The Library Store featured in Los Angeles Magazine!

Just found out that Christine’s store, aka The Library Store, is going to be featured in February’s “Hidden L.A.” issue of Los Angeles Magazine as one of their best “below-the-rader boutiques”.  Hooray!

Cooler still is the fact that the magazine only chose six stores to feature in the retail section of the issue. That’s right, amigos…of the hundreds, if not thousands, of super cool retail haunts in the Los Angeles metro area, The Library Store is one of the top six picks. How cool is that?

Oh yeah, and on top of all that, The Library Store was also voted Best Bookstore last year by the Los Angeles Downtown News. And, as anyone who has shopped there before can tell you, unusual books are only one of the many, amazingly-eclectic gifts on sale at The Library Store.

I dunno, I might be a little biased here, but, I don’t remember rad things like this happening before Christine took over the buying. So, rock on, sweetie. You and your super cool staff deserve every honor you receive!

For those of you who haven’t checked out the awesomeness for yourself, The Library Store is located in the heart of the historic Richard J. Riordan Central Library at 630 West Fifth Street in downtown Los Angeles.

And if you can’t make it there in person, check out the scads of groovy gifts available on their website here. Long live The Library Store!

The WordPress/Make.See.Eat.Do. Year in Review (2010)

Happy 2011, everyone! With all the “year in review” wrap ups going on right now, I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring with this super cool Blog Health email I got from WordPress today.

Wow…who knew that people cared that much about Denny’s and the freaking KFC Buffet? Thanks for sharing, WordPress. You guys rock! So, without further ado, I give you our blog’s  first official Year in Review. Enjoy!

__________________________________________________________________

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how your blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads: Wow!

Crunchy numbers

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 53,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 70 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 494 posts. There were 228 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 39mb. That’s about 4 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was February 9th with 432 views. The most popular post that day was Free Grand Slam Day @ Denny’s!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were designdazzle.blogspot.com, nurserymuralsandmore.com, en.wordpress.com, flickr.com, and search.aol.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for the orphanage, kfc buffet, bettie page, baby nursery, and marla singer.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Free Grand Slam Day @ Denny’s! February 2009

2

Greta’s baby nursery featured on Unique-baby-gear.com March 2009
8 comments

3

“The Orphanage” October 2007
8 comments

4

The KFC Buffet August 2007
5 comments

5

Bettie Page (1923-2008) December 2008
5 comments

Some of your most popular posts were written before 2010. Your writing has staying power! Consider writing about those topics again.

See you in 2011!

“Not Forgotten” on Showtime

Just found out that “Not Forgotten” had it’s pay-cable debut last night on Showtime. Yay! We don’t have Showtime, but, for those who do, “Not Forgotten” plays several times over the next couple of weeks on the networks of Showtime and will be available at Showtime On Demand through the end of the month.

Finally, those of you who missed “Not Forgotten” on the big screen and on DVD and Blu-Ray will have one more chance to see my movie. Whew! 🙂 Oh yeah, and if you really don’t know anyone with Showtime, you could always watch it on NetFlix On Demand, like my brother-in-law did today. Thanks, Rob!

To see the complete schedule of “NF” air dates on Showtime, click here. And if I could just say one last super nerdy thing before I sign off…how cool is it that my movie was the lead-in tonight for groovy, award-magnet shows like “Nurse Jackie” and “United States of Tara”? Awesome!!

Christine’s award-winning Gingerbread House Bundt Cake

OK, we have been waiting to blog about Christine’s award-winning bundt cake for a year. Literally! See, by the time we finished making it for Christine’s work Christmas party, it was already too late in the season to blog about it, so, we skipped it. Well, not this year!

Actually, there isn’t much to this thing…all you need is a Nordic Ware Bundt Pan, Gingerbread cake mix and all kinds of crazy candy for the outside. We bought our Bundt pan the year before at an after-Christmas sale at Sur La Table, and from what I can gather, our exact style is no longer available on most sites. But I did find a similar pan at Wal-Mart that would work just as well.

