by

Lisey’s Story

I heartily acknowledge that I am a Stephen King fan-girl. No, I haven’t read the Dark Tower series (I tried about 15 years ago, at the encouragement of my father–also a King fan–but just.couldn’t.do.it. I promise to try again sometime soon), but I have read about 97% of his other works.

My favorite King books are his short story collections, but of his novels The Shining and  The Dead Zone are my favorites. I’m the child of a recovered alcoholic, so The Shining hits home on a lot of levels–and terrifies me for more than the haunted house (er, hotel) aspect. My heart aches for Jack Torrance through that entire damn novel. The Dead Zone is just beautifully written, and appeals to me on a more emotional level than King’s scary-paranormal stories. Again, my heart aches for Johnny Smith the whole time.

So I just re-read Lisey’s Story, and while I don’t think it’s up there with my favorites, I think it’s pretty damn close. Continue reading →

by

Retail Therapy

So.

I pulled my back a few days ago, which means I’m sort of reduced to sitting around in pain. And going to work in pain. And, basically, existing in pain. So, in order to make myself feel better, I indulged in some retail therapy.

I decided to check out Avenue, since I’d never shopped through them before. After much ranting about why plus size models either have giant boobs or are just really tall women in oversized clothing (I’m looking at you, WomanWithin), I was pleased by what I found at Avenue.com. I mean, the models are still kinda…skinny… but at least the clothes fit well enough to give you some idea of what you’ll look like in the clothing (granted, I have a similar–but larger–body shape to these models).

First off, I bought this dress.I say "TADOW!"

My best girlfriend says it’s “TADOW! but not in the good way” but I disagree. I make everything I do reek of “TADOW!” and the more “TADOW!”-y, the better. Plus I can rock some paisley. I have no idea how it will look on me, but I think it’ll flatter what I’ve got going on. I’m picturing it with my hair down and loosely curled, and my red rose hair clip on the side. Maybe a shrug? Also, I like that it can be dressed up but I can also wear it to work.

I had a coupon code that I found on retailmenot.com that gave me 50% off my highest priced item if I bought 2 or more things. This dress was already on sale for $29.96. I managed to get it for $14 and some change.

In order to get the discount, though, I had to buy something else. I’m not made of money, so I wanted my 2nd item to be something fairly cheap. So I looked at the jewelry and found several things I thought were cute (I love all of the owl stuff!). But I have enough rings, and I only have one necklace that I wear all the time, so I decided to go with a bracelet.

This bracelet is on sale for $4.96. I also liked the green one, but the blue will actually go with more things. I may wind up not keeping it (I don’t know that it’s            really me), so one of my friends may be getting a Christmas present a few months early!

All in all, I spent $26.93, including shipping! I’d say that’s pretty awesome.

Now back to the writhing in agony and whatnot.

by

Pop Quiz: Name That Voice!

There’s been a recent upswing in celebrities doing commercial voice-over work that I find interesting and kind of fun. I like hearing those voices and going “Hey! I know that voice!” Unfortunately, most of the time I just..can’t..place..that voice, and so I send myself into a pit of frustration trying to figure it out.

Ok, maybe I exaggerate a little bit, but it annoys me.

So here’s your brain-teaser for today: I’m presenting 7 commercials with celebrity voice-overs. If you can get all 7 without researching it, you’re a better man than I. Here’s one to get you started; the other 6 are behind the tag, as are the answers. No cheating!

1) Honda Crosstour

Continue reading →

by

Fare-thee-well, Top Chef DC! An Open Letter.

Dear Top Chef: DC, Judges, and Cheftestants:

I shan’t miss you.

Top Chef, I have not missed a single episode of any of your seasons. I have laughed, I have lusted over both foods and cheftestants (and still do.. I’m looking at you, Michael V. and Sam..also, those shrimp’n'grits by Tre in season 3? I have dreams about them.), I have felt the pain of the folks who miss their families, and felt the disappointment when they have to leave. Even in seasons 3 and 5, where I didn’t enjoy most of the people on the show, I still enjoyed the food they made. I stuck by your side through season 4, which is, to be brutally honest, a completely forgetable season apart from Andrew’s line “I have a culinary boner” which totally overshadowed the fact that season 4 gave us our first female Top Chef.

Padma, I applaud whoever chose you as the host to replace Katie Lee Joel. She was abysmal, and you (and your cleavage) are a beacon of light in the darkness that has been Season 7. But the flashes of brilliance on your part are growing dimmer and dimmer, even as your cleavage grows more expansive. Gail, you and I have had our differences, but I’m glad you’re going to TC:Just Desserts. The main thing I’ve always liked about you, even when your opinions suck, is your unabashed love for fatty, delicious, dessert foods. Tom… oh, Tom, what is there to say about you, my beloved Bear? Even Tony Bourdain, who I look forward to seeing each season, wasn’t up to his usual inspired standards of hole reaming.

I think I’ve hit upon the key word, here: inspired. There was nothing inspiring about this season. Perhaps you shot yourself in the chef’s shoe last season; that was a stellar bunch of chefs! And they were interesting, and there was conflict that went beyond petty crap and personality differences. The credentials they had! Oh my. This season was infinitely lacking in any of that; talent and drama were practically non-existent.

