Thursday, September 23, 2004
"I guess today is the day to blog about tv shows"
Well, I finally got around to watching this week's Nip/Tuck...I would have to say that it was my least favorite episode so far, thinking about Jean's Jumping the Shark post, there are some moments in this show that might qualify... Ava admitting to sleeping with her son (I don't care if he's adopted, as she claims, it's still disgusting) and switcheroo with Kimber back to Christian and the horribly rude way Christian kicked out Natasha - I guess he did need to be a little firm since she wasn't leaving, but his comments were pretty nasty. And the plastic surgery segment for this episode didn't add much value either. That said, I still love the show :-)
Real World: I watched it, but wasn't overly excited about this week's episode.
Lost: I watched half of it so far, but then had to get Sierra's school stuff ready for today, so I'll have to watch the rest later. It seems a little different than I expected from the previews, but we'll see.
Scrubs: Didn't watch it yet.
North Shore: Wouldn't you know they'd bring in a villainess, none other than Shannen Doherty (funny how much her rep has changed since she was on Our House with Wilford Brimley back in the 80s). Anyway, according to some celebrity gossip show I watched, Brooke Burns was not happy about Shannen joining the cast since they both dated none other than Julian McMahon from nip/tuck. Should add to some realism in the soon-to-be-coming on screen catfights between the two of them.
After watching About Schmidt last week, I decided to check out the book yesterday from the library. It seems pretty different from the movie, so we'll see what it's like. This will be the first time I have ever watched a movie before reading the book.
I also got a book on cd called Circle of Grace, but come to find out when looking at some reviews that the author is a Christian fiction author. The funny thing is the reviews were all horrible because the book isn't Christian enough and has a lesbian storyline, so I'll give it a listen (my library has a VERY limited selection of books on CD, but I like them for when I'm working on something).
I'm still waiting for The Time Traveler's Wife to be returned so I can check that one out as well!
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Well, I finally got around to watching this week's Nip/Tuck...I would have to say that it was my least favorite episode so far, thinking about Jean's Jumping the Shark post, there are some moments in this show that might qualify... Ava admitting to sleeping with her son (I don't care if he's adopted, as she claims, it's still disgusting) and switcheroo with Kimber back to Christian and the horribly rude way Christian kicked out Natasha - I guess he did need to be a little firm since she wasn't leaving, but his comments were pretty nasty. And the plastic surgery segment for this episode didn't add much value either. That said, I still love the show :-)
Real World: I watched it, but wasn't overly excited about this week's episode.
Lost: I watched half of it so far, but then had to get Sierra's school stuff ready for today, so I'll have to watch the rest later. It seems a little different than I expected from the previews, but we'll see.
Scrubs: Didn't watch it yet.
North Shore: Wouldn't you know they'd bring in a villainess, none other than Shannen Doherty (funny how much her rep has changed since she was on Our House with Wilford Brimley back in the 80s). Anyway, according to some celebrity gossip show I watched, Brooke Burns was not happy about Shannen joining the cast since they both dated none other than Julian McMahon from nip/tuck. Should add to some realism in the soon-to-be-coming on screen catfights between the two of them.
After watching About Schmidt last week, I decided to check out the book yesterday from the library. It seems pretty different from the movie, so we'll see what it's like. This will be the first time I have ever watched a movie before reading the book.
I also got a book on cd called Circle of Grace, but come to find out when looking at some reviews that the author is a Christian fiction author. The funny thing is the reviews were all horrible because the book isn't Christian enough and has a lesbian storyline, so I'll give it a listen (my library has a VERY limited selection of books on CD, but I like them for when I'm working on something).
I'm still waiting for The Time Traveler's Wife to be returned so I can check that one out as well!
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Tuesday, September 21, 2004
"Signs of Aging"
I have been 29 for less than a week now and I'm already starting to realize how old I am. I still feel young and act young in a lot of ways, but the reality is setting in that next year I will be 30, the age of those people I called old in college!
I find I look forward to staying home more now and I rarely drink anymore, except for the occasional glass of Shiraz-Cabernet, which by the way can make me tipsy just after one glass.
