a n h - m i n h . c o m

Jon and I spent most of 2002 living in Oakland, directly across from the Rockridge BART station. Our bedroom window provided an awesome view of the Albertson's loading dock (it's now a Trader Joe's). The mice and termites eventually drove us out of the apartment. Still, we've maintained a soft spot for that neighborhood.

These days, we don't spend much time in the East Bay. But this weekend, we had a couple of great excuses to head over the San Mateo Bridge. Yesterday, we saw the matinee show of "American Idiot," which was a lot of fun. (The music is great, but there isn't much of an actual story.) Then we met up with my brother and his family for a delicious dinner at Wood Tavern.

Before dinner, Jon and I were strolling along College Avenue and happened upon Cupkates — a mobile cupcakery!

Yum. I hope the mobile food craze makes its way to the Peninsula soon. (So far, I've only seen taco trucks parked during lunchtime in front of the construction sites for several ridiculously large homes being built in Woodside.)

{Photo from the Cupkates website}

Posted at 07:37 AM | Link | Comments (2)

I haven't followed Project Runway for a few seasons now, but was intrigued by this morning's post on Jezebel about last night's challenge: Design Using Newspaper as Fabric. The contestants came up with some amazing pieces:

Photos from Jezebel, which offers more details on each design as well.

Posted at 08:59 AM | Link

Reminder: "Glee" returns tonight!

Posted at 09:22 AM | Link | Comments (4)

Did you know that Julie Powell's book is being made into a movie? With Amy Adams and Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci starring in it? Oh, and Norah Ephron handled the screenplay.

I'm not sure how this information — which is hardly new — didn't reach my radar until this past weekend ( when I spent the duration of my flight home from NYC reading every single article in Vanity Fair). I gotta start reading Julie's blog more regularly again!

Posted at 11:22 AM | Link

One of my favorite television shows right now is Bravo's "Flipping Out." I recently came across Ryan Brown's design website — that's Jeff Lewis' business partner on the program — and I especially like these shots from his portfolio:

P.S. Brown Design, which Ryan runs with his brother, also has a blog.

Posted at 07:35 AM | Link

Dear Editors at Television Without Pity:

Please add MTV's "The Paper" to your list of shows to recap. It is awesome.

Thank you.

Posted at 01:45 PM | Link

Why wasn't there a course on "How to Get George Clooney to Come Over for Dinner" when I was in J-School? I am jealous of this Time magazine reporter.

"He is good at slipping into many different worlds, even the one in my kitchen, where he is pouring in the egg mixture while I add the hot spaghetti for the carbonara. He reaches over and stirs the bacon, grabs a string bean from the pot and eats it. He is mad guesting, Olympic-level guesting. He's been over for two hours, and it occurs to me that the smooth bastard must have turned off his cell phone before he got here. When I leave the table to check on the lamb, he puts extra bacon on my pasta."

Now, that is my kind of dinner guest!

via Jezebel

Posted at 10:11 AM | Link

I admit it: I record "Oprah" every day. But I usually only watch the episodes that are home- or design-related. (Yes, Nate Berkus would be welcome in my home. Any. Time.) When I saw that today's episode featured Ivanka Trump's apartment, I expected it to be look really expensive and gaudy.

I was so wrong.

While I'm sure it is a really expensive place, I loved the décor. Here are a few photos I managed to take of the TV screen:

How cool are the blue built-in shelves in her study? It doesn't appear that she's afraid of color or pattern (check out the striped upholstery on the chairs).

Love the glossy chartreuse tables, as well as the petite artwork in the background that repeats the color. I am also crazy about her narrow doors.

According to the voice-over, one thing she always has in her apartment: fresh flowers.

I am so impressed by all the pops of color. Like with those foo dogs here ...

... And the lamp and pot here. Also, I am coveting that mirror. (Perhaps WS Home's "Harlow" is close enough? Or the lower-priced "Bellesol" at Ballard Designs.)

In case you want to see better photos (yes, better than my shots of my TV), check out this post on Stylecourt from a few months ago.

Posted at 06:28 PM | Link

OMG. Can I just tell you how glad I was to see John Cho on another one of my favorite shows ("How I Met Your Mother") last night? And I'm psyched that he now has a recurring role on "Ugly Betty."

