The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

Great movie! I wouldn’t call it a scary movie. It was suspense-laden. It kept me at the edge. I kept guessing wrong

The movie was very faithful to the book. This was how I imagined the ship crew gone crazy when I read the book. The movie added some characters and one dog, but it didn’t take away the real theme: Dracula was scary and would feast on you alive.

How I wish they would make Dracula into a miniseries. There’s enough sex and blood to keep everyone happy.  See my previous post about the book Dracula.

Work Life, #2

We were lucky or unlucky to be in an office that was old, like 1930 and before old.  It was renovated several times and we have a kitchen with a stove and oven.  So the boss brought in a casserole and put it in the oven to heat up.  She went about her work and meetings and stuff.

The fire alarm went off!  LOUD 📢📢📢!  She panicked.  Her boss panicked.  They looked around and found smoke coming out of the oven, but at least no fire.  The casserole somehow survived.  The two bosses hurried to call the police and fire department to cancel the fire alarm.  In the panic they forgot which one was the non-emergency phone number.

The police 🚓 showed up.  They were able to turn the fire alarm off.  They explained nobody used the oven since 1970s.  They were able to find the non-emergency phone number to cancel the fire department 🚒.

Amidst the craziness us worker bees walked in.  The two bosses looked extremely embarrassed.  We were laughing so hard 🤣🤣🤣.  One month ago the big boss implemented a new rule that someone must always be in to man the office.  We joked that was to make sure the office wasn't burned down.  Also when we came back from a long vacation, we liked to joke, "Is the office burned down while I'm gone?"

The two bosses almost burned down the office, when all the worker bees were gone.  It's always funnier when it's boss' fault.

MORALS of the story:

1. What a great way to test the fire alarms in the office!  However, we don't have sprinklers.  Don't know if that's a blessing or a curse.  If the sprinklers had gone off, all of our work, paper or electronic, would be ruined. 🌊🌧
2. Doesn't matter how many Public Service Announcement posters they put around the office, in a panic, everything was forgotten.
3. Can't imagine if it were us worker bees burning down the office.  We would be fired or at least be written up for disciplinary actions.  The boss and her boss, they were fine.

Mushroom Bourguignon

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp butter 
• 4 large portobellos, ends trimmed, brushed clean, cut into bite size pieces 
• Salt & black pepper
• 1 tbsp olive oil 
• 4 shallots, peeled, thickly sliced 
• 2 carrots, thickly sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced 
• 1 stick fresh oregano 
• 2 tbspns tomato paste 
• 1 cup red wine 
• 2 cups water, or more as needed 
• 1 bay leaf 
• 2 tbspns balsamic vinegar 
• 1 tbspn honey 
• Parsley, for garnishing 

Steps:

1. Heat 1 tbspn butter in a large stainless steel pot over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and lightly season with salt and black pepper. Cook until they begin to release their juices and brown at the edges, stirring frequently. Transfer to a bowl. 
2. Add 1 tbspn of olive oil to the pot. Add the shallots, carrots, garlic, and oregano and lightly season with salt and black pepper. Saute over medium heat until the vegetables begin to soften. 
3. Add the tomato paste and stir to coat ingredients and cook the tomato paste. 
4. Pour in the wine and deglaze the pot, stirring up any brown bits, then add the water and bay leaf. Return the mushrooms to the pot. They should be just covered with liquid; add more water to cover if not. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer for about half an hour. 
5. Stir in the balsamic vinegar and the honey, and taste for seasoning. 
6. Ladle into bowls and garnish with parsley. Serve with rice.

I've had beef bourguignon before, and it was delicious.  This was my first time attempting French cuisine.  I always worry that French cuisine is too complicated and time consuming.  However, my gosh, this recipe was idiot-proof.  I didn't even follow it exactly, but half an hour of simmering, the whole place smelled wonderful.

The most difficult part was shopping and cutting up the ingredients.  After that, it was more or less dumping one ingredient into the pot after another.  The next difficult part was waiting.  Half an hour?!  I usually have no patience.  This recipe is definitely a weekend project.  While waiting for the stew to reduce, I was able to clean the kitchen.

This is what's called "depth".  I could taste the wine, the herbs, the vegetables.  French cuisine is amazing at layering flavors.

Mushroom Bourguignon

Sick / 生病

生病了
真不好受

而且不知道生啥莫名其妙的病

一邊流鼻水

一邊流鼻血

Being sick was not fun.  And I didn't even know what kind of sickness this was.  Cold?  Flu?  Allergy?  Today I had runny nose and nose bleed at the same time.  WTF!  How was that even possible?

