J. Jason Lazarus Blog

Behold, The Pomtini. In the last year, Freds has really started offering more and more Pommegranite-related products and we’ve been buying more and more - and we have come to enjoy POM juices quite a bit. When we bought one on Saturday it had one of those cute little tags on it that give you recipe advice - oddly enough, being the health-drink that POM has become, it shockingly supplied a Alcoholic recipe. Curious, we gathered the additional ingredients and sampled. Wow. Just, wow. I don’t like Martinis and this… wow. The crispness of a Cosmo without nearly the amount of bitterness. Very well worth a try, that is, if you like Pommegranites.

Oh and in other news, the new Gamestop has opened - info posted on the Forum. The new store is right about double the size, clean, and room for the stock that isn’t actually on the store floor. It’s good to know that as much as I’m proclaiming Barnes and Noble (when it opens on the 15th, so say the forum) “wife-day-care” that I’ll have somewhere to go when Deanna spends endless hours in B&N. Now that they’re next door to each other… *sigh* bliss!

So last night I went to see Brokeback Mountain and was absolutely amazed by it. For the last few months I’ve been slightly jeering the movie because it was being referred as the “gay cowboy” movie for months. I had begun to wonder if the Oscar nods were only because the movie was about a controversial subject - yet after last night, I realized that all the praise that it has been getting is worth it.
The movie altogether is visually stunning with the director and cinematographer obviously thinking out the composition of every single frame. Landscape is so intense, placing key… everything seems so well-thought out. Dialogue is sharp, believable and minimalistic. Ang Lee relies on traditionally teeny-bopper actor/actresses to convey an astounding story with rich character development even though so many of the characters are protrayed shallow at times. The fact that he’s using these teen-heart-throb type actors/actresses says something about him - with good direction, ANY good actor can be Oscar material. Even though the movie spans several decades it refuses to do the stereotypical out-of-it’s-element announcement of exactly what year it is (i.e., big banners displaying ‘1977 DISCO FEVER!’ - slight differences of wardrobe is about the only hint we get. The flow of the movie is utterly slow but it keeps you interested in the thing that matters - the development of the relationship between these two characters. The best thing about the movie is that it refuses to just be “a gay cowboy movie” and manages to become a story of rejected and confused love. Absolutely gorgeous - worth the watch.
It managed to cleanse my pallete from eariler this week when I saw yet another Anne Hathaway movie - Hoodwinked. With any genre, there’s a point where ANY genre gets oversaturated with people trying to succeed in it. CG has gotten cheap enough to where anyone can do it with a modest budget. Modest indeed, in this case. Horrid animation in a good portion of the movie - I’m surprised so many known actors signed. And to think - the company that did this is doing yet another, that’s already been released - Doggal. I’m not seeing it. I refuse now to see any, any CG movies that are questionable. Hell, Hoodwinked’s animation was so bad in places that I’ve seen 1987 Pixar animation shorts significantly better than that shit. Ugh, horrid - HORRIBLE.

Other than that, I’ve been really busy at work - very busy. When I get home I watch some TV and slide into bed. Not much else. I’ve played over 5 hours already on FF2 (FF4) between yesterday and today. Hoping that I’m close to finishing - online tutorials (of which I haven’t been using short of for this reason) tell me to expect anywhere from 14-20 hours. I’d like to finally say I’ve beaten more than on Final Fantasy. I’m such a nerd. I need to take some pics - I’ve hooked up three of my game systems in the front room and two others in the main room, planning to go ahead and hook up 4-5 more. I’ve got A/V and cable switch boxes so that I can do this without ever unplugging anything - although it’ll be a cable nightmare behind the TV, cause they’ll always be plugged in, I won’t have to care about the nightmare

One thing that I did forget to mention this last week is exactly how much I love my wife. Valentine’s Day this year was great - and not just because my wife cooked. Although I tried to convince her that I could take her out to some chic (lol yeah, chic, in Fairbanks) restaurant, she wanted, and virtually demanded, to cook. And it was such an utterly blissful evening I cannot truly descibe how great it was. I came home after a long day at work to a candlelit dinner in our dining room (cause, you know, we’ve got one now) and a 3 (or 4) course meal complete with:

Salad with Homemade Balsamic Vinegarette, Feta and Greek Olives
Balsamic Chicken with sauteed onions and morel mushrooms, served over liguine, all based in a garlic olive oil (from Stinking Rose in SF) sauce
Asparagus, soaked in garlic olive oil with garlic chunks
Orange Creamsicle Cake

Succulent - truly devine. Earlier that week we had had a romantic evening and watched “Just like Heaven” - pretty cute film and it’s set in SF so we could tell where half of it was filmed. Thank you Deanna - you’re the best thing in my life.

