Broad Audit

Outback Steakhouse Bloomin Onion

I went to Outback (first time) with a bunch of pals a couple weeks ago. I don’t eat meat so there were few options for me (Caesar salad hold everything thanks!) but I had heard a lot about the Bloomin Onion*. It did not disappoint, very delicious, I liked the dip. Not enough to go back.

Aftermath:

*I read online it’s over 3000 calories so you probably want to share this with anyone you can find.

After countless stellar reviews I finally made my way to see Avatar. Literally every one I know that saw this said it was great, phenomenal, amazing, etc… I thought the trailer looked awful, I had no intention of seeing the movie. Computer generated blue monkey savages fighting against futuristic blood hungry military. It looked really bad. But I didn’t hate the movie, I certainly did not love it like every one else seemed to. In retrospect I’m really surprised I didn’t enjoy it so much since the plot was an EXACT rip off of a movie I did love, The Last Samurai. The visual effects were kinda cool, the computers are definitely the stars of this film. Just insane computer generated effects and sets. About 90% of the movie is set in a space forest and they did a lot of work putting that together. It looked really good. But it just wasn’t that good of a movie to me(excluding all the effects and crazy looking shit). I’ll break this down to exactly what it is: it’s 1 part Star Wars faggy sci-fi bullshit and effects, 1 part Last Samurai, 1 part Dances With Wolves, 1 part extremely cliche war movie.

This movie is raking it in though. It was released 10 days ago and its STILL selling out every showtime. I’m sure they’ll win a ton of awards, the effects crew does deserve it.

I guess go see it, I dunno. It was alright.

This is a movie that should not have been made. Ugh. I came into it with very mild expectations. I felt like I owed it to the first movie to go see the second. The first movie was so good and hit on every level. 10 years later the sequel is finally released. The only theatre in town showing it was Pembroke Mall… this is a dump of a theatre for sure. The sound was cutting in and out the entire movie, not completely out, but like half the speakers cutting out, it would get loud for a minute then quieter for 5 minutes. I was annoyed to no end. The movie left me just as annoyed.

As I said, this movie just should not have been made. It was a forced re-creation of the first one. Not a continuation of the story really, just a cheap imitation of the original. They wrote in a Mexican sidekick who takes on the part of Rocco from the first movie. He is supposed to be funny and the butt of several unfunny jokes. The whole comedy angle in the movie was terrible. So many failed attempts at humor. The first one was funny at a couple moments but focused more on being bad ass. ALL SAINTS DAY tried really hard to make us laugh and it just did not work.

Even the fight scenes/executions were second rate. There isn’t as much killing in this one, but the few killing scenes there are just fail to impress. They completely ripped off the big hotel execution scene from the first movie. They replaced Willem Dafoe with a semi-hot southern belle FBI agent who takes on the same part as Dafoe’s character in helping the boys do God’s work. The original three Boston cops are back in action and have WAAAAAY too much dialogue. They’re terrible actors and shouldn’t have more than a few lines each, but take on somewhat major characters in this one.

There isn’t much else to say about this. Its a bobo version of the first movie with poor acting all around and even worse writing. Really stereotypical roles and bad taste. The worst part of all is that they left it open for a third movie. Lets just pray that some vigilante fans execute the makers of this fraud before they start filming a third installment.

alright guys. I’ve decided to pick Broad Audit up again for a bit. I’ve got a couple things on my plate that I think would make decent reviews so look for a few updates soon….

the other night Jason and I went on a double feature with lovely escorts Emily Streit and Sarah Serrano. we saw Inglourious Basterds and District 9. first film up was Inglourious Basterds. Emma and I had seen this already but were more than willing to see it again. I don’t think I need to harp much on this movie. but I’ll say this, if you like Tarantino flicks, you like this one. it goes along with his style perfectly: chapters, lots of character development and back story, narrative dialogue, and some intense gore. I think its easy for people to bash on Brad Pitt for whatever reason, but this guy made the movie. Lt. Aldo Raine was perfectly written and perfectly performed. Pitt’s role coupled with SS Colonel Hans Landa made this easily the best movie of the year for me. so without wasting words on details, just go see this movie. most of you already have I’m sure.

