Gobble, gobble

This year's Thanksgiving week was pretty good. Our friends Chris, Kristin, and Adrianna threw a big dinner together. It was PHENOMENAL. Lots of great food. There was too much too choose from. It was one of the best home-cooked dinners I've had the privilge to attend. And there were a lot of people at the dinner too. It was like one big extended family. Ted, Larry, Caleb, and I. Larry's mom and Caleb's mom and stepdad (who were all visiting us - I told you it was November Mamma-rama!) also came along with us as well. After dinner, Matt and Gigi visited and Tom dropped in soon after that. With each Thanksgiving out here, L.A. feels more and more like home. It's really a testament to the great friends that I've made since moving out here. Ted, Larry, and I were talking about how great this year has been for all of us and how fortunate we've been to have such a wonderful family of friends. There's that reassurance that we'll never truly be alone out here. 'Tis a nice feeling... :-D

The rest of the week has been so lazy and laid-back. That's one reason I haven't really updated my blog all week. Wednesday, I took Drew to the wonderful LAX airport. We got there just as things started to get a bit crazy with traffic and crowds. U.S. Airways already had a line of people that started to creep into the territory of the airport terminal next door! On top of that, it took me a half-hour to leave the airport after dropping Drew off. Friday, I hung out most of the day with Tom. I went on a shopping excursion with him as he tried to find an entertainment center for his new apartment, but that search proved to be unsuccessful. :-I I did get to eat at Shakey's pizza for the first time since moving out here. It was ok. Very old-school family pizza restaurant-ish. This leads me to another observation in the world of endangered food species...One of my memories from growing up in Florida was going to Pizza Hut sit-down restaurants, especially for their lunch buffet. Mmmm...a smorgasboard of personal pan pizzas. The Pizza Hut restaurant that my family used to go to all the time near Pembroke Pines was converted in the mid-90s to a Pizza Hut delivery store. As I've traversed the L.A. area, I've noticed that the sit-down style of pizza restaurants like Pizza Hut and Godfather's Pizza (which I don't even think exists in any form) are becoming few and far between. In fact, I think I've only seen two sit-down Pizza Huts in the whole L.A. area...one in Van Nuys and the other near where the 118 and 405 meet.

Did a little shopping of my own Wednesday. I think I'm close to figuring out what I'm getting for people. Now, the trick is actually purchasing those things!

And in the obligatory "game show content" section of the blog...I have to make some mention of the recent "Feast of Favorites" marathon on Game Show Network. It was pretty cool to see "Whammy" as part of the marathon. It was also nice to see "Joker's Wild" on the list. It's been a while since I had seen any "Joker" episodes. One thing that jumped out at me about the "Joker" episodes is how creepy-looking Jack Barry could be. Still, I loved the way his voice would build up as he called "Joker!...JOKER!...."

Where it's at

Tonight, Drew and I went to see the Beck/Flaming Lips concert at the Universal Ampitheater. It was wonderfully weird...The Flaming Lips served both as the opening act and the backup band for Beck. And joining the Lips onstage during their opening set were a bunch of Lips fans dressed up in furry animal costumes. The furry fans were there pretty much throughout the whole Lips set. And the giant animal people didn't just stand there. They also provided some extra lighting effects. Throw in a bunch of giant balloon balls and confetti being thrown into the audience and you pretty much have one of the oddest openers I've ever seen for a concert. Beck was great. In addition to the new stuff, he played a lot of my favorites. The only song I was hoping to hear which he didn't perform was "Sexxlaws" off the "Midnite Vultures" album. This was the first Beck concert I've been to. I actually was supposed to see him in concert years ago...April 1, 1997 to be exact...but that was thwarted by a late spring snow storm the covered Boston. The wait was worth it. I've decided that when I grow up, I want to dance like Beck. He's got this robot-meets-James Brown-meets- George Jefferson-thing to his dance groove. It's pretty freakin' awesome.

I'm the only one to have starving children with fame

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the casting story of the month...

Roarrrrr

This is going to be such the random blog...

