Red Robin – Yum!

On Thursday we went to Red Robin over in Sun Valley Mall (California btw).
Now, at this point I should mention that we have a milk allergic child and most people assume “lactose intolerance” which is untrue. I am lactose intolerant, he is ALLERGIC. Meaning, any milk, even the slightest contamination in anything, makes him break out into a rash and have open sores, so it is very difficult to eat anywhere because milk hides in EVERYTHING. I can’t even buy a loaf of bread at the store without checking for it. He has to strictly eat “vegan” just to avoid it. As a result, we have to check every restaurant we go to for allergen information. Fun, huh?
We forgot to check Red Robin’s website for the allergen info before we went. Shame on us. However, my husband really wanted to try their new Oktoberfest burger, and we hadn’t been in awhile since it’s currently some distance from us, and we were in the area for a doctor’s appointment any way.
We get in and we ask the waitress about the fries (fries are obnoxiously dangerous to my child, since half of them are cooked in some form of butter). She said she did not know and went to find out. She came back and told us they “might” be “finished” with butter. We asked for clarification and she again went to find out. This time she came back and said that she asked her manager and the manager was printing us out an allergen guide on milk and eggs if we’d like to wait on that. Meanwhile she got us drinks.
Turns out, they use a butter spray to apply their seasonings to their fries. So after much running the poor lady back and forth, she returns with a packet of allergen information and helps us to order something for my child, which he devoured quite happily.
Not only were they very helpful but they were also extremely nice and cooperative with our needs. Yes, it’s a difficult process trying to deal with a child who can’t eat 90% of a menu; I really don’t need the wait staff making it more difficult (which some seem to even when they’re trying to be nice about it). So red Robin gets extremely high marks for how much the waitress bent over backwards to get us help and how the manager was also very accommodating to us. I know they have a stressful enough job without one table making it worse.
Oh, did I mention their food is spectacular? My husband loved the Oktoberfest burger, and even I thought it was really good, even though those components I otherwise wouldn’t enjoy. My child got to eat their chicken on a stick with some PLAIN fries, and I had a whiskey river BBQ burger, also absolutely yummy.

I will definitely make the drive out more often, with how good the food is, how awesome the wait staff is, and just how good of an experience I had.
Thank you Red Robin.

J. G. Wentworth

This is a quickie to get me back in the swing of posting.

If you watch much television you will invariably come across the opera singing commercials of J.G. Wentworth. 877 cash now! It’s your money; use it when you need it!

I have to say, I love these commercials. They’re just so damned catchy and subtly funny, that it gets the point across, ingrains the message and phone number in your head, and even if you never need the service, you feel compelled to call them. I have to say that these commercials are beautifully crafted and garner no ill comments from this overly opinionated GG.

Baby Wipes

There are plenty of items in which the cheap store brand stuff is good enough, and there are even more in which the name brand is the only way to go. Baby wipes and diapers are a couple of those things.

I have an 11 month old baby, who will be turning 1 year this month. In that time I have come to do a little research of my own.

First and foremost, I’ll say that while Huggies is an excellent brand, I find Pampers to excell in certain areas as well. I have tried other brands, both store brand and those “eco awareness” types and I have come down to choosing between these two brands.

Pampers has the superior diapers, in they fit better, are easier to get closed properly and hold messes way better, though Huggies is a bit cheaper and easier to come by. If I wasn’t digging for pennies, I’d more likely have Pampers, but Huggies is still an excellent choice.

On the flip side of that coin, I will never by Pampers Sensitive baby wipes ever again. These things are horrible and frustrating. First of all, they are incredibly thin, and I have had them split while I was trying to wipe my baby.  Thank the Heavens it was only a pee diaper.  I now use two at once. Next, they have no texture to them and are incredibly smooth. So while they may feel all nice and soft, they do not grip the poop in anyway, it just smears right on over it. I have to dig and scrape (often getting my fingernails invovled) and use wipe after wipe after wipe. It’s endless. After 70 or so wipes later, there’s still little bits of poop rolling around. I think I may be better just dropping him in the bathtub. 

