Top Ten Thoughts I Had While Sitting in a Hair Cuttery Getting My Hair Cut

1) Jeez, I totally wish I would have remembered the picture of Jake Gyllenhaal I use to show people how I want my haircut. They're never going to be able to get it right without a picture of the dude from Brokeback Mountain to show them the way!

2) Maybe I should request someone? There are like five people in here who have cut my hair before. When you go to a hairdresser and then don't request them the next time, I wonder if they go in the back in cry or if they throw darts at your picture or maybe a picture of Jake Gyllenhaal for being so unfortunate to be your hair role model?

3) Nah, I'm just going to take the first person available (pause). Oh wait, this is the first person available? Man, I totally should have requested that other one. She's way more attrative. It would have made the whole uncomfortable "Wow, her breast is accidentally brushing against my shoulder as she trims my cowlick" moment a lot more enjoyable.

You got the gabagool? Because the Jersey Shore girls sure didn't eat it ...

I don't think I truly knew the meaning of "guilty pleasure" until I saw my first episode of Jersey Shore. I had heard how absurd it was and mentioned it to the hubby, so we checked out an episode one day to see what it was all about.

Yikes. I was entertained. I laughed. And for some reason, I found myself unable to turn away and even wanting more once the episode was over. I was hooked.

When I admit my fondness of the show to anyone who knows me, they are shocked. I can't blame them - I'm shocked myself. After all, I can count the number of "shows" I've had (for which I knew the channel and time they came on) in my entire life on one hand. I don't really like TV all that much. And I HATE reality shows. I even formed a friendship at my last corporate job with a fellow reality hater as we laughed and emailed with mutual disdain for our colleagues huddling around the coffeemaker to discuss what happened last night on Survivor or who might be kicked off The Apprentice.

Tale of the Pie: Marzano's Pizza & Steaks

We were beginning to get a little concerned about the Philly Mag best pizza list after each of the last two ended up to be a bust (see posts on Franzone's and Bravo). But the list was redeemed after we sampled the pie at Marzano's Pizza & Steaks in Exton.

However, before I get into the pie, one small gripe with Philly Mag's pizza issue, or perhaps just a suggestion for the next list. Exton's not exactly down the street for us, so we expected to eat in. But this shop was definitely not built for eating in, especially with a 19-month-old. However, there was a small counter with a couple of stools, so we saddled up with the nibble in our lap and ordered a pie.

New to the Collection: A Perfect World

Every time Saucy adds a new DVD to his increasingly mammoth film collection, he will take the time to provide five indelible scenes that convinced him to spend his hard-earned sheckles on something he could have gotten for free with a DVD burner and a Netflix subscription. Unless he doesn't feel like writing about five scenes, at which point he will write about something else. This installment discusses A Perfect World, the 1993 film by esteemed director Clint Eastwood and starring the subject of this piece, Kevin Costner.

At this point in his career, most critics and film viewers see Kevin Costner as a bit of a laughingstock. The reasons they would cite are legion. The "wooden" acting style. The affinity for baseball movies. The debacle that was the fantastically expensive (at that time) Waterworld. The receding hairline. The Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves non-accent. These are just the ones that I came up with off the top of my head. Surely, a Wikipedia search would send me to many more.

Ten Quick Thoughts on...The Kiwi Yogurt Shop Robbery in Collegeville

So some guy robbed a local yogurt shop at the new Providence Town Center in Collegeville this past weekend. So here are some quick thoughts I had about the whole thing:

1. Who the hell robs a yogurt shop. Do these places really do all that much business? Are they known to store tons of money in their safe? Come on dude, there has to be a better place to rob than a store ran by a bunch of teenage girls.
2. Why would he decide to rob a store on a Saturday afternoon? This shopping center is fairly new and produces a lot of traffic. This d-bag decided to rob a store at noon on a Saturday. The shop is located very close to Wegmans and Best Buy, two highly patronized stores.

Making "Friends": The Pizza Project Reviews Barry's Yawnin' in the Dawnin'

So we got an e-mail the other day from a fellow named Bradford Barry. He said he was a member of a band named simply - in a move out of the Van Halen playbook - Barry. He had noticed some of the album review work we had done on The Pizza Project, and he wondered if we would be interested in reviewing the EP his band, a group of three brothers from Hume, New York, had put together.

Now the fact of the matter is I wanted to dismiss this request straight away. I am a busy man. If I have free time, I am either going to enjoy it by spending time with my wife and son, reading some fine prose by Joyce or Tolstoy, or working my cardiovascular system in an intense yet heart-healthy fashion (oh, who am I kidding; I would most likely be at the Wegman’s looking for a beer I haven’t tasted before). But then I noticed something. It turned out that Mr. Bradford Barry had done something very, very, very...savvy: He kissed my arse. Appealed to my ego. And I am pretty much a raging egomaniac.

Ten Albums to Watch for the Rest of 2011, and One I Am Slightly Reluctant to Endorse

1) Watch the Throne - Jay-Z and Kanye West (August 8)
While Jay-Z releases can be a little hit-or-miss these days, Kanye West seems to be pretty much stuck in instant-classic mode, especially after the masterpiece that was 2010's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. If you need more of a sales job, bear in mind that the thing not only features the two pre-eminent MCs of current rap music, it features additional production by Rza and Q-Tip as well. Sort of an All-Star team of hip-hop right there.

2) Mirror Traffic - Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks (August 23)
The lead singer of Pavement teams up with producer Beck Hansen on a 15-song album of sprawling guitar-based sonics and hyperliterate, nonsensical lyrics.