Jump to content

djs111

Members
  • Posts

    1,306
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by djs111

  1. Well, the daughter is almost fifteen - she has a healthy curiosity and my friend dismissed True Blood as just another vampire teen thingy. Dunno where they will go from here! I haven't really clicked with any new primetime stuff - I think my version of "prime time" is all the channels except ABC, CBS, NBC. It is oddly comforting to know that if I can't watch anything else interesting at 10 pm, I can always watch Jay Leno for a little bit. I do like Community, but was disappointed when I realised John Oliver was only on the premier episode. And I miss Adam Rodriguez on CSI:Miami. How dare he set out to make another career for himself!
  2. When I watched the first episode, during a free HBO weekend when True Blood first started, I felt the same way. It was interesting, but too many characters to keep track of, and since I have not read the books (don't intend to, either), the story line seemed busy or murky, and vampire Bill did not seem even all that attractive. I still have not seen all the episodes, but I am on the last bit of a three-month trial of HBO, which I am going to cancel, too many repeats of movies, but I have seen enough to know who is who and now I love it. And yeah, I think Bill is hot. I love how he seems to have the speech patterns and manners from the time when he was not a vampire; a bit old-fashioned or something. This is written by the Six Feet Under guy, I expect the characters will all be much more developed as the show goes along. And gets renewed. A sort of shuffle in living arrangements has me living in a very very nice house with DirectTV. I miss my FIOS TV ALOT!!!!!!!! On the other hand, this house has a high-def TV and a subscription to high def on DirectTV - at first, I watched just anything because it looks almost like 3D. And the detail is amazing, but sometimes the makeup and wrinkles and such are distracting. Heee, my friend's daughter gets True Blood from Netflix. She is fourteen. She has been watching them and then sending them back without sharing with her mother. Her mother assumed it is just another Twilight or other teen-type series. Heh.
  3. We always go to the weekend morning shows - only $5, and soon enough after breakfast that we are not tempted by the concession stand. When I want to see something really popular, I get the tickets online the night before. Of course, I need to pay more attention to that - I bought the Avatar tickets and did not notice that the showing I picked was not a 3-D showing. But the nice guy at the front desk exchanged the tickets for a 3-D showing - but that cost another $3 a ticket, because it was 3-D. I realise that going to the movies is, as it should be, a fun night out for most, just saying the morning thing is a great way to save money and be pretty sure you can get seats wherever you want. When my grandson was younger, and more spectacularly ADHD, we tried to get seats where he could put the armrests down and lay down, get up, change to the next seat, stretch his legs, and not bother other people. Heeeee.....and he constantly did all that gyrating while intently watching the screen, wearing the headphones that the theater provides for people with hearing problems. :-O. Since movies are supposed to be fun, I wasn't going to take him to a crowded theater and then hiss at him to be still all through the movie. Win-win! Avoid kiddie movies in the morning like the plague, though, unless you are bringing a kiddie of your own! Yikes!!!!!!!
  4. My grandson goes to a small charter school (ADHD kids who would be over-medicated or just yelled at in a big school) - and his class all went to see The Blind Side as a field trip, last week. He loved it. I had been aware of the story for a while, and I hope it inspires even just a few people to reach out and help someone. Can't wait to see Sherlock Holmes!!!! Avatar was gorgeous, now I want to see it in IMAX. I love the Somalia mention - see? Clay's not lazy, as some would have it. He has a life, and does more than most people on the charity and philanthropy front. I suppose he should have twittered "Did U No abt Somalia" on Christmas Eve, and that would have made some people happier. Shrug. I am glad he managed a private family Christmas.
  5. Dang!!! Susan sold another 582,724 this week, a +14% jump, Andrea Bocelli sold another 391,686 too. Here she is at 22, singing I Don't Know How to Love Him, in a pub contest - really really amazing. IMO. Terrible horrible nasty bad awful band, but she shines through. Not as polished sounding, but I can hear the talent. young susan
  6. Florida's governor, Republican Charlie Crist (he wants to be a senator next) is widely assumed to be gay - but no one actually cares. They care more about the crap he is doing to Florida. When Crist was running for governor, what usually happened was sort of like "I heard Charlie is GAY", which was always answered with "So what?". Too bad he has basically brought Florida to its knees, though - but his campaign promises sounded good, I guess. In reality, I think his last little gift to Florida will be letting insurers be completely free of any regulations whatsoever. And oil rigs dotting the horizon, with big billboards on them. I expect that since Jebbie is backing someone else for that senator spot (Rubio), people who can vote in the primary will be hearing more about his suspected orientation. Should be interesting. The comments after this article about a movie that purports to "out" politicians, sum up how much anyone cares if Crist is gay - which is not much, he is just a lousy governor. "Outrage" the Movie
