Oh my gosh! I haven’t had internet in about a month! I have forty-five days to continue my service without the need to start a whole new two year contract (lovely satellite rules). I cancelled internet service ’cause my laptop went to blue screen heaven and I cannot afford a new computer just yet. So this brief post is brought to you by one bar of service on my cell phone and the letter F.
Lets talk about soda. I love it. After coffee time is over in the morning I prefer to move directly into soda time. Being as I’m borderline diabetic and turning into more if a health nut in my old age, I’ve all but cut soda out of my diet entirely. I started drinking decaf unsweetened iced tea until bed time until I decided to make some soda of my own. The results were beyond what I anticipated. Holy yum. I’ve even converted my eleven year old son. Here’s the formula:
Start with the juice of any fruit, I used lime. Lemon and orange also work, but beyond citrus try berries. Raspberry or cherry juice makes amazing soda as well. You don’t need a lot of juice as you can see. Then add simple syrup. If you don’t know how to make it, use your google machine. As the name suggests, it’s very easy to create. Start with a teaspoon or two. You can always add more, but you don’t need much.
We’re almost done. Stir the simple syrup and the juice. Add ice.
Pour club soda over the ice, simple syrup and juice. I like to buy a six pack of cans. The soda goes flat very quickly and a two liter bottle won’t hold its fizz well enough to use the next day. Mwah! Lime soda.
Also, if you are of age add rum and mint leaves for the best mojito you’ve ever had.
After I started drinking these babies, I actually can’t stand corn syrup soda any longer. And that’s coming from a gal who drank one to three Mountain Dews a day for a dozen years or better.
Enjoy! Let me know if you come up with any crazy/fantastic fruity combinations for your own home made soda.
We have been home from vacation for over a week now, and I still haven’t scratched the surface as far as writing about our trip. Darn chores. While we were in the Los Angeles area, we were fortunate enough to stay with Mr. P’s cousin and her family. This was awesome because A) they are great people, and B) staying with locals means you get inside info on how to best navigate through the world’s worst traffic, and C) the wife of Mr. P’s cousin works in the prop department of Ellen and she generously showed us around the studio on an off day.
I have been a fan of Ellen since it started. It’s simply a great talk show and Ellen seems like a truly amazing woman. I was beyond excited to see the set. Like The Price is Right, it was smaller than I had imagined, though much larger than the game show.
These chairs look quite comfy. I might have a hard time getting up to clap when the host is dancing around the aisles. I was informed that the audience is told to dance alongside Ellen when she comes through, but don’t touch her. That’s understandable. I am sure it would hold up the show. If I ever have a talk show I will make that a rule as well. I will also add a rule where I never have to dance. Dancing makes me quite uncomfortable.
However, if you are a guest on the show and dancing is your thing, this is the star you are supposed to look for to begin your cha-cha, or tango, or whatever dance will fill you with joy. I was told the camera has a difficult time following guests if they begin dancing immediately after coming out from back stage, so the celebratory dance cannot begin until you pass the star.
I look totally giddy here. This was fun. I would not be this happy sitting in Leno’s chair.
Here is The Max, pretending to be Tony.
After looking backstage at some of the props used on the show, we then moved over to the prop library. I want to live in the prop library. I wouldn’t even need to pack. I just want to grab my toothbrush and stay there until I see every weird and wonderful thing it contains. This place was phenomenal. Every item anyone could want to use as a prop was shelved and listed somewhere so that if something is needed for a show or movie it can be found lickity-split. What kind of items? Everything. It was as though I was standing in the coolest thrift store of all time. And this is what our tour guide does for a living, she plays with all the props! (OK, I am sure there is a lot of work involved, but in my mind there’s lots of playing with props as well).
Say you need to look as though you are lying in a pool of your own blood, you can do that in the prop room. Need to jump out of a giant cake? Smash someone over the head with a bottle and not harm them? You can do all this in the prop room.
