Daily Archives: August 4, 2008

Momma Stays Up Late-ish and Watches the Teen Choice Awards and then Blogs About it, Because She Can

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So I went back and forth, trying to decide if I should spend the night blogging or watch the Teen Choice Awards? Then I thought to myself, why not do both?? I was a little embarrassed to be watching it, truth be told and kind of glad dh had gone to sleep so he didn’t have to witness it but I also didn’t have to give up the idea of watching it. At 25 years old, I’m too old to be considered a “teen” but young enough to remember what hip is – I follow a lot of the same social trends that teens do, and rarely have an outlet for it, since my son is only 2 and doesn’t care at all if I’m cool or not.

Anyhow, here are my thoughts, mostly raw, thought up while I watched it; I seemed to spend most of the 2 hours sitting at my computer, typing quick notes, while craning my neck trying not to miss anything good – like Will Smith’s acceptance speech for his role as “an alcoholic superhero” in Hancock – he was so cute and nerdy, totally trying to make a meaningful message to the young audience and it actually made me like him even more, as if his long standing reputation for wowing me might not be enough somehow – I mean, seriously, he had me “In West Philadelphia, born and raised…” but now he’s a cool dad and do gooder and I’m loving on him even more.

Adam Sandler’s speech was also hysterical if a bit mumbled and awkward, probably on purpose and um, a balloon filled with urine? Really? I love him though and I was so proud of teens today for voting for him over some of the other, maybe younger comediens that I would have expected.

I was also of course a big fan of the whole Do Gooder aspect to the awards show, which was also dubbed the Green Choice Awards – a lot of the presenters and winners talked about the importance of making a difference in the world and just a general message of being humble and there being more to celebrity status than fame – the Teen Choice Awards website wrote on their news section:

If you are attending TEEN CHOICE 2008 why not take the bus or subway and you could receive a special gift from the Global Inheritance TRASHed Recycling Store (http://gettrashed.org). Show your bus, subway ticket or Metro or EZ pass at the information booth located in front of the Gibson Amphitheatre and you will receive a special gift. Items may vary (cards, hats, and other promotional items) and while supplies last. Remember a full bus can take over forty cars off the road and each person taking public transportation reduces their carbon emissions.

An example of a winner with a head on her shoulders? Choice TV Actress in an Action Adventure was Hayden Panettiere from Heroes, which I’ve never seen but always thought about watching and now I kind of want to even more. She said some pretty awesome stuff about female empowerment and it brought back old school memories of the series finale to Buffy, when she gives her power to all women, so we can all be the slayer, and all kick butt… yeah I have to say this whole humbleness and giving back and caring about more than makeup and money theme is pretty cool and I actually really enjoyed watching the show a lot if only for that reason – the mother in me hugely approves of all of these winners and their humbleness and role model oozingness. And the girl in me was still able to go “omg – it’s [insert hunky star here]!” Thank goodness hubby went to sleep early tonight!!

So then there was this whole ACDC vs. Miley & Mandy Cru Dance Battle (ACDC features Jon M. Chu and Adam Sevani from Step Up 2: The Streets which I again haven’t seen, but both guys look so silly and sweet and they dance wicked good obviously) I’ve heard of this whole Dance Battle before but never checked it out online until tonight, seeing ACDC dance on the show – they were AMAZING – stay tuned for my opinion on M&M, but in the meantime, here’s a YouTube video with some dancing awesomeness:

The Jonas Bros. were all over the awards, with their question answering and “Look How Cute We Are” -ing and their “flying” shtick which would have been cooler if the strings weren’t so obvious and the corniness wasn’t so immense. I guess in this instance, I’m just too damned old. But seriously, the Jonas Bros. won so many awards they now have more surf boards than brothers – looks like they’ll be needing some dates to surf with. ;) Something tells me arranging that wouldn’t be a problem at all.

I was pretty bummed that stars like Ellen Page (Juno) and the James Marsden and Katie Heigel from 27 Dresses got overhshadowed by that ‘The Secret Life of the American Teenager‘ tv show – people actually watch that? And then Lauren Conrad from The Hills gets to come up and talk but JOHNNY DEPP doesn’t?? Seriously?? Maybe he and Ellen Page just had better things to do that night? How else would they get snubbed like that, because they are like brilliant compared to Whats Her Face and Those Other Guys.

