Keep Your Friends Close, But Your Enemies Closer

#4: Watch all of AFI's 100 best movies of all time
After seeing The Godfather recently, we decided to skip around the Top 100 list and go straight to The Godfather 2!



Although many call this the best movie sequel ever and some like it even better than the first...overall, I'd have to say that we enjoyed the original a lot more than #2. #2 was much longer (two discs for a total of 3 hours and 20 minutes!) and skipped around between the Vito Corleone's young life up until he became 'The Godfather' and Michael Corleone's present life, which itself spanned many years, and seeing him turn into someone he never thought he would. This made the film feel a little disjointed since the two storylines had no clear relation. I actually was more interested in watching Vito's storyline than Michael's, but that was just a small part of the film. Michael's storyline was harder to keep track of and it was confusing to follow who is his real "enemy" and who isn't.

The film also felt a bit darker/gloomier than the first, which is funny to say since both are gloomy and violent movies. But the first one had a lot more excitement and a better climax. #2 didn't hold our excitement in the same way, and while you rooted for Mike in the original to follow in his father's footsteps and get revenge on those who wronged the family, in #2, he seems to be over the edge with his revenge and it leaves you feeling sad as opposed to empowered.

Here are some reviews:
http://www.filmsite.org/godf2.html
http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=263
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19740101/REVIEWS/401010314/1023

Me, a Gym Rat?? Plus a 2nd 101 Completion and more!

#26: Workout 3 times a week for a month (2/4)
This would have been one of my guesses for the least likely to complete from my 101 Things, but I've surprised myself (and all those around me) with my recent devotion to the gym! Along with my first Summer Friday a couple weeks ago, came the sudden desire and impetus to visit the gym in my building, a mere 3 floors below me. It was then that I realized, if I was unemployed, I'd workout everyday! 11-11:30am is just the absolute best time to workout in my mind - the gym is empty, it's before lunch (but, should you wake early enough, after breakfast), you can watch The Price Is Right while you workout, and when all is said and done, you've still got the whole day ahead of you! Of course, I (thankfully) am employed and thus cannot workout at 11am, so I've had to workout after work (since before work certainly is still not an option for me - not only do I oversleep as it is, I've found after the past 2 weeks that I sweat PROFUSELY while on the treadmill, so going to the gym in the morning would also require a cold shower afterward, and what about my hair?? Either way, I'm not sure I could handle waking up early enough to get through it all - especially without wanting to get back into bed immediately after my post-workout shower.) But I digress...I'm extremely proud and excited that I've actually had the energy and willfulness to go to the gym after my sweaty 20 minute walk home from work and I'm even more excited that I am now halfway to my goal of going 3 times a week for a month! Wish me luck!!


#41: Try a new recipe at least twice a month
#90: Keep blog updated and always have a picture for recipes
The usual cooking roundup - New recipes on CareBearsKitchen this week:
Taco Salad
Three Berry Pie
Blueberry Crumbcake


#94: Update picture frames in apt
A second completion in the same week!! Amazing!! Last night, I decided to finally look through the last 6 months worth of photos on my computer and pick out some new fun ones to put in my picture frames, especially since some of the pictures I had included people I don't really see that much - afterall, my frame space is a hot commodity: you have to earn it! While I am marking this 101Thing as complete, that does NOT mean I want to spend the next 937 days with the same pictures...so moving forward, I will think of this 101Thing as a semiannual goal.


#96: Buy a new plant and keep it alive for the entire 1,001 days
So, technically I did not bye a new plant, but my parents did bring me a cactus back from their trip to New Mexico! While I definitely hope to keep this cactus alive (cause if I can't do that, I'm pretty hopeless), I still want to try my hand at a regular plant as well. Perhaps I should just try to keep the 3 plants I already have alive (plus my office plant, that hasn't been looking so hot lately...)

Plant Pictures To Come!

My First Official Completion!

#33: Buy a Wreck This Journal

YAY! Thanks to my friend Anna from PositivelyAnna, I have officially completed something from my 101 Things!! As a thank you for designing Anna's new logo (go check it out...isn't it purdy?), Anna surprised me with my very own Wreck This Journal this morning!! I was extremely excited to get my hands on it and had to force myself to actually do work this morning instead of look through all of my fun future asisgnments filling up the book. I did sneak in a break to fill in the first page though...so now everyone will know who this book belongs to! #33 on the list will now represent my filling out the book, so more to come as I continue on!



