2014: The Year in Stuff

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Random Musings

After posts about the year in opera, podcasts, music, film, and, at long last, books, here is a round-up of other favorite (and not so favorite) experiences, items, and places from 2014.

Favorite Travel Experience: spending the night on the RMS Queen Mary

Favorite Travel Experience (runner-up): New Year’s Eve in Big Sur

Favorite National Park: Olympic National Park, Washington

Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park

Favorite Museum Experience: Hollywood Costume (AMPAS, Los Angeles)
Favorite items include Morticia Addams’s dress from Addams Family Values, an indigo dress from Funny Girl, and Katniss’s boots from The Hunger Games.

Favorite Local Store: The Spice & Tea Exchange at Pier 39

Favorite Online Store: Bounce (Title Nine)

Favorite Farmers Market Vendor: Hornbrook Heritage Hogs

Favorite Restaurant (Splurge): State Bird Provisions

Favorite Restaurant (Neighborhood): Saha, especially the fouel, kofta, and lahem sougar

Most Adventurous Food Experience: Baja, Mexico, where I ate tripa, cabeza, pulpo, and erizo all within twenty-four hours

Una tostada de pulpo (octopus) and una tostada de erizo (sea urchin) from Mariscos La Guerrerense in Ensenada

Favorite Takeout: Piccadilly Fish & Chips

Favorite Delivery: Lers Ros Thai

Favorite Wine: Lichen Estate, Pinot Noir, Solera Volume 2, Anderson Valley

Favorite Coffee Bean: Philtered Soul (Philz)

Favorite Bread: Pain Pauline (Trader Joe’s)

Favorite Surprise Delivery (v.f.): my cousin bringing the entire set of books I inherited from my late aunt in her suitcase

Favorite Surprise Delivery (v.o.): the gift of my favorite movies from the Criterion sale

Most Frightening Realization: I’d probably be sorted into Hufflepuff.

Most Coveted Fashion Item: Kate’s coats

Favorite Sports Moment: the elimination of Spain in the World Cup

Least Favorite Sports Experience: NBC’s tape-delay Olympics coverage

Favorite New TV Show: Black-ish

Favorite Returning TV Show: Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Favorite Reality TV Show: MasterChef Junior

Favorite Basic Cable Show: Drunk History

Favorite Series (Commonwealth Edition): Sherlock, Top of the Lake

Favorite Delayed Discovery: Justified

Favorite Hulu Discovery (French Edition): Engrenages (Spiral)

Favorite Hulu Discovery (Commonwealth Edition): The Booth at the End

Best TV News: “That gum you like is going to come back in style!”

Worst TV News: ITV cancels The Bletchley Circle

Favorite Piece of Technology: my new Lenovo laptop

Least Favorite Technology Experience: each successive release of iTunes

Favorite Editorial Task: a California History article on sea turtles in San Francisco during the Gold Rush years

Proudest Editorial Moment: getting this fierce picture of Bessie Coleman in a U.S. History textbook

What were some of your favorites of the year? Let me know in the comment box below what gave you the most joy in 2014.

The Luddite Chronicles II: Technology Strikes Back

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Luddism

As I stated previously in the original Luddite Chronicles, I am not an early adopter, nor am I attracted by shiny technology in general. However, when I began contemplating cutting the cable cord a little over a year ago, I knew that the last thing I wanted were more boxes or gadgets on my TV stand, and so I decided that if I was going to purchase a new TV (for once), I wanted something all-in-one: Enter the Samsung Smart TV with built-in wifi.

I. Love. This. System.

First off, it’s nice to finally have a flat-screen HDTV with a glorious picture. And I’m sure the guests for my annual Oscar dinner were thrilled with that development alone.

More importantly, I love having everything accessible on one screen, from Hulu to Netflix to YouTube (TableTop!) as well as other apps such as Euronews in French. And, with the purchase of one long HDMI cable, I am able to use the screen as a second monitor for editing work on my laptop (which has Blu-ray and can now serve as a replacement for my dying DVD player as well). After one year with this new set-up, I can confidently say I don’t miss cable at all.* I’m only sorry I didn’t do this sooner.

From a financial perspective, this has also proved to be a smart decision. I’m already well past the point where the TV has paid for itself with what I have saved on cable. The monthly numbers break down as follows:

   Original cable bill (Digital Starter): $73

   Upgrade to highest DSL for streaming: + $13
   New Hulu Plus subscription: + $ 8
   Netflix subscription change: – $ 1
     (3DVDs at a time => 1DVD + streaming)

   Monthly Savings: $53

Even buying the occasional TV series such as Mad Men, or upgrading my Netflix DVDs for film projects, I will still come out ahead. Plus, unless I switch Internet providers, no cable company bullsh*t to deal with!

