Quantum Leap

Okay guys, I know.  More sci-fi.  But seriously, you've got to just get used to it.  It won't stop here.  One theme you might notice recurring is time travel.  I absolutely love the idea of people experiencing life in a time period not their own.  I imagine taking people into the future to see how famous they become (yes, I do sob every single time I watch Vincent and The Doctor) or taking the Hilton sisters to live alongside the Bronte sisters.  My favorite time travel story is a television series, Quantum Leap.  I watch it on Netflix and still love it, and as a kid seeing the hippies and the Motown stars was so fun!  Plus I totally believed that by now we'd all be dressing like Al and using strange neon plastic information calculators.  Actually, we do have palm-sized computers but they don't look like Al's, that's for sure!

Nice shirt, Al.  What, no double necktie this week?

Sam and Al were the perfect team.  Sam Beckett was played by Scott Bakula, whose fame followed him to Star Trek: Enterprise (you know I'm a Trekkie) and NCIS: New Orleans, which is actually devastatingly free of any science fiction at all.  Al Calavicci was played by Dean Stockwell, who has over 200 acting credits on IMDB, starting in 1945 and including this gem from 1948:

 

In case you're trying to math, his 80th birthday is coming up this Saturday! Definitely sending a card. 

So, do you like time travel?  Or do you prefer space travel?  If you know of any good shows or books set in different times that you'd like to recommend, I'd love to give them a shot.  Drop it into the comment box below.  I'd appreciate it.

CoastCon

There's no spotlight this weekend, folks.  Just some good old nerdy fun!  Two years ago, I attended my first con, CoastCon in Biloxi, MS.  I didn't know what to expect, but when I got there I found MY PEOPLE.  I don't exactly know how to describe the people there, but if you've ever been to a con... that.  It was them.  They were me.  My focus that first year was learning about professional writing and about the sci-fi and fantasy genres.  I sat in panels by authors Kelly Armstrong (you know her from Bitten, which is now a Syfy show) and Derek Dykes, who you'll read more about next Saturday.  I also met John de Lancie (Q from Star Trek: TNG) and I had a blast!

Last year, my focus was more on cosplay and learning about techniques and getting ideas.  I'm absolutely not putting any of what I learned to use this year, as my life is becoming very hectic but my husband built me a costume last year that honestly should've won something in my opinion.  It looked just as good as (almost) anything else there, but it was definitely not as technologically advanced or as labor intensive, and that was my downfall.  I realize I'm biased, because my husband is hands-down a genius in my eyes, but still.  It was cool.  Here, look.

See? The coolest.  I even found out later that someone had written about me on her blog.  I was pretty excited.  Even though the guys in the Transformers cosplay legitimately were much cooler than me.  They worked in an auto body shop for a living and used real car body parts. 

  

This year, I'm focusing on Role Playing Games.  I would really like to try them out and see if I like them or not.  I have a friend who recommended I try a few online games but I'd rather start out with people around who can help me in person.  I'm in my mid-thirties, after all.  I'm too old for all this online tech support business!  Just kidding, but for real.  I'm hoping to have a lot of fun this year.  I guess you'll find out in a couple of weeks when I write about it. 

Until then, let me know which games you think I should try, either table top or online. Thanks in advance for the advice.  And don't forget to hit subscribe and check out my other posts.

25 TV Shows To Catch On Netflix

I'd guess that maybe this is a thing everyone does, but I tend to hoard titles on my Netflix list.  I've got a bit of a proposition for you: I'll show you mine and you show me yours.  These are just the TV shows, and they're the ones I'm currently partway through and enjoying.  Later I'll probably post shows I've completed, shows I'd like to see, movies I liked, movies I'm looking forward to... all that stuff. 

