munsch-ee end of The Nom Bom Experiment

Alright, as of the end of today the Nom Nom Experiment is over. Phew! It's harder on weekends!

Having tried this for a week I think I need to come up with some general rules. I don't intend to always not-eating-while-being-entertained, but I did learn some things.

WORK
- If I'm eating a controlled portion, like one sandwich brought from home, I'm probably safe to eat while working. But if I pull out my snacks, or I buy a bigger lunch nearby, then it's better to focus on what I'm eating so that I don't over-do it. In any case the continued problem will be resisting running off to buy a snack when I just don't need one. Maybe if I make a rule like "I have to eat that snack while standing on one foot" my laziness will prevent the snack!

BREAKFAST
- This all depends on getting the portion right when I'm standing in the kitchen. Cause once I'm back sitting in bed eating, I'll eat whatever I've got, and have often eaten too much just cause it's there. One bowl of cereal, or two toasts with milky-tea or chocolate milk is the right amount for me.

- The other problem is eating nutritiously at breakfast, because it's the moto-rev-up for the day. I try to do peanut butter on my toast, to get a protein boost. But Shreddies or Wheetabix aren't really doing me much good. I sometimes make homemade granola and it's very nutritious, but it's soooooooooooo good that Fernando and I eat it within a couple days (as constant snack.)


LUNCH/SUPPER
- When I get home from work I'm usually very hungry so I take a huge portion of whatever. So this would be a good meal to eat at the kitchen table.

- Unless it's vegetable based, in which case I don't think I mind stuffing myself. For example, a soup that's almost all pureed veggies. Or dipping crunchy vegetables into homemade hummus. I can probably do that while watching TV or reading. The veggies are so full of fibre and water that you really feel the fullness anyway.

- On the other hand, something vegetable based but heavy, and carried to the mouth on a tortilla chip, spells trouble. Yes guacamole, I mean you. Today I ate my guacamole at the kitchen table and stopped when I felt full. I think I should stick to this practice. I can't say the number of times I've gorged myself in front of the TV on guacamole, and just felt totally BLEH sick afterwards. That much oil just can't be consumed in one sitting.

SNACKS
- Here lies danger! I suspect I should always eat sweets without doing anything else. Because if the cookies disappear too quickly, without me being really conscious of them, then I'm much more likely to go back to the kitchen and get more. The cookies require Attention.

- Chippies. Oh chippies. How I love you. But when I eat too many of you, I always regret it. There are some food theories that you only fully taste the flavour of something at the first few bites (which might be why a food with complex flavour and ingredients is more satisfying), and that is SO true for chippies. I'd almost say that the drive behind chippy consumption is the quest to recapture the taste of the first three chips. So if I sit and Do Nothing Else, I'll probably realize that the taste is gone, and stop. And plus, the boredom. (Crunch crunch stare at wall crunch crunch stare at foot crunch crunch...)

And now I feel like having some chippies. Bye!

Care to take the Bechdel test?

My brother reminded me of the Bechdel test of women in movies. You can watch this short video...


or read the three rules:
1. Are there two or more women in it, with names?
2. Do they talk to each other?
3. About something other than men?

So here I've tried to randomly submit some of my fave movies to the test...


- State and Main passes the test (Annie says hi to all the women in the town by name, re. the play, and go ye huskies!)
- Zoolander passes, because Katinka and Matilda trade insults during fight scenes.
- Henry V might pass... the Princess is learning English from her maid, albeit because of the probability of marrying Henry.
- Joy Luck Club passes with flying colours
- Sense and Sensibility - easily
- American Splendor passes - his wife and daughter
- Room With a View - pass - there are lots of ladies, talking about views and flowers and travel
- Sound of Music - big pass
- Persuasion - pass
- The Harry Potters probably pass because there are named female teachers teaching named female students

- Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband - both fails
- Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - fail, even though there's lots of women with names - also Evita, maybe Oklahoma, Guys and Dolls,
- Purple Rain - fail
- A Christmas Carol - fail, there's few women at all
- Clash of the Titans probably fails because while there are lots of named women talking to each other, they're generally talking about Calibos, Zeus, or Harry Hamlin.
- The old Star Wars movies of course fail. The newer ones have some talk between Padme and her named guards.
- Not sure about Pride and Prejudice, because the sisters do talk a lot about boys with each other. And indeed many if not most romantic comedies would fail because the Best Friend is only there in order to talk about the romance.
- I doubt Hot Fuzz passes, and probably Sean of the Dead doesn't (but it's a mixed group of men and women at the end fighting off zombies, so they might talk)
Jesus Christ Superstar = epic fail (let's face it, the New Testament is epic fail. Unless you consider Jesus to be non-gendered, since *he* is god)
- Galaxy Quest - no pass (but then it couldn't because it was modeled on these TV shows with no women on them)
- Restoration - fail, it's all about the main male protagonist
- Marx Brothers movies - fail (maybe some tiny passes in there)
- James Bond movies - fail of course, except where there's a female baddie--she might threaten the Bond sidekick after all

