Monday Morning Video Laugh - September 19, 2011

You may have seen this already, but it's worth more than one look.  Grandma and Grandpa trying to work a webcam.



Dinner last night:  Roast chicken, edamane, and corn.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - TV Guide Fall Preview

We would wait anxiously for Wednesday.  As early as we could get to our local candy store or newspaper emporium, we would run.  It became a relentless quest every week.

"Bob's Candy Store doesn't have it yet."

"Did you try the guy near the cleaners?"

"He doesn't have it yet.  Let's hear down to 241st Street.  There are three stores down there."

For me, it was a thirst that needed to be quenched as soon as possible.  I would not rest until...

I had, in my grubby, young hands, the next week's TV Guide.

When you're young and in grade school, you live for two things every single evening.  The completion of your nightly homework.  And your personally chosen primetime television schedule. 

As soon as every Wednesday arrived and you'd see who was adorning the cover of next week's TV Guide, you could breathe a little easier.  Life was going to be okay.  At least, for another seven days.

When we would go to my aunt's house a few blocks away, she would marvel at her own TV Guide.  Sent in the mail.  Isn't that easier than buying it in the store?

And what day does your mailed TV Guide arrive?

"Thursday, sometimes Friday."

Audible scream.  Me.  That's way too late.  I needed to start planning my TV viewing sooner than that.

I'd read that TV Guide all the way home from the store.  I probably dodged death by fender more than once as I had my nose buried while crossing major thoroughfares.  You automobiles can wait.  I need to see if Paul Lynde is making a guest appearance on the Dean Martin Show next Thursday.

I had a grid in my school notebook.  It showed me night-by-night what was on my television docket.  It was meticulously planned out.  When shows seamlessly flowed to one another.  When I actually had to change the channels.  Which shows would I have to watch on my own and which ones were programs that I enjoyed with my grandmother.  This information was perhaps twice as important as any of the school lessons on the other pages.

The pinnacle of TV Guide issues every year happened on the very first Wednesday of September.

The Fall Preview!!!

It was time to learn about all the new shows that the three, yes, count 'em, three networks had to offer to the unsuspecting public.  I'd systematically read through all of the descriptions and formulate my own opinions.  I needed to determine if any of these new programs stood a chance of cracking my own viewership grid.  And God forbid if they were at the same time as one of my favorites.

Once I digested it all, I needed to present my findings to my grandmother.  I watched almost seventy percent of prime time with her.  If I was sold on a  TV show, she needed to be on board.  I'd sit and copiously read to her all the descriptions from the Fall Preview.

The Time Tunnel.  Two guys go back into time every week.

"Sounds silly."

The Outer Limits.  Scary different tales every week.

"Too spooky for me."

Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters.

"Nice girls.  We should watch that."

And so it went.  The yearly process.  As regular as Thanksgiving dinner and income tax day.

Most weeknights and on Sundays, I could be found downstairs in Grandma's part of the house.  Me in the rocking chair and her in that big, comfy easy chair.  But, on Saturday nights, I was cast adrift.  Literally.

We had two television sets in our house.  One upstairs in the lair of my parents and me.  One downstairs in Grandparentville.  Plenty of chance for diverse sampling, right?

Wrong.

My Saturday grid was shanghai-ed by two television consoles that both needed to be tuned to...

Lawrence Welk.

And a one and a two and a "Len is screwed..."

Meanwhile, while I'm hearing some Champagne Lady sing in all corners of our house, I am thinking about my shows and what I'm missing.  I Dream of Jeannie.  Get Smart.  My Three Sons.

I must have protested a lot.  Miraculously, one Christmas, I wound up with my own portable black and white TV for my room only.  A very, very nice way for my folks to tell me to "get lost."

I will do so.  Gladly.

Finally, I could address my primetime grid completely.  All seven nights a week.  Mine.

Next week, I'll tell you about some of those shows which were personal favorites when seated in the rocking chair next to Grandma.

Dinner last night:  Bacon burger at Go Burger.

Classic TV Theme of the Month - September 2011

In the eighth season of this show, feminism was starting to take over.


Dinner last night:  Ham French Dip sandwich at Phillipe's prior to the Dodger game.

