Real Estate-It's Real; Elite Gymnastics-Omamori/Here, In Heaven 2

Why did we do the nice thing and let this random guy get on the lift with us? I'm positive that he's gonna fall over on me when we get off. Not to be ageist, but it's kind of a red flag when a sixty-three year old gets on the lift with a snowboard. There's four of us on the lift, and I'm alone on the outside. He's probably thinking he'd rather take out one person rather than two. The tenuous way he's balancing his board on his left leg, constantly shifting his weight back and forth. I'm screwed. I shoot my friends an eye roll, and they both laugh silently. 1...2...3...4. We get off, and he inexplicably goes right instead of left! He face-plants all over my friends, and I slide smoothly to the top of the run.

When they catch up we go down together, the cool breeze blowing against our faces. The day is perfect: just enough powder, but not too much so that your board sinks four feet under every time you stop. The runs never last long enough, but this one is perfect. It's got enough incline to get speed, and there isn't the usual congestion. Usually there's skiers leisurely traversing, without any realization of the people flying off the run to avoid taking them out. Or the psycho speed racer snowboarders who feel like they get extra points if they fly by people with the slimmest possible margin, leaving their victims physically intact but emotionally traumatized. Or the kiddie lessons, where the instructor drags seven to ten four-year-olds behind him. This is a cute scene, but when you come out of nowhere and they're spread across the entire run practicing pizza and french fries, sometimes it's a choice between Timmy and an oak tree.

But the runs today have been generally free of traffic. As I turn the last corner and the main lodge comes into sight, I'm both disappointed and relieved. It's been a great day, but my legs feel like overcooked fettucini. I can tell I'm tired because instead of picking up speed by riding mostly on my toe edge, more and more I'm easing back onto my heel and gliding down. I fantasize about chugging a cranberry grapefruit SOBE in one gulp, which somehow instantly feels like the equivalent of a Super Mario Bros. Power Up Mushroom. I see us getting back to the cabin, starting a warm fire and relaxing in front of it. I feel the feeling of ripping my pulverized feet out of my boots and taking a warm shower.

Snow season is coming up, and I'm getting excited. I'm also excited because for the first time in a long time I've found some interesting new music. Real Estate and Elite Gymnastics both have really good new albums. The Real Estate album Days is melodic, jangly guitar pop. It doesn't blow me away, but it's really good, and I love the song "It's Real." The Elite Gymnastics Ruin album is half up tempo with breakbeats and Spirited Away-ish samples, and half more ambient and down tempo. I put an example of each. It's impossible to choose a favorite song from the first half of the album, but "Omamori" is solid. "Here, in Heaven 2" might be my favorite downtempo song.

New Potentially Crappy Impoverished Waitress Series "2 Broke Girls" Simply Needs to be Combined with Old Impoverished Waitress Series "Alice"

Another TV show promo I saw a lot during my 49er-game-watching last week was for 2 Broke Girls, a show about two broke twenty-something waitresses trying to make it in the big city. One a former heiress that has lost it all, and one a regular old gal that has been broke her entire life. So it's kind of the opposite of The Great Gatsby. The blonde Paris Hilton look-alike is "new broke", and the brunette is "old broke." Since in this world knowing the ins and outs of living in the "lower class" is valued, the blonde is inevitably the butt of most of the jokes. Now you might be saying, "Boy you sure do know a lot about this show for only having watched one minute long clip." Well, I watched the series preview too, I just didn't want to inflict that on you.

So this show might not end up being awful, but the biggest issue I can see is that these actresses were hired for being good-looking. It's not that funny and good-looking are mutually exclusive, but when you watch their chemistry, it all seems really stilted and awkward. Check out this clip-especially their reactions to each others' jokes at the very end:



CAUSE YOU KNOW THEY ALWAYS INVENTORY THE FURS, BITCH! [nervous giggles and awkward smiles at each other]

Obviously what this show needs is a little infusion of an old school waitress sitcom, which dealt with the actual realities of the crappy diner universe.

Are the waitresses generally good looking? NO

Do they generally make jokes that don't just beneath the surface reek of sadness and desperation? NO

Is the clientele generally well-adjusted and not at least partially hating life themselves? NO

Cue the classic TV show Alice, where the waitresses were unattractive, the star was a down-on-her-luck single mother, the other two waitresses were endearing weirdos (Flo, a Southern lady with an acid tongue and a killer catchphrase, and Vera, a bird-brained Olive Oil look-alike), the clientele was uber-creepy, and the head cook was a REAL a**h**e. Just the first minute is enough to get a general idea of the awesomeness:



I'm gonna write an episode of 2 Broke Girls where these two lilly white prima donnas get a job at Mel's Diner. Here goes:

- Max (old broke brunette) and Caroline (new broke blonde) get fired from their old waitressing job for a massive fraud scheme that involves charging $2.96 for a side order of hash browns instead of $2.95. They don't do it because they really think they can make that much money from it, but just because they a) want to see if they can get away with it, and b) both kinda want to get fired, thinking that their endless auditions for parts as extras in NYC sidewalk scenes are finally gonna start paying off in larger roles.

- The sidewalk scenes go nowhere, so they once again resort to looking for waitressing work. Word of their dishonesty has spread around to most of the city diners, so they have to get a job at a suburban joint called Mel's. There's already three waitresses there, but the head cook is a creep and wants to hire some "young blood." He doesn't really care about their shady past, because he thinks he can intimidate anyone into keeping in line.

- Their first day is packed, so all five waitresses are working. Flo immediately sees that Max is gonna need to be kept in line, so she brings the thunder with three obscure animal-related Southern putdowns-Max can only figure out that they're insults by Flo's tone and delivery and the overly boisterous laugh track-and five "KISS MY GRITS." Max immediately learns her place in the pecking order.

- Caroline and Vera immediately bond. Caroline is the only one who doesn't laugh at Vera's antics, because she's just grateful that someone has replaced her as the most clueless person on staff. Alice and Mel, on the other hand, have zero patience for Caroline's prissiness. Alice simply gives her the death stare, but Mel constantly destroys her with brutal one-liners delivered in that vicious bark he's so well known for. At the end of the episode Caroline is crouching in the corner, rocking back and forth and repeating the names of her favorite designers.

- When Max sees what Mel has done to her friend, she decides to take drastic action. Flo just so happens to be cooking a big batch of grits at the time. After Mel scolds Alex for ordering eggs over easy instead of scrambled, Alex picks up the entire vat of piping hot grits, and throws them at Mel's face, screaming in slow motion, "KIIIIISSSSSS THEEEEEEESSSEE, MUUUTTHHA***********!" Mel is left permanently disfigured, which surprisingly ends up being an improvement. Flo offs Max by turning her into a human omelette-not for what she did to Mel, which they had all been wanting to do for a while themselves-but for ripping off her catchphrase.