May the fourth be with you, always!

Happy Star Wars day everyone.

It's the best time of the year for my geekly readers, first off, who could have come up with a better time to release the Avenegers than on Star Wars day? It's a brilliant move for, even if it was probably unintentional.

Of course that also means that for the first time in longer than I can remember, I won't be watching a Star Wars flick on May 4. Thanks to work, and then the Avengers, I just won't get the time to get away. I hope you can all forgive my sins. There just isn't a way for me to get out of work tomorrow, short of say cutting off a toe...

Anyway, good luck to you all, and of course, MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!

Avengers Assemble

Less than 27 hours from the premiere, and yes I am excited.

Avengers Assemble!

At last, after years of fervent anticipation, we can all commence with fully unfettered geeking. A team of Earth's Mightiest Heroes is here to save us from cinematic drudgery, led by Team Captain (okay, or writer/director) Joss Whedon, a man who knows his way around both a comic book and a witty script.

THE AVENGERS gathers superheroes from the best Marvel movies of the past few years: Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and introducing Mark Ruffalo's brand new take on The Incredible Hulk. The trailer is spectacular. The cast is phenomenal. Joss Whedon is in charge! I find it impossible to believe that this movie will be anything less than brain-meltingly transcendent.
Get excited. THE AVENGERS are coming. 

What's Cooking Detroit?

I took my family (Grandmother, mother, and step-sister) to the What's Cooking Detroit food expo to at the Palace of Auburn Hills. Overall it was a pretty cool day, but we were all a bit disappointed with the cooking demonstration my celebrity chef Buddy Velastro. Buddy is the "Cake Boss" yet he made potatoes and lamb chops rather than any cake related things.   Here are a couple of videos from the day. The first one is just footage from some of the booths, the second is most of Buddy's presentation.

CULTURE CAST: Episode One, Star Wars style

In this first episode of the 'Culture Cast, our heroes talk to Craig Derrick, the lead producer for Kinect Star Wars.



This is the first episode of my newly created podcast. Co-starring, David Komer. Sorry for the messed up audio levels, it' s a work in progress nailing this thing down exactly.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Three Stooges

I didn't give this one a star rating in the review, but overall, I'd say a solid 4 of 5 for The Three Stooges

CAST (in credits order)

	Sean Hayes	...	Larry
	Will Sasso	...	Curly
	Chris Diamantopoulos	...	Moe
	Jane Lynch	...	Mother Superior
	Sofía Vergara	...	Lydia
	Jennifer Hudson	...	Sister Rosemary
	Craig Bierko	...	Mac
	Stephen Collins	...	Mr. Harter
	Larry David	...	Sister Mary-Mengele
	Kirby Heyborne	...	Teddy
	Carly Craig	...	Mrs. Harter
	Kate Upton	...	Sister Bernice
	Marianne Leone	...	Sister Ricarda
	Brian Doyle-Murray	...	Monsignor Ratliffe
	Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino	...	The Situation (as Michael Sorrentino)
	Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi	...	Snooki (as Nicole Polizzi)
	Jenni Farley	...	JWoww (as Jenni 'JWoww' Farley)
	Ronnie Ortiz-Magro	...	Ronnie (as Ronnie Magro)
	Sammi 'Sweetheart' Giancola	...	Sammi (as Samantha Giancola)
	Avalon Robbins	...	Murph
	Max Charles	...	Peezer

Directed by the Farrelly Brothers.

Isn't it great when things Kinect?

Ok so today was an odd day at work to say the least, I won't go into it in detail as I'm sure most of you don't care. Everyone has good and bad days at work, lets just say today was a bad one, until about 4 p.m. that is.

You see faithful readers, what happened at 4 p.m. was one of the cooler things that I have had a chance to do since joining the News-Herald almost a year ago.

I got to interview a local Trenton high graduate, Craig Derrick, yeah I know that doesn't sound all that interesting right off the top, but this particular 1991 THS grad moved on to work in the video game field, and just recently had his first game released through LucasArts, it's a part of a tiny little franchise, maybe you've heard of it. Star Wars? Yeah I thought so.

I got to invite a co-worker, David Komer into the phone interview, and we recorded it for the first episode of what will become a weekly, or at least biweekly podcast about pop culture and the like. Hopefully we'll have it available for you in the near future. In another piece of multi-tasking, we'll also be combining to produce a print article for all of the Downriver denizens as well as anyone else that may want to read about Craig or Star Wars. I hope you all enjoy, and make sure to tune in a bit later when the 'Culture Cast is released.

Chicken Parmesan Casserole

This looks good, hopefully it turns out better than the last recipe that I tried.

Ingredients: 
2 tbsp olive oil 
2 cloves garlic, crushed 
hot red pepper flakes, to taste 
6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (I used 5, but they were huge!) 
2 cups marinara sauce 
1/4 cup chopped basil 
8 oz mozzarella, shredded 
4 oz Parmesan, grated 
1 (5-oz) package garlic croutons