I began eating oatmeal for breakfast last week, in an attempt to make my diet more healthy.
What I want to know is, how do people eat this stuff? It is disgusting. All goopy and bland and gross. Bleeeech. I tried tossing some fruit and cinnamon on there, but man, it only helped so much. The flavour is really the least of its problems. I just… ugh.
So yeah, I hate oatmeal. But I will continue stuffing it into my face-hole.
This is the price I pay for trying to be less fat.
I’ve decided that my current “thing” is going to be browsing through my movie collection and watching any that I haven’t watched before. You may scoff at the idea that I might buy a product and then never use it, but I’m both very materialistic and busy. Well, “busy.” The idea here is that I’m going to write a thing after every so many movies and then fire off a couple paragraphs about each.
Anyway, I’m sure this won’t last for long. We all know that I have a habit of abandoning projects really quickly. But at least I’ll get one or two articles out of it.
This batch comes from a Midnight Horror collection, the likes of which you will find in the $5 garbage DVD bin at Wal-Mart. It contains a whopping eight films, and as you may have already guessed, they’re pretty much trash as far as cinema goes. Let’s take a closer look at a handful of them, shall we?
Firstly, let’s assume that I didn’t choose this one to start with because it’s pretty close to Resident Evil. (It’s also known as Decadent Evil Dead in the UK, which is just.. ugh.) Also, assume that I wasn’t growling “Decadent Eee-vil” and then giggling to myself constantly between the time when I chose to watch the movie and when I actually sat down to watch it.
Decadent Evil is 67 minutes long. That includes the intro and ending credits. I’d wager that the actual film portion is roughly 50 minutes. This is good for me, as my attention span dwindles by the day.
This film is about vampires. Specifically, a trio of lady vampires that live in a gaudy LA mansion and work as strippers. They also have a little pet lizard-man, Marvin, which they refer to as a homunculus and keep in a birdcage. The head vampire is nearing the milestone of having sucked the blood of 10,000 humans, which will apparently make her an invincible Vampire Queen. Sure, why not? At least she doesn’t get magical sparkle powers.
But then a vampire hunter shows up and, with the “help” of the youngest vampire and her boyfriend, locates and defeats the boss vampire. He dies during the process, but ends up turning her into a homunculus. The final scene is of Marvin porking her in the cage while she makes a noise that sounds an awful lot like “Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow Ow.”
While not egregiously terrible, Decadent Evil is not a good movie. Even the nudity is shoddy.
This seemed to be the most boob-filled flick of the bunch, based on the description on the back of the case, so it got second billing. In that regard, I was not disappointed. There was ample boobage on display indeed.
Please note that this film has the subtitle “Kiss of the Beast” on occasion. This was not one of those occasions.
The movie’s protagonist is Catherine, who moves into a castle in Italy because reasons. Her friend comes to visit and invites a bunch of carnies over and then the carnies drug and rape the both of ’em. Whoops. Also the one that has his way with Catherine is a were-sasquatch. Double whoops!
I don’t know how it turns out because I fell asleep shortly after that point. I do know that there was a ghost of a dead girl, the were-sasquatch was cursed and also knew about a secret passage in the castle that led to Hell apparently, and… Yeah, that’s all I got from the few moments that I drifted back into consciousness.
Meridian, at least what I saw of it, is a much better movie than Decadent Evil. I guess it must have had some people who knew anything about making movies on staff. Sherilyn Fenn is the main character, and she’s a… known actress. It’s still not one I would recommend, because the plot was super dumb, but I could see someone defending it as a decent movie.
Confession: I did go back and watch the rest… It turns out that were-sasquatch was also a ghost. With an evil twin. And the trick to breaking were-sasquatch’s sasquatch-ghost curse was to have him murder said evil twin. If it weren’t so slow and romantic, this could have really been an awesomely stupid movie. As it is, it’s just stupid.
Where the heck do I even start with this one? Let’s start with the fact that this film is amateur-hour in every way. The story follows the same plot beats as every other slasher, the actors are mediocre at best, and the camerawork is all over the place. I suppose the gore is okay.
