Monday, August 24, 2009

Top Five Reasons I Can't Wait for September (+1)


Here's the Top Five Shows I'm excited about this fall:

Vampire Diaries Another Vamp show? BRING IT ON! And super excited to see Ian Somerhalder (Boone from Lost, also was in Smallville) back in a series. Series Premiere September 10th-CW

Castle-I'm watching a re-run now. And I love it. Just love it. Season Premiere September 21st on ABC!! They are my new Bones for tension portrayed right?

Mentalist Simon Baker is my latest heartthrob-his wit, sarcasm, play into it, but it's his character's ability to be so laid back-not giving a care-but not come off as cocky but rather charming. Season Premiere September 24th on CBS.

NCIS My mom and I always called mark Harmon the "woo woo guy" b/c of his good looks...So I've literally had a crush on the man for 20 some years now. And the rest the guys? Not too shabby. Oh. Yeah, and the shows AMAZING. Season Premiere on CBS Sept 22

Fringe By far, my favorite new show of last year. It's interesting watching Joshua Jackson evolve over the years; it's like I've grown up with him from Mighty Ducks to Dawson's Creek to Fringe =)Premieres Thursday
Sept 17 on Fox

Ok this makes six but somehow I forgot Flash Forward September 24 on ABC. Penny and Charlie from LOST-plus a messed up timeline woven in the plot-Not that Lost can ever be replaced, but after this season I was terrified the "smart" show would die with it and the Smoke Monster...but with this show I believe there is hope....

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Shameless Self Promotion

And the people who love it.
No. Really. I have decided, being the eclectic wonder I am, to break up some of my blogs. I haven't uploaded the previous ones relating to these, they will stay here, but to try to sort out some of the madness, my Vamp related blogs will primarily go here
Style:Something With a Little Bit of Bite
My Lost related blogs (there haven't been many lately, but trust me, they're coming) will go here cuz I'm Lost Till the End
Depending how those go I may break up my political rants into a separate blog as well, I'm not sure yet though. They are very new so be gentle on criticism! I had been advised to redo my template for this blog, but I couldn't find anything I liked after hours of searching; it just feels right for THIS page. I did find so many other fun things out there I wanted to try them all, so I'm starting with those two.
Between those two and this one, and a blog I keep in anonymity, (No I can't tell you...that defeats the purpose!) I have also got a good start this weekend on my novel...I consider it my Magnum Opus but we'll see. I have been writing it in screenplay and book form, so I think it will take awhile but that's ok :) I'm patient.
I'm also participating in the local events for the Audit the Fed campaign on September 15 which you haven't looked into in your own area, I suggest you do. It's exciting with all the Tea Parties and 912 meetups and now this, how the mass movement of the people seems to be greater than any other time in our history. Vietnam had it's groups of protesters but they all seemed lumped into one "group" of young hippies, whereas now there is no stereotypical protester, yet an angry mob

I digress...

Anyway, check em out lemme know what you think and what you guys are doing on September 12th and 15th =)

Saturday, August 22, 2009

My Cindy Sherman Project

I had a bit of a self portrait mode while on vaca...I was reading a Vogue article on Cindy Sherman, forgot how much I enjoyed her work while in college, and when nuts from there. Much more reserved, of course....




My Vent on Touch Screen Phones

Ok, does anyone else have a touch screen? I know they are all the rage, but lemme tell ya....I'm pretty fed up with mine. It seemed like a novel idea. I've used the touch screen computer monitors, and, aside from the paw prints all over the screen, it seemed cool. So I got the View, Vu, however you wanna spell it, from LG. I was dealing ok with it till it broke, got a replacement, broke again, got a replacement, then broke again. Aside from that, the phone was great. Oh, well, excepting the fact that the touch calibration was so off I looked like I was drunk texting in the middle of the day. (Hey, I keep it reserved to nights and weekends like the package, ok!?) And, if you were scrolling through to find a particular contact, you would FEEL drunk watching the names roll by, never quite ending on the one you wanted, always going to far, or jumping back up to the top somehow (yeah, you with those touch screens, you know what I'm talking about!) So after the...3rd I guess it was? phone to break...I got a new one. They had some "3rd time's a charm" rule at AT&T where if their phone screws up that many times you get a new one. How nice of them. Although I had to sit an hour and a half and wait for the warranty guy on the other end of the line with my sales rep to BELIEVE my story (Why does it feel like you are in a court case fighting for your cell phone rights with these people?) before I could get them to ship my new phone. In the meantime, I got a Zack Morris phone for the weekend. SO finally my Xenon comes in the mail, and, for the third time, I ship the Vu back to AT&T. Everything goes fine, excepting, again, an exception, that after 2 or 3 times of me shipping this thing back with no problem, they've now decided that they never recieved the last phone, I'm holding it for some kind of weird protest reason or something, and they're going to charge me 200 dollars for keeping it. For that piece of crap I couldn't get 2 dolla off of E-bay for? I think not. So while on vacation, I get 6 missed calls a day from these people about said piece of crap, I finally respond with a phone call. They're off my back, after a few choice words, now, but still. C'mon. The new phone? touch screen-better calibration, but same whirlwind when trying to scroll though contacts, and whenever I dial a number it never fails that it reads my "3" as a "6" at least once, or something similar that causes me to throw out more profanities before finally getting it right. Moral of story: If you don't already have a touch screen: stay away.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Aw Sookie Sookie

