The Year in Hollywood 2008

The year 2008 will go down in history as the final year of the presidential primaries, which started approximately three years before any of the candidates were born. That was highly entertaining for everyone except the American people that had to suffer through approximately 10,000 hours of political commercials per day.

Having said that, let’s look at something slightly less entertaining, what Hollywood was up to:

January – Lost debuts, giving people hope that all the weird questions about the show will be answered.

Hollywood was in the midst of a writer’s strike, which meant that a lot of people who you’ve never heard of were running around with picket signs. Hollywood executives were very concerned, and said so through numerous very sincere press releases from their limousines.

People were just beginning to realize that what was going on meant disaster because it meant more reality television. By the end of the month, all the experts were saying that the writer’s strike was going to last for at least another six months.

February – Listening to the experts in January, the American people brace themselves for a long strike, which ends in early February.

Big Brother 9 starts up, answering the question, “They’re not really going to do a ninth season, are they?”

March – The show “New Amsterdam” debuts and is watched by literally several people;

The show “The Return of Jezebel James” proves that some shows weren’t meant to show up, let alone return from anywhere.

April – Miley Cyrus poses for photos for Annie Leibovitz in Vanity Fair, and everyone is actually shocked when they turn out to be a bit provocative. They use the excuse that all the adults went to the bathroom at the same time while this was happening, and they promise never to do that again.

May –Survivor Micronesia’s biggest Survivor fan ever, Erik, must have missed all the shows where people scheme behind each other’s backs and gives up an immunity idol on the show. He’s completely shocked when they actually vote him off the tribe for being stupid.

Indiana Jones returns in “Indiana Jones – Raiders of the Lost Teeth”.

Lost’s season ends, leaving us with a lot of old weird questions unanswered, and a whole bunch of new weird questions unanswered.

June – Jamie Lynn Spears gives birth, trying to top her sister in the “I’m Crazier Than You” category by naming the kid “Spearmint”, before later changing it to “Maddie Briann”.

George Carlin dies, causing everyone else to say seven dirty words.

Pixar knocks another animated movie out of the ball park when it debuts “WALL-E”, a movie where a robot discovers a group of humans that just sit around in front of screens and do nothing but eat. This movie goes over very well with a bunch of humans who sit around in movie theatres, watch a large screen and do nothing but eat.

July – Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie give birth to twins – This was mostly Jolie’s role, although Pitt said he could have done the birth himself, if the role had called for it. They’re both surprised when they realized they could have their own kids, rather than traveling around the world looking for them.

August – Summer Olympics starts up in China with a spectacular show that can be seen in high-definition, even from the moon. They use humans to form a large pyramid, letters of the Chinese alphabet, and the stadium itself. Controversy unfolds as Europe accuses a 6 month old Chinese child wins the gymnastics all-around, and also accuses Michael Phelps of being part dolphin.

The press announces that Madonna turns 50, still performing in her “I might break a hip” tour.

September – New Kids On The Block release a record – again; 90210 debuts – again; People begin to wonder if any new things are going to ever come out, or if we’re doomed to recycled television shows.

SNL returns for it’s 600-th season, and breaks it’s own record for actually being funny twice in one season.

Heroes starts a new season, which promises to be all different this time around because this time they’re going to save the whole world!

October – Madonna and Guy Ritchie divorce, causing people to ask, “Wait! When did she get married?”

“High School Musical 3: Senior Year” debuts, millions of parents pray that none of them end up in college for a four movie sequel.

November – The election finally ends; half the country is upset, half the country is overjoyed, and half the country doesn’t understand there aren’t three halves in a whole.

“Twilight” opens, which is yet another story about vampires falling in love, which was never done on a show like “Angel” or “Moonlight”.

On Heroes, the “Villains” episode is shown. This proves to be a turning point in the show because things are a lot more interesting when the Heroes have someone to go up against; unfortunately, there aren’t many new characters, just a lot of old ones behaving badly.

24: Redemption” is shown, but it turns out that it has nothing to do with S&H Green Stamps.

December – NBC announces that Jay Leno will now be on at 10 pm, allowing everyone to go to bed an hour earlier.

See you in 2009!

