Holiday Giving

You know what's a good gift for the holidays (NOT FOR ME)? A Zagat Survey guide, that's what. Everyone wants a Zagat guide (I ALREADY HAVE ONE), but almost no one ever wants to buy one. They're very useful, but they cost like 30 bucks, which seems like a lot of money to spend on something so small, but it sure beats clicking around forever on CitySearch.

On CitySearch it can be hard to know if a place has a high rating because only the owner has reviewed it, or if it's actually good. Even more frustrating are the user comments, where you'll see one like this:

NEVER COME HERE UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE!!!

We went here for dinner and it was awful! Service was slow and barely seemed interested in helping us at all. The waiter didn't know what the specials were and after we ordered he brought us the wrong food, and no one even seemed that interested in fixing the problem. When we finally got our food I couldn't believe it. The chicken was dry and had no flavor and the "Lobster Souffle" - I couldn't find a SPECK of lobster. After that they made us fight an angry crocodile with our bare hands and then they burned me with a branding iron, all while they soaked us head to toe in honey and had ants crawl all over every part of our skin while we were forced to play Russian Roulette.

Pros: Absolutely nothing
Cons: Bad service, Bad food, Risk of death

...immediately followed by one like this:

DON'T LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE BELOW THIS PLACE IS HEAVEN!!!!

I don't know what the previous person is complaining about - we came here for dinner on Friday night and it was INCREDIBLE! The service was fantastic, the food was absolutely to die for (I ordered the lobster souffle, and there were huge chunks of lobster) and the ambiance was superior to anything I've experienced in my whole life. During the meal, Brazilian models came out and massaged us and we were given the best wine in the house for free! After our meal the head chef and owner were nice enough to come chat with us, and they decided that our whole meal was free and that the head chef would come over to our apartment and cook our next 30 meals.

Pros: Perfect food, Perfect service, Perfect decor, Perfect crowd, Perfect bathroom, Perfect coat check
Cons: Apparently some people don't appreciate greatness

CitySearch is really frustrating. If you don't know someone well, and can't think of a suitable gift idea, try a 2007 Zagat restaurant guide. Not a lot of people buy them for themselves, but everyone could use one.

Incredibly Interesting Analysis

TBS was airing "Mean Girls" all weekend in their bizarre "let's show the same movie 38 times in a row" programming format they seem to have decided makes the most sense. I suppose their crack team of humor scientists ("we know funny") has tested this successfully, so who am I to quibble?

I was reminded of how incredibly hilarious the movie is - it's really a shining counterexample to my whole "women aren't funny" generalization - Tina Fey's screenplay is almost perfect, and everyone's comic timing is spot on. The movie was something of a Lindsay Lohan phenomenon when it came out, but now that some time has passed, I was able to appreciate how many laugh-out-loud moments there were.

What really jumped out at me, though, was how different Lindsay Lohan looked as compared to her semi-freaky look today. Conceptually I knew this - she's certainly photographed often enough - but it was still jarring to see onscreen. I don't happen to think she's particularly attractive, (then or now), but there was a time when I was decidedly in the minorty with that belief.

I remember thinking at the time that as "hot" as everyone seemed to think she was, she was also noticeably bigger than her older costars, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert (who's VERY thin) and Amanda Seyfried (she plays the dumb one). Don't get me wrong - by no stretch of the imagination was she big, but Hollywood has different standards. And given her young age, you could tell that she hadn't quite filled out her frame yet - it was apparent that her natural size would be bigger.

Alas, what is a budding starlet to do? Lindsay Lohan has a pretty similar 1990s counterpart: Alicia Silverstone. It's easy to forget how big a deal Alicia Silverstone was in the mid-1990s. "Clueless" was the "Mean Girls" of the 90s, an absurdly huge hit that propelled Silverstone to instant superstar status. Girls aspired to be like her, and guys drooled over her. She was supposed to symbolize a generation - things were so out of control that she signed a three-picture, $10 million production deal with Sony where she got first look at scripts and projects. That probably doesn't sound like a lot now, but trust me, it was a huge deal at the time to give a teenage girl that kind of money and that kind of artistic control. Silverstone wound up greenlighting and starring in "Excess Baggage", which was so bad that 1) my two friends who saw it cracked jokes about it for like a year and 2) they are literally the only people I know who have ever seen the movie.

As you surely remember, her downfall was triggered by a "sudden" weight gain of 15 or 20 pounds that completely freaked everyone out, and was all over the tabloids. It must have been very tough to have been her at the time, and have her weight scrutinized in magazines everywhere. Of course, the weight gain wasn't that sudden and it wasn't that surprising. She was just a girl who was naturally not super skinny, but became famous as a teenager, before she had filled out to her natural weight. When she got to that natural weight, everyone completely lost their shit, no one liked her, she happened to be in some bad projects, and just like that, her time as a star was finished.

