~Happy 2011!~

Quotation of the Year: 2010 Edition

On Watching the Detectives, an investigator recounted a case in which two siblings were feuding over their recently deceased mother's estate. When the sister was found murdered, suspicion focused on her brother. The detectives had some difficulty finding him, but when they finally picked him up and settled him in the interrogation room, he told them:

"Just give me a large diet soda, 

and I'll tell you what you want to know."

That would be me, if I were ever arrested that is!

that hydrofrack won't taste so good

The Town

Last week, George and I watched The Town which I wanted to like more than I did. I found the plot predictable and the characters underdeveloped. The bank robbers are very bad men, though Doug, played by Ben Affleck, has a good heart. James (Jeremy Renner) is a wild card, and things go awry when he breaks the unwritten rules of the bank robbing gang's code by violently beating a bank employee and then kidnapping the bank's manager, Claire (Rebecca Hall). F.B.I. Agent Frawley has had enough of the flawless robberies perpetrated by the born-to-crime thieves (a la Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive). Meanwhile, Doug gets close to Claire to ensure she doesn't have information to provide to the F.B.I. Once he sees her allegiance is to Charlestown rather than the law, he falls in love with her and decides to get out. Despite their criminal genius, the gang fails to realize the threat is not the loyal Claire by the addict and woman scorned, Krista (Blake Lively).

The movie was well-acted and the chase scenes, especially, were fun to watch, but the movie presents a difficult to solve dilemma: how to satisfyingly resolve a plot driven by anti-heroes. It doesn't take too long to figure out that James' recklessness will lead to his death either by cop or by his own hand, but I wasn't sure what would happen to Doug. Would he sacrifice himself, but earn the love of Claire (cf. The Crying Game)? Would he escape (cf. The Shawshank Redemption)? Or would he go down fighting?

Bag Monster Blog: After Christmas Recycling Tips

Bag Monster Blog: After Christmas Recycling Tips: "We hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday! As we gaze out at the chaos that used to be our living room, the question comes to mind that e..."

b2p

When Mark Buckley visited school to give a very interesting presentation, in passing I mentioned to two of his Staples colleagues that my Diet Coke addiction had negative environmental implications. They responded that the B2P pen helped ease the effects of all those discarded bottles. Each pen includes 89% recycled PET (about the equivalent of two bottles).  Mr. Buckley kindly let me take his sample pen, pictured above.

Manufactured by the Pilot Corporation, the retractable (and cute) pen does have very nice, smooth writing. It does have a different feel to it in my hand, but that may be due to the less contoured shape of the instrument as much as the material. The one I have is medium (.7) in blue. It's also available in red, green, and black, as well as in fine (.5). They need to add purple ink to the line!

The Pilot Corporation is on PETA's list of companies that do not test on animals, so it's animal-friendly as well as eco-friendly.

Pilot's B2P site

Half Way out of the Dark

"In nine hundred years of time and space I've never met anybody who wasn't important."

~The Doctor

I wish the Doctor would visit me on Christmas Eve!

beer & cookies

I wanted sweets - in particular sugar cookie dough - so I made a batch from a "Simple Vegan Sugar Cookie" recipe I found online. George ate almost the entire batch on Christmas! He said they paired very well with this Harpoon beer.