Joe Klein’s “angry, left-wing media” quote of the day!

Best. Quote. Ever.

“There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is “a task from God.” The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.”

This was taken from Joe Klein’s bad-ass piece on the Time magazine blog. Read Klein’s entire post here and as always, que viva la free press!

Sarah Palin scares me…

Christine and I haven’t been watching the Republican National Convention with nearly as much interest as we did the Dem’s rocking gathering in Denver last week, but, judging from what we have seen, some of the stuff going on in the Twin Cities this week is just plain scary.

First we had poor Bushie — yes, we actually felt sorry for him for once! — giving what will probably go down in the record books as the most gaffe-ridden speech of the modern age on NBC.

I don’t know how it aired on other networks, but for some reason the audio feed from the convention hall was not synced up with the feed from the White House, so Bush was left silently pausing in all these really weird places for like, forever!

I’m not sure if this was some covert NBC or McCain anti-Bush thing or not, but, the overall effect left Bush looking, if possible, dumber than usual. Poor cowboy is probably just counting the days till he and Laura can retire to the ranch…wow.

Then we had the curiously-orange Fred Thompson going into way too much detail about John McCain’s treatment at the hands of his captors in Vietnam. I mean, really, did we need to hear about McCain’s teeth being “broken at the gums” with a blunt object? Yikes-a-holy, Fred, we’re eating dinner here!

Even scarier than that was the sight of that old turncoat, former Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman going all Benedict Arnold by hyping up his buddy McCain at the expense of Barack and Hillary. Wow, I wish I could go back in time and erase his name from the ill-fated Gore-Lieberman ticket. That dude needs to go back to Hadassah and learn some manners!

But the biggest shock came last night when Alaska Governor Tina Fey took the stage at the convention. Talk about an Alaskan huskie! Jesus, that lady gave us the creeps big time! I mean, yeah, I’m glad a woman is on the ticket and everything, but, wow, this chick is hard core!

Her daughter’s baby-daddy drama aside — that poor Levi Johnston dude looked so scared watching his future Monster-in-law rip the Dems a new one! — Palin’s crazy-conservative, Creationist, book-banning, NRA-loving record as Governor is the least of our worries. Seriously!

For though Christine outright loathes the bitch, what scares me most about Palin is that she looks so damn normal, and, dare I say, even a little hot — especially in the now-infamous Photoshopped masterpiece below — that you’d never suspect she was such a right-wing nut job.

Watching her speak last night I gotta say I was impressed by how good Palin was at blanketing her blistering and often brutal attacks on the Obama camp beneath this warm veneer of  “hockey mom” homeyness. If you ask me, a wolf (or, cougar, if you will) in sheep’s clothing is the worst kind of scary. Yikes!

And afterwards, as Palin and her family dutifully shared some awkward hugs and smiles onstage with a very stiff-looking McCain, Christine and I could not help feeling how Bristol Palin’s baby-daddy looked all night…scared freaking shitless.

Go, Obama!

The return of Brenda Walsh?

As huge fans of the original show in it’s heyday — and crazy-huge fans of almost anything Shannen “Shando” Doherty has ever appeared in, including even her craziest TV movies! — Christine and I were kind of dying to see the new and supposedly-improved version of “Beverly Hills, 90210″ on the CW last night.

But after slogging through two hours of over-scored, oddly-paced dreck, all we can say is, what the hell? Or in the parlance of the CW’s far-superior teen sexfest, “Gossip Girl”, OMFG! Seriously, this “90210″ sucked so bad that we actually fast-forwarded through huge chunks of the show to get to the good stuff.

And, if you watched the season premiere last night, you know that I am being extremely generous in labeling any part of it as “good stuff”. Though some of the actors were winning — the new Brenda and Brandon surrogates were both pretty decent, and the resident mean girl had her moments, but that was about it — the biggest problem with the show is that it was just plain weird.