One might assume that the director had a glut of red corn syrup, and said to his friends “Welp, I guess we’d better make a slasher movie.”
As the story so often goes, a group of teens goes into the woods for a weekend getaway. Despite a token warning from a local hillbilly, they press on and are subsequently picked off one-by-one by a forest monster. The twist is that in addition to the monster, one of the teens is also a psychopathic killer. So I guess that’s unique. It’s normally only one of the two.
The monster is a big let down. Called a Hodag, the “beast” is really just a dude dressed all in black with predator dreadlocks. It’s given a little backstory about how it has evolved over the years into the shape of its prey (which is people), but that’s still just a lame handwaving for not being able to come up with some decent creature effects. It’s especially disappointing when you find out what a Hodag is actually supposed to look like.
At least the Hodag’s story is kind of neat. The locals are used to a couple people going missing every year, as the Hodag will kill a few folks and store their bodies away for the winter (like the nagging grasshopper). But it just so happens that now, it’s killing at an alarming frequency because it’s got a baby on the way. It’s eating for two now! How sweet! Better than just killing because it’s a mindless monster, at any rate.
Just so that we can tie this one into the common thread of “how’s the nudity?”, I feel obligated to mention that during one of the sex scenes, there is a still, close-up shot of a single breast for about five seconds. The editing in this film is baffling. Also the Hodag keeps one of the girls tied up and alive in his lair, but by the time she is found, it has chopped off her breasts. That’s… not a thing I’ve ever seen before. Backwoods Bloodbath goes to some really strange places.
I can’t in good faith recommend this to anyone. It’s not even amusingly terrible. It’s just terrible. The one saving grace for me is that I was playing Chibi-Robo! Zip-Lash throughout, so it didn’t really feel like I’d wasted those 90 minutes.
The last one on today’s lineup, as absolutely the best. By a long shot. A really, really long shot.
I have no idea why this was billed as a horror film, or why anybody suggests that it is scary in the least. Because it is not. The last three minutes of the film might be construed as somewhat frightening, but even then, that’s being pretty generous.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I’ve become so desensitized to zombies that I cannot fathom how anyone could see them as something frightening.
Anyway, this movie is totally a comedy. Like, it’s not hilarious or anything, but it made me laugh out loud a few times. And, of course, I was laughing with this movie. If I chuckled while watching the other three, I definitely would have been laughing at them.
Zombie Dearest tells the story of a couple, Gus and Deborah, who are going through some severe marital difficulties. They end up moving out to an old family home in the country, and Gus digs up a dead body while trying to replace his septic tank. By some manner of Zombie Wang Magic (yes, it’s a thing), the body comes to life and starts following Gus’s orders.
The zombie, Quinto, puts even more strain on Gus and Deborah’s relationship at first, but eventually they patch things up and grow closer than ever when they decide that they need to re-kill Quinto.
Things do take a turn for the worse near the end, but unlike every other zombie comedy ever, it doesn’t dip into bleak, depressing territory in the third act and forget that it’s supposed to be funny. No, it hangs onto its somewhat humorous tone until it absolutely must push the plot to its climax. But it quickly invokes Zombie Wang Magic a second time to undo the damage and give the characters their (presumably) happy ending.
I am fully willing to put myself out there and suggest that Zombie Dearest is actually a good movie. It’s not a life-altering film, but I was entertained and impressed but it. It may be due to the fact that I was expecting another 90 minutes of garbage, but there’s also a chance that it really is decent. Even if you’re fully burned-out on zombies, I’d heartily recommend watching it. (Fair warning: it’s got only a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.)
Oh hey I forgot to do the thing.
While one of my favourite ways to spend a crisp fall evening is to go for a nice, romantic stroll, it’s not really an activity that I can enjoy to its fullest potential these days.
But snuggling under a thick blanket with video games and a mug of hot chocolate filled to the brim with mini-marshmallows is a good way to pass the time too. So happy right now.
Also there is a piping hot pizza just out of the frame.
