Movie that Looks Hot, Hot, Hot!

So after the polarizing Academy Award winning film No Country For Old Men, the Coen brothers follow up their hit w/ Burn After Reading. It's about two gym employees, played by Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand, who try to sell off a CD full of CIA secrets. With No Country the Coens have been back on track after a bit of a slump. Their last 2 films, The Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty (Paris Je T'aime's too short to count), were quite unwatchable. I can't wait for this film, which comes out September 12th. Below's the red band trailer (meaning it's got some explicit content):

Of Rats and Joysticks

So news came out recently that Leonardo DiCaprio will be a in a biopic about Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari. So for this blog entry, I knew I had to put something Chuck E. Cheese's related since Bushnell was also the founder of the animatronic pizza joint. Little did I know how much obscure information I would find about the place online. This also brings me back as I would frequent Showbiz Pizza - one of CEC's engulfed franchises- often as a kid. I must say, my parents must have really loved me to keep taking me there. I'm watching some of the videos online of memories I have of the place and I must say I don't know if I could stand going there more than once as an adult. Part of me also remembers that place being very loud when the animatronic shows happened, I wonder what a noise level survey would have shown. I found this website, ShowBiz Pizza.com, which is a museum of all things ShowBiz/Chuck E. - from the history of the tokens to a whole library of employee training videos. Here's a training video I found on youtube:

Deliciously Good Read

I've just finished this book called The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food. Wha?! That's right, I've not only read and finished a book in a week but it's about Chinese food. Author Jennifer 8. Lee (numerology infused into one's name), an American born Chinese writer for The New York Times, writes about the impact of Chinese food in America and how American the Chinese food we have in the States really is. Like the title of the book, a major portion of Lee's quest is to figure out the origins of the fortune cookie after a series of lucky numbers from a fortune garners a lot of Powerball Lottery winners. Other interesting topics in the book include the history of Chinese takeout in New York City, Asian manufacturers' fight to have any soy sauce that is not naturally soy brewed to not be classified as soy sauce, Fold-Pak food pails, Jewish people's connection to Chinese food, why General Tso has chicken named after him like Colonel Sanders, and the lofty task of finding the greatest Chinese restaurant outside of China. The most I got out of it, being a Chinese-American, was the history the restaurant industry and its impact on Chinese culture in America. Much of the Chinese food here in America is all-American because the food is a fusion of Chinese and what Americans like in food. I also realize now that the stuff my grandma's been making for years is probably the real Chinese food. Like they used to say on Reading Rainbow I'll tell you to go to your local library or bookstore and pick up a copy today because it's a great read, but don't take my word for it!

This book also reminded me about an article the Seattle Weekly did about the history of teriyaki restaurants in Seattle. Check it out here.

Visit Lee's blog at the fortunecookiechronicles.com, especially after you've read the book. There are a lot of pictures from her journeys that she wrote about in the book.

Here's an NPR interview with Lee and an excerpt from the book as well.

I don't watch The Colbert Report, but I found out about the book from this interview between Colbert and Lee awhile back while channel surfing:

Great Scott! Universal Studios Burnt!

So if you've heard this Sunday, there was a fire on the Universal Studios backlot in Los Angeles. It took over 400 firefighters to stop the blaze. Large portions of the lot were destroyed, including the New York Street facade, the King Kong attraction, and Courthouse Square. Also, a vault of 50,000 high quality film copies were destroyed. Fortunately, no original or irreplaceable reels were lost. It has been determined in the last couple of days that the fire was due to a blow torch that was used on a set. Another issue was that the firefighters did not feel that there was proper water pressure to extinguish the fire faster. Here's a link that lists a few movies filmed in the damaged area.

Seems like everything from Back to the Future is being destroyed at Universal Studios. First they shut down one of their coolest rides, Back to the Future: The Ride, to replace it with a Simpsons ride last year and now this. I don't know why anyone would want to shut down a theme park attraction where you ride a flying time machine built out of a DeLorean. I've been to Universal Studios maybe 2 or 3 times in my life and that ride was always the thing I was looking forward to. If you've never been, this is what you missed out on:

Days 3 & 4 of Big Sky Country

Not much done the last couple of days in Montana. During my time in Butte, I saw the 2 attractions the city had to offer on my way out: A statue of a woman on a mountain and a giant toxic pit. I made my way up to Helena, the capital of Montana, before ending up in Great Falls. Before I left Montana, I had to eat at an Arby's. Although the fast food chain originated in Ohio, I've noticed the last couple of times that I've traveled through Montana that their Arby's are some of the best I've had. I'm sure decent fast food is due to good management and ownership but I think the state's dedication to good beef had something to do with it too. I ordered a large roast beef sandwich aka, for those of you who remember what the half pound sandwich used to be called, The Big Montana. It went down real well with a large side of mozzarella cheese sticks. One final memory from Montana, I was thumbing through the TV stations in my hotel in Butte and I saw one of the most infamous episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger. I think this clip sums it up:


Yeah, that's Haley Joel Osment.

