I’m messing with the style of my site…sorry for the boring-ness right now. Give it time. It will be totally sweet. I’m going to go with a variation on danish designer Joen Asmussen’s theme Fauna.
Stylin’
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Monthly Archives: March 2006
Love Monkey
A few years ago, my dad was working for a company in New York called Palm Pictures. Palm was started by Island Records founder (and recent Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame Inductee) Chris Blackwell, a music maven with a sense for a lot of incredible music. (Need examples? The Cranberries, Melissa Etheridge, Bob Marley, and a little band called U2).
When he was there, I learned a lot about the music business, something that has always interested me. I really wanted to be an A&R (Artist and Repertoire) Rep…the guy who goes out and finds and signs new talent. I feel like I’ve always been an early adopter of new music and I think that if I were in the business, I’d be really good at figuring out who might make it and who might break. I just never really wanted to live in New York.
Lately, we’ve been watching CBS’s great new show, How I Met Your Mother (long live NPH!), and during those shows (since it is the only one I watch on CBS), I was exposed to a long line of advertisements for a new show starring Tom Cavanaugh (formerly Ed) about…you guessed it…an A&R rep. The show is called Love Monkey. The first 10 times I saw the advertisements, I wasn’t sure about the show. It had an interesting cast of characters, but I wasn’t sure that I could fit another show into my schedule.
Now, I have before extolled the virtues of DVR. This is why I love it. I went ahead and recorded the show and figured I would watch it if I had some time (a rarity, I know, but it was worth a shot). Well, since Alli has been doing a lot of drill team stuff lately, I had some time on my hands in the evening. I have now watched all 3 of the episodes that have been shown so far and I’m totally hooked. In fact, you’ll now see it under the “Watching” category on the right.
I never really watched Ed, but I always liked Tom Cavanaugh when he guest-starred on Scrubs as JD’s screw-up brother. He is great as the main character (also named Tom) in Love Monkey. He’s supported by Jason Priestley (aka Brandon Walsh, 90210 alum), who is married to Tom’s sister. Also starring is Larenz Tate, who was terrific in this year’s Best Picture, Crash. Playing Tom’s GBF (Girl Best Friend) is Judy Greer, the girl who is always in those kooky supporting roles like J-Lo’s assistant Penny in The Wedding Planner, Orlando Bloom’s sister in Elizabethtown, and Jennifer Garner’s high school nemesis in 13 Going On 30. She’s pretty funny. There are more characters, but I suggest you watch the show to get to know them.
Oh yeah…and the music is awesome.
UPDATE (before I can even get the post up)
Well…it’s too bad, since the show has already been CANCELLED. What the heck? Why is it that the shows that I like always get cancelled for more reality crap? Inside Schwartz is another perfect example of a good show with a good cast that got crapped on.
Now I’m mad. Stupid television networks and their “ratings”. I guess 3 shows is enough time to get a strong following (note sarcasm here). I guess my whole “you should watch this show” came a little too late.
personalDNA
One of the sessions that I went to at FlashForward in Seattle was a somewhat dry talk on usability and the responsibility of designers…blah blah blah.
I did take from it one interesting link to a Personality Test site that this guy created, called personal DNA. I just took the test and it was really interesting.
I was an “animated creator”. Reading through the results, it was one of the most accurate representations of my personality I’ve seen. Read my Personal DNA Report here.
Highlights:
Your imagination, confidence, willingness to explore, and appreciation of beauty make you a CREATOR.
You are independent, and you enjoy your self-sufficiency.
Defying convention, you are very innovative, and you have a vivid imagination.
The look of things is important to you, and you have a keen eye for aesthetic beauty in multiple arenas.
You have a strong interest in what is new and exciting – and that includes forging ahead with new ideas, not simply discovering what is already out there.
Your eagerness to seek new and varied experiences leads you into many different situations.
You’re not set on one way of doing things, and you are creative when it comes to finding novel solutions to complex problems.
You trust yourself to be innovative and resourceful.
Your confidence allows you to take your general awareness and channel it into creativity.
You’re not afraid to let your emotions guide you, and you’re generally considerate of others’ feelings as well.
You have a strong sense of style and value your personal presentation – friends may even seek your style advice from time to time.
Generally, you believe that you control your life, and that external forces only play a limited role in determining what happens to you.
You are outgoing, comfortable with others, and up for anything, which makes you ANIMATED.
Some people find crowds and parties exhausting, but not you! You are energized by spending time with others, and are able to be yourself in many situations.
Sometimes it is hard for you to understand why others feel the way they do, but that doesn’t stop you from trusting them or having faith that they are good people.
You know the world is complicated and that there is often more than one side to a story, so you are careful not to make judgments about others too hastily.
You would rather experience the world than sit back and observe it – you are not one to sit on the sidelines.
You are an independent thinker and don’t get too worried about how others might perceive you – you are not self-conscious about being the active, engaged person that you are.
Although you have a keen understanding of different people’s life circumstances, you occasionally have trouble seeing why people get so upset and emotional about things – they should just lighten up and have fun!
In addition to having faith in the world, you have faith in the people around you – you trust others to do the right thing and to be honest.
One of the really interesting things about this test was that it gives you your rankings on a bunch of different traits. I scored really high on traits like Openness, Extroversion, Confidence, and Masculinity (grrrr), but I was seriously lacking on Empathy (it was my lowest score) and “Earthy/Imaginative”. I’m not sure what that is, but I guess I need to work on it.
It also gives you what to do “If You Want to be Different”. Mine were:
Those who are as outgoing as you are often need to remind themselves that time alone can be just as fulfilling – take some time for yourself and you might find that there are many things in your inner world that are just as compelling as the world outside your window.