🤧🩸

The scariest thing was, while I had a tissue paper stuffed up my nose to stop the bleeding, my iPhone could still unlock me with face recognition.

The Twins Effect / Vampire Effect / 千機變 (2003)

只想看一個爛但有趣的電影，但這片簡直爛得不能看。

我是看美國版的，為了賺錢，美國版的封面放成龍，害我以為成龍是主角之一。結果不是，是那兩個女生。

演技太差，這電影只是為了捧她們偶像而已。鄭伊健那麼帥的也只是配角。成龍出現沒十分鐘，但那卻是這片最好看的十分鐘。

劇情也莫名其妙，以為是殺吸血鬼的動作片，半個小時以上卻是談戀愛。陳冠希演吸血鬼王子，竟然忘了自己不能曬太陽，約會約在中午十二點。結局是那兩個女生大戰吸血鬼，殺了壞蛋，陳冠希躺在地上裝死，但最後一幕卻是他擺中間兩個女主角在旁邊，真不公平。

28 Days Later (2002)

Artsy zombie movie. Can’t believe that was the description. I knew it was artsy when they got a big name star like Cillian Murphy to be naked.

The movie started with beautiful shots of London. Then it moved onto beautiful English countryside. Was this movie sponsored by bureau of tourism?

It was predictable as in who would die and who would survive. Math Teacher got bored at the end.

UC Berkeley

Visited UC Berkeley, especially the Valley Life Science Building.  It's got the famous T-Rex skeleton and Triceratops skull.  Both replicas, I was disappointed, but still fun!

Lemons & Lemon Tea recipe

• 1 black tea bag (any type such as Earl Grey, English Breakfast, etc.)
• 1 lemon

1. Put the tea bag into a favorite mug.
2. Pour hot water into the mug.
3. Cut the lemon in half.
4. Thinly slice one piece of lemon and put it into the mug.
5. Squeeze half of the lemon juice into the mug.  Adjust for personal preference for the amount of lemon juice.

Math Teacher likes lemon tea. Actually, he only likes the lemon; the tea is a complement. He likes the lemon so much that sometimes I think he's drinking hot lemon water.

Anyway, I've been squeezing lemon juice and making lemon tea for years now.  My skin, especially the cuticles, used to crack due to dry air in winter.  This year I finally noticed that, while squeezing lemon juice, my fingers don't hurt.

A lot of skin moisturizing products claim citrus oil as an ingredient.

It's the lemons that protect my skin from cracking in the winter!  It doesn't work as fast as commercial products; in fact, it probably took at least a year for me to notice the difference.  But, it's the lemons!  The simple, delicious lemon that I mindlessly squeeze the juice into a tea mug.

So now, I make lemon tea for Math Teacher all the time.  It's not because I love him or anything.  It's because I want to protect my skin!

What do I do after the lemon juice is all squeezed out?  I use an electric tea kettle to boil water to make tea.  So I throw the used lemon into the tea ketle, add water, boil, and let it sit overnight.  Next day I dump the lemon and the water into the sink.  No water stain in the tea ketle!

It's important to use the entire lemon, the skin, the pith, and the pulps. All three together clean the kettle.  Several times I used only the pith and the pulps because I grated the skin off to cook pasta.  It worked but not quite as effective as all three parts.

Vinegar also doesn't work.  I tried it in my previous kettle, but vinegar did not clean the water stain off.

Leaving the lemon in the hot water for only one hour doesn't work either.  Overnight is the key.

In addition to clean the electric kettle with used lemons, I also clean the electric steamer with the used lemons.  See the previous post for my amazement to lemon cleaning the steamer.

What do I do after the lemons are boiled and dumped into the sink?  I pushed the lemons down into the garbage disposal and grind them up.  The whole sink smells so lemony!  I'm hoping the lemons will also clean the garbage disposal a bit.  I've heard lemons don't quite work; I still need actual chemicals to clean the disposal.  However, I'm currently in a rental apartment.  I don't care how clean the garbage disposal is as long as I maintain it well enough and it works for the short duration I'm here.

In conclusion, here's my admiration for one simple lemon.  It flavors the tea; protects my skin; cleans the electric kettle and electric steamer; and disinfects the garbage disposal.  It is small yet powerful.  I can use every part of it from beginning to the end.  No waste.

All Hail the Mighty Lemon!

🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋

草間彌生 at Carmel, California, USA

Local artists glass pumpkins display at Glass Pumpkins Patch 2023. They were so cute!

仿冒草間彌生！開玩笑的啦，美國人哪認識草間彌生。秋天到了，南瓜一堆，別人也可以做南瓜的藝術品呀。