The Mind's I: iko's journal

Perspective...

I love to cook.

This isn't mine. This is actually from Mike, an excellent cook. It goes well with herbal chicken.. or, for the veggie heads out there, with some delicious grilled vegetables, especially thick portabello muchrooms. Mm.

Ingredients
Half a package of wild rice.
White rice, cooked.
Two or three green onions, chopped.
Five to seven white button mushrooms, sliced thickly.
One medium-sized garlic clove diced finely.
Marjoram, quite a bit.
Sage.
Thyme.
Pepper.
Salt.
Butter (can be substituted with olive oil for those objecting to animal products... but butter is much better than olive oil).

Cook the wild rice according to the package instructions.

Put butter into a frying pan. Let it melt and add the garlic, green onion, and mushrooms to it and cook lightly. Then sprinkle the bottom of the pan with marjoram, sage, thyme, pepper, and salt. Add the white rice and the wild rice and stir until thoroughly coated with spices. Fry until aromatic and add more butter if necessary to add a light shine to the rice.

Serve hot.

Surfing...

Cube
A very cool site. The table arrangements have inspired me a little... let's see what I come up with.

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April 24, 1999

Cube

When I was younger, I used to watch many horror flicks. Nowadays, I see far more science fiction films or dramas or experimental films... and the occasional Mike-extremely-dislikes films where nothing really happens and the film is more of an exercise in character development. This is the genre that contains films like The Double Life of Veronique and The Unbearable Lightness of Being and, Mike's favorite of the group, Jesus De Montreal. If you haven't seen that movie, Constant Reader, run to your video store and check out the foreign films section. It's a beautiful film. The message from the film is powerful, and very inspiring for artists.

Anyway, in high school, I was obsessed with Freddie Krueger (Robert Englund is yummy) and Stephen King. Clive Barker was a frequent bedfellow. I think that I've grown up from that, although the occasional scare is a nice thing. I found one yesterday when I saw Cube. I was blown away. This film is stunning. The concept is simple, yet complex. It asks questions on human nature and shows how we're not so far removed from our animal counterparts that we feel we're above. We all behave the same way when we're trapped and confined.

The movie stars Nicole DeBoer, who I didn't recognize until later in the film. Ms. DeBoer is the actress that plays the new Dax (Ezri, not Jadzia) on Deep Space Nine. In Cube she plays a mathematical genuis named Leavin (pretty name!). She is put into what appears to be a series of cubes connected to each other along with a number of other fascinating characters: Quentin, a black, mean police officer with a penchant for young ladies; Worth, a nervous and cynical man; Kazan, an autistic man who hates red rooms; Holloway, a paranoid psychologist; Rennes, a security systems expert, and Alderson (although you really don't see much of him.. but that can be argued).

Seven characters dumped into a complex, fascinating maze. The maze itself is a character. It has a personality of its own, in its own mechanical way. I can't describe it to you, Constant Reader. Like the Matrix, "You have to see it for yourself". (I have a feeling that phrase will find itself greatly overused the next few months.) From the little research that I've done on the web, I've discovered that the mathematics in the film is actually quite accurate. I think this contributes to the reason why I like Ms. DeBoer's character... because she discovers these mathematical patterns and I always admire a mind like that.

This movie definitely falls under the category of "cult classic". Granted, it's no Brazil, but it's a quirky little film that does warrant rewatching.
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Taking the timeline to today, I saw The Matrix with my ma and pa today. My father really enjoyed it and has stopped ridiculing my efforts to get everyone in the household to watch the flick with me. My mother fell asleep during the film, primarily because she was exhausted. We don't know exactly what parts of the film she watched. I teased her that she'd better stay awake for Elizabeth, otherwise she'll get lost on who is who and what is what.