I am considering applying for two jobs now, one is for about twice the salary of the other, but that one will take me farther from Sierra and will never allow me to pick her up or drop her off, while the one for 50% salary will...so I now have to do a bit of soul searching to figure out what is more important. It's not just about the money, not directly, more the ease of life that a higher salary provides that would cause me to question which job should be at the top of my list. Also, after having just watched About Schmidt over the weekend, I really don't want to reach the end of my life feeling that I haven't accomplished anything. And of course, i know my family should come first, but money pays for things...like food and electricity and clothes and tivo and college...that my family needs to be happy (yes, we NEED DirecTV/TiVo).
So in case you're wondering, the lower paying job is with the school system - not teaching, but as a technology specialist that works with educators and administrators to integrate technology into the classrooms and computer labs, etc. The other job is a Process Analyst (I know, I know, doesn't it sound exciting?) but would directly utilize my (rapidly dimishing) skillset from Verizon and of course would have better benefits, higher salary, etc. (I just heard the school system's benefits are $800 a month...is that legal??). Plus, I did find several jobs with UVA and with the UVA Health System that would provide comparable salaries (but would take me even farther from Sierra, esp with the traffic in the University area), so I may apply for those as well. We'll see what happens, but sometime in the next few weeks I'll probably start applying for some of these jobs just to see what comes of it....it will at least give me a feel for how competitive the job market is here right now, since I haven't even begun to explore yet.
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I have been 29 for less than a week now and I'm already starting to realize how old I am. I still feel young and act young in a lot of ways, but the reality is setting in that next year I will be 30, the age of those people I called old in college!
I find I look forward to staying home more now and I rarely drink anymore, except for the occasional glass of Shiraz-Cabernet, which by the way can make me tipsy just after one glass.
I am considering applying for two jobs now, one is for about twice the salary of the other, but that one will take me farther from Sierra and will never allow me to pick her up or drop her off, while the one for 50% salary will...so I now have to do a bit of soul searching to figure out what is more important. It's not just about the money, not directly, more the ease of life that a higher salary provides that would cause me to question which job should be at the top of my list. Also, after having just watched About Schmidt over the weekend, I really don't want to reach the end of my life feeling that I haven't accomplished anything. And of course, i know my family should come first, but money pays for things...like food and electricity and clothes and tivo and college...that my family needs to be happy (yes, we NEED DirecTV/TiVo).
So in case you're wondering, the lower paying job is with the school system - not teaching, but as a technology specialist that works with educators and administrators to integrate technology into the classrooms and computer labs, etc. The other job is a Process Analyst (I know, I know, doesn't it sound exciting?) but would directly utilize my (rapidly dimishing) skillset from Verizon and of course would have better benefits, higher salary, etc. (I just heard the school system's benefits are $800 a month...is that legal??). Plus, I did find several jobs with UVA and with the UVA Health System that would provide comparable salaries (but would take me even farther from Sierra, esp with the traffic in the University area), so I may apply for those as well. We'll see what happens, but sometime in the next few weeks I'll probably start applying for some of these jobs just to see what comes of it....it will at least give me a feel for how competitive the job market is here right now, since I haven't even begun to explore yet.
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Wednesday, September 15, 2004
"I want oysters"
So this morning, I woke up craving oysters. After Sierra left for school, I jumped on the web thinking that oyster riot tickets should be available around now and sure enough, they are! So I decided I'd post and see if anyone else wanted to go. Well, coincidentally enough, I just read Jean's latest blog entry, which is all about the Oyster Riot...pretty funny. I definitely plan to go, i'm assuming Saturday would be more convenient for out of towners. I'm really excited about it since my plans got changed last year and I was unable to attend, so this will be the first one for me!
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So this morning, I woke up craving oysters. After Sierra left for school, I jumped on the web thinking that oyster riot tickets should be available around now and sure enough, they are! So I decided I'd post and see if anyone else wanted to go. Well, coincidentally enough, I just read Jean's latest blog entry, which is all about the Oyster Riot...pretty funny. I definitely plan to go, i'm assuming Saturday would be more convenient for out of towners. I'm really excited about it since my plans got changed last year and I was unable to attend, so this will be the first one for me!