Boring, badly written and strangely jumpy, the show jerked us around so much that I had some serious Tivo whiplash. Everything just seemed so rushed, and with no scene lasting more than two to three minutes, I actually screamed at the TV at one point: “Let those scenes breathe, baby!” I mean, honestly, if this series was not based on an older, better show, it would have never made it past the pilot stage. Yes…it’s that freaking bad.

Another key ingredient that was missing last night was the “Spelling magic”. Love him or hate him, Aaron Spelling knew how to make some damn fine guilty-pleasure TV. Sure, some of his shows crossed the line into straight-up cheese (“7th Heaven” anyone?) but for the most part, the man was a hit-making machine, whose absence was never felt more poignantly than last night.

With any semblance of nuance and character development chucked out the window with Jason Priestley’s iconic sideburns, the entire show was DOA. Seriously, even Spelling would have had a hard time saving this sinking ship.

And though the press have been running “Shando” stories left and right, our girl Brenda had like, two scenes and both of them were snoozers. Jennie Garth’s return as Kelly wasn’t much more interesting, but hell, at least she got to look kinda “teacher-hot” in some tight-ass blouses and share a mysterious phone call with someone about her young son. Was it the boy’s father? And is said father someone we know from before? Who knows…and really, who cares?

But the much-touted return of Brenda Walsh amounted to “Shando” basically eating at The Peach Pit with Kelly and then offering to babysit for her when she went on a date. Yawn-o-rama! You brought Brenda back from a glamorous life on the London stage for this?? Yikes…

The Brenda Walsh we loved was spunky, pig-headed, impulsive and crazy as all hell. And, lord in heaven, if you needed a babysitter, you’d call Andrea Zuckerman way before you’d even think of calling Brenda. I mean, really!

So, watch this slapped-together CW crapfest at your own peril, amigos. And if you want a true, old-school Brenda Walsh fix, I reccommend picking up some of the early, best seasons of “90210″ on DVD.

And in the meantime…go, “Shando”!

Radiohead @ The Hollywood Bowl

After all the drama associated with scoring the tickets back in April, Christine and I finally saw Radiohead in concert at the Hollywood Bowl this week. Hooray!

The band was in town for a two night stay at the Bowl and we saw the Monday night show (8/25), which according to the vastly different set lists I saw for both nights, seems to have been the better of the two shows.

For not only did the band play almost all the songs from their haunting new album “In Rainbows”, but they also did a beautiful, stripped-down cover of the Neil Young classic “Tell Me Why” from his “After The Gold Rush” album. Thom Yorke’s voice on that song was straight up beautiful. Really amazing!

And better yet, the band also dug deep into their vast library of tunes to play some of our favorite songs from “Kid A”, “Amnesiac”, “Hail To The Thief”, “The Bends” and even, to the delight of the crowd, one of their best-loved albums, the band’s seminal “OK Computer”.

Man alive, when those opening chords of “Karma Police” filtered through the Bowl during their final encore, you could probably hear the audience screaming from space. That place went insane!

Also surprising was a stirring rendition of the song “Cymbal Rush” from Thom Yorke’s underrated solo venture “The Eraser”. I thought it was cool that the rest of the band let him play one of his own songs during the first encore, and the fact that he flubbed up on the piano and actually had to start again was very funny and totally endearing. Yorke actually told the crowd to “Shhh” so he could remember how the song went…hilarious!

And though the music was absolutely transcendent, the things the band did with lights and video screens was out-of-this-world amazing. I seriously doubt Christine and I will ever see a show that beautiful, I mean, those lights onstage were just gorgeous.

I’m not sure how they worked the light magic, but the stage was draped with these kind of chandelier-like tubes (they might have been glass) that lit up, changed color and even simulated rain.

As you can see from the pictures — which appear here “on loan” from fellow Radiohead fan Amy who took them at the band’s Tampa show in May, thank, Amy! — the set was almost too beautiful to look at. Truly dazzling…

And cooler still was the way the band used the Bowl’s groovy new video screens. Rather than simply filming the performance, they actually split the screens into quarters with each section highlighting a different band member playing live.

