90210: Revisited

I hate to admit it, but after reading this Entertainment Weekly bit on the new 90210 I'm kind of excited to check it out... in a purely nostalgic sense of course. Although I am sure I won't make it past the first few episodes, as it is certain to focus mainly on the young Beverly West-ers and their Gossip Girl-ish dramas, I can't help but hanker for a trip down memory lane in the form of a Peach Pit stop or Kelly vs. Brenda catfight.

For purple mountain majesties

Watching the Democratic National Convention these last few days has left me feeling energized and excited and for the first time in my life I am beginning to understand what it means to feel patriotic. Having experienced nothing but disappointments since coming of the voting age, I have been cooly observing the '08 race until this point, holding myself back from excitement out fear that Obama might lose (first the primary and then the main event) and continue my tenure of political disappointment. However, as I watched first Michelle, then Hillary and finally Joe Biden take the podium and give their genuinely inspiring speeches I couldn't help but feel the stirrings of something deep inside me, something along the lines of a mixture of hope and pride. Don't get me wrong, it's not as if I had an overnight transformation into a bumper sticker-quoting, button-wearing political optimist. I still understand the balancing act nature of the political game and that regardless of how perfect Obama may be, he is still, at the end of the day, a politician. Still as I gear up to watch his speech this evening I can't help feeling like I will be watching history unfolding, a history that for once I can be proud of.

Aaron Sorkin add me as a friend and you can join my zombie facebook gang

Aaron Sorkin to pen a movie about the creation of Facebook. I don't get it. What is so filmic about some geeks building a website? 

Beyond the button

Now that's what I call creative campaigning. Who needs buttons when you've got these in circulation.

Searching for Maryjane

Just in case the dispensary on the corner is being raided, you can now locate the next closest one in the neighborhood at the click of a button. Maybe it's the temporarily self-imposed pot sobriety talking or Season 3 of Weeds that I am currently catching up on (more on that later), but it seems as though cannabis has become more of a pop culture icon as of late and references seem to appear everywhere I look. Not that I am complaining, but when did marijuana become the latest designer drug of choice? It seems that every decade has a mainstream popular drug and that the new improved designer pot has been helping weed make a neo-retro comeback. This great New Yorker piece gives insight into the inner workings of the business of selling medical marijuana and how it has changed the pot industry at large. 

What's a button for?

Moveon.org is giving away a free Obama buttons, so of course I signed up to have one sent to me as I am sure millions of others have as well. Who doesn't love a free button? But it got me to wondering who actually wears buttons anymore? With the exception of grandmas and Applebees' employees, I can't say I have seen many button wearers of late. I mean sure I wore my fair share of novelty buttons pinned to my stonewashed denim jacket in the mid-80s, but who didn't? These days buttons aren't exactly the most coveted fashion accessory and so I have to wonder if passing out free buttons is really the best way to make a statement. I would like to think once mine arrives in 4-6 weeks (where are they coming from exactly, Timbuktu by way of paper airplane?!) that I would pin it proudly to my wool, two-button, grey blazer, but my guess is it will just make it's statement collecting dust amongst the chaos of my desk till election day.

Switching it up...

Wasn't digging the old template, so thought I would switch it up. Enjoy.

What makes a blog good?

What makes for a good blog? Merlin Mann explains.

As I find myself becoming more obsessed with blogging, I find that I also become more self-conscious about it. Although I doubt anyone beyond one or two polite friends even reads this blog, I can't help but wonder how my words are perceived. While blogging serves as an outlet for my thoughts, as a writer I can't help but want everything I write to be good enough to read, regardless if anyone is or not. 

If anyone is out there, feel free to comment.

The movie-going "experience"

It has been a growing theory of mine for quite some time now that the way we watch movies is evolving. I am about to sound old and cliche but I remember the days when I could see a matinee for $5 and still have money left over to buy popcorn (which curiously used to taste like popcorn and not buttered cardboard as it does now, but that's a whole other topic). These days a movie ticket can cost upwards of $12 and yet we are still buying the same quality product, and in some cases arguably a worse one (i.e Indy 4), which is why, for the most part, my husband and I tend to steer clear of the theatre and watch movies from the comfort of our couch. I believe it was James Cameron who stated in an interview a few years back on the topic of ticket prices that he thought the steeply rising prices were fair and if anything should be higher because audiences are paying not just to watch a film but for an experience. Which leads me to ask what it is that an experience actually entails? Mr. Cameron may have believed his cinematic genius was experience enough, but I think now even he understands the trends toward true "experience cinema" is proof that when audiences pay more they start to expect more, hence his upcoming 3-D "Avatar". 

