Sammy's

On Thurs night Tara and I headed to the lovely "Saamy's" on the Marina at Glenelg. We hadn't been for about 7 years and were purely going as i'd won a $50 voucher on the 5AA quiz.

Tara got the Garlic Prawns and i got the "Aussie Favourite" which was a combo of 2 pieces of King George whiting, calamari, prawns (obviously I gave these to Tara), chips and sald. It was delicious and much better than what they serve up at my local fish and chip shop. The freshness was the highlight. A lovely meal and my 2nd favourite dining experience of my trip to the homeland.

36ers v Hawks

So I went with Gary tonight to see my beloved 36ers take on the Hawks. Here's my highlights and thoughts on the game.

-As soon as we sat down I noticed J Hodge didn't seem to be on the court. A quick number count confirmed my fears. Looks like Mal must have forgot to go to the bank again. Slightly annoyed.
-Schenscher is frustrating. He's so soft and resorts to mostly shooting jump hooks or baby hooks.....but he's just too big for 90% of the league. We wouldn't have won without him tonight.
-Adam Ballinger rules. Does everything well and compliments Schenscher's softness.
-Not much has changed entertainment wise, especially the music ie "Thunderstruck". A new lowlight was the "birthdays" segment, where they read out people's birthdays. Fascinating.
-Brad Hill is a lot better these days. Had a great cameo in the 4th.
-Speaking of cameos, Maher went crazy in the 3rd, scoring 13 in 8 minutes, including 3 straight triples. Is pretty much just an outside shooter now, but he does that well.
-0 blocks for the team. Poor. Schenscher should get at least 3 by accident himself every game.
-J Ho's shot looked awful. He finished with 2-9. As a team we shot 44%. I thought it was a lot better than this. Our starters outside Holmes all shot 50% or better, but the rest dragged it back badly. Amazingly the Hawks took 25 less shots but shot at 53%. Not sure why they took so few shots.

A good game to watch though and a thoroughly enjoyable night out. Ran into Ash aftewards which was good, except he kept begging me to trade him Brandon Roy.

Jasmin

Last night headed into the city for a farewell dinner for James and Lex, who head of next week for a year in Holland and the UK. James suggested "Jasmin", an Indian restaurant in the heart of Adelaide. Tara was excited as Indian is her favourite cuisine. I looked online for some reviews and was somewhat excited after reading the following.....

Hon Mike Rann: ‘I love Indian food. If I had to choose a place for my last supper on this earth, it would be The Jasmin on Hindmarsh Square where I’ve been going for a quarter of a century.’

Hon Mike Rann
Premier of South Australia
SA Life
March 2005

BEST INDIAN RESTAURANT IN AUSTRALIA
‘It was the best Indian meal I have eaten in Australia.’ ‘…I cannot recommend The Jasmin too highly.’ ‘…the food was irresistible.’

Sol Simeon
Sunday Mail

So from this I gathered it was going to be pretty nice. It was as good as suggested.

We got the banquet, which gave us two serves of entrees (8 items to try each) and two serves of main course (6 dishes). All was awesome, except for maybe the mushroom, but I hate all mushroom dishes so that doesn't really count. Besides this we also had standard and cheese naan, the later can only be described as "awesome".

Besides the food, the service was brilliant, the environment beautiful and the manager was very friendly. Probably the best dine experience I've had.

After this we headed to Brunelli's for some gelati and coffees, said our goodbyes and then headed home. A great night indeed.

Meet Dave

Picked this for the family to view the other night, here's my IMDB.com review

"Meet Dave" is yet another movie where Eddie Murphy plays multiple characters, though this time it's just 2.

Dave (Murphy) is a ship from out of space in the form of a human body sent to retrieve a special particle that was hurled to earth. Yep. Dave is controlled internally by a bunch of tiny aliens who look human, led by "The Commander" (also Murphy). Dave ends up befriending a mother and son who he thinks can help him get what he's after. This proves a challenge though as he has to learn how to interact with humans while seeming like one of them. With this premise, obviously laughs abound.

It's a dumb story, but there's some decent laughs for the family. Enjoy it for what it is and you'll be ok.

There Will Be Blood

Rewatched this last night on dvd. Here's my review I did after seeing it at the cinema in March 2008.

"There Will Be Blood" is an epic, based upon the 1927 book "Oil!". I didn't know much about it going in, except that it had Daniel Day Lewis playing an oil tycoon. For me, that was enough of a sell. If Darren picked a movie to go and see called "There Will Be Blood", I probably would have declined, but to his credit I picked it and he agreed, knowing full well it wasn't going to be up to his normal gory standards.

I'd been wanting to see this for a while and knew an Adelaide visit presented a good opportunity. I checked out session times and it was only still being shown in 2 cinemas, very infrequently. I pre-booked some tickets online for the first time, meaning I'd get to experience what they show in the movie ads where you stroll straight up to get your tickets,lights shining on you and all the suckers who are waiting in line go "man, we should have booked online. We're such losers". Sadly it wasn't like this at all. The funny thing was when I booked they encouraged you to collect your "pre-booked, allocated seating" ticket 30mins prior to the movie, which seems ridiculous. Luckily I ignored there I advice as when we got there there were only a handful of people in any lines, plus the cinema only had 2 other people in it.

