So I Had This Great Idea

I sat down with the intention of writing a post about my happiness at getting a healthy dose of Eric Ripert on tonight's episode of Top Chef. But then I checked my unread entries in my Google reader and saw that Tam beat me to it! I'm chalking this up as another instance of great minds thinking alike. :-)

America's Best Dance Crews

(Note: My apologies for the lack of personal pictures. I was the stupid law abiding attendee who actually heeded the "no cameras" sign. I won't be making that mistake again.)

Thursday night Eddie & I headed out to Nokia Theater to watch America's Best Dance Crew Live Tour. We've been hooked on the show since Season 1. We were pleasantly suprised to find out that we were not the oldest people in attendance. The crowd was in fact quite diverse, spanning many generations and ethnicities.

The tour featured the winning crew from Season 1, the Jabbawockeez.

The rest of the line-up included Season 2's winners, Super Cr3w, Fanny Pak, BrkSk8 and ASIID. After a brief appearance by Randy Jackson, the show kicked off with each crew doing a short piece of original choreography, followed by each crew introducing themselves as well as each member. Jabbawockeez definitely received the most applause during the intros, but the individual dancer who received the most applause was Joey from ASIID. He has a very substantial fan base; he could probably go solo if he wanted to. In fact, after seeing him live, I think he is the strongest dancer on his crew. After all of the introductions were made, each crew then performed a compilation piece of all their most memorable moments and performances from the show. Even though we had seen all of these numbers before, it was still fun to see them again live. While it was no surprise that Jabbawockeez and Fanny Pak received very loud applause, I was suprised to hear all the tween girls shrieking for the boys of BrkSk8. Personally, my tween self would have been shrieking for Rynan of the Jabbawockeez. Don't judge.

The host then announced a special guest performance. Eddie and I hoped that it would be Kaba Modern. OC isn't too far off after all! Alas, it was Fysh n' Chicks instead. While they have improved since their days on the show, they were still a bit blah in comparison to the other crews. Except Taeko:

She's awesome. I have always thought that she needs to swim away from the other fish and join Kaba Modern instead. After getting our hopes up (and then dashed) the first time, you would think that Eddie and I wouldn't dare do the same again when the host said that another special guest was getting ready to take the stage. You thought wrong! We were out of our seats before the announcement was complete. Kaba Modern turned out to be the second special performer!
Next there was an extended old school inspired group number involving all of the crews. I enjoyed this number a lot since it took me back to my high school days. One of the most memorable parts of this number was when the boys of Fanny Pak, along with Joey from ASIID, let their bodies go with the flow to Madonna's classic "Vogue". After taking it back to the old school, the Jabbawockeez took the stage for a futuristic themed number. It was wonderful to see them dance for minutes instead of seconds. They are truly a great group of performers and I love how effortlessly they can infuse humor into their routines.

Post intermission Big Boy from Power 106 came out to introduce yet another special performance. Unfortunately it was not an encore from Kaba Modern. Instead, this dude came out on the stage with a microphone.
He lip synched badly to two songs. Very badly. Like so bad that when he actually sang a phrase or a line for real it was jolting. In fact, he didn't even bother lip synching along to all of the words of the first song he performed. He just strutted between stage left and stage right for most of it. Eddie and I just looked at each other and shrugged and eye rolled. The teen girls seemed to adore him however.

The second half of the show was comprised of each crew doing their favorite performance from the televised show. I'm sure you are all capable of using Google and You Tube, so I'm just going to list them:

1. Fanny Pak -- "When I Grow Up"
2. BrkSk8 -- "Closer"
3. ASIID -- "Dangerous"
4. Super Cr3w -- "Ninjas"
5. Jabbawockeez -- "Red Pill"

The final group performance was a tribute piece to the Jacksons -- Michael and Janet. This was followed by a faux battle between the crews. Despite the fact that it was obviously choreographed, it was nice to see all the crews having a good time with each other. The crowd certainly had a good time watching them.

Paraphrasing Kathy Griffin

Charter Communications can SUCK IT!

Since November '07:

• 1 change of channel lineup without notification which included moving Bravo to a higher tier.
• 2 malfunctioning DVRs.
• 8 hours of vacation time burned waiting for a service technician.
• 10 days without service due to waiting for a Saturday apppointment slot, in the interest of not wasting anymore vacation time.
• 9 hours wasted on a Saturday for a service technician who never showed up.
• 2 hours wasted on a Sunday morning waiting for the guy who should have showed up the day before.
• 1 hour spent on the phone disputing a bill that charged me for the 10 days we didn't have service.

