viva...home

so hung won top chef.  what a bunch of crap!  i hate chef tom, he did the same thing to me last time.  correct me if i'm wrong, but by the end of last season it was elan who looked like a total scumbag schemer and marcel who was egotistical, but at least kinda honest?  elan really showed his true colors by the end and made PAELLA!!!  PAELLA people!  the dude worked at a spanish restaurant and then gave them a final dish that he had probably made half a million times before and they called him the winner.

compare with this year's CHOCOLATE CAKE!!!  that hung brought a recipe for from home, in a little notebook.  oh, how creative!  how in keeping with the asian theme of his meal.  ugh, total scam.  he did an asian themed dinner so the judges would think he had some soul instead of a machinelike desire to win and an ego bigger than marcel (from last season) and steven (from season 1) combined.  i mean he made the safest, most boring crap until now.  lest we forget, he made a freaking piped salmon mousse canape on a slice of cucumber for the arty fashion show on a yacht chellenge.  if ever there were a time to make something new, different, avant garde, creative, it was then.

i'm just glad that casey from dallas didn't win.  i fucking hate dallas.

but as usual, too far out to sea to be much of a threat.

imagine you are a poor kid who has to use a public defender cause you can't afford an attorney.  imagine you are accused of a crime that would result in you being a felon and having to register as a sex offender for the rest of you life.  you are only 21 years old.  you know you are innocent (and so does your lawyer), but you also know (and so does your lawyer) that you can't incontrovertably prove your innocence.  your attorney has explained the inherent risks of trial. 

the DA offers you a misdemeanor, and your record can be sealed in 5 years if you stay out of trouble.  do you plead no contest even though you know you didn't do it?  or do you fight as hard as you can?  is it worth the risk?

i know when i was that age what my answer would have been, but i'm curious about the cost benefit analysis that people work through as they consider stuff like this.  what do y'all think?  it's a somewhat useless exercise, in the sense that you can't really know what you would do without the full coercive weight of the state and their "evidence" pressing down on you.

i was making smoothies this morning and hurt myself!  i had a bag of frozen berries that had gone from kinda mooshy and liquidy to solid as concrete overnight.  i was trying to smash them up on the counter but underestimated how hard they had become, and somehow in the process smashed instead my right pointer finger knuckle on bag o' berries.  it smarted at the time, but now there appears to be a little bruise forming and it hurts to bend my finger.  not a broken bone kind of hurt, but a weird just under the skin hurt that is only bothersome when the skin of the knuckle is somewhat tight.  what a weird fucking injury.

in other news, the shows kicked ass.  especially wilco, but especially the beastie boys.  more to follow.

is there anything super cool that the bay area is known for that we definitely shouldn't miss?  we're already planning on eating rice a roni on a trolley to the golden gate bridge--but what else?  we are bringing our dogs, and were hoping to wear them out some during the day so we could leave them (guilt free) in the hotel room at night when we go out.  what do y'all think?

hahahaha, they brought back the clogging kid!  so awesome.  i love that some girl was crying in the audience.  it's the sanjaya effect!  i really think & hope its sabra.

i am officially too old to go to the movies.  which is sad cause it's not like i have some bumpin theater system to come home to.  quite the opposite really--i have a temperamental old dvd/vcr that has made two long distance moves and was already kinda shitty when we bought it.  despite the fact that it's a sony, it has always refused to play sony dvds.  weird.  also, no remote for said dvd player, so no special features and caveman style pausing for bathroom breaks or fast forwarding through commercials (caveman...touch...funny...box...where...shiny...circle...go...pictures...stop...moving).  and our tv is kinda small, and we ain't got no faintsy speakers or nothin.  still, if staying home in the dark ages keeps me from committing homicide, maybe its for the best.