Even more amazing was the fact that there were virtually no cameras visible onstage. So, I don’t know what kind of crazy hidden camera tricks they were working, but that shit was super cool. And just when you’d get used to the arrangement of the screens on the monitors, they would change up and rotate, collide, even overlap. I joked with Christine that it was enough to give you a seizure…but wow, what a way to go!

And though some of the jackholes seated near us were a little loud and totally annoying — one poserish ho bag spoke in a fake English accent all night…grrr! — the sweet scent of some fairly primo weed wafting through the multicolor air all around us more than made up for them.

All in all, a pretty amazing night under the stars with Radiohead…wow…

Revenge of the Taco Trucks!

Woke up to some amazingly good news this morning. It seems that the ludicrous Taco Truck law we have mentioned more than a few times in these pages was overturned yesterday in Los Angeles Superior Court by taco-loving Judge Dennis Aichroth. Olé!!

Actually, not sure if Judge Aichroth enjoys some spicy street taco action or not, but whatever he eats, he knows a stupid, deeply flawed ordinance when he sees one. And more importantly, Aichroth knows what we and our amigos at  SaveOurTacoTrucks.org have been saying for months now: “Carne Asada is not a crime”. Damn straight!

Aichroth declared in his ruling that the law effectively banning taco trucks was “arbitrary”, “too ambiguous to be enforced” and best of all, that “this attempt to restrict the operation of catering trucks…is a pretext for creating a ‘naked restraint of trade’ and, as such, must be declared invalid”.

So, while Supervisor Gloria Molina — the self-loathing Latina behind this inane law — stews over her appeal options, the rest of us will be celebrating in the streets tonight with a round or two of delicious street tacos!

Que viva la Superior Court!

“The House Bunny”

I know there might be some haters out there who think this movie looks kinda lame, but let me tell ya, “The House Bunny” is one of the funniest, sweetest comedies I’ve seen in years. A candy-colored gem of a movie headlined by Anna Faris in a truly star-making role, “Bunny” is so funny that you actually miss some of the dialog from laughing so hard. Really!

And with a script this witty and fun, you don’t want to miss a word. I kid you not, amigos, you will be howling with laughter at some of this stuff.

And though some critics have slammed it as a female “Revenge of the Nerds”, as a serious fan of good college comedies, I actually think that is a huge compliment. For like “Nerds”, there is a sweetness beneath the laughs here that really elevates the material way beyond the typical frat/sorority house comedy.

Written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith — the team that brought us “Legally Blonde” and the vastly underrated “10 Things I Hate About You” — and produced by Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison shingle, the movie is such giddy fun that the minute it ended, we wanted to see it again.

Seriously, I haven’t felt that way about a mainstream Hollywood comedy since “Knocked Up”. And though I waited a few days to buy that when it came out, I promise you, I will be first in line at Target when “Bunny” hits DVD!

Channeling Marilyn Monroe at the peak of her comedic skills, Anna Faris is not only hysterical, but also, like Marilyn in her best roles, almost heartbreakingly sweet. Playing a former Playmate tossed out of the Playboy Mansion on the day after her 27th birthday, Faris finds new meaning and her true calling by helping a group of misfit girls save their crumbling sorority house.

I know that sounds like a pretty basic premise, but, trust me, “Bunny” — mostly due to Faris’ sparkling presence — is anything but ordinary. And though she has lit up the screen with some kick-ass comedic performances in the past, this is the kind of role that will make Anna Faris a household name.

And with Reese Witherspoon long having moved on to boring, more so-called “serious” fare, the possibilities for our girl Faris are endless! So, go, Anna!

Of course, as fantastic as Faris is, the movie wouldn’t be complete without the amazing supporting cast, all of whom shine here. Colin Hanks, Christopher McDonald and Beverly D’Angelo (as the aptly named Ms. Hagstrom) all seriously rock, but the sorority girls at the loser house that Faris champions are incredible.

I had never seen Emma Stone and Kat Dennings in a movie before, but they are both spectacular. And I think the biggest surprise for me wasn’t that Rumer Willis can act — because she really can, and she is hilarious! — but that “American Idol” finalist Katherine McPhee can too.

