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The Wallflower

just me and my fellow fleurs.

Latte Recipe

Thursday, June 18, 2009
Here's how to make a simple and delicious classic latte without and espresso machine. Makes 1 latte.

You'll need:
-Coffee beans or grounds
-French press or coffee machine
-Milk
-Cinnamon

1. Make strong coffee using either a French press or a drip coffee machine. My personal preferance is a French Press.
2. Once the coffee is brewed, measure about a a cup or more of milk in a microwave safe container.
3. Microwave the milk for about 2 minutes or less, until it is steaming.
4. Put the milk in the blender and put on a medium setting.
5. While the milk is blending, fill your coffee mug or cup about one-fifth or one-fourth full. Sweeten the coffee to your liking.
6. Stop blending the milk, it should be foamy on top.
7. Pour the steamed, blended milk into the coffee until all the way full.
8. If you want, take a spoon and spoon some pretty white foam on top of the latte for looks.
9. Sprinkle some cinnamon on top.

Bon Appetit! Tell me what you think.

-Jack (btw, the photo is a fake magazine cover I made)

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A Message from HOBY

HOLA HOLA AY!
ROCK, ROCK, ROCK TO THE BEAT NOW

I DON'T KNOW...

...JUST WHAT IT IS...

BUT HOBY GET FUNKAY!

STAY POSITIVE, LOVERS! :)

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One Word: Glee!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Anybody that is interested in musical theater, comedy or drama television is currently drooling. FOX recently aired the premier episode of thier new comedy musical romp, 'Glee'.

It's a funky, fresh, funny and heartfelt tale about a Lima, Ohio Glee club, or show choir from the genious producers of the cult fave Nip/Tuck. Think the peppy musicality of the High School Musical franchise with the smart, quick humor of the Office (with plenty of cutting edge style to go around).

To keep that great storyline company is the studded cast. It stars Matthew Morrison as the determinded Glee coach and Spanish teacher, Will Schuester, along with the comic sweetheart, Jayma Mays as the crushing co-worker of Will and of course the ever-wonderful Jane Lynch as the slightly eccentric cheer coach, determined to take Glee club down. Cory Monteith plays the unlikely lead male and football star in this saga alongside the electric vocals of Lea Michele as Rachel Berry, the self-proclaimed theater freak who is bound for broadway (ironic considering that Michele is already a Tony nominee).

Now here's the drooling part: the rest of the season isn't revealed until September, but FOX is already promoting the heck out of it saying "The Fall belongs to Glee!", and I have no room to doubt that.

The episode begins with the revealing of our heroes, the future students of the Glee club. We see that the former Glee coach has been fired and Will Schuester swoops right in taking the club under his wing and holding auditions that aren't too impressive aside from that of Rachel Berry, of course. The chorus is a measly bunch but gets some spicing up when Will uses some mischief to nab Finn, the football star as the male lead.

Although Will is utterly determined to make the club great, he up and quits when a family crisis arises. The show finishes off with a rollicking Broadway-esque performance of 'Don't Stop Believing' by the earnest ensemble. Mr. Schuester walks in at the right moment and from what we can see, he rethinks his decision to quit the job.

And so begins what will most definitely be the best new show this fall. I can't wait for September when this amazing new show premiers, again. But for now, all we have is Hulu and YouTube to satisfy our Glee hunger.


Here's the whole pilot...and a look at the rest of the season this fall!


-Jack

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Imagine Reality

Monday, June 15, 2009
This past weekend was one of the best of my life. Seriously, I am still in shock.

I told you all about my going to the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Conference, a nationally respected program for young leaders in America started over fifty years ago. I wasn't that excited about it. Actually, I was literally dreading it. I couldn't wait for it to be over.

Well, I couldn't have been proved more wrong. The whole weekend was totally amazing. It was four days of learning how to be a better leader and how to make your world a better place. But even better than that, I made some seriously amazing friends.