Page 1!

Progress Report: #13

#13. Taste cupcakes from at least 10 new places

Sunday was a beautiful day for a Cupcake Crawl! And that's exactly what Justin and I did along with our friends Lawrence and Rachel (from CupcakeRankings.com). Rachel took excellent notes so that she could blog each cupcake we sampled from the following 5 cupcakeries:

1. Sugar Sweet Sunshine
Here we split 4 varieties: Chocolate Frosting on Vanilla Cake, Vanilla (tinted green) Frosting on Vanilla Cake, Red Velvet, and Pumpkin Spice. Everyone loved the first cupcake, especially the chocolatey frosting (even though it was milk chocolate, which I don't enjoy). The Vanilla frosting actually appealed to me more, though I was the only one who thought so. The Red Velvet was a big fat flop, agreed to be the worst cupcake (possibly ever) due to its really weird over-whipped, tasteless frosting. And the Pumpkin Spice was the favorite of the four (and remained one of our tops for the whole day).




2. Babycakes
We decided to try this place as well, even with its gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, everything-free options that scared us a little bit. We tried two cupcakes here: Lemon Blueberry and Brownie Cupcake with Mint Frosting. We surprisingly liked both, all things considered! The brownie cupcake was especially yummy, the combination with the mint was pretty delicious and refreshing, another surprise for me, since I generally don't like mint in food.




3. Baked By Melissa
Lawrence, Justin, and I tried Baked By Melissa a few weeks ago, but Rachel couldn't join us that day so we made the venture back. We tried all 7 varieties of her cupcakes. Lawrence and I agreed that the cupcakes weren't as good as the first time we had them. But Chocolate Peanut Butter still was mouth-wateringly yummy (in my opinion!).




4. Sweet Revenge
We tried 3 cupcakes here: Pure (Vanilla on Vanilla), Crimson & Cream (Raspberry Red Velvet), and Birds of Paradise (Lime Cake with Mango Frosting). All were big hits, especially the Birds of Paradise, which got points for uniqueness AND deliciousness!




5. Tonnie's Mini's
We had to take a long break after Sweet Revenge cause we were all pretty cupcaked out, but Rachel wanted to try this one last place on her list. It ended up being a pretty bad decision - we've dubbed this place, the seedy underbelly of the cupcake world. We got 2 cupcakes: the Vanilla on Vanilla and a mix of Vanilla and Red Velvet. One taste of the vanilla and I was out. It was gross, dried out and odd tasting. The "mix" cupcake was no different from the regular one. Ick.

Here's a copy of our crawl map:

Progress Report: #4

#4: Watch all of AFI's 100 best movies of all time
Last night, J and I watched the #3 movie on the AFI list: The Godfather!



Finally, a movie both J and I enjoyed! While the movie is long (2 hours and 57 minutes - Justin was surprised at the 1.5-2 hour mark after a big exciting climactic part that it wasn't the end), it's full of excitement and suspense. An added treat was seeing some great actors when they were young - Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall, James Caan (I quizzed J at the beginning to see if he could recognize the actors).

Here are some links to Godfather reviews:
http://www.filmsite.org/godf.html
http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=262
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19720101/REVIEWS/201010312/1023

Progress Report: #5, #8

#5: Watch all MetaCritic best-reviewed movies of the past 5 years
Now that I've started to use the library in addition to my Netflix, I've been watching a lot more movies lately - hurray for summer! Last week, I got Ratatouille out of the library, which was the top reviewed movie of 2007. I have to say, while I thought it was cute, I don't think it was my favorite animated movie or even my favorite movie of 2007! In fact, at some times in the movie, even though everything's animated - it's still hard to watch hundreds of rats in a kitchen, making food. The thought kind of turns my stomach...but overall, still an enjoyable movie!


#8: Go to 10 concerts
Justin and I attended our 3rd concert this year (2nd since I started the list!) this past weekend - Paramore & No Doubt at Jones Beach! The concert was awesome - Paramore is a band that we've really started to like lately so we were excited that they were opening up and No Doubt has been one of my favorite bands ever since Tragic Kingdom came out, like 14 years ago! They played all of their big hits, plus other favorites - including ending with my favorite No Doubt song, Sunday Morning! The sets were awesome and included a big screen in the background that played some of their music videos in the background as they sung the songs or other fun graphics and the band was really energetic. Even J loved the concert, and he can be a hater!