now onto District 9… I can not say enough how much I HATED this movie. believe me, I get it. I just wasn’t into it. now I’m not in on movies like Transformers and GI Joe and that sort, so I guess I just don’t care that “this movie is everything that Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe tried - and failed - to be.” I assumed Transformers and GI Joe would be awful movies, and so was this one. District 9 is supposed to be a social commentary on immigration and racism. imagine the opening scene from Scarface, where all the Cuban immigrants are living under the overpass in a government camp, or like in the 1940’s when America rounded up all its Japanese citizens. it also happened in South Africa in 1966, 60,000 people where removed from their homes and the Sixth Municipal Discrict of Cape Town South Africa was deemed a “whites only” district. this is where the movie gets its title and inspiration from I’m sure. so South Africa has 1.8 million aliens living in camps and the locals are pissed. the aliens are becoming a financial and social burden so they try to relocate the aliens to a “camp” outside of the city and away from the masses. so without giving too much away, somehow in all the relocating hubbub shit gets raw and people/aliens/buildings get blown the fuck up. while I have several problems with this movie I did like that certain scenes and sets look really awesome, Peter Jackson made a cool looking movie. I thought it was funny that some of the aliens were slightly stereotyped and really unintelligent. I like that there’s no star power, there’s not one actor I’ve ever seen before in this one. that’s about where the love fest ends for me in this one. its shot in that faux documentary style where they think its a good idea to shake the camera around the entire movie so it makes me feel nauseous just looking at the screen. the trailer told me next to nothing about the movie, I’m not sure if I actually dislike that yet, I think its almost smart. because if I’d known the plot to this movie I definitely would not have wasted my time on it. the plot was just retarded. so many flaws. they find these aliens on a ship that’s just broken down. they look like they’re sick and starving so they bring em down to earth to save them. 20 years later they’re still stuck with em and they’ve become a giant pain in the ass…

ok, but they’ve got 1.8 million aliens living in third world/concentration camp type conditions. these aliens are making some next level weapons the whole movie, and they just get their weapons confiscated the whole time? bullshit. there’s 1.8 million of these mother fuckers. and they’re making weapons that are leveling entire buildings and melting people to pools of blood and shit… 1.8 million of em. you think some South African military group is gonna be able to contain that? really? no. these dudes would just take over the whole world if they wanted to. I think the biggest problem i have with the movie is that it’s made me question the company that I keep. my friends are idiots. every person that I’ve talked to about this movie, and given my very enthusiastic thumbs down, has been extremely surprised with the bad review. apparently everyone who is anyone is raving about this movie. literally everyone that I’ve told that I hated District 9 has either argued that it was amazing or replied with something like “Really?!? I’ve heard soooo many awesome things.” or “Man, I was really looking forward to that movie.” or “Damn, Jerry said it was great.”. well by all means, don’t take my word for it. I’m just one viewer. it seems like the general consensus is that this movie was very good. I hated it.

tonight i had dinner reservations for 10 at Volcano Sushi & Grill. it was nice. i was vegetarian for maybe 7 years until this year, i started eating fish. id never had sushi before and to be quite honest i was terrified and disgusted by the idea of it. but due to peer pressure i gave in and had my first experience tonight. it was good.

on the advice of my personal sushi mediators, Brittney, John and Lauren, i kept my order simple, yet daring for a sushi novice such as myself. i ordered a “dinner box?” which included a soup, salad, and 3 choices of sushi type things off this huge list. i chose spicy tuna rolls, volcano rolls, and shrimp tempura rolls. it was a lot more food than i expected really. $20 got me a soft drink, a soup, a salad and this:id taken a couple bites by the time the picture was taken. i liked it all. the tuna rolls were my least favorite. i really liked the tempura and volcano rolls though. i had to force it all down, it was surprisingly filling. MSG? and i don’t throw away food so… I’m stuffed. i guess since we were there with such a large party, and the economy sucks they gave us some free appetizers to butter up hopeful return customers. it worked, the appetizer was awesome. i don’t remember exactly what it was called. happy face, or happy feet or something. it was really good though, actually, that was the best thing i ate. all in all i enjoyed it and will eat more sushi in the future. it was pretty good. not TOO expensive really. backed.