Series - whether they pass in general (many times)
- Cranford = win au boute
- A-Team = fail
- Vicar of Dibley - big win
- Jeeves and Wooster = fail
- Spaced = pass
- Dr Katz - mostly fail, though there are some conversations between Laura and the clients, Eg. about Joyce Behar's sweater
- Ugle Betty - supa pass
- House - massive massive fail... I can't imagine anyone, male or female, talking about anything other than House (which is why this show is not really on my faves list... just a funny example)
- Most Charles Dickens series should pass because there are zillions of talkative characters, all named, so the ladies must cross paths occasionally without talking about men
- Miss Marple mysteries - big win, but less so for the Poirot mysteries (actually the mystery genre in general is packed with both female authors and female characters)
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer - pass
- entourage - technically a pass because the wives and girlfriends sometimes meet and exchange small talk, but in spirit --> it's a boys club
- Welcome Back Kotter - fail
- West Wing - should pass
- MASH - pass

Anyone care to test one of their faves? I know Swissgirl's Golden Girls would majorly pass.

a long-o day-o

Work
Umm so I was a wee bit tired after two nights of 3 hour sleeps. And it was a busy day. My brain could handle it for the first 8 hours, but the second my shift was officially over (and I wanted to work on my own work, as opposed to running the store) every customer received a telepathic message telling them I would be there to fill their every need and dream and they should not let me take two steps without stopping me.

Ordinarily I love that sort of fun-on-the-sales-floor, but I had someone waiting to talk to me, so it just stressed me out. After 30 minutes of this (and after taking off my uniform vest didn't help) I finally took off in an all-out run for the office. Jumped into it like I was leaping into a fox hole. 3 hours later when I tried to leave work, my brain cells were so fried I returned to the office about 5 times in a row, while another manager was holding a meeting in there, because of forgetting things. It was like... Departure Fail. Failure to launch.

Eating
Yesterday I ate pasta while listening to a program on CBC, but I felt fine about it because I started listening while making supper and it wasn't over when I was ready to eat. It was about two Newfoundland Inuit families in the late 1800s who agreed to travel around Europe as part of a zoo exhibit. The Germans didn't remember to inoculate them against smallpox so they all died. One of their member kept a diary in Inuktituk, which the CBC show was based on. Really interesting.

But today at work I worked while eating, simply because there was so much to do. Blech.

Food
I went to the grocery store after, and tooook myyyy tiiiiiime. I wandered slowly through the aisles, weighing my really really empty fridge (emptier than it's been in years, literally) against how much I could carry. Towards the end I came across a new aisle they just set up of international food.

Oh man did I have fun! The municipality I live in is pretty white and oldy, but just north of the grocery store (still well in the burbs) there are a lot more immigrant (or first generation Canadian) nabes. I only know this because if I take a bus in that direction, in the space of one block, I go from being part of the majority to the minority.

Anyway, the grocery store must be finally trying to tap that market because they have a huge new aisle of international groceries. Not the North-American-ized kind (Heinz's Tandoori sauce or whatever) but the kinds of prepared foods you usually see in smaller markets, with 6 languages on the label. Plus ginormous bags of various rices, and cooking oils.

It used to be I couldn't locate a stuffed vine leave for love nor money in that store, and I searched high and low for tahini. This new aisle had a variety of stuffed vine leaves, 6-8 brands of tahini, 8 different kinds of refried beans, and a whole other host of Interesting Yummies. Indian, Chinese, Russian, Middle Eastern, Mexican, Greek... I felt like I was on a Disneyland "It's a Small World" ride.

I took a pass on the gefilte fish, and had to pass the things that would have been too heavy (jerk sauce, refried beans), but I couldn't resist a huge bag of the brightest dye-coloured tortilla chips I've ever seen, a big package of chocolate wafer cookies, stuffed vine leaves, Chana masala spice mix, and back in the frozen section I found samosas. If I have to return to processed food I can at least do it in style!

Books


They're pre-screening this a Fantasia this summer -- a Montreal film festival that used to focus on Asian films, but I get the impression they're now positioning themselves as a "genre film" festival.

I found out today that it's basd on a manga-esque graphic novel called Scott Pilgrim. It's actually a Canadian series, with a Canadian setting, but apparently they've un-Canada-ed it for the movie. Tsk tsk.

I bought the first edition as a bookseller told me it's really good. Will report back! ;-)