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"The O.C" is back

November 4th is fast approaching, and we all know what will be happening then: the vote for President will be at a stalemate and the parties will be throwing around unfounded accusations of voter coercion and suppression? That is possible, but “The O.C.” returning to the Fox Lineup is definite.
I have been waiting entirely too long for the return of SoCal’s finest. I was under the impression that the Fall TV season kicked off in Mid-September, but in the warped world of Fox, this wasn’t so. The nascent sense of excitement that entered my body Mid-August was quickly quelled when I visited the official “The O.C.” website and found out that November 4th was the date of the season premiere. I somehow managed to amuse myself for the past couple of months, but the day of reckoning is finally upon us.

The pending return of quick-witted Seth (Adam Brody), brooding Ryan (Ben McKenzie), sassy Summer (Rachel Bilson), drab, but visually-appealing Marissa (Mischa Barton), and everyone’s favorite TV dad, Sandy (Peter Gallagher), brings a smile to my face. The show to me is an amalgam of two of my favorites, “90210” and “Saved By the Bell.” It exhibits the gritty landscape of the California uber-rich as “902010” did, but also has the cartoon-like innocence of “Saved By the Bell.” I think much of this is owed to the characters played by Brody and Gallagher. They are part of an Aristocratic class, but make every attempt to distance themselves from it. In doing so, they give the show a light-hearted quality. Sandy remains detached by being a surfer-dude and working as a public defender while Seth maintains his outsider status by reading comic books and listening to Bright Eyes in the solitude of his bedroom. Sure, the Walsh family was alien to Beverly Hills, but they were trying to fit in with the neighborhood, and not mock it like Sandy and Seth are.

Gallagher also lends legitimacy to the show in that he is a real actor. His filmography speaks for itself, with “American Beauty,” and “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” being his most visible works. Gallagher’s real-life experience even seems to carry over into his TV persona. His is the character that everyone runs to; they seek out Sandy for his sage advice, they seek out Sandy for his comforting presence. I don’t think any other cast member that plays an adult on the show comes even close to “B” celebrity status. Tate Donovan, Jimmy Cooper on the show, did do some forgettable movies like “Love Potion #9,” and also appeared in a few episodes of “Friends” as Rachel’s love interest, but has neither the star-power nor the charisma to attract an adult audience; Gallagher does.

If there is a young actor on the show who may come close to achieving the success that Gallagher has, it is Brody. What is most appealing about Brody is his ability to improvise lines. When the show was in its infancy, I used to marvel at how the lines would flow so naturally from Brody’s mouth. I had never seen a character on TV tell a joke with the fluidity of Brody - he later came out and stated that he ad-libbed many of his lines. I think this is great because it gives the show a little more realism than your average dramedy. One of my favorite improvisations was when he and Summer (Bilson) were walking out of his bedroom and he said something to the effect of, “and that’s my bed over there to the right.” The line would not have sounded good if scripted, but Brody really made it happen there. That is also a good example of how Brody makes every scene worth watching – when Brody’s on camera, I don’t feel as if I’m just waiting for the next scandalous hook-up or drunken punch-out – I’m actually waiting on his every word.

I’ve only seen Brody in “The O.C.” and the coming-of-age skate-boarding comedy, “Grind,” and although he plays the nerdy, smart-allic skater in both vehicles, I think he has the talent to land roles that will help diversify his body of work. My limited backup for making this claim is the comparison made by Bill Simmons of ESPN’s Page2. Simmons compares Brody to a young Tom Hanks and says that Hanks, in his youth, was fairly one-dimensional as an actor, and not nearly as versatile as he is today. Simmons suggests that “The O.C” may serve Brody in the same way that “Bosom Buddies” served Hanks - as a stepping-stone to superstardom.

Don’t be fooled by this slightly homo-erotic love-fest for Gallagher and Brody; the show is not fault-free by any means. Anyone that has seen Mischa Barton act can tell you that the show is not perfect. Barton’s character, Marissa, exists for the sole reason of having an “are they on or are they off?” romance that is required of every teen dramedy. The creator/writer/director, Josh Scwhartz, may have envisioned the Ryan and Marissa romance as the cornerstone of the show, but the re-emergence of Gallagher and emergence of Brody takes pressure off of this precarious relationship. Precarious in that “will it last?” and in that “can this really be the basis of the whole show?” I feel that the relationship scenario was responsible for the demise of “Dawson’s Creek,” that and the awful dialogue by Kevin Williamson. The Joey-Dawson thing was the only foundation in the house that was “Dawson’s Creek,” and although it did last about 5 full seasons, the final 4 seasons required some major repair.
And yes, much of “The O.C.” story-line from the first season was over-the-top. I would be doing the readers a disservice if I failed to mention this. I will cite 3 examples:

1) Oliver, the rich, preppy, sociopath becoming dangerously obsessed with Marissa, and no one but Ryan noticing. She met the kid at therapy! I think they managed to squeeze like 6 episodes out of this – and don’t be surprised if he’s back for season 2.
2) Luke and Julie Cooper involved in a steamy affair. This plot-twist was to be expected as Luke’s character was becoming utterly useless by the end of the season. His contract probably called for a certain amount of face time, and the writers were forced to do something about this. Hot-sex with an older woman – why not?
3) Ryan going back to Chino with his ex-girlfriend because she’s pregnant and he thinks that there might be a small chance that the kid is his. It’s obvious to everyone that Ryan is going to come back to the O.C. This may have worked as a series finale, but as the season 1 finale? Nice try, but all my years of television-watching have made me very cynical.

Although these plot-lines were ludicrous, I’ve come to expect this from a show of this nature and I can’t really be angry about them. But the one episode that did anger me was the one in which they met their counterparts from the cast of “The Valley”, a Fictional Television Show set within “The O.C.,” a Fictional Television Show. This attempt to convey self-awareness was valiant, but not warranted for a first-season. Josh Schwartz deserves some credit for his attempt to poke fun at how big the show had become, but making this move so early in the show’s life was more arrogant than anything else. I am willing to forgive, but not forget.

If this season of “The O.C.” is as exciting as the trailers make it out to be, and it probably won’t be, Thursday night will have just become a little “hotter.” And let’s hope we have officially chosen a President by 8 PM EST because “The O.C.” may be overcome by other events.

scotch tasting

I got invited to a Johnny Walker whisky tasting , since Karl had gone to a previous tasting I asked for his advice

Jon: tell me how to taste it
Jon: so i can look like a hotshot
Karl: haha....you just walk in there and down each one as fast as you can
Karl: and then you start on your neighbors after that
Jon: ok i think i can do that
Jon: and youre sure that will make me look like a real aficionado?
Jon: how much do they give you?
Karl: then you say: "damn, i hope this shit don't kill me, or make me blind" then you leave
Karl: i got 7 drinks total
Karl: two mixed, and 5 shots

and since Long Dong Silver is a pretty smooth dude I asked him also

Jon: i think im going with [name] to a Johnny Walker Scotch tasting
Jon: next Thursday
Jon: that's free
Long Dong Silver: nice man
Long Dong Silver: that is sweet as hell
Jon: i guess i got picked for it because im a washington post reader
Jon: karl went to one last weekend, that's kind of weird
Long Dong Silver: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6173286/
Jon: ya bayes told me about that already
Jon: thanks a lot you guys
Long Dong Silver: dammit
Jon: so, a scotch tasting
Jon: tell me how to taste scotch
Long Dong Silver: i dont know,first i smell it, then i just sip it and swish it around like mouthwash
Long Dong Silver: then i swallow
Long Dong Silver: and note the aftertaste
Long Dong Silver: i bet you can find it online
Long Dong Silver: i adopted my technique from wine tasting
Jon: i see
Long Dong Silver: what do you think
Long Dong Silver: its kind of like if you were eating Christy Turlington's pussy
Long Dong Silver: you would savor everything
Long Dong Silver: the smell
Long Dong Silver: the taste
Long Dong Silver: and the aftertaste
Long Dong Silver: noting the body
Long Dong Silver: and perfume
Jon: i also asked karl how to taste the scotch, since he went there already
Long Dong Silver: i like my pussy explanation

The presentated amounted to not much more than a targeted ad for Johnny Walker Black but I managed to pick up some small talk fodder about the distillation process of Scotch and how to taste it.

Scotch Whisky is made from Barley. You can also make whisky with other grains like Corn or Wheat but these are called Scotch Grain Whiskys. For it to qualify as true Scotch it needs to be made entirely in Scotland and be aged for at least 3 years. The Barley is smoked over fired peat to lend it flavor and dry it out. It is then mixed with water and crushed in some kind of huge pestle, and turns into what is known as the Mash. The mash is then fermented in casks in a similar manner as beer, by adding yeast. What comes out of this is extremely alcoholic and colorless. It is then further distilled in copper pots several times and this is where it the whisky absorbs its color and flavor. I guess older whiskys are better because they have more time to mellow and absorb the complex flavors from the stills. Blended whiskys are combinations of different batches that all exhibit certain qualities. The idea is to mask the individual failings of each whisky by combing flavors. I wanted to ask why I would spend 80 dollars on a bottle of Black Label when I could just get a really good single malt, but couldn't find the right time for questions.

