I dropped the wife off at a massage place in Culver City and had an hour to kill in one of my favorite parts of LA. First, a local proprietor roped me into his pizza joint — I’ll have to visit after Easter, when I get to have cheese again. Then, I snapped a few shots with the ol’ iPhone. There are few places better than Culver City, you should join us for a great meal there!
I have a lot of friends getting married this year, which is pretty awesome. Now, the wife, DJ L’il Bit, and I planned two weddings in 14 weeks — we each were in charge of one — so I’d be happy to give you some advice on yours. Don’t worry, our weddings went really, really well, and were cheap too, so this’ll be pretty painless.
Part the first here is the invite list. Make two lists, your A and B list. In the A list, put everyone who must be there — the very best friends, the family you need to have, people like that. Your goal is to progressively invite more and more people until the venue is full, but never put yourself in the position of having to un-invite somebody because you ran out of room.
In furtherance of this goal, only send out save-the-dates to the A list. We learned this tip the hard way, almost having to un-invite a dozen people when there was a seating hiccup at one of our weddings. (Fortunately, they figured out a way to fit everyone.)
Save money on save-the-dates by grabbing a little clip art, a fancy font, some colored paper, and making everything in Word. Everybody under 45 will just put the event in the Blackberry or iPhone and throw out what you send them, anyway, while everybody over 45 on your list would treasure it even if it were scribbled on the back of an envelope. We did this and ended up spending less on all of our save-the-dates, including postage, than most people do on just their envelopes.
Then, go ahead and invite your A list. When the seating’s finalized, go ahead and invite the B list. You do need to push your venue on seating, when we asked our venue how many they could fit they gave me one number, but when we came back and asked when they’d last fit that many people, they came up with a lower capacity number. If there’s any ambiguity, get the dimensions of the tables and go over there with a tape measure. (We did that for a venue we were so close to using that we actually had the contract in hand… and we couldn’t fit everyone. So make sure to do it yourself!)
While you’re on that list, make sure to specify who gets a +1 and who doesn’t. Don’t forget the +1s in your count! Also, don’t forget:
That’s right, what with all of these details, make sure to have as much of a good time! It’s your wedding! Par-tay! And, also, compared to what you’ve got coming, this is small fry.
There’s this thing you sometimes see in business, where something big happens to a company and the stock… just doesn’t move at all. Like, for instance, somebody releases big quarterly sales numbers at noon and the stock price is just the same at 5pm as it was at 8am. This happens when investors already have a good guess about the news that’s coming out and have already bought or sold their stock in anticipation of that news — the market has already reacted to the news, because of the anticipation of that news.
Well, that’s what’s happened with healthcare reform: the electoral results in November will look the same whether or not healthcare is now already passed. The very aggressive anti-healthcare reform bill media and PR blitz that’s taken place in the last few months has probably already convinced anyone who might be against the healthcare bill to vote Republican in November. If the bill doesn’t pass, well, all those people will probably vote Republican just on the principle of the healthcare reform bill having been such a bad idea.
So if some event is already priced into your stock, well, what’s the downside of preventing that event? Same for elections. Paradoxically, the anti-bill outreach has been so effective that there’s no longer a downside to voting for it for Democrats. And there’s enough of those to pass it.
Dockweiler State Beach, Playa del Rey, about 5pm today. Just a few minutes inland, it’s in the upper eighties with scorching sun. Shot on my iPhone.
The downside of getting this much exercise is the temptation to eat after. I leave after burning 500 calories or whatever, and the first thing I want to do is… eat 600 calories worth of delicious food. Or, for that matter, bland food. Any food. Anything to bump up my blood sugar.
Turns out the best thing to do is to go to Starbuck’s after a good workout. They don’t really have any food I’m not allergic to there anyway so the worst I can do to myself is buy a banana. I’ll outsmart you, waistline, dammit.
Last year I was a good little boy and got a lot of exercise. The upside was looking great in my tux. The downside was… there was no downside. Well, my laziness was not indulged. Some might consider that a downside. Over the last few months, there’s been a lot more indulgence of said lassitude. With negative results on my midsection.
So now I’m back in it. I’ve carved out time three days a week and I’m back to the gym. This has been my first week of this new regimen and man it’s tough. I’m writing this standing up because I can’t imagine how little weight my quads will bear if I try to sit down. (Falling ass-first onto the couch is less fun than it sounds.)
And that’s just after two classes – Crossfit on Monday and Heavy Bag today. Tomorrow’s Crossfit again, with no time to recover. Oy!
I wonder if I can steal the hearing pad from my wife tonight…
What is the chance that DJ L’il Bit would hit the post button twice in a row? Apparently 100%. Anyway she – who has a Master’s in Screen and TV writing from USC – says that every story comes in three acts anyway, so that makes this kind of appropriate, anyway. Hmmmm, maybe I should study story structure.
Anyway, now we’re on to the dancing bits. I’m not sure I go to the Academy Awards for the dancing.
All the girls said “oooo” for Bradley Cooper. Everyone alway says he’ll be the next big star. But he keeps getting upstaged.
Wow, all those documentaries look incredible. I should watch more documentaries.
Terrifying temporary DirecTV outage! But it’s back. Is this what it’s like to live in New York?
Further proof that the Snuggie’s cool. Thanks, Tyler Perry!
Pedro Almodóvar and Quentin Tarantino: puttin all the anti-establishment wacky ones in one place at one time, huh? And announcing the foreign language films… You’re not fooling me, Academy.