There were about 200 kids that went (one of the biggest turnouts) and there were groups that were divided into ten people each. I was extremely lucky. I think I had the best group of all. We were called 'Jell-O' and I will never look at Jell-O the same again (in a good way). I miss all of them already, but we have plans to reunite in August and I can't wait.

The title of this post comes from the slogan of this year's seminar, which means that the reality you have now can be amazing and better than it maybe is.

I could go on and on about this for years but I won't because it might make me sad. I seriously recommend looking up HOBY online and if you are a high school Sophomore, then I recommend talking to your guidance counceler about it. It's truly amazing!

More posts later. Oh, but first, a shout out to my HOBY buddies: "JELL-O!!"

-Jack

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Google's Trends Lab: The World Wants Cupcakes

Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Google.com is more than just a search engine, a way to find the best tetrazini recipe online. It can be a canvas for human trend and a way to show the yearnings of the world's soul. Okay, so maybe I won't do into all that in this blog but I will show some things that are very revealing about the lives of Googlers.

First, let's start out with something fun. I thought of some current events and searched them on Google to see which one got the most results.

1. 'Barack Obama' 109,000,000 results.

2. 'Jon and Kate Plus 8' 97,200,000 results.

3. 'Adam Lambert' 17,500,000 results.

4. 'The Hangover' 7,430,000 results.

5. 'Octomom' 2,060,000 results.

Cool, no?
Here's the really cool part, let's take a look at Google Trend Labs, something extremely interesting I just discovered today. It's a search engine within Google where you type in a trend (such as twitter, digg.com, american idol) and it gives you a graph showing you who popularly searched it has been over five years, one year or 30 days.

1. First I typed in 'twitter', here's the traffic graph for the word twitter over the last 12 months:

As you can see, the search traffic for Twitter has increased signigicantly over the past year.


2. Next I typed in 'Barack Obama' and set the interval to 'All years':

Just look at those peaks and valleys from 2008-2009.

3. Next....how about 'cupcakes'?:

4. 'iced tea':
This one was surprisingly constantly up and down. Why is that?


5. And last, but of course not least, 'google'. Have you ever Googled Google?

Surprise surprise, Google is getting popular.

So what does all this trend labbing say about America? I think it says that people are becoming more and more intrapersonal with thier lives (twitter), they are indulging themselves more personally instead of more people at a time (cupcakes) also that cupcakes are becoming chic, who knew? It finally shows that Google could quite possibly take over the world.

I'm sure that there is much more to be learned from this, but maybe for someone more suited for that job. However for the person just wanting to take a gander at these features, it is oddly fascinating.

-Jack

The State of Jon and Kate

Monday, June 8, 2009
The new season of Jon & Kate Plus 8 just makes me sad. The overly publicized marital problems of the Gosselins has nearly torn thier marriage apart, at least that's what it seems like.

I really don't care how they do it, but I really want Jon and Kate to reconcile. It's just disheartening to see them fighting. It's not fair that the paparazzi did this to them, sooner or later it could affect thier children.

While watching the new episodes, I couldn't help but notice that Kate seems to have changed drastically. She used to seem like a wonderful but stressed out mother whose world revolved around her family. She didn't care about clothes or appearances or materials but in the new episodes she seems to be somewhat of a camera hog.
She always seems to be on a book tour ("for my kids" she says) and never at home and she's all about shopping and spa-ing and tanning and whatnot, and it doesn't seem like she's thinking about Jon at all.

At the end of the premiere episode, the interviewer asked the couple what the status of the marriage was. There were a few beats of silence and then Kate spewed out something like "I'm here all the time that work allows me, I wake up for my kids, I breathe for my kids, I live for my kids."

I couldn't help but think, and I'm sure many other viewers were with me on this, "WHAT ABOUT YOUR HUSBAND?"
I really felt bad for Jon. Kate doesn't even acknowledge his existence half the time. She made him quit his job to be home more and then she trails off to do book signings in God-knows-where. I really could go on and on about Kate Gosselin but I won't.