Whether it be 3-D, concert events on film, couches to sit on instead of seats, or dinner served while you watch I think the movie going experience is changing in order to catch up with both rising prices and the comfort and ease of the home theatre watching experience. Are these new additions just frivolous accents intended to fulfill a niche market, a possibility explained in this Machinist posting or is the business of movie going truly evolving? I suppose only time will tell.

Mad Men - Take Two

Finally got around to watching the first episode of Season 2 this weekend (much to catch up on with the Tivo after Olympics mania) and found it somewhat of a disappointment. While I was ecstatic that the Peggy/baby storyline was swept under the rug, hopefully never to appear again, I couldn't help but feel that overall the season premiere was very lackluster in comparison to the start of the previous season. It definitely accomplished setting the tone and possible sources of conflict for season 2, and establishing the time that has passed since the season finale, but if anything it seemed to focus too much on this setting up and very little on the here and now. I was hopping to jump right back into the fray of it but instead was just presented with a lot of dawdling. Hoping it will pick-up the pace as it moves forward and my fingers are crossed that this great series won't suffer the sophomore slump that so many others have.

"Fringe" benefits

I am not looking forward to the end of summer as it seems this one has come and gone so quickly, but the one thing I am excited about with the quickly arriving month of September is Fall television. There are a lot of returning series that I have been anticipating since the strike and some exciting new shows I can't wait to check out, the most anticipated of which is JJ Abrams' "Fringe". Just watching the trailer gave me chills even though it's 80 degrees outside. It's like Lost, Alias and X-Files all rolled into one, in other words, it's the perfect show.

The Dog days of summer

Haven't posted in a few days as I have been tied up with our new puppy and I have to say I missed it. As hesitant as I was about starting a blog, I find that it's something that I now look forward to as an outlet and as a regular part of my daily routine. Besides pee breaks, walks and rescuing my couch from biting, I have spent the last few days reading Cesar Milan's book "Cesar's Way" in hopes of gaining insight into the craziness that I have self-inflicted by bringing a dog into my life. For those of you familiar with Cesar's show "The Dog Whisperer" the book's main focus reiterates Cesar's mainstays of dog handling, being a calm-assertive leader for your dog and providing him with an outlet for his energy through the tried and true dog walk. He also describes in great detail about how we as humans create the behavioral "issues" that our dogs have by the way in which we interact with them, more specifically he points out the root of all problems for most American dog owners is that we humanize our pets. 

Reflecting back on my previous pets over the years I can now see easily where I went wrong and what behaviors I encouraged in my dog through humanization. I can't help but wonder what it is about dogs that make us behave in this manner. While it is true that in more recent years dogs have become a huge part of pop culture and in some cases even the latest designer accessories, historically we as Americans have always held our furry four-legged friends in high regard. Check out this Time magazine article for further proof, it seems that even the great leaders of our nation can't help but humanize man's best friend. Perhaps we simply need to start thinking of our canine companions less as friends and more as the animals that they instinctually crave to be, and if that seems impossible maybe we should consider what it is that compels us to bring a dog into our lives in the first place.

'Half-Blood Prince' moves to July

Thanks to the writer's strike we'll have to wait 8 more months to go back to Hogwarts. 

Poop

As a new puppy owner I have been introduced to a whole new realm of responsibilities in the last few days, probably the most important and basic of which is the walk (bathroom break), and so I am shocked to find how little other dog owners take this simple task seriously. Having lived in Santa Monica for the last six years I am still amazed by how much pride residents take in this city, sometimes even to the point of smugness. From no smoking laws to green parking structures, there are a bevy implementations and resources to keep this city as spectacular as it can be and so it baffles me, as I walk my dog down my quiet Santa Monica street, that there is a ridiculous amount of dog poo on almost every patch grass in sight. For a city of residents that spend more money on their environmentally pc Priuses and organic coffee than they do on their rent-controlled apartments it is hard to believe that the average dog owner can't a afford a 5 cent, biodegradable plastic baggie to pick up there dog's business.

Sweden relaxes rules on givings kids unusual names

Being a half-Swede I am slightly biased when it comes to all things Swedish-related, however, I can't help but wonder if they may have had it right the first time on this one. I absolutely believe there should be extreme limitations on what any government should be allowed to dictate when it comes to child-rearing, unless of course if the child's welfare comes into question. While a child's naming certainly cannot be compared to true abuse, I can't help but wonder about the long-term psychological effects of being named after a popular frat house libation.

Whatever happened to the customer is always right?

On first glance the huge amount of backlash pouring out against Stephenie Meyer for her latest book "Breaking Dawn" seems a little extreme and as Sara Nelson's Publishers Weekly blog puts it, Meyer's readership, composed mostly of teenagers is "not a group known for its measured, unemotional responses." Talk of returning already read books due to disappointment may seem excessive, but I think it begs an important question of the quality standards of the entertainment marketplace. While the best things in life may still be free, the cost of entertainment from books to films to cable television are soaring along with everything else in today's economy and if the price rises should the product not maintain or even exceed the previous standard of quality? If a $40 dollar NY strip is not cooked to your liking is it not considered acceptable to send it back to the kitchen? Why shouldn't the same hold true for a $12 movie that turns out to be subpar or a highly anticipated novel that disappoints not one, but many. Obviously the argument could be made that it is simply buyer beware and the consumer ought to do the research prior to purchase, not to mention that disliking a book or film is more a subjective matter of taste than an issue of low-quality craftsmanship, but in the grey area of entertainment, where the lines are often blurred between art and product, how do we really determine the difference? Authors and filmmakers certainly shouldn't have to cater their art to every individual's whim, but why shouldn't they at the very least hold their work to a certain standard of quality so that their audience/buyer doesn't end up feeling ripped off.

Heavy Boots

I can't help but feel sad as I read the final pages of Jonathan Safran Foer's "Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close." I have been putting off the inevitable finishing of this book since I began reading it at the start of the summer, because it is a story more about the journey than the destination and  I couldn't stand the thought of this road coming to an end. While on face value it is a story about 9/11, at it's heart it is simply a beautiful, heartbreaking story about dealing with loss, both of loved ones and of innocence. If you haven't already read it I highly suggest you pick up a copy, you won't want to put it down but you'll never want it to end.

Wonderland Perfection

The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly reports that Tim Burton is set to direct Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures In Wonderland in 3D for release in 2010. As if this match made in wonderland heaven weren't enough, the icing on the cake: Johnny Depp will star as the Mad Hatter. Alice is probably my first real novel infatuation, as a child I read  it so many times I have lost count. While I practically broke my VCR re-watching my copy of the the Disney-fied animated version, I can't imagine anyone more fitting to recreate this world than Burton. I hope it doesn't disappoint.

I refuse to become a virtual vampire.

Why is Facebook so addicting? Machinist seeks to find an answer. I hope I am not alone in embarrassingly admitting that I check my Facebook page at least ten times a day (pretty much anytime I need a break from not working). While I typically try to ignore most of the apps constantly being generated on Facebook, I do believe that the use of persuasive technology does work. I will admit that I do update my "status" nearly every time something clever pops into my head (which is quite often) and that I have sent the occasional happy hour "drink" or two. However, in an effort to avoid getting sucked in too deeply into the vast wasteland of so-called "triggers" I have made two internal rules for myself when it comes to navigating the social networking universe. 

Rule number one: I absolutely refuse to become a virtual vampire. No, I don't want to bite you or suck your blood or whatever the hell it means if I click on your invitation to join your blood-thirsty coven, nor do I want to "plant" a man-eating hydrangea in your virtual "garden." I do however, understand the impulse to do so when I find the requests waiting for me on my home page. I call it the "everybody's doing it" effect. For whatever reason, half my Facebook friends seem to find pleasure in taking compatibility quizzes to find out which Bon Jovi song best describes them and inviting everyone they know to do so too. So I have to wonder, as I click ignore on the fourth request to start a snowball fight, if perhaps I am simply missing out on the fun by doing so.

Rule number two: Never add friends you don't actually intend to communicate with. This I admit is a harder rule to follow, especially when Facebook has made it so easy to add those friends by presenting me with a constantly updating list of people I may know. I have definitely broken this rule on several occasions, succumbing to the call of the "add as a friend" link when I see a familiar face pop up, even though I can't help but wonder what the point is of having a "friend" I never once have even wall-to-walled with, let alone tagged in a photo or joined a pirate army with.

Woman riding a donkey fights off lion with machete

I don't really have anything to say about this, just enjoying the headline.

Carousels and Unplanned Pregnancies

Just watched the season 1 finale of Mad Men last night and I was thoroughly impressed and at the same time disappointed. (**SPOILER ALERT**):  There were so many great moments I could go on and on, but in short I loved the way things were resolved with the Donald Draper/ Dick Whitmore storyline, and I thought Betty Draper's discovery of her husband's true "infidelity" with her therapist and her cunning behavior in the session thereafter were genius (I still can't help but wonder if this sort of thing really went on then, what the hell happened to doctor patient confidentiality?!), but the piece de resistance had to be Don Draper's emotional presentation to the Kodak people, I was literally tearing up as Draper pitched the ad campaign for the "Carousel". I never knew advertising could be so moving. 

