The very model of a modern major rap song

Love this!

Entertainment Report

Since most of you have probably missed SNL since Molly Shannon, Jimmy Fallon, Will Ferrell, and the rest of the "good cast" left, you probably weren't aware of last night's completely incredible episode. Since the writers' strike starts Monday, you'll probably get a chance to see it in repeat real soon. I highly encourage it. The host was Brian Williams, of the NBC Nightly News, who is already one of the funniest people on the planet, in my opinion. While I'd never heard of the musical guest, the episode was absolutely HYSTERICAL and featured cameos by Senator Obama and Horatio Sanz.

But that's not the piece of entertainment news that I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around. It's this one about former All My Children star and uber-hottie, Justin Bruening:

On November 2, 2007, it was announced that he would be starring in a new spin of the original Knight Rider series, portraying the original Knight Rider's son, Michael Knight Jr., for a two-hour special on NBC. The original having been portrayed by actor David Hasselhoff, newspaper The Hollywood Reporter immediately took notice to the similarities between the two castings:

“	...the choice of Bruening closely resembles Hasselhoff's casting a quarter-century ago. Like Bruening, Hasselhoff was a soap star (The Young and the Restless) with few other credits when he landed Knight Rider. He was almost the same age as Bruening, who is 28.

My sister will see the irony in this one right away, but for those of you who aren't intimately knowledgeable about the backstage workings of daytime TV, I'll warn you that it may be enough to make your head explode. Here's the story....

Once upon a time in the early 1980s, there was a young actress named Catherine Hickland. Hickland was married to David Hasselhoff, who of course, played Michael Knight on Knight Rider. In 1989, Hickland and Hoff divorced, and in 1992, Hickland married Michael E. Knight (yes, that's his real name) who had been starring on All My Children since the early 1980s as a character named Tad Martin (we'll kindly forget that Ted Orsini debacle, after all, it's not really important right now). From 2003 through August of this year, Tad's son Jamie was played by none-other than Justin Bruening who is now starring in NBC's new Knight Rider movie as the son of The Hoff's character, Michael (No 'E') Knight, Jr.

Congrats to Justin on the new role, and congrats to everyone who followed that without their head exploding!!

Deja view

I know, I know. I haven't blessed my gentle readers with an update lately, but work has been sucking more than my Kirby. Gutters people, it's a vacuum.


Speaking of sucking, I caught a new show on CBS last night. It's called Moonlight and it's got a total hottie in the lead role as a Private Investigator in LA who happens to be a vampire with a set of "personal guidelines" regarding who he can and can't feed from. He's also got a beautiful blonde foil/love interest who, in her role as an investigative reporter, finds herself investigating the same cases he does.



Been here before, right?

Blonde not pictured (and it's not because she's a lesbian).

I'm not saying that they're the exact same show. I mean, Moonlight actually lets their vamps go outside (one even has a pool), and they have do have an easier transition from upstanding-member-of-society to scary-ass-vampire. Then again, since CBS' guys seem to have access to actual doctors during the day, I'm thinking it's a botox thing.

Let's see, what else is different? Admittedly not much....

They both have a serious problem getting their un-dead freak on...they're both Private Investigators who like to brood...They both have classic convertibles...They both have sidekicks with English accents...they both attract women who wear completely inappropriate outfits for their jobs...they both find themselves throwing all the good lines to the presumably-good-but-deliciously-evil-other-vampire-sidekick.

Wait, I've got it...Moonlight's missing the black guy with anger management issues and the green guy who runs the karaoke joint. Then again, the show's on CBS. If they're not being arrested on CSI (just pick one) or are Ed Bradley, faces of color are pretty hard to find on that particular network. That reminds me: where the hell was Warrick when the rest of the team was combing the desert on CSI? He went back to the lab about 20 minutes in, and we never saw him again. The "entire team" is banding together (plus extras), Greg's flying a huey, and Warrick isn't there? Yeah, something doesn't add up....

I'm not saying that you can't use the same settings or basic concept. If there was a rule like that, we'd never see ER or Grey's Anatomy, and our source of all medical drama would remain, forevermore, General Hospital. That would be a McDisaster...seriously. I'm just saying that if you're trying to court viewers in the all-important 18-49 viewing group, don't give us something we've already seen before, done much, MUCH better.

