United States of Tara

On By Michel McDonaldIn TVLeave a comment

There is this new show on Showtime called United States of Tara about this woman who suffers from Multiple Personalities Disorder (but she says it has been reclassified as DID (Dissociative identity disorder).

Unfortunately I didn’t start watching this show when it began because I didn’t see the commercials for it.  I usually only watch Showtime when Big Brother is on or Secret Diary of a Call Girl (notice my title?  hehe).

I was bored so I went to Showtime On Demand to see what I can watch and I was going through the shows and found it and was glad they have it from episode 1.  It’s pretty good.  Her personalities are really funny lol.

The first episode showed her teenager personality “T” who gets high and tries to sleep with Tara’s husband, who wouldn’t?  It’s John Corbett.  Then there was the redneck guy “Buck” with his giant glasses, Larry the Cable Guy type shirt, trucker cap with the missing penis which got blown off in Vietnam lol.  I guess when your penis gets blown off in nam you grow breasts?  Then there is the homemaker “Alice” who looks like June Cleaver and she bakes and tries to have sex with Tara’s husband lol.

I was glad to see Andrew Lawrence (Joey Lawrence’s little brother) but unfortunately he’s a church going homophobe.  Tara’s son Marshall is gay and he likes Andy’s character but apparently he’s not gay.  That I know of.  I think he might be in the closet because his father is the pastor of the church.

I like this show, it’s progressive.  The kids are allowed to say every word in the book and the parent’s don’t even flinch when the 12-year-old son says the F word.  It’s a pretty good show.  I’m only on episode 4 and there are 6 in total so I’m gonna go back to it.

I’ve watched all 6 episodes so far as well as all the bonus interviews and I’m happy to add this to my queue of shows that I watch.  Since it is available on Showtime On Demand if I miss an episode and don’t catch the repeat then I can watch it on demand.  I look forward to see what happens with Marshall and Andy Lawrence’s character, to see if he really is gay and if they become a couple or not.  I mean, the son is really young.  He looks 12 to me but he could be 14 for all I know.  And there is nothing wrong with a 12 or 14-year-old having a boyfriend.

Oh that’s another thing, that he’s gay and both his parents are perfectly cool with it.  That hits a chord with me because I grew up with homophobic parents who ended up kicking me out of the house because I was gay at 17.  I’d give up my parent’s for progressive parents even if one of them dresses like a dude, teenage girl and June Cleaver.

Edit: I looked up the son Marshall on IMDB and apparently in real life the actor is 16.  So my theory of the character being 12 might be wrong hehe.  It would make more sense though that the 16-year-old son is in love with his 16-year-old classmate.  Assuming Andy’s character is 16 and not a 21-year-old who got held back a lot lol.  So much for no child will be left behind eh?

White Castle Burgers

On By Michel McDonaldIn FoodLeave a comment

No we don’t have a White Castle here where I live in Bakersfield, CA but they do sell the little mini burgers in the frozen foods section of our grocery store.  I didn’t buy those because I wanted to make them my own way.

I’ve been seeing these commercials a lot lately for Big City Slider thing that you take this measuring spoon and scoop up the hamburger meat and put the balls into this thing, it has 5 slots and when you filled them all you press them down with the lid.  You then cook the mini burgers directly on your stove top and keep the lid on it and it cooks them from both sides, top and bottom.  It cooks them all the way through to the middle much faster than if you have to flip them.

Well, I don’t have the $25 to shell out for one of those ($20 plus shipping) so instead I just went to the store and bought 1 1/2lb of ground beef (80% fat-free) and I had an egg and I bought some bread crumbs and mixed the meat with the egg and bread crumbs and Darrin added some BBQ spices to the mixture.  I then rolled them by hand and smashed them by hand and cooked them on the skillet.  I then sliced the entire package of Hawaiian rolls and spread mayo on tops and bottoms then put the little mini burgers on the rolls.

The commercial makes you look so incompetent like you can’t make white castle burgers without making a complete mess of things and without the burgers breaking apart lol.  I didn’t have any problems and I also saved $25 so there Billy Maye’s hehe :p.

Since the package of rolls had 12 I had 6 and Darrin had 6.  Luckily there was enough meat.  I thought I was going to be forced to eat 2 rolls without meat hehe.  I love those rolls.  The Hawaiian rolls were so much better than regular plain old rolls too.  I recommend those when making white castle burgers.

