Orphan Movie Review: That is One Sassy Chick

Oh, horror and suspense films! How you try to still scare and shock us. Since it feels like we have seen it all, movies always try to go for the 1-up. Sometimes this ends up lame, other times successful...and other times completely laughable. This is the case for the movie, Orphan.

With a very disturbing scene of childbirth to kick off, we meet Jon and Kate, a couple with two children who recently had the misfortune of having their third child stillborn. With this death, it has put alot of trouble on Kate who takes pills every morning and still struggles with the temptation of alcohol as a recovering addict. Jon is just there, he gives support when Kate needs it, but we find out that he also has brought some problems to this marriage in the form of cheating. This story is sounding very familiar...Jon and Kate's just don't work out.

So even though they have a pre-pubescent son, and a young deaf, daughter, they still feel a void from the child they were suppose to have, so they go adopting. There they meet Ester, a sweet looking 9 year old with a charming accent, and an old fashion sense. Of course everything is good at first, but then things start going wrong. She doesn't fit in well with kids, her new half brother is embarrassed to be related to her, and she has occasional violent outbursts.

As the movie goes along she becomes progressively more violent and scary, and it becomes clear she isn't bonding well with her new mommy. Awww, but it's nice that she has a special place in her heart for her daddy. The big twist in the movie, also known as Ester's secret, is one that you really don't see coming. I can't decide if it's brilliant or just damn hysterical! I'll give the movie credit for doing something that isn't so predictable, but it makes the movie more of a comedy than a suspense.

Product Review: Banjees

Need a place to put all your things when you go out, but just don’t know where? Ladies are you in luck, because now you can use Banjees, the fashion wrist wallet. This stretchable, spandex item resembles a wrist warmer and has a pocket with a zipper so you can store small items. The “fashionable” part is that they come in lots of cute designs that girls will love like floral patterns and sequins, and the really nice touch is that they’re reversible. So just slip it on your wrist and off you go! The problem is that this product boasts that it can “store your cash, keys, id, and a lip stick in the zippered pouch”, but there is no way it can unless your items are the size of Barbie’s accessories. The pocket size is just big enough to hold a card, and because the material is made thin, the pocket can only go so deep. We carry bags for a reason; they look nice, have big pockets, and no one can tell what’s inside. Sure Banjees look nice, but unless the items you put in are paper-thin, the stretchy fabric shows everyone exactly what you have inside, that’s not very fashionable.

TV Commentary: Secret Life of the American Teen

Last night I had the displeasure of watching "The Secret Life of the American Teen". What looked to me as a very long PSA mixed with one of those lame after school specials, turned out to be the stupidest show on TV for young teens. This show started out as a story about a young teen, Amy, goes away to band camp and has sex with this guy, Ricky, then finds out she's pregnant conveniently right at the beginning of the school year. So right away you think this is a show to educate teens about the dangers of sex and to force religion down their young impressionable throats. That's fine, our teens do need sex education. The problem? The script, the acting, the story lines, are all utterly lame. In fact, I think they're sending the wrong message to our youth.

In last night's episode the focus was on a girl named Grace who was beside herself with guilt because she was convince she killed her dad because she had sex and enjoyed it. I'm not going to even stop and break down how stupid that is. She then goes on to blame the guy she had sex with, who then blames the girl he lost his virginity to. Can you believe that? A guy trying to call the girl a whore because she slept with him, and his reason was because if he didn't have sex in the first place, he wouldn't have wanted more. So the message so far is, don't have sex because you can kill your parents.

Now let's look at the title of the show, The Secret Life of the American Teen. What exactly is the secret life? It can't be having sex because it looks like everyone knows who's doing who...including the parents. We have the lead character, Amy, who since having sex that one time and becoming pregnant looks like she was sucked dry of personality. Plus we have to be clear that she did not enjoy sex! Then we have the character, Adrian, who is suppose to be the slut of the school since she kept saying in one episode, "It's not my fault I like sex!". Let's forget talking about Grace since she's still crying about her dead dad, and forget all the guys too because there is nothing really interesting about them. Well maybe how bad Ben's acting is...He sounds like he's 40 and has the intensity of a rapist. So yeah, there is nothing secret about these teens.

