Spice Girls in L.A.

I attended one of the last Spice Girls concerts in history. They performed on Dec 7 at the Staples Center in L.A. My cousin was able to procure tickets for this monumental event.

In short, it was everything that I expected it to be. They played all of their greatest hits and even suited up in some of the original costumes from when they were big.

I'll definitely have to say that the Spice Girls' breasts were glorious that night. Actually, they were all in really good shape, and they were looking mighty fine.
I also kind of feel like I've lost that Spice Girls magic. I definitely am not crazed like I was back in high school, but it was good to see that other folks still were. I think Staggs had the best line of the night when she said something along the lines of the girl fans still wearing the same clothes to these concerts as when they were younger, but nowadays they're just a little larger.

Once again, I was very impressed with the turnout of public commuters on the subway. Definitely a good sign for the growing L.A. community.


Word.

I love L.A.! (We love it!)

I have tickets to 3 Laker games this year -

vs. Orlando - 12/2
vs. Boston - 12/30
vs. Phoenix - 1/17

I wanted to watch five games, and these are three of the five. The other two were San Antonio and Houston.

Tonight me and Staggs took the subway to the game. I think it's great taking public transportation around, especially in a place like Southern California which really lacks a great public transportation system. But it is nice to see that a plethora of people do use the subway, and it makes me feel more urban. It's a lot better than waiting an hour in traffic to get home.

Hooray for public transportation, and good luck to the Lakers that lost tonight.

Sebastian's - The Kitchen Nightmare

Below is an email I sent to a local blogger that was looking for posts on Sebastian's Restaurant, pre and post Kitchen Nightmares.

I’ve been to Sebastian’s once, before Kitchen Nightmares had debuted. They had great salads to offer and it was really good.

I went to Sebastian’s tonight to join in the celebration of the restaurant being featured on Kitchen Nightmares. I’m a Toluca Lake resident, and am a huge supporter of local businesses. I was surprised that Sebastian’s had available seating for tonight, because it looked really packed inside, and I assumed that they would close off tonight to friends and family. I was both delighted and excited for the night. Unfortunately, the service and food was nothing to be excited or delighted about.

My date and I came in just as Kitchen Nightmares started. We arrived at 8:55pm and we’re seated at approximately 9:05pm. Our order was placed by 9:10 and from there we sat and watched the show from our table. I ordered the lobster and crabmeat ravioli, and my date the Shrimp “Nicky” pizza. By 10:00pm, the show had ended, and the only service we received was one refill on our water. The party to the right of us, was seated approximately 15 minutes after we had been seated. To our left, the party had been seated 5 minutes after them. All of us in parties of two.

In short, both parties received and finished their food before we were even served the complimentary appetizer that we were offered. I’m highly suspicious that the party to our left received the pizza that we had ordered, and the staff was rapidly back-pedaling to catch up. My date and I had set certain exit times if we had not received our food. Our appetizer arrived at 10:24, one minute shy of our walk-out time of 10:25. From there, we set 10:37 to receive our main dishes. The ravioli arrived (warm, on the verge of being cold) and the pizza followed ten minutes later.

All in all, the food was sub-par, the service was miserable and the experience brutal. I was so excited for this revamp, and now I’m left disappointed.

I was such a supporter.

- Mark

New Found Glory - From the Screen to your Stereo Part 2

I was given the new New Found Glory CD by one of my co-workers. I'm definitely a fan of covers solely for the fact of having the ability to sing along to songs that I already know, to a bands reinterpretation of that song.

Overall, I think this album is all right. Firstly, I am not the biggest fan of New Found Glory covers to start off, but I do enjoy listening to them nonetheless. I feel like a lot of their covers stick to the safe techniques of a pop punk cover. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but they do it with all of their songs which makes the album boring at times.

The three best songs on the album would have to be (in order) -

Stay (Lisa Loeb)
Crazy For You (Madonna)
It Ain't Me Babe (Johnny Cash)

What's great is that Lisa Loeb is actually singing in her own cover. Overall, NFG had a lot of good artists making an appearance on this record - Chris Carrabba and Adam Lazzarra.

It Ain't Me Babe isn't even a great cover, but it's a great song making it very likeable.

Overall, I'm going to give this one a C.

Harry, post mortem

WARNING! SPOILERS FOR HP7 IN THIS BLOG!

I called it. I called it when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ended. I said that Harry would have to die to save the world...the world being the wizarding world in this case. But, I did not think that Harry would come back to defeat Voldemort. That was pretty kool.

Second, I knew that Severus Snape was a good guy! Sucks that he died at the end, but he sure was a trooper. I really liked how JK wrote in all of the memories that Snape had, wrapping everything up real nice to end the books.

