Average Jane

Average Jane's Underrated Movie Favorites

Annie at Think Lynsen did a post today called 10 underrated movies that I love. As I was commenting, I decided it would be fun to steal her post idea come up with a list of some of the weird DVDs in my collection that I enjoy watching and showing to people who have never seen them. I'll admit that a bunch of mine veer into cult classic territory, but they're all underrated just the same.

Without further ado, here are my picks (in no particular order, really):

10. Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death
First of all, it stars Shannon Tweed and Bill Maher, which really should be just about all you need to know. It's cheesy and ridiculous, but most of the humor is actually intentional.

9. Cabin Boy
Funny, surreal and very vague about the era in which it is set. I'm a big Chris Elliott fan and I also appreciate the little cameo by David Letterman.

8. Dirty Love
I've written an entire blog post about why I love this movie despite the fact that it was universally panned.

7. UHF
Call me geeky, but I love "Weird Al" Yankovic and I always have. This is a vital part of the canon.

6. Galaxy Quest
Great cast, tons of nerdy Star Trek references and a fun adventure plot.

5. Charlie's Angels
I'm stealing this one from Annie's list. This was a great, non-stop action movie with fun characters and a soundtrack that I still enjoy. It's too bad the sequel was so awful.

4. The Rocker
I'll admit that I'm a sucker for movies about bands, so this one had an advantage with me from the get-go. I feel kind of bad that I only went for a free preview screening and never paid to see it. My husband and I agree that we need to own the DVD.

3. Idiocracy
Is it as good as Office Space? Not really, but they're so different that it's really not fair to compare them. With repeated viewings, Idiocracy gets funnier and funnier as the little details you missed earlier start to come to your attention.

2. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
The main character is a neurosurgeon, a rocket scientist and a rock star. Yes, it's kind of cheesy, but how could it not be?

1. So I Married An Axe Murderer
Best movie Mike Myers ever did, hands down. He steals the movie from himself whenever he plays his main character's dad. Anthony LaPaglia is adorable. My sister and I can have an entire conversation using only lines from this movie.

Okay, it's your turn. What are your favorites?

Average Jane Welcomes Spring

As soon it decides to get serious about being spring, that is.

Old-School Average Jane

I got this from my friend, LuAnn, who is a teacher. I decided it was as good a way as any to start off the week. Fill this out about your SENIOR year of high school. The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be.

1. Did you date someone from your school?   
No, but I did date someone from the other school in our district.

2. Did you marry someone from your high school? 
No.

3. Did you car pool to school? 
No, I mostly rode the bus.

4. What kind of car did you have? 
For a brief moment I had a powder-blue Plymouth Horizon that my grandparents gave me. I wrecked it almost immediately and didn't get it back until after I graduated.

5. What kind of car do you have now?   
Honda Insight hybrid.

6. It's Friday night...where were you?   
Probably hanging out with my boyfriend and possibly our band. (Yeah, my thing for musicians goes way back.)

7. It is Friday night (present day)...where are you?   
Hanging out at home with the hubby, going out with some of my Twitter pals or playing in a bar with my band.

8. What kind of job did you have in high school?   
I didn't have a job until after I graduated. Then I worked in the cashier's office at Sears.

9. What kind of job do you do now?   
I handle all aspects of social media for advertising clients.

10. Were you a party animal?   
No.

11. Were you considered a flirt?   
Absolutely not.

12. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?   
I was in choir in junior high, but not in high school. I was in a rock band, though.

13. Were you a nerd?  
Definitely.

14. Did you get suspended or expelled? 
Nope, I was a complete goody two-shoes.

15. Can you sing the fight song? 
There was a fight song?

16. Who was/were your favorite teacher(s)?   
I liked Mrs. Searcy and Mrs. Gelsinger (both English teachers).

17. Where did you sit at lunch?  
Because I was a nerdy outcast, I ended up sitting with the stoners. I never did drugs, but they were the most socially laid-back group in school and didn't care who hung out with them.