Here are some pictures from the concert:
TBD

Long Awaited Progress Report

ENTERTAINMENT

#4: Watch all of AFI's 100 best movies of all time
We watched another best movie last week - #2: Casablanca!



This movie gets me excited - if no other reason than the incredible script - when watching it, you are bombarded with so many famous quotes. Also, it's a love story, complete with triangle, that can be argued over. It's not simple, it's not contrived, and there isn't the stereotypical happy ending. Per the discussion in When Harry Met Sally:

Harry: He wants her to leave. That's why he puts her on the plane.
Sally: I don't think she wants to stay.
Harry: Of course she wants to stay. Wouldn't you rather be with Humphrey Bogart than the other guy?
Sally: I don't want to spend the rest of my life in Casablanca married to a man who runs a bar. That probably sounds very snobbish to you, but I don't.
Harry: You'd rather be in a passionless marriage -
Sally: - and be the First Lady of Czechoslovakia -
Harry: - than live with the man... you've had the greatest sex of your life with, just because he owns a bar and that is all he does.
Sally: Yes, and so would any woman in her right mind. Women are very practical. Even Ingrid Bergman, which is why she gets on the plane at the end of the movie.

Here are some links to Casablanca reviews:
http://www.filmsite.org/casa.html
http://www.reelviews.net/movies/c/casablanca.html
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19960915/REVIEWS08/401010308/1023

Happily, Justin liked this movie better than Citizen Kane, not surprisingly since it has a much simpler, enjoyable storyline. It still wasn't his cup of tea, but I think we'll get him with our next movie, which we'll be watching this week hopefully - The Godfather!

FOOD WINE
#11: Try a new restaurant every month
I've actually already been to 3 new restaurants this month!
Lilli and Loo - an Asian restaurant on the Upper East, featuring a gluten free menu. I got the Pad Thai and it was deeeeelish!
Suspenders Bar & Restaurant - fun place down in FiDi with a surprisingly awesome looking menu, it was hard to choose! I ended up getting a Steak Sandwich with Goat Cheese, Roasted Onions, and Balsamic Syrup. Yum!! Plus, every Thursday and Friday they give out roses to all the ladies ;)
Maxwell's - a bar and restaurant in Hoboken, NJ. Also with loads of yummy looking dishes, including an extensive daily specials menu. I got a burger with jack cheese, sauteed onions and roasted peppers. Super mmm.

COOKING
#40: Make meal plans every week
#41: Try a new recipe at least twice a month
#45: Make fish at least once a month
New recipes since my last post include: Jam Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting (which was also featured on my friend's website CupcakeRankings.com), Curried Couscous Salad (my lunch for the week), Chicken and Veggies Cooked in a Foil Packet, Cucumber Chicken, and my first fish dish in awhile, Lemon Sole with Veggies - a recipe of my dad's. I still have to add those last 3 to the blog - will do soon!

ORGANIZATION
#49: Scrapbook all my saved up stuff
Amazingly, after getting started on this scrapbooking project and letting it sit on the coffee table for a week or so after I ran out of scotch tape, I went back to it last week while cleaning up the apartment. I've officially scrapbooked all of my saved up stuff through the end of 2008! I can't decide if I should consider this completed, or if it's not completed until I start scrapbooking all 2009 goodies I've accumulated until now. Or if it's never really completed since I'll always have more to add...what a conundrum!

SOCIAL
#85: Host 4 game nights a year
#87: Go dancing at least 3 times a year
Last Friday night was our first game night in MONTHS!!! So happy to see the old gang, tho would have loved it if we had a classic board game night as in the past, where we go through 4-5 different games in a night! This time though, we got to try out group Rock Band for the first time, which was very fun. In fact, I will post a picture of our band to commemorate the occasion.


Lawrence, Rachel, Myself, and Mike

As for the dancing, on Saturday night, we went to a friend's birthday at The Delancey.

