Big, big Love

A year or so ago, my school friends (CONE) got me into "Big Love" on HBO. I did not have HBO, but they were really into this show about polygamy in the suburbs. I got the first season on Netflix and was hooked. Within the last year, Polygamy has become very "in". A lot of former FLDSers (Fundamental Latter Day Saints) have written scathing books about life in these compounds both in Utah/Arizona and down in Texas. Big Love tells the story of Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton, yes from Weird Science) a former Mormom LDS member who was raised on a compound. For about 15 years he lived a "normal" existence as the owner of Home Plus (the Utah version of Home Depot) and the husband to Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn). Barb later fell ill with cancer (happened off screen before he show started) and Nicki Grant came from the compound and helped to care for her. Nicki is played by the fabulous Chloe Sevigny. She's definitely someone you love to hate. The third wife, Margie, is played by the delightful Ginnifer Goodwin from "Mona Lisa Smile" and "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton". If you were a "Veronica Mars" fan you will find many of our favorites with smaller regular roles; Amanda Seyfried, "Lilly Kane" plays daughter Sarah. Tina Majorino, Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie, plays Sarah's straight arrow LDS friend Heather and Kyle Gallner, who played Beaver plays a friend also from another polygamist family.
As a historian, it is really interesting to think about this idea of concubines and multi-wives through history. There are so many ancient cultures- like Egypt or China- where you hear about "first wife" having a hold on power. The big issues with crazy compound polygamy as often seen in the news is the child abuse and welfare abuse. It kind of makes you wonder, if these people want to live that way, and can support themselves, what's the problem? The new episodes start in January and if you have HBO, all the episodes are currently on On Demand. (Like other HBS shows, some of the episodes might seem a little pornish, but hey that's your warning!)

Ghosts, Spirits, and things that go bump in the night

I've always enjoyed, while also being slightly terrified of, the paranormal. I'm always fascinated by those mediums who can tell "who" is around you- and I've always wondered who would be there. (I guess probably my favorite aunt, Marie, who always helps me get great parking spaces especially at the mall!) As a kid, I was kind of obsessed with the show "Unsolved Mysteries", while also getting nightmares from many of the episodes. I'm home tonight, watching some t.v., and I'm watching "Ghost Whisperer". I think I've only watched this show one other time. I have to say, it's pretty good. I believe Stacey may be a fan as well. (I should always know, Stacey picks the great shows; Veronica Mars, Buffy, Project Runway, and so many more.) I've been prejudiced against this show because it bumped a personal favorite of Stacey and myself off the air, the fabulous Joan of Arcadia. I also find Jennifer Love Hewitt mildly annoying and too pretty, etc. I guess she was handpicked for this role by the big medium, James Van Praag who the show is based on. The show just had a big twist (that I won't reveal here just in case) but in the vein of the Fast Forward on Desperate Housewives and the Flash Backs and Forwards on Lost, with it being a big change that added something interesting to the show.
I guess I could add another Supernatural themed show to tonights blog. FRINGE!
This is a new show that I've been really enjoying, although I will admit that I sometimes watch it with one eye closed. I know that Mommy Esq. also enjoys. I really have always loved anything by J.J. Abrams (Felicity, Alias, Lost- amazing) The Boston/Massachusetts/New England based stuff definitely adds to my interest in this show. It's nice to see Joshua Jackson, Pacey, back in action.
Any other paranormal shows I should be watching?

Holiday Faves

So, I've been neglecting this blog. I honestly don't know where time goes- the last two months have absolutely flown. November is one of my busiest months of school and it's hard to catch your breath. It's not that I haven't been watching tv, because of course I have. I think I just don't always give it my full attention, and it becomes bacground noise.

The holiday season officially begins this week (although the retailers of America would like us to think it started on Veteran's Day) Tomorrow (Tuesday) night a fabulous classic, "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" will be on ABC. Even my closest of friends may not know that "Snoopy" is my thing at school. As an elementary school teacher, it helps to have a thing, because then the kids buy you less random crap. (No parents and future parents who read this blog, we teachers do not want cutesy teacher plaques or teacher quote books. Get us B&N or Dunkin Donut Giftcards, please.) I show all the different Peanuts specials, and the Thanksgiving one is probably my favorite. The best part is that I serve the kids (actually the whole fifth grade) the Thanksgiving that Snoopy serves to Charlie Brown's guests; popcorn, pretzels and jelly beans. Snoopy also serves toast, but that would be a whole lot of effort. The kids get the biggest kick out of this! Another funny aspect of the whole thing is the confusion the kids have over Peppermint Patty. Every year at least one kid asks, "is that a boy or a girl?" Hmmmmmm......time for some diversity lessons.

I have so many Christmas favorites- Frosty, Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and the Peanuts Christmas- where of course the euphemism of the "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree" comes from. (One of my students actually made me a Charlie Brown Christmas tree which I thought was so sweet, and Natalie was totally horrified by!) The favorite Christmas special has to be "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Oh, how I love this! Just today while I was teaching about Canadian Provinces and Territories, and I compared the Yukon Territory to Yukon Cornelius.

PS- Don't forget to watch for the Snoopy balloon in the Macy's Day Parade!!!

Behind the Eight Ball!

An apology to all of my peeps out in blogger land. My lack of blogging is attributed to the swamp of report cards and conferences, and will be surfacing soon (maybe even tonight)

Thanks!

Soaps!

I've been a pretty big Soap Opera addict since I was a teenager. Ever since the start of middle school, and I got home by about 2:20 in the afternoon, and I discovered first "One Life to Live". Pretty quickly I also adopted my sister's favorite, General Hospital. Eventually I added All My Children. At some point in middle school, I found "Soap Opera Digest" and it was love at first sight. I coveted this magazine. I read it cover to cover, and over again. I read and memorized information about shows that I didn't even watch. I remember being excited when I first went on to vacation to Florida and found "Another World" on tv there, because it wasn't shown here in Boston. ( I always said, if SATs had just been based on Soaps and Royality, I would've been golden.) In college, I convertedly briefly to being a "Days of Our Lives" fan, but have remained pretty loyal to the ABC shows.

Life carried on and I would watch in the summer or on vacation. Everything changed in March of 2004. Jeremy had kindly bought Stacey TiVo for Christmas and we had all been excitedly been recording programs. ABC starting running promos for a baby switch and crossovers between AMC and OLTL. Needless to say, I decided to tape. Then I was hooked. I taped All My Children everyday till this summer- 2008. I was one of "those" people. I loved my show. When my friend JoEllen mentioned to me in the fall of 2005 that she was going to "Super Soap Weekend" at Disney World with her sister-in-law, Randi, I freaked! Two of my favorite things in one- Disney and Soap Stars! I basically booked myself then and there to go the following year.

On Veterans Day Weekend of 2006, off I went to Disney with Josie and Randi. It was an experience like no other. We had such a blast! It was also the Food and Wine Festival at EPCOT which made it even better. The way it works is that lots of different stars from the ABC soaps are there and are available for meets and greets with "fans" if you as the fan are able to get a "Fast Pass", like they use for the rides. We dragged ourselves to MGM at 7:30 in the morning and were greeted with lines like I've never seen before, and Christmas decorations but that's another story.


Believe it or not, we were too late to get fast passes! So we had to settle for just "seeing" people pretty close! Which was very cool! Now, what's even just as good as seeing your favorite soap star, is seeing all the crazies who also want to see their favorite soap stars! You realize pretty quickly that everyone who is there, are people who are hard core Soap watchers. You have to think that these people are probably home watching these everyday. (Unless they had TiVo like me or the recent addition of the fabulous SOAPnet.) These people are hardcore. They wear amazing t-shirts, and proudly display all of their tokens from previous super soap weekends.
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We had so much fun, that we convinced some other school friends to come along last year. The best part was that two of my friends had never been to Disney. They aren't soap fans either, but that's okay. We had a (whirlwin) blast, visiting all four parks in two days! And best of all, we got up and dragged ourselves to get to MGM really, really early to get our fast passes. (No joke- I think we left around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m., and Disney shuttle service doesn’t even run then so we had to walk to MGM from the Caribbean Beach hotel! I felt a little funny about trying to meet a soap star, because I'm not a crazy fan or anything. I decided to go for the lovely Alicia Minishew, who plays Kendall Hart Slater on AMC. The best part was that there were such crazies in front of me in line, I looked like a really normal, nice person. She was very nice! She said I had a great energy- ask Josie, she really said that. (See picture below)

Of course we were ready to make this a yearly tradition! And then we found out that there would be no Veteran's Day Weekend this year because the holiday falls on a Tuesday. So no trip to Super Soap! Then the boom fell- this will be the last year, ABC is pulling the plug! I think the shut-ins will hopefully revolt!

I was home today- and apparently they've decided to have a tornado on AMC and kill of one of my favorite characters, Babe, and bring back Bianca with a big secret. And then they are going to do some big baby switch on OLTL. Here we go again........once you get out, they suck you back in!


Long, dark, walk....we're crazy!

The lovely Alicia Minishew "Kendall" and me!

We decided to wear matching shirts too! It actually helped in the crowd.

It was really nice of Luke and Laura to celebrate their anniversary so that Randi, Josie, POTW and myself could be part of the celebration.

Dedicated Carly fans from GH.

The Real Housewives

Have you seen this delightful series? Oh my...

I have to say, I never watched the original, Real Housewives of Orange County. I don't know why, I just never got into it. Boy did I love last year's Real Housewives of New York City. That Ramona is such a piece of work and the fabulous Jill Zarin. And she always introduces herself as "Jill Zarin".

The Real Housewives of Atlanta, focuses on some lovely ladies, several who have professional athlete husbands (Lisa and Deshawn), one has recently divorced a professional athlete (Sheree), and then two other ladies who are my favorites. NeNe and Kim have been friends for "years". Kim looks like my old hairdresser, as she has a whole lot of blonde hair. She claims to look like Carrie Underwood or Faith Hill. She could be Carrie's mom or something. She made some really strange comment about being "29". There is just no way, it has to have been a joke. I mean she looks good, but not 29 good. The most intriguing thing about her is her mystery Sugar Daddy whom she refes to as "Big Poppa". He is allegedly a "celebrity" who wishes to remain anonymous. Any guesses on who we think he is? Is he married? NeNe is just hilarious, over the top, loud and an all around good time. (Natalie and I would have a field day with her.) NeNe's already clashing with Sheree, always good tv.

Apparently, Bravo is also set to air "The Real Housewives of New Jersey". Seriously.....
Based on what I've heard from Natalie, we could have potential for some really fabulous tv here.
Hopefully they'll all have au pairs and we'll have secret inside into their homes!

***UPDATE- according to Natalie, "Big Poppa" may be Quincy Jones, which seems like a good possibility. I didn't hear them say his initials, but the fact that big producer was willing to work with her without ever hearing her sing makes sense.

Shows you will watch over and over and over......

I know that I'm not alone in this. Sometimes it is a comfort just to pop in a favorite movie as comfort or background noise. (I wrote all of my college papers listening to Steel Magnolias or Shag- yeah, I've got some weird southern fetish.) The creation of "TV on DVD" has really changed my watching habits. I find my attention span isn't long enough usually for a movie, and an episode or two of a great show can be the perfect fit. (If I have school work to do- it's Pride and Prejudice (BBC version) all the way)

My greatest obsession the last couple years has been "Veronica Mars". It's an addiction. A serious, serious addiction. It's so depressing that it is only 64 episodes. Every couple months, I rewatch the whole series. This week I was so bored of tv, I popped in the first disc, and just sighed. Kristen Bell is just amazing. The show is so clever and well written. She's so underused on Heroes and although I genuinely enjoy Gossip Girl now, I only ever started watching it so I could pretend that it was Veronica doing the narrating. Boy would Veronica hate Blair and Serena!

I also love, love Alias and Lost. I own the whole Alias series, and periodically enjoy rewatching that too. Both of these shows involve complicated story lines, with chunks of dialogue that aren't in English- which is hard if you aren't totally paying attention.

DVDwise in the last few years I have also discovered Big Love, and The Tudors. I'm intrigued by Mad Men and a few others.

Anyone else find themselves watching more DVDs and less regular tv?