Hmphf

Yes, hmphf sums up my experience last week with my stay at home week. CSI:NY, while good to see again, was not as good as I had hoped--my IRA storyline would have been much better than a storyline about a couple of con artists that had no direct relationship with the team. Sadly, there were just a few too many rolling-of-the-eyes moments such as showing Mac swimming up through water after a car he was in was dumped in a river and then later panning out on said car showing it only partially submerged. Anyway, this week looks interesting: the band Maroon 5 and some of their fans are going to get infected with Small Pox.

Next up was The Office and frankly (don't kill me) I much prefer a 30 minute Office that leaves me wanting more to the 1 hour office that tries to stretch out a storyline to the point that I begin to get annoyed. I did love it, though, when the boss guy (I'm still new to this show) picked up the computer that Jim and Pam were using to video conference so that Pam could show him where the colored paper clips were.

Numbers wasn't on because of some debate thingy but it should premier this week--Jen I like this show because it is smartly written but not as gory as some of the other crime/investigative shows on tv and because Rob Morrow is cute.

This lack of complete satisfaction has driven me into the arms of a delightful little book so for that I can be a little grateful that stay at home week wasn't all that I hoped it would be. The book in question is another one of those Jane Austen knock offs. It is called An Assembly Such as This and is by Pamela Aiden. And while I am not entirely sure that I like it because it is good or because I have read far too many not so good knock offs, I am thoroughly enjoying it--or was until I discovered that it is book 1 in a trilogy. I fear I may never get my to-read list under control at this rate. Anyway, An Assembly is Mr. Darcy's point of view of Pride and Prejudice and so far I highly recommend it if you are looking for a bit of light fun.

I'm staying at home...

cause that is what you do on National Stay at Home Week (it's like National Turn Off the TV week only the opposite). My stay at home week officially starts tonight (I had thought about watching Biggest Loser last night to get some inspiration but I just can't/won't do 2 hours of "reality" tv) with the season premier of CSI:NY--which just for the record I'd like to say I do realize it is maybe not the best written show on tv but that's ok cause I'm watching it for the man candy anyway. Tonight (if you didn't catch the season finale) we get to find out if the CSI:NY team can save Mac (Gary Sinise)--of course the season commercial showing Mac in other episodes this year kind of gives away that the team does actually save him--again not watching it for the carefully crafted writing.

As to who has robbed the bank and kidnapped him I'm going on record saying that it is the IRA (or former IRA). You may be thinking that since living in Northern Ireland I may just be a little predisposed to suspecting the IRA of bad stuff and you would be correct. But beyond that I think it would make sense as part of the storyline. Here is my thinking: in a fairly recent episode Mac and his crew bankrupt the former IRA in New York so they need money. The bank robbery was supiciously like a recent IRA robbery in Belfast.

Okay, so maybe not the strongest reasons for suspecting the IRA and it probaby won't be the IRA since the season finale of Numbers (also a CBS show) involved gun-running former IRA men--it is highly unlikely that CBS is targeting the IRA as the new "it" terrorism group.

Anyway, regardless of how it turns out I'm glad my men are back on tv. The Office (yes, I've finally gotten on board after watching some episodes on TBS although now that I'm typing this I realize that I don't actually know when it airs so I must look that up) and Numbers. I'm also interested by the new show Kath and Kim--looks like it just might be really funny.

So there you have it. If you need me I can be reached at home...only don't call during CSI:NY, The Office, or Numbers or we will just have to stop being friends.

My Three Sons

I was watching an epidsode of the classic tv show My Three Sons a few weeks ago and saw the most remarkable episode. It was all about television watching. There were 3 stories running throughout the episode that break down something like this:

Sons 2 and 3 were grounded from the television for fighting over what to watch and spent the entire episode in a state of misery for not being able to watch tv.

Son 1 (in college) was involved with a project referred to as reality tv but quit toward the end of the episode because the so-called reality tv was anything but.

and the Father on a business trip became addicted to late night television talk shows but eventually saw the errors of his ways (staying up late makes you tired during the day) and stopped watching and instead wished for an Early Show.

