Long story short: I'm back. And what better way to return than with a chicka chicka yeah...
FANTABULOUS FRIDAY! Whoop!
My current obsessions (because they're fantabulous, obviously):
Justin Timberlake's "Mirrors"
I would so cheat on Hubs with this dude. Although technically it wouldn't be cheating because he's on the List...
JT's new album The 20/20 Experience is a funky, fun, cool bunch of musical gems, but "Mirrors" has me captivated. I've been listening to it on repeat for two days. The man has a voice like melted buttah!
(Side note: If you haven't seen JT's episodes of Saturday Night Live, make some time to watch them. He's hosted 5 times, and he's brilliant.)
Downton Abbey
I know, I know, I'm always the very last person to jump on a bandwagon (think Twilight, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones), but when I do finally jump on I'm gung-ho about it.
I just LOVE this series. It's beyond fantabulous. The characters are brilliant, the storyline is captivating and I cannot get enough of that adorable Matthew Crawley (yes, I know, but not everybody does, so hush). I especially love how soap opera-ey the servants are. Those people have some serious issues. Except for Anna and Mr. Bates. Swoon.
If you haven't caved in and watched this series, DO. IT. NOW. I'll wait.
Not really, because three seasons is like 30 hours of tv. I ain't got time to wait for you. Do it later.
Smash
Yes, it's getting some bad reviews. People either love it or hate it. I LOVE it. Seriously, who doesn't love
musicals? If you don't, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? Granted, the first season had some not-so-good characters (Ellis - yuck. Dev - skeez. Frank - boring sap), but the story line was, for the most part, pretty good.
Season two has proven much more interesting. The introduction of Jeremy Jordan's angry, defensive character Jimmy and his insecure pal Kyle was a pleasant change. Also, I think Katharine McPhee is just adorable. Plus Derek (Jack Davenport) is kinda hot. Hello, British accent!
Well those are my fantabulous obsessions! Happy Friday, y'all!
I love when I'm walking aimlessly through a store or across campus - or anywhere, really - and I pass someone with a totally awesome t-shirt on.
It makes my day just a little bit better. I am a collector of vintage/funny/fantabulous t-shirts, and currently own several Chris Farley and Will Ferrell shirts, as well as Ferris Bueller, Ghostbusters, Christmas Vacation, Rolling Stones, etc. I love them, and I love those moments when I encounter another cool t-shirt person and we have a shared moment of, "yeah, we're awesome." It's like we're part of a totally rad t-shirt club. In fact, I have decided just now to initiate the Official Totally Rad T-Shirt Club. Oh, and I'm the president. You're super jealous, right now, I know. Don't be discouraged, my dear blogging buds, for you, too, can be part of the Totally Rad T-Shirt Club. All you have to do is own a minimum of five (5) fantabulous t-shirts. Just in case you're not completely sure of what falls into the category of fantabulous/awesome/totally rad, here's a few examples:
Anything Goonies related is awesome.
Likewise, shirts pertaining to any and all of the National Lampoon films would qualify.
Witty, humorous and sarcastic phrase shirts are definitely on the list.
(Remember, though, profane and/or sexual shirts are NOT,
because we never know when we may encounter children. Wear responsibly, folks.)
Any and all awesome band t-shirts are welcome.
Even better are lame band shirts, like Menudo and Milli Vanilli.
We all know 80s educational shows were cheese, so why not celebrate it?
Awesome movie quote shirts are some of my favorites.
Great one-liners should be shared with the world, and it is our job to do so enthusiastically.
Mixing 80s/90s pop culture like Inspector Gadget and Vanilla Ice is just brilliant.
I'm probably going to order this shirt today. (Don't tell Hubs.)
Another movie quote t-shirt. It's easy to determine whether or not someone is friend quality based
on their ability to determine which movie your shirt is quoting. This is a priceless gift, people!
T-shirts that share plots of films are pretty cool, too.