I know how I feel when I cook; I feel like I’m creating something new, even if it’s a dish I’ve made 90 bajillion times before. The most basic of my moma’s comfort food can still excite me when I cook it, can still ignite in me the same passion that making a completely foreign dish can. I haven’t seen that in any of the cheftestants this time ’round. My all-time favorite cheftestants and judges are the ones like Season 5s Carla (another bright spot in that season), who go on about “cooking with love.” It’s the same principle with any creative thing, whether it’s cooking or writing or playing music or acting or designing clothes: it will fail to inspire you if you have no passion for it. And if you have no passion for it when you’re making it, then how can you make the audience (tasters and judges) care about it?

I’m not saying you don’t have passionate chefs on the show this season, but if you do, I haven’t seen it from them in anything they’ve made.

To quote Pike in the BtVS movie, I’m not mad; I’m just disappointed. And I don’t like feeling that way about you, Top Chef! You gave my mom something enjoyable when she was having chemotherapy and couldn’t taste most of her foods; watching you, she was able to experience things that she was never gonna be able to taste again. You gave us something to bond over, and I miss having that quality of show coming from you. This season’s been lower than low, so I ask you–nay, implore you!– bring back the good stuff next season!

I’m willing to stick with you for your spin-off shows, like TC:Masters and TC:Just Desserts (which I will watch, of course). But I don’t expect the same quality from them as I do from you! You’re the parent, the role model, and you’re just not doing your job properly. I don’t want to give up on you, so don’t make me feel like you’ve given up on me.

Sincerely,

Eieioj

by

Cleaning off the bookshelf

Oh, my posting here is atrociously sporadic.

Today I’m cleaning off my bookshelves and trying to trade-in some books at my local Buy-Trade bookshop.

On the list to trade:

Good Omens

The Dark Half

Pet Sematary

Skeleton Crew

The Hot Zone

The Heaven Series (subject of an upcoming post on IFMiB)

The Looking Glass Wars

The Great Husband Hunt

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

I enjoyed most of these books, but they’re not the sort that I want to read over and over and over again. I mean, I love me some Stephen King, but I’ve read the three King books on my list enough. And some of these are books that I have multiple copies of and no one to gift them to.

Hopefully I’ll find some super-awesome books to get (and hopefully most of these will trade!). Whoooooooooo trading books!

by

Love The Way You Lie

Author’s Note: This originally appeared on the blog I Fry Mine In Butter.

I’m including a Trigger Warning with this post, because I’d like the courtesy.

So, apparently there’s a bunch of controversy around Eminem’s new video for the song “Love The Way You Lie” featuring Rhianna. Not about the song (in fact, most folks agree that it’s pretty damn powerful), but about the video.

The video “stars” Megan Fox and Dominic Monaghan (“Charlie” from Lost), and chronicles their relationship—a relationship centered around alcohol, abuse, and sex. And it’s the combination of violence and sex that are throwing people up in arms.

Continue reading →

by

Fever Pitch, or How I Learned to Stop Rolling My Eyes and Enjoy Football

World Cup fever has gripped the world, even those of us who never intentionally watch soccer(which I will refer to as “football” for the rest of this post). And one of my goals was to finish the book Fever Pitch before the World Cup started. And so, I did.

I’m not going to say that reading the book changed my life. It didn’t. But the book helped me in my quest to understand the majority of my friends and my partner, who text each other whenever there’s a game going on. I usually know when this is going on, because his (my partner’s) cell phone starts chirping incessantly, and when I ask who it is, he tends to quietly murmur our uber-soccer-fan friend’s name and look sheepish. I know that it’s a football match when that happens, or that they’re ranting about a certain player, or arguing about why a certian player is/isn’t good. I’ve learned to stop asking questions, not about football, but about life (How is he? Has he been working on his novel? Got a compelling protagonist? Friends become enemies, enemies become friends? Hmm?) when this happens, because I’m going to get the “That is soooooo not important” look. 

Fever Pitch does not have the same plot as either of the movies (in the US, we have the baseball movie starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore, about the obsessive BoSox fan; that was based on the British movie of the same name, which follows Colin Firth who’s an obsessive Arsenal fan, like Nick Hornby). The book, really, has no plot to speak of. Nick Hornby relates anecdotes, and progresses along a time line in which he explains relationships with various people (family, friends, girlfriends, coworkers) through the lens of football, and how he can see football affecting his life, but also how he has no idea why it affects his life so much. It just does, and he’s ok with that.

I’ve always loved Hornby’s writing style; it’s a very comfy way of writing to me, like a blanket I can wrap around my brain…it’s like chatting with a close friend, really. I have yet to read one of his books that I didn’t enjoy, so I wasn’t worried about that with Fever Pitch. I was, however, worried that, well, I just wouldn’t get it. I didn’t need to worry.