So what I want to know is how did they know and why didn't we listen to them when we had the chance?

A New Favorite

It makes my lashes look so pretty.

To Kill a Mockingbird

My local library, as part of the Nation Endowment for the Arts The Big Read program, is handing out free copies of To Kill a Mockingbird in an effort to get the whole community to read this book together. As part of this effort the library is hosting a large number of fabulous events to get us excited and get us reading. I attended one such event last night--even the kick off event. Dr. Rex Ellis, a fabulous storyteller, historian, and scholar, was the keynote speaker at the event and while the entire program was wonderful one particular comment Dr. Ellis made really hit me hard and gave me something to think about the rest of the night. So now you get to read about and then think about it yourselves. He commented, and I am doing some major paraphrasing here, the he doesn't believe people when they say that they don't see color (we are talking about race relations here). We all see color but the key is not to put a value on the color we see. I think (and this is me thinking now not Dr. Ellis) that too often we spend so much time falling all over ourselves trying to claim that we are colorblind that we end up missing out on opportunities to make real progress toward better so-called race relations (obviously there is no such thing as race beyond the racist stereotypes that have been drilled into our tiny little minds hence the so-called in this sentence). But what Dr. Ellis is saying is that we are different and it is okay (even good) to notice that difference as long as we do not make value judgments based on those differences.


So go out and celebrate, enjoy, find beautiful and awe inspiring our differences and do it without making those value judgments that too many who have come before us and too many currently around us are making (or else I'll come and beat you up--and remember I lived in Northern Ireland for awhile so I know things like how to carry out a kneecapping). Love you all.

A Week's Worth of Thoughts

So I thought I get back in the blogging game with a brief wrap up of some of my recent thoughts and doings.

First, as one final nod to the Olympics (which are pretty much out of my system now) I wanted to mention an article I read recently in The New Yorker. To read the article in full click here. To read about the points I found interesting because he agreed with me read on. First, like me, he (Anthony Lane) suggested the elimination of handball as an Olympic sport for two basic reasons. First, because the goalies wear pajamas. The second reason must be brought to you in full quote because Lane is just too funny (and right): "handball is based upon the experience of a management trainee with a ball of paper and a trash basket on the other side of the cubicle." Lane goes on to agree with me that these games were a bit joyless which he suggests was the result of too many events (sport and otherwise) "packaged and policed to a fault" by China resulting in a lack of any sort of interesting presence. And now I am done with the Olympics.

Next, did anyone catch Saturday Night Live on August 30th? It was a repeat that originally aired November 3rd 2007 with TV news anchor Brian Williams as the host and may I just say the Brian Williams is pretty darn cute (for a near 50 year old) and funny--who knew?

Wish I could find a clip of the show because it was really funny.

I've read a couple of really good books in the last month that I thought I would mention. First is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. So very good and really such a good plug for food storage. I highly recommend the book to everyone. Another book that I read and loved is Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier (Science Teacher Mommy I liked this one the best). I recommend this book to any woman who has ever harbored a fantasy about the bad boy with a heart of gold. The hero in this one has a shaved head, half of his body is covered in tattoos, and for a living he is a "gun" for hire and you will absolutely love him! The third book that I will recommend here is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It is a WWII story that is captivating both for its light-hearted humor and its terrible tragedy. Go read it.

I think I'll end here in case I run out of things to say later in the week. I am glad to be back and missed you all terribly. Now I'm off to catch up on all of your blogs.

Top 8

Well the Olympics are over and even though overall I found these Olympics to be a little disappointing (I don't know what it was but I wasn't all that interested in so many of the events) I am still disappointed that they are over and don't really know what to do with myself (and I can't even turn back to my regularly mind-numbing tv programming because the Democratic and Republican conventions are sucking up all the prime-time air time--like we even care at this point). It kind of makes me want to order that Michael Phelps dvd just so I can pretend the Olympics aren't over yet.