HOME
#95: Buy flowers once a month
I didn't have to buy flowers this month - our intern at work gave us all flowers on her last day! Not only was it a really sweet gesture, but it brightened up the office for the next week! Here's a pic of mine:

Progress Report: #13

So somehow tasting cupcakes isn't on my 101 list...but I feel like I may have to add it in there, especially if it involves tasting cupcakes I see on CupcakeRankings.com - or cupcakes that have yet to be ranked....but here's a cupcake picture diary from Saturday's wonderful cupcake tasting with Lawrence:


Baked By Melissa Cupcakes: 6 bite-sized cupcakes for $5



LB with his first mini cupcake...they really are bite-sized!


Smores Cupcake


Cookies & Cream Cupcake





Smores cupcake and Cookie Dough cupcake



Me with my Cookie Dough cupcake



LB cleansing his palate before his next tasting



One of my faves: the Peanut Butter and Jelly cupcake!



Top view



The glorious Tye Dye Cupcake







Peanut Butter Cup Cupcake!



Delish!


Next up: CupcakeStop! Mini cupcakes for $1 each:

Red Velvet and Double Chocolate



LB showing off his mini Red Velvet

Progress Report: #4

#4. Watch all of AFI's 100 best movies of all time

We started our quest to watch the AFI top 100 movies of all time list this week right at the top: #1 Movie - Citizen Kane.



This was at least the 4th time I've seen the movie and I still think it's amazing. I know it can be hard to watch, get a little slow in places, but I think that it's so clever. You can't watch it like you'd watch any movie now - first of all, you have to keep in mind that this movie is from 1941. Part of what's so intriguing about it is all the new (for the time) and interesting things they did - the way the story is told through flashbacks, the lighting, the camerawork which involved great angles and perspectives.

Here are some good reviews of the movie that provide some interesting background on the techniques used in the film, as well as the controversy that surrounded it at the time:
http://www.filmsite.org/citi.html
http://www.reelviews.net/movies/c/citizen.html
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980524/REVIEWS08/401010334/1023

Progress Report: #7, #16, #41, #44, #49, #90

#7. Go to at least 3 Mets games each summer
This past Saturday, May 30th, J and I (along with J's sister and her roommate) voyaged back into Queens for another Mets game! While this one wasn't as good as the last one (half the team was out "resting" and they lost pretty badly), we DID get to take a picture with the old Shea Home Run Apple, which is pretty awesome.


#16. Try to find the best burger in the city
Another trip to Citi Field also gave us a reason to start our best burger quest! We each had a Shake Shack Double-Shack Burger and it was mmm mmm good! We decided to judge each burger we taste on 4 points: Taste, Presentation, Value, Overall each on a scale of 1-10.

Taste: 8

We liked the charbroiled taste of the burgers and the cheese to burger ratio. The burger came with a special shack sauce, tho I couldn't really taste it, it was overpowered by everything else.

Presentation: 5

Nothing really special on the appearance front. It looks like a homemade burger - kind of messy/sloppily piled together.

Value: 8

The double-shack burger was $8.25. We're not sure of how the prices compare with the Madison Square Park location (we'll be sure to try it out there as well) but we felt that it was pretty reasonable for a regular meal, let alone a ballpark meal. We were also so stuffed afterwards that we didn't really need to eat anything else.

Overall: 8

J: If I'm at Citi Field, this is hands-down what I'm eating.

C: While we ranked the burger for presentation and value, what's really important to me is taste, and this burger tastes GOOD. I'm in for more, both at Citi Field and hopefully sometime soon, at the Madison Square Park location.

#41. Try a new recipe at least twice a month/#44. Make (or order in) one vegetarian meal per week/#90. Keep blog updated and always have a picture for recipes
New June Recipes up! Includes Southern-Style Chicken Stew, Egg Salad Sandwich, my official new recipe of the week Saucy Pepper Steak, Penne with Veggies in a Ricotta Sauce, and Strawberry Salad with Balsamic Dressing. Yumm-o! Not only did I do a lot of delicious cooking this week, but got a lot of leftovers out of it, which makes for my favorite recipes.

#49. Scrapbook all my saved up stuff
So this week, our modem broke leaving us internet-less for a night. I took this opportunity to finally start organizing all the random stuff I want to scrapbook!! I've kept everything in this tote bag in my closet, so I had to organize it by year (going back to 2007, eek) then start scrapbooking! Unfortunately, the progress stopped when my scotch tape ran out. Doh! And now that we've got our internet back, it's all in a pile in my armchair. But! Now that I've started, I have a renewed yearning to finish, so I don't think it'll be there for long!