Summer TV: Project Runway

I did not forget about my summer television mini-series.  I love competition shows.  Some of my favorites are Top Chef, American Idol, and Project Runway.  There's nothing a judge-y person like myself loves more than judging people on TV.

Like most great reality television, this season of Project Runway has a great cast of contestants including an Asian man with impeccable taste and a cosmopolitan accent that I can't place, a curmudgeon of an old man who used to design for major fashion houses, a good sprinkling of interesting gay men, and a woman who just learned how to sew a few months ago.

The challenges this season have been especially creative.  In one, the contestants had to make an outfit out of materials made entirely from a pet store (see judging below of an outfit made out of hamster bedding!) and in the most recent episode they had to dress models on circus stilts.  It's not the typical set of circumstances under which designers work, but it adds a lot of fun.

The two best parts of the show, however, are the runway show and Tim Gunn.  The runway show is a fun batch of eye candy and Tim Gunn is the picture of classiness and style.  Plus, his catch phrase makes the show: "Make it work."  It also doesn't hurt that the show highlights my favorite city, the fashion capital of America, New York.

Catch new episodes on Thursdays at 9:00 on Lifetime

Hot Spot Charlottesville: The Tavern

The Tavern

1140 Emmet Street North, Charlottesville, VA

Lightning fast service, Southern charm, great values, and delicious comfort food - find it all at Charlottesville's The Tavern, "where students, townspeople, and tourists meet."  But if you happen to go in the summer and eliminate the students from the equation, the lines are much shorter.  The menu is huge and is full of amazing classics, like biscuits and gravy and corn cakes and new favorites like lemon poppy seed or bacon pancakes.  Our waitress was delightful and I've literally never received faster service.  Our first items came within two minutes, no exaggeration, and everyone had all their food within five minutes.

I ordered a cheese and bacon omelet with a side of biscuits and gravy.  The biscuits were so fluffy, buttery and delicious they would be amazing on their own, but slathering them in pork sausage gravy doesn't hurt either.  The omelet had whole slices of bacon in it, not just crumbles.  Pam ordered strawberry pancakes and they came with a generous portion of real fruit and whipped cream.  Four of us ate to our hearts' content for just over $37.  Jake got the pancake of the month which was corn cakes with blueberries and they were amazing.  The atmosphere is warm and the ceiling is UVA blue and orange.  There is no beating it. 

We glanced at the lunch menu too, which offers a selection of "kosher style" sandwiches.  Apparently The Tavern's interpretation of "kosher style" is: exactly the opposite of kosher.  Almost all the sandwiches offered meat and cheese combos.  Well Toto, we're certainly not in New York City anymore.  

Virginia is for Lifepartners

We are now in North Carolina, a short four hour drive through torrential downpours.  But I got to spend 36 hours in Charlottesville with my best friend/lifepartner Pam (whose own blog you can check out at spicykoury.blogspot.com).  I met her bunny, Ranger, whose nickname is "Bunny."  I petted him and he was the softest thing I'd ever touched, but he was not that friendly.  He pretty much spent the whole time eating paper and looking scared, as is illustrated below.

I also helped Pam put together her new 6th grade History classroom.  I helped her put together a bulletin board and hang her posters and I got a new appreciation for how much work even the seemingly easy aspects of teaching can be.  We learned that we are not very good at cutting in straight lines.

Pam hosted a murder mystery party in the evening where we all tested out pretty horrible accents (British, Russian and Swedish, many of which started sounding Irish or Indian at one point or another).  We mostly just drank mojitos and ate lots of snacks, including gourmet popcorn from Scotty's in flavors like "loaded potato" and "cornfetti," which might be better described as fruit loops.  In the end it turns out I was the murderer.

Today we went to brunch at The Tavern and hit the road.  The Tavern was fabulous and I'll be writing more about that later.  On our ride to North Carolina we passed by a lot of farms and a lot of election lawn signs, the best of which is below.

 

7 States, 12 Hours

We made it!  We drove from Boston, along the entire coast of Connecticut, through the hellish traffic of the Bronx, along the entire coast of New Joisey, through Delaware and Maryland and into Virginia.  And now I'm here to enjoy one of my favorite homes away from home, Charlottesville!  So far I have been flabbergasted at the price of gas ($3.39!), tickled by "y'all," and enjoyed mocking the Republican debaters.