i guess at 18 pretty much everyone is a rude, selfish little douchebag.  i am not exempt; i can distinctly recall being the creamy center of my own cadbury egg at that age, but GODALMIGHTYDAMN!!!  shut.  the fuck.  up!  if you want to chat throughout the whole (tense, intricate) movie, WAIT TIL THE MOTHERFUCKER COMES OUT ON DVD and WATCH IT IN YOUR LIVING ROOM.  i repeat, the movie theater is not your mothergrabbing livingroom!  ugh.  walt says the reason they were talking so loudly is cause the girl was sitting on her boyfriend's lap and they were at an awkward angle to whisper to one another.  but i swear it was like every tense moment, every tricky plot point GABGABGAB, practically at regular talking volume.  and inappropriate laughing!  constantly!

i shot the very unsubtle bitch laser glance back in their direction no fewer than five times, and finally hissed through clenched teeth "jesuschristshutUP!"  then we moved further down the row, to where i could STILL hear them, but i at least didn't have to hear the precise words of their inane conversation, just the occasional pssh pssh pssh HARHAR.  little bastard kids.

incidentally, the movie was "the bourne ultimatum," and by the end i was totally fantasizing about delivering sharp, upward angled blows to their shiny little faces, shoving their respective nose cartilages into their tiny tiny brains.

i am studying for the bar exam right now, which is in less than a week (more like 5 days), so i have to be efficient about my breaks.  i must multitask!  so last night i watched SYTYCD while i rode my exercise bike and what an awesome workout.  the music really kept me going the whole time and i think i worked harder than i usually do.

about the show--there is something that sticks in my craw about the judging and maybe y'all can elucidate for me a bit: why do the judges seem to blame the dancers for the choreography?  are the dancers supposed to be putting their own input in or something?  from my understanding, they were just executing someone else's dance, but they really harshed hok for example, about that stupid mr. bojangles crap they got saddled with and it seems to me like its not his fault the choreographer's dance never afforded him and opportunity to really bust a move or two.  i mean, come on!  who doesn't love to watch hok do his thing?!?   i thought the whole point of the story was that he is old and can no longer really bust moves. 

i also disagreed with the judging on the contemporary piece--or i guess i agreed with that tool wade robson, who is actually turning out to be the voice of reason sometimes.  i thought it was really cool, very technical and precise and i though the goggles and hats made for an interesting effect.  you have to focus on the body/moves of the dancer cause you can't see the face.  the judges didn't get it?  hello, they were obv supposed to be highly advanced space alien robot waiters who break it down in order to repower up their circuitry.  duh!  i did notice the little bit at the end where they were off sync a little, but i though it only highlighted how they were perfectly together the whole rest of the time.  i though the song was perfect for the dance and the whole thing was really cool.  wade, i generally think you're a one trick pony and hate your choreography, but i actually agreed with you for once.

i also noticed last night how wade is the only one who has been through restaurant/retail management training at some point in his life.  he does the "sandwich" method of critique (okay, maybe the open faced sandwich): he is honest (come on, nobody likes a slow dramatic mr. effing bojangles broadway dance!!!), the other judges pile on and harsh the crap out of hok, but then wade comes back in at the end and is all "but you're so coooooooool hok!  you are multitalented and have a cute accent and play the violin!  you are very unique and it sucks that you couldn't show it!"  or whatever he actually said.  did y'all notice that?

there was at least one other instance of both (the judges blaming dancers for choreography and wade trying to save someone's arse).  weird show dynamic i think. 

this will be boring to anyone not studying for the bar exam, and mostly serves a listmaking function for me.  now is when i have to start actually getting down the business of memorizing a ton of black letter law for the bar exam.  i have a practice bar on thursday and i feel pretty certain i'm going to tank it.  hopefully this will be the proverbial fire under my ass. 

we had a lecture the other day from a guy who really kinda cut through all the bullshit for me.  the bar exam is a licensing test, and it is basically a test of reading comprehension.  i have to slow down and just read all the questions. i have to do a million essays, including MPTs. 

i just found the refill i had packed away for my favorite pen, and i have new pencils and colored pencils and a cool big eraser from katra.  i made myself a delicious iced coffee and kicked walt out of the office--i need a study hole.  i love his friend who is here visiting; he is a great guy and an excellent houseguest.  but walt had to move his operation downstairs and hang out with hsi friend and keep me away from the dogs and the tv and the kitchen.  up here, as soon as i finish writing this, i can tune the world out and bust out some book learnin'.  wish me luck y'all.