So, last Friday, Mike, Joe, Deanna and I went up to Silver Gulch Brewery up in Fox. On Fridays, between 5-6:30pm, they’ve got free beer tasting and it’s very much worth going to. I ended up picking myself up a case of the Pick Axe Porter and considering going up there this next weekend and picking up some of their Amber. Oddly enough, as much as I like Porters, theirs is a little too strong and bitter for me, but I still like it in moderation. Their Amber, however, has a slight porter taste to it and is actually extremely pleasing. Why go out to Fox to buy beer that I can get in town? Cause it’s $7.50 a 6-pack there rather than the $10-$12 that it’s in town.

I’ve also been enraged by the current news coverage of the American port issue. Anyone else think this is bull? Seriously, if the Bush Administration wouldn’t have allowed such a transfer of power to go through, citing security issues, and the press would’ve gotten ahold of it, the “story” in it would’ve been that the Bush Administration is racially profiling prospective companies citing that having Arab-based corporations in charge of our ports could possibly make it easier for terrorists to infiltrate and possibly even bypass American security measures. But, seeing that they didn’t do that, the press has decided to take the slant that they SHOULD have racially profiled these potential buyers and made them out to be potential security leaks. Why is it that when the NEWS NETWORKS suggest racial profiling it’s called “being security minded” and yet when the government racially profiles a group or company it’s shunned upon? Truth be told, I cannot quantify the possiblities behind a terrorist penetrating security via a non-arab-based-company controlled port and one that is controlled by a UAE company. Truth be told, nobody can. The sheer fact that Arab based company may control our ports does raise my eyebrow, yes, but those concerns are stereotypical and shouldn’t end up being international policy. What stops a terrorist from slipping through an American-based company’s security measures, especially when the news second-guesses security measures at these ports no-matter who controls them? If anything one would have to think that a successful Arab company may just want to prove us wrong about what America, as a whole, thinks of the Middle East - maybe, just maybe, it’d be more secure (I do hope), as a whole, because they’re trying to prove us wrong? I just can’t believe that the news networks are getting on Bush’s ass for being politically correct and providing equal opportunities to all companies, no matter where they’re based. That’s plain stupid - but because it has something to do with “big money” and “corporate america” and “republicans”, Bush has “GOT to be wrong”. Yeah, well, even though I don’t agree with a good amount of his policies, and although I see and understand the concern about having a Arab company in charge of these ports - I trust that we’ve done our damned homework enough, especially after 9/11, to figure out that this company checks out (I hope and pray so)- not to mention, solely disreguarding a company because of it’s country of orgin isn’t going to help out how our country looks to the people of that region.
I know that money was funnelled through UAE banks and that terrorists came from that country that did the 9/11 attacks. But should we base our opinion on a country over money laundering and 2 people? If there are legit reasons to believe that this company has terrorist TIES, then fine, they shouldn’t have any control at all over our ports. But if we cannot find any good reason to not let them take over these operations, short of the fact that they’re Arab, we’re racially profiling the damned company and are breaking the rules that this country has been built upon. It would make about as much sense as refusing to hire a Mexican cause “they are known to drug traffic”. Come on, America, wake up.

So it’s pretty damned rare when we manage to get any performance group of any reasonable fame up to Fairbanks - it’s even rarer, with my tastes generally neglecting the more independant artists, that those “well-known” groups that we do get up here that I’ll know who the hell they are. Yet, when the stars align, frightful things do tend to happen.

The Duhks came for one showing up in Fairbanks - and if I didn’t know better, I’d almost think it was impromptu. It rubs me the wrong way when you’ve got the show promoters at the front selling tickets mentioning how many seats they have to sell to break even - as if it’s our fault that our word-of-mouth to our friends has failed to net hundreds of willing participants. It irks me even more so when I, someone that almost brags that I generally know whats going on in this town before most people, can’t find a poster or any information, short of a local free paper, about this concert. Ya know, you might not want to whine about people not showing for a concert that you don’t advertise for.

That being said, the concert was awesome. The Duhks are this, for lack of a better term, a irish-rock-celtic-cajun-folk fusion band with an amazing sound. I’ve never seen a percussionist so in-tuned with the music and willing to actually alter the sound of the music by producing a variety of sounds from not only seat drums but a variety of congas, rattles, tamborines, cymballs, shakers… etc etc. The lead singer was one of the most intense voices (short of my previous Tool Concert) that I’ve ever heard. Very well worth the $28 tickets. Dragged Mike along with Deanna and I - apparently Mike says they’re a “Maritime” type music seeing that the group is officially Canadian.

