Lord Of The Rings......Movie Snark!

God. I just finished watching all of the LotR movies. I think my brain is glazed over from too much CGI and Hobbit on Hobbit loving. I started watching them last week, and it took me until today to finish them. I fucking don't remember what happened in which movie, because they sort of all blend together, so here are some points about it. There is the usual warning about spoilers and such.

-I appreciate Peter Jackson's attention to detail, unless

-He's fucking adding shit that was not in the book. Aragorn was not conflicted about his loves. He always loved Arwen and pretty much rejected Eowyn's advances. That just really bugged the crap out of me, because, in the book, Aragorn was not a flighty pouty teenager. He was true to Arwen. This ain't no Twilight bullshit, Jackson!

-Gandalf was less annoying in the movies. I thought he was a pain in the ass in the books.

-The Ents were also less annoying and rather cool.

-I don't agree with the way Saruman died in these movies. That's some crap. Then again, if Jackson had followed the books, the endings would have been longer.

-Hobbits were still.....poncy as fuck in the movies. Wait, that's not the right word. I guess zesty will have to do again.

In a strange twist, I just looked up "poncy" in Urban Dictionary, and this was the second definition: "Usually describing Elves from the movie and book series "Lord of the Rings." Poncy is most oftenly applied to Legolas because of his impeccable hair and skin. Poncy describes a ponce, who is essentially one who is overtly concerning with outward appearance." LOL.

-That said, I wouldn't call Legolas "poncy". That mofo could fight when he wanted to (and apparently Orlando Bloom did all of his own stunts, the cheeky bastard), and didn't seem to give a rip about his appearance. He was just man pretty.

-Gimli rocked. That is all.

-Aragorn was hot as hell. They should have just focused on Viggo Mortensen for 12 hours.

-The undead army, the oliphaunts, and Minas Tirith were a badass use of CGI, but

-CGI was really used a lot in this movie. I guess that can't really be an argument, since it is all fantasy, and I doubt Jackson was going to run across any troll armies anytime soon.

-I still say Sauron was a useless villain. The Nazgul and the Witch-King would have been just fine to inspire terror. Speaking of

-Shelob. Stuff of nightmares. I'm sleeping with a can of Raid and a shoe tonight.

-Good Christ, Jackson drew out some crap to take forever. No wonder the extended version of the last flick is four hours.

-Holy crap, I was laughing my ass off when I realized Karl Urban was in these flicks. If you don't know who that is, he plays Dr. McCoy in the reboot of the Star Trek franchise. I may or may not have inappropriately yelled, "Dammit Jim! I'm a doctor not a (fill in the blank)!" at different times in these movies.

-Hugo Weaving was an elf. I wish he would have busted out some wigs from "Priscilla".

-Denethor did not take a flying fiery leap off the top of Minas Tirith. That was some hot buttery bullshit.

-Gollum reminded me of my stalker, and was therefore creepy as hell.

-The endings never ended. Just like in the books!

All in all, I'll give these movies three and a half out of five stars. They were pretty faithful to the books, even if I did hate the bloody things. It might be easier to get through them if you can play the Lord of the Rings Drinking Game, or maybe drop some acid beforehand or something.

Domestic Disaster Time!

The lovely Audrey at Barking Mad is hosting a fun contest celebrating(?) domestic disasters. Since I can't really think of any disasters involving other appliances or whatever, I'll go with a cooking disaster. There are actually two disasters in this story, but one is far worse than the other. If you're on my Facebook friends list, you probably remember me gnashing my teeth over what happened.

This past Christmas, I decided to make tamales for my family and friends, following my aunt's recipe. I gathered the ingredients together, and bought the premixed masa (the dough) to save some time. It was frozen solid in the tub, but I figured it wouldn't hurt it, since I wasn't going to make the tamales for another week or so. It was also white, which confused me for a bit, because masa is usually a grainy yellowish color. I figured it was just a different type of corn.

So the weekend of making tamales rolled around. Saturday I prepped the meat filling. It turned out beautifully. Confident with that success (because the last time I made tamales, the meat was horrible) , I got everything ready for wrapping and steaming on Sunday.

Sunday rolled around and after softening up the corn husks, I started wrapping tamales. The masa sort of looked and smelled funny when out of the tub, but I still didn't think anything of it. After wrapping two dozen, I filled my steamer pot with water and started stacking tamales in it. This was the first disaster. The steamer part that sits above the water CAVED IN and dumped two dozen tamales in the water. I was upset, and rightly so, since rolling tamales is hard work! However, I didn't give up, salvaged about a dozen tamales, and finished rolling the rest. I managed to stack them back in the pot without it collapsing (I'm a trusting soul). I turned on the burner and walked away, because four dozen tamales will take an age to cook.

An hour and a half after starting them, I did a quick check. The masa still looked mushy and almost liquidy. Figuring condensation was wreaking havoc on them, I turned down the burner. Another hour and a half passed. I checked them again. Still oozing. This is when I started to worry, because they should have been done by then. I pulled a few out, and, to my horror, the masa just GUSHED out of the top of the corn husks. I dug down further and found a few that had solidified. I tasted it and wanted to retch. The masa WAS BAD! Bad as in, "This stuff is rancid!" I think I started crying. All that hard work wasted. Half of the delicious pork shoulder that I labored over and babied and seasoned was gone, lost in a sea of slimy masa.

After cursing for awhile, I tossed the tamales down the garbage chute. They weren't fit for consumption, not even for my worst enemies.

And I've pretty much vowed to never attempt tamales again.