| Yeah, So I Was on TV Last Week… |
[Jul. 7th, 2008|12:06 am] |
I was interviewed on the local CBS show “Eye on the Bay” (sort of like “PM Magazine” if you’re a San Diegan) last Wednesday. It was for a feature on restaurant reviews on Yelp (where I have amassed a total of 1075 reviews since 2005). Basically Yelp contacted three Yelpers in different parts of the Bay to each pick one of their favorite “cheap eats” and film a segment for “Eye on the Bay” and they chose me.
My cheap eat was Gourmet Express, a Palestinian restaurant in the oddest location in Milpitas where a minor street dead-ends at an office park. I love their food – in fact, Mark is often sad that he can’t go there for lunch since they’re only open at lunch on weekdays but then I remind him that he gets all the free food that he wants at Google. Plus, the owner is the sweetest person ever (and she was thrilled about the show) and I thought they could use the business since they’re usually empty when I visit.
I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, but as soon as the guys from CBS arrived they made me feel at ease. The British host of the show, Liam, seemed genuinely interested in my restaurant obsession and talked to me about it before and after the cameras were rolling. Then again, he was even nice to the crazy lady who worked there (not the owner) who – totally unsolicited - told us how she gave up her daughter for adoption and then they reunited on “The Sally Jesse Raphael Show”. By the time the camera was on I was pretty comfortable talking– a little too comfortable since I actually scratched my nose on camera.
They taped Liam talking to me for about three minutes and only reshot about 15 seconds at the end because Liam jumped up as though to run out the door to visit his next Yelper. As it turns out, he needed to finish the interview at the table. I was surprised to find out that the segment on Gourmet Express was going to be three minutes long since that’s how long the interview lasted! The producer assured me that it would also include Liam entering the restaurant, Liam high-fiving the owner, and “food porn” (the close-ups of the food), but it still seems like that will be an awful lot of unedited footage from our interview. (For those of you familiar with “The Adam Carolla Show” or “Loveline” I’m afraid this will turn into an episode of Huell Howser’s “California’s Gold” with awkward conversation that are desperately in need of editing.)
Some of the events from the interview that will hopefully make the cutting room floor:
• The aforementioned nose scratch
• When asked how often I eat out, I said something like “I used to eat out every night but I stay home weeknights now that I’m old and feeble.” (While saying “old and feeble” I was wishing my mouth would stop.)
• I made sure not to look at the camera during the interview but Liam would sometimes mug for the camera and when that happened I didn’t know where to look. Expect me to look like a deer in headlights at those times.
• Liam asked me to identify the food in front of us and because I only ever eat one entrée there (the chicken shawarma) I had a little trouble. “This is the roast… (long silence as I try to remember if it’s lamb or beef) beef”
• We took a bite of food together at the beginning of the interview and then I kept eating and picking up food throughout. It occurs to me later that Liam didn’t. So hopefully you won’t see me struggling to pick up food with my pita or (worst of all) chewing with my mouth open
In case you’re wondering when this sure to be awkward TV classic will air, it will be mid to late July.
