HelgaHume Wine Tasting Party VII

Just before our newest HelgaHume was born, we hosted our seventh HelgaHume Wine Tasting Party! It was a great night, and I loved having the chance to catch up with our friends before the baby -- and its impact on our social calendar -- arrived. ;-)

The theme of the wines was "Clash of the Titans", referring to the fact that all six wines were very high ranking and/or winners of their respective parties. It was a competition of the best, and I was eager to find out which wine would reign supreme. The pricepoints ranged from $9 to $28, and were a selection of reds.

Unlike previous parties, where I would order the wines from lightest to chewiest, this party's ordering was determined by random number selection. The last wine won (again), which speaks either to tipsy guests being more charitable judges, or that Victoria just loves, loves, LOVES its Shirazes. I daresay that more research is required on this front! ;-)

Here are some other things I learned:

• While Ottawa's winners included many different types of grapes, Victoria LOVES its Shiraz! Once again, the Shiraz takes first place. Again, it might be due to order (despite having randomly assigned the order of the wines, the "last" wine was still a Shiraz, thus meaning that the tasters were more drunk while rating it...) Agh, the perils of randomization!
  

• Planning a party in the Christmas season is not easy, availability-wise. Live and learn. ;-)

• Maybe it was the knowledge that all the wines were former champions, or maybe it was the smaller sample size, but the winning wine broke the record for highest score ever (78%)! Our previous record holder was Jacob's Creek Shiraz/CabSav at 77%.

• Some wines actually DO taste wildly different when paired with food, vs. drinking them alone. Sterling is a perennial favourite of ours for host gifts, and it's delicious with food; but by itself, I found it to be kind of awful, actually.

So without further ado, here are the results of HelgaHume Wine Tasting Party VII! Enjoy!

Surprises abound! Happy wine-tasting, all. :-)

Best Films of 2011!

A major hobby of mine is watching movies -- from brainless Hollywood comedy to artsy independent film, I love them all. Well, maybe I don't LOVE them all, but I do give them all a chance, at least. ;-) (For those of you curious about my reviews/ratings for movies, see my Miso account).

Every year I eagerly anticipate the release of the critics' top ten picks of the previous year. Better still, Metacritic.com publishes these lists together, and I go a step further; I compile all those lists into an UBER-list, and rank the movies by the number of lists each one appears on. (Metacritic itself does something similar, but stops after the first 20 or so...)

Granted, each year there's a lot of bloated, overhyped movies of mediocrity to sift through (I'm looking at you, "The Aviator"!), but in these same lists you can find little-sung gems like "Sunshine Cleaning" and "A Home at the End of the World". This year, I vehemently disagree with the #1 spot -- "Tree of Life" has many good parts that deserve to be in a much better movie. Preferably one WITHOUT random sequences featuring morose dinosaurs. (WTF? Exactly.)

Anyhoo, I always try and see as many as possible, especially as they become available to rent. Which lovely surprises lay in store? We shall see! Below is the list, for your viewing pleasure:

Rank	Movie Title	Votes
1	The Tree of Life	75
2	A Separation	44
3	Drive	44
4	The Artist	43
5	The Descendants	43
6	Hugo	40
7	Melancholia	38
8	Take Shelter	38
9	Moneyball	35
10	Certified Copy	32
11	Martha Marcy May Marlene	29
12	Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy	29
13	Shame	27
14	Beginners	26
15	Margaret	26
16	Meek's Cutoff	26
17	The Skin I Live In	23
18	Bridesmaids	21
19	We Need to Talk About Kevin	20
20	Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives	19
21	Midnight in Paris	17
22	Poetry	17
23	Rise of the Planet of the Apes	16
24	Weekend	16
25	A Dangerous Method	15
26	Mysteries of Lisbon	15
27	The Interrupters	15
28	Margin Call	14
29	Young Adult	14
30	War Horse	13
31	Attack the Block	12
32	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2	12
33	Nostalgia for the Light	12
34	Bellflower	11
35	Le Havre	11
36	Le Quattro Volte	11
37	Of Gods and Men	11
38	The Arbor	11
39	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	11
40	50/50	10
41	Cave of Forgotten Dreams	10
42	Rango	10
43	The Trip	10
44	Win Win	10
45	Contagion	9
46	Super 8	9
47	The Future	9
48	Tuesday, After Christmas	8
49	Warrior	8
50	A Brighter Summer Day	7
51	Incendies	7
52	Like Crazy	7
53	Senna	7
54	The Help	7
55	13 Assassins	6
56	Project Nim	6
57	Submarine	6
58	The Adventures of Tintin	6
59	The Muppets	6
60	Another Earth	5
61	City of Life and Death	5
62	Film Socialisme	5
63	Pina	5
64	Bill Cunningham New York	4
65	Buck	4
66	Cold Weather	4
67	Coriolanus	4
68	Hanna	4
69	Into the Abyss	4
70	J. Edgar	4
71	Jane Eyre	4
72	Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol	4
73	Putty Hill	4
74	Tabloid	4
75	The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu	4
76	The Mill and the Cross	4
77	Another Year	3
78	Aurora	3
79	Carnage	3
80	Crazy, Stupid, Love	3
81	El Sicario, Room 164	3
82	Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close	3
83	In the Family	3
84	Kill List	3
85	My Joy	3
86	Terri	3
87	The Clock	3
88	The Guard	3
89	The Illusionist	3
90	The Last Circus	3
91	To Die Like a Man	3
92	Tomboy	3
93	We Were Here	3
94	Wuthering Heights	3
95	A Better Life	2
96	Alps	2
97	Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey	2
98	Black Swan	2
99	Blue Valentine	2
100	Captain America: The First Avenger	2
101	Cedar Rapids	2
102	Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame	2
103	Extraordinary Stories	2
104	General Orders No. 9	2
105	Hell and Back Again	2
106	Higher Ground	2
107	How to Die in Oregon	2
108	I Saw the Devil	2
109	Leap Year	2
110	Love Exposure	2
111	My Week With Marilyn	2
112	Petition	2
113	Rampart	2
114	Seeking the Monkey King	2
115	Source Code	2
116	Sucker Punch	2
117	The Adjustment Bureau	2
118	The Kid With A Bike	2
119	The King's Speech	2
120	The Time That Remains	2
121	True Grit	2
122	Tyrannosaur	2
123	Winnie the Pooh	2
124	X-Men: First Class	2
125	3	1
126	50	1
127	A Screaming Man	1
128	A Useful Life	1
129	Abracadabra	1
130	Agrarian Utopia	1
131	Amigo	1
132	And Everything Is Going Fine	1
133	Animal Kingdom	1
134	Anonymous	1
135	Archipelago	1
136	Assassins	1
137	Beautiful Boy	1
138	Biutiful	1
139	Café de Flore	1
140	Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer	1
141	Crime After Crime	1
142	Damsels in Distress	1
143	Dogtooth	1
144	Elena	1
145	Elite Squad: The Enemy Within	1
146	Fast Five	1
147	Final Destination 5	1
148	Foreign Parts	1
149	Four Lions	1
150	Fright Night	1
151	Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life	1
152	Goodbye, First Love	1
153	Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench	1
154	Historias extraordinarias	1
155	Hobo With A Shotgun	1
156	Kaboom	1
157	Kinyarwanda	1
158	Knuckle	1
159	La Pivellina	1
160	Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen	1
161	Limitless	1
162	Love Crime	1
163	Mildred Pierce	1
164	Miss Bala	1
165	My Perestroika	1
166	No Strings Attached	1
167	On the Bowery	1
168	One Day	1
169	Oslo August 31st	1
170	Pariah	1
171	Pink Ribbons, Inc.	1
172	Polytechnique	1
173	Position Among the Stars	1
174	Psychohydrography	1
175	Redland	1
176	Rejoice and Shout	1
177	Road to Nowhere	1
178	Roadie	1
179	Secret Sunshine	1
180	Silver Bullets	1
181	Take This Waltz	1
182	Target	1
183	The Deep Blue Sea	1
184	The Double Hour	1
185	The Elephant in the Living Room	1
186	The Green Hornet	1
187	The Ides of March	1
188	The Inheritors	1
189	The Iron Lady	1
190	The Last Lions	1
191	The Mouth of the Wolf	1
192	The Myth of the American Sleepover	1
193	The Princess of Montpensier	1
194	The Return	1
195	The Strange Case of Angelica	1
196	The Three Musketeers	1
197	The Whistleblower	1
198	The Wise Kids	1
199	This Is Not a Film	1
200	Trollhunter	1
201	Tucker & Dale vs. Evil	1
202	United Red Army	1
203	Vengeance	1
204	Viva Riva!	1
205	Voluptuous Sleep	1
206	We Bought a Zoo	1
207	Wiebo's War	1
208	Wrinkles	1
209	You All Are Captains	1

Which ones of these have you seen? Do you have any recommendations? I'm all ears! :-)

Pumpkin Patch Adventure

A weekend or so back, the family took a trip to a local pumpkin patch. This was the first outing with the NEW CAMERA, so I was totally stoked to try it out. Before even seeing the pictures, I was impressed with how much easier to use the DSLR is than my old digital (which would take several seconds between depressing the button and taking a damn picture). Better still, the pictures look lush and lovely. Happy Karla!!!

