Archive for the 'television' Category

This is why I like living with my boyfriend

Published
by
ashley
on January 25, 2009
in baking, i am ridiculous, marques and television
. 1 Comment

I’m in the living room, he’s in the bedroom.  I’ve just finished eating breakfast - this morning I veered from my usual cereal and scrambled myself a couple of eggs with some sharp cheddar, as well as delicious toast with blackberry jam.  I’m trying to figure out what to do for this month’s Daring Bakers challenge as well as figure out how I’m going to bake a pie today, do laundry, shop for a mattress, sweep the floors and make a nice Sunday dinner, all before 9 p.m..

However, from the bedroom, I hear the strains of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” and I immediately realize my boyfriend, lost in a world without Sunday football, has relegated himself to watching the movie Titanic.

What a dork.  I can’t wait to go make fun of him about this.

This is the last day of our acquaintance, 25

Published
by
ashley
on January 6, 2009
in family, friends, i am ridiculous, life, marques, television, waylon and work
. 4 Comments

It’s 12:17 a.m., which means that today is officially the last day I can call myself 25 years old.

And in 24 hours, I’ll be 26.

26 is nothing.

My boyfriend is just two years from 30.  He’s the one who should be concerned.

I always tell myself every year that this is going to be the year when I grow up, when I stop playing so many video games and start contributing to a 401k.  Last year, I resolved to learn to like wine and to start appreciating mushrooms.  Still hasn’t kicked in.  Though I did try.  I still have hope for the wine, but definitely not the mushrooms.  Blech.

I’m also constantly concerned that this is going to be the year where I develop a severe food allergy, like to peanuts or to shellfish and I will have to be one of those people who carries an epi-pen around with them.  I am deathly afraid of developing a food allergy only because I am quite irresponsible and I realize that I will not be the kind of person who asks a restaurant to tell me the type of oil my food was prepared in (especially considering that we eat at a lot of ethnic restaurants where English is not the first language).

You hear stories all the time about some unsuspecting girl who dips a spoon into peanut butter, ready to savor the peanut butter goodness and when she brings the spoon to her mouth, her throat closes up and she dies.  And always, the friends and family attend the funeral and everybody commiserates - “She always enjoyed those peanut butter cookies from Subway” or “She loved dipping a spoonful of peanut butter into a bag of chocolate chips” and nobody knows how this allergy formed so quickly.

One of my resolutions for 2009 is not to cut my hair.  I can handle that, I think, because I want to make sure that my hair is long enough to curl or put up or whatever Lorrie wants us to do for her wedding in June.  But secretly, it is also because I am literally dying to have hair like this girl:

(sidenote:  Someone please hack into our Netflix queue and stop us from receiving British sci-fi shows)

By the end of 2009, by the beginning of my 27th year, hopefully my hair will be similar to that hair.  Fingers crossed.

I realize that none of us knows how many years we have in our lifetimes.  I am grateful that I’ve made it to 25 years and 364 days old.  I hope that when I’m 26, lots of things will happen.  I hope I become a better baker, and I hope my hair naturally grows into Gwen Cooper’s hair.  I hope that Marques and I will stay together for another year (really, no other man would put with my constant making-up-songs and burned rice and crinkle nose, not to mention my frequent pop-culture references) and I hope that we are both healthy and happy.  I hope that I do eventually get a new pair of Chuck Taylors as I am tired of walking around with wet socks in the rain.  I hope that I go on vacation this year to a warm and sunny beach with lots of mini-golf and spicy shrimp (though I do not hope I develop the aforementioned shellfish allergy).

On my last day of being 25, I will go into work, and we will publish a newspaper.  I will eat leftover rice for lunch with an orange and maybe some yogurt.  I will buy myself a green tea lemonade or maybe a salted caramel hot chocolate if it snows.  I will come home late to hugs and kisses from my boyfriend, and I will make us a big pot of turkey chili to ward off the cold.  I will maybe hit the treadmill, though it is doubtful because we’re receiving season 4 of Battlestar Galactica tomorrow (one thing that happened while I was 25 - my nerd quotient tripled.  I am the biggest geek in the world) and I’m sure that we’ll want to spend at least 2 hours watching it, curled up with Waylon.  And at midnight, I’ll be 26 (though not officially, that happens at 4:13 in the morning) and when I wake up, it’s more of the same.

I love my birthday.  I love my family.  I love my boyfriend.  I love my cat.  I love my coworkers.  I love my job.  I love my friends.  What it all boils down is that I am thankful that the year of me being 25 has passed and I still love all of these things.

(Now it’s 12:42 a.m. and I am that much closer to not being 25 anymore!

