mik1of3's Blog

Sure, Michael Phelps has eight gold medals, but Jennifer Lopez is convinced she's the real athlete of the moment.  View related photos Gary Hershorn / Reuters file By Courtney Hazlett The Scoop MSNBC updated 8:31 a.m. CT, Tues., Aug. 19, 2008

Courtney Hazlett The Scoop Poor Jennifer Lopez. The new mom is training for a triathlon, but everyone is too busy watching the Olympics to notice.

Lopez, who appeared on "Good Morning America" Aug. 18 to discuss her preparations for the Malibu Triathlon, was overheard saying after the segment that she “couldn’t understand why everyone is talking about that swimmer,” according to a GMA source. “She couldn’t come up with (eight-time gold-medal winner Michael) Phelps’ name, and then she yammered on about how she was the one training for a triathlon just six months after giving birth, and how that was the big story right now, not ‘the swimmer.’ ”

Lopez is planning on donating money raised for her race to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. To help drum up attention, she started a blog to share tips on training. “Touch up makeup prior to your run” hasn’t made its way into any posts, despite Lopez being spotted arriving in Central Park with her makeup artist later in the day.

 

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I have never cared for this woman..she always seemed to me an attention grabbing,  talent challenged female with an inate ability to snag men who could help her career (P Diddy, Ben Affleck);  marrying and divorcing husbands, Noe Somebody and Cris Judd;  making bad movies (Gigli) and mediocre music. 

She snags someone else's husband, pops out twins, outfits their nursery in an ostentatious display of wealth (really, a gold and crystal chandelier is a must for ANY baby's room).  Rumor has it she had an elective C-section cause she was afraid of the pain, didn't breastfeed because she didn't want it to affect her goodies, (as a former breastfeeding mother, I can agree nursing does give you a case of the droopy boobs) but still ... now she has the unadulterated nerve to say she doesn't understand why everyone is talking about 'that swimmer' (MICHAEL PHELPS!!) instead of her? 

And I especially love the makeup artist running with her.  Any runner worth her salt knows that wearing makeup while you run is BAD for your skin.  Your skin, like any other living organism, needs to BREATHE too!!

Just another example of you can take the girl out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the girl...

I hope Michael Phelps' mama slaps the snot out of this Malibu tramp.  Can anyone honestly be this ignorant? 

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx/?news=325
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After lots and lots of waiting and wondering, MSN has posted the official Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie trailer. 

After a disappointing Order of the Phoenix, (except for the fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort which kicked major butt) this movie looks awesome!

http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie/harry-potter-and
-the-half-blood-prince/?affid=100055

Between this movie and twilight, I just can't wait for fall!!

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&vid=81698
0f8-1902-4e32-98a1-d2fbf51cf63b

Okay, I'm not a big 'gamer', but  I do have quite a few games on my computer that me and Scotti play.  Nothing violent or requiring a great amount of brain power..just cotton candy for the brain when we need to just blow some time.

Our favorites? 

   ALL of the Diner Dash games    

 All of the Wedding Dash games...I'm STUCK on level 3 right now!!

  

This one was lots of fun!!

We are such GIRLS!!  Sissy games, maybe, but we like them!! 

What are YOUR faves?

 

 

Honestly, now...which one makes the hair on your neck stand up?  I still say #1.  As you can see, Mom, Dad, baby sister Noah were all there, and the shoot was not in some seamy little room, but outdoors with a full crew.  I didn't post  "THE PHOTO" for two reasons..one, everyone has seen it, and two, I don't know that FOX would let me.

Okay...what movie is at the tippy top of your most eagerly anticipated for the YEAR?  Not the summer, fall, or winter..the YEAR?

Do you have only one?  Or are you like me (oh, the horror) and have two?  Mine, of course, are,  #1 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince due out November 21, 2008

http://www.movieweb.com/video/V07LbcfisuyOUV  (for a sneak peek teaser video)

 

 

And, of course, Twilight, due out December  12, 2008

http://www.twilightthemovie.com/    www.stepheniemeyer.com  and you can find all different kinds of Twilight videos..including the authentic movie trailer on you tube.  (I don't know how to embed the videos.) 

