The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

Not going to lie, when the train wreck that is the Bachelor/Bachelorette/Bachelor Pad (or whatever other spin off that the Bachelor franchise will think of next) is on…. Monday’s become my FAVORITE day of the week! Yes, feel free to judge. But in all seriousness it’s a great show to watch with your girlfriend’s, drink some wine and just comment on the drama and the craziness that is the Bachelor.

Now I should warn you in advance that this is not a review of last nights show… if you want a review (or synopsis) I highly recommend checking out Jen Frase’s Blog (that girl and her blog are hysterical). Moving on…

For this weeks Bachelor I was invited to go to Nicole’s apartment to have a girls nights with her and Monica. Since the Bachelor didn’t start until 8 and I didn’t want to drive all the way home, I went straight to Nicole’s after work.

I am absolutely in love with Nicole’s apartment. I love the location, I love the building and I love the way she decorated her apartment (she has impeccable taste). You walk in and you feel like you are in a magazine ad for upscale living. It is absolutely gorgeous! I love the art work on the walls, the perfectly placed candles, the minimalistic decor… Simply put: it is fabulous! I know I am not really doing it justice but you should just take my word for it that it is fabulous. After taking a tour of her place, Monica arrived and we began to catch Nicole up on what she had missed thus far on the Bachelor. While catching her up, Nicole was busy preparing dinner. I am TERRIBLE in the kitchen so instead of trying to help her and inevitably doing more harm than good (like burning her fabulous apartment to the ground), I helped by placing items on the table and drinking wine. For dinner we had roasted chicken, Caesar salad, tater tots (by request of me… yes I am a 5 years old), pita chips, buffalo cheese dip, hummus, and this amazing yogurt dip. It was quite the delicious spread.

After an amazing (and healthy) dinner, it was time for the train-wreck Bachelor to start and we gathered around the tv with junk food and wine for two hours of amazing-ness awfulness drama (again if you want a recap check out Jen Frase’s blog here). While watching, Monica told me about this app called Viggle where you check into tv that you are watching for points. These points can be used for gift cards to Starbucks, Sephora, Bestbuy, Hot Topic, Lowes… You can also get points by playing along with the show. For example for the Bachelor you can play a trivia game and receive points for correct answers. It’s fun and why not receive points/rewards for watching tv?

Anyway as the Bachelor ended, (and gave previews for TOMORROW night’s episode which I am so excited for!!!!) I was extremely thankful that Nicole and Monica included me in their girls night. I had so much fun and I am so glad I went.

There is a bar in North Hollywood that pretty much transports you to a tropical getaway. As soon as you pass under the tiki torches and through the door, you are overcome with a feeling of being on vacation. There are puffer-fish lights illuminating the bar in an array of different colors, bamboo-lined walls, and shipping containers hanging from the ceiling. The bar and booths are even under little tiki house roofs and of course it wouldn’t be complete without tiki music playing in the background. The bar is therefor appropriately named “Tiki No”, as in Tiki North Hollywood (like the NoHO district….).

During the week this is one of my favorite spots near me because it is is fun and relaxing. It is also the perfect place to catch up with old friends and double date with an amazing couple like Katie and her boyfriend Jared.  

I was very excited to see Katie and Jared because I hadn’t seen them in months. I am pretty sure the last time I saw Katie was when the Kings won the Stanley cup. Needless to say we had a LOT of catching up to do! 

The night flew by and it wasn’t until I looked at my phone that I realized it was after 10 (I know I know, I really know how to party eh? Well in my defense it was a week night and I have to be up pretty early for work). Anyway, realizing that it was getting pretty late for a Wednesday, we said our goodbyes and promised to see each other more often. I really hope that we keep this promise, I don’t want to go another year without seeing them.

Small random update but….

I AM THE OFFICIAL AUTHOR BEHIND THE FOX CAREERS BLOG

Woo hoo!!!!

Just wanted to share… Happy Wednesday :)

Check it out: http://www.foxcareers.com/#/careerBlog

Writing again for Fox?!?! say what? Yes you read correctly I did another write up for Fox but this time it was in regards to the Golden Globes. Again it’s just informational and to the point but I still wrote it! Check it out here

Or read below:

January 13, 2013 kicked off award season with the 70^th Golden Globe awards presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.  It was truly a night of red carpet glamour, hilarious one-liners from hosts Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, amazing and heartfelt acceptance speeches, and of course the occasional surprise or two.

Here at FOX we would like to congratulate all of our colleagues for their continued dedication and commitment to excellence.