  7. I think it is wonderful that Susan continues to sell well, there is a market for a great voice. Who cares how she got started - and she has been singing all her life, just found the audience a little later than most. Lilyshine, I hear ya about the earworm thing - one of the reasons I like song compilations from TV shows is that (usually after I listen straight through twice) I find singers I never would have picked on my own. Still love A2 (Sopranos, that whole first CD is pretty good). I did listen to more from the True Blood guy - I wanna Do Bad Things with You - but don't like his other more country stuff, and I guess this song was reworked quite a bit for the show, whereas the A2 song was added later in the process, as it was, because one of the producers had the CD playing in his car and thought the song was perfect. I read that the new Bob Dylan Christmas CD has grown on people after the second or third listen. I love him anyway, but I know what they mean, and hope to get that CD at some point. (All profits go to charity). Some people just cannot stand his voice, but I consider that for most of his songs, no one else does them real justice or even phrases them as well. I think that Cowell has managed Susan just fine, considering how unready she may have been for the "big time", and I am already very curious as to where her next CD will take her. I hope she will not be in any sort of niche, like show tunes or hymns, she will just sing what she likes. IMO. I read a scathing review of Susan's voice written by a broadway singer, and the comments were interesting - pretty much all said oh you are just jellus, and others said hey, music is subjective, get used to it. Very mean-spirited review, reminded me of Idol reviews and comments about how they had not "earned" the popularity.
  8. We are really looking forward to Avatar and Sherlock Holmes - and, I am informed, Legion. Oh well, buff angels in leather will be nice. I had thought that Sherlock Holmes was being reworked to include Brad Pitt as Moriarty, but now I read that Brad will join Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in the inevitable sequel. There is never too much pretty. :-) When movie worlds collide - could not sleep last night, so I watched The Pianist for the first time. Right near the end, when a Nazi officer hands Adrien Brody his coat - I immediately thought NO!!!! At least take all the insignia off and wear it inside out!!!! This will not end well!!!!! Because I saw what happened to Bill Murray when he thought it would be great fun to dress up like a zombie and scare people who had guns and were terrified of zombies. And speaking of The Pianist - well okay, so what if it is just me - I was watching Community the other night and it seems that one of the characters had never seen a penis. She was not a virgin, just had never actually seen a penis. This completely cracked me up: Heeeee.....I wondered the same thing! Notice the smooth segue from The Pianist to The Piano???????? I still find parts of The Piano too intense to watch, though, for some reason. Here's another segue - from The Piano to True Blood - via Anna Pacquin - No interest in seeing Twilight, but I certainly do love True Blood! And I find Stephen Moyer very attractive indeed.
  9. That Stephen Fry quote is funny - I know he is gay, but I find all that wry wit tremendously attractive. I always watch any show I know he will be on - talk show guest, psychologist on Bones, Blackadder, Fry and Laurie, etc. For some reason I was entranced with playing the clip of Clay and Hannah singing The Prayer last night - what glorious lower register Clay! And he looked to be having so much fun, so relaxed. I think that is how he is when he sings with Ruben, I hope the rumor becomes fact. Soon.
  10. I found an organic scrapple thread in a facebook site evidently about scrapple, cracked me up: facebook organic scrapple thread :-o Basically, pork bits and pieces with cornmeal as a binder, lots of peppery spice.
  11. Heeee......I was born in Philly - it is best to just not question that stuff - and do you know how to pronounce Skuykill, as in the beautiful Skuykill River that runs through parts of the city? Skookle. I think it is just remnants of English, Welsh, and Dutch settlers. I am Welsh, and it cracks me up to see a Welsh road sign and then listen to how it is pronounced. I was happy to see that Clay likes apple butter, it is, I think, a Pennsylvania Dutch thing. But prolly is available anywhere apples are a crop, and it was nice to see Mott's Apple Butter in jars when I first moved away from Philly. Sniff. Have you tried scrapple? Hmmmm....best to think of it as pate, really! Fabulous cut into slices and fried crispy on the outside, and it is the only food that I will put ketchup on. I do see frozen Habbersett's Scrapple sometimes in grocery stores here in Florida.
  12. djs111