If you haven't read the books yet, I heartedly encourage you to do so.  Despite being a "vampire" series (the main reason I never read them earlier, Anne Rice ruined the genre for me) it is a very moral, wholesome story with the importance of love, family and friendship its biggest focus.

   

Below...Kristin Stewart as Bella, Stephenie Meyer (the author) Robert Pattinson as Edward.

The Cullen family...Emmet (Kellan Lutz); Rosalie (Nikki Reed), Esme, the "Mom"  (Elizabeth Reaser), Edward  (Robert Pattinson); Carlisle, the "Dad" ( Peter Facinelli); Alice (Ashley Green) and Jasper (Jackson Rathbone). 

This is one of  the three "evil" vampires, James  (Cam Gigandet) who wants to kill Bella.  Scotti likes this picture.  She likes his tummy. 

This is James' mate, Victoria(Rachelle LeFebvre) and Laurent, (Edi Gathegri), the third of the evil coven. 

Of course, I can't leave out Jacob (Taylor Lautner). 

  He's so cute, you just want to pinch his cheeks.  But you probably shouldn't do that to a were....oops, that's in New Moon!!

A few days ago, the booggyman called me a blog troll, and advised me to look it up.  I did so and these are the definitions I found on....

yahoo...A "troll" is someone who intentionally and persistently posts inflammatory messages about sensitive topics to bait users into responding or provoke a confrontation.

  

and on networdblog.blogspot.com...Trolling is a well-known phenomenon in commenting and message boards/blogs on the internet. Someone will make a post specifically designed to draw a response and gleefully sit back while they bask in all the attention and furor they caused.

So is it an insult?  Or merely a name to call someone who consistently disagrees with you in hopes of hurting their feelings?  Or is it just someone who likes to debate, which I most definitely am, especially when it comes to causes near and dear to my heart. 

 

Personally, I can think of worse things to be called.......trolling right along.....

Being thin..probably not a subject you'd expect to read about on this website, but my recent trip to London got me thinking..

It started when I was in the car en route to Leavesden film studios.  I whiled away part of the journey reading a magazine that featured several glossy photographs of a very young woman who is either seriously ill or suffering from an eating disorder (which is, of course, the same thing); anyway, there is no other explanation for the shape of her body. She can talk about eating absolutely loads, being terribly busy, and having the world's fastest metabolism until her tongue drops off (hooray, another couple of ounces gone!)  but her concave stomach, protruding ribs, and stick-like arms tells a different story.  This girl needs help, but, the world being what it is,  they're putting her on a magazine cover instead.  All this passed through my mind as I read the interview, then I threw the horrible thing aside. 

But blow me down if the subject of girls and thinness didn't crop up shortly after I got out of the car.  I was talking to one of the actors, and somehow or other,  we got on the subject of how a girl he knows (not one of the Potter actresses; some body from his life beyond the films) who had been dubbed "fat" by certain charming classmates.  (Could they possibly be jealous that she knows the boy in question?  Surely not!) 

'But', says the actor, in honest perplexity, 'she is really not fat.' 

"Fat" is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her, I said; I could remember it happening when I was at school, and witnessing it among the teenagers I used to teach.  Nevertheless, I could see that to him, a well-adjusted male, it was utterly bizzare behaviour, like yelling "thicko!" at Stephen Hawking. 

His bemusement at this everyday feature of female existence reminded me how strange and sick the "fat" insult is.  I mean, is "fat" the really worst thing a person can be? Is fat worse than vindictive, jealous, shallow, vain, boring, or cruel? Not to me;  but then,  you might retort,  what do I know about the pressures to be skinny?  I'm not in the business of being judged by my looks, what with my being a writer earning my living by using my brain...

