These are the actual words I said upon leaving the theater after seeing "New Moon"

"Well, that wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen."

And it wasn't. But man, oh, man, was it ever BORING. The visuals were nice and there was some pretty scenery, but watching Kristen Stewart mope around the Pacific Northwest for 2 hours isn't anyone's idea of fun. Why would a good-looking, powerful vampire and a totally ripped werewolf with a protruding brow both be obessed with a chick whose only facial expression is that same look I get when they say we're out of wine and it's past 2 am? I don't get it. But if you're a parent worried about what your kids are watching, this movie is a concern-free zone. There are racier Family Circus panels.

That made me think - what is the worst movie I ever saw? That's a tough one, because I usually stop watching something as soon as I know it's bad. I yanked the headphones out of the seat about 20 minutes into "Four Christmases" on a plane, and I've walked out of movies before, but it's been a while.

No, the worst movie I can recall seeing in the past, say, 20 years, is the remake of "The Stepford Wives," with Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick and a bunch of other people who wish they weren't there. What a boring, pointless, relentlessly unfunny piece of shit. I actually watched this until the end because I couldn't believe how bad it was.

(Looking at the Rotten Tomatoes page for the movie (linked above), I note that the reviewer from "Christianity Today" thought it was "actually fairly funny," which is just sad and what it says about Christians I don't know.)

We're going to see "Fantastic Mr. Fox" today. We've got nowhere to go but up.

Movie reviewers just can't help themselves

All actual headlines:

Ruff going with these "Dogs"

No new tricks for "Old Dogs"

"Old Dogs" proves a mangy mongrel

"Old Dogs" definitely not best of show

"Old Dogs" a cinematic bowser

"Old Dogs" digs up a tired plot that should have stayed buried

You gotta like the Winnipeg Free Press for not even trying with:

Try walking the dog instead of going to this one

Oh, Winnipeg Free Press.

What is it with film reviewers that they just cannot stop themselves from the stupidest, most cliche-prone headlines? Thank God the rest of the paper's not like that, or we'd have shit like:

Iraq, You break: Behind the 8-ball

Global warming makes country hot

Chain Chain Cheney of fools

Health care bill calls in sick

Biden his time

Republicans ? Republican'ts!

We went to Waffle House.

Certain members of our party - chiefly those who had grown up in California and Ireland - had never been to a Waffle House, if you can imagine, so we set out to fix that. Waffle House is one of those things that's maybe better through the misty gauze of remembrance than in actuality, but the food did have calories, I'll say that.

Here in this crappy cell-phone pic we see some of the WH product, like the eponymous waffle, which is round and sort of tasteless, accompanied by its Vat O Syrup. The thing to the right of the Vat is hash browns with a slice of American cheese melted on top, to what end, I'm not sure. It's diner food, what are you gonna do. When did this turn into a food blog anyway. What.

(P.S. I posted this same pic on Twitter via Twitpic yesterday and it never showed up and I've got my team working on whether it's Twitter's error or mine so if it showed up for you and you saw this already, mea culpa.)

Anyway, our waitress was an awesome artifact named Tammy who looked like the human incarnation of a pack of Benson and Hedges 100s and provided better service than you'll get at any of your hoity-toity joints with a tuna tartare tower. Hats off to you, Tammy.

(P.P.S. There's a Waffle House Museum? Awesome. ROAD TRIP!!!!)

Then last night we played Taboo and drank more wine and now I'm kind of ready to spend a quiet evening not drinking instead of drinking. Per Dad's instructions, I have to go find pole beans now. THANKSGIVING IS HARD.

Believe it or not, not everything is aided by the addition of barbeque sauce

Thanks to the tender mercies of Continental Airlines (recommended, BTW, as they are my new go-to airline and you can just suck it, American, I break with thee) The Wife and I were flung across This Great Nation and alighted last night in the ancestral homeland in order to engage in some Thanksgiving. Bad economy? You wouldn't know it from the incredible volume of people squeezed behind a tray table or thronging the halls at La Aeropeurta.