I mean if the point of this show is to teach teens about the dangers of sex, why is it that every scene has them talking about sex. It's nonstop sex talk on this show like that's all teens do. In fact, you could make a drinking game about how many times the word "sex" is said and get very wasted. So their solution to the teen sex epidemic is to show that all teens do is talk about it? It's all very confusing. So first they teach that if you have sex you're going to become pregnant, yet the school slut doesn't have a baby or any STDs. Then they make the deeply religious girl have sex and have her dad die as a punishment. Maybe they'll have her get pregnant to so they can drive home the message that good girls can't have sex because then they'll get pregnant. I guess if you're already a slut, being known as one is your only punishment. Of course for the guys there is no lesson because we still have these double standards when it comes to sex. What's worse is that they don't place a lot of focus on contraceptives. They just like preaching religion and repercussions, and scare tactics are horrible ways to teach teens about important stuff.

Finally let's move on to the "American Teen" part, how is anything they're doing different from the teens across the globe? Shows like Skins and Degrassi have teens doing much wilder things and they're from Britain and Canada. The whole title of this show is just senseless and long. Here's a better title, "The Crusade to Promote Abstinence-Only Education", now that's catchy!

Ayurveda Cafe Review

I was looking for a nice Indian place to eat at during my lunch break from work. After coming across many expensive, trendy places, I found a very different type of place. The Ayurveda Cafe on 706 Amsterdam Ave in NYC is a vegetarian Indian restaurant that serves meals based on a belief that every meal should have six different tastes. Their menu has only one pre-set meal that they serve and it changes every day. So I walk into the place and the first thing I see is a shrine of Indian gods and pamphlets about what they believe. I quickly grab one and pick a table at the front of the place to sit. All I had to do was pick a drink and choose between white or brown rice, and that was it. It was very refreshing not to have to stare at a menu and think about what's the right thing to order while an overbearing waitress looks over you.

The meal itself was placed on a large metal dish with rice and five little saucers containing five different foods. Each dish was suppose to represent something sweet, salty, sour, bitter, pungent, and astringent. I was wondering where the sixth dish was, but I would later find out that it would be for dessert. I tried to figure out which dish was suppose to be what taste, but it all blended together after a while.

The first dish was green and tasted like a spinach concoction, the second was chick peas in an orange sauce, the third was yogurt that had something orange in it, the fourth was like a tiny salad with fresh carrots, lettuce, and cabbage, and the fifth was lentils in a spicy sauce. Even though I wasn't really sure what I was eating, I didn't mind and I found it all very filling. When I ate all I could, they took my plate away and put a small dish in front of me. It had strands of what tasted like coconut in a sweet powder, it was very good. When the bill came, it was only about $15 for a six-course meal and a lemonade. For New York, that lunch is pretty cheap!

A Fight Against Obesity: The International Food Challenge

We are an obese nation, the average are getting fat and the fat are getting fatter. Michelle Obama has recently said,

"Nearly a one third of American children are either overweight or obese, and a third will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lifetime".

This sad fact made me want to do something for myself and find out why for others. I don't want to be another fat number in their statistics, so I decided to try out a study.

My theory is that Americans are fat because everything in the American diet is making us fat. I know, not so original because people have said this stuff before. Still, I will personally test this theory by completely changing my eating habits. This means I will no longer eat pizza, hot dogs, burgers, and fast food, all things popular in an American diet. Instead, I started yesterday eating only International food. So I will eat Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Vietnamese...who knows maybe I'll find places with more exotic food.

I will continue this to see if it has an effect on my weight and health. I know changing your diet alone is not the solution to losing weight, but trying to lose weight on the American diet has not gotten me anywhere. So with this international diet, mixed with exercise, I'll see if there is a difference.

There will be some ground rules and exceptions to this though. First, this will not really change what I drink, because that's harder to do, and I am not giving up caffeine. Hello, look at the name of this blog! Second, it will be very hard and costly to eat international when I'm home. So, I can eat the groceries that are in my house as long as it is something I have to prepare. This does not mean making Chef Boyardee, Hot Pockets, or any other pre-made frozen TV dinner.

