Monday always comes too soon

This may be because I have to get up for 8am lecture, but I have the feeling it's a pretty universal complaint.

Nothing big, new, or exciting, just a quiet weekend at home prepping for my exam. What you do get today is two reviews:

#1 Happy Feet
Although I agree with Kingfuramone that a pack of screaming children can be some of the most effective birth control out there, nothing makes me way to tie up my fallopian tube more than watching a horrible kids movie, and envision it playing on constant loop in my house. I don't think I have ever turned off a movie part way through. I even stuck it out for all of Heavy Metal (despite being way too sober for much of it), but I couldn't do Happy Feet. At heart, I love penguins and I love tap dancing. What I can't stand is badly done animation (seriously, some video games have better texture than this film), American-Idol style big ensemble numbers, and racialized penguins (Puffins were Latinos and the Emperor Penguins were African-American - of course, nearly all of these "typical accents" were voiced by white actors). The overall messages: "even if you don't fit in, you're still a good person!", "corporations and governments are bad, they're destroying our environment", and "religion is a bunch of hooey", are generally those I can get behind. But they're pretty badly done and seriously dumbed down. I know it's a kids movie, but children aren't morons. Finally, it's very strange watching birds singing about how they're all "looking for somebody to love" is a way that's sort of sexual (for parents) and heavily glossed (for kids).

#2 The Gourmet Slow Cooker
When most people think slow cooker they think burritos, stew, meatballs, and quick easy to prepare family meals. This my friends, is not your traditional slow cooker cookbook. The recipes in here are "gown-up". They're aimed at dinner party, or nice dinners for adults rather than making a lot of "kid-friendly" food (I don't have kids so I have no idea if kids would like these dishes, although I'd assume yes because they're tasty, filled with fresh foods, and most of the time "kid-friendly" in my house was what mom cooked, and I turned out ok). As with most slow cookers, you can do most of the recipes in 2 different ways: chop everything, toss in cooker and go, or saute/brown everything and do more upfront cooking. They turn out well either way. However, the upfront cooking really does add another level of flavor to most of the foods. The book is divided into 6 countries: USA, France, Greece, Italy, India, Mexico and has a variety of dessert, main dish, and side dish meals. I've made two of the French dishes and absolutely love them. Although I had about an hour of prep time (I also cut up a whole chicken for the recipe), I was able to get at least 4, if not 5 dinners for Luke and I out of the pot. And, like most slow cooker recipes, they freeze beautifully. So, even though I spent an hour cooking, it really works out to 15 min per meal over the long run.