No, I decided to take a different approach. You see, lately I have been playing a game called Minecraft. Minecraft is the ultimate sandbox game: no goals, no plot, just a gigantic world to explore and modify. Players can dig through the landscape and create all sorts of objects and structures from the resources they acquire.

So what does this have to do with sunrises and sunsets? The game operates on something of a diurnal cycle, with a virtual sun and moon at opposite poles, circling the world. So, computer-generated sunrises and sunsets come regularly in the game, and they have certain implications on gameplay. For instance, at night, monsters come out and attack the player. During the day, those hostile mobs are replaced with docile farm animals.

In Minecraft, a sunset is a terrible thing. It means that the monsters are coming. It means that the player must seek shelter. On the other hand, a sunrise is a glimpse of salvation. It brings the light of day, which affects the monsters by causing them to spontaneously combust.

I have been ranting about Minecraft to friends for the past few weeks. The game is in alpha right now, meaning that it is not fully developed, but it is being sold at half price. The developer, Markus Persson, continues to work on the game and intends to finish it.

Well, enough chatter. Here’s a somewhat lengthy video of me playing the game while mumbling about it into a microphone:

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Minecraft also has a free (“Classic”) version that can be played through the web browser, but it does not have nearly as many options and features as the paid version.

Next week’s topic: Half-Full Life Consequences, or so-bad-it’s-good fiction in general, submitted by Calvin Luther.

                          

A moment of silence for that feline of public transportation.

…

It seems that I shall now revisit the topic of famous cats, thanks to the interest of one Marc-André Chambers. After some looking around, I found quite a few examples of famous cats, some fictional and some real. Many of them were famous only because they were owned by famous people. Even so, I have compiled a list of 10 interesting famous cats, starting with one who has been in the news recently.

1. Lola of Coventry

This article (also from The Guardian) describes how one Mary Bale picked up a cat and tossed it in a garbage bin, complete with video of the act captured on security camera. The article cites how news of the act spread through Facebook and how people on the Internet rallied in protest against the woman, but it leaves out how the Internet Hate (except for cats) Machine, 4chan, tracked the woman down and found out her name, address and phone number. If this incident has taught the world anything, it is that 4chan really likes cats. But we all knew that already. After all, /b/ loves its…

2. LOLcats

Image courtesy icanhascheezburger.com.

It’s not unusual for people to resort to gibberish when in close proximity to cats, so when Internet denizens began combining funny pictures of cats with funny taglines lacking in proper grammar or spelling, a meme was born.

I’m throwing LOLcats in here as an example of famous cats because the phenomenon as a whole has taken off in popularity, spawning several less successful spin-offs. I had a roommate in college who regularly visited I Can Has Cheezburger? and declared Caturday every weekend. I think his dad was a veterinarian.

3. Puss in Boots

I have a special place in my heart for the pet of the Marquis de Carabas. Long before Antonio Banderas added his voice to a feline in shoes for the subpar topical-humor comedy franchise that is Shrek, Charles Perrault introduced the world to this trickster ogre slayer with a penchant for footwear.

Though the story has since been rewritten in various forms, one popular version tells of how the youngest son of a miller received as his inheritance no more than a cat. Oddly enough, the cat requests a pair of boots, and upon getting them, he repays his master by conniving him into a life of luxury. Puss in Boots catches wild animals and presents them to the nearby king, claiming they are from the Marquis de Carabas. One day, Puss spies the king and his daughter on their way through the countryside.

Hatching a plan, the cat steals his owner’s clothes as the boy is bathing. He then runs to the king’s coach, exclaiming that bandits have stolen his master’s clothes. The king, having developed the idea that the Marquis is a great and gallant nobleman, dresses the boy in fine clothing. The cat then runs ahead, advises all the farmers to tell the king they work for the marquis, and comes upon the castle of a shape-shifting ogre. He plays upon the hubris of the ogre, goading him to transform into a mouse, which Puss in Boots devours.

Of course, when the king’s coach arrives, a feast awaits them. The charade is complete. The boy marries the king’s daughter and everyone lives happily ever – especially the cat, who can now live a pampered life in posh conditions.

4. Tibert, the Prince of Cats

A series of European fables tell of a fox named Reynard and a wolf named Isengrim who were at odds. They bring their disputes to a court of animals, one of them being Tibert the cat.