    Top Chef

    I think that in this case they are going for "good TV". Exhaustive studies have shown that when I don't watch a TV show, it doesn't matter even one little bit - but I really have no interest in the finale. Either the editing of the comments is deliberately misleading, or else Colicchio is just doing damage control - either way, it stopped being any sort of contest, for me. Stringy meat, badly cooked eggs, bitter soup of some sort - hey, at least the first part of the season was entertaining. I think I am either just depressed in general, or perhaps I have just OD'd on competitive "reality" shows, or both. Next thing you know someone will tell me that Ghost Hunters makes stuff up! :-O
  13. djs111

    Top Chef

    Couchie, I did lose power, but I fell asleep anyway, in the middle, so I am just now seeing that Jen is out. I think all three guys left are great, but I am not in the least bit interested in the rest of the season - not just because my fave is gone, but I am tired of the drama or something. I don't care who wins, really. Maybe it is the editing, but the actual cooking does not seem to be front and center. Wow, Padma looks different with bangs! She looks beautiful no matter what, but the bangs were a surprise. Hmmmm....just checked TwoP, looks like the producers really wanted a Brothers-V finale, since there problems with both of Mike V's dishes, and evidently everybody loved Jen's duck dish. So I think it best that I don't even watch what I missed when I fell asleep, much less the finale. Hope Kevin wins, I guess.
  14. While I do love Susan's Cry Me a River almost as much as Julie London's, I think that recording her first CD, with all the expectations, made her a bit cautious. I replayed that youtube of her first appearance on TV (almost 80 million views!!!!) - and that first line she sang absolutely floated weightlessly and artlessly and effortlessly out over the audience. I think she had no expectations or pressure, back then it was all a lark. I think her next CD will be quite different. Watched a bit of the Rockefeller Center show tonight - wish Clay was there!
  15. djs111

    Top Chef

    Yikes!!!! Tonight at 10 EST - I am actually nervous about who leaves, because I don't want it to be Jen. But all 4 cheftestants are so talented. The TwoP conjecturing and extrapolation is a hoot. Note to self - when Firefox blandly says hey! How about the latest update!!!???? It will be better and faster and stuff!!!!!! I should know better at my age :-) Anyway, took over 10 minutes to start up Firefox after the new version was installed, even after rebooting, and now we are under a tornado watch until 4 am. Another Yikes!!!!!!! The weather is getting louder, thunder rumbling, I imagine I will lose power - bad for work, bad for Top Chef.
  16. Gosh, when I lived in Bloomington, a BIG Saturday was driving over to Peoria, because they had a MALL!!!!! My faulty old memory says we could drive at 75 mph on the interstates back then, so Peoria was just a little bitty trip, plus we would stop at a restaurant that basically served steak, baked potatoes, and all the beer or Sangria you could drink. Driving up north to Old Town didn't take long either, on Route 66, can you tell there was nothing much to do in Bloomington? I will now always get the biggest turkey I can find (at .69 a pound, anyway!) instead of paying dearly for just the breast - my grandson ate the legs down to the bones, and that 23 pound turkey yielded an amazing amount of breast meat. I am stuck on playing O Holy Night right now, I just keep thinking just one more time would be good. Think I will get fixated on All is Well pretty soon, tho.
  17. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! This year I bought a whole turkey instead of just the breast, because my grandson asked, plaintively, why we never had turkey legs to eat. That is because I don't like turkey legs! Anyway, I got a 23 pound turkey for a LOT less than I would have paid for just the breast half that size! Yikes! I am also going to teach him how to make onion walnut bread, from scratch: Bon Appetit onion walnut bread The original recipe calls for a cup of whole wheat flour, which will make the bread more dense and chewy - it is fabulous, I still have the old Bon Appetit magazine, from sometime in the eighties, with the original recipe, and it is in my tattered old Best of Bon Appetit cookbook. Great with butter, and with some nice dry red wine. I hope everyone has a lovely day, whether it is Thanksgiving or not!
  18. djs111

    Top Chef

    No new Top Chef until next week - Wed. Dec 2 :-( Over at TwoP, they have analyzed the little clips of cheftestant interviews , and have determined that Jen is shown with three different outfits on, so they think that means she makes the final three. They also feel that Mike V. puts too much salt on something and gets booted next week, but that is based on the very teensiest of extrapolations. Only two shows left!!!!
  19. djs111

    Top Chef

    Didn't watch Project Runway - not as any sort of gesture because Gordana was treated badly, but because I really didn't have any interest in what was left. Here is Gordana's website - I love a lot of her clothes, and yes I know they are not edgy, etc. But this is how I would dress if I was younger and thinner. I love the soft stuff, and the colors are perfect. Gordana Gelhausen I read over at TwoP that the Magical Elves folks who edit Top Chef and used to edit PR chose not to work with Lifetime, so that's why PR seemed different. Hmmmmm....I guess we saw the real Heidi this time. I would love it if Jen could pull out all the stops and win - next Kevin, then Bryan, and I don't really care for Michael. Robin did some interviews and said yeah, the other chefs did not like her and that it really stung when they did that red scarf thing. So all the animosity was not editing. Next show looks good - from Bravo's website - QF is cooking on a train, EC is the group cooking 300 portions of two dishes at a Napa restaurant - looks like Jen is going to cook and also do Front of House - NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! That is the killer kiss of death!!!!!!!!!!!!
  20. djs111