Do I understand the sport? Nope. I can follow it, and pick up bits of the rules, strategies, and player/club information as I go, like I’m a bird picking up shiny things. And really, that’s all I want to be able to do. What I did get from the book, as a casual enjoyer of football (and I’m a Rugby Girl at heart), is a sense of how someone can become that big a fan; it helped to put me in a place where I can understand people like my partner, and sympathize/empathize with him, and celebrate with him. Also, I’m better able to just sit and enjoy the sport; I’ve always appreciated football–it’s a hell of an endurance sport–but I’ve never really thought about the grace and beauty of the sport until I read Fever Pitch. I get that now.

One more thing: I love that Hornby calls out teams on the racism that has always occurred; things like fans throwing bananas at Black players (on their own team!!!!! askjfaiscniofcs;kj;dh!!!!) and all sorts of derogatory commentary from the stands have, it seems, always happened. And Hornby says, basically, that it needs to stop, because it’s ruining a beautiful sport and turning people (new players, new fans, etc) away from the game (and, you know, it’s just plain wrong). That said, he acknowledges that he’s having the “typical Liberal response” because he’s thinking about all the things he’d like to do or say to the racist rectal haberdashers, but that he’s too weak and lacks the courage of his convictions to do any of those things. It’s this sort of thing that keeps the narrative human and relatable, even if football’s not your obsession; it’s the sort of thing that we all deal with, on different levels, and I appreciate him not sugar-coating the stupid violence and hatred that can be created/engendered by the sport.

I’d recommend this to anyone who loves football, knows someone who obsesses over football, or someone who likes good conversations, because this book definitely provides that. It can drag from time to time, but never too much. I’d give it a solid “A.”

by

Featuring…

I love music. Duh. I study it, I perform it, I learn it inside and out. I love the trivia that exists in the music world, and I especially love all of the known and unknown collaborations out there.

Some of my favorites include:

Beat It–MJ (Eddie Van Halen does the guitar solo)

Modern Love–David Bowie (Steve Ray Vaughn plays the guitar part at the beginning, and actually was on most, if not all, of the Let’s Dance album)

(I apologize… you can’t embed the actual video)

Satellite of Love–Lou Reed (David Bowie sings back-up vocals)

Fame–David Bowie (John Lennon sings the “faaaaaame” part)

Gloria–Them with Van Morrison (Jimmy Page plays lead guitar)

(WTF is that donkey doing?)

Paradise By The Dashboard Light–Meatloaf (Roy Bittan and Max Weinburg of the E Street Band play keys and drums)

(The woman singing is Ellen Foley, but the video features Karla DeVito lip synching Foley’s part. My mom actually went through a Karla DeVito phase in the early 80′s, with the hair and makeup.)

Any favorites to add to this list?

by

Ain’t No Place For The Weary Kind

My boo and I watched Crazy Heart tonight. We try to watch all of the Oscar noms before the actual ceremony, but didn’t get around to it til now. 

Holy crap.

I know that everyone said it was like The Wrestler except about country music and that while The Wrestler  was better, Jeff “The Dude” Bridges was better/more compelling than Mickey Rourke. Frankly, I don’t think that The Wrestler was better; honestly, I fell asleep during the first hour of it. And no, I never finished it. I will eventually, I promise. 

Maybe it comes from the fact that I’ve spent time on the road with a bunch of musicians, traveling around in a beat-up, smelly van. And not just any musicians, but country musicians. Let me tell you, if you’re not familiar with the current state of country music, that it’s nothing even resembling what “country” music should sound like. Acts like the fictional Bad Blake or Tommy Sweet are hard to find out there, and when you do find them, it’s usually in some run-down, out of the way hole in the wall where only the lonely and depressed can find solace. 

I’m not  a country music purist, by any stretch of the imagination. While I grew up with parents who broadened my musical horizons and exposed me to music like Hank Sr. and Waylon as well as all sorts of Southern gospel music, I never really latched on to country music. I think most of that was because of my disinterest in most over-produced stuff, not to mention a rebellion against where I’m from. 

Crazy Heart features some great music by T Bone Burnett (who did the  O Brother soundtrack and oversaw the music for The Big Lebowski and Walk The Line), and a solid, solid, solid performance by Jeff Bridges as an old, road-tired, alcoholic country musician traveling the Southwest. It’s fairly typical of your average redemption story, but for some reason it hits more chords with me (pardon the musical pun!).  I tend to read everything ever on Wikipedia, but I refused to read up on this movie. As a result, I honestly didn’t know how the movie was going to end; I figured there were several option: one, he winds up dying; two, he continues life, drinking himself into a stupor and playing in dive bars; or three, he gets his act together. 

All of them could have happened, and, honestly, I would have been okay with any of the endings. I’m not telling which one it was, of course, but it was ultimately satisfying.

Jeff Bridges was, of course, awesome. Honestly, The Dude can do little wrong in my book. Maggie Gyllenhaal was surprisingly good (I say that, even though I liked her in The Dark Knight and love-love-loved her in Secretary), and Colin Farrell was a delight in his few scenes. Also, cue an awesome cameo from Robert Duvall, and you got yourself a gumbo!

Overall, I enjoyed the ride through country music land, and am going to download the soundtrack as soon as possible.