Tag Archives: review

I’m Not Stalking You’s 5th Anniversary!

Posted on April 8, 2016 by funnygurl2

When I started writing on this blog, I barely knew what a blog was. I had been working for 12 years for the same company that was about to go out of business, leaving me jobless, and an infant that needed major surgery. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, although I was already well into my 30s.

Happy Birthday to INSY, Happy Birthday to INSY...

Happy Birthday to INSY, Happy Birthday to INSY…

In the intervening five years, I had a job for 21 months that I liked that progressed into one that I couldn’t stand to stay with. Now I have finally settled somewhere closer to home that I hope to stay at for a very long time. My young son actually had to have two surgeries to accomplish what one should have done, but today he is happy and healthy and annoying me on a consistent basis, as any growing child testing his boundaries should be. (Doesn’t make it any easier though.) My family lost a dog. We have struggled, but I think that glow up there might be the light at the end of the tunnel.

Oh, and I wrote three books. And as I have said before, I don’t think I would have accomplished that if I hadn’t started emptying my chaotic brain out into this little blog first.

I welcome you to click on my comical categories or explore with the search bar my amassed collection of 520 posts. Don’t know where to start? Below are links to my most popular posts and some of my favorites.

And here is to the next five years. Make a five year plan, you say? I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Most Popular Posts

Boxelder Bugs Must Die

Homefront

MicroMagic [Fine] Frozen Foods

Kiddie City

The O.C.

__________

My Favorite Posts

Dead Dad Movies, Part 1

Dead Dad Movies, Part 2

My Favorite TV Shows

Punky Brewster

Matthew Perry

And, well, since I’m feeling like anyone who is reading this post deserves a little gift, here it is. I have talked about it for a while. This is as close as you are probably ever going to get to seeing me karaoke Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby.” Don’t ask me why I feel more comfortable releasing this on the Internet to a bunch of ruthless strangers than I do a roomful of drunks who would forget me tomorrow, but I do. It is a public speaking anxiety thing, which is rendered temporarily ineffective when confronted with audio or visual equipment, rather than a physical crowd being present. Hence, the Communications degree in Radio and Television Broadcasting. Oh, and remind me to disable comments on this video.

This is a long time coming. Years ago, I bought the karaoke track of “Ice Ice Baby” off of iTunes to practice with. But I still had no words, and that version cut off the third verse, which is my favorite and the one I am best at. At some point in the intervening years I Googled the lyrics and saved them on my flash drive, where they have traveled around aimlessly since. I found a karaoke track with lyrics on YouTube and made a practice video one day. That seemed like only a few months ago, Christmas maybe? Nope. That was last APRIL! I had the idea that this may be a great stunt for INSY’s anniversary…then my mom brain took over and I forgot until like Monday.

So, I had to cram. I have been rapping the words to this song for 26 years—some of them being the WRONG words. Oy. It is hard to untrain myself. I will always say: “Falling on the concrete real fast” as “Fallin’ on the concrete grill fat.” Mmm…grill fat. Anyone hungry for McDonald’s?

Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books:
Be Careful What You Wish For – AVAILABLE NOW!
When You Least Expect It – THE CONTINUING ROMANCE!
The Wind Could Blow a Bug – WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!

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What I Learned This Week – 3/6/16

Posted on March 6, 2016 by funnygurl2

This week I learned that you can go home again.

Especially if that home is the “painted lady” where the Tanner family resides in San Francisco.

I binge-watched Netflix’s Fuller House this week. I was a fan of the original: on my list of Top 10 shows, it probably comes in at 10.5. If you have hung around me or my blog for any amount of time, you know by now that I am a big fan of cheesy 80’s sitcoms, so I am the target audience for this resurrection. Was it lightning in a bottle? Well, no. There are rough edges and things that can be improved. But the many critics who spent their time panning it WASTED their time. I guess they got a paycheck out of it (which I won’t get for my review). They bashed it as “nostalgia culture”. Um, hello… I freakin’ LOVE nostalgia culture. It is so prevalent that Entertainment Weekly caters to it with at least one article every week. But before there was ever an announcement that Full House was coming back, the audience was already decided. It would be loyal fans of the old show who didn’t mind seeing that the characters had, in fact, aged, and a new younger audience brought up on cheesy Disney sitcoms, which were crafted from the mold of the original TGIF anyway.

Recently, I was at my sister-in-law’s 40th birthday party. I found myself in the same room with three other women from my same high school graduating class. It was familiar, but in a new weird way. I used to spend eight hours a day in school with these people. And while years and years had passed, essentially they were the same people I had passed everyday in the halls or sat next to in French (or Art) class.

The women of Fuller House.

The women of Fuller House. I think there is lots of TV magic happening here, with spanx and extensions, but they look fabulous.

That is exactly how it felt to watch D.J., Kimmy Gibbler, and Stephanie as adults and mothers on Fuller House. Sure, they were different. But it was like a weird high school reunion. Except now Stephanie, played by Jodi Sweetin, is set up to be the “cool, hip aunt”, filling in for the former cool, hip Uncle Jesse. And she is great in the part. Although I can’t help but remember that in real life she is a recovering meth addict. It makes me happy to be able to see that she is winning that battle.

If you loved the old show but aren’t interested in watching a reboot, then just watch the pilot. It is like a Tanner family reunion, and the one episode that contains the highest concentration of stars from the original run of the show. No, there is no Michelle. But even though she was a highlight of the original run, I really didn’t miss her here.

Future episodes rely heavily on guest stars and the aforementioned nostalgia. There is dancing and music from both New Kids on the Block and Dirty Dancing, unarguably two of the best things to come out of the late 1980s. Now that I mention it, there is A LOT of dancing on this new incarnation of the show. Here is what else I learned this week from Fuller House: As a woman, mother, and member of Gen X, I am apparently not dancing OR DRINKING enough. I will have to remedy that soon.

The men of Fuller House

The men of Fuller House

While the children were a big draw in the original run, the new batch of children are only agreeable. The romantic leads for the women actually make the show. D.J.’s coworker Matt Harmon (John Brotherton) and Kimmy’s soon-to-be ex Fernando (Juan Pablo Di Pace) steal all the scenes they are in. By the end of the season, you see where D.J.’s competing suitors, good ol’ Steve and Matt could have the beginnings of a beautiful bromance.

You will see some things in this full house that only time has allowed to appear in this reboot, such as men dancing with (and kissing) men and women dancing with (and kissing) women. I fully believe D.J.’s middle child is already being written to be set up as the gay child.

I have heard that a season 2 of Fuller House has already been greenlit. Probably because it got a large audience, because Netflix subscribers have already watched the stale movies and first-run TV series that are already a full season behind what the networks are airing.

Welcome back Tanners, Fullers, and Gibblers.

Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books:
Be Careful What You Wish For – AVAILABLE NOW!
When You Least Expect It – CLICK HERE TO WIN!
The Wind Could Blow a Bug – WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!

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What I Learned This Week – 2/28/16

Posted on February 28, 2016 by funnygurl2

On this, the 28th day of February, but not the last, I wanted to talk about the Syfy series 12 Monkeys.

(12 is not primary.)

I have wanted to see all of season 1 for a long time. Really since I became hooked on Nikita. It was while I was watching Nikita that I realized my favorite character on the show was Birkhoff. He was supposed to be the sarcastic comic relief, I supposed. But as I got further into the series, I realized I was then ONLY watching to see Seymour Birkhoff.

Aaron Stanford as Birkhoff on The CW's Nikita

Aaron Stanford as Birkhoff on Nikita

Birkhoff was played by Aaron Stanford, who I then looked up and realized was also Pyro in the X-Men movies. He must be a good actor, because Pyro was such an asshole that I couldn’t stand him.

Shortly after I finished Nikita (I was late to the party), 12 Monkeys premiered. (Maybe his Stanford’s goal is to only be on TV shows based off of movies?) Not having Syfy, I watched the first few episodes free on their website before they cut off the freeloaders like me. I had to wait another year for it to be released on DVD. I didn’t know from the first four episodes if I would want to buy the whole season on DVD or not. By the time Syfy released it, I don’t have the money now to buy it if I wanted to. I went to the video store to rent it. The season was split across three discs, all of course were checked out at the moment. The video store employee was lovely enough to tell me that they only received in one of each disc. They could have not told me that; I was left feeling very hopeless.

This week I was lucky enough to get my hands on them. (I rented each disc on a different day. I didn’t want to be a pig and have them all out at once, as I am sure others would do.)

Sooo good. By the end, there are a lot of plot points being juggled–possibly too many, time will tell. (Time, get it???)

The show grows from being about the big plague that trashes mankind and the time travel experiment to stop it to a mix of the 12 monkeys conspiracy (unfortunately, at the end of season 1 this still isn’t clear), the West 7 trying to gain control of the facility in 2043, the Daughters, creepy, blue-faced guys from the future, and a Cole vs. Ramse rivalry. There is at least one entire episode where Cole is missing. I believe this is a mistake, because while the cast is good, the show drags anytime Cole is not on the screen. I am never quite so pulled into this new world that I forget I am watching actors from Nikita and Fringe. FYI–Not finding a way to use Melinda Clarke is a BIG mistake.

Cole in a scene from "Paradox"

Cole in a scene from “Paradox”

I really believe Aaron Stanford got both the job on Nikita and 12 Monkeys because he can fake being in pain very well. Cole spends a lot of time getting his ass kicked. The next to the last episode “Paradox” feels like the best of the season. Cole is dying from time travel poisoning, and Dr. Railly teams up with an unlikely ally to save him with an unorthodox and dangerous solution. In the process, we get to see a young James Cole in 2015. I let out a big “Awww” on my couch as did Cassie in the show when we set eyes on him. He is just some generic child actor, but still moving. Ensuing events lead to Cole being naked (!!!) and trapped in 2015: two things I was always rooting for.

(Poor otter eyes.)

My biggest complaint is you can tell that Cassie and Cole like each other, that the writers WRITE it that way on purpose. And by the end of season 1, most of the earlier obstacles to this have been removed. And they STILL don’t get jiggy with it. They don’t even kiss. Cole desperately needs some 20th century loving. If he doesn’t get it from Cassie soon, then he just needs to go looking elsewhere. Crazy Jennifer would willingly give it up to him. I bet she would be cray-cray between the sheets as well.

Cole & Cassie on Syfy's 12 Monkeys

Cole & Cassie on Syfy’s 12 Monkeys

While I feel today’s dramas rely too heavily on the cliffhanger crutch at the end of each episode (remember when they only did that at the end of the season?), it is highly effective on this program. Cole is the lead in the show. I was only halfway through the season, but they CONVINCED me that he was dead. How can I not be eager for the next episode, believing there is no way that they can write themselves out of this.

It is going to be a very long wait until season 2 for me, as it doesn’t even premiere until April 18, 2016 on Syfy. I hope the show doesn’t experience a sophomore slump, finding they have too many story lines to juggle. Just in case, everyone should go out and buy 12 Monkeys season 1 and watch it right now. But DO NOT go out and rent it. It needs to be available to me for any future rentals…

And just to warn you, I have gone straight from one binge to another: straight from 12 Monkeys to Fuller House.

(Whatever happened to predictability…)

Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books:
Be Careful What You Wish For – AVAILABLE NOW!
When You Least Expect It – CLICK HERE TO WIN!
The Wind Could Blow a Bug – WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!

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What I Learned This Week – 7/19/15

Posted on July 19, 2015 by funnygurl2

This week I learned that the movie One Small Hitch, is a really, really good movie. I stumbled upon it in a romantic comedy search on Netflix. It is a 2013 movie starring Shane McRae and Aubrey Dollar as two childhood friends pretending to be engaged for the sake of Josh’s (McRae) dying father. Awkward situations ensue.

WEEK-One Small Hitch

I will admit that it did start a little slow, but the leads are both adorable and it only gets cuter when they move into an apartment together. One Small Hitch is like While You Were Sleeping, except no one has to be pushed onto the railroad tracks and end up in a coma. A few people get punched in the face though.

This week I also realized that I have the best CD player in the world.

Best CD player

Best CD player

Yes, some of us without an iPhone or mp3 player with a screen still rely on such devices to make collections (mix tapes), “playlists” if you will, of songs that suit our fancy on any particular day.

I have a big CD player in my kitchen, but I wanted to listen to a CD while laying in bed. So, I headed upstairs to the electronics graveyard to find a small CD player. I knew we had at least one. Actually, I found two. One was a jogproof one that I had purchased one year for my birthday. It wasn’t jogproof, and I am not a jogger. So, ya.

The other is the CD player I quickly recognized from my old job. For the 12 years I worked for Borders, I used this CD player nearly every day. You can see that I doodled on it, and marked it with stickers so that if someone stole it, I would know that it was mine.

I cannot believe that it still works! I do believe that it used to have an AC adapter, but I can’t presently find it. I used to put a CD on pause, then head off to a 3 hour meeting, leaving it spinning on my desk the whole time. Last night I popped in batteries of questionable age, and it still worked like a dream.