Huggies thick wipes are far superior and not only are they nice and think, the size of the wipe is much preferred and they have a good enough texture so that they still feel soft, but they’ll actually grip and scrape away the poop without further elbow grease.  

 I’ll never buy those useless pampers wipes again, however, I have no choice but to finish out the box before I can buy my desired brand. Waste not, want not.

Gnomeo and Juliet

So last night, I got to see a movie on opening night for the first time ever. That movie was Gnomeo and Juliet. Obligatory SPOILER WARNING, but it’s a small one since I won’t reveal too much. You really should see it on your own.

Let me start off by saying that I absolutely hate the original Romeo and Juliet story written by Shakespeare. I think it’s absolutely stupid that a pair of 14(or was it 16?) year old kids, commit suicide because they can’t have the first person they ever had a crush on. This isn’t a story about love; it’s about the stupidity of children.

That little rant out of the way, I continue on about the movie. For those of you, who don’t know, it’s about a new rendition of Shakespeare’s Classic tale of two star-crossed lovers who are kept apart by their feuding families, portrayed by… gnomes. Rather than the Capulets and the Montagues, we have the red verses blue.

First and foremost, this movie was not as silly as I thought it would be, it’s a great deal more serious, but it is rather hilarious and much better than anticipated. It was a real treat.

Secondly, when they have a movie such as this, you often worry that the best scenes are in the commercials, and really there is a fair number, but not all of the gems are in the commercials alone, also you’re missing the context of the jokes, which make them much funnier.

Third, this one had a way better ending.

Now, from this point, I will add the mild spoiler warning, but really I won’t go too terribly into details, since I know some people prefer to be surprised, but still read reviews in order to be better informed about their choice.

We had been debating about seeing the movie in the beginning, but after several decent commercials I decided I really wanted to catch it in theaters, especially since it’d been awhile since we’d seen one in theaters and we’d been disappointed in ourselves from thinking a movie would be interesting and then waiting until video and wanting to smack ourselves because it would have been SO much better in theaters. I think it was definitely worth the money.

Now many people would go on and on about love it, hate it, and not really paint you a clear picture, so I’m going to do my best to present it to you plain and try to avoid jading. It’s a fun little family movie and though there are some off references, the whole movie is dedicated to Shakespeare’s play and they include many lines from it and even a guest appearance by the writer himself in the form of a statue. I love how they continuously pop in random quotes directly from the play, and not all the ones you’d automatically assume.

Really, my worst complaint is that the little “getting ready for our date” montage is vaguely annoying because it’s stylized and vague. I understand that they were trying to exaggerate the scenes and draw your attention to what they were doing, but the bland backgrounds, in a movie that is so brilliantly colored, is very off putting and distracting. I wish they’d improved these scenes better than they did. I have to say that often times Madam Frog (whatever her name was) gave me a bit of a headache. However, I can’t get over the terrible hilarity of the Elton John reference.

This is a movie that you would want to watch repeatedly in order to catch all of the details in the individual scenes. The scenes where they show the front of the house, and the scenes were the show the backyard, are going to be points in which I pause the movie (once it comes to DVD) and look at all the funny stuff. There is little in references and silly things like that you will want to catch and stuff you won’t notice the first time around, but it would definitely not be painful to catch a second showing.

I have to say that I LOVE the argument with Shakespeare “Everybody dies! It’s awesome!” “Your version stinks” “You don’t know art!” That’s not the actually conversation, but you get the picture. Another favorite part HAS to be the ultimate lawnmower bit, of which I can’t remember the exact name, but hey, you’ll go watch it to find out for yourself won’t you? By the way, I would TOTALLY own that Kitty Mower if I could.

Ok, now we get into the detailed, ignore this part if you want no spoilers, part.

