Oscar Predictions

The 2011 Oscar Noms are out.  Here are my predictions.

Best Picture: The Social Network

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale

Supporting Actress:  Melissa Leo

Best Actor:  Colin Firth

Best Actress:  Natalie Portman.  Could be Annette Benning.

Best Director:  David Fincher

Best Screenplay - adapted :  Aaron Sorkin

Best Screenplay, Original -- Christopher Nolan

Best Animated Feature -- Toy Story 3

Best Documentary - Exit through the Gift Shop

And costumes will go to Alice and Wonderland and sound/effects to Inception.  If anyone disagrees please post a hearty annoyed response.

P.S.  I am seeing a lot of cries for Leonardo DiCaprio to be nominated for best actor.  Just because a movie blew your mind and made you feel smart doesn't really mean that actor should win.   Just sayin!

Way to go Iceland with your crazy food

So it's Þorrablót in Iceland (Thorra-blot, except quick off the tongue), the festival of MidWinter and Thor the Thunder god.  Probably the darkest festival in the world as there is barely any sunlight, Þorrablót is also the time of year that has the most suicides in Iceland (go figure).


So why not make this cold and dark time less suicidal by serving the grossest food imaginable? Þorramatur (Thorrra-mat-ur) = Thor's food.  Makes sense to me!  I'm sure if given a platter as an offering Thor purposely leaned right over into his box of thunderbolts.  Here's a menu.


Hákarl (putrefied shark)  (Hau-karl)-- essentially shark meat that's been pissed on.  Seriously.  And it tastes like one of the worst things that you can think of. Anyway, Hákarl is shark meat that is divided into pieces, and then buried in a large pit and covered with gravel (where it used to be pissed on before it was buried).  After 6-16 weeks, it is dug up, washed, and hung out to dry for 2-4 months.  When the drying is done, the crust is removed and the white meat cut into small pieces.  It tastes like either bad cheese or straight up urine.  It is usually served in cubes.  Gordan Ramsay threw up after eating it on the F word and most people vote it as the worst food in the world.  Icelandic people think it's fun to disgust people and will probably try to make you try it.  Take the darker piece (the lighter, the nastier).

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2. Blóðmör or Slátur (slau-ter) (filled sausage/black pudding) -- to make this you need a huge pot of sheep's blood boiling on the stove and a sheep's stomach cut into pieces.  You must sew the pieces of stomach into little stomach bags that you can stuff.  Now you take mutton and fat, oatmeal, Icelandic moss and some other stuff, and mix with the blood.  Stuff the stomach bags with the mixture and boil.  Yum yum.
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4. Hrútspungur (ram's scrotum with testicles) (hroots-punger) -- aren't these Prairie Oysters?  I've had them before and they tasted like McNuggets.  But these are different.  They're pickled.  It's more like pâté than McNuggets.  McTesticles.  
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6. Svið (jellied sheep's head) --  (Svith)-- this one's a good one.  A sheep's head is burned to remove the wool, cut in half, brain removed, boiled and eaten like that or in a jelly.  Yum!
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8. Harðfiskur  -- ok, this is more like fish jerky and it's good.  It's smoked fish that's hung and dried into a jerky.  You eat it with lots of butter.  It's not that bad.  They make it sound gross.  
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10. Some others include selshreyfar (sour seal flippers), hvalrengi (sour whale fat) and the most ridiculous sounding, Kaest skata (rotted stingray).  If you're bored serve a platter to your friends.  I'm sure they'll be pleased.  

When animals don't attack

Did anyone see this frog hitching a ride on the back of a snake to get to dry land in Australia?  What a prime example of how animals won't eat each other in times of crisis.  Not sure what the picture is like once they got to dry land, though.

Does the Blood Type Diet work? Yeah, kinda, maybe?

The Blood Type Diet, or "Eat Right For Your Type," created by Dr. Peter D'Adamo, contends that each blood type evolved to metabolize certain foods that were natural to a person's ancestral environment, and that the exercises done now should reflect those that would have been done ages ago.  Type-Os thrive on a high-protein diet and intense exercise, evolved in the north and is the oldest type; Type -As are suited to an organic vegetarian diet, should do yoga and keep calm, and evolved when the original Africans pushed further into Europe in search of food; Type-Bs should eat lean meats and proteins (not chicken) and green vegetables, should do mental/physical exercises, and evolved when they were pushed into the Himalayas; and Type ABs are a combination of Type A and Type B so it is suggested they combine both A and B diets and exercises.

In the last 6 months, I did the Blood Type Diet twice, for 6 weeks at a time.  I'm not sure if that's long enough to see results or to judge something properly.

I am type O+ (the most boring of the blood types) and just going by the website, I went on a high protein, intense exercise kick.  I ate half a piece of pumpernickel bread with every meal (because I was worried about my kidneys) and the rest was protein.  I also did circuit training and went swimming for an hour every day.

In the summer I noticed the best results.  I lost about 3" off my waist (which is good for me because I've always been the same size, which is weird).  I never was more happy in my life, and I was quite muscular.  I still have some muscle under there, I think.

I went off of it because it is a HARD diet to maintain.  Unless you pack a lunch of a picnic ham and a can of salmon, and travel with a chicken in your bag, you are going to break the rules.  Even if you did that, you'd still need to pack a cooler and a can opener.

I went back on it for a while in October until around the beginning of December and I lost about 7 lbs, which isn't really noticeable.  It was terrible, though.  I was starving, achy, bitchy and moody.  I went off it.

Now the thing with this diet is this: I noticed results, but it coincides with the other things that I was doing.  For example, in the summer, I was extremely happy.  But I was also exercising intensely, the sun was out, I started dating my boyfriend, etc etc.  Did the high protein really have anything to do with that?  Also, I noticed that the more omnivorous, regular diets coincide with the less common blood types, so it's more likely that the more common blood types will lose weight by picking up a more strict diet.  The Type O diet resembles the Atkins diet, the Type A diet is obvious because vegetarians who eat "fresh organic produce" are obviously consuming "less" calories.   Was I on the Atkins diet or the Blood Type Diet?

I want to believe that this diet actually works, but I'm not sure.  I believe Dr. D'Adamo and his evolutionary theories.  I'm Icelandic and everyone in my family has an O+ blood type, and I can see how my Viking relatives would have survived on high protein intake and intense bursts of exercise.   And it does say I'm more predisposed to ulcers and thyroid disorders (for me it's ulcers).  But...this screams fad to me.  People like to be different and have things specialized for them.  It's just obvious ways to decrease calories packaged into a feeling unique diet.  And it says that Os are outgoing.  No one in my family is outgoing!

So if you want to lose weight just eat less calories.  I've pretty much put myself through every fad imaginable, that's the only thing I can tell you.  I'm still going for it.