Mariannes Motifs

Bee Movie Review

Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie is a gentle children's movie about a young Bee named Barry, who graduates from college, but wants to explore the outside world before he choses the job that he will have in the hive for the rest of his life.

Barry B. Benson is a likable animated bee, voiced by Jerry Seinfeld himself.   Matthew Broderick voices his buddy Adam, and Renee Zellweger plays Vanessa Bloom, the human florist who Barry befriends while he is having his adventures in New York City.   The movie's advertising tagline, is "Honey just got Funny" and in fact it is a very cute and funny movie, with plenty of low key jokes to keep both kids and parents entertained.  It also has great pacing, some really cool animated action scenes that my kids just love, and snappy dialog that keeps the story moving along.

But what I find so interesting about this movie (having watching it three times so far on DVD as it is my 3 and 4 years olds current new favorite movie to play over and over) is the way Seinfeld gently leads the viewer through some quite sophisticated themes, ranging from the capitalist exploitation of the proletariat bees labor, to concepts of the value of work and leisure.   The viewer also shares Barry B's youthful angst as he tries to find his own niche in the world, while still trying not to disappoint his parents.  Some of the other social topics the film flits over are dating outside of your social group, and through the Mosquito character Mooseblood, voiced by Chris Rock, we have a glimpse of what its like to suffer the prejudice of being a member of a not-so-popular insect group.

Unlike the animated classic "Animal Farm" you don't feel like these socio-political themes are being pushed down your throat.  In my opinion, it's this light touch that makes the movie such a success.   Like all great children's films, you can chose what level you want to view it on.  To my 4 year old it is a film about the importance of Bees, and how they pollinate all the flowers.  When the Bees sue the humans and stop working, the flowers don't get pollinated and everything goes wrong all around the world.  Its a great environmental message.

But when I watch Bee Movie, I am thinking about what it really means to work for a living: the value that is paid to the worker, and the working conditions of all workers globally.  I ask, am I a honey stirrer in a good hive while others are working in a exploitative honey farm getting "smoked" by the bee keepers?

I am thinking about what would happen if all workers were paid a fair wage for the work and fair trade price for the products they produce.  I am thinking about what would happen if no-one worked and we stopped helping each other make the world a better place.  Ultimately I think Jerry Seinfeld's message is about that fine balance we call work/life.

Pardon me, I have to go back to stirring the honey; it's important, you know. 

Label World

Label World is a company that prints large orders of custom labels for industry.  The printing methods they use include, Flexography,  Digital Printing, and Screen Printing.  These  would be industrial pricing for things like Safety Labels, manufacturing labels, and large prints runs, so they'd be great for a winery needing to print wine bottle labels for a whole vintage, not for something like 20 custom wine labels for a wedding.

Knitting Motifs and Stitches

On Ravelry right now, the Loom-A-Long group is working on converting needle knitting patterns to loom knitting.  This is really cool, because it opens up the whole word of patterns to the loom knitter. Circular knitting patterns actually don't need any conversion for loom knitting, its the same concept.

Converting flat panel needle knit patterns to loom knit patterns

Loom Knit Designs including stitch instructions for all the stitches on the loom - from Isela.

Knitting Motifs - some really neat patterns like Peace sign, etc.  I think the Peace sign would look great in knits and pearls as a spa cloth or dishcloth.

List of knitting stitches from KnittingPatternCentral.com.

