shows that allow me to not watch shows

I love shows like Best Week Ever on VH1 or The Soup on E!. But since I don't have cable I have to settle for the online versions which are great. I no longer have to miss watching any of the guilty pleasures because I can see the part that I would like most being made fun of on these shows in the same way I would have done myself had I actually wasted the time to watch it. For example, my last post about the Hoff.

The Hoff

Is it too cliche to compare David Hasselhoff to a fine bottle of wine that just keeps getting better with time? Here you can see why we still love him. I am totally going to go rent Knight Rider this week.

Answers to my questions

1. Why are local commercials so bad?
Here are some Abilene examples: a plumbing company working to the tune of "Holding out for a hero", a portable shed salesman dressed as a caveman, a giant, white-haired, cross-eyed man standing on a huge stack of mattresses on top of Ed's Friendly Beds roof (he looks like a great grandpa, though). There are many more but I probably go to church with some of these people so I will quit here.

2. Why will Michael Vick most likely serve more time than Mary Winkler? I like dogs, but I like dads more, even if they are bad husbands.

3. Why was Arrested Development cancelled?

4. Why do I lose my remote control capabilities when given the option of MTV? All day marathons of Laguna Beach, The Hills and My Super Sweet 16 is why I can't get cable.

5. Why do I hate dinosaurs so much? Jurrassic Park, Baby, Barney (that's a given) and all 100 Land Before Time movies.

Many more questions to come.

Flight of the Conchords

This is a folk/comedy group from New Zealand. They have a show on HBO that looks like a mix of sketch comedy and their songs. Pretty funny stuff. This one is called "The most beautiful girl in the room".

Crippets

Let me clarify. I hate crickets but I like it when Lucy calls them crippets. I think that people that live in the northwest have never seen anything like these stinky, creepy crippets. It gives a small glimpse as to what a plague may have resembled.

Boundaries

I consistently see a correlation between boundaries and blessings. I have been struggling to figure out these past couple of years what it means to live the life that God intended. I am not even close to the answer but I have definitely come a long way in my journey, at least mentally. I have yet to put a lot of the things I believe into practice. Why is that? Here are some examples...
1. If we know that good nutrition and exercise help us to live longer and have a greater quality of life why do we choose unhealthy foods and fight exercise. Being overweight and unhealthy feels gross and it is a choice for most people.
2. If we spend more money than we make, we will owe someone money. Living in debt feels gross and it is a choice for all people.
3. If we continue to treat the earth poorly we might have a hard time finding a parcel of land to live on (watch An Inconvenient Truth to see about the choices we can make and decide this one for yourself)
4. If we treat people poorly no one will be at our funeral. I actually don't know that to be truth but it is always in the movies. It is true that we will be alienated from the relationships that exist to let us know God better and to be encouraged.

When we live this way we are unable to see the gifts that God intended us to have.

Why do we continue to ignore the boundaries and insist on living a life that is mediocre when we could could be living one that is extraordinary?

Summer theme songs

So, I mentioned that 'Achy Breaky Heart' was my first summer theme song. It's true. My memory was pulling the truck up in front of my High School where I was meeting my friend Rooster (nickname) and rolling down my window to talk to him. He handed me a mixed tape that included a little Billy Ray and asked if I wanted to go with him and his friend to Eugene to watch them get a tatoo. Since I had a huge crush at the time on his friend this was pretty much one of the best days of my High School career. I will never forget that song. There is nothing better than those songs that make you want to roll your windows down on a sunny day and drive until the song is over. These are not necessarily good songs, just the kind that sound different when the sun is shining. Here are some of my summer theme songs. Remember that summer theme songs are almost always defined as Guilty Pleasures.

1993- Whoomp! There it is, Rump Shaker, Nuthin but a "G" Thang, I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)
1994- Anything by Salt n Pepa and the Reality Bites soundtrack
1995- Gangsta's Paradise, everything by TLC and Mary Chapin Carpenter
1996- C'mon N Ride It (That Train), No Diggity
1997- Da Dip, Mmmbop and all Puff Daddy
1998- Gettin Jiggy Wit it, I'll Be, Sock it 2 Me
1999- Save Tonight, Where my Girls At?, No Scrubs, Genie in a Bottle, Kiss Me
2000- Bye, Bye, Bye, everything by the Dixie Chicks, Steal my Kisses, Fast Car (played for 3 hours while Kevin and I talked)
2001- Rollin', Ms. Jackson, Country Grammar
2002- Hey Baby, whatever Britney Spears album came out (I'm not proud of this)
2003- Hey Ya!, Bring me to life, Crazy in Love
2004- Drop it like it's hot, The Reason, This Love
2005- Hollaback Girl, Gold Digger, everything by the Killers
2006- Temperature, Crazy (Gnarls Barkley), Too Little Too Late, S.O.S.
2007- Party Like a Rock Star and I am bringing back Ice, Ice Baby

I'm thinking a future mixed cd is on this list.
Go to www.musicoutfitters.com to find the top 100 songs of each year.

UPDATE: Just to clarify.....The songs above are good for the car and cleaning house. I don't usually listen to rap on a regular basis. Even though I would prefer folk and easy listening I like to mix it up. A little Air Supply, a little Outkast. Everything in moderation right?

Independence Day

Picture it. 1992. Tri City, Oregon. It was July and I had just turned 16. I was a licensed driver and my best friend's parents were out of town. They left us the keys to the '77 brown Buick. They had one of the coolest houses in town. A full basketball court, a pool, a hot tub and it was all ours for a week. We referred to this for many years later as "The Best Week Ever" way before VH1 ever got a hold of the phrase. We found a rubber hand in the trunk that was making the "hang loose" sign and a stuffed leg. So we put the hand in the rear window and hung the leg out of the trunk and rocked 8-tracks for 7 glorious days. We went to the county fair, laid out by the pool, shopped for different 8-tracks....it was so much fun and we didn't even have the predictable parents-are-gone party. The next week I inherited my dad's white Ford pickup for 8 hours a day while he was at work. It was in this truck that I remember my first summer theme song(see next post)......Achy Breaky Heart. That's right, Billy Ray Cyrus. Here are my favorite of the Top 100 songs from 1992. (I took off a lot of Amy Grant, Mariah and Celine) BTY, this is the summer that I went to a Color Me Badd concert. Tick Tock You don't stop.

1. End Of The Road, Boyz II Men
2. Baby Got Back, Sir Mix A-lot
3. Jump, Kris Kross
4. Save The Best For Last, Vanessa Williams
5. Baby-Baby-Baby, TLC
6. Tears In Heaven, Eric Clapton
7. My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It), En Vogue
9. All 4 Love, Color Me Badd
12. To Be With You, Mr. Big
13. I'm Too Sexy, Right Said Fred
14. Black Or White, Michael Jackson
15. Achy Breaky Heart, Billy Ray Cyrus
17. November Rain, Guns N' Roses
18. Life Is A Highway, Tom Cochrane
22. Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough, Patty Smyth
24. Jump Around, House Of Pain
25. Diamonds and Pearls, Prince and The N.P.G.
27. Masterpiece, Atlantic Starr
32. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
37. It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday, Boyz II Men
38. Move This, Technotronic
39. Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen
40. Tennessee, Arrested Development
44. Set Adrift On Memory Bliss, P.M. Dawn
45. Stay, Shakespear's Sister
46. 2 Legit 2 Quit, Hammer
60. One, U2
65. Warm It Up, Kris Kross
66. In The Closet, Michael Jackson
72. Everything About You, Ugly Kid Joe
73. Blowing Kisses In The Wind, Paula Abdul
75. Rhythm Is A Dancer, Snap
87. Slow Motion, Color Me Badd
100. I Can't Make You Love Me, Bonnie Raitt

Go to musicoutfitters.com to find the top 100 songs of each year.

Places without "Cricket Season"

Okay, so I have been a pretty good Abilene citizen these past 2 years. I have had an above average attitude concerning west Texas considering my Oregon roots. I have tried to appreciate and at times admire Abilene with its dirt and flatness. But, seriously, cricket season?! I don't care what Miss Spider tells her Sunny Patch Friends but crickets are gross. They are really concentrated around campus and various strip malls throughout town. Now, I know that 2 years ago it was much worse but I will never get used to large bugs jumping around on the floor while I am shopping or trying not to step on a smooshed one. What purpose do these annoying bugs serve?

Felicity

Well, it was bound to happen I suppose. We don't have cable and so I watch a lot of tv on dvd. A friend brought over the first two seasons of Felicity and I was moderately excited. Even though I could not stand this show when it was actually on tv, I have contemplated watching it this past year. The only reason I even considered it is because it is the summer and I needed a fluff show to watch during a nap time here and there or when Kevin worked late. If Felicity and I could have only kept that relationship going it would have been fine. I was Ben and she was, well, Felicity. I wanted something fun and no pressure. She wanted every hour of my day. I am addicted. It took a while to know if I liked it because it made me feel older and like I was too mature to watch it. Then, out of nowhere, Bam! I felt like I was back in college again with all the drama and more. I use every excuse to be able to get to the next episode. I'll bring all the toys in the living room or I'll find some "chores" that have to be done while sitting on the couch. It's like when I have cookies in the house. Instead of just rationing myself to one a day I go with the theory that I need to just get them out of here as soon as possible. I think this is just a general problem with watching shows on dvd. You can get instant gratification of knowing what will happen next by just pushing the button. Maybe I should just get cable.

To Know.....

Is it buck naked or butt naked?

Exercise

Yeah, so I started exercising more regularly by joining a group (Forever Fit) that some friends from church started. Nearly every muscle on my body has been sore for the past 3 weeks. It is starting to get better (Thank you, Jesus!). This video from Saturday Night Live is more what I was looking for, but oh well.

The songs of my youth

Everyone knows how great it is to hear a song on the radio and have memories rushing back that you that you can almost feel. Yesterday I heard Disarm by Smashing Pumpkins and I saw rooms filled with friends from almost 15 years ago. I could picture and feel almost everything. It was crazy since I probably couldn't have hummed it 1 minute before. Of course I could go on for hours about every song I've ever known and the memory with it but how exciting would that be? Maybe later.

Mr. Rogers

"In order to express our sense of reality, we must use some kind of symbol: words or notes or shades of paint or television pictures or sculpted forms. None of these symbols or images can ever completely satisfy us because they can never be any more than what they are - a fragment of a reflection of what we feel reality to be."

-Mr. Rogers
from the book, The World According to Mr. Rogers

T-Shirts

There is a sad day coming. It is very likely that by the end of the year I will have to throw away almost every t-shirt that means something to me. Between working at a plywood mill, having babies and the fact that most of them are at least 10 years old, my precious t-shirts, filled with holes and spit up stains are at the end of their journeys. No more Cascade College Soccer (which I never played,btw), no more Lambda, no more Sierra Bible Camp. It's not that these shirts are cool looking it's what they represent. It's the shirts that reminded me when I was plugging away at sheets of wood that I had some diverse experiences that many people in that mill never had. When I was covered in spit up they reminded me that at one point in my life I was sort of cool and that I was capable of doing other things than changing diapers and nursing babies (not that those things aren't important). And now that I am about to be 31 they are reminding me that it's been a while since I was a college student and a camp counselor. I know that anyone seeing me in these shirts are taking up a fund to replace them but they probably don't know how special they are. I know that there are other shirts waiting to become special to me in the future and I am looking forward to that but no shirts will replace these memories. Maybe I will keep them in a special box and one day they will be vintage.

The things that stick in your head

Someone at a church we worked with a few years ago asked me if I would eat a brownie knowing that there was poop in one of the corners of the pan. He wanted to know if I could honestly say, "the brownies were good except that there was some poop in a couple of squares." The idea being that could we honestly say that a movie was good except that it had the f-word a few times, or it was good except for the nude scene. Could we say that a love song was good except for the part about promiscuity.....Can we? I have been saying that a lot lately with especially the movies I have watched. I have watched some really moving and thought provoking movies in the past couple of months but they have all had a few "excepts" in them. Are they still good movies? hmmmmm.


UPDATE: I reread my post after several comments (most not written here) and decided that the brownie theory is relative. It depends on the movie and it depends on who you are recommending it to. Some of these movies are not for my grandma but that doesn't mean that they aren't worth watching. I think that a lot of these movies, mostly dramas, have given me insight and compassion to worlds that I don't see very often. It gives me a little wake up call that I am in a bubble and there are things going on in the world that are kind of poopy.

Method products

So in my latest attempt to go greener (I'll probably never be totally green), I have started using Method products from Target. Let me just say that eco-friendly or not, the mop is the best mop I've ever used. And when you're done you just toss the mopping pad in the washer and use it over and over. It also has swiffer-type cloths. With two kids that will eat off any surface, it makes me feel better to know that my floor is chemical-free enough to eat off. I also like the shower/tub cleaner in hopes that it helps with Lucy's sensitivity issues. I just bought the dryer sheets so it's too soon to rate them.
I was at a point where convenience was trumping safety and the importance of our earth. I am far from reaching environmentalist awards but I will try to at least start going halvsies. I'll try to recycle half of my plastics and glass, getting my groceries bagged in plastic as few times as possible, repurpose things that I would normally throw away so I at least get a little more use and don't have to buy or use something new.
Here are some of my examples...when I do get plastic grocery bags, use them for trash bags in the bathroom. Use egg cartons for holding finger paints. Cover cans with scrapping paper and use them for vases. Don't throw electronics in the trash. Any other good ones?

Jesus Camp

This has been a blog in the making over the past couple of weeks. It has taken me that long to even begin figuring out my "upsession" with this movie. I am upset because of so many reasons and for all those reasons, I am obsessed. I would love to hear what anyone has to say about this movie. It is a documentary of a pentecostal church camp for kids. It's not about that as much as it is about the war going on between the religious right and the rest of the world.
I am so proud to be a Christian but so embarrassed to be grouped in the category of evangelicals right now. There is a really fine line between being sold out and being sinful. Or is there? Maybe I'll update this entry when I have some things figured out and watch the movie again. Check out Mike Cope's blog for a related topic of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Here's the trailer.

Gilmore Girls

Tonight was the Series Finale of one of the best shows to ever be on television. I have a sad face.

Mixed Tapes

You know how sometimes you hear that someone died (usually older and famous) and you are like, "Ahh, how sad". But really you thought they died a long time ago. That's what happened yesterday when I found out that the cassette tape will no longer be manufactured, blank or otherwise.
My first cassette purchased was Tiffany. My last cassette purchased was Acappella "Conquerors" yesterday at the youth group yard sale. The thing about tapes are that they really aren't that great. The quality stinks compared to CD's and downloads and nothing will ever be as romantic as a record. But - the mixed tape is priceless. I loved my dual cassette player. I loved the skill it took to hit pause at just the right moment before the next song started. I loved the excitement I felt when I handed the tape to a friend (or a special friend) and knowing they got the best of the best in that little case. I also loved decorating the tape cover. I could get elaborate here and usually used cut outs from Soap Opera digest or Tiger Beat. Ah, good times Mr. Cassette. I miss you, even though I thought you were already dead.