Dorm Survival Foods: Part 1

Living in a dorm for my fourth year, I've learned to subsist on foods that can be either eaten immediately, or are easy to prepare. Other factors are shelf life, and of course expense. Most but not all of the foods I'm going to feature have been procured from the dollar store.

I'd like to start off with an old standby. Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup, though any dollar store variant will suffice. I decided to choose this as the first entry into my college food collection because I still haven't been feeling all that well and it's been a little chilly outside as Fall is just starting to kick in. In both of those situations, nothing is better than a nice hot bowl of soup, and nothing is cheaper or simpler than chicken noodle. I'm a picky eater, and I'm not really fond of foods that are too complicated so I like to keep it simple.

The soup can be quickly and easily prepared in any microwave, just add water, and it really doesn't taste any different than if you cooked it on a stove top. My only real complaint is the sodium content though I'm not the kind of guy who drinks all of the broth so this rarely results in headaches. Like the old myth that it cures the common cold, I generally feel better after eating a bowl.

It can't really compete with non-condensed soups or the tastier and more exotic varieties of ramen noodles which we'll get to later in the semester, but when I'm feeling too sick to eat something complicated, it does the job well. For fifty cents a can at the dollar store it's also easy on the wallet. Unfortunately I rarely feel very full after eating it and usually have to supplement it with something else.

Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup gets a dorm-food rating of 7/10.

"I am Iron Man"

So after years of waiting my favorite super-hero is finally going to make it to the big screen in May. The Iron Man teaser trailer was just released earlier this week you can see it at Apple or MTV if you don't have Quicktime.

I have to say I wasn't expecting much going into this but I'm pretty impressed. Hollywood has already proven to me with the fun popcorn movie that is Transformers that they're not entirely incapable of churning out decent, if not mindless, action films based on well loved franchises but this really took me by surprise since I haven't really been following the movie news and didn't know they were this close to a trailer. Also, I wasn't expecting them to actually play Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" which has nothing to do with the Marvel hero, though that's never a bad thing.

First of all, Iron Man will be the first movie that Marvel produces in house. I suppose this is a good thing, Marvel doesn't have to answer to a higher power when writing the script. Earlier this year they came out with an animated Iron Man movie as a part of their animation line which also produced the half-decent Ultimate Avengers movies but I was pretty unhappy with how they handled Iron Man in that. They almost entirely changed his background and completely ruined the Mandarin which I won't get into but I wanted to mention it because from what I can tell from the trailer and other news sources, this movie will be a lot truer to Iron Man's roots and will even feature one of my personal favorite Iron Man villains. I was shocked and excited that Obidiah Stane, AKA the Iron Monger would be the villain in this movie over Mandarin because although he played a part in one of the greatest Iron Man story arcs ever that was back in the 80's and not many new fans that jumped onto the Iron Man boat with Extremis and Civil War have never even heard of him. Unfortunately most of Iron Man's villains are like that, his rogue's gallery is pretty weak and has always been one of the negative aspects of the comic. In any case the industrialist competitor Stane is an exception and this means we'll have an Iron Man vs. Iron Monger fight at the end of the movie which is something I've dreamed of for years. They couldn't pick a better story arc to make a movie about even though it's been said that they've chosen not to explore Tony Stark's alcoholism until a possible sequel.

One thing I was really pleased with was the armor designs. The original armor looks crappy and hobbled together like it's supposed to, the Iron Monger looks big and ugly like he's supposed to, and the current Iron Man armor looks like it's just flown right out of the comics as opposed to worrying early rumors that they'd be using an armor that looked like the one from Ultimate Iron Man. Robert Downey Jr. is also perfect for the role of Tony Stark, he's got the age and the wit, and the asshole nature to pull off an awesome and very convincing stark. Director Jon Favreau is really paying attention to detail and I've heard nothing but positive reactions from fan communities like Advanced Iron and even 4chan's /co/ who hates Iron Man (and rightfully so) since his character has been completely destroyed by the way he was written as a villain for Marvel's Civil War, though a recent encounter with Thor will hopefully help turn him around.

In other news, Robotech will be seeing a big screen adaption by Spider-Man's Tobey Maguire who wants to play the hero Rick Hunter. Macross fans are up-in-arms about this though really not much more is known about the film. It seems like an attempt at cashing in on Transformers to me though I personally have no complaints.

Week 1

So I've been back to school for a week and it's been a little weird. It's hard for me to decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. I haven't settled in as easily as usual which is a bit strange considering I'm a senior now. My brain just feels like I'm not quite back yet even though I've been through all of my classes now. I don't really hate my classes (with the exception of Spanish of course: my only remaining, stubborn, and evil gen-ed) , they're going to be challenging especially the high-level writing classes I now find myself in but they should also be pretty fun.

I've been socializing a lot which is strange for me, meeting a lot of new people even though I'll be kissing this place goodbye forever in a year. It's prevented me from doing a few other things I've wanted to do (like this blog) but I guess you've got to take the good with the bad. I keep waiting for things to die down and then return to my boring existence but so far that hasn't happened. I've been feeling obligated to be doing something constructive at all times.

Anyway, all I really have to complain about is my health. Anyone who lives in a dorm knows that Vitamin C should quickly become your best friend if you want to survive. I'm congested and have a bit of a cold and a constant headache and I've been over-all feeling worse and worse as each day goes by. I tried taking some allergy pills but so far no luck. I'm sure my diet of incredibly horrible dining hall food hasn't helped me either.