And that's all she wrote

Possible Spoiler alert. PLEASE don't read this until you've finished the book for yourself. I've tried not to give too much away, but I fear that I may slip.

At 1:57 this morning, I closed the book I had been reading steadily since 7:50 last night and sent a text message to my sister:

All done. Admittedly, I should have said "Mischief Managed." I thought about it, but my brain wasn't doing the whole internal spell-checker thing at that late hour. Would have been cool though...

It was my signal that, for me, the saga of Harry Potter had come to an end. There would be no more anxious evenings of waiting for the next installment along with 700 of my closest friends. There would be no more wild speculations and theories regarding the true nature of Severus Snape, when Ron would finally man up and make his true feelings known, the true identity of Ginny Weasly (thanks for shutting down that theory about an hour after I left the house, Jules), or what exactly "Remember My Last" meant to Petunia Dursley.

Now, it's all done. Jem Blythe has come home, Beth March has died of scarlet fever, Laura Ingalls has accepted Alonzo Wilder, and Harry Potter has faced Lord Voldemort. All for the last first time.

I will say that, knowing that it was the last time that this was ever going to be new to me, I tried to savor it. I tried to read each word cautiously and carefully so that it washed over me like something dear should. Of course, that lasted about 10 minutes. Then, I found myself swept up in the story, and with every turn of the page, I was scanning, looking for names and the dreaded words: dead, dying, avada...Once the words were safely tucked away for yet another page, I read more carefully; soaking in the story, and trying to decide what each new development would mean.

I'm afraid to say that most of the time, I didn't see it coming. In fact, I usually got it so horribly wrong that I was crying for no good reason. Like JKR, I was pulling from all sorts of mythology and when Ron did what he did, said what he said, and then grabbed the thing the way he did, I was convinced that she had pulled that entire sequence straight from The Tales of King Arthur. We all know how that ended up and so a new fear was born. For the rest of the book, I was waiting for the death that I knew would come because it had to. The death that would devastate me most of all. The death that would complete this Lancelot, Guinevere, Arthur triangle that JKR had laid out from the very beginning. I thought I had the whole thing pegged, and my affinity for Ron was making this wait for death torturous. I thought about skipping to the end to make sure that he appeared on the last page in a healthy and happy form. I was in the process of flipping, when I remembered that that this was the last time I was going to read this book completely unencumbered by previous knowledge. I stopped, but not fast enough to see the illustration of a woman who could only be Ginny standing beside Harry with an ethereal glow. I slammed the book shut willing the image out of my head. It wasn't Hermione, I reasoned, the hair was too straight. It could only have been Ginny. This was another punch in the gut.

Now, there were two deaths coming. What would this mean to Harry and Hermione? Would they remain friends, possibly something more bound together by grief and the realization that their true loves, the red-heads they had spent all their time denying their true feelings for, were gone beyond the veil? Or, would they drift away from each other, unable to speak or make eye-contact because of the guilt that haunts so many survivors? Would Hermione end up with Viktor Krum or with someone kind and gentle like Dean, Seamus, or Neville? Would Harry drift away from everyone (if he survived at all) or would he accept Luna in his life? I had no illusions of him with Cho (she always annoyed me), and I figured that Fleur's little sister wouldn't have been a wise choice for anyone who was desperate to avoid the Weasley family. Therefore, it would have had to have been Luna.

I meant to stop then. I had driven for 14 hours and I was tired. I could save the heartbreak for the morning; after I had been allowed some sleep and would have been in a better position to look at the situation rationally. Instead, I turned one more page. Then another. Then....

It was 1:52 in the morning. The battle was over. The body count was high and devastating. So many mentors, friends, admirers, loves, and enemies were gone, it was impossible to know what else Rowling had planned for us. I turned the last page and began the epilogue. Emotions were running high. I read the line, and then realizing what it meant, I read it again. Harry had succeeded where Gilbert Blythe had nearly failed and Charlie Brown had never really tried. He alone had won the heart of the little red-headed girl, and had a little red-headed girl of his very own.

It was 1:57. I had finished the book. The Hogwarts Express was pulling out of King's Cross Station, and the next generation of Hogwartians were headed for their place in the sorting line and Herbology lessons with Professor Longbottom. I was wrong about so many things and right about so many others. I was laughing and sobbing at the same time. I grabbed my phone, texted my own red-headed twin, and turned off the lights eager for the sleep I so richly deserved. Whispering into the darkness, "Thank you JK Rowling."

One quick prediction

We're a week away from the event that will not be named, and I'm not going to be home to discuss this in detail until after the books have hit our collective hot little hands (I'm getting it a day late, so please don't spoil it for me), but I have to throw this out there. I have nothing but a few randomly collected hints and a gut feeling to back this up, but I think....


Ginny Weasley is the reincarnation of Lily Potter

This is why (as I said, randomly collected hints):

1. She's the first girl to have been born in the Weasley family for generations and happened to have been born right about the same time James and Lily were blown to green bits.


2. She's a truly talented witch - wise beyond her years according to several professors - in a household full of boys who, well, don't exactly apply themselves. Part of that could have been the simple fact that she's a girl (and we tend to do better in school), but Ginny's prowess and its notice by the professors suggests it's not just a question of gender.


3. She loves Harry, unconditionally, and is accepting of the decisions he makes. Even when he broke up with her, she didn't really argue the point. She may be slightly upset, she may question that he's doing the right thing, but she trusts him like a mother would.One note: I'm not saying that she knows that she's the reincarnated version of his mother. Because that, you will agree, would be just plain icky. Just that she's got feelings towards him that are motherly.


4. Even though she's a pureblood wizard, she was attacked by Tom Riddle and taken into the Chamber of Secrets. The threat was clearly made towards "mudbloods" and muggles, so it would have made more sense that one of them would have been taken. Yes, I realize that the primary reason she was attacked was because of the diary; however, Voldemort's MO has always been to eliminate those closest to Harry first. Ginny wouldn't have been the logical choice at that point. When Ginny was writing in the diary, Harry was important to her but she was no more than his best mate's little sister. Though one of the hands-down funniest, most light-hearted moments in the entire septology is Harry's internal argument on pages 515-6 of Half Blood Prince. I'm just saying.

Anyway, I think that we're going to see something big, something very big out of Ginny next week. I shudder to think that there's even a possibility that Ginny may die, but like Lily before her, it may be a necessity for her to make that sacrifice in order to save Harry and allow him to vanquish Voldemort altogether.

Thoughts? Leave 'em in the comments, please!

Something fun for a Friday

Sirius-ly...

The best of the bunch.

Don't want to give anything away and ruin everyone elses' fun, but YES. HP5 was bloody good and totally worth escaping from work early for. I laughed, I cried, I hurl, sorry, wrong flick.

I have some concerns with what the omissions mean for the rest of the septology, but since the seventh book will be out by the time I get back from vacation, and it won't really matter by then, I guess I'll keep them to myself. If you want to know, email me.

More movie time

Oh my GOD. Oh my GOD.



If you haven't seen Bobby yet, rush right out and grab up the DVD. It's phenomenal.

That is all. :)

Just a bitchy movie review

As most of you guys know, June has been my hell month (no, not Hell Mouth for you Buffy fans -- though, sometimes it feels that way). The project in question (PIQ) is in full swing, and my coworkers, who finally realize that wait, I actually need TIME to do this damn thing before my 7/1 deadline have finally stopped handing me new projects to fill my "copious amounts of free time."

I guess I should say MOST of the co-workers. The old bitchy one who gives out my personal cell phone number to the users and only bothers to acknowledge me when she's letting me know about something else that she's promised the users I'd do acknowledged me again yesterday. I flat out told her that I couldn't accommodate the project, that she should have checked with me before committing me, and reminded her AGAIN that I have two other high-priority projects in addition to the work that she keeps finding for me to do. Her response, "They need to get you an assistant." I told her it wouldn't help because I would then have to train them , which I don't have time to do; otherwise, they could use the non-training- expect-to-figure-out-how-to-fix-the-users'-messes approach that they used with me and we'd see the person leave in a week.

I then talked to the user in question, apologized for not being able to accommodate his needs (something I didn't need to do, but I figured he needed to know) and invited him to talk to me directly if he needed something as I had a better understanding than Sue, apparently, of what exactly I'm working on and what I had time for as I'm barely keeping my head above water as it is.

That being said, one of the only benefits of these crazy-ass hours (I was up at 2 this morning because that's the free time I have) is that I get to see a lot of movies. Some, like Catch and Release and The 10th Kingdom, I've loved. I may have to add C&R to the rotation of rainy-Sunday chicky flicks. Others, like Happy Accidents, have had a suck-factor comparable to my Kirby (hey, pervs, it's a vacuum). Seriously, you'd think that a movie featuring an Academy Award winner and Thor, the Thunder God from Adventures in Babysitting would be much better, and no, I'm not being sarcastic.

Then, there are some movies that are such a disappointment that you're not quite sure if you could ever look at the people involved (and their offspring) the same way ever again. Jayne and Mariska, I'm talking to you!!!

Now, it's a simple equation. A truly spectacular actress, Emmy winner, and social activist is the daughter of a "classic Hollywood actress" and a "Mr. Universe." If you're thinking, "That's ok, Ah-Nold is a 'Mr. Universe,' I refer you to Conan the Barbarian. Mickey Hargitay never quite got past that stage, and that's ok, he didn't really need to. Remember, it was the 60's, and America liked those beach movies that focused a little more on skin (within the bounds of decency) than substance. Mickey was really into those.

Because of this, I thought, Mariska must've gotten her acting abilities from her mother. Despite the rumors, I've always believed that she's definitely Mickey's kid, and if he’s not that great of an actor, and it had to come from somewhere, then...

Let's just say that the milkman was one HELL of an actor.

Don't believe me? Check out Kiss Them For Me starring Jayne Mansfield and Cary Grant. Just load up on tequila before you do it; trust me you'll need it. First day of filming, I'm picturing the conversation went something like this:

Director: Ok, Jayne, here's what we need...Squeeze yourself into that dress (gestures to dress that would probably fit unless its wearer needed to breathe, eat, or sit down), then as comfortably as you can, slink around *that* guy (gestures to Ray Walston, not Cary Grant) and use your best "sexy" voice while really attracting the doofus with the speech impediment and gappy teeth (gestures covertly to nameless "doofus."). Don't worry if you don't remember his name, he doesn't have that much of a career in him.

Jayne: Ok. I get it.

Result: Jayne slinks around as comfortably as she can doing her best tranny-hooker impression and attracting doofus-boy, culminating in a scene where she RUNS (impressive, actually -- seriously, the heels alone would have killed me) towards him and they spend two minutes (I timed it) squealing at each other...

(Actual Dialogue Below)

Jayne: SQUEAL

NamelessDoofus: SQUEAL

Jayne: SQUEAL

NamelessDoofus: SQUEAL

Cary Grant: I'm going to KILL my agent

Rinse and repeat 50 times.

And somewhere, in an audience, Ned Beatty is watching and wondering if that squealing thing would be a good career move....

Incidentally, in fairness, my hatred of the movie wasn't Jayne's fault alone. I actually blame it on false-advertising. It's described as a story about three Naval Officers having "rollicking good time" on liberty in San Francisco during WWII. It's actually a flick about post-traumatic stress disorder: WHEE!! Since it's quite possible that this thing was a train-wreck from the get-go, I'm willing to take another look. If anyone reading this knows of a good Jayne Mansfield film that I may be able to use to reevaluate my opinion of her, I'm listening. In the meantime, I'm sure that there's an SVU marathon out there somewhere....

My Tivo thinks...

It's a common scenario with Tivo users: you tape a few things that are outside of your normal viewing range, and the next thing you know, your Tivo is suggesting that you fit a certain stereotype.

For instance, let's say that you have a thing for Michelle Williams. You start by taping TBS' daily dose of Dawson's Creek. Then, you realize that HBO is running both If These Walls Could Talk II and Brokeback Mountain. Add those to the list, and don't be surprised when your Tivo gives you a season pass to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy!

Thankfully I don't have Tivo. I shudder to think what types of shows it would recommend after it discovered my penchant for the Law and Order franchise, Homicide: Life on the Street, and all those reality crime docs on A&E. What I do have, however, is a new Netflix account (yes, I know, welcome to the 21st Century). And if my current top ten is any indication of my personality, then I'd have to guess that my Netflix account thinks that I'm an 80 year old British woman.

Actually, knowing the tastes of the last 80 year old British woman I knew, they wouldn't be far off....

Aside from the last disc of The 10th Kingdom (it came highly recommended) and The X-Files: Fight the Future, (I'm officially hooked now), the top 10 is full of classic movies that I always intended to watch, but never quite got around to. There's Lover Come Back (Rock Hudson and Doris Day), I Was a Male War Bride and People Will Talk(Cary Grant). I'd have thrown in The Philadelphia Story (Cary Grant AND Jimmy Stewart!!) except that it's always on AMC (and yes, I always watch), so why waste the pick? Then, there's How Green was My Valley? (post WWII Welsh village), The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (a movie that I've tried to watch for years and can't seem to catch anything but the last half-hour of), Bobby, Little Children (finally, two modern picks), Interstate 60 (an indie from 2002), and Happenstance (because I love reading my movies when they star Audrey Tatou).

I'm also admitting to the Netflix people that I have yet to see several films that are considered "required" viewing amongst human society of a certain age. Like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (which is NOT to be confused with Angels with Dirty Faces -- a different movie entirely) and The Journey of Natty Gann (which I may have seen years ago, but I have virtually no recollection of -- strange because you'd think I'd have remember a Jon Cusack movie!!).

So, obviously, it's going to take me quite a while to get through these, and I've got items on the list that aren't even out on DVD (like Grace is Gone and Stephanie Daley). In the meantime, I'm seriously enjoying learning about movies that Netflix swears I'm going to like and trying to psycho-analyze its psychoanalysis of me. For example, did you know that just because I liked Casablanca, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It Happened One Night, I was going to LOVE The Day the Earth Stood Still? Neither did I, but I don't think I'm going to find out any time soon. After all, Fox Mulder aside, you guys know how much I hate UFOs!

One of the benefits of being kicked out of your office for a week (the contractors showed up the first day of Spring Break to find the Ladies' Room ripped out and workmen applying power saws to the walls outside our cubes) is getting to watch a LOT of CourtTV. So far this week, I've caught the Maury-style reveal of Baby Dannielynn's father, the North Carolina AG throwing Mike Nifong under a bus, and this crazy-ass case out of New Jersey where this woman is accused of shooting her husband, chopping him up, and tossing the pieces in *matching luggage* into the Chesapeake Bay. No, don't put him in the crappy bags from your college days, put him in the easily tracable matching set. Sure, that's smart.

Of the three, it's the New Jersey case that has both fascinated and disturbed me most. Sure, Anna Nicole is good entertainment, and Nifong deserved to be disbarred the moment he started running his mouth and hiding evidence, but that case out of New Jersey is just really really strange. First off, she's adorable. No prison blues and oranges for her, she's always in these innocent little dresses and sweater sets. And you know, nothing says "innocent" like a sweater set. Actually, wasn't there an entire sitcom episode (possibly Murphy Brown) based on the innocence of sweater sets?

Ok, moving on. The second point is that she's got plenty of people lined up as character witnesses. The weird thing (which, of course, I've learned from CourtTV) is that the character witnesses comprise pretty much her entire defense. Instead of relying on alibis and evidence that distinctly say that the defendant DIDN'T do it, they're using these character witnesses to claim that the defendant COULDN'T have done it because, as they put it, "She's just not that kind of person." According to CourtTV, these are the types of people who are usually pulled out during the penalty phase, after conviction, when the court is trying to decide between ten years and life. Not good.

The third problem with the case is the fact that, despite her innocent attire and the parade of character witnesses extolling her virtues to the American public, she looks like a psycho!! Now, my poker face isn't that great, and my old boss used to send me notes to "smile" during meetings when our client started berating us for meeting old requirements when we were supposed to have read his mind and adjusted our deliverables to meet the psychic requirements, but this woman is out of control. Any prosecution witness that wasn't there thanks to a supeona was given a look that could freeze the Dead Sea. Seriously, if she was trying to convince the jury that she was sweet and innocent, it simply wasn't working. I haven't seen a face that evil since I ran screaming out of a Sunday school viewing of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (the cartoon version, not the live-action one that came out a few years ago).

They're in the middle of the defense right now, and I believe that they'll be wrapping up next week sometime. If I had to make a call, I'd say she was going up river. Oh wait, that was her husband....

Books O Rama

What do the books I've read say about me? What would your list look like?

I borrowed this from someone in the blog-o-sphere since it reminded me of books I want to add to my reading list. Look at the list of books below.

• Bold the ones you've read
• Italicize the ones you want to read
• Leave blank the ones that you aren't interested in.

Do with this information what you will. I don't tag people, but feel free to play along. I guess I'm cheating a little, but I'm also counting books on tape. I figure it's still "reading" if you're stuck in traffic enjoying a book. Plus, it's really the only way that I gotthrough the LOTR trilogy. Those are starred and bolded...

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) -- mmmmmm....Darcy....
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)*
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)*
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)*
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) -- read the wholeseries too...my favorite chapter is the last one of the last book.
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)*
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)*
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) -- SHOCKING, I know!
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck) *
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)*
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)* -- word to the wise, don't listen to this in the car. I almost got into an accident in South Carolina because I was crying so hard.
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) -- LOVEIT!!
45. Bible -- Most of it.
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb) but I don't remember anything aboutit.
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) -- It was the best of books, it was the worst of books....
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrew Niffenegger) -- it's up next
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) -- I just found out this was a real book.
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth(Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford) -- Another great series that I need to read the rest of....
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce) -- I tried once and got over it.

We don't know them...

But we should.

They were doing their job.
She was on vacation.

They spent their last days surrounded by the sands of a desert that they never asked to go to.
She spent hers ordering desserts and drugs.

They leave behind families, children, lovers, and friends.
She leaves behind a little girl and at least three known baby-daddies.

They were defending our country.
She was defending her weight-loss secrets.

They were part of a senseless situation of someone else's creation.
She was a sensless creation all her own.

They were an incomplete press-release.
She's front-page news.

All four died on Thursday.

We don't know them...
But we should.

July 21, Baby, July 21!

A couple of weeks ago, my sister wrote this post on her blog that summed up her own feelings about the end of the Harry Potter books. Anything I'd write about it at this point would just sound like I'm ripping her off, so I'm just going to add, "Yeah, what she said," and be done with it.

I will tell you, however, that if anyone here is looking for me the weekend of July 21, traditionally a busy weekend for me for a variety of reasons, you will find me curled up on my front porch with a Witches Brew in one hand and a book in the other. I will laugh, I will cry, and I will finish the book -- quite possibly in a single sitting. Don't worry, when I emerge from my diluted haze, kleenex in hand and crying over the death of probably a much-beloved character (Anyone care to wager? I'm sensing that Dean Thomas and Seamus don't walk out of Hogwarts alive.), I won't give anything away. A prefect always keeps her promises.

Oh, random thought! I should probably preorder at the B&N in Annapolis or at the one next to Hopkins. That way, I can get it on the way home from work instead of having to bust all the way around the beltway to Towson. Someone remind me I said that later, ok?

Confidential to JC: At least we're not going to be listening to it on tape at Laura's wedding after all. I know we were joking, but the idea of us busting out with commentary while the minister's going "Any objections?" still cracks me up.

About f-ing time

A couple of months ago, I wrote this post about how fed up I was about the fact that Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington was being held to a different standard than all the other Hollywood Bigots of 2006.

It took awhile, but it seems that Hollywood is catching on that a double-standard isn't cool.

Of course, it took Washington saying what he said a SECOND time in a more public forum (the first time of course being in the midst of that famous on-set fight), but at least something is being done.

That's All, What's Next?

Update: Reading the news this morning, it looks like Washington actually may be fired after all. I should totally go into psychic analysis for my next career opportunity.

Geeks Wanted!!!

Don't worry, I'm not knocking geeks. I ♥ Geeks...especially ones who can help me out with a little problem I'm facing.

My new gig wants me to create a character and do my new job as this particular character. For semi-obvious reasons for anyone who's ever really looked at me, the character that I've chosen is Dana Scully: Washed Up Reality TV Star.

The angle: The X-Files wasn't a fictionalized series, it was a reality show. Since it ended, Agent Scully had a choice between parlaying her fame as a reality TV star into new roles or taking a job doing what I'm doing with the new company. Since ghost-hunting seemed a less dangerous option than spending a week in a house with Vanilla Ice, Gary Coleman, and the rest of the bunch picked for the Surreal Life 27, she picks that.

The entire character needs hair, makeup, and a persona that matches closely with the actual Scully character. Hair's done (thank you, Jesus!), and the makeup and clothes seem pretty easy. I've already planned a few vital explanations (i.e. I'm not really a skeptic, it was a trick of the editors to create a character -- the standard reality TV show line), but there is a serious and singular problem that I'm having a hard time overcoming...

I have NEVER watched an episode of the X-Files all the way through.

I know, I know, welcome to 1995. I get it. However, while I'm a serious ghost-geek, I don't "do" aliens, flesh-eating bacteria, or massive bug colonies. Unfortunately, since every episode that everyone tried to make me watch featured one of those things, I never turned into a fan.
So this is where you come in. The Truth, The Knowledge...it's out there!! If anyone could possibly fill me in on the essential Scully-isms, could you please email me? I'll be spending all weekend studying my notes and watching old episodes, but you'd be helping a girl out if you could fill me in on the basics. Especially catchphrases and popular quotes. Those, seriously, would be the best.

Thanks!!

Oh Holy Night

Even if you're not a regular viewer of the new Aaron Sorkin drama, Studio 60, you can't help but admire Sorkin's efforts to bring the people of New Orleans back to the forefront of our consciousness this holiday season.

In the episode that aired Monday, the show's regular trumpet player "called in sick" for the week, which turned out to be an elaborate plan on the part of the LA musicians to help out homeless musicians from New Orleans send a little money home for the holidays. The musicians are played by actual members of Tipitina's Foundation, a foundation for musicians displaced by the hurricane.

The song is supposed to be available for free from iTunes shortly, but in the meantime here's the clip from the show. Ignoring all the creepy "I'm coming for you Donna Jordan" bit, this is Sorkin at his best and I believe you'll agree that it's a beautiful arrangement of one of the most beautiful Christmas songs ever written.



Another random bit of trivia (that has nothing to do with Aaron Sorkin): "Oh Holy Night" was the first song ever broadcast over the radio. It was Christmas Eve 1906 when Reginald Fendessen played Oh Holy Night on the violin and read a passage from the Bible for ships at sea. In this age of XM, Sirius, HD, and CD Quality, it's simply amazing when you realize that for just a moment, a mere 100 years ago, the world stopped for a little bit of Christmas spirit sent from a little town in Massachusetts.

To catch what?

Though the topic isn't funny, by far, you have to admit that this is the only Dateline program you watch. When I found this clip on YouTube, I had to share.

Hate Speech in Shades of Grey

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last two weeks, you’ve heard the story. If you haven’t, the basic premise is simple: Michael Richards (Seinfeld’s Kramer) got up in the middle of the LA’s Laugh Factory to do a set that wasn’t appreciated by certain members of the audience. In response to these hecklers, he unleashed a shocking racial tirade that would be best not repeated anywhere. Seriously, it’s not a pretty sight.

Almost immediately, Richards found himself raked across the coals (rightfully so) by members of the black community. In response, he went out and immediately began a round of apologies, most of which were deemed “insincere” in light of the new Seinfeld DVD hitting stores this week. Website after website called for the boycott of the DVD set, and it’s pretty much a certainty at this point that Richards is not going to “work in this town again” for a very, very long time.