So my strategy is to get used to the camera in Auto-mode, and then eventually start branching out into the fancy-dancy settings. There's a while to go yet before I'm fully comfortable with even the automatic mode, but I'm enthusiastic about the process of gradually unveiling my Canon's mysteries. ;-)

In the meantime, as promised, enjoy the pictures! :-D

Will decides to kiss the pumpkins.

The Methodology of a Name, Part Three!

Finally, after a ton of reflection and soul-searching, Dave and I have unearthed a select few names for our impending HelgaHume. (Though the list is, as always, still secret.)

As luck would have it, for girls, we both individually gravitated towards the same four names. We each liked a fifth, but after some discussion, Dave decided he liked my fifth better, so now we're fully agreed on these five names. Which to pick? Depends on who we meet in December!

Boy's names, on the other hand, we're having a bit more trouble with. We've centred on four first names that we both like, but each one has a big problem associated with it.

Indeed, no name is perfect; I resisted "William" for the longest time on the grounds of, "No child of MINE is getting a TOP TEN name!!! IN-CON-THEIVABLE!!!!" but the fact is, for a huge number of reasons, the name was a perfect choice. (But that's a whole other blog post.)

Still, though, which of the following issues are dealbreakers? Which are no big deal?

• One (visually-similar) letter away from a very common name: Meaning, people quickly looking over this name on paper will probably assume it's the common name, not the actual name. Kid will possibly spend his whole life correcting people, which is annoying for him.
• Stupid meaning: This name has everything going for it -- great sound, great association, unique but not off-the-wall -- except what it means. It has a stupid meaning. Not offensive, not bad, just... meaningless. Can he live with this?
• Unimpressive counterparts: Another name we're considering has everything going for it (see above), except that when I've met the 2-3 guys with this name, I was not especially impressed. (As opposed to, say, Hugh, where every Hugh I meet is a pretty solid dude.) Will he break free of this company, or am I setting myself up to be unimpressed?
• Gender-neutrality: Not a bad thing in and of itself, but aside from this one exception, gender-ambiguous names are not usually our taste. I've heard from some that it's inconvenient for two friends discussing you, such as in the following case: "Hey, dude, thanks for the party invite! Mind if I bring along (name)?" "Sure, bro! Is she hawt??!" "Uh, dude, (name)'s a guy." "Oh, that's too bad." Is this an acceptable fate to foist on someone?

Hmm... I've never personally dealt with any of those name woes, so I can't say whether they're problematic or not. Hence, I'm pretty stuck, and would love your input in the comment section. :-)

Looking forward to hearing from you!

New Camera: This time, it's gonna be different!

I am positively ecstatic to announce that I have finally caved and purchased a new camera! As such, you can expect more pictures to start appearing on this blog. I'm so stoked about this.

My tumultuous relationships with cameras goes back to the earliest digital point-and-shoots. My huge, heavy, battery-devouring, SLOW, unreliable Kodak misbehaved at the best of times, despite the best treatment and care. The next camera, a Sony, was marginally better, but then decided to randomly wash my pictures with psychedelia whenever the air was a little damp. After that, the Nikon ground to a halt when exposed to the tiniest quantity of sand, and then the last camera, my Olympus, incrementally embraced senility to the point of not even *taking pictures* when commanded.

Which makes me think, when it comes to digital cameras, I might be cursed.

So, eschewing the perpetually disappointing point-and-shoots, I decided instead to leap over to the digital SLR camp. (For those of you unfamiliar with the SLR term, it basically means a camera that looks old-school, with a big lens, but it's digital. And spiffy.)

Because this time it's gonna be different. Surely, the curse won't follow me over to a totally different type of camera, right? . ...Right??

So after a ton of research, I settled on an entry-level Canon (Rebel XS), and am now setting about learning how to actually *use* it. My dream is to eventually post rich, beautiful pictures on this blog... but hey, one step at a time, right? ;-)

Anyhow, wish me luck! Feel free to leave me your camera tips/stories/woes in the comments, would love to hear em!