Tibert – and the story of Reynard in general – has cropped up in other media from time to time. In William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Romeo’s friend is known as Tybalt, the Prince of Cats, a nod to the character of folklore. Disney once hoped to make an animated film adaptation of the tales, but the idea was discarded, possibly because Reynard did not appear as a traditional hero. Instead, much of the concept was transformed into a telling of the story of Robin Hood with anthropomorphic animals – including the noble thief portrayed as a fox.

Kaspar, courtesy bbm.org.uk.

5. Kaspar the wooden cat

At the end of the 19th century, a South African guest at the Savoy Hotel in London gave a dinner party with twelve others. The guests raised concern about seating 13 people, given the superstitions surrounding the unlucky number. Their superstitions appeared justified when the man who staged the dinner party was shot and killed upon returning to Johannesburg.

The hotel, in an effort to prevent such mishaps in the future – assuming that the unluckiness of the dinner party had anything to do with it – commissioned the creation of Kaspar, a wooden black cat. Now, whenever a party of 13 dines at the hotel, they are joined by Kaspar, who is served the full meal just like all the other guests.

6. Oscar the therapy cat

I am not sure whether I would regard this case as heart-warming or terribly creepy. Oscar resides at a nursing center in Providence, R.I. and is seen as something of a grim reaper. Doctors and nurses have observed that the cat seems to have a knack for determining which patients are going to die soon. Oscar’s tally has reached somewhere around 50 accurate predictions.

Doctors could not figure out how Oscar was able to determine a patient’s time of death within a few hours. They have speculated that he may be tuning into sensory cues, such as a certain smell or a lack of movement. Whatever the case, he is regarded in a positive way because he provides nurses and family members with an indication of when someone is soon to die and thus gives them a chance to spend some time with that person before it is too late.

7. Pangur Bán

Though the exact origin of the Gaelic poem is unknown, the story of Pangur Bán has often been attributed to a student in an Irish monastery. The poem compares the cat’s mouse-catching with the poet’s word-catching. I suppose Pangur is not particularly famous, at least not on a global scale, but something about the poem amuses me so I felt it worth mentioning. When I read it, I imagine a scholarly fellow sitting at his writing desk, leaning back in his chair in search of the right word, bemusedly observing his pet cat chase a mouse.

Pangur has found his way into cinema, at the very least. The 2009 animated feature “The Secret of Kells”, which is steeped in Gaelic mythology, has a cat known by the very same name. On a sidenote, the film is pretty good and worth checking out, though I would recommend doing a bit of research on the Book of Kells and the art of illumination before seeing it.

8. Sockington the Twitter cat

The rise in fame of Sockington is one of those phenomena that sounds silly and simple out of context. Jason Scott got the idea to create a Twitter account for his cat and update it with what he perceives are the cat’s thoughts. The project has since skyrocketed, drawing about 1.5 million followers and inspiring countless other pet owners to follow suit.

Though the novelty of Socks the cat and his tweeting has worn off for the general public, the feline continues to keep followers updated on his daily goings-on. Scott has expanded the project, rounding up a “Socks Army” and promoting no-kill animal shelters.

9. the Cheshire Cat

I would hope that this cat needs no introduction.

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland has seen many iterations and adaptations. From the Disney cartoon Cheshire Cat – voiced by an actor who also starred in a few episodes of “The Twilight Zone” – to American McGee’s version – who looks like he would fit right in at a tattoo parlor – this freaky feline has always been a crowd-pleaser.

10. Schrödinger’s Cat

Holistic thought experiment, Catman! Many are familiar with the basic setup of Schrödinger’s Cat. By some means, a cat is placed in a box and presented with a situation in which it may or may not die. An outside observer cannot know the state of the cat without opening the box. Many understand that the cat is believed to be both alive and dead at the same time.

What the experiment deals with specifically is the notion of quantum mechanics acting on a larger scale. Within the box is also a sealed container of poison and a radioactive source. A mechanism is rigged so that a Geiger counter, upon detecting radiation, will cause the poison container to be shattered, poisoning and killing the cat. It is possible by the property of quantum superposition for the cat to be experiencing all possible states, both alive and dead. Of course, once we lift the lid of the box, we can see that the cat is in one definite state.

It is entirely possible that I messed up in that explanation somewhere. Regardless, this thought experiment demonstrates the absurdity of quantum mechanics.

Personally, I like Terry Pratchett’s version better. In one of his Discworld novels, he suggests a third state: bloody furious. In American Gods, one of Neil Gaiman’s characters likewise argues that if nobody feeds the cat, after a while it will just be two different kinds of dead.