New shows that have been added to our DVR: "Dirty Sexy Money" and "Gossip Girl." (Don't judge!)

Posted at 09:54 AM | Link

Please keep winning so that I can keep watching Grady Sizemore this postseason.

Thank you.

Posted at 07:10 PM | Link

Alright. You got me: "The Hills" is my guilty pleasure. I haven't watched both of last night's episodes all the way through yet, but I'm looking forward to replaying The Fight between Lauren and Heidi. Good stuff:

"I think that's really sad, Lauren."
"I think you're really sad."
...
"I feel bad for you."
"I ALWAYS feel bad for you. ALWAYS!"
...
"What did I do? What did I do?"
"You know why I'm mad at you!"
"Why?"
"You know what you did!"
"What did I do?"
"You know what you did!"
"What did I do? What did I do?"
"What did you do? What did you do?"

And how great were Whitney's facial expressions! And Lo's attempt to have a conversation with Justin Bobby!

If you missed last night's double-header, I'm sure you can catch it again on MTV every odd hour of the day for the next week. You might feel a little dumber afterwards, but you'll get some good laughs out of it, too.

Posted at 07:27 PM | Link

Can I just tell you how very bummed I am that I do not get Showtime. "The Tudors" started last night and I so wish I could watch it! (I did recently re-watch "Match Point" to get my Jonathan Rhys Meyers' fix though.)

At least I have HBO and — mark your calendars! — "The Sopranos" and "Entourage" are coming back THIS SUNDAY.

Posted at 03:12 PM | Link

So I was watching "NCIS" last night and picked up this little gem of information (yes, pun intended): You can tell if a diamond is real or not if you breathe on the stone's surface and it doesn't fog up. Materials such as quartz, glass and cubic zirconium will show some condensation.

Who said TV isn't educational?

Posted at 10:17 AM | Link

Reading Rain Jokinen's "I'm From Rolling Stone" recaps is WAY more amusing than actually watching the show itself.

Oh, and that earthquake last night? Apparently, I was the only one who didn't feel it. In fact, when Jon emerged from the office and started talking about it, I denied that it happened. I chalked it up to over-studying-delirium on his part. (I grew up in California — he's from New York! Of course I would know if there was an earthquake!)

One more thing: Apparently, ABC has decided to turn those Geico caveman ads into a TV show. Huh?

Posted at 12:58 PM | Link

How cute is the character of Henry on "Ugly Betty"? I decided to IMDB (yes, I use that word as a verb) the actor and discovered:

He proposed to his wife, Anel, on a bench outside of Tiffany's on Rodeo Drive, where he had made a picnic breakfast so that they could have a Breakfast at Tiffany's-style meal before going in and buying their wedding rings.

Awww. Henry just got even more lovable.

And! He's a licensed auctioneer.

Okay, back to watching the show ...

Posted at 08:08 PM | Link

For fellow "The Office" fans: I'd thought I'd share this site that Nick sent me. It lists all of the pranks Jim has pulled on Dwight and Andy. Pretty neat — as long as you can get past the mistaken references to "Stanford" (should be "Stamford").

Posted at 08:53 AM | Link

Now that classes have started again and Jon's back to his studying ways (i.e., locking himself in the back room for hours every night), I have turned to the one friend who's always there for me (because Christina Aguilera and Ricky Martin were so right — nobody wants to be lonely).

MTV reality shows.

Interning at a magazine must be the "it" thing for the kids to do right now. Last year, MTV brought us "Miss Seventeen" and "The Hills" (which included Lauren's internship at TeenVogue). And now there's my current fave, "I'm From Rolling Stone."

Five of the six writers featured on the show are from California (weird). Four are from Northern California. The girl from San Francisco seems delusional: In Episode 1, she talks about making lots of money so she can take care of her family and finally buy a house. Um. When did entry-level journalists (or interns!!!) start making the bucks? And it seemed odd (okay, retarded even) that she didn't know who Jann Wenner is, yet would be interning at his magazine 48 hours later.

I do want to root for the young, Asian female journalist here. But based on the first 30 minutes, I'm liking Tika — who lives in Brooklyn now, but hails from Buffalo. When she was typing up her first piece, on the music scene in her hometown, she started with something like this: "In a place known more for its chicken wings ... " Gotta love anyone who can write chicken wings into a lede.

(Pssst ... You can actually read what some of the contestants wrote here.)

Posted at 11:23 AM | Link

fred flare's slideshow of various NYC store windows is now up! I absolutely love this annual feature. This year, I'm really into the wintery white displays (Tiffany, Saks).

There are also other photos taken around town, like this one:

Posted at 08:28 AM | Link

Did you know ...

• That House & Home — one of my favorite magazines — now has a television show on HGTV?


• That Padma Lakshmi, the host of this season's "Top Chef," is Salman Rushdie's wife? (Today's Page Six refers to her as a "topless model," but her BravoTV bio leaves that part out.)


• That Anne Heche's character on "Men in Trees" has THE cutest coat collection? I'm not even sure if I like the show (I've only seen a couple of episodes), but I can't stop looking at her outerwear. For example, last week, she was wearing this adorable Mackage coat in loden.

Posted at 08:37 AM | Link

... of NaBloPoMo and I'm insanely tired, today's post is courtesy of the American Music Awards. Which I actually only watched the first 15 minutes of.

• Carrie Underwood was looking all cute and classy while she was seated and singing during the opening sequence. But as soon as she got up? That formal gown? Was not exactly a gown. The skirt opened in the front to reveal shorts. Yes, SHORTS.
• Britney Spears gave out the first award of the night and couldn't stop chewing gum for even the 30 seconds it took to present.
• Speaking of Britney, I wonder if the AMA people talked her into presenting in exchange for Jimmy Kimmel's show-opening dis of Kevin Federline. (Aren't the K-Fed jokes just a little too easy?)

Posted at 10:01 PM | Link

I know this is my fourth post of the day (a personal record, perhaps?), but I just had to share: I'm watching THE best movie ever made. Well, best non-John Hughes movie ever made. That isn't Goonies, Better Off Dead or So I Married an Axed Murderer. (Those are three of the five movies that make up my entire DVD collection.)

License to Drive

Not only does it have the "The Coreys" (Haim and Feldman, for those of you too young to remember the '80s), but there's a very young Heather Graham rocking a very bad, frizzy perm and a pink off-the-shoulder dress with two layers of ruffle.

Oh, and by the way, the movie's soundtrack is equally awesome: "Trouble" by Nia Peeples, "Get Out of My Dreams and Into My Car" by Billy Ocean and "Mercedes Boy" by Pebbles. Why that last song? Because Heather Graham's character happens to be named Mercedes. Nice.

Posted at 07:43 PM | Link

I don't watch much FoodTV these days, but I'm definitely going to tune in for tonight's Iron Chef:

"In a special Iron Chef America presentation, Food Network All Stars Rachael Ray and Giada De Laurentiis come to Kitchen Stadium to battle it out. In a special twist, the Chairman decides to pair them with Iron Chefs Bobby Flay and Mario Batali in an unexpected battle that is only fit for Food Network All Stars. Which pairs’ cuisine will reign supreme?"

(I'm rooting for Team Flay/De Laurentiis.)

Totally unrelated: Jon and I were at Rite-Aid earlier today and came across some home drug tests. The marijuana and ectasy ones were almost gone; the multi-drug test was sold out; and there were plenty of cocaine detectors. I guess that's not the drug of choice for suburban teenagers?

Posted at 07:54 PM | Link

So the other night, I caught the HGTV special "25 Biggest Decorating Mistakes." Here's what their panel of experts — which consisted mainly of hosts of HGTV shows — cited as the worst things you could do to your home:

25. Toilet rugs
24. Too many photos
23. Ignoring the foyer
22. Undressed cables
21. Out-of-place themes
20. Outdated accessories
19. Lopsided furniture arrangements
18. Keeping something you hate
17. Too formal
16. Uncomfortable dining chairs
15. Lack of traffic pattern
14. Everything matches
13. Following fads
12. Furniture that doesn't fit
11. Too many colors or patterns
10. Floating rugs
9. Improper lighting
8. Frames hung too high
7. Tacky couch covers
6. Pushed-back furniture
5. Ignoring windows
4. Fear of color
3. Knick-knack overload
2. Too many pillows
1. Fake flowers

Posted at 09:40 AM | Link