Now that they are over, though, we can now look forward to the London Olympics in just 4 years. Did you like the little hand-off that they did during the closing ceremonies last night? I liked the bus and thought it was fairly cool how it opened up and all but I can't say I cared for Leona Lewis at all. To be fair I didn't care for her to begin with but she definitely didn't win me over with a completely lackluster performance of Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." With all the icons of British rock I just think they could have done so much better. And having David Beckham pop up at the end just seemed awkward. Oh well, I love London and I am really looking forward to the Olympics being there.

Along with looking forward to London I think now would be a good time to start talking about getting rid of some Olympic events--realistically speaking as we continue to add new events that means we must drop some events to keep the entire production affordable. So the following is my top 8 (I couldn't come up with 10) list of events that we should drop.

First, though, let's talk about the criteria for dropping or keeping events.

1. Relevance. The sport should be relevant to a worldwide population of spectators. Sports (or events) that are only popular in one area of the world really have no business showing up in a world-wide event. Along with this notion, I think that if a sport is only competitive among athletes of a single area of the world the event also has no part being a part of a world-wide competition. Sports that fall in to either of these categories need to do some self-promotion to the rest of the world to prove their worthiness as an Olympic event--I'm pretty sure this is one of the things that must be proven by events trying to get into the Olympics so it only seems fair that current sports be occasionally reexamined using this criteria.

2. Sport. The event should be a sport and not a hobby. This one is a bit difficult to define exactly when ESPN covers things like bowling and gambling. But if a sport contains elements that belong prominently to the world of backyard or basement hobby then they shouldn't be in the Olympics.

3. The Ben Stiller Factor. If a "sport" has or is likely to be featured in a Ben Stiller parody movie (or similar) it should not be an event in the Olympics. This factor automatically precludes Ballroom dancing (or Dance Sport as they are trying to call themselves) and dodgeball from becoming Olympic events (but you should still see the movie Strictly Ballroom).

OK, now that we have gotten that out of the way here goes:

8. Baseball and Softball. Let's just start this one off easy. They have already eliminated this sports. While the US isn't dominate in baseball in the Olympics we do dominate Softball to a ridiculous level making this an issue of relevance--I think the men's and women's events must somehow be linked requiring the elimination of both or perhaps there is enough of a popularity issue to get rid of Baseball.

7. Basketball. While the US dominance has been a little iffy at time it is not because we should not have easily won all the games we have participated in. Until other countries become more competitive Basketball should go.

6. Handball. I'm calling this a relevance issue since the teams consisted almost entirely of European teams and the finals did have only European teams. Also the sport seems to be a bit of a cross between soccer, water polo, and basketball. Since we have those three sports in the Olympics, do we really need Handball as well?

5. Trampoline. Not a sport--backyard hobby equipment.

4. Rhythmic Gymnastic. Not a sport: uses hula hoops, ribbons, and other backyard hobby equipment.

3. Synchronized Swimming. Not a sport based on the Ben Stiller Factor--if a project isn't in the works then Ben is dropping the ball on this one.

2. Badminton. Not a sport: uses backyard hobby equipment

1. Table Tennis (Ping Pong). Not a sport: uses basement hobby equipment.

Crush Alert

Look whose Olympic crush has a commercial of his very own:

It's Rigged

It is totally and completely rigged. How else do you explain a Chinese gymnast falling on a vault last night and still getting a bronze medal? And let's not even get into the rest of the completely ridiculous scores others on the Chinese team have been getting despite series of mistakes. I am completely dispirited by the whole thing and even turned off the T.V. coverage early last night because I found myself no longer caring (and that coming from a formerly die-hard Olympic fan). And this is not just the rant of a poor loser because I am completely satisfied with the results of the women's floor--yes I think Shawn deserved to win but at least the girl who did win put in a strong performance. Sadly, I doubt anyone as the backbone to really investigate what is going on.

So now apart from a few events (men's indoor volleyball, and all of the outdoor volleyball) I am finding that I don't even really care about the rest of the Olympic coverage--of course I will still watch it a bit and hope for good outcomes for U.S. athletes--and can safely say this is one of the most disappointing Olympics that I have ever watched--funny how 1 part can change how you feel about the whole. Even the opening ceremonies have been tainted for me since finding out that the cute little girl singing a solo during the ceremonies was lip syncing because the face behind the real voice was deemed by Chinese officials to not be cute enough and that some of the ceremonies never actually happened but were digitally created.

Fortunately for me when I get mad I clean so last night was spent in some very productive cleaning and organizing. One of the things that I did was rearrange just a bit and found that I just didn't have a spot for a trash can in my bedroom. So now I'm wondering if that is bad feng shui--I know having a trash can in certain parts of your house is bad but does not having one in a room somehow prevent bad chi from leaving? What I need is a definitive easy guide to feng shui. Sadly that is not what I have been able to find on the Internet.

Gold Medal Evening

Did you catch the so-called Prime-time coverage on NBC last night? One of the best groupings of events so far I think. We had a little volleyball (with my crush), a little beach volleyball, a little swimming (with lots of excellent finishes), and to cap of the evening we had some excellent women's gymnastics (even if the judges were giving the underage Chinese gymnasts unbelievable scores). So congratulations to our wonderful athletes:

I didn't actually mean for this post to turn into a bit of man candy but what can you do when you are talking about the US men's swimming team. Now I'm off to repent of all my bad thoughts aimed at trying to get the Chinese women to fall last night.

Right Now

I love freshly laundered sheets and freshly made beds and orange cupcake scented oil from The Body Shop. Last night was very nice.

Weekend Re-Cap

Where to start? What to say? It was a fantastic weekend and a very full one. Friday evening started off with a bang with the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. While the fireworks were breathtaking I would have to say that my favorite moment were those bouncing blocks--so amazing and powered by humans! Worst moment? Definitely the entrance of the Hungarian team:

Sorry, that's the best picture I could find. (The skirts by themselves probably are actually quite nice--as far as flowered skirts go.) None of the outfits were really great--I think opening ceremony outfits are like bridesmaid outfits: someone thinks there wonderful, and probably will tell you that they picked them so that you could wear them again, but those forced into them are groaning in embarrassment and can't wait to get them off. By the time we got done with the parade of nations I was pretty much spent and annoyed when the lighting of the cauldron took so dang long--but in the end that was pretty cool as well. Mirroring Science Teacher Mommy's comment below about the logistics of eating food from each country when they come in so quickly, I would have to say that if you were to do the Olympic party mentioned below you would have to pick just a sampling of the countries, do finger foods, and know the order the countries are coming in (not an easy task for this Olympics). See here for MBC's rundown of the event.

So now on to Saturday and the first day of competition. I thought it was a pretty slow day of competition, but that actually worked out really well for me because I had Nemesis' bridal shower to attend which was marvelous. (I pretty much knew it was going to be marvelous since Cicada was the one throwing it.) The food was wonderful (think chilled zucchini soup, amazing breads and cheeses, fresh fruit, and an amazing lemon chiffon tart) and the company terrific (there was an appreciative cheer when Cicada announced that we would be playing no games). Nemesis got some amazing and fun gifts and we all got quite the education on things such as the difference between American and European condoms and honey dust. Fun for all!

Saturday night I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to watch the USA Men's indoor volleyball team play Venezuela. If you are a long-time reader you will know that I am a huge BYU men's volleyball fan and the USA has 7 individuals connected to BYU working for the team or playing on the team--of course this connection made the tragic news about Coach Hugh's parents-in-law who were stabbed in Beijing all the more tragic (Hugh played and coached at BYU). While watching I got to reconnect with an old crush that I had with one of the players from 10 years ago when he was playing for BYU: Rich Lambourne.

Sorry again, it's the best pic I could find with very little searching. Rich is the one in the center in white (he is the libero which means he has to wear a color that contrasts with the rest of the team). If memory serves, my crush on him when he was at BYU centered on his nice legs. Now I think my crush will be centering on his nice arms. (Both he and Ryan Millar are LDS if you are looking for LDS players).

Sunday was the first real day of exciting competition with women's gymnastics and a few swimming events, but the real highlight was the men's 4x100m free relay. The French had been trash talking the US so it was all the sweeter when we stole the gold away from the right at the end. Everyone at my house let out a huge cheer (that frightened the 2 year old). So much fun. Visit nbcolympics.com to watch the race.

Can't wait for more--my crush will be on again in the wee hours tonight/tomorrow.

Super Cool Olympic Party

I had dinner with MBC last night and she told me about the coolest Olympic party idea ever (I hope you will be doing a recap of how it goes MBC and that you don't mind me stealing and posting the idea). A friend of hers is throwing a party during the opening ceremonies and serving various foods from different countries. The idea is that as each country comes onto the field they will eat something from their country and cheer them on. How cool is that? I am sad that I didn't hear about this idea sooner so that I could have put on a similar party. I don't know exactly how MBC's friend's party will work but my idea would be to ask each guest to bring some finger food from a pre-assigned country (I like the whole idea of delegation). It is too bad that in the spirit of international community and sportsmanship that the athletes all come in together during the closing ceremonies instead of as countries cause then I could throw the party in two weeks, but I am totally doing this party for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics (had to Google that cause I had absolutely no idea who had the next Olympics--for shame). That will actually work out really well because up to this point my family's idea of an Olympic party is to get take out from our local Chinese restaurant (or Greek when it was in Athens, etc) but what kind of take out would you get for Vancouver?

I just checked and MBC wrote about this idea 18 hours ago. Go here to read.

08.08.08

After years of waiting the Olympics are finally here (or will be very soon). Having been trained up to follow after the Olympics and then having the incredible opportunity of attending an Olympics (Salt Lake City 2002) perhaps explains most of my fascination with this years Olympics but not completely. You see during the the last Olympics (Turin 2006) I was living in Belfast, Northern Ireland and was subjected to the miserable and limited coverage provided by British broadcasting. For those of you lucky enough not to ever have been subjected to British Olympic coverage, count your blessings. Here are just a few of my complaints:

1. Full and complete coverage of curling is just unnecessary (it went on for days and days and days).

2. No human interest stories (because lets face it that is half the reason we tune into NBC--and they don't even need to be human interest stories on our own countrymen. We will undoubtedly see lots of stories on Chinese gymnasts, Australian swimmers, and Russian wrestlers and we will like them, cry a bit, and then not feel too bad when they win their gold medals).

3. No clips telling us about Turin, its food, its culture, the Olympic happenings about town (the other half of why we tune in--ok that is not true because that leaves no room for us to cheer on and celebrate when the Americans win which in truth is the biggest reason we tune in and part of the reason why curling is just not interesting)

4. Commentators who a.) don't know what they are talking about b.) are not funny or even interesting and c.) who are far too excitable about things that they shouldn't be (for example finishing 10th in ice dancing is not a reason to try to evoke some kind of national celebration--especially if the rest of the nation is not impressed)

5. Really limited coverage (and at odd times--very strange when the Olympics were just a time zone or two away) of the main sports--I missed all of the ice skating and nearly all of the downhill skiing because of strange times or because they didn't bother to show it to us.

The other complaint I have about watching the Olympics in the UK is that the UK just doesn't care about the Olympics. To be fair, I was told that they care more about the Summer Olympics because they do better during those (Turin: 1 medal; Athens: 30 medals). But my goodness it wasn't much fun to be walking around a town where no one seemed to even realize that the Olympics were going on.

Things are different now that I am back in the U.S. of A. and I couldn't be happier--it kind of makes it ok that I don't have British chocolate or an Irish fish and chips meal. So here is to the next 2 weeks of pure bliss.