18. What was your school's full name?  
Ruskin High School

19.  When did you graduate? 
1985

20. What was your school mascot?
Golden Eagle

21. If you could go back and do it again, would you? 
I'll steal LuAnn's answer: Not only no, but hell no.

22. Did you have fun at prom?   
No. I only went because my mom insisted it was an important rite of passage. Hmmph.

23. Would you talk to the person you went to prom with?   
Definitely, but I haven't run into him in quite some time.

24. Are you planning on going to your next reunion?   
No, I think I'm finished with my reunions. It's getting to the point where I hardly recognize anyone and vice versa.

25. Do you still talk to people from school?  
Not really. I have a couple of Facebook friends from high school, but I think I've taken too different a life path from most of my old buddies to have much in common with them anymore

Average Jane Sings Some Songs

Last night my band had a gig. I worked all day beforehand because although I have a generous amount of vacation time per year, I don't have enough to take a half day before each Friday night engagement.

When I got home, I was already rather tired. It would help a lot if I'd eat better and get some exercise, but I couldn't turn my entire life around in two hours so I just ate a light-ish dinner and hoped that would give me enough energy to get by.

From the get-go, I had a couple of problems. My mic stand fell over in the parking lot as I was unloading gear and of course it broke. I got through the night with it duct taped, but it's going to have to go in the trash. A new one like it will cost me most of what I earned last night. Grrr.

My second issue was wardrobe-related. The jeans I had on were too loose around the waist and I kept having to hike them up all night. I'm sure it was very noticeable, but there was nothing I could do about it. I actually considered looking to see if I had an instrument cable in my bag that would be short enough to tie around my waist in lieu of a belt, but decided against it.

On the plus side, I was delighted that seven of my Twitter buddies came out to hear us play: @jeffisageek, @kayhaswings, @wrytir, @digitaltiger, @SysAdmKC, @banky and @thundabolt. That made the evening a lot of fun. You can see some of @wrytir's photos here.

It was (theoretically) our last night with my husband on drums and I thought we sounded pretty decent. The only problem was that we were all equally tired and I could feel our energy level dipping from the third set on. It didn't help that a lot of the crowd left toward the end of that set. Once the bar gets kind of empty and you're tired, too, it's hard to maintain much in the way of a show.

Still, we soldiered on and made it through until 1:00 a.m. As always, we packed up our gear quickly and went straight home. I think I was asleep within 15 minutes of walking through the door.

Our next gig (so far) is April 17th, which also happens to be my husband's birthday. He's taken the evening off from his other band so he can come and hang out at our gig. If all goes well with our new drummer, at least he won't have to play.

It's become very obvious to me that I need to get in better shape if I'm going to continue belting out rock songs and hopping around on stage. An extra 25+ pounds of body weight and poor aerobic conditioning make the whole thing much more difficult than it needs to be. Here's hoping I can 30-Day Shred myself into better rock form before summer. Maybe then I'll need a belt for my skinny jeans!

Average Jane Reads

I really had no intention of leaving my last post up so long without writing something else that wasn't a bold declaration of my support for profanity. Just to bump it down one, here's a quick little list.

This meme was developed by one of my many librarian buddies and has been making the rounds on my friends' Facebook pages.

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?
Probably "Ozma of Oz"

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?
Current Read: "Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum"
Last Read: "The Light of Evening"
Next Book: Don't know yet - I have a big stack.

3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
I was not at all fond of "Bonfire of the Vanities." It took me a long time to realize that it was supposed to be funny.

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?
Anything really long, like "War and Peace"

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”
None

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?
I never skip ahead.

7. Acknowledgments: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
They're really for the author's loved ones and supporters, so I don't mind them.

8. Which book character would you switch places with?
Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
I remember reading many of the original "Tarzan" books in Lake Andes, South Dakota after having checked them out of the local library while I was vacationing at my great-aunt's house.

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
I once grabbed a box of books off the curb where my neighbors had put them out for trash pickup. One of them was "Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality," which was cool enough that I ended up passing it along to a bunch of people.

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?
No, but I've set a bunch of them free via Bookcrossing.