There was only one disappointment but unfortunately it was a big one and it left me grateful that I don't have to wait an entire year to find out what happens next as I am hoping the writers will clean up the mess they made of Peggy's unexpected pregnancy storyline. How on earth is it possible to believe that Peggy was completely unaware that she was pregnant but on top of that she didn't even look remotely pregnant. I mean if my face and rear end started ballooning but no belly appeared I might believe I was just getting fat too, but I use that might very lightly. Granted Peggy has been characterized as innocent and naive but we have also seen the glimmer of the intellect that lies beneath. All that aside, quite frankly it doesn't take a genius to realize when you are 8 or 9 months pregnant (which I assume she must have been that far along by the looks of the baby she delivered). I have to admit that for a few episodes when the fatness first appeared I suspected it would result in Peggy's inevitable pregnancy, with the passage of time, however, I knew it was no longer possible as she would have had that moment of discovery, but apparently the writers thought differently. What I did think was smart about the pregnancy storyline was the timing, the rug was pulled out from under her right at the moment she should have been celebrating her new promotion, however I think it would have been a lot smarter if she had still been early on so at the very least it would appear believable that she was unaware, then she could have grappled with it for a while, trying to hide it from her coworkers and the obvious father. 

All in all I was left with a slight sense of disappointment in a ridiculous premise, but for the most part it was outweighed by the rest of the otherwise fantastic episode. I can't wait to start season 2!

Dear Diary...

Dr. Gupta says keep a journal of what you eat so that you can guilt yourself into losing weight and always know who ate the last cookie. All joking aside this method does work... to a point. Both my husband and I have lost weight by using a food diary and keeping track of not only what we eat but more specifically how many calories. The first three weeks or so we managed to stay on track but inevitably like any diet you start cheating, a brownie here, some chips there and by the time the day comes to an end and you are recounting your food tally you decide to take the moral low road and simply leave those indiscretions off the entry. Who does it hurt? Only yourself.

For old time's sake I present my food diary for yesterday:

4 raspberries

1 Quaker instant oatmeal Maple Brown Sugar flavor

1 large cup coffee with half and half and 1 spoon Sugar in the Raw

1 Yoplait Light Whipped Yogurt Mixed Berry flavor

1 Turkey sandwich on wheat bread with cheddar cheese, salami, pickles, mayo and mustard

1 Perrier

1 snack-sized bag Baked Cheetos

2 slices salami

4 slices pepperoni, sausage and mushroom pizza

3 hot wings

ranch dressing

1 glass 1% milk

cantaloupe 

Mad about Mad Men

I am currently three episodes away from finishing the Mad Men first season dvd and I can't wait to get to the two season two episodes I already have waiting for me on my DVR. It is such a fantastic series that I can't help but mention this show to everyone I know (I already have one of my co-workers hooked). It has been a while (well at least since the start of summer) since I have watched a series that is so character based that I had almost forgotten how much fun it can be to watch the quirks and nuances of each character unfold and grow. What is so wonderful about Mad Men is that there are so many well-developed characters that each one is intriguing in their own right. While Jon Hamm's amazingly portrayed, Don Draper, and his office cohorts are the show's main focus, I can't help but think that it is the women of Mad Men's shockingly sexist world that are the most complex and intriguing of the show. 

Betty Draper is the Edie Falco to Jon Hamm's Tony Soprano if you want to make the comparison to the HBO series Mad Men's creator Matthew Weiner got his his chops from (and clearly continues to influence him, am I the only one who saw the parallels in Betty's pigeon hunting to Tony's ducks? and that's just the tip of the iceberg in parallels). Betty is just a ticking time bomb, one dinner party away from implosion and I can't wait for that moment. The show's other exceptional leading ladies include Elizabeth Moss, as the mousy Peggy, and Christina Hendricks, as the voluptuous Joan. Both characters could easily be pegged as one-dimensional representations of the opposing ends of the 60s single white working girl spectrum, but it quickly becomes apparent that they are so much more than that. As season one ties together it is obvious that both women are deeper than they let on, particularly Peggy, whom I still can't quite figure out, seemingly so naive yet the only female worker bee who seems to have aspirations beyond answering phones and filing her nails all day.

I highly recommend checking out this fantastic series if you haven't already, just make sure you have the bar fully stocked as the copious amounts of whiskey being ingested will leave you craving more than just the next episode. I mean seriously, how did anyone get any work done in the 60s? It's a wonder they were not all either belligerent or passed out by lunch time.

Kevlar Couture

I should be working on the novel, but instead I am doing anything but. Came across this Time magazine article and I couldn't help but wonder what the hell Steven Seagal needs with bulletproof clothes. 

There's Something About High School

Friday night I was at a bar celebrating the birthday of an old high school friend, which of course ended up being a quasi-reunion of sorts, reminding me that my real 10 year reunion is just a short couple of months away. Thinking about my impending class reunion illicits many emotions, curiosity, nervousness... fear. I wonder what people will look like, where they've been, what they are doing now. Are they married? Do they have kids? Did they get fat? But more than anything I wonder how the last ten years of my own life will measure up against everyone else's.

Yes of course we all attend our high school reunions in order to catch up and see what people have been up to, but don't we all secretly wonder how our own experiences and accomplishments will compare? Perhaps I am alone in suddenly wanting to impress people I haven't seen in ten years and probably won't see again for another ten, but you must admit that there is something about high school that makes it such a barometer for life's future accomplishments. At ten years time, we have all already spent twice the amount of time out of high school than we did in it, so why is it then that four short years become such a benchmark for the rest of our lives? I suppose it could be explained that the four years spent in high school are some of the most formative of our young, social lives and that because of this it becomes the template against which all our other social experiences are compared. High school is the time for coming of age, it is the formative years that will prepare us for the future and shape us into our adult selves. However, I can easily say that at the ripe young age of 27 I am almost nothing like my 16 year old self. In fact it is only recently, in the so-called quarter life phase that I have really figured out anything for certain about who I am and what I want, but I guess ultimately I wouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't first been my high school self.  

Every phase of life is a step forward from the last, but we certainly couldn't move forward without those stepping stones behind us and so perhaps the sudden urge to lose five pounds and finish the long-awaited novel is merely a way of justifying to ourselves that we have walked the best path we could.

Dark Knight

Finally saw The Dark Knight over the weekend, would have seen it earlier but I wanted to see it in Imax and the shows were sold out long in advance unless you were game for a 9am or midnight viewing. I have to say that after a summer of disappointments (don't even get me started on Indy 4) I had finally learned to prep myself for the possibility that it was not nearly as good as it looked, but for once I found my initial intuition correct. This film is truly and genuinely great. Clocking in at just over two and a half hours I thought for certain that it would feel too long, I smugly told my husband so in the car ride to the theatre,  but for probably the first time ever since the new era of ridiculously long, much-in-need-of-editing filmmaking, I felt that the length was just right. It is so rare these days that a "blockbuster" film is not only successful at the box office but also a great work of filmmaking across the board, the cinematography is beautiful, particularly the sweeping shots of the Gotham City skyline, and the talent is excellent, so much has been said about the performance of Heath Ledger it would be redundant to repeat it, but it is all well-deserved. Overall, I think what really brings a tentpole film of this magnitude to a higher level of filmmaking is the writing, it is so easy in big films like this for the dialogue to be, for lack of a better word "cheesy" and for plot points and action sequences to appear beyond ridiculous. With the small exception of the bullet-reconstruction sequence, Dark Knight is extremely well-written, with great dialogue and twists I didn't see coming. Ultimately, I really enjoyed the film and I am left wondering why the concept of a well-written blockbuster is so hard to come by? I mean sure you can slap together some silly catchphrases, rubber nippled suits and fancy digital explosions and call it a day, but why settle for that when you have the opportunity to entertain a massive broad audience and make good films at the same time? Dark Knight is truly a gleaming specimen of a studio summer movie, but at the same time it shines a light on exactly what is wrong the hollywood blockbuster mill. 

Karaoke

I don't get it. What is so fascinating about belting your heart out, off-key to some sappy 80's power ballad while complete strangers watch and ridicule you? I mean sure I guess it can be entertaining, from an audience perspective, to watch your shit-faced friends gyrating on stage as if they were on tour with Journey, but even that gets old after the inevitable second and third warbly renditions of Small Town Girl.

Watchmen

I've never really been into "superhero" comics, but I've always been curious about this one. With all the hoopla of ComicCon I thought I would finally breakdown and check it out before the movie comes out. Just got my copy from Amazon yesterday and it looks like I'm not the only one taking interest.

Down with the man!

Finally somebody does something about the oppressive, dictatorship that is the Sprint cellphone contract. Too bad I have already waited out the two-year shackling to the all digital/all crap network and only have three weeks to go until the sweet taste of freedom and more importantly iPhone!