A Little Time Off (tv, movies, entertainment, food)

It might seem counterintuitive that someone who doesn't have a job needs a little time off, but between going to the gym to kill time, the job searching, and constantly hearing nothing, the stress adds up almost as much as back when I was trading. So I took a couple of weeks off from the gym, watched some TV, movies, and did some non-diet eating.

Besides February sweeps, I managed to watch all of the past season of Dexter on demand. I thought it was an okay season. I think the best seasons were when it was all about perfect execution and not this dealing with and teaching amateurs stuff. I think Dexter plays to the level of his competition and if they forgot about Lumen and focused on strengthening the Jordan Chase character the season could've been better.

I also managed to catch a couple of movies for the first time in a long time. The Fighter was extremely good. I tend to like good boxing movies in general, but this was much more than that. If they had decided to cover the Ward-Gatti fights as well I would have been happy to sit there and watch for two more hours.

While waiting to catch another full movie, I saw about half an hour of The Black Swan, and I really enjoyed it. I think I definitely have to catch the whole thing. Aronofsky's vision and direction looked terrific and I'm a big fan of The Wrestler. I'm also a fan of the Japanese anime Perfect Blue, which bears some similarity to The Black Swan, and the rights to which Aronofsky bought.

Based on a recommendation from my friend BL, I saw Cedar Rapids and enjoyed it very much. It's an enjoyable, entertaining film, the kind where I doubt anyone would think that they wasted their time after watching it. It had a good mix of jokes, wasn't too over the top, and had good characters played well by a quality cast.

Then there was food. The same friend, BL, has been talking up the burger at J G Melon for a long time, and I finally got a chance to try it out. It was indeed magnificent.

The bacon cheeseburger with sauteed onions. An interesting patty size that is between a Shake Shack burger and a pub burger. The bacon was crispy, the cheese was melted, and there was a plenty of good beef flavor and a good griddled crust. This was a winner.

A glorious cross section shot after one bite. Notice the loosely packed meat there. The only thing is that they tend to cook slightly over requested, so my medium rare showed more signs of medium. I probably should order it rare next time.

Cottage fries, which are just regular fries but cut like pickle slices. Increases the fried surface area and was pretty good. They also have a signature drink here called the bloody bull which I did not try. It's essentially a bloody mary with beef broth added in.

Jackson Diner is pretty famous as an Indian restaurant in NYC. It used to be one of the most highly recommended Indian restaurants, but in recent years has received many more reviews expressing disappointment. They recently opened a branch in Manhattan, but I'm not going to go there when the Jackson Heights location is so close to where I live. Their lunch buffet is slightly more expensive ($10) than other nearby Indian places, but I found the quality of the food to be better, and they also had this as part of the buffet:

Freshly made masala dosa stuffed with a nicely spiced potato and onion mix.

Oh well, back to the gym and trying to find a job.