Greys Anatomy not winning wasn’t a big surprise, as I didn’t think teens watched it, but it was my favorite pick for TV Drama – no big surprise when Gossip Girl won though – it is a pretty good show and the cast seems very cool and down to earth, and Blake Lively is like absolutely stunning and you know everyone thinks so. Then, Get Smart won for best movie comedy – I haven’t seen it YET but i adore the cast and by cast I mean Ann Hathaway and Steve Carrell was funny Stressing Every Word In His Acceptance Speech!!!! Yeah, moving on…

Mariah Carey dressed modestly for her, skankaliciously for normal people – the blue and yellow combination was interesting to say the least – the concept works for me, but in all it’s skin tight barely there glory, yetch, made me want to jump on polyvore and make a blue yellow themed set so I could appreciate the color combo but stop being forced to look at HER. Randy Jackson introducing her made the whole thing kind of cooler, but seriously, “I’ll Be Loving You Long Time” is that a joke or is she for real? I am sure Asian men everywhere were snickering to themselves, thinking, “Mariah, I love you long time, too.” She is gorgeous though – and with a great voice, but she’s just one of those people I prefer to listen to on the radio to watching a video, hence why I was grooving out to the song mid snicker while I typed this so I didn’t have to watch – I do love it when she  does that weird half shriek high note thing she’s so famous for…

Scarlett Johansen was all looking stunning and being fabulous, though her jewelry choice seemed like it wasn’t sure if it wanted to be classically antique or classically too much, however since she was presenting for something as cool as best REAL LIFE HERO, I won’t comment on her wardrobe but instead tell you more about Chad Bullock who won for his anti-smoking campaign on dosomething.org – Bullock lost his grandfather to lung cancer so it’s a very important issue to him – dosomething gave him $100,000 to continue his anti-smoking efforts. Very cool.

LL Cool J (so hot! with a new album coming out sep 9) and Natasha Beddingfield (love her) gave the award for choice music male artist to Chris Brown. I’m still not sure who Chris Brown is? Anyone know? Any relation to Charlie?

So then the Dance Battle continued and don’t get me wrong Miley and her little bestie were good but they were NOT nearly as good as ACDC – it almost felt like they were not really trying, like they want ACDC to win in a kind of Under Dog Rising kind of thing – oh I don’t know, there was that guy dancing with M&M who had ACDC scrawled on his chest? They DID have LL Cool J who you may have noticed I loooove something fierce – his presence is so intoxicating, when he yelled to the audience to throw their hands in the air, I almost did (I totally chickened out and refrained though despite there being nobody there to know if I did or didn’t). But then just to psych me out, M&M totally won, showing there is no justice in this world and that sometimes my crazy conspiracy theories are just that… who knew? I guess LL Cool J does kind of have that effect on some people…

Ashton Kutcher “surfing” was so much funnier than Jerry O’Connell trying to be funny or something but I think I’m still mad at him for leaving Jennifer Garner’s character in Juno because I refuse to acknowledge when some things are fiction and other things aren’t and don’t care that Garner is married to Ben Affleck (she likes him for some reason) so probably wasn’t too upset at losing O’Connell fakely via Juno…

Then the Davids came on (you know, the Idol Davids – I don’t have to clarify, do I? Seriously?). The hubby and I were big David Fans last season – he was all about David C, I’m a huge David A fan – so it was fun duking out to the end, even if he did win, I guess. Anyway… David Cook and my David Archuleta came on to give an award to someone and they “bickered” over who got be called “David” and yeah it was kind of funny, like the inside joke we’ve been waiting months for someone to mention, and then David A was all cute and “whatever” and I was all “aww, you are so awkward it’s adorable” I mean… I don’t have a crush or anything, I just love a boy that sings The Beatles oh so well is all, I swear…

And then Miley Cirus got an award, like I care – she’s famous for doing weird YouTube videos and posting racy pictures of herself, right? Oh and she sings? Or something? Hannah Who? Who cares?? Just because she wishes she were Amanda Bynes doesn’t mean she should pretend to be that cool anyway… Maybe if I followed her, I’d find her humor funny but she kinda just comes off as “I’m cooler than you and know it” to me, call me crazy – much like the Jonas Brothers, her “oh I’m so surprised you like me but not really” bit is kind of getting old for me quick…

But then they gave awards to the Choice Male and Female Hotties, and it was funny when all 3 Jonas Bros were called one “hottie” but anyway seriously all the “hotties” were too young for me to find hot, but the winners were Vanessa Hudgens (who clearly needs a script to sound intelligent and seems to think being voted a Hottie is monumentally important and not just fluff made funny mostly just by the hysterical presenters talking about it beforehand – I’m sorry presenters, I can’t remember your names but I think you rock…) and The Jonas Brothers, who maybe needed more Surf Boards? Yeah big surprise. ::yawn:: Then the Jonas Brothers thanked their mom and dad which was funny, because yeah I guess they are the ones technically responsible for the Bros. being hotties or notties…

Veronica Mars, I mean Kristen Bell came on, after not being introduced for VM but Heroes because everyone except me has moved on. She and some buff hottie named Josh gave an award for sports, which only interests me because David Beckham is GORGEOUS and married to Posh Spice and they are besties with Tom and Katie, one of my favorite Red Carpet Couples and Posh and Katie are the inspiration behind my hair cut, and none of this really matters but it’s pretty much all I have to say on the subject of sports, so yeah… His British accent is to die for… And he brought his 3 boys on stage and he looked gorgeous and yeah I was pleased.

And well, this was a bit out of order, and possibly boring, but those were my thoughts while watching the Teen Choice Awards this year, and there you have it, I managed to both blog and watch a silly awards show tonight – I know you are so very proud of me.

If 1,000 points are up for grabs, but nobody tries to grab them, were they really there?

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I really thought more people would be interested in playing the fun Famous First Words meme I posted like a week ago, but only one person left me comments and she didn’t know any of the lines – are they really that hard or did nobody feel like playing that day? Maybe you meant to comment, but your computer crashed mid-reply? Maybe you were abducted by aliens who cleared out your cache? Maybe you just started reading my blog yesterday and haven’t gone far back enough on mommablogsalot archives (try it, it’s fun!) to play along? Well just in case, I’m giving you all one last chance – if anybody decides to play along, I’ll post the answers on Friday.

To make it EVEN easier for you, I won’t make you trek back to the original post, but rather I’ll insert a “quote” here with all the crucial info:

1,000 points to whoever can guess all 11 books. Points are redeemable in the form of bragging rights, of course.

  1. “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.” I almost didn’t use this book, because – come on, seriously, how big of a hint do you need, but it is my favorite book so I can’t delete it in good conscience.
  2. “You think you know how this story is going to end, but you don’t.” Do you?
  3. “My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down.” Not very telling of the awesome that is to come in this one…
  4. “In a valley shaded with rhododendrons, close to the snow line, where a stream milky with meltwater splashed and where doves and linnets flew among the immense pines, lay a cave, half-hidden by the crag above the stiff heavy leaves that clustered below.” A mouthful!!
  5. “Please tell me that’s not going to be part of my birthday dinner this evening.”
  6. “There are some men who enter a woman’s life and screw it up forever.” Ain’t that the truth…
  7. “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.” Another terribly easy one, in my opinion anyway.
  8. “The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.” Seriously?
  9. “On the morning of October 4, 1899, Elizabeth Adora Holland — the eldest daughter of the late Mr. Edward Holland and his widow, Louisa Gansevoort Holland — passed into the kingdom of heaven.” Should be obvious if you’ve read the book – a total mystery, otherwise.
  10. “Marley was dead: to begin with.” Anyone who doesn’t know this one is just seriously fired from life. Sorry.
  11. “My father had a face that could stop a clock.” Anyone who knows this one, can be my new BFF.

See, wasn’t that fun? Don’t you know like ALL the answers? Collect your 1,000 points today by commenting below! But to warn you – write down your answers before looking at the comments or you might cheat by accident, and that would be bad, bad very bad!! Nobody likes a cheater!

ps: To all my truly devoted readers who use RSS feeds because it’s better, head over to my blog and see my NEW LAYOUT – it’s prettier than ever!(ish)

Monday Morning: Favorite Things, Concerning Things and Future Things…

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Hope you are all having a wonderful Monday morning, as opposed to an OCIM. MM and I are having a pretty normal Laundry Day Monday, and right now we’re in between loads, and MM is entranced in Dragon Tales, so without further adieu, it’s time to post Monday Morning, a fun little meme hosted by one of my favorite bloggers, Write From Karen.

August 4th Questions:

1. School is around the corner for many of us. Have you started your back-to-school shopping yet? Do you get all of your back-to-school shopping done at one time? Or do you spread it out? Do you make back-to-school shopping special or fun for the kids? Or is it just another shopping trip? What about back-to-school clothes shopping? Do you budget what you’re going to spend on your childrens’ wardrobes, or do you pay more attention to sales? Any back-to-school shopping tips you wish to share?

Our kiddo is only 2 and hubby and I are out of school as well so there is no back to school shopping for us in the near future – I do look forward to it though, I have this strange love of school supplies that is truly inexplicable.

2. Is there a website/blog that you visit on a daily basis? Why this specific website/blog? How long have you been visiting this website/blog? Now list your next top two favorite websites/blogs (and yes, I know this is a hard question, but list the ones you REALLY look forward to reading). WHY do you love these websites/blogs so much?

I’m going to mention websites AND blogs, just to make this answer even longer. And then the truth is, trying to choose my top 3 favorite blogs? I’m staring at 8 right now, willing one of them to be less fabulous – if you know me, you know I hate making choices, so I want Adventures of an American Mum, Supernanny Where Are You, An Island Life, Jonniker, and Finslippy to know – I really really wanted to list you here, because all your posts either crack me up, make me  think, and / or intrigue me for hours on end – but if I don’t list Write From Karen (who always cracks me up with her realness, is a writer like me (like outside of blogging) and hosts her own memes and contests and makes me wish I were that good), The McMommy Chronicles (who is probably the funniest, most awesome mommy blog on the block and writes the best guest posts ever) and John Mayer‘s blog (more on that later), I’ll never forgive myself.

The all time favorite? Sorry mommies, but John Mayer’s blog always always always cracks me up – to be fair, he is a professional singer songwriter with far more fodder than we could ever hope for – so don’t feel too bad – if you were a gorgeous famous dating Jennifer Aniston, singing to me about Count Chocula and umbrellas Guy Blogger, I might have chosen you.

But wait, what about favorite websites that aren’t blogs? I must visit some of them, too, right? Well if you must know Polyvore (make awesome outfits in a magazine layout kind of way – the ultimate in daydreaming for free), Google Reader (the best RSS reader around) and Goodreads (organize your ever growing list of books read, and books to read, and see what your friends are reading, too!) are probably my favorite websites that aren’t obvious guesses like Facebook or Myspace which I also visit daily but then, who doesn’t?

My favorite site that I check daily, would be Google Reader – without which I wouldn’t possibly be able to keep up with all my favorite bloggers, read the latest XKCD comic (I’ve tried to warn you how terrible nerdy I am, here’s even more proof), and keep up to date on the latest from People Magazine, Grey’s Anatomy gossip and more.

3. What book have you started with low expectations, and finished with tears in your eyes it was so good? Now please share with us a book that you think people MUST read. Why this book?

Honest? The Harry Potter series I began with utterly low expectations – my uncle recommended it to me and I had nothing better to do – and before I knew it I was in love with the darned series, an uber fan, and I’ve now read all the books, see all the movies and yeah I won’t go on because this post is already getting far lengthier than I anticipated. Now for the book everyone must read now – Lamb by Christopher Moore – if none of my previous posts have intrigued you enough to check it out – do it now!! This book was so good I had withdrawls for months afterward. I lived and breathed this book – and bonus points, it’s a totally good read for guys and  girls alike, so you can force your hubbies to read it, too, and they might even like it more than you, if not at least as much as you! Do it now!

4. Are you concerned about credit and/or identity theft? What do you do to try and prevent it? How often do you shred documents and change your passwords? Have you ever checked your credit reports? Why or why not?

According to my husband identity theft is far, far more damaging and worth fretting over than credit theft, and I thought about explaining why but realized I’m not smart enough to do it well – maybe if he reads this, he’ll comment and share.

We try to shred anything that has a sign up form attatched, so people can’t sign up with something in our name, anything with bank account or credit card info on it, social security numbers, etc. that we are throwing away. My husbands passwords are impossible to hack so I’m sure he doesn’t worry about it, and may or may not change them – I wouldn’t know and would never notice as they mean nothing to anyone. My password is something you’d have to know me awfully well to guess – I don’t change it often though I tweak it occasionally – I have a bad memory and too many things to memorize, but if it’s something important I try to use something else.

I’ve never checked my credit report, because I’ve never really needed to. We have no loans, no major purchases in the future – we may check it if we’re ever getting ready to do something like that though.