Kitchen Nightmares – Sante La Brea

Dante and his two sons were having problems. Dean is the owner/cook/janitor. Sammy and Arthur (his sons) are servers. Mark is the host/manager, who Sammy considers an interior decorator. They’re in about $200,000 in debt at the time of taping.

Gordon Ramsay was set to arrive in Los Angeles to help the Sante La Brea, and the chef didn’t show up, which put everyone on edge.

When Gordon finally arrived, he didn’t seem to impressed with the appearance of the outside facade of the restaurant. He was even less impressed with the inside, when Dean started to give him the tour of the “newly remodeled” restaurant. There was grass/vegetation growing in aluminum trays up on a shelf. Dean grabbed one, and to Gordon’s surprise, he ate a bunch of whatever was growing in that tray! Gordon asked about the menu, and Dean said they have vegetarian and regular versions of the dishes… and the chef didn’t show up.

Gordon wanted to get to the root cause of the problems with the restaurant and Dean said it’s money. Mark spent $5,000 on a display of “product”, and Dean said Mark is just a big talker.

Mark described what he does as trying to make the restaurant look more hip, fresh and modern. He said that he wanted to make the place “look like no place you’ve ever seen”. Gordon told him that he “definitely, definitely not wrong there”. Mark took that as a compliment.

Gordon went out to the terrace outside the restaurant and orders food. First comes a Turkey Patty melt, which he said doesn’t look healthy, and ended up feeding it to a dog that a nearby customer brought in. The next thing that cam was a stir fry ….er, something… called Mofu Tofu… not even sure what that is. Either was Gordon. Finally came the blackened salmon, which is dry and “too fishy” for salmon. Gordon took that to indicate the fish might not have been refrigerated properly.

Gordon talked to Dean, and told him that the food looked like a dog’s dinner and tasted hideous. While talking to him, Gordon started to feel sick. They went to the back of the restaurant to look where the food was being kept. The was rotten food, frozen turkey melting with frozen salmon in the same container. Gordon said it was a disgrace.

Dean and his sons is done to talk with them. The chef, Aurelio, came two hours late, and the owners confronted the chef about it. They sent him back to the kitchen to take care of things. Things are really emotional for him.

Gordon went to observe what was happening in the kitchen, and asks about the condition of the food. Aurelio said he’s “just a cook”, and Dean stepped in to say it’s his (Dean’s) fault. Aurelio said (in the one-on-on camera interview) that he can do pretty much want he wants at this place, and that’s why he never left.

At dinner service, the customers complained amongst themselves that the food is bad. Gordon went to the kitchen, and found a package of what Dean called “Unduck” – fake duck. Dean said it was popular. Next up – fake fish! “Unfish”! Gordon wasn’t impressed.

Gordon confronted the staff after service. Gordon said that nobody took responsibility for service. Gordon said the main problem was the food, and that he didn’t like conditions of the kitchen. He wanted that kitchen cleaned, and put an “F” over the “A” health inspection report, with the instructions that he’ll personally take that “F” down when the conditions of the restaurant is an “A”. They throughly cleaned the kitchen throughout the night.

The next morning, Gordon met with Dean at the top of the canyon for a pep-talk, and told him to say what he wanted to, to the staff. Dean didn’t seem into it at first, merely talking quietly about what he would say. Gordon told him he really needs to get into it, and yells as an example. Dean still didn’t get it, but in the end was really yelling about what he wanted his staff to do to change things at the restaurant.

So what happens back at the restaurant? The first person Dean confronts is his son, Sammy. Sammy thought this was great.

Gordon inspected the kitchen, and everything looked great. The “F” came down.

Next up, Gordon showed how to make some great looking dishes.

Before dinner service, Gordon gathered everyone together and told them there was a serious infraction the night before – and brings in a police officer to handcuff Dean! Of course, that was all for show – Gordon just wanted to make sure that Dean was the one giving the orders, not picking up after everyone else in the restaurant. They were all a little freaked out about this, and were relieved it was a stunt.

Food service started, and the first thing Gordon noticed was that Mark was sweating a lot. Mark said that he didn’t like wearing deodorant.

Back in the kitchen, Gordon caught Dean trying to help with cooking, which quickly stopped. Dean got more into ordering other people around.

