I might have messed something up but I think my final picks are:

Movie Ace Ventura
Song Pina Colada Song
Food/Beverage Celery
TV Show Survivor
Artist Graffiti "artist"
City Austin
Brand Marvel
Famous Person Kardashian
Inanimate Object Irma (and my hate grew every day)
Wild CardPackaging

Perfect description.

Solid description.

Solid list--except for my minor quibble about the Pina Colada Song.

I was surprised to see Austin, but your description explained it perfectly. You seem to have used your "down time" wisely.

Fill in the spread sheet...

Love the celery pick. That stuff is awful.

Austin, unfortunately, is turning into all the horrible things that ruined San Francisco, which is mostly because SF transplanted their junked out brogrammer hipsters to Austin.

It is sad, really. Austin has so much to offer, but all of it goes unappreciated by those who can afford it, and pushes out the poor creative types. "Get a job." Yeah, and I suppose a person who's been a full time musician or cook for the past 15 years is going to start writing Java for a living.

Haven't had time to think about my last pick, so I'm just going off the cuff here...

Song: "Cowboy" by Kid Rock



Song is whatever, but basically **** you Kid Rock, you no-talent poseur Babadook-looking clown. You grew up in a million-dollar mansion in suburban Michigan and you're trying to pass yourself off as some trailerpark redneck rapper dude. Kid Rock's shtick is like like working-class white minstrelry and now he wants to enter politics, because apparently that's what C-list celebrities do these days. You're a modern-day Ted Nugent except somehow you have even less talent.

So my final list is:

Japan: Wild card
Starbucks: Brand
Martin Shkreli: Celebrity
Pumpkin Spice: Food
ST: Discovery: TV
Baltimore: City
Bansky: Artist
SW: Phantom Menace: Movie
Mostly-Empty Jar of Pesto: Inanimate Object
"Cowboy" -Kid Rock: song

Celery is pure filler. It's there in so many soffrito recipes, but I got no idea why. Zero nutritional value, zero flavor, just go away and stop wasting my time.

Totally false on zero flavor. It's delicious aromatic quality that is a quality addition to soups and stews, even if raw it is full of water.

I like celery and I like Ace Ventura

You want dark green celery though and not the almost white stuff

I'll eat it in a salad, on it's own or sometimes I'll fill the groove with cheese

Mirepoix mother****ers

This. Not only do you want it dark green, but you want it with a full head of leaves in perfect condition. That's how to know it's fresh.

Cold weather tip: Chop up the leaves and put them in the pot the next time you make chicken stock. Nothing makes the house smell so good.

Mmmmmmm, celery.

Wild Card



If you are going to waste the time on sports, either be a fan of a player, a team or have money involved. Rooting for a particular collection of players for "bragging rights"? NO ONE CARES. No one wants to hear about your team. I have a nephew who constantly goes on about his "team". It's barely tolerable. Just barely, BECAUSE HE'S 12!

Come on adults. Either put cash on the actual game or go join the real fantasy league, church.

I was one of the ones who came. Sorry 'bout that.

Years ago somebody in the Chronicle wrote that the Austin you first came to know is the one you think is best, and I'm sure there is probably some truth to that. Mine is the immediate post-Slacker era when the movie was still an accurate reflection of the city. I liked all the weirdos on the Drag and the sleazy version S. Congress that was my first home in the city (walking distance to a porn theater!).

But I think the now ubiquitous existence of naval gazing articles like that (and this post) are what killed the city for me. The Austin I moved to - and I assume the one that preceded it - was content to just be itself and didn't much care what anybody else thought of it. However, by the end of the 20th century the city started to become increasingly self-conscious. Austin became a try-hard city. "Keep Austin Weird" wasn't a rallying cry, it was a death rattle. If you have to remind yourself to be unique and special, you've already lost those qualities. A bumper sticker won't bring them back.

I feel the same way about Portland, too. But I did find that same weird-without-trying-or-caring attitude still exists in Reno, of all places.

Ok, I'll do my last one:

Famous People WEATHERMEN

The last couple of weeks have been heaven for weathermen (and weatherwomen).
If I saw one to those dbags standing in a puddle saying "it's getting rough out here, Bob", I saw 50. We know it's raining, get you ass out of the way and let us see what's happening.
And stop interviewing people in hopes that someone cries, and if they do shed a tear, how about not focusing the camera on them for 45 ****ing seconds like a voyeuristic ahole. And get rid of those stupid ****ing bow ties and the rolled-up-sleeves-haggard look. And lose the ****ty names like "weather Dan", "Heather with the weather" and "crazy Al". Just give us a quick over-view of the LOCAL weather and gtfo my screen!!!

Rebuck's Hates
1) Song Honey
2) TV Shows Golf announcers
3) Inanimate Object Sand
4) Wild Card Adam Sandler
5) Brand Bottled Water
6) Artist Bob Ross
7) City LA
8) Movie All Movies
9) Food & Beverage Coffee
10) Famous People Weathermen

I think that "famous weatherman" is an oxymoron

Al Roker and Willard Scott.

I know Al Roker because of Seinfeld only and I don't know the other guy

I know Fred Talbot though...

This really depends on where you grew up. If you lived in an area where you bought a second TV just so the weather is on for 24 hours, you would certainly have local celebrity weathermen.

Weather women didn't exist back in those days.

I was too. I got totally destroyed out there, but I managed to leave.

So much this. What's surprising in the incredible speed that these changes happen. I first moved to Austin a touch over 2 years ago. There was reasonably cheap rent (so cheap that I could afford to move downtown), cheap food, cheap beer, plenty of jobs, and Uber.

When I left, I had went over 6 months without filing a single employment application, zero interviews and no recruiter phone calls. Indeed was a blank page.

Rent on Burton street was over $1k / month for a small studio apartment. LOL, no. Los Angeles isn't even that expensive.

Uber was gone.

I think that Austin also has a strong surface. After digging and getting to know it, the city becomes more and more unpleasant. This is very opposite to my experience in other cities.

How about David Letterman?

yeah, I don't think that David Letterman is a famous weatherman

He might have been a weatherman but would not have been known by me if this was all he ever did.

In the UK we make songs about our weathermen.

Round 11

Late Entry:





Where to begin... I guess we could say it's well intentioned, but let's admit it -- it's drek.

It may be the horrible casting.

Mandy? I've loved you in other stuff: you were really cool in Dead Like Me. There's not much TV I like, but I liked you in that one. Alien Nation? You nailed it! You even named your kid after Richard Nixon! That's gotta win you big points on *this* forum. But Inigo Montoya? Uh, no. Why the Brooklyn accent? You're not even from Brooklyn. Was it some weird homage to Tony Curtis?

Wallace Shawn? You're not a Sicilian outlaw. That's Christopher Walken in True Romance. You're the son of a famous editor at the New Yorker. You need to be sitting somewhere chatting in a tweed jacket, which is why you were great in Manhattan and My Dinner with Andre. The latter flick may have contributed some confusion precipitating this disaster of a film. That flick's Andre was not Andre the Giant.

For those forum members too young to remember, there was a time when we laughed *at* pro wrestling, not *with* pro wrestling, which was probably why Andre the Giant was cast -- the filmmakers wanted somebody to laugh at. No need, the rest of the cast fills that role admirably.

I'd go off on the remaining cast, but they've faded into obscurity and I'm too lazy to google them.

Now they tell me they are planning a 30-year anniversary re-release of this travesty. I'm thinking of leaving the country.

Nice. I never got the love for that movie.