Speaking of stars aligning and weird shit happening - the roads in Fairbanks have been absolutely chaotic. A mixture of ever-warm days in the 30’s and 40’s and ever-chilly nights barely dipping into the teens and single digits have made driving interesting. This is the second time in ten years in Alaska that I’ve actually seen them place snow back onto the roads for traction - a little backwards but it does work. This goes without mentioning that the drivers around Fairbanks lately have been lacking primary brain cells to make logical, thoughtful decisions when it comes to driving. Seriously, if it’s freaking hard for YOU to get out of a intersection, maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t lurch out on a slippery road less than a eigth of a mile in front of someone going 45. It took the entire distance, sliding all the way, to barely miss the idiot. This isn’t a isolated case - people are loosing brain cells all over town. It’s either people taking dumbass chances like that or not taking any chances at all - by going 25 down Airport Way. What. The. Hell.

*breathe* Ok, so… I got the new iPod. Yes, I know, I’ve got two. But this one plays music, shows photos, and plays videos and transforms into Optimious Prime. For Seriously. Optimious Freakin’ Prime. Major selling point there, I tell ya.

Got the 30 gig cause well, the 60 gig was 100 bucks more. And, well, the 30 gig is slimmer and sexier. Lately I’ve found a few nice video podcasts on iTunes that convinced me that I needed it - the Happy Tree Friends vidcast and the Vintage Tooncast. One is chalk-full of violent cartoons worse than Southpark, the other full of Vintage toons from the ’30s and the 40’s - all free due to the public domain. Very nice. Plus, well, Public Domain Torrents has started releasing iPod formated vids for a while. I’ve already downloaded a good many Bruce Lee and other martial arts films to add to my iPod. Something about watching martial arts movies seems… fitting… for a jet black shiny iPod.

Other than that, I’m sure other things have been happening, I just needed to get this news out first Oh yeah, played 6 hours of Final Fantasy II (or IV) bliss this weekend. I’m stuck, like usual. Darnit.

Oh coffee, how I love you. The nectar of the Gods, ye are. Many tout their desire for you in decaf form, but tis a tethered love built on your submissive nature, one that throws aside your most intoxicating features just to satisfy those unwilling to love you how you are. Many drink you one, possibly two shots at a time, unwilling to drown themselves in your black cauldron of lovely bitterness. Nay, I say, one must enjoy you in all your beauty to fully appreciate your mind-altering abilities that drive me to say “more, more! I must have more!”

And so, let it be known, a 4-shot Americano with two shots of Irish Cream, a generous amount of sugar (for even I cannot fully appreciate your bitterness) and a full inch of cream - that is, as I believe it to be, the best way to enjoy such intoxicating individual as you.

Until recently I didn’t really like coffee at all - about this time last year Jack put a little bug in my ear about the benefits of just going all out and drinking Americano - rather than trying to deal with one or two shots in a weakly-made espresso, basically try to kill your liver with four shots of it. Well, with my passion for bitterly coffee-esqe beers, this fit it perfectly. Now, whenever in the mood to actually wake up, I go to a local coffee shop and pick me up one. They’re not for the weak, that’s for damn sure.

The drama of the second bedroom is finally over, of coarse, not after it managed to get worse. The upstairs neighbor, under the impression that he only spilt 1-2 gallons, was found to be in gross error. After completely drying the carpet the landlord came over and pulled up a corner of the carpet to find that the pad underneath was COMPLETELY soaked - so much that a 2-lb piece of carpet pad (roughly half a room’s worth) had to be grunted out of the room by two able-bodied individuals. 1-2 gallons? No, more like 20-40. Anyways, that was Sunday and yesterday new carpet was put down (even though the carpet wasn’t ruined, apparently a previous tenant decided to have a pet even though they weren’t allowed - aka, it smelled like a urinal cake).

Went out to Chatinika Dredge last week with Joe, Kate and Deanna - got some good pictures - hopefully didn’t manage to completely ruin the film - stupid me left it outside in the car until today… we’ll see what happened. Went to the start of the Yukon Quest as well, hoping for good pictures there too. The plan to go out to Dome Creek kinda fell through because the USGS maps we were using are apparently out of date - I’m beginning to realize that although they update the maps, they fail to erase things that aren’t there anymore - only adding the “new” roads and not erasing the “old” roads that aren’t there anymore. So, guess we’ll have to wait till summer.

Not much else going on, just waiting for the weekend to start