INKSTAND

The pot pie is one of the best dishes ever invented. It has everything a meal needs, baked in a pie. Perfect. I was at the store and saw the Claim Jumper frozen foods were on sale. I’d never had their pot pies so I thought I’d give it a shot.
I cooked it for 12 minutes in the microwave. For some reason Claim Jumper’s frozen foods have crazy times for microwaving. The Country Fried Chicken, for instance, calls for a microwave time of something like 4 to 71/2 minutes. The pot pie had various times based on the wattage of your oven. I should have put it in longer. when it came out the center was hot, but I could still bite into it without burning my mouth.
This pie passed the first test. When you order a pot pie at a restaurant the crust is always just on the top. I get that. But when you buy one that’s frozen, it MUST have the crust all around the bowl as well. I run into one once in a while that doesn’t and it infuriates me.
The pie was good, the crust on top was nice and flakey. The filling was good, too, but I did get a gristly chunk of chicken. And there was something about the sauce that made it a little too sweet, and it was gritty. Maybe I cooked it less than I thought, but you know when you’ve had a few and it’s dark and you just keep shoveling it into your mouth? it was like that.
So if they’re on sale, or cheaper than Marie Calendar’s. I say go for it. Just cook product thoroughly.

Ok, I’m not going to go too much into this movie. It sucked. It just really sucked. I usually try to stay real quiet during movies, but about halfway through I joined in Jeremy’s audible dislike of the movie. I think this might call for some bullets.

-Female lead…way too old for a high schooler. Way too hot for a high schooler. Grand total of 1min, 15 seconds of character development (juvie delinquent w/jailbird dad both for GTA. How convenient).
-That kid from Holes (tee hee) is cute and seems to be a good actor, but they just have him yammering on and on the whole movie for what seems to be comic effect. It is distracting and tiresome. And he and the girl are both dirty and sweaty the whole time.
-Bad edits
-Bad dialogue
-Bad directing
-Bad cinematography
-No real conflict is revealed until about 2/3 of the way in
-A GOD AWFUL fake austrailian accent
-Long scenes. There was one where the robots were hiding from the parents in the front yard…it went on for about ten minutes and included a lot of that yammering from both kids, the parents, and the robots. I knew exactly what was going on but the scene was really pretty chaotic and could have been about 2 minutes long. there were lots of scenes like this.
-Not enough Andrew. Too much fake-accent girl. Totally uneccesary sassy black computer genius kid.
-Robots tended to change size inconsistently.
So, yeah, it was crap. Glad I saw it on the big screen, though. The robots did look cool. But they didn’t really use them wizely. For a more in-depth review, check out Andrew’s take on it.

Oh, my God! How can I never have tried one of these before? I was in the Metropolitan Market on Quenn Anne and was about to pick up a ham and cheese croissant, or a no-bake oatmeal cookie. Look, I know it’s a competetor but really, it was on my way. I’m not that loyal. The italian slipper is reason enough.
This is a confection in the “puff pastry” family that has the consistency of a croissant but is, i believe, much sweeter and dusted with powdered sugar. The bast part? The part that got me, totally unexpected? The delectable pear filling! Oh, my Christ, was it good! The worst part about it is that it was $2.49. That’s ridiculously steep in my book but I’ll be damned if this isn’t something I will treat myself to on a regualr basis.

The gift of a fat-lipped grin

I really wanted to make this review about Steel Reserve, but that ain’t gonna happen. Instead it’s about Tilly and the Wall and their two full-length albums. Last year about this time, my friend Gil made an indie rock mix CD. I was seriously looking for new stuff to listen to. He gave me some great tracks, too, like Of Montreal- The Party’s Crashing Us Now, Envelopes-Isobelle and Leonard, Acid House Kings-7 Days, and lots of other great tracks. One, however, stuck out like a sore thumb, a thumb slammed in a door, the way my head and heart felt when I let this song sink in. It was Tilly and the Wall-Rainbows in the Dark, the first track off their second album, Bottoms of Barrels. Here’s the video for it.

The first thing I felt was the pounding percussion, but more on that later. The most influential part of that song were the lines “My sister went kissing a maple skinned boy, finally threw up her hands, said ‘I’m done being coy!’” This is what inspired me, only a scant five years after coming out, to finally go out and start kissing boys (kissed two, neither of which I should have) and say “What the hell?” when my boyfriend Jeremy asked me out (I totally lucked out there).

Sometime over the past year I looked for more tracks and found two from their first album, Wild Like Children. Nights of the Living Dead is a youth freedom anthem that’s comparable to (I can’t believe I’m going to say this) Sonic Youth’s Teenage Riot. The end has the background accompaniment of GLASS BREAKING! It is so satisfying to hear! The other track, The Ice Storm, Big Gust, and You, seems to have an anti-establishment theme, characterizing weather as oppressive forces which, of course, “won’t bring me and all my friends down”. My thing about this song is that whenever it is played, it must be played as loud as possible. Like, don’t wake up your neighbors or piss off your roommates or anything, but it needs to be listened to as loud as it can be played!

I don’t go looking for a lot of music. I have always just picked up whatever my friends listened to that I like. There were a couple of gems that I found on my own…L7, Eric’s Trip (R.I.P.), The Microphones (who my friends would have found out about later anyway). But for the most part, I just roll along and collect things like a sticky ball of goo. When I recently visited California, my best friend KC had the Bottoms of Barrels album and actually thanked me for referring him to it. This meant a lot, seeing as how KC has been the dominant influence in shaping my musical tastes. Well, him and my dad. I was surprised because I had not actually heard the whole album yet. So upon my return to my lovely Seattle I purchased both of their albums.

The first album is better. The second album is still better than anything I’ve heard in a while, but not as good. This saddens me because I know exactly what is going to happen. Now that I have been turned onto them with this renewed hope in indie rock music their next album is going to blow monkey balls. That’s just what happens. Enough of my cynicism, though…
The reason I like “Wild Like Children” more is that it has a more consistent sound that drives it through the album. “Bottoms of Barrels” has a more varied sound, both rocking songs and ballad-y songs. Their ballads tend to get a little boring, especially after I get pumped up by the first few tracks. That’s not to say they’re not pretty. “BoB” has one slower song I like that seems a little over produced for the band, with some 80’s sounding electronics in the back. I half-expect Limahl to start singing “Neverending Story.”

I don’t particularly like writing reviews of music because it’s a lot like art…you just have to listen to it and decide whether it pleases you or not. I can’t really do it for you, so I’ll just wrap it up by getting back to the percussion I mentioned earlier…Did you watch the video? Was it not brilliant? What was it? TAP SHOES! Thats right! A huge portion of the percussion on both albums is done with TAP SHOES! It’s so beautiful, the driving, banging sound just makes me want to stomp and destroy and fly!…ok, I’m getting carried away.

Tilly and the Wall’s songs are by no means complex. The chord progressions are very basic and the percussion, when in drum or electronic form, is simplistic at best. The beauty lies mostly in the arrangement, the use of different instruments and footwear as well as the vocal melodies and harmonies that carry profound yet simple lyrics throughout the albums.
There is only one thing that I am certain of in this world. If and when Tilly and the Wall come to Seattle I will be there. And I will dance. And if it’s an all ages show, I’ll be mad. But still go.

I know I haven’t been Bloggy McBloggerson latley, but I swear to you I will pick this shit up again soon. In the mean time, Tony and KC, regarding the Mad Oven Barbecue, I bring you…The Newstable!