Anyway back to the movie. It starts with Daniel Plainview (Day Lewis) down a hole digging about. Then we skip forward a few years and he discovers the first of many oil wells. All of this (about 20mins in screen time) is done with no dialogue. Weird. Luckily I still followed what was happening. Soon Plainview has a small portfolio of oil wells and is doing very nicely. He starts to build a little empire, working with his adopted son HW, whom he became guardian for after his father died in a digging accident. One day while trying to gain some more land he gets an offer from a young guy about a likely potential boom area where he has seen oil seeping through the land. the kid asks for some money to advise where it is and Plainview agrees. He goes to check it out and discovers an absolute gold mine (in an oil sense). Plainview buys the land from the ignorant family, part of the deal being the establishment of a church on the lands so the son can start his own ministry. The rig is soon underway and the community is greatly enriched. From the moment the rig starts digging however, trouble upon trouble comes Plainview's way. Plainview starts to get a more sever mean streak, majorly affecting his relationships with the church, business associates and his family.

I wont go on much more from here as it will ruin many of the subplots. Now to the review.

First of all, your "Fast and the Furious" types will probably hate it. It's set in the early 1900's and the story is slow at times. The story is rather intriguing and leaves a fair bit of food for thought. It's not what i expected, I had in my mind much more boardroom dealings and a fiercer pace, but the story just rolled on. The cast was outstanding, most notably Day Lewis as Plainview in one of the truly great performances of cinema, Paul Dano as Eli Sunday and Kevin O'Connor as Henry. A good story, perhaps a modern day "Dances With Wolves", just a lot better. I didn't want to review it straight after as I was still a little bewildered, and three days later still am unsure how I felt about it. Certainly worth seeing though, probably not a great chick flick though.

*As far as the violence, it's pretty moderate. For example, about half way through Gary whispered to me "there's been no blood yet", to which I replied "yeh, but I'm pretty sure there will be blood".

We Are Marshall

"We Are Marshall" is a true story about the tragic plane crash containing almost the entire school's football team back in 1970 and the aftermath that followed (as aftermaths do).

In 1970, the Marshall Football Team chartered a plane back home after a game and the plane crashed into trees not far from their destination. The small community is rocked and everyone is impacted in a great way. After the initial grieving, the school must decide if it will field a team the next year. At first the feeling is to bypass the new season as nearly all the squad has gone, but a few of the remaining players push to do all they can to field a team. They hire coach Jack Lengyel (McConaughey, in a strong, charming performance) to assemble a team and soon find many supporters who will help them get on their feet, notably the NCAA who change a rule for them and their rival school, who assists with some resources. The story focuses on Jack, returning coach Red (Matthew Fox from that stupid "Lost" show) and a few of the players who missed the trip due to injury or suspension. It soon becomes clear though they face a huge challenge to be competitive and not embarrass the school. Will they prove to be a Cinderella story or will they suck?

A solid movie and a little different to what you may expect from the genre. Fox, McConaughey and David Strathairn are all solid but we don't get to know too much about the players, and the actors who play them seem a little out of their comfort zone. A great story and worth seeing.

Twisted

For the first time in recent memory I sat down and watched a tv movie. I'd heard of this a while back, and while I didn't expect much, how could I miss with a stellar cast including Sam Jackson and Andy Garcia. Ashley Judd was also in it. Here's my IMDB.com review.

Jessica Shepard (Judd, in her most dominant role since "Double Jeopardy") is a tough cop who has just been promoted to detective. Not long after this she gets called into investigate some murders with an apparent link- Jessica has recently expressed her love physically with each man. She is soon an obvious suspect, however none of her fellow cops believe she could have done it. These workmates include Chief John Mills (Jackson, in his most powerful role since "Snakes On A Plane"), her partner Mike (Garcia) and creepy Jimmy (Mark Pellegrino). When a few weird things happen, she's not sure who she can trust. Was it really Jessica all along, or someone we never would have suspected?

Just awful. A terrible, slow story which throws plenty of curveballs to try to throw us off the scent. Not gripping at any stage at all due to the ridiculous amounts of clues it tries to drop that are obvious diversions. Add to that a terrible ending and you've just wasted 2 hours of your life. Avoid at all costs.

Tv

Watched a bit of telly last night, highlighted by a show I'd never seen called "Hustle" and my old favourite, "Prison Break".

"Hustle" is a show about a group of cons who go out and hustle people who have done something dodgy. Last night they honed in on a newspaper who had written a false story about a good friend of one of the group. Consequently they falsified a story about the Queen Mother, saying she had died during the war and been replaced by another woman so as not to alarm the general public. They went to great lengths to make the story tight and ended up convincing the paper's chief that it was true, only to have him betray them. Luckily they had a plan B and managed to get him sacked and damage he paper's reputation. Not awesome, but one of the better shows I've seen in a while.

