One of the summer season shows that started last week was MasterChef. Shel and I were watching episode one and we laughed and laughed at the comments made by one contestant - truck driver "Albert" . He served the three chefs a sausage and alligator jambalaya, with a fried alligator medallion on the side.
He showed the judges a tattoo on his butt (then washed his hands before serving his alligator!) and he recieved an apron - meaning he can participate in the next round of cook - offs.
When asked what alligator tastes like Albert responded "toad!". Then when he was asked if there was anything he drew the line at eating he said that he would never eat possum.
I wonder why?
What has a possum ever done to Albert?
Why toad and not possum?
I hope to see more of him, he was entertaining.
Basically it is a show about four accomplished "artists" (Christina Aguilera, CeeLo Green, Blake Shelton, and Adam Levine) who listened to auditions "blind" - without seeing who was singing - and chose based on voice alone if they wanted to have the person on their "team". They then coach their singes to compete against one another.
I think the idea is kind of cool - to judge someone based on voice alone and not on appearance, and some of the performers have impressed me.
This week at the beginning of the show, the "judges" or "coaches" came out and sang together.
(The above photo is of them performing.)
Really Christina? Really?
What the HELLFIRE are you wearing?
I'm not so naive as to think that you are out on stage representing all women. I pretty much think you are out there representing yourself. Which is great. Do your thing. Put yourself out there.
Just one small request please - next time put something on that isn't crawling up your crotch. It was gross.
I may not have even noticed your crotch except for the fact that the heels on your shoes were SO high that you couldn't stand up straight so you had to walk around with this "bent knee" thing - which pushed your crotch right into my face.
Not nice. Not nice at all. I could barely focus on the music your crotch was such a distraction - and believe me it had absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact I am a lesbian. There is a time and place for crotches, and primetime television is not either.
(This may contain spoilers for anyone who has not watched the epidode!)
I have not stopped thinking about Grey's Anatomy since I watched it on Thursday night. I have since watched it about seven times and I am listening to Sara Ramirez sing on youtube all day while I work - over and over again.
I don't think that all people necessarily like musicals, and so that was a turn off for some people. I absolutely LOVE music and musicals and it wasn't a leap at all for me to have music be a part of the show sung by the characters.
Music is so important to me in all movies and television shows and always evokes emotion in me. This episode reminded me in many ways of the movie "She's Having a Baby" from 1988 and the song "This Woman's Work - (which also had me bawling!)
(The song starts about 3 minutes into this video)
I found Grey's Anatomy to resonate so much with the things I am experiencing in my own life right now as well.
I absolutely LOVE the character of Callie. I think she is hot and sexy and when she started singing.... whew. My dream - a sexy woman singing, it doesn't get better than that for me.
When Meredith and Derek were in the elevator and she was crying about how the universe is so cruel and she just wanted answers, it could have been me talking. My words, My life, RIGHT NOW!
When Shel and I got together over 14 years ago now, being happy was on my mind. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be in a relationship. I wanted my life to be like the lives of the people around me who were dating, marrying, having kids and "living the dream'. Soon after we got together Shel was seriously ill and needed hospitalization and surgery. We had to jump through so many hoops in order for me to be with her in the hospital and for the doctors to treat me as though I was her partner.
For all intents and purposes I was seen as "nothing". Standing outside recovery, wanting to be with the person I loved but instead feeling as though I had to fight the system and fight for every moment I spent waiting, I felt helpless and alone, and as though I was nothing. To actually hear someone say that to Arizona on the show - even though it was said in a moment of anger and even though Mark apologized, in a way legitimized that I am not the only person who has ever felt that or who has ever gone through it.
I felt validated.
I said to Shel (as I watched the show for the second time), being in Canada has changed the experience of being gay for me. When I was in the USA everything about our relationship was a fight for recognition. Here we are in Canada and we are legally married, we have the same name, we have children with our name, we have medical coverage, we have insurance, we have all the things we didn't have when we lived in the USA. When we lived there it felt as though our relationship was tenuous - even though we were committed to one another and actually had a commitment ceremony - we were "other". It doesn't feel good to be "other".
I said it once and I will say it again, this episode of Grey's was amazing to me and I will watch it another 7 times I am certain!
I am a huge fan of Grey's Anatomy.
I love Sara Ramirez and her character in Grey's (Callie).
Last night on Grey's was a "musical" episode that people have referred to as Glee's Anatomy. Some people absolutely hated the episode but I LOVED it.
There's nothing sexier than a sexy woman singing!
Here is a live version of Sara singing one of the songs she performed last night.
I have watched all 21 seasons of Survivor. There is nothing that bothers me MORE than people quitting in the middle of the game. It drives me insane. There are SOOO many people who would do anything to be on the show, and others who are voted off who would do anything to STAY on the show that for people to quit is an insult to everyone, and also to the viewers.
There should be some kind of penalty to them, and there is NO way they should sit on the jury to decide the fate of those still playing. How lame.
My sons are not really "into" watching television. There is nothing I would love more than laying on the couch with my boys on a Saturday morning watching cartoons, Or on a rainy day watching a Disney movie. But they won't. Their attention for television lasts all of 30 seconds and then they are up and at em. not really my "style" unfortunately for me!
What we CAN Do with them is have them sit in our laps for short periods of "snuggle time" and so part of our "wind down" ritual for the night is to bath, get pajamas on and then sit in mom's lap with a drink and watch 30 minutes of something like "in the night garden". The only problem I have with this is that In the Night garden do not make new shows on a daily basis so I have pretty much seen all the garden has to offer. My spouse can block out the show and she thinks of other things while the boys sit on her lap. The same does not work for me so I am intimate in ways I never knew possible with iggle piggle, the tombileboos, makka pakka, daisy doo and other night garden characters.
To mix it up for myself a little I thought if we watched some other shows it would give me some variety in my viewing and so we have been "experimenting" with other shows to watch at bedtime. What we have discovered is that there are "types" of shows good for bedtime viewing and others that are not. Some of the ones that are NOT are "The Wiggles", "Yo Gabba Gabba" or "Roary the Racing Car". The tempo of these shows is too much and the boys get over stimulated and not calmed. One of the shows they LIKE to watch is "Thomas the Tank Engine".
I am not a fan of Thomas and friends.
Let me just segue here to my own growing up experience. When I was growing up one of the things we lived to do at lunchtime was watch the Flintstones. My mom curtailed our flintstone pleasure because she said my little brother (love you Raisin Bran Man!) would "talk like Fred" and Fred was not nice to his wife or to his friend Barney. Now I was not savvy enough to see this myself at the time and I thought it was a lame reason not to watch the show. Wow does having kids ever change your opinion of life and the things your parents did when you were a child!
So Thomas the tank engine. I think the message is an "ok" one - you need your friends to help you out in life - but it takes the full length of the show to get to that point - the point of needing people - and in the meantime the engines are not nice to one another, they are mean and they don't share. My kids can't follow the show long enough to "get" the message. All they see is the engines wanting to do everything for themselves to disastrous conclusions and then getting bailed out even though they were rude and nasty.
I have become "one of THOSE people " who has an opinion about, of all things, a CHILDREN'S television show!
My cousin who has an older child said she really likes Phineas and Ferb, so I checked it out and LOVE it. I tried to get my kids to watch that, but they aren't interested yet. Thankfully I don't care if they like shows or not, I'll watch a kids show without shame! Yay for Phineas! Until they are old enough to watch with me, at bedtime we will take advantage of other treehouse shows which I do approve of..... "Big and Small"(my favorite), "Dragon" and "the Backyardigans" (Backyardigans just makes me laugh, what is with that dancing?)
I have been watching some of this show on television-Undercover Boss. I will admit I have not watched every episode but some of them have made me laugh. I like the idea of executives going undercover in their companies to find out what it is like to so the work of the "grunts" and some of the shows have been quite interesting. At the end of every episode the CEO's have this "reveal" where they meet up with the people they went undercover with and they make changes in the company (supposedly) but they always give some kind of "prize" or "reward" to the people they worked with undercover. Last week was the season finale and the show was about 1-800-flowers. At the end of the show the president of the company met with the people and gave them all their "reward". Oh I laughed so hard. One lady had a flower arrangement "named" after her. One kid got to participate in a mentor ship program that the company ALREADY has - but his mentor will be the CEO. One lady got to meet with marketing to advertise her store in her area. What a load of junk. I had to laugh out loud. I think the show is meant to be some kind of advertisement for companies who want to get the message out that they WANT to be good employers and that they are willing to put themselves in silly situations to get better. I have to say that my opinion of 1-800- flowers dropped a few notches. Do you think there are aspiring franchisee potential owners out there thinking now - MAYBE If I buy a franchise and MAYBE if I work my Bum off for years and MAYBE if I get to be the best franchise of all the franchises.... I will get a flower arrangement named after me! LOL.
I think I have previously ascertained that I watch a lot of television. We have this great thing which I think is something like a tivo, called a PVR. It's like a built in recorder and you can program it to record shows. The thing I love about it the most is that you can fast forward through the commercials and it keeps a nice little log of what shows you have, how many hours you have remaining etc. It's WAYYYY better than a VCR tape where you have to fast forward and rewind through tons of garbage to find the shows you watch, or you accidentally record over shows you haven't seen. So this summer there has not been a lot of good shows to watch. On the Home and Garden Channel there is a show called House Hunters. I think I have watched some of the episodes about ten times but I can't seem to get enough of checking out the homes people look at and then chain themselves to (with 30 year mortgages). My spousal unit and I try to guess which house the people will choose and I like to add my little comments about why they were dumb to choose the one they did (if it wasn't my guess). OK. ( It took a long time for me to get to the point here). This week we were watching one episode and the realtor made such a stupid comment it has stuck with me ever since. Yes, I even rewound it to listen to her say it again. She said "This has been wired for electricity" You heard it here folks. "wired for electricity". I won't go into the long discourse I subjected my spouse to, you can come to your own conclusions. Such a great show.