I’m told by certain food critics that Volcano is not the place to break greens if you’re a sushi noob. but i thought it was good, so hopefully it only gets better as you graduate onto better sushi joints.

ugh. i wish i wasn’t. let me begin with letting you all know a little something about myself. i am a grown ass man. i don’t read fucking comic books or “graphic novels”. i like sports. i play poker. i fuck chicks. I’m a fucking man. that being said, i thought this movie was straight up bad. alright here’s the plot without giving up any juice for the dweebs that didn’t go out opening night to see this: an ex-superhero is murdered, a vigilante named Rorschach begins an investigation into the murder, which begins to lead to a much more terrifying conclusion. alright, this movie was rated R. for good reason. plenty of gore and nudity for a “comic book” movie. it was also a painful 163 minutes long. about 150 of those minutes were wasted explaining the extremely looooooong boring plot lines and character backgrounds.

the first half of the movie was insanely slow and sleep inducing. way too much plot and little to no action to speak of. most of the characters are lame as crap also. the main group of vigilantes is a night owl guy, who’s really just a nerd who’s into birds and mythology. the worlds smartest man, seriously, that’s a guys power, hes smart. cool. some slut who’s only “power” seems to be to have sex with half of the super heroes in her posse. a member of the blue man group, who is some all invincible, all knowing, all seeing, telepathic, telaporting asshole, hes like a blue, naked Buddha. and last my favorite and I’m sure general crowd favorite Rorschach, i don’t know about the “book” but this guy is the true star of the movie. hes the only reason to watch. he rules new york with an iron fist. no mercy, no surrender. throughout the movie he pretty much calls everyone a pussy and beats the shit out of people. so once they finally get all the back story told they bring on some excellent action scenes. from street justice brawls, to awesome jailhouse fights, even with a few sex scenes thrown around in the mix(not jailhouse sex). I’ll give it to them, the fight scenes were awesome. some of the special effects and the way the super heroes fought were creative and really the only thing that kept me entertained. the acting…. oh man, the acting was awful. there wasn’t a single actor that i recognized really. and they all stunk, excluding only the man who played Rorschach. the actor/character was all around awesome. BUT i will say this… attn: Rorschach, Batman called, he wants his voice back. i LOVED The Dark Knight, loved it. and i felt obligated to defend any and every negative thing people had to say about the movie. and at least in my particular circle of friends i heard a ton of criticism on Batman’s “super hero voice”… Rorschach had the same exact voice. i don’t predict i hear one person say anything about it in this movie.

i should also mention that the movie takes from the 60s into the late 80s with an alternate past. America was successful in the Vietnam War, thanks in part to Watchmen, and Nixon is some sort of dictator. the bulk of the movie takes place in the 80s in heightened Cold War scare time.

there’s a lot i could say, but i fear I’d give up too much of the movie really. so i don’t really know what else i can say about it without spoiler content. just know that its a really long movie that moves incredibly slow, then has some worth while action moments, then moves on to its again slow boring ending.

all in all, i think it was pretty boring. i could have done with about 30-40 minutes less of endless plot, and more action. it was a really long movie to begin with and with the lack of action it just made it seem like a lifetime. if I’d went to a showing after 8pm, i bet i could’ve fallen asleep. i did however love the soundtrack. full of songs from the appropriate time frames and good, relevant choices for the situations.

me and Emma rented the movie Changeling last night. this isn’t going to be funny, i just liked the movie, I’ve read a handful of awful reviews and don’t know many people who have seen it, so I’m gonna give you my rundown of it and tell you to netflix this bad boy.

from the  director that brought you the racist hit Gran Tarino, and nationalist docu-drama’s Letters From Iwo Jima, and Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood corrals Angie Jolie, and my man, KGB, John Malkovichok to star in this joint. the movie is not “based” on a true story, it is not “inspired” by a true story, it IS a true story. this single mother raising her 9 year old son in the late 1920’s L.A. comes home after being called in on her day off, only to find that her son is missing. her son goes missing 5 months, till the LAPD find her boy… only it isn’t her son. she is insistent that this boy is not her son, and this embarrasses a police department that is already walking on egg shells with its city. when Mrs. Collins(jolie) rasies a big stink over the whole thing they throw her in a mental ward. Malcovich’s character is the west coast Pat Robetson i guess, he’s some rich, big shot televangelist who has made it his life’s work to rid the city of its corrupt, violent police force and sees this case as a great way to do just that.  so Malcovich gets some hot shot lawyer to get her out of the loony bin and they put the LAPD on trial. there’s so much more to the movie but id really not want to give it all away. but yea, if you know my taste in movies at all, and you agree with it in the slightest, you may enjoy this one.

red box this shit.

my friend jason and i have been joking about going to this new hair salon “for guys” called Knockouts, which is supposed to be like the Hooters of hair cutteries, and when i told him about this today, he suggested i audit…

so I’ve been told several times by numerous people that it was haircut time for ol’ dobson here, so i gave in to peer pressure and got an edge up. i only get haircuts like 3 or 4 times a year, and i wear a hat everyday, so these things have never been a big deal to me… until now.

