Entries in the Category "sling blog"
Like TV? Like clothes?
If you grew up in Middle America in the late 80s and early 90s, it's possible you spent Tuesday nights watching Roseanne. If so, you might be interested in Third and Delaware, a blog devoted to the fashion of that venerable sitcom. Like cowl-neck sweaters? How about fringed denim jackets? And stretch pants under an oversized man's shirt? What about that early-90s classic, the belted overall? And don't forget to accessorize with bangle bracelets and giant hair. (Tipped by Sling Blog.)
By the way, the clothes may be embarrassing to look at, but Roseanne is still utterly watchable. In fact, I watch it almost anytime it's on, which recently has been constantly. Oxygen does a full-day marathon at least once a week, with Nick at Nite and TV Land picking up the slack at night. Watch Roseanne lead a walkout at Wellman plastics! Watch Jackie do community theater! Watch Dan let his buddy convince him to buy a motorcycle repair shop (don't do it, Dan!) and other great moments in Roseanne history.
(If you catch an episode from that weird final season where they won the lottery and everybody looked like they were on crack, feel free to skip it.)
The Twilight Phenomenon
Can I talk for a minute myself about the Twilight phenomenon? You might have heard that New Moon is kicking ass at the box office, thanks to the expendable incomes of both 14-year-old girls and their 45-year-old mothers. You might also have heard that the movies are adaptations of an adolescent book series.
I have not read these books. I’m not particularly interested in reading the books. I’m not a huge fan of the vampire thing anyway—I love Gothicism, but as it happens I’m more about ghosts and haunted houses, although I will grant that Bram Stoker’s Dracula is actually really good—and the romance element of it means nothing to me. I have never read romance novels, and again, I’m not particularly interested in starting.
On the other hand, I know a lot of people who have read the Twilight books, both people in real life and people in literature forums online whose opinions I trust. Most of them acknowledge that the writing is a bit amateur, but that the stories are undeniable page-turners. The literary equivalent of a TV crime procedural. Twilight and Order. CSI: Forks, WA. Although I don’t like it when people want to compare guilty pleasure reading with canonical literature (“oh, Twilight is just as good as Pride and Prejudice, you’re just being a snob about it”), I don’t have fundamental issues with people who want to float around in the guilty pleasure camp indefinitely. There are a lot of corners of my life in which I unapologetically take it easy.
Besides, one thing that is emphatically in the Twilight series’ favor—which can also be said for the Harry Potter series, which I have also not read—is that it appeals to people who are in general non-readers, and this, I would never quibble with. Reading is like pot—it’s a gateway drug! The more you do of it, the more you want to do it. (P.S., Mom, I speak hypothetically having never smoked pot.) If some fourteen-year-old girl wants to read Twilight from cover to cover and then tentatively graduate on to Wuthering Heights? I want to encourage her to do so. (Even if she doesn’t move beyond Twilight, at least it’s a couple hours she won’t spend watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta, know what I’m saying?)
One question I’ve been entertaining myself with is whether I would have been one of those Twilight obsessives if it had come out ten years earlier, or fifteen, or twenty. Looking back, completely clear-eyed, taking into consideration the goofy stuff I liked at various ages, I think I can honestly state that by fourteen or fifteen I would have been too old for Twilight. I had already started reading really good stuff by that age, and even though you can graduate on to Wuthering Heights from Twilight, I don’t think that you can go backwards.
I don’t want to play like I’m too cool for Twilight, though, because I really don’t think that’s the case. I watched Supernatural for two seasons because the brothers were hotties. And those airdates won’t lie, either; I was indeed in my twenties at the time. As a preteen I swooned over many a piece of even more ridiculous tripe. Had Twilight been placed into my hands around age twelve? Yeah, I think I would’ve fallen for it.
I will say this much: I am glad that I am a grown-up now and not feeling peer pressure to turn on to Twilight. One night I happened upon the Cracked.com complete series recap. I was not aware of the actual plots of these books—especially the later ones—and when I read this for the first time I was utterly shocked. Understand that if you read this, you may have an extreme reaction, such as bleeding out of the ears. (I am not kidding. Prepare yourself.)
In case that was too graphic for you, try this: the hilariously embittered commentary of Will and Tara at Sling Blog (who every week see the #1 movie of the previous weekend).
11:40:56AM Will Edmondson: I mean, if there's anything to be said in defense of the movie, it's that it definitely knows its audience, and it appeals to that audience. The problem is: that audience is not something that I want to admit exists.
Emmys Day-After Recap
I’ve got my Emmy food (pizza and mint creme Oreos) and I’m ready to go!
The Host
Neil Patrick Harris is totally cool. He’s singing and dancing, he’s wearing a white dinner jacket, and I think he just insulted Two and a Half Men. (Theme songs are getting so short, next year’s theme to the show will just be "meh." HA!) Later: I love the way he keeps introducing people from their obscure early credits (“from the 1987 Afterschool Special…”).
Click ahead for much much more!
Continue reading "Emmys Day-After Recap"
Like cereal?
As an avowed carb enthusiast, I'm taking a break this morning between drug deals (Tony Montana’s, not my own, I promise!) to let everybody know about the N Cereal AA going on over at Tomato Nation. It’s a bracket tournament in which cereals compete (by garnering reader votes) for supremacy. The author of the site, Sars, has already done similar tournaments with cheese (winner: English cheddar) and ice cream (winner, in a stunning upset: mint chocolate chip).
If you think you can choose between Cheerios and Golden Grahams, visit the site and vote today--and keep visiting. These things move quickly. In between votes, there’s lots of play-by-play write-ups, and as an added treat, Sars is being joined in this tournament by her friend Tara, arguably the funniest woman on the Internet. If you don’t believe me, just head over to Sling.com and read her recaps of the first season of Beverly Hills 90210 (the original, with the sideburns and the Shannen Doherty and whatnot).
Websites of Note, 1st Edition
I have tons of websites that I’m obsessed with and visit regularly or more than regularly; I expect that, like “Why am I watching this?” from the other day, this topic will recur.
LOSING THE COW
This short blog I found in sort of a roundabout way; the blogger was a recapper at Television Without Pity (which I’ll cover on another day), then I followed her from there to her personal blog, on which she linked to this blog, which was devoted solely to her weight-loss efforts. Though she updated it a couple of times in 2008, the posts are largely from a few years earlier.
People who know me know that I am emphatically anti-diet, and, while I don’t discourage physical fitness for anybody, I find the obsessive pursuit of it a bit pointless. (It’s like this: I’ll walk the dog and do Pilates sometimes, but I won’t beat myself up if I skip a month or two. And I’m never giving up cheese.)
What does this site offer me, then, that I find so noteworthy? Philosophy, plain and simple. You have to start with the first post, in which the blogger (whose name is Linda Holmes, incidentally, and who now writes for yet another site that I like) explains how her approach, honed over 30 years of lifetime overweight-ness, differs from everyone else’s.
It’s like trying to win a tug-of-war, and you pull as goddamn hard as you can, and you don’t make any progress at all. And it seems like you should be able to do it, but you just don’t. And when you seek advice, you get the same piece most of the time: “Pull harder. You’re not pulling hard enough.” ... Here’s the advice you don’t get, that you should get:1. Tie the rope to something secure.
2. Walk along the rope until you find the other end.
3. There will be a guy standing there. Kick the shit out of him.
...More after the jump.