Scardello is one of Dallas’ BEST cheese shops!  I had the honor of being invited to the shop for a running competition they have been having between different regions of the world that have similar cheeses.  Last weeks competitor’s were the WEST COAST vs. SPAIN, with the West Coast demolishing Spain.  With each cheese matching from either region there were specific wines paired with them.  I found that I didn’t know very much on cheese or the wine but as the class/competition progressed my knowledge and conversation on the subject grew.  We were told to use our 4 senses: TOUCH, SMELL, TASTE, & SIGHT, to judge the different cheeses. At first it was hard trying to use different adjectives and likenesses to describe them, but after awhile it came easy.  This is probably the funnest, not to mention most informative, wine/cheese tasting I’ve ever had!  The staff and presentation was perfect, it couldn’t have been presented better!  I recommend SCARDELLO CHEESE SHOP to any and everyone who has a passion for fine cheese and wine, only the best is hand-picked to be in this shop!

Photos By:  Dustin Hollywood

I headed to Denton,Texas last night for the NX35 Music Conferette to check out HEALTH at The Boiler Room. Denton is quite an interesting place. Can’t say I love it, cant say I hate it, but unique nonetheless. It is one of the last places on earth you can still smoke cigarettes inside.  The show was high energy and I was lucky enough to be able to shoot the band from all over the venue. Unfortunately I lent my camera out to a friend last week and he changed the settings thus the sound was muted on my videos. I might check out the Pacquiao vs. Clottey fight tonight at Cowboys Stadium or head back to Denton to see The Flaming Lips.

I got the chance to go by the BODIES EXHIBIT in West End in Downtown Dallas today.  This was one of the best scientific exhibits I have ever been too — as well as artistic.  The means by which these bodies were obtained and used for the exhibit is highly controversial, as they were not donated to science but rather Jane/John Doe’s.  How they created some of these controversial presentations is as amazing as it is intricate.  I advise everyone to check this out if you ever get the chance!  Thanks to the Museum for letting us come by and share what we saw with you all.  See the rest of the photos from the exhibit HERE.

Photos By:  Dustin Hollywood

I am certain you have all seen the infomercial on TV for the “Ped Egg”. It might quite possibly be the most disgusting item I have ever seen. “Boys and girls, use this palm sized device to scrape off the excess calloused skin off the bottom of your stanky feet.” Don’t ask me why, but I get sucked into watching the same stupid infomercials over and over again at 2 am – it has become somewhat of a new hobby of mine. Thank you for tucking me in yet again Mr. Ron Popeil. You have put me to sleep more times than my mother. Classic Ron P quotes after the jump.

It’s official, like a gangsta with a pistol. The smoking ban instituted last Friday in Dallas bars and pool halls is in full effect.

Resident Chris Alexander, a cigarette smoker, said he would honor the citywide ban by smoking on outdoor decks and patios as allowed under the new regulations. “I’ll keep going to bars in Dallas,” he said to the Morning News. “If they say I can’t smoke inside the bar, I’ll come outside and smoke.” Yaaaah you will Chris — go on with your bad self. And give me a light while you’re at it.

More pics from my travels after the jump…
I know the angle is kind of bad, but trust me on this one, the sink literally comes up to my knees. At first I thought it might be the inordinate amount of Sake i had consumed, or possibly my restaurant shared a bathroom with a local elementary school, but then i remembered I was in Japan and that the people of Japan are adorable, and small. I, on the other hand have never felt bigger or fatter. Thank you lil’ sink, thank you very much.

I’m not gonna lie, I felt bad for this guy. He was still alive, but his tail has been removed and served as sashimi right next to him! He could see it for Christ’s sakes! As long as I’m being honest, it was delicious. Like butdah (that’s for you Des).

Every hotel has them, but even the public toilets in the Narita (Tokyo) Airport have the Toto Washlet system. If you are not familiar with the Toto system, let me quickly educate you on the worlds greatest toilet. Heated seat (amazing for middle of the night and early morning), massage function, deodorizer, front spray for the girls, back spray (soft and hard, with oscillating option) for the boys (’cause everyone knows girls don’t go #2) and a dryer to finish your experience off. I’m going to state a simple fact, and don’t even attempt to argue with me on this: If you have not had your butt sprayed by a toilet, you have not lived. Thank you Toto butt sprayer, thank you very much.

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto Tokyo…it was a blast. See you in 6 months.

So Michael Phelps wins a record EIGHT gold medals in the Olympics and then decides to blaze one up a few months later while partying at the University of South Carolina. Apparently he was also dumb enought to let someone take a photo of him doing it. Regardless, the cat is out of the bag. You have to admire Mr. Phelps though for responding to these recently-surfaced photos by actually admitting his mistake and vowing not to do it again in the future. Usually, athletes that get caught with damning evidence in the face of any crime (doping? cheating? murder?) always respond by adamantly denying any wrongdoing at all. Let’s all give a good “Hear! Hear!” to Boy Wonder for manning up to his bong rip.

Not sure how it’s humanly possible, or what kind of sperm the father was packed with, but on Monday a California woman gave birth to eight kids! Octuplets to be precise. The doctor released a statement saying everything went according to plan: “We were extremely well-prepared for this delivery, except for one small surprise,” said Dr. Karen Maples, chief of obstetrics and gynecology for the hospital. That surprise? During the delivery Monday, doctors were taking the babies out one by one, naming them for a letter of the alphabet and giving them to an assigned nurse, she said. After “G,” the team thought they had all the babies, but “I said, ‘Well, now we have H, everyone,’” she recalled. “The G nurse became the H nurse, and took it over to the F doctor … it just went seamlessly.” Now just imagine if you were the poor father and quite possibly were not even expecting one child, and then end up with eight! HOLY MOLY! Word to the wise: Don’t make a mistake, cover your snake.

With AIDS awareness week wrapping up today around the world, we at Helloooooo.com wanted to bring a little levity to the most serious of situations….

I suffer from a chronic, incessant and hands-down obnoxious disease. It affects me everyday, whether I am at home or on vacation, at high altitudes or low, watching a movie or sacrificing a baby lamb to the Blackberry gods. Recently it has even begun to affect those around me. I suffer from what I like to call “batterhea.”

Batterhea [bat-uh-ree-uh] can be defined as the constant and streaming loss of battery life. My phone cannot hold its juice, so to speak. A daily melodrama I have to deal with that almost makes me want to kill someone. Whether at work, at home, in my car, a luau, a baptism, a circumcision party, or in line at the DMV–my battery indicator is blood red. My phone drains battery like its going out of style. If battery life were executive bonuses, my phone would be Lehman Brothers Exec–just dishing it out with no consequence. I own so many home/car chargers stashed all over the place that the Justice Department investigated me for trying to corner the market. The whole thing is ridiculous.

Deciding that enough was enough, last week I went to my local, cheery AT&T store for the THIRD time to swap out my Bold for a new one, still convinced it is impossible that a brand new phone that took 23 years to develop and incorporates materials collected from Mars’ surface cannot last me past lunch time. Of course my problem was an isolated one, “Timmy” the manager insisted. “But sir, why the hell is my battery life so crappy?” I asked. Timmy replied that the 3G network can often be “difficult on the battery life.” Great, the whole reason they made the damn phone had just been prescribed as the source of its own downfall (and eventually mine). I though that I could either a) tell Timmy what I thought he could do with his 3G network or b) gouge out Timmy’s right eye with the sharp end of my courtesy plastic holster. Not wanting to cause a scene, I decided to exit quietly. Besides, I had a brand new phone that needed to be charged.

America has long been dubbed “The Land of Opportunity.” Even the silliest of silly ideas turn average Joe’s into wealthy entrepreneurs (Pet Rock, anyone?). Two parts idea, one part marketing and three parts timing and…poof! That said, I wasn’t much surprised last weekend in NYC when I came across a brand of water labelled “TAP’D NY.” Yes boys and girls, bottled mothereffin’ water! Brilliance in a bottle.

Tap water has long been championed as having many important nutrients–most prominently fluoride. The bottled water craze of the past 15 or so years has all but vilified good ol’ sinkwater into something of a demon’s juice: Drink it, and die sucka! Now one NY company is taking the city’s water, smacking some ultra-fancy slogans on it (“We don’t travel the world from Fiji to France…”) and (actually) selling it in stores. Don’t you feel proud of your country? Next up: Organic roadkill at your local Whole Foods.

I’m sure It comes as no surprise that Dallas is a very BIG and very overweight city. There are an estimated 600,000 overweight or obese children within Dallas and its six-counties. Now I really don’t want to come off like I am trashing Dallas because I love this city and ALL the people in it, but I must point out the issues at hand and the much needed CHANGE I see that is still needed here.

One of the first things I noticed when i moved here from Los Angeles four years ago was how Dallas-ites would boast about how their city had more restaurants per capita than both New York and Los Angeles. Well let me tell you please, do yourselves all a favor and put a stop to building any more restaurants! Do we really want to turn Dallas into a McWorld? And, is it too late to turn back? With chains like Chili’s, TGIF, Taco Cabana, Taco Bueno, Taco Bell, What-A-Burger, McDonald’s, Burger King, Carl’s Jr (which is on its way), Sonic, Chick-fil-A, KFC, Arby’s, Dairy Queen, Braum’s, Wendy’s, Popeye’s, Long John Silver, Jack in the Box and Pizza Hut… It is hard to believe you can find yourself eating somewhere else. I do not understand how people are not bigger than they already are. It’s like having a crack dealer on every street corner and then puzzled why everyone is high. It really very simple people. Its only  a two step program: 1) Put a moratorium on the amount of chain restaurants that are allowed in any given city and 2) Start developing new restaurant concepts that provide us with healthier alternatives and actually keep us alive longer than our own pets. If you can’t see your own toes in the shower, then there is definitely a problem.

For an example of the kind of change and goodness we need check out www.Sweetgreen.com, a local DC/Georgetown restaurant that specializes in organic salads and yogurts that i pray to Jesus himself one day decides to come here.