K2tog=Knit 2 together
SSK=Slip Slip Knit  Video of k2tog and ssk on loom - from Stephanie

Cucumber Kimchi Salad - (Oi Muchim)

Cucumber Kimchi Salad - (Oi Muchim)

also called Oi Moochim 

This is my mother in law's recipe. I think you would normally add about a Tablespoon Rice wine vineger to it as well, but she does not like anything sour so she does not add this.
Ingredients

5 small pickle cucumbers (sliced into thin quarter 1/2 moon shapes)

2 tsp salt

3 scallions chopped fine (slice the white part in half and then chop the white and green parts)

optional -1 tsp dashida Korean beef stock powder (could use msg or leave out of you don't have)

1 tsp garlic chopped fine

2 tsp roasted seasame seeds

2 tsp dark sesame oil

optional - add Korean red pepper to tastePreparation

Cut cucumbers in quarters and then slice into thin 1/2 moons. Put in a bowl and cover with salt while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Slice the thick white part of the scallions (green onion) and chop the white and green parts in a fine chop. Throw them in the bowl with the cucumbers.

Sprinkle about a tsp. of dashida beef stock base on the mix for flavor. Optionally you could use msg or just leave this out. You could also use rice wine vinager.

Chop about 1 tsp fresh garlic cloves in a fine chop and add. Sprinkle 2 tsp. Korean roasted sesame seeds on top - enough to cover in a light sprinkle. Add about 2 tsp dark Korean sesame oil. To make a spicy version of this add just a bit of Kroean red pepper flakes. I like to leave half the mixture without red pepper and half with.

Downtown Atlanta hit by Tornado

First of all, we are fine.  We has severe thunderstorms in the Northern suburbs and that was all.  Jin was out having a night out before my trip and I had trouble getting through to him and I was worried for a few minutes.  He was a a bar in Sandy Springs and was fine.

What I can't beleive is that I was at Phillips Arena 3 days before it got hit by a TORNADO.  (See the hockey pictures below)  Jin and I sat in the food court and had dinner before we went into the game.  Now I watch the local news and see the food court has no roof!

Wow.  You just never think of a tornado hitting downtown like that.  Alot of people were hurt but thank god no-one was killed.  And the Aquarium was about 1 foot away so thank god the big fish tank didn't get blown away.  Yikes.

Cash for Property

Recent problems in the mortgage markets have many people struggling to pay their mortgages and facing foreclosure.  This is such a sad situation.  Having a foreclosure on your credit record will make it even more difficult in the future for you to get your next car loan, or other credit that you may need in the future.  I predict that going forward, the problems we are currently seeing in the credit market are going to start bleeding over into consumer credit and it will be much harder to get credit cards and car loans if your credit is not top notch.

With the state of the real estate market also effected by the mortgage industry problems, many people are looking for a quick way to sell their house and get out of a bad loan situation.  One company that buys houses quickly for a reduced price is Properties Direct.  Basically, they give you cash for property without having to wait for a long time to find the right buyer.

While someone with time to put the house on the market with a traditional broker and wait and see what happens is going to get a better price for the house, a person facing repossession or who needs money right away to pay debts might want to take advantage of a quick property sale.

Colorado Avalanche Pictures

Jin and I got to go see the Atlanta Thrashers play the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night.  Jin's mom babysat the kids and we went to the game at Phillips Arena.

Jin is a huge Avalanche fan, and this is the only time he doesn't root for the Thrashers.  He wore his old old Quebec Nordiques jersey from before the team moved to Colorado,with Peter Forsberg on the back.  Unfortunately Forsberg had a groin injury (ouch) and did not play.  The Avalanche creamed the Trashers, who were playing like crap.  But  I had fun rooting for the opposite team than Jin just to be funny.  :-)

We made the usher take our picture.  It had really bad red-eye and I did a bad job fixing it, but its better than nothing, right?

We had great seats!  Just kidding - we were just up at the glass watching the warmup before the game.

Here is Adam Foote stretching.   He gave a double-take and smiled at us when he saw Jin's Nordiques jersey.  He's one of the few players that were with the team back then and wore that jersey.

Click on the photos to see the full size.

This is Joe Sakic during the warmup.  Joe's lookin' kinda tired.

Joe Sakic from the back.

