BOO!

Happy Halloween to everyone! This is probably one of my least favorite holidays - only because I hate wearing costumes, not because I don't like getting free candy! - but here I am today decked out in my Halloween shirt. It's the most dressed up I'll get today. I wonder if I will get any trick-or-treaters here in my new home. I'm guessing not since it is an apartment building. I don't even know of any children who live here. Anyone feel like sharing what their favorite costume of their childhood was? As far as originality goes, I really liked when I went as a drive-in movie theater, complete with Matchbox cars and a movie ad affixed to my chest. And my back (double feature). If I remember correctly, though, that wasn't even my idea, but my mom's.

Christmas with the Kranks

Not to say that it might not be funny, but is it really wise to put Tim Allen in yet another Christmas movie, particularly one where he does NOT play Santa? Christmas with the Kranks is exactly that. Apparently, as I read their Web site, this movie is based on John Grisham's Skipping Christmas novel. John Grisham wrote a comedy? And it's really funny? Hmm, not buying it... But it does make me a little curious.

Amen, brother, I find this SO annoying, too...

This article (via TV Tattle) talks about Trump's voiceover dubbings during The Apprentice and how annoying they are. I find it incredibly bothersome and it really distracts me. After it happens - and the author is wrong that it just takes place in the boardroom; it takes place at other times, too - I'm so distracted wondering what was changed or why there was dubbing. In fact, I've recently complained of it to more than one person. There's a vote in that article about why we think it's done and I'd put my money on the fact that they just want a better summation from Trump that neatly presents a "lesson" but, regardless, it's pretty annoying. I guess the main thing is why is it so obvious? I'm sure Jeff Probst does similar dubs during an episode of "Survivor" and we can't even tell. Perhaps Trump is so busy he must do his over the phone or something?

One reason I'm sad I moved...

Well, sad might be too strong a word but when they build a fantastic new shopping center 2 miles away from my home, it's pretty exciting! And it opened yesterday. Yay! I love the quote from the woman who says she got lost going to Legacy Village (a similar shopping center that opened a year ago on Cleveland's East side) and says you need a passport to go over there anyway. It's so typical of Clevelanders to not be able to go from one side of town to another. Of course, it's not like Syracuse is any different - the only difference is the other side is only 15 minutes away!

One reason I'm glad I moved...

President Bush was in my hometown yesterday. Yep, not even 2 miles from my parents' home. While it was nice to be able to see my hometown on CNN and Fox News, it makes me sick to read this article and hear what these people have to say about him.

New article

My latest article on Inside Pulse is up. It's all about the various guest hosts filling in on The Late Late Show. I've had that idea for awhile so now I'm out of ideas for articles again. Anyone?

Home Alone... for adults?

Gag! I was just about to write about this lame-ass movie starring Ben Affleck that came out this weekend when what I do see on TV but the new Bennifer at the Red Sox game? I'm not sure why I hate Jennifer Garner so much, but I really do. I guess I can't imagine what is so spectacular about her that she is able to get such good-looking men when I sit at home alone on a Saturday night... but I digress.

Does ANYONE think Surviving Christmas looks remotely enjoyable? I just don't understand it. It has some relatively good actors in it, too: Ben Affleck, James Gandolfini, Christina Applegate, Catherine O'Hara. Oh, but of course it has Catherine O'Hara in it because it looks exactly like Home Alone! Could the script be a lot better than the previews make it look? It got horrible reviews so I say 'no'. And why is a Christmas movie coming out on October 22nd? It probably won't even be around at Christmastime! Crazy.

Gag!

The Red Sox won. Ick. If it was ANY other team, I would be thrilled and excited to see a comeback like that but more than I hate the Red Sox, I hate Red Sox fans the most. They act like they are so downtrodden and are the biggest fans for any team in the entire world. So what if they haven't won a World Series since like 1916 or whatver, at least they were in one somewhat recently, in 1986. And, did anyone ever hear of the New England Patriots? They've won two Super Bowls in the last three years! And who can even count how many times the Celtics won a championship. It's like 16 championships. SIXTEEN! Even the Bruins have Stanley Cup Championships. Yeah, I don't want to hear how horrible it is for Boston fans. Go NL!

Celebrity gossip via my cell phone

According to this bit of news (via MediaBistro), Us Weekly will start sending breaking celebrity news headlines to its subscribers via cell phone text messaging for free. Then, there is a fee for reading the complete story. As a subscriber to Us Weekly, this intrigues me. Would I want to be at the grocery store and get a text message telling me that Britney's pregnant? Umm, probably not. Probably wouldn't care. But it is free so maybe I'll try it out. Although my cell phone provider isn't listed.

Another interesting thing: the average Us Weekly subscriber is described as "highly educated, relatively affluent women with the average age of 32, who tend to live in metropolitan areas." Umm, me to a tee, except the part about being relatively affluent.

TV ratings report

I wrote out this super-long post about The Futon Critic's awesome ratings report but, wouldn't you know, it wouldn't post and I lost it. I'm not typing it again, but it is very interesting in comparing ratings so far this season to last season. CSI: NY has improved upon the ratings in that time period of a year ago (when The Brotherhood of Poland, NH was airing) by a whopping 151.70%. Not far behind is Desperate Housewives, which has improved upon Alias's ratings by 123.40%. I wonder what that means for Alias's planned return in January, especially in that time slot. My personal favorite stat is that Hawaii has lost over 20% of the ratings compared to Ed in the same timeslot last year. Ha! They should never have cancelled Ed! Of course, Hawaii has been cancelled, too.

Yay Grover!

Mike Hargrove was hired as manager by the Seattle Mariners so good for him! That means he's leaving the Indians organization again and the Cleveland area but he deserves to be a manager again. He got the Indians to two World Series, don't forget!

Got my ballot

For anyone following the drama of my absentee ballot, I did receive it today! Yay! They knew I was going to call and inquire about it tomorrow if I hadn't received it and they didn't want to have to talk to me obviously so they just sent it. Ha. Anyway, I have to pencil in time to vote this weekend...

More apologies

Again, sorry to be out of touch for a few days but I had my first out-of-town visitors this weekend! Yay! My brother, his wife and their dog came from Cleveland to visit Thursday night and we spent Friday and Saturday doing tourist-y things. Friday, we drove to Ithaca and saw Taugannock Falls. Here is a very awesome picture of what we saw - none of us were bright enough to remember to bring our own camera, though. We had lunch here and drove through the Cornell campus. Then, that evening, we saw the comedy of Wanda Sykes back at the SU campus.

On Saturday, we went to the mall, toured the SU campus and then had dinner here. Overall, it was a good time and I'm very glad they came to visit me. However, I had no time to update this blog - or to do homework (oops!).

Who are novelists voting for?

This is an interesting article (via MediaBistro) where a bunch of novelists were asked who they were voting for and why... Interesting to see people who are good writers for a living describe why they feel strongly about their candidate.

Related, sort of, is information about this initiative, known as Operation Ohio, where famous novelists have volunteered their time to call people in swing states and remind them to vote. Unfortunately, you have to be under 25.

Phew!

Sorry I've been out of commission for a few days, but I had a ton 'o homework the last few days, including having to make a poster for one of my classes. Yes, a poster for a graduate class. But, it wasn't bad really, although mine was probably one of the worst in the class since it didn't occur to me to print things off the computer to make it prettier. Hey, the last time I made a poster for school, the only person in America who probably even had a computer was Bill Gates! I do think I have good penmanship, though. I will say that I was one of the few who actually followed the directions for the assignment, though. We were supposed to describe ONE function and just about everyone described MULTIPLE functions. Read the details, gang.

While I'm griping about my classes, let me just tell you how much I hate my Competitive Intelligence class. First, the prof is basically non-existent. It's an online class so it's not like he isn't showing up to the classroom, but really, it is like that. He has no online presence at all. He doesn't respond to anyone's questions. He doesn't even show up each week to give us the weekly reading assignments. He jets off to Europe for a week. He answers emails with like one-word answers. So, we have two assignments - that's it - that form our grade for the semester. One was due yesterday. I labored my ASS off for that man and then, today, he sent us an email at nooon that said he would have them graded by the end of the afternoon. What? He is devoting about 10 minutes to 50% of my grade? Wonderful. Just wonderful.

