Dave's Thoughts of the Day: August 12th

The Peach Revolution is spreading!

Coach had a lady friend over on Sunday while I was out, and when I got back I was formally introduced.  Anyway, we're chatting about the weekend and I start getting into how a Train concert experience is different from a Roger Daltrey concert experience and I said "it's Apples and Oranges, really."  THEN, Coach says "Speaking of apples and oranges..."

First of all, that is a *great* segue, and I said to him "Wow, that's a great Dave style segue!"  I see my style of speak is rubbing off on him since I moved here to Santa Monica.

Anyway, he goes on and says "speaking of apples and oranges, I hope you don't mind me giving two of your peaches to my lady friend.  I owe you two peaches."

I said "Oh, no!  I think that's great!  I'm very happy to spread the joy of peaches."  Then I asked the lady friend what she thought of them and she thought the peaches were fantastic.  Folks, I was PUMPED.  We are getting the word out about peach season.

Coach was telling the lady friend "I always see Dave eating peaches, he eats two or three peaches a day."  And my response was "Oh yeah, it's peach season!  You should have seen it earlier in the week, the fruit drawer in the refrigerator was *stuffed* to the brim with peaches."  It was great.  We all got a kick out of the peaches.

It's been an eventful weekend.   I will admit, however, that Orange County, as beautiful and hassle free as it is, doesn't have nearly as many things to do as the LA Metro.   The beaches, harbors, and people:  gorgeous.   But as for attractions and restaurants, that list is much smaller.  The ones they have are tremendous, though.  In particular I was introduced to the Irvine Amphiteater aka the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater which I thought was *awesome.*   Lots to tell, so much so that I'm writing this a full day early and putting off the "Breaking Bad" premiere to write this entry, so pull up a chair and climb aboard for an extra long blog today.

All right, so first of all, the impetus for the trip to OC was a two fold:  I wanted to give Coach a chance to entertain a friend visiting from out of town (see above), and further, I decided to, for the first time, give our neighboring county an in depth look.  I'm more than familiar with Anaheim/Placentia/Fullerton from my years and years of visiting relatives and going to Disneyland and Angels games.  In that foray, an entire southern half of the county was overlooked.   This past weekend, we had the USMS Summer Nationals Meet at Mission Viejo's Nadadores Aquatic Center and many of my Masters team mates were competing.  So, it was killing two birds with one stone and *finally* making a weekend trip to explore and enjoy what was out there.

This actually yielded a third opportunity I hadn't thought of until I left home: the OC Fair.  To summarize, it was just a larger Ventura County fair.  I have to be honest, I wasn't impressed.  Even the big amphitheater had acts about on par with whatever VC did.  Musical concerts and that thing.

The trip to the Irvine Amphitheater was a complete surprise.  I didn't even know there *was* a Train concert until I drove up the freeway and passed the marquee.  The sign said "Tonight -- Train w/ Gavin DeGraw and The Script."  So I didn't think much of it until I got to Mission Viejo Nadadores (MVN for short) to watch my friends at the meet.

It was good to catch up with everyone from the swim club on Day 1.  Honestly, the meet was fantastic to us all.  My only regret is that I didn't swim it myself.  Huge mistake.  I assumed for years that if I didn't meet the listed qualifying times I had no shot at swimming.  It's just not true -- once I looked it up, it said that people not meeting qualifiers still can swim but would only get to do three races.  Ha!   I really blew it -- that would have been a lot of fun to swim.  MVN is a great pool, and its trained numerous olympians over the years.  Not just swimmers, but divers as well.   Lots of my mates swam really well here, and one such swimmer was a story onto itself.  I think I'll save that story for tomorrow since this entry is already going to be so enormous as it is.  She did a FANTASTIC job in her only race of the day.  I'll explain the deets on the Tuesday Daveblog.

*Anyway*, while all of this was in action, I went on Stubhub on my phone to see what the ticket prices were for Train/DeGraw/Script.  Holy hell, they were going for 30 bones.  I was like "That *can't* be right... even has-beens get double that ticket price, and I'm getting three acts with hits *ON* today's music charts for 30?"  Well, I had to jump on that one, friends.   I drove over to a nearby FedEx office to print out the ticket and we were ready to roll.  To be fair, the ticket price was 40 bones after fees, but I later found out that includes the price of parking, so it was a virtual bargain.


So I was at the meet for the entire day, then I left around 6pm to go to the Irvine Amphitheater.  For those keeping score, I got an approved day off in order to venture into town that day.   Getting to the Amphitheater was a struggle.  Office parks and windy roads.  I took the wrong exit and I didn't have a dock installed for my phone yet, so it was a struggle.  To compound it, the phone was already down to 5% battery life as I used it a ton that day, so navigation tools were limited.   I was early enough where it wasn't a major problem, but it was annoying.

Traffic, I'm proud to say, was *not* an issue.  This is the single area where OC (especially the area around Irvine) owns it over Los Angeles.  Friday evening traffic for a big concert featuring 20,000 fans?   Traffic was A-OK.  Loved that part.

So I get to the concert and it's my first trip to the Irvine Amphitheater after years of speculating about going there for concerts.  I wind up going when it's a concert that was fully unplanned, good times.  It takes a while to get from the car to your seat.  There's a long walkway just to get to the gate.  Then another one to get to the seating bowl.  Then you find your seat in this massive circular out-door theater.   At this theater, two video screens flank the proscenium to offer closeups and such.  Train added a few other electronic displays which were used once they did their set.

I was burned  a few times in the past for going to a concert, then waiting about half an hour after the posted start time before anybody played music.  Weird Al concerts are pretty miserable at starting on time.  There's a pretty tangible reason for this: they don't have an opening act.  For at least the last 15 years it's just them and that's it.  In fact, my first concert was Weird Al, so I was really thrown off when I went to see a concert of someone else.  The "opening act" went on all those years ago and I said "The heck is this?  They have a concert before the concert?"  Today, I'm rather happy to have warmup acts just as they do in comedy shows.

I was awed too by the venue.  It is enormous.  I thought the Amphitheater was a one or two thousand seat venue, but I was told later it seats up to 20,000+ people.  WOW!   I thought to myself, how are they going to fill up all these seats?  but they did!  It just took a while.

We were about 30-40% full when Gavin DeGraw's band started their set, which ran an hour solid.  They hit the stage at 5 after 7pm, the listed start time.  Tremendous job by the concert staff to get that going right away.  The stadium filled up about half way through Gavin's set... I had no idea that Gavin DeGraw had so many recognizable songs.  He was a fun listen.  

Next to the stage... the Script, coming off that huge hit "Hall of Fame" on the radio.   Here's something I didn't know about the Script until I saw them live:  these guys are a bunch of jokers.  I love it!  Their knack for interacting with the crowd is amazing.  They're hilarious when they converse between songs.  You get the frontman who does occasional keys, the bald guy who plays lead guitar, the big dude for bass, and I think some other guy for synths.  They're all from Dublin, Ireland.   and THESE guys, actually went up to the crowd and asked if they could borrow a girl's cell phone and have her dial her ex first.  So she did and they were doing this whole breakup song while they were on the phone.  There's no way to know whether the guy actually was on the phone sitting through all this but the whole thing was a hoot.

The practical jokes I was seeing from the Script was a pleasant surprise.  There were a couple other earlier hits they did (it jogged my memory as they played them).  Then it all led up to the big finish, their live version of "Hall of Fame."  Surprisingly the crowd didn't pick up on the song earlier, because they had a low-key intro and the chord progression was definitely recognizable but it wasn't until the keyboard guy did his opening riff that everyone went bananas.  It was *great.*    The Script was also on for an hour solid.

We had intermissions between these acts and a third one before Train started their show.   Once the lights dimmed and the opening montage started (it was a loud audio clip of a train leaving the station) the place went nuts and I mean NUTS.  You saw all this stage smoke and lights behind that, it looked like a train was coming up onto the stage from behind, a great effect.

Then the lead singer steps out of the smoke, huge ovation, and he starts with "Calling All Angels."  Obvious synergy with this song and Orange County, since the Angels used the same song before every Angels Baseball game at the ballpark.  I don't know if he always opens with "Calling All Angels" or if he specifically started with it for the OC, but whatever, it was a stroke of brilliance.

Train knows how to play the crowd.   Really fun concert, with special effects, electronic displays, and everything.   Over the 15 years he's done music, he built up a pretty good catalog of fan favorites and I believe he covered all of them.   I was fascinated by all the covers he did too... he had a Beatles medley, a medley of other random songs covering everything from Macklemore to Bob Marley, and he also brought in Country Singer Ashley Monroe to do a song they collaborated on.   Afterward, Monroe performed one of her own songs with the Train singer on backup vocals.

THEN, after an already raucous night of enjoyable songs and other entertainment, Train said farewell... then we had the whole ruse of them leaving, stage going dark, etc. etc., lots of cheers, and THEN the encore.  We've seen the whole encore process.  Most of the same elements in effect here.  Pretty good encore.  A few down-tempo songs and one other big hit he had.  Already a tremendous night, Train didn't stop there.  He brought out Gavin DeGraw, the Script and Ashley Monroe for *all of them* to sing a rendition of a song from The Band: "The Weight."  WOW.  That's all I gotta say, folks.  It was impressive and really really enjoyable.

...a concert that came completely from nowhere!  One other observation I had about Train that I'll share with you:

The lead singer said "Four years ago we were at the House of Blues in LA and we only had 500 people show up.  You've really been great!"  That's really great to see the Irvine crowd give him such a big boost.  To be fair, a big chunk of the crowd drove in from LA too (including me obviously by way of SM).  The point is, it seemed to me, as it did to Train, that the crowd was simply electric.   Honestly I was in awe of it too... everybody was really into it that night, singing along, doing the dance, reciting all the lyrics.  Amazing.  I think if you go back those four years, I recall somewhat that the "Hey Soul Sister" song hadn't hit the chart yet, so indeed Train was in a lull.  You want to talk about a comeback, here it is.

It was a rare moment where everything hit spot on.  I was privileged to be in attendance.  I mean ok, it's not "Hot August Night" with Neil Diamond per se, but in my limited inventory of concert experiences, we're looking at top three for sure.

There's nothing in life like those pleasant surprises.  I went into the weekend not knowing of the concert at all, yet, it became the highlight of my weekend.


I went to one other concert the next night, the legendary Roger Daltrey of "The Who."   It was, in my eyes "The Who over Two" i.e. Half of the current-day Group without Peter Townshend, but as the concert unfolded, I realized it was much more than that!   Into the evening, Daltrey introduced the band and we he said everyone on stage is the same touring band that travels with formal "The Who" concerts.  That *included* the guy filling in for Townshend on guitar, and he happened to be Pete Townshend's younger brother.  I tell ya, man, he even looked and sounded like Pete on stage.  It was a sight to see for sure.

This concert, which unfolded the night after, took place at a venue called Pacific Amphitheater within the confines of the OC Fair.   There were a few things which were disappointing about the concert, none of them had to do with Daltry himself, oh man, THAT guy's still got it!  He hit all the notes, still brought such great energy, and it was an honor to be in the same zip code with the guy.  Nah, the disappointing elements were...

-- The fact that Ray Manzarek couldn't be with him.  I found out just before arriving that the concert was originally a duo of Daltrey and the Doors' Keyboardist, which would have simply made my evening.  It made my evening as it was, but it really hit home how much we miss Manzarek here in California.  Dude was so great.  Manzarek died a few months ago.
-- No sellout.  I mean, you're talking about 90% of the modern-day Who on stage.   They performed nearly all the biggest songs of their career.   They put in a pretty damn-good performance, and ticket prices were not expensive at all.  I got mine even cheaper than the Train concert!  All that, and the best they could do was draw 75% attendance?
-- The opening act...  it was a small low-fi group called "The Steven Roth Band."  NOBODY had heard of them.  People next to me were asking me "Who is this guy?  Did you catch the name?"  I said "Steven Roth, I might have to google it to make sure" only to see him say right after I said that "My name's Steven Roth, hope you're having a good time tonight."   I don't think Roth's band was really that bad, just underwhelming.  It wasn't really the kind of act that usually would precede a group like Daltrey and most of the Who but I'm told Daltrey himself selected him.  Roth's group is also a locally based band.   Listen, I could go to the Music Department at UCLA and grab a few guys to make a band too, that doesn't mean we'll resonate w/ the crowd.  I felt bad for Roth... he tried to stage a singalong with one of his songs and *nobody* sang along.  He even said sarcastically "Great Energy!"  These guys did the best they could, but it was a coffee house group playing an arena crowd... it did not appear to be a great match.  One of the guys was on drum, yes, literally ONE drum.  I hope they manage ok though and eventually hit the chart.   They have good heart, for certain.
-- Crowd energy, or lack thereof, but this was to be expected.  It's an older crowd, plus you're looking at a concert within a county fair.  It would have been tough to get serious energy with this setup.   For a while it reminded me of that gag from "This is Spinal Tap" where the Tap hit rock bottom and did  a small show at Magic Mountain and the little sign said "Puppet Show and Spinal Tap."  Hahahahahahahahahahaahaha.

The crowd had its moments.  I thought it responded great with Squeeze Box, Pinball Wizard, Who Are You, etc.  Daltrey went outside the box too, and he relished all those moments.  Always cool to see artists draw from their other inspirations.  He did a pretty good Johnny Cash medley that I would not have anticipated.  Once he got to "Ring of Fire," we got going.  All in all a pretty good concert which simply needed a better venue and opening act.

I don't know if it's Fair policy or something, but it seemed like Daltrey's group couldn't do a proper encore... they did a pseudo encore where the band left the stage but Daltrey only went half way out and came back again.  Then he got a Ukelele and tried to do an encore song with the Keyboard guy adding textures.  I don't know if he meant to do this or what, but the whole song fell apart, and Daltrey forgot words, and he just gave up and said "G'nite!"  Then the OC Fair kicked all of us out.  It was 11pm by then.

Now on to the other things from the weekend.

I was driving around one of the nights and had Jack FM on.  It was an 80's Flashback weekend, so all 80's songs.  During the drive I thought "I bet you they play either a Genesis song or Phil Collins during the drive!"  THE VERY NEXT SONG was a Genesis song!   How cosmic was that???  Do the dance!

Concerts are a deceptively great place to meet women.  I can't say I met anyone specifically but I was chatting with people here and there at the two concerts I was at.   I should have been more assertive talking to others in the crowd during intermissions.  There was a babe (an absolute babe, like a no-doubter home run of a babe with the blond hair and all that) at the Train concert with her mom.  They were a couple seats over.   I wasn't thinking.  Just absorbing the moment, but those two were chatting up the couple between me and them in the same row.  Boy that just reminds me what a fun night it was.  Really really great.  Groups of ladies in pockets all over the stadium.  Then, during the concert, they sent out balloons and we were bouncing balloons all over the place.   During the Train set, they threw all sorts of beach balls at us.  Dodger Stadium was a clear inspiration for that night.


The Newport Beach Brewing Company has fantastic in-house beer.  I was there and tried a Newport Steam.  Seriously, that beer rocked the socks.

Laventina's Pizza.  I went there on the recommendation of a friend.  I was hoping the sauce would deliver more than it did, but it was otherwise a solid pizza.  Loved the crust, and the pizza was so cheap too!  6 bones for a medium 12"?   8 bones for a large?  No wonder it's a big hit with the college crowd there.

Balboa Village so somewhere in between the big concerts and the swim meet I found time to go to Balboa Village somewhere on the Newport Beach peninsula.  Small neighborhood but classic streets and shops, the whole thing.  It also was bordering a harbor which was really fun to enjoy.  On the other end, which bordered the ocean (very small peninsula we're talking about), was Balboa Pier.   Gorgeous.  Unheralded and unpublicized, but gorgeous.  The ocean water was extra blue that day.  Many others were fishing and we had people on the beach having a good time.  Families and singles and all sorts of beautiful people.  That was a good time.

Wouldn't you know?  Balboa Pier is also the home of the very first Ruby's Diner which opened there 31 years ago.   I could have sampled some history and had lunch there, but I still was able to visit the place and check out the building.  Classic Building.  Ruby's is a 40's themed diner (exceedingly rare anyplace.. many places tried to do the 50's and 60's).  It also had these bullhorn loudspeakers playing 40's music for everyone to hear outside while they fished and soaked in the rays.  They have an outdoor patio at Ruby's, indoor booths, AND rooftop seating no less.  What a place!

Can you believe what the Dodgers did this weekend?  I mean that is incredible!   6 run comeback, unbeknownst to me until after the fact when I saw comments about it online.  Then another win, THEN another one against Tampa Bay.   It's been such a joyful ride for the Dodgers.  Who knows where it ends, but I'm just so glad they're playing this well today.

I have to admit, for all the love I've said of Orange County, I ran out of things to do after a while.   There weren't enough original restaurants or other attractions to sustain more than a couple days.  That's not all bad, it just means there's limited value for the tourist aside from Disneyland and such.  It seems like a tremendous place to live and the OC is huge USC country.  Lots of love for SC out there, and I can dig that, friends.


Whew!  At any rate, more to come from this writer's pen tomorrow.  Have a good Monday, everyone.

Dave's Thoughts of the Day: August 8th

Let's say you walked down the street and you saw a Dunkin' Donuts, a Krispy Kreme, and a Yum Yum Donuts next to each other.  How would you play that?    Out here, the Yum Yum is going to win... ok maybe we go just Dunkin and Krispy Kreme.  Remember this is just in terms of donuts.

This is tough huh?   Dunkin does the donuts more traditionally, but I still would vote Krispy Kreme.  I could also do some sugar free donuts.  By that I mean, they make the donuts but DONT put the glaze on them.   You can ask for that... surprisingly good!

So yea, I go KK... but it wouldn't be an instant decision!

This is it!  The weekend is soon to be upon us.  Friday: I go to Mission Viejo for the first time but make a stop at Ham 'n Scram for the famous breakfast burrito: it's out in Westminster.  Then on to Summer Nationals where I'll cheer on my mates.

That COULD go all the way to 6pm, but it depends on if I hang around to watch all the distance heats.  I may... a bunch of our team mates are doing the 800m Free at the end of the day.  Say it does, then that gives me night time to go HAM in Newport Beach, maybe pick up some Laventina's Big Cheese Pizza in Newport Beach, watch the sunset, and then check out the local bars if there are any.  

Day #2, Saturday.   This time, my stop is at Paul's Coffee Shop in Fountain Valley.  You remember the place... it was a rollickin' good time with the enormous Chicken Fried Steak.  COULD go with that again but I might be leaning toward the big boy sausage breakfast instead.   I like the look of their waffles, but I'm worried that they won't be crispy enough to enjoy.  I love Paul's.  Cozy place, yea it's a little old, but a lot of regs, and a pretty good staff too.   I hope the Guy Fieri jinx doesn't hit them too badly.  Then, back to Mission Viejo to see if there's any other juice at Masters.  THIS time I may just see a few races, then run out to a nearby sports bar to watch.  In fact I'm told Mutt Lynch's is pretty darn good!   Worth a look.  THEN if there's time, I'll scope out the OC County Fair in nearby Costa Mesa.

That's a pretty good summary of the weekend.  Not sure if I go back to see more of the swim meet on Day #3, but it's a likely scenario.

It's always a struggle not to have my own grins/adjustmic moment, but at least today I want to keep that cheekiness to a minimum.  Nothing annoys me more than those who ham for the camera.  I'll do my part to avoid it.

When I'm walking around and a group is about to take a picture, I try to dodge the field of view.  I don't want to be in a stranger's pictures!   If I was behind them though, I'd offer to take the picture.

I now know what the mind-blown smiley was designed for!  Who knew?  Actually, I had an idea of it, but I wasn't absolutely sure until someone confirmed it yesterday.

I still remember two years ago when the Giants were rolling and I posted the status update: "Giants: Can they be stopped?"  Then they tanked.  Hahahahahahahaahahahahaha, that was a good moment for Dodger fans!


I hope the Dodgers don't tank like that.   We'll see and enjoy the remainder of the season.   As Dodger Thoughts' Jon Weisman said... if you get a good run, enjoy the meal... don't be asking for that waffle on top!

If I want waffles, Paul's in Fountain Valley can hook me up.  Have a great weekend folks!  Won't be on board for a blog entry tomorrow.

The Preview: NFC East

Here it is, by demand, our NFC East Preview (as of August 7th, 2013).

I declared the East as the "most interesting division in the NFL" this year.  Team with the most upside, to me, is the Eagles.  Far and a way the eagles... they have the most young players (or at least, the most recognizable young players), and a pretty sharp Head Coach entering the NFL ie Chip Kelly.

 

The rest of it goes like this... Redskins:  RGIII's team... RGIII's year?  Depends on health.   I can't put much confidence in their O-line, but they have a pretty good defense.   I like the Redskins to compete but I can't put them as a division winner just yet.  Receivers are a joke... Alfred Morris, their primary RB, was excellent last year and he's hungry, but we'll see what their O-Line can bear for him.

 

Cowboys:  The giant comedy show, at it again!  Everyone's gotten a year older and Romo said he promises to be a better leader.   Color me unconvinced -- leopards don't change their sports.  Romo gets no help from pass protection.   The defense is so overrated it's not funny.  I think you can pretty easily get the ball down the field with the Cowboys.  It's a bunch of jokers but I look forward to watching them fail anyway.  They should be good to finish .500 or better, either way.  Any of you guys hear of DB Rookie JJ Wilcox?  Me neither... boy that Jerra sure is smart!  #notreally  Cowboys uppers are really buzzing about him though!

 

Giants:  what have they really done to *improve* the team?  Lot of dead weight with Baas and whoever wants to step up at the RB position.  All they did was sign Cruz to a big WR contract.  Honestly, the Giants had *THE* least impressive offseason of the division, if not most of the NFL... team didn't do a whole lot last year and they stayed pat anyway.  I'm a little fed up with people making excuses with their injuries too.  Every team has injuries.   It's a solid team with a good QB  and decent coaching but their Defense is not all that right now, and I don't like the way they run the ball either.  I will have no problem ranking them low this year.  They'll pull a few rabbit hat wins but that's all.

 

So for this weak division I have these rankings:

 

1. Eagles -- as I said, why not the Iggles?  Lots of talent and almost everyone on the roster is pretty young.  The player w/ the most experience is Vick with 12 years pro experience.  A lot of single digit year veterans too.  The O line is pretty "experienced" I will say.

 

2. Giants -- not going to be a popular pick with many, me putting them in 2nd.  This isn't to say the Giants are going to be a bottom feeder... its going to be a war of attrition.  I think NYG could still go 9-7 but anyone *else* is could be that much better.

 

3. Redskins -- I'll play it positively and assume RGIII is good for at least ten starts this year.  it's hard to judge for someone who puts himself out there like he does.  When he's healthy RGIII is GREAT.  Let's hope for the best.  Still a flawed team with no notable receivers to speak of and a weak O-line, but they'll have great production at home. 

 

4. Cowboys -- nuff said.  This will be fun to watch!

 

I really want to rank the Giants lower, but common sense prevailed.  Man, I do NOT like what they did this offseason... it was a JOKE.   They did almost nothing to make the team better.  They'll have to hope the pieces they got are good enough to get by.   One other area the Giants struggle with is motivation.  They CANNOT for their lives play a full consistent season.  Possibly injuries play a part in it, but as we all say, every team has injuries.

Coming up later on... NFC North Preview.

Dave's Thoughts of the Day: August 7th

Time is really flyin', innt it?

Our new SAO who took the place of the former SAO at our office is settling into the job pretty well.  She's not old at all, just graduated from college herself.   Our whole staff had a recent snack meeting to commemorate an outgoing co-worker and she brought in her lunch.   This was a couple weeks ago.  Her lunch was chicken fingers and fries.

...and I thought, "how cool!"  A lot of people who work in the office environment can be stuffy or overly protective of calories... this cat goes in with the breaded chicken fingers.  I really wanted to go over and shake her hand, but it would have made less sense in the middle of a sit down snack meeting.

I saw the same lady yesterday as I got into the office.  Asked how her bus ride was, of course, silly me, not everybody on campus rides the bus.  It turns out, she walks to work from an apartment right near campus.  Good stuff!

Later on, at night, I was at Souplantation, and this other lady, I think she was British, was getting foccacia at the counter.  She had these flower printed shorts on and ka-pow, I think she had an amazing butt.  Sorry family of Dave for reading that line... it had to be said.  But seriously!  In my mind I wanted to go up to her and say "Um hello, I just wanted to say that I think you have an amazing butt.  Did you know??"

Again, creep factor, I gotta calm down.   Her husband went over to meet her like two seconds after I first saw her anyway.  So, back to the soups.

Souplantation was fantastic last night.  It's Italian themed month, so we got the bevy of pasta based deli salads.  Were those good or what?   Then the tortellini soup with sausage, yum.  Then the Cream of Mushroom, yum.   Then onto less Italian foods like the soft serve and pineapple.

If you see some kids struggling with the soft serve machine, be a pal!  Give those kids a hand and start up the soft serve machine for them.   Two little kids just looked at it and had no idea what to do so I asked what flavor they wanted, then pulled the lever for them so it went into the bowl.  Their mom was right there and all of them thanked me afterward.  I'm happy to help.  I like to help people wherever I can, especially with food.

I think a lot of Americans called Guy Fieri's taste in food into question.  Most of these accusations are well founded -- remember the restaurant he opened in New York a year ago?  It got TORCHED by the media... I can't really argue with a lot of the complaints.   Most people feel like he can be easily swayed by adding gravy and bacon to things.   Gee whiz, is there anyone else out there who's big on gravy and bacon?  #chowtips

I'd like to issue a challenge to you all... next time you see "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" check out each featured meal on his show.  Does the meal contain at least one of: gravy, bacon, or cheese?   I'm going through my mental archives and almost all of them have at least one of the above.  Imagine???

A Chick Fil A deluxe biscuit chicken sandwich with gravy and bacon must *blow his mind.*

Know what else blew my mind... driving out of campus to get home, looking to the side of the road and seeing over a hundred gorgeous co-eds on the other side.  I was like WHOAH!!  I don't know what they all were doing lined up there at once.  Orientation maybe?

I drove!  Yesterday I drove... I had to drive in order to make a 5:45 am swim at the Sunset pool.   It worked!  I had a great swim, but it also cost me a few extra dollars for the full day of parking.  Yesterday it was worth it.  This time out, it should be back to the bus by all accounts.

This morning I'll write an NFL Division preview for the NFC North.  It's not for the blog (yet), but just an email I'll write to Coach and Jacob Rosales.  I also wrote one yesterday for the NFC East.  The summary is, I'm much bigger on the Eagles than most football experts, I think the Giants had a disappointing offseason aside from the Cruz contract, and the Cowboys are a complete joke, but their DB's might be interesting.  Dallas is really high on their 3rd round pick JJ Wilcox.  Overall I had the division rankings this way:  1. Philly 2. Giants (reluctantly -- the team basically stood pat but I also thought "who would do better than them?") 3. Redskins 4. Cowboys

If you guys want to check out the preview publicly let me know!  I can post it later.

So for the NFC North... The Packers should still win the division but we're going to keep an eye on their O Line and D Line.   Pack lost their Left Tackle, big hurt for GB.   Still seems like an incomplete team, but so talented offensively that they still can win the North outright.  The Bears, meh, old, sagging, not that great.   Lions, better but really flawed defensively.  Their defense is a very good front four and nothing else beyond the DE's.  I think this is the Packers' division to lose.

The "46 defense" is so grossly overrated, can I say that?  If anybody even *attempted* to run that kind of defense today they would get their *ass* kicked by every team in the NFL.  They'd only put ONE safety back to cover 2/3 of the field!!!!

Some probably did... for shame.

It was good to get the turntable in action last night before watching "America's Got Talent."  Popped on a few familiar LP's and got it rolling with some fun music listening.  All seems to sound pretty good, scratches and pops and all.

You ever hear of the wood glue method for cleaning records?   Spread wood glue on the record side except for the label, let it sit overnight, then peel the glue off to get off the gunk and dirt that spread onto it over the years.

EXTREMELY tedious process, but presumably cost effective.  It sounds really hokey but on principle it may work correctly.

Vinyl LP listening is a lot of work, but the results are really fun to hear on my stereo.  I'm glad to have the time and the ears to tune in.

That's all for a Wednesday.  Have a good one gentle people!

Dave's Thoughts of the Day: August 6th

Peach season is still very much alive!

You can see the signs of it winding down, but the peaches I have are still pretty good.  They're a little drier on the edges.. let juiciness to go around.   Once the peaches start to feel like sponges you can sense the peach season losing steam.  For now, do the dance!  We're not there yet but it may be coming.

Friends!  I got plans for the weekend.  I will be heading to the US Masters Summer Nationals Swim Meet.   It's going down in Mission Viejo, home of Mission Viejo's Nadadores all weekend long.   That includes Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.   I even got a little extra time off to check out Friday's events.  All of these swim events will occur during the morning, leaving the other half of the day for excitement.

In this case, "excitement" means a possible cameo at Disneyland, inspiration at Newport Beach, some seafood maybe, and a trip to the O.C. Fair.  Do the REAL dance for that one!  In between I hope to keep up to date on the PGA Championship that weekend.

Our coach, who runs the UCLA Bruin Masters Swim Club, is a former Olympian and swam alongside Janet Evans during an Olympic event.  Quite a career!   If all indications are correct, she will be swimming in this year's Summer Nationals in the first time, possibly ever.  We're all so excited to see our coach take the pool.  She's really good at swimming, and I mean REALLY good.  You can't tell when she's just hanging around giving us our sets, but man she goes out to swim and she blows away the entire heat.  I'm serious, she's got world record quality to her stroke.  We all are in such awe of her and her great attitude when coaching.  I hope she can get in some GREAT swims this weekend, and adding to that, I hope to be there to see it happen.

Not only will our coach be there, but a bunch of colleagues I know from the swim club will represent.  I wish I could represent myself, but I wasn't clear on the rules for registration.  The fact was, I would swim double the time of anyone else in my age bracket and I didn't want to drag the meet down.  Can you imagine if I went out to swim and pushed the whole meet back by five minutes?  I would have been able to swim three events no matter how fast I was, I'm told.  I'm still going to have a great time cheering on my swim buddies this weekend.

This would be a fantastic place to end, but no!  Time for quickies...

My Mom has a LOT of cookies at her house!  Cookies upon cookies upon cookies.  I went to visit my Mom and Dad and the family this weekend, and opened a cupboard to find a pack of cookies.  Then, in the pantry I found a package of Double Stuft Oreos.   No wonder I like cookies so much.

Double Stuft or regular?  I have no preference -- it just depends on my mood.

I've heard some GREAT things about "Homeland."  Must be tremendous!  Vin Scully is a HUGE fan.  I'm not making that up!  He said as much on a recent Twitter Q&A session:

@Dodgers

I've been hooked on a television show called "Homeland." They do that show so well. #AskVin

Coach started to watch the show about a week ago and he said the *exact same thing.*  He can't turn it off!  We get home and he fires up the next episode... he's up to Season Two now.


I've been big on Breaking Bad from AMC.  Next Sunday, the final half of the final season begins.  GET INTO IT!

AMC meant three things over the years...

American Movie Classics (not anymore!):  They used to run old fogey films which I *loved.*  Often without commercials and sometimes in color!  Once the movies got *too old* they tried different things.  Eventually, they started doing their own shows and now everyone is plugged into AMC.

Interesting note -- what do you think the first AMC original show was?   Mad Men?  No!!!!!!  It goes back many years to a show from the Mid-90's called "Remember WENN?"  A show about an old radio station in the 40's or something.  I don't know for sure if that was *the* first but it was definitely a pre-AMC-original-show-renaissance program.

AMC also meant these two other things...

American Motors (Corporation):  Oh I think we all know these guys... they made the infamous AMC Gremlin Car.  But here's a fun lesser known fact.   They also were the developers of the Jeep Cherokee vehicle.  Yes, the Jeep!   Would you believe it?  Chrysler eventually bought out AMC and took over Jeep production.

and

American Multi-Cinema:  The biggest of the big movie screen theater chains.  Multiplexes in nearly every major market in America.

I would, for a time, get confused when people made references to OkCupid as "OKC."  I would think they were talking about the Oklahoma City Thunder NBA Team.

I grant you a lot of the humor in this blog is derived from my misunderstanding of something, but that also is the basis for the humor in "Three's Company!"   Come and knock on their door!

I would have been "waiting for them" in the 70's if that show was around first run.  It was a hoot!  Still is, actually.

Three's Company was set here in Santa Monica, where I live now.  Yet somehow, that doesn't sink in.  I never thought to seek out the Regal Beagle or Mr. Roper's apartment.

Three's Company was also nice in that it was not trying to teach your a lesson or make some big statement about society.  The collaborators who created the program were former collaborators for Norman Lear's "All in the Family," yet they took all the preachy out and just had a rollicking good time.  No worries, no pretense.

It was, in a sense, the ANTI-Norman Lear show. 

Here's something that could blow your mind... did you know that the show, which was BIG for ABC-TV taped its episodes at *CBS* Television City?   Can you believe that??

Network shows were not beholden to their own studios for taping, but I bet some people still are mesmerized by those little details.

NBC's "Seinfeld" also filmed its episodes at the CBS Studio "Radford Center" Studios.  

Fun interesting useless facts...  


Anyone ever watch "Super Train" back in the day?  I heard it was *really bad.*

70's television really did not seem that good to me, give or take a stroke of brilliance like "Three's Company" or "Dallas" in its beginnings.  Granted, I'm not a good judge as I wasn't even born until the next decade.

I know -- I'm *waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay* behind on SongPop.  Hang in there, I'll come around soon.  The new VIP membership is doing me in.  I get 20 new challenges every day now, as opposed to a few of them a day.

Can you believe the Dodgers won on the road again?!  Wagaaaaaaaain!   15 road wins in a row.  Now I would *have* to think it ends tonight, no?    I suppose we'll see but the Dodgers are still bringing the fun.

A-Rod went up to bat last night in Chicago, and he got the requisite boos.  He also didn't do much at the plate.   ...I don't know what the point of all that was.  A-Rod will get served pretty soon once he works out the appeal.  Godspeed.


That's all from here.  Have a good one everyone!

Dave's Thoughts of the Day: August 5th

HIDEE HO!!

Welcome to Monday.  Do I have a tale for you!

This one's called, the Tale of the Juicy Roasted Pork Sandwich.  It starts in a time short short ago, in a place not too far away.   Our family congregated and carpooled to Solvang, a little hamlet North of Santa Barbara.  It's a mini-Danish getaway.  It seems that it was settled by the Danes years ago and much of its architecture reminds us of the classic Denmark.  It's gorgeous my friends!


For lunch, we went to a place called "Succulent," a cafe along one of the main drags.   They specialize in sandwiches, including the one everyone talked about, the "Roasted Pork Sandwich."  This baby was juicy to the gills... succulent as the restaurant name describes.  It's a form of pulled pork methinks, simmered in its luscious juices, then topped with some argula, cheese, and apple slices, all served on fresh ciabatta bread.  Ohh, baby, it was a dream!  What a great sandwich.

It's not kind to the wallet, but if you can -- try it.   You'll remember it.

On to the other things...