Jon obviously hates the show. He said so in the season 4 finale, and Kate loves it. That's the problem. What do I suggest? I suggest that they look at the past episodes when they were happy. The one were they got remarried (and they said they were going to be together forever), the one with the Valetines day. Or, you know, cancel the show.
The picture on this post makes me sad again. I just hope that things work out between the young couple and they can all look back on it as just another kink in the road.

Tell me what you think.

-Jack

Good is Great

Sunday, June 7, 2009
GOOD MAGAZINE just released thier transportation issue and I thought I'd write a little blurb about it. As you can see from my title, GOOD is a really great magazine about living well and being smart. Thier slogan on every issue is, "for people who give a d**n..." and it really is.
The issue that was just released talked all about how humans are doing transportation wrong (what else is new) and a bunch of GOOD ideas to better the situation.

My favorite article was "The Street of the Future" it showed in a picture how small adjustments and additions can make our streets more liveable and safe too. It was really fascinating.

GOOD is known (at least by me) for having wonderful graphics. They use pictures and graphs in great ways to put across ideas to make them more palatable.

You should go to the website and maybe even subscribe, you won't be disapointed.

Messed Up Internal Clocks

My internal clock is so messed up. It happens all the time in the summer. Just today, I fell asleep around 7:00 or so and then I woke up at midnight. Yes, midnight.

I was so mad. Of course I'm not tired so I won't go to bed until like 3:30 or later. So then I'll wake up late the next morning. It's a never-ending visious cycle and it bothers me.

On other stories, tomorrow is just another Monday. But I do have to keep in mind HOBY on Thursday morning. Unfortunately I'm sort of anxious for it. I don't really no what to expect and it's four days long. So hopefully, I'll enjoy it. Or if it doesn't, it will pass by quickly.
I don't even want to think about packing for it, Ugh! I hate packing. Speaking of packing, my friend is going on a trip to London and Ireland tomorrow and I'm so jealous. She's going on a mission trip for her church, it sounds like a lot of fun.

Well, I guess there's not much more to write about so goodbye!

-Jack

L'Wren Scott: Threads of Change?

Saturday, June 6, 2009
I know, yet another post today. But it's one of those irratic late-night posts that I have to publish or I won't sleep a wink. This one's about fashion.

I was reading an article in The Atlantic about fashion, broad subject matter, I know. I didn't get to finish the three and a half page article because a photo from the February Fashion-Week runway caught my eye. It was a photograph of a kelly green and rust colored cocktail dress, which was great (it also came with a matching trench coat which I didn't care for).

It was designed by L'Wren Scott. I loved the design so much that I decided to google her. I found out that she is a former model, and very tall. I looked at her full spring RTW* collection for 2009. I found that although her pieces were extremely fashionable, they were also very relatable and not out of reach of painful to look at.

In a completely unrelated story, I was looking for good Oscar Wilde quotes today online and happened to stumble on this one on fashion:

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

Although in most cases with high fashion I unfortunately agree with Mr. Wilde, I couldn't help but beg to differ in L'Wren Scott's case. Her pieces are clean, elegant, retro and easy on the eyes.

Click here for a full look at her spring collection and tell me your thoughts. Thanks for reading this painfully short entry. Hope you're all well.

-Jack

*Ready to wear.

Away We Go

Here's a film to watch out for: Away We Go. It's starring comic geniouses John Krasinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live Alum.). Oh yeah, and it's directed Sam Mendes who did such movies as Revolutionary Road and American Beauty (winner for Best Picture 2000)

It's about soon-to-be parents Bert and Verona who are travelling across the country to find a place to stay, visiting old friends along the way and discovering more about thier relationship and thier love for eachother.

My question: how will the Oscars take this? Will they recognize Rudolph and Kasinski's performances? Could it be this year's Juno? I hope so. It looks like a winner and I can't wait to see it.

But there are a few problems between it and Oscar. For one, it's a comedy and comedies don't usually fare well with the Academy. Also, it's completely original, and the Oscars like things that are based on true stories or previous material, unfortunately.

Although the Academy Awards do like Sam Mendes, so who knows? Like I said, the film has a wonderful comedic cast. It also stars Maggie Gyllenhaal, Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels and Allison Janney.

-Jack

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

I'm back with more tales from the Netflix Instant Movie saga. I seriously am an instant-movie junkie. I need help.

This one's called "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not" or "A La Folie...Pas dut Tout". It's a French film that came out in 2002 starring the France's Audrey Hepburn, Audrey Tautou and directed by Laetitia Colombani. When you watch the trailer online, it looks like a sickeningly predictable romantic comedy.

For this reason, most people will turn away from it, as would I. But don't look away too soon. "He Loves Me..." is packed with a delicious twist that no one will see coming--plus, the trailer gives away too much, so just skip it and watch the film, promise me, you won't be disapointed.

Roger Ebert says that French films are usually better and this movie is a great example. It's the closest thing to an Alfred Hitchcock film since, well, Alfred Hitchcock--it's that good.

Watch it and tell me what you think!

-Jack

The Email Generation

I hate email.

It was a thing of the nineties that stayed with that generation: the sex and the city generation. Not the people who watched the show, I watch the show. No, the people who were sex and the city. Email was the hip new thing of thier adult generation.
Unfortunatly it has not carried over very well to the younger coming-of-age generation. It's laggard, clunky and annoying.

The very idea of writing a few sentences of text on your computer screen and sending it to another was as fascinating as the idea of the telephone. That generation also made cool lattes, digital cafes (who really knows what that is anyways?), laptop computers and platform shoes. They might as well be called the email generation.

The email generation was so furiously impressed with itself for fabricating email, they went gallivanting with it in every media medium possible. (See picture: "You've Got Mail" [1998])

So what is the new medium equivalent to at least the hype of email? Is it texting? IMing? Facebooking?

Or maybe the new generation has reverted back to the good old-fashioned cell phone call? It could be an inspiring thought.

The reason that email, lattes, spandex or whatever other fads are so uber popular with certain age group is that they feel like not one person invented them but they all did. Together as a group effort. Something that they have made for future generations to have and hold. Or at least that's what they hope or think. But I guess it's not true. Because do you really hear of a lot of young people using email anymore? I sure don't.

This generation that we live in is the generation of odd convenience. I mean being able to send someone a message in a fast and seemingly simple way has always been desirable since ancient times. Humans have always been trying to make communication more possible. But this generation is one of DVRs and Tweets and Instant Movies and Webisodes.

Has mankind always been trying to think of a way to get a movie from their computer to thier television and further? Not quite.
We have created things to make things simple and then made inventions to make those simpler. It's a never-ending search for ultimate convenience and ease.

In a generation of Facebook nudges and Twitter tweets and Netflix instant movies and texting, it makes email seem like a chisel and stone.
Tell me your thoughts.
-Jack

Good movie: sex, lies and videotape (1989)

Thursday, June 4, 2009
Okay, I'm not going to give a full-on review but I will tell you that this is a wonderful movie.
I was bored and decided to watch it instantly on Netflix.com (my savior! lol) I am so glad I did, it is one of the best movies I've seen recently.

It is Steven Soderbergh's debut into filmmaking and it is an enviable one at that. First of all, it has an excellent cast (Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, James Spader) and to thier luck, it has an amazing screenplay written by Soderbergh.

It's a timeless portrayal of how four people come together and interact and consequently change eachother's lives in some way. It's taut, it's simple, it's provocative and graceful. Andie MacDowell in my opinion also gives the best performance of the bunch.

See it!
-Jack