Poor Argentine guy, trying to keep up in his second or third language.
I know Avatar’s the favorite to win, but that excerpt didn’t make me want to watch it. I am thoroughly bored by the concept of the movie.
Wow, to best actor now? Awesome.
Wow, Michelle Pfeiffer just warmed Jeff Bridges’s heart.
George Clooney’s girlfriend: jealous!
Nobody loves anybody the way Michelle loves Jeff, eh?
How did Jeremy Renner have a 20-year career? Did he start in utero? I need to follow his skin-care regimen.
I don’t know why Jeff wasn’t nominated or The Men Who Stare At Goats, he was tons of fun there. In fact, he played the guy who’s giving this speech right now.
Good insight from another guest here: Jeff Bridges and his wife have the same hair!
Apple is selling the heck out of the iPad here. Nobody in the room wants one. (I don’t think anyone in the room is in the target demo.) Apple fail: the iPhone autocorrect doesn’t know the name of the iPad.
Best Actress smackdown: Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren are sure winners. Who takes this one?
OH SURE, GABOUREY SIDIBE GETS OPRAH TO ANNOUNCE HER. Somebody has already won.
What is Sean Penn talking about? Didn’t somebody script this bit?
Again: if, a few years ago somebody told you that Sandra Bullock would even be nominated for an Oscar, you would’ve laughed. Awesome speech, too.
OK, really, there’ve been no women or African-Americans who’ve won the Academy Award? Moviemaking needs a Rooney Rule.
I just want to say to Kathryn Bigelow, I was the one guy who bought the K-19 DVD, I really liked that movie.
What was that shake of the head, James Cameron? Jealous? Oh, well you are now that your ex-wife just beat you for most everything, eh?
I had the lead in points there for a minute. Just a minute. Now my score defines the line where somebody says ” What’s the lowest score? Did anybody get less than [Wade’s score]?”
OK, now there are a lot of movies I should see… I wouldn’t bet on that though. Despite the fact that movies just aren’t that important to me, this Oscar party was more fun than I’d expected. The whole show was more watchable than I’d expected. And blogging the whole time allowed me to easily avoid interacting with most people and, now, cleaning up. I guess I should pitch in. Or, at least, not stand in the middle of the kitchen.
Sorry, the wife sweetly put her hand on my knee and brushed the “Post” button. The challenges of technology. It’s actually her first blog entry ever. “Blogging’s easy!” she says.
Boy, Ben Stiller is really selling this. Good on him! Looks like everyone in the room is rooting for Star Trek.
News flash: apparently people in the industry like Up In The Air.
Alert: now we live in a world in which Mo’nique has won an Oscar. I mean, she sure deserved it, even just the clip they showed gave me chills, but tell anybody that 10 years ago…
The “whore” joke is not working. The Sarah Jessica Parker weight joke, quite the opposite.
Good job Sandy Powell showing everyone why you won for costume design. Clearly, you’re better expressing yourself through couture than words, however.
Dear Twilight girl, stop fidgeting. And provide some evidence that you were actually “acting” in those movies.
Kathryn Bigelow is starting to clean up here… to say nothing of this albino sound dude.
I always feel bad for these sci-tech guys. If I were them, I’d totally want to be there on this night with all the people who think they’re too hot for me.
JAMES TAYLOR? Sorry, this is awful.
It’s not weird that i’ve been in LA for 17 years and not been to an Academy Awards party, right? Finally I’m making it to one, DJ L’Il Bit has taken me to one thrown by a cow-orker at the TV show she works on.
Anyway, Neil Patrick Harris was cute to start. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are pretty funny so far, not too much of any particular kind of comedy, which is nice since I hear these things can get a bit one-note.
Penelope Cruz should’ve let them suffer. That was a joke worth running with.
OK, so far it’s a litany of movies I want to see. Except for The Lucky Bones, that was an awesome book, but I’m not sure I need to see it. Anyway, I thought Waltz was only good in Basterds, but people loved him. The broad appreciation of that film is one of those things that proves to me that I know nothing about movies. (I thought it was good, but it was no Kill Bill.) Waltz sure seemed nice from his speech, though.
Dear Jimmy Kimmel Live ad writing crew, good job, the Clapper makes everything funnier.
Dear Oscar writers, this cartoon bit sucks. End it quickly. But everyone in the room said “awwww” for Up, which must be a good sign, and Up sure got the on-TV applause. Up made me cry and warmed my heart, I’m sure glad it won.
I cannot watch this Miley Cyrus-announced bit without thinking of that creepy duet she did with Brett Michaels. Yech. Thanks for reminding me of that, honey. Anyway, I always root for country music, and I love Ryan Bingham’s stuff, so I’m happy with the winner here.
Ok, a bit on District 9, another movie I wanted to see. I saw about 8 movies this year, which is way better than the 2 I saw last year. I don’t think I’ll get much further than that next year, seeing as I live with someone who works in TV so I see enough stuff there. I have to get out of the house sometimes. (Memo to self: time to finish that Mar Vista neighborhood shooting project.)
Ok, on the way to this one gig I had I walked past a theater playing The Hurt Locker once a week. I need to start seeing movies alone!
Lord, what happened to Molly Ringwald? Yikes!
Wow, I knew in abstract that John Waters made a lot of great movies, but, wow.
(We didn’t need to have Macauly Culkin in this bit.)
It’s amazing how important John Waters was to my generation. Everybody was teary at this segment.
Ok, while I got the song and the short animated film, I’m way behind now that I missed the documentary short.
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