For the cake itself, we used Trader Joe’s Deep Dark Gingerbread Cake and Baking Mix, which is freaking delicious on its own, but even better in tiny Christmas house form. Yum!

As you can see in the second picture above, the cake comes out of the over kind of rounded on the bottom, so, we cut that part off and promptly ate it. Then, with the bottom of our Gingerbread house flattened, we placed it in the center back of our cake plate (gotta leave room for a big, snowy front yard, yo!) and got down to decorating the outside of our house.

Aside from the little jelly candies we used in the windows — which we found in the candy aisle at our local CVS — we stuck to pretty traditional candy decor: M&M’s, Red Vines, candy canes, and marshmallows.

The most expensive “building materials” we used were probably the Williams-Sonoma chocolate covered peppermint sticks (aka North Poles) we used for the fence. They weren’t cheap, but we only needed a few of them and since we had them in the house already, we used them.

The snowy ground cover in the yard was powered sugar mixed with water and, lemme tell ya, that stuff was hard to work with! You have to wait for it to kinda half-dry before anything will stick to it and if you wait too long, it gets too hard and you’re screwed. Trust me, this is where having two people working on the house came in very handy!

After plopping down a marshmallow snow woman in the front yard, we dusted the entire house with more powdered sugar and hurried off to the party where, lo-and-behold, we actually won a prize! Hooray!

But even cooler than the shiny award certificate or the $20 Target gift card that went with it, was the fact that the people at the party positively devoured our Gingerbread house. I’m not kidding, man. I saw a dude scraping the sugar snow off the plate…crazy!

I’m not saying everything we used wasn’t edible, because it totally was, but, wow, we never thought anyone would actually eat the whole thing. Yikes…guess the pickings on the buffet table were slim.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a quick, easy-to-make Gingerbread house this holiday season, Nordic Ware has the pan for you. Happy Baking, amigos!

“Not Forgotten” is on sale now!

That’s right, amigos…after premiering at the 2009 Slamdance Film Festival and playing to packed houses and rave reviews across the Southwest and in Los Angeles and New York City, “Not Forgotten” is finally available on DVD and Blu Ray wherever DVD’s are sold. If you’re looking for a deal, Amazon has the best online price ($14.99) but I bought mine this week at Best Buy for the same price.

“Not Forgotten” is also for sale at Wal-Mart — thanks for the heads up, Minnesota kinfolks! — and available to purchase and rent at Blockbuster Stores nationwide. So, check it out today!

Oh yeah, and aside from the audio commentary that I mentioned before, and my brief cameo in the movie, you can also catch a glimpse or two of my sweaty mug in the “Making Of Featurette” in the special features. I’m the dude with the gigantic head that says “awesome” a lot, you can’t miss me…

“Not Forgotten” to debut on DVD and Blu Ray 11/3

Just wanted to remind you guys that my movie “Not Forgotten” is debuting on DVD and Blu Ray next Tuesday, the 3rd of November. You can rent or buy the movie anywhere DVDs are rented or sold or you can even, as I just discovered, burn an illegal bootleg copy of your very own on a number of sites online.

Hmm…I guess I should be honored that someone took the time to upload a bootleg copy of the DVD (complete with the bootleg cover art pictured on the Blu Ray box below) but, I think I’d rather have you guys buy a regular copy instead. Besides, I think the new cover art is much cooler.

Ooo…and if you do buy a real copy next week, not only will you get to see “Not Forgotten” in a beautiful widescreen transfer, but you will also be able to listen to the super cool feature commentary I recorded with the movie’s director, my co-writer, Dror Soref. We had an awesome time recording it this past summer, and let me tell ya, we kept it very real. So, it should make for a pretty good listen.

Either way, mark your calendars, amigos, because next Tuesday is truly a day NOT to be FORGOTTEN. Urgh. Sorry, I couldn’t resist…

“Not Forgotten” to open in NYC!

