Ruen Thai and the birth of TheJenny

Delicious Ruen Thai in Roseville. Shooter was wearing a full beard for a contest at work. A nice full group apart from our missing Bumperton (homework) and our Icelandic friends who were making their way home.

Got beer and wine and Thai sake (nice!). TheJenny opened birthday giftees. A fine selection of recycled greetings. A surprise appearance by Wil Wheaton in action figure form, a framed pair of photos of the ever-romantic neck-grab and upper-arm-grab, and a spectacular puppet a la Sluggy, complete with purple heart-shaped tongue. They just keep getting better.

The meal was terribly delicious. There's a reason this place has such a high eating on Yelp.com. Most us us ordered the curry. Yellow, red and green. You can choose your spicyness level from 1 (wuss) to 5 (born in Thailand spice eating fanatic). TheJenny was in recovering super taster mode and got a "1" which, like baby bear's porridge was just right. Slugs got a 3 and swore it was hotter, until the Cap'n offered her a taste of his 3.5 curry. So good. So very spicy. We were all sniffling like snotty kids with allergies, and happy about it.

NakedBob regaled us with stories of the "piss bucket" at work. We were all glad we had finished eating dinner by then, but felt a bit bad for the other diners within earshot.

Understatement of the year: Nairb asks TheJenny "Do you know anything about cat eye problems?" Poor Half Pint has a pile of eye meds for Nairby to administer six times daily.

Sher-E-Punjab in Carmichael

Yummy Indian buffet. Bollywood videos on the wall. Upon arrival Sluggy quietly asked if all Bollywood movies have dancing, she was relieved when we said yes and replied " Oh good. I didn't know if I was being a cultural ass." The chairs had cool dangly beads on them. Very festive. One of the "signature cocktails" on the menu was Jack & Coke. Mr.Chem was "on call" but joined us anyway. What a champ!

Service was good. The dinner was tasty. The Cap'n was a bit sad of the lack of paneer dishes in the buffet. He did engage TheJenny in a naan eating contest, and of course won. Most of us wen back for seconds. We liked the story about Jarla being farted on by a big giant fat man at a restaurant. Poor Jarla was helpless to run away and too stunned/asphyxiated to comment. Hilarity.

We compiled a list of all the movie plots we saw covered in the Bollywood entertainment. Here's what we saw:

• Grease
• West Side Story
• N'Sync video
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Communion (yes, aliens)
• Coke commercial
• E.T.
• Pearl Harbor
• Pleasantville
• Full Metal Jacket
• Priscilla Queen of the Desert
  

The verdict. A bit spendy, especially for use bird eaters that can't maximize on a buffet, but otherwise delish!

Star Trek Movie in Roseville

A small crew joined in the viewing of Star Trek this Thursday. Mr.Chem, Jarla, TheJenny, NakedBob, and a couple of trusty co-workers of TheJenny, Kri$$y and Jo$hDog. The theater was not packed, but pleasantly full for a Thursday evening. It was my second viewing of the movie and I enjoyed it even more.

Disclaimer: TheJenny loves Star Trek more than most things. In my book it goes NakedBob, gray cat, and Star Trek. Here is my unsolicited list of comments and recommendations.

• Goddamn the ship looks good. It looks great on the inside, and I'll agree, kinda like an Apple store, but it looks downright sexxy on the outside. I got goosebumps everytime they did a wide panoramic shot of the thing. My favorite character. She had such a presence.
  
• The casting was spectacular. New Kirk was a bit too smirky, but he has time to grow up. Which is fine, that's the idea, right? McCoy was pitch-perfect and cranky as all get out. New Spock is great. Little kid Spock was the cutest I've ever seen. Uhura is fab. Looked good kissing Spock (more on that later). Liked the nice solid role they gave to Sulu. Checkov was vvvonderful. Scotty, sublime, but they shouldn't rely too much on him as comic relief. Scotty is a brilliant engineer, let's not ever forget that (hello, transparent aluminum!?). My only complaint was that the guy they got to play Sarek didn't really look like original Sarek, but he's a c-list character, totally minor complaint, so whatevs.
• Classic Spock. I love him. I love him even more now that he's a little old and a bit frail. But still so Spock. The audience got a bit more quiet and a lot more attentive every time he was onscreen.
  
• Lens flares. These were overused in my opinion. Yea, we're in space, lots of shiny things, there's a lot of glare, I get it. Now stop. If I want rainbows in my face, I'll play with Photoshop.
  
• That critter Scotty hangs out with has got to go. Remember Jar Jar Binks. Yea. Go ask George Lucas if that was a good idea. Put it out the airlock now.
  
• Spock/Uhura romance. I like it. Because I'm a girl. And what girl hasn't wanted to be the one that Spock actually likes. And they're both beautiful people that look good kissing each other. BUT... Original Star Trek was all about Kirk and Spock and the love they had for the ship, the mission, and each other. The classic bromance. And since I've been re-watching all the originals, I must say, their relationship is a special thing. The series would only suffer from a long term chick (Yoko?).
• And a word to the future. JJ and crew did an exceptional job in rebooting the franchise and making way for new adventures. DO NOT bring back old moldy storylines including Kahn. Let Ricardo rest in peace. His pecs will never be matched. Boldly go where no Trek franchise has gone before.

All in all, I hope everyone who has an interest sees it in the theater. This might just be the action movie of the year. Sorry to fly in the face of those of you who are eagerly anticipating Terminator, but I'm really personally sick of Christian Bale's new "deep" voice. And the primadonna tirade on the set didn't help him either. Whether it was warranted or not.

(I can't believe you read that whole thing.)
See you next Thursday.

Wolverine Movie in Folsom

So we scheduled the movie for Folsom, so our dear Slug could come and enjoy Hugh Jackman with us. But alas, other very important plans stood in her way. The evening began with a bang. TheJenny, Shooter, and Jarla arrived to find BootDad, Jammo, and Bump in the wagon of Scribby. And they were drinking! Yep. Suburban parking lot margaritas for everyone! The presence of BootDad in the drivers seat made the whole affair look quite respectable. Scribby had 4 of the J-Fam in her car at the same time. Awesome!

We were incredibly early, and the theater was not very crowded at all. But who cares!? We were full of parking lot margaritas! The people that were there were trying to see Star Trek, so our theater was nearly deserted. Felt bad for the few that had to share the room with us because in a group we are loud and we are 12 years old. The Folsom theater is great. Leatherette chairs and so much leg room! You can walk down an aisle without disrupting anyone. And someone would have to try really hard to commit my theater pet-peeve: chair kicking.

The movie: A solid 2 and a half stars. Much as I love ol' Wolvie (snikt!), the plot was all over the place. And really? Adamantium bullets? Are you kidding? He's not a freaking werewolf. Poor Jammo was incensed at what they did to his beloved Deadpool. At least we had each other and we all snickered at the same moments. The girls (who huddled together for moral support) did enjoy the half-nekkid Hugh Jackman scenes that were clearly put in the movie for the ladies. So they did something right. But really, you can skip this one in the theater. Just pop in in the Netflix queue and enjoy at a later date.