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
All of my childhood books (Oz books, Nancy Drew books, etc.) have traveled with me everywhere I've lived.

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?
No, I always loved reading in school.

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?
I once found a greeting card with a lock of hair taped into it.

15. Used or brand new?
Just getting ready to get a new library card.

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
He's rather inconsistent, but I've enjoyed much of his writing.

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
No, but sometimes movies are nice for providing more vivid visuals than you might have developed on your own.

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
Hmm, "Dune," maybe?

19. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?
Not sure. Even among my book club buddies, there have been hits and misses.

Average Jane Wants Her Rock Music Uncensored

As you might know, we're in the process of looking for a new drummer for our rock cover band. (Actually, we might have found one, but that's a story for later.)

The other day I overheard my husband's speaker phone call with one of the guys who answered our Craigslist ad. When he got to the standard question about whether the drummer liked the material we're doing, the guy said, "Actually, I'm uncomfortable with the language in some of your songs like 'Highway to Hell' and 'Hair of the Dog,'" (which contains the line, "Now you're messin' with a son-of-a-bitch").

I walked out of my office, made eye contact with my husband and shook my head to indicate that he didn't need to bother to book an audition with that one. Imagine how the delicate flower would have reacted when we got to one of the songs with the word "fuck" in it. And he wasn't even going to be the one singing the lyrics!

Rock music is about rebellion and rule-breaking. I may be a 40-something with a desk job, but when I'm singing with my band, I'm still the 17-year-old who used to piss off her mom by cranking up her Rush records all evening long. We're playing this stuff in bars, not kindergartens.

Which brings me to another of my pet peeves: the bleeping of songs on the radio. Even classic rock songs that escaped unexpurgated for 30 or more years (like "Who Are You" by The Who, for example), have now been neutered for broadcast. Yesterday I heard "Life in the Fast Lane" by the Eagles on the radio and the entire line "haven't seen a goddamned thing" was just crudely removed from the song, making it skip at that spot. Who are we protecting here? Does the classic rock station really have that many elementary school listeners in its demographic?

Back in the heyday of the PMRC, I wore a t-shirt with their silly warning label printed on it when my band played. Then and now, I thought that music censorship was stupid and wrong. But even back then they didn't try to completely sanitize the airwaves.

Am I going to play a Buckcherry song in front of children? No. And parents can easily wait to listen to the hard rock station in the car until they've dropped off their kids. But I'm against infantilizing the entire populace because a few people get the vapors over the occasional "bad word" in popular entertainment.

My iTunes collection is liberally bedecked with red "Explicit" labels because I automatically buy the songs in the version the artists originally intended. Because music is art and art - like it or not - is about unfettered expression. So let's all just grow up and keep that in mind.

Average Jane Goes Out

It's easy for me to get into a rut where all I do is work, go to meetings, grab dinner at a restaurant and then spend the rest of the evening sitting at home watching TV or reading. Thus, I've been trying to expand my horizons a bit.

This Saturday I spent the afternoon on a pub crawl with other Twitterers and bloggers in the town where I've lived since 1995. Here's a better recap than I could do (although, for the record, it was Megadeth, not Metallica). I paced myself pretty well and didn't even need to take a nap when I finally got home.

One of the best things to come out of the experience was our stop at the local sausage shop, Werner's Specialty Foods, which I'd never visited before. Because I'm rather gristle-averse, I had a grilled knackwurst and it was wonderful. I'll definitely be back.

Last night my husband and I went to see The Breakfast Club - Live. It's exactly what it sounds like: the '80s movie staged as a play. Originally we were supposed to go with a big group, but people dropped off one by one until it was just the two of us. However, we ran into another couple we know, so that made it even more fun.

After the play, they invited the audience onstage to graffitti the desks and hang out with the cast, but we decided we wanted to get home and watch "Heroes" before bedtime. Baby steps...

Average Jane Does Some Baking

Yesterday morning I decided I wanted some kind of baked breakfast-y goodness to go with my coffee. I went looking for recipes that would accommodate my limited stores. Something with apple would have been great, but I didn't have any apples. What I did have was oatmeal and walnuts, so here's the recipe I created by melding two different oatmeal muffin recipes.

