no, i know i can't dance

i've never been a dancer (except that one time in college dressed as michael jackson...nevermind). i don't know much about "technique" and the moves that pro-dancers do. that being said, i watched the show "So You Think You Can Dance" some last spring, and enjoyed some of the performances. unfortunately, i quit watching before it got really good. much like any other reality tv contests like american idol, dancing with the stars, america's got talent, the episodes in the beginning are the best. that's when they show the horrible, delusional people who truly think they're great because someone told them so.

well this clip was in one of the last episodes of SYTYCD, and it is phenomenal. i didn't know something like this was a dance, but its great, and fits together with an amazing song.



and hopefully i'll have some fun stories for you next week, because i'm going to a concert tomorrow night for the Yeah Yeah Yeah's at one of my fave places, Hard Rock Live. I'm also having a cooking party, cause now i'm a pro, all day saturday. who knows, i may even set up a camera so i can make a cooking tv show to post to youtube...

oh, and i almost forgot, GO HOKIES!

i'm in culinary

last night was quite possibly the greatest stay-at-home night ever. i went to my best friend's house and cooked an appetizer dinner with her. now i am NOT kitchenally inclined. i can boil water, scramble an egg, and make a bowl of ramen noodles. but that is pretty much were it stops. so when charged with finding something to cook last night, it took me most of the day online (at work). i finally settled on two recipes; polenta crostini with sausage topping, and gruyere herb puff pastries. oh, and three bottles of wine.

well after wandering around this city's smallest grocery store for an hour (obviously only 5 of those minutes were spent picking out the wine) i finally made it to my friend's house and starting cooking at 8pm. 2 bottles and 2 hours later we had prepared all the food. my puff pastries looked like cookies, and the polenta crostina tasted more like cream corn pancakes. fortunately my friend made an amazing pesto chicken pizza that delivered us from evil. at that point, another friend joined us with more wine, and we had a thoroughly wondrous evening.

so if you ever have a quiet evening during the, ugh, work-week, you should get some friends and food. you're not 70 years old, so it's never too late at night to cook and eat. the key to the evening however is this: drink cheap wine, and use it in the food. cause then you're not drinking. technically, you're just cooking with wine. and don't be afraid to try some crazy recipe. even if it comes out nasty, it's probably still better than ramen noodles.

hot wings and breasts

you may already know this about me, but i really enjoy Hooters, the restaurant. it's a standing date i have with...um, well, myself...to go at least every month. i can usually tempt/trick somebody into going with me, and this week i was lucky enough to find two chaperones.

now i didn't have high hopes for the culinary wonders of spicy-as-hell chicken wings, as the last time i dined at this specific Hooters i was unpleasantly let down. it took two hours to see any food, and the order was incomplete...and ice cold. now i know what you're saying to yourself; the hospitality industry is tough, lots of stress, so many tables to deal with, orders to remember, pleasant attitude to fake... but i beg to differ. over 90% of the patrons at a Hooters are all ordering THE SAME THING: chicken wings and beer. i was no different on this night, but somehow the unfriendly waitress couldn't get it right. you'd think i wouldn't go back.

well sunday i went back. two of my friends and i went to watch some football, eat some greasy food, and drink some cold beer. well, we got the beer, so one for three ain't bad, right? the wings took equally as long as my last visit, and the football...well, let's just say that sundays aparently were not made for football in this alternative dimension of our universe. i'm just guessing here, but this place has roughly 100 TVs. now one might think that with that many TVs, you could view a plethora of different programming choices. even being somewhat of a sports bar, you could guess that at least 2 different events would be shown on the TVs. well, my friend, you shouldn't think so logically. in this Hooters (and quite possibly ALL Hooters for all i know) you will watch nothing but PRO-WRESTLING.

not gonna lie, i enjoyed pro-wrestling when i was 10. heck, i even practiced the moves at home with my friends. i had a favorite wrestler, Sting, because of his amazing death lock leg grip. but today i'm slightly older, and can see how fake this "sport" is. apparently the rest of the over 21 year old population of my city is not so observant. there was not an empty table in the whole restaurant, and all of the diners were intently watching, and cheering on, the Sunday Night Raw, or whatever raunchy play-on-words they have for make believe violence.

so, of course, i had to go to another Hooters today for lunch to get the proverbial and literal bad taste out of my mouth. and it worked. i had a lovely waitress who tried to sell me a t-shirt. i think it was because i was all dressed up for work and she thought it would be funny, which shows more personality than all prior Hooters waitresses combined. and the wings were, stop the press, WARM!

so back to the VT football game with my stomach ache from lunchtime Hooters.

p.s. i made a mistake in my last post...i did not hear about Damien Rice from Grey's Anatomy. i was enlighted to their melodic harmonies by the greatest mix-cd maker in the world back in the winter of 2003.

guilty pleasures

Let me preface this by saying that these are not necessarilly in any order. Let me also say this, instead of being totally into work today, I thought of these things non-stop. So, suffice it to say they obviously mean something to me if it's all I can think about.

1. Laguna Beach - I hate the fact that I love this show. I know people who have visited Laguna, and seen many of the places that are shown on the series, and I am insanely jealous of them. I love the show because I hate the "actors." Their lives cannot be real, I refuse to believe it. If you share this love-hate relationship with MTV's greatest reality series, you need to read THIS sometime.

2. Cheese, and lots of it. As long as it isn't a) made from goat's milk, b) isn't blue, or bleu, c) hasn't expired, d) isn't fromunda (and if you haven't heard of that, just ask).

3. Wine. Unlike my previous pleasure, I like all wine. With one exception, Agave Wine. Which reminds me, who opens a Mexican restaurant, doesn't have tequila, but still wants to serve margaritas, and substitutes Agave wine for the tequila. I'm sorry, but seeing how the rest of the world makes wine from GRAPES, why must some dude in Mexico use AGAVE. It is used to make tequila, I understand that, but tequila doesn't taste good. Wine does. End of story.

4. Grey's Anatomy - now this one is two-fold, first because it is a great drama (and yes it is basically a soap opera), secondly because it has the most amazing music in each and every show. Some of my favorite songs have come from watching this show, from previously unknown artists (to me, but my friends would say that if it weren't for them i'd be oblivious to all music, except Britney Schpears (that is in the retainer voice)). Some groups introduced to my by this great show include; Damien Rice, Sufjan Stevens, Anna Nalick (I won't tell you want her name always sounds like in my head), and Snow Patrol.

Okay, i'm done obsessing for now. But if you get a chance, tonight is the night that two of these things happen, and I suggest you watch. And if you can, partake in the other two things while watching.

That is all.

Oh, and one more thing...

5. The Chappelle Show: