lewis and clark had a journal. you, beth-annie, have a diary.

Friday, May 28, 2004
Imagine, if you will:  Driving.  In Manhattan.  All the livelong day.
Have you run screaming for the hills yet?  No?  Maybe that's because you've never driven in Manhattan.  Not that I have, either, but I've been in the car while Josh has, and let me tell you, it ain't pretty.  But forget about the pain of it for a moment and let us talk about what's really important these days:  gas mileage.  Our little Chevy Malibu, which typically gets 25 mpg city and 29 mpg highway, got approximately 18 mpg in New York City.  What suckage.  That's why it's so terribly interesting that the new Ford Escape Hybrid, an SUV (albeit a smallish one) got 38 mpg on a recent 37-hour driving test through Manhattan.  I'm telling you, with gas prices the way they are now, I'm sort of wish ing we could afford to buy a hybrid sooner rather than later...
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Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Film update.  Ten of them.  (That's what comes of taking full advantage of two weeks of half price rentals.)  If anyone wants further explanation of a grade, ask and I will provide.  Other than that, the best and the worst of the ten.

The worst:  Anger Management -- Not funny, even though we were told it was (I'm looking at YOU, Kaly).  You know it's a bad sign when you keep looking at the clock to see how much of the movie is left.  Granted, we were watching it late at night, but I don't see it holding my attention much better in the middle of the afternoon.  Not to mention the end just didn't make any sense at all.

Mona Lisa Smile -- Um, okay, I didn't care about any of the characters, I didn't particularly like any of the characters, I was bored, and I felt I was being preached to... like hit over the head preached to about women's independence or whatever.  It's not the '50s anymore.  We get it.  Go away.

The best:  Looney Tunes: Back in Action -- That's right, you heard me.  Now, I'm not saying it should've been nominated for Best Picture or anything, but for the kind of movie it was, it was one of the best of this lot.  It kept moving from one place to another so that it never got boring, and it was genuinely funny.  Much better than Sinbad

Shattered Glass -- See it.  Then see it with the commentary from the director and the real-life New Republic editor at the time.  It's just brilliant.  See it.
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Monday, May 24, 2004
This is wack, yo.
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Thursday, May 20, 2004
"Me fail English? That's unpossible!"

Ah, my little sister is finally all growed up.  This weekend I will see her graduate from Greenville College, and she will celebrate being DONE with school while my parents will celebrate being DONE with putting three kids through college.  I'm not sure which of them is happier about it.  :P

And, rest assured, hon, we WILL find time to fit in one final round of disc golf at Carlyle.  Even if you can't come with us.  ;)  LOL  Love ya, girlie.
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Wednesday, May 19, 2004
"Tastes like... burning..."
So we've been buying some of this Mexican soda at the grocery store on occasion, because some of it is pretty funky and it's something new and different. And the other day we open up this bottle of ginger beer to give it a whirl. Josh takes a sip. Josh gets a weird look on his face. Josh hands the bottle to Beth. Josh tells Beth to take a drink. Beth feels that Josh got some vital piece of information through his drink that she does not have. Beth is scared, and she's in a foreign land, and her jaw is clicking. Beth takes a drink, and... [see entry title]. It is like taking a swig of Chloraseptic, except without the numbing quality. It is painful. It is scary. It is dumped down the sink.
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Tuesday, May 18, 2004
"And now we are so happy, we do the dance of joy!"

From TV Guide Online:

MAJOR DEVELOPMENT: Fox, which unveils its fall lineup on Thursday, has renewed its critically acclaimed (yet Nielsen-challenged) gem Arrested Development, Variety reports. The net has also greenlit struggling freshman drama Tru Calling for a second season.
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"I'm just the character in the movie that tells it like it is.  I'm Janeane Garafalo."
It's official.  "Ed" is toast.  Not that we didn't know that already, but now at least we KNOW.  And there is a very interesting and enlightening article from an interview with the show's creators and main writing team, Rob Burnett and Jon Beckerman, that sheds a lot of light on their vision of the series, from the initial conception through to the very end, and how that vision didn't always jive with that of the network, who they think just never really "got" the show.  Mmmm, yes, quite interesting, for anyone who is at all familiar with the series.

Now, WHERE are my DVDs?????
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Friday, May 14, 2004
Please don't kill me.
I really hate to talk about television AGAIN, but it IS May.  I promise there will be much less of this sort of thing come summer.

1.  Rupert wins the million dollars and Bethy breathes a sigh of relief.  All is right with the world.  Okay, maybe not ALL, but you know what I mean...

2.  Why the "Frasier" finale was good:  it was mercifully short with the big to-dos -- Martin's wedding and Niles' and Daphne's birthing -- which are often the sole subject of season finales, etc., but are ironically also often some of the more boring (or at least not-so-funny) episodes;  it didn't focus too much on one thing, and yet it didn't feel too crowded;  sure, we knew Frasier was going to go to Chicago, but they didn't SHOW it to us.  I so wish more shows (especially sitcoms) would have the guts to leave something hanging a bit like that, though in a hopeful way that was still satisfying.  I still can't believe how they wasted Fred Willard on the pre-finale retrospective, though.  What's the point of using Fred if you don't give him anything to do?  Let the man be funny!

3.  Not really television-related except that we watched it on television:  baseball wackiness = an 18-pitch at-bat with 13 straight pitches fouled off.  Too bad the Cubs were pitching and it ended with a 2-run homer by the Dodgers.  Ah, well, we weren't going to win the game anyway.
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Thursday, May 13, 2004
"She BEGGED him to leave me at the altar!  She begged him in WRITING, and then she saved the carbon!"
Okay, of course I must start out by saying that the above quote has nothing whatsoever to do with my relationship with Josh.  Duh.  :P  But since it is wedding-related, and quite funny to boot (who can be the first to name the source? ;)), I had to choose it for today.

Josh and I were married four years ago today.  All I can really say is that it both feels like we've been together forever, and that hardly any time has passed at all.  And I think that's exactly how it should be.  :-)

I love you.
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Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Enlighten me.
Every once in a while we decide to see a movie because it's supposed to be really good, but we come away from it with a reaction that can effectively be summed up in one word: "Huh?" Such was the case with Big Night, which we caught in an unedited, commercial-free showing on Bravo's The Best Movies You've Never Seen series. The whole duration we were waiting for something, ANYTHING, to happen, and it never did. And this gets 94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes? I love Tony Shalhoub and Campbell Scott, but the thing just bored me to death. I do not understand. If anyone can shed some light on this mystery it would be much appreciated.
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Monday, May 10, 2004
Calling it.
I did so three-fold yesterday when I declared that Amber would win "Survivor," Rob would propose to her on the reunion show, and the "big twist" was that the viewers would vote for one of the remaining castaways to win a second million dollars (please, let it be Rupert!).  I rule the school.

Worrying it.
It's much fun when you buy some supposedly wonderful Scotts lawn care products (as well as a spreader to put those products down on your lawn) in an attempt to curb your weed problem and maybe make your lawn look not quite so pathetic next to your anal neighbor's perfecter-than-perfect lawn, and then it seems like the product that was supposed to make your lawn a lovely deep green is actually turning it brown in many places.  Oh, yes, fun.

Is-our-year-long-contract-with-DirecTV-over-yet?-ing it.
I heart thunderstorms.  And we've had quite a few in the past couple days (some small hail, even).  But so far every time a thunderstorm has hit, we've COMPLETELY lost our satellite signal for quite some time.  And this doesn't just affect our "cable" stations, it cuts out our local channels, too.  Sorry, but getting TRIO, IFC, and GSN is not worth this.  Now, if only Noggin would start showing "Square One" again and Fox Sports Chicago Cubs games weren't blacked out, maybe I could live with it.  Maybe.

"Hi, you've reached the Corey hot-line. $4.95 a minute. Here are some words that rhyme with Corey:  gory... story... allegory..."
It's much fun (seriously this time) when your favorite baseball player, who's been in a bit of a slump of late, hits in the game-winning run in a 13-inning nail-biter.  Whew.
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Wednesday, May 05, 2004
I am in the need of the help.
I've learned not to (on my blog) call something ugly as a reason for changing or replacing it, because someone(s) will inevitably correct me and tell me it is not in fact ugly (i.e. our kitchen cabinets, which we actually will not be changing in the forseeable future).  So instead I will say that the (exterior) trim on our house needs repainting -- which it does in some areas, not so much in others -- and we would like the change the color of said trim because we've never liked it.

Our house is all brick (kind of an odd, dull peachish color, actually)  except for this trim and the underside of the eaves, and both the front and side doors are painted the same color as the trim currently.  As is the entire garage, which has an exterior of wood siding.  So, what I'm asking of you all is to help us choose a new trim color.  It can be the same color as the garage or different, the doors don't necessarily have to be the same color as the trim also -- in fact, the trim doesn't even all have to be the same color.  Not that we would paint one color around one window and another color around another or anything, but perhaps something like the outer part of the trim being one color and the inner part another.  Or something.  I'd also like to do some sort of a two-tone deal on the garage door, which has a raised grid pattern I'd like to take advantage of (I know, I know, ending a sentence with a preposition is really not something that a grammar god should be doing...).

