Rants...

Had a pretty good weekend this weekend...Spent Friday night at my friend Mike's birthday party. Got so see a few faces whom I hadn't seen in a long while, so that was really cool. And speaking of seeing people whom I hadn't seen in a while, Sunday afternoon, I met up with my friend B.J. from college. B.J. took over for me as host of "Survey Says!" for Harvard TV when I graduated. I hadn't seen him since I graduated back in '99 so there was much to catch up on. As we talked more, I realized that there are many more people I know from Harvard out here than I had initially thought. The world again got a little smaller...

And Saturday night, Ted made his big L.A. stage debut as part of a show at the Renberg Theater in Hollywood. It was AWESOME. He totally brought the house down!

A couple of things to rant about...

Pepsi Holiday Spice - Um, yeah...the name pretty much says it all. It tastes more like fizzy cherry soda than anything else. Actually, it reminded me of that long lost drink from the summer of '98...OK Soda, which was anything BUT OK.

Pasta Pomodoro - Doug and I went out to have dinner at Pasta Pomodoro in Burbank at the Burbank Town Center (formerly the Media Center). It's a new Italian restaurant almost next door to the P.F. Chang's that Doug and I love. Well, the P.F. Chang's can rest easy because last night was easily one of the worst experiences I've had a restaurant all year. We arrived there and were seated promptly, and that, my friends, was about the only highlight of dinner there. The decor was ok and menu looked all right, despite being a bit on the small side. We sit at our table and at least ten minutes pass by. Nobody has come by to ask us for drinks or appetizers. Finally, the hostess comes by our table and asks for our drink order and appetizer order. Doug and I place our order and the hostess walks away to put it in the system. About ten minutes pass by again...while we expected this for our appetizer...we still had not received our drinks. Hmmm....More time passes by and the hostess finally comes to our table...with our appetizer. NO DRINKS. Before we could let her know, she left us to return to her post near the entrance of the restaurant. Doug and I decide to nosh on our appetizers despite the lack of beverage. Another waitress quickly passes by us sasying that she'll be back soon to take our orders. More time passes by. Doug and I have finished our appetizers. Still...NO DRINKS. We decide that that's it. We're done. We'll pay for the appetizer and leave. The waitress comes by and asks for our order. We tell here we want the check. Without argument, she gets our check. Doug gives his credit card to the waitress. And...I'm not kidding...it takes another ten minutes for us to get our check back for Doug to sign. Doug signs the check and puts nice round "zero" in the tip spot. I wanted him to put a frowny face in the zero, but he says that's a bit too much. :-) Bottom line...DON'T GO TO THE PASTA POMODORO IN BURBANK!

Oh, there WAS other highlight to dinner last night...we saw John Francis Daley from "Freaks and Geeks" at the restaurant. He's gotten taller than the last time I saw him on TV .