Thursday Nights This Summer Might Not Be That Original, But They Hold Promise

I’m not a huge Debra Messing fan, but at my husband’s insistence, I decided to give “The Starter Wife” a chance tonight. An hour into the “Sex & The City” meets “Desperate Housewives” show, I was semi-hooked. The show is smart, superficial, and funny and more importantly it works. Debra Messing is likable. Much more so than her character in “Will & Grace,” but like that show, “The Starter Wife” features an ensemble cast of four with Judy Davis (as the Samantha-ish character) and two others (including a naive Blonde and a gay guy) rounding out the cast. There’s the “Desperate Housewives” James Denton/Mike working-class love interest named Sam that acts as the mysterious lifeguard courting Debra Messing’s Molly.

So given that it’s on USA and not HBO, the show doesn’t do explicit scenes (so men might be less likely to watch) and the substitution of the word “crotch” for “Australia” is a little irksome, but hey, it’s entertaining.

Bittersweet Thursday night news: “Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip” aka The Sorkin Show That Could & Would (if it got the chance) is back, but only for a last hurrah before it’s officially pulled. This means another four weeks of bliss before we all must move on and get a new er…show. And if my excitement over Debra Messing is any indication, I suppose anything is possible and/or replaceable.

Hey, she’s a cut and then some above Sarah Silverman anyways.

Why Boston Is The Best City To Live In On Earth

Idea for post inspired by Boing Boing. Actual link credit: Boston.com. Post-Read Commentary: Priceless.

In a scene reminiscent of the Cartoon Network bomb scare that paralyzed the Boston area in January, police shut down a strip mall yesterday in this small western suburb after employees at a Bank of America branch mistook a botched fax for a bomb threat.

Frustrated shop owners said the branch overreacted to the strange fax, which turned out to be an in-house marketing document sent by the bank’s corporate office.

“The women at the bank should have handled it a little better,” said Nick Markos, owner of Townhouse Pizza and Roast Beef, who estimated that he had lost $1,000 to $1,200 because of the lunch-hour evacuation. “She blew it all out of proportion, and all of us business owners had to pay for it.”

Sebring A Song

How come it is so difficult for me even as an adult, not to get emotionally attached to items? And now, when it’s almost time to say goodbye to my beloved Sebring, I find myself thinking about the person who will buy it from me, will he or she take good care of the car? Will they be careful when they take the top off? And I feel remorse for all the times I only thought about detailing the car but was too stingy to do so…

Amaldo.Com Digital Short: The Keane Concert Song

Ariel & Beth are back and this time they be singing Classic Rock style! Or trying anyway
s!

Rosie’s Making More Headlines Than Donald On A Good GM Day

After the heated scuffle between Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Rosie opted out of “The View” and we’re still mourning the cat-fights and she-power quotient.

So how does one of Times Top 100 Most Influential People constructively deal with her emotions? On her blog naturally….

To Do Some Things

(photo by shugbear @ flickr.com)

These are the moments that make me fall in love with baseball. Trot just took the field to a standing O. Before the game they were interviewing him about all the work he did for the Jimmy Fund when he was here, and he talked about that and his hard style of play and his fielding as all part of what he did to earn our respect when his game was not always on point.

That, in a nutshell, is the perfect s/o in a relationship. You start young life, I think, with these romantic fantasies of a relationship that’s forever sexy, forever sparky, forever caring. As part of her demand for “Control,” Janet Jackson asked, “What have you done for me lately?/Now it seems your dancing feet are always on my couch. if I did not cook for us we’d starve to death,” bemoaning the loss of romance.

But now when I hear someone say that her husband never makes plans, I think, “But he’s sexy and stong and adoring and a wonderful father and spends so much time with you at home.” When someone says her husband is out too much during the week, I think, “But he’s calm and devoted and smart and loyal and a great provider.” The point is not to be everything. It’s to be some things. We love Trot because he knew how to work around his shortcomings. When he couldn’t do some things he did others.

No real person in her right mind genuinely expects to have a partner who does it all. We just want the one we love, the one we choose, to do some of the things that really matter. Curt just backed off the mound to give Trot his moment, and Trot tipped his cap not only to the crowd but also to Schill. Trot Nixon was always, always such a class act. So much so that we didn’t even care that he couldn’t hit lefties. So much so that we wish he still were ours.

(originally appeared at http://mannyshadow.blogspot.com/)

A Short Review Of DVDs For You

Here is a short list of movies I recently watched on DVD with a couple of recommendations.

Amaldo.Com Cast: It’s All “Lost” On Me

In this week’s Amaldo.Com podcast, I tackle haiku and fail miserably. The good news is this attempt at poetry spawned a very creative poem entitled, Ode To “Lost” Season Two: I Didn’t Want To Get Punk’d Or Bent But I Did.” There are quite a few laughs to be had here, for both viewers and non-viewers. I’m hoping J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof take note of my stellar use of creativity here and hire me on as a writer next season…A girl’s gotta have dreams afterall!

Reg’s Musical Musings: It’s NonComm Time

By DJ Scott Register aka Reg of Reg’s Coffeehouse.
Last weekend I spent another wonderful 3 days at the Non-Commvention. This is the last time it will be held in lovely Louisville (Seriously, if you have never spent time in this town, it is a must. Our entire country could learn a thing from Louisville about enjoying life and taking time to stop a sniff the Cabernet.) before it moves to its new permanent home in Philadelphia, PA. The conference will miss Louisville and the Brown Hotel but I’m sure the City Of Brotherly Love will be up to the challenge.

What is the Non-Commvention you ask? Well, I could give you the technical answer but I would rather put it in my own words. Non-Comm is a gathering of people who not only love music as an art form, they love getting excited about it, relishing in it, wallowing in it and turning on as many folks as they can to it. It is a music lover’s paradise. I have made so many new friends over the past few years at NonComm and because we share this love of music, there is always a common bond, always a starting point for conversation and mutual admiration flows freely.

Highlights of my Louisville weekend include but are not limited to:

Ryan Adams dark, strange, eerie, freak show of a set at the Brown Theater: OK, I heard Ryan’s set pissed off a lot of folks. To them I say, get over it.

Vietnam – If this band ever finds a way to go out with My Morning Jacket, I am quitting everything and going on tour. Rock ‘n Roll is alive and well my friends.

Augie March – This Australian band just might make it here in the States. Infectious pop jewels, poetical lyrics and a powerful presentation. I’m pulling for this band.

Dangerbird Records Showcase – The little label that can! Eulogies, Sea Wolf, One AM Radio…if the only band on
this label that you are familiar with is Silversun Pickups, you are missing out. This indie label is home to some of the finest alternative music being made today.

Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles – Hell Yeah!!! If The Replacements had been an Alt-Country-Rock band, this is what they would have sounded like. If you can see this band and not have fun, you might want to check your pulse.

Alison Krauss & Robert Plant – Watching the look on a room full of folks faces when they learned the song they had just heard was a duet by Alison Krauss and former Led Zeppelin lead Robert Plant. This record, due in October, is going to shake up the music world. STUNNING!

And last but not least…

Ingrid Michaelson – The “Grey’s Anatomy” IT girl has the songs and the voice to live up to the hype and the expectations. She’s about to become the voice of the “nerdy chic” set.

We think “nerdy” might be messing with some Amaldo.com coolness quotient, but we’ll mesh with it for now. We’re like Lisa Loeb cat-eye glasses cool like that.

But Is It Greatness Or Just A Bad Dream?