And then tonight:

• 3rd DVR breaks down or there is a wiring issue.
• Talk to three service reps over the course of two hours.
• All service reps insist the earliest time a technician can come out on a weekend is 9 days from today.
• All service reps refuse to offer any type of credit despite all our ongoing difficulties.
• We find out our downstairs neighbor is also having the same viewing issues. We are the only ones in the building experiencing problems.
• Downstairs neighbor has a service technician coming out on Sunday, 3 days from now.
• Call Charter back, advise them of what's going on and ask if that technician can be sent up one flight of stairs while he's here Sunday.
• Not only do they refuse, but service rep dude actually yells at me, gives me attitude and tries to talk over me as I point out how ridiculous their business practices are. I demand a supervisor.
• The supervisor clearly does not care.

We are now customers of DirectTV.

But they can't come out until sometime during the week or next weekend either. F it; can't win anywhere.

Perhaps it's all a sign from above that we watch too much tv.

Eat, Drink and Be Sherry!

Last week an invitation from LA Magazine came across my inbox for a foodie event at The Grove. The event promised free food tastings from Grover restaurants, sherry tastings and a cooking showdown between Top Chef contestants Chris "CJ" Jacobson and Antonia Lafoso. Of course I had to pass the invite on to some of my favorite foodies and we made plans to meet. Eddie came with me as well, since he is a fan of both Top Chef and food.

On our way to the event Eddie and I encountered a random protest against the $700 billion bailout package. Most protestors carried signs, as one would expect, but this guy put a little more effort into making a visual impact for passing motorists.

Shortly after the event started I spied CJ and Antonia just a few feet away from our table. CJ is pretty hard to miss; he is a damn tall man. They were kind enough to let me and Weezermonkey take pictures with them.

We started off with two items from The Whisper Lounge. Up first, Braised Short Rib Sliders with black pepper-blue chees aioli, arugula & pickled red onions. These were a little heavy on the aioli and had clearly been prepared hours earlier. They are probably tasty when hot.

The restaurant's next offering was Braised Short Rib Tostadas with avocado crema and spicy heirloom tomato salsa. I think this item was the hands-down favorite item at our table. It's too bad we only got three wee tostadas on one plate to share, whereas we each received our own plate for the other tastings. It didn't help matters that this plate was served by the mean waiter. He was probably hoarding the good stuff for himself.

Next we had Butternut Squash Ravioli tossed with sun dried tomatoes in a light parmesan cheese sauce & topped with crumbled amaretti cookies. This was a nice, yummy dish and perfect for a fall evening. My photos of this item sucked, so check out Weezermonkey's. Maggiano's was nice enough to have prepared enough for the crowd to have second servings. Insomniac was also nice enough to save a portion for Trisha who was running late.
The Farm prepared Black & White Salmon over ginger sticky rice with wasabi, orange-hoisin and miso honey mustard sauces. The salmon looked interesting, but seemed a bit overcooked. The rice had too much going on with all the sauces.

Finally we had Olive Oil Poached Alaskan Halibut with tomato sunchoke puree with a thyme and lemon jus courtesy of Morels. It was accompanied by a Wild and Morel Mushroom Duxelle with heirloom tomatoes and micro greens served on a freshly toasted crostini. The halibut was just "meh", but I like the sunchoke puree. The mushroom duxelle was great. When a waiter offered seconds, I took a plate just to have another crostini.

At last the cheftestant showdown began. The showdown combined elements of a Top Chef quickfire challenge (a time limit) and of the show Iron Chef (a secret ingredient -- sherry -- had to be used). Antonia planned to incorporate watermelon into her finished dish, which caused all of us to reminisce about the disaster that was Sam Talbot's watermelon gnocchi in season two.
CJ used some luscious looking pieces of foie gras in his creation.
The judges came up with the weakest decision ever: It was a tie! And the prize? A giant wooden spoon!
Overall, it was a fun evening -- especially the company. "Eat, Drink & Be Sherry!" was actually a pre-event for LA Magazine's annual food event. Eddie and I attended last year's food event and had a fabulous time. We sampled a lot of food from notable LA restaurants, watched several celebrity chef demos and enjoyed tastings of La Crema wines. It's an event worth checking out (although I do have to note that ticket prices went up $20 this year). I was actually a little bummed that we'll be out of town this year and will have to miss it.

Caution: 90210 Spoilers Ahead

You've been forewarned.







I'm leaving lots of spoiler space.