I went to the British Book Awards that evening.  After the award ceremony, I bumped into a woman I hadn't seen in three years.  The first thing she said to me?  "You've lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!'

"Well," I said, slightly nonplussed, "the last time you saw me, I'd just had a baby."

What I felt like saying is "I'd produced my third child and sixth novel since the last time I saw you.  Aren't either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?" But no..forget the kid and the book, finally something to celebrate!!

So, the issue of size and women was (ha ha) weighing on my mind as I flew home to Edinburgh the next day.  Once up in the air, I opened the newspaper, and my eyes fell, immediately, on an article about the pop star Pink.

Her latest single, "Stupid Girls" , is the antidote-anthem for everything I had been thinking about women and thinness.  "Stupid Girls" satirises the talking toothpicks held up to girls as role models; those celebrities whose greatest accomplishment is un-chipped nail polish; whose only aspiration seems to be getting photographed in a different outfit nine times a day,  whose only function in the world seems to be supporting the trade in over-priced handbags and rat-sized dogs.

Maybe all this seems funny, or trivial, but its really not.  It's about what girls want to be, what they're told they should be, and how they feel about who they are.  I've got two daughters who have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed emaciated clones,  I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny-- a thousand things before 'thin'.  And frankly, I'd rather that didn't give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them had fleshier knees than they do.  Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons.  Let them never be "Stupid Girls".  Rant over.

--source www.jkrowling.com  click the hairbrush marked as "extras", then the tab under miscellaneous..then on "For Girls Only, Probably". 

 

I just could NOT believe my ears when I heard that Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney's 16 YEAR OLD SISTER, is FOUR MONTHS PREGNANT!!

Her mother, Lynne Spears, says she is shocked because Jamie Lynn never missed a curfew.  She also says that Jamie Lynn and Casey Alridge, the 18 year old father, have been dating for some time, all through high school, and that they met, ahem, at church.(Ah, church. Isn't that where the Donald met Marla Maples, Mrs Trump #2?)    And how long is "some time"?  Have they been together since she was twelve and he was fourteen? 

I realize that teens get pregnant every day, even teens from good families.  But I have a HUGE problem when the teenagers who do hold some prominence in our daughters' lives, as a role model, per se.  One person in a chat room said that Beyonce's sister, Solange, got pregnant at 17.  So what?  I never even knew (or cared, for that matter) that Beyonce had a sister in the first place, and at least Solange married this guy.  (As far as I know they still are married, he's some football player.)  My point is that Jamie Lynn, with her starring role in Nick's "Zoey 101", is a role model for young girls.    Thank GOD that my kid doesn't like Zoey 101.  Thank GOD she thinks Britney is a skeeze.

Geez.  To quote Angie Lopez, when talking to George Lopez about George's mother on the George Lopez show....Crazy apple, crazy tree.

 

Boy, I've been buying DVDs more and more lately.  It started with Spiderman 3, then Shrek 3, continued with Pirates of the Caribbean-At Worlds End, and has ended, for a while at least, with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix  Putting up my movies, I noted a little proudly how many complete sets I have.  All the Jurassic Parks, the Jaws, the Spideys,  the Shreks, the HPs, and the Pirates, not to mention my Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.  I have favorite episodes of each one as follows:

JP:  Definitely # 1.  Jaws 2 is my favorite one..the sight of Roy Scheider holding up that cable for that shark to chomp into is spine tingling every time.  What father wouldn't do that to save his kids?  Spiderman 2--I loved the way Alfred Molina made Doc Oc so sympathetic.  Shrek 2 because of the family dynamic and love therein between all of them.  Star Wars is hard..it used to be Return of the Jedi, (I love those darn Ewoks), then it was the Revenge of the Sith; but the one I reach for most of all is the Empire Strikes Back.  Which is strange because I fell asleep when I saw it at the theater, much to my boyfriends dismay, but I just like the story more.  LOTR:  The Return of the King.  One of my favorite scenes of all time:  Eowyn whipping off her helmet and declaring "I am no man!" before killing the witch king.  Pirates:  At Worlds End.  A lot of people didn't like the multiple story lines, but I did..I like watching something that makes you pay attention and use your brain.  Plus, who can resist Geoffrey Rush, Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom all at once?  Sigh.  And out of the three...Geoffrey Rush's Hector Barbossa is the only TRUE pirate! 