So as a fan of both the books and the show, I'm really excited with the way True Blood is going. Because it follows so loosely the novels, it's like a new story every episode. Major variations are obviously the character Lafayette sticking around (yea!! totally love his character on the show...much more developed than the novel so I've become a fan) and Mary Ann (far from the bumbling "witch in training" portrayed in the novels, we also combine the character of the maenad) to the lack of J.B. from season 1, and, so far season 2.

As much as I've loved these deviations, I was concerned how the Bill vs Eric rivalry would play out. In the early episodes, I wasn't near as impressed with Eric as I thought I should be. Everything that was described in the novel, the 1000 year old viking beauty, I feel like I expected more. However, within the last season, I've fallen more and more for Eric. I started thinking about it, and I think the second book is also where Sookie starts to show serious signs of affection for Eric. Maybe more subconciously than later books, but it's there. hmmm...

Is it possible that the show pulled this miracle off somehow? That, in season one, I am less than impressed with Eric because he pulls of the cocky yeah-I've-been-around-1000+ years-what-of-it vamp thing and comes out looking like a jerk...Much like Sookie felt about him in the beginning of the series...And as the show wears on we begin to see him as we do in the book, thru Sookie's eyes from her perspective...as a bit more attractive, a bit more sexy, a bit more down to earth? As far as 1000 year old vamps go, of course. What do you guys think? How do you feel about Eric from the first season to now? Better? Worse? The same?

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Should have let him say it....


....He says it best


I don't know what it is, but each time I hear a Reagan speech I get a bit misty eyed. Proud to be born when he was president =)

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Thank You, Mr. President

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."
Aesop

Thank you Mr. Change...
All I see everyday from your Change is people worried about what's happening next....not because we fear Change, but because we fear the direction this country is headed as we have seen the effects of your "change". People are rising up for the first time in a long time (1770's-ish maybe?) to speak out, but is it doing anything? I hope so. Universal this and that seems to be driving the other way. You take away, for instance, the independent health care companies (those capitalist pigs, right?) you are taking MORE jobs from the people. Because it's not just hitting the corporate big wigs, it's those people that do the small stuff. The people that have no say in your premiums or your coverage, but are just like you, trying to pay their mortgage, put their kids thru school, live the "American Dream". As depressing as this is,there is a new change...a new hope. I see it more and more, with the meetups, with the Project 912 supporters, #tcot and Tea Parties, American's are getting sick and tired. You take away everything from us, we have nothing to lose. I had a lot more I wanted to express, but have you ever been so frustrated you can't? My eyeballs are burning my body is shaking and I can't believe that we have been so blind to what's happening, and, possibly in my own personal world, these "changes" are coming down hard and fast, and not in a good way. So, rather than confuse my words and tangle myself up while I'm still seething, I'll let others speak for me till I can control the words.


"You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time."
Abraham Lincoln
“The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.”
James Arthur Baldwin

“Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose”
Baltasar Gracian quotes

“We of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose.”
George Orwell

“The Christian has greatly the advantage of the unbeliever, having everything to gain and nothing to lose”
Lord Byron

"Too bad that all the people who really know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair."
George Burns

"Put not your trust in princes."
Psalm 146. 3

Monday, August 10, 2009

Top Five Fav Movies of the 90's

I've been on a nostalgic kick lately...it happens, usually in the summer and around my birthday, so I was well prepared this time. Sometimes it can kick me in the shins....it hurts remembering how much fun summer vacations were when there was no bills, no work, no worries. My brother and I would stay up until 3 or 4 every night watching Nick at Night (remember when they showed OLD shows? Now they show shows that were popular in the 90's in which I speak) sleep in, swim, and watch MTV all afternoon (remember when they shows MUSIC videos?) Throw a few movies in there, bike rides, friends and boys, and that was my summers growing up. Pretty perfect. I always wanted to be a writer when I grew up (I'm still growing up I guess) and would lose myself in the fantasy of the movies. Maybe it was that imagination that created my own stories about the movies. Each of these on this list represents something I wanted: Either a character I wanted to see more of in myself, a lifestyle I wished to live, even if just a little while, or a character I wanted to know in real life. The fantasy was fun, it was encompassing, it was my own escapism from the recent death of my mother.....So here goes
My Top Five Fav Movies of the 90s

1.) Now and Then-the characters were me and my gang of girls. The boys were the boys we chased around, who chased us back. The at home dramas struck a little too close to home sometimes, but the lightheartedness balanced out enough to make the list.