Stay tuned for more updates on my 36 hours in this wonderful University town!

The Job Hunt Pt. VI: The End

This will be the last entry in the "job hunt" series.  Today I got two job offers.  I accepted a job as a Development Officer at the National Network of Abortion Funds.  I am very happy.  It is a nice bump in salary and responsibility.  I finally feel like Jake and I are both moving forward, rather than me just tagging along.  I was worried that I would have to settle and take a step back or stagnate and now that's not the case.  I'm excited and nervous, as anyone probably is before a new job.  But it puts my move to Boston in a whole new light.  I feel like I can finally be excited without worry, without holding back.  It is a great feeling. 

And I am feeling very lucky.  Today the stock market took its biggest dip since 2008 when the bottom fell out before graduation making my first job hunt so much more difficult.  So many of our fellow recent graduates are unemployed or underemployed.  We were taught that if we go to school and work hard everything would be alright, and for a lot of us, this economy is a real slap in the face. 

It really makes me sad.  The Tea Party made increasing the debt ceiling, something the United States had done 74 times since the creation of the ceiling (including many times under Reagan and Bush), into a national charade.  As a result, for the first time in history our debt rating has been downgraded and confidence in the American economy has been shaken.  I remember learning in my Economics class in college that people and countries will always lend to the United States because we always pay our debts.  Now just a few years later, that was put in doubt. 

People all over the country are struggling to find employment and working class and middle class Americans are being asked to bear the brunt of a downturn caused by financial markets and greed run amok.   I will never understand how it is okay to balance the budget by laying off government workers and slashing services that the most vulnerable rely on (usually costing us more in real dollars and economic stability in the long run) but it is blasphemous to ask millionaires and billionaires to pay any more in taxes.  It the general scheme of fairness it seems more moral to ask someone to give up their yacht before we ask someone to give up their kids' braces. 

I will continue to vote and work with my conscience, to support equality, opportunity, and justice.  Today I am grateful.  It is not really the end; it is the beginning. 

Amazing Animal Videos

I'm interrupting the summer TV series for these amazing YouTube videos.  You all know I don't even like animals so these videos must be pretty great for me to post them.  I just couldn't help myself. 

If only I had been at Mystic Aquarium on this day...

It's a bit of a wait for the good part, but it's pretty cute...

This might be my favorite, and I need to credit Anjali for introducing it to me...

Summer TV: Storage Wars

So I decided that yesterday's post would be the first in a mini-series about summer television.  We're all waiting patiently for the Fall lineup, but in the meantime there are still some pretty good offerings to hold us over during these summer months.  As I mentioned in my last post, The Glee Project is a great upbeat summer show.  My dark horse pick for summer TV is Storage Wars.  The concept is simple.  People bid on abandoned storage units and then we get to watch as they pick through them to see what they got and then visit pawn shops and experts to see how much money they can make off of it.  Below is a pretty good preview of the show. 

Part of what makes the show great is the ability to play along.  You can say, "oh yea I think that's the money unit," or "I wouldn't pay more than $20 for that pile of garbage" and then once they unearth the trash or treasures inside you get to find out if you were right.  There's a gambling element to the show that is exciting - who will win the bid, is it worth the money, will they hit it big or bust out?  There's also an Antiques Roadshow aspect where you get to ogle all sorts of cool finds and find out what they're worth. 

But what sets this show apart from copycats, such as Spike TV's Auction Hunters, is the fabulous cast of "characters."  Dave is the villain.  He comes with lots of money and a big attitude and likes to push around newcomers with his cash and bravado.  Brandi and Jarrod are a couple who constantly bicker over which units to bid on, but have a sweet and realistic romance about them.  One time Brandi bid $200 on a junky unit just to win Jarrod a mobster poster he wanted.  Darrell sometimes brings his son to add a familial dynamic, but the best of all is Barry.  He's the older guy with the slicked back hair who flirts with younger women and drives a Jaguar.  Oh yea, and he looks and talks just like Jack Nicholson.  Just check out these clips and try to deny it.

Catch new episodes of Storage Wars on A&E Wednesdays at 10pm