Being that this is the third high-profile, hate-speech incident involving a member of the Hollywood community, the suggestion has been made that it would probably be better if we eliminated certain words from our lexicon entirely, namely the word that Richards used (starts with an “n” ends with outrage). While this is certainly an interesting option, and I firmly believe that hate-speech does not belong in my household, the fact of the matter is that part of the beauty of the Constitution is the right to express an opinion, no matter how incendiary. In other words, fundamentally, I must agree with Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” We’ve lost too many of our freedoms in the last five years, for us not to embrace any example of free speech, no matter how disgusting we may find it personally. If you’re offended by someone else’s speech, leave or use your rights to make your own point. If we start censoring each other, we, as a society, are no better than the individuals who swore to uphold and defend the Constitution and then walked all over it in the interest of Homeland Security. And, by the way, parents, it is totally a good idea to use the idiots of the world to teach your children that “sugar-tits,” while certainly creative, is not a term that should be used on the playground or anywhere else in polite society.

What I find interesting, however, is that there seems to be an inconsistent message in Hollywood regarding what is and is not acceptable hate-speech. No, I’m not talking about the use of the n-word being “ok” when Richard Pryor features it as a part of his act, but “completely racist” when it’s Larry the Cable Guy employing the term. Sure, that’s definitely confusing, but I think the unspoken agreement is that if you’re a member of the group, you can use otherwise offensive terms as terms of endearment; if you’re not, prepare to see backlash if it comes flying out of your mouth.

Instead, what I’m trying to get my head around is the idea that Michael Richards is desperately trying to salvage his career while Isaiah Washington is still gainfully employed on TV’s hottest show and has not been labeled by TMZ.com as a “prejudiced celebrity” (they’ve got a slideshow, go check it out).

Scarcely a month ago, a message was sent by ABC that while “outing” someone as an African American is not ok, outing someone as a homosexual clearly is. In the midst of much hyped on-set brawl between himself and Patrick Dempsey, while using words that were of such an “extreme nature,” that the National Enquirer refused to publish his name (and when the bat-boy people refuse to tell the “full story,” you KNOW it’s got to be bad) and physical violence, Washington yanked costar T. R. Knight out of the closet and dumped his sex life in the laps of the American public. This wasn’t an In and Out/Tom Hanks Oscar speech situation here either. It was Washington, shoving Dempsey and screaming that he wasn’t his “little f**got” like Knight. Washington later issued a pat apology and the ABC spin machine released statements saying that the issue was “over.” Shortly thereafter, he cancelled his appearance on Ellen Degeneres’ show and headed to Oprah where he “explained” the incident away by claiming it was a “combination of fatigue, pride, and passion.” Knight, Dempsey, and the rest of the cast went along with it, and Oprah didn’t push the issue. When members of the online community suggested that Washington be fired (and possibly replaced by ER’s Eriq La Salle), Shonda Rhimes leapt to Washington’s defense and suggested that the people calling for Washington’s exit were themselves “racist” as they saw two black men as interchangeable. Really, I don’t think that was the intent of the original post, but then since I wasn’t the original poster, I can’t speak for them. However, neither can Rhimes – and she should have sought to clarify the intention instead of shooting her mouth off. After all, it’s quite possible that the poster simply wanted to make the point that on the Thursday night doctor show, La Salle is far superior to Washington as the overworked, stressed-out, brilliant surgeon – no matter what his skin color is.

The fact, however, remains that the double standard employed by ABC (surprising because most of my gay friends came into my life thanks to an internship with the Walt Disney Company) and the MSM simply must be addressed. Washington should be required to make the same efforts as were required from both Richards and Gibson after their incidents. Washington should appear on talk show after talk show begging for his continued success as an actor like society is demanding Richards do now. He should voluntarily remove himself from the cast for the time being and meet with members of the gay community like Gibson is doing with the Jewish community. He should issue an apology that sounds like less of an excuse and more of a sincere effort to make amends. ABC, Rhimes, and the cast of Grey’s Anatomy should stop trying to sweep the incident back into the closet and send the message that Washington’s speech was just as offensive and hurtful as that of the other actors who were stupid enough to open their mouths this year in “fatigue, pride, passion, and/or inebriation” (pick an excuse). I’m not saying that Washington be censored entirely, I’m just saying that what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander in the eyes of Washington’s employers and the show’s corporate sponsors and fans. Erase the grey zone and show the world that hate-speech, no matter who speaks it or who its victim is, has no place in our workplace, our living rooms, or our lives.

West Wing, part 2

I put the photos that I took back in March in a Photostory. Here's the final result...