"Prison Break" was action packed. It ended with Michael in an operating theatre at "The Company" headquarters, Linc trying to bargain for Michael's life, T-Bag being held up by a fake Bible salesman and Mahone being arrested by his old friend Agent Lang. Exciting stuff. Looking at IMDB, we're only 1 episode behind the US after tonight's episode, which is pretty good, even it means I've had to watch it Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve (still yet to work out how I get to watch it tonight).

The Bank Job

"The Bank Job" is based upon a true story of a 70's bank heist that was built around recovering some photos of a royal family member in a compromising position from a safety deposit box.

Martine (Saffron Burrows) learns of a bank which has some issues with it's alarm system and consequently has them disarmed while the problem is being resolved. She tells an old scheming friend of hers, Terry (Jason Statham), about this golden opportunity and before long he has gathered a team who can get into the bank and make a raid. Little does he know that he's being set-up purely so Martine can get the invaluable photos and consequently be released from a drugs charge from the Government. The Government is being blackmailed because of the photos and wants to get them back so they can destroy them. A simple job soon becomes extremely complicated and dangerous. Will Terry get busted? Will the royal family be shamed? Will Martine walk free? See it to find out.

A well put together movie, with plenty of twists and turns. I'd picked it out for a dvd night with the in-laws and was a little worried about the content of the first 15mins but it soon improved and everyone thought it was a winner. One of the better done-to-death bank robbery movies you'll see.

Mahervellous

Got my belated birthday present from mum the other day- a copy of "Mahervellous. It's the story of Brett Maher (obviously) and follows his life from birth to the current day. Thankfully there's not much about ages 0-14 but mostly on his days at the AIS to the current day. The most interesting stuff was probably the inside info on the Don Monsoon and Mike Dunlap days and learning about what happened with Chris Blakemore, Leon Trimmingham, Rob Rose, Tim Brenton etc. Also covers his Olympic and International experiences, as well as the tragic death of his son Hudson.

A great read for any 36ers fans, of which there are probably about 10,000 who may consider reading his story.

American Hoax

A big part of holidays for me involves reading, and today I knocked off a book I've been reading in fits and starts all year- "American Hoax".

The book revolves around 5 characters created by writer Charles Firth who, mainly through the use of the internet, he will try to advance in the American political landscape. The characters are named after Aussie icons, including Dr Andy O'Keefe and Edward McGwire. Each is given an agenda and given the task of getting as much of their work published as possible in respected domains.

The book is pretty interesting at the start, but gradually begins to tire a little as many of the characters don't advance that far and really tread water. There is some great humour in the book though, most notably through the use of footnotes. It's different and shows what can be done through an online medium these days. Some of the funnier moments involve pretentious poems by the Khorin-al Ghrant character (a deaf, mute Muslim woman) and the use of Wikipedia and Google to create Bertrand. Best line of the book was this, which cracked me up.

"Today, Dr O'Keefe is planning to run for President, though failing that, is thinking of hosting a new television game show where people have to guess a number and then wait for half an hour to find out whether they were correct".

Worth reading if you're a Firth/Chaser fan or in what can be done with a website and email address.

The Day The Earth Stood Still- Gold Class Style

Headed to Marion last night to take in the "Gold Class" experience with the Osborne's. The movie choices were limited, and we ended up settling for "The Day The Earth Stood Still."

The movie is a modern day version of the 50's classic, this time with an environmental theme. Klaatu (Reeves, in the perfect role for him- a dull alien) comes to earth with a team to kill humans so that the earth can be saved. His people believe they've given us enough time to see the damage we're doing but refuse to change, so they'll save the earth for us. I thought this was harsh as we've only learned the damages caused from using aerosols and the balloons that come out from power points for 20 or so and are making changes, like green power and catching buses instead of using cars and stuff like that. Scientist Helen Benson (Connelly, in another dull role) and her stepson Jacob (Will Smith's annoying kid) befriend Klaatu and try to change his mind about the killing humans bit. Will they succeed? See it to find out.

Not as bad as I thought, but certainly won't be seeing it again. Probably drew me in a bit with cameos from Curtis from "24" and T-Bag from "Prison Break".

Let's now focus on the best part- the Gold Class. We sat down and organised for our meals to come in 30min into the movie. After 5mins a lady came to us with a salad- which we hadn't ordered. About 20mins later Tara's nachos came, shortly followed by a pizza, also not what we'd ordered. A few minutes later my chicken tenders and wedges arrived and they ruled- great quality at a fair price. Shortly after another pizza arrived, also not for us, then my drink which was needed due to the spicy wedges. Besides the food, the chairs also ruled, lying down while watching a movie on the big screen is great. I've decided for major movie events this should be the way to go. Not cheap though. A worthwhile experience.