Any t-shirt referring to Saturday Night Live qualifies. I recommend multiple shirts like this.
Taking a serious quote from a film and turning it to be funny is another priceless gem.
Another educational shirt. Ah, memories.
Gotta have a Bayside shirt. Well, that or a Jesse and the Rippers shirt. Either will do.
I'll be making Totally Rad T-Shirt Club membership cards soon, so let me know if you're in.
I'm in the midst of studying for finals, so I don't really have time to dedicate to an actual post. However, whenever I've taken breaks from studying this week, this video has been my favorite. It's the wedding scene from Glee the week before last. It's reminiscent of that wedding dance video we've all seen a thousand times on YouTube and Facebook. I've probably watched it about 30 times now. It's fantabulous. Trust me. Check it out.
Oh and don't expect to hear from me all weekend. It's gonna be a busy one in the college football world. Of course, I'll be studying as well. At least 70-30. That's the plan anyway. Probably more like 80-20.
Finally, Friday has arrived. This week has been entirely too long. Since Halloween is a mere three days away, and Fridays are typically when I share the fantabulous things of the world, I've decided today to share with y'all the most fantabulous things about Halloween!
CANDY
Seriously, who doesn't love candy?
HORROR MOVIES
Nothing like scaring the bejeezus out of yourself with all-time greats like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Silence of the Lambs, Se7en, The Shining and many more!
COSTUMES
Aside from the ever-increasing sluttiness that has become Halloween costumes, I love that for a night (or an entire weekend depending upon your stamina) you can be anything you want to be, like maybe Beetlejuice, The Mad Hatter, a giant hotdog, anything at all.
HAY RIDES
This has always been one of the things I most look forward to every year: crowding onto a hay-filled trailer with a bunch of parents and kids to ride around the neighborhood collecting candy.
TRICK OR TREATING
I've been too old to do this for a while now, but now that I have kids I get to enjoy it all over again!
KID HALLOWEEN MOVIES/TV SPECIALS
I love "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" and "Hocus Pocus." I'm also super-excited to see the new Shrek Halloween special (which I taped last night) "Scared Shrekless"!
Hey, y'all! Hope your weeks have all been fantabulous. My brain is on reserve at the moment, since I just finished (yay) a huge Geography paper due Monday. Since I'm in school mode, I decided to share with y'all the paper I wrote earlier this semester on my most favorite place in the whole world: Cades Cove. It's located in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Not to brag (but totally to brag), I made an A++ on this paper. Yeah, I did. So anyhoo, since today is usually Fantabulous Friday, and I think Cades Cove is fantabulous, here's y'all a little piece of history:
Located in what is now the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in northeastern Tennessee, Cades Cove is a glimpse into the lives of a community of yesteryear. Having spent half of my life living in Tennessee, my family took many trips to the cove. As a child the wildlife was what attracted me the most: black bears, deer and various other animals thatroam the park. The animals were what drew Native Americans, then later European frontiersmen to settle in this valley tucked safely between the “Smoky Mountains” which create a beautifully wooded view from all directions.
There isn’t much cultural evidence of the Cherokee Indians’ time spent in the cove, but there is an abundance of evidence from the settlers who came later. The Indians chose the cove for the bountiful wildlife easily hunted within the valley. The settlers, who first began moving into the cove in the early 1820s, preferred the cove for many reasons, two of which were the protection offered by the surrounding mountains and the fertile soil of the valley floor.
Since the land was excellent for farming, the settlers were able to grow multiple crops that could supplement them throughout the entire year. A few of the barns and storehouses used for farming are still standing.
As more people moved into the area, homes were built across the valley. These buildings were small homes, with tiny rooms for sleeping and slightly larger rooms for cooking and eating. Every home needed a fireplace to warm the people during frigid winters that often brought snowstorms. The settlers created their own road so they could visit one another easily. The road used now to tour the cove is the same road created by the early settlers. Eventually two churches were built as well, one Baptist and one Methodist. The Baptist church later feuded and split, resulting in the building of a second Baptist Church.