We first see the human owners of the two yards, a pair of grumpy old people who have a blue and red home respectively and both have an endless yard full of silly yard fodder you often see with people who collect a lot of kitshy junk. Gnomeo is the Blue’s best gnome and he always pulls the best pranks and goes the extra mile. Tybalt is the Red’s meanest, gruffest gnome and always sets out to make the red’ life miserable. They both get into a race on the backs of lawn mowers to decide whose the best is, but Tybalt cheats and the blue’s mower is trashed. Blue seeks revenge, and he goes all stealth to vandalize the Red’s mower.  Meanwhile, Juliet is out to prove she’s not “delicate” and goes after a prized flower in the garden across the alley. After a botched attempt, Gnomeo and his partner in crime have to flee from Red’s yard, and Gnomeo spots the gnome ninja (Juliet) across the way. After an adorable scene involving the flower, they fall into a lake and both disguises are revealed. Juliet is horrified and runs away, but she can’t bring herself to betray him to her father. There’s a hilarious scene with her friend the frog fountain. I don’t want to go into much more, because the movie is rather awesome and there are many things to watch out for. If you’re not interested by this point, you really won’t be much interested else wise.

It’s a great movie and it’s age appropriate for anyone. The only part that maybe a bit… risqué is the gnome in the “borat” bathsuit thong. I cannot figure out any other way I could explain this thing. However, if you’ve seen him in the previews and hope to see more of him, there really is only 2 major scenes with him in it and nothing more.

My opinion, go for the gnomes, stay for the Flamingo.

E.J. Phair

For my birthday I wanted to go to my favorite restaurant for lunch but found out that it is closed on Tuesdays so we wandered around until I decided to try E.J. Phair in Concord. I had heard about this place a few times and my husband’s co-workers recommended it for the fish and chips, so we said we’d give it a shot.

First of all, E.J. Phair is some what like a pub, which kind of makes it a bad choice for me because I don’t drink, nor do I enjoy the flavor of beer in the least. But, I was up for something new. It defeinately looks like a pub, and it’s a bit sparse on the décor but it was lunch hour, so it was a little empty. The service was horribly slow, even though it was so empty. First of all we stood there for several minutes before a waitress said “seat yourselves”. I usually don’t mind a seat yourself situation, but I’d prefer to know that immediately, rather than be stared at like I’m stupid for several moments. It took the girl so long to refresh our drinks, we were actually wondering if it was “no free refills” and I didn’t get a second sprite until we were long past done with our food. It’s not like it was a big glass either, actually it was smaller than normal glasses, which meant I went through it rather fast.

On to the food part of this critique.

So we both tried the fried potstickers and  my husband tried the Fish and Chips, since he was set on it, and I tried the Texas Q “burger”.

The fried potstickers was very interesting. They were served on a bed of greens with a spicy dipping sauce. Now the sauce wasn’t too bad, the spicy was some kind of oil on the top, so I was able to get rid of most of it. The potstickers themselves are regular potstickers, (and honestly these tasted like Costco potstickers) dipped in some kind of crust and deep fried.  They weren’t bad, but they definitely needed the spicy sauce.

Now I have to remark on the way they do their burger selection. Under the header “Burgers and Chicken” there is a list of orders and styles, you then pick ½ pound burger, veggie burger, turkey, or chicken breast. I have to say that I really like this idea. Pick any type you want and then any meat you want. Pretty sweet deal. I tried the Chicken breast.  The “Texas Q” was onion rings, bacon, lettuce and cheese. It was delicious. The chicken was tasty and the BBQ sauce was good, the onion rings were perfect and I haven’t gotten that good of bacon without cooking myself. Of course they put the bacon in that annoying X arrangement, but that is a rant for another opinion. It came with a choice, but I got the garden salad with Creamy Balsamic dressing. The salad was… odd. It was a spring mix, same as the potsticker plate, with raw red onions (ick) cherry tomatoes, shredded carrot and kidney beans.  Kidney beans? Well, I wound up not eating it, I don’t like kidney beans and I did not feel like eating around them. Good thing my “burger” was so awesome.

As for the fish and chips, the fish was well done, but the breading wasn’t right for it. We were expecting a light fluffy batter and instead we got toasted bread crumbs, which wasn’t bad, it was just weird. The “chips” are some really thin shoestring fries which were pretty good, nice and salty with a little bit of a crunch. However, it came with this little coleslaw which was a nasty, peppery mess. Seriously, that was gross.