    Top Chef

    Yay!!!!!! Jen is back!!!!!! She looks better, too, not withdrawn and tired. I fell asleep after Jen won the quickfire - prolly I was afraid to watch the elimination - but yay!!!! Eli is gone, and if Jen couldn't win (because of salmon issues, Tom's blog was very enlightening on that, and I learned something) - then cool for Kevin. Heh, Michael V. is still a douchebag, and I read yesterday that "douchebag" has become a universal term of non-endearment amongst many groups, but not all that many people really know what a douchebag is, especially kids. Tom explained why Kevin won, in his blog - all the other lamb was practically raw, and Jen should have cut her salmon differently, the top of the fish has more fat than the bottom (or the other way around) and so part of the fish was overcooked or cooked too quickly and that is what the white stuff is. I always wondered about that. Seriously. I cook a lot of salmon, I love it. The prize of being able to compete for a place on the cooking team - that is like skipping regionals and going right to the Hollywood round, Kevin may not get to go further, but I think that the feeling is that Kevin makes tasty food really well and has a year to learn the fancy stuff, while the V brothers sometimes seem to value technique over taste. I almost turned off the TV when Jen said she was going to make turducken - yeah she was kidding, but then again she made SOS last time. Mike V. was also full of crap when he said he didn't know they had to make a QF ballotine - yes he did, or else he was just not paying attention or else thought he could triumph with technique over what the challenge actually was. Yay!!! for Jen winning that, and nice of Padma to say welcome back.
  21. COBRA premiums are whatever the actual premium for your health insurance at work was - your portion PLUS your employer's contribution - PLUS 2% for handling. Usually the sticker shock is appalling, and just at the time when you can least afford it!
  22. I honestly think Clay and Ruben are good friends who sing together beautifully, and I doubt that Clay thinks of Ruben as just old AI baggage, so I hope this is true - maybe we can hear all of Jesus is Love sometime!!!! Seriously, I will go and see that concert in a heartbeat. I have been thinking that Clay seems to be doing stuff he wants to do, as opposed to some Grand Career Plan. I think he is multi-talented and will have a career no matter what he does. Great blog, Prejean is an idiot - but ya KNOW Larry King wanted to talk about the sex tape, and then he follows that up with a call from a gay guy, about wedding arrangements. Larry was creakily pushing buttons, PreJean is so full of herself she just lost her veneer of civility. Wow. Orchestras, London, Germany, PBS. Clay is doing a'right. People wanted communication - they got communication. :-)
  23. djs111

    Top Chef

    Yeah, I didn't like Robin so much as I hated how the others treated her. The vanilla crab thing - maybe there was too much vanilla - but lobster bisque with a hint of vanilla is fabulous!!!! Tom C. blogged that Jen was never in danger of going home. Tom actually liked Eli's horrible-sounding dish - and Eli at least showed his inspiration. Robin made a bad panna cotta and then screwed up the sugar candy that was supposed to look like Chihuly's glass, and didn't serve it. Jen is a good enough chef that Eric Ripert trusts her to be the chef de cuisine at one of his restaurants. The head chef. And Ripert is actually a guest judge on TC. So I hope she snaps out of whatever is ailing her. Hey - Fabio is not around, so she could cook scallops for the rest of the season!
  24. djs111

    Top Chef

    Jen is lucky that Robin and Eli sucked, that's for sure. I would just hate to see Jen go before Eli. Bad peanut butter soup with ground up popcorn???? Yikes!!!!!! I wish Toby did not feel like he has to come up with some lame-ass insulting remark for things he doesn't like. Hmmmmm....a V brother said this was a really bad night for him in the previews. I keep hoping Jen will recover from whatever is bothering her. That breakfast thing Eli won with? Barf. Since I don't like swiss cheese or corned beef or sauerkraut, and thousand island bearnaise or hollandaise sounds awful. That's another one Jen made me think WTF????? SOS? It looked nasty. I love SOS, actually, but for a special breakfast? She should have read my spoiler. Good episode, but it seemed very short or something. For a minute ther, I thought Jen was going to ask to leave with Robin.
  25. I have FIOS TV and phone and internet (very nice!) and was offered free HBO for three months. They are hoping I will forget to cancel it, but I cannot afford it. HBO is just like I remembered from the olden days when I had money - same damned movies over and over and over. Blechhhh. But - I absolutely adore True Blood. I love the story lines, I love the actors, I love the intro, and the opening theme song is even more perfectly killer than the Soprano's song or the song at the end of Cold Case. Sniff. Gonna miss that show, hopefully the full seasons are not too expensive. I am not going to check TwoP for other opinions about True Blood, because I am just too besotted to care!
×
×
  • Create New...