Good Line From Antenna TV

TV show line of the night:

Maude: I don't want to be attractive, Walter, attractive is the consolation pirze. I WANT TO BE BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

Happy Halloween

                                                     

                                          Picture from google images, not my own work. Many thanks to the original source.

No review this week, just a couple of stories from my past for your amusement.

I am a classic chicken. Not that most people ever guess that from my bad-ass, take no prisoners attitude. But put a horror movie on and watch me lose my shit faster than a goose that's been given ex-lax.

Many of my friends love horror movies. I actually like the idea of them, it's the sounds & some of the over the top gory visuals that I have a problem with. I usually wind up watching them, giving my friends a good laugh at my reactions, and then having nightmares for the next 3 days that often result in me prowling through the house with my sword (What? Doesn't everybody have a sword for defense? Kept right beside the bed? No? Moving on...) and swinging at shadows.

So, going back a number of years, here are 2 stories featuring my former BFF Susan, from the Garth Brooks concert story.

1.  As I mentioned in Concert Tales 1, our birthdays were only a few days apart. One year, there was a new Friday the 13th movie (Jason Goes to Hell) out right around then. We were on the road with our wrestling buddies and in Charlotte NC. Sue really wanted to go see the movie, so we got a group together and went. Now Sue LOVED horror movies, and almost nothing fazed her. She was one of those people who could happily drink cherry soda and eat anything while watching the most gruesome of scenes.

I, on the other hand, cannot. We used to do weekend movie marathons at her house with her Mom, sister, and whatever friends/cousins were about. We usually started off with comedies or action flicks, but everyone knew what to do when it was time for the horror flicks. Move all drinks away from me, put the popcorn somewhere I couldn't knock it over, and hand me the cushion known as "Mickey's scream pillow." During the worst scenes, I'd bury my face in the pillow and have my fingers in my ears. Hearing the gross sound effects is actually worse for me than seeing heads go flying. The sounds linger in my imagination and then I start imagining things way worse than what was actually onscreen. This practice works well at home, not so good in public.

Anyway, we were at the theater and the guys had been warned that I would most likely wind up burrowing into someone's shoulder and shrieking like a loon. The movie (for those who may not have seen it) started with Jason being blown into a zillion pieces. Then, during the autopsy of the remains, his heart starts beating...the entranced doctor doctor picks it up...I realize what is about to happen and slide off my seat onto the floor. Around me, a theater full of people are shrieking/gagging "He ate the heart!" I look to my left and what do I see but SUSAN crouched on the floor beside me. We finally found something that was too gross even for her. I was less than sympathetic. "YOU wanted to see this movie, bitch, now get back up there and watch it!" I don't remember much after that. I do know that the guys ribbed us about that for months.

2. Weekend movie marathon at Sue's. (Her mom had cable & a VCR- Yes, I'm old- at the time & I didn't, which is why we always did these at their house. But I would cook for whoever was there and always brought snacks/drinks/desserts, and helped clean up afterward, so her mom was totally fine with it) One weekend it wound up just being the 2 of us. Her mom, little sister, and the gaggle of gigglers were going to a dance at the Community Center. My BF at the time said he might drop by later after he got off from work.

Well, this was the perfect night for anyone but me to watch horror movies. It was dark & stormy, and spooky as hell. Their place was at the end of a row with a slightly overgrown wooded area to the side & rear, so the branches of trees & bushes would sometimes scrape the house when the wind gusted. Sue, knowing that my nerves were on edge, took pity on me and we watched comedies most of the evening, until it was time for Tales From The Crypt. She was dying (heh) to see this episode for some reason because Morton Downey Jr  (bonus points if you remember him) was in it. If I remember correctly, he was a skeptical journalist investigating a haunted house. It was more suspenseful than gory, and even got me interested. As we neared the end of the show, the real life storm started getting REALLY bad, and just as all hell broke loose on the tv show, it broke loose at the house. There was a terrific flash of lightning (we found out later it had hit the transformer half a block down from us) and a horrendous clap of thunder and everything went black.

Naturally, we were a bit taken aback by this. Ok, really, we freaked the fuck out. We're both shrieking and then hear a pounding on the door. We are beyond rational thought at this point. Sue screamed something to the effect of "Oh shit, something's trying to get us, RUN!" And we did. Now it's too bad that nobody had a night vision camera there to film what happened next, because I'm sure it was comedy gold.

Still screaming, flailing around in the dark, we both tried to run for the back door. In the dark, in a small living room crowded with furniture. After falling over things several times, still screaming, with the pounding continuing, we made it to the hall by the kitchen, leading to the back door. With my usual grace, I tripped over an air molecule and went SPLAT, face down. Sue trampled me, still trying to get out. The problem here was that the backdoor had a deadbolt lock...and we didn't have the key.