Playing the pregnant sorority girl constantly eating from a jar of peanut butter, McPhee is a natural comedienne. The scene of her squeegeeing her pregnant belly at the car wash is already a classic, and watching her sing a horribly off-key karaoke version of “Like A Virgin” in a bar will have any longtime “Idol” fan rolling on the floor with laughter.

I should also let you know, that I absolutely loathed McPhee on “Idol” and was prepared to do the same here, but she won me over in a big way. I guess you could say that I finally caught the McPheever! Go, Katherine!

Oh, and speaking of singers…Tyson Ritter, lead singer of one of my favorite guilt-pleasure bands, The All-American Rejects, was also surprisingly good. Anyone who has ever seen one of their music videos knows that this dude has charisma, but the fact that he can back up that charm with some pretty decent acting chops is a pleasant surprise. And the goofy chemistry he shares with Stone in their scenes together is perfect. Really fun stuff!

So, if you’re looking for some sweet, frothy Hollywood comedy done right, check out “The House Bunny”. Who knows, if you see the movie in Burbank, we just might be sitting next to you…yep, it’s that good.

Beijing Olympics: Week Three!

Everybody keeps saying that the Summer Olympics ended on Sunday, but according to our Tivo, Christine and I still have almost 48-hours worth of Olympics yet to watch. Weird…huh?

Well, the way I see it, until we finish plowing through the many moons of Olympic coverage we have stored up, the Games of the 29th Olympiad are very much alive and well in Burbank, amigos!

Now, before we get back to watching those rocking Synchronized Swimming and Modern Pentathalon finals, Christine and I just wanted to take a moment to wish that nice Michael Phelps boy well.

Man, we sure hope he wins all those swimming medals he came to Beijing for! Go for the gold, Phelpsy!

A text message from Obama…

I don’t know why everyone’s all complaining that they didn’t their text messages from Barack Obama the other night when he chose Senator Joe Biden as a running mate. I mean, yeah, the story hit the internet fast and everything, but Christine and I got our text message from Obama just fine. See…

Ah, well, I guess he just loves us more. In any case, can’t wait to get our cool Obama-Biden bumper stickers! And though I still think an Obama-Clinton ticket would kick ass, we both actually dug much of what Biden had to say in the democratic debates earlier this year and his selection makes a lot of sense.

Plus, Biden has the all-important tragic backstory that wins us over every time. Biden’s first wife and infant daughter died in a car accident on their way to celebrate his first Senate win many years ago, and Biden was actually sworn in at the hospital bedsides of his two surviving sons. Wow…if we’d known that sad-ass story, we probably would have voted for him in the primary!

Seriously, that’s political backstory gold, baby. Man, I sure hope McCain likes the view from his seven houses, because something tells me he’s gonna be spending a lot of time in them come 2009.

Anyway, here’s hoping our guys have a rocking time at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this week. Christine and I loved that town almost as much as Nashville. Oh, and Barack, if you and Joe need any recommendations on where to eat or drink in Denver, text us, dude. We’ll totally hook you guys up. L8ter!

“American Mall” song on Rock Band!

Heard the other day — from my non-gaming friend Ginger, of all people! — that the video game Rock Band is releasing some new downloadable songs to the Xbox 360 this week. And while the bands involved are both very cool — Duran Duran and Devo! — the biggest news in this household is that the other downloadable song is going to be “Get Your Rock On” from “The American Mall” soundtrack! Cool, huh?

Of course, I don’t own Rock Band (yet!) and we have a Wii, not an Xbox, so even if we did have Rock Band, we’d still have to wait a while to play the song. But how totally cool that MTV is releasing the song on Rock Band at all…yay!

I’m assuming Ginger heard about this latest development through one of her many visits to Duran Duran fansites and not from a sudden interest in hard-core gaming, but either way, thanks for the heads up, amiga! You rock!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go buy an Xbox and sneak it into the house before Christine gets home from work…

“American Mall” t-shirts @ Sears

I know I already told you about the Arrive Lounge website a billion times, but actually had the chance to check out some of “The American Mall” t-shirts in person the other day at Sears, and despite the fact that they didn’t have my size (or my brothers) they still seriously rocked!

