Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Indiana Jones 4 on Memorial Day Weekend

The Memorial Day weekend passed so fast that I barely remember what I did. Went down to Chicago to visit some out-of-town friends and just chilled out, literally, since it was only in low 50'F in one of the days. Of course, I went to see Indiana Jones 4.

My conclusion is - not that interesting. Yes, it has its moments of referring to all the 50s stuff and the first 3 Indiana Jones movies. The cast is doing decent jobs on convincing you that they still have it. However, the story line is really bad. Does it really take about 20 years to come out such a lousy plot? An alien skull as the final treasure? I think we shall all just wait for "X-file 2" instead. All the special effects and stunts stuff are just about the average. In the era of the "Transformers" and "Bourne" series, it definitely shows the age of the franchise. I guess it does not matter anyway since it has become the 2nd higher box office ever for the Memorial Day weekend. However, within the preview trailers before the Indy 4, the "Dark Knight" really seems to have lots of potentials and more worth of waiting.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Spring Flowering Tree

A wonderful day today! Sunny and cool. It is only about 60'F. Lots of trees are covered by spring flowers. Beautiful! Made a great banana split cake for friends' birthday and it was gone so fast that I almost could not get a picture of it. Will post it later. Look forward to the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Spring Flowers In The Garden

After a long nasty winter, the spring is finally here. All the beautiful spring flowers are fully bloomed in the garden: Tulips, Hyacinths, and Grape Hyacinths. It surly pays off all the hard work on planting hundreds of bulbs last fall. Of course, so far, luckily, no severe deer damage yet. Those bastards sometimes only bite off the flowers, chew once and spit them out. Who says that Bambi is cute?

Lots of people here have got the spring fever and started to plant all the annuals in the yard. However, the changeable Wisconsin spring weather is not trustful. It used to snow even in late May. I would hold on the flower fever for now. Hope that everybody is enjoying the spring time so far!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Butterscotch Swirl Cake

It rained most of the time on this weekend. Sent a flower arrangement to my mom back home for the Mother's Day. It was the first time that I could send the flower from here to overseas. It was a really surprise to her. I am very happy that she loves the flower very much. I also got invited to friends' house for the Mother's Day dinner. This was the cake I made for the dinner. It was a cake that made from scratch. It was a moisture and dense cake that enriched with butterscotch pudding mix, and butterscotch ice cream topping. In addition, it was topped with a layer of rich caramel glaze and lots of chopped pecans. It has a marble kind of look when you slice it. Everybody loved it!

Note: As requested, the recipe is here!

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Iron Man - Let The Summer Movie Season Begin!

Wow, what a great start for the summer movie season! Finally went to the "Iron Man" this morning. It was almost sold out even it was a 10am early show. The cast member all did great jobs, especially, Robert Downey Jr and Jeff Bridges. The script was quite smart and not that far away from the comic book. And the scenes of Tony Stark learning how to fly was really entertained. The special effects were quite realistic. The only small down side of the movie was the final showdown - a little too short and seem to rush through. Definitely recommend to see.

And "DO NOT" leave until the final credits really end; otherwise, you will regret to miss something important! Don't complain that I did not warn you!