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July 25, 2005

 Expobar Office Control  

I bought the expobar as my second machine.

My Venus was having issues pulling ristrettos, and did not have enough steaming power to make milk-based drinks fast enough for me in the morning.

Plus, I found a great deal on this and couldn't pass it up.

The Expobar Office Control is made my crem http://www.crem.es a spanish company.

It was designed for light commercial use - an HX machine with a 1.7L insulated brass boiler.

Mine is red, a deep and bright blood red. It's awesome.

I can't find any pictures online of my exact model, but here it is in silver and white.

Posted by Jonathan at 3:12 PM | Comments (0)

 Isomac Venus  

The Venus was my first espresso machine.

It's absolutely beautiful and makes a wonderful cup of espresso.

BUT it has a design flaw in the pressure release system, and can not make a ristretto without the temp dropping and the shot turning sour.

As I only drink ristrettos, something had to be done.

Posted by Jonathan at 3:00 PM | Comments (0)

 Coffee  

I'm addicted to coffee. The taste, the caffeine, the ritual.

I've added a new category to catalog my addiction -- the appliances I buy and the blends I try.

Posted by Jonathan at 2:39 PM | Comments (0)

July 19, 2005

 Trilogie - 2003  

The label says "Trilogie" de Fabre Montmayou, Lujan de Cuyo Mendoza

Also from FreshDirect - $8.00

It's a meritage of Cab (35) Malbec (35) and Merlot (30)

Incredibly drinkable, especially at this price/

It has that dark and dirty mouthfeel that budget South American wines tend to have - this one is Argentinian, but it could easily be Chilean.

FreshDirect claims this as smooth with blackcurrants and vanilla. I definately see the blackcurrants in the aftertaste. Vanilla is very noticable in the initial sip and as the aftertaste lingers. But right off the bat its a bold red with a peppery bite - I wouldn't call this smooth at all. I don't think I've ever had a South American that was really smooth in any discernable manner.

I haven't eaten meat in almost 9years, but I can imagine this would be great with Steak Frites. Unfortunately, its too dirty and spicy to do with desert, although there is an underlying sweetness that I wish wouldn't be so overpowered by everything else.

Anyways, this is really nicely done. At $8, its great. I'd be more comfortable paying $6, but seeing as I wasted $12.50 on an awful Pinot, I could see this going for $10. It's one of the least dirty south american's I've had, and there really aren't any noticable tannins.

Posted by Jonathan at 10:28 PM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2005

 Jacques & Francois Lurton - Perfect Pinot - 2003  

The label claims: "Intense and velvety, this "Perfect" Pinot Noir is loaded with forward fruit with uderlying spicy flavour and complexity"

The only thing perfect about this pinot, is that it is a perfectly awful bottle of wine.

FreshDirect had it for $12 - I'm always on the lookout for a budget Pinot, and this fit the bill, so I picked it up.

Big mistake.

Out of the bottle, it smelled like a pinot, and it has a brief familiar aftertaste of Pinot after it left my palate.

But every sip tasted like it came out of a 2L magnum that cost $5 - it tasted like a generic, non-varietal, french table wine.

Not worth $12, maybe worth $5.

Posted by Jonathan at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2005

 Kiehls gets even more of my money  

I've been a fan of the shaving creams and various other amenities from Kiehls for a few years now. 'She' took a couple of our common Kiehls purchases when she moved out, so I stopped by the 13th St store with the intent to restock. Instead, I realized how awful the NYC summer heat and humidty has been on my face the past few weeks: my skin gets ridiculously oily and for whatever reason it has just been painful to shave (as if I 'scratch' the skin, and I end up with lots of red spots), and hot/itchy if I dont shave for a few days...

So I went to Kiehls and asked for help -- then I walked out with these recommendations from the staff:

Obviously, I'm supposed to use this after shaving (I already have 2 of their shaving creams, which blow everything else that I've tried away)

They said I should use this in the afternoon, when I get home from work...

...and to use this after cleaning my face later in the day, or if I don't shave in the morning...

...and finally to use this at night.

Two days in, and my face has been way less oily and shaving doesn't hurt -- if this keeps up for another week I'll be ridiculously happy.

Posted by Jonathan at 12:03 PM | Comments (0)

July 11, 2005

 Mysterious Skin  

As the most mainsteam and accessible Greg Araki movie to date, Mysterious Skin is still incredibly inaccessible and obtuse -- firmly rooted as a gay genre film, with little hope of mass appeal.

The direction and acting were absolutely incredible - and honestly fostered a caliber that was quite surprising coming from Araki. If one examines it as a genre film, the main flaw is the fetishing of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, which really detracts focust from the storyline. The other flaw existed in the moments of comic relief - odd lines about food and bears on sweaters - that I didn't think was that funny, but drew loud bursts of laughter from the bulk of theater goers in Chelsea.

In terms of mass appeal, its hard to make a movie that people will want to see, about two teenagers growing up and coming to terms with having been molested by a pedophile when they were 8. If any of the more uncomfortable elements were taken away, the film would be less serious/pertinent and more of an ABC/Hallmark channel movie.

It's a fine line, and I would imagine frustrating for the director -- make the movie that you want, or sacrifice it to make a movie that people will see.

