February 2007 Archives

While munching on my Raisin Brain this morning I almost snarfed some milk while watching this video on Vh1.

My first thought was that Robin Thicke wanted to be a little Jack Johnson-esque with the quiet guitar. When we got a clear shot of his face, I thougt to myself, "he looks kind of British or Austrailian, maybe he has an accent." (Yummy). But then he started singing --- which is when the milk-cident nearly occured --- and I thought, "Wow, Justin Timberlake has a wrinkled clone with bad taste in clothing and jewelry."

Isn't one falsettoed man-chantress enough?

I saw Regina Spektor a few weeks ago at Messiah College. For most of the show the only part of the singer/pianist I could see was her arm. Still, the show was awesome in part because of her charm and goofiness. Here's a video for her song "Us" is from the album "Soviet Kitsch" (2004). The design is awesome (well, at least I think so) and interesting to look at, but I have to think it's reflective her personality as well.

In case you can't wait until Thursday for some "Office" awesomeness. Here's a clip from Rainn Wilson's visit to "Saturday Night Live" this past Saturday.

Yesterday I went to see Northeastern's performance of "Grease."

I am a huge supporter of community and amateur theater. You don't have to give me a roof-raising performance for me to appreciate a performance, but you have to give it your best effort.

Without naming names, I really felt there were a handful of main cast members who seemed very apathetic about their roles. It was really disheartening. To play any of these characters has to be a ton of fun. They are high school students at their prime.

There were, however, students who really loved what they were doing and it showed. Jillian Ambrose (Jan), Phillip Freedman (Danny), Ben Heiland (Roger) and Lindsay Deacon (Rizzo) were four standouts who saved the show. They had the energy, charisma and comedy that it takes to pull off "Grease."

Kudos to those four students! They owned the stage. Jillian and Ben's performance of "Mooning" made me want to get out of my seat and shout. Jillian made me laugh out loud numerous times with her stage command. Phillip had me believe that he was the leader of the pack with awesome vocals, and Ben's hilarity was contagious. Lindsay gave the attitude it takes for raunchy Rizzo.

Nearly four hours ago I sat down to watch the Academy Awards.

Four hours. And there is still no best picture award in sight. We've watched Ellen DeGeneres vacuum. We've seen so many montages that I'm fairly certain Hollywood has exhausted its supply of film clips from the last 79 years. We've heard the orchestra drown out the speeches of giddy winners, and hoped that they would just cancel out the "thank you God" moments all together.

I wonder how the celebrities are staying awake through this snooze-fest.
I'm guessing the person sitting behind this woman (Patricia Field) and her glowing hair.

Faye Dunaway really isn't an actress of my generation, so honestly I don't know much about her. Which is why it kind of pains me to point out that she looks rather like she's auditioning for the role of the feather duster on "Beauty and the Beast."

So if you visit www.oscar.com/games/ you can find your perfect Oscar date.

As research for the Daily Record's Oscar coverage, I figured I should find out my perfect date. After answering questions about height, eye color and personality preferences, it turns out my perfect date is Leonardo DiCaprio.

I was less than thrilled. Who wants the cheesy boyish charms of Leonardo (even the name is chedder overload)?

So I'm going to keep taking the quiz until a certain Calvin Klein underwear-model formely known as Marky Mark comes up. He obviously didn't take me ... because here he is pictured at the Oscars. But next year I'm sure I'll be his first choice -- after all, the quiz did (or will eventually say) we were meant to be.

Here's is my Popeye pop culture column from this week's FlipSide.

There's an evil presence lurking in my apartment as we speak, waiting for me to get home this evening. It's a big, black ominous thing that has teased and tortured me, keeping me awake for hours at night when I should've been sleeping. And the worst part? I'm the one who brought it in and gave it a home more than a month ago.

It all began around Christmas when I was fed up with not having an HDTV. I'm a bit of a technophile, and it pained me that while I had a PlayStation 2, Macbook with DVI (high-def capable) output and the finances for digital cable, I still had a junky old standard definition TV.

It was time for an upgrade, so I did some Internet-hunting and found a great deal on a 37-inch Westinghouse. I pulled out the credit card and voilà! A few days later, the delivery man was knocking at my door, dragging a box big enough to sleep in. After single-handedly pulling the behemoth box up a flight of stairs, I unwrapped the monolith of technology and plugged it in. My life hasn't been the same since.

So I got the DVD of "Little Miss Sunshine" last week.

I typically don't buy movies. Not because I don't like movies, but because I can't remember what the names are of the ones I like or whether I've already seen them or not. (I don't seem to have this problem with books, so I don't know what my issue is. For now, we'll just call it cinemamnesia and move along with the story.)

So, after watching Sunshine twice in theaters and once at a friend's house, I decided it was worthy of sitting on a small shelf next to my TV along with a few other select movies I've bought over the years ("Life is Beautiful" "Dead Man Walking" "My Cousin Vinny" "Tortilla Soup," etc.)

This weekend I had a lot of fun memorizing the names of the scenes and flipping back and forth watching the movie out of order.

I think Abigail Breslin should get the Oscar for best supporting actress. To be 12 years old and steal the show the way she did... well, I think she deserves it more than any of the other big-name Hollywood beauties who are running alongside her (whoever they are).

Plus, it's about time Olive won something....

I'm trying to be a supportive girlfriend.

So for the second year I'm getting roaped into NASCAR.

Today starts the season with the Daytona 500, which apparantly is a big deal, because the TV announcers keep saying so.