For the guided tours, there were displays of props used in well known movies. Pirates of the Caribbean seems to have the most for viewing. After drooling all over the place we were let into a room that seemed to have the most security. And holy cow this was cool:
Yes, we are in Central Perk. The retired set is part of the NBC studios tour, and we got to go in without an official guide and peek around. We also were allowed to sit on the couch for a brief moment to snap a picture. I could have spent a few hours in here looking at the set of one of my favorite TV shows ever, but the room is in high demand for visiting so we scurried out to allow others to see the famous coffee shop.
So there’s my visit to Ellen. I have now been on the set of three different television shows. I’m basically a show biz expert now.
As I mentioned already, I spent spring break this year in Southern California. We cruised home Sunday evening just in time for school and work on Monday morning. The trip was excellent. I have so many things to show you about our trip, but I am going to start with one of the major highlights, going to a taping of The Price is Right!
First of all, getting the tickets was far easier than I thought. Anyone can go online and request them. They’re free, and if you know you are heading to the area a month or so in advance you can get priority tickets, which means you will get into the show if you get in line by 8:00am. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t show up early. People start lining up around six in the morning. You will end up waiting a little bit less later on if you show up at dawn.
I reserved four priority tickets. Mr Pilver, his dad, his aunt and I were going together. However we never could secure a sitter for the kids, so Mr. Pilver took the kids to the Tar Pits in Hollywood. (He didn’t make it any secret that he was relieved he would not be dragged to a wild and crazy game show.) Being we had one extra ticket, Aunt Patty found another woman named Patty from West Virginia who happily abandoned her husband on the side of the street and joined us.
Most of the day was spent waiting. There are three sets of long benches you are shuffled between before taping begins. The first set is where you receive your name tag and fill out a form saying you have not been a contestant on any game show in the past so many years. If you have you can still go, you just can’t get called to win anything.
The second set of benches is where they conduct the interviews. The interviews are short. They are looking for people who can hold a decent conversation and who are hyper and excited to be there. However, I did notice that the insane crazy wild obnoxious folks don’t get called down.
The third set of benches is the area outside the studio. Here they play for you a previous episode of The Price is Right to pump you up for the big show. This is where I will tell you about Michael, the world’s leading expert on The Price is Right.
Michael was at his 43rd taping. There was another woman present who had been to over a hundred tapings, but she couldn’t hold a flame to Michael’s knowledge of the show. His main goal in life is to work for The Price is Right as a resident expert. I don’t know how to word this well enough to make you understand, he knows EVERYTHING about the show...EVERYTHING. Every employee at CBS studios knows him. He can and will rattle off every random fact about the show. He wears a shirt which reads, “Ask me about The Price is Right.” He has a set of YouTube videos where he reports odd facts about the show. Need to know who the tallest contestant ever was, he can tell you. Want to find out the highest winnings of any contestant, Michael knows. When we watched the re-run from 2008, he recalled every contestant by name and every winning bid. When we were in the audience, he knew the cost of every box of au gratin potatoes and jars of jelly. It was eerie. He also got lumped into our group and we became a five-some. I was able to sit and ask him things about what to expect and he knew it all.
Alright, so we waited six or more hours on benches with 300 strangers. The vibe during that time is exciting. Everyone there is looking forward to seeing the show, and everyone is in a great mood. Being as we got our passes so early, we were nearly the first ones in the studio. They save the front and center first few rows for large groups with matching t-shirts and pretty young girls. No lie. So we were in the fifth row, and I was very pleased with that.
As we walked into the studio I gasped. I was walking onto the set of the show I had watched since I was a tiny girl. It was amazing. After the awe passed, I was then shocked to realize how small it is. Somehow they managed to make the audience and stage appear five times larger on TV than it actually is. Another bizarre thing I noticed was the colored panels on the walls are not the vibrant hues you see at home, they are almost shades of pastels. On stage the camera swirls around Drew Carey, the contestant, and the games giving the illusion that one is way over there and another is close, when inn reality they are side by side. In addition to Drew Carey and the announcer, George Gray, there are a dozen other employees milling around the stage at any given time. There really is no empty space up there. When it looks like a winner is running far to get to the car they just won, they are actually moving mere steps.