Third, I called out the fact that there was going to be a huge fight. Pretty much the Death Eaters vs. everyone else. And there sure was. The last battle was pretty long and spanned like 4 chapters or so.

The whole Deathly Hallows integration to the Harry Potter story was excellent. The Horcruxes and the twist at the end was excellent. Dumbledore not being as virtuous as we thought he was was excellent. Hermione and Ron getting together was kind of a given...but the playful flirting during the book gave some comic relief. The fact that so many important characters in the book died, was really excellent.

I could have however, done without the 19 years later. That was ehhh. I'm sure that that was JK's way of giving closure to everything.

I wonder what JK will include in her next book. I heard that it was going to be like a Hogwarts History book...maybe like Hogwarts: A History, by Bathilda Bagwald.

is harry voldemort?

So I just finished another round of chapters, the latest being Bathilda's secret. And it threw me in for a loop at the end of the chapter when Harry started tripping out after Nagini attacked him.

But, it also someone supports my theory that maybe Harry does things unconsciously. I also think that I might be reading and interpreting the book wrong. But whatever.

More chapters!!!

Is Harry Tyler Durden?

So I've just completed "The Thief" chapter. It looks like Harry was able to see what Voldemort was doing to Gregorovitch, the wand maker. I did notice though, that when Voldemort was talking to Gregorovitch, he was talking in third person. What if somehow, Harry is the person that is torturing these people? In some way, shape or form, what if he disapparates, and unconsciously does these horrible things to people, only to think that it's Voldemort? Or what if he doesn't even disapparate, he just somehow magically doubles himself so that there is an unconscious Harry and a conscious Harry at the same time. It's very far fetched, but it could be a possibility.

Also, I think that the person that stole whatever Voldemort is trying to get from Gregorovitch was Lockhart. He was the Professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts in Harry's second year. And what if the thing he stole is already a Horcrux, and that's why Voldemort is trying to get it back???

This is the shit

JK Rowling knows how to end chapters. For reals.

I've swayed from my 2 chapters/day diet, and am up to 4. I can't help it...the end to each chapter makes you read the next one.

Harry Potter reflecting real life

I just had this crazy theory. It looks like there are a lot of train wrecks lately, especially with female celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, etc. and there are also some pretty bad catastrophes happening like this bridge going down in Minneapolis, and this other bridge collapsing in Northern California.

Now if you remember back in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the first chapter or two had to do with the "other minister." The book actually took you more into the real/muggle world by introducing the Prime Minister of Britain into the story. And in that chapter, the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, advised that the war in the magical world was bleeding over to the muggle world. Bridges collapsing, typhoons happening, and heavy fog were all reprecussions of the war going on in the wizarding world. In addition, Death Eaters were putting more and more people under the Imperius Curse, having them do things that they would not normally do.

To tie this back to current news...what if there really was a wizarding world? And what if it was really hidden in plain sight? This is going to sound like a stretch, but what if to Muggles like us, Harry Potter was a best selling book written by JK Rowling about a boy wizard and his journies, but in reality, Harry Potter was more like an almanac or documentary of what is really going on in the world, but hidden in plain sight. What if the bridge collapsing in Norcal and Minnesota were consequences of a battle. And what if there are wizards and witches living among us, that are being hunted by Death Eaters. What if Lindsay Lohan's ex-assistant's mom is a public figure in the wizarding world, but Lindsay is under some kind of Imperius Curse that makes her try to harm this lady? The list can go on and on...

Nuts? Probably.

Harry Potter Notes

I've read up to Chapter 5 on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This will be a frequent journal documenting my speculations, theories, guesses and whatever else that I can think of. If the first five chapters of this book are an indication of how the rest of the book will turn out, it should be the shit. There has already been a battle and death.

So far, I think that Dumbledore is dead, but I think that he can still communicate with Harry. At the end of book 5, Voldemort was able to possess Harry. I think Dumbledore will be able to do something similar to that whether it is using Harry as a host, or simply communicating with him. Maybe even Sirius can do it too.
Thus far, Snape looks to be on the Death Eaters side. He's attacked the Order and he's already shared vital information to what the Order plans to do. But I think somewhere in the end, he'll eventually be on the side of the Order...maybe at the end when there's a showdown with Voldemort.

Harry has been pretty bad ass so far. And I think Lupin has been too. The whole seven Harry Potter's chapter was intense. I'm limiting myself to 2-3 chapters a day. I want to savor this one.

test

testes 123, testes
this is a test. and i think it works.
things to include -
too many options
ridiculous number of golf accessories
consumer products shaping the quality of movies
reviews - transformers, harry potter, spider-man, the l.a. lakers