I will make a note that I decided to try a little bit of their beer mustard. Jason loved it, I did not. I thought it was disgusting. There is evidence of a difference of opinion in taste.

I also decided to try their Vanilla Bean Crème Brule. OK, first of all, it wasn’t done evenly, there was only a small circle of the sugar crust you would expect, and second  I did  not taste any vanilla bean in it. Really, it was just a decent cup of custard.

Overall, I would go and try other foods, since it was basically good, but I would not however, consider it to be really high up there on my list of restaurants to visit. So, I give it a “mediocre”.

Truvia

Honestly, I don’t know where to start with this, but today’s opinion is about Truvia. Truvia happens to have several badly written commercials with the oddest attempt at jingles. You can find them here: Truvia Jingles

I’ll start with the overall view of the commercials. You see various women in “situations” with food in the eternal battle of the diet. Ahh the old “Do I eat it? well maybe just a taste”. I think the point of the commercials is “You don’t have to use self-control if you use our product”. Not a bad idea if that is really what they intended to do here, however what I get instead, is: our product is so bad that you wouldn’t WANT to eat desserts made with this. The “jingles” only confirm this thought process. Who thought any of this up? I think their concept started off sound, but then they just went off into left field with some of the process and in the jingles.

I’ll start off by saying that the commercials “Bunny” and “Doughnut” make more sense and are closer to the intended purpose of this advertisement, but the rest are terrible. For instance, in “Shared Dessert” the jingle is telling you that the problem is that everyone else wants it too, so why not go after a product that no one else wants? Wait, what? In yet another commercial, “Just one bite” the girl is staring down a raspberry cake. She decides to take a nibble and suddenly devours the whole thing, leaving none for her boyfriend, so why not go after a product she can resist! Huh?

Am I the only one not getting it? I should use an all natural “sweetener” that no one else wants and is easily resistable? What part of this makes sense? So I’ll lose weight using this product because I won’t want to eat it. Yeay.

Because I like trying new things regardless of shoddy advertisement, I decided to give Truvia a shot. It is disgusting. It cost me a small fortune for a little jar of it, and I think sweet n’ low is better. I hate sweet n low. Forget all natural, I think these poorly written commercials are accurate! I’ll lose plenty of weight, because I won’t want to eat ANYTHING! It’s bitter, a little bit grainy and has this terrible after taste that I can’t seem to get rid of.  I will give it one plus side, it melts really quickly, of course this just means my tongue is coated faster. Yuck! Seriously, no thank you, I’ll stick to my “unhealthy”, actually desirable, processed sugars.

You have been Chopped

Chopped is a show that comes on FoodNetwork on Tuesday nights, and the subject of my next opinion.

I love Chopped, it’s my current favorite show, especially on FoodNetwork.

The premise of Chopped, is that 4 contestants have to cook the best meal of their lives in order to win $10,000. There are 4 contestants and 3 rounds, appetizer, entrée and dessert. Each round the contestants are given a mystery basket of ingredients and a time limit. At the end of the time limit they must present their meals to a panel of 3 judges and they are judged on taste, creativity and the use of the ingredients. They can use as much or as little of an ingredient as they want, but it MUST be on the plate regardless. Each round, one person is Chopped until the final two face off in desert, and then their whole meal is critiqued.

This is a really awesome show and I am absolutely addicted to it. I must watch every new episode and I love watching old episodes from previous seasons I haven’t seen before. I absolutely love seeing the random crap that’s in the basket and I rather like the idea of seeing what someone else does with an ingredient I’ve never even heard of, or I’ve heard of and am afraid of trying because I have no clue what I would do with it. I wish I knew how to get them to accept suggestions, because I have a list of “ingredients” I would like to see what someone could do with them. You get some really random slide scales of weird. You get usual things like beef cuts and fish, to really random things like gummi bears and durian fruit. They give them some really bizarre things to work with, but there’s an interesting thing they do about it. I don’t know how they decide who gets on or in what group, but it seems to me like they do a really good job of pairing skill set. You get a group of chefs who aren’t all that great, and they give them basic ingredients, or they take some really awesome chefs and give them really difficult and confusing ingredients. They have a really good pace of fitting together contestant groups that are well balanced and give them ingredients that fit their abilities. I have to commend them for that.