Day 2 of Big Sky Country

Today, I headed over to the Museum of the Rockies (MOR), on the campus of Montana State University in Bozeman. It is always a reinvigoration of my childhood when I get to go to a museum with a dinosaur exhibit. As a child dinosaurs were what I loved, I read books about them, drew pictures of them, and would try to get my hands on anything dinosaurs. Jurassic Park is still, to this day, one of my favorite all time movies - the film brought many creatures I had read about to life. I'd attribute the film to sparking a greater interest in watching movies too. The state of Montana is one of the epicenters of the paleontologic community as many dinosaur skeletons and fossils have been found there. One of the most notable paleontologists, Jack Horner, is a Montana native and is the Curator of Paleontology at MOR. Horner was an advisor for the Jurassic Park films and was an inspiration for the character Dr. Alan Grant. The museum was great. It's not a very large museum, but the halls that housed the dinos were quite impressive. Almost all of the castings and real skeletons of dinosaurs came from Montana. The museum boasts the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in the world. The exhibits have many interesting theories about dinosaurs that I had not heard before. A couple that struck me included T-Rex being a scavenger and ceratopsians'(horned dinosaurs) horns were used for species recognition. One amazing discovery the museum houses is a bone of a T-Rex found in Montana that is the first fossil containing soft tissue - quite a find! Below are just a few pics of the museum.





After work at the airport and seeing lots of bones in the museum, I was hungry and sort of in the mood for some ribs. I stopped in at Bar 3 BBQ. I got a half a rack of St. Louis ribs and I have to admit, I've never had to work so hard to clean off a half rack. The ribs were huge and they don't trim off a lot of the meat like other places do. The sides I chose (garlic mash potatoes and baked beans) were a bit dry, but they did the trick. Definitely another filling meal in Montana.

Day 1 of Big Sky Country

Greetings from Bozeman, Montana! I'm traveling throughout central Montana this week testing Horizon Airlines at their various aiport hubs. My trip today was not without it's interesting moments. The flight was supposed to stop in Butte, before ending up in Bozeman. While we were descending into Butte, there was a bolt of lightning that flashed by the plane. Concerned that there might be something wrong with the plane, which was a Bombardier Q400, they had everyone get off the plane and wait for a mechanic. After almost an hour of waiting, Horizon says that the plane was going to be taken out of commission and that a bus was going to take us to Bozeman - another hour and a half drive. Within 10 minutes of this announcement, we are then told that the plane will end up taking us to Bozeman. Anyways, long story short, more delays occur to get us on the plane and take off - we finally arrive at 5 PM Mountain time, 2.5 hours late. Fortunately, I didn't have to do any testing so it was a relaxing time of sitting around and doing some reading.

After finally getting my white RAV 4 rental (was hoping for the promised Mazda6 or similar sedan), I got to my hotel around 6 PM. I'm quite impressed w/ the RAV 4, it drives like a car but with large SUV side mirrors. I was hoping to go to the Museum of the Rockies today, but maybe tomorrow. I decided to check out a steakhouse that I had heard from many sources touted as 'The Best Steakhouse in Montana' - quite a lofty title. It's a little place called Sir Scott's Oasis Steak House, located in a little town about 20 miles west of Bozeman called Manhattan. I soon found out why some may think it's the best steakhouse in Montana...even though this is the first one I've ever been to. You just get a bargain for your buck at this place. Because of the size of the place, it was very busy. I reserved for 7 PM and ended up being seated about 20 minutes later, but it's understandable since I was the only person in my party. I definitely got the small town vibe, many people in the restaurant from different parties were interacting with other parties. Once you're seated your table has a basket of crackers, a relish tray of assorted fresh veggies, a decanter of ice water, and a huge scoop of butter for the crackers....maybe for the veggies too. Yeah, that picture is butter-not sour cream or ice cream, butter. All the dinner entrees come with salad, soup of the day, a side of potatoes, garlic toast, ice cream, and a cup of coffee. As hungry as I was, I decided to exercise some self control and get one of the smaller steaks on the menu: the 16 oz New York Strip. All the steaks in the restaurant are USDA Prime Black Angus beef - very flavorful, many times very expensive, beef. The first bite of the beef came from my soup, which was a beef chili, although the beef wasn't ground it was chunks of prime rib - yum. When my steak came out it was sitting on an iron skillet surrounded by garlic toast and Jo-Joes, my tuberific side of choice. Jo-Joes are round sliced sections of potato that are battered and deep fried. It's good that I had something deep fried, I was tempted to try their steak fingers which were battered and deep fried strips of steak. The steak was one of the best strip steak's I've ever had - flavorful, perfectly medium rare, tender and moist. I was able to completely finish my meal, which left me stuffed, and was topped off with a generous scoop of rainbow sherbet. The great thing about this place is that whole meal cost about 20 bucks and there's no sales tax in the state of Montana! Definitely you can get much greater portions for more money, I think the most costly entree on the menu was around 55 bucks, but it was a huge helping of surf and turf. I noticed many doggy bagged their meals, which is a plastic baggy for your meat and a brown lunch sack to place everything else in. I'm sure you can get some huge steaks other places in Montana, definitely in the country, but the whole package definitely makes it one of the best.