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  The new director Alfonso Curon threw me off at first, with his subtle change in presentation of the characters..more street clothes than school robes, for one; the way he used music as a tool more than an accent; took a little getting used to.  But it's my favorite HP movie, as well as book AND soundtrack. 

What are YOUR favorite sequels and why?

I am not by nature a fan of violent movies.  I abhor "hack n chops" like "The Hills Have Eyes", "28 Days", "Wrong Turn", "Saw".  I did watch "Halloween", (the original) while I was babysitting and it scared me so much I called my dad to come stay with me; and I loved the Nightmare On Elm Street series-not the violence, but Freddy. And I couldn't resist Freddy Vs Jason..only 'cause I think FREDDY KRUEGER is one of the BEST monster/villians, second only to Hannibal Lecter.  But the Friday the 13th, and that kind of stuff..don't like it.

HOWEVER, I LOVE a good REVENGE flick.  The original Death Wish with Charles Bronson;  Marked for Death, Hard to Kill, and Under Siege with Oscar worthy actor Steven Seagal (just kidding)...I can handle any kind of violence as long as its the bad guys getting it. 

I saw the previews for Death Sentence with Kevin Bacon over the past couple weeks, and checked out the website today.  As soon as I saw the movie trailer for it, I called DH and asked him if he wanted to go on a movie date with me.  Knowing me, he asked suspiciously.."Is it a chick flick?"  No, honey, I replied.  "Is it a kid's movie?"  he continued. NO HONEY..it's a revenge movie.  Rated R for brutal violence and pervasive language...right up his alley!! 

We're going Sunday night (a big change for me-I usually NEVER pay full price for movies and go in the AM)...but he admits he's having trouble seeing Ren from Footloose as a killer. 

I'm a big fan of the For Better of For Worse comic strip, and today's strip reminded me of a conversation I had with my niece two weeks ago.

In the comic strip, April, a 16 year old, is having boyfriend troubles and asks her older sister, Elizabeth , 26, for help.  Seems the boyfriend is telling his friends that April he is receiving a lot more affection from April than she is actually giving him, if you get my drift, and April wants to know how she should handle it.  Elizabeth tells her to tell the boy to stuff it. 

My niece had a similiar problem.  She had broken up with one boyfriend, and, his nose out of joint, he's gone around dragging her name through the dirt.  Her new boyfriend wants to kick his butt..she wants to handle it herself.  (Good girl, we raised her right!!)  Her other aunt tells her to kick his butt herself.  I told her to take a cue from the movie 10 Things I Hate About You.  Tell him if he doesn't  tell everyone that he's a liar, and take everything back, she's gonna tell everyone how ah...diminutive...he is..and he had 3 days to recant his story.  She didn't think he would..but he did.    Not only is my niece's rep restored, but people know she'll call them on gossiping about her or her friends!

The same thing happened to me back when I was a freshman.  A certain boy had taken an interest in me, and was walking me to classes, but nothing else was going on.  That's not what he was telling everyone else, though.  My then best guy friend, now husband, took him behind the boys gym and gave him a little talking to.  (I didn't know ANYTHING..all I knew that Trey stopped walking me to classes and flat out AVOIDED me for no reason.)  It kept the "objectionable" boys from hitting on me, too.  I found out all this only about four years ago..my husband told me.  I had mixed feelings..I thought I was just ugly, that's why no one asked me out!!  Turns out Tony had 'em all scared!

What have you, or someone who loves you, done to defend your reputation, and did it work?