Drew and I had originally planned to get a big group of people together to watch 007 on Friday, but that didn't happen. So, we just hung out at my place and watched TV while he helped me with setting some new stuff up on my computer.

Saturday, we got together again and went shopping at The Grove. We went to the Apple store and I got myself a Jaguar upgrade. We then shopped around the other stores to get into the gift-buying frame of mind. From the looks of it, The Grove is going to be quite nicely decorated for Christmas. Unfortunately, I'm still stumped as to what to get some people for the holidays. So much for my goal of getting my holiday shopping by the end of November...

Today was catch-up day. Caught with my parents and with my high school friend Alan on the phone. Caught up on some shows I had on the TiVO, namely "Pyramid." Actually, here in L.A., the second and third shows of the tournament didn't air until the weekend. Much has been said on the newsgroup about the new tournament format. There are a couple of things I noticed about the tournament format which I don't think have been brought up on the boards yet...Non-game show fans, bear with me for a paragraph here...

Let's say George (the contestant on the third day) had won the first game and won the $25K in a shorter time than the $25K winners from the first two days, it would have made a second Winner's Circle trip for him irrelevant. Also, if nobody had won the $25K during the first two day and he won the $25K in the first game and won the second game of the show, the second Winner's Circle trip would been meaningless as well. Hmmmm...The format does need some tweaks, but it's clear that the big puzzle that the producers were trying to solve was "How do you make a tournament structure last over a preset number of days while guaranteeing a $100K winner?" It isn't the easiest question to answer. Ah, the wonders of making a game in the current syndicated market...

One of the visitors to my site pointed out that Mars bars are still available at some Target stores around the country. I dunno, I just have this suspicion that once those Mars bars are gone, there'll be a fresh batch of Snickers almond bars waiting to take their place...

A musical mystery has finally been solved for me. A little over a year ago, my friend Nathan and I went to see Evan and Jaron live at the El Rey. One of the opening acts was a band called Maroon. The notable thing about this band was that they were a HELL of a lot better than Evan and Jaron (even though E&J put in a good set). Naturally, when I got home from the show, I tried to do a search for the band online. No luck at all...Flash forward to last week...Drew hands me a CD and tells me that I have to listen to this band, Maroon 5. I listen to it and it sounds vaguely familiar. I look up the band's website and sure enough, it was indeed the same Maroon that Nathan and I had seen last year. In any case, they're the new "band that I rave to everybody about." I'd go as far as to say that it's the best new CD I've heard this year. It's kinda like Jamiroquai but with a bit of a rougher rock edge to it. Good stuff...

God bless my friend Keith for his blogs over the past several days. He's had some really great links recently...

Finally...one word to end this blog: Lemmiwinks

(Those of you who saw "South Park" last week will know what I'm talking about...I still can't believe they did what they did...)

FIXED

My blog from last night has finally been fixed. Lesson of the week...Check your HTML twice before posting a blog especially when you have a lot of links in the blog!

In its prime

Went to Toys R Us today and picked up Metroid Prime for the Gamecube. It ROCKS. The graphics are stunning and gameplay is good. I'm not usually into first-person shooters, but this one definitely held my interest.

In my travails tonight, I went to the grocery to pick up some stuff. In doing so, I found some Whatchamacalit in the checkout aisle. But alas, no Mars bars to be seen. Wah... :-/

I've had an usually high number of hits the past couple of weeks. I went through my stats to see what this is all about. The only logical explanation that I have is that my page is turning up in a lot of searches for the things relating to "Aaron Buerge," from ABC's "The Bachelor." Over 70% of the searches that have led to hits to my page have been for "Aaron Buerge" and many of those searches have been for "Aaron Buerge pics" or "Aaron Buerge shirtless." I guess it's a testament to how popular the show got this season.

Speaking of reality stuff, "Amazing Race" is coming back for another season. YAY! I've really been loving this season of "Race" despite the fact that cheerleader boy was eliminated early in this season. Hell, I'm even starting to like Derek and Drew, the Zoolander twins. They're not as bad as I first thought them to be and they're sure better than Teri and cranky Ian.

