Gluttons 'r Us: New Oriental Market - Austin, TX

New Oriental Market is nestled in a strip mall on North Lamar. It's a little Korean grocery store that I frequent for bento boxes, chopsticks and random food items you can't find in your usual HEB or Walmart. Every shopping trip I've made here, I've been VERY tempted to dine in the little cafe in the back. And every shopping trip, I find one excuse or another NOT to sit down and have a quiet fucking meal. It's always been: gotta do this, gotta do that, gotta cook this, gotta take care of that, runrunrunrunrunrunRUN.

Not today.

Today, I postponed my browsing for new chopsticks and headed straight for the cafe, pushing my way through the Hallway of Technology that Time Forgot. After entering the brightly lit dining room, you'll notice that the menu is easily readable, and in both English and Korean. Most meals are $5-$6, with the fancier stuff no more than $10. Each meal comes with free egg soup, hot barley tea or water and sikhye(not pictured), a delicious dessert beverage.

All this food, for such little money. Ohhh yeah.

I started with my soup and tea. The soup was a simple salted broth with egg bits and sliced green onions. It reminded me of an egg drop soup, only not as creamy. It wasn't overpowering in flavor, and perfect for a starter. The tea was a barley tea, which I had never had before. It tasted like some sort of liquid breakfast cereal, which I loved.

I ordered the bulgogi, which came with two different pickled vegetables and sticky steamed rice. The bulgolgi had a thin sauce that carried a decent flavor. It wasn't the best bulgogi I've ever eaten, but with the addition of soy sauce and Red Sauce of Unknown Origin, it was pretty close to perfect.  I can't really comment on the pickled veggies because they were pretty much what you would expect when eating kim chee.

My meal was then finished with the sikhye, which was super sweet and refreshing. I enjoyed it so much that I actually went back for seconds. It definitely helped take the edge off the miserable heat outside.

The meal was, all in all, just right for the price. Since I was only able to finish half, I ended up with two meals totaling to equal or less than what I would spend at Taco Bell. It's perfect for that Korean itch when you're on a budget. I'll be coming back to try the bibimbap. I'm giving New Oriental Market...

5 out of 7 Cardinal Sins

The Experiment - Psychological Drama

It's late on Saturday night, and moths are flying out of the husband's and my bank accounts. Really, what else can a broke-ass couple do other than watch free movies on Starz on Demand?

The Experiment, made in 2010, stars Adrian Brody and Forest Whitaker. The basic premise is that a hippie who looks like Jesus(Adrian Brody) REALLY wants to go to India with some chick, but doesn't have the funds to do so. He finds an ad in the paper, offering $1000 dollars a day for what is claimed to be a safe behavioral experiment that will last exactly two weeks. Lacking complete common sense, he thinks it's in no way suspicious or strange, and signs up. He gets chummy with a goody-goody Christian boyscout(Forrest Whitaker) and some stereotypical dork(Ethan Cohn) as they are informed that it will be a PRISON experiment, where they will recreate a penitentiary environment by separating the human guinea pigs into two groups: guards and prisoners. Everyone's psyched and not the least bit concerned as they head to the testing facility and everything proceeds to go to shit. This really plays out as a modern version of the Stanford prison experiment, performed in 1971. I won't go any further, because the film really is worth seeing and I'd hate to spoil things too terribly.
  
There are quite a few things that I really appreciated in this film, and I'd like to take a minute to highlight three of those here.
 
The opening sequence a fantastic blend of animal and human violence, easily blurring the two to show what we try so dear to disguise... We desperately try so hard to cling to this strange idea that we have morally and biologically evolved beyond our fellow animal. In the end, we just fluff up this shell we call morals 'n ethics that is easily broken in times of trauma. Beneath all of this superfluous bullshit resides our Id, and the fact that this is spelled out in the intro sets the proper tone for the film to unfold.
    

The best acting in the film is hands down done by Forest Whitaker. Adrian Brody did a fine job with his character, but Forest just nailed his role, delivering a solid performance in each and every scene..  He made it his own, as any actor should do. Every single gesture, every facial expression and every scenario was completely believable.
   
Besides the beautiful cinematography and the phenomenal acting, the fact that the film never explains the experiment is the cherry on top. Too many films nowadays spell EVERYTHING out for you and give you everything on a silver platter. Who cares what the purpose of the experiment was? The focus of this film were the very human reactions between individuals stuck in a very fucked up situation.

I really enjoyed this film, and would recommend it to anyone. GO RENT IT NOW. I give it an 8/10.

Summertime in Hell...

It is so unbelievably hot. Regular temperatures of a humid 103F have made vacationing under Satan's sweaty left testicle more preferable than stepping outside of my own apartment.

It's really hard to commit to long hair in temperatures like these. I've currently JUST passed BSL, and am working to grow to waist length. Yet I consider chopping it all off at least five times a day. Even threats of bodily harm from my husband, should I chop off all my hair, haven't been a deterrent. Talk about having your priorities backwards!

The only thing to really do in this predicament is updoes. But, until recently, the only updo I knew how to do was a cinnabun held with chopsticks. I've grown pretty bored with your run-of-the-mill cinnabun, as well as the two braids I tend to enjoy wearing. I decided to venture into new, uncharted territory... at least for me!

Behold... the Chinese bun!

It's a little fluffy and frizzy, I'm not going to lie. When you're learning a new way to play with your near-sentient hair, you tend to fumble around like some idiot child whose hands have been crippled from either a birth defect or repeated slammings into car doors. This is nothing compared to me learning how to braid, I assure you.


Also... a braided bun!

Don't be fooled by the barrette. This was really only functional around APL for me. I'm just too in love with the snakes to let them go.

As long as I keep this up(and continue promising myself a new hairtoy in September), my hair should remain in tact and the summers should be a little more tolerable. ... At least, I hope so.