WHY DO YOU LOVE IT?: I get to converse with fellow martial arts nerds. I get to learn a bit more about other styles, how they train and their philosophies. I can glean some training tips, commiserate about gradings and injuries, talk about martial arts movies, books, and weapons. We even have a thread called “Celebrate Your Victories” where we can have a bit of a gloat and some back-patting. Seeing how furiously the group members train motivates me to suck it up, get off my lazy butt and go do some more push-ups.
DISCUSSION TIP: Don’t be a troll. Simple, sage advice for young grasshoppers?
BEST RANDOM QUOTE: “A belt is nothing more than something to hold up your pants.”
MOST HEATED DISCUSSION THREAD: There is a stigma attached to martial artists; people tend to think we are an arrogant bunch, but in my experience in this group there are no such ass-hats. The most heated discussion I came across was over the value of belts as a way of ranking people within their relative systems. There was also discussion about using sharpened weapons versus blunt training weapons. I don’t even know if you could classify those discussions as heated, more teasing really.
WHO’S WELCOME TO JOIN?: Any martial artists of any level and even the armchair martial artists enthusiast who doesn’t feel the need to turn himself into a human punching bag.
I love experimenting with stuffed peppers, especially bite size mini’s! This colorful finger food is great to serve for any summer time party, but I particularly like to serve them during the 4th of July celebrations. There is something about the explosive flavor and bright colors that makes this the perfect holiday treat.
– Ryker Suicide
Ingredients
7 jalapenos, halved lengthwise and seeded/deveined
7 serranos, halved lengthwise and seeded/deveined
7 banana peppers, halved lengthwise and seeded/deveined
1 lb sweet Italian sausage, casing removed
16 oz pancetta, diced
1/2 orange bell pepper, minced
1/4 cup red onion, minced
3 TBS minced garlic
2 cups cream cheese
1/2 Parmesan plus more for garnish
1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
Salt/pepper
1/4 bread crumbs
Olive oil for roasting
Directions:
1. Set oven to 350 degrees and roast peppers until soft, about 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
2. In a small pan sauté 1/3 of your onion/bell pepper/garlic until soft. Add pancetta and allow to brown. Remove from pan and allow to cool at room temp.
3. In a medium pan crumble and sauté sausage. Once cooked add the rest of your onion/bell pepper/garlic and cook until soft. Remove from pan and allow to cool to room temp.
4. Take pancetta mixture and mix with 2/3 cup of cream cheese. Add 1/8 cup of parsley, and salt/pepper to taste. Add 1/4 cup of Parmesan. Mix well and fill banana peppers. Sprinkle with parmesan and bread crumbs.
5. Take sausage mixture and add remaining cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, and parsley. Salt/pepper to taste. Mix well and fill remaining jalapenos/serranos. Sprinkle with Parmesan and bread crumbs.
6. Broil until cheese is melted/browning. Remove and serve!
Indie film darling Greta Gerwig already has two movies out this year, one of them being Damsels in Distress, in which she starred. I actually got to meet her for that film when I was interviewing Whit Stillman. While they were paired, Sillman commented on her character in the Arthur remake, as an example of how studio movies give characters silly traits.
In Lola Versus Gerwig stars as Lola, a woman whose fiancé (Joel Kinnaman) cancels their wedding sending her on a spiral of casual sex, dating, drinking and disaster. This is not one of your Kate Hudson wedding movies.
The impressive credentials of Greta Gerwig include a magna cum laude honor from Barnard College. As an actor, she starred in notable indies like Hannah Takes the Stairs and The Duplass Brothers’ Baghead. Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg got her enough notice to land big Hollywood movies like No Strings Attached and Arthur.
Curled up in a hotel chair, Gerwig remembered me, since we’d only met two months prior. We sort of continued the conversation where Damsels in Distress left off. Durning our conversation, Gerwig got us thinking about how awesome it is to be bored, which was a most exciting and unexpected twist.