There's even a photo taking up even more space to make sure you can stay unspoiled if you haven't watched this week's episode yet.

"I KNEW IT!" is what I shouted, much to Eddie's amusement, when Brenda revealed who the father of Kelly's baby is. It had to be Dylan. No one else would have made any sense based on the characters' personalities and the clues we were given in previous episodes. Last week it was mentioned that Kelly had a history with her baby daddy dating back to high school days. The only major character that Kelly seriously dated during the high school years was Dylan. There was some speculation it could have been Steve's child, but I always thought those folks were stretching. Deeply.

I never fully believed it was Brandon's baby either. First of all, Kelly and Brandon didn't hook up until college. But beyond that, Brandon Walsh aka "Mr. Always-Do-The-Right-Thing" would not be an absentee father. Also, Ma and Pa Walsh would not be absentee grandparents. It would be a complete character assassination to think that any of those three characters would be totally absent from a loved one's life. Dylan, however, makes sense. While the original 90210 left off with him and Kelly together, they have always had a tumultuous relationship. Dylan has also been prone to disappearing when he felt it suited him. I know the current show was trying to build up suspense leading to the big reveal, but the only way they could have shocked me was to have anyone other than Dylan be the father.

If you remember my earlier post about 90210, I had said I probably wouldn't be watching the 2nd edition. Well, I have been watching but I haven't been enjoying it. I simply don't care about any of the new characters except for Erin Silver. And I only care about her since she is a member of one of the original families. The past three weeks I've been DVR'ing the episodes and fast forwarding to the scenes involving Brenda and/or Kelly. But once their roles end, I'm out.

I Feel Validated

It's no secret that Eddie and I are total tv-holics. Sometimes I wonder if we watch too much of it and should be spending time together doing other, more productive things. But then I came across this article on MSN.com regarding the secrets of happy couples. I instantly related to one of the couples that was interviewed. We won't be cutting our cable anytime soon. ;-)

3. Share a guilty pleasure.
Eavesdrop on a conversation between Bob and Angie concerning their favorite shared pastime. "We are so disgusting. This is so pathetic. It's like a sickness." "But it makes us happy!" "It's so stupid it makes us laugh." "We're yelling at people. High-fiving each other." "Look, we get a kick out of it because it's so ridiculous. It's our guilty pleasure."

Forgive them if they seem somewhat shy, but they're merely ashamed to admit that the daily ritual that brings such joy to their 12-year marriage is none other than reality TV.

That's right. They lived and died with Survivor. They've adopted Big Brother. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? They do. "Honestly, I think we just need to be dumb for a while," says Bob, 37, a shoe designer for Reebok in Boston. "We're both very into our careers. And when you're at work, with any job there's going to be a certain amount of professional stress. You like to come home sometimes and, for that lousy hour or whatever, kick back and relax." Or as Angie, 36, a marketing executive, says, "Life is serious enough, isn't it? Sometimes you need to do something stupid. And if you can't be stupid with your husband, who can you be stupid with?"

Seriously?

This dude is allegedly 30 years old. WTH? I thought he was like 17! I think that in this slumping real estate market he might want to bottle & sell the secret of his youthful appearance as a secondary source of income.

Law & Disorder: The 90210 Edition

I was a huge fan of Beverly Hills 90210 when it first began airing. The characters were sophomores in high school, as was I at the time. As the years passed by many of my young adult milestones such as getting a driver's license, taking the SAT, going to prom and graduation were played out in a glamorous and idealized fashion on my tv screen, oftentimes just days or weeks before they happened in real life.

Recently, I've become addicted to the show's reruns on the SoapNet cable channel. My fascination started up again while the network was reairing the college years. Watching those episodes brought back so many memories ......... of my closet!

Floral print dresses and skirts? check
Baggy jeans worn w/ a bodysuit? check
Plaid shirts? check
Clunky mary jane shoes? check
Faux Doc Martens? check
Black velvet chokers? check
Dark brown lipstick (btw MAC ruled this dept.)? check

I swear there was one episode I recently watched where Kelly Taylor was wearing the exact same skirt I once had. I couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing. :-/

I continued to watch the show faithfully until the post-college years. As ridiculous as the storylines were before college graduation, the show started its freefall into cancellation territory when Noah Hunter, boatman revealed to be billionaire, became a regular character. That was roughly at the same time that Kelly Taylor suffered from amnesia as the result of a drive-by shooting, David Silver became a musician, Donna Martin got a job in fashion design within the blink of an eye, Steve Sanders started a newspaper and Brandon Walsh became even more self-righteous than previously thought possible. See? Way too over the top. I know that Valerie Malone is missing from that recital of characters, but she was merely just carrying on in her skanky scandulous ways. Nothing new to report there.