Take a look at the pictures below and suggest colors please.  You can be as creative as you desire/are capable of.  If a basic color is all you can think of, I'll take it.  If you can be more specific as far as different shades/blends of color, placement, etc., great.  It also is not out of the question to replace (or possibly even paint?) the black storm doors (and/or lights) if the black just won't work, though there's not much we can do about the black shingles on the roof since they won't need to be replaced for several years.

Help, please.

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Tuesday, May 04, 2004
Every once in a while, I watch a little television.
-- Happy "Gilmore Girls" DVD Day, everybody!

-- I hope I'm not spoiling anything for anyone here (don't think I am), but I am very upset that they killed off Luc on the season finale of "Tru Calling."  I mean, I know it probably doesn't even matter because the show likely won't get picked up for next year (I sure hope it does, though, especially after the bombshell they dropped right at the end that explains why Tru's father had her mother killed all those years ago), but that was just a rotten thing to do.  Besides the fact that he was just slightly gorgeous, he and Tru had a real chemistry that made you really want to see them get back together, and you don't find that just anywhere.  Rotten, rotten, rotten.

-- Let us talk for a moment about "7th Heaven," shall we?  No?  Okay.  Well, maybe just a smidge.  I know I wrote maybe a year ago about how I didn't know why I was still watching it because it's so bad, and I am pleased to announce that I am no longer.  Watching it, that is.  Much.  (One thing you have to know about me is that, unlike most people, when I "watch a show," I will do everything in my power to watch every single episode, even if it means setting both VCRs and the Replay to each tape a different thing while we're out for the night.  So not watching it every week basically means that I don't "watch" it anymore.)  I happened to catch last week's episode, the first one I'd seen in a while, and I was reminded of why I don't watch it anymore.  Not to offend anyone who likes the show, but it just drives me nuts.  It drives me nuts how there are four different, unrelated storylines in one episode that all deal with the SAME ISSUE.  You know, just like in real life.  Even when it's teaching a good lesson, it's so contrived it makes me want to puke.  Maybe that works for some people.  It doesn't work for me.  The end.

-- Let us talk for a moment about "10.5," shall we?  No?  YES!  Raise your hand if you watched one or both parts of this mini-series-movie-of-the-week.  Was it not the mostest awesomest thing you've ever seen?  Yes, it was.  And I mean that in the worst way possible.  To the best of my knowledge, a story about a series of high-magnitude earthquakes hitting the west coast of the United States and killing millions of people was not supposed to be a comedy.  But you could have fooled us.  I have always been seriously fascinated by earthquakes, so I was going to watch this no matter what.  Now, I probably know more about the science of earthquakes than your average joe on the street, but I'm by no means a seismologist.  And I am telling you now that ALMOST EVERYTHING in this movie was laughable.  Like the big crack in the earth that was racing after a passenger train, collapsing the track behind it (and only the track), following it around bends and everything, and then abruptly stopping right after it finally swallowed the train into the earth.  It was at this point that Josh and I decided that this was actually a movie about demonically possessed fault lines that were going after very specific targets.  Then there was the total collapse and ocean flooding of most of the Los Angeles area, in a way that was beyond implausible and that once again stopped right before the collapsing reached the protagonists (who incidentally were apparently incapable of running without falling down every two seconds).  And of course the FUSING of the FAULT LINE with NUCLEAR explosions.  Now, why didn't we think of that before?  I heard about a news channel that taped a panel of geologists watching the movie, and much of the time they were laughing so hard that they were literally falling out of their chairs.  From a CNN.com article:  "Asked whether he consulted scientists in developing the project, [Howard Braunstein, executive producer of the miniseries], said: 'Not really. We went on the Internet for backup research.'" Believe it.
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Monday, May 03, 2004
Fine, I blog.
The season finale of "Arrested Development," which was cut from FOX's schedule after President Bush's primetime press conference of a few weeks ago pushed "24" into the "AD" timeslot for one week, is apparently going to be shown afterall. Eventually. But of course FOX couldn't possibly have just let the episode run the Sunday after it was originally scheduled (yesterday), because that would already be May Sweeps and the network would have none of that for such a ratings dud. So June 6 it is... or at least it appears that way. For now. We can hope.
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