Good way to find out if your chocolate is filled with the phony filler substitute for cocoa butter (otherwise known as soy lecithin): Hold it in your hands for around 30 seconds.

If the chocolate starts to melt and smear your hands a bit, it has at least some amount of real cocoa butter (or if you were careful you bought one completely made of cocoa and cocoa butter).

Else, you just bought a chocolate with fake soy lecithin. I wish they had never found this stupid filler. It somehow makes the sugar in the chocolate more prominent than the cocoa. And that is a sign of a bad chocolate.

That was the first expression that came to mind listening to Steve Jablonsky's soundtrack for the 3rd installation of the transformers movie.

I admit that I watch movies sometimes mainly because I like soundtracks so much. Who cares about storylines? I can't keep most of them straight anyways.

The first transformers movie was spectacular on that account. The music was simply spellbinding. I actually watched it in a record time of a week because a friend had booked tickets to Transformers 2 and shocked that I hadn't watched the first one, insisted that part 2 wouldn't make sense if I had not seen part 1. So I did. And the music hooked me in.

But it didn't matter. Transformers 2 was a colossal mess. I swear I had to resist the urge to exclaim "What just happened there?!" multiple times throughout the story. I also had issues about how the main lead got his clothes all torn and messy at the end of the crazy chases and whatnots but that actress who wore an immaculate white get-up did not have a single grease smear or dirt track ANYWHERE on that vast expanse of white even after several tumble-chase sequences down some of the grimiest and dirtiest of pyramids in Egypt. The music was still okay. Not as good as T1 but still pretty good in general.

I caught around 15 minutes of T3 flying from NYC to Buffalo. It just convinced me not to spend any more time on it. I had hopes that maybe the music would redeem T3. Was I ever more wrong.

T3 music is such a careless and horrible recycling of T1 and T2 themes, it seems like an insult to those soundtracks. I bet the crap music set the tone for the rest of the movie. I read that the sequels stop with T3. Thank goodness for little mercies.

Going back to my T1 soundtrack now.

and carrots.
and tomatoes.
and squash.
and kidney beans.

I am appointing this opera as my signature tune this weekend.



Yeah, those ruins are not the point (Why play Scarlatti/Bartoli over some monastery in ruins?! Beats me.) Someday, I want to enroll in voice training and sing this opera.

I hate it when I have just booked a ticket and find that I could have got it for $20-$50 less on a competing airline. In this case, the lesson learned is that Delta has cheaper fares coming back from NYC compared with JetBlue. I have seen this so many times. JetBlue is not exactly the cheapest as everyone believes.

I don't like flying and vastly prefer taking Amtrak. But whenever I am headed back home, anxiety trumps dislike and I usually fly. Going to the city, I always take the train.

I just hate all these price differences and deals in a way. They manipulate your thoughts so efficiently without you even realizing it.

Whiny whine.