Got word earlier this week that my movie “Not Forgotten” will be opening in New York City and three theatres in El Paso, Texas this Friday, September 11th, 2009. Which is like, tomorrow…so, yay!

Not sure what triggered this late-game release strategy, but I do know that “Not Forgotten” will be playing in the heart of New York’s legendary theatre district at the AMC Empire 25 on 42nd Street. If it does as well in the big apple as it did in Los Angeles, Austin, and Phoenix, “Not Forgotten” could expand into other markets, which would be very cool. No word yet on which markets we’re talking about, but, I’m still pulling for you, Santa Cruz!

In the meantime, to make way for the expanded theatrical release, our distributor (Anchor Bay) has pushed the DVD release date back from October to November 3rd. Sorry, Dad…you’ll have to wait a little longer.

But as for the rest of you, if any of y’all know anyone in NYC or El Paso…spread the word. Because starting tomorrow, “Not Forgotten” is back on the big screen, amigos! For complete ticket and showtime information check out the movie’s official website at: www.notforgottenmovie.com

“Not Forgotten” night at the Mann’s Chinese!

Friday night was the Hollywood premiere of my new movie “Not Forgotten” at the Mann’s Chinese and let me tell ya, it rocked! We had an awesome audience, great food and drinks at the after party at The Grill, and best of all, the movie played to packed houses all weekend long. Yay!

No official word on what that means for future distribution plans, but according to the fine folks at BoxOfficeMojo.com, “Not Forgotten” did manage to beat the pants off heavy-hitters like “17 Again”, “Hannah Montana” and even “Wolverine” (again!) on a per screen average, so, I’d say we kicked ass!

Also, I just found out that we will be moving to the Mann Beverly Center 13 on Friday, so, if you missed us last week at the Chinese, check us out this weekend at the Beverly Center by clicking here.

In the meantime, back to the premiere! After mingling with the cast and crew in the lobby, I walked the press line outside the theatre for a few pics and then Christine and I headed upstairs to our sweet-ass leather seats in the VIP section. Yep, I said leather seats, amigos. Honestly, I didn’t even know the Mann’s had a VIP section, but it was awesome.

The funniest thing was that Christine and I — who have both seen the movie a gazillion times — were completely freaked out by the kidnapping stuff this time around. I know it sounds crazy, but we both kept looking at each other like: “Should we call home just to make sure Greta wasn’t taken by Santa Muerte?” Wow, I guess that’s what being a parent is all about, huh? Weird…

Without giving too much away, all I can say is that if any of that spooky shit ever happens to my daughter…I might just go “mental” too. Yikes!

Immediately following the screening there was a super cool party just around the corner at the swanky Hollywood Grill. In keeping with the Tex-Mex setting of the movie, the food was all Mexican — right down to the never-ending bottles of Corona with lime! — and though the chicken tostadas were kinda weird, the carne asada was out-of-this-world fantastic. My brother, Ryan, and I went back for that like, three times. Awesome!

Of course, the company was even better. Although neither Simon Baker or Paz Vega could make the premiere — she’s eight-and-a-half months pregnant and lives in Spain, and Simon is supposedly filming a movie in Australia, although he appeared on both “Regis & Kelly” and “Jimmy Fallon” on Monday night, so, who knows? — the rest of mi buen amigos from the supporting cast were there in spades and we had a blast.

And though there were several cool celebrity sightings — Marion Ross from “Happy Days” came with her son, Jim Meskimen, who is the nicest guy in the world, even if he plays a child molester in our movie! — my favorite had to be Oscar-nominee and 70’s icon, Karen Black.

Miss Black was supposed to appear in an AFI student film of mine, “The Lone Star Letters”, way back in the day and I had always wanted to meet her in person. So, when I saw her noshing on tacos near the bar, I stumbled over. Being the geek that I am, I started with: “Are you Karen Black?” Lame…I know, but I was completely starstruck.