My boyfriend isn't a fan of trying new foods. I had to practically force him to try Chinese when we started dating. He swore he didn't like it. Now he orders General Tso's on a regular basis.

It was the same story when I tried making sushi at home. After sitting in on a sushi-making class, I decided to give it a whirl. I picked up the ingredients at Wegmans on a recent trip through Maryland. I made the rice in my new rice cooker that I thought about returning.

I crafted the California rolls with sliced cucumbers, slivers of avocado and shredded imitation crab meat. I whipped up a quick batch of wasabi and pulled slivers of pickled ginger out of a jar. I had all I needed, except for the chop sticks. It was easier than I thought.

He closed his eyes, and popped a miniscule slice of the roll into his mouth.

"Not bad," he said.

Not only did he enjoy the cucumber roll, he made suggestions for crafting his own concoction. Miller's Hot & Sweet Mustard, my dad's homemade hot peppers and finely diced cucumbers.

Sorry babe, I'll make it, but I don't think you'll make millions off the recipe.

You walk in the door, and you're greeted by a woman dressed as a wench. The walls boast a stuffed hog and old-world candles for light on all-stone walls. It's a throwback to the days before the prohibition when the booze flowed freely.

Have I piqued your interest? The Catacombs, owned by Bube's Brewery, is a romantic hideaway for you and your honey. You embark on a tour of the rickety, dark brewery and travel 35 feet down into the tunnel where alcohol was smuggled during the prohibition.

I read a lot of books written by food reviewers who spend $400 a person on a 27-course meal. I can only fantasize about dining in France and being pampered by a popular chef with cheese courses, desserts and wines

Here at the York Daily Record I am the food writer, but in a different sense. I write about cheap foods in a column called Cheap Eats. Every now and again I crave something beyond a $10 meal.

That's when I turn to the School of Culinary Arts at the Yorktowne Business Institute in North York. For $24, I get a three-course meal. I've tried grouper, duck, rockfish and a wide array of vegetables and side dishes that you can't find at the local grocer.

On a recent visit I dined with three co-workers. My first course was a salmon appetizer. My second course was a winter orchard salad with poached pears, toasted walnuts and blue cheese. My main course was char-grilled filet of Chesapeake rockfish with sweet potato pearls, white potato hay, and wilted baby spinach. Most of the restaurants I eat at have nothing close to these delectable dishes.

A cup of coffee, a chocolate bombe and a generous tip brought my bill close to $40 and I didn't even flinch. For more than four times the price of my average dining out experience, I was sent to another world. I ate slow and savored each fresh bite. It's a different way to eat and I don't mind dropping a few hours of pay on one dinner. It's worth it.

To learn more about the student-run restaurant, visit www.yorkchef.com or call 846-5000.

Is it just me or does Lisa Nowak bear an uncanny resemblance to a certain Emperor of the Republic?

Lisa Nowak

Emperor Palpatine

We all know about surviving the work week. Going in on Monday morning and crossing our fingers that we can make it to Friday unscathed with enough energy to enjoy the weekend.

Careerbuilder.com took this concept to the next level with its Super Bowl ads, putting crazed office workers on a deserted island and watching them fight to survive.

The first commercial of the night that had a pack of the angry employed running over a cliff like lemmings was pretty funny, but the office death match was even more hilarious. And sadly --- and maybe disturbingly --- we related to it a little bit more.

We loved the guy wearing a binder as a hat. We loved the janitor with the flaming mop, and the Chinese takeout guy flinging bags of food. It might just take our prize for best ad of Super Bowl XLI. We'll just have to wait and see.

Robot Loneliness

Add to My Profile | More Videos

I'm darkly humorous kinda guy and somehow often find humor in depressing things and sadness in humorous things. The perfect embodiment of this so far tonight would be GM's suicidal machine commercial.

For those who missed it, an assembly line robot that helps piece together GM cars is laid off and goes on through a depressing run of low-level work before finding himself on the edge of a bridge, debating whether or not to "jump." I didn't actually think GM would go there, but they actually had the machine commit robotic suicide. True, it turned out to be a dream, but still. Do robots dream of electric sheep? No apparently, they dream of killing themselves.

Snickers Kiss

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Normally, humor dealing with guys' homophobia feels a bit too 1994 for me, but the Snicker's mechanic guys gave me a little man crush on the candy company. The Lady and the Tramp-ish moment as one dude fails to resist the urge of of the gooey nougat of Snickers in another man's mouth made ME snicker pretty hard, even if it was a little low-brow.

We're actually OK with the fact that nobody has tried the beard comb over in real life. But we're glad the Sierra Mist people had the guts to send it out on a test run.

We're also relieved they had the sensibility to admit that a portly, middle-aged man should not be wearing daisy dukes and roller skates in an office setting. Or out of the office for that matter. Its just not attractive.

We have to admit, the sight of the computerized Blockbuster bunny and hamster made us groan a little. There's only so much you can do with cute fuzzy animals.

But we did get a laugh at the bunny using a real mouse as a computer mouse. Especially when the panicked mouse started squeeking.

Not that we condone abuse of mice or anything.

I've been staring at the blinking cursor for a couple minutes now because I don't even know where to begin this post. By now, you've probably heard about the guerilla marketing campaign gone wrong in which a couple of guys who planted some Lite Brite-type devices depicting characters from the Adult Swim show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" around Boston were arrested for "placing a hoax device in a way that results in panic," according to this CNN article.