Jeanne is wandering around on her own a lot now and I spent some time during the afternoon to do a bit of baby proofing. I put on corner bumpers to the TV table and installed safety latches on low-lying kitchen cabinets. That should keep her away from the contents for a while.
Black Swan is about a Nina, a psychotic ballerina trying to perfect the roles of the white swan and black swan in Swan Lake. As she struggles against the challenge, she is hindered by painful pyschotic attacks but which seems to lead her closer to perfecting the role. As perfection comes within grasp, she realizes that it’s not just her who wants the role.
If that sounds familiar, you’ve probably seen Pi also from Darren Aronofsky.
Through great movie-making, Black Swan successfully draws you into the pyschotic world of the lead character for a pretty immersive move watching experience, i.e. you will almost feel the full range of emotions Nina felt. Natalie Portman is absolutely brilliant in the move. As a bonus, it has a lot of beautiful ballet dancing and, of course, the much hyped girl-on-girl action with Mila Kunis. Not for the casual viewer as the movie is dark and heavy but if you’re a serious film buff, you will be rewarded.
Rating: 4/5
I sometimes see pee splattered on the floor when I visit the men’s room and it occurred to me that maybe it can be used as an indicator of how good a programmer is. Pee splatter is sloppy and sloppiness is definitely not an indicator of a good programmer. But then again, maybe it’s all those business analysts and project managers.
Jeanne likes Jollibee. Whenever he sees the Jollibee statue or sign, she would say “Jabee”. This evening as we were driving off from a kiddy party at Shakey’s, she said “Jabee”. At first, I thought she was confusing Shakey’s with Jollibee. But true enough there was a Jollibee sign and she saw it way before, and faster than, we did.
I wonder why kids like Jollibee. Must be that rotund face and big eyes. But as a marketing tool, it sure works!
One of the problems when you play around the kitchen, is keeping your pots and pans sparkling clean. I try to follow three simple rules.
First, don’t go too hot on the burner. This burns oil turning it into stubborn gunk that sticks to the pan. It also vaporizes some of the oil stinking up the air and your clothes. Worse, with time it gunks up your range, range hood, kitchen, lungs even.
Second, don’t spill. The spill gets burned into the sides of your pot and onto the burner. If you spill, you’re using the wrong pot size or you’re cooking way too much. Or you’re just plain sloppy.
Third, clean. If you somehow screw up the two simple practices above, I guarantee you will have a tough time cleaning up. And you will need abrasives. To avoid scratching up your pots and pans too much, use the mildest abrasive pads if possible. This will require a lot of elbow grease.
In the tougher cases, you will have to use harsher abrasive pads. In that case, once the pot is gunk free, you will need to polish your way down to the milder abrasive pads to lighten the scratches and, finally, top off with a metal polish if you really want to be shiny.
Clean up is a lot of work, and in this case, as with most, an ounce of prevention is worth and pound of cure.