She was beyond cool and of course had no memory of my nerdy student film or why she couldn’t appear in it, but really, who cared at that point…I mean, I was talking about my movie with Karen-freaking-Black, how cool and totally Hollywood is that? Crazy!

Anyway, we all stayed way too late and drank and ate way too much, but, wow, what a party! Thanks to everyone who came to the premiere to party down with us and most of all to those of you who went out and actually paid to see “Not Forgotten” on it’s opening weekend in Los Angeles. My Aunt Linda and Uncle George actually drove down from the Fresno area to see the movie on Sunday afternoon. Wow!

So, thanks again for all the “Not Forgotten” love, amigos. You guys rock!!

“Not Forgotten” beats “Wolverine”!!

OK, technically, the fine print should read…”at one theatre in Austin“, but still, how freaking cool is that? And not only did “Not Forgotten” rake in the dough on a per screen average, but we managed to double the combined box office take of the other three movies playing at the complex. Yee-haw!

That means that we beat the pants off X-MEN: ORIGINS WOLVERINE, GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST, and ADVENTURELAND. Crazy, huh? But even cooler still is the fact that we more than tripled the performance of the current worldwide, number one blockbuster, X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, in its opening weekend at the Dobie. So, yay for us!

And thank you to everyone in Austin who got out there on opening weekend to support our film! Looking forward to seeing you this week at the AMC Deer Valley in Phoenix and most of all, next weekend, May 15-17th in Los Angeles. As you probably remember by  now, “Not Forgotten” opens at the Mann’s Chinese in Hollywood and the Mann’s Plant 16 in Van Nuys on May 15th…so, if you don’t wanna incurr the wrath of Santa Muerte, you best show up!

See ya at the movies…

“Not Forgotten” TV spot

The official “Not Forgotten” trailer has been around for a couple of weeks now, but here, at long last is the 30-second TV commercial that is currently running in Austin, TX and will start airing in Los Angeles any minute. So, if you live in either of these areas, keep your eyes peeled, amigos.

And if you don’t live in either of those areas, here is the latest juicy, R-rated clip from “Not Forgotten”. Enjoy!

“Not Forgotten” to open at Chinese Theatre in Hollywood!

Just found out that my movie, “Not Forgotten”, will be opening theatrically in Los Angeles on May 15th at the Mann’s Chinese in Hollywood. Wow, from Slamdance to the Chinese…who knew?

No word yet on when the premiere will be, but I do know that the movie will open next week (May 1st) in Austin, Texas at Landmark’s legendary Dobie Theatre near the University of Texas. This is the same theatre were a young Richard Linklater launched his career with the indie sensation “Slacker”, so, I’m hoping some of the good vibes in the joint rub off on our movie too.

After opening in Austin, “Not Forgotten” will slowly roll out in a number of cities across the Southwest before landing in Los Angeles on the 15th. Aside from screening at the Chinese, the movie will also be playing in the Valley at the Mann’s Plant 16 in Van Nuys.

For updated information on screenings near you or to read our rocking-good reviews from the Hollywood Reporter and Variety, check out our homepage at: NotForgottenmovie.com. And in the meantime, pictured below, is the final theatrical poster for “Not Forgotten”. Enjoy!

Greta’s baby nursery featured on Unique-baby-gear.com

OK, first she made a splash on Evite with this adorable pic, but now, barely three weeks into the world our baby girl has made her mark in another way. As of late last week, her nursery was featured on the rocking website Unique-baby-gear.com. Yay!

And not only did the fine folks at Unique Baby Gear ask me to write up a brief description of the products featured in Greta’s nursery, but they also entered our nursery design into their nursery theme design contest! Cool, huh? The award isn’t given out until the end of the year, but first prize is a whopping $200 Amazon gift card, so, we’re keeping our fingers crossed…

If you haven’t explored the website for yourself and have a baby on the way you totally should. Hell, even if you don’t have a baby on the way, the site is pretty fun. There are tons of very cool baby gear ideas. And while you’re there, feel free to comment on our page as part of the contest is based on user comments and we could use the votes, yo!

To read my description of how Christine and I cobbled together the design elements for Greta’s funky baby nursery, click here. And to see more pics like those above, check out our Flickr site here. And if you wanna swing by and see Greta’s room for yourself, come on down to Burbank and we’ll hook you up…

Halloween Cupcakes: 2008 Edition

Farmer’s Daughter Bean here. I know it’s been awhile…but it’s too hot to bake during the summers in LA, so I haven’t spent much time in the kitchen. But now, with the harvest season in full swing, I figured it was time to make some goodies, and since my husband likes to say that Halloween wouldn’t be complete without my cupcakes…cupcakes it was!

First, I looked up some tasty recipes in one of my favorite cookbooks, Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans and came upon the Spiced Pumpkin recipe. Once I saw the pictures inside, I knew that I had to try these out! The batter looked so good I was dying to try some, but in my current state, I wisely resisted the temptation.

Tomás and my sister-in-law Laura — who were playing “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed” all night while I baked — said the batter on the beaters was “delish”, so, I kept baking. Trust me, it took a lot of willpower to wait for the final product with Cream Cheese Frosting and cinnamon frosting spiderwebs, but it was definitely worth the wait.

The cake was very light and had just the perfect amount of pumpkin spice. I did switch it up a bit by omitting the crystallized ginger from the recipe, partly because I didn’t have any on hand, but mostly because I just kind of needed immediate satisfaction at that point. But the cupcakes still tasted great.

The other cupcakes I made that night didn’t turn out as cute. For that batch I used the Butter Cupcake recipe and the Cream Cheese Frosting from Cupcakes! again. They were supposed to look like little pumpkins, but the Tootsie Roll stems didn’t really turn out as well as I had envisioned them.

They still tasted good though, but Tomás and Laura (and later Ryan!) raved about the pumpkin spice…so, I’ll definitely make those again.

For those of you who have never baked from scratch, you must try it. And with the holidays approaching, there is no better time to crack open your favorite cookbook and give it a whirl. It takes a little longer, but if you like to bake, the results are totally worth it. Just ask the nerdy gamers in my living room!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Almond Butter Cupcake Disaster

Hey again, Farmer’s Daughter Bean here with another “make” post. Only this time, what I ended up making was a bit of a disaster.

Earlier this week, Tom came up with the brilliant idea of making some “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” cupcakes. I would make the cupcakes, he would make tiny crystal skulls out of marzipan to put on top and we would have “Indy 4” cupcakes to enjoy while waiting in line to see the movie. It all sounded so fun…in theory. The reality was something much worse.

To start with, I have given up sugar and white flour, so I needed to come up with an alternative. Sounds easy, right? Plenty of people substitute agave nectar for sugar, so I picked some up at Trader Joe’s and got to work. I figured the white flour shouldn’t be too hard to replace either, so I used some oat bran and almond meal instead. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

Oh yeah, and did I mention that the cupcakes were supposed to be Peanut Butter? But since I’m not eating that either, I just switched it out for some tasty Trader Joe’s Almond Butter instead. So far, so good. Everything went smoothly and even Tom agreed that the batter tasted really good. Sorry I didn’t take pictures of the process, but I was too wrapped up in everything to even think about bringing a camera into the mix.

Coming out of the oven, they didn’t look half bad. I’ll admit the tops were a bit sunken in, but they still looked like cupcakes. So, I let them cool and decided to taste one before frosting them. They didn’t taste bad, but the spongy texture was kind of strange. Tom said they tasted like “hippie” and something tells me that was not a compliment.

To me, they had more of the texture of a bran muffin than a cupcake. In hindsight, I think oat bran is just way too course of a substitute for white flour. Sadly, instead of Peanut Butter Cupcakes, I ended up with “hippie” Almond Butter Muffins, and weird one’s at that.