Now, First of all, if you’re going to go on this show you much first actually watch the show. I really wonder how many people take the time to watch it, because of how many people don’t seem to get the basic concept of the show. Second of all, if you do go on, please shut up, don’t argue, and don’t bring your sob story from the onset. Third, practice trying to fix random things in the time limit given.  Everyone always gets the same time limit and I cannot tell you how many people go “I didn’t have enough time”. Have you ever seen the show??

What kills me about the show, is how often people go on and apparently have never even seen the show, judging by their shock of process, or the way they talk. What drives me insane is how many people immediately launch into this huge sob story about how desperate or sad they are, and oh please don’t send me home, if you send me home you have no heart. We all got problems honey; yours are neither the worst nor the hardest. I really can’t stand when it’s obvious their food sucks horribly, and they screwed up royally, but here go the waterworks. It’s very off putting and I’m glad the judges would rather taste the food and give honest opinion, rather than get drawn into the pity party. It’s not going to work people, table it for later and pull it out when you win.

Also, when you are facing the judges, shut the hell up. No seriously, shut up. How often do chefs shoot themselves in the foot because they ran down their own dishes, and the judges say “well, until you mentioned boots, I thought it was good, now all I can think of is boots”?  Or how many people are too busy arguing to accept the criticism they are given. This is to help you improve. You are in an industry where the customer is always right and you’re presenting your food to critics who have tasted the best and know what works, and have better restaurants or more experience than you. And even if you have more experience old dog, you should learn some new tricks. For this competition, you have to make these people happy, not piss them off! Take their criticism and say “thank you I will improve” and move on. I don’t care if you think your food is awesome, you’re not the one deciding who stays and who goes. We all know YOU want to win, but telling them they’re wrong isn’t going to help you one iota!

So there is a random assortment of judges they pull from each week, and there are a number of people that I see repeatedly and I rather like them. Some of them have other shows on FoodNetwork and I recommend seeing if they’re playing and watching those too, because it gives you a little insight on the judges. For instance, if you get Scott Conant as a judge, don’t make pasta unless you’ve perfected the art, and if he says your pasta sucks, then stick your tail between your legs and shut up. He will take your head off. If I went on the show and they put pasta in my basket, I would probably ask to go home right there. He seems like a normally nice guy, but he will eat your FACE over some pasta. Also, don’t use raw red onions; it’s another pet peeve of his.  If you get Aarón Sánchez as a judge, don’t bother doing Mexican or using Mexican terms, unless you actually know what you’re talking about or he will call you out. He is an interesting judge, because on Chopped, he looks like he’s a royal snot, but when you see him on his show Chefs vs City, he looks like a real fun guy to hang out with. Amanda Freitag, and Geoffrey Zakarian are very snobby and very hard to please, but when you do please them, they will sing praises. There are a number of other random judges, but these are the most prominent and the ones you really got to know your stuff to make happy, and they aren’t afraid to tell you your food sucks.

 I’m always amused by the people who try to claim that a judge had it out for them or that they were cut based on some random personal hate, because that’s not even remotely true, as evidenced by last night’s episode. Based on personality and professionalism alone, last night’s winner should NOT have won, but his food, which is what they are judging, was excellent and the best. It’s a sad situation really, but they called it on the food, so what can you do?

Long story short (hah!) I love this show, you should check it out, it has more drama than some soap operas and the people are a heck of a lot more interesting. There are chefs that I would love to find their restaurants and try their food, as well as bum some recipes. I know I’m not going on the show any time soon, though I would love to.  My luck is, I’d get food that I couldn’t cook, or if I got to judge, I’d be forced to eat food that makes me sick!.

