Haines His Way

As I was saying... ;-)

(I really should have been in bed hours ago!)

So, after all of that, I decided I wanted, needed, deserved a nice dinner.  I called Steve, and invited him to dinner and he gladly accepted.  -I also wanted to Thank him for the two jumps starts and all the "chauffering" he did this week for me.

We walked over to Zeus Gallery Cafe.  Neat place.  Art on the walls for decor and for sale.  And some very good food.  One of the neat, quirky things about the place is that all the booths have little plaques that tell you the name of the booth: Phone Booth, John Wilkes Booth, Shirley Booth, etc.  We sat in the Phone Booth tonight.

All the menus (dinner and dessert) and wine lists are on chalkboards.  They even put the main dinner menu/chalkboard on your table while you decide.  Tonight's choices were very varied, and all of them sounded very good.  After a few minutes of going back and forth between all the choices, we decided to split and order of shrimp spring rolls, and Steve ordered the Shrimp Pasta, and I ordered the Veal Scallopine that came with a melange of vegetables that included chunks of merguez sausage.  -The waitress was surprised and impressed that I actually knew what merguez was, and that she didn't have to explain it to me.

The shrimp rolls came with a homemade hot(!) mustard and an apricot chutney.  Soooo good!  And our entrees were quite wonderful too, and just the right amount of food on the plates.  So, we had room for dessert!! - Key Lime Pie, and a Melting Chocolate Cake.  Needless to say, our forks were going back and forth between each other plates, and the only thing left on them was all the powdered sugar they used to decorate the plates. ;-)  Oh, and the wine... Quite a nice California Zinfandel - Four Vines.  It went down very easily - not as "strong" as a typical Zinfandel, very smooth, but, later.. whoa!  When we both started on our second glasses, we were both starting to warm up ;-)  And I had to stop half-way through my third glass...  -And the coffee with dessert also helped.

After the wonderful dinner, we headed back to Steve's and ended up watching TLC's Saturday night line up - While You Were Out, Trading Spaces, etc.  And I guess all the activity, the stress, the running around.. and the wine finally caught up with me... I ended up napping here and there.. well, we both did...  After the news, and the first ten minutes of the SNL rerun, I walked home.  The cold night air felt good.  And since it was midnight movie night at The Byrd Theatre, there were plenty of people still walking around Carytown.  -Tonight's midnight movie was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  I almost stopped by the box office, but decided it was best just to keep on walking and get home.

So, here I am.

And I think I'll call it a night...  Thanks for listening, reading... Ain't therapy grand?  

Happy Birthdays to Kerry & Donald.

I ushered for the Dianne Reeves concert last night and let me say that she is in-freakin'-credible.  I had no idea what to expect.  I'd heard only one of her CDs (her tribute to Sarah Vaughan CD that has a version of "Send In the Clowns").  She can take an audience and hold them in the palm of her hand.  She's a true musician.  If you like improvisational vocal jazz like instrumental jazz (in other words, if you don't always need to hear the original melody all the way through a sung song), then you will love her!  One song she performed was called "Nine" (or "9") that she wrote and it's about being nine years old.  She wrote it in 7/4 time signature and it was not a slow song!  Overall, she gave one of the best concerts I've seen in a long time (although Tony Bennett last week was very good, also).

I brought along my brand new binoculars with a digital camera attached and it sort of worked.  If I had a tripod (if it were even possible to hook the binoculars to a tripod...which it's not), they would've been better.  Trying to hold it steady enough so that the pictures wouldn't come out blurry was impossible.  All of the pictures were blurry (but the binoculars themselves were otherwise very good).  Here is one of the better pictures:

Happy day to Kerry and to Donald!

Watched a couple movies tonight on TCM that had been on my "yeah, I know I should see it, and I do plan on seeing it, but for whatever reason I haven't yet" list for quite sometime.  
They were having an evening featuring Bernard Herrmann's scores, and I caught Psycho and Cape Fear.  The first was just what I expected it to be... a very pleasant viewing experience, but nothing extraordinary for my tastes.  Cape Fear, however, I found truly wonderful.  Still a very effective thriller, 42 years later, particularly in Robert Mitchum's performance.  So, there's a modern-day 24-year-old's take on those classics.

Happy birthdays, DRs Kerry and Donald! May your day be filled with much cake! Oreo cake, if possible.

Great audition story, Jose. It must be a lot like American Idol. I bet you are a master at keeping a straight face during bad performances.

I'm glad to hear that Roller and Archie are doing well. My own Roxie, however, did not fare so well. I had to have her euthanized on Thursday.

[move=left,scroll,6,transparent,100%]! ! !HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOYS! ! ![/move]

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who likes SAILOR...SEA.
Been a fan of it since it was first released and it contains my favorite Sarah Miles performance.  Existentialism and Nietzcheism don't always work on screen, but, this time they work hand in hand to a gripping conclusion.  Mr. Slocombe's cinematography is luscious.  On a side note, the child actors, who are all quite impressive rarely made a film afterwards.

-I also wanted to Thank him for the two jumps starts...

Happy Birthday to both Donald and Kerry!!!

Good vibes to DR Laura ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm glad DR PANNI got her green card - she is now anofficial part of the Invasion of the Magyars which has taekn place in Hollywood over the years,
First Adolph Zukor, then the Gabors, and then this "face-only-a-mother-could-love" screenwriter:



Not satisfied with penning soft-porn ("Basic Instincts") he has now written what could be called a "Magyar-a-Clef" about his Hollywood days.

(from FNC):

The Hollywood Animal
Saturday, January 31, 2004
By Mike Straka
 
…
An immigrant from Hungary, Eszterhas spent time in Austrian refugee camps when he was a child before his mother and father emigrated to the United States. After bouncing around from New York to Connecticut, the Eszterhas family landed in Cleveland, where Joe grew up a "foreigner" on the tough streets.
…
To those wanting a career as a Hollywood screenwriter, he has this to say:

"Don't spend all of your time in a movie theater looking at other movies. Live life to its fullest limit. Don't watch it on the screen because you'll end up writing scripts that imitate what's up there on the screen. Don't be afraid of life — live it fully. Make mistakes. Get hurt. Bad things might happen, but good things might happen too."

(end extract)

Goodness, Eszterhas channeling Mame!

der Brucer (wondering if DR PANNI pronounces "Magyar" like "Mah-djar")

Well, sorry, DR Laura, about Roxie.  But you did what was best for her, so no regrets.

Happy Birthday Donald!!!!!!

I had no idea I was in such esteemed company (Bells ring, doors chime, in comes company.....ooops -- got carried away).

The Superbowl!!  And on my birthday.  Oh joy! Oh rapture!   Who's playing -- the Lakers and the Red Sox?

DRLaura-- I already told you privately how I felt.

I just read yesterday's notes and would have guessed John Saxon by the third photo.  My,  he was dreamy.

Thank you all for the kind wishes.  They mean a lot coming from you.

DR Donald -

Happiest of Birthdays.

JoseSPiano--I think your car is possessed!  

Better "possessed" than "re-possessed"!

der Bruce (oft accused of being "self-possessed")