Let's see, after that?  We went to a casino called "Chumash Casino" just off the beaten path from where Solvang was all in the Santa Ynez Valley.   It's not a very large casino, but it fits the bill for a lot of things.  I've certainly seen worse.  Some pretty good musical and comedic acts perform there.  Huey Lewis and the News was there this summer!!   Anyway, most of our time was spent at slots.  I went for the Video Poker machine, put in ten bucks, was ahead five bones, then rode it out til I ran out.   I was waiting for ONE MORE big win but it didn't come, but I was at the machine for a good 20 minutes.   Not much you can really do with only ten bucks.  To win a lot of money you have to also put a lot of money on the line.  Very odd correlation with Vegas -- but that's also how the house maintains its advantage most of the time.

Sunday, the day after, we did a little tea party style party for my Grandma's birthday.  That was great!  It was a tremendous weekend.

Now on to this week.   I have a pickle on my hands -- I want to go see my swim team compete in Masters Nationals, but I can't find affordable lodging anyplace.  I wanted something really cheap, but also close by.   Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, and Irvine would all have qualified.  Cerritos, Norwalk, and Anaheim would be too far.  Anyway, doesn't seem to be working out so far.   I suppose I could just go over there and back to SM but we're talking an hour each way, and I was hoping to check out Saturday and Sunday's swims.  Bah!   Que sera sera, or something like that.  I'll keep looking.

Concurrent to this, as we all know, is the PGA Championship.  Tiger Woods just DOMINATED the Bridgestone Classic this weekend, so next weekend is set up nicely.   I doubt it carries over.  I would go so far as to think Tiger misses the cut.  I'm serious!  I can see him missing the cut at the PGA Championship next week.   Not saying it definitely happens but it wouldn't surprise me.  Anyway, glad he did well at Bridgestone though... it was fun!

I don't know what the jokers at Yahoo or Reader's Digest or this Travel Magazine were thinking voting most of our state as "Least Friendly."  Maybe these beatniks needed some kind of strict utopia, or something.   California feels so comfortable to me.  The other beatniks can yell and declare California to be a big cesspool if they want to, but I've been to other states... none other feels right like here.   In fact, I know many other people out there who would break down the door to soak it all in.   So those other beatniks in Utah or Arizona or some other barren land with two horses and a general store, listen, nothing against the low key lifestyle, I'm all for it too, and it's nice, but if you hate California so much, feel free to take off -- there's plenty others out there happy to take your place.

The key here is it's a great place to *live.*    Apparently most of these votes came from a survey of readers from a Travel Magazine.   No wonder!   To quote my friend Andy in Seattle, the clientele of this poll is a bunch of well-to-do Thurston Dinwiddies with their Yachts and Country Club Membership.  They wouldn't know vibe or culture if it hit them in the *face.*   I'm positive they'd thumb their nose at a place like Tommy's Hamburgers or the earthiness of San Francisco's Haight/Ashbury District. and-- the Dinwiddies are evaluating these places in terms of places to visit.

...now Anaheim's a whole lot of nothing, let's be fair here.  The real beauty of OC is the areas around it.  but "unfriendly" seems a little unfair.

and, I'll be fair with this too... LA is almost impossible to get around on a day to day basis.  You really need to spend weeks, not days, in LA..  Give it a chance, it is awe inspiring -- warts and all.  Way too much to absorb in just a day or two, it's all over the place.  You also gotta know what you want -- don't just land downtown and think that everything will come to you.  I didn't do this in New York... I prepped and did lots of research before I went out there.  Any traveler would.    Yet, so many don't... it's silly.

I'll step off the subject now, and share a somewhat related story.   My buddy YOTS went to Santa Barbara last year, and really *really* enjoyed it.  His first day there, he was walking some of the streets, gorgeous streets all over, and then met me to catch up on things.  That's the first time I met him.  Anyway, the next day, he goes sight seeing, runs down to the beach, turns around and he has to do a *double take* because he saw.... mountains!!!!!

He said to me "boy was I surprised when I turned around and saw those mountains behind me."   I laughed, then said something to the effect of "that was majestic, huh?"   I forget that a lot of folks out there, including those in Connecticut, are not familiar with mountain ranges in their lives.

I had the opposite problem:  when I landed in New York, five years ago, I looked at all the tall buildings and the long streets.  I was looking for those mountains in the background but no!  Just one long endless plane stretching to the horizon.  I felt like I landed in TRON.  Maybe "Battlezone."

I still don't know why people had a problem with Sacramento.  SACRAMENTO??  Who would book a vacation to Sacramento anyway?   I'd go there to check out a Sacramento Kings game maybe on the way someplace else... something like that.  Sac'to's not so bad.

Kenny Smith, Vlade Divac, and Chris Webber could tell you all about how friendly the people of Sacramento are.   The people seem tremendous.

I heard the news about Hanley Ramirez' jammed shoulder.  I'll put it this way:  I think his season's over.  The LA Media is trying their best to sugar coat it.  He's DONE.  If he plays a lick the rest of the regular season it's a miracle.   It's too bad too -- he was killing the baseball lately.   Without Han Ram it's going to be tough for the Dodgers to keep pace.  Really tough.   I guess they'll have to round up the troops and hang on, no? 

I think a few years ago even SAN DIEGO was voted as a top ten "least friendly" city.  HUH??   San Diego is as chill as it gets.  Who had a stick up their bottom when they did that survey?

I tried a Pop Tart ice cream sandwich yesterday.  I made it myself, but all the ice cream melted off of the sandwich!  I shouldn't have toasted the pop tarts.

I'm trying to find a turntable for my little sister to listen to records on.  I said to her today "I'll get you an automatic one so you can just press 'start' and play the LP."  She said, "No!  I want to put the needle down on the record."  Wow, that's pretty cool!  She wants to take on the Vinyl Culture head on!   I'll accommodate her for sure -- go after a manual turntable that she can cue herself.

You know what, I'm going to take this a step further and call out TripAdvisor... have you read some of the reviews from the delicate genius types on TripAdvisor.  "There were only TWO MINTS on my pillows instead of three!!!  ONE STAR!!! HORRIBLE!"   Geez, pipe down will ya?  Junkie pointed to the same tendencies on Yelp... you cross up one little thing and they go nuclear on their review.  It's a scene! 