ANYWAY, The Sister and her bf picked us up and off we went to what turned out to be a very odd dinner at a suburban non-chain restaurant Who Shall Not Be Named. Now, this restaurant clearly aspires to a higher level than your TJ McGillicuddy's or your Rudy's A Place for Steaks or whatever. And it's actually not that bad. But there are a few things that just throw you off a little. EXAMPLE I got the fresh (allegedly) dayboat scallops. They were actually expertly seared and seasoned perfectly. Delicious. The accompanying risotto was good, not great, but perfectly acceptable. But ringing the scallops and risotto was a band of barbeque sauce circling the plate. What what? GUY FIERI, ARE YOU BACK THERE? Srsly, WTF with the BBQ sauce, people? Very odd. Once I realized what it was, I was able to avoid, but that was quite an uncomfortable first bite, let me tells you. I'm not even going to get into the wine service, but just for future reference, it's not conventional to open the bottle and then fill everyone's glasses up to the rim.

Then we went back to the house and polished off 4 bottles of wine. HELLO, MONDAY!

Regretsy gets inevitable book deal, and I can't get Hulu to work on my computer.

You know Regretsy, the very funny site that makes fun of really, really bad crafts people sell on Etsy? You know what I'm talking about.

I knew it was just a matter of time before they got a book deal, because the idea is great and the person who writes the captions (under the pseudonym "Helen Killer") is is brilliant. It's LOL funny.

Come to find out today that yes, they did get their book deal, and that Helen Killer is actually April Winchell, whose name I have heard before but didn't really know who she was. As it turns out, she's Internet famous and I guess real life famous too.

Now, I have nothing but good wishes for April Winchell, but there was some tiny part of me or maybe big part of me that was hoping that Helen Killer was actually just a very funny 23-year-old administrative assistant from Minneapolis and not someone who was already semi-famous. I don't know why.

Now, let's move on to getting Ugliest Tattoos and Item Not as Described book deals. Not just because they're written by friends of mine! Because they deserve it.

(Special 40goingon28 thanks to Tami for Twittering about this.)

In a completely unrelated story, are you watching The League yet? It might be the funniest show on television. I know what you're saying: "But TK, how could a show about fantasy football be funny?" Shut up. You whine too much. Go watch it on Hulu or something. If that works. I can never get Hulu to work for me.

France cheated.

I have prepared an enhanced photograph to illustrate:

"I will be honest, it was a hand ball. But I'm not the ref," Henry said. "I played it. The ref allowed it. That's a question you should ask him."

Ireland got screwed.

So this reality show guy wrote to me sort of

This is kinda funny. I few days ago I Twittered that Jennifer is probably my favorite patient on Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew and then promptly forgot about it probably because I was drunk or something. So, amazingly enough, Duncan Roy, who's a director or something and another one of the patients on Sex Rehab, sent me an "@" reply not long after, saying "list us in order."

Now, as you know, if you're not following the person who @'d you, you don't see the message in your regular Twitter feed and so I didn't see it until last night when I was looking through @ messages to see what I missed. What I missed was this bizarre postmodern event of a real person on a reality show sending me a personal message based on a Thing I Said on The Internet. Weird!

Let's deal with one thing up front. Yes, I watch "Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew" because (1) it involves sex, (2) it involves people - some of them very attractive women - whose problem is they have too much sex, so you can see the interest, (3) Dr. Drew is kind of my homie and I like the little frowny face he does when someone says something like "I like to shoot meth into my eyeballs" or "I once fucked a rhino because some Japanese businessmen paid me $4,000 to do it and tape it," (4) I've been a fan of his whole Rehab series, just like I'm a HUGE fan of Intervention, and that's because it lets me go "Hey, I may do some drinkin', but I'm nowhere NEAR as bad as that guy," and (5) SEX REHAB! C'mon, you're wondering why I'd watch a show called "Sex Rehab"? Get your head screwed on straight.


(I guess I should drop a brief explanatory parenthetical here - basically, the idea of the show is that they round up 8 semi-celebrities who are sex addicts and then follow them through treatment. If the idea of watching group therapy sounds like a bore, it's not. NO SPOILERS but there's a total trainwreck on there who is kinda making the show.)