Left: Real Colors. Right: Magical TV colors!
After everyone is seated, George Gray comes out looking all shiny and movie start like and gives instructions as to how to behave and what to do if you get called. There’s a tall skinny guy whose only job is to instruct the audience when to scream, when to sit, and when to help the contestants by telling them prices. Then Drew Carey comes out, and of course, the crowd goes batty. I was amazed at how great he looks. Sure he has make-up on, but he’s fit and thin and is dancing to “I’m sexy and I know it” for at least a full two minutes before he addresses us. Drew did not give the impression that he was the main event and we ought to bow down. He just talks to everyone like we’re at a barbeque. The announcer had a similar demeanor, very casual. It was as though they were not famous and just working at the grocery store interacting with customers.
And, the game begins. They call people, those people bid, one wins and they play a game. While this was very cool to see, it is very different in person. You can barely hear anything people are saying and the infamous music is added in editing, so it feels different. the whole time, the audience is keeping one eye on the action and another on Tall Skinny Guy for instructions as to what to do. You’re sitting, standing screaming, and throwing number signs with your hands. If no one is giving help to the contestant Tall Skinny Guy gets frantic, encouraging us to participate. Since hearing or sometimes even seeing the products up for bid is difficult, I stood up and yelled, “ONE MILLION DOLLARS!” more than once just to appease him.
They have to do retakes as well. Three separate times we had to clap for the same watch or re-help audience members bid the same item because of some sort of mistake made by one of the employees. The models messed up as well, hand gesturing to the items improperly or something like that. One girl appeared a bit frustrated when she did something like three retakes for the same camera. But if I had to race down the aisle with the heels they put her in over and over I’d be frustrated too.
When the last contestant was to be called, I had long given up hope that anyone in our group would be on stage. I was OK with that, it was a blast either way. But then they said, PATRICIA LASTNAME! (No, I’m not telling you the last name, though if you do watch the show, you’ll see it). Well, that was the last name of Mr. P’s aunt. We were pushing her to get up there and then another lady raced to the stage. But, it turns out Patty never changed her name back after she was divorced, so that was not her legal name. I’m excited to see if they air our blunder on TV. At the end of the show, George Gray came over and talked with us and Patty told him about the name mess up and he went and signed a t-shirt to give to Patty.
We filed out of the studio and out of Television-land tired and satisfied. It was a long day, but I will definitely go back if I get the chance. And I’ll only say it once more, watch April 25th to see me, Frank, Patricia1, Patricia2, and Michael scream like maniacs
I have spent the bulk of this week in a state of boredom I have not experienced in ages, probably since being a kid. Yes, I have plenty to do, and I already did that. I no longer have TV, my internet is annoyingly slow, I’ve read all my books…wah wah wah. Welcome to my pity party, it’s actually much less tragic since you’ve shown up. Thank you for that.
So, out of curiosity, I googled “How to kill boredom.”
There are my results. From the vibrant purple hue of the first link, you can see that I clicked on it. The suggestions were obvious. Call an old friend, read a book, volunteer at your favorite charity, etc. At the bottom of the page were links for similar searches.
Awesome. Now I’m depressed as well as bored.
I’m actually fine. And tomorrow I will expand on the root of my boredom. It’s Saturday night, why are you reading this and not painting your local town red?
I think I mentioned this before, but Mr. P and I go way back, tenth grade Spanish class to be exact. We ended up sitting next to each other on the first day of class and those were the assigned seats for the rest of the year. I was new to the school, and a little bit shy. Mr. P had been at the school since Kindergarten and was far more shy than myself. So, I ended up doing most of the talking.
Making mix tapes was my passion, and I made them for quite a few people. After falling in love with/getting engaged to/moving in with Mr. P fifteen years later he showed me the tape I had made him in high school. I can laugh about it now, but knowing that he had a secret crush on me I feel a little badly about some of the song choices I made for his tape.