The reason for this is because I want to be able to work for my food. I think another reason why this country is so obese is because we have such easy access to fatty foods. We get hungry, we could make chicken breast with some vegetables, but we want something fat so we microwave a frozen White Castle burger. I mean, this has made us lazy too, which doesn't help obesity.

So in my quest to change being just another lazy, fat, American, I hope I can use this study to show people that it's not too late. We can change if we truly want to.

Travel Diary Day 4- Last Day

I woke up at a leisurely 8:00am with the feeling of finally being on my own. As the rest of my group left at 6am surf, I could finally take advantage of my hotel. It feels like there was so many things I wanted to do and never got to. I never ordered room service, had a drink at their bar, wander the different floors...you know things you should do at a hotel.

On that list of things to do was use their lazy river and private beach, and thankfully that morning I got to do that. The weather was sunny and hot...perfect water weather. I put on my recently purchased swimsuit that I got on clearance marked down 60%, and was happy to see that it looked lovely on me outside the dressing room. When I got down to the pool area it was pretty empty since it was early. I wanted to go on the lazy river first since the beach would get me all sandy. Since no one was using the lazy river yet, I didn't want to be the only one, so I went down to the beach.

I just wet my feet in the water to get use to the temperature and sink into the sand. A couple of minutes later I checked back at the lazy river, and seeing people started to use it, I felt happy to use it. The lazy river was simple and relaxing, the jets under the water pushed my inner tube slow in some areas to enjoy the view, and fast around turns for a little fun. I went around twice before I decided to jump off and go back to the beach.

The beach was nice for families, parents didn't have to worry about big waves taking their kids away. For me, it was nice, but I like the thrill of big waves, it's like a game. I think I spent a half hour in the water before I got out to go back to my room. Check out was at 12pm so I wanted to make sure I had enough time to shower and pack.

Once packed and ready, I went to wait in the lobby to say goodbye to my people. One journalist and her son had already left because they had an early flight. I did get to see everyone else and say goodbye and exchange business cards. At the airport I had to do some last minute cramming because I thought they would let me carry on a gift bag and not count that as an additional carry on bag.

My flight was at 3:17pm so they boarded us at 2:40pm. My seat was in the last row so I was one of the first to get on. This time, my plane was one of the older ones, the ones with no in-flight movie because they had no TVs. I can't lie, I was disappointed. Then as we were all ready to take off, the pilot comes on the speaker to say that Newark is delaying all flights for 2 hours, and since they had already boarded us, we could not get off the plane. So I had to spend 2 and a half hours sitting on a stationary plane. It felt like a nightmare, but it did make me realize something very important, I hate children!

With an annoying baby in front of me who kept turning around and trying to touch me, and even more annoying brother and sister who were loud and wouldn't stop whining, I was in hell. What is it about white parents that won't let them take charge of their children. If your child is loud and obnoxious, tell them to be quiet and say it in a way that they'll believe there are terrible consequences to disobeying. No, this brother and sister were whining and complaining, and fighting, and how does the mother respond, "If you're good I'll take you to Toys R Us" Oh yeah, that will teach them!

Finally, 5 and a half hours later, my plane landed and I didn't want to see another child for the rest of the week. Overall, I think my first press trip was a success, and I hope I have enough to write about for work.

Travel Diary Day 3

This trip is sure taking a lot of energy out of me, and has made me realize that I haven't had caffeine since Tuesday. No wonder I'm falling asleep on swamp tours! I was a little late meeting my group for breakfast, really only 10 minutes, but our guide likes to keep everyone on time. He left me two voicemails, I didn't think it called for that. As I'm still not accustomed to eating breakfast, my queasy stomach didn't want anything too big. Luckily today's breakfast in the hotel was buffet style so I could take just what I wanted. I went with a cheese omelet and bacon in small portions.

On today's agenda, our first stop was a drive to Butterfly World. This was something that I was looking forward to because I like butterflies. Fun fact, Vanessa is a name for a genus of butterfly. It was interesting to see all the different types of butterflies flying around me, but I was worried about stepping on one of them. If I killed a butterfly this would have been a very sad day. Along with butterflies, they also had many birds flying around which made me a little more worried that they would swoop down on me. Then of course there was a special area with just birds that like to land on people. There was even a sign that said if you have a fear of birds landing on you, you should not go inside. I listened to that.