Rant: Rude Customer Service from Allstate

Update: I am editing this post now that my temper has cooled down a bit.  My husband is calling the insurance agent to see if they can help.  I haven't had a call yet from a manager.  I took more pictures of damaged fridge and the power company is seeing if they can figure out if it was a lightning strike or a power surge that destroyed 3 expensive pieces of electric powered equipment at the same time.

I am going to give Allstate a chance to do the right thing before I say anything bad about them.

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Begin Rant:

You may remember some of my recent woes - my computer hard drive blew out, my Tivo blew out and my refrigerator died all at the same time.  At first I thought someone had left the fridge door open, but then realized that it was not working at all and all the food in it spoiled.

So I am thinking "self, I think what must have happened here is that in one of the recent storms we have had we got a power surge or a lightning strike."  I went and bought a new fridge because lets face it, you just can't live without a refrigerator.  I went to the Sears Outlet and got a scratch and dent fridge over the weekend.  It's to be delivered Tuesday.

So this morning I called Allstate to whom I have been paying homeowners insurance premiums for 12 years without having any claim paid.  I asked the guy that I had a new fridge coming tomorrow and they were going to haul away the old one but I had taken photos, would that be a problem.  It is a 13 year old fridge and I didn't think it was worth trying to repair. He said it shouldn't be a problem just take a picture.

Well the claim representative calls me at 5:00 PM as I am on my way home from work.  She tells me that I need to keep the broken fridge so they can assess what kind of damage was done to it and I need to attempt to have it repaired.  I ask what I would do to get rid of it after that and she says in a  snotty tone of voice "I really don't know."  Well, give me some advice, what am I supposed to do with a huge old frige.  She then tells me I have to PAY to have a repair person come try to fix the fridge and then if the claim is not covered for whatever reason I can't even have that bill reimbursed.  So now I have to find someone to check out a fridge at 5:00 PM, (No, she is not able to tell me who to call, she informs me that she is in North Carolina and would not know who to call in Georgia again in that snotty tone of voice) and then keep the broken fridge until they tell me its ok to get rid of it, then I would have to pay to have the old fridge hauled off AFTER whatever amount of time Allstate determines I need to keep it in case they want to see it.

When I asked to speak to a manager she told me they didn't have any available.  I asked to have one call me first thing in the morning and she said that might not be possible either.  Whatever.  Thanks so much for the excellent customer service.  And yes I am being TOTALLY SARCASTIC.

If this is how they treat customers who have just lost very expensive and necessary pieces of equipment in their house how do they treat people with catastrophic losses?

End rant.

Search Engine Optimization

Since I've been selling my t-shirts and trying to make a few dollars from my blog, I've been trying to learn about search engine optimization.  I just came across an interesting blog, Apogee Search Blog,  from a Search Engine Marketing firm out of Texas called Apogee Search.

It's fairly common for companies to pay a firm like Apogee to help them make sure that their web sites come up somewhere decent in web search results. Those looking for SEO in Houston might consider giving them a try.

I've been trying to work the process naturally by requesting that Google add my site, asking my digiscrapping colleagues to add a link to the blog to their sites if they wish, etc.  But its a slow process.  I can certainly understand why people do gladly pay for advisement in Search Engine Marketing.

Spring is Coming

Spring is coming.   But we've been having the weirdest weather.  Friday it was in the 60s.  Saturday it snowed and was in the 30s.  Then today, Sunday, it was warm again.  My sinuses are still freaking out from all these crazy air pressure changes.

My Mom-In-Law made it in from Columbus, Ohio today after a grueling day traveling.  Her first flight was delayed due to weather delays from the storms yesterday, so she missed her connecting flight.  She is so happy to be here and the kids are just tickled pink to have their grandma here to stay for 2 weeks.  (Although Ben was kind of upset because he though Grandma Jeanette was coming and got a bit of a surprise when Grandma Lee showed up.  Oops!)

Here are some pictures I took today walking around the neigborhood with the boys.  As you can see, there are definate sings that spring is coming.