What is Warner Bros. and DC Comics next big movie? New reports suggest Barry Sonnenfeld is working on DC Comics’ title The Metal Men, which was first introduced in 1962 and has been played with sporadically by DC since then. The Mental Men group consists of six artificially intelligent robots created by Dr. William Magus. Each was made out of a specific metal with powers to match. Gold, the leader can stretch; Iron possesses super strength; Lead can make shields; Mercury could melt to pass through small spaces; and Platinum, who believed she was human and would flirt with her creator, could stretch and flatten. There was also the insecure Tin whose powers are unknown. They popped up throughout Infinite Crisis and had a twelve issue run in Wednesday Comics in 2009. The Metal Men have also made appearances in Batman Brave and the Bold and Justice League: New Frontier. The Metal Men wasn’t on anyone’s radar for DC’s next movie, but it could have potential.
Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel will involve a lot more than Superman just saving Metropolis. New information has leaked onto the internet, and it looks like a good portion of the movie will take place during the war on Krypton. This help makes sense of the elaborate costumes we saw last month that included suits for Jor-El and other Kryptonians. Not much else is known about the film, but the producers will have a presence at San Diego Comic Con where they’ll be debuting footage.
Kick-Ass 2 has signed Chloe Mortez back as Hit-Girl. The film hasn’t begun production but we now have confirmation that three of the core cast members are returning: Aaron Johnson and Christopher Mintz-Plasse being the others. Kick-Ass 2 will involve the heroes’ identities being learned. Hit-Girl will be identified, causing her a whole new set of problems.
Disney and Marvel has already announced the animated Avengers Assemble series hoping to play off The Avengers success. The animated projects don’t stop there. Marvel is also developing an Iron Man animated series. A Hulk series is in talks as well. All of the animated series will appear as part of the Marvel Universe on Disney XD.
Graphic novel and comic guru Alan Moore is best known for his work on titles such as: V for Vendetta, Batman: The Killing Joke, and Watchmen. Now it looks like Moore is moving onto film as he announced he is working on a short film series currently titled Show Pieces. The project started as a single ten-minute movie, but has since evolved into a ‘multi-layered, multi-episode narrative,’ though little more is known about it.
Seth Grahame-Smith has been tasked with scribing the sequel to Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice 2 wants to just make a sequel for money; they want to make sure it is done right. To do this, Grahame-Smith says he plans on using the character Beetlejuice sparingly, and not overdue him, pointing out Beetlejuice was only in about half an hour of the first movie. The one other thing he noted is it is a real sequel. The amount of time that has passed since the first movie is how much has passed in the story.
A new Mortal Kombat movie is in the making. Little is known about the project except for a short synopsis:
“The live-action reboot will follow a lowly unlucky supermarket employee who discovers that he has out of this world powers and must decide between good and evil, even though the evil side has helped him discover his true potential and who he really is.” – via Nerdbastards
Kevin Tancharoen is signed on to direct the film written by Oren Uziel. The story sounds a bit vague, but this reboot can’t be any worse than the first two movies.
You would think that when someone has enough money (or a stinkin pile of cash) to make Joe Perry’s Rock Your World Boneyard Brew Hot Sauce they might not be able to pull off a solo album, but all that money has been put to good use. I got sent a promo copy of Joe Perrys latest self titled solo album and boy was I surprised when I popped it in and heard the Aerosmith guitarist’s voice. An even bigger surprise was when I realized that the vocals were just as good as the guitar riffs.
Sometimes when a one of the main creative forces behind a very successful rock band, like an Aerosmith, does a solo album they try their best to make it sound like garage rock. Usually they think that pushing the slider marked ”Make it sound like it was recorded in a room with a tin roof” will do it for them. But Perry has pulled it off and created a gritty, balls out rock and roll album that is obviously very intimate.
INTO: Sunny days, foam baths, piercings and tattoos, photography, art, long hair and silky skin, bondage, forests, strange dreams, dirty jokes, horror movies, asphyxiation, androgyny, traveling, flirting, and Sega Mega Drive Diablo II.
NOT INTO: Sickness, envy, and meat.
MAKES ME HAPPY: Summer, making love with someone you really care for, beer, butterflies in stomach, bites, being home by dawn, chocolate, loud music, Jägermeister, and Dark-Hunter novels.
MAKES ME SAD: Animal cruelty, when the bad guy dies at the end of a movie, feeling powerless, lies, delayed flights, distances, and people with closed minds.
HOBBIES: Dancing, reading, drinking, trashing around, and sleeping with my cat.
5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: Emotions, music, hygiene, friends, and imagination.
VICES: Cigarettes, but I’m quiting – since 2005.
I SPEND MOST OF MY FREE TIME: With the ones that make me happy.