The lady who seemed to be in charge called herself an Ambassador of Johnny Walker and was at least 6'2". We were given 5 shot glasses of whisky, 3 of them were single malts that exhibited certain qualities that JW is known for, and the other two were the actual blend that results from expertly mixing the single batches. This helped us to isolate the flavors.

When tasting whisky, there are 4 basic parts.
The first step is the legs. The legs are how quickly the whisky will run down the sides of the glass. An oily whisky (these tend to exhibit smokey flavors) will, like Christy Turlington, sport a nice long set of legs.
Next is the nose. We were told to open our mouths and inhale the odor, trying to taste it in our nose and on the back of our tongue. This introduces the palate to the flavors. She also invited us to splash a little whisky on our hands, rub them together, then smell them. Charles said, "Mine just smell like cigarettes". I tried it with the smokey whisky and I smelled band-aids and pork.
Then is the actual taste, where you might notice the main flavor notes of fresh fruit, sweet fruit, smoke, and ... somethign else. I just tasted alcohol.
Finally is the finish, this is how the flavor sits in your mouth and the pang you might feel in your jowels. I think Black Label has a strong finish.
At the end, she encouraged us to go to the bar next door and try the other labels of JW which were being sold for the very reasonable price of $10 for a glass of Gold Label and $25 for a glass of Blue Label. She also asked us to write down our overall impressions of the presentation and return them to her. Charles said he thought his overall impression was that they wanted us to buy whisky, my impression was that the tall bitch takes her booze very seriously.

and now for somethign completely different...

me: i work with a guy named jimmy wong
scotty: how big is his wong?
me: you are asking the wong guy
scotty: yuck yuck

here's to life

meniscuss: i saw roger clyne last night
fastserv47: how was it
fastserv47: take pics?
meniscuss: no, which reminds me. I need to look into that.
meniscuss: my batterys ran out i hope
meniscuss: or its broken
fastserv47: how was the show
meniscuss: excellent
meniscuss: he played for a long time. we got there right as the opening band was finishing their set. We went and got food first. So it was good timing.
fastserv47: nice man
fastserv47: a lot of people
fastserv47: ?
meniscuss: yeah, there were. a lot of cute girls too. more than one might have expected. although, from what I hear, girls find roger "attractive."
meniscuss: so there's that.
meniscuss: but uh
meniscuss: roger pulled a girl out of the show who had never had a tequila shot
meniscuss: and took one with her
meniscuss: and then played mekong
fastserv47: hahahaha
meniscuss: if your bottles empty, help yourself to mine
fastserv47: nice
fastserv47: did you get to meet him
meniscuss: no
meniscuss: again
fastserv47: hmmm
meniscuss: um
meniscuss: i went with a few people
fastserv47: sweet
fastserv47: did they like it
meniscuss: and pretty much, they weren't diggin it as much as me. They had good crticisim though. They said that it reminded them of Jimmy Buffet and they didn't like him. I can see that. They are both very melodic, but thats what I like so much about the pm. whatever.
fastserv47: yeah
meniscuss: so roger did one encore
meniscuss: and then left again
meniscuss: and that's when a lot of people started leaving
meniscuss: so we did.
meniscuss: but
meniscuss: i suspect
meniscuss: that they played at least one more encore
meniscuss: so. you know.
meniscuss: i was thinking about it on the ride home... this is twice i've seen him and twice i've had to leave early. i need to see him with you or jon one time. that's the only way it could be really awesome.
meniscuss: this is all preliminary. a prelude.
meniscuss: he didn't play bury my heart, which i was looking forwad to, nor ashes of san miguel.
meniscuss: they covered a song
meniscuss: i'm trying to think of the name of it. by billy joel for the Dave's World theme song...
meniscuss: I may be wrong, you may be right
meniscuss: if that's correct, that's too long a name for a song.
meniscuss: but that was pretty awesome. their version.