Finally, I'd just like to publicly thank Michael Jackson for providing a great early Christmas present for me with his weird-ass behavior the past couple of weeks. And a thanks to the press for such great pics documenting his freakiness...That video of him dangling the baby out of the German hotel room was just insane. Here are some of my favorite pics from the past couple of days:

In this pic, we see the "vessel" and the "abyss." And I just love how Michael Jackson is WHITER than the white guy.

BOO! It's the ghost of Michael Jackson's sanity.

Is he trying to hold his nose in place here?

A great Kodak moment. Michael Jackson and a midget French maid. How sweet...

You are the Weakest Link goodbye!

They say they're at the zoo, but I say they're at a funeral...for Michael Jackson's career.

God bless you Michael Jackson for making the rest of us feel that much saner. I honestly think Disney should create an attraction at EPCOT where you sit inside his mind. It'd be the best thrill ride EVER!

Another in the...

You have to see this files...

I think the pic speaks for itself.

That magnifying glass is so perfectly placed, it's scary...

Stuff...S-T-U-F-F

Yesterday was great (G-R-E-A-T) partly because Brad, Drew, and I got to watch ("W-A-T-C-H") a taping of "Lingo" (L-I-N-G-O). In the afternoon, we went to Empire studios at Burbank. Before the show we got a chance to talk with Chuck. It was really cool because Chuck remembered me from "Greed." As Chuck walked over to us he pointed at me and said, "Hey, I know you!" We talked a little bit and then the taping started. The taping was good. There are some minor but good additions with game play for the second season. The big change though (besides the fact that the show is now taping in the U.S.) is that the they've got a new set. The best way to describe the set is that it's simple, but very classy and effective. We saw one show taped before we had to run off. All in all, it's fun and it looks like the second season is going to be good. A big thanks to Bob Boden, Tim Duffy, and Phil Gurin for letting us check things out that afternoon.

One reason we had to leave soo soon was that Drew and I were joining up with Ted and Christie over at the Grauman's Chinese theater to watch an evening showing of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." Again, I went into the movie pretty ignorant of what it was about because not only had I not reviews of the movie, but I also haven't read the books. However, I probably will on my plane flight to Florida next month at the recommendation of Drewby and Ted. Anyhoo, it was a really good movie. The 2 1/2 hours flew by quickly. Definitely worth checking out in the theater if you haven't yet.

After the movie, Drew and I then scooted off to Westwood to watch the final performance of Hurry Sundown, a local band featuring my friends Aaron and Murad. After the show we called it a day...

The rest of the week was fun. As to the Ben Folds concert which I didn't finish talking about the other log, it was unsurprisingly phenomenal. The set was really good and pretty long. There were also more covers in this set than in any other Ben Folds or Ben Folds Five concert I've ever seen. Duncan Sheik was the opening act. He did a pretty good set with the highlight for me being a cover of one my favorite Radiohead songs, "Fake Plastic Trees." An even bigger highlight of the night was seeing Drew's reaction during the show. He's a huge Ben Folds fan and had never seen him live before. Actually, the first night Drew ever talked was the after Ben's concert at the El Rey last spring. :-) Anyhoo, my arm was sore from the elbowing Drew gave me as Ben kept playing songs that Drew liked. Oh, as to why William Shatner was a guest...Ben performed the song from his "Fear of Pop" album that Shatner provided the narration for. Fun, fun stuff...

Friday was also an adventure as Ted, Matt, Gigi and I desparately hopped from one restaurant to another trying to find a place to have dinner. Topz in Toluca Lake was closed by the time we got there around 8 and Acapulco just a few blocks away was crowded. We finally ended up settling for some Denny's. Mmmmm....Fried shrimp.....

Briefly Ben...

Last night's Ben Folds concert was freakin' awesome...Ben solo on the piano, a guest appearance by William Shatner, and Weird Al in the audience...VERY VERY cool...more later tonight...