Got to love Chopped. See you next opinion!

Allstate Mayhem

I have to say that after my negative post about another insurance companies commercials, I have to come back and talk about my favorite set of commercials, done by another insurance company, Allstate.

Now, Allstate has several different commercials, and several different “positions” I guess you could call them. They have the very well spoken man, who talks about “Allstate’s stand” is one of the more recognizable commercials and while those are very professional, very well done, they’re not the topic of this “opinion”. I am referring to the “Mayhem” commercials, which Allstate has here: Allstate Mayhem Commercials.

I absolutely love these commercials. They’re hilarious. The guy is perfect, he looks like the embodiment of “Mayhem”, and his expressions are perfect for each commercial and that “evil grin” is just absolutely perfect.  On top of this, the commercials are funny representations of what could happen. Little talk-throughs with a hilarious video that are as serious as they are silly.

The original videos that are posted on youtube, started of very basic, little talking scenes with a prop and some sound effects, still cute, but not the creative commercial gems I’ve come to know and love.

Every time these commercials come on, I feel compelled to sit and watch. Most commercials are completely forgettable, but even my husband will ask me to let them play rather than fast forward. We always look forward to the new ones.

I will do you all a favor and not critique every single one, but I will point out a few notations. I don’t like the GPS commercial, it’s a bit of a miss in my opinion. Kind of boring and not the usual humorous flair. I like the Pink SUV commercial as a short. The whole explanation of why she wrecked is detrimental to the overall commercial in my opinion. Cutting that out, the commercial is a lot funnier.

Of my favorite commercials, I love the Puppy and the Douglas fir. I have to say the lawn game one reminds me of my brother and is very high on my list. I think the best parts about my two favorite commercials are the foam coming out of his mouth as the puppy and the “My Smell? Like making love to a lumber Jack.” Hilarious.

I have to commend Allstate for finding the perfect blend of informative and funny, without being insulting, irritating or stupid. Bravo.

Esurance Commercials

I just watched yet another Esurance commercial, this one with a giant check. And so I decided this “opinion” would be about the Esurance commercials.

I’ll start off by generalizing and saying that Esurance commercials are highly annoying, really stupid commercials that occasionally make me do a “half giggle” but for the most part they just make my head hurt. They post their commercials here: Esurance Commercials

The $522 check commercial is the one I saw today and I just noticed for the first time that he purposely hits her in the back of the head with the check. Seriously? Are we just encouraging people to smack each other for no reason?  No one would necessarily call this “violence” but where does it start and when does it stop? Here we not only have a man hitting a woman with a object to establish his “look at me, I’m superior” but we also have animosity between co-workers started in general. No one should hit anyone, even in play, but it happens all the time. However, this company should really think about the multiple messages they are sending with this poorly written commercial.

The one Esurance that makes me giggle a little is The photo. In the commercial they’re discussing the ability to file your claim and file pictures of your accident using your cell phone, and the one guy pulls out his phone to show an example. The girl grabs his phone and starts going through and find a humiliating picture of him and shows it around.  It’s mildly funny. However, I’d like to point out that this world is having enough privacy issues and I cannot stand people who go through other people’s stuff. It’s very rude of her to go through the guy’s cell phone; Stupid of him to hand it over, but still.

I think the commercial I hate the most is a toss-up between the tree commercials “Money” “Coverage Counselor” and “Dedicated”. Dedicated wins, but all three of these commercials are so irritating and yes, I mentioned not hitting, but they just make me want to start slapping people. In money, they won’t shut up with the money terms and then that one guy starts with his “the saver crap” again. In Coverage Counselor, they won’t stop annoying her, they’re in her face, won’t let her do her job and she has to be commended for not gut punching someone. I can’t stand people bothering me while I’m trying to work and trying to be nice to people, and they just take it to extreme.  Dedicated wins this debate because of the ridiculous extremes they take their insecurity issues. And quite frankly, with both Dedicated and Money, that is the whole under current to these commercials is insecurity. Especially the one dork guy, he’s so insecure that he’s got to try to one up and undermine his co-workers in order to make himself feel better. Ew.

