They say too much salt is bad for you, but that’s what was on the menu last Saturday night. The Angels game ended early, so it was off to the AMC 30 at the Block at Orange for a movie. With thirty screens, there was much to choose from, but the schedule worked best for “Salt” starring Angelina Jolie. And like in real life, a little salt goes a long way.

“Salt” was more like a video game than a movie, with Jolie running, jumping shooting and basically hanging on for dear life. She is much bigger than this film—a true force. The stunts were impressive, especially when you consider that her role was originally conceived for a man. But the dialogue is a bit flat, with Jolie’s best lines delivered in Russian. The movie ends with the door left open for a sequel. If there is one, I’ll see it because of her, not because of the script.

One bright note- I laughed hard at the trailer for “The Other Guys.”

My healing foot and I went with a friend to the Angel game Saturday evening. I went mostly to see two people play- the new Angel pitcher, Dan Haren, and my favorite player, Vladdy Guerrero of the Rangers.

Haren pitched his heart out- 119 pitches, if memory serves me correctly, in a complete game masterpiece. He hit 90 mph in the ninth inning! Did the Angels win? Nope. Haren made only one mistake… one bad pitch to Vladdy. It was a two run homer and the Angels lost 2-1.

For those of you not familiar, Guerrero used to be a member of the Angels before being cast aside this year as being past his prime. Vladdy is a shy, humble man who was always a fan favorite. So he got into terrific shape, went to Texas and reenergized his career. And he has haunted the Angels ever since. Going into Sunday’s game, he has knocked in ten runs at the Big A this season for the Rangers, including a grand slam home run. You can’t tell me that’s just a coincidence. When Vladdy comes to Anaheim now, he must be motivated to prove his former bosses wrong. By the way, he got a nice round of applause every time he came up on Saturday. And friends who went to last month’s All Star game in Anaheim tell me that Vladdy received the biggest ovation of anyone. Vladdy is so nice he would never gloat. But it must’ve felt good coming back to the Big A as a starting All Star, voted in by the fans. It’s a great story and I love it.

The game started at 6pm, which is an odd time for a game, given all the weird shadows being cast on the field at that hour. Then again, summer is all about the “slow roll.” I made it to a movie that night too. To be continued…

Ok, I’ll admit I arrived late to this party. I always meant to catch this show but life got in the way. I’ve been bombarded recently with stories in print and on TV about “Mad Men,” and I’ve seen the displays in the windows of Banana Republic, so I made a point on Sunday to catch the debut of the fourth season to see what everyone’s talking about. (My broken foot has caused me to spend more time in front of the TV set.)

The show is dynamic, with enough “Desperate Housewives” drama thrown into the portrayal of ad agency life in the 1960’s to make it very compelling. (But again, most of you already knew that.) It’s fun to channel the swashbuckling 60’s. I especially liked the way the dialogue was written. My pet peeve is when period pieces are written in dialogue that was never used at the time. “Mad Men” is definitely written in the moment, from drinking your lunch to chain smoking to condemning divorced couples—all very un-PC practices today.

And I really appreciated the care in which the sets were carefully designed to remain true to that decade. The lighting is impeccable. And the clothing of that time is worn with great sex appeal by the lead, Jon Hamm.

I thought for a moment how much I would have loved to have been an adult in the business during that period. But then reality set in when I saw the way women were treated on the job back in those days. We’ve certainly come a long way.

The challenge for me now is to catch up on the first three seasons while simultaneously watching season four. I bet no one ever dreamed of a thing called Tivo back in 1964!

When the temperature gets into triple digits,   the I-pod in my brain starts to shuffle around for my favorite hot weather songs. I’m sure you have yours, and I’d love to hear from you about your favorites. Here are some of mine, in no particular order:

“Hot Hot Hot”, by Buster Poindexter, aka David Johansen. It’s just a fun song from back in the ‘80’s with a nice Latin beat.

“Summer”, (“My time of year”) by War, from back in the ‘70s. War was, and still is, the quintessential L.A. rock band. When you think about it, what personifies L.A. more than “Summer”, and “Low Rider”? It reminds me of my teenage years cruising the streets of the Valley.

