Cassie: The District Chophouse didn't really scream vegetarian to me. All I could think of as I sat in our plump leather booth and munched on the complimentary cornbread was the sad, screaming cow they used to make Caitlin's Chophouse burger. And so begins our second Caitlin-Cassie adventure. Caitlin: Cassie and I had been wandering around downtown D.C. for an hour and a half in the oddly warm October sunlight, and I was thirsty. Not bloodthirsty as some vegetarians (ahem, Cassie) might put it, but I had a definite hankering for a Diet Coke.
It's school time again, and you know what that means! The familiar smell of freshly-sharpened pencils, the creak of textbooks as they open for the first time and, above all, that sense of overwhelming, all-encompassing dread as you walk through the doors on the first day.
How far would you go to get people to listen to you? Would you start a protest? Send around a petition? Call your senator? Commit suicide?
It's that time of the week again. Curled up on the couch, basking in the television's glow, you're ready for the one thing that makes your week worth slogging through: your favorite television program. But then you realize that your show isn't on this week! It's on hiatus! You've been building yourself up all week for nothing! You may as well climb the long, dark stairs to your room and collapse on the floor in a quivering mass of pure, boneless misery. Don't do that. Please.
There are so many ways to describe "Hannibal Rising." Brutal. Bloody. Cruel. Innovative, in some ways, and disturbing in all the rest.
Machine gun fire shatters the air. The wall of a nearby building explodes outwards, showering those running for cover in debris. A woman screams — and is abruptly silenced by the "pop" of a pistol. Men and women round the corner, running for some kind of shelter, only to be met with soldiers in tanks, who open fire on all they see. Something that could only be blood splatters on the camera lens which records the humanity in a way that is somehow both removed and compassionate. Iraq? No — this is England, part of the "civilized" west, 20 years from now.
"Oh Eight!" "Freshmen suck!" Ah, the joyful sounds of school spirit. The crowds during the Homecoming football game on Oct. 13 simply ooze spirit and class unity. The game marked the end of Spirit Week, five days when it was impossible to set foot inside the school without wandering into big, exciting clouds of spirit. One week later, the football team ran onto the field to the sound of chirping crickets - not a fan in sight.
"What would happen if a fake newsman like Jon Stewart decided to run for president?" This is not the question that the new Robin Williams movie, "Man of the Year," asks the audience. The real question is, "What would happen if Jon Stewart decided to run for president, and then there was a voting scandal and some massive cover-up and a giant conspiracy that Laura Linney was attempting desperately to uncover and mysterious men in black? And what if there was an awkward romance between Linney and Williams, even though Williams is probably old enough to be her father?"
The wonderful thing about living in the 21th century is the diminished role that stereotypes play in our society. No longer are people judged on the color of their skin or their religion or their gender — or the color of their hair.
"They tell me I'm very photogenic," says Elizabeth Short, the infamously murdered Black Dahlia. Photogenic, "The Black Dahlia," isn't. Ten minutes into the film, a man in the audience was already asleep, befuddled by all the confusing and unrelated plotlines that the scriptwriters seemed to enjoy throwing in and amazed that actors as talented as Scarlett Johannson, Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank could be so terrible. And the less said about Josh Hartnett and his suspenders the better.