Amy’s Adventures

Finally, the Oscars are here!  And yes, I must admit that instead of listening to today’s homily, I drifted to think about my favorite movies and the lines in them that “spoke” to me. Here’s my top 10:

10. Mommie Dearest - “No wire hangers.”

9. A Few Good Men - “He eats breakfast three hundred yards away from four thousand Cubans who are trained to kill him and no one’s going to tell him how to run his unit, least of all the Harvard mouth in his faggoty white uniform.”

8. Bridget Jones’s Diary - “The only thing worse than smug married couple; lots of smug married couples.”

7. When Harry Met Sally - “All I’m saying is that somewhere out there is the man you are supposed to marry. And if you don’t get him first, somebody else will, and you’ll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that somebody else is married to your husband.”

5. A Beautiful Mind - “Classes will dull your mind, destroy the potential for authentic creativity.”

4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s - “  You could always tell what kind of a person a man thinks you are by the earrings he gives you. I must say, the mind reels.”

3. Gone With the Wind - “No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how. ”

2. Dr. Zhivago - “Tonya! Can you play the balalaika?  Can she play? She’s an artist! Who taught you? Nobody taught her! Ah…then it’s a gift.”

1. The Sound of Music - “Where the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.”

I didn’t  realize I’d miss the winter Olympics so much. Not so much that I love winter sports, but because watching world-class athletes fall on their ass is more entertaining than what’s typically offered on Monday nights. Namely, The Bachelor.

I hate this show and only watch so I can bitch about it and yell at the TV, “you’re sooooo stupid!.”

Yes, I”m cynical and I don’t believe in overnight, I want to live with you forever kind of love. It just doesn’t happen that way. What irritates me more is ABC’s obligatory request for future Bachelor/Bachelorette submissions. During each episode they advertise, “if you’d like to be the next Bachelor send us your submission.” This must be some kind of legal requirement because it seems each time a new Bachelor or Bachelorette is announced their just recycled old contestants.

Case in point:
Jake, Bachelor #14,  dumped by Jillian in Bachelorette  #5

Jason, Bachelor #13 dumped by Deanna in Bachelorette, #4

Trista, Bachelorette #1,  dumped by 1st bachelor, Alex

Meredith, Bachelorette,#3, dumped by Bob

Jen, Bachelorette #3, dumped by Firestone dude

Deanna, Bachelorette #4,  dumped by Brad

Jillian, Bachelorette #5, dumped by dad, Jason

Please ABC, I beg you cancel this show!!!

Initially, I was very weary of following the winter Olympics after I had already medaled in the DC snowpocalypse of 2010. Yet I found myself choosing men’s figure skating over Carolina basketball. This year, this is not a hard decision and fortunately, the winter gods have given me a diversion from this atrocious basketball season. My diversion: men’s figure skating. Typically, I hate men’s figure skating. Mostly it’s their costumes and music that turn me off. Men in sequins skating around to music that can push a bipolar person over the edge is not my idea of sport.

Nevertheless, I tuned in to watch the USA versus Russia drama. By now we all know how that turned out and everyone outside Russia agrees the Russian dude is just a poor sport. However, what no one is talking about is how Evan Lysacek looks a lot like the kid from Ugly Betty.

Evan Lysacek, 2010 Gold Medalist

Mark Indelicato from Ugly Betty

I love David Cook, season 7 winner!

Only 12 days into the new year and I begin another American Idol journey. If you don’t know already, I’m a huge Idol fan,  but it wasn’t always that way.

It wasn’t until season 3, AKA, the Fantasia season, that Idol became my drug of choice. That year, it took everything I had just to function. Everything around me was a blur and I walked and talked in slow motion.  I wasn’t living…I was just being. With a shattered heart, I couldn’t imagine what was next for my life, but then came American Idol. Idol became my escape from the hurt, the Michigan cold and the loneliness only heartbreak can impose.

I didn’t just see Idol as a talent contest, I saw it as a second chance for lost dreams.  A chance to be you and to live your life the way God had intended. I realized then that there was a plan, albeit I didn’t know the plan yet, but I knew that  someday my soul would awaken to new dreams, and a new plan.  So through the  4 months of Fantasia, Jennifer Hudson, Diana DeGarmo and even the grandma loving, redhead, John Stevens, I came to believe that I too could get up and “perform” again. I started to believe that through the loss, I can win.

That year, I became loyal to the Idol machine.  Even in its low moments, Sanjaya, Chris Daughtry vote off and Taylor Hicks win, I continued on.  And so tonight, as Idol embarks on its 9th season, I’ll continue on, not for the talent or even the fun of watching the horrible auditions, but for what it gave me in 2004: hope.

ABC’s The Bachelor makes another appearance and only 15 minutes in, I’m reaching for my book. With 7+ Bachelor seasons, it appears that ABC is doing nothing to shake up or ditch this biannual event that portrays women as caddy, cunning and evil all in the name of “love.” Despite this, other reasons exist on why this show should be pulled from the fall ‘10 lineup.

1. Host, Chris Harrison claims that “this is the most dramatic rose ceremony ever.” Hello, ABC, this does not work anymore and this is like walking through the airport as the TSA warns us the threat level is orange. No one is listening—we’ve heard it so many times we now tune it out.

2. It’s a racisit show. Have they ever had a black bacelor or bachelorette? And though ABC is careful to include a a black man/woman in the pack of 25, it comes across as a “token” to assure network executives that the show crosses the diversity divide.

3. Agesim! Older men and younger women. ABC never casts women over 35, yet they love men in their 30’s who can’t stand up to the strength of a woman their own age, therefore leading to the casting of dumb girls with zero depth.

4. The hottube. This is gross on many levels in the real world, but with one horny guy and 25 slutty girls in bikinis this hottube totally grosses me out.

5. 25 women living together in one house is just not once they’ve graduated from the sorority house. ABC , I thought you were a family network.

It’s just week one, but I hate this show so much I expect that in the next 8 weeks I’ll find more reasons for ABC to pull it. Stay tuned.