ANYWAY, Duncan Roy, or anyone else who's read this far, here you go:

1. Jennifer, because she seems cool. She used to be a porn star or something and she just seems like she'd call bullshit on something that was bullshit. She has a blog too.

2. Duncan Roy AND I SWEAR I'M NOT JUST PUTTING HIM IN SECOND TO KISS HIS ASS OR ANYTHING, but it seems like he views the whole thing with kind of a jaundiced eye. He's like who the audience would be supposed to identify with if this were a movie. (Side note - if this were a movie, I'd totally cast Christina Ricci as Jennifer. Go look at her pics and you'll see what I mean.)


3. Nicole Narain, because she's hot and said that she masturbated 18 times in one day once. I probably couldn't do 18 push-ups in a day! Wow.


4. Phil Varone because he was the drummer for Skid Row and you know you'd have a fucking blast going out in L.A. one night with him.


5. Amber Smith (who was also on Celebrity Rehab for her pill problem) is unobjectionable. She really doesn't seem all that fucked up. I think she's doing these shows just to keep her face out there.


6. Kendra Jade Rossi is like your crazy ex-girlfriend who kept a lock of your hair and still sends you fucked-up letters with red construction paper hearts all torn up that fall out when you open the letter.


7. Jamie Lovett is apparently some kind of surfer or something but he literally hasn't been on camera more than 5 minutes so far so who knows?


8. Kari Ann Peniche. Nothing I can say will do her justice. You just have to watch.


P.S. Jesus, this is a long blog post about a reality TV show. What if I used my powers for good?


P.P.S. Third post in a row with the "Famous people" and "TV" tags. I gotta get out more.

Maybe I have to start watching "The Hills" now

From The Sister (punctuation and capitalization in the original):

"which reminds me. i was watching the hills last night (LOVE) and spencer and heidi have been going to church. so heidi said grace before dinner, and her blessing was something along the lines of, 'god, please bless this food, bless our house, thanks for my husband and thanks for my outfit.' total LOL. it's an LA grace! thanks for my outfit!"

If the rest of this show is like this, it sounds like it might be awesome.

(P.S. Second post today with the "Famous people" and "TV" tags.)

Your Bay Area Forecast

Yeah, I'm a Mornings on 2 man. Obvs., it was much better when Frank had the conn, but I understood when he got the call and moved up to the captain's chair when Dennis retired. He deserved it. Over time, I've gotten used to Dave, as difficult as it's been. But, as any Mornings on 2 watcher knows, Steve Paulson is really the star of the show.

His panache whilst delivering the weather! His easy needling of poor Sal Castaneda! Steve is totally The Man.

(Speaking of Sal, is it just me or does he seem tired these days? I see him occasionally doing some spot reporting on the flagship News at 6, so maybe he's burning the candle at both ends a little. From what I heard around town, he used to really burn it at both ends, if you know what I mean. Nudge nudge.)

ANYWAY, this morning something was fucked up over at KTVU ("Looks like the weekend crew's working!" my Dad used to cheerfully say anytime something went wrong on the local news) and there was no sound. Tori was yammering away, but no sound! Frustrating!

So I switched over to lovable underdog KRON 4. KRON used to be the local NBC franchise but then something went wrong and now they mostly show reruns of Dr. Phil and infomercials. It's like a bunch of kids decided to open a TV station in the garage. Charming!

(Don't even get me started on Gary Radnich. He's sort of the sports anchor over there and he usually seems drunk and constantly makes jokes about how KRON is tanking, which it is. I think he's hilarious but YMMV.)

So I'm sorry Steve Paulson but we're breaking up because doing the weather over on Sinking Ship KRON is Evelyn Taft. EVELYN TAFT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!

RAWR TIMES A MILLION. "Evelyn Taft grew up speaking Russian with her Moscow-born parents. As a young girl, she remembers learning English by watching 'The Weather Channel.'" Oh, I bet you did, Evelyn Taft. That's how I learned English too! Now say "It's going to be a wet morning" again. Oh yes.

Follow Ev (that's what Mark Damon called her! Ev!) on Twitter here. And be sure to read the comments on the KRON website that follow her bio! So wonderfully creepy!

Attention single ladies

Here is a service you may want to avail yourselves of:

(I know I've been big on the Internet advertising these past few days, but you gotta go with what's put in front of you.)

