The J Train

Princess Peach

The signature cocktail for the Spring Bash is an original creation I'm calling the Princess Peach. It's based on a peach sangria with a little fizz and color added.

Princess Peach Base
3 liters Pinot Grigio (the store's finest box)
2 cups Peachtree Schnapps
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 cups peach juice
1 cup Licor 23
1 cup Triple Sec
1 bag frozen peaches
1 bag frozen mangoes
3 oranges, sliced thin
1 lemon, sliced thin

Mix all ingredients together and let steep overnight in the fridge.

Princess Peach
3 oz. Princess Peach Base
1 oz. club soda
1/2 oz. grenadine
1 frozen peach slice

Put frozen peach slice in a champagne flute. Add club soda, then base, then pour in grenadine over the back of a spoon. Try to enjoy without being kidnapped.

Spring Bash - The Menu

"Skewers and sauces"
Individual bite-sized skewers of beef, chicken, shrimp, salmon, mushroom, and Vidalia onion
Red onion marmalade
Three-Herb Chimichurri
Asian Pear Sauce
Honey Mustard
Peach-Bourbon BBQ Sauce

"The Swarovski Krystal"
Soy-Ginger marinated London Broil and shredded onions on mini-buns

Hummus and cumin-dusted pita chips

Tortilla chips and homemade salsa

Bread, cheese

Fruit skewers with margaritamallows

Chocolate chip cookies with bourbon

Assorted mini-cheesecakes

Peach Sangria

Spaceship tonight!

Spaceship tonight! Featuring new tunes from Death Cab for Cutie, Elvis Costello, the Jealous Girlfriends, the Impossible Shapes, m83, and more!

8-11 PM EST, 88.7 WMMT-FM. Stream it here!

OK, so I was wrong.

Big Brown did what I didn't think he'd be able to do--he shot out from the start to keep a good position on the corner and stay out of the mob. That was about the only way it could happen.

I figured out the problem, though--Mike Battaglia was also a Big Brown skeptic, ribbing his co-commentator about "drinking the Kool-Aid". You can bet anything you have that if Mike Battaglia and I agree on something, it can't possibly be the case.

Eight Belles, though--that sucks. It took a hell of a horse to place in this field, and on another day or with less of a mob scene she might have taken it. They haven't really said yet what happened to make her break down, but it's weird for it to happen after the race.

Derby

Z Fortune, Eight Belles, Big Brown. That's your trifecta, in that order.

Box 'em if you want, but don't bother putting Big Brown on top. He's as good a favorite as we've seen in a while, and he might be a clear pick for the win if he hadn't drawn such a craptacular post position. Yes, he won the Florida Derby from #12, but #12 ain't #20 and the Florida Derby ain't the Kentucky Derby. It would take everything the horse has and a hall-of-fame level performance from the jockey to get around a field this talented and win from so far outside. Still, I think he'll pull up into the money.

Eight Belles has to have something under the hood or they wouldn't have pulled her out of the Oaks to run the Derby. She'll be a lousy bet at the track, though; as a gray filly, she'll be pretty much everybody's pick.

Why Z Fortune? I don't know; he's had some good runs and looks like the sort of middle-of-the-huge-pack contender that can step it up. I hate to curse the poor horse with my pick; it almost guarantees that he'll run way out in front right into the stretch and then stop for a snack or something. But there it is.

Mario Kart Wii

It's really dangerous to play a whole lot of Mario Kart Wii and then take a drive through the country. My whole drive to Whitesburg tonight I kept wanting to power slide.

It's a great game--good controls, plenty of unlockables but not so many the game feels incomplete, genuinely thrilling racing. The online is the best Nintendo has done so far, but that's kind of like picking the most listenable Celine Dion track.

Actual call to the station just now

Me: Spaceship of Fools!
Caller: Hello. I just wanted to say that I just heard the "F" word.
Me: Well, sir, I really don't think you did.
Caller: Yeah, it was there.
Me: Sir, I check the lyrics of every song I play, and I know the three I've played so far very well, so I don't know what you think you heard, but it wasn't the "F" word.
Caller: What's this song called?
Me: "Think About It" by Flight of the Conchords.
Caller: I'm going to look it up, and then I'll call you back.
Me*: While you're at it, you might want to google this: fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

* In my head. In reality, he slammed the phone down.

I suppose it could be one of the station's many enemies out there; after all, we're the "worst plague ever in eastern Kentucky", so I guess someone could be sitting at home listening to (what he has to consider) perfectly horrible music in the hopes that I might let an errant F-bomb go by. If so, he deserves what he gets--a three-hour enema of completely fuck-free quality indie rock.

If it's just some random loser with no agenda...that's too sad to even think about.

Everybody's dreams are coming true, and then there's Gary Coleman.

Seriously, see Avenue Q at your earliest convenience.

So much works about the play that really shouldn't work at all. For instance, most (but not all) of the characters are puppets, and the people operating and talking/singing for the puppets make no attempt to hide themselves. For instance:

It's weird at first, but after the first few numbers you almost forget the people are there. There are several times when a puppet is being operated by someone other than the person singing for it--since the voice actors all play multiple roles--and you don't even notice.

It also shouldn't be that you find yourself getting a little choked up at, say, "Fantasies Come True", and you realize that it's basically Bert singing about his unrequited love for Ernie. (How the producers of this play have avoided having their asses sued off, I'll never know.)

And then there are the Bad Idea Bears:

These cute little guys are always there for you when you just can't seem to fuck things up on your own.
"Oh, you can have a few sips--it's just Long Island Iced Tea! YAAAAY!"
"Why don't you play a drinking game? I know one--let's see who can drink the fastest! YAAAAY!"
"It's a tie! Rematch! YAAAAY!"
"Take her home! She's wasted! YAAAAY!"

Just because I'm in a two-man novelty band...

The new self-titled disc from Flight of the Conchords is, well, great, but curious. It's all songs from the first series episodes, which means you either already know them by heart or you just didn't care that much to begin with. If it had come out while the show was on, or even just after, it would have made a lot of sense, but at this point it seems superfluous.

It's a worthwhile download for the studio treatment (especially for the Spaceship), but I wouldn't buy it unless you already have the DVDs.

Just for fun:

"Prince of Parties"

"A Kiss is Not a Contract"

"Mutha'uckers"

When the sellout becomes total (Food Network edition)

Rachael Ray's concept of a "garbage bowl" (to hold scraps when cutting, etc.) is a good one, if not unique to her. But marketing a special bowl for that purpose? At $18, no less? Just wrong. (Not that there's anything all that right about Rachael these days.)

Speaking of wrong, Rachael's Latina counterpart, Ingrid Hoffman, had me for a while with her show Simply Delicioso. But then she started shilling for Tostito's. I'm sorry, but the best way I can think of to blow your credibility on Latin American cuisine is to recognize the existence of Tostito's salsa, which tastes like 1/4 mildewed washcloth and 3/4 preservatives.

To Michael Symon, recently crowned Iron Chef, host-to-be of Dinner: Impossible, and rising Food Network star: you got where you are because you have tons of well-earned credibility as a chef. Don't blow it.