Sadly, one thing my Smart TV cannot do is make the remaining films in my Spielberg project any shorter, or more interesting, so I fear it may be longer than expected before my next Film 101 post.



*Hulu is definitely what I use the most, especially since the user interface and queue works most like a DVR. In addition to being how I access old favorites like The Daily Show, I don’t think I would have discovered things like Braquo or Spiral without it. I realize I could have used Hulu before, but I really don’t like watching video on my laptop.

The Luddite Chronicles: A New Hope*

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Luddism, Social Media

Continued apologies to anyone whose feed of this blog has been acting wonky. I’ve discovered that if I edit a post that I imported from my previous Blogger site, even if it’s only adding a tag in “quick edit,” it goes out as a new post, but with the original date stamp.

While I can’t seem to fix the issue, someone at WordPress at least suggested a workaround that solves the problem on your end. Essentially, if I want to tinker with something, I need to set the post to private, then edit, then reset the post to public.

Thank you for your patience during testing. Apologies in advance if I forget to do this and an old post pops up in your feed.


*This post title neither endorses nor condones the idea that there are any more than three Star Wars films.

Crossing the Rubicon

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Social Media

Alea iacta est.

Les jeux sont faits.

Yes, yes, I’m finally on The Twitter.

What finally got me there? Was it @javachik and her incessant haranguing about all the cool kids being on The Twitter? Or Audition author @swkehoe with her “innocent” questions about whether I tweet travel?

No, it was barbeque. That’s right, barbeque. You know those days when things don’t quite go according to plan? Well, as I headed up the hill from the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market this afternoon, much later than usual due to a fabulous (but late) game night and morning (well, afternoon) hike out in the East Bay, I saw that the relatively new BBQ place on Hyde was open. Apparently, it doesn’t open until well after lunch which is why I’ve never seen it in action before. Sometimes, not being on schedule is a very good thing.

With ribs smoking out on the sidewalk, how could I not stop? And, well, they had me at Bourbon Cornbread. I resisted the Sweet Potato Rum Pie, but I already regret it. As an extra bonus, their sweet tea was decaf so I could actually try it (verdict: a bit too sweet for me, but with an interesting mapley flavor). Anyway, as I later googled to get the exact name of this slice of heaven (Hyde Away Blues BBQ & Gumbo Café at 457 Hyde Street at O’Farrell), I found their official website, which turned out to be a twitter page—where they tweet what is fresh out of the oven or hot off the grill. All I could think is: “I want to go to there!”

And, thus, @sly_wit was born.

I don’t yet know what I’ll be doing there, but, yes, I’m finally on The Twitter. Stop asking.

However, as God is my witness, I’ll never join Google+.

Jane Eyre

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Media

Growing up, Jane Eyre was one of my favorite books. Even though I read it a couple of times back then, I hadn’t picked it up again since I was a teen. However, I do always try to catch the latest film version. The most recent is by Cary Fukunaga, with Mia Wasikowska (The Kids Are All Right, Alice in Wonderland) as Jane and Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds, Hunger) as Rochester. The film goes into wide release later this month and I think it is one of the best I’ve seen at capturing both the gothic and romantic elements of the story, with a great atmosphere and just the right amount of gloom and drama.

In preparation for seeing this advanced screening, I downloaded a LibriVox recording by Elizabeth Klett to reacquaint myself with the story. If you don’t know LibriVox, they offer free audio recordings of books in the public domain. Since the books are all read by volunteers, the quality of the readers varies widely; however, the site often has multiple versions, so you can sample and pick which one you like. For example, the first reader I downloaded had mispronounced Hebrides and Caligula in just the first chapter, so I quickly abandoned her and switched to Klett’s reading, which I was quite happy with.

With the novel fresh in my mind, I must say that the choices of where to compress and/or change the novel for the screen were right on the money. I also loved how this version framed the story: The film starts with Jane fleeing Thornfield over the moors and ending up at the Rivers’ house (which actually takes place about two-thirds of the way through the novel). Her arrival and collapse on the doorstep sets in motion the series of flashbacks to her childhood and life at Thornfield. Eventually, the opening shots are matched later in the story as Jane’s tale plays out.

I had a few quibbles with some choices near the end, and Rochester was far too good-looking, but, all in all, they did a really good job with it. The two leads were very believable and Dame Judi Dench was characteristically fabulous as Mrs. Fairfax.

If you are at all a fan of the book, don’t miss this one.