The Twilight Zone +

The X-Files +

Star Trek: TOS +

Star Trek: DS9 +

Star Trek: Voyager  +

Star Trek: Enterprise +

Friends +

Alfred Hitchcock Presents +

Property Brothers +

M*A*S*H +

Broadchurch

Bob's Burgers

Jessica Jones

Peaky Blinders

Supernatural

Keeping Up Appearances +

Firefly +

SeaQuest DSV +

Grace & Frankie

Quantum Leap +

Master of None

Sense8

Merlin +

Haven +

The Gilmore Girls +

Just a bit of advice, definitely check the ratings before you watch if you're sensitive or have kids.  I watch most of them WAY after bedtime, particularly the Netflix originals. There's a + next to the ones I'll watch when the kids are up, but in general they don't care to watch them.  Well, The Villain likes TNG, but that's it.

A really good article about M*A*S*H, easily my favorite show

Saving Private Ryan (Buddy Checks)

I think I've mentioned before that I'm a veteran.  In America, an average of 22 veterans a day commit suicide, so because this is the first time my blog has had a post publish on the 22nd of a month, I'm using this opportunity to write about what I think is the most important and true-to-life military movie I've ever seen (if you disagree, please feel free to share your opinion in the comments section, but it should be noted that I don't watch many military movies).  When I was in high school, I worked in a movie theater and I'm actually SO OLD that this is when Saving Private Ryan came out.  It was released in the summer, so it's one of the movies that played during a weekday afternoon.  In smaller towns/cities they only do that when school is out which, I guess, is why summer blockbusters are a thing.  That's also why one day we had a movie that literally only one single person showed up for.  It was one of my teachers, Mr Stallons (remember the toilet seat, THS alumni?) and I stopped to chat with him for a few minutes.  He just really wanted to see it and couldn't wait for someone else to be available to come with him, so he sat there for three hours, all alone, watching one of the most emotionally draining movies of all time.  When it was done, I asked him if he'd liked it.  With his eyes still red, he assured me it was worth his time. 

http://savingprivateryan.wikia.com/wiki/File:Saving_Private_Ryan_by_Narusargent.jpg

When I watched it myself, I was so distraught that I decided never to see it again, but I did.  I bought it and I watched it over and over again, and it became one of my favorite movies.  I don't know the statistics on WWII veterans who took their own lives, but I know it happened.  And I know that today it's 22 veterans every single day.  So, if you know a veteran, whether he/she seems to be struggling or not, let the number 22 or this post serve as a reminder to give them a call or shoot them an email to check in and make sure things are going okay.  That's called a Buddy Check (particularly if you're a veteran yourself... in the Army they have a Battle Buddy system).  If they think they might need it, be ready with a number to a suicide hotline.  The veteran crisis line has a hotline that can be reached 24/7, 365 days a year.  It's completely anonymous and they're specially trained to deal with the many concerns that veterans face.  You can call and talk to someone at 1-800-273-8255 (veterans, press one when it picks up) or if you'd rather text, send a message to 838255.  I've checked it out and it's legit and still in order.  After your session ends, they even send you a message confirming that your entire conversation has been deleted, so they don't keep anything for their records. 

It's a pretty good deal.  Call if you need it, even if you're not a veteran.  They're there to help.

Me in my Seabee days.

 Pics by Matt Layton

Saturday Spotlight: Dr Valerie Crane

This week's spotlight is on a local author I'm blessed to know personally.  She's actually my pastor's wife and one of the best people in the world to get parenting advice from, as I see it.  Her kids are all grown up now, and they're all polite (which is my main parenting goal, to be honest) and smart.  They've also never been in any major trouble, they're great parents themselves, and they're normal, well-rounded non-Stepford people.  As you know, I have two kids myself, so as soon as I had access to her book, Oh Mother, Where Art Thou?  I snapped it up.

Buy it here

It is full of advice and tips that are actually practical and she explains very well her logical and Bible-based reasoning behind it.  It's not too long, either.  Just right for a new mom looking for an experienced mom's perspective.  I recommend it. 