A great family day activity is tomorrow at the San Jacinto Monument. They're holding the San Jacinto Day festival. Gates open at 10am. There's live music, food, different merchants, exhibitions, and real Texian and Mexican army camps with authentic weapons, tents, clothes, utensils, etc. that you can tour.

At 3pm, they will reenact the Battle of San Jacinto. The monument will be open, but I don't know if you'll be able to go up to the observation deck--I think so, but with the horrible events of this week, it wouldn't surprise me if it was shut it down for security reasons.

Dress for the weather, bring a towel, blanket, comforter, or lawn chair; an umbrella to deflect the sun. LOTS OF SUNSCREEN!! Coolers are allowed, so in addition to bringing your own food, be sure to bring lots of water!!

Its a lot of fun, and outside of the gas, snacks, & souvenirs, its FREE!! There's something for everyone..from the rough & tumble boy to the girliest girl. (I know..my daughter is about as girly as you get and she loved it enough to want to go again this year!)

There are photos of last year's event posted on my blog if ya'll want to check it out.

I love penguins..always have, and when Happy Feet came out,  I took my nephew Chris and my daughter to see it.  We liked it-my nephew is a Mountain Home, Texas country boy and he was amazed that I knew just about every song they played in that movie, and even more so when his city cousin recognized Prince during the closing song. 

But there was one scene in there that made me go "Hmm, wait a minute..that voice sounds like.."  It was when Mumble and his posse walk through the elephant seal herd and talk to three of them.  The voice of one of them rang all kinds of bells with me, but, I shook my head.  Wishful thinking, I told myself.

Fast forward to the DVD release.  We FINALLY watched it Sunday night, and was flicking through the special features.  Watched the music videos, watched the dance short, watched the Mumble Happy Feet Moment where Memphis hacky sacks and then place kicks his baby into the water.  Then I clicked on Mumble Meets the Blue Whale. 

I wasn't surprised when they mentioned Steve Irwin.  You couldn't be involved in anything nature related without CrocMan having his finger in it somewhere, seems like.  But when they mentioned the scene they cut out of it-the scene where Mumble meets the albatross and the blue whale-and what they left in-his doing the voice of the elephant seal that made me go hmm (I KNEW IT)-it was like Irwin was popping down from heaven and going "Crikey!  Yieh ain't forgotten me yet, have yeh?"  Then, when I watched the deleted scene, I started bawling.  My husband couldn't understand why I was crying at such a happy scene--Steve Irwins' enthusiasm, vitality and zest for life came zooming back like it never left in that scene--and it made me feel his loss even more. 

My daughter asked me why they took that scene out, and I told her the film editors probably thought it was too soon after Irwin's death for people to hear him again;  they might have done it out of respect for Terri, Bindi, baby Bob; and that they were probably afraid that people would think they were using Irwin as a way to sell tickets, to get people to see the movie.  She just looked at me the way that kids do when they don't and really don't want to understand.  "So what?  He wouldn't care if it made people watch the movie --especially if they learned from it." 

Then Monday comes, and the Virginia Tech shootings.  One can only hope the week gets better.

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, even though I don't care for the holiday itself, I wonder, what are some of Fox 26's staff & viewers most romantic moments?  A birthday, Christmas, marriage proposal, proclaimation of love..anything...and weddings don't count because they're SUPPOSED to be romantic!                                     

My best friend says hers was when she had her second son.  Her husband, a very quiet, reserved man, gave her a really mushy card that thanked her for marrying him and said that having children with her was the best thing EVER in his life.  My sister said that when my brother in law was hospitalized with meningitis before they were married, they were broken up at the time, and still all he did was call for her and all that mattered to her was getting to him before it was too late.   My baby sister said that hers was when she and her bf, now fiancee, were broken up, and she saw him out with someone new.  She realized how much she did love him, called him, he dumped his new GF, and he hasn't left my sister's side since..and it's been 2 years.