Oh, why you ask did I use 1 egg?  My mom taught me when I was a kid that the egg will keep the burgers from falling apart and she’s right.  They don’t fall apart.

Author’s Guide To Sue Amazon

On By Michel McDonaldIn KindleLeave a comment

I’m obsessed with the Kindle 2.  I can’t stop googling it lol.

I found this article about how the authors guild is suing Amazon because of the text-to-speech feature on the Kindle 2.  Because they sell books plus they sell books on tape so by having a text-to-speech feature available, they are giving away the audio book version for free with the sale of e-books.  But that is so not true because nothing can compare to the emotion in the voice of a person reading a book on a tape or cd.  It’s totally not the same because text-to-speech sounds robotic.  There is no emotion.  We will see what happens.  I mean, what’s preventing people from using text-to-speech on their PC to listen to e-books?  They aren’t suing Microsoft.

Kindle Blog

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, KindleLeave a comment

I was looking at Kindle the other day and as I was there I saw that you can read people’s blogs on the kindle.  I thought that you could just go to either their website or there was a think where you tell them who you subscribe to but apparently it’s not like that.

If you want to read a blog their blog site has to be registered through Kindle and you have to pay for it.  Well, I don’t want to charge people to read my ramblings.  Although the money would be nice but why charge people when they can read it for free here through my website either on the PC or through a mobile phone like the iPhone or iPod or even PSP.

If they make it so that I don’t have to charge people at all then I will add it to Kindle but I honestly don’t know anyone who even has a Kindle.  I would like to publish my blog though because I currently have 0 readers.  So frankly, nobody is going to read this.  Hell, I don’t even read my own blog.  I just blog it.  I do read it after I’ve posted it to see if there are any corrections needed or I go back.  Anyway lol I was rambling.  I would like to get it on Kindle but not as a pay blog.

Little Known Fact About Sleep Apnea

On By Michel McDonaldIn HealthLeave a comment

There is a little known fact about sleep apnea that most people don’t realize.  I’ve been using a Bi-Pap machine (in case someone is unaware, it’s a machine that has a mask that I put over my nose, the hose goes to the machine and the machine pushes air into my lungs so I can sleep at night because my airway closes when I sleep) for a couple of years now and when I wake up every single morning I have a dry mouth (due to some medications, so say the people at the C-Pap Company) and also my nose is dry.

My bi-pap machine has a little tank filled with water which is on a heater also known as an evaporator.  The heat heats the water and then the air pushes the evaporated water into my nose and lungs so I don’t wake up with a dry nose, throat, lungs and mouth.  Well, it doesn’t work that great.  As I said it’s due to my medication but I don’t know.  I mean, my nose is always so dry that it starts hurting.  I’m always sniffling because of the dryness and I am also doing this half twitch, you know like Samantha in Bewitched, I don’t do the full twitch, just half to try to I don’t know actually why I do it but I’m always doing it lol.

So tonight I was flossing and I went to look for toothpaste and came across this tube that looked like toothpaste but it was Vaseline so I squirted some on a Q-Tip and put it inside my nostrils around inside there to cover up all the dry areas.  It’s only been a few minutes and it is already starting to help.  I never thought about that before and I’m glad I saw it.

I don’t normally use Vaseline because it’s a female product in my opinion.  I remember watching my mom after she got out of the shower and had her nightgown on and she just started smearing that stuff all over her legs and arms.  She had psoriasis so I don’t know if that’s why, because her legs and arms were dry from that.  But she also would put it on her face full of make-up and she would use a wash rag to wipe it all off and all the make-up was gone.  So because I’ve never really had a need for it so I don’t buy it.  But it is a good product I guess.

If this works with my nose then perhaps I might think about buying some more if I run out of what I have.  I’m really sick of all this dryness in my nose.

KFC Weekend Special

On By Michel McDonaldIn FoodLeave a comment

Starting today until Tuesday Feb 17th, KFC has a weekend special for President’s day.  Although their weekend special seems to be about 6 days.  Anyway, the commercial says that you get a whole chicken which is 8 pieces, mashed potato’s and gravy, cole slaw and 4 biscuits all for $12.95.