The one commercial I rather like is the “Error” commercial. I think it’s kind of cute. They’re all acting a little silly and it reduces stress in the workplace if people take the time to be a little silly. All other commercials make me not want to try Esurance, and pity anyone who would work there, but “error” makes up a tiny bit. I also love the end of the commercial “I thought we really were robots”.

Honestly, can they go back to their pink haired spy commercials?

The Invention of Lying

Recently, we got the movie “The Invention of Lying” from our Netflix queue. I have to add a quick note that Netflix is my best friend ever when it comes to renting movies, TV shows and other random dvds.

If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I add the obligatory SPOILER WARNING.

First I would like to point out that this movie, starring Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, and some other people, is pure dry British humor. If you are not familiar with dry British Humor, don’t like it, or are angry with Ricky Gervais from the Golden Globes, this may not be the movie to watch.

I happen to enjoy it, but I was not aware this movie would be dry British humor, so I was a little shocked at first. (Have I said Dry British Humor enough? Maybe not.)

The premise of the movie works like this, Earth as we know it, never developed the ability to lie. Apparently, this means that everyone says exactly what is on their mind at any given time. I guess a lie by omission is still a lie. In this mythical world, not only can people not lie, but for some reason this means they are more concerned with genetic compatibility rather than being happy, and everyone is generally mean to each other.  Because people never learned how to lie, movies are actually documentaries, and because the lack of lying means no one has any creativity, it’s some guy sitting in a chair reading off a script. Rather boring really.

The plot to the movie works something like this, Mark is on the low end of the genetic desirability scale and is hooked up on a blind date with a pretty woman who tells him up front she has no interest in him sexually. This leads to a conversation I won’t repeat here, you’ll just have to take my word on it, it was very off putting to watching the rest of the movie. However, I pressed on and was determined to watch the thing. I was rewarded I assure you. Repeatedly he mentions that he thinks he’s going to get fired, which is kind of amusing. He goes to work and finds out, yes he really is about to get fired, if his boss could just follow through.

It’s really quite silly and a little annoying, but again, it does pick up pace! So basically, his blind date failed, he lost his job and now he finds out, he’s out of his apartment unless he comes up with $800. Well he heads into the bank and they tell him he’s got like $200, and suddenly their computers go down. This is the turning for the whole movie. Suddenly his brain rewires itself and he lies about his bank account.  Since no one is used to lying, no one apparently has a bullshit detector either.

From here the movie really gets going and starts getting into the funny stuff. He tests his new ability on his buddies who takes everything he comes up with at face value; one of my favorite scenes in the movie. This starts off as harmless fun as he figures out what he can get by with. Deciding to get his job back, he writes this horribly elaborate “historical fact” involving space aliens and all kind of craziness. He even fakes the document by dumping coffee on it, and tearing it and other funniness. Again, no one knows what a lie is, so no matter how off the charts he works, he is always telling the truth.

His lies keep snowballing and he gets in deeper and deeper and even wins the affection of the girl he wants, but still he’s not a genetic match so she’s not interested. She’d rather be miserable with the ass than risk ugly children.  Again, why is not being able to lie or understand lies, the cause of this weird anomally?

This goes even deeper when his mom is dying and in order to make her feel better he makes up this magical place in the clouds where she will have a mansion and be happy and all this other stuff off the top of his head. This is a really touching scene that again snowballs.  Suddenly everyone wants to know about the magical place in the sky and how he knows about what happens after death. Whoopsie, someone created religion!

Interestingly enough, they manage to have a bit of a lesson about appropriate times to lie, when the girl of his dreams asks if being famous altered his genetic material and he actually answers truthfully, No. He very easily could have lied here, but the fact he didn’t makes it awesome.

I have to say, even with the rocky start of this movie, I wound up really enjoying it.  It’s really confusing at points, some of the humor is sketchy and edgy, and just a little bit out there. It left my husband and me scratching our heads, but you can’t miss some of the silly humor, the pokes at religion and of course the pizza box commandments.