There has been a lot of great entertainment out in the first decade of the 21st century. I wanted to personally pay homage to some of my favorite TV shows, movies, books and music from 2000-2010 (I'm including 2000 here since it kicked off the new century and millenium and also because I didn't include it in my 90's posts because I feel that way.) I'm doing these as top 10 lists, in no particular order (provided I can think of 10 for each category). So, here we go...
Movies:
1. Where the Heart is (2000)
2. 50 First Dates (2004)
3. Monsters, Inc. (2001)
4. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005)
5. A Beautiful Mind (2001)
6. Up (2009)
7. Finding Neverland (2004)
8. Chicago (2003)
9. Stardust (2007)
10. Juno (2007)
Television:
1. Arrested Development
2. Firefly
3. Ugly Betty
4. Desperate Housewives
5. Glee
6. The Office
7. Modern Family
8. American Idol season 8 (because of Adam Lambert)
9. 90210 (the new series)
10. Curb Your Enthusiasm
Songs/Musicians:
1. Adam Lambert
2. Lady Antebellum
3. "Suddenly I See" by K.T. Tunstall
4. "American Ride" by Toby Keith
5. "Hey Ya" by Outkast (reminds me of my honeymoon)
6. Michael Buble
7. Pink
8. Idina Menzel's "I Stand" CD
9. "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles
10. "In the Heights" original Broadway cast recording
Books:
1. "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert
2. "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
3. "The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb
4. "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
5. "Second Glance" by Jodi Picoult
6. "Firefly Lane" by Kristin Hannah
7. "In Her Shoes" by Jennifer Weiner
8. "The Opposite of Me" by Sarah Pekkanen
9. "The Undomestic Goddess" by Sophie Kinsella
10. "If You Could See Me Now" by Cecelia Ahern
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
January doesn't have a feel
There's this episode of "Seinfeld," where they talk about certain weekdays having a "feel." They said that Tuesday didn't have a feel. I can sort of agree with that. It's the day before the middle of the week and if "Glee" is not new, it's just not exciting. In that respect, I think that January is the only month of the year that doesn't really have a "feel." August comes close and would probably pass by in a blur if I didn't know so many people with birthdays that month. However, January just seems dull and gray all the time and feels like it's going to go on forever. The only thing I look forward to is having a day off mid-month for Martin Luther King day. (That, and the 50% off sale at Value Village in honor of MLK day.) I know Tu B'Shevat is in January most of the time, but it's not my favorite holiday by any means and I don't like most fruits. I've only ever done something for Tu B'Shevat once and that was last year. I know they have stuff going on this weekend from our shul, but I am not motivated to participate. It's a "new year for trees" in Israel. While that's all nice and special, the trees here look like dead limbs because it's winter and it's hard to get excited about trees in other countries. I'm sure Tu B'Shevat is way more exciting and fun in Israel. January just feels like a month to get through in order to reach February. I think it's because the winter holiday excitement is over and everyone is back in their regular routines.
I recently asked an author I interviewed (for Chick Lit Central) what she liked most about January. I was looking for inspiration. Her answer was "snow." We're supposed to get snow tonight and I'm actually hoping it will stick this time. I was actually excited to see snow on Saturday, and then it disappeared as quickly as it arrived. I don't mind a few inches that the kids can play in, and possibly a snow day, as long as there's no "Snowmageddon" this year.
I don't mind having time to lay low for a while. I'm getting to rest up for when the baby arrives (b'shaah tovah) and read lots of books. There's not much pressure to shop right now, other than for necessities. I just hope that in the future, I can create or find something to make January more fun and interesting overall. 'Til then, just counting the days 'til February (20 to go...)
I recently asked an author I interviewed (for Chick Lit Central) what she liked most about January. I was looking for inspiration. Her answer was "snow." We're supposed to get snow tonight and I'm actually hoping it will stick this time. I was actually excited to see snow on Saturday, and then it disappeared as quickly as it arrived. I don't mind a few inches that the kids can play in, and possibly a snow day, as long as there's no "Snowmageddon" this year.
I don't mind having time to lay low for a while. I'm getting to rest up for when the baby arrives (b'shaah tovah) and read lots of books. There's not much pressure to shop right now, other than for necessities. I just hope that in the future, I can create or find something to make January more fun and interesting overall. 'Til then, just counting the days 'til February (20 to go...)
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The other Adam in my life
I mentioned in my "Starstruck" post that aside from Adam Lambert, I also wanted to meet Adam Sandler. As he has a new movie coming out soon that looks really cute, I'd like to post about my favorite movies of his. (I've seen almost all except for "Punch Drunk Love" and "The Longest Yard," as I fell asleep through most of the latter.)
1. Billy Madison: Some of his funniest lines come from this movie. I love the premise and all the silliness it evokes. It's totally college humor, but I still laugh about it and quote it as an adult. The best is his argument between shampoo and conditioner. I have to side with the conditioner though.