Well, it’s kinda false advertising.  A whole chicken would consist of 2 breasts, 2 thighs, 2 legs (drumsticks) and 2 wings.  We went there today and the pieces were 4 thighs and 4 legs.  Not exactly a whole chicken.

Personally it doesn’t matter to me.  2 pieces of chicken, mashed potato’s and gravy, cole slaw and a biscuit is enough for 1 meal.  Darrin bought an extra order of Macaroni and cheese, the family size and I added 4 apple turnovers (2 for him and 2 for me).

We don’t normally go there because they are a bit expensive compared to Albertson’s chicken dinner which is like 8 pieces of chicken and 1lb of salad (cole slaw, potato salad or macaroni salad) and a package of 4 Hawaiian rolls for like $5.  I do prefer KFC over grocery store chicken but I just can’t afford it.

It was good though mmmm mmmm so good.

My Last Kindle Obsessed Post… Maybe

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, KindleLeave a comment

Ok, 1 last thing about the Kindle.  I know I mentioned in my first Kindle post about how you can email your text files to your Kindle but as I read more about it I find out more stuff.

It’s not just text files.  It’s also pdf files so if you have a manual in pdf format then you will have it on your Kindle.  Sometimes if you buy like a DVD player or a printer or whatever, I’m pulling at straws here, you can go to that manufacturer’s website and download the manual in pdf format.  Well, who wants to sit and read the manual on the computer?  Especially if the hardware you need to read about is in the other room.  Say it’s your tv’s manual or your washer and dryer.  You can just download that and send it to your Kindle and it converts it to Kindle format so you can read it.

I’m not sure if the Kindle puts your e-books, e-magazines and e-newspapers in categories or not, I think it would be a good idea though because if you get e-newspapers you will want them to be stores in there in folders.  Like say you get the LA times and the NY times.  Well, you don’t want them to be in the same area as everything else like your books.  If you get the newspaper and magazines on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis then the list will be too long so if you want to search for the book you are reading you have to scroll through the list of stuff.

Ok getting back to what I was talking about with sending text and pdf files to your kindle.  You can also download free e-books and send them to your kindle.  Oh and I read you can send pictures too.  Now, I’m not too sure about pictures with black and white technology.  I think I would much rather enjoy my pictures in color so that would certainly be something I would want to have but somewhere down the line when it has color.  Right now I have all of my photo albums cropped to widescreen 3×5 for my PSP and the pictures are pretty small so when I go to show them off it’s still a good size to look at but you know, it’s still small.  But at least I can carry all of my pictures.  But you can’t see them in the sunlight on my PSP.

Oh that reminds me.  You can read your kindle out in the sunlight and it shows up just like a regular book thanks to e-ink.  The screen isn’t shiny either so there is no glare from the screen.  If you are using a cell phone or pda or something as an e-book you have to cover it with your hands to be able to see it outside in the sunlight.  Well, the Kindle with e-ink allows you to actually see what you are reading.  And since it doesn’t have a tv type of screen you can’t see it in the dark but the new Kindle 2 has lights around the page I think on both sides.  Or maybe that was another e-book, I don’t remember now, I’m getting them confused.  I did see a Kindle light that clips to the kindle but it was made for the Kindle 1.

Ok, I can’t make any promises that I won’t obsess any more about this.  I’ve pretty much touched on everything that I can think of but who knows, maybe tomorrow I might read about something that I didn’t know and obsess about that.  Maybe my obsession will have so much text that you will have to convert it all into pdf format and it will be so long that it will be your next e-book or e-novel.  Maybe I’ll shut up about it.  Who knows.

Amazon Kindle 2

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Kindle, TechLeave a comment

In my previous blog about e-books I talked about the pro’s and con’s of e-books.  Well, most of the day I’ve been obsessively researching e-book technology and I have to say that I’m really excited about the future.

E-books use e-ink.  They don’t hardly use any power so the battery lasts a whole week.  You turn it on, press the menu and find the book you are reading, and by the way it shows in that menu the page you were on so you don’t have to find where you were at, it keeps it bookmarked from the last page you were reading.  Then you click the book you want to read and start reading.  Once that page is loaded it stops using any of the power from the battery.  You can have it sitting there for an hour on that page and it won’t use any power.  Once you press the button to turn the page then it uses power to turn the page then you see the words change and then no more power usage.  The battery will last basically a week before you have to charge it at all.  And when you do charge it, it takes about 2 hours to charge.

If however you are flipping through the Amazon website and flipping through pages of a e-magazine then yeah, it’s going to use a lot more of your battery and it will probably last 2 or 3 days before needing charged.

I love the idea of waking up every morning and the newspaper is already downloaded on your kindle.

It would also be good if the catalog companies would deliver their catalogs directly to your Kindle so that you don’t have to 1, wait for them to come in the mail and clog up your mail box and 2, waste paper when you throw it out.  This way you can flip through them then delete the file when you are finished reading it.  That is if you decide you want to, you can keep it if you want.

Another thing I want to obsess er um I mean discuss is the hard drive.  The previous Kindle 1 from last year only has a 256mb hard drive allowing you to store 200 e-books but the new Kindle 2 has a 2GB allowing you to have a hell of a lot more.  I don’t know exactly how many but it’s a lot.  Can you just imagine maybe in another year or 2 when they come out with the Kindle 3 it might have 2TB.  Then you will have a crap load of books and magazines and newspapers.  You won’t ever have to delete anything because you will have tons of room.

As I said in my last post, I’m waiting for it to be cheaper, in color and have touch screen.  Well, I watched a video today of the guy who invented Amazon talking to Martha Stewart and she kept mentioning color e-ink and he said it was in the labs.  Not their labs but in labs period.  Well, I’ve been seeing e-books with color e-ink so I know it is possible and I’m sure in Kindle 3 it will have color e-ink.

My other issue is about the touch screen.  I think it is a lot better than buttons.  I saw an e-book from Dvice.com that was touch screen, all you do is press and drag the page and it turns the page, or you just press the right side of the pager to flip it.  And also when you are on the website trying to buy a book you touch the screen for the keyboard and it comes up so you can type the name of the author or book title.  I think the Kindle keyboard is just too much.  Although it does have more of a use than just buying books, you can make notes in your books.  You can also highlight sentences.

DTV Transition

On By Michel McDonaldIn TVLeave a comment

OK, I’ve been seeing these DTV commercials since last year when they first started them.  It’s not only commercials but a ticker at the top of the screen all freakin’ day long.  Thank goodness I don’t have to see that while watching my shows at night.

If you don’t have a TV then you don’t know what I’m talking about but basically it says that if you use an antenna to watch TV you have to buy a digital converter box and you can get a coupon from the government who is forcing this upon everyone for a free box.  The cable companies are even offering a very basic cable for $10 a month which is unusual.  I was paying $55 a month for basic cable which was 2-77 so I’m sure that $10 cable is 2-13 and all the UHF stations like PBS and the Spanish channels.

They were saying that you have until February 19th or somewhere around there to get this box or you will get static on the tv.  Well, now they’ve decided to postpone it until June 12th.  Well, that’s good for all the procrastinators out there but it’s not good for those of us who are well prepared because we gotta hear about it for another 5 months.  Can we please just stop these commercials and tickers?  Or if not stop them just limit them to 1000 times a day lol.  I mean come on, I am so sick of hearing about it.  I get it.  Put billboards up and quit interrupting my shows with your tickers.

A lot of the commercials are from Bright House cable telling me that I am taken care of because I have Bright House Cable but that I need to tell all my Antenna friends to upgrade.  Please stop these commercials lol.  I don’t want to keep hearing about it.  Oh and after June 12th they are going to continue the commercials for another year telling me to tell all the people who don’t get a signal anymore to get cable lol.

Caylee Anthony Memorial

On By Michel McDonaldIn NewsLeave a comment

The Caylee Anthony memorial was today and Casey had the opportunity to watch it on tv but she didn’t even ask for it.  What the heck is wrong with this woman?  Is she that deranged that she won’t even watch her own daughters funeral service?

Doesn’t she know that every action has a consequence?  By not requesting to watch it on tv she is implicating herself even more because had she watched it and cried the jury would see that she has at least some remorse for murdering her own daughter and they wouldn’t be so harsh on her.  Or it would’ve shown the jury that maybe she didn’t do it.  Who knows.

At least by watching it she would’ve shown the jury and the public that she doesn’t have a heart of stone or ice.