Brian Pdog is one hot pepper!

You guys are really hitting the old blog up this morning, and I'm not sure why. 44 hits this morning? What's up? I'm getting a bunch of referrals from some site called xeney.com but I can't find where she's linking me. Does someone want to clear this up?

Sweet Connie Champagne pointed out this story from the Sunday Bee about the Greyhound station. It's been clear for a while that it's going to get moved no matter what, and now the owner of the building has a plan for, surprise!, a big skyscraper in its place. Just the other day I was tripping out on how many poor and homeless people are hanging out in that area. But is just shuffling them somewhere else the best we can do? Maybe after the skyscraper is built, and it has tons of empty space because the city has built too much office space we can house the homeless in there.

I've heard that sex offender Brian Peps is a big topic of debate at Tower Theater these days, and that some crank calls are being made by people pretending to be him. Has anyone discovered any new facts about this dude? Is he single?

I ate at Vientiane last night. I think I've reviewed it before, but too bad. It's a Thai/Lao place on West Capitol Blvd. in West Sac. It looks like a dump, and seeing the bathrooms might give you bad ideas about the cleanliness of the kitchen (they just keep repainting the bathroom but it never really looks clean), but I've eaten there lots of times with no bad effects, so just ignore the appearance. I recommend the stuffed chicken wings over all else. It's their specialty, and its something that you don't see on the menu at other Thai restaurants. They take chicken legs and wings and stuff them with spices, jelly noodles, and ground pork. They serve it with a super spicy sauce. All of their chicken curries are good. Their green papaya salad was exceptionally good. It reeked of garlic (as we all did after we ate it), and was very spicy. Actually, it gave me a small rash on my mouth (at least I hope it came from the salad). So if you're prone to mouth rashes, you may want to avoid it. We got all three of these dishes, plus some unremarkable chicken spring rolls, rice, and two thai iced teas, all for thirteen bucks each. Not bad, right?

Brew and I watched "Cries and Whispers" last night. It was her first Bergman film, and it's a rough one. There is a lot of anguished wailing and even some (steel yourself, ladies) vaginal cutting a la "The Piano Teacher" (we were speculating that they stole that from Cries and Whispers-Piano Teacher is from a book, but I think it's a book from the 80's, so Cries and Whispers came first). This movie is harrowing and great. Liv Ullman looks beautiful and as a further testament to her wonderful acting skills, she plays a ditz in this movie and she seems like a ditz, which is in contrast to most of her roles in which she radiates intelligence. I love how he uses the same group of actors over and over, and the husband from "Scenes from a marriage" has a small role. I like that guy. I like Bergman's take on the family, which is if you scratch the surface of a normal family you will find a roiling cauldron of pain and hatred. I can relate to that. Two anguished and emotionally wrenching thumbs up.