Lost Girl

by The TV Guy

When looking for new television to occupy my time, I turn to my friends at Netflix. My newest series come from our fine neighbors from the Great White North. Lost Girl is a sci-fi crime drama with fights, wolves, and a succubus. This is a twist on good and evil that follows the dark and light sides of the Fae, an ancient people that have lived side by side without human knowledge of their existence.

Bo, the succubus, has moved to town where she finally finds out why she is so different. She never understood her power and assumed there was no one like her. She killed her first boyfriend by sucking the life out of him by accident. The show is a chronicle of her coming to terms with her power and her grand decision, to pick a side, either light or dark.

The show is on SyFy network, now entering its third season. So if you like this genre, you will enjoy this one.

Phoenix Zoo

What are you looking at?

The Phoenix Zoo is the best zoo I’ve ever been to.  Granted, I haven’t been to that many… maybe San Diego and Philadelphia.  I liked this zoo because they have it set up so that you’re able to take pictures of most of the animals without cage lines.  The animals have great habitats, and they mix animals when appropriate, which is why I have some really great pictures.  Rabbits and birds are everywhere, just hanging out with the other animals.

 

 

 

They have a giraffe exhibit, and you can actually feed the giraffes.  They’re so big, but so gentle, with super long tongues.  Because it wasn’t busy, one of the zoo employees was happy to stand there for awhile and tell us all about giraffes and answer our questions.  We stood pretty close to them.  For safety, they had us stand back a bit, as giraffes can get pretty big, and their head can weigh about 75 pounds.  If they turn their heads too fast, they can easily knock over a grown man!

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s nothing common about me!

 

There’s also an exhibit with squirrel monkeys, in which you can go into a big room, and we were right there with them.  They do their monkey thing while we tried to catch them on camera.

The Phoenix zoo also does some conservation work, in which they raise animals specifically for release into the wild.

I Feel Dumber

My sister in law and brother in law are in town, and one of the things we like to do together is play board games at night.  It’s sort of a family tradition.

Well, we went to Target for some Play-Doh, since the clay in our Cranium dried up.  While we were there, we decided to look for a new version of Trivial Pursuit, since ours is from…. well, it’s old.

They had some classic games, like Scrabble and Clue, but they also had a Storage Wars game.  And not a single Trivial Pursuit to be found.  So we looked in electronics, figuring that would be a perfect X-box or Wii game with live updating.  Nope.  We tried Wal-Mart, since Wal-mart usually has pretty much everything.  Does no one sell Trivial Pursuit???  When did the game go away??

We ended up buying a game called bezzerwizzer, which is fun, but it’s no Trivial Pursuit.  The questions are mixed for easy and hard, and there are more categories.  You can also steal attractive categories from other people and steal questions.

You know, sometimes I say that I think people are dumber, but I don’t really mean it.  Kids know more and harder stuff than they used to.  Maybe it’s laziness?  We don’t want to think too hard during leisure time.  I found some versions of Trivial Pursuit on Amazon, but they look like older versions.  Where’s my updated version?

Either way, we had fun, and that’s what matters.  We have a new game, but it’s not the same without Trivial Pursuit…

Zeitgeist

by The TV Guy

Freedom’s just another word….

We all survived the Mayan apocalypse as it were. The world did not come to a screeching halt or hurtle the Earth into turmoil of floods and fires and other sorts of neat-o end of the world shenanigans.

So, great! We are still in debt up to our eyeballs, our government is limping along, and we are still at war in two countries.  What if it was all a plan contrived by the government to put more money in the pockets of the bankers and industrialists of the world?

Zeitgeist – The Movie suggests just that and quite a bit of scary stuff about 9-11. This documentary was an interesting watch with all the common themes of government corruption and stealing from the poor to give to the rich themes running throughout.

I will not give an opinion on this one for the most logical of reasons. *Wink*

If this is true, nothing we say or think is our own and we are but slaves to something greater than we ever knew.

Enjoy?

The Biggest Loser, Newest Season

So Sad!

I am a fan of many of the reality shows. I enjoy The Voice, Deadliest Catch and even So you think you can Dance. In the past I had been a huge fan of the Biggest Loser. My opinion has soured on the long time reality series that helps morbidly obese people change their lives. Jillian Michaels is a great trainer with all kinds of products and endorsements. She lives in a world of the super skinny and gym rat crowd that judges those who struggle with their weight. The few minutes I watched disgusted me; she is ridiculous and unrealistic when working with people of the size of many of her participants. People were passing out and the paramedics on scene were hopping from person to person. The quality show I once enjoyed has become unwatchable and a shame. Do people need encouragement and need to be pushed at times? Absolutely!! Her brand of “tough love” was disturbing and painful to watch. So this season I will watch something else.

In the Cards

These days, cards are paper with some sort of plastic sheen.  They’re not usually very pretty, but do their job for a couple games of Rummy or Go Fish.  Most of my decks actually have 52 (yes, I play with a full deck- haha), but I can’t imagine any of my decks getting passed on to someone else, and especially not for 400 years!

A 400 year old set of silver and gold playing cards has been discovered.  The cards probably were meant to be art for a collector, and not really meant to be played, but it’s still interesting that they managed to stay together all this time.

You can check out the original article, if you’re interested, here.

Nashville

by the TV Guy’s Stepmother

Best new show of the season-how many times have we heard that?  This time, it’s true. Nashville, one of ABC’s dramas introduced in the fall, has so far lived up to the hype.

Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere (both of whom do their own singing, and do it well) star as the fading country music star, Rayna, and her young, and fierce, competitor, Juliette, respectively. Took til episode two to have a handle on all of the characters (maybe that’s just me), but they are all worth knowing. There’s love, and lust, and lies;there’s a political race, up and coming musicians, more lust, more lies.

Rayna’s father is powerful and manipulative; Juliettes’s mother is a hopeless addict. Their parenting skills (or lack of them) play a large part in the lives of their offspring.

With many (but not too many) storylines and lots of plot turns, this show is fun-wondering where they found all the beautiful people with great voices… but it works!

Nashville should be back soon with new episodes-if you missed the first half of the season, find it on NetFlix or On Demand, and catch up so you’re ready.

The Chernobyl Diaries- A Review

I love horror movies, and sometimes, the worse they are, the better.  I love campy, cheesy, ridiculous horror.  I also love real horror, the kind that makes me shiver and makes it hard to go to sleep.

The Chernobyl Diaries was neither.

It had such potential.  The idea is great.  A group of five young people want to go exploring in Russia, and an “extreme tour guide” offers to take them to Pripyat, the city abandoned by the people who worked at Chernobyl.  The town is set up with all the right creep factor: a broken down Ferris Wheel, abandoned apartments, broken pictures.

As they’re about to leave town for the night, the car won’t start, and they find that the wires to some car part have been chewed.  So now, the six of them are stuck in an old van in a dark, abandoned town, surrounded by something.

It’s got all the right elements, right?

It just fell flat.  I can’t say why I didn’t like it or what would have made it better.  I just know that I was ready to turn it off about a half hour before the end of the movie, and it wasn’t a long movie.  One thing I definitely didn’t like was that it was filmed using the “shaky camera method,” but none of the group were filming it.  The shaky camera was for what?  Effect?  It was pointless in context, and did nothing to add to the movie.

Even if you’re a horror fan, I probably wouldn’t bother seeing this one, not even for free.

 

Superjail!

by the TV Guy

Adult swim has done it again with this twisted animated psychedelic trip to, of all places, jail. The prison or “Superjail” is run by The Warden, a psychotic Willy Wonka-esque character. The Warden often places the prisoners in danger for his own sadistic pleasure. All the while maintaining his jovial warped perspective on hard time.

There is so much going on that at times ones mind is overwhelmed by the bright colors and jerky movement. The viewer could benefit from watching a episode more than once to take it all in.

With all that said!!!…

There is little or no redeeming value to be gleaned from this romp through the demented minds of its creators, its just obscure freakishly odd animated pleasure.

Enjoy!!

Phones, Food, and Fun

I had a rare Friday night off, and my husband and I went out to dinner.  Because it was crowded in the restaurant, we opted to sit at the sushi bar at Ra.  Jesus was our sushi chef, and he was very pleasant, talking to us throughout the meal and answering all our questions about rolls he was making for other people.

My husband and I didn’t talk about it, but we both tried a new thing… no phones at dinner.  I managed to get through a meal without Words with Friends or email.  My husband didn’t check the news.  Now, I’m not gonna pretend that it went like our first date, where the waiter had to come back four or five times because we were too busy talking to figure out what to eat, but we found that we had plenty to talk about.

On my way to wash my hands, I looked around the restaurant.  There was a group of people making noise and laughing.  Know what I noticed?  Not one person in that group was looking at or holding a cell phone.  In another corner, a couple sat, looking bored.  The glow of a cell phone showed from under the table.

I don’t know which came first, the lack of conversation or the cell phone, but I just know that something’s gotta give.  Why go out to dinner with one another if you aren’t going to talk?  If you just want to surf the internet, shouldn’t you just order in and eat at home?

Can you imagine reading that in a romance novel?  Sexy Man gazed deeply into Gorgeous Woman’s eyes and smiled.  “I’m so glad we’re finally getting to do this.”

“So am I,” she replied.

They placed their order, and silence fell for a moment.  She gazed thoughtfully into the flickering candle flame on the table, then took out her cell phone and updated her status to reflect, “Gorgeous Woman just checked in with Sexy Man at Trendy Restaurant.”  He grabbed his phone and scowled as he read the news.

Romantic, huh?

I challenge you: next time you go for dinner, keep the cell phone off in a pocket or a purse.  Even if at first, you have nothing to talk about, see what happens.  A conversation just might grow out of the quiet.