This is a little gross but I found it intriguing. I have a weird skin tag in my armpit. Every once in awhile I think about going to get it removed. However, I keep imagining a doctor with scissors just cutting the thing off. Ew. Well, I found out that there is an electrosurgery thing they can do for it. I guess it kinda burns the tag off and seals up the leftover cut. That makes it sound cooler, even though it's probably just as painful and gross. Has anyone had that done?
My Strange Addiction
That is such a misleading title. I love watching the show "My Strange Addiction." My husband has even gotten into it. The show documents the lives of people that are addicted to weird things. One guy has a romantic relationship with his car. One lady shoves baby powder up her nose. Another lady chews rocks. After the addicts talk about their addiction, they are usually directed to some sort of doctor to tell them how they are hurting their bodies. (In the case of the guy in love with his car, he saw a psychiatrist.) Sometimes the people quit, sometimes they don't. It's still an interesting show. So why did I title the post like this? I have a strange addiction to looking at pneumatic tools. I don't want to buy these things. I don't even have a use for them. Yet I strangely find myself looking at drills and sanders and all sorts of neat things. Of course, I think about all the things I could do with them...but I'll never use them. That is why I don't actually buy them. I just window shop.
That is my strange addiction.
The Avengers
For those of you that live under a rock, The Avengers is a team of superheroes consisting of Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Thor. Most of these characters have had stand-alone movies on their background. Poor Black Widow and Hawkeye are the exceptions. (Though Black Widow is quite important in Iron Man 2 and Hawkeye makes a cameo in Thor.) If you are going to see The Avengers, you need to see the previous movies to understand everything. The main villain comes from Thor while the major 'artifact' comes from Captain America.
First, let me say that this movie is awesome. I almost didn't want it to end. One of the reasons that I liked the movie is that it did require you to watch the previous background movies. That means that there wasn't time wasted on questions like "Who is this Thor guy and why does he carry around a hammer?" The movie was able to get right into gathering the heroes together and establishing why they couldn't fight this battle separately. Since we already know that they are powerful on their own, it is very important to show why they need to work as a team.
That said, there are a few little nitpicks I had. I always have a problem when they have a character on the screen for long periods of time without naming them. Nick Fury had this female 'sidekick' in S.H.I.E.L.D. that they don't name. My husband claims that they said her name once in the very beginning of the movie but I don't remember it. She goes through the entire movie as 'that chick that is the second in command or something.' Things like that don't detract from my enjoyment of movie. I would just like someone on screen to say her name more than once so I can remember who she is.
So, in the end, if you enjoy superhero action movies, you'll love this. There is a reason that the movie has been a blockbuster hit. I'm just sad that it'll take a long time before we see another Avengers movie.
The Avengers are coming!
Since we are a geeky family, we did see The Avengers yesterday. However, I am still super tired this morning so I'm going to wait until tomorrow to post my review. I want to make sure I have the right words for what I want to say. Until then, I will be floating around the internet wondering if carhartt coveralls would be good for my husband. He gets dirty a lot. I don't know that he'd appreciate it though. They aren't exactly fashionable.
Seafood Shanty
This probably doesn't matter to anyone outside the Philadelphia area but I want to get it off my chest. Back when I was a kid, Seafood Shanty was the restaurant to get seafood. It was awesome. For whatever reason (hey, I was a kid), the franchise went out of business and disappeared. Recently, a local guy decided to bring it back. He bought some of the original recipes from the old Shanty and opened a store not far from my house. We finally got to try it out last night. I was disappointed.
First, service was pretty slow. I used to be a waitress so I tend to be fairly lenient on wait times. However, none of our food should have taken particularly long to cook. The most 'complicated' food was my husband's lobster rigatoni, which didn't even have rigatoni noodles. I had a steampot, which ended up way too spicy and didn't have a whole lot in it. My daughter ordered a "bucket of dungeness crab," which contained an entire half of a crab. To top it off, everything took so long that we didn't get home until way past my daughter's bed time.
This brings me to my second point. For the amount of food we received, the price was way too high. A few months ago, the three of us visited Joe's Crab Shack. We ordered similar food and the cost was the same. BUT there was twice as much food at Joe's. The bucket of crab I had there had one and a half crabs in it.
So, if you are in the Reading, PA area and are thinking about trying the new Seafood Shanty, skip it. Drive the extra hour and go to Joe's Crab Shack in King of Prussia. You won't regret it.
Busy Busy
My daughter was sick last night so I have been working from home today. As a result, things have been pretty busy around here. Luckily, she is feeling better and should be returning to school tomorrow. It'll be nice to have things back to normal.
I choose you!
After taking a few days to make a decision, I have finally picked the next jdrama I'm going to watch. Hito ni Yasashiku starring Katori Shingo. I haven't heard too much about the show but I have been dying to watch it. Hopefully it will be awesome!
Seriously?
As I'm sure you've figured out, I like reading about various weight loss fads. I came across something called Chili Burn this morning. Thinking that it was something completely different, I read some chili burn reviews. It is almost exactly as it sounds - chili powder. There are some other things mixed in there (green tea, ginger root, peppermint, etc.) but, despite having more green tea than chili pepper in it, the idea is that the hotness of the chili will burn off the pounds. I don't think I would want to even try a chili powder tablet. There is no conclusive proof that it would work anyway. The only ingredient proven to help with weight loss is the green tea and there isn't enough of it in the tablet to work. Thanks to its crappy marketing scheme, it's not allowed in the US right now. So it's mostly being marketed to Canada. Watch out Canadians!
JDorama review: Kamisama, Mou Sukoshi Dake
I don't normally watch depressing dramas. However, I am a big fan of Fukada Kyoko so I wanted to watch some of her older works.
To be honest, I'm not really sure where to begin this review. While the show did have some very emotionally moving pieces, there were so many wrong parts that didn't make the show, as a whole, worth watching. Masaki is 17 years old, which puts her in the 'selfish teenager' age group. Throughout the entire show, everything she does is nothing but selfish acts. Even when she claims she is thinking about someone else's well-being (mostly in the "I'm such a burden!" sense), that's not the truth. The worst part is that Kamisama isn't Masaki's story. It's Keigo's.
I'm sure that tons of people will protest that fact. But, if you have watched the show, think about it. Masaki rarely does anything in the entire series. Everything she does is a reaction to Keigo. Kamisama is the story of Keigo learning how to love again after the death of his previous lover. Masaki is just the path he takes to get there.
Taking that into account, it is a very good story. Unfortunately, the writers decided to focus on Masaki and her plight with HIV. I know that the story takes place in the late 90s and things have changed a ton since then. However, HIV was discovered in the early 80s. In the show, they treat the disease like it is a brand new illness. The writers also do an awful job at showing how much time has progressed in the series. While we know that Masaki was in high school in episode one and there is a THREE YEARS LATER in episode nine, there isn't anything in any of the other episodes to show us how much time has passed. Characters are always referencing how little time Masaki has left to live but there are few signs showing how long she lived.
At the end, I wouldn't recommend watching Kamisama. Maybe if you feel like watching something super sad, it might fill the void. Just keep in mind that the show has a very slow pace and there is a lot of crap to put up with before you get to the final episode, which is sadly the best part of the whole series.
One left!
I have one more episode of Kamisama left! While I am hoping to get it finished tonight, I'm not sure that will happen. At the latest, I will have it done by Friday. I can't wait to get this thing over with. Any suggestions for my next jdorama? Please try to keep it on the happier side this time. I don't think I can handle two depressing dramas in a row.