See? It’s a real show:
http://cbs5.com/eyeonthebay
Gourmet Express:
http://falafelland.homestead.com/
My Flickr page with more unexciting but exclusive BEHIND THE SCENES pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/snoopysnocone/
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| New Roommate Hopes Five-Hour Fuckfest Didn't Keep You Up |
[May. 21st, 2008|03:54 pm] |
Funniest Onion article I've seen in awhile:
New Roommate Hopes Five-Hour Fuckfest Didn't Keep You Up
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/new_roommate_hopes_five_hour
(I couldn't figure out how to do that thing where The Onion gives you some html code to stick in LiveJournal so it will include a picture without logging into Facebook or another non-LJ site.) |
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| More Honeymoon: Kyoto |
[Mar. 14th, 2008|11:41 am] |
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K y o t o The next day we took a bullet train to Kyoto. Our stop near Hakone was not an express train stop so we saw express trains going full throttle through the station. They went so fast we could never even capture them on video in time! But once on the train it actually didn’t feel like we were going that fast. In Kyoto we visited a house that once belonged to the shogun. The wooden floors were made in a complex way so that they would squeak should anyone walk across them - that way no one could sneak up and attack the shogun. Of course as soon as our tour group moved to another room, Mark and I walked as quietly as we could in our socks across the floor. I think we could have assassinated the shogun if needed. The end. |
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| More from Mark & Kathy's Honeymoon: Mt. Fuji & Hakone |
[Mar. 13th, 2008|05:04 pm] |
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M t. F u j i & H a k o n e After our first three nights in Tokyo we traveled through the beautiful mountainous countryside to Mt. Fuji. (Most of Japan is mountainous, which is part of the reason why the cities in the low lying areas are so dense.) Unfortunately it was very rainy and foggy that day so even though we were as high as you can drive up Mt. Fuji, we could barely see the top. We noticed that the Japanese like to anthropomorphize everything in cartoon form, so we weren’t surprised to find a stuffed animal version of Mt. Fuji which we of course had to buy. After Mt. Fuji we went to nearby Hakone, a pine enshrouded village in the shadow of Mt. Fuji. It’s famous for their mineral springs and is a popular destination for vacationing Japanese. Our hotel included an onsen or Japanese communal bath fed by natural hot springs. Basically it’s a public bath that looks and feels like a hot tub. Using the public baths was a unique experience. They are separated by sex and you must go in completely naked (towels are not allowed in the water). Also, you are not supposed to shower immediately afterwards lest you wash off the healthful effects of the mineral springs. |
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| I've Got One Guess as to Swayze's Astrological Sign... |
[Mar. 12th, 2008|05:42 pm] |
In case you missed the comments to the entry below, oddharmonic was nice enough to make me the most awesome Swayze icon ever! Thank you, oddharmonic!!!
http://users.livejournal.com/_wendybird_/44511.html
This will be the only icon I use for the next 5 weeks (or more according to People Magazine) because I want to use it while the getting's good. I mean, what's going to happen in 5 weeks - "Nobody puts the grim reaper in a corner"?
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| Mark & Kathy’s Honeymoon - Part IV |
[Mar. 7th, 2008|11:00 am] |
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J a p a n Pachinko parlors are everywhere in Japan - we even saw a sumo wrestler in one. Also, Japan loves vending machines. They’re brightly lit and there are banks of them everywhere, mostly stocking drinks. We bought some chocolate covered ice cream bonbons through a vending machine, but they are known to carry lots of bizarre things, too. Also, we went into an arcade with an entire floor devoted to the largest selection of claw (or crane) vending machines I’ve ever seen. They weren’t just full of stuffed animals, we saw ones devoted to everything from DVD players to cans of Pringles.
Next time: Mt. Fuji and Kyoto |
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| Yet More Swayze |
[Mar. 6th, 2008|12:43 pm] |
If I was more motivated I'd change the text on my Swayze icon to read:
"Nobody puts cancer in a corner"
(I'll just pretend that makes sense.) |
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| First Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights, Now This... |
[Mar. 5th, 2008|11:26 am] |
It's kind of a bummer having this icon now that Patrick Swayze's 5 weeks away from the icy grip of death:
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/march052008/swayze_cancer_030508.php
It sucks that I'm going to have to retire my favorite icon because it will no longer be kitschy and funny, just sad and cancer-y.
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| Valentine's Day at Google |
[Mar. 3rd, 2008|12:54 pm] |
Mark started working at Google in December so we recently celebrated Valentine's Day with a free meal at Google's cafeteria. Actually we went to three of the 17 or so cafeterias that day (that's a low number for us since we usually graze at 4 to 5 of them.) We brought a tablecloth and a candle to make it feel more
like Valentine's Day. You can see in the photo that it's
just another day at Google to the people behind us.
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[Feb. 28th, 2008|11:14 am] |
Mark shows off his other mad skillz in chopstickery at a teppanyaki restaurant
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[Feb. 27th, 2008|04:19 pm] |
...while Mark practices his mad jumping skillz while nothing protects him from a 1092 foot drop but a pane of glass below him
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[Feb. 27th, 2008|11:11 am] |
Kathy poses serenely at Tokyo Tower...
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[Feb. 25th, 2008|11:55 am] |
See - once in a while we get a picture with both of us! This one is after eating in a tiny teppanyaki restaurant.
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[Feb. 22nd, 2008|03:56 pm] |
Fun at the Sony Building. Their camera automatically finds your face.
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| Tokyo |
[Feb. 22nd, 2008|11:20 am] |
Mark plays Tarzan (sort of) in the Imperial Palace parking lot
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