2. Happy Gilmore: It's the only way I'll ever find golf interesting. And it also has a plethora of great lines and witty comebacks. The music selections are fun and nostalgic, as well (especially "Carry on Wayward Son" by Kansas, which I just had to play now to set the mood for this post). Even with all his rage, Happy is easy to sympathize with. And remember, "friends listen to "Endless Love" in the dark."
3. The Wedding Singer: This is one of my all-time favorites. Eighties nostalgia, funny lines ("I am a material girl, or boy"), great music, fun characters and great chemistry between Adam and Drew Barrymore. It's just a great story overall and so romantic too. I cry at the airplane scene every time. It was so good that it was even made into a Broadway musical.
4. Big Daddy: A cute little kid (of course he's 16 now or something like that) and lots of Styx music....how can you lose? Toss in Hooter's jokes and you have a classic comedy flick! Another tearjerker too, especially now that I'm a parent. And, of course, great lines! So much to love about this film!
5. 50 First Dates: Adam and Drew are back again with all their chemistry for a perfect romantic comedy. I cried twice as much as I did for "The Wedding Singer" or even most other romantic comedies. It's so original and charming. I fall in love with it over and over again, the way Drew falls for Adam every day like it's the first time. And you can't forget (excuse the pun) about "Ten Second Tom." :) The other bonus is that a Neo-Futurist had a pretty big part in the show. (Lusia Strus played his friend Alexa.)
6. Click: I wrote a post within a post about this for Time Warp (how appropriate) Tuesday a while back. This pretty much explains why I enjoyed this movie so much. "Click" here.
While I laughed a lot at "You Don't Mess with the Zohan," I wouldn't rank it as a favorite. And "Grown Ups" was pretty much full of sight gags, funny as it appeared to be. I pretty much like him in comedic roles, where he really shines. I wasn't a fan of "Spanglish" or "Funny People" for this reason. Probably why I never saw "Punch Drunk Love" anyway. I do have to mention how much I loved his humor on Saturday Night Live. Opera Man!!! He came up with lots of funny roles and really played into his characters, making them very memorable over time. He made himself so memorable that Jimmy Fallon did a perfect and hilarious impression of him on "Celebrity Jeopardy" (on SNL, of course). He was also in a movie called "Mixed Nuts," where he had a small role that involved singing songs he made up at random times. He stuck out as really funny for that reason. I can't even remember much else of the movie besides his singing. He had some really funny CDs too....at least his first two stand out the most. My friend and I even acted out one of the skits at Theater Ted. We performed "The Buffoon and the Valedictorian."
All of the above are reasons why I'd love to be in the same room with him and shake his hand. (And get a picture together, as well.)
1. Billy Madison: Some of his funniest lines come from this movie. I love the premise and all the silliness it evokes. It's totally college humor, but I still laugh about it and quote it as an adult. The best is his argument between shampoo and conditioner. I have to side with the conditioner though.
2. Happy Gilmore: It's the only way I'll ever find golf interesting. And it also has a plethora of great lines and witty comebacks. The music selections are fun and nostalgic, as well (especially "Carry on Wayward Son" by Kansas, which I just had to play now to set the mood for this post). Even with all his rage, Happy is easy to sympathize with. And remember, "friends listen to "Endless Love" in the dark."
3. The Wedding Singer: This is one of my all-time favorites. Eighties nostalgia, funny lines ("I am a material girl, or boy"), great music, fun characters and great chemistry between Adam and Drew Barrymore. It's just a great story overall and so romantic too. I cry at the airplane scene every time. It was so good that it was even made into a Broadway musical.
4. Big Daddy: A cute little kid (of course he's 16 now or something like that) and lots of Styx music....how can you lose? Toss in Hooter's jokes and you have a classic comedy flick! Another tearjerker too, especially now that I'm a parent. And, of course, great lines! So much to love about this film!
5. 50 First Dates: Adam and Drew are back again with all their chemistry for a perfect romantic comedy. I cried twice as much as I did for "The Wedding Singer" or even most other romantic comedies. It's so original and charming. I fall in love with it over and over again, the way Drew falls for Adam every day like it's the first time. And you can't forget (excuse the pun) about "Ten Second Tom." :) The other bonus is that a Neo-Futurist had a pretty big part in the show. (Lusia Strus played his friend Alexa.)
6. Click: I wrote a post within a post about this for Time Warp (how appropriate) Tuesday a while back. This pretty much explains why I enjoyed this movie so much. "Click" here.
While I laughed a lot at "You Don't Mess with the Zohan," I wouldn't rank it as a favorite. And "Grown Ups" was pretty much full of sight gags, funny as it appeared to be. I pretty much like him in comedic roles, where he really shines. I wasn't a fan of "Spanglish" or "Funny People" for this reason. Probably why I never saw "Punch Drunk Love" anyway. I do have to mention how much I loved his humor on Saturday Night Live. Opera Man!!! He came up with lots of funny roles and really played into his characters, making them very memorable over time. He made himself so memorable that Jimmy Fallon did a perfect and hilarious impression of him on "Celebrity Jeopardy" (on SNL, of course). He was also in a movie called "Mixed Nuts," where he had a small role that involved singing songs he made up at random times. He stuck out as really funny for that reason. I can't even remember much else of the movie besides his singing. He had some really funny CDs too....at least his first two stand out the most. My friend and I even acted out one of the skits at Theater Ted. We performed "The Buffoon and the Valedictorian."
All of the above are reasons why I'd love to be in the same room with him and shake his hand. (And get a picture together, as well.)
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Always look on the bright side of life...
Today’s Daily Challenge ("Look on the Bright Side") was to turn a negative into a positive:
Find time today to reflect on something negative that happened recently which is still upsetting you. Are there any lessons to be learned from the experience? Is there something you could do differently next time to get a different outcome?
I have been pretty happy lately and have tended to brush off a lot that was bothering me and move on. I remember getting annoyed at the inconvenient scheduling issue at my OB’s a few weeks ago, but I got to finish my book. (Same with having to take the 3 hour glucose test…gave me plenty of time to read.)
However, the one issue that does grate at me at a lot is the state of the basement/toy room. I know it’s my kids’ space and that at least it’s not invading on the rest of the house, but it drives me crazy when I spend a whole afternoon cleaning and organizing EVERYTHING without much help from my own kids and then I look a week later and it’s all in disarray again. I vented about it on Facebook a few weeks ago because it was bothering me that much. I think my friends have picked up on my frustration and are more diligent about making sure their kids clean up before they go home. I definitely appreciate that outcome. However, it doesn’t resolve the misplacement of items that took me forever to find and put back in place the first time around. It hit me the most the other day, when my younger son wanted to play with a game and some of the pieces were missing. He seemed so disappointed and it made me upset that people don’t have enough courtesy and just take things out and scatter them everywhere. I could combat this by telling my friends to tell their kids to only play with one thing at a time and put everything back together before taking out something else. I’m not sure how much the kids would remember it, but it gets me so annoyed in the meantime. As this new baby is going to be here in the next month or so (b’shaah tovah), I’d like for them to have toys that aren’t completely mismatched or missing parts. I’m glad I put some baby toys aside already, but there’s still a lot they won’t get to play with because of this type of situation. Again, I need to remind myself that the positives are:
1. The stuff is mostly contained in the basement, leaving the rest of the rooms (aside from their bedrooms) toy free.
2. People, including kids, are making the effort to help clean up more often these days, instead of leaving it all for me.
3. There’s always Freecycle or donation programs if the toys get too out of hand. I can also replace items at a very low cost from the thrift store.
4. This shows that my children have friends who enjoy playing at our home.
Find time today to reflect on something negative that happened recently which is still upsetting you. Are there any lessons to be learned from the experience? Is there something you could do differently next time to get a different outcome?
I have been pretty happy lately and have tended to brush off a lot that was bothering me and move on. I remember getting annoyed at the inconvenient scheduling issue at my OB’s a few weeks ago, but I got to finish my book. (Same with having to take the 3 hour glucose test…gave me plenty of time to read.)
However, the one issue that does grate at me at a lot is the state of the basement/toy room. I know it’s my kids’ space and that at least it’s not invading on the rest of the house, but it drives me crazy when I spend a whole afternoon cleaning and organizing EVERYTHING without much help from my own kids and then I look a week later and it’s all in disarray again. I vented about it on Facebook a few weeks ago because it was bothering me that much. I think my friends have picked up on my frustration and are more diligent about making sure their kids clean up before they go home. I definitely appreciate that outcome. However, it doesn’t resolve the misplacement of items that took me forever to find and put back in place the first time around. It hit me the most the other day, when my younger son wanted to play with a game and some of the pieces were missing. He seemed so disappointed and it made me upset that people don’t have enough courtesy and just take things out and scatter them everywhere. I could combat this by telling my friends to tell their kids to only play with one thing at a time and put everything back together before taking out something else. I’m not sure how much the kids would remember it, but it gets me so annoyed in the meantime. As this new baby is going to be here in the next month or so (b’shaah tovah), I’d like for them to have toys that aren’t completely mismatched or missing parts. I’m glad I put some baby toys aside already, but there’s still a lot they won’t get to play with because of this type of situation. Again, I need to remind myself that the positives are:
1. The stuff is mostly contained in the basement, leaving the rest of the rooms (aside from their bedrooms) toy free.
2. People, including kids, are making the effort to help clean up more often these days, instead of leaving it all for me.
3. There’s always Freecycle or donation programs if the toys get too out of hand. I can also replace items at a very low cost from the thrift store.
4. This shows that my children have friends who enjoy playing at our home.
Monday, January 3, 2011
I'm not Jack Nicholson, but....
I started taking up this daily challenge thing through Facebook. However, I don't seem to receive the daily challenges in my e-mail like I'm supposed to. This must have gotten fixed, because I got this challenge today: Share 5 things that are on your bucket list.
It suggested I share it on Facebook or Twitter, but those posts seem to get lost in the shuffle. Instead, I am sharing it on my blog. The funny thing is, another chick lit blog I frequent (chicklitisnotdead.com) always has authors posting their bucket lists. I was thinking of doing something similar for myself and now is the perfect opportunity.
In no particular order, here are 5 things on my bucket list.
1. Write a novel. I have some ideas swimming in my head but have yet to put them on paper (or computer). The publishing world scares me though. Especially after what I've heard from some of the authors with whom I've connected this past year.
2. Travel to Europe. It's a plan I put aside when I became pregnant with my older son. I still would love for it to happen someday. Amsterdam is on my list of places to visit because of a close friend who lives there. It would even be fun to bring the kids so that they could meet her daughter. I also want to go to Italy.
3. Learn how to read and speak Hebrew. I'm halfway there as I can follow along with prayers and recite most my memory. However, I can't have a real conversation in Hebrew because I don't understand most of the translations. I think it would be helpful if I ever were to go back to Israel.
4. Meet Adam Lambert in person. Can you tell that this is something I really really really want? I'm such a 13 year-old sometimes! :)
5. Take my kids to Disney World. I know Disney World is super expensive these days and getting away on a trip anytime soon is nearly impossible, but I'd like to be able to do this for them. My parents wanted us to go with them on some timeshare deal, but the timing never worked out...either it was too close to the high holidays or I was having a baby or we were moving...something was always going on. However, I get misty eyed when I watch those commercials where parents tell their kids that they're going to Disneyland or Disney World. I wouldn't mind going to Disneyland, but living on the east coast makes a potential road trip a lot easier to plan if flying is too much of a hassle. I used to go there with my family when I was younger and I always loved it. I can't imagine my kids growing up and saying they've never been to a Disney park.
On this challenge, there was a second step....
Next step: Write down one dream on your bucket list, along with one step you can take this year to make it closer to coming true.
I think the easiest would be to write a novel, as I have nothing keeping me from writing down at least one of my ideas. I think the first step could be to write out a summary of my ideas and see what sounds better on paper.
Thanks for listening. I'd love to see your bucket lists!
It suggested I share it on Facebook or Twitter, but those posts seem to get lost in the shuffle. Instead, I am sharing it on my blog. The funny thing is, another chick lit blog I frequent (chicklitisnotdead.com) always has authors posting their bucket lists. I was thinking of doing something similar for myself and now is the perfect opportunity.
In no particular order, here are 5 things on my bucket list.
1. Write a novel. I have some ideas swimming in my head but have yet to put them on paper (or computer). The publishing world scares me though. Especially after what I've heard from some of the authors with whom I've connected this past year.
2. Travel to Europe. It's a plan I put aside when I became pregnant with my older son. I still would love for it to happen someday. Amsterdam is on my list of places to visit because of a close friend who lives there. It would even be fun to bring the kids so that they could meet her daughter. I also want to go to Italy.
3. Learn how to read and speak Hebrew. I'm halfway there as I can follow along with prayers and recite most my memory. However, I can't have a real conversation in Hebrew because I don't understand most of the translations. I think it would be helpful if I ever were to go back to Israel.
4. Meet Adam Lambert in person. Can you tell that this is something I really really really want? I'm such a 13 year-old sometimes! :)
5. Take my kids to Disney World. I know Disney World is super expensive these days and getting away on a trip anytime soon is nearly impossible, but I'd like to be able to do this for them. My parents wanted us to go with them on some timeshare deal, but the timing never worked out...either it was too close to the high holidays or I was having a baby or we were moving...something was always going on. However, I get misty eyed when I watch those commercials where parents tell their kids that they're going to Disneyland or Disney World. I wouldn't mind going to Disneyland, but living on the east coast makes a potential road trip a lot easier to plan if flying is too much of a hassle. I used to go there with my family when I was younger and I always loved it. I can't imagine my kids growing up and saying they've never been to a Disney park.
On this challenge, there was a second step....
Next step: Write down one dream on your bucket list, along with one step you can take this year to make it closer to coming true.
I think the easiest would be to write a novel, as I have nothing keeping me from writing down at least one of my ideas. I think the first step could be to write out a summary of my ideas and see what sounds better on paper.
Thanks for listening. I'd love to see your bucket lists!
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