Xmas, Day 5: 5 Naked Men!!!

Update: Gotta say I was pretty impressed with Janice's bawdy little update of the classic European Christmas carol. Taken from the 2006 holiday episode of Oxygen's The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, one of my guilty pleasures, I somehow only caught the episode this time around when my Tivo recorded it no less than five times (all on Christmass Eve I think).

Xmas, Day 3: Mikey makes the Tribune

United Airlines cancelled four of Mikey's flights over the Christmas break. All he was trying to do was get home for the holidays, to Cleveland, Ohio, to see his momma but was told that due to "scheduling problems with the crew" he wouldn't be able to make it home for two days. Luckily Mikey's mom has some connections and was able to help him find alternative flights, flights that the United ticketing people said did not exist!

Upon finally getting back to WeHo Christmas night Mikey immediately wrote a nasty letter to the airline, cc-ing a Chicago Tribune columnist, who subsequently contacted him for a follow-up story she was writing about the airlines scheduling miseries (Chicago being United's homebase). To see "Los Angeles-based architect" Mike in print click on through here.

Cloverfield 01-18-08

Northern Lights aka The Golden Compass

The world created by author Philip Pullman in His Dark Materials trilogy is, arguably, the thinking man's Narnia. An inversion of John Milton's Paradise Lost the books have come under much fire by Christian (and inparticularly Catholic) groups as being "written to promote atheism and denigrate Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism." In amongst his blatant criticism of organised religion, the zealots who run it and the lie that is the Chrisitan Heaven, Pullman's story centers on Lyra Belacqua (and later Will Parry) as they run amok cutting rifts between parallel worlds, flying with witches and befriending armoured bears, all so they can ultimately stop the flow of Dust.

The movie version of The Golden Compass, formerly known in the UK as Northern Lights (the title of the novel changed much like that of JK Rowling's first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone), debuted this past weekend to modest (if a tad disappointing) numbers. Minus the final three chapters of the novel (which having been already filmed will hopefully find light of day at the beginning of the proposed sequel), the film sadly limps to an unsatisfying conclusion. This is unfortunate since Nicole Kidman is delicious as Mrs. Coulter, Daniel Craig ever the stud as Lord Asriel, the polar bear fight is fantastic and little Dakota Blue isn't half as bad as I heard she was.

It's a great story with great effects so let's just hope there's some momentum of word of mouth (as we left the theater an inordinate number of people were of the "that didn't deserve the criticism it got" opinion), and better weather back east, that'll encourage New Line to at least give us part deux!

Now since I alread have my own daemon (my Bentley) the following was simply a fun little exercise to while away the minutes. Try it for yourself.

Giving Thanks!

Though my immigration paperwork is still pending over at good ol' Homeland Security HQ, I have no qualms about giving "thanks" over this, arguably the most American of holidays (complete with Thanksgiving and Black Friday). And though the accompanying pictures make me realise it's time for some brand spanking new bake ware, Thanksgiving 2007 was a complete success.

This year however I thought it particularly appropriate to thank those who have made this day ever so special:

To the good folks over at Spago (and I suppose Wolfgang himself) for the turkey, a perk given to all the restaurant's staff. And then to my mum (and British TV cooking goddess Delia Smith) for the whys and hows of cooking said bird (it's all about the butter and bacon).

To Brian for probably the tastiest potatoes in the world. All the way from Lititz, PA in Pennsylvania Dutch county, lifted from a recipe book compiled by the folks at his mum's school. Shredded hash brown potatoes, sour cream, cream of chicken soup and corn flakes, there's nothing better.

To Carmen, Joe's ex-sister-in-law for her candied yams. Not too sweet and nice and crunchy. Deliciousity.

And finally to Essie, for giving Joe her mom's sausage and cornbread stuffing recipe, which, although it includes celery (not a favourite of mine), also has pecans, cranberries and walnuts. Though, according to my Joe, it's the fresh herbs that really give it it's kick.

Since it now seems questionable as to whether or not tryptophan really makes one sleepy, we decided to conduct a very unscientific experiment, with Bentley as our test subject, feeding the pup his own plate of turkey and gravy.

And the result...

One zonked out puptophan...

Stuck on the 10!

Talking of Doctor Who, remember that season 3 episode Gridlock where the Doctor and Martha find them selves stuck with the cat people in a decades long traffic jam on "The Motorway" in New New York. That's how I felt earlier today when I very sillily decided to take the 10 back from Santa Monica.

Less than an hour earlier I'd taken the 10 west to pick up a couple of things at West Elm, and the traffic going back east seemed pretty light. As soon as I drove off the ramp however I knew I'd made a major mistake, immediately hitting five packed lanes of slow-moving traffic, at only 20 to 4 in the afternoon. It took almost an hour to drive the less than 8 miles of freeway to the La Cienega exit (where the on and off ramps collide - great road planning people).

And people do this everyday!

Are they crazy?

Back with Who: Time Crash!

Presented by BBC TV presenter Terry Wogan (the man who made US 80's super-soap Dallas a huge hit in the UK) and bi-sexual hottie Captain Jack, was the following exclusive filmed for the Beeb's annual Children In Need charity appeal:


"You know what Doctor, you were my Doctor!"

Yes, that's the 5th Doctor played by Peter Davison, fresh from All Creatures Great and Small, complete with celery, cricket whites and trainers. And yes, he was my Doctor too! The one I too grew up with!