Your open-mindedness about the world gives you a great perspective on things, but your lack of trust in others limits how close you can get with them. Try opening up to others a bit more without losing your healthy skepticism.
Appreciate the earthly, practical elements of things – there is beauty in form as well.
While you are good at thinking abstractly, focusing on details a bit more may help you discover things about the world.
I think it was a really cool test. I’d like to know what the people who read this site are like…take the test if you have 10 minutes and post your results in the comments.
Ivanka
The Apprentice is back on TV and I couldn’t be happier.
As much as I dislike reality TV in principle, I still can’t stop watching it. I love “The Donald”, George, Carolyn, and his cast of characters, including now his extremely well-spoken daughter, Ivanka, who stepped in as a consultant last night.
One of my favorite things about The Apprentice is that the prize is something a little more real and the tasks have at least a little to do with the endgame.
Some of the early tasks are sort of a train wreck, but I think that they are designed to be that way so that there will be drama drama drama.
This season has started off really strong. There are certainly some head cases (Brent) and this season has some added fun of the kooky foreigner (Lenny); there are overly talented, under impressive (Tarek), the spitfire women (choose any), and the kid (Lee, who I think is really sharp and will be around for a while).
Tonight’s episode was crazy and I really enjoyed it. We’ll see how the rest of it pans out.
Oscars
To me and Alli, the Academy Awards are like the Super Bowl. We count down the days and look forward to the awards show in anticipation. The day of, we are giddy with excitement and we start watching the pre-show as early as 1 or 2 in the afternoon for the show that starts at 7.
This year was no exception. Now, I’ll be one of the first people to say that this was a pretty down year for movies. I had a couple of favorites for the year…Crash, in my opinion, was the best movie out this year. It was an extremely powerful ensemble movie in which the script, the performances, and the directing all complemented each other perfectly. I was so glad that it won the award for Best Picture.
Rounding out my top five (in no particular order) for the year would be The Chronicles of Narnia, King Kong, Rent, and Wedding Crashers. I also thought that the performances in Walk the Line were incredible.
Overall, I was pretty happy with the awards last night. I was not a big fan of Brokeback Mountain and was actually pretty glad that Ang Lee won. I really didn’t want Spielberg to win because as much as I disliked Brokeback, I disliked Munich even more. I thought that if he won, it would only be because he was Steven Spielberg, not because of the movie.
I thought that Philip Seymour Hoffman should have won an award a long time ago, but I also thought Joaquin Phoenix was deserving of the award. (An impressive side note about Hoffman…I heard that he would stay in character and voice between takes as well as on screen at all times…that’s crazy…have you heard that voice?) Reece Witherspoon was great in Walk the Line and I thought her speech was one of the best of the night.
Jon Stewart did a great job as the host of the show. He wasn’t very offensive and he was still really funny. The whole opening with all the old hosts was hilarious. Ben Stiller’s presentation of the Visual Effects award was awesome too. So funny.
What bugged me the most was that when I checked CNN after the show was over, the headline read ‘Crash’ is upset Best Picture winner. What bothered me the most about that is that I don’t think that there should be front-runners and such for movies because all those front-runners are is the Hollywood hype machine doing its magic. I was glad that the Academy members managed to see through the hype machine and award the Best picture to a truly great film…one that I thought was extremely deserving of the award. Paul Haggis (who wrote and directed the movie) is an impressive filmmaker, following up his controversial Million Dollar Baby with Crash, a film about race relations, personal relationships, and stereotypes on a hot day in Los Angeles.
It was awesome to see this movie rewarded over a movie that was really nothing more than a depressing flick about gay cowboys. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the acting in Brokeback was really good, but as a whole, that movie couldn’t hold a candle to Crash.
This year, Alli and I hosted an Academy Awards party for the Young Adults at our church. We tend to get into stuff pretty heavily and we weren’t sure that people would be into it like we were, but I think that everyone ended up having a terrific time. We had about 20 people over and we all filled out ballots, had prizes (Alli won…I got 3rd), and had a TON of food. It was a great night and one that I am hoping will spur more and more interest in our Young Adult program at church. I’m hoping that we can make it an annual thing.
Now that awards season is over, I don’t know what I’m going to talk about…any suggestions?
Floundering
My attempts at regular posting have struggled the past few days with my trip to Seattle and my trip back and such…I’m going to try and get back on track this week…look for an upcoming post about the Oscars…I’ll try to get that up in the morning. I’ve definitely got some thoughts on it. I also might give a little Seattle wrap-up too if I have some time.
Word?
Seafood
Tonight was the first meal in Seattle that I have eaten seafood.
For dinner this evening, we went to a place called Salty’s on Alki and I have to say that it was one of the best seafood meals I have ever had. We arrived after 8 and there weren’t many people left. We started with a huge appetizer platter, complete with mussels, clams, prawns, crab, and raw oysters (or really big boogers, depends on your opinion of them).
I don’t get seafood often, but I’ll try most anything. I don’t hate clams and mussels, but they aren’t my favorite. The prawns were awesome and the crab was…well, it could have used some butter sauce.
For my entree, I had this incredible salmon dish that had been smoked first, then grilled. It was moist (sorry Alli) and so tasty. Served on a bed of wilted spinach and some roasted garlic mashed potatoes, the entree was terrific in every way.
We capped off the meal with a sampling of a few of the desserts. A bite or two of the white chocolate cheesecake (so smooth), some white chocolate mousse cake (light and phenomenal) and a chocolate sampler platter (which I didn’t try, but I think Alli would have liked).
All in all, it was a wonderful meal. And not only that, but we were across Puget Sound, so our table was at the window, right on the water, looking directly at downtown Seattle. We had a great view of…well…everything.
