Friday – another birthday; another year and not necessarily wiser. But nice to get away from the office, and so cool to have a nice birthday dinner – Momofuku Noodle Bar. Considering how often I’ve linked to stuff about David Chang and his Momofuku restaurants, I was happy that my siblings and I finally did a Momofuku (my brother has been to Momofuku Ssam a couple of times – and he said the desserts are indeed good). The steamed pork buns were delicious; the smoked chicken wings were tasty. I ordered the Momofuku ramen – good ramen, but a bit saltier than I liked. Thumbs up generally.
Timely too – NY Times’ Frank Bruni made a return to Ssam and enjoyed it.
Hilarious review of the new Star Trek movie trailer on Television Without Pity (as part of the Trailers Without Pity feature):
TV Stuff:
“Fringe” — hmm, Special Agent Olivia Dunham probably did take too much LSD when Dr. Walter Bishop put her into the limbo tank to communicate with her comatose-then-dead boyfriend. So, she has dead boyfriend’s memories stuck in her brain, and now everyone wants her to get to those memories. Hmm. Gee, do you think this means one shouldn’t take LSD? Plus, what the heck is Peter Bishop? Is he a clone, or his father really nuts (hmm, maybe the latter; but Walter would be the first to admit that he doesn’t have his sanity intact).
“Law and Order” – well, I missed about more than a quarter of the episode, but it was quite entertaining. A return of the EEE-vil (or just way amoral) Governor of NYS (you think Spitzer had his nutty moments? Or that Patterson’s funny? Or Pataki irritating or Cuomo stubborn – too stubborn to even have his official portrait done?), well, get a load of the Governor on “L&O” – makes the real governors of NY look great.
Dets. Lupo and Bernard find out that upstate NY ain’t too keen on them downstaters. Det. Lupo thinks that being a cop – a detective no less – and a first year (part-time or evening) law student allows him to represent himself in small town court when the NYS troopers arrest him for being a downstater (kidding; they arrested him to prevent him from taking a witness and because he got a little pissed that they roughed up ADA Rubirosa, who was probably a little charmed by Lupo’s chivalry, since she’s not exactly a shrinking violet kind of woman). Thought the moment where ADA Cutter had Lupo doing legal research on the laptop was HILARIOUS. Thank you, L&O writers; you as fellow lawyers find ways to make it really amusing and proud to be a lawyer!
Plus, ripped-from-the-headlines – not just the whole “Gee, what is the governor making the troopers do?” but also the whole “gee, are upstate civil courts handing out justice properly?”
McCoy going toe to toe with the EEEvil Governor, and then finally deciding he’s going to run for DA of NY county and having Cutter be the first person to sign the petition to get McCoy on the ballot. Umm, shouldn’t make sure Cutter is a NY County resident (probably; he doesn’t strike me as an outer-borough guy) and is it ethical to have one of your subordinates do that in front of you, in your office – like a conflict of interest or something? He must be pretty darn confident about his personal respect and friendship with Cutter.
Plus, the entertaining guest stars of Katee Sackhoff (aka Starbuck of “Battle Galactica” – not a show I watch, since I keep missing it every single time) as the tough as nails murder suspect and Clancy Brown as the EEEvil upstate small town sheriff.
Well, this Daily News article explains why Channel 11 has been changing its brand to “WPIX” again, rather than “CW11” (after a few years as “WB11”). I always thought “CW11” was silly, but being “PIX” rather than the full “WPIX”?) again has been weird.
Plus, the Channel 4 new news studio is major weird – too blue. And, Channel 4 is laying off more people, right in the middle of setting up one of its digital channels into an all-local news channel. Hmm.
Last but never least: a link to Robert Pinsky poem; the former US Poet laureate on family; things to think about during the holidays as we spend time with our relatives.