Next week’s topic: sunrises vs. sunsets, submitted by Marc-André Chambers

                          

It would be silly for me to write a tutorial on shopping online – get a credit card, fill out the forms and, like anything else, try not to be stupid about it – but I can certainly suggest some sites and services that I have found to be useful and reliable. My luxury buying habits tend toward products that could fit into categories such as technology, music and video games, so if you are hoping for some tips on buying, say, a canoe or some exercise equipment, you would do best to look elsewhere.

Hit the jump for a short list of online retailers that get my recommendation.

Woot! – Miscellaneous, T-shirts, wine, kids’ stuff

The folks at Woot! have a rather peculiar approach to the online marketplace. Every day, the site offers one item – and only one item – and the item is available until it is sold out. At the start of the next day, a new item is available. Regardless of the product for sale, shipping costs $5, and each user may purchase up to three of that day’s item.

The products range from computers and computer accessories to robotic vacuums, cameras, media players, and occasionally obscure items such as bacon salt and assorted nuts. The site also has a section for T-shirts called shirt.woot, with a new design for sale each day for $10, and regular derbies where users can submit their designs for a chance to win money and get their designs printed. At least half of the T-shirts in my closet are from this site. Other sections include wine.woot, with wine and wine-related accessories; sellout.woot, with more name-brand items on sale; and the more recently added kids.woot, with products for kids and parents.

What makes Woot! stand out from other discount third-party sellers, aside from their sales strategy, is the humor that the company injects into each product description and in the site in general. It is clear that Woot! appreciates its users and wishes to promote community among them.

Also of interest are the occasional Woot-offs. These events take place over 1-3 days, and instead of only one item being available for each day, each item is replaced with a new one once it sells out. Many users keep a vigilant watch on the site, refreshing constantly to see if the next item has arrived. To add to the mania of the event, Woot! occasionally offers the coveted Bag of Crap – which is actually a box – containing three random items for $3 plus shipping. Regular users go crazy for the Bags of Crap, or BOCs, driven by rumors that some have gotten ones containing big-screen TVs. I have gotten a couple BOCs myself, though I never received anything more impressive than a computer mouse in either one.

It should be noted that, to my knowledge, Woot! does not deliver outside the United States.

ThinkGeek – Technology, gadgets, geek loot

If ever there were a toy store for geeks of all ages, ThinkGeek would be the online equivalent. Whether it be a fit of nostalgia or a desire for zany gadgets that surely came from the future prematurely, ThinkGeek has a plethora of products that hit the mark. Items range from the practically useless to the incredibly useful.

Like Woot!, ThinkGeek also offers various T-shirts and edible items, as well as items specifically geared toward kids.

One complaint I have with ThinkGeek, though, is that its products tend to be rather pricey. Fortunately, there’s an alternative…

DealExtreme – like ThinkGeek, only cheaper and sketchier

While I have never used DealExtreme myself, I have heard good things from reputable sources. Still, I cannot help but feel that the site is comparable to those street vendors who sell obvious knock-offs to not-too-bright passersby, or those “As Seen On TV” stores found in some malls. Even so, the site’s selection of items is vast, and it includes many items that can be found on ThinkGeek, only for lower prices.

One should be careful to read the fine print when shopping on DealExtreme, though. The site ships worldwide, and some products may be illegal to import, own or use in certain countries.

Steam – game store, launcher and community all rolled into one

The folks at Valve Corporation have worked out quite a system for combating video game piracy. They offer a huge selection of games from a wide variety of publishers, allow users to download game content onto any computer, and advertise new deals on games constantly. To do so, they employ the Steam client, a program that allows users to purchase, download and discuss games. All of this is done with little or no DRM to speak of. Instead, the company discourages piracy by making video games less expensive to own and more difficult to pirate.

Valve and its client are not without critics, of course. For instance, providing users with the ability to download a game but not the ability to sell it after purchasing it could be seen as an inconvenience to the user. Even so, I am impressed with the company’s perception of the gaming industry and how it should deal with customers. The company’s president, Gabe Newell, appears on all accounts to be considerate toward users and capable of humor, to boot. Heck, one needs only look as far as the promos for the various updates for Team Fortress 2 to see what a zany place Valve headquarters must be.

What about music?

I haven’t really got a specific source for music purchases. While it can be reassuring to have a physical copy of an album in case the files get lost, music downloads are becoming more prevalent. To me, where I buy music is not as important as where I find it. So long as I can figure out the name of the artist and the album, I can track a copy of it down somewhere. One thing I have learned from this mindset is that, when it comes to independent artists, one can often find their music for sale at a reasonable price on the artists’ sites. As far as where to hear about great music in the first place, the best suggestion I can give is to check out Pandora Radio.

Well, I hope that a few of you have benefited from my suggestions. Countless other useful sites exist out there in the great, interconnected web of the Internet. Like any regular store, though, be sure to look into a seller you are not familiar with to make sure it is reliable and trustworthy.

Next week’s topic: famous cats

Well then.

                          

Image courtesy cinemablend.com.

Title: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Directed by: Edgar Wright

Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Jason Schwartzman, Ellen Wong

Entertaining in its own right, if not a bit lacking

Six years ago, Canadian comics artist Bryan Lee O’Malley brought us a silly yet endearing story. He introduced us to the world of Scott Pilgrim, full of quirky characters, indie cool and video game references out the wazoo. It started with a nostalgia-fueled cult following and somehow got mainstream enough to bring about a feature film adaptation by none other than Edgar Wright of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” fame.

The question on the minds of many Scott Pilgrim fans is undoubtedly whether or not the film lives up to the humor and sincerity of the comics. O’Malley has stated that the film necessarily diverges to some extent from the original story, especially given that the last volume was not released until just last month. But, especially with the questionable casting of Michael Cera in the lead role, does the film still have the same feeling as the graphic novels, and – just as important – is it still accessible to a larger public that may not have read them?

These questions are a bit hard to answer. In short, the film is certainly entertaining in its own ways, but it is not really fair to expect it to have the same feeling of the comics because it is a different medium, with different strong points and shortcomings. Fans expecting a perfect adaptation should lower their expectations, and those unfamiliar with the original story would probably benefit from doing a bit of research before going to see the film.

The story of Scott Pilgrim sounds like something out of a video game – and rightly so. Scott (Cera) is a 22-year-old Canadian, something of a jobless slacker, who has been in a slump for over a year after a relationship that ended badly. One day, he meets Ramona Flowers (Winstead), the girl of his dreams – literally – and falls completely in lesbians love with her. Everything seems to be going well until his band’s concert is disrupted by a very angry young man with magic powers.

It turns out that, in order for Scott to date Ramona, he must first defeat her seven evil exes. So, while juggling normal relationship issues of intimacy, maturity and openness, Scott must also periodically take part in fisticuffs with the trash of Ramona’s past love life. Throw in a cadre of peculiar minor characters who serve as Scott’s circle of friends, and the viewer has plenty to absorb in a two-hour period.

As such, the pacing of the film is a tad fast. The film must squeeze in six epic battles (she dated twins once, at the same time) while also developing the characters of Scott and Ramona. What’s more, the main action does not start until 20-30 minutes into the film. The beginning starts off rather slow, beginning with brief introductions of the main characters and scenes of Scott coming to the realization that he should not be dating a Chinese high school girl (Wong, as the aptly named Knives Chau).

Where those unfamiliar with the comics might falter and where die-hard fans might groan is in the presentation of the minor characters. In the graphic novels, O’Malley has ample opportunity to develop their backgrounds and their past history with Scott. In fact, much of the last novel is spent with Scott revisiting his past and coming to terms with it. In the film, such opportunities are not available, and the characters become somewhat one-dimensional as a result: Stephen Stills, the “talent” of Scott’s band, turns into a fame-hungry opportunist; Kim Pine, a girl who Scott once dated until he moved away, is shown as angsty all the time; Young Neil is, well, Young Neil.

Image courtesy scottpilgrim.com.

In the same way, the character of Scott also loses out on some depth. In the novels, he spent much of the time being mopey, indecisive and whiny. He was characterized as immature, unwilling to become a grownup. Over the course of the novels, however, he develops a deeper understanding, allowing himself to get over his own faults and mature into a more confident, assertive person. Scott is the man-child who is afraid to use the word “love”, who skews his view of the past to make himself out to be the victim. By glossing over his interactions with minor characters, the film loses some of that development. It has a similar approach to Ramona, who is also flawed, ultimately replacing her moment of personal growth with a neutral MacGuffin.

I have spent much of this post more or less comparing the film to the books and bashing it in doing so, but I do not wish to mislead you. Though the film may not have as much depth as its source material, it wouldn’t be right to expect it to – unless they stretched it out to at least three separate movies. While it may not be deep and enlightening, “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” is still quite entertaining. The fight scenes are flashy and exciting, the music is original and pretty good (the music that Scott’s band plays is written by Beck, and some of the other tracks are by Metric and Broken Social Scene). Some, if not all, of the comic’s video-game-derived humor translated well to the big screen, and the film also throws in a few hilarious moments of its own.

Possibly the most entertaining character of the whole film is Wallace Wells, Scott’s gay roommate, played by Kieran Culkin. He easily steals a number of scenes with his witty lines and don’t-care attitude. It’s no surprise, though, given that his comic counterpart does much of the same. He sort of makes up for Cera’s performance, which is lacking in any kind of energy – a major flaw when the character he plays is prone to childish fits of misdirected emotion.

So, fans might be disappointed, and the unaware might be hopelessly lost in the scattershot of action and somewhat referential humor. If anyone actually wants to enjoy the film, though, they would do best to remember that it is a film, and it is meant to be entertaining, so just sit back, relax, and be prepared to laugh. Here’s a trailer:

Also, if you have not read the graphic novels yet, what is wrong with you? Go read them. Now.

                          

The topic, “buying online”, will be covered next week. For those who feel I might be short-changing them in this non-profit project that I do voluntarily, keep an eye out for a possible movie review in a few days.

Until then, I am going to relax and enjoy my time off.

                          

I thought about researching the history of the game and writing about that, but it all sounds rather boring to me. Around the 6th or 7yh century, an early form of the game had developed in non-Western countries such as India and Persia. A few centuries later, it made its way to Europe and, by the 19th century, had become altered into a different, Western form that more resembles what in modern times is known as chess.

Like I said, boring, right? This is how it should have gone:

Chess was considered as a determinant in the battle of the sexes, as demonstrated by this photo of Gregory Peck and Polly Bergen. Critics were skeptical of the medium's fairness, however, given the freedom of movement granted to the queen as compared to the king.

Chess really developed as a war simulator, to save world powers from the waste of time, money and human life that come about from costlier endeavors – you know, endeavors like actually fighting a war. As it turns out, running a successful, lucrative kingdom proved difficult when the noble class went off on “purification excursions” a few too many times. In this way, leaders could demonstrate their strategic prowess, determining the likely outcome of a war without having to incur any losses on either side. Generals could flex their dominant muscles without having to risk any strain in their tendons.

And if either side was unhappy with the outcome, then they could resort to bloodshed. It wasn’t perfect, certainly, but few things are.

It did have its benefits, though. In areas of Southeast Asia, for instance, where power is measured by the amount of labor one is owed by one’s subjects, hours and wages were determined by chess. If a local ruler needed some extra workers to construct a bridge or clear a field, he might challenge the neighboring chief to a game of chess. In this way, leaders were able to maximize profit (workforce) while minimizing losses to said profit (casualties).

Humanity embraced chess as proof that humans are superior animals. As a consolation, we crafted those silly knight pieces after the likeness of horses.

Over time, the great and noble game trickled down to the smelly masses in their mud huts. Inevitably, rudimentary forms – made of strips of bark and mudpiles of varying sizes to denote different pieces – were implemented for menial disputes such as cattle ownership or dowry. A farmer need only strut toward his neighbor’s abode, barkboard in hand, to incite a menacing glare.

Some of the sharpest minds were thus able to win out against the toughest brutes, so long as they also had the agility to outrun a good pummeling.

With the growth of civilization and civilized society, chess became a pastime in its own right. Like any group of experts who devote hours upon hours mastering a particular skill, the proponents of chess elevated the game to the status of a diversion for the enlightened. They kept much of the symbolism and terminology, so as to indicate the rich and cultured history of the game. Plus, it sounds pretty cool to say that one is controlling not only a king and queen but also their pawns and royal staff.

Whatever the origins of chess may be, it has grown beyond the status of a simple board game. I say that I am not interested in learning all the intricate strategies of chess not because I wish to belittle their significance but because, to be honest, I lack the patience and focus to do so.

Next week’s topic: buying online

                          

After working as a sports copy editor for a central Ohio newspaper for about a month and a half, looking over stories from Cleveland and Cincinnati as well as any number of other places around the world, I have gathered some knowledge about the typical sports news article. It seems to me that no other section of news is so devoted to statistics. Tidbits of information that seem inconsequential out of context – a pitcher’s ERA versus left-handed batters, for instance, or the at-bat ratings of a particular batter against a particular team – suddenly bear so much importance when applied to an upcoming game or, even more so, the upset of a game that just happened.

If readers wanted to know just the information behind the meeting of two teams on the diamond, they would look at a roundup of statistics from last night’s game. They look to sports journalists to put some meaning to the numbers and figures, to explain why it’s so crucial that CC Sabathia, a former member of the Cleveland Indians, lost in a shootout to major-league newbie Josh Tomlin in the same game where Alex Rodriguez was once again denied his 600th career home run.

It is in this same vein, I think, that superstition has developed so strongly in the sports world, both among fans and among players. While sports could be derived down to numbers and probability, some occurrences seem so astronomical and extraordinary, one can’t help but feel that some outside force has exerted its influence. If a player has a phenomenal performance, he or she might look back on a seemingly insignificant item or event that set that day apart from others and, in future performances, re-enact that item or event in the hope that doing so would cause another great outing. Likewise, an out-of-the-ordinary event might be blamed for a streak of bad luck or bad performance for a franchise.

Image courtesy wikimedia.org.

So it is that the “Curse of the Billy Goat” came to be. In 1945, Billy Sanis, owner of the Billy Goat Tavern across from Chicago Stadium, attended game four of the World Series at Wrigley Field to cheer on his local Cubs. He brought his pet goat Murphy – a goat that had fallen off a truck and wandered into his tavern – hoping the animal would bring the team good luck. Billy’s goat was denied entrance because of its odor, and Billy proclaimed (according to legend) that the Cubs would never win the World Series again so long as his goat was refused admission. Sure enough, the once successful franchise has had a hard time since then.

Could it be that Sanis, a Greek immigrant with a penchant for publicity, really did curse the Cubs? The only supporting evidence of such a curse is the statistical record. It could be that the Cubs really are doomed so long as the curse remains, or it could be a serious case of self-fulfilling prophecy – they continue to fail because they believe it is impossible to succeed.

The supposed curse also gives fans something to fall back on to explain a poor performance by the team. They might lose a vital game not because they are not skilled enough or because the opponents were better; rather, they lost because the curse held them back. Thus, the blame is transferred away from the team to some intangible, unrelated entity. Some 55-year-old incident with a smelly goat is the cause of it all.

I say nonsense. That sort of rationality – or lack thereof – is self-destructive. It promotes self-doubt, which can eat away at one’s confidence and bring about the worst expectations.

Of course, it does not matter what I say about the whole of sports. Baseball, for one, has been around for centuries in some form or another, and it is only natural that a mythology should develop around it. The Curse of the Billy Goat is as real to some people as ghosts are to others – something that cannot be proven or unproven but does well to explain what appears to be an abnormal occurrence.

If players and fans want to indulge in such superstitions, who am I to deny them of that right? I guess the Cubs just have to ask themselves which smells worse, the lack of a World Series title or the goats.

Next week’s topic: chess, submitted by Marc-André Chambers.

                          

The goggles, they do nothing.

While stumbling late one sleep-deprived night, I came upon the recipe on this blog, a recipe that the blogger had originally found on this blog. And now I pass it on to you. Trust me, it’s delicious.

Ingredients

• 2 crates of strawberries (about two pounds)
• 1 box Jell-O No Bake Real Cheesecake Dessert (comes with graham cracker crust mix – alternatively, you can buy graham crackers and make your own)
• chocolate

Of course, this list is a simplification of the necessities. I wasn’t making this dessert for any particular purpose, so I used only one crate of strawberries and halved all the other ingredients. I still had cheesecake mix and plenty of graham cracker left over.

Also, you can opt to make your own cheesecake filling. The Jell-O approach is a quick and easy option, and it turns out pretty great, but I say so having never tried it with cheesecake made from scratch.

The chocolate, actually, is optional – a culinary coup de grâce. I used regular milk chocolate chips here, but you can try other variations, such as the white chocolate used by one of the bloggers.

Process

The end product should be a hollowed out strawberry filled with cheesecake, topped with graham cracker and chocolate. The first step in the process, then, is to remove the top of each strawberry and hollow them out.

Depending on how many strawberries you’re dealing with and how big they are, this can be a bit tedious. The best instrument for hollowing them out is a thin, pointed utensil, such as a spoon or knife. The Novice Chef recommends a potato peeler. I just dug up this spoon:

There is a spoon.

There were a few casualties in the process, I will admit. Delicious, delicious casualties. Essentially, you want to get as much of the white parts on top and anything underneath them, but try not to break through the strawberry or slice through the side. Such imperfections may lead to a severe cheesecake leak, and that stuff gets messy enough as it is.

You will be left with a bunch of white strawberry chunks at the end. Of course, they are still edible. One idea I had after the fact was to take the strawberry interiors and the leftover cheesecake mix and to make mini cheesecakes with strawberry chunks inside – sort of a reverse on the original idea.

Once the strawberries have been hollowed out, prepare the cheesecake mix as directed. Rather than actually making it into a cheesecake, however, take the prepared mix and pour it into a piper bag. If you do not have a piper bag, you can substitute a plastic bag and cut off one of the corners. Next, take each hollowed out strawberry and squeeze cheesecake mix into it, overfilling them just slightly.

Thanks to my mom for her makeshift piper bag assistance.

Dip the cheesecake end of each strawberry into the graham cracker (if you are using the crust mix, I would advise adding the sugar and butter as it suggests on the box, rather than just using the mix right out of the bag).

The last step to complete these bite-sized morsels is to add the chocolate. Now, at this point I was getting a little impatient, and melted chocolate is hard enough to handle without the proper tools. Rather than drizzle fancy lines of chocolate on each strawberry, I just took a spoon and put a dollop on each one. The taste is the same, even if it isn’t as aesthetically pleasing.

Put the finished desserts in the refrigerator for about an hour, to let the cheesecake and the chocolate harden a bit. Wait patiently. Read a book or something. Don’t think about them for a while.

Sweetness in every bite.

So there you have it. These are relatively quick and easy to make, and the result is scrumptious. Each one is a little taste of strawberry cheesecake, so much so that it’s hard to eat just one at a time. I don’t normally like cheesecake, but I found them to be very tasty.

Next week’s mouseandhat topic shall be “The Curse of the Billy Goat”, submitted by Marc-André Chambers.

                          

Image courtesy inceptionmovie.com.

Title: Inception

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe

“Inception” was intentionally marketed in such a way that viewers, upon seeing the trailer, would have little idea about the plot of the movie. One thing is clear: This film is unique, monumental and, quite possibly, complex.

The movie portrays a world in which technology has been developed that allows individuals to share dreams. In the advent of this technology, individuals such as Cobb (DiCaprio) and Arthur (Gordon-Levitt) make a living as extractors, or agents who enter the dreams of others to obtain classified information. On one such mission, the procedure goes awry, but rather than being killed by their target, they are offered great rewards for the use of their services in a dangerous operation.

Their work is complicated, however, when Cobb’s own subconscious starts trying to wrest control of the situation. Cobb is a man with a deeply troubled past (one might draw correlations to DiCaprio’s role in “Shutter Island”), and that past has been locked away in his dreams. To the danger of Cobb and his fellow extractors, that past has every intention of breaking out.

Though the intricate details of the “dreamsharing” process are not explained in the film – how would one explain a fictional technology? – the mechanics by which the process operates are. The time spent in a dream, the “kick” needed to pull out of a dream, the construction of a dream world and its population by one’s subconscious, all play a part in the movie. The last one in particular leads to rather surreal scenes in which dream worlds are shaped as the dreamers are within them.

The great thing about these mechanics is that they are not relied upon as a means for escaping plot holes. Rather, they become elements of the plot themselves. For instance, the characters explain early on that dying in a dream will cause one to wake up. When one becomes trapped in a series of dreams within dreams, losing one’s sanity and grasp on reality, the idea of escaping by a bullet to the head sounds absurd. The characters become restricted by the mechanics of the dream world rather than manipulating them as if they were magic.

“Inception” is, if nothing else, a suspense film, and it does suspense well. At a certain point in the film, different characters are operating within three different “levels” of dreams, a dream within a dream within a dream, each moving at a different relative speed. As the main action occurs within the deepest level, time moves incredibly slow at the outermost level. A good part of the movie occurs as the characters, in the outer level, are tumbling in a van toward a river – and the viewer is occasionally reminded of this through inserted shots of the van falling at an incredibly slow speed. The tension of such scenes, elevated by the soundtrack, is compounded by the fact that, within each level, specific actions must occur in sync with each other to guarantee the safety of everyone involved.

Add to that a subconscious that is trained to fight back against intruders within the dream, as well as a world that can alter and crash at any moment, and you have yourself quite the thriller. Like many gun-filled thrillers, though, “Inception” suffers from the same trope of (mostly) bullet-proof good guys, in which the enemy troops can fire bullet after bullet at them and not hit a single target as they are picked off, one by one, by the main characters.

“Inception” is a rather long film – spanning almost 2 1/2 hours – but it is paced well. At no point does it dally for too long. In actuality, the film has a lot of exposition going on, and it might have benefited from even more time spent in explanation. While the viewer is dumped into the dream world with no explanation as to how it operates at first, a somewhat lengthy section of the movie is spent introducing the key mechanics as well as the key characters.

Even so, I can’t help but feel that the film might be too complex for some viewers. It is a film that requires patience and an open, active mind. For those willing to take the time and effort, though, it is certainly worth viewing.