Firefly

As I'm sure you've pieced together, I'm a bit of a sci-fi nerd.  Exactly the type who would love Firefly.  If you've never seen it, here's a very simplified synopsis: It's basically a western, but set on a spaceship.  The characters are a hodgepodge of people who all found each other by chance and formed an endearing team of outlaws.  The only completely crime-free person is the 'lady of the night'.  She's played by Morena Baccarin, who you probably saw recently in Deadpool.   It's actually super fun.

I will admit, when I first started watching it I kept expecting it to get better.  After all I'd heard about it I expected every moment to be life-altering, you know? But then one day I watched an episode called Jaynestowwn.  That was when I realized that I hated Jayne, really deeply hated him (You're supposed to, which is a testament to the acting talent of Adam Baldwin.), and that I loved the others just as deeply.  There's only one season and that episode is toward the end of it.  I finished it out and watched the movie immediately and loved that too. 

My second time through the series, and again now on the third, I enjoyed every episode from the beginning because I know all the characters so much better and I enjoy watching the stories unfold all over again.  My favorite is Kaylee, because I can really identify with her.  Not that I'm a mechanical genius, but I've spent my whole life being misjudged as much younger and sweeter than I am, even though I kind of really am pretty sweet.  It's tough to explain, but it just means that the actress, Jewel Staite, really gets me.  Maybe one day she'll actually meet me... and hopefully I'll figure out a non-creepy way to explain all that.  Fingers crossed, eh?

I used to have a Serenity decal for my car, which I got from this Ebay shop, in case you want one, but I had to trade the car in for a minivan and the sticker I got to replace it is the Enterprise.  I am in the market for a Firefly laptop skin, so if you know where I can get one or if you just have something to say about the show just cram it into the comment box below.  Thanks! I look forward to hearing from you.

Again, not my pictures.  I'm not some mogul!

Clueless

Do you ever get food cravings? When I was pregnant, I craved foods all the time, and even when I'm not I get the occasional hankering.  What's weird, though, is that I often get weird cravings to watch certain movies.  (NOT compulsions.  Because... just... not compulsions.)  There's a short list of movies that I often feel the need to watch right away, (like The Goonies every time it rains, or Harry Potter every weekend, since ABC Family plays marathons so often) and one of them is Clueless.  If you have kids or, I guess, if you are a kid, and you need a quick example of what the 90s were all about just pop in Clueless.  You got your sweater vests, you got your baby doll tees, you got your plaid miniskirts with knee socks... you can even find skaters in JINCOs.  And if you need proof that the movie is completely magical, consider this: for the entire first half of the movie, you didn't even notice that Paul Rudd was a total Baldwin. 

In French class, the teacher let us pick one or two movies to buy with French dubbed over and the one that won the vote by a landslide was Clueless. I voted for The Lion King, by the way, which we eventually also got, so it all worked out.   Almost everyone who picked Clueless wanted it because they wanted to learn to say 'virgin' in another language, but the joke was on them because it's just 'virgin' with a French accent.

Now, if you're my age and female you might be able to commiserate with me.  I am the same age as Cher.  So, when she was trying to pass her driver's test ("Oops! Should I leave a note?") I was also 16.  I legitimately got into that movie for the 12 and under price, because when we walked up to the counter, they automatically assumed we wanted one child and one adult (the last time that happened to me was six days after my 17th birthday).  When I watched that movie and saw what Cher looked like at 16 years old... well, I was not instilled with a great deal of confidence.  If this also happened to you, please let me help you feel a little bit better.  Cher may have been 16, but Alicia Silverstone was NOT! She was 19.  So that made me feel better.  By 19 I looked at least 13 or 14.  So.  Whew. Good. 

I actually grabbed this from propelle.com

Anyway, if you haven't seen it lately, give it a go and let me know how it holds up for you.  I still love it, and I hope you do too!  Comment down below.

Saturday Spotlight: Vincent Croce

This Saturday, the spotlight is on an Instagrammer with roughly a zillion followers.  He lives in Europe and posts mostly landscapes.  My favorites are his snowy pics, but that's just what I like in general.  So definitely check him out and scroll until you can't anymore.  Don't skip any along the way, though; they're all beautiful.  Check him out on Instagram, he's my favorite! And you'll notice his Tumblr link is in his bio, too.

You digging my sweet cell phone screenshot skills?

Marie Antoinette

I just wanted to drop a few pictures and say that I think Marie Antoinette is the most beautiful movie ever made.  Not the story or the characters, but every single visual element of that movie is gorgeous.  They even made the mud look fancy! They also won a well-deserved Oscar for the costumes.  Cheers!

**Edit** I don't own any of these pictures.  Clearly, they're stills from the film.

The Heavenly Kid

Looking back on my childhood, I know I played outside a lot, but I'm wondering how much my mind has exaggerated those memories, because I know for sure that I came home EVERY DAY and watched TV and movies after school at least from age six until about age ten.  I believe I mentioned I went through these phases where I picked the same movie over and over for a while, with the Goonies lasting probably a year or more.  This was back when it was totally okay to let the TV babysit your kids, not that my own boys haven't seen every single episode of Teen Titans Go! so I can just type for a minute... anyway, one of the first movies I remember was The Heavenly Kid.  A sixties-era greaser named Bobby (Lewis Smith) died while racing his car to win the prize of- now, this is the 60s- his girlfriend.  Ah, the good old days. 

After 15 or so years on some sort of afterlife public transport, Bobby finds that he's got to do some kind of good deed to redeem himself if he wants to catch the train for "Uptown" and not have to go "Downtown" if you catch my drift.  When he comes back to Earth, he finds that his assignment is to help this total nerdy loser named Lenny (Sorry Jason Gedrick.  That's just how they cast you.) with the love of his life.  Cool-guy Bobby turns loser Lenny into a total cool-guy so that he can win over the prettiest girl in school.  It's the 80s now, so expect a lot of side ponytails and V-neck sweaters.  But then he discovers that he doesn't even like her, or even being a cool-guy.  I know that's a pretty big spoiler, but there's another surprise involving Jane Kaczmarek, the mom from Malcolm in the Middle, who is just so great and gorgeous and lovable in this movie.  If you like 80s movies and haven't seen this one, give it a go.  It's so good!

Saturday Spotlight: Kreativa Katten

Decorating day planners is kind of a whole big thing.  Like, my planner is basically a scrapbook or journal that I'll keep forever, and there's a really big industry and countless social media groups dedicated to it.  My problem is, the products are mostly very sophisticated and girly and not at all nerd-friendly.  That's not me.  I'm not fancy.  I wanted to start the year on a pop-culture-y note and keep it up for as many months as possible.  I searched all over Etsy for hours trying to find nerdy planner stickers that were cute, priced well and relevant to my particular fandoms.  I decided to start with Firefly, and there was only ONE shop on all of Etsy to get them from, Kreativa Katten.  There was some confusion at first, and I did have some special requests besides Firefly, but they not only fixed everything but they took my suggestions, had conversations with me about them and made me a loyal customer.  She didn't ask me to review her, so this is all me.  (In fact, I didn't know what I was even going to write about until crunch time!) I really kinda hope she doesn't mind the mention. 

Here's what I ended up with:

 

 

And put to use:

 

As you can see, 'high numbers' is a relative term

Time Lapse

I didn't really have a place to discuss new favorites, since Mondays seem to be turning into day for mostly vintage topics and Saturdays are for my discoveries.  So, I've picked Thursdays for quick micro-posts and to rave about my current obsessions like the movie Time Lapse.  Now, in general, I tend not to mind spoilers, but honestly, don't let anyone tell you anything about this movie except that it deals with time travel... kind of.  *At this point I had planned to link to the trailer, but I feel like it gives a lot away, so... just go watch the movie.*

obviously not my photo

 

After I watched it the first time (the second time was the very next day), I immediately looked up the writers on IMDB.  I'm sort of obsessive about actors, but in general I never think at all about the people on the other side of the camera. 
The only exceptions:
-The writers of Time Lapse -Bradley King & BP Cooper
-The costumers for The Wiz Live
-The hair stylists for The Vikings on the History Channel

Such amazing talent! So, yes.  Go to Netflix NOW and search for Time Lapse.  If you don't have time to watch it today, add it to your list.  Seriously, make it the next thing you watch.  It's trippy, there are twists... you'll stay on the edge of your seat the entire time.  I was on my feet in the last scene like, "WHAAAAAAAT?! What is she doing?"

