Mad Men Season 1 (or I want to punch everyone in the face)

I should probably not even be writing this post yet.  I've only watched the first disc of the first season of Mad Men, and I feel, like a record album, the TV show season should really be judged as whole work of art, not in small chunks.

BUT.  Just the first three episodes of this show made me want to go on a rampage.  I almost turned into the Hulk.  I kept wanting to punch Don Draper and Pete Campbell in the face over and over and over until their shellacked hair and cancer-ridden lungs popped.  If you'd like to know why, go on and read after the jump.

Not Complaining, Yeah! (or Whip It! the movie)

I complain on this blog a lot.  I complain out loud in life a lot.  And sometimes I catch myself and wonder where all this negative energy comes from, and then realize oh, duh, me.  So I thought I'd write a post (or maybe even two!) about things I actually like.

As a 22-year-old gal with no kids and steady, mostly disposable income, I like to go to the movies.  I haven't been as much recently (at times, it's been up there to at least 1 time/week), but tonight, dammit, I wanted to see things projected larger than life on a screen.  And I've also been wanting to see Whip It! since the awesome trailer with the awesomely crescendo-ing Pork and Beans Weezer song.  Which is an absolutely perfect song for a climactic trailer, by the way.

(And yes, I know there's no ! in the movie title, but it makes it so much better.  Especially since Jimmy Fallon informed me no less than four times that WHEN YOU WHIP A DERBY GIRL SHE GOES REALLY FAST.  NO SERIOUSLY, FASTER THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE.)

Anyway, this movie was awesome.  I was either grinning broadly or crying the whole time, which is a good sign for me.  And really, the ratio for smile:cry was pretty high, so that's good.  Everyone had awesome performances, and I really really hope there is an extended version, because I loved the characters and I wanted more scenes and background on all of them.  Especially Pash (played by the awesome Alia Shawkat, aka Maeby Fuenke), who I like to think is a cuter, more freckled, more awesome me.  Her equivalent to Ellen Page's character's childhood roller skating phase was being a fat kid indoors reading.  THAT IS MY LIFE.  I mean was.  Whatever.

Marcia Gay Harden is always awesome, and while I don't remember seeing Daniel Stern in anything but Home Alone (another favorite), he was also pretty great in this.  Drew Barrymore has done an excellent job directing, and an awesome job of being in the movie, but not taking the spotlight, a la Quentin Tarantino.  This movie also made me no longer annoyed with Ellen Page, which is quite a feat, and really excited for her show with Shawkat.  And (SPOILER?) best pre-sex scene ever.  Everything is better underwater.

So, kudos all around, and I really hope that Drew Barrymore decides to direct more movies, because I will totally see them.  And to all 3 readers out there: go see this movie!  I will gladly go again if anyone needs the company.

Carry Out (or: I Should Have Known Better)

So, the previous rant was prompted a couple days ago when I called a restaurant that clearly said they delivered on their website only to find out that's for large catering orders.  The person on the other end of the phone laughed at me when I said my order was for two people.  Sorry, I can not magically know that delivery means large orders only.  My bad.  I don't mind that they only deliver large orders, just that it's not specified.

Anyway, it was a restaurant I've really been wanting to try (Urban Eats Cafe) because I love sandwiches, and the reviews on yelp.com were awesome.  So I was disappointed that they wouldn't make it easy for me, and just deliver hopefully delicious sandwiches into my greedy little hands.

What's a person to do?  Send the boyfriend out in the pouring rain to get carry out, of course.

Alarm bells should have gone off when I called and ordered a sandwich that apparently isn't on the menu anymore.  Outdated websites are a pet peeve of mine.  Especially weirdly-designed outdated websites.  It's so easy to update your menu, especially if it's HTML and not a PDF (this one was a PDF).  (Aside: Local Harvest Cafe tends to suffer from outdated-website syndrome quite a bit too.  Maybe it's something about sandwich shops in St. Louis?).  And I know running a cafe is hard and busy, but for many of your customers, the website is going to be their first experience with your business, and you know what they say about good first impressions.

A-n-y-w-a-y, tonight I placed my order with a very nice person on the phone, and I am getting hungry and excited.  I am counting the minutes until the food arrives back at my house.  Finally, finally, finally the BF arrives.  He's carry SunChips and Jay's potato chips (so much for the homemade-looking chips from the website picture), a caddy with smoothies, and two of those spaghetti containers.  You know, like the one at the right.  Inside each is a 4 x 3 in. sandwich.  Seriously.  Each looks like it's been cut in half.  Where did the rest of my sandwich go?  I paid $4.79 for my veggie, and $5.49 for Gabe's meat sandwich, and that gets half a sandwich?  Are you kidding me?  That doesn't include the $0.89 chips or $3.49 smoothie either.  Our bread preferences had been switched.  And to top it off, the bottom half of my sandwich is completely soggy, which might be one of the saddest things in the world.  You know, after world hunger and all that jazz.

Needless to say, I'm incredibly disappointed.  I really wanted to like Urban Eats Cafe, and this feels almost like a betrayal.  I know that's pretty overly dramatic, but I am serious about my sandwiches.  Unfortunately there just aren't that many sandwich options in St. Louis, and because they seem like their heart is in the right place, I'll probably try out Urban Eats again.  Maybe my mistake was the carry out order - some food just doesn't travel well, or maybe this was an off-night for them.  And hey - my smoothie was pretty good, if you like banana and peanut butter.

Delivery

Warning: There is a rant coming.

Why don't any fucking restaurants in St. Louis deliver food to me?  I did not forget that there is St. Louis style pizza (blech), Papa John's (which I am heartily sick of at this point), and Domino's Pizza (which almost didn't even get dignified with a parenthetical comment).  No sandwiches, no East Asian food, no Indian food, no South American food, no Mexican food.  I am drooling at the possibilities, only to call and have them laugh at me because the idea that they deliver food is so absurd and aren't I amusing.

I just want to lazily enjoy a fucking sandwich prepared by someone else and delivered to my house by someone else.  Is that too much to ask?