Create a video for Usher

Teenagers who are aged 13-18 have a chance to make a video for Usher.

So if you're an aspiring filmmaker or know one, then go to Got-Noise.com and fill out an application before Jan. 31.

What happens is 20 teenagers will go to Los Angeles and be split into two teams. Each team will work with Usher to conceptualize and figure out the direction for the music video for a song on his new CD, which will be released early next year.

Both videos will be shown in April and fans will vote for their favorite.

The contest is sponsored by Body by Milk.

For more information, go to Got-Noise.com

And good luck!

Wanna be an actor? Ask Chris Elwood

Back in 1990, I made my debut on the Springer Opera House stage and one of the young cowboys was Chris Elwood. He was 15 and making his debut as well. I got to know his family well.

I got an e-mail from Chris, who said he was coming home to visit family and will conduct a "How-to-Hollywood" seminar.

Chris, who was born and reared in Columbus, graduated from Pacelli High School, in 1993. I think. Somewhere around there.

He moved out to Hollywood a little after that, and got a few roles on TV like "Sliders" and more recently in MTV's "Punk'd" and Bravo's "Flipping Out." Chris was also in a teen comedy called "How High," which featured a couple of rappers.

Earlier this year, on "Flipping Out," his personal life was revealed to everyone. He was married to Jenni Pulos, the No. 1 assistant to Realtor Jeff Lewis. He flips houses in Los Angeles. Not any house, but the million-dollar homes. Chris went to work for Lewis, too. He started out as the guy who took out the trash when the houses were being renovated. Then he was promoted to a position that was kind of like house boy.

Anyway, he was caught using Lewis' computer via a "nanny-cam," and when confronted about it, he lied. So Lewis, who is a self-professed member of the OCD club, fired him.

Chris and Jenni must have been having problems before all this happened because for her, it sounded like the final straw. It didn't seem worth arguing over, much less divorcing. But then again, I've never been married.

He e-mailed me after the show and asked if I wanted to do a story about his side of the story. Because to be fair, everyone was against him. I left a message on his cell phone, but we never connected.

But he's going to be in town and the seminar is going to be at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tuesday at My Gym, 2501 Old Whittlesey Road. His younger sister, Heather, owns My Gym, and is opening up one of the rooms for him.

The seminar is just $25, and he'll tell those of you who plan to leave Columbus for the bright lights of Hollywood the pitfalls you'll face.

He says it will be good for aspiring actors, writers, directors and anyone who wants a career in the movie business.

Chris will also conduct personal interviews with anyone who wants to speak one-on-one with him.

If you want to register, e-mail Chris at howtohollywood@gmail.com

It should be very informative and it lasts an hour.

Champagne and sparkling wine tasting

I'm not much of a drinker, but a few years ago, I discovered Moscato di Asti.

My mother watches this Japanese cooking show that either my aunt or one of my cousins sends to us on videotape. Over and over again, the cooks talk about dessert wines.And she would repeatedly ask me about dessert wines. Like I know wines.

So I was in Whole Foods in Atlanta and I asked the guy in the wine department where the dessert wines were. He pointed me to a huge section. I must have looked bewildered because he started asking questions and then he came up with a bottle and told me to try it. It was a Moscato di Asti.

I bought it.

I got home one evening and my mother and her friend had opened the bottle and they were drinking. Both of them told me how much they liked it. Two little old Japanese women sitting around drinking a sweet, sparkling wine. How cute is that?

Since then, I've bought several other bottles, but my mother said none were as good as the one I bought at Whole Foods. Of course, neither one of us wrote down the name of the wine.

Meritage Cafe, 1350 13th St., will hold a champagne and sparkling wine tasting at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Reservations are required because there will be seating for 36 people only.

Maybe that wine will be one of the ones served.

The tasting menu may include "small plates" or appetizers of truffled popcorn, Parmesan chips with goat cheese mousse, salmon and tuna tartare on cucumber with wasabi tobiko, braised fennel with fresh figs, proscuitto-wrapped pear, deviled quail eggs topped with caviar on toast and mushroom pate. Each wine will be offered with a paired small plate or appetizer. Sound yummy?

The tasting costs $49, plus tax and gratuity.

Call 706-327-0707.

Hello Kitty

I spent two hours as Hello Kitty this afternoon.