Anyway, I have a wee bit of a break with major homework assignments so I am quite relieved. And I'm getting visitors this weekend so yay!

Another program to catch...

This is something I meant to DVR today but forgot to do: Frontline's The Choice 2004. Not that I haven't made my choice but I'm interested to watch things like that and see what they have to say. Interesting that we can watch it online, though. That's cool. Saves some space on my DVR hard drive.

Speaking of politics, don't forget the final debate is tomorrow (well, later tonight).

Blow Out redux?

From The Futon Critic comes this announcement that CNBC is going to be carrying that old Bravo reality show Blow Out starting Thursday. Hmm, I wonder if I should try to watch it again. I gave it a shot when it aired on Bravo, taped most of the episodes, and then decided I just wasn't that interested. I guess I'm still not...

Guess what time it is?

Since it's Tuesday, it's time for another article on Inside Pulse. This one is about two new shows I watched this fall: life as we know it and Clubhouse . Meh - neither impressed me much.

Picking the next Trading Spaces designer

The latest Trading Spaces gimmick is that the viewers can choose the next designer. Tonight's show featured rooms designed - in only 12 hrs.! - by four contenders. Online voting is open. Not that I watch Trading Spaces very much anymore, but I don't care much anyway. It's probably better when the producers pick the designers anyway. I think it is kind of unfair that one of the contestants is Jon, who won the Trading Spaces: Home Free competition in the spring. The audience is already familiar with him and, instead of just seeing one room he's done, has seen like four now. Not to mention that he was liked enough by the viewers to win his mortgage! Of course, on the other hand, I guess some might resist voting for him since he's already a winner. Personally, I didn't really form a strong opinion about any of them.

life as we know it

I caught the new ABC show, life as we know it, because it re-airs on ABC Family during the weekend. I'm not that impressed. I don't know if I'll watch it again. First of all, what's up with the lower case 'l' in the title? Also, the storyline about the teacher liking the one boy? Eww. Isn't that inappropriate? And unlikely? Maybe I'm clueless and that sort of thing happens a lot more frequently than I think, but I'm guessing she isn't going to go for the dorky kid if she is interested in anyone. Also, Kelly Osbourne? I wanted to like her, but I don't know. I think she was trying to ditch her accent in some scenes and wasn't in other scenes.

Overall, I felt they tried to push too much into the first episode (we had to immediately find out that his mom his cheating on his dad? And with the hockey coach, no less? Granted, he was good-looking, but couldn't they have introduced another character into the mix? I'm not buying that the hockey coach would be with Dino's mom at all). I wasn't buying a lot of it. Maybe I'll check out one more episode before I write it off. It might be better if they sort of delayed the storylines a bit and concentrated on just ONE or TWO an episode. Of course, I'm guessing it isn't going to be sticking around long if they keep it in that time slot. It's up against The Apprentice and CSI. And, I think The O.C. is going to be on at 9:00 pm Thursdays, too.

Sports news

So, it's the Red Sox vs. the Yankees again, with the winner heading to the World Series. I really hate whenever I have to root for the Yankees, but, with this match-up, I root for the Yankees. At least Kenny Lofton is on their team. I've liked him for years.

Also, what happened to Ohio State this year? They are now 0-2 in the Big Ten. Ouch.

What's new on The Apprentice

As opposed to Survivor, I was happy to see Pamela go. What made her so sure she was God's gift to the women's team? I don't have a problem with her leadership strategy because, hey, each to their own, but she was SUCH a bitch to them. And then she seemed surprised that they targeted her in the boardroom? Yeah, how shocking. It's one thing to lead but it's another thing to treat them like dirt. I'm not a fan of Stacy's, but she has a point that if you ask her to do the legal work, expect her as a lawyer to do it thoroughly.