There were really only two options for Linday Lohan - one was just to be her natural size and see what comes of that, railing against the "thin establishment" and hope for the best a la Kate Winslet. Or there was the other, more probable route of partying, alcoholism and eating disorders.

We know which route she took.

I don't think she'll remain relevant much longer - I've yet to see that she's a compelling actress, and partying to stay in the limelight only takes you so far. Her attempt at a singing career didn't go as badly as Eddie Murphy's (my girl wants to....party all the time party all the time party all the tiiiiimmmmeee), but it's safe to say that's going nowhere as well.

At least she was in one good movie, which I guess is better than most people can say. I would tell you to watch it again, but TBS will air it approximately 942 times in 2007, so there's no chance you'll miss it. It's really very nice of them.

As for Miss Lohan, she's bound to be replaced by the next big thing any day now, but there should still be some fun times left. I can't wait for her Access Hollywood post-rehab interview, her temporary foray into a Broadway show (my guess is "Chicago"), marriage to some successful person outside of Hollywood, autobiography, and E! True Hollywood Story. Those should all be good times.

Celebspotting

Nearly everyone I know (there are only a couple of exceptions) gets really fired up when they spot a celebrity, and I'm no different. The more jaded among us only get excited about the right celebrities, but for most people, literally anyone famous will do. You can really see the depth of our devotion to the celebrity world when people recount tales of seeing celebrities. I think you'd agree we're all insane.
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"Hey - yo you'll never guess who I saw at lunch - Scott Bakula!"
"Oh wow - I used to love Growing Pains! I used to go to Tina's house to watch, cause she had this big thing for Kirk Cameron, but I never liked him that much"
"Wait...what?"
"Isn't Scott Bakula the dad on Growing Pains?"
"No, I don't think so - Scott Bakula is the guy from Quantum Leap"
"Hm, I'm not sure if I ever watched that show - what channel was that on?"
"I think it was on USA"
"Oh yeah - I didn't really watch those shows"
"Oh - well he was the dude on Quantum Leap"
"Ah, okay - so who is the dad on Growing Pains?"
"I think that guy's name is Alan Thicke"
"Huh...wow those names aren't alike at all"
"Nope, not too similar"
"Anyways what was this Scott Bakula guy doing?"
"Looked like he was just getting lunch with his wife and kids - his wife was pretty hot actually, I was impressed. Plus he did that thing where he just orders what he wants, off the menu - like he didn't even really look at the menu, he just started explaining what he wanted"
"Oh wow that's cool - man you're so lucky - I never get to see anyone famous!"
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I bet you've probably had some kind of conversation along these lines. We're insane, we really are.
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As an aside, in trying to create the above fictionalized conversation, I struggled to think of someone who sounds like you should know them, but you actually don't. I settled on Scott Bakula - I think he's a pretty good choice. He's got an interesting-sounding, memorable name, but he's not quite successful enough where you would assume everyone would know the guy. In trying to think of who might be appropriate, I asked Vish and Dan if they ever got actors confused with one another. Vish said he sort of had a problem with Edie Falco and Felicity Huffman briefly - that's a hard one for me to understand, but I guess this is a pretty individual thing. Dan said his problem was Matt Dillon and Luke Perry, which for some reason I found hilarious, I guess because 1) I can kind of see it and 2) Luke Perry pretty much sucks now, so that's a shame for Matt Dillon.
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One of my favorite celebrity sightings was the time I "saw" Harvey Keitel. He lives in TriBeCa, and apparently has decided that it's cool not to shower. Or wear clean clothes. Or sleep indoors. He was at the table next to us, and I remember thinking, "Wow that's awfully nice of those people to let a homeless guy join them for lunch, I wonder if that's safe..." Then Shawn said, "Hey it's Harvey Keitel" and it seriously took me about 45 seconds to figure out who he meant, even though the other table was the homeless bum who turned out to be Harvey Keitel and three women.
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My all-time favorite celebrity sighting story comes from Ali. Apparently one time his dad was eating dinner at a suburban Benihana with his younger sister. Ali's sister noticed that the second oldest guy (excluding the dad) on the TV show "Step by Step" was eating at another table with his friends. (If you remember the show, he played "J.T.", who in the opening credits at the carnival hits that hammer thing really hard and gets the bell to ring at the top, while a bunch of reasonably cute chicks look impressed and giggle.)
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So Ali's sister is freaking out in excitement, going on and on about how hot this guy is. Then she gets it in her head that she wants an autograph, but she's too scared to approach this guy to ask. So she makes her dad do it. So Ali's dad, this like 50+ year old Iranian guy walks up to their table, looks at the guy and goes:
"Excuse me, my daughter is a huge fan of yours and was wondering if you'd be willing to sign an autograph for her."
"Um, I'm happy to sign anything, but I'm pretty sure she wants this guy's autograph over here" [points to the actual actor]
"Oh okay, sure"
Apparently this guy's friends just crack up and start busting on the guy. His real name is Brandon Call - you can see his resume here:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0130085/
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You'll notice he never worked again after "Step by Step". He doesn't even have a photo on IMDB. Hard not to think that the Benihana autograph incident didn't play a part in his deciding to quit acting altogether.