Having seen many of Araki's previous efforts, I used to think that the similarities and common elements shared between them all existed because he was 'unoriginal' -- he kept on making the same movie, kept on harping on the same ideas, kept on putting a different take on the same story.

After Mysterious Skin, I think that Araki had been trying to make this movie all along -- the gratuitous violence, desensitized sex, gay themes and alien abductions are presented in a way that explains their interconnectedness. I don't know where they come from exactly, the gay experience or surviving pedophila, and perhaps -- if I could identify with either -- I might have understood the interconnectedness in a previous film, but Araki really elucidates that experience and mindset to the viewer with his latest film, as painful and disconcerting as it is.

I saw it with a filmmaker, who pondered afterwards whether or not a movie like this, or a director like Araki, could break free of the genre and make an accessible movie that isn't mired by their own experience or goals.

3/3

Posted by Jonathan at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

 Batman Begins  

This is the oddest, yet most compelling, interpretation of a superhero movie that I've seen to date.

Chris Nolan created a darkly sinister, yet thoroughly human, vision of the Batman character. While Tim Burton's version was overly stylized, darkly fantastical and comic like, with characters modeled after caricatures, Nolan opted for a toned-down version showing the humanity and emotion behind the decisions each character makes that at times tried to be poetic.

Not to suggest that the movie is entirely serious -- there are plenty of 'cheesy' or overly dramatic lines and scenes -- but for a story based on a comic book character, Nolan's interpretation is surprisingly refreshing.

A friend who I saw it with picked up on 2 things that I failed to notice:
1 - The main cast is overwhelmingly British actors (mostly pretending to be American)
2 - This is the second recent superhero movie to try and take a new direction -- Sam Raimi recently turned the SpiderMan franchise into a candy coated pop-culture 'fun' movie

According to imdb, the writer of the screenplay also authored the Blade series and Dark City

3/3

Posted by Jonathan at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)

July 10, 2005

 Ipod Alarm Clock  

I picked up one of the Ipod Alarm Clocks yesterday - they're not in widespread distribution until August/September, but I found out that some Target locations and the Hammacher Schlemmer website/store both carry it now -- so I got my hands on one.

After a day, here's my review:

Pros:
1. It looks nice
2. It costs $100, which is less than the other ipod docks out there, and you can consolidate that with an alarm clock
3. It charges the ipod

Cons:
1. It sounds awful. Simply awful, on par with any other alarm clock radio. The $30 Altec lansing speakers I bought for my desktop computer blow it away. I think playing the ipod using an itrip in my old clock radio sounded better.
2. It's awkward to use the ipod in the dock. Contrary to some reviews on the net, you can fully use the ipod controls while its in the dock -- you just have to figure out how to manuever them.
3. The LCD clock screen has an awful viewing angle. If you look right at it, its great. From the sides, above, or below, the numbers disappear into a blue glow.
4. The usability department must have been staffed by chimps -- to set the alarm time, you need to use a scrollwheel to go through all the hours and minutes at once. There is no "AM" icon, just a "PM" one that tends to not reappear if you scroll too much.
5. Since changing the volume on the radio for sleep mode affects the alarm volume, they added a sleep volume button -- which is the smaller than a pencil eraser and on the back of the unit next to a bunch of 'seldom used' buttons
6. I read online that there are reports of a power supply issue and fires. I don't know the truth to that, and honestly, the power supply seems fine. There's a circuit board under the top of the unit near the right speaker though that started to overheat the minute I plugged it in, and filled the room with that faint burning electronics smell.
7. The alarm itself is weak, like a gentle 'beep' not a waking 'buzz'
8. The 'gentle sleep' mode doesn't really lower the music off into silence. It just kinda lowers it to a certain point that is still loud, then abruptly cuts it off.
9. There are probably a dozen other things wrong with it.

Don't buy this.
For the same price, you can get the JBL speakers that actually sound good and a $10 alarm clock that works better.

Posted by Jonathan at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

July 8, 2005

 City Of God  

Superbly shot, wonderfully written and expertly directed.

I was a bit put off by the combination of a jumping timeline and frenetic pace of the story -- I think going more with one than the other would have been much more satisfying experience.

I've never seen such a... disconcerting... story told in such a way that it comes off not as sad and morose, but wildly intense and 'fucking amazing' in an oddly beautful way.

3/3

Posted by Jonathan at 1:26 PM | Comments (0)

July 7, 2005

 How I Entered All The Movies  

Some people asked:

A few years ago, I used to keep a record of things that I watched, but I stopped that -- it got to be too tedious.

Netflix, however, keeps track! I just wrote a simple script to parse the netflix history into a hash, then export it to whatever format a blog sofware wants to import it as. Simple.

Posted by Jonathan at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

 Mihow  

http://www.mihow.com

Michele's Blog -- she gets the first visit link.

Posted by Jonathan at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)

July 6, 2005

 Dungen - Ta det lugnt  

This cd is amazingly addictive. It sounds like it could very well be german prog/psych from 73 -- but its not. Its a bunch of swedes in 2004. Brilliant.

Posted by Jonathan at 4:05 PM | Comments (0)