what happened to the weekend?

i spent most of friday night making yard sale signs and putting them up throughout my neighborhood. on saturday i got up at 6:15 am to do a coffee run. when i got back to the house at 6:45 the people were already swarming the driveway. my roommate L and her friend D were trying to get the stuff out and set up.

i made a total of $84 for myself, and about $100 for my niece. yay! that's $84 i didn't have before and when added to my pet sitting money, i have nice little nest egg going for a new LCD tv to replace my TV that is trying to die. the only things that didn't sell were my recliner and love seat and my niece's coffee table. some folks were supposed to come by and get them yesterday but never showed up so i will take them to good will this week.

notsoccer mom and i had plans to go out for the evening. one of her niece's took the boys out to a movie. she arrived around five and we walked to downtown willow glen. we ended up eating dinner at siena bistro. the food was scrum-dilly-icious! i had the carpaccio and a warm brie salad with a glass of prosecco. nsm had the seafood lingini and a nice glass of white. rather than ordering dessert at the restaurant we walked over to starbuck's and had a signature hot chocolate. the salted caramel. YUM!

it was a nice evening. then i came home and watched episodes 4-9 of the first season of "true blood." i am all caught up now as i watched the last 3 episodes yesterday and then watched the season premier last night. i'll have to figure something out for the rest of the season though since i don't have HBO. :(

how was your weekend?

mine was nice and quiet despite a new roommate moving in.

i went to my second knitting class on saturday. i spent the whole of the rainy sunday watching reruns of america's next top model cycle 9.

getting warmed up for cycle 12 which begins on wednesday!

calling all idol fans...

are you a fan of american idol?


the 16 year old daughter of someone i grew up with has made it to the top 72 on this seasons show. despite having only been shown in the audition tapes. this leads me to believe that they are setting up one of those "she flew in under the radar" types of stories. her uncle tells me that she will be on tonights show, but won't say anything further. give the show a watch... if you can stand it.

why i love SNL...

soon, good goddess, please, soon....

i need a job, y'all.

i swear if i spend much longer planted in front of the tv watching (in no particular order): tabatha's salon takeover, million dollar listing, ice road truckers, animal cops(detroit, houston, miami, phoenix), what not to wear, America's next top model, the cho show, code blue, diagnoses X, sell this house, flip this house, flip that house, holmes on homes, carter can, curb appeal, save my bath, barefoot contessa, ace of cakes, and all the reruns of law and order, the chair will become permanently affixed to my ass. i won't be able to get into my car because the chair won't fit behind the wheel.

does anyone else watch...

30 days created by morgan spurlock? he is the genius that brought us "supersize me!"

the show last night was 30 days working as a coal miner in the west virginia town morgan grew up in. whoa. i have been watching this program for all three seasons because i just love the idea of "hey, walk a mile in my shoes before you condemn me" thinking. coal mining has got to be one of the dirtiest, unsafest, unhealthiest jobs on the planet. and some of these miners were fourth and fifth generation miners.

next week, a former NFL player is going to try living the life of a paraplegic for 30 days. another show coming up this season deals with same sex parenting.

if you have the FX network, give this show a try. it will REALLY make you think.

is anyone else offended by these...

i find myself so offended by the sexist marketing carls jrs is using lately that i dont ever want to eat there again. anyone else offended by these types of commercials?

i'm sure it's just me but...

does anyone else think the young charles bronson is hot?

one of my local tv channels is running commercials for their "charles bronson weekend".

is anyone else watching...

hottie mchottenstein, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

in the new show New Amsterdam on fox?

forget the bachelor...

ABC's the bachelor - london calling matt grant just isn't that cute.

i'll be sticking with Dancing with the stars cristian de la fuente

and jayson taylor

yowza!

is anyone else watching?

american idol this season? last night was the first night. the men. i could help them out by cutting out at least 5 of them that were awful.

my faves are: David Archuleta (and not just because i have a good friend with that last name), Danny Noriega, Michael Johns, Robbie Carrico, Jason Castro and Chikeze (or jacuzzi as simon refers to him).

my question is: why is simon such an ass. i feel sorry for those that stand in front of him when he says something like "that was grotesque". WTF? do you have to stomp them in the head? there are nicer ways to tell someone no. butthead.

tonight's the night...

lost returns for season 4!

dear god,

isn't this month over yet??? nablopomo is killing me!

ok, so, last night i was watching criminal minds (because shemar moore is FINE!)

and i see that the guest star is frankie muniz. yes, the kid from malcolm in the middle. two years ago i had him in my golf cart at the san jose grand prix and paul newman and i were giving him crap about not being old enough to drive a car... and here he was last night, playing this highly talented but deeply disturbed comic book artist. and i thought... WHOA! i guess he really isn't 12 still.

so you think you can dance report

we got there about 30 minutes prior to showtime. had to sit through a looped tape of past american idol winners and tour facts from the SYTYCD kids.

once the show started it was fabulous. in addition to the top ten finalists from last season (danny, dominic, jaimie, kameron, lacey, lauren, pasha, neil, sara, and the winner - sabra) they also had pasha's original partner anya, jesus (the guy from paso robles), shauna and hok (yay!).

anyway, they performed all the best dances. lauren and pasha did their shane sparks skeleton routine to fuego by pitbull. sabra and kameron did the amazing grace routine. lacey and danny did a hot, hot, hot samba number that had been choreographed by dimitri from the second season to hip, hip, chin, chin by club des belugas. sara and neil did their disco routine to knock on wood. lacey and neil did the mia michaels piece that she choreographed in her father's memory to time by billy porter. sabra and pasha did their quickstep to mr. pinstrip suit by big bad voodoo daddy. neil and sabra did their awesome table piece to sweet dreams by eurythmics. dominic and sabra did their hip hop routine to make it work by ne-yo. sabra and dominic also did their comtemporary routine to i'll stand by you by the pretenders. danny and anya did their jive routine to avril lavigne's girlfriend. jesus and sara did the vagabond routine choreographed by wade robson to cabaret hoover from the triplets of belleville soundtrack. shauna and somebody did the easy on down the road dance from the wiz. i say shauna and somebody because i don't remember jimmy being there. the best part of the night was hok and jaimie doing their wade robson hummingbird and flower jazz routine.

all in all everything about the show was great, except for the fact that simple tee shirts were selling for $35. what's that about? it's 4 pieces of cotton for sobbing out loud.

anyway, many, many thanks go out to roommate L for this wonderful birthday present. i had a most enjoyable time.

so you think you can....

dance?

roommate L is taking me to see the "so you think you can dance" tour tonight. i am so excited! i love the show. and later this week i will be going to dinner at Mrs. L's house. i am looking forward to that.

but first, i need to finish all my chores and that includes finishing up the laundry so... i am off to do that.

have a great sunday!

journey man...

has anyone else been watching the show Journeyman on NBC. i have been watching since the first episode and i love the show. a few of my friends have watched it and fail to see the appeal. for me it might be that i find kevin mckidd oddly attractive. i first saw him in the HBO show ROME and thought he was hot. anyway, i enjoy the show... my friend D lives and works in san francisco and frequently sees them filming.

NO! say it isn't so...

Drew Carey set to take on The Price is Right.

i can totally relate...

to this story about the end of an era!

my friend A flew in to LA from washington DC, and i drove to meet her from san jose just to do the same thing.

LA and The Price is Right!

I left my house at 5:00 am on Tuesday and arrived in LA about 30 minutes before A’s plane landed. I picked her up at the airport and we went directly to the hotel.

The Farmers Daughter Hotel
115 S. Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90036

We got there at about 1:15. Check in time wasn’t until 4:00 so we asked them to hold our bags and we walked across the street to The Farmers Market/The Grove and ate a late lunch/early dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Then we went back to the hotel. By this time our room was ready so we moved our bags up and got settled in the room. Then we took the camp chairs and walked across the street to the studio

and got in the line for the show. It looked like there were already about 45 people in front of us. We stayed in the line and by about 1:00 AM A was crashing so I told her to go back to the hotel and get some sleep. I stayed in the line all night talking to the people on either side of us. A came back about 5:30 am. At 6:30 AM they handed out “order of appearance” passes. We were numbers 113 and 114. We got to go back to the hotel for an hour. I took my shower and got changed then we had to go back to the studio to get our “Priority Number” which was the same as the “order of appearance” number. At 8:30 they let us go again until 9:45 so we went back to the hotel and had breakfast. We got back to the studio at about 9:50. They let us into the “holding” area where we sat and sat and sat some more. Then finally at about 1:00 pm they started the “interviews”. They herded us in groups of 10 to this guy who would read our name tag and say “hi, barbie, where are you from and what do you do?” and you had about 10 seconds to answer him. There was a woman taking notes on everyone’s answers. I thought for sure A was going to get picked for the show because she had a “moment” with the guy. They joked about her being a lawyer and he shook her hand. But, it wasn’t meant to be. After the interviews they moved us into another holding pen. Then at 2:30 they took us into the theater and got us all seated.

The taping went by really fast. Bob Barker

looks a lot more frail in person and it was REALLY loud on the set. The stage looks WAY bigger when you see it on TV. I was hoarse for the rest of the day on Wednesday and most of Thursday. Both of the people from the “showcase showdown” were staying at our hotel.

After the show was over around 4:00 we went back to the hotel to pick up our cell phones and cameras (they do not allow any electronic devices in the theater) and went to dinner. We ate at Maggianos. We were the only ones in the whole restaurant, of course it was only about 4:30 by then. We walked around “The Grove” for a while and then went to The Cheesecake Factory for dessert. We got back to the hotel around 8:10 and were going to settle down to watch the American Idol finale and I fell asleep, missing the end of the show.

On Thursday we got up around 10:30 and went into West Hollywood to have breakfast at this place called

The Griddle Cafe
7916 Sunset Blvd.
W. Hollywood, CA 90046
Tel: (323) 874-0377
Website: www.thegriddlecafe.com

that I had seen on some food network show. It was awesome. I had chocolate French toast. There were two slices of bread and that covered the entire plate the bread was so huge. A had an omelet that hung over both sides of the plate. After breakfast we drove into downtown LA and went to walk around Union Station and then over to Olvera street . That is the big Latino shopping area. We walked around looking at all the stuff there and then headed back over to Hollywood . We tried to get up close to the Hollywood sign but I couldn’t find the street that I knew went up there. Then we went to Grumman’s Chinese theater and walked around the mall there and looked at the hand and foot prints in the cement. After that we went to Melrose . I wanted to see the

Fred Segal store. I bought a tee shirt there so that I could get a little Fred Segal bag. When we came out of Fred Segal the street had sort of exploded. A water main of something under the street burst and all of Melrose was collapsing into a sinkhole type of thing. That was kind of cool. After that we went back to the hotel and asked about places to go for dinner. They recommended a place that was just up the street from the hotel called

Lola’s. It was yummy! We both had the French Onion soup and then A had the stir fry and I had a caprese salad. Back to the hotel. I was “watching” TV (or rather the insides of my eyelids) while A was writing out her postcards.

When we got up on Friday morning we packed and then walked over to the Farmers Market and had breakfast at the

French Crepe stand that I had seen on “Giada’s Weekend Getaways” on the food network. I had a nutella and banana crepe, A had a Belgium waffle. By the time we were done there it was time to run A to the airport. After I dropped her off I headed up the coast toward home. I stopped in Moro Bay for lunch and then again in Monterey for a latte. I arrived home around 7:30.

Poor Moo was all over me. I think he thought I had abandoned him. He stuck right by me all weekend.

If you are interested the show will air on Friday, June first at 10:00 am PDT, Right before The Young and The Restless. I have my Tivo set already.

I love LA!

I'll be away for the rest of the week. I am driving to LA to meet a friend. We have tickets to see Bob Barker and The Price is Right. :)

See you all when I get back.