Edit: Forgot to write a closing today.  In closing, stay cool, and have a good Monday!  Til tomorrow...

Dave's Thoughts of the Day: August 2nd

Be yourself!  It's great to be yourself, and don't worry about how people think all the time.  If you're decent and honest, just being yourself is a great way to go.   Remember, if don't be yourself, you will be someone else.

Great news!  The peaches at the store went down from $1.99 a pound to $1.50.  Do the dance!   I packed a bunch of em last night.  AND I got two spicy italian sausage links fresh from the meat counter.

I went over to the apartment and used the gas grill we have to cook the sausages.   The web articles said to cook them for 25 minutes but Coach, my room mate, said "Don't do that!  You'll burn them."

Coach knew what he was talking about, folks.   I kept rotating them on a 4 minute interval and even on low heat, they were done in just 15 minutes.  They may have been a touch overcooked even: some of the juices escaped and they were a touch dry.

VERY GOOD though.  It was so fresh you could even taste the freshness of the seasonings within the sausage... as if they were freshly minced and added into each link.

Also at the grocery store they had a GREAT special on Stag Chili... $1.66 per can... There was no way I was saying "no."  I got five cans for the next week or so.

If that wasn't enough, I also assembled ingredients for my own Pop Tart Ice Cream Sandwich. A box of frosted strawberry pop tarts (I stood there for five minutes debating whether to get the frosted or unfrosted version, then I got the frosted ones, went home, and saw the Pop Tart Sandwich Commercial from Carl's and I was proven right -- frosted).  Then I got a pint of vanilla ice cream.  I didn't want to get very much because I knew nobody else would eat it.   It was quite a haul my friends.   Good ice cream, snacks, and groceries.

Did you know a Pop Tart has 200 calories?  TWO HUNDRED for a wimpy lil pop tart.   I'll have to save my Pop Tart Ice Cream Sandwich night for another time.  Probably Sunday.

People must think I'm nuts with all the fruit I buy each week.  I get apples, oranges, plums, peaches, and others depending on the day and the season.   Usually I get two or three kinds of fruit, roughly two pounds each.

I've been stalling on grapes despite the grapes looking very good AND being well priced.  I believe it was 3 bones a pound at present, but I still didn't have the wherewithall to go after it.  Terrible job by me.   Good grapes are fleeting -- suddenly you turn around and it's those withered soggy ones again.   I'll be more careful next time.

I like fruit.  You know what makes fruit work?  You get all sorts of vitamins and dietary fiber *and* it tastes so good.  I am utterly shocked how little the rest of America eats fruit.   I hardly ever see coach eat more than one apple for his lunch at work.  My older sister doesn't eat much fruit at *all*.   When I go to her apartment she only has a few apples.

I grant you that some of them are tedious to prepare:  pineapple, watermelon, and several others.  It's a lot of work to get to your food.   The others -- apples, oranges, grapes, strawberries, blueberries, kiwi, and whatever else is out there, are the best.   A quick wash, maybe some peeling or slicing but you're good to go within 90 seconds.

I don't, with rare exception, see my buddies eat fruit much, although that's not fair to evaluate since most of my fruit eating is at home, to pose an example.  People moan about us not eating enough vegetables either, and they're right, but fortunately I am somewhat healthier with the fruit I select each day to eat.  Huge fan.

If I were to hit the jackpot, like, say, I won 1000 bones on a game show, I'd like to take some of that, go to the store, and buy at least one of every fruit available at the produce section.   I'd go a little extra with the peaches.   The regular ones, the organically grown ones, let's go hog wild.

Some folks do what they call an "apple cleanse".   It's just a way to eat fiber high, low fat food to push out all the gunk in your intestines.  Keen idea.  It brings up the point that sometimes people have a cleanse like diet for a day without realizing it!   Those days will come where one doesn't eat any meat whatsoever!   Didn't happen today -- I went to Five Guys for lunch.

Five Guys was gooooooooooood, but did you all notice they reformatted the fries menu?  Now they offer a smallER small sized fries, a medium sized fries, and the original large fries.   They used to just have a very large sized small and an enormously sized large fries there.   What a cop out!   It's like they're trying to save a few pennies so they added the flexibility so that they don't have to give out as many fries.

Some of you may think ARod is the biggest fraud in America right now.  I say not!  The biggest sham going is the Monopoly Game at McDonald's.  Every year we get the game... all right it's fun, and most of us figured out the ruse by now, but let's put it out there:  they always let you get the first two properties in a specific colored group ie the purple properties, the blue properties and so on.   Just about anyone can get the first two of three properties and get all their hopes up, but good luck finding the third!  You have better luck throwing a q tip into the middle of a landfill in *Topeka* and challenging someone to find it!  The best prizes in the Monopoly game are the instant winners.  NOBODY wins those big property matching prizes, so you're really after the insta-foods aka $5 arch card, quarter pounder, free fries, and so on.

The McDonald's Monopoly game has been going on for a really long time -- 20 years now?  Pretty close to that!

When "Grande" isn't really grande... that's called the Starbucks Menu.

My buddy teased a california burrito place somewhere in the vicinity of Westwood.. I should have told him about Burrito King on Sunset!  That was LEGIT... I bet he'd really like it, especially w/ the little red sauce.

If someone gave me a lump sum of money to live in San Francisco for a year, I would take it immediately.  Wonderful place to live, although it has its shades of sketchy... way more overt unavoidable sketch than other cities, but that honesty is part of the charm too.  Get into it!

And!  My buddy Jacob Rosales lives there.   We could scour all of SF's hottest bars for all of SF's hottest women.

Give me a "T!"  Give me an "A!"  What's it spell????  "AT!!!!"

Geez... you know what?  I'm being a complete loon but next weekend I might want to just take the plunge and go to a Giants Baseball game up north.  It's complete idiocy to do this, but despite the expense I'd love to try that out.  Maybe Jacob would be up for it too... I can finally eat that "Sheboigan" he's touted for so many years.

GOOD STUFF!  All right, everyone, that's the word for Friday.  Have a good weekend everyone!