* eeek *

Geez, 'tis the day for disturbing pictures. Another link I felt compelled to post after going to it.

I honestly don't know what to say...

Oh yes I do...Please keep any children or people who are faint of heart away from the computer when you go to the link. Viewer discretion is HIGHLY advised.

* burp *

Good lord...I had to post this link up after going to it. (Thank's Yahoo! mail...Grrr...)

It gets the award for the most disgusting-looking burger...EVER...I get gas just looking at it. Well, at least it'll look the same going in as it will going out...

HAPPY LUNCH EVERYBODY!

Random thoughts

Apparently, Whatchamacalits are still being produced and sold. So no memorial services for that chocolate bar...

However, it was pointed out to me that Hardee's have essentially become Carl's Jr's. Now, I knew that Hardee's had adopted the star symbol from Carl's Jr., but upon further inspection of their website, it looks like their menu has essentially become a Carl's Jr. menu! Blarg! Hardee's kinda has a nostalgic spot for me because when I was growing up, Hardee's was always a sign that we had definitely left home on our family vacations. There weren't any Hardee's in the South Florida area, but once you hit central Florida and headed up the east coast on I-95, there'd be a Hardee's at about every other exit. Speaking of east-coast fast food...do Roy Rogers restaurants still exist?

Drew and I are going to see the Ben Folds concert tomorrow at The Palace in Hollywood...woo-hoo! Even better, Duncan Sheik is the opening act. And even better than THAT, it's another Ben "solo at the piano" show!

Big immediate non-work goal...Get all my Christmas shopping done before the end of November...

Meatballs being cooked in our kitchen equals a nice big serving of double-entendres...My friend Eddie who was over at our place tonight and claims that I was sweet and innocent in college summed it up best by saying, "You've really become filthy." Me?? Filthy?? Never! O:-)

Where the antelope play

Yesterday, I kicked off the day by getting together with Ted, Drew, and Nathan. Did some shopping with Ted and Drew and Sherman Oaks before heading off to the Antelope Valley to spend some time with Tom in Palmdale.

Even with the rainy weather, I was able to get to Palmdale in an hour. After I arrived at his place, Tom and I immediately headed off to the grocery to get some food for dinner. Tom made quite the savory meal...a nice four-course meal including a great lemon-pepper salad and some delicious brownies to cap it all off. We finished the rest of the night cuddling up for a couple of DVDs while sheltered from the stormy weather outside. First off was "Spiderman" followed by "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," which I don't recommend watching while you're about to fall asleep. It's been a while since I had seen "Close Encounters" all the way through. I was struck by how slowly the movie builds.

I was woken up in the morning by a barrage of calls on my cell. I don't think I ever have received as many calls as I have on my cell phone in such a short period of time...especially on a Sunday morning! Fortunately, there weren't any major emergencies...Spent the afternoon with Tom as he gave me a brief tour of Palmdale and the Antelope Valley Mall. The funny thing is...in a month, he'll be moving away from there to Northridge, which is a bit closer to my neck of the woods. Did some dinner after shopping at the mall (where I realized that I need to start putting together my shopping list for Christmas). After the shopping, we headed back to his place to watch "As Good as It Gets" (which I hadn't seen before but loved) and then I headed back for the drive back to my place.

It's was quite a nice little getaway of a weekend...and even nicer is the fact that I was able to spend it with a special someone. :-)

Rained out

The rain really poured yesterday. There was this sea of gray outside the office window that seemed to put everybody in a sluggish mood. Blarg... :-I

Adding to the "oddness" of the day was the drive home. It was raining pretty steadily, but the 405 North was CLEAR. Not only that. but the 101 east was clear as well! I was able to get home in about 40 minutes...VERY good time especially for stormy weather. On the other hand, the 405 south was clogged as well as the 101 west was jammed. Usually the 405 south is fairly clear especially compared to the 405 north. And I'm just realizing that none of this really has any meaning to any of you reading outside of the L.A. area. :-)

Had a very low-key night last night. Grabbed some dinner with Caleb and brought it back to the house. We called up the "To Tell the Truth" that I had TiVOed that morning. Just TiVOed it for the hell of it since it's been a while since I've seen a Trebek episode of "Truth." As I've said time and time again, the one word that defined the 1990-1 version of "Truth" was "class." It had a classy set and the music package for that version is one of my favorites. The orchestral version of the classic 60s/70s "Truth" theme is top-notch. It's a shame it suffered from host problems and a killer timeslot up against "Price." The one thing I noticed is that the show never had an "promotional consideration provided by" card.