I’m in love with my hair “stylist”. she’s cut my hair once before, and i wrote this about her on a local message board that i frequent when i was asking other gentlemen where they get their hair did…

“Ok, I had some time to kill and was in Hilltop so I went into Dimensions Hair Studio. It was very good. A cute girl named Kelly did my hair. She washed it and gave me a DANK head massage(I’m not gonna lie, I was slightly aroused) and did a pretty good job on my hair. I detected some quality flirtyness, but that’s their job I guess kinda. Fuck it, she was into me. It was $20 though, I’m used to a $12 haircut. But she did a good job, I will return for the happy ending and her phone number in 2-3 months.

Oh, side note… while doing my hair she gave her standard small talk “what’re you doing tonight?” and I said going to eat and see some bands play. And she asked what bands, what type of band or some crap. And I said “oh, I doubt you’d heard of them, just some loud rock bands” and she says she’s into loud music and that’s the stuff she listens to and that I shouldn’t judge her by her barbie doll hair stylist facade because she just has to look/act that way for work and she told me to check out some band but their name went in one ear and out the other…  but I think she was just trying to get me to ask her to come to dinner/show. Thinking about it, she was def into me. She called me Johnny Cash when my hair was slicked back and she almost landed me for that one.”- july 14, 2008

so today i went back for round two… of course i had an appointment to ensure that i would be seen by kelly again. let me be more descriptive about her looks since this is a full on audit of this place. shes short, “thick” dare i say a little “chunky” without meaning it negatively? has some meat or baby fat on her bones, she reminds me of nicole kidman if she were a foot shorter and were really into Wawa subs or something. ok, you get it. so i sit down, she asks what we’re doing with my hair, bla bla bla. while she’s going to town on my head, she asks if I’m a hockey fan, i answered that i was a very casual fan and barely follow at all, but can get into the sport. she starts telling me how awesome the flyers/caps game last night was, which leads to other sports talk. she says she’s a fan of all the Philadelphia teams, loves the eagles, could watch football all day, every day, and doesn’t get into basketball really because “the Sixers suck”. all of this is said while i am not with a Phils hat, or any philly paraphernalia. she asks what teams i back, and i have to tell her of my unhealthy obsession with the Philadelphia Phillies, so we talk baseball a bit, then she goes back to football, saying “she cant stand Andy Reid”… so legit. i disagree with her, but I’m really into how SPORTS! she is. eventually the haircut comes to an end and i must go. pretty much end of the story until 3 or 4 months of hair growth call me back into her chair, where i can talk sports like I’m hanging out with dudes on a sunday afternoon, get my head massaged like I’m in a fucking spa, and get hit on by an attractive young lady.

so the long/short of it is this, Dimensions pretty much is the Hooters of haircuts. all the stylists are pretty attractive, and you can go in there, talk hockey and get hit on. mike lawson seal of approval.

so it would only make sense that eventually we’d start doing some music reviews. its after 2am on thursday night, i have nothing better to do. im gonna tell you what i think about my most recent album acquisition, Shook Ones/End of a Year split 7”.

before i get into this record let me say that i do like both of these bands… you wouldnt think so after you read what i have to say about this record.

i’ll start with End of a Year. for those who may not know them, they play a rare form of punk that isnt played/appreciated enough nowadays in todays punk rock scene. its a “revolution summer” vibe that gets compared to Rites of Spring and Embrace a lot, its a fair comparison. now the record…they only did one song. lame. it does ring in at over 5 minutes, but i dont want that from this band. i dont want it from any band really. the only good song thats over 5 minutes long is Boston- Foreplay/Long time. i just dont like this song. boring. long. same riff over and over. poor recording quality for them, but that may have even been intentional. while the vocals for this band have always seemed whiney to me ive never had a problem with them until hearing this song. it just got annoying. the song lacks energy and i dont think it is well written enough to just be the laid back chiller of a song that i think they were going for.