There are few things I want from this life, and Jack Bauer is one of them

Published
by
ashley
on November 21, 2008
in i am ridiculous and television
. 2 Comments

Honestly, I never thought I would be the target audience for Jack Bauer’s kickassery.  We started watching 24 because Marques wanted to watch it, and I went along reluctantly (also, I had made him sit through 5 seasons of Six Feet Under, my favorite tv show, and while I love Six Feet Under, it’s not very actiony).

The problem with 24 is that, for me, no season will be as good as the first season is.  Every season after that season has the same recycled storylines (there’s a mole in CTU!  CTU is being attacked!  Jack Bauer is breaking the rules and doing what he wants to do!  The CTU leader is incompetent!) and after awhile, it gets annoying.

Also, 24 has completely redefined my outlook on torture.  I’m a staunch liberal, the kind of person who gets all up in arms about civil liberties, the kind of person who subscribes to like 18 e-newsletters by nonprofits, the kind of person who would normally be like “zomg, torture!”  And while I’m still against torture, I’m NOT against torture by Jack Bauer.  I would be totally cool with torture as long as it’s performed by Jack Bauer.

In general, I am a big fan of any movie, book, video game or television show that depicts an epic disaster.  Zombie revolution, nuclear attack, asteroids, whatever.  So for that reason, I love 24, especially in season 6 when they actually let a nuclear bomb go off in Los Angeles.  That was the highlight of that season.

I am pretty excited to watch the 24 movie on Sunday night, but am hoping that it won’t be lame.  I’m hoping that Audrey won’t be in it (could there be a more pointless character?) and I’m hoping that Chloe is there, being awesome, and I’m hoping that Jack Bauer tortures some African rebels and destroys their compound using loads of explosives.  That’s all a girl can hope for, really.

Also, Harry Connick, Jr. is probably the lamest guy in the world.  I can’t say I’ve ever liked anything Harry Connick has done.  Ever.

Scarfgate - conflict resolved

Published
by
ashley
on October 27, 2008
in i am ridiculous, marques and television
. 2 Comments

It is important to note that, 4 more weeks after I posted this entry about how much I wanted that green plaid scarf from Target, I am now finally in possession of it.

Marques came to pick me up from the metro on Friday afternoon after I had gotten off work.  It had been a particularly harrowing ride home.  I had gotten to Farragut West to catch the blue line, got on it, and then was promptly forced to get off due to a service malfunction.  This meant there were twice the people on the next train, which annoyed me because if I wanted to ride a ridiculously packed train, I would’ve moved to Clarendon so I could ride on the orange line.  I was lucky enough to perch on the edge of a seat, but then this group of tourists got on at Rosslyn and the girl was dressed, looked like, and whined like Kenley Collins, my least favorite Project Runway designer ever.  I then spent the next 20 minutes listening to this horrid girl who talked so loudly that I could hear her over my headphones.  At one point, I glanced over at my seatmate - a lovely-looking woman in her upper forties, I’d say - and she was staring at this girl in total annoyance.  We both gave each other the sympathetic “what do you do?  kids these days” glance which is kind of hilarious because, you know, I’m 25 and I can also be annoying.

So I get out of my annoying commute home and I’m walking to Marques’s car when I spot a flash of green on the seat.  I immediately think, “Oh, yay, my ebay purchase came!” (so, yes, I bought two new scarves from ebay making my grand total of scarves to… an embarrassing number and I should be killed) but then I think, “No way, I just bought those yesterday!” and then I think, “But maybe it was fast shipping from China!” (oh, yeah, the scarves are from Hong Kong.  Hopefully they’re not made of melamine, but hey, I’m not going to eat them) and as I get closer, my heart starting bursting with joy because I realized, hey, TARGET GREEN SCARF.

My boyfriend is so great.  Whee.

I immediately decide we need to have a proper date night so I can wear my scarf in public.  So we drive down to Old Town in Alexandria, do some walking, do some PaperSource lusting (I drool over paper), do some waterfront gazing, and eat dinner at Mai Thai, which is our favorite Thai restaurant because Marques would make out with their panang curry if offered.  Afterward, enamored with each other and panang curry, we decide to drive down to Del Ray and grab some Dairy Godmother.  The Dairy Godmother, by the way, is my favorite ice cream shop ever - I would make out with their custard if offered.  The flavor that day was chocolate Heath bar, which was good, but Marques got a pumpkin milkshake, which I pretty much drank half of.  Their pumpkin milkshake is worth a trip to Del Ray, I don’t care where you are.  You need to do it before they stop serving it.

Then we went home and spent the rest of the night watching season 2 of 30 Rock (I have a major, major crush on Kenneth, that kid is so. cute.)

“I don’t drink coffee, sir. I don’t drink hot liquids of any kind. That’s the devil’s temperature.”

So anyway.  Green scarf now in my possession.  Kenneth Parcell is cute.  I love pumpkin milkshakes from The Dairy Godmother.  See how easily that wraps up?