Utah: Day 1

Salt Lake City is a pretty sweet place. You don’t really find major cities tucked away in the mountain-side on the East Coast. My co-worker Robert and I arrived on Monday at about 2:30 PM Mountain time and decided to explore the city. The first thing I noticed about the city was how clean it was, one of the cleanest cities I have ever seen. I think the Theocracy – oops, I mean the “strong Mormon influence” – has something to do with the city’s cleanliness.
Our first stop was the University of Utah. It’s an awesome campus, minutes from both downtown and the mountains. The University has an extensive research park where many companies from private-industry set up shop. I was told that the Bio-Tech Industry is fairly prominent at the University and that one of the premier Cancer Research Institutes is run out of the University.
We got a little hungry so we grabbed a slice of pizza before walking around the Quad. Pizza is usually just an excuse to gorge oneself on cheese, but this crust really made a name for itself. Our time on the parking meter was running out so we decided to move to our next destination.
We drove downtown to Temple Square, the area where all the Mormon stuff is. We got a tour from Evangelista of the Philippines and Thon (pronounced Tohn) of Cambodia, who were both serving as missionaries in Salt Lake City. Insert requisite “missionary position” joke here. The first part of the tour was an acoustics demonstration at the Tabernacle, a neat dome-shaped building. A lady got up on stage and proceeded to 1) tear a newspaper 2) drop three pins, and 3) drop a nut. We were sitting about 150 feet away from her, but it sounded as if she were right behind us. The rest of the tour was a blur as I was ogling Evangelista and having impure thoughts about her. She was smiling at me, but I think she was teasing me because we both knew that she was something I could never have; because she’s Mormon and I’m not, and not because she’s really hot – well okay, maybe that too.
We ended the tour by watching what amounted to a Mormon “recruiting” video. Evangelista and Thon asked for our addresses so they could mail us a Mormon Bible and the “recruiting” video. Robert said he already had a copy of the bible, and I said that I knew someone who would be willing to loan me their copy. HAHA- SUCKERS!!!
Robert put it best when he said “that was as much proselytization as it was a tour.”
We left Salt Lake City and made our way to Tooele, which is where we are staying. The week has been okay so far, but the weekend is approaching so I hope we find some more cool stuff to do.

Rock Climbing at Old Rag

Last weekend instead of driving up to Frederick ostensibly to help Scotty move into his new townhouse but actually to hit on his hot older sister Heidi, I decided to do the manly thing and go rock climbing at Old Rag mountain with Firefly. We went shopping at REI to get me some rock climbing shoes (I ended up getting a pair of Mad Rock ... some name that I forget) and then to Trader Joe's to buy sundries. I got a Clif Bar, a loaf of bread, and some cheese. Fly got some trail mix, jerky, and 3 liters of wine.
We finished the drive to Old Rag in about two joints. Our goal was to hike up the mountain during the day, scout out the possible places to climb, maybe climb around a little then settle into some illegal camp site near the rocks and climb them the next morning. We passed the camping line (2500 feet) and near the top we found the bushwhack trail that leads down to a number of climbing areas.
Fly had heard that Old Rag was only a winter climbing area but I guess he chose to ignore this and not tell me about it. The entire area was completely overgrown, mostly with spikey thorn bushes but there were also a lot of tightly packed regular trees with sharp sticks and entangling vines. In one hour of wrestling with this hostile vegetation I had more cuts on my arms and legs than the combined total for probably the rest of my life. I have been cut plenty worse before, but never quite so much.
We set up camp on a relatively flat rock and laid out our gear. We had brought just enough food for the weekend and a little less water than we would probably need. Old Rag doesn't really have any water sources but we figured we would just go a little thirsty. When we started to unpack we realized that I had forgotten the entire loaf of bread and cheese. At least we remembered the wine. We finished most of it, drank a few mouthfuls of water and turned in for the night.
Since we were sleeping on an incline and I had a slick thermarest pad I spent the entire night sliding slowly off the boulder we were sleeping on, waking up just before I fell off, pushing myself back up as far as I could go, then repeatin the process. Also there was an incredible amount of wind. When I woke up in the middle of the night I thought we were in a tornado, but decided not to get up and check things out, anything that could have been blown away clearly already had. I was tired though and got a pretty good rest, and when we woke up the weather was perfect, sunny warm and the sky was totally clear.
Looking over at the nearly empty gallon jug of water I turned on Fly and we began accusing each other of drinking it all last night but then we relized there was a hole in the jug and it had just been slowly seeping out all night.
We had a meager breakfast, a few tablespoons of water, and then took up our gear to find some rocks to climb. We warmed up on an easy little climb, just to get comfortable doing lead climbing, which is completely new to me and Fly has read more about it in books than he has actually done. We found that traversing the fallen logs was the best way to get around in the thorn fields. After we felt comfortable with the equipment we packed up everything we had, smoked a joint and went up the other side of the bushwhack trail. We figured nothing could be as bad as the way we took to get in. We were completely wrong. It turns out that there is no other side of the bushwhack trail, we just walked straight up the ass end of Old Rag mountain through at least 2 miles of utter shit, more stinking prickers and trees so thick i had to shove Fly's pack from behind to get his fat ass through. We popped out on the trail near the top part of Old Rag, which is what makes the hike worthwhile, there are some really amazing boulder formations, land bridges, caves, natural staircases and the unparallelled view of beautiful Shenandoah. To celebrate I granted myself one refreshing mouthful of water.
Looking for a good place to climb down, I decided to throw my pack across a little gap then jump the distance after it. Without really thinking, I threw the pack, but then held on to it, so i sort of went tumbling after it over the edge. At the last possible second i jumped as much as I could and by the grace of God found a good handhold on the other side so I didn't tumble down 10 feet onto solid granite. Fly was a little hesitant to follow me, that pussy.
Fly did all the work with navigating and setting up the belay stations and everything. We found a 70 foot 5.7 called Fern Crack on the PATC wall. In terms of relative difficulty, it wasn't anything special for either of us to climb but there was the added challenge of placing your own protection that comes with lead climbing. Fly lead climbed the whole thing without a slip then I followed him cleaning up his gear. It was pretty sweet, I can't really imagine how nerve-wracking it must be to be climbing knowing that the only thing keeping you from falling 70 feet to an unforgiving stone grave is the protection that you yourself put into the wall, but Fly seemed to handle it well. It was a pretty easy climb for me afterwards, knowing that he had set up a tight belay station at the top.
Afterwards we finished the last few drops of water we had and headed on home. I think we're going to go climbing sometime the weekend after next if anybody wants in.

MarcoFro - Part 1

Today I decided to grow my hair to a suitable length - a length that will allow the utmost control and hold (with the appropriate amount of an exclusive Japanese molding cream) for me to create a hairstyle in the spirit of Erik Estrada and Freddie Prinze (Sr.) The lesbian transvestite hair stylist that cuts my hair (and moonlights as a pediatric gynecologist), told me that it will probably take a few months to get it perfect, but here is how it looks right now.

That's just my game

I don't remember what happened after that...

"Do No Evil"

About a month ago Google went public in one of the most highly touted IPOs in history. Many praised Google for its “Dutch Auction,” a process that was intended to avoid the usual pitfalls of conventional Investment Bank underwritings. A Dutch Auction is a “democratic” process where shares are allocated to all those who placed a winning bid. If all the available shares are bid on for $85, as was the case with Google, they will be sold to all who bid this price. This auction was open to anyone who cared to place a bid and didn’t require one to have “connections” with Investment Bankers, although it didn’t hurt if you did. The Dutch Auction differs from the standard Wall Street IPO format where banks buy the shares from the issuing company and then re-sell the shares to the public. In theory, a Dutch auction would garner Google a higher share price than the Wall Street format because the auction would be immune to price manipulation by the Investment Banks. Many have accused the Investment Banks of setting artificially low Initial Offering prices so their most-favored clients can benefit from price appreciation on the first day of open-market trading. The legality of Banks doling out shares to their “friends” is a murky issue as far as I know, but Google claimed that they wanted no part of this. In trying to abide by their self-righteous motto of “Do No Evil,” Google sought shareholders for the long haul. They figured that the Dutch Auction would accomplish this because a high initial price would preclude significant price appreciation on the first day of trading; thus dissuading anyone who was looking to make a quick buck.

A funny thing happened on the first day of trading though; Google’s stock price shot up to over $100. A price increase, or “pop” as the finance guys like to say, of over 20%. I asked myself why the stock popped over 20% and lent itself to quick in-and-out trading? I did some internet searching, on Google no less, and found out that many parties received only about 70% of the shares they had requested at the winning bid. I gather that Google could probably have sold all their shares for more than $85 a piece because there were bidders who did not receive a 100% allocation of their winning bid and because demand was so rampant that the share price soared over $100. I guess Google didn’t have the nerve to ignore Wall Street’s standard practices - no one asked them to, but they didn’t have to be disingenuous about the whole process. It was a Dutch auction in name only because Google didn’t accomplish the 2 things that it set out to do: raise as much capital as possible and issue shares in a democratic fashion.