If it were July, I would have refused. But since it was a chilly December day, why not?

Years and years ago, I dressed up as a character at Six Flags Over Georgia. I thought it would be a good story. It was, of course, in the summer because Six Flags is open in the summer.

It was when the Weebles were popular. I was the rabbit Weeble.

The costume was excruciatingly hot. The headpiece was huge. The feet were even bigger.

A Six Flags employee led me around because you really can't see with that headpiece on. It didn't matter that I had an escort. Kids, teenagers mostly, would pull my tail and knock on the head.

Did I mention it was hot?

By the time I finished my 20-minute stint, I had sweated at least 10 pounds away and had a horrible headache.

Today it was different. But the same.

The costume was not very hot. The headpiece was huge. And it was hot. I was not hot. Just my head.

After two hours, I had a headache.

But I had a fabulous time. Kids and adults both love Hello Kitty.

Two of the mothers said their girls loved meeting Hello Kitty more than meeting Santa Claus.

One little kept hugging me around my waist. She said she just turned six and she had a Hello Kitty birthday party. She kept saying she loved Hello Kitty.

Only two little children were scared.

There was a group of older teenagers who took pictures of each other on their cell phones. In fact, more than half of the parents took pictures with their cell phones.

There was on woman who stopped her car in the middle of the street, hopped out and had her picture taken with Hello Kitty. A police officer told her to move her car. She didn't have a camera, but the woman who was taking pictures of her daughters, took it. She said she'd e-mail it. The woman who was getting back in her car, yelled out her e-mail address.

I wonder if she'll get it.

I even walked over to where Santa Claus was and had my picture taken.

As soon as Gladys Griffin, who owns the Main Street Toy Shoppe scans it and e-mails it to me, I'll post the photo.

It was great fun.

Gladys said she'll have Hello Kitty back next year. She's a smart woman. She said she'll have Hello Kitty back around this time. She knows she'll never get anyone in a costume in the summer!

Skype.com

Tonight, we spoke to my cousins, Kotoe (sitting, left) and Hiromi (sitting, second from left), who are sisters, and their mother, sitting (far right), along with Miho (standing, left). Hiromi is Miho's mother. Yuichi was at home with a cold. Yoko (in glasses), lives in another part of Tokyo and wasn't at Aunt Mizue's house. I took this picture on the last night we were in Japan.

A few years ago, when I was buying my cell phone, Brian, who sold me the phone, was telling me about Skype.com, where I could set up an account and then talk to anyone in the world who was also had an account.

When we got back from Japan, my cousin, Yuichi, talked me through it and all of sudden, we could all see each other and talk to each other.

It's amazing. One of my colleague's husband is deployed in Afghanistan, and they talk to each other regularly via Skype.

I had tried calling two of my cousins and every time, they've been off-line.

Last weekend, I called my cousin Kotoe, and I got the message that she was off-line. A few minutes later, the "phone" rang and it was Kotoe and her mother. I got my mother and we had a nice chat.

We made plans to speak again tonight and that's what we did. We set a date to all talk the day after Christmas, which will be Dec. 26 here and Dec. 27 there. Right now, they're 14 hours ahead of us.

So it's 10:30 p.m. here. It's 12:30 p.m. in Tokyo.

We'll all be talking then. They're excited.

Technology is such a cool thing, isn't it?

I sure wish we had something like this when Daddy was in Vietnam all those years ago. All we had then were letters from him, we treasured.

I know my nephew is hooked up with Skype, but did he ever call me when he was in Iceland or England? Noooo.

But now he's in Valdosta. Does he ever call? Or even respond to e-mail? Nooo.

Then again, neither does his sister, Jessica.

Oh, well. I guess they have better things to do than talk to their aunt.

I'm going to be Hello Kitty!

Come on! How cute is she?


I had to work the Friday after Thanksgiving on a shopping story. While my colleagues went out to the big chain stores, I hit the locally-owned stores.

Gladys Griffin, who owns the Main Street Toy Shoppe, told me she was going to get the costumed character of Hello Kitty back in her store. She had Kitty there when the Christmas lights were turned on right before Thanksgiving.

Even thought the toy store is no longer in Main Street Village, she kept the name when she moved to the Landings on Airport Thruway.