Anyone who does not want to think too much while watching “Inception” may be drawn in by the action. One mechanic of the dream world is that factors such as gravity on one’s sleeping self affect the world around one’s dreaming self. So, in one scene, as the van full of dreamers is tumbling down a hill, the gravity in the dream world is turning on end. This distortion makes for a particularly amazing fight scene in which Arthur is running across walls and engaging in free-falling hand-to-hand combat with enemies in a hotel hallway.

One aspect of the story that I got hung up on was the convenience of the character Ariadne (Ellen Page). She joins the team of extractors as an “architect”, one responsible for constructing the dream worlds, though she has no prior experience. Regardless, she takes to the concept rather quickly. Likewise, she becomes aware of Cobb’s personal trauma and makes it her mission to understand its depth, to the extent that later on in the film, she is standing over his shoulder and giving him advice as if she were a psychiatrist who had sat with the man through several sessions. At times, I could not help but feel that her character is used as a sort of foil for Cobb, giving him another person to voice his innermost thoughts so as not to leave him talking to himself.

Regardless, the movie is suspenseful, the characters are clever, and the story – though hard to follow at first – is unique and worth the time investment.

Below is a trailer for the film. It is the second trailer, and it gives a bit better of an idea as to what the movie is about than the original teaser trailer.

                          

But first, a disclaimer: I don’t watch much television. I watch TV shows on occasion, but not on a television. I have my reasons, but I don’t intend to get into them in this post.

What I would like to address in this post is why I believe reality shows have been damaging to American culture.

Image courtesy cbs.com.

When I talk about “reality shows”, I am referring to shows such as “Survivor”, “American Idol”, “Dancing With the Stars” – shows that feature (supposedly) non-actors in unscripted situations. The genre has been around for decades, taking form in early shows such as “Candid Camera” and various game shows, but it has taken on a unique form in the past decade. From 2005 to 2009, Fox even had a whole channel devoted exclusively to reality television.

Yet it almost goes without saying that these shows often lack what one might define as “reality”. Take “Survivor”, for example. The show premiered in the United States in 2000 and has gone on for 20 seasons. Each week during the first season, the American people were brought about an hour of footage from Borneo, spanning over 13 episodes. The actual challenge took place over 39 days, as at least 10 cameras around the island recorded the contestants’ actions and interactions.

Think about that. Each week’s episode was the culmination of only three days’ worth of footage, but it was composed of the output of 10 cameras. Hours – if not days – of footage were truncated and fitted to less than an hour. Much of that footage focused on the challenges, but just as crucial to each episode was the voyeuristic glimpse into daily life for the contestants. In this way, “Survivor” tapped the same sort of drama that made shows like “The Real World” and “Road Rules” popular with young adults and made it approachable for a wider audience.

But the producers of “Survivor” were not out to present the most realistic and all-encompassing depiction of the contestants’ daily interactions. They sought that drama, even if that meant exaggerating conflict by focusing primarily on those scenes where individuals argued and fought with each other. Anyone who has watched a decent amount of reality television is more than familiar with the commercial fades that involve a sustained shot of one person glaring at another over some trivial dispute. Reality television producers use camera techniques and selective editing not to show reality but to show drama, even if that means exaggerating actual events. The structure of shows such as “Survivor”, “Big Brother” and “The Real World” work well to exacerbate relationships through atmosphere by forcing individuals to interact with each other, often increasing the tension by selecting contestants who have noticeably different worldviews. In fact, that last point has been a key element of casting for “The Real World”.

So, dear reader, you might be asking why this sort of thing is so bad. People love drama. They love stories that have conflict. Life would be boring without drama. Right?

Therein lies the danger. I do not have the ingenuity to explain the potentially misleading qualities of fictional drama, but a better writer – Kurt Vonnegut Jr. – has said it better than I ever could in this talk. His argument, essentially, is that stories such as fairy tales and tragedies exaggerate the highs and lows of emotion. We embrace these stories, and when we compare them to the events in our own lives, we find that real life is rather mediocre and lacking in high drama. As a result, we take small issues and magnify them into catastrophic problems.

Now, take reality television. A reality show has that same high level of drama, but it is carried out in something somewhat resembling real life. These people are normal, they are not actors. They are just like us. We could have been in their position, if only we had auditioned and been selected. Reality shows give viewers the impression that exaggerated drama is normal and that life without it is not worth the time.

But that’s just my opinion. Let me know what you think.

Next week’s topic: cooking.