Reigns/Reins

I watched Iron Man last night. It was totally fun and entertaining, but I could not believe the grammatical error I saw: At the beginning of the movie when they were giving some history on Tony Stark and showed press coverage of his ascent to the helm of Stark Industries, one of the headlines was "Tony Stark Takes the Reigns." The "reigns"? Are you kidding me? Then I thought maybe it was a deliberate error, like maybe that magazine supposedly had an error, but that made no sense. Am I really to believe not a single editor caught that mistake?

Also watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with the kids the other night. This was the first Harry Potter movie I had seen in its entirety (saw bits and pieces of the fourth) and it was pretty disappointing. Maybe it's inevitable to be disappointed after reading the books, which are so magical. I can't believe I didn't like the books the first time I gave the first one a whirl several years back. The world Rowling created was so rich and imaginative. The language and imagery are so evocative, and she weaves a story that pulls you in and holds tights. Compare that with Netherland, which I'm reading for my book group, and which I may actually give up on. I can count on one hand the number of books I've abandoned before completion, so to give up on this really reflects how bad it is. I can't figure out what's so Gatsby-esque about this book. Honey, I've read The Great Gatsby (even wrote my AP English exam on it), and it ain't no Great Gatsby.

Top Chef, My A$$

If Hosea is a top chef, then I am Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Seriously, just because he can cook some fish does not make him a top chef. I am so pissed that Carla lost--her crazy bug eyes during the confessionals well, bugged, me early in the season, but she grew on me. She was funny, down-to-earth and not annoying--a total boon in reality TV world. She also could cook, so why-oh-why would she take advice from Casey on the biggest night of her life? There is a reason Casey lost! And I would have even preferred arrogant Stefan to win over hosebag Hosea--he clearly was the better chef. Rocco was looking a little beefy last night, and I missed the Fabio-isms!

Also started watching American Idol. I liked the Pete Wentz-ish dude and the girl who sang Heart. I'm not quite sure what to make of the guy who sang Jennifer Hudson--I assume he made it through on the basis of some talent, but I didn't see it last night.

And The Amazing Race is back! The overachieving Asian brother-sister team are starting to bug me--the brother needs to cut down on the smiling--it's making my cheeks start to hurt. The hillbilly couple probably surprised everyone by not being the first ones out (they were like the beekeepers of this season--throwaway team that you assumed would be out first), but I wasn't surprised they went out second. And it's a good thing that the bickering team went out first--I would not have survived this season if I had to watch that dysfunctional relationship.

Back to Reality (TV)

Somehow, I managed to watch 4 hours of reality TV last night. It started with H asking if we could watch American Idol--kids at school must be talking about it, and since I was sort of missing it myself, I capitulated. Plus now that we're actually into the singing performances, I felt like it was OK. And I'm glad I watched. I loved the guy who looks like a cleaner Robert Downey Jr. (the one whose back story is that his wife died recently). Nobody else really stuck out for me, except the disastrously bad renditions of Michael Jackson and Taylor Swift, but he alone was worth it.

Then of course I had to watch the season finale of the Real Housewives of Orange County. I like Gretchen--she has really grown on me. I told A I should be like her and find a husband who was old, rich and terminally ill (I also told him that I was only batting 1 for 3 with him--maybe not nice, but funny!). Jeana's OK too, but that dress that showed her back fat was not doing her any favors. I figured out who Lynne looks like--Steven Tyler!

And since that segued right into the Real Housewives of New York City, of course I got sucked into that train wreck. It turns out A knows Kelly (the newest housewife) from college. She seems all right, but then again, who wouldn't, compared to Alex and Simon?

Sign of the Apocalypse

So the woman who recently gave birth to octuplets not only already has 6 kids, but is single and unemployed. Her parents bought her a small house a while ago, but they filed for bankruptcy and now live with her. She wants to be a parenting superstar. WTF? Those poor, poor babies.

Life's Too Short

I'm learning things about human nature, many of which are probably obvious. Like that people like to share personal information with others. The Facebook "25 Random Things" note which inspired me to write the 100 things about myself in this blog is making the rounds again, and I posted 25 things about myself. Some were duplicative of the 100 things, but I tried to come up some new things. It's been fun reading things that other people post, which leads me to the second thing I've noticed: people generally have the same insecurities. I guess at heart we all just want to be loved, is that so wrong?

But even as there are certain ways that we are all fundamentally alike, it's funny how we act differently on shared beliefs. I was talking to a friend a while ago, and she said something like "life's too short--why bother being friendly with people I don't really want to be friends with?" I never actually looked at it that way--I'm more of a "life's too short--why bother not being friendly?" kind of person.

I saw Slumdog Millionaire this past weekend with some friends--A and I do not always see eye to eye on movies (Paul Blart, Mall Cop? Are you kidding me?) so I took advantage of his being out of town to see it. It was awesome--so well done. On the one hand, the basic idea of the story seems simple enough(boy meets girl, etc.), but I have no imagination and would never have had the creativity to tie it into the game show/life experiences/everything else storyline.