Leaving Las Vegas

This year's AVP King and Queen of the Beach competition was held at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas and it was a scorcher. Pool play started on Thursday with the top 16 individual players competing in a round robin format to emerge into Round 2, where 8 players continued on to compete for one of two spots in the finals. Phil Dalhausser and Jen Kessey were crowned King and Queen of the Beach. Woohoo!

During this same weekend, Phil, Niki and I spent a brief afternoon at the aquarium, and this is what we came across.

Black tip reef shark

Lion fish (venemous and dangerous)

Jelly fish

Punchlines

So the other day, I'm in for my weekly enema, and all of a sudden, the administrator sneezes and sends my...

...loose stool colliding with my shy testicle. It was like a depraved game of billiards but without the sorority chicks.

Osteria Mozza

Italian food never tasted so good. I had the pleasure of dining this week at Osteria Mozza and I now know what all the hype is about. It was the kind of place in which you are tempted to order one of each, literally. Take for example the free-standing Mozzarella Bar. That's right! Nancy Silverton prepares a wide array of mozzarella, burrata, bocconcini, strachiatella along side prosicutto, speck, bacon and more. If there's ever a winning combination, burrata and bacon has gotta be it. Here's a rundown of what we ate that night:

Antipasti

Burrata with bacon, marinated escarole & caramelized shallot

Caprese with bufala mozzarella, oven-dried tomatoes & basil 

Primi

Ricotta Gnudi with chantrelles and spinach

Tagliatelle with oxtail ragu

Secondi

Crisp Duck al Mattone with pear mostarda & Brussels sprouts

Beef Brasato with polenta & horseradish gremolata

Dolci

Panna cotta vanille with fruit compote and nuts

Burrata with bacon, marinated escarole & caramelized shallot

Beef Brasato with polenta & horseradish gremolata

Punchlines

Grammy, I'm sick and tired of you calling me dipshit all the time. Why can't you be like other grandmothers and call me...

...my precious.

Burnin' up

Fire season is upon us in Los Angeles. Most of the news has done a really good job of freaking out people around the world so I thought I'd share some specifics, most of which is reported by the California Division of Forestry on their incident website and this information is updated frequently throughout the day.

First, here is a time-lapse video of what we're up against with Station Fire, positioned just north of Los Angeles in the foothills. As of this posting, the Station Fire is 5% contained. There's some debate as to whether these types of fire is good for the chaparral habitat or not. I'm no expert, but I'll try to synthesize what I have learned so far.

Some folks will argue that fire is good and fire suppression is bad. Fire suppression can lead to an overabundance of vegetation creating dangerous levels of fuels in California wildlands. While this may be true for some forestland (particularly in dry ponderosa forests in the southwest), it is not true for California chaparral.   

The fires ablaze in the foothills just north of Los Angeles is bad fire, the kind that destroy the natural resources that we enjoy. So this fire is bad, plain and simple.

It does however create some pretty awesome sunsets. 

Punchlines

Quit poking me, will ya?

I will not stop until you listen. Get a flu shot! Okay (poke poke) ... get one!

It is a well known fact that 17 out of every 10 Americans will get Swine Flu next month.