Holding My Horses

I'm excited about Vince Young, but maybe we should pause before getting completely carried away here.
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You know, I used to know a guy a lot like Young. It really wasn't all that long ago actually. I'm shocked no one makes the comparison. His name is (obviously) Michael Vick, and for whatever reason just because Vince Young is taller or something, we've decided to completely overlook the glaring similarities.
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Vince Young just wins games. Didn't we use to say that about Michael Vick? What about all this "no one has won a playoff game before in Green Bay business"?
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How could teams pass on Vince Young, he was a proven commodity in college!?! Didn't Vick play in the national championship game?
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Wait, but did you see that game-winning OT run against Houston? Um, didn't Vick do that against the Vikings?
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He's not completing a high percentage of passes, but you can really see him improving as a passer. Hm. I don't think anyone ever said that about Vick. No sir.
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Okay, I'm done trying to write in Bill Plaschke form, but you get the idea. Vince Young isn't necessarily the next coming. He's (as of now) an exciting football player that can help you win games, but has measurable flaws. Just like Vick. I happen to love watching Vick play, and I enjoy watching Young play. But I think we ought to cool it a bit for now. We've been here before.

Bruce Bowen: Post-Mortem

Quick update on the Bruce Bowen post:
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Justin asked me how much I would pay to kick Bruce Bowen in the face. I decided that this would be worth $1,000.
Then he asked how much I would pay to watch HIM kick Bruce Bowen in the face. I decided that would be worth $100. I think Justin has some kind of plan to collect a lot of $100 bills from people to watch him kick Bowen in the face, and then offer up the total to Bowen and see if he goes for it.
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So just in case you were sitting there wondering how much I would pay to do that, now you have the answer.

Wait I Always Forget The Punchline...

I'm one of those people who makes excessively broad generalizations all the time about large groups of people, in an attempt to seem "observant" and "insightful". For the most part, I try to do it in a humorous way, so people will buy into my bullshit. (As an aside, I think that's why a lot of people have blogs.)
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Anyways, some generalizations people buy, and some spark heated debate. There's one, though, that never seems to lead to any debate, and is just unanimously agreed upon: women aren't funny. That's a bit imprecise - I suppose what I mean is that women can't tell jokes, and they can't retell funny stories very well. (A quick disclaimer that shouldn't be necessary but I know it is: I do know some funny women. But they are a tiny minority. There's exceptions to any rule.) There's a spectrum here - some women are borderline okay, but some women I know are colossally bad, and when they start telling a story, I'm already laughing because I know how bad the retelling is going to be.
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"OH MY GOD Eric - Did I tell you what happened the other day with Jamie?"
"No, what happened?"
"OH MY GOD it was sooooo funny! So Jamie and I were going to Devin's party but Jamie wanted to stop beforehand and pick up some candy, you know like she loves eating those like round things, you know..."
"What?"
"You know, they're like round and different colors, and they're all nasty but Jamie eats them?"
"Uh, Life Savers?"
"No those are good - come on you know what I'm talking about, they're like hard, but a little chewy..."
"Spree?"
"Yeah Spree."
"Um, okay."
"Okay so anyways Jamie wanted some Spree so we stopped at the grocery store and we go inside and we get to the cashier and I forget exactly what Jamie said but it was REALLY funny like she didn't even know she had said it but it sounded dirty and HAHA it was SOO funny."
"Wait, you don't know what she said?"
"No, I'm trying really hard to remember but I can't."
"Oh."
"Yeah!"
"Guess I had to be there."
"Yeah, I guess so."
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The above didn't happen, but something in this vein seems to happen nonstop. Thing is, I don't "need" to be there - if it's a guy, he can quickly distill for me why something was funny - if it is impossible to describe, he probably just won't tell me. I only need to be there when a girl is trying to retell the story.
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Girls certainly have a very good sense of humor. They know when things are funny, they laugh all the time, they enjoy comedies - so I'm confused as to why they would be so bad at jokes and funny stories. I floated the question to a bunch of people (male and female - by the way, not a single person doubted for an instant the premise of the question) and got a number of interesting and valid answers.
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The first (and most popular) theory was that it's all about the way girls socialize. When guys are together, they crack jokes nonstop, but women only gossip or discuss actual life issues. Basically, "we're not funny because we don't practice enough".
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A second theory was a semi-genetic one. Jackie made a good point to me -while I am at any given point thinking zero to one thoughts in my head, many girls are simultaneously thinking about five or six things. (Jackie actually only discovered girls do this a few years ago, and became worried when she realized she normally thought about nothing). So there just isn't room in the brain to be making witty comments all the time. "We're just not wired that way".
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The other most popular theory was a sexual selection one. Girls aren't funny because they don't need to be funny to attract guys. I think an interesting observation here is that many successful female stand-up comedians are lesbians, from Ellen DeGeneres to Margaret Cho to Paula Poundstone and (stretching the definition of stand-up comedian here) Rosie O'Donnell. Of course, guys aren't less funny around guys, so it's not like the quality exists solely to impress girls.
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I don't really have a grand conclusion here. I actually delayed writing this post trying to think of some conclusion. I'll keep an open mind on this one, and hopefully I will reach some kind of conclusion soon. Because it truly does pain me that something exists that I am unable to make a broad, sweeping generalization about.