Also, last I checked, it was Donald Trump who was hiring someone to work for him, not America. If he wants to fire someone because they act irrationally or because they have a large ego and give up their immunity, well, he's entitled. He needs to choose one person to hire and until that person is chosen, I don't get the crying about the order that the others go. (See here.) I don't think any of the firings have been unjustified. It's a G-A-M-E! Sure, it sucks that Trump put Pamela in that position but you know, oh well. I'm not really sure why he was so taken with Pamela in the first place - didn't she lose the first time she was project manager, too?

Random post script: I loved the behind-the-scenes QVC stuff. I might even watch the guys on Monday night as they try to sell more grills.

Survivor episode 4

Here is my latest Survivor recap. I thought the episode was okay. I loved Da or whatever his name was - the tribal guy who the women won for 24 hours (sounds kinky!). I'm sad to see Brady go and I am pretty stumped by the guy's plan to vote out all the physical strength - and the fisherman. I can't wait to see next week's EARTHQUAKE but I'm not happy to see a tribal switch/mix as was alluded to in the preview. Why can't they keep things as they are? Although, if it leads to more strategy, I can't really complain. And if it leads to John K. sticking around, again, can't complain. It sucks getting rid of all the eye candy.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday so I hope she has a very good day! Sorry I can't be there with you today.

Comic cancellation

Rumor has it (via Fresh Hell and TV Barn) that Last Comic Standing has been cancelled, despite there being only one episode left - the episode where they'll announce the winner. According to their official Web site, the announcement of the winner will come during the Father of the Pride marathon. I'm not exactly sure I call that cancelled, though. It simply means that NBC doesn't want to waste an hour or half-hour of fluff around the announcement of the winner. Seriously, I remember discussing with someone that they should do this with American Idol. Why waste a half-hour (or an hour) of programming when everyone knows to tune in at the end to see who was eliminated? Why not put the announcement in the middle of another program that you hope to draw fans to? I think it's kind of a smart strategy. Weird that they would start that with the finale, but still kind of a smart move.

American Idol auditions

I can't believe the American Idol auditions are still taking place, just because it seems like months ago when they were back in Cleveland. Oh wait, it WAS months ago! Anyway, this wannabe idol has been tracking her audition process for months on her blog, but apparently, now that she has auditioned, she can't talk about what happened. I don't know. There were plenty of people on the news in Cleveland telling whether they were asked back or not for the next round. Why is she so special?

Vice-Presidential debate

This thing is DRIVING me crazy! Can either candidate answer the question put before them without going off on some ridiculous, canned tangent on some topic they intended to discuss? Just answer the question, whether you like it or not. I did like the antagonism, though. Kerry and Bush were too fake-polite.

That link is to the transcript, in case someone wants to read it.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

Here is my latest Inside Pulse column. Sorry that I haven't been around much this last week. I probably won't be around much this coming week, either. I have SO much homework. Hate it. A week from now, I should have a small bit of a reprieve. Kind of. It is midterms time.

Absentee Ballot

As some of you know, I've been a little curious/worried about the whole absentee voting process and when I can expect my ballot, whether they got my application, etc... Well, considering the postcard I got in the mail this weekend asking me to re-elect my Congressman, I'm guessing that they do indeed have my request and that I can expect to receive the ballot in the next month. Phew!

And, Dennis, you don't have to worry.

Double dose of The Apprentice

This is an interesting idea from the New York Daily News (via TV Tattle) about the airing of The Apprentice twice a week. It talks about how the added boardroom scenes on the Saturday shows really paint a different picture and suggests that instead of airing two similar episodes each week, the network should air two different episodes, American Idol-style, with one show depicting the task and the second show depicting the boardroom and the outcome. I think it's a really good idea, actually. And I'm surprised Trump didn't think of it...

Destiny

If anyone doubts that Jeff Probst and I are destined to be a couple (and yes, I'm sure that's pretty much everyone!), think again after reading this article from the Deseret Morning News (via TV Tattle). Jeff talks about basically the same thing I just wrote my IP column about - the sixteenth minute of fame for reality stars. It's really too eerie.