We retired to our respective rooms soon after and whilst doing some online chatting, I suffered through a gawd-awful episode of "The Flying Nun" on TV Land before stumbling upon a rerun of "Tabitha," the spinoff of "Bewitched" starring Lisa Hartman. It was pretty clear why the show didn't last long. Loved the theme song though and it was more bearable than "The Flying Nun."

Oh nuts

This actually stems from my visit to "Squares" the other day. I was having lunch at the CBS cafeteria when I picked up a "new" candy bar called "Snickers Almond." Almond?!? Upon further inspection (and tasting), it turned out to be a chocolate bar with caramel, nougat, and almonds. Now, if I recall correctly, that combination used to equal a MARS bar. And the Mars company makes Snickers. Sooo...this leads me to ask..."Is the Mars bar dead?!?" Have Mars bar sales gone down so much that the company needs to slap on the Snickers name to boost sales??? And speaking of dead candy bars, I miss Barnone and Whatchamacalit... :-/

The 2003 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees list was released today...ABBA didn't make it in...Blarg...

It rained tonight...Traffic sucked ass...It took me an hour and a half to get home...WAH... :-(

360-something days

It's been a few days since I've posted on here, has it? Things have been pretty status quo the past few days. Work's been quite peachy this week. Been doing some preliminary work on a project which all of you in the game show loop pretty much know about. Monday night, Ted, Tom, and I went out to dinner. While at dinner, we met up with Matt and his mom who's visiting town. It's the beginning of what we've dubbed November Momma-rama. Over the next few weeks, a bunch of my friends' and roomies' moms will be visiting the L.A. area.

Did the voting thang yesterday morning. The polling place was really close to the house, but the record for closest voting location still has to be where I voted for the 2000 election. It was in the lobby of the apartment I was living in at the time in North Hollywood. I remember being really sick that day and literally rolling out of bed to vote and then crawling back into bed soon after only to wake up that evening even sicker from seeing the mess of the presidential election coverage.

Last night seemed to be "everybody flock to the house" Tuesday. The guests that dropped by at various points throughout the evening included Eddie, Rachel, Christie, Lou, Matt, and Matt's mom. It got to the point where Ted dusted off the Playstation dance pad controls and started up the "Britney's Dance Party" game on the PS2. :-I

Oh, on Monday, Mandelweb.com turned one year old...well, one year old in its current incarnation! Thanks to all of you for checking out the site over the past year and especially to those of you people who check the site out regularly. Geez, you're a loyal bunch! :-) I'll be blabbing more about what new stuff I'll be doing with the page (most of which I'll probably won't get around to doing) in a post later this week.

Revealed!

As promised, the pics of the Scooby-Doo Halloween party are up on the web for all to see. Click on the pic below of our take on the Scooby gang to see the rest of the photos:



Apparently, a couple of people on the newsgroup and some websites have also talked about that Thursday episode of "Hollwywood Squares" game show week. And yes, what they talk about is the big thing I was referring to on my weblog. And yes, it was quite amazing. :-)

One thing I failed to mention yesterday in regards to the "Squares" taping. Amongst the array of people hanging around backstage that day was none other than Marcia Wallace! Word is that Marcia and Brett are really good friends and that Brett was staying with Marcia while she was in town from Connecticut. Geez, when you think about it, with Peter, Jimmie, Marcia, Brett, and Charles hanging around Stage 33, we were just one celeb away from having a full panel's worth of "Match Game" vets!