The front door flew open with a resounding BANG. Sue screamed "Kill her first!" and began alternately throwing her weight against the back door and kicking/pushing me toward the hooded figures in the front door.

Any guesses? Yep. My boyfriend & her mom. Her little sister got sent back to the car when we started screaming, just in case something was going down. (other than me) Chris had gotten there just as the power blew- that was the first pounding we'd heard. Mama C joined him at the door, heard our screams, dropped the keys, and that's why he kept pounding. He was trying to alert the fictitious killer that help was at hand. They finally got the door open, pointed Chris's flashlight in, and once they realized we weren't actually being murdered, laughed their asses off at us. The laughter stopped for a minute or two when I went for Sue's throat for trying to sacrifice me to the potential killers, but they pulled us apart and it was pretty funny once everyone calmed down.

My DVD addiction is in full swing

No review this week. Instead, here's a look at 5 sets I've got waiting to be watched:





Ok, these 2 aren't a shock to anyone familiar with my fairy tale obsession.

MMMM, Castle. I want Nathan Fillion for Christmas, FYI.

Ok, so this veers close to fairy tale territory...

I've heard that this is the best quiz show ever. The clips I've seen on YouTube are terrific. Plus it stars 2 of my favorite Brits, Alan Davies & Stephen Fry, with guest appearances by many other favorites. Can't wait to watch it!

So, I lied. One mini review. Alan Davies as a chef?!? Ok. Sadly, only one season was made of this one. Alan is a narcissistic chef in a country hotel restaurant. Think watered down Gordon Ramsay meets watered down Anthony Bourdain meets Jamie Oliver on the skids. The supporting cast are what make this so interesting- and the talent show episode is a hoot.

Commercials- the good, the bad, and the ugly

Nothing terribly original here, just a rant about television & commericals. I have pretty much gotten to the point where I don't watch much television anymore. My coworkers being unable to work in a quiet atmosphere and insisting on keeping the TV at make-your-ears-bleed volume has been the subject of previous rants, so won't repeat myself. But being FORCED to have a TV on 4-5 days a week means I also see/hear a LOT of commercials. Here is a partial list of the ones I have come to loathe:

1. anything for Old Navy
2. anything featuring diapers, especially the one where the little cartoon babies are having a 'poop-off' and you get to see the diapers 'comically' expand
3. Those #$@^&@& J.D. Wentworth commercials where people sing about having a settlement but needing cash now.
4. Those idiotic Life Alert commericals- especially the obese woman w/the oxygen tube up her nose talking about "I'll give up bread, beer, wine, and soda, but I won't give up my Life Alert!"
5. the nauseating Cancer Treatment Center of America commercials, especially the one where the spouses look like siblings. (before anyone flames me for ragging on a cancer commercial, I have had numerous family members with various forms of cancer. I know how serious it can be and the toll it takes on the entire family, but those commericals just flat out suck)

That said, I can think of 2 commercials I actually like:

1. The car commerical where the family is riding along and suddenly one of the kids starts humming. By the end of the ad, the whole family is rocking out to Ozzy's Crazy Train. LOVE it!

2. The old Free Credit report commercials featuring Eric Violette and his band. Especially the one where they're at the Renaissance Faire. The band they replaced them with isn't nearly as entertaining.

The trainwreck that fascinates me:

There's a local pawn business here in good old Lousyville that does commercials that look like they were shot by the owner's brother on a camcorder. They're so bad that they're funny. The best one was a Village People parody, back around Christmas. The current one is supposed to be a bunch of 'famous' musicians doing a version of Beat It. At least I think that's what it's supposed to be...

Monday Musings- One of my favorite TV shows

Something a little different today, dear readers!  I loved this show when it first aired. The relationship between Hannah & Marty as they fumbled their way into falling in love, the interaction with their friends, loved ones, & coworkers, Hannah's wardrobe...well, it WAS the end of the 80's and cool at the time. I still love it and watch the DVD's repeatedly. My favorite episode is the 2nd one- Hannah thinks she's lost Marty's story in the computer, they have to pull an all-nighter to rewrite it, and a scheming co-worker sends in "romance expert" Anthony Amore (played by an over the top Taylor Negron) to derail their progress. You can tell that the actors were all having a lot of fun with this epsiode by the barely suppressed laughter that is clearly bubbling in them. Jamie Lee & Taylor come very close to cracking in one scene and I suspect it was probably not the first take they had to shoot. Any show that gets the entire cast singing and dancing to "Come A Little Bit Closer" is worth watching!

I keep searching online, hoping to find the later season has been released. John Ritter briefly joined the cast as a fellow journalist and rival for Hannah's affections and those episodes, along with the culmination of the love story were wonderful. Maybe I'll get lucky and find them someday...