Weekend Rewind

For 'just another regular weekend' at home, this one was pretty epic. There was some TV involved, so it comes full-circle.

Friday night I tried to watch TV, but Tessa and her nightmares (probably about the distinct possibility that the new Knight Rider will get picked up as a series) had other plans and instead I watched Disney Princesses over and over until 1 AM.

Saturday made up for it though because I had lunch at the new Mongolian BBQ in Maple Grove (love it), had dinner at the new Seven Sushi (frickin awesome), and the rocked out the 10:30 Lisa Lampanelli show at the State Theater.
First of all, the food at Seven is only rivaled by the people watching -- insane. I recommend the White Ninja roll and not getting busted staring at the 6 foot blondes who think its July outside right now. Good times for all. The service, food, decor and people were great -- I hope this place makes it for a long time.

But then there was the late show. Lisa Lampanelli is not for everyone. You have to know what you are getting yourself into and be ready for it.
if you were black, gay, jew, asian, or hispanic, fat, white, or a woman -- you took a verbal beating based on 100's of years of stereotypes opened up wide with some of the collective nastiest, and funniest jokes I have ever heard. And it works because everyone is in on it, everyone gets it equally, and for some reason this woman is so disarming and clever on stage that she can play it off as 'lets laugh at ourselves' -- but she pretty much made it clear that it doesn't open the door to take her jokes out onto the street and just repeat them. There is good comedy and then there is racism. Laughing out loud was very uncomfortable for the first few minutes, then you look around and realize the room is full of all the people she is ripping and it seems to make it ok. If I was in a theater with only white people, it would have been weird -- but the place was a veritable melting pot, almost begging her to go after everyone just to see how funny she can make it.
I will repeat one joke that was mean, clever, non-racist and she was told NOT TO USE in the upcoming Comedy Central roast of Gene Simmons that she just completed. I am paraphrasing of course: Gene Simmons plastic surgery work is so bad, Kanye West's mom got a better outcome.

Sunday involved more eating of course -- great brunch at Good Day Cafe -- and snow tubing with Max, father, and brother at Elm Creek Park in Maple Grove which is just an incredible hill. The Badgers won a nice game on national TV in the late afternoon courtesy of the TIVO so I didn't have to sit and listen to Billy Packer for 2 hours and I could enjoy it all in about 44 minutes.

Finally the Oscars -- I was very happy for Diablo Cody and her screewriting win, she deserved it and handled the award with more class, shock, surprise, and genuine emotion that I expected. I feel like a lot of people cried last night. Watching the Oscars live would have made me cry -- wow, that was a super long love fest and those people take themselves way, way too seriously. I get that movie making is about art and politics and sending a message. But if these people looked around at what unfortunately pays the studios bill's - it is about boobs, farting, falling, killing, torture, and spoofing. Lighten up fellas.
I watched it via DVR in about 65 minutes and stopped only for major awards and Jon Stewart. Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen playing Jack Black and Will Ferrell were cute. Stewart was good. Happy for the Coen brothers. That's about it on that front.

Final note: Return of SNL, the report card:

D: Opening Skit, sucked. Terrible. Not creative. Not funny.
C: Every other skit or segment not mentioned below. A nice skewing of NBC and Celeb Apprentice, but not much else to laugh or smile at.
B+: Fake commercial for once-per-year period. Very clever.
A: Tina Fey overall.
A: Weekend update very well done, Huckabee was great, Fey was great. I used to hate her on Weekend Update, now I realize what we are missing.
A: Skit at end of the evening with the best man's toast -- I love when this is done well, and this one was. Its been done 1000 times before which made this one that much better.