As expected, the women’s clothing selections are much more varied than the men’s, but my only complaint with the girl clothes was they didn’t have cool “The American Mall” labels inside. I don’t remember who made their clothing, but half of the fun of buying this stuff is that is has the name of the movie inside it, right? So, why not buy the stuff with cool labels?

Anyway, the two styles of men’s t-shirts they had at our Sears were a white version of the Weinerland shirt than Ben rocks so memorably in the movie and a black t-shirt with red guitars and the words “Get Your Rock On” splashed all rockerishly across the front of it.

Luckily I already have a Weinerland t-shirt that I scored at the post-premiere party at the Cabana Club, so I’m covered. But if you’re interested in scoring some of this cool swag for yourselves, you best get on down to Sears soon, because this week’s circular was all bout “The American Mall”, and from what I could tell, that stuff was moving fast.

And if after maxing out your credit cards at Sears, you’re still in the market for more cool “The American Mall” merch, check out the Seen On MTV shop at: MTV.com. They have some different t-shirts, purses, military style caps, beanies, and even a kick-ass 2009 wall calendar! So, check it out!

And no, I don’t get a penny from any of this stuff, I’m just a nerdy fanboy trying to steer you in the right direction, mall-wise…so, enjoy!

Slovakian “Alice” wins the gold!

Alright, I know it’s kind of stupid, and totally un-PC, but sometimes when there are a bunch of people with really hard to remember names in certain Olympic events, Christine and I come up with nicknames to keep them straight. And as with most nicknames, the lamer they are, the easy they are to remember.

So, this past weekend, Slovakian kayaker Elena Kaliska became known in our house as Alice from “The Brady Bunch”. I know, stupid right? But all of those chicks kinda looked the same after a while, so whenever Kaliska did something cool, it was just easier to say: “OMG, Alice just rocked that slalom final!” than to remember her name and country.

And I ask you, does she not bear an uncanny resemblance to America’s favorite mid-70’s maid? Hell, yeah she does. And just like Alice, Kaliska cleaned house in the Women’s Single Kayak K1 finals this weekend and ended up taking home the gold medal for Slovakia.

I don’t remember watching kayaking before, but wow, that shit is exciting! Not only do the kayakers have to navigate an insanely choppy river of man-made rapids, but they also have to pass through a series of green racing gates on the way down and, get this, several more red gates that they must turn around and navigate through in the opposite direction. Insanity!

It was a fast and furious day at the Shunyi Rowing and Canoeing Park in Beijing — so much so that the silver medalist, Jacqueline Lawrence of Australia, actually sailed up off the course onto the grass at one point! — and just as we hoped, our tough-as-nails Alice, a gold medalist in the same event in Athens, won the day. So, rock on Slovakia. Somewhere, Sam the butcher is smiling…

Beach Volleyball Cheerleaders?

OK, speaking of stuff NBC does not show in their extensive coverage of the Olympics from Beijing…did you know that those scantily-clad girls in the background on the Beach Volleyball matches were cheerleaders? Christine and I have watched hours of Beach Volleyball this past week and we sure didn’t!

It wasn’t until scouring the NBC and official Chinese website for the games that I even came across pictures of these bad-ass babes in action! And, man alive, it looks like these young ladies put on quite a show, I mean, they have like, actual props and shit too! Wow!

So, just to get this straight, NBC can stop everything to show us Mary Carillo chomping on a fried scorpion at a street bazaar, but they can’t show us even a little glimpse of these gals in action? How on earth does that make ratings sense?

Anyway, I learned online — since none of the Beach Volleyball announcers apparently thought this was newsworthy enough — that the Beach Volleyball cheerleaders of Chaoyang Park were trained by former New England Patriot cheerleaders on how to dance, move and shake up the crowd. Patriots, indeed! Thank you, New England cheerleaders.

Now, if I could only find some live footage of these chicks in action, my Olympic coverage would be complete. Hmmm, I wonder if Mary Carillo takes requests?