I've told you too much.

Why I'm A Spaz: An Essay

While I was on Guam, deployed with the Navy (Go Seabees!), Blessid Union of Souls played a show in a teeny tiny little bar on our Navy base. The show was advertised in the free paper that was lain around all over the base for sailors and Seabees with sticky fingers to read. Being one of these sticky-fingered Seabees myself, I found out about the show well in advance. Consequently, I spent at least a month obsessing about going to the show.
Unfortunately, this wonderful event was scheduled on one of the most tragic of all possible dates: the day before a Working Saturday. Working Saturdays come every other weekend for deployed 'bees. On those days, they begin work at 5:45am regardless of what the calendar says about weekends. Because of the timing, it was nearly impossible for me to find anyone willing to go with me.
In the process of trying to find an escort, in my mind I built up the concert into the event of a lifetime. I was so sure I would be able to meet and talk to Eliot Sloan that I became crazed in my quest to find someone to come. Every time I thought about it for that entire month I got more and more excited. It was going to be the most important day of my life! The day I would meet the sweet-voiced man who sang and, of course, had a hand in writing the most touching song ever written!
Finally, the day came. I floated through work, probably nailing someone's clothes to a board, for all the attention I was paying that day. Lunch came and went, dinner came and went and finally, the bus came and went, and I was on it.
"Oh, wow!" I told my friend, Mike. "There they are! They're starting!" Unfortunately, since no one in the band is named Hank or Garth, I wasn't met with equal enthusiasm. Looking around as the first notes rang out, I noticed that I wasn't the only person on the island who knew every word of 'Oh Virginia'... there was one more. I think the two of us made a very respectable 'roaring crowd' for the show, even though our roar could probably have been more accurately described as a bit of a commotion.
After the show, the time came to meet Eliot! The wait was over! I could finally impress him with my wit and shower him with praises!



WHAT IN THE WORLD DO I SAY?


My mind went completely blank, except for that blinding panic. Irrational terror paralyzed me. I thought, 'If I say something too nice, his wife will think I'm hitting on him. I am certainly NOT hitting on this man in front of his wife! I know- I could try to say something witty! That's it, something funny to break the ice.'
"Hi, I'm Tina."
That's it? That's all I got? Wait, now Mike's talking to him! They're having a conversation. Oh Tina, just say anything!
"Could you please sign my CD cover? Um, yeah, over here by 'Nora'."
Oh, Jeez, he said something. What was it?
"It's my favorite song." Well, apparently that's my answer.
"Oh, is it? I'm sorry we couldn't play your favorite song for you tonight," Eliot tells me.
Ha! I actually caught that one. And I understood it! But how in the world do I respond to that?
"Ever." There, that did it. I think my brain literally fell out of my mouth that last time I opened it. I've got to go. Thankfully, Mike stepped in.
"Well, we have to leave. We don't have a bus schedule and we have to work tomorrow so we can't miss it." Thank God for Mike. After Eliot said goodbye I opened my mouth and nothing at all came out. As Mike gently guided me toward the door, I thought, "I have got to explain this one day."

So there you have it. My explanation. Why I'm a spaz. I guess it's because just I am.

I wrote this a few years ago but I thought it would fare well on the blog today.  My style has changed a bit, and I did a bit of tweaking but it remains mostly unchanged.  I feel like if I ever meet any other celebrities, they need to read this first as a disclaimer.

(It was this one)