definitely, possibly, maybe

so i recently watched confessions of a shopaholic , and well, it wasn't good. having read the books [at least the first three in the series] i knew that i couldn't expect too much of the story or the characters, but i love isla fisher, so i decided to give it a chance anyway. i often wonder at how popular this series is. i mean, the books themselves are not badly written, but rebecca bloomwood has to be one of the most singularly idiotic characters ever written. from book one she has a hard time managing money, goes to crazy lengths to hide the extent of her shopping addiction and inevitably ends up hurting the people she is closest to and then making it up to them. [even bridget jones exhibited some growth in edge of reason .] and then becky does the same thing over again in shopaholic takes manhattan and in shopaholic ties the knot . the thing is, if it were a novel about drug or alcohol addiction where the character struggles with relapses and destroys their life w...

so there are these three books that appear early on in my grandmother's collection of harlequin romances that look slightly different from the rest. and as i was reading another of the books [ love is eternal by yvonne whittal] i noticed a blow-in advertising an set of four harlequin romances to introduce new readers to the series. the cover images on the ad looked pretty familiar! and when i looked a little closer, lo and behold, three out of the four books in the introductory set matched ones in her collection. i can only assume that she didn't particularly like the fourth book [she used to throw away the ones she didn't like, however due to the wonders of ebay i've managed to track it down and will post about it once i've had a chance to read it]. from what i've gathered from her collection, she must have bought a few one-offs before subscribing to the service. #884 cap flamingo by violet winspear back cover copy: "you must marry me right now!"...

i've caught up on a week's worth of episodes of "general hospital" and have to admit that it is always a roller coaster ride. [except the more i think about it, the roller coaster would be a pretty terrible one that mostly stayed straight and close to the floor and had an occasional loop that would exhilarate you and then nauseate you just a quickly.] from the sublime: robin and patrick singing " i had the time of my life " was possible one of the most enjoyable things to happen on gh in a long time. the best thing about the whole karaoke evening was that you could clearly see how much fun everyone was having. you could see that these people genuinely enjoy each other's company. there's not often a lot of joy on gh so every little bit of it counts. and picking a song from dirty dancing was actually genius. song choice being key to every karaoke perfomance, both kimberly mccullough and jason thompson sold it. i started watching gh the summer kare...

i'm the kind of girl who needs to go to the movies with people. i don't like to go by myself. since most of the movies i enjoy don't require a big screen for maximum enjoyment, i have made a habit of watching things on dvd or on-demand. but every once in a while, especially when i have the rare opportunity to spend time with my best friend (we live in different cities), i actually make my way to the theater. over the july 4th weekend, while visiting her in manhattan, we decided to go to watch the proposal . most of the reviews i'd read were positive , but beyond that i had a feeling that this film would become a favorite. how could a movie with ryan reynolds , sandra bullock , and betty white not be enjoyable? i mean betty white is just plain awesome. ryan reynolds is a cutie and was so dreamy in definitely, maybe . and sandra bullock was in one of my favorite chick flicks ever, while you were sleeping . i don't know what it is about romantic comedies, but even t...

i've written about julia quinn 's books before. when he was wicked is probably one of my all time favorite romance books, it is one of the most poignant, most emotional books i've ever read. quinn's ability to express the constant yearning, the aching sadness her two leads live with is actually surprising, because when you consider the bulk of her oeuvre she's well known for her characters' witty repartee and comedic situations. i loved, loved, loved when he was wicked and i know that a lot of people don't, because they read for happy stories. and that's usually why i read too, but i also like the stories to evoke something. and while quinn's other novels are amusing, i'm not usually laughing out loud. except i totally did while reading her latest novel, what happens in london , a delightful romantic comedy that leaves you just feeling happy at the end. we had first met the bevelstoke clan during the secret diaries of miss miranda cheever , qui...

sometimes trying new things on on-demand doesn't pay off. but i was bored and there wasn't anything on that i was truly interested in and i figured that i didn't have to finish watching it if i hated it. and well, i didn't hate it. but it wasn't good either. if lucy fell is the story of two college friends who find themselves approaching thirty and not having grown much since college. lucy [played by sarah jessica parker ] is a commitment-phobic psychologist with daddy issues who's idea of true love involves her partners passing a hug test and answering yes to questions like "would you drink my spit?" joe [played by someone not all that attractive][ eric schaeffer who is the lead actor, writer, & director of the film which makes him an artiste and also explains a lot as to why this movie isn't very good] is a loser art teacher deeply in lust with the next-door neighbor [ elle macpherson ]. lucy and joe have a death pact dating from their time...

hmmm, it's been months since i've blogged about gh . partly this is due to the fact that i fell behind while i was traveling. partly because all the outrage lapsed into disinterest when i realized i couldn't bring myself to care anymore and everything that was happening was just so trite and boring. some days i still feel that way. and there are still whole storylines that i either hate or just fast forward through. but there are some good things too. in no particular order, here are my thoughts on the goings-on in port charles: 1. soras [and why re-casting roles works on soaps even if you do miss the original actors]: the new, older versions of sonny's kids are turning out to be quite enjoyable. [although hilariously, cameron whom i believe is older than molly is now younger. and because cameron is so cute, i'm kind of hoping they won't fix that. we also haven't seen spencer in ages, so he may be approaching 50.] in any case, at this point we've only s...

i could try and explain my rationale in why i chose to watch this, but then i realized that there is no plausible reasoning that would explain why i rented this movie [for free, i swear] off of comcast's on-demand service. in any case, i did it with the full expectation that this movie would be terrible. and in many ways it was. first off, what on earth happened to renee zellweger? she was so cute in jerry maguire : and since then she's either lived hard, or had tremendously bad plastic surgery. because in new in town she looks more like this: there must have been a bad plastic surgeon involved with the second picture, right? because her mouth looks completely different. it's like they were striving for pouty and accidentally left her at pinched. and i don't bring this up because i like to make fun of bad plastic surgeries or the celebrities that have indulged in bad plastic surgeries, i bring it up because it's kind of shocking to see her face in the movie...

when i completed my master's project, i dedicated it to my two grandmothers, two women who have had an incredible presence and effect on my life. my maternal grandmother, in particular, shaped my likes and dislikes in ways that i am still sometimes surprised by. she passed away just before the new year, and one of the things i inherited was her collection of harlequin romance books. she started collecting them after her mother died. she had cared for her mother as she aged and during one last illness and suddenly found that she had a lot of time on her hands. so she signed up to receive six books a month from the harlequin reader service. the bulk of her collection runs from 1977 to 1988, which coincides with my grandfather's death. she didn't save every single book, only the good ones [of the later years she kept very few, which indicates that the books were getting a little, shall we say, spicier and this more than anything likely contributed to her cancellation of her su...

i believe my love of silly romantic comedies has been well-documented. and because during the [supposedly] long summer months most of my television viewing consists of [torturing myself by] watching "general hospital" and/or on-demand movies, i decided to spice things up around here with a new feature, focusing on the aforementioned on-demand movies. last night i watched step up 2: the streets , a follow-up to the surprisingly entertaining step up . to be honest, i'm not entirely positive step up is actually as entertaining as i think it is, but i simply enjoy it because...well, perhaps i'll just show you: i don't know. i just happen to think this guy [channing tatum] is so hot. [you know, i don't often spend a lot of time thinking about how much my television viewing habits are influenced by the "hot guy quotient" but i think it might actually work out to be a pretty high percentage of my viewing choices are based on who i think is hot.] any...