UPDATE: Latvian “giant killers”, gone but not forgotten…

Though you wouldn’t know it from watching NBC’s frustratingly America-centric coverage of the games, two of my favorite Beach Volleyball players, the Latvian “giant-killers” Martins Plavins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs were knocked out of the running for the quarterfinals a few days back.

Honestly, most people never thought they had a chance at even getting past the preliminaries, but after killing Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser in their opening game at Beijing, the “giant-killers” were on a roll. After a surprising loss to Argentina on August 11th, they beat Switzerland 2-1 on August 13th, and were seriously on their way to the quarterfinals before getting wiped out by Austria on August 16th in a crushing 2-0 match at Chaoyang Park.

But even if they didn’t get much screen time — I had to settle for photos of their matches online! — these Baltic beach bums kicked some serious ass in Beijing and certainly put Latvia on the map in my book.

So, rock on, my Baltic brothers. Hope we see ya again in London in 2012!

Panda porn with Mary Carillo!

OK, Christine and I are still days behind in our Olympics coverage so this might be old news by now, but according to the fetching young lad on NBC, I think his name is Mary Carillo, panda experts in China actually show male pandas “panda porn” to get them in the mood! Crazy, huh?

And just in case we doubted the veracity of these reports, NBC actually showed us footage of a horny panda pacing back and forth in his cage while some juicy “panda porn” played on a TV nearby. Hilarious! All that was missing were some classic porno jams thumping away in the background.

And yes, I know Mary Carillo is a woman with a husband and two kids, but man, that old foghorn she calls a voice gives me the willies sometimes.

And though Ms. Carillo has taken a beating online for her looks, her voice and even the kinda borderline racist slant (no pun intended) to several of her reports from Beijing, we still love us some sweet Mary Carillo Olympic Moments. So, rock on, dude…er, Mary…and hooray for “panda porn”!

A sad day in Memphis…

Today marks the 31st anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. And though we didn’t get to travel to Memphis this year for Elvis Week, Christine and I did sign up for a free three-day membership to Sirius Radio so we could listen to the live broadcast of the candlelight vigil last night from Graceland.

And let me tell ya, not a dry eye in our living room. I know it sounds crazy, but that candlelight vigil is way up there on our list of life-changing events. It was just beautiful, and even hearing it on the internet feed this year was awesome.

Not only could you hear the crowd singing along with the music on Elvis Presley Blvd., but they also took some time to interview fans, friends and even an ex-girlfriend of The King as well. Touching stuff, baby!

And since no Elvis Week celebration would be complete without some major Elvis announcements, this year’s celebration has two really cool Elvis-related surprises up their sleeve.

One, is the upcoming release of Elvis Presley’s first duets album, “Christmas Duets” featuring current stars like Carrie Underwood, Martina McBride and Anne Murray — whose own Christmas album is one of our favorites! — singing along with Elvis’ old tracks. Hmmm…normally, I frown on this kind of thing, but hello, it’s Elvis. So it could be either really cool or really creepy. I’m hoping for more cool than creepy, but you never know…

And the other major announcement from Elvis Presley Enterprises is the upcoming release of a Graceland-approved Elvis and Priscilla Wedding Day Barbie set. Holy crap! Could anything be cooler than that? Two words: Amazon wish list. Actually, I think that’s three words…

In any case, just glad to have some new Elvis stuff to buy in the months to come. And with Lisa Marie rumored to be expecting twins sometime soon — bringing the grand total of Elvis grandkids to four! — wow…this really is a good week to be an Elvis fan. Long live “The King”!

Beijing ‘08 Olympic Mascots

As any hard-core Olympic geek will tell you, the games are only as good as their cuddly little mascots…and this year’s batch is top-of-the-line, baby! Nicknamed the “Friendlies” or “Fuwa”, these Chinese “good luck dolls” outpace even the classic Nagano “Snowlets” from 1998 in the cute department.

