young hollywood

One of the many reasons I love The Hills is that it allows me to vicariously live out the fantasy world in which i am a fashion princess living and working in the fashion industry. Lauren works at Teen Vogue and gets to do super cool things. Her and Whitney are in charge of coordinating this Young Hollywood Fashion Show in the very swanky Vibiana Church in LA. Lauren gets to be the stylist for Marc Jacobs' fashion show. Everyone is dressed to the nines and schmoozing with good looking people. In other words, a far cry from me and my jeans and sneakers in any random sports bar. Of course, living such a glamorous fashion-infused lifestyle would probably require me to live in LA, spend lots of money and be somewhat superficial and shallow. So not so much. Besides, it would also require me to give up my cute little condo which I love dearly even though it has recently been rezoned into an insurance-required flood zone due to its proximity to the East River. *sigh*

ready, set, go!

Here we are, it's season 12 of The Amazing Race, I couldn't wait to watch and I am as always, smitten. First, we meet the teams:

Shana & Jennifer: Two blondies from LA, and they think they're hot, but they're not. They think they're going to flirt their way to the finish line, but have they not watched the first 11 seasons of this show? It's so not how the race is won. They are doomed and I already dislike them.

Kynt & Vyxsin: Those are not typos in the names! It's a goth dating couple from KENTUCKY and I'm fascinated to see how long they manage to keep up their goth makeup on a daily basis on this race - their makeup must take up a crapload of space in their backpacks!

TK & Rachel: Hipster couple from Cali who think they are madly in love but have only known each other for a year. I know, who am I to be judgmental?

Jennifer & Nathan: Jock couple from Cali who are already fighting and screaming at each other a lot, and it's only the first leg of the race. They're in trouble and no Jennifer, now is NOT the time to wonder if you want to spend the rest of your life with this boy. Especially not when you have a donkey that won't budge.

Jason & Lorena: ANOTHER couple from Cali. Lorena is super whiny and a total crybaby and and Jason doesn't seem to really give a crap about anything, including the race. Combined, they are incredibly annoying.

Nicolas & Ronaldo: A boy and his grandfather. You can sense the anxiety in Nicolas as he tries to hurry along his 68-year-old grandfather along at every pass. This is not going to go well because you can tell the grandfather is going to get stuck doing physical tasks that he can't actually do and we're all going to cringe.

Azaria & Hendekea: Brother and sister token black team. Don't have much of an opinion about them just yet, but they seem pretty harmless and fun. Oh, and they're not annoying, which is a plus.

Ronald & Christina: Token Asian team comprised of father and daughter. Of course I am rooting for them! Ronaldo serenades his daughter as they bike ride, and it is adorable. Almost as adorable when he yells "Who's your daddy?" at the pit stop.

Ari & Staella: Best friends from Cali. I already don't like them because they shamelessly stole one of the other teams' taxis. I know it's a game and all, but STILL. At least have a little guilt about it!

Marianna & Julia: Sisters from Florida. They are pretty irritating, but this early in the race, I can't actually put my finger on why. Stay tuned.

Kate & Pat: Married Ministers from California who think they are holier than thou, and I suppose as ministers they can think that. But it doesn't give them a right to be obnoxious!

First stop: Ireland! The race starts in LA, but no sooner than we meet the teams are we off to LAX to hop on a flight to Ireland. Aside from being rainy when they get there, it's beautiful! There's bright green grass everywhere, cute little farm houses and locals with adorable Irish accents. In Ireland, they ride bikes and lead donkeys to a farm (I love the tasks involving animals the best!). The donkey task is great because some of the donkeys refuse to even move in typical stubborn donkey format while others run so fast that the teams leading them can't keep up. heehee. At the pit stop, Hendekea & Azaria come in first place and win a trip to... Canada? The other teams trickle in as fast as their donkeys will allow them, and in the end, Ari & Staella are the last to arrive at the pitstop due to a very uncooperative donkey. And remember how they stole another team's taxi earlier in the leg? That's what we call karma, bitches.

the race is on!

Tonight is the season premiere of one of my favorite reality shows EVER, The Amazing Race! Very exciting to finally have a reality show that I'm excited about back on. It's season 12, it starts now, and I will be talking about this show a lot over the next couple of months while the teams race around the world, so set your DVRs!!

I'm currently watching Sunday Night Football featuring the Cowboys vs. the Eagles (a game where I want both teams to lose... can that happen?), but my DVR is recording away, so check back soon when I get a chance to check out the teams and provide my usual commentary on the contestants and the race!

tv weekend

It's Saturday evening and what have I done today? Ventured to Bed, Bath and Beyond, got my car washed and did a round of grocery shopping. Then I came home and plopped myself in front of the tv. Oh, but not until after I scrubbed down my entire bathroom and windexed and swiffered every surface in my apartment that would allow it. And then I made baked ziti. So I think it's deserved that it's now Saturday evening and I'm doing nothing other than gorging on my pasta and watching tv, right? Most of the afternoon was filled with college football but I did also manage to watch a bunch of shows from the week.

The Office went back to half hour episodes but are still as ingenius as ever. This week was the return of Jim's ex-girlfriend Karen, who I still dislike. I haven't missed her at all, I hope this was only a one time appearance. She's got bad hair and a bad attitude.

Scrubs is back, and JD is having a BABY!! Well, Kim is having a baby, but it's JD's! It's a baby filled episode, and who doesn't love babies?

In a stunning upset, Cheetah Girl Sabrina is eliminated from Dancing with the Stars! She was the BEST dancer on the show, who knows what happened. But I guess it doesn't matter so much given that I'm barely watching the show anymore anyway. I watch about ten minutes of it a week, enough to find out what dances they learned and who got eliminated. Lame, I know.

And now I'm sitting here watching a chick flick on HBO called Because I Said So starring Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore. It's not very good, but it passes the time before I decide to switch back to college football for the rest of the evening. Yes, just my kind of a Saturday evening!

Happy Halloween!

Saw this on the porch of someone's house during my last Penn State trip:

Classy, I know.

for the glory

Once again, I apologize for my absence. It's been one of those... months, and I'm only starting to get my act back together. I've returned from my final Penn State football trip of the season, one that was cold and depressing, accented by an embarrassing loss to OSU on national television, but highlighted by the excitement of College GameDay and breakfast burritos.

Also welcome my first attempt at youtubing:

Unfortunately there's lots of crowd noise and I also got tired of holding up my camera so it's only the first two verses!

In the process of attempting to record College GameDay, the Penn State game AND the Giants game while I was away, my shows from last week got deleted from my DVR :( So I missed The Office as well as Scrubs. So sad.

I should be able to get myself back on track now with no more trips, no more baseball and just football to deal with. Need to tidy up my DVR and I'll be back in business so stay tuned!

Oops

For those of you actually paying attention, apologies for not having written anything in the past two weeks. I was away last weekend having a super drunk time at Homecoming (Penn State 38, Wisconsin 7) and have been feeling somewhat under the weather all week, possibly somewhat related to the fact that I overdid it just a bit during my college weekend. Amidst all that, I have been trying to keep up with tv but there hasn't been anything GREAT on. Some things are good, but nothing is great. Kind of disappointing. EXCEPT for The Office, which has stretched itself out to hourlong episodes this season and are hysterically funny. The first season that The Office was on, I was skeptical, because although it was funny, I had already seen the BBC version of the show which was hysterical in its own right with its dry British humor and sassy characters. The first season of the American version was nothing but an exact play-by-play of the British version, and it was hard to have to compare them. Since then, the American version of The Office has had quite a coming out party and I am quite loving it! And for the record, she is not one of the main characters, but the woman who plays Kelly Kapoor is absolutely genius - her character throws just the right amount of crazy-obsessed-girlfriend humor into the mix. Fabulous!

And now, it's Penn State football time. Have a lovely weekend! Until the next time I am able to muster the energy to write, here's a picture from my Penn State-Wisconsin weekend. It's me and a certain Wisconsin fan at Penn State's Lion Shrine - you'd never know from this picture, but it was taken at abut 2AM and while incredibly trashed. I'm refraining from posting the pictures where it is obvious just how drunk we are :) I look perfectly sober in this one, though it's amazing I didn't fall off the lion, as that sucker is pretty slippery!

29

My 29th birthday came and went with rather little fanfare, just the way I liked it. I had a three day weekend (inadvertantly stretched into four) and spent most of it... eating. Birthday meal #1 consisted of yummy soup dumpling and a big fried seabass. Birthday meal #2 was sushi at my favorite sushi place in the city, and birthday meal #3 was a delicious massive buffet spread that left me so full I was almost ill... but I managed to make room for the tasty little birthday cake highlighted by my niece and nephew serenading me with a birthday song.

Aside from the food, Penn State got a win and the Giants got a win, so aside from the debacle that is the New York Yankees, which I will decline from discussing at this time, it was not such a bad birthday weekend. The Yankees must have missed the memo about it being my birthday. hmph.

Next up - Penn State homecoming!

baseball pains

Game 1 of the Yankees-Indians ALDS playoff series is currently on. So it's the 5th inning and the Yankees are crumbling and down 9-3. I made me somewhat sick to my stomach and I couldn't bear to watch anymore so I turned the game off. Yankees in the playoffs and I had to turn the tv off because it's so terribly difficult to watch! Oh what a debacle. I'll turn it back on it a bit to continue the torture, but in the interim I put on Survivor: China (and yeah they are in China but honestly, it looks like every other island on which they've ever filmed this show!) to soothe my brain a bit. I do not understand how the Yankees can continue to torture me like this, season after season after season... *sigh*

woe is britney

I've been staying away from the debacle that is celebrity gossip, bu due to popular deand from halfway around the world: Britney has temporarily lost custody of her kids! The bad driving, the drinking, the drugs... it's all caught up to her and of all things, K-Fed now gets to hang on to the kids until further notice, because Brit is such a mess. It is a sad SAD world when K-Fed is the better one!