"New acquaintance," huh? How coy! Why not just say "That guy at the bar who bought me 3 key lime martinis but who sort of looks like Richard Ramirez and now won't leave me alone and wants to know if I'd like to go camping and WTF we just met like an hour and a half ago!"

So the idea, I gather, with MyNumber is that they supply you with a fake number that forwards calls to your phone and then you can ditch the number when Mr. Pushy keeps calling every 20 minutes or whatever. Genius!

Speaking of fake numbers, did anyone ever use the Rejection Line? The idea is, there's a certain number you give out and when your unwitting recipient calls it, they get a recording telling them they've been DUPED and the person doesn't really want to talk to them. Sounds like a good idea, but I wonder if it's one of those things that's more fun to talk about than actually put into practice and that no one ever uses.

In other Single Lady news, Julian Casablancas is at the Regency Ballroom tonight. Just sayin'. He likes the ladies. And you're unlikely to get shot after a Julian Casablancas show. SHOT BY LOVE MAYBE. Ugh. That was terrible. Just stop.

Here's a sign: You are capable of a workplace homicide

Collected today on Yahoo's front page:

Haha. I LOVE IT. Dude is staring at her with MURDEROUS RAGE. "Oh my God, that bitch is about to say something. Here it comes. She's about to open her fucking mouth and let some inanity about the weather or some teabagger socialism shit out of that stupid-hole. And then I will jump across this table and fucking wring her fucking neck. Go on, bitch. Make my day."

Happy Friday, everyone! Did you see that Niners-Bears game last night? Christ, I've been to more entertaining middle school junior varsity games. Hey, Jay Cutler: your guys are wearing WHITE. FYI.

Things I'm liking today:

1. Taking BART to work

2. This Fresh Air about the Yakuza in Japan. Man, they even build better gangsters in Japan. Motherfuckers so badass they got business cards. I want to read this guy's book.

3. Generic's blog. Dude gets it.

4. Sons of Anarchy. Wait, that wasn't the season finale? Why was it 90 minutes then?

5. Max Silvestri's Top Chef recaps. One of the funniest things on the Internet.

Joan literally wears the pants around here: Mad Men ep 13

Oh, fuck. That’s it? The season’s over?

What a fucking awesome episode. So Betty’s off to Reno with her Old to break up with D-Drape and Begin Her New Life. I would recommend John Ascuaga’s Nugget, where midweek Tower rooms start at just $49! Anyway, Betty continues her quest for Mother of the Year by leaving her other 2 kids with the maid while she jets off to Nevada to get a D-I-V-O-R-C-E. “Yes, New Bobby, as a matter of fact, it IS your fault.” Those kids are going to be so fucked up. They’ll have their own series when they start tripping balls and killing the pigs in 1968.

Connie Hilton is back for what is hopefully his last hurrah, to tell Don that Ster-Coop is being sold. Now can we please end this faux-father plot? We all get the hamhanded symbolism, but it never really rang true. Connie and the Flashbacks can all go bother some other show. That would be awesome if the mule-kicking-the-head flashback just popped up in “According to Jim” without any explanation or context.

The main part of this episode, of course, was the FUCKING AWESOME A-Team Assembling the Crack Squad sequence, in which Don and Roger and Bert recruit all the top talent for the new firm. Oh, and Pete. What a tool. If he didn’t have Clearasil, he’d be selling Bibles out of the trunk of an Oldsmobile in Kansas. Anyway, BEST SCENE maybe this whole season: all the guys in the closed semi-dark office, and in walks MOTHERFUCKING JOAN and she’s all “That’s right, bitches. I’m here to whip this sorry shit into some fucking shape” and OF COURSE she knows where everything is and then Don kicks in the door of the Fart Department (what was up with that, anyway) like he’s fucking Serpico and now they are going to rule advertising like some badass Advertising Super Friends and every week we’ll have a Carousel pitch and a guy can at least hope, right?

I’m kinda psyched that Lane Pryce is coming along. He’s got the potential to be more than the pinky-up Masterpiece Theatre guy that he was earlier. Lane totally knows that he has to bust out to make a fresh start. He’s gonna end up dumping that stick-up-her-ass wife and maybe become an Ascot Gay with a place on Fire Island.

Anyway, it’s all set up for next season now. I’m expecting the scene where some doofus from the old Sterling Cooper is giving some hackneyed pitch and the door flies open and Don walks in and goes “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” and everybody passes out from excitement.

When does Friday Night Lights start?

New Bar Night: Tempest, Showdown, Rickhouse

Any pussy can go to one bar. It takes a fucking VILLAGE to go to three. By "village" I mean me, Olu and Jason. If your village was an AA meeting.

First stop: Tempest, on Natoma between 5th and 6th, behind the flailing Chronicle. Nice bar! A little brightly lit, but better to see the jackoffs taking up three tables. Oh, sorry, I don't mean to be salty. We had a good time. PBR and shot of Jim Beam, $5 all the time. What could be wrong with that? Nothing, that's what. Jason came and put an old Mark Twain folio on the bar and everybody gave us mad props after that. Maybe it was the Spongebob action figure he got from Burger King that he also put on the bar, I'm not sure. You can smoke in the Tempest, but only BEHIND THE RED LINE, like a painted line on the floor confers immunity from lung cancer. Pool table. Japanese chick w/ passport. Good bar.

Second stop: Showdown, 6th Street near Mission, in the old Arrow Bar space. No immediately apparent website, which makes sense, because it's only a notch up from Arrow Bar, like malaria is a notch up from H1N1. Here's what you need to know about Showdown: Jason saw a guy there who he has personally 86'd for life from the Gold Cane. 86'D FOR LIFE FROM THE GOLD CANE. That basically means you built a meth lab on the bar at the Gold Cane and then refused to sell any meth to the bartender. Not Jason. He doesn't do that. Anyway, Guy 86'd From Gold Cane was basically fucking this wasted methy blonde chick at the bar. Gross. When they realized they couldn't consummate their affair for the ages right there, they ducked over to the men's room. Romantic. Next to the men's room door, there was some refrigerator box or something. I don't know why. They shimmy in between the door and the box and BOOM I see the chick's tennis shoe with a foot still in it flop up on top of the box. Olu had to go to the bathroom. I said "Not right now." Shoe comes down, bathroom door opens and closes. Horrifying. No stars.

Third stop: Rickhouse, everybody's new hotness with your artisanal cocktails and blah blah blah. We begrudgingly liked it. Begrudging because there were a lot of striped shirts and FiDi types crowding up the place and making it harder for me to get my drink, which was bourbon, Punt E Mes, infused pixie dust, and tears, with ice cubes carved out of a glacier in Norway. It was OK. I love the interior, but it's all very carefully crafted to look Bar-y, like Pirates of the Carribean for drunks.

Then we took a cab to the 500 Club and had beers like normal people.

I'm picturing this blog as a miniseries. Or maybe a feature film. With George Clooney. Or somebody.

Yes, yes, we all know that Hollywood is utterly bereft of ideas and just about any execrable refuse has a chance of being made. But today's news is stunning, even by the very low standards The Show Business has created for itself:

Not only is Texts From Last Night being made into a TV series (on Fox, natch); so is Shit My Dad Says.

Let's take the last one first. SMDS isn't even a website or a blog; it's a fucking Twitter stream. It's like making the ESPN crawl at the bottom of the screen into a series.

(HANG THE FUCK ON, I just got an idea and I have to call my agent. We'll cast Gilbert Gottfried as "PPD RAIN" and Jenn Sterger as the Florida State - Florida score).

Anyway, SMDS makes sense on CBS, where it's apparently found a home, since CBS is watched pretty much exclusively by 72-year-olds, like the eponymous "Dad." Now, I will be the first to admit that the SMDS stream is chuckle-inducing, but you can't just trot Jerry Adler out onto a set and have him read a fucking Twitter stream. Or maybe you can; I don't know. I'm not in TV.

Similarly, I guess, Texts From Last Night, what? It's a collection of made-up 140-character anecdotes about nights frat boys wish they had had. What's the series?

SETH GREEN enters stage left.

SETH GREEN: I thought it was weird that her dad told me to finish and get out after he walked in on us. I like him.

LEAH REMINI: Just caught grandpa beating off in the living room!

(LAUGHTER)

Oh, God, you know what? Now that I see that typed out, it's not so different from any other FOX sitcom.

A lot of people don't remember this, but Robin Williams won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor

Now he's in POS movies with John Travolta.

I didn't forget about RV. I guess everyone's got billz to pay.

Monday Morning Staff Meeting

OK, find a seat. Everybody here? We have a lot of ground to cover.

Friday, The Wife and I had dinner at Pi Bar, the newish pizza & beer place on Valencia. Looks like reviews are decidedly mixed, but fuck those douches on Yelp. If I have to hear about how "Wah wah wah there's no good pizza in San Francisco" one more time I'm gonna, I don't know, I'm gonna say something unpleasant or something. I've had pizza in NYC and it's not all that great. Fuck that shit.

Sorry. I'm fine. ANYWAY, Pi Bar has been found by the Urban Hipster Families of the Mission Dist. and by the olds. The pizza was good - not great, good - but the beer was nice (a limited edition Anchor Humming Ale (which I don't know what "humming ale" means but it sounds vaguely dirty)) and the service (we sat at the bar) was outstanding. Props to you, Bartender Girl, for keeping us happy and well-served. You rocked.

Then we decamped to the nearby Dovre Club whereupon we discovered actual Irish guys in an Irish bar. They were shitfaced and hanging with some Latinos and it looked like they had achieved some diplomatic coup because they were hugging a lot and buying each other beers. Ahhh, the beauty of international understanding.

Saturday after band practice we went to Mad Dog and then to Debaser at the Knockout pretty much because they were having a Pixies cover band and who doesn't like a good Pixies cover band? But FUCK I forgot how fucking crowded it gets and I don't like crowds so much any more and so we had to leave.

Last night, of course, was the Mad Men finale, more on which topic later. I was told to wait til Tuesday to post my thoughts on said topic. I will say this: great episode.

That's it. That's enough. Back with actual interesting content later this week.

Kennedy's dead, and I don't feel so good myself: Mad Men ep 12

WHOOPS! SPOILER IN TITLE. But fuck, if you didn't see this coming, maybe you didn't realize that Sam and Diane were going to get together on "Cheers" and you deserve whatever ugliness life has in store for you.

You know a show has got your attention when the Kennedy assassination is only the SECOND biggest thing that's happened this season. I thought they handled it perfectly. We first find out when Pete is talking to the TV Guy with Glasses Whose Name Escapes Me and BAM it's going on in the background and they don't even notice it. But the coolest scene in the whole show was Don standing in the office and all the phones are going off because everyone's gathered around the TV and Don's all "WTF? Is it Celebrity Jeopardy again?"

Incidentally, I guess the Aqua Net ad with the 4 people in the convertible and one of them with her hair blown backwards isn't going to fly any more.

Peggy, you are a dirty, dirty girl! Sneaking around with Duck this whole time. Even her rommate (who I thought got the racquet for a while) is all "Hey hobag, how's about you and Gramps take your action back to the Old Folks Home instead of over here because his English Leather is starting to bug me." Anyway, Pegs sets up a nooner with the Oldster (incidentally, Duck is so smooth - "Come on, creative. Be creative.") and she goes over to his hotel room and he's unplugging the TV and basically like whistling and going "Nothing to see here!" Time for another go around. Ew.

Time for Roger's daughter's wedding. WHOOPS, SHOULD HAVE PLANNED THAT FOR A DIFFERENT DAY, like after one of the days when Kennedy didn't get shot. No biggie, though - we can have the prime rib AND the filet of sole! Sweet. Jane's going to help out and drink all the extra wine. Oh, Jane.

Isn't it good to see Roger get so much screen time? He gives a kickass speech, then carries Spring Break Jane into the bedroom and tosses her on the bed and who does he call? JOANIE, THAT'S RIGHT. He's all "What's up?" and she's all "LOL U R MARRIED. Oh, hang on, this motherfucker's waking up again and I'm almost out of vases." But you know those two are going to start fooling around again and THANK GOD I say because they were awesome.

