About two weeks ago, I implored people to submit their favorite musical covers from YouTube in order to win Glee Season 2: Volume 1 on DVD. There have been some great responses, and after weeding through the videos (with an assist from my friend Meeshie), we finally have a winner.
Results after the jump…
Anyone who’s been to Portland knows it’s a city with just a few ridiculous, hippie tendencies. Well, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein have paired up to lampoon the city in their new IFC show, Portlandia. The series premiered a few weeks ago, but I only just got around to checking out some of the skits (at my friend Meeshie’s urging). Some are funnier than others, and when they’re funny, they tend to be really funny… and sadly not very far from the truth. Above, a skit called “Is It Local?” and after the jump, another bit called “Feminist Bookstore,” featuring some very amusing physical comedy by Armisen.
Definitely worth checking out.
I spent this past weekend in NYC for a wedding, and among the exciting and fascinating things that happened was a chance encounter with Mahsa Saeidi-Azcuy, the reigning pit bull of this season’s Apprentice. Apparently no one is watching the show (thanks NBC for the lack of promotion), but those of you who are taking in its glory know that Mahsa is something of a crazy person in the board room. Get on her bad side, and she’ll railroad you right off the show. She’s kind of scary.
Well, I’m happy to report that in real life Mahsa is actually a total sweetheart. In fact, she bought coffee (and marshmallows — don’t ask) for me and my friend Meeshie. There’s not much that Mahsa could say about the production, but the good news is that she’s not crazy and seems to have a really good sense of humor about her intensity. Oh, and she’s very cute in real life.
That’s really it.
After the jump, some random pics from my cell phone from the weekend. Why? Because I’m bored and I want you all to click through and increase my page views.
I think it’s safe to say that I am not a particularly strong or flexible person, which is why yoga may not be a perfect fit for me (check out my first time here). Nevertheless, that didn’t stop my friend Meeshie from trying to teach me a move called “Crow.” She videotaped my pitiful attempt, which had me hoisting my derriere into the air repeatedly to no good effect. Not a stellar moment for me, but perhaps entertaining for you.
This may be a shock to some people: Los Angeles not only has an art scene, but every once in a blue moon, I actually cross paths with it. Back in May, my friend Meeshie and I attended an exhibit in West Hollywood’s Pacific Design Center where we encountered — among other things — a foreboding maze, a startling werewolf, and a news crew from World of Wonder. Seems about right.
Anyway, WoW just released the above video about that night, and it features none other than yours truly (sorry, no Meeshie) in a brief cameo towards the end. Major thanks to reporter Damiana Garcia for graciously referring to me as a “hunky blogger” in the accompanying write-up.
After the jump, a random picture of Meeshie with the werewolf. Continue reading
Last month, my friend Meeshie visited me here in Los Angeles, and among the many festive activities we took part in was a little adventure on Chatroulette. Meeshie had never been on the site and was most curious to see what all the fuss was about. I warned her that it pretty much involved looking at creepy people and/or penises, but that didn’t sway Meeshie; so we hopped online and started up the service. Sure enough, we saw plenty of people and of course plenty of peen.
Pictures from our adventure after the jump.
The photos are blurred, but this is nonetheless very NSFW… Continue reading
I love to try new and unique restaurants and foods in Los Angeles, but rarely am I the only to discover them. Usually, I defer to the gaggle of food bloggers out here or the Los Angeles Times’ great column, “The Find.” It’s with a heavy heart that I must admit I just am simply not a trailblazer when it comes to these things. I’m merely a follower.
However, I do feel like I have a discovery to share with the world at large. It’s not some secret, off-the-beaten-path eatery offering a dazzling ten course meal for $15. Instead it’s a humble donut shop, located right smack dab on a busy stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard. I talk of Tasty Donuts, and I think it may serve the best donut in L.A.
Now a few caveats. I said “donut,” singular. Tasty Donuts doesn’t have the best donuts, per se, but they do have the best singular offering of one. Also, second caveat: I haven’t sampled all the donut shops around town, but this is a blog, not a scientific survey; so I am going to allow myself some leeway on the bombastic claims. The point is that people in search of an amazing donut experience should flock to this place for one thing and one thing only: their glazed buttermilk donut.
My friend Meeshie has been in town, and when my iTunes randomly played Guster’s Christmas tune, “Carol of the Meows,” we suddenly felt compelled to sing along. One thing led to another, and now we have this video. There’s a great chance it could come back to haunt our careers years in the future, but for now, we don’t mind.
Greetings, my friends. I’m a touch behind on the blogging because my dearest friend Meeshie is in town, and we have been using my valuable blogging time for other productive activities such as drinking and meeting reality stars (perhaps a photo or two about that in the future). Nevertheless, I have squeezed in some spare time to write about The Real Housewives of New Jersey, which struck some alarming notes this week. This episode, after all, was the big “modeling” bonanza where future catwalk star Christine and current catwalk pity case Gia took to the runways of Fashion Week and strutted their stuff. It wasn’t an easy journey for either of them though. Christine, when she wasn’t snapping at her handlers, was feeling woozy and on the verge of barfing, thus providing the most exciting model medical emergency since a male waif similarly went down in flames on Kell on Earth. Luckily, Christine seemed fine, and with any luck, her modeling career won’t be too derailed by the accident. Besides, she has bigger fish to fry: particularly her mother, who continues to heap scary, vicarious ambitions on her ingenue of a daughter.
Bravo didn’t post any screen shots of last night’s Top Chef: Masters (an episode that featured a bride who looked like Carrie Underwood with giant boobs — or as I like to call her, Carrie Boobserwood), and so I figured I’d helm my own culinary minded post with yet another installment of Adventures in Domesticity. This time around I opted to veer from my typical Asian predilections and go more European. After all, I’d been craving chicken lately (odd, I know), and what better way to celebrate the bird than by attempting coq au vin for the very first time. It also helped that at least two of my friends (Meeshie and jash) had both recently and independently whipped up a batch of the dish, thus stoking my craving for it. For such a classically French dish, I would normally defer to a Julia Child recipe, but alas, my editions of Julia Child & Company and Julia Child & MORE Company (caps are mine, not hers) did not seem to have any coq au vin instructions (or at least I didn’t see them), and so I then headed straight for the Hamptons — metaphorically — and saw what Ina Garten had to say on the subject. Sure enough, she had a recipe on the Food Network website (as did Alton Brown and Tyler Florence, but I wasn’t about to trust them over Ina). A quick stop at Fresh & Easy later (and regrettably Ralph’s too), I was ready to go!
The only question was whether or not this version could live up to great one my mom used to make when I was a kid (um, I guess I could have asked her for her recipe, but sometimes logic escapes me).