Colored the bright hues of the Olympic rings, the “Friendlies” are Beibei (the blue fish), Jinjing (the black panda), Huanhuan (the red Olympic flame), Nini (the green swallow) and Yingying (the yellow antelope).

And though I jumbled up their names, when you put them in the proper order, it says “Beijing Welcomes You!” in Chinese. Or something like that…

Either way, as you can see, these guys are almost too cute for words. And though we only bought one of the plush “Friendlies” at the Chinese Pavillion at Epcot this past April — we have had Huanhuan, the red one, sitting on top of our TV since the games began! — I recently discovered a cool site where you can download desktop wallpapers of each and every one of the Chinese “Friendlies”.

And while you might not be crazy enough to place a stuffed one on your TV — or to have purchased a slew of “Friendlies” shot glasses, a softball and a crazy expensive “Friendlies” coffee cup at Epcot — you still might wanna have these guys on your computer screen for fun.

So, download away at the appropriately named: OlympicFunPage and, as those bad-ass, bronze-medal-winning Mexican diving chicas would say: “Que viva los “Friendlies”!

“The American Mall” hits stores!

Sorry for not writing in a while, have been kind of crazy busy this week…working on the “American Mall” sequel, watching Olympics, and of course trolling around local stores looking for the best price on “American Mall” DVDs.

I know, I know, is there anything geekier than someone posing for pics behind a DVD display case at Sears? Probably not, but hey, how often am I gonna get a chance to do that?? I mean, come on!

Also hit up a gigantic Blockbuster Video on the Westside (see pic above) and to my delight, there was only one copy of “Mall” left on the shelf to rent…at noon! Wow…someone is renting my movie in Santa Monica!

Anyway, the DVD is for sale everywhere right now and though I recommend snapping up the Special Two Disc Edition at Sears — on sale for $12.99 through 8/16, and $19.99 after that — I did just find out that MTV.com has the standard Extended Edition DVD available for the low, low price of $2.79.

Yep, for the price of a corndog at the mall, you can own “The American Mall” on DVD. Somewhere the retail Gods are smiling…

“The American Mall” airs tonight!

I’m sure I don’t have to remind you guys — after promoting the crap out of it for months now! — but my movie, “The American Mall”, finally airs tonight on MTV at 9:00PM. So, check it out!

And if for some reason you forget to Tivo it, no worries, because tomorrow, August 12th, “The American Mall” soundtrack and DVD go on sale online and in stores nationwide. I’m buying my copy at Sears of course, but I did scope out the Sunday supplements and Circuit City has the best price of the bunch. They are selling the DVD and the soundtrack as a combo for $20. Not bad!

Anyway, I gotta go “get my rock on” right now. Hope you dig the movie!

“Smash” this, Frenchie!

Barely a day after cocky French swimmer Alain Bernard declared his intention to “smash” the American rely team in the men’s 4×100m Free Relay, Michael Phelps and company set the Frenchies straight with a record-breaking gold medal performance in the event.

As with the Latvian giant-killers the day before, this was a match for the ages, folks. The American’s and the French were neck in neck most of the relay, but in the last few seconds, 32-year-old Jason Lezak kicked it up a notch and managed to beat the former world-record holder — Bernard, who was swimming in the lane next to him — to the punch by 0.08 seconds. Insanity!

The look on Bernard’s face was priceless. And even with a silver medal spot on the podium for him and his team, that “smash” quote is gonna haunt his ass for a while. But the looks on the American team’s faces were just plain awesome.

Not only did they win the gold — Phelp’s second of a hoped-for eight at the Beijing games! — but the American Free Relay team also beat the world record by 1.30 seconds. Ha-ha…”smash” that, Frenchie!

Oh, and um…just for the record, I love French stuff, you know, movies, wine, bread, whatever. I don’t endorse “freedom fries” and any of that shit, but man, I could not have scripted a better comeuppance for that Alain Bernard punk. And you know what’s even cooler…?

At the medal ceremony, Phelps actually stepped off his gold medal perch beside his teammates and went over to shake the French team’s hands. A cool, classy move by a rock star swimmer who knows the true meaning of good sportsmanship, and yet another classic Olympic moment…

Latvian “giant-killers” rule the day!