Everyone else in my group went inside the area but me. I didn't want to be a complete wuss so I went in for about a minute. A bird flew right by my face and then I promptly left. I think it was very smart that I did because six birds landed on one of my group members and were just climbing all over her. I wouldn't have been ok with that.

When we were done at Butterfly World we went to grab lunch at the H20 Cafe. My breakfast had me still pretty filled up so I passed on eating. All I got was ice tea, my first caffeine drink on this trip. I felt I would need this for everything else we were going to do today.

I think what I really would like to do in the future is to go around and rate bathrooms. Ever since I was little and I would go out, I had to always see the bathroom. So far all the bathrooms I have seen here were pretty nice, except the one at the Swamp Safari which smelled like an animal house.

Anyway, I brought up bathrooms because I decided to use the one at the H20 cafe and came out to see my group had left. I actually thought they had driven off, which really didn't have been that upset. Honestly, I would have just walked back to my hotel, because I wasn't that far from it, and relax. Sadly, or rather I should say, Luckily, my group had only walked to the shopping district up ahead to get the tickets for our next activity.

Yes, next was the Duck Tour, and I thought that would be mildly interesting because ducks are nice. This tour was very misleading! It shouldn't even be called a duck tour, it should be called the "History of Ft. Lauderdale Tour...Now with Water!". We didn't see a single duck, the only duck relation was that the overhyped tour guide kept making the bus quack like idiots to the people in the different places we passed. And to top it off, it was raining. It really was just a history tour where the guide pointed to places and told us some information and history about it. Then when we finally hit the water I thought finally this is where we'll see the ducks. No, then it turned to a house tour, poitning at different houses along the water and telling us who use to live there while boating at the slowest speed possible. This tour should have been the one that made me feel like sleeping, and at points I felt it, but I managed to stay wide-eyed.

Then our guide gave us free time to do whatever we want. I was going to go to either the pool or the beach, but since it was still rainy and cloudy I didn't want to. So I just came back to my room and relaxed. I'm planning tomorrow morning to use the pool, hopefully the sun will be shining!

When my free time was over, I met my group back in the lobby for dinner at the Mai Kai Resturant. I really liked the place, it was authentically decorated like a Polyensian village. Even the bathrooms were authentic. Since they knew we were on a press trip, they gave us a tour of the place and gave us a special menu to order from. I had crab rangoon, soy sirlon steak, and tiramasu. I also had my first alcoholic drink on the trip ad it came in a take home glass...I love those! Then they had a show with dinner that was basically alot of hula shaking and fire throwing. It was fun to watch, and they even pulled up my guide to dance on stage. Since they had a gift shop, I decided to look because I thought they must have some nice things.

I saw a very pretty tiki necklace with matching earrings so I asked the worker how much it was. $75! Are they out of their freaky tiki mind? Of course I didn't buy it, but at least I still have my souvienar glass. When we were done, we had to go back to our rooms very fast because we had to be at this sea turtle thing at a certain time.

Now the purpose of going to this sea turtle attraction was because we were suppose to see the turtles come out and lay their eggs. It was very boring for me. What we were really doing was turtle hunting because the entire crew was scouting the beach to see if a turtle was coming out of the water. They had us on the beach watching the waters in silent for 45 mintues.

At this point, waiting to see the turtle wasn't the only problem. All the food that I ate at dinner wasn't blending so well in my stomach and pain was coming in waves. So when we started walking to the other end of the beach I told my guide that I was going back to the main area where the bathrooms were. Then our driver gave me the keys to the van so I could sit inside the car and not be outside anymore. Wouldn't you know it, the damn turtle came out right after I left.

Once again my day concludes back in my room here writing. Tomorrow is when I leave, so this trip is almost over. This time I get to sleep a little more because everyone else in my group is going surfing at 6am, I kindly passed on that one. Surfing would be cool to do one day in my life, but doing it hours before my flight made me nervous. So tomorrow is my day where I can do whatever I want before I leave. I just hope for no rain!