Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
movies

300

I’d been wanting to see this movie ever since I laid eyes on the trailer. I was hoping to catch it in the theater, but the timing never worked out. It’s not that I’m so busy I can’t even see a movie, it’s that I only frequent the Westwood Plaza Theatre and it was not playing there any weekend that we could go (that is, we didn’t have something else going on and/or Jake was around). That said, I’m sure it was quite the spectacle on the big screen, but it still looked pretty darn good in 27″. The story was not a complicated one–just a straight up war story. It was a fictionalized account of the Battle of Thermopylae, as based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller (the dude who brought us Sin City).

There was much CGI enhancement going on in this movie. I’m not sure if the muscles of the 300 soldiers were enhanced or not, but either way, it’s fine by me. Sitting around watching 300 muscle-bound, scantily clad men for two hours isn’t a bad way to spend some time. Add one margarita and some smoky black bean dip to the mix and you have yourself a perfect evening.

food & drink

australian wine tasting party

In order to christen our new bar, we held an Australian wine tasting party this evening. The party was also the impetus for actually building the bar. I’d been wanting to have a wine tasting party for months, but Brian kept saying, “wait till I build a bar”, so I waited. And waited. Finally, I picked a date for the party and he got to building the bar.

I was fretting about the guest list all week because some people were definitely not going to make it and others were iffy, but it all worked out in the end. I should probably not waste the energy worrying about such things–I think I need to start doing yoga again so I can clear my mind of such nonsense. We ended up with 10 people (I was shooting for 12, so we’ll call that close enough). We tried three white wines and three reds and amazingly, none of them were the same varietals. In fact, only two bottles were from the same vineyard.

I was worried that I made too much food, but it turns out that wasn’t an issue–hardly any leftovers were to be found. I don’t know if my internal food calculator needs to be recalibrated or if I just invited a bunch of “eaters” to the party, but either way, I’m happy with the results. There’s nothing an Italian woman likes more than no leftovers, by the way.

The funny thing is that I’m not much of a socializer, but I totally love wine tasting parties–whether they are hosted at someone else’s place or at mine. I really love wine and relish the opportunity to try numerous varieties. We got to try six new ones tonight. All were quite good. So, we’ll call it a winner. And, it cemented the fact that I’ll be hosting another one of these in the near future.

movies

1408

While I don’t know this will go down in history as a classic Stephen King movie, I do know that I liked it very much. It was a scary little story. It was about a guy who writes books about haunted places, but he doesn’t believe in anything supernatural–until he visits room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel.

Good stuff.

motorcycles

melancholy motorcycling

It was relatively nice yesterday and today after work, so Brian and I (and Jake, too!) took the bikes out. There were ulterior motives in place both days, but we did get a little riding in, too. Brian’s been wanting to take a picture of us with the bikes by the stone arch on Menoher Boulevard. We did that yesterday and then took a short ride on the Somerset Pike. Today, Rite Aid was giving flu shots. We stopped there, but the line was too long so we left and went for a ride on 271 towards Ligonier. Riding made me a little sad, though. I finally feel like I’m getting the hang of it and now it’s nearly time to put the bike away for the season.

I have a feeling it’s going to be a long winter.