Personally, I've been very lucky, like most other women of my generation-  Our men grew up & matured (and I use that term loosely) to be more sensitive and mushy with their women, but it was also OK (not illegal) & expected to be macho, protective,  and willing to fight for them in case they thought their women were being disrespected or mistreated.  (And I mean fist fight, not with guns or knives. ) 

I don't have just one romantic moment, although the same guy is the perp of both.  Jerry was a motorcycle & car head, and when he got romantic, it was very, very rare, so maybe that was what made it so special.  The first one was our first New Years eve together.  One of the wine saleswomen at my work was having a black tie party at the Ramada on I10, and we doubled with some friends of ours.  After the party, we went upstairs, "just looking", he said, and I was scandalized when he opened a door and went in "to look around", convinced we were going to jail.  (Like I said, he wasn't a romantic.  He was penny pincher, and he lived 5 minutes from the party.  Plus I was blotto.)  He pointed to the bucket of champagne, the rose petals on the bed, and the roses on the cart with the flutes.  He'd rented the room for the night.  Two years later, we were living together and right before Valentines Day he asked me what crazy thing I wanted to do most in the world.  I told him I wanted him to take me to the top of every bridge in Houston on the motorcycle, stop, and kiss me, with cars zooming by--but that wasn't in his nature, he was a very careful motorcyclist (unless you count the 2 person wheelies we did, but that's another story).  The night of Feb 14th, we got on the bike, and he drove me to every bridge he could think of--the Jesse Jones bridge, the Galveston Bridge, the Ship Channel Bridge, pulled over into the emergency lanes, took his helmet off then mine, and kissed me. 

Things like this--the card my best friend got from her husband, the need of my brother in law for my sister, the devotion my sisters fiancee has for her, the nighttime kisses on top of bridges with cars zooming by at 60+mph..you can't buy those and send them via messenger on Valentines Day to show off to your coworkers.  So maybe that's why I'm so skeptical of the holiday.  Things like this are so much more romantic than flowers, jewelry, a romantic dinner, and a card. 

What are YOUR most romantic moments?? (and remember there may be little eyes present, so keep it clean!)

Well, here it is Valentine's Day, and it's all anyone can talk about.  Local talk show host Chris Baker asked if the holiday was harder on the males than any other day, and I have to say so.  I've been accused of having a jaundiced eye when it comes to this holiday, and I've often wondered it myself...but the amount of like minded women who called in to his show let me know, hey maybe I'm not so wierd, after all.

One woman, in particular said that "we women don't need outrageous displays of love from our men for ourselves..we need it to show our girl friends, coworkers, business associates that see, we are loved and adored. My husband/boyfriend/whatever loves me more than yours loves you.  One upmanship."  I thought, you know that's basically true, and how sad is that?What does that say about us women, when we continually try to one up each other?

Almost every man I know say that women are confusing as anything, basically because how can something be so sweet one second, turn into something so heartless in  less than a second?  Claws come out, then retract.  And if you need any proof of that, look at girl bands.  The Supremes, the GoGos, the Bangles..girl bands don't last long due to the cattiness between women.  The only one that I know of that has lasted any extended length of time is The Dixie Chicks.  (I'm sure there's more, but can't think of any right now.)  Heck, we even see it on prime time TV news stations (except Fox, of course) -- remember Jane Pauley and Deborah Norville? 

My closest friends (not counting my family) have always been boys.  My one best girl friend is still my best friend after 26 years, and I'm slowly making more women friends.  I'm not good at it, for one, I'm more careful than I should be, maybe, for two, and for three, as a whole, I don't trust women.

How can a gender that yells, "NO MEANS NO" turn around and double speak their men the way that we do and get mad at them when they don't understand us?  I had a boyfriend point that out to me back in the mid 80s, and although it knocked my nose out of joint, I had to admit, yes we do that and ever since then I'm pretty much straightforward with everyone in my life, not just my husband.

  Personally, I think that Valentine's Day is, like one of the other bloggers, said, is a holiday made up by the retail industry just for money purposes.  I realize there was a St Valentine and all that but doubt what the holiday has become today is what it was intended it to be.