Square deal

I have just come back from game show heaven...Today, I attended the "Game Show Week" taping of "Hollywood Squares." To say it was phenomenal would be an understatement. As some other people put it, it was a "game show geek's wet dream." The five episodes taped today were shows that truly had the game show fan in mind.

Here was the lineup: Wink Martindale, Chuck Woolery, Bob Eubanks, Jim Lange, Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly, Jimmie Walker, regulars Martin Mull and Kathy Griffin, and center square Peter Marshall. Rod Roddy served as announcer and did the announcing live on-stage. Modeling the prizes for the Secret Square and bonus rounds was Carol Merrill. Everybody was "on" and did a fantastic job. Not only that, but all the game show legends looked pretty damn good. Carol Merrill especially looked stunning. I cannot begin to list the number of great moments that happed both during and in -between the tapings. There were two big treats...One was seeing Brett and Charles together again and catfighting with each other. It's like they never stopped. Brett actually looked better today than she did during her apperances on Match Game '90! And their bickering carried through during the breaks and while taping promos. It was fantastic! As for the other big treat...the biggest one of all, I won't spoil for you. Somebody on the newsgroup or elsewhere on the 'net might spill, but I'll just say this: WATCH THE THURSDAY EPISODE OF GAME SHOW WEEK ON "SQUARES!!!" What happened that show is something that I never thought I'd see in my lifetime.

What else, what else...through the miracle of video tape, Monty Hall was there participating during the Secret Square questions. There were some modifications to the set which helped in giving the show a "classic" game show feel. It was something I will never forget. Kudos to the "Squares" production team for doing such a loving homage to "classic" game shows. They really nailed it!

And pretty much everybody from the L.A. area who was a game show fan or had some tie to the classic genre was there...Everybody from the authors of the "Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows" to Randy West to Bob Boden to the rest of the game show gang was there. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to talk any of the celebs in the grid, but I did speak briefly with Henry Winkler. And I must say, Henry Winkler seems like such a nice guy. Without a doubt, this was the best "Squares" taping, I've been to. A HUGE HUGE thanks to the "Squares" people especially to Brian Conn and Steve Radosh for a great day and one I will surely remember forever! :-) And from what I've heard, these soon-to-be-classic episodes will air the week of December 9th.

Now you'd think this would be enough to talk about in one weblog entry...but there's more! Last Thursday night, I went with Matt and Gigi to Santa Monica Boulevard for the Halloween madness in West Hollywood. In the three years I had been out here, I had never been down to WeHo for Halloween. It actually was a lot fun We met up with Drewby and his friends over there. It was a visual feast...so many different costumes and so many people (a good portion of which were easy on the eyes). Yet again, it proves that I can actually deal with the craziness of West Hollywood when I don't have to do the driving and when I'm go down there with a good group of friends.

Finally, last night, Ted, Larry, Caleb, and I had our big Scooby-Doo Halloween bash. Yes, we had our Halloween bash on November 1st. Don't ask me why...It just ended up being that way. Part of it was that we figured we'd be conflicting with a lot of our other friends' parties if we had done it the weekend before. Also, the Friday before last was totally out for me since I was in Anaheim for the Paul McCartney concert. In any case, in spite of the anachronism, it was a big success. Caleb dressed up as Fred, Ted dressed up as Velma, Larry was Daphne, and I was Shaggy with a perm. Everybody else had to dress up as a villain or special guest star from an episode of "Scooby Doo." The main feature of the party involved a giant "Clue"-like game to find out who kidnapped Scooby. Matt dressed up as the Gypsy Carlotta handing out clue cards to all the guests. Tom dropped in from Palmdale dressed up as the dirty vicar (insert jokes here...). And Drew came as the mad scientist's "creation" complete with an electrifying costume. Our friends Sara and Dani ended up being the big winners in the big "Scooby Doo Clue" game. It was a good mix of people. A lot of friends of guests showed up so we met a lot of new people that night. Pictures will be forthcoming tomorrow. Be afraid...be very afraid...