Everybody is talking Don and Betty to death and I don't have a lot to add except blah blah blah I'm kind of sick of the whole thing and I sort of wanted something punchier after the Big Reveal last week. Like, she should totally blackmail him or something! I would be like "So, Dick - oops, I mean Don" ALL THE TIME just to bug him. ANYWAY, Bets and that old guy (TANGENT - I just realized that maybe I love this show because old guys are always getting the young hotties [EMBEDDED TANGENT - Maybe Peggy isn't that hot but still]) Henry have a little meet and greet and he's trying to get her to leave Don and come with him and she's not so sure which is a good thing because Henry's kind of a stiff and according to my female advisors, any sane woman would be rubbing herself on Jon Hamm like a panda on a tree.

Normal woman and Jon Hamm (dramatization)

ANYWAY, this week is the season finale, guys! WTF?! Didn't it just start? Then we have to wait like 2 months for Lost and Friday Night Lights. Our God is a cruel God.

Please pardon this interruption in our service

We hope to resume normal programming soon.

I know all y'alls want your Mad Men update (well, except for that commenter on Eye on Blogs who said my update "sucked" - you, Sir, may get your updates elsewhere) but I'm stuck in this interminably boring work thing in Long Beach and don't have time right now. I'll give you the Cliffs Notes:

1. Kennedy got shot
2. Roger's daughter's wedding sucked.

Sorry. I'm really sorry.

The good kind of mystery meat

In San Francisco we're all interested in food and wine and we're always going on and on about farmer's markets and pinot noir and heirloom tomatoes and sustainably raised beef and so an event like the Mystery Dinner at Maverick is the perfect way to let us all show off and put us in our place at the same time.

The idea behind the Mystery Dinner (held on Halloween night, natch) is that you get 3 courses with wine pairings and you have to guess as many elements of each course as you can, along with the kind of wine. Sounds simple, right? Wrong.

(Before I go on, let me just throw in a little plug here for Maverick, a place we've been many times and which is truly one of the great, maybe a little underrated, restaurants in SF).

So you wanna know how badly I did? Bad. Let's review.

First course: Some kind of salad with a poached egg on top and some kind of greens and some other stuff.

What I guessed: Poached egg (duh), raddichio (total guess - I'm not even sure what raddichio is), rye croutons, and plantain.

What it actually was: Poached egg (yay!), rye croutons (yay!), red stem spinach, Maverick pancetta, roasted apples, apple cider vinagrette. There was pancetta in there? I didn't see any pancetta. And how do you mistake apple for plantain? I'm an idiot.

Wine guess: Sauvignon blanc.
Actual wine: Sauvignon blanc. I know my sauvignon blanc.

Second course: It was grilled fish.

What I guessed: My first thought was something like swordfish or tuna, but it wasn't tuna and didn't seem firm enough to be swordfish. So I guess grilled halibut, on risotto, with sprouts, and chili sauce.

What it actually was: Grilled swordfish. Damn! With shaved brussels sprouts (half-credit), crispy chanterelles (?), and sweet and sour sauce. It was delicious. They gave me credit for the sauce, which was nice.

Wine guess: Unoaked chardonnay.
Actual wine: Grenache blanc. Oh, sure, like I had a chance of getting that. I didn't even know there was such a thing as grenache blanc until last night. It was good, though!

Dessert course: Some kind of custardy thing.

What I guessed: Mint panna cotta, with candied walnuts and red currants.

What it actually was: Meyer lemon panna cotta, with candied walnuts and huckleberry compote. I SWEAR TO GOD it tasted minty.

Wine guess: Gewurtztraminer. It was really sweet, what do I know.
Actual wine: Pinot blanc. Again, I had an approximately zero percent chance of getting this.

In the end, The Sister and her bf tied and there was tiebreaker and I think he won. The winner at every table got a bottle of wine! That's nice. Anyway, tons o' fun.

Then we went home and watched TV and went to bed. I don't feel the Halloween thing so much any more, plus I was up til about 4:30 a.m. on Friday night about which less said the better.

ANYWAY, I'm off to beautiful exciting downtown Long Beach tomorrow for work. So we'll see what they're up to down there. Later.