As more people settled in the cove, businesses were built to meet the needs. Because the nearest town was an entire day’s trip away on horse, Cades Cove became a self-sustaining community. A general store was built, along with a blacksmith shop, smokehouses and even a boarding house for travelers.
The people of Cades Cove depended greatly upon two crops: corn and chestnuts. The corn was used to feed the livestock and could be used in various ways as food for the people (cornmeal, grits, cornbread, hominy). The residents of the cove would take chestnuts into nearby Maryville to sell or trade for other goods, food or medicines.
Once knowledge of water as a power source spread to the cove, a man named John P. Cable, using the water from Mill Creek, created a functioning mill for grains. Other residents followed suit and eventually Cades Cove had several water-run mills, some for grains (to be turned into flour) and others for molasses.These advances gave the residents more options for trading, and helped the community to thrive. A post office was also built later as the rest of the United States began to grow and spread out.
Thanks to the flourishing crops and mills, population nearly exploded in the early years of the community. In less than fifty years there were an estimated 700 people residing within Cades Cove. Families were raising children, who would reach their teen years, marry and start their own families. Children were taught in the small churches by the pastors or at home by educated parents (although most of the adults who originally settled in the cove weren’t very well-educated). However, the majority of “education” taught to the children was the ins and outs of maintaining the farm (for the boys) and home (for the girls).
Eventually the great Western movement known as “Manifest Destiny” caught wind and many young families moved out of Cades Cove in search of a better life. A few families remained in the cove, the last of which did not leave until well after the cove was included into the National Park.
I can't tell you how completely thrilled I am that Friday has finally arrived. This week has been an exhausting one. Some of the exhaustion was my fault (a Sunday adventure in New Orleans, the Britney episode on Glee - which caused much excitement at my house - a football game viewing at my Alma mater - which they lost. Embarrassingly badly), but most of it was school. I have yet more exams next week AND the week after that. I love school. I love school. I love school. I love school. Nope, still not working...
ANYHOO, on a much brighter -and much more entertaining - note, today's fantabulous topic is the brainchild of one of the coolest dudes in the blogsphere. The totally fantabulous Cole Garrett over at Dry Humor Daily has thought up a pretty nifty idea, and I'm going to share it with you guys because I was immediately eager to jump on board and join in on something that is sure to catch on like syphilis....er...I mean....like something totally non-STD-related. Yeah. Like pogs. Or the phrase "that's what she said."
Now that I have your undivided attention, I can share with you Cole's awesomely titillating (that word always makes me giggle) invention. Are you ready?
Obviously this isn't the quilt I speak of. It's merely for
entertainment purposes. Click the link above the picture. Duh.
The Blog Quilt so cool, though. You can add your badge for your blog to the page, then add the badge for The Blog Quilt on your personal blog to refer other bloggers to the quilt. (Hopefully that wasn't confusing, although I almost confused myself.) The hope is that eventually we'll be a part of one awesome, gargantuan internet quilt. We can all cuddle up together underneath it in our bond of Blogdom. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it?
Warm and fuzzy like these ridiculously cute kittens
So, I beseech you (I've always wanted to use that word in a sentence!) good people to click the link, go see the quilt and join us! Together we can make a difference!
That really has nothing at all to do with this, but I just had to use it.
(Caution: this blog could very well turn into a ranting session. I apologize in advance.)
Yes indeedy, today was definitely fantabulous. Personally, I had a great day. If you had a bad day, here's a big hug from me to make you feel better:
Also, hopefully your day will get better due to the misery of others.
Misery on Fantabulous Friday, you ask? Surprisingly, yes. However, misery for one Lindsay Lohan
makes for fantabulous entertainment for me (and you). Plus, for once I'm proud of the judicial system in Hollywood.