Cinnamon Oatmeal Muffins

1 cup milk
1 cup old fashioned oatmeal
1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line muffin tin with paper muffin cups. Combine milk and oatmeal in a small bowl; microwave on high for one minute. Beat together egg and oil in a large bowl; stir in oatmeal mixture. In another bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Stir flour mixture into wet ingredients, just until combined. Stir in walnuts. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups until cups are 2/3 full. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Makes 12 small muffins.

I over-baked my muffins a tad because I was watching TV in the next room instead of keeping an eye on them. They were still good, but I had to cut the bottoms off a few of them. I'll definitely make them again, but the next time I plan to add some chopped apple.

Average Jane's Complicated Cat Situation

I know. If you hate the cat posts, you can skip this one.

We've now had Trillian for almost four months and we've learned the hard way that we can't let Xena interact with her at all. On the few occasions when Xena has gotten loose, she's swiftly hunted down the kitten and we've had to run to the source of the shrieking to rescue her.

Trillian's timidity is part of the problem. She runs from Xena and freaks out when she gets close, so it makes Xena think she's onto something with her attack mode. It doesn't help that Trillian is half Xena's size or maybe even smaller than that. It's just bad all the way around.

Thus, we do daily prisoner exchanges between our bedroom and the rest of the house. Trillian sleeps with me all night and when I get up, I put Xena in the bedroom with my husband and let Trillian run free with the other cats. The peripheral cat characters in this drama, Velvet and Velcro, get along with anyone. In fact, Velvet loves to play with either Trillian or Xena.

Trillian really loves to hang out in the recording studio with us. I think it's because it's the only part of the house where she knows Xena never goes.

I've never had this problem introducing a cat before and I don't know where to go from here. I've tried Feliway. I've tried putting Trillian (or Xena) in a crate in the middle of the living room so they can get used to each other. Nothing has made a difference.

This cat situation is also costly. I have to maintain a separate cat box in our bedroom (yuck). We're planning a trip to Nashville this spring and I think were going to end up boarding either Xena or Trillian so that we don't have to make our cat-sitter risk an incident between the two of them. (We'll also have to board Velcro because she gets twice-daily pills.)

The whole problem is so annoying that if I weren't so level-headed, I'd be tempted to seek out a "cat whisperer" to tell Xena not to be such a beyotch. As it is, I guess I'll have to be patient and hope that Xena gets mellower or Trillian gets braver over time.

Average Jane's Depression-Era Cooking

Meesha had a post today that mentioned the 93-year-old woman who cooks Depression-era meals on YouTube and it reminded me that many of my favorite childhood recipes had their origin during the Depression.

Here are a few that I've posted before:
Slumgullion
Chicken & Dumplings
Meatloaf (which undoubtedly had less meat and more cracker crumbs back then)

All of these recipes will feed an entire family; the chicken and dumplings can be stretched over at least two meals. It's also notable that they consist mainly of meat and vegetables. Staying out of the center aisles of the grocery store is a big money saver.

Not all of my grandmother's recipes made the transition to the next generations. My mother and her siblings used to complain about being served Mock Chicken as children, but my grandmother would protest that she "Only made it one time!"

Still, the cooking sensibilities of my grandmother were passed down to my mother and then to me as I was growing up. If we had leftover roast beef, we made it into hash. If we had some roasted chicken or turkey and gravy, the leftovers turned up as pot pie. The ham bone from Sunday dinner was boiled with cabbage during the week. Stale bread became French toast or bread pudding.

Food was precious and you didn't waste it. Even the vegetable peels and rinds went out to the chickens. Post-meal scraps flavored the dogs' food.

Dealing with food this way is still second nature for me. I always have a plan for leftover meat and although I don't have dogs or chickens, the birds and squirrels in my neighborhood get to enjoy any scraps that get too stale for the humans to eat.

What's your favorite budget-stretching recipe? Did it come from the 1930s/1940s or is it more recent?