Your Weekend Movie Guide for September 2011

Ah, memories.  My father took me to see this movie at Radio City Music Hall and I am guessing we went to the 1:01PM showing. 

Is there a movie you would like to see with your dad this weekend?  Probably not.  But there are certainly a whole bunch of flicks that you take your closest enemy to see.  That's one good way to get rid of him or her.

You know the tried-and-true drill.  I flip through the movie pages of the Los Angeles Times and I'll give you my slapdash, knee-jerk reaction to the films being advertised there.

If you expect nothing, then you won't be disappointed.

Contagion:  Bird flu on steroids.  Will the usher please remove that person who's sneezing in the row behind me?

I Don't Know How She Does It:  Good news!  There's one more nonsensical romantic comedy for us to behold.  Sarah Jessica Parker is an executive trying to juggle career and love.  Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear co-star.  Just how many reasons do you need to avoid this?

The Lion King 3-D:  Disney's most overrated cartoon ever returns in a 3-D edition.  The only way this movie improves for me is if they give me a blindfold.  The circle of life?  Phooey!

Drive:  A Hollywood stuntman drives the getaway car for robberies.  Ryan Gosling, who generally is never horrible, stars.  I wonder if there is a stunt driver for the actor playing the stunt driver.

The Help:  I've already skewered this and it deserves no additional mention.  Except that it stinks.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes:  I enjoyed this prequel to the original series.  Although Roddy McDowell looked more like a chimp than the real animal.   The filmmakers did miss one delicious opportunity when the apes overrun San Francisco.  I wanted to see them trash AT&T Park during a Giants game.  Wait.  Those aren't monkeys.  They really are Giants fans.

The Debt:  This is either a World War II Israeli-Nazi thriller starring Helen Mirren or a 60 Minutes segment on Washington's new jobs act.  If yo have no money as a result of the latter, you cannot afford to go see the former.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark:  Except, of course, if it's a theater playing this piece of junk.

Final Destination 5:  How many more before it really is "final?"

Our Idiot Brother:  Paul Rudd, who makes a new movie every day, plays another jerk.   And the only ones who are jerkier are those who keep casting him in dribble like this.

Mozart's Sister:  This movie....ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

One Day:  After spending the night together on the night of their college graduation Dexter and Em are shown each year on the same date to see where they are in their lives. They are sometimes together, sometimes not, on that day.   Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess are in it, so please send all complaints directly to them.

Shark Night 3-D:  Get yourself a DVD of the original Jaws and watch that.

Warrior:  The youngest son (Tom Hardy) of an alcoholic former boxer  returns home, where he's trained by his father for competition in a mixed martial arts tournament.  Nick Nolte is the dad, so expect to miss at least half of the dialogue.

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy:  A group of 30-year-olds who have been friends since high school attempt to throw an end-of-summer orgy.   Gee, whatever happened to reunions where you wore name tags with your old yearbook photos?

Fright Night:  A teenager suspects that his new neighbor is a vampire.   Nope, that's just the new head of the homeowners association.

Spy Kids - All The Time in the World 4D:  The ad says that the movie was filmed in Aroma-scope.  I can tell you this smells pretty bad and I'm not even in the theater.

Higher Ground:  Vera Farmiga, so good in "Up in the Air," directs and stars in a movie about a woman struggling with her faith.  It sounds dreary, but her talent alone might make it interesting enough for me to sample.

30 Minutes or Less:  Two fledgling criminals kidnap a pizza delivery guy, strap a bomb to his chest, and inform him that he has mere hours to rob a bank or else.  In a really sick way, this is great product placement for Domino's.

Chasing Madoff:  A documentary about you-know-who and I'm betting this is already in Fred Wilpon's Netflix queue.

Apollo 18:  A garbage can in five reels.  Producers try to get you to think that there were unpublicized trips to the moon.  Ron Howard, do not lose sleep over this.

Conan the Barbarian:  The better movie about an ogre named Conan is "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop."

Straw Dogs:  L.A. screenwriter David Sumner relocates with his wife to her hometown in the deep South. There, while tensions build between them, a brewing conflict with locals becomes a threat to them both.   This may or may not be a remake of the Dustin Hoffman original, which means that it may or may not be any good.