no onto Shook Ones… this band dubbed themselves a Kid Dynamite/Lifetime worship band and its exactly what they are. this record is no different. short, fast, melodic punk songs, full of “whoooaaooooo”s and sing a longs. they bring 4 songs ringing in at barely over 4 minutes total. once again im disappointed. these songs just seem thrown together for the sake of making a record. all of them, with the exception of “Asterisk”, just dont seem finished. i think they just tossed together 4 “fast” riffs and a couple melodic parts and went to the studio. it just seems like a really poor effort on both bands parts. i know theyre friends and they just wanted to do a record with their buddy bands but still, shouldnt you put some thought into the songs and make them good still? maybe i’ll be alone in this one, but i think these are the worst songs either band has done.

ok, so i bashed this record enough. i feel like i should say how i feel about both bands, excluding these bad songs, so it doesnt seem like im killing them. i really like both of these bands. end of a year play a style that you dont hear very much right now, and they play it well. ive seen them live a couple of times and their singer always has great things to say between songs whether its explaining lyrics or just talking about whatevers on his mind. it never sounds rehearsed or like some bullshit speech and i love that. theyre energetic and fun to watch play, and most of their songs are really well written and unique from what every other punk band is doing now. shook ones are no different, they are really fun guys. ive seen them play HUGE shows at fests and ive seen them play the smallest show and they act the same on stage no matter how many people are watching them. they just come to play. they were supposed to play norfolk last year on halloween and the show was shut down before they played, and outside jamie seagraves was joking with me about how they should just come play in our practice space and one of the band members overheard us and they all got really excited and wanted to do it. so they drove to chesapeake and played a storage shed to 15 people. thats awesome. most bands wouldve packed up with their nose in the air and said “fuck this town”, but they just wanted to play.

so in closing both of these bands are really good, but this record is terrible.

now i leave you with this…

last saturday night emma and i went on a date type evening with fellow couples travis/blair, and J.Bibby/becca. we had your standard dinner and a movie date. for dinner i suggested we go to travis and blairs’ favorite spot, Vietnam Garden in virginia beach. id been there once before with Streit house and remember not caring for it too much, but on the request of a couple of Broad Audit readers i gave it another chance and looked to audit my meal to appease the reading public.

ok. so first of all, we had a party of 6. thats no unusual is it? 6 people is not hard to accommodate is it? well apparently the vietnam garden needs to prepare for a rush of customers of this gigantic proportion. the fucking mean, old dude that runs the place gave us some lip for not calling in advance with such a large party. i mean, there were plenty of empty seats. fucking John and Kate Plus 8 could have come in and sat down with no wait and still had room to seat us.

so we sit for 20 minutes or so and becca and jehou finally arrive. our waitress is this wonderfully cute asian women. she takes our order, recommends something for travis to have since he was unsure, and was just generally pleasant and happy, i dont know how since the fucking Grinch of Vietnam was yelling at her the whole time in the back. we get some sort of sesame pancakes as an appetizer, they were awesome. theyre like fried corn meal type stuff, with some sort of vegetable in it i guess cause there were specs of green inside the pancakes, but while we wait for that… the previously mentioned saint of vietnam tried to poison us with some chicken dumpling bullshit that she brought “on the house”, BITCH! WE’RE VEG! emma and i almost ate it cause we didnt know what it was and we were getting impatient waiting for the waitress to come back so we could ask what was in it.

the pancakes were awesome and stole the meal for me. i loved them, i could have just got a plate of those and been happy.

me and emily both ordered what i guess is the vietnamese version of Pad Thai Tofu. it was ok. everyone else’s order looked really interesting yet not really good to me, except for travis’. he got some green beans and tofu meal that was good, i tasted.

so now its time to pay. us being the young, cheap, difficult kids we are, of course need the check separated. DUH. act like youve had a table full of 20-somethings before. its not on 1 bill. so of course the guy is gonna bust our balls. this guy looks like an aged, fat version of Luigi from the Super Mario Bros. games. he was rocking an uncomfortably tight polo shirt which made his “outtie” belly button painfully obvious. fuck this guy.

overall the place was decent. but for what i had and my taste, i could have gone to Bangkok Garden, got real pad thai, paid a couple dollars less, been in a nicer restaurant, and not had to deal with some deformed belly button prick. not bad, just not good for me either. meh.