They run out of the halibut special, and Mark takes an order for three anyway. Dean was pretty upset about this, and told him that he shouldn’t be taking orders. Next up, Gordon found that Mark was putting menus under his sweaty arms. Dean sent Mark home to get a new shirt; Gordon went out to get deodorant at a convenience store.. They meet back at the restaurant and Mark put on the deodorant.

Gordon then got the police officer to take the handcuffs off of Dean, after Dean promised to not fall back to his old ways.

Unfortunately, things still weren’t going well. A customer found hair in food, and another had cold pasta. Dean brings it back to the kitchen, and confronts to Aurelio, and argued with him.

Afterwards, Gordon has good news and bad news. Good news – the specials went quickly. Bad news – the rest of the food is bad. He told them they’re relaunching the next day.

Gordon’s staff went in and changed everything: new benches, new shades, new paint – a complete change. The new menu brought out the emotion in Dean, and he gave Gordon a big hug. He showed them the food, and it looked great. They tried it all, and they liked it.

That night at relaunch – Mark started taking orders, and Dean didn’t like that at all. He really confronted Mark forcefully, and Mark got the message. In the kitchen, Dean confronted Aurelio and they have it out. The chef didn’t want to listen, so he left. Gordon yelled after him to stop, but he kept driving away.

Gordon thought that Dean’s gone a little overboard on confronting staff. Aurelio turned his car around, and went back to tell Gordon that he was sorry. Dean saw him and they started to argue again. Aurelio said he was owed $140. Gordon gives him $100, and told him the rest comes after service. Then Gordon took Dean aside and told him that he has to take a deep breath.

Customers were waiting for their food because of Aurelio’s absence; Gordon got everyone together and tells them they have to pull together to get through the night’s service. After this, things seemed to go a lot better.

At the end of the night, Gordon said things went a lot better. He again took Dean aside, and told him that he has everything he needs to succeed, and that he wanted to place to succeed.

In the end, it really looked like it would.

More on Ajira Airways – And A Secret Message!

We found out about the Ajira Airways website in the previously mentioned Dharma Initiative #6 webcast, and here are a few things I’ve found so far.

1) This picture shows up briefly in the video that plays:

Note in the bottom corner, the date 1/21/2009, the date that LOST airs, so this is presumably a shot from episode #1 of Season 5.

2) The news scroll under the main window mentions avoiding the “South Pacific Triangle”, the introduction of new flights for island hoppers and to the arctic, and introduced “Destination Destiny” – The Australian outback is home to all sorts of characters, ancient secreats and hopping wallabies – watch out!

3) Antonio B. MacCutheon is referenced on the Ajira Adventures page; recall Widmore’s mention of Anderson MacCutcheon when he spoke to Desmond.

4) Also on that page, there’s a reference to an Origami Ball project. If you use the instructions on the “sample boarding pass“.

If you follow the instructions carefully, and look into the hole, you’ll see that it’s focused on the “13 29 02N”.

There’s also a bar code, with “144 47 50E”. If you look at these in Google Earth, you’ll see an airstrip, which is on Guam, one of the destinations for the flight on the flight page.

Find anything else? Post it in the comment here to share with us!

Dharma Initiative #6 – Ajira Airways

Dharma Initiative #6 is up for the next 48 hours or so, and you can get there by hitting the website and typing in the password: emal

If you don’t have time to watch, there are a couple of silly questions (like about Geronimo Jackson’s potential for a reunion), and a couple of things to look forward to this season.

We’ll finally find out the reason Jack’s dad is wearing those white tennis shoes… I always thought that was odd.

The four-toed statue? Yep. You’ll find out more about it in Season 5, and even more in Season 6.

Plus! At the end, a mysterious hint about Ajiraairways.com

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry – Voice of the Computer on Star Trek – Dead at 76


I’m very sad to report that Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, the wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry has passed away at the age of 76. Among the parts she played on the show were Nurse Chapel (McCoy’s assistant), the mother of Deanna Troi, and the voice of the computer on the Enterprise.

Her last part is at the voice in the upcoming Star Trek movie, due out in 2009.

Via AICN (Thanks to Andy).