When I made this, I put songs on that I really liked and that I imagined would be humorous to my heavy metal loving Spanish buddy. Also, many of the songs were from a compilation tape I’d bought in Minnesota from local artists that are AWESOME. Since I no longer have that tape, I am grateful he saved this one so I can ear them once again.
Here’s the list:
Side A
1.Shit Town – Live
2. There She Goes – Boo Radleys
3. That’s Me – Honey Dogs
This is not an appropriate song, I couldn’t find it on youtube, but if you ever come acrossit, listen.
4. Foreign Affair – Vibro Champs
Click play NOW!
5. With or Without You – U2
6. Shakermaker – Oasis
7. New Age Girl – Dead Eye Dick
8. Daffodil Lamont – Cranberries
9. Beats the Hell Out of Me – Delilahs
10. Jaime – Weezer
11. Never Too High – Cell
Side B.
1. Better Man – Pearl Jam
2. She Don’t Use Jelly – Flaming Lips
3. Stay (Faraway So Close) – U2
4. Trajic – Erasure
There were a few years I was obsessed with Erasure.
5. Men and Women- INXS
6. I’ll Stand By You – Pretenders
7. I Can’t Get You Out of My System – Newsboys
8. One- U2
And yes, I have been obsessed with U2 almost since birth.
9. End of The World – REM
10. Surfwax America – Weezer
And the final song was the theme song from The Brady Bunch and I giggled when making it, thinking of my long haired metal loving friend listening to it too.
Just the act of typing all the names of these songs makes me want to go put on a flannel and find my old Doc Martins. Now that I’m done writing and you are done reading, go back and listen to Foreign Affair. You’re welcome.
I’m doing my best to combat cabin fever with some early spring cleaning. In my efforts, I found the very first mixed tape I ever made.
Here it is. Notice the zero in the corner? I numbered all my mixed tapes. I had all the songs on them listed in a notebook so I could find whatever song I needed to listen to at any moment. Not exactly itunes, but I was satisfied with it at the time. I must have been around eleven or twelve when my mother gave me this cassette full of hymns to listen to on my brand new tape player/radio. I was very bored with the tape, likely before I ever made it through one side. The radio, however, was amazing. This was the first radio I had for my very own self to listen to whatever station I wanted to in my bedroom. The rules in our house were that we could only listen to the oldies (which is why I still know all of them by heart), or the Christian college station where this tape was made.
In my own room, while I was doing homework behind a closed door I rebelled. I listened to Top 40 radio. The likes of Paula Abdul, Depeche Mode, and Bon Jovi ruined me. Thirty year old music on the oldies station was no longer enough for me.
My two sisters and I were all given that same tape along with radios for Christmas. It wasn’t too long before we figured out how to tape over those tapes with songs off the radio. My cassette player didn’t have two decks so the dubbing option wasn’t available to me. Even if it were, I didn’t have other tapes to take music from. I taped songs on both sides quickly. So then, without another tape to use, I re-taped. Over and over I did this until at some point in the future I bought blank tapes.
The result of this method is a tape full of terrible sound quality and half songs with deejay voices interrupting much of the beginnings and endings. Listening to this tape reminded me of when I would listen to one of my tapes for so long if I heard one of the songs I’d recorded on the radio, I’d automatically start singing the next song that was on my tape or recite whatever the deejay had said. There was no shuffle, you listened to the whole tape, or risk finding what you wanted with fast-forward.
Here’s the list of songs. It’s fairly boring, nothing obscure or hip. Well, one exception near the end.
Side 1:
1Hold On-Wilson Phillips
2.Corina-Temptation
Really funnyslashstupid song.
3.Signs-Tesla
Tesla covered this song that I already knew from the oldies station.
4.Proud to be an American- Lee Greenwood
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. I’m not laughing about being proud to be from the USofA. I’m laughing because I recorded only the part of the song where they say, “From the lakes of Minnesota….” I had gopher pride.