And so many functions! I can program what order I want to play the tracks from on a CD, which comes in handy for albums such as Pieces of You by Jewel, that contain some very good, and some not very good songs. It has repeat one or all. It has bass boost. It shows track number and time at the same time!

For being around 15 years old, it has held up remarkably well. The volume dial causes some interference in the headphones when adjusted. But I used to have headphones with a volume control in the cord, so that was never a problem.

I love that it is a little no-name brand. I love that at that time, they thought they still needed to spell out that it was “DIGITAL” technology.

Now, everything is.

Don’t get me started on my love of analog/cassette tapes.

Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books:
The Wind Could Blow a Bug ON SALE for only $.99 for a limited time & GIVEAWAY going on over at Goodreads (ends August 15, 2015)
When You Least Expect It AVAILABLE NOW!

PURCHASE as a Paperback or eBook on Amazon.com TODAY.

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The Hart of Alabama

Posted on March 26, 2015 by funnygurl2

Why is it that women always seem to be looking for and finding love in Alabama?

It happens in the movie Sweet Home Alabama. It happens on the TV series The Hart of Dixie. And in the book called The Wind Could Blow a Bug.

I am writing this post in honor of the season finale of Hart of Dixie airing this Friday. While the CW has thus far stayed mum, the cast have all been pretty public that this is the end of the series.

Hart of Dixie's Wilson Bethel

Hart of Dixie’s Wilson Bethel

You probably don’t remember a little blog post I wrote three years ago about Hart of Dixie. The link is here. And I still feel the same way. That the show just never quite lived up to its potential. And a large part of it might be that the show has several fundamental connections to The O.C. The O.C. nailed it with almost every episode. Maybe I just never got used to the slower feel of things in Bluebell. Hell, the first season was over before I realized I was supposed to have paid attention to the background townsfolk every week. That made re-watching season one, and watching new episodes going forward, much more enjoyable.

Josh Lucas & Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama (2002)

Josh Lucas & Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama (2002)

A few weeks ago, I was daydreaming on a cold Michigan winter day about sunny Alabama (or at least as it is portrayed by various other location shoots on my television) and a thought occurred to me:

Hart of Dixie and Sweet Home Alabama have a few things in common.

1. They both feature petite career women from the big city.

Rachel Bilson as Dr. Zoe Hart and Reese Witherspoon as Melanie Carmichael, hoity-toity fashion designer. And in both cases, the big city is NYC.

2. They both feature a blond guy who looks amazing with his shirt off.

Wilson Bethel as Wade Kinsella and Josh Lucas as Jake Perry.

3. They both include a dark-haired man as the “logical” choice in the love triangle.

Scott Porter as lawyer George Tucker and Patrick Dempsey as rich guy Andrew Hennings.

4. The lead female in both instances seems to only be sure of her “bad boy” choice once he makes something of himself. (Which, HELLO, totally NEGATES the “bad boy.”)

Wade gets series about owning his own bar, while Jake takes his love of glass to the next level.

5. They both include weddings affected by storms.

George and Lemon’s wedding was pushed from the town square into the old, rundown fire station, until it was eventually called off altogether. Melanie runs from her groom Andrew as the winds pick up and the rain starts to pour.

Lesson to be learned here: No outdoor weddings if you are a fictional character in Alabama.

6. They both include a friend with a big mansion house.

Lavon’s large mayoral mansion is the setting for many of the high-jinks in Bluebell, including the guest houses where Wade and Zoe reside.  Melanie holds her ill-fated wedding with Andrew at the Carmichael estate.

These are just a few of the things I noticed off the top of my head.

I will be very sad to see Hart of Dixie go. It may not have always fulfilled my craving, but I faithfully watched it every week. Sometimes Hart of Dixie nailed it. Like when Wade has to sing Crazy Earl down off the roof, and we discover that Crazy Earl if actually his father. Or when Zoe makes a date with the mysterious stranger in town, only to find out he is Wade’s brother.

I don’t know what the writers originally planned for Zoe’s love life, but it was always Wade for me. ❤

Zoe playing doctor with Wade

Zoe playing doctor with Wade

Did I wet your whistle for some more romantic adventures in Alabama? My first book, The Wind Could Blow a Bug is NOW AVAILABLE!

PURCHASE as a Paperback or eBook on Amazon.com TODAY.

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