Happy Happy:  All about a wonderfully optimistic housewife.  She obviously has not been watching any of those series on Bravo.

Stay Cool:  An author who returns to his hometown to deliver a commencement address to a class of graduating high school students has to deal with his feelings for an old flame as well as the advances of a student who has the hots for him.   Winona Ryder is in the cast.  She must be playing the class shoplifter.

The Guard:  An unorthodox Irish policeman with a confrontational personality is teamed up with an uptight FBI agent to investigate an international drug-smuggling ring.   The same plotline from about two hundred cop/buddy movies that have preceded it.

Creature:  In the back country of Louisiana, a group of friends unearth a terrible secret that unleashes a monster from the depths of the swamp.   Hey, that's no swamp creature.  That's my wife.  I resort to that gag because I have nothing else to write here.

Bucky Larson - Born to Be a Star:  A kid from the Midwest moves out to Hollywood in order to follow in his parents footsteps -- and become a porn star.   And here's three pretty scary words in the ad...writer Adam Sandler.

The Hedgehog:  Paloma is a serious, but deeply bored 11-year old, who has decided to kill herself on her twelfth birthday.  Ignore her.  She's just looking for attention.

My Brother's Bride:  A man searches for the perfect Indian bride for his brother.  Have you checked the pharmacy department at CVS?

Tanner Hall: Four teen-age girls at a rundown all-girls boarding school in New England.  The school is rundown, not the girls.  But, of course, if they filmed this at my alma mater of Fordham University...

The Whistleblower:  A drama based on the experiences of Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska cop who served as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia and outed the U.N. for covering up a sex scandal.   I wasn't really interested until you got to the next-to-last word in that sentence.

Restless:  The story of a terminally ill teenage girl who falls for a boy who likes to attend funerals and their encounters with the ghost of a Japanese kamikaze pilot from WWII.   It's from director Gus Van Sant, so it probably is as goofy as it sounds.

My Afternoons with Margueritte:  An illiterate and lonely man bonds with an older and well-read woman.   It stars Gerard Depardieu.  This means Margueritte gets punched in the mouth at least twice.

Dinner last night:  Hawaiian burger at Barney's Beanery.

Sorry Wrong Number

For those Googling the Barbara Stanwyck movie, you're in the wrong place.

This is another piece about the stupidity of the world around us.  And, in a world where instant communication is almost required, how hard it is for some folks to get ten digits right.

Okay, it should be eleven, since most people have to dial a "1" first before you commence with the phone number you want to connect to.  I'm guessing there are some goofballs who miss the "1' as well.  The telecommunications equivalent of misspelling your own name on a job application.

But, I digress oh, so slightly...

Despite the alleged presence of a national "Do Not Call" list, we're all still plagued by telemarketers.  Phone companies asking you to try out their brand new DSL service.  Air duct cleaners telling you that you're inhaling soot with every breath.  Even Tom Hanks telling me to vote for Barbara Boxer.

Hang up.  Hang up.  Most definitely....Hang Up.

Over the last several years, on two different coasts, there is the new phenomenon.  My LA work number being mistaken for not one, but two different business concerns.  The same has been happening at the phone in my New York apartment. 

Surely, Alexander Graham Bell didn't think this was going to be that hard, did he?

In my California office,  I regularly get calls from local hospitals all over the Los Angeles area.  Is it okay to admit patient so-and-so?  I'm supposedly Miss Burns at some HMO. 

Okay, they even leave voicemails and my outgoing message couldn't be clearer.  I say my full name.  I use a man's voice.  And the broadcast business will never usually be mistaken for Kaiser Permanente.  But, still, they leave recorded pleas.

"Please call back at your earliest convenience.  So-and-so is still on a gurney in our hallway."

Now how the hell do you ignore that?

So, schmuck that I can be, I call back.  The healthcare industry is screwed up enough without me singlehandedly knocking off a couple of patients on my own.  Everytime I do so, I ask what number they have for Miss Burns.

It's my work number. 

Okay, now I'm thinking about Miss Burns and wondering why anybody would entrust their health to somebody with an innate inability to provide her own phone number correctly.  Was there a misprint on her business card that she didn't catch?  Is there an error on a website?  Or is she just plain dumb?

I actually call the phone company and they do an investigation.  Somehow, my phone number and the digits to reach Miss Burns at the HMO are identical.  Listen closely as both Alexander Graham Bell and Don Ameche do flip turns in their caskets.

I don't know how they managed it, but the phone company made the calls stop.  For a while.

Recently...

"I'm trying to admit so-and-so to the hospital.  May I speak to Mr. Jacobs?"

D'oh.

I should be delighted that Miss Burns got shitcanned from her job.  But, gang, I doubt Mr. Jacobs is much better.

Moving on, my work number is apparently very close to the same number for the Chatsworth Greyhound Bus station.  So, dialing fingers slip and you really need to make allowances for the inherent stupidity of anybody traveling by Greyhound these days.  I guess I can understand how this can occur.  Nevertheless, every so often, I'll get a call from a Hispanic-sounding voice.

"What time is the bus to Fresno?"

Sorry, you've got the wrong number.

One day, some irate Mexican didn't believe me.

"No, I did not dial the wrong number."

Well, his response wasn't as coherent as I just typed it.  But you get the idea.

I insisted to Senor Knucklehead that I was perfectly capable of judging my own surroundings and, after one more look around, yep, this is not the Chatsworth Greyhound Bus station.

"Fuck you."

Click.

Fifteen seconds later, my phone rings again and I don't recognize the incoming digits.  Obviously, my new best friend really was insistent that he was right.

I picked up the phone and quickly disguised my voice. 

"Yeah, this is Greyhound, Chatsworth station."

At 3:30PM that afternoon, this scumbag was waiting for a bus that may or may not be leaving for Fresno momentarily.

Fuck you right back.

Of course, as I mentioned above, the lunacy is not confined to the West Coast.  Nope, there are a few lunkheads on the East Coast as well.

For some reason that I can't even explain perfectly myself, I keep a land line active in my Westchester, NY apartment.  Perhaps it's simply because I've had the same phone number there for almost thirty years and I've grown way too found of it. 

Every few weeks or so, I will call voicemail and clear out the messages.  Most are recorded greetings from somebody named Spano running for some political office.  But, over the past six months, there are at least two messages a week from representatives of the Empress Ambulance Service.  They are looking to speaking to a "Miss Figueroa" who's obviously behind in her payments for the ambulette that is taking her to whatever doctor is treating whatever imaginary illness she has.

Once again, my outgoing voicemail greeting certainly doesn't sound like a woman.  Or a Puerto Rican one at that.

During one NY trip, I decided to take action.  I called the number that was left for me and reached "somebody" at Empress Ambulance.

This might have been where Miss Burns landed from her job at the HMO.  She didn't understand the problem I was explaining.   They obviously had the wrong number for Miss Figueroa, who actually might have even given them the wrong number herself just so she could cover her tracks.  Whatever the case, getting this dimwit to understand the issue was akin to explaining quantum physics.

Finally, she promised to change her records.

That made it worse.  For the next several weeks, Empress Ambulance cluttered my voice mailbox so much they used up all the memory.

Last week, I called them.  Again.  And told them that one more wrong number call for Miss Figueroa was going to be considered by me as harassment and that I would report them to the federal authorities.

"So does that mean Miss Figueroa can't pay?"

I give up.

Dinner last night:  Philly cheese steak sandwich at Dodger Stadium.

This Date in History - September 14

Any excuse to post a picture of Joey Heatherton is good with me, but today really is her birthday.

786:  DURING "THE NIGHT OF THE THREE CALIPHS," HARUN AL-RASHID BECOMES THE ABBASID CALIPH UPON THE DEATH OF HIS BROTHER AL-HADI.

"The Night of the Three Caliphs" sounds like a wonderful and mystical tale.  But, in reality, it's nothing but a bunch of Arabs killing each other.

1164:  EMPEROR SUTOKU OF JAPAN DIES.

I read this so fast that I thought it was the guy who invented the numbers puzzle.

1180:  THE BATTLE OF ISHIBASHIYAMA IN JAPAN.

Ishibashiyama later pitched for the San Francisco Giants.

1682:  BISHOP GORE SCHOOL, ONE OF THE OLDEST SCHOOLS IN WALES, IS FOUNDED.

Years later, the Al Gore School opens in Tennessee.  Neither one of these schools had decent light bulbs.

1741:  GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL COMPLETES HIS ORATORIO MESSIAH.

Hallelujah!

1752:  THE BRITISH EMPIRE ADOPTS THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR, SKIPPING ELEVEN DAYS---THE PREVIOUS DAY WAS SEPTEMBER 2.

So, according to the Gregorian Calendar, 9/11 would never have happened.

1814:  THE POEM 'DEFIANCE OF FORT MCHENRY' IS WRITTEN BY FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.  THE POEM IS LATER USED AS THE LYRICS OF THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER.

Wave, brave...I get it.  It's a rhyme.

1847:  DURING THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR, WINFIELD SCOTT CAPTURES MEXICO CITY.

I read this so fast that I thought it was about the fat weather guy from the Today Show. 

1901:  PRESIDENT WILLIAM MCKINLEY DIES AFTER AN ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON SEPTEMBER 6 AND IS SUCCEEDED BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

It is officially now not an assassination attempt.

1914:  ACTOR CLAYTON MOORE IS BORN.

Hi-yo!

1923:  MIGUEL PRIMO DE RIVERA BECOMES DICTATOR OF SPAIN.

Oh-lay!

1936:  HOLLYWOOD MOGUL IRVING THALBERG DIES.

At the age of 37.  But, at least, they named an honorary Oscar after him.

1944:  SINGER JOEY HEATHERTON IS BORN.

Well, now we know what the Merry Mailman was doing nine months before. 

1948:  GROUNDBREAKING FOR THE UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS IN NEW YORK.

Do we know what the hell goes on in there?  I mean, to me, it's nothing but an excuse for school field trips.

1957:  FORMER BASEBALL STAR TIM WALLACH IS BORN.

In between all that baseball, how did he manage to run a men's clothing store?

1959:  THE SOVIET PROBE LUNA 2 CRASHES ONTO THE MOON, BECOMING THE FIRST MAN-MADE OBJECT TO REACH IT.

So, Alice Kramden doesn't count?

1959:  ACTRESS MARY CROSBY IS BORN.

And now we know what Bing was doing nine months before.

1964:  ACTRESS FAITH FORD IS BORN.

Corky Sherwood!  She smiled at me a couple of times on the Murphy Brown set.  Being nice to the author will always get you a mention here.

1966:  ACTRESS GERTRUDE BERG DIES.

So long, Mrs. Bloom.

1969:  THE US SELECTIVE SERVICE SELECTS SEPTEMBER 14TH AS THE FIRST DRAFT LOTTERY DATE.

Just to be clear, this has nothing to do with the NFL.

1975:  THE FIRST AMERICAN SAINT, ELIZABETH ANN SETON, IS CANONIZED BY POPE PAUL VI.

Before or after they started that college for really snotty girls.

1982:  ACTRESS GRACE KELLY DIES. 

She had a stroke while driving.  If only Natalie Wood had one while drowning.

1984:  ACTRESS JANET GAYNOR DIES.

A star is dead.

1987:  THE TORONTO BLUE JAYS SET A RECORD FOR THE MOST HOME RUNS IN A SINGLE GAME, HITTING 10 OF THEM.

That's some bad pitching.

1994:  THE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL SEASON IS CANCELED BECAUSE OF A STRIKE.

That's one way to end a dismal New York Met season.

1996:  DANCER JULIET PROWSE DIES. 

Your father's version of Joey Heatherton.

2005:  DIRECTOR ROBERT WISE DIES.

The hills are alive.  He, however, is not.

2009:  ACTOR HENRY GIBSON DIES.

Now he's pushing up those daisies he used to carry around on Laugh-In.

2009:  ACTOR PATRICK SWAYZE DIES.

Little did he know when he was filming Ghost......

Dinner last night:  Spinach and pesto pasta salad with chicken back in LA.

Help Not Wanted

With a phletora of bad movies out there, how the heck did I choose "The Help" as the one I would go see?

Well, I got duped.  Again.  Swayed by the box office numbers.  As well as some positive word-of-mouth from well-meaning friends, who will no longer receive birthday greetings from me.  The reviews from them all started the same way.

"The Help was fabulous.  You have to see it."

Why?

"It's really, really good."

How is it really, really good?

"Ummmmm.................."

I never get a complete answer.

So I went to judge for myself.  Knowing fully well what I was going to get.  A wonderful opportunity to run a really snarky piece for this blog.

"The Help" is the cheapest and most amateurish piece of garbage I have seen in years.  Hiding behind some allegedly good acting, the incredibly hokey script attempts to rise to Shakespearean levels when it can't even get past Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham."   This movie was adapted from a best selling book by Kathryn Stockett and I am shocked it never made that dumbbell Oprah Winfrey's book club.  It's just the kind of trash Doprah would promote.

"The Help" sold lots of books as a result of Stockett telling her own true story of being a White child being raised by her family's Black maid.  This leads me to believe that thousands of people are having battery issues with their Kindles because I can't imagine how all those folks got snookered by this kernel of flotsam.

Naturally, Hollywood can't let an attempt to mend the racial divide in this country go by, so they scoop up the rights to the novel and even hire Stockett's pal, Tate Taylor, to write and direct it.  Indeed, Taylor didn't need a camera.  He could have simply gone down to Petco for a pooper scooper because the end result is nothing but shit.

Sadly, these two White creative types have effectively put race relations in America back about seventy years.  In a genre where superlative works with something to say like "Driving Miss Daisy" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" have given words and images to really digest, the two stooges behind "The Help" have created nothing more than a Road Runner cartoon.

Well, cartoon is half right.  In this movie, all the White characters come off as buffoons and single-layered comic strip villains.  Not a single redeeming quality is found in any of them, except for the hero played by Emma Stone, which just happens to be based on the author Kathryn Stockett.  Funny how that works. 

Meanwhile, all the Black help in the film are nothing short than angelic.  I waited for them all to sprout wings and halos.  Stuck in the racially charged 60s, they hold the entire Mississippi town together.  They are the ones raising all the white children of their bimbo-like employers.  They are cooking.  They are cleaning.  They are perhaps even resolving the Cuban missile crisis.

And, of course, this is just one more movie that shows us the Kennedy assassination through the eyes of a racial group who are now utterly despondent at the loss of their great White hope.  If only could I direct author Stockett and director Taylor to those old newsreels which clearly showed the Kennedys cavorting during their Hyannis Port summers.  In the background, unclogging their toilet bowls, were plenty of Black help.  And who knows how stingy that old fossil Rose was with their pay?

The cast of this sewer back-up tries valiantly to rise above the material, but you can't expect donkeys to fly for long.  Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron's daughter and essentially "Opie Junior," is dealt the worst hand of all having to play the  worst of all the White characters.  She is made to look so detestable that Nancy Pelosi comes off as a lovable Muppet in comparison.   Now coming from a decent talent pedigree, I would hope that Miss Howard would have the gumption to move this role into a much more believable realm.  Nope.  She acted what was on the page, which is pure junk.  Sadly, she took the lazy way out.

Of course, given that this is a movie about oppression in the South, it's a federal law that producers cast in a supporting role Miss Cicely Tyson.  And I also think that calling her "Miss" is also a civil ordinance as well.  Miss Tyson does her usual "you-can't-make-me-sit-in-the-back-of-the-bus" act and then dies off-camera.  The rest of the film died right there in the middle of the screen for all to see.

Like a super hero comic strip or a Worldwide Wrestling match, there are no surprises in this story which lasted more than two hours and maybe even two days.  You can see the plot points emerging before you even pay for your Raisinets at the candy counter.  The Black help will triumph.  The White employers will look like fools.  And anybody who paid full price to see this tripe is equally as stupid.

"The Help," under the hackneyed watch of Stockett and Taylor, is simply rehashing old wounds when there are oodles of fresh ones that need to be addressed.  In today's world of Al Sharpton and flash mobs and Presidential beer summits, there are plenty of opportunities for new looks at new problems.  And, if a movie comes out as a result, so be it.  This time around, the Acme Company anvil might be falling on the head of somebody completely different.

Dinner last night:  Grilled chicken teriyaki.