definitely, possibly, maybe

i honestly believe that the best show on television at the moment is " gossip girl ." i don't know what that says about me personally. but i know that the show is unadulterated genius. it is also unabashedly ridiculous, and superlative in its excesses, but that all serves to make it so good. years ago, a coworker came up to me and said, "you read ya books don't you?" and handed me the first two books of cecily von ziegesar's gossip girl series. i never bothered to read them until i heard of the show, and so before the fall 2007 season i finally read the books. and they are terrible. not only are they terrible, they are terribly written. just because a book is ya doesn't mean that it isn't written intelligently, or that it doesn't have literary value. but these books, lack it all. i read the first book and skimmed through the second--i didn't have the patience to read through it all. then i simply went to wikipedia and read about how it ...

i have a print vs screen post waiting on "gossip girl" and the gossip girl books. but i want to get it perfect since the show is nearly perfect. plus life keeps getting in the way. i should have more time to post near the end of the week. when i'm home enjoying a green, tropical christmas.

i don't know what happens in december, but time seems to flit away so quickly, and i'm stuck running after it, trying to catch up. i know i shouldn't complain, because i am pretty much all set. my gifts have been purchased, half of them have been wrapped, and i am some what prepared for the various holiday events i have to attend and cook for next week. but i look at my departure date of next thursday and think, i still have so much to do. except now that i am thinking of it, really, it's not that much. and i am going home for the holidays and it really isn't all that much, it's not like traveling to a foreign place where you can't just buy the things you need if you forget them. so i don't know why i feel so crazed. it's likely that i am just over-thinking. and perhaps i am feeling stressed out by the massive amounts of television stored up on my dvr. i already gave up on "heroes" and "desperate housewives," but i'm also cons...

one of my favorite guilty reading pleasures is bridget jones's diary and bridget jones's diary: edge of reason by helen fielding. i re-read the books at least once a year. and every single time i am brought to tears, i'm laughing so damn hard. just typing about them, i remember some of the entries and can't help giggling. i also happen to own the movies by the same titles, and have to say that they do a pretty good job of bringing the character to life. having colin firth play the mark darcy character and hugh grant the caddish daniel cleaver are really what make the movies worthwhile. renee zellweger's british accent is a bit too studied, but she has the right degree of awkwardness and silliness that make her bridget jones seem true to life. the movies were adapted for the screen by andrew davies, who wrote the screenplay for the bbc's " pride & prejudice " adaptation. and he does a wonderful job of making two movies from a slightly incoher...

so i've been annoyed with "grey's anatomy" and this izzie sees denny's ghost storyline, i think it's a cheap knock-off of a bad "general hospital" plot twist, and i think it's really sad that this once enjoyable show has gone so far off the rails. but anyway, now that i know i was right --and don't click on the links if you don't like spoilers--i find myself much more willing to go along for the ride. it's funny how that works. i'm the kind of girl that looks at the end of the books she is still in the middle of reading. why do i do it? i often have guesses as to where the story is going and i like to check to see that i'm right. and i have to say i usually am. and i so still enjoy reading the book through to the end. of course, when i'm wrong, sometimes i feel like my enjoyment of the book is lessened, because what is happening isn't what i want to happen, and somehow it feels wrong to me. (for example, i worry about...

so the wednesday before thanksgiving, there was a "special" episode of gh that focused entirely on robin & patrick and how they were destined to be together. the episode's framing device was this weird dream sequence of robin's that paralleled their relationship, but paired characters and actors who never interact on the standard day-to-day storylines--like robin & matt hunter, patrick & carly, and so on. and honestly, though interesting, it was one of the more unsettling viewing experiences i've had recently. i mean the end message was okay, showing us that robin & patrick are meant to be . but it was still weird. gh has many bad storylines, it's a soap opera, so of course there is a lot of bad with a few shining moments--at least that's how i would describe it lately--and sonny & claudia engaging in a redux of sonny & carly version 1 is pretty bad, as is the "russians have jake" shenanigans that seem to be the end of l...

i am inordinately fond of young adult fiction. some of it is terrible and trashy, but there are some real, serious, literary novels, such as laurie halse andersen's speak . but the book/movie pairing i'm going to cover is a little more frivolous and fun, but is also a really good, fun read and an enjoyable (for the most part) movie-viewing experience. nick and norah's infinite playlist [the book] and nick and norah's infinite playlist [the movie] are simply good fun. the book is composed of alternating chapters told from either nick or norah's point of view and cover the events of one (special and amazing) night. The book leaves you feeling good, as if anything were possible--it captures the possiblities of adolescence perfectly. The book is inherently sweet, though not saccharine, touching on homosexuality and promiscuity as a matter of course. nick and norah find themselves thrown together and then in pursuit of each other and the novel's conceit of alternat...

today we give thanks. and there are many things to be thankful for. but i won't bore people by listing all those things. i'm sure i could go on and on. i love many things about thanksgiving, surprisingly not so much the turkey which is fine, but the pumpkin pie, the sweet potatoes, the warmth from the oven, the football games (even though they're terrible this year), the fact that this kicks off the christmas season. anyway, i just thought these things were worth mentioning.

when i was little i always wanted to be a spy when i grew up. i specifically wanted to be a russian spy--which does seem rather unpatriotic--but in my defense they seemed more glamorous and sexy and more likely to be female during the cold war. and while i do enjoy spy movies (see simply bond ), i really love spy shows. "alias" is one of my all time favorite shows. the first two seasons are masterpieces, and though seasons three to five are roller coaster rides in terms of quality and even enjoyment, it still remains at the top of the list. what worked for the show in its first season was the balancing of life, friends and family, who lived outside the business of spying, the double agent suspense and danger, and the sexy spy handler. the latter being my favorite aspect of the show. sydney bristow was the embodiment of who i wanted to be when i grew up. except that she wasn't a russian spy. sydney kicked some serious ass, rocked some awesome and ridiculous costumes, and ...

in honor of today's finale of "true blood" i thought comparing the show to the original charlaine harris novels would make an excellent topic for my print versus screen feature. the sookie stackhouse/southern vampire series currently spans a total of eight full length novels and a handful of related novellas/short stories. i've read all the full length novels, and plan to catch up with the short stories at some point. a ninth book in the series is scheduled to be published in may 2009, which i personally cannot wait to read. because the events in the first season of "true blood" correspond to the events that take place in the first sookie stackhouse novel, dead until dark , i've decided to limit my comparison to only that novel and to speak in generalities. i particularly don't want to spoil things for people who haven't read the novels, but are enjoying the show. there are a couple of major differences between the books and the television seri...

i'd never really paid much attention to james bond . i knew of him, but i had never really watched any of the films. recently we've acquired the box set of all of the bond films, and have begun watching them in order, beginning with dr. no . (this is not to say that i had never seen a james bond film, in fact, i'd already watched casino royale and have seen a couple of the roger moore films.) but seeing how it all began, with sean connery, is quite an experience. there is a bit more humor, more suaveness to bond in the earlier days. sean connery's bond is a sardonic wit, he loves the ladies, but he loves the business of spying the best. and he's also insanely proud of his legs, leaving them bare at every opportunity. even if roger moore was a more buffoonish bond, and his bond does do a number of improbably silly things, there is something innately ridiculous about sean connery's lack of pants in the first four bond films. in thunderball , he spends an insane a...

i watch a lot of television, and i love it. i generally prefer tv over movies. i like the ongoing story of television, when i love a character, i love them. i want to know them. and you can do that with a tv show, you can get to know the characters in depth. i get overly involved with tv shows, in fact i've divorced shows when i've felt that they were being untrue to their characters and sacrificing character development over plot [ "dawson's creek" i'm looking at you!]. i'll explain the mechanics of divorcing a show in another post. anyway, the point of this ramble is that lately i've not been interested in keeping up with my television shows. it seems like there is a dearth of creativity on network tv these days. the shows i genuinely look forward to, those are few and far between, and because they tend to not be mainstream there is the constant threat of cancellation that looms. so it's hard to get invested. i watch a lot of crap half-heartedl...

relationships with ex-boyfriends are a strange thing. i was never really friends with any of my exes, and until facebook i pretty much only stayed in contact with one of them. now, almost all my exes are on facebook and we've become facebook friends. so when i get the occasional message or chat or wall post, i can't help but feel a little weirded out. i mean, it's just funny what i remember and don't remember about them. we were clearly a part of each others' pasts, and now we have to prompt one another to remember things that we used to know. i don't know. it's weird. i know people who have broken up, and have continued to be close friends, even through subsequent relationships. i always thought that could only happen on television, where by necessity the characters play a merry-go-round of partners. but i've actually seen friends be exes the way gh 's robin and jason are . and i still think that's weird. i understand genuinely caring about ...

i'm utterly useless on mondays. it seems to take me half the day to become somewhat productive. mondays consist of attending a slew of early morning meetings, answering e-mails that accumulated over the weekend, and sitting at my desk clicking around on my computer waiting to be inspired to get my stuff done. i write out to do lists that go unchecked. i fret about my inability to be more efficient. i'm actually not inefficient. i'm just unfocused, if something needs attention i can usually take care of it quickly. it's the time before the crisis and after its solution that i worry about. because i spend a lot of time on things i can't quantify. tuesdays and thursdays are my best work days. tuesdays i actually do what i originally intended to accomplish on monday and thursdays i accomplish what i want done by friday. the other three work days, though not wasted, are studies in how i manage to waste time while looking productive. hmm. that might be a secret talent. i...

"general hospital" and i go back a long time. i've been watching since 1992, and i'm dating myself here, the summer before high school started. i've been watching for 16 years. it's pretty crazy to quantify it like that. the 90s were a golden age for gh . i have no idea who was writing for the show, but at the time the hospital still played a central role, the mob hadn't taken over, and the stories had heart and emotional pull. bj and maxie, robin and stone, karen and jagger, ned and lois, sonny and brenda, lucy and kevin, mac and felicia, luke and laura, sean and tiffany, bobbie and tony, carly and aj, lucky and elizabeth, felicia and frisco, ned and julia, nicholas and katherine, scott and dominique, emily and zander, brenda and jax, sonny and lily, scott and lucy, emily and nicholas, stefan and katherine, tracy and paul, alexis and ned, robin and jason, paul and julia, carly and sonny... well, needless to say there are many pairings in soaps, and that...

i've decided to have a regular feature that covers books i've read and the movies and television series that re-interpret them. i'm calling this feature print versus screen . first up i thought i'd discuss my all time favorite book pride & prejudice by jane austen. i own three different editions of pride & prejudice . i love my first edition dearly--a paperback signet reprint from 1980. i bought this at a local bookstore called bell, book and candle in san juan, puerto rico when i was still in high school. i've read this book so often that the covers have been taped to the spine, and when reading the pages of the entire first volume fall out in your hand. this is the edition i read when i feel sick, sad, or depressed. it's like my velveteen rabbit of books. to preserve the book from completely falling to pieces, while we were still dating my husband bought me a lovely new edition from modern library classics as a gift for our first valentine's ...

maybe this only disturbs me because i feel alluded to, but this article i came across is definitely food for thought. i mean i watch a lot of television. all told i believe i watch at least 19 hours of television per week, which is the average for a happy person, but doesn't include any unscheduled television viewing like reruns of seinfeld and the simpsons. i don't think of myself as a happy person. but i wouldn't say i'm unhappy either. there has to be some middle ground between absolute happiness and despair. i think that's where i tend to be emotionally. i overthink things entirely too much to ever be completely worry-free. i remember too many things to be able to shake off the past easily. i like television because it provides a means of escape. i watch because i enjoy it. i watch because it takes me somewhere else, it allows me to escape the day to day of my everyday life. the good news here is that i'm not much of a channel surfer. i don't watch much...

i've always been able to forgive "grey's anatomy " 's more self-indulgent transgressions, i.e. meredith dying and having visions of kyle chandler and denny while in a coma, the improbable sexual hijinks between a small sampling of characters, etc. however, this thursday's episode, where denny once again paid izzie stevens a ghostly visit, was even a bit much for me. as a device i don't generally appreciate ghosts, in this particular case it seems more that the writers were looking for a way to recapture the chemistry of seasons past. to be honest, i never really loved the denny storyline when it was somewhat plausible. so this latest appearance is most unwelcome. and i can't help but think that this is going in the izzie steven's has a brain tumor direction. here's what troubles me, usually it is "general hospital " stealing storylines from " grey's anatomy ", but this time around it seems that grey's is doing the...

i've been thinking lately of friendship, of love, of the past, future, present. sometimes i think i watch too much television, read too many romance novels. when i watch television, or when i read romance, i have this feeling, this exhilarating feeling, an emotional high that washes over me. and it's so disappointing when it doesn't last. i love triangles. the way they connect, the shape a perfect three sides. love triangles are my favorite kind of triangle. (though i do also really like isosceles triangles, if only because i like the word.) the best kind of love triangle has the good girl character in the midst of it end up with the bad boy. this bad boy usually has a tough exterior hiding a mushy, vulnerable core. the best television examples of this involve some of my favorite bad boys. pacey witter. ben covington. james "sawyer" ford. alex karev. spike. what i love most about these bad boys is that they are so damaged. they carry so much baggage. they are comp...