My Brush With Fame

Food Find: So apparently a place has opened up in BCS (that's the Bryan/College Station area for those like...two people...reading this who are not from Texas) that sells "authentic Australian meat pies." If you'll remember, a few weeks ago I went to a place in San Francisco selling take-away meat pies. These Australian ones seem to be less experimental, and more traditional, but it's still an interesting occurrence. I haven't been yet (but I think I'm going on Saturday), but my dad went and ended up spending 30 minutes talking to the nice owner about the art and science of meat pies. That plus he ended up buying four pies (two shepard's, one beef and bacon, one beef and mushroom), four kolaches, a loaf of bread, and some cinnamon rolls. I think if pies end up being the primary food source in New Zealand, I can make a semester easy.
Popular Culture: While I fully endorse the fact that The Wire is one of the best television dramas I've ever seen (putting it up with seasons one and two of Lost and the Rob Lowe era of The West Wing), I think it may have ruined the entire genre of crime drama for me. Watching both Fringe and Life on Mars, two shows I healthily enjoyed pre-Wire, all I can notice is how un-authentic they seem to be. No chain of command, no studying of criminals, no methodology, people running off on assignments by themselves, it goes on and on. A friend of mine explained to me once why he would never try ecstasy, since "your brain could never chemically be that happy again, the rest of your life is just depression," and I think The Wire may have done this to crime dramas.

Well nothing too thrilling has been happening here, so I thought I'd relay a story which was cool at the time, but is seemingly more relevant now. About a year ago, I went to this legislative seminar with the USC Political Science department, where they flew about seven students up to Sacramento, and we met with state senators and congresspeople and just sort of shot the bull about laws and government and whatever. The trip itself was cool, especially since it was basically an all-expenses paid weekend vacation to Sacramento, with no real obligations on my part. But the best part was, afterwards, I somehow got on the POSC mailing list for cool, secret, events. This came up a week or so later, when I got an email inviting me to a private screening of a Ron Howard movie. Not one to pass up a free film, I RSVPed and found myself at the Ron Howard screening room in the Robert Zemeckis Digital Arts Center (or whatever it's called).
The room was this swanky little theater, seating about fifty, with cool red velvet chairs. Initially I sat in the back, and turned out to be a row right in front of Ron Howard. I did a little eavesdropping while he was on the phone, as he told someone that he wouldn't be able to work on a project since he would be in "Angels and Demons mode" at that time. Eventually I moved up front, and Ron introduced the now Best-Picture-nominated Frost/Nixon. The movie was basically a final cut, with Ron telling us that there wouldn't be any changes to editing or anything until it was released. The footage was a little grainy though, something I guess they clean up in post-production. Afterward he did a Q&A with the audience about what they liked: pacing, score, and a few other things. He really focused on some "Where are they now" slides which came at the end of the movie, asking us if we liked the text, if it fit, etc. A lot of the people in the audience were really obnoxious film types, trying to give legitimate and educated-sounding answers, but I did give some input (aka: got to talk to Ron Howard), which was pretty cool. He had told us that even though it was done, they were going to sit on it until Oscar season, and lo and behold here it is. I guess it's just part of the USC experience.