I did make some frosting too but that was an even bigger disaster, so I won’t even get into that. Tom called it “chocolate soup” and even I had to admit that’s kind of what it looked like. It tasted great, but when you coupled it with my sunken cupcakes, it was not a pretty sight.

As you can probably imagine, Tom never did get around to making those crystal skulls either (sorry, Indy). As for me, I think I’ll skip the substitutions in my cupcake recipes and stick to dark chocolate and fruit when I’m craving something sweet. Or better yet, I’ll just make proper oat bran muffins next time out!

Thanks for reading!

Seven months ago Christine and I started our blog with the hope that maybe, if we were lucky, our very close friends and family would read our nerdtastic ramblings…and seeing as we just passed the 15,000 hit mark, well, I guess they kind of did.

So, although we are still constantly amazed that anyone reads us at all…we gotta give y’all a huge shout out for your support. Thank you for not just reading our posts, but also for your rocking-good comments. You guys have made this whole process way more fun and rewarding than we would have ever expected…so muchas gracias for everything!

Aside from our crazy-loyal daily readers (you guys seriously rule!), we also know that there is no way in hell we would have gotten nearly as many hits as we have without kick-ass link-meisters like James & Tim, Nina, Will, Dan, Tevana, Natalie, and our newest hit-maker, becauseweloveit. You guys have sent some awesome cyber traffic our way and it is greatly appreciated, so, thanks!

And finally, thanks to those original close friends (especially that fervid blog pusher, Ginger) and family we started this blog for to begin with. You guys are way too numerous to name individually, but, wow…just wow. Without your eyeballs, “make. see. eat. do.” is nothing, baby! So, thanks again and here’s to the next 15,000 hits…whenever they may come.

In the meantime, enjoy these screen caps I found online of some strange Google Language Tools translations of our blog posts from days gone by.

We knew that Italians had kind of an Elvis Presley thing going on, but wow…who knew that the French had such mad love for the Chenbot? Mon dieu!

“Not Forgotten” Teaser Poster

While he is probably best known for his work on the Golden Globe-nominated CBS series, “The Guardian” and his more recent turn in “The Devil Wears Prada”, our lead actor, Simon Baker also has a rabid, über-geeky “fanboy” following based on his work in “Red Planet”, “The Ring II” and “George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead”.

So, because of that, our distributor recently released a pretty rocking international teaser poster for our movie to the nerd-tastically awesome magazine, Fangoria. When Ryan and I were kids we used to live for Fangoria magazine…it was totally geeky, totally gory and totally awesome! So, needless to say, I was kind of stoked that the first leak of the poster was to them…

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And, hey, if our international teaser poster is good enough for the horror and sci-fi fans of the world, than I figure it’s probably good enough for you guys too. So, here it is…enjoy!

The Hollywood Reporter!

OK, totally knock on wood…but eight crazy years after my co-writer Dror and I began writing our screenplay “Not Forgotten”, we are finally — at long, long last — in the home stretch.

We have the financing in place, we recently snared a really cool lead actor: “The Devil Wears Prada’s” baddie Simon Baker, and production is set to begin just after New Years in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Yeah!

Featured above is a screenshot of an article that appears in today’s Hollywood Reporter announcing the casting of Mr. Baker as our lead.

The Reporter got a few of the major plot details wrong — Simon’s daughter is kidnapped in the movie, NOT dead — but overall, it’s a pretty cool write-up. And at the end of the day, who cares what they write as long as this movie gets made?!

After eight years and far too many rewrites to count, you’d think I’d be dancing around a giant sombrero on the floor right about now — the movie is set partially in Mexico, I’m not just randomly hating on dancing Mexicans — but honestly, I’m still kind of in shock that this is finally happening.

Hmm…guess I’ll have to save the drunken Mexican hat dancing for Santa Fe.

You can read the entire Reporter write-up at: “www.hollywoodreporter.com”
Or check out the shorter Reuter’s blurb at: “www.reuters.com”