We started talking about the costumed character and she mentioned that she wasn't sure she could get the teenager who did it before to come back.

I told her I'd do it.

Well, she called me the other day and said the girl couldn't do it and was I serious.

Was I serious? Are you kidding me?

I love Hello Kitty.

In fact, I love Hello Kitty so much that my mother is always asking me how old I am. She thinks it's unseemly that a 56-year-old woman wears Hello Kitty panties and pajamas, carry handbags and wear a Hello Kitty lanyard at work. I have little Hello Kitty things everywhere.

Come see Hello Kitty at the toy store Saturday between 3-5 p.m.

I won't be able to talk to you, but it will be me in the costume!

Atlanta exhibits worth seeing

Former President Jimmy Carter toured the exhibit with High Museum director Michael Shapiro and Hiromi Kinoshita, the consulting curator for "The First Emperor" exhibition.

I like going to Atlanta, but I hate driving to Atlanta.

Fortunately, the past few years, one of my sisters has always driven there. We usually go grocery shopping at one of the Japanese stores.

And, of course, we go to eat. Almost always in a Japanese restaurant.

I do go to some shows at the Fox Theatre with my friend Bill Rich. And I make him drive.

Some of the 15 Terracotta Warriors, the emperor's retinue and even a horse is in "The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army" at the High Museum of Art.

Right now, the High Museum of Art, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., has an extraordinary exhibit, "The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army." Besides that, it still has the final year of the Louvre's loaned masterpieces.

The High has nine terracotta warriors, including a general, from the Museum of the Terracotta Army and the Cultural Relics Bureau of Shaanxi Province in Xi’an, China.

The site at Xi’an is one of the places I really, really want to see.

And I can’t wait to see it. I know it’s not China, but since I blew my whole budget for the next couple of years going to Japan last summer, this will be closest I get to Xi’an.

Besides the general (only one of seven unearthed so far), the foot soldiers and archers, there are acrobats, musicians, a court official, a stable boy, a strongman and a chariot horse. There are even some bronze birds.

It’s speculated that the birds were trained to dance while the musicians played.

There are lots of photographs and artifacts from the archaeological digging as well.

Besides this exhibit, you can see the last exhibit from the Louvre, “Louvre Atlanta: The Louvre and the Masterpiece,” through Sept. 4. Johannes Vermeer’s “The Astronomer” will leave Feb. 15 and will be replaced by Georges de la Tour’s “The Card-Sharp (with Ace of Diamonds)” on Feb. 17.

The museum is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday and Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $11-$18.

Call 404-733-4444 or go to www.high.org

Now it’s going to be incredibly crowded. In fact, the museum has sold more than 100,000 tickets already. The best times to go are weekday afternoons because most school groups come in the morning, said Cassandra Champion Streich, the High’s senior manager of public relations.

Ther is another blockbuster exhibit, “Tutankhamuh: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs,” in the Atlanta Civic Center, 395 Piedmont Ave. N.E., and is presented by the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University through May 25.

This is one of four of King Tut's "coffinette," an ornately decorated canopic vessel that held his internal organs.

More than 150 artifacts can be seen in this exhibit from 2,000 years of ancient Egyptian history, including the largest image of King Tut ever found. This 10-foot-tall statue may have been placed at his mortuary temple and it retains much of its original paint.

The Tut exhibit is open 9 a.m.–7 p.m. daily, with the last ticket sold at 5 p.m., except 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Christmas Eve, with the last ticket sold at 2:30 p.m.; closed Christmas day.



This is a funerary mask of King Tut.

Call 404-727-4282 or go to www.kingtut.org

If you're on a budget, but want to see both exhibits, there is a way to do that.

You can go to both the King Tut and Terracotta Warriors exhibits for one price.

Through the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, you can buy a ticket for $39 for Tuesday-Thursday or $41 for Friday-Sunday. You must choose the day and time slot. Tickets for youths are $25.

There’s another attractive ticket package: $29.99-$39.99 for the King Tut exhibit and the Georgia Aquarium. When you buy your ticket, you must choose the day and the time slot you want to be at the Atlanta Civic Center.

You can spend one day at one of the attractions and then go back within 30 days to see the other.

Believe it or not, I have yet to see the Georgia Aquarium. So maybe this will be my incentive to see the Tut exhibit and the fish!