Please see below for a list of our very own Golden Globe winners:

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture-Drama

• Daniel Day-Lewis “Lincoln”

Best Original Score

• “Life of Pi”

Best Television Series-Drama

• “Homeland”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series-Drama

• Damian Lewis “Homeland”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series –Drama

• Claire Danes “Homeland”

Congratulations again to all the nominees and Golden Globe Winners

For a full list of nominees and winners please visit http://www.goldenglobes.org/

With the 85th Oscar nominations announced just this morning I was given the task to write up a little article regarding the Fox nominations for the Fox Careers website. It’s not really a blog entry per say… I basically had to track down the 31 Fox oscar nominees (yes Fox is leading the other studios in Oscar nominations with 31!) and write up which categories they fell under. You can check it out by clicking here

or read below:

The 2013 Oscar nominations were announced earlier this morning and Fox scored big this year with 31 nominations. Congratulations to our Fox colleagues for all of their hard work. Here’s a list of our nominations: 

Best Motion Picture of the Year

• “Lincoln” Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, producers
• “Life of Pi” Gil Netter, Ang Lee and David Womark, producers
• “Beasts of the Southern Wild” Dan Janvey, Josh Penn and Michael Gottwald, Producers

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:

• Daniel Day-Lewis “Lincoln”

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

• Quvenzhane Wallis “Beasts of the Southern Wild

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

• Tommy Lee Jones “Lincoln”

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

• Sally Field “Lincoln”
• Helen Hunt “Sessions”

Achievement in Directing

• Benh Zeitlin “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
• Ang Lee “Life of Pi”
• Steven Spielberg “Lincoln”

Adapted Screenplay

• Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
• David Magee “Life of Pi”       
• Tony Kushner “Lincoln”

Achievement in Cinematography

• Claudio Miranda “Life of Pi”
• Janusz Kaminski “Lincoln”

Achievement in Film Editing

• Tim Squyres “Life of Pi”
• Michael Kahn “Lincoln”

Achievement in Costume Design

• Joanna Johnston “Lincoln”

Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

• Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel “Hitchcock”

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original score)

• Mychael Danna “Life of Pi”
• John Williams “Lincoln”

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original song)

• “Pi’s Lullaby” from “Life of Pi” Music by Mychael Danna; Lyric by Bombay Jayashri

Achievement in Production design

• “Life of Pi” Production Design: David Gropman; Set Decoration: Anna Lynch-Robinson
• “Lincoln” Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Jim Erickson

Best Animated Short Film

• “The Simpsons: The Longest Daycare” David Silverman

Achievement in Sound Editing

• “Life of Pi” Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton

Achievement in Sound Mixing

• “Life of Pi” Ron Barlett, D.M Hemphill and Drew Kunin
• “Lincoln” Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins

Achievement in Visual Effects

•  “Life of Pi” Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R Elliot
•  “Prometheus” Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill

For a full list of nominees please visit http://oscar.go.com/

Saturday night, Matt and I went to Sardo’s Grill and Lounge to celebrate the lovely Amber’s birthday. For those of you who don’t know, Sardo’s is a dive bar in Burbank that offers up karaoke, cheap drinks and cheap food. Basically a winning comibination for a good time. I am actually pretty surprised Matt and I haven’t been to more karaoke bars let alone this one because it is super close to my apartment.

When we arrived, Matt and I were greeted by an enthusiastic Amber. I absolutely love Amber! We used to work together at Disneyland and from the moment I first met her I knew I wanted to be her friend or at least be in her life in some way. She is just so friendly, funny, personable and fun without even trying. Also her upbeat and energetic personality is simply infectious. Everytime I am around her, I know that I will have a good time and at some point be hysterically laughing. She is also so caring and one of those friends you can rely on for anything. It was then only fitting that when Matt and I arrived she was completely surrounded by friends, some I knew and some I was excited to meet.

It was absolutely wonderful to see Courtney and Lauren (two girls I do not get to see enough) and to also hear them sing (which is expected when you enter into a karaoke bar). The night was filled with good singers, bad singers, funny singers, entertaining singers…. you know the usual mix. Shannon and Courtney busted out “Love the way you lie” by Eminem and Rihanna with Shannon rapping away like it was nothing. Lauren brought it back and got the whole crowd involved by singing some Jackson 5. Amber, Shannon and Madelyn sang out (a very long version of) “No Scrubs” by TLC a song I am pretty sure no one had heard of since the 90’s but entertaining nonetheless. Even though Matt was sick he brought down the house with Third Eye Blind “Semi charmed life” and I wanted to do a crowd favorite (don’t worry I didn’t do “Don’t stop believing) and chose Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive”.

Since there were 3 birthday’s celebrating at Sardo’s, the KJ had the entire restaurant since Happy Birthday simultaneously. It was definitely something to witness since the place was packed and everyone was singing pretty loudly.

But the topper of the evening was when a group of Elvis’s came in the bar and sang to Amber. It was shocking, random and completely entertaining (afterwards we found out that Elvis’s birthday is on January 8th and this was a way to pay tribute to the King). Such a fun night and I am so happy that Matt and I were apart of it. Hopefully there are more nights like this to come!