This might be one tiny reason why America is fat

Published
by
ashley
on October 20, 2008
in television
. 0 Comments

So I’m flipping through channels this evening and, as always, turn to the Food Network.  The Food Network is my go-to channel.  When nothing else is on, there’s usually always something halfway decent on the Food Network.  I even watch the Food Network while I’m on the treadmill (which seems like such a contradiction but boy do I love it).  Today was no exception.

I turned to Paula Deen’s “Best Dishes” show, where she teams up with whatever quasi-food-celebrity she managed to drag on her show.  I love Paula Deen because, well, I love Southern food and cute little old ladies, but I have to be concerned about Paula’s eating choices.

Today, Paula was making lasagna and garlic bread.  The lasagna was fine - a little meatier than I would make it.  She slathered on two sticks of butter onto a loaf of bread for the garlic bread (yikes) and when it was done and she was serving everything, she cut giant pieces of butter-soaked garlic bread, slapped some lasagna in between them, and suggested making a “lasagna sandwich”.

Look Paula.  It was fine when you poured 2 cups of melted butter all over a freshly-removed-from-the-deep-fryer-still-dripping-oil turkey.  Your gooey pumpkin butter cake that calls for two sticks of butter?  Whatever.  But a giant piece of cheesy, meaty lasagna smashed between two buttery pieces of garlic bread?  Too far, Paula.  Too far.

There’s nothing wrong with loving sci-fi… right?

Published
by
ashley
on August 31, 2008
in life and television
. 1 Comment

I don’t understand the social stigma attached to sci-fi nerds.

Before I go any further, let me state the following:

1. I do not attend any sort of convention unless it’s about books, journalism, or food. As much as I enjoy the idea of ComicCon, I can get my comic jollies on the Internet.

2. I have only seen one episode of Star Trek - I think that I would probably like Star Trek, but unfortunately, it seems much too complicated for me with the multiple forms and backstories and I just don’t have the time to start at the beginning. I might go see the Star Trek movie though, if only because of my slight (giant) crush on Zachary Quinto.

3. I have never dressed up in any sort of costume (except for Halloween). I can never picture myself doing something like this. Aside from the whole writing-about-my-life-on-the-internet thing, I am actually a pretty shy and modest person who would much rather play a few rounds of Contra over dressing up. Jeans and t-shirts ftw.

4. I’ve never been really “into” sci-fi as a genre. My favorite type of movies are the global disaster/post-apocalyptic ones, but I never really considered those movies to be sci-fi. Apparently they are. I love really cheesy sci-fi, too, especially the ones they show on the Sci-Fi channel (I realize I’m not helping my case here) about giant snakes or spiders or sea monsters or alien biowarfare.

Aside from the random delving into Neil Gaiman or Lost, I was never really into sci-fi as a whole. I did kind of view it as something super nerdy, something that would catapult my already questionable lack of social skills into utter nerdiness.

Enter Battlestar Galactica.

We Netflixed Battlestar Galactica solely on the recommendation of Kevin Smith.  His blog said that BSG was one of the best tv shows on tv right now, so hey, what did we have to lose?

The first disk came and we set it aside.  I think both of us were nervous to watch it - nervous that someone would find out that we had actually contemplated watching such a nerdy television show.

The night that we started watching it, I put the DVD in and crawled into bed next to Marques.

“Are you sure we want to do this?” I asked.  “Once we start watching it, there’s no turning back.  If people ask us ‘Have you guys seen Battlestar Galactica?’, we can no longer maintain our cool cred and say that we haven’t.”

We both voted to go ahead to losing our cool.

Battlestar Galactica singlehandedly revitalized my interest in science fiction.  Robots.  Spaceships.  Outer space.  Time travel.  The Future.  Bring. It. On.  I don’t care what it is.  Giant snakes?  Okay.  Cryogenics?  Sure.  A bleak outlook of future society?  I’m there.

Yet I rarely divulge my sci-fi love to friends or family (uh, apparently until now).  Mainly because I’m pretty sure they would make fun of me.  Is it so wrong to love this genre?  Does watching sci-fi make me a nerd, or was I already a nerd before I started watching sci-fi and now I’m just an even bigger nerd?

I bet 400 years into the future, sci-fi nerds rule the world.  Until then, I suppose we’ll have to content ourselves with watching our preferred television shows in the dark.

Jack Bauer = MacGyver 2.0

Published
by
ashley
on August 27, 2008
in television
. 0 Comments

I found this list of problems solved by MacGyver very interesting.

Is Jack Bauer just MacGyver 2.0?  With, you know, actual weapons and problem-solving apparatii?  And torture skills?

I wonder who would win in a fight between Jack Bauer and MacGyver?