A few weeks ago, the reruns moved into Season 8, the first post-college season. Like the first time around I began to lose interest. But as I was scrolling through upcoming episode descriptions on the DVR, something caught my eye. There is an episode titled "Law and Disorder"!




The primary storyline in this episode is Valerie's accusation of date rape against Noah. The DA refused to file criminal charges, so Valerie has brought a civil suit against Noah. wtf? it has been merely a week since the incident. A WEEK! there is no way in hell ANY trial starts up that quickly after an incident. and certainly not a civil trial. legal ridiculousness. The episode opens up with her testifying about being "roofed". what ever happened to roofies? you just don't hear about them the way you used to in the 90s. is ghb the date rape drug of choice these days? As she testifies, the rest of the gang roll their eyes in skepticism. As the trial progresses, defense counsel asks all sorts of objectionable questions concerning Valerie's past. Of course, her attorney never objects. Not that it really would have made a difference as the judge is totally weak and lets both lawyers get away with tons of inappropriate courtroom behavior. more legal ridiculousness. if i can't get away with that shit then neither should the actors playing lawyers. Defense counsel also calls Brandon, Kelly, Steve and Valerie's boyfriend David to the stand as character witnesses for Noah. having her boyfriend subpoenaed was fucked up yet brilliant at the same time. All of their glowing testimony is overshadowed by some damning words from Noah's own brother. The testimony from Noah's brother establishes that Noah was last seen heading to the Peach Pit After Dark's backroom with a drunken Valerie after Noah had served and handled her glass of wine.

Meanwhile, the secondary storyline revolves around SweetVirginDonna's transformation into DruggieDonna. Within a week of hurting her back in a car accident, Donna has blown through an entire bottle of Vicodin and is strung out in a major way. She tries to bum more drugs from Noah's brother. When he says "no", she attempts to get a refill at the pharmacy. The pharmacist actually does his job and won't give her a refill, stating that a new prescription would be needed. She pleads with him to no avail. It's all very Neely-esque from Valley of the Dolls. On a mission for pills, DruggieDonna heads to the clinic where her dad, Dr. Martin, works. She almost gets caught breaking into the medicine cabinet, but instead manages to charm her dad into prescribing a few additional pills. She quickly downs 4 pills at one time as opposed to the 4 pills per day as she had been instructed. Obviously she runs out of pills again, can't function while at her job and ends up stealing her co-worker's designs, submitting them as her own original fashions. BadDruggieDonna!

There is a third storyline involving David, the band he was playing keyboards for, a smarmy record producer and David's promotion from keyboardist to frontman. I had to fast forward through these scenes. They made my ears hurt.

Back at the courthouse, the jury has deliberated and is ready to announce its verdict. the jury is dressed WAY too nice. i have never seen a male juror in my county wear a collared shirt, tie and blazer. ever. is this how jurors roll in la county? we're happy if they are just wearing something clean without cuss words. The jury finds in favor of Valerie! Following her victory she utters the memorable line, "One minute I'm a slut, the next I'm Joan of Arc."

While everyone else is at the courthouse, DruggieDonna heads to Noah's boat and franctically searches through his brother's belongings for painkillers. She finds the painkillers. And then she finds a package of roofies! Josh walks in, followed shortly by Noah and the truth comes out: Josh had planted the drugs in Valerie's drink intending to date rape her, but Noah intervened instead when she began to feel poorly and ended up reaping the "benefits".

The episode wraps up with Noah heading over to the Walsh home to tell Valerie and the rest of the gang what really happened. It appears that no one really cares based on the lack of reaction. Noah then heads over to Donna's place. When there is no answer at her door he looks in through the window and sees her lying motionless on the floor with an empty bottle of pills and a glass of wine on the counter. Vicodin and alcohol is no joke.

So that's the 90210 version of Law & Disorder. I deleted the episode as soon as I finished watching. Season 8 really is as bad as I recalled it to be and this episode, despite the awesome title, did not persuade me otherwise. And it's only downhill from here to the end. I think I'll just wait until they get back to seasons 1 through 7. I don't think I'll be watching the show's reincarnation this fall either. Some things are just best left in their original form.

Why 'Gossip Girl' Rocks

What other show could use the same, simple line in two episodes aired consecutively and have its use be even more awesome the second time around? The line: "I'm Chuck Bass." I can't wait until season two.