Living alone is pretty great. I can make myself a giant plate of spicy potato wedges and broccoli for dinner, and then eat it in bed while watching Adventure Time. And nobody’s going to give me crap for it.
Not that the Ex would have complained about any part of that besides the spiciness of the wedges. But I’m trying to feel empowered here. Stop poking holes, me!
…to the point where I really ought to throw some fashion of party, because I surely can’t drink it all by myself.
Still, though. I feel like I could have even more tea.
And somehow there was an outpouring of contentedness that I uploaded a new Pop-Tarts review for the first time in nearly a year. I am simultaneously delighted and baffled that people enjoy this video series as much as they do. I most definitely appreciate every kind word that comes my way, and I’m happy that people are enjoying these, but… I don’t know. I think they’re pretty dumb videos.
Enjoy!
The response to my Pop-Tarts inquiry was pretty much exactly what I was expecting.
Thank you for contacting us on-line. We appreciate your interest in our company.
We at Kellogg Canada and our related companies, continually conduct market research to develop new and existing products. Based on the market research results in each country, a decision is made on which product will be enjoyed by the majority of our consumers. Your feedback is appreciated and will be considered when planning future product line improvements.
Also due to international regulations, Canadian Customs policies and our inability to guarantee our quality standards during shipping, we do not ship products directly internationally.
I hope you continue to enjoy our Pop Tarts for years to come no matter where they are coming from.
The usual PR run-around with a sprinkle of marketing nonsense. Whatever. I don’t suspect anyone outside of Kellogg’s marketing team will ever know the real reason why we can’t have Cinnamon Roll Pop-Tarts in Canada. It won’t make any difference, really, but I’d like to see the numbers for myself.
I think the solution here is to make up a million sock puppet e-mail accounts and bombard Kellogg Canada until they decide that there is enough demand in Canada to sell Cinnamon Roll Pop-Tarts here. I must have them!
On the other hand, they did answer the question of why I can’t have fancy American Pop-Tarts shipped directly to me. And I didn’t even ask that question!
So thanks, Kellogg Customer Affairs Lady Who Shall Remain Unnamed.
I sent an e-mail to Kellogg Canada today asking why there are so many more flavours of Pop-Tarts in the United States than there are in Canada.
We shall see what comes of this.
(I probably should have just used Twitter, but I’m old-fashioned.)
(Please enjoy the intended irony of me suggesting that e-mail is the old-fashioned way of contacting a giant corporation. I wrote this post specifically for that joke.)
I made some cookies last week. They did not go quite as planned.
Now, I have baked cookies before. Recently, even! And they came out well enough. No real issues, aside from me learning that whole wheat flour makes for somewhat less desirable cookies.
This time, though, turned into a bit of a fiasco. And I don’t even know how. I followed the recipe exactly, just as I always do (I don’t know enough about baking to try to mess with a recipe), yet somehow, the batter ended up way too creamy. It was basically liquid. What was my solution? To dump in a bunch more flour.
Lesson learned: maybe only dump in a bit more flour. The liquid batter quickly became a nearly-solid clump that was sticky as all hell, clinging to even my greased hands like there was no tomorrow. Things were looking bad. There was no way I’d be able to actually pull it apart into regular cookie lumps. So I tossed the whole thing on a pan, smooshed it down a bit, and shoved it into the oven.
The “pizza cookie” that came out was still a bit of a mess. It wasn’t baked through properly so I had to quarter it and put it back in for a while longer. Fortunately, the second time I brought it out, it was looking more like a cookie should. Only giant. And in quarters. Not great, but all in all, it could have probably turned out much worse.
I tried a bit and it was actually quite tasty, as well! A little more floury than it should have been (natch), but still quite edible and cookie-tasting. Things turned around quite nicely!
So I chopped the sucker into bits to make it easier to share. Because I’d made this cookie to take to work, you see. That’s not something anyone in the entire world would expect me to do. I’m not a baker, and I’m certainly not generous, so it was obviously an out-of-character gesture.
….Or was it?