5. (Everything I do) I do it for you- Bryan Adams
Oh yes. Summer after the sixth grade this song came out. The movie Robin Hood Prince of Thieves came out. The video combining the song and the movie came out. And I remember it well. Also, one of my sisters fell in love with Christian Slater that summer.
6.Shiny Happy People-REM
Blender.com named this one of the worst 50 sings of all time. Blender dot com you are so wrong! I really loved this song.
7.One More Try-Timmy T
This song is bad. Jump to 3:01 for the worst part.
8. Hole Hearted-Extreme
It was Christmas Eve when I recorded this one. The deejay told me so.
Side 2
1.Can’t Stop This Thing We Started-Bryan Adams
I didn’t really like this song. I think I just wanted to because I loved Robin Hood so very much. Sorry Bryan Adams.
2.Fading Like a Flower (every time you leave)- Roxette
Why am I adding the music videos of some of these and not of others? I just didn’t feel like watching some of them, or even bothering to look for them. And what was it with parenthesizing half of the title of a song in the 90s?
3.Love Thy Will Be Done- Martika
Marika also sang Toy Soldiers. She’s so serious.
4.Losing My Religion-REM
Not posting this video. MTV played it so many times it’s burned in my brain.
5.Twin-believable- (I have no idea who sings this…it’s an EMF cover)
This made me giddy beyond belief. If you are also a Minnesota Twins fan, it might make you giddy too. I almost want to dedicate an entire post to this song alone.
In 1991, the Twins won the World Series. With the exception of the ’87 Series, it seemed like pro sports in Minnesota were almost a joke. When they began doing so well in 1991, a local radio station made a parody song using EMF’s Unbelievable, calling it Twin-believable. Lots of teams do this, I know. But I have never heard EMF’s song without silently singing the baseball lyrics since. Also, I looked high and low for this song online. It’s not there. I may have the only recording of “Twin-Believable” on the internet. And it sounds SO badly. There’s a long break in the music around 1:18. Wait, it ends. Possibly KDWB can post the full version themselves and make a whole bunch of people happy. Or at least me.
That’s it. That’s the end of my tape. I had fun. Did you? I have another tape I’d like to review soon but then I’m out. Out of all the tapes I carefully made and labeled in my pre-MP3 days, only two remain. I had to go out and buy a cassette player from a thrift store to listen to this, and it has duel decks with high speed dubbing capabilities. Perhaps I can begin to make them once again. Rad.
Not to long from now, my family is going to pack up the station wagon and head south to the wonderland that is California. I will soon be in a warm state surrounded by movie stars and fancy cars.
Don’t ruin the image in my head with silly facts and truths. I’m well aware that we are going to be amongst other tourists and not see celebrities. Considering we are going to be staying with family in suburban neighborhoods at night and visiting tourist traps during the day, I don’t imagine I’ll run into anyone even on the D-list of famous people. I don’t care. I’m buying new dark sunglasses in case I need to stare at someone famous and pretend they don’t notice. I have been to California a few times but it’s been years. I do have a list of things I must do, and they are all generic.
Disneyland
This is our big splurge. Tickets to the Happiest Place on Earth are eye-bugging expensive. After admission, parking, souvenirs and food I’m certain half our entertainment budget will be blown. We must go, however. You just can’t take kids to southern California and skip it.
The Price is Right
I got tickets! It’s really not hard to get them ,but I did a little dance afterwards as though I’d waited in line for days. I’m going to go sit in the audience of TPIR! I know it’s unlikely I will get chosen, but I’ll deal. I’m going to get a name tag, and that’s just as good.
The LBC
In order to see if there really is so much drama.
Rodeo Drive
I can’t afford shoes with price tags larger than my mortgage. But I want to see the people who can.
Also family, and the Golden Gate bridge, and trees I can drive through, and the beach… Let me tell you a secret. I could never call California “Cali.” I feel silly even typing it.