After failing a drug test a mere TWO weeks after leaving rehab, Lindsay showed up in court today most likely expecting a slap on the wrist and maybe the judge shaking a finger at her with a halfhearted, "Tsk tsk," before being released to rehab for another few weeks. Much to her dismay, my new hero, Judge Fox, refused to set bail for Miss Lohan and ordered her back to jail until her next court date, over a month away. My feelings on the matter are simple:
IT'S ABOUT TIME.
I'm sorry, but this whole special treatment for the famous bit is just ridiculous, and frankly I'm glad someone FINALLY put their foot down. Time and time again these celebrities are given freebies for offenses that would land regular people in prison for months (or possibly years). Hit and run? No big deal, just don't do it again. Arrested for cocaine? Hey, it happens. Just take a month off from partying and stay in a luxurious rehab. Abuse dogs? No biggie, just spend 21 months in jail, then get out and be paid exhorbitant amounts of money to play football.
I am sick to death of this crap. These people are given so many privileges as celebrities. They have the money to do whatever they want, they can travel all over the world, experience so many things us normal folks only dream about. Instead of doing something useful, contributing in some way or being a POSITIVE role model for the young impressionable people in the world, they think they're above the law and decide to dabble in drugs, sex tapes and every other scandal they can think of. They assume they won't be held responsible for their actions because - let's face it - celebrities are hardly ever held responsible.
Don't get me wrong here. I actually think Lindsay Lohan is talented. I thought she was adorable in The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday. I also LOVE Mean Girls. The girl has a gift, and she insists on wasting it by spending most of her time high or drunk. It's a sad, sad shame.
Hopefully she'll actually learn a lesson this time.
People have been reviewing this book quite a bit lately, and my curiosity finally got the best of me (thanks to Ray J's excellent review).
I went to the library, checked out the book, and within the first 25 pages I was captivated. Once I realized the author, Seth Grahame-Smith, also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I had to put that on my reading list as well.
I googled to see if there were other similar novels to these two, and apparently I've been living under a rock because there's a bunch of them! This is a newish genre, called "mashup". It basically started with Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies being picked up by an independent publisher, which prompted other publishers to begin seeking more of this combination classic-modern pop culture. Writers take a literary classic and rewrite it with genres from today's popular genres, such as vamires and zombies.
Since 2009 there have already been eight more of these mashups done by various other authors that have been successful (many more were hurriedly published in an attempt to capitalize on the sudden interest, but most of those were poorly written and didn't sell). I can only vouch for Vampire Hunter so far, but I will definitely be reading all of these sooner or later.
Here are a few of the best-sellers of this new genre (according to several websites):
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen & Seth Grahame-Smith
Jane Slayre by Charlotte Bronte & Sherri Browning Erwin
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Jane Austen & Ben H. Winters
Little Vampire Women byLouisa May Alcott & Lynn Messina
If any of y'all have already read any of these, let me know what you thought! If you decide to go read any of them now, please let me know what you think when you're done!
That was in honor of THE END OF THE WEEK. We made it! It's Fantabulous Friday, baby! Wohoo!
For today's totally fantabulous subject, I have decided to share with y'all my favorite spoof movies of all time. Some of them might not technically be classified as spoofs, but trust me, they are. I know these things...
So, here they are:
Best cop spoof:
The Naked Gun
I know many of y'all would say, "Nuh-uh, Police Academy is the best spoof movie!" However, you would be mistaken. The Police Academy movies are specifically comedy genre. What's the difference? I really don't know. I'm just a huge Leslie Nielsen fan. Plus, you can watch OJ back before he went psycho killer on us. (Yes, I'm aware he was found not guilty. My mother still maintains that he was framed. Haha.)
BEST Star Wars spoof:
Spaceballs
We all know Mel Brooks is the KING of spoof. I mean, really, the man's a genius.
