Entertainment To Me!

Animal Planet is a wonderful place to learn–along with such others as the Science Channel, Discovery, NASA  channel, TLC (another Discovery channel offspring)–and I  had been missing it for a while, due to being sick, etc. But I recently discovered my family has it on their dish network as well!  I watched CATS 101 , the later edition (second time it played that night), and decided I really love the show, and it’s another example of why I love the channel in general.

Dogs 101 , a sister show, is awesome–going through 4 or 5 breeds a show, telling their histories, stats, and a short inspiring story about a specific dog of each breed that did something heroic, or unique, or has some sort of other amazing story–and I love watching it, learning all the stats about some of my favorite breeds, and the lesser known ones as well!

But I never figured there was enough breeds of cats to do a Cat version of such a show. But it turns out, there are at least 49 that I’m sure most of us couldn’t name if we tried. Of course most of us could pin the names of breeds we know well–Persian, Siamese, Himalayan….But without research, I don’t think most normal people could peg an Oriental, Korat, Chartreux, or Devon Rex!

This is where Cats 101 comes in. The show highlights several breeds a show, and quickly, colorfully, and informativly fills you in on stuff you never knew. When people ask me what kind of cat I have, I tell them he’s a…uh…housecat?! He’s not of pure breed, but it’s impressive how many cats are. Did you know the Savannah  is huge, and almost a wildcat? And is banned in some states? Did you know the Maine Coon holds the record for the world’s longest cat? These are the types of of cool things you learn when watching this show.

Also, Cats 101 informs you of the important facts, as well as the off-the-wall-unique-facts. Like how well a breed adapts to family life, and children, or how easy its coat is to keep up, and how healthy the breed is.

If you’re interested in all things cat, or just want to learn something new, or are looking for animal show you’ve not seen, Cats 101 may just be the “cat’s meow” for you (I know, lame pun, but oh well!)!

On December 9th, omg.yahoo.com published an article about the odd (quirkiest) names stars name their kids–read it here! I often give these articles a glance, because they’re usually more of the “worst/best outfits” variety. But this one caught my eye a bit more, since odd names alwaze interest me.

Some of the names included, of course, a mention of Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter named Apple–which I personally thought was nifty! Before I became Catholic, I was insisting I wanted to name one of my daughters “Fire!” But anyway…

Rocker Ashlee Simpson and her hubby named their kid Bronx Mowgli. Neither of them hails from NY, apparently, but obviously both love the Disney’s Jungle Book. Poor kid. Still, could be worse;

Love Gwen Stefani, but she might’ve been on crazy glue, along with her husband Gavin R., when they named their baby boy Zuma Nesta Rock.  Sounds like a cross between a weird tea, something African, and a music type. Or just craziness. That’s my bet..

I didn’t agree with the article that Sunday Rose–Nicole Kidman & Keith Urban’s baby girl–was such a bad name, or Buster Timothy, Johnny Lee Miller’s baby boy.

Personally, I think Fire would’ve been much stranger, heh. Stars, though (I guess), have liberty to invent whatever names they want…? Poor kids…

The Hallmark channel has been running their terrible Christmas movies every night, usually 2 of them in a row, and because my Mother insists on watching “Walker, Texas Ranger”, and I usually happen to be around (oddly enough, since I HATE that show) the living room at that time—I end up hanging out and semi-watching some of the movies.  But then I heard that they were playing “Ebbie ,” with Susan Lucci.

I don’t watch Soap Operas, but I really like Susan Lucci, and her acting ability. She was on Dancing With The Stars this season, and I really enjoyed wataching her, though she wasn’t the best dancer of all time. But she’s so sweet and cute to see, and can change herself so well from her real self to her characters, a person must be impressed.

“Ebbie” is a modern retelling of a classic Dickens tale, A Christmas Carol. Susan plays Elizabeth Scrooge, and she does a  great job with her character. The movie came out in December ‘95, but was done very well.

I’m glad Hallmark decided to show the great Christmas re-telling, and anyone who wants a good watch for the season, this is a movie for you!

Today I was just thinking about how totally distracted and into my cable TV I became/was while I was living about 2000 miles away from where I am right now. My hubby and myself had our little apartment, newly married, and our 32″ plasma widescreen TV, and even with our basic 70 channels still had enough reality TV channels to keep me into it!

Now, we live with family, and are getting ourselves on our feet again. Annnd, family only has basic dish-family-package-something-or-other. It has 3 Nickelodean channels, so gets tons of SpongeBob Squarepants (which is totally cool with me!!), but no TLC, so no “Little People, Big World,”, and no Bravo, so no “Top Design.” And I missed the ending of “Dancing With the Stars” even! And no “Top Model” either!

They have Food Network, but I’ve not caught up on my shows on there yet..but there’s alwaze watching them online (thank God for the net, eh?!).

I guess I got caught up in the Reality TV hype, and miss my cable! But I guess I’ll have to find some other form of entertainment than 20 reality TV shows…Board games anyone?!

Over Thanxgiving holiday, lots of family and lots of food abounded. And lots of movie watching. Oldest sis and hubby came down to PA from Long Island, and as usual, at holiday time, we all–with our respective others/friends–went to see a movie in our local Cinemark theatre.

BOLT–Everyone else went to see the new comedy, “Four Christmases,”, while my husband and myself opted to see “Bolt,” the new computer animated movie starring the voice talents of John Travolta and singer/actress Miley Cyrus. Movie started at 5:35pm, and after credits, and all was said and done–was ended at about  7:25pm. Of course there were about 4 previews (all for computer animated coming attractions), and so on and so forth, but the movie was still long for a computer animated one. But all the time was used wonderfully!

I loved “Bolt”, and would most definitely see it again! In fact, it was one of the best, if not the, computer cartoon I’ve ever seen! I loved it!! While it wasn’t totally as funny as say, “Finding Nemo”–Disney did a great job with this one. John Travolta plays the little white dog who thinks he has superpowers, perfectly. And Miley Cyrus, while she’s not an outstanding character in the movie, added to its memorability with her addition of the ending song (which she and John T. sing together).

The secondary characters–the cat named Mittens and a fat hampster named Rhino–are great. The hampster made my husband laugh like crazy, and me too. Bolt is a beautiful dog, and the hampster is adorable as comedic relief. Mittens is really thin and odd looking, but she’s a cool cat, so it’s all