“Too Darn Hot”, from the Broadway musical, “Kiss Me Kate.” Written by Cole Porter and recorded by various people including Ann Miller and Ella Fitzgerald, when it’s played you can feel the frustration of a woman who just wants to be “close to my baby tonight, but it’s too darn hot.”

What we really need right now is to cool down a bit. The I-pod in my head now thinks of:

“Baby It’s Cold Outside”, the version with Martina McBride and Dean Martin from a few years back. It’s so well done you can almost feel the cold.

“Let it Snow.” So many people have recorded this song, including Jessica Simpson, but once again my vote has to go to the version sung by Dean Martin. He defined the word “sexy”, even when “The weather outside is frightful.”

“California Dreamin”, by the Mamas and the Papas. How I wish it were “Such a winter’s day” right now.

Whatever you do during this heat wave, do a quick check on the elderly people in your life and don’t forget to flip over every 7 minutes.

I may be a bit late to this party, but the name alone seems to add to my waistline. I’ve finally discovered this hotspot, and now there’s more than one. “Millions of Milkshakes” opened in October 2008 on Santa Monica Boulevard at San Vicente in West Hollywood. They just opened another store at the Westfield Mall in Culver City. And, no, I don’t own a piece of the company. Believe me- I wish I did.

The West Hollywood location has become a celebrity magnet. If you’ve got friends or relatives in from out of town and they want to see stars, take them here, especially late at night.

The milk shakes themselves are named after A list celebs. On the way home from surgery to repair my broken foot, (see earlier blog, if you care) I asked my friend to swing by and pick me up a Vegan Ron Artest Shake, made with mixed berries, peaches, pineapple and protein. (Vegan means it was made with soy milk.) My friend enjoyed a Miley Cyrus shake, made with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and cookie dough. I was still groggy from the surgery, but my shake hit the spot. It was the only good thing to happen the day I broke my foot.

Don’t be surprised if the Millions of Milkshakes phenomenon spreads to your neighborhood soon. The buzz about this place is getting too big to ignore. It is to milk shakes what Sprinkles has become to cupcakes. I can see the guys from “Entourage” pulling up in Drama’s Lincoln convertible in a future episode.

What’s next? Is Lindsay Lohan going to ask us to believe she FORGOT she had an expletive painted on her fingernail?

There  it was, painted on the nail of the middle finger of her left hand. A photographer in the courtroom got the shot of it. How do you “forget” something like that? It’s hard to paint letters that small on the curve of a fingernail. Whether she did it herself or had someone do it for her, it takes time and a certain amount of expertise. It’s not something you forget easily. And if she really did forget about it, why would she have that message painted on her nail in the first place? What purpose could it serve?

Was it a subtle but defiant message to the judge? If so, she could be in contempt. Was she dissing her father? The paparazzi? Ms. Lohan is asking the public for mercy, and she should get it. We’ve watched her grow up before our eyes, and I think most of us want the best for her. But trying not to be judgmental, she sure is making it difficult for us, and on herself. The public is clamoring for an explanation. The term “Lindsay Lohan fingernail” is by far the number one search term today on Google. That may be a sad commentary about the rest of us, but the ball is in Lindsay’s court. Before she gets our mercy, we deserve an explanation. Perhaps there is no proper explanation. Maybe it’s just one more act of a talented but desperate person.

“Only saints want justice. The rest of us want mercy.” That wonderful line was written by journalist and author Jim Bishop. Lindsay Lohan got no mercy as justice was handed down in a Beverly Hills courtroom on Tuesday.

Lohan was sentenced to 90 days in jail for her various offenses, but will probably only serve a month, if she behaves properly. But she blew it big time during her tearful speech to the judge. It sounded promising at first when she said she took responsibility for her actions. But then Lohan contradicted herself when she tried to explain why she blew off weekly alcohol rehab classes. She said she made up most of the classes by attending more often in subsequent weeks. She then said “had somebody taken me aside” and told her it was against the judge’s rules to make up for missed classes, she wouldn’t have done it.

In the course of taking responsibility, she blamed others. True, Lohan’s counselor who taught the classes never criticized Lindsay’s erratic schedule. But the court handed down the sentence, not the counselor. Neither Lohan nor her attorneys bothered to run it by the court, and the judge clearly felt dissed. Lindsay Lohan needs to take responsibility for that, too.

I wish I had a fabulous story to tell: I was furiously dancing in the finals for ‘Dancing with the Stars”; I was skydiving out of an airplane when I took an especially hard landing; I was racing through the cobblestone streets of Pamplona evading the raging bulls when I lost my footing and broke my foot. They all sound so wildly romantic, so wonderfully exciting. But that’s not how it went down. I was at home, where most accidents occur. Slipped on a well worn shoe and managed some moves more Keystone Cops than Nicole Scherzinger.

(And to think I had low heels on! Not even my signature high heels.) But there I was…splat on the floor! The technical term for the injury is I sustained is a comminuted fracture of the 5th metatarsal. In English? A fracture of the long bone on the outside of the foot.  I Googled it, and let’s just say I fit the profile. “Patient usually experiencing tremendous pain at the site of the fracture”– check! “Many pass out at the time of the fracture”– almost check! (For the record, I nearly did in the elevator.) “Area around the break will swell” –check! You should see my toes–they have their own zip code!

But after the misfortune of the initial injury, things actually began to turn my way. My sister was able to get me to the doctor in record time, while at the same time we iced and elevated my foot. I was examined, x-rayed, and operated on within hours of the accident. This is key, because too much swelling can make surgery too risky to perform.

The doctors concluded that I had shattered my bone in two spots. But thanks to surgery my bone is knitting itself together with the help of two screws. Podiatrist, Dr. Mark Weiss, said on a scale of one to ten my injury was an eight. Only would’ve been worse if the bone had been protruding. (I know that’s gross, but that was his quote.) So I’m on the mend. Six weeks of casts and crutches and then physical therapy. I hope to be running again by Labor Day! And who knows? … Maybe I will be six feet six when I heal. After all, my orthopaedic surgeon, Dr. Steven Shin, is one of Kobe’s doctors. Naaah!! Okay, back in my high heels by Fall, ur, I mean Autumn.

Here’s a shout out to the great physicians who helped fix my broken foot.

Thank you!

Dr. Jonathan Cole

Dr. Joseph Lebovic

Dr. Steven Shin

Dr. Mark R. Weiss

And to my sister Nena…simply the best.

John Wooden is probably the happiest man in heaven right now. He is finally reunited with his wife Nellie, 25 years after her death. The legendary UCLA basketball coach, known as the “Wizard of Westwood,” passed away last night at the age of 99.

I was in the audience two years ago this month for a talk given by Wooden and another legend, Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully. The event was a fundraiser put on by L.A. Times columnist T.J. Simers, with proceeds going to the Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA.

There were many memorable moments that night, but the one that stood out for me was when Wooden told the story of how he wrote a love letter to Nellie on the 21st of every month to mark the day she died. People in the audience wept.

At one point a video was shown of Bill Walton, who played for Wooden at UCLA. Walton told the story of how on his first day on the team, Coach Wooden gave him a lesson on how to put on his socks, and lace up and put on his shoes. I interpreted that lesson to mean that success begins with the fundamentals. Just then, a 12 year old cancer survivor named Robert came onto the stage, and the 97 year old Wooden helped teach him how to do the same thing. It was an inspiring moment, and I’m so glad I was there to witness it.

Wooden chose basketball because he wanted to be around young impressionable students. But his leadership qualities would have made him a success as a CEO or a politician.

Wooden meant so much to UCLA and to Los Angeles. He stood for greatness. His famous “Pyramid for Success” was designed to show students that it was about achieving your potential, and not about being rich and famous. The Pyramid is still studied and followed today, in major corporations and in the US military. I keep one of his books on my shelf and read it occasionally for inspiration.

A friend of mine was at Friday night’s Dodger game and told me of an unprecedented event- Vin Scully came on the Dodgervision screen between innings to announce Wooden’s death. Vinnie quoted Shakespeare in his brief eulogy, but not many could hear his words; they were drowned out a large ovation from the Dodger Stadium crowd. And that was the ultimate tribute. The people cheering were born long after Wooden retired from UCLA. But they knew what he stood for.