Mel Brooks, Rick Moranis, John Candy, Bill Pullman, Joan Rivers, Dick Van Patten - you can't beat a cast like that! Even (sometimes especially) hardcore Star Wars fans love this film. I wish they'd make a sequel....with the same cast, of course (and honor John Candy somehow or other in a humorous way).
Best Robin Hood spoof:
Men in Tights
Mel Brooks combined the talent of Cary Elwes, Richard Lewis, Tracy Ullman, Dick Van Patton (again), Dave Chappelle.....how could he go wrong? This movie is hilarious, from the one-liners to the dance numbers.
Best Horror Spoof:
Scream
This movie is one of my all-time favorites. I'm a big 'ol chicken, so making fun of scary movies is sort of my revenge for these films scaring me nearly to death all the time. Mocking the "rules" of horror films (and later the sequels) was done in such a manner that I can appreciate it, and even laugh now when watching real horror movies. Plus, I LOVED Matthew Lillard.
Best Literary Classic Spoof:
Young Frankenstein
Another Brooks film, this time starring the man, the myth, the legend: Gene Wilder. Seriously, the man should have a town named after him. Also in the film is Teri Garr, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn and Peter Boyle. The cast and ridiculous storyline make for excellent spoof.
Best Spy Spoof:
Austin Powers
Yeah, baby! Honestly, I'm partial to the second installment, but the first one started it all. The film turned super spy into man-whore with psychedelic views on everything (I loved the innuendos and name jokes). Mike Myers is comedic genius, and I'm hoping to see another Austin movie in the near future....
Best History Spoof:
History of the World
Yet again, Brooks (they might as well change the genre from "spoof" to "Brooks method"). There's really no way to explain this film -actually two, because there's a Part II - other than to say it's the history of the world, only really, really funny. Brooks' favored actors appear throughout the film, so keep your eyes open.
Best movie no one realizes was a spoof (of romance movies):
The Princess Bride
I know! If you asked ten people whether or not Princess Bride is a spoof, 9 of them will say no. This film, starring Robin Wright and Cary Elwes, was intended to poke fun at the overly sappy and dramatic romance films that were being made en masse during the 80s. One of the various taglines used was a pretty good giveaway: "A classic fairy tale, with swordplay, giants, an evil prince, a beautiful princess, and yes, some kissing (as read by a kindly grandfather)." Surprisingly it became such a hit without needed the spoof title that eventually everyone just forgot.
Best documentary spoof:
Best in Show
This movie is one of the move hilarious movies ever made. IF you like this kind of humor (which some people don't, although I'm not sure why). The hubs doesn't find this film funny. I maintain that he's lying, because otherwise I'd have to file for divorce.
The cast of this film is a plethora of talent: Jane Lynch, Parker Posey, Jennifer Coolidge, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Christopher Guest are just a few. These people: yuppie couple, white trash couple, redneck, gay couple, rich woman and female dog trainer - all head to a national dog show. In the format of a documentary, the individuals are interviewed as they plan and prepare their dogs for the show and then we follow them all to the show and throughout. It's HILARIOUS. The opening scene is Parker Posey and her husband (the yuppie couple) in therapy with their weimaraner. The dog is distraught because she saw them having sex. THE DOG IS IN THERAPY.
I can't do enough promoting of this film. If you haven't seen it, go watch it NOW.
Best TV show spoof:
The Brady Bunch Movie
Have to include this movie, if only because it's totally awesome. It's so ridiculously stupid that you can't help but love it. Shelly Long (who I LOVE), Gary Cole, Michael McKean and Christine Taylor (Mrs. Ben Stiller) are four of the major players as Mr. and Mrs. Brady, Larry Dittmeyer and Marcia. There's even cameos by Florence Henderson (original Mrs. Brady) and Ann B. Davis (original Alice).
Did I miss any FANTABULOUS spoof movies? If so, let me know!
I know, I know, I'm always the very last person to jump on a bandwagon (think Twilight, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones), but when I do finally jump on I'm gung-ho about it.
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