APRIL 30: THE MIDDAY UPDATE
ONE of the small advantages of living in a rented apartment is that we won't have to pay for any of the cleanup from this morning's water shenanigans. It turns out that a pipe in the wall burst last night, flooding our neigbour's place and soaking our kitchen and part of the living room. The plumber is drilling the wall next door to fix the pipe, the cats are shut in the bedroom and scratching the door to matchsticks and the cleaner's supposed to be coming over at some point to sort out the carpets. I just want to go back to sleep.
ANYWAY, on a brighter note here's some photos of Siān:
She truly is the greatest niece in the universe.
APRIL 30: the 3.53am special
II'S 3am. The phone rings. Ev answers. It's our building manager. There's water leaking through the ceiling of the car park and it's coming from right where our flat is. Bugger. We get out of bed and let him in. Here's our kitchen:
Thanks to my inability to use a flash unit/Photoshop at three in the morning you can't really see the extent of the water. But it's there.
It's also soaking up through the carpet in the living room. Emric has a nose around safe in the knowledge that not even he can be blamed for this. We decided to go downstairs and take a look at the water in the garage.
The water is pretty much pouring through the ceiling. But the majority of it is affecting our neighbour's flat — all her carpets are soaked. A pipe has burst under the floor and she's borne the brunt of it. But as it's three in the morning, I'm having a hard time caring.
With our kitchen carpeted in some authentic early 21st-century Chinese textiles ($5 each at Target), we head back to bed.
APRIL 29
SWINE FLU. On the one hand it worries me; after all, the thought that an animal that produces wonders of nature like bacon and ham could end up killing me is pretty unnerving. Then again I think about how humans have persevered through the billions of deaths caused by AIDs, SARS, bird flu and killer bees* — not to mention the thousands who've died after downing Pop-Rocks and Coke, or ended up with trees growing in their stomachs after eating apple seeds — and I know we'll pull through.
Just to prove there is humour in such a situation, here's a video about swine flu. Then again, as it's in Spanish for all I know it could be about the dangers of eating apple seeds. Enjoy!
*I would like to apologise to West Nile Virus for leaving him out of this list.
APRIL 28: un hommage À planÈte mut
SOME friends recently took a cruise to Mexico and, in a desperate attempt to stave off boredom, decided to recreate a defining moment in Planet Mut's history using different foodstuffs.
I believe this one is titled The Early-Morning Surprise. I don't want to know what the scrambled eggs represent.
Ron Jeremy (Before).
Ron Jeremy (After).
2001: A Space Nobessey.
I Have Some Serious Issues. (Comes with free nightmares).
APRIL 26
MOVE over, Top Gun. Your place at the top of the list of Gayest Movies Ever Made has just been taken by 300, a film featuring lots of muscle-bound men wearing leather Y-fronts and nothing else shouting and yelling and doing other manly things in slow motion. Oh yeah, I realise that some birds get their tops off and the queen is shagged but that was just included in a desperate attempt to keep the men in the cinema from humping each other as a flood of gayness poured off the screen. 300 is First Blood Part III for the Dubya years. What a shitty, shitty film.
APRIL 25: THE 2009 CHILLI* COOKOFF
IN A MOVE that's sure to cause my arse to divorce me by Sunday afternoon, we headed to Shelley's to take part in her annual Chilli Cookoff. The basic rules are: everyone tries the chillis (there were 16 entered this year); everyone votes; the winner gets the trophy. We entered our own chilli this year — a secret recipe Ev pulled out of her backside an hour before the competition — and, with our hopes riding on a crockpot full of bubbling brown stuff, we put our entry on the table and lined up to try all the others.
You're only supposed to sample the chillis, which is why people are ladling them into those little pots. But there's no limit to how many you can try in one go, leading to several cases of people double-decking plates to get all the samples at once:
Here's my first plate. As I stupidly loaded up on chicken and cornbread before reaching the chillis I only had room on my plate for three - No's 10, 11 and 5. Five went into the lead after only a mouthful as it was by far the best — lightly spiced and mostly fruity with hints of mango. Or something like that.
Eight chillis in and my stomach's starting to hate me, which is nothing compared to how my backside is going to feel later. I ended up trying nine out of the 16 on offer and these are the notes I made to help me vote:
No10: Spicier
No11: BURNS
No5: Mild, sweet, best so far
No13: Meh
No14: BURNS!!!
No9: Hot, meaty, good stuff
No 2: Chunky, strong
No1: Hot, almost Indian in flavour, good
No16: Outstanding, delicious, superb, wonderful [Ev made this one. I pretty much have to say this, OK?]
No5 was so good I had to sample some more, and by "sample" I mean "pile a plate full of No5 and rice and shovel it down accompanied by two large glasses of Orange Crush". After a second plate of No5 and rice I was in a state best described as "comatose". And then just to prove me right No5 was voted the best. So obviously Ev picked this moment to want to go on the bouncy castle at the front of Shelley's place.
As dire retribution has been threatened against my testicles if I put any of the photos of Ev on here, you'll have to do with two photos of a certain portly 37-year-old Welsh bloke. So here's me carking it on the bouncy bit...
...and here's me totally faceplanting at the bottom of the slide:
And so after publicly humiliating myself, I'm off to bed.
*Yes, us Brits spell it with two L's. Deal with it.
APRIL 24: BLAST FROM THE PAST
THOMPSON TWINS. "If You Were Here." Live in Liverpool in 1983. Just because it's brilliant.
APRIL 23
THE latest addition to the Planet Mut collection of toy ornamental Minis arrived in the mail the other day. It's a 1971 Corgi Mini Cooper S which I picked up on eBay for the ridiculously cheap price of $17. I don't think I had this one when I was a kid. The Mini is a bit battered but it's good to know that someone got some enjoyment out of it before it ended up in a glass case.
APRIL 22: TASTE TEST DOUBLE-HEADER
TODAY'S Taste Test is brought to you for three reasons - a) Subway's just introduced a new sarnie, 2) we had some freebie crisps delivered to the office, and iii) I desperately needed an update. But enough of this witty banter — let's get to the food!
First up is the all-new Subway Seafood Special. I usually have the roast beef with loads of spicy mustard, onions, peppers, pickles and pepperchinis as it's the only combination of things that can mask my British breath. But today I decided to go wild and try something new so I plumped for the Seafood Special. Except it's not really seafood and it's not that special.
Don't get me wrong, it tastes pretty good and as it's on the five-dollar menu it's dirt cheap. But it's that bloody imitation "krab" stuff so be prepared for a gobful of massively processed mushed-up fish bits dyed and flavoured to taste like crab. Like all Subway sandwiches it's only as good as the person who makes it, so thank Christ I missed out on that one girl who makes sarnies about as well as Chevrolet makes cars. I'm not sure which one made my Seafood Special but it was pretty well put together. And the taste? Like most Subways it tastes primarily of the three pounds of veggies the Sandwich Artist® (that really is what they're called, and it really is a registered trademark) manages to stuff in, which is why my usual order is piled with mustard, pickles, pepperchinis and so on. Is it worth $5? Sort of. Will I get another one? Ummm... nope.
"Never fried. Never baked," says the blurb on the front of my pack of salt and pepper Popchips. So that's two areas where it has me beat. These arrived at the office in a box with four other packs — barbecue, plain, and two others I wasn't able to grab in time — and they are superb. They're very light, very crisp and not at all greasy. I've given the barbecue ones to Ev and I'm sure she'll give me a thorough report tomorrow afternoon... unless I decide to nick 'em first.
APRIL 20: I THINK SUMMER'S ARRIVED
APRIL 20: WE ♥ WOODY'S DINER
WOODY'S DINER in Sunset Beach is rapidly becoming one of our favourite places to eat, especially for breakfast. We discovered the place by accident last year when we took a friend to the Harbor House Cafe only to find it closed for renovations. As Woody's is next door we gave it a try and haven't looked back since.
Part of the appeal of the place is, obviously, the food. It's fantastic. I usually plump for the chorizo and eggs with superspuds and a side of rye toast, pictured here:
Superspuds is a speciality of Woody's, made from shredded potato with bacon, cheese, sausage, pepper and onions and topped off with avocado slices and a big dollop of sour cream. To be honest the superspuds alone would make a meal but the chorizo and eggs at Woody's is just perfect - light and with the right amount of bite.
When I'm not shovelling chorizo down my face I go for their Polish sausage with eggs and the inevitable superspuds:
It's just fantastic food and the coffee's great, too. It's also got a cool atmosphere with its 50's decor and the fact the waitresses tend to be cute doesn't hurt. Here's some pics of the interior.
If you fancy going, Woody's is at 16371 Pacific Coast Highway, just past the wooden tower. It's well worth a visit.
APRIL 19: THE 2009 LONG BEACH GRAND PRIX (NOT REALLY)
WE WERE supposed to watch at least some of the LBGP from our friend's 14th-floor apartment in this building but managed to get there too late. Oops.
I did get a photo of this GT3 Porsche as it left the track but that was it for the actual racing. So I turned my attention to the view, which from 14 floors up is pretty bloody spectacular.
And not forgetting the cars:
Why would anyone paint a Rolls-Royce matt black? I can hear the marketing men now: "You know, we've been going for the royalty demographic for too long. Maybe it's about time we just targeted our cars at bloody idiots." Anyway, here's some people:
These are the people in the flat above us. Ev took this pic as it involved leaning backwards and aiming the camera up, something I couldn't do as I'm shit scared of heights. It was bloody annoying to miss the races but there's always next year.
APRIL 15: RUSSELL BRAND IS AN OVERRATED, TALENTLESS, STEAMING PILE OF MONKEY SHIT
MY TOP five Russell Brand jokes:
1. Russell Brand is walking down the street when he gets AIDs and dies slowly and painfully.
2. An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman go into a pub and proceed to kick the living shit out of Russell Brand.
3. How long does it take Russell Brand's mother to have a shit? Nine months.
4. One day, humanity finally went to the doctor about the annoying boil on its arse. The doctor lanced the boil and Russell Brand was never seen again.
5. Russell Brand goes into a house. The house is immediately demolished and, just to be safe, the rubble sealed in a lead box and fired into the sun, the sun blasted into a black hole, the black hole pushed into supernova and the universe destroyed.
APRIL 14: 101 REASONS WHY WORKING FOR A NEWSPAPER IS BAD FOR YOU - ANOTHER ELECTION NIGHT SPECIAL, JUST NOT AS EARLY
NUMBER 7: Free pizza.
NUMBER 8: More free pizza.
NUMBER 9: Getting home at 2am. But at least Burbank's city council elections didn't drag on as long as Glendale's did. Better yet, that's them over for another two years. And I'm only 42 pages into Dan Simmons' The Terror and it's already got me hooked through the balls.
APRIL 13: SOME RANDOM FLOWER PHOTOS
APRIL 12
AFTER three years of trying (and amazing ourselves by getting up before 11am) we made it to the flea market at the Rose Bowl. It describes itself as the largest such market in the world, but as this is a country where frozen pizza is described as "gourmet" I'll take that with a pinch of salt.
We handed over our $16 entrance fee and headed inside. We'd always assumed that the market is inside the Rose Bowl but discovered it's in the car parks around it. First off we headed into the stadium for a look:
Here's a photo of the market taken from over the edge of the Rose Bowl:
It also extends off to the left, which is where we headed first.
ME: "Oh we have to get this!"
EV: "No we don't."
ME: "Come on, it's fantastic!"
EV: "No it isn't."
ME: "They really don't make stuff like this any more."
EV: "Thank Christ."
Things are looking pretty bad for Bambi.
I don't know what's more disturbing, the doll or the chair. The "antiques" section is a lot like what Camden Market used to be before it was taken over by art students and trendy boutiques, i.e. full of crap.
A cricket set could be yours for just $85. I'm amazed cricket hasn't caught on in the States as it seems to have all the ingredients to be a success - it's boring, incomprehensible and so slow that it offers ample time for commercial breaks and trips to the concession stands.
I wanted to buy some of the red dice to use for macro shots but then I noticed that the sides on the yellow die to the left are all fives and I just forgot. This has been bugging me all afternoon.
I don't think the marketing team thought this one through.
SCARY MONKEY HEAD! It's a lot smaller than it looks but still scary. This guy had a load of postcards which I spent a while going through (Ev doesn't half put up with a lot) but couldn't find any used ones.
Looks like Wheel of Fortune has had its budget slashed.
Possibly the only thing Sony's produced that's not riddled with DRM. This stall had loads of old cameras in great condition for reasonable prices. But then Ev gave me that look so I moved on.
I think the name of this stall was "SHIT I FOUND". After a few hours of wandering among the stalls we headed home on the 605 and in the space of 12 miles passed four major crashes including these two:
Here's my take for the day - 13 postcards, a couple of Minis, and sunburn. Not a bad day out. Oh, and Ev spotted Uma Thurman and we both saw Sharon Osbourne, who is the only human being who makes me feel sorry for cancer.
APRIL 10: STUFF JOURNALISM, I WANT TO BE A SWEDISH TAX INSPECTOR
SERIOUSLY. Now, I know what you're thinking - you're thinking, "What is this insane bastard on and where can I get some?" But hear me out 'cos for once I am not talking out of my arse.
The reason why I want to be a Swedish tax inspector is because Swedish tax inspectors are about to have the greatest job in the world. In an effort to recover untaxed earnings they're about to go online and look at amateur strippers. From the BBC's story:
The search involves tax officials examining websites that feature Swedish strippers, in an effort to identify them and chase them for tax returns.
"They are young girls, we can see from the photos. We think that perhaps they are not well informed about the rules," said [project leader Dag] Hardyson, head of the tax authority's national project on internet trade.
If you're reading this, Mr Hardyson, I'd like to volunteer to help the Swedish tax authorities. I believe that I can offer invaluable assistance to your investigation and offer the following skills:
I can sit in front of a computer for hours.
I have no objection to watching teenage Swedish girls take their clothes off.
I am able to use a mouse with my left hand.
I'll pay you to let me help.
So come on, Dag, what do you say?
APRIL 9: THE WORLD'S GREATEST BILLBOARD
UP UNTIL I saw this billboard I didn't leak urine. But once I spotted it I pretty much pissed myself laughing. There are some things you don't expect on the 710 - good driving, the California Highway Patrol actually patrolling California's highways, a decent road surface - and seeing the word "URINE" in three-foot tall bright red block letters is one of 'em. And I'm sorely tempted to call the 800 number to tell them they forgot the question mark.
APRIL 8: 101 REASONS WHY WORKING FOR A NEWSPAPER IS BAD FOR YOU - THE ELECTION NIGHT EXTRA-SPECIAL, EXTRA-EARLY EDITION
NUMBER 3: Too much free pizza.
NUMBER 4: Way too much tea and chocolate.
NUMBER 5: Being the last to leave.
NUMBER 6: Getting home at 2.43am.
BUT at least I had somewhere to go, unlike this bloke who was fast asleep in the 24-hour Kinko's below our office when I left at 1.50am. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to bed.
APRIL 7
I'M still fighting my way through my 117-strong backlog of books. Over the past three weeks I've managed to get it down to about 110, meaning I'll have got through them all by about this time next year, and my self-imposed moratorium on buying new books continues to make me more jittery than a Fontana meth addict. I did get a small jolt of pleasure when I bought Winnie-The-Pooh, Where The Wild Things Are and A Kitten Tale for Siān, but it was a Silk Cut Ultra Light compared to the Cuban cigar of my usual book-buying expeditions. I also picked up another freebie - Tom Clancy's The Sum of all Fears (yeah, I know but it was free) - and while entering it into my library on LibraryThing.com I discovered something interesting. Well it's interesting to me, but that's because I'm a sad bastard.
Out of 661,446 members and 37,654,410 books on the site, I'm the only person who owns Saved: The Extraordinary Tale of Survival and Rescue in the Southern Ocean by Tony Bullimore. Bullimore was a yachtsman whose vessel capsized during the 1996 Vendee Globe single-handed around-the-world race and who survived for five days crouched in the upturned hull. As I haven't read it yet (even though I've owned it for nearly five years) I don't know if the fact I'm the only person out of nearly half a million members to own it means the book's crap or that I have taste so excellent it's unique. Then again as Saved is available on Amazon for 1¢ and has no reviews I guess it can't be that good. But as I'm a sucker for true-life adventure stories I might bump it up the reading list to next in line after I finish Cadillac Desert.
APRIL 6 (ANOTHER EARLY EDITION)
HOLY shit! The Cure are on HDNet! It's a concert from 2008 in North Carolina to promote the 4:13 Dream album. Blimey, it looks like the average age of the audience is 40. Fair play, though, the band's putting on a storming show and are just kicking off "Pictures of You" and JESUS CHRIST WHAT HAPPENED TO PORL THOMPSON??
Stone me, it's Nosferatu! Didn't Porl used to have floppy curly hair? Oh no, wait - I remember he was going bald in the Show video and that was in 1993 so by now he must be a total slaphead. At least now no one can take the piss out of Robert Smith for wearing too much makeup...
APRIL 5: EMRIC'S DONE IT AGAIN
WILL someone please take this sodding cat? This is the second pair of iPod earbuds he's destroyed and they're not even ours. Why can't he try eating through a live power line?
APRIL 2: VH-DUMB
SO I get home tonight and Ev's watching VH1's Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the 80s and it's about to go to commercial so I stop to have a look at what's coming up after the break. Kajagoogoo, Nena, The Buggles, Madness, Don Johnson, King, Falco, Dead or Al- wait a minute... Madness?? One of the finest bands Britain produced in the Eighties? A group that churned out a string of hits accompanied by some great videos? Songs such as "Our House":
And "House of Fun":
Two things about House of Fun" - a) I literally just realised it's about buying your first pack of johnnies - in other words, it's taken me 26 years to realise that; and 2) the best bit of the video is when the little kid nearly follows the band members into the shop. Classic. Next up, "Baggy Trousers", a song that sums up everything about being in school in Britain in 1980:
And last but definitely not least here's "It Must Be Love". Why there are Hebrew subtitles on it I don't know but it's the only copy of this video that hasn't had embedding disabled (screw you, Universal Music Group!)
That isn't the end of Madness' hits - "Grey Day" "Cardiac Arrest," "My Girl," "Driving In My Car"... the list goes on. One hit wonders? VH1, kiss my hairy Welsh arse.
APRIL 1: YOU [BLEEP]ING DONKEY!
EV AND me are huge fans of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares so the release of the original British series on DVD over here is great news for us. We've seen them all on BBC America but as the Americans have this annoying tendency to bleep out the swearing Ramsay's rants lose some of their impact.
I have to admit that while the show is fascinating, I'm not that fond of Ramsay himself (unlike Ev, whose idea of a good weekend probably involves Ramsay, Eddie Izzard and a large jar of Nutella). He's so full of himself I'm surprised he doesn't wear a corset. But I'm willing to put up with his arrogance and general twatishness because he knows what he's talking about. I find the most interesting bits of the shows are when he explains not how to cook food but how to run the restaurant as a business, something many of the people involved seem to have no clue about. But the best parts are when he's giving some hapless git a real going over. And from watching RKN it's obvious hapless gits abound in the British restaurant trade.
If you've ever seen the episode set in Bonaparte's, a restaurant in Silsden, Yorkshire, you'll know what I mean. The phrase "hapless git" barely does justice to head chef Tim, a 21-year-old bullshitter who believes he's God's gift to food even though he'd burn water and who makes Ramsay his signature dish of scallops and black pudding - only the scallops are off, leading to a memorable scene where Ramsay blows chunks all over Boneparte's backyard. (By the way, "scallops with black pudding" = "shellfish served with sausage made from boiled pig's blood". And yes, I would eat it.) Then again, the restaurant owner is about as much use as a condom machine in a nunnery; she's clueless as to what's going on in her kitchen and when Ramsay points out boxes of rotting tomatoes and strawberries - never mind the rancid scallops - it's obvious she doesn't know what to do. Not surprisingly, Tim got the sack and Boneparte's went out of business.
That there are so many idiots shouldn't really be a surprise given the short life expectancy of most restaurants but it's the level of idiocy that's amazing. Cooks who can't cook, managers who can't manage, owners who think serving crap overpriced food will make them a fortune... and then there's the total nutcases such as the bloke who collected kitchenware off eBay, or the Lampeter couple whose abusive relationship spilled out into the kitchen and dining room.
To be fair to Ramsay, if he sees talent he tries to help; the episodes at the Glasshouse in Cumbria and Momma Cherrie's in Brighton show what happens when Ramsay meets people who genuinely want aid. And I think that's why although I generally loathe reality shows I love Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. After all, these are real people, not Z-grade celebs looking to kickstart their deservedly dead careers, or whiny snotnosed brats on MTV, or walking STDs trying to shag a rapidly-balding "rock star" who hasn't been relevant since sometime before the Stone Age. And Ramsay generally does help them, whether it's by heaping scorn and abuse until they give in and adopt his plans (which generally seem to work) or if he tries the softly-softly approach. This report on how Ramsay is under fire because most of the restaurants that appeared on RKN have closed makes for an interesting read. (And I apologise for sending you to the utter rag that is the British tabloid News Of The World.) What the article doesn't state is that the ones that went under were generally so badly run that to anyone who's seen their respective shows it's not surprising they went bust.
I'll probably pick up the DVDs at some point and watch 'em with Ev; I can cringe at the cooks while she thinks of Nutella.
CONGRATULATIONS are in order to whichever Chinese sweatshop churns out Charter Communications' crappy DVR cable boxes as ours has packed up AGAIN. I think this is the eighth one to give up the ghost. Even my Wal-Mart jeans last longer than these things.
