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A rose by any other name wouldn’t smell like Franco.

28 Feb

I just got home from the hospital (third time in two weeks – does that earn me a free visit next time?) because my left calf did its whole “swell to the size of your thigh” trick again as I left work. (More on that later – both the crazy ass people I met at the hospital and the diagnosis. In a nutshell: I’m fine but my veins are lazy.)

Anyway, because I was eager to put the hospital behind me quickly, one of the first things I did was check my blog traffic. And in addition to the regular hits, do you know what? I’ve had four search engine hits direct people to my blog because my pre-Oscar post referred to the hosts as Anne Hathaway and James DeFranco. Apparently, the name is James Franco. And yet, not one, but FOUR individual jackasses looked for James DeFranco.

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Kind of a stream of consciousness – but actually my tweets.

28 Feb

Last night I tuned in *briefly* to the Oscar’s red carpet arrivals via a live stream on line. Not that you care, but here is what I tweeted as a result.

Leo DiCaprio’s date is HUGE. Who’s the linebacker?

Oh wait – turns out it’s not Leo. That’s the director of Inception.

That makes more sense. You don’t go from Giselle to Girth.

I wonder if the director of Inception cast Leo because he looks like him?

Helena Bonham Carter looks like she hates this stuff. Why do introverts become actors? Don’t they realize this is part of it?

Gwyneth weighs approximately one pound. I could break her.

Has Donald Trump ever married a woman with a normal name? Melania? Sounds like a country.

Natalie Portman looks great. I love purple. Where is the dude who knocked her up? He should be walking the carpet with her.

Halle. Berry. Is. The. Most. Beautiful. Woman. Ever. FLAWLESS.

I understand that Jennifer Hudson lost massive amounts of weight. But I’d like to high-five the surgeon who gave her those breasts. That was a feat.

Jacki Weaver – I don’t know who you are, but if there’s a biopic of Katie Couric and someone needs to play the fatter, older version of her – it’s YOU!

Cate Blanchett – your dress looks like it’s missing something. Were you hoping for sponsorship?

Sharon Stone: you’ve had some work done, but I think it was paid under the table. Woof.

Christian Bale’s beard looks like something people should clean golf cleats on.

This morning I watched the highlights of the Oscars and it turns out Anne Hathaway and James Franco were as horrible as I predicted.

One tip for the producers? They might want to call this guy, to host next year. Sure, he probably couldn’t work off a script, but on the up-side, they wouldn’t have to pay Bruce Valance, and they’d be sure to get more that polite titters from the audience. Because everyone likes a train wreck.

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In honor of the Oscars, I shall profess my ignorance of pop culture.

27 Feb

Tonight walking home from yoga I passed a dozen bars and restaurants that had chalkboards out front touting their Oscar parties. Part of me got a bit of Oscar envy, thinking it would be fun to be hosting an Oscar party in a couple hours.

Then I realized: I have absolutely no vested interest in the Oscars. I’ve only seen one – count it, ONE! – of the ten films nominated for Best Picture. And that was only because Alan and I motivated YESTERDAY (that’s exactly one day before the Oscars) to walk to Georgetown and watch The King’s Speech.

Aside from that, since I don’t own a television, I haven’t even seen trailers for the other films – unless I actively sought them out on Fandango over the course of the year. When the opening credits of The King’s Speech started rolling, I was shocked to see a microphone on screen – without any prior knowledge of the film, I had been assuming it was set back in the days of Henry VIII.

Um. Perhaps there’s something (albeit something small) to be said for television.

Interestingly, there was a whole crowd of Oscar “crammers” at the theatre on Saturday. Apparently Lowe’s offers a $50 Oscar ticket for people who want to do a marathon and watch ALL of the nominees in one fell swoop before the awards. I became antsy just looking at them, knowing they had resigned themselves to sit in a theatre for multiple hours. That might be my personal idea of hell.

Well, that plus some screaming infants, a line of people walking slowly down the sidewalk side-by-side, a menu serving only white creamy foods (like cream cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise and yoghurt), a Celine Dion album on repeat and a gaggle of women who refer to themselves as “mommy” when addressing other adults. That’s pretty much my idea of hell.

Speaking of hell… whose idea was it to have Anne Hathaway and James Franco host? The last time I checked, neither of them was a comedian, and that seems like about the ONLY prerequisite for hosting. Maybe I’ll hustle up a live stream so I can watch them bomb. Or… maybe that’s the real blessing of not owning a TV. I don’t have to.

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Why I will never be a comedian.

21 Feb

Yesterday I thought of something while I was walking that seemed blog-worthy, even though it was just a sentence. I can’t remember it now, but at the time, I thought it was hi-larious.

So hilarious that it occurred to me to start a “stand-up” category where I could test one-liners as if I were a comedian. Almost as soon as I had that thought, I cringed at myself, realizing that no one – and I mean  NO ONE – is funny enough to “test” their material for a non-existent stand-up routine on a non-existent audience.

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Where did I end Christmas day? In Cabot Cove. With Jessica Fletcher.

28 Dec

Look closely: this is a towel wrapped around her neck inside a warm-up jacket. Yes, that's what Jessica wears jogging.

And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ve clearly never been a “Murder She Wrote” fan. You should probably stop reading now, before this post makes you dumb.

Oh Lord, this is a shameful admission. Christmas evening, trying to wind down from a fun and full day, Alan and I tapped into one of our favorite guilty pleasures: crawling into bed to watch a streaming movie or TV show. We were both fidgeting and exceptionally tired, so that’s the only way I can explain our <my> choice for viewing: the pilot episode of “Murder She Wrote.”

If you enjoy bad television, then let me tempt you: the pilot episode of Murder She Wrote is nothing short of a train wreck, including an absurdly long title sequence that features Angela Lansbury (aka “Jessica Fletcher”) jogging or riding a bike all over Cabot Cove, a small fictional town in Maine.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but generally the only seniors I see running are the ones who have made it a lifetime habit and aren’t packing any extra pounds. I’m willing to suspend disbelief and pretend this woman got a book published by a lark, but ask me to believe she’s a runner and you lost me at hello.

As for the show itself: how it ever got picked up as a series is beyond me. Must’ve been different viewing standards then (or the aging Boomer population at play), because these days I think you’d be hard-pressed to center a show around an overweight senior citizen.

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