An Angry Rant Against Bruce Bowen

Bruce Bowen has no place in professional basketball. There's been another round of commotion (as there is every season) about him being a dirty player, and it's happened again this year.
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http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/marty_burns/11/15/bowen.reputation/index.html
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Look, a lot of guys are dirty. Raja Bell is dirty. John Stockton was dirty. They both beat my beloved Lakers, and not only do they deserve their place in the game, I am fans of both players. I do realize teams need enforcers and that dirty play often works, but when your tactic is to intentionally injure opponents to "get in their head" you've crossed a pretty clear line. Most journalists seem to be on Bowen's side, so let me address the arguments typically presented on his behalf.
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1. He's not doing it intentionally, and you can't know that he is
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Fair enough, I'm not a mind reader. Maybe he just jumps sideways at defenders with his feet out because he thinks he is a talented sideways jumper. Maybe he thinks his feet will provide a softer cushion than the hardwood floor. Maybe he thinks 1+1 = jello. Maybe, just maybe, Bruce Bowen is that fucking stupid.
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If I EVER caused a guy to get hurt unintentionally, I would immediately think about what role I may have played there. These guys watch tape every day. If I saw that I had jumped sideways and extended my foot, I would think "wow, I need to stop doing that." Not to mention jumping sideways at a guy like that is an unnatural basketball movement. Other defenders don't jump at a guy in that fashion.
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2. The league didn't do anything about it
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I don't think this a particularly strong argument to begin with - after all, we can all see the footage and judge for ourselves. How the league office interprets things is generally of little value to me. I know when a foul is flagrant, I don't need to wait 5 days to hear the league called it a "Flagrant 2" so I can go to sleep at night. "Man, I don't know if that wasa flagrant foul or not - hopefully the league will say something so I can figure this out!"
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That being said, I can see why the league might have been hesitant to punish Bowen - it would kind of open up a can of worms and lead to excessive interpretation. In Bowen's case, the evidence is rock solid, but I can see this getting problematic once you establish precedent.
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3. Bowen is a really nice guy and he overcame a lot to make the NBA
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Yay. Wow. Wow, that is really, I mean just REALLY touching.
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4. People just hate him because he's good
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No other elite perimeter defender gets accused of this. Quinton Ross. Trenton Hassell. Ron Artest. Raja Bell. Shane Battier. I can go on and on, but I've never heard another guy get accused of this. Bowen gets accused of all the time. Similarly, I've never heard any of his accusers accuse anyone else of doing this either.
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As for not liking Bowen just because he's not on my team, I can't speak for everyone, but I'm quite sure that's not true in my case. I'm sure if Bowen were a Laker I'd root for him, but I'd still be disgusted with his methods. I never liked the way Vlade Divac and Derek Fisher flopped all over the place, and while I of course rooted for them, I always wished they could play effectively straight up.
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5. People just hate him because he's ugly
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Alright, got me there.
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6. The shooters actually kick out their legs, causing the problem
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Then why doesn't it happen with other defenders as well? I agree Carter has the stupid leg kick, but there's no way you can say that about Ray Allen, who has the best shooting form of anyone in the NBA.
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VIDEO EVIDENCE
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Here's Bowen kicking Ray Allen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLgHeeOZJFI
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Here's Bowen and Vince Carter (admittedly the most dubious of the evidence - but I'd like to point out that Carter had torched Bowen for 43 in 3 quarters and the Nets were up 5 - so it wasn't frustration on Carter's part, it was a genuine belief that Bowen wanted to hurt him):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI5pE2-bXkE
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Bruce Bowen on Steve Francis and Jamal Crawford:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drPQkEsM8uM
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Bruce Bowen karate kicking Wally Szczerbiak in the face:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAakQjpFibg
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I rest my case.