2.)Dazed and Confused-Funny story. Rented this movie 2 weeks after my mom died (obviously not the funny part) I was 12 and if she was still around she never would have gone for it. But God bless my dad he would do anything to make my brother and I happy at this point, so he rented it. My friend and I watched it in the basement of her house while her parents were at work, drinking diet pepsi and getting sugar rushes that made us feel drunk while we danced around to the killer soundtrack. So it wasn't sugar rushes and we just wished we were drunk, but we were 12 and, even if Dad let me WATCH the movie, I knew PARTICIPATING in some of the activities in the movie would get my @$$ kicked.

3.)White Squall-Remember when Scott Wolf was all the rage? Before Lost's Sawyer vs Jack, it was Party of 5's Bailey vs Charlie on the hotness scale. I watched this movie tonite, and didn't realize that, made in 1996, Scott Wolf was born in 1968 making him...thats right...still older than me when this movie was made. Yet, Balthazar Getty (so hot in this movie btw) was born in 1975 making him only 19, but still looking the same age, if not older, than Scott Wolf. Crazy. Guess the last thing I've seen Scotty in was Go-and he still looks about 25 tops. I digress. The true draw of this film was the sea. I've always been happiest when in water-I would sit out for hours in the pool when I was ten or so, curl up in the fetal position w/ my snorkel, and bob around for hours....I've always loved going out on boats any chance i get....and I never feel as at peace as I do when I'm on the shoreline staring at the ocean....so this had to make this list, bittersweet and all. And Jeff Bridges as the Captain makes the movie.

4.) Reality Bites- "hello, you've reached the winter of our discontent" + Ethan Hawke's band + Ben Stiller playing a yuppie tool (not that far of a stretch in my opinion) + Steve Zahn as the recently-out-to-his-parents gay friend=what I expected my friends would be like in my 20s. Because, you know, me and Winona are SOO on the same page and all.

5.)Basketball Diaries-"Your growing up, and Rain sort of remains on the branches of a tree that will Someday rule the Earth, and that's good there is rain, it clears the month, of your sorry rainbow expression, and clears the streets, of silent armies, so we can Dance"-Jim Carroll played by Leonardo Dicaprio. Ah-mazing. I was a complete b-ball nut back in the day so totally related to that part, but this, along with my drug talk w/ my dad, kept me clean. (In case you are wondering, my drug talk w/ my dad was, "I'm not encouraging you to do drugs, but I want you to watch this." he sits me down and we watch Easy Rider. After watching Peter Fonda drop acid and cry to his mother on the statue-I was good. And, in Peter Fonda's memoirs, he states he really did drop acid for that scene, and was crying to his mother for killing herself. My dad's a pretty smart guy diguising his motives and all. I recommend this approach to any parent. sidenote)



So there they are. The movies that shaped my childhood, shaped the amazing eclectic crazy girl you have before you today. I now insist you Netflix them all and report back to me. Or don't and tell me which ones I left off. You decide.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

7 Days



The last vacation I went on, that was more than a 3 day venture, was to Disney World the summer I turned 9. 18 years later, I finally take another week long vaca, again to Florida. We stayed in a condo on the beach (when I say we, I mean my dad, step-mom, 11 yr old brother and 6 year old sister...23 yo brother opted not to go) and I woke up every morning to the sound of the ocean.

This picture is of me on the beach after a storm. It was beautiful-the beach was all but deserted, sea creatures of all kinds washing up in the shallow water along the shoreline,and if I looked out just right, keeping the view of hotels scattered up and down the coast out of eyesight, and just focusing on the vacant beach and vast ocean, it was like my own private paradise.

I was only gone a week but it felt in ways much longer. Maybe because I didn't have my computer and was limited on using my cell phone, maybe because something about water has always made me a bit more introspective, maybe because Saturday I turned another year older, but something inside of me seemed to change in those short 7 days. When I got back home, I felt a bit empty inside. I return to a job that doesn't satisfy, friends whom I love but are very much going on different courses than I in their lives, and that feeling I forgot until the moment we hit the beach: How small of a fraction of the world I live in here.

When I took that trip 18 years ago, we had stopped at the beach, and I remember feeling tiny against the backdrop of the sea. I'm older, I'm bigger, but still got that same feeling when I stood against it this time. And that realization that it is a big, big world. One with possibilities. One with opportunity for more than what I live here. I hope that I can somehow harness this feeling into something productive, but fear that with the return to work tomorrow, it will chisel away at my soul once more, and I will regress back to the zombie I was before I left.....

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow....

I'm going on vacation...to the beach....super excited. However, not until today when I checked to see if my ISP is supported in Florida, did I realize I will be without the internet for a whole week. I'm kinda freaking. I think I'll be ok. I'm bringing lots of movies and books and bought the Teach Yourself Chinese game for my Nintendo DS, along with an audio book I downloaded to teach myself Russian. SO I'm sure I'll have lots to say when I get back, but in the meantime, miss me lots :) And feel free to hit me up on FB or Twitter as my trusty phone can easily access those sites.