OK, Christine and I spent almost all of our waking hours this weekend watching the Olympic coverage from Beijing and so far, we have discovered a few very interesting things…

One: the American female gymnastic’s team needs to seriously step it up, because those little girls on the Chinese team are AWESOME. Two: Chinese lady weightlifters kick ass. And three: Chinese people really, really love Kobe Bryant. Seriously, it’s kinda crazy…

And while Christine loved watching those sideways walking horses in the Equestrian Dressage events, I gotta say, my favorite moment so far was the way a couple of kinda stonerish Baltic beach bums kicked our American golden boys asses in the beach volleyball preliminaries.

It was a classic moment, the Latvian team, Martins Plavins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs, came into the Olympics placed 23 out of 24 teams. The American team, Todd “The Professor” Rogers and Phil “The Thin Beast” Dalhausser came to Beijing expecting to clean house and go home with the gold.

But in a truly thrilling preliminary match up, the Latvians showed our guys what the Olympic spirit is all about. I’m not kidding you, man, Plavins and Aleksandrs kicked ass. It was like watching Rocky beat the crap out of Ivan Drago…really, a battle of total David and Goliath proportions. It was epic, baby!

And the story behind those crazy Latvians was even cooler. There are so few beach volleyball players of note in Latvia that Plavins and Aleksandrs actually trained by playing on the beach against six other guys. SIX! Apparently, that was the only way to truly simulate the caliber of players they would face in the games. Now that is Olympic spirit, amigos. Just awesome…

And though the Latvian “giant-killers” — as they’re quickly coming to be known online — were knocked down a few games later by some bad-ass Argentians, as of right now, they still have a chance at medaling. So, rock on Latvia!

Warning: Olympic nerdiness ahead

Just wanted to give y’all a warning that there might be a whole lotta Olympic news coming your way in the next couple of weeks. With our Tivo taping round the clock — I’m not kidding, that red light is always on! — we have been insanely devouring Olympic coverage since the Opening Ceremonies on Friday night.

And though neither of us has cut or dyed our hair like this crazy cool Chinese fan below, Christine and I are all about the games, yo. So get ready for a whole lot of Olympic “See” action in the days to come…

More shamless-self promotion…

After waking up this morning to find out that my ugly mug was appearing on the front pages of not just one newspaper, but two, all I can say is: wow, it must have been a slow news day in Burbank and Santa Cruz. Ha!

Seriously, I knew there would be a couple of Tomás-centric “American Mall” articles appearing soon, but I had no idea they would come out on the same day and both be on the front page. Crazy!

And while I haven’t seen the article from my hometown newspaper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, in person, I did receive an awesome scanned copy of the article from my Dad and it looked cool. Thanks, Dad! And it sounds like my friend Ginger — who is actually quoted in the article! — has secured me a goodly amount of Sentinels as well, so, I think I’m covered.

And I think I’m pretty good on the local front as well. After reading the Burbank Leader about twenty times this morning, Christine and I spent the rest of the afternoon snatching up free copies of the paper from news racks around town. She drove, and I jumped out and grabbed Leaders from every rack we passed. We were the Bonnie and Clyde of stolen local newspapers, but we had a blast.

Speaking of fun, the pics here were taken in front of this strangely futuristic video kiosk at the Burbank Town Center which was playing “TAM” previews of a loop. So, naturally, while hitting the mall with my brother on Friday, I forced him to take these spectacularly nerdy picture of me in front of it.

You can imagine the stares we got as Ryan and I stood there waiting for the kiosk to cycle through the ads for GNC and Forever 21. Seriously, I’m kinda surprised no one called Mall Security…we must have looked so creepy just lurking there with our cameras at the ready. Yikes…

Anyway, the good news is, we got the pics! So, enjoy. Oh yeah, and before getting to the actual article links, I gotta give a huge shout out to my boy, James for writing the juicy little press release that made all this shameless self-promotion possible to begin with. You rock, dude!

You can check out the Santa Cruz Sentinel article here: