in my house. all in all, it's always better to use fresh vegetables, duh, but if you go for frozen save some time and use the microwave.

review #26: hangovers

they suck. My head won't stop pounding but at least im not going to puke.

review#25: Me or half of me

Well. there was a long rant here that I wrote while I was drunk and because I control this space, I made it go away. 5-13-06

Review # 24: Marie Callendar's frozen chicken pot pie

There are two reasons that this is the best pot pie you can get anywhere. First of all, when you get a pot pie they some either with the crust lining the inside of the bowl, or just with a layer of crust on top. I've found that if you get a pot pie at a decent restaraunt where they cook all the food from scratch, you just get the layer on top. Even if you get one from KFC, you just get the layer on top. Most frozen pies, however, have the crust throughout, and Marie Callendar's is no exception. I love the crust, I guess I should've mentioned that, but the other thing that makes this the best pot pie is the thing that separates it from all the other frozen, fully-crusted pies. When you put, oh, say a Banquet pot pie in the microwave the crust becomes a soggy gooey mess and chances are that it's still frozen in the middle. Marie Callendar's stand out in that when you cook it in the microwave, not only do you shave about 45 minutes off of the oven cooking time, but you can't even tell it was nuked. If you put it in for about twelve minutes the crust is perfectly cooked and the inside is hot. So hot I always have to let it cool off. These pot pies can be kind of expensive, but it has been my experience that they usually go on sale for a decent price. They're usually $3.99 at the QFC, but I got mine tonight for $2. Not bad.

Review# 23: Superman # 652

We are living in a post-post-crisis world. Back in the 1980's, The DC Universe went through some monumental changes in the Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries, which actually re-wrote the history of these heroes. This was a little before my time, comic-ly speaking, so I was brought up in the post-crisis world that only had one color of kryptonite(green, duh), and no supergirl until 1988, who turned out to be a shapeshifting clone-bot or something. The real supergirl showed up just last year, i think, as supermans cousin, just as she had in the 1950's pre-crisis world. Anyway, the last couple of years have been immersed in Dc's Identity crisis and Infinite Crisis mini serises which both led to changes of the same monumental porportions. It all starts when Dr. Light, a second string Villan , rapes the wife of Elongated Man, a second-string hero...It all unravels from there...Even if I wanted to go into it, there are plenty of other resources, I'm sure, that could break it down for you even better. In a nutshell, the multiverse, which is an infinite number of alternate reality earths, is re-created and in the end, one earth remains: New Earth. Now at the end of all this, Superman has somehow lost his powers. After that all the core titles jump ahead one year. In this time Clark and Lois Kent have been adjusting to being a normal married couple and both have been quite happy with it. Superman #652 is part 5 of this "1 year later" storyline, and at the end of part four in Action comics #whateverthehell Clark is attacked by super-gangsters for an expose he wrote. Then he gets hit by a train...and survives. looks like his powers are returning. Discovering that Superman is back, Intergang, those super-gangsters, send five nutty villains after him, including Silver Banshee and Livewire. I'm glad to see Livewire still around. I only ever saw one episode of the Superman cartoon on the WB, and it was the one with her, and last year they introduced her into regular continuity. I kind of like her; a radio shock jock with a grudge against Supes who gets super electrical powers...and shes blue. Now Supermans powers are coming back slowly, so he's not at his peak performance, but still easily takes out three of the would-be assassins. Then Bloodsport decides to shoot Jimmy Olsen in the head. This is the jump that Superman needs to get all his power back as he lives up to one of his tag lines and is faster than the speeding bullet, plucking it from the air just in time. If you're into it as much as you can tell I am, which I bet you're not, it's pretty cool.

Review #22: Variant covers on comic books

Ever since Jim Lee and Scott Williams did four different covers for the first issue of the new X-Men series in 1991, variant covers seem to be a gimmick that won't die, like foil and chromium covers eventually did by the end of the 90's. The most outlandish display of this, I think, was the first issue of Image's Gen 13 ongoing series wich sported THIRTEEN different covers! This kind of gimmic only appeals to collectors who believe that these issues will be worth more than the initial investment sometime in the future. It is my opinion that efforts to sell so many copies of a comic book that wont even be read is the work of noneother than Satan himself. There are a couple of other reasons for variants that aren't nearly as malicious. One is to show what printing a book is, and that's what spurred this review in the first place, but I'll get to that later. The other one is when a book is offered at a comic book convention. This is completley ok in my view because it is a souvenier from a once-in-a-lifetime event. There SHOULD be more value assigned to is both monetarily and sentimentaly. The last reason for variants is to show what printing a book is. When a comic sells out and there is still a demand for it, they print a second run which is usually less valuable than the first. It's not uncommon for a book to have three runs of a single issue. Something happend to me today that pissed me off a bit. Back when Superman "died", DC had a lot of runs of those issues, and they were noted by a small roman numeral by the issue number. For instance the second printing of the issue when superman dies would have said 75 where the issue number was and a "II" next to it. Fast forward to today. When a second printing comes out now, the cover is some variant of the original. For instance the superman covers from the One year Later storyline are replaced by pencil sketch versions of the original printing. Then theres Batman. An issue of Detective comics came out last month with Harvey "two-face" Dent's human half of the face on the cover. The next moth was going to have the warped, monster half of his face on it. I saw an issue in the store today with both of those pictures together, basically just showing an image of two-face. So I bought it thinking it was the one I wanted, but in reality it was just the second printing of the issue with harvey's human face. I got all mad. That's why I wrote this. Why didn't I just look at the issue number? It was issue # 818. I kind of stop looking at the numbers when they get that out of hand. Silly me.

review # 21: the Croissant chicken salad sandwich from the QFC

This sandwich was not worth the $4.99 it costs, but I still had no problem eating the whole thing. Feeling somewhat dejected after going to my dental appointment ( I broke a tooth last thursday and want to get it taken care of) and finding out that my insurance only covers medical and not dental, I strolled home and stopped by that Quality Food Center to get something to eat. I had had chicken salad in a croissant before at my own job, so i thought I'd give it a go. This one wasn't that great, though. It was all smashed flat, and there was a hell of a lot of some herb in the salad that just seemed like too much. Still I scarffed it down, angry that I'd have to talk to someone at work about my dental insurance. I hate talking to people. Note: Photo is not actual sandwich, although this one doesnt look very good either.

review # 20: Free internet

You may not always be in range of a signal, but when you are, it's really nice. Needless to say it is especially hard when you have a desktop.