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Tuesday, September 14, 2004
"Stuff to Watch"
Well, it's that time of year when one tries to figure out which new shows to watch and which ones to stay away from. I am watching The Apprentice again, which is kind of interesting, as we try to match each player up with his/her personality counterpart from the first season. I personally thought that both teams had pretty bad toy ideas for their first task. Come on, if you could make ANY toy you wanted, why would you make something that already exists? If I'd been there I would have arranged a focus group of children in the target age range instead of wasting time brainstorming bad ideas for hours. I'm sure I'll watch the show for the entire season no matter how bad it gets.
Of course, due to my love of reality tv, I am watching Real World and Haywood also watches The Surreal Life (gee, where'd you come up with that name, VH1?) For those of you that haven't seen it, it's kind of a Real World with has-beens from the entertainment industry (Charo, Flava Flav, Dave Coultier from Full house, Ryan Starr from AI1 (she's not a has-been yet since I think she's releasing an album soon), Jordan Knight from NKOTB, and Brigitte Nielsen). The only entertaining part so far has been waiting for the hookup between Brigitte and Flava Flav and the only positive thing I have garnered from the show so far has been that I now scream out "Flava Flav" at random times just for fun.
Nip/Tuck is still a perennial favorite, I just can't get enough of that show. Julia sure has hit rock bottom, but I guess at this point, her life can only improve.
I'm still a faithful Scrubs watcher - my favorite so far this season was the Sugar Hill Gang alarm clock that JD gave Turk and Carla as a wedding present...I'd love to have one of those!
And yes, I'm still watching North Shore although it does seem to be getting more and more predictable by the week and I'm awaiting the return of The O.C. Note to TiVo users: we saw that the O.C. will be on this Thursday (a preview episode, not the first show) and thought it would be set to record since we still had our season pass on from last season. However, the name (at least for this first show) has changed to The O.C.: Obsess Completely, so you'll need to change it if you want to get thursday's show.
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Well, it's that time of year when one tries to figure out which new shows to watch and which ones to stay away from. I am watching The Apprentice again, which is kind of interesting, as we try to match each player up with his/her personality counterpart from the first season. I personally thought that both teams had pretty bad toy ideas for their first task. Come on, if you could make ANY toy you wanted, why would you make something that already exists? If I'd been there I would have arranged a focus group of children in the target age range instead of wasting time brainstorming bad ideas for hours. I'm sure I'll watch the show for the entire season no matter how bad it gets.
Of course, due to my love of reality tv, I am watching Real World and Haywood also watches The Surreal Life (gee, where'd you come up with that name, VH1?) For those of you that haven't seen it, it's kind of a Real World with has-beens from the entertainment industry (Charo, Flava Flav, Dave Coultier from Full house, Ryan Starr from AI1 (she's not a has-been yet since I think she's releasing an album soon), Jordan Knight from NKOTB, and Brigitte Nielsen). The only entertaining part so far has been waiting for the hookup between Brigitte and Flava Flav and the only positive thing I have garnered from the show so far has been that I now scream out "Flava Flav" at random times just for fun.
Nip/Tuck is still a perennial favorite, I just can't get enough of that show. Julia sure has hit rock bottom, but I guess at this point, her life can only improve.
I'm still a faithful Scrubs watcher - my favorite so far this season was the Sugar Hill Gang alarm clock that JD gave Turk and Carla as a wedding present...I'd love to have one of those!
And yes, I'm still watching North Shore although it does seem to be getting more and more predictable by the week and I'm awaiting the return of The O.C. Note to TiVo users: we saw that the O.C. will be on this Thursday (a preview episode, not the first show) and thought it would be set to record since we still had our season pass on from last season. However, the name (at least for this first show) has changed to The O.C.: Obsess Completely, so you'll need to change it if you want to get thursday's show.
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Wednesday, September 01, 2004
"School Daze"
Well, Sierra is doing nicely with school...she is still perfect about getting up in the morning and doing her morning routine like clockwork...she is actually doing me a disservice, because if I ever have any more children I will be in for a rude awakening...what are the odds of having two perfect kids?
I was just reading the comments on my last entry about being wary of Arab boys and Filipino boys...sadly enough, the chances of her meeting either type (unless Omar and Rich personally transfer to her kindergarten) are slim to none. I believe she is the only person who can even use the Asian/Pacific Islander category of descent in kindergarten this year. As a matter of fact, she is just listed as "Asian" on the school record we received...they are probably so desperate to get their non-caucasian demographic up, they counted her as 100% filipino - or maybe their computer systems can't handle mixed ethnicities yet. I guess it must be a very challenging thing for people who have never left this town since birth. (Now I know, I could kind of fall into that category, but I did go to college and live in Arlington for several years, plus I wasn't born here, so I never grew up with any of the small-minded views that many the locals here share.) I believe last year, the Asian demographic was .15% of the entire school district for our county. I was only very slightly worried that someone might ask her "where she's from" or "what she is" - because Haywood and his siblings got those questions when they attended school in this area years and years ago. If someone asked her that, she would probably not even realize what they're talking about because she is so used to us having such a multicultural barrage of friends she'd be surprised to think it would even be an issue. Her innocent views on race are as follows:
"Some people are black, some people are Polish and some people are Filipino. Polish ones look like Mommy, Filipino ones are medium brown and black ones are a little darker than the Filipino ones." She totally cracked me up one day when she was describing someone (white) that she had met to me... "Well, Mommy, she's Polish, and...." I tried to explain that a white or caucasian person wasn't necessarily Polish, after all, I told her, "You are Polish, too!" I think she finally got it after a while, but it's definitely pretty confusing, especially since she hasn't taken any geography courses yet.
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Well, Sierra is doing nicely with school...she is still perfect about getting up in the morning and doing her morning routine like clockwork...she is actually doing me a disservice, because if I ever have any more children I will be in for a rude awakening...what are the odds of having two perfect kids?
I was just reading the comments on my last entry about being wary of Arab boys and Filipino boys...sadly enough, the chances of her meeting either type (unless Omar and Rich personally transfer to her kindergarten) are slim to none. I believe she is the only person who can even use the Asian/Pacific Islander category of descent in kindergarten this year. As a matter of fact, she is just listed as "Asian" on the school record we received...they are probably so desperate to get their non-caucasian demographic up, they counted her as 100% filipino - or maybe their computer systems can't handle mixed ethnicities yet. I guess it must be a very challenging thing for people who have never left this town since birth. (Now I know, I could kind of fall into that category, but I did go to college and live in Arlington for several years, plus I wasn't born here, so I never grew up with any of the small-minded views that many the locals here share.) I believe last year, the Asian demographic was .15% of the entire school district for our county. I was only very slightly worried that someone might ask her "where she's from" or "what she is" - because Haywood and his siblings got those questions when they attended school in this area years and years ago. If someone asked her that, she would probably not even realize what they're talking about because she is so used to us having such a multicultural barrage of friends she'd be surprised to think it would even be an issue. Her innocent views on race are as follows:
"Some people are black, some people are Polish and some people are Filipino. Polish ones look like Mommy, Filipino ones are medium brown and black ones are a little darker than the Filipino ones." She totally cracked me up one day when she was describing someone (white) that she had met to me... "Well, Mommy, she's Polish, and...." I tried to explain that a white or caucasian person wasn't necessarily Polish, after all, I told her, "You are Polish, too!" I think she finally got it after a while, but it's definitely pretty confusing, especially since she hasn't taken any geography courses yet.
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"Quick Sandwich Tip"
For those of you NOT on Atkins, this might work - for those of you on Atkins - you should just use real bacon, oh wait... and no bread I guess... sorry :-( this isn't turning out to be a very good tip!
If you enjoy bacon on sandwiches but want to cut the fat, try placing two doritos or other really crunchy chips on your sandwich instead. It adds a nice crunch and might actually fool you into thinking it's bacon.
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For those of you NOT on Atkins, this might work - for those of you on Atkins - you should just use real bacon, oh wait... and no bread I guess... sorry :-( this isn't turning out to be a very good tip!
If you enjoy bacon on sandwiches but want to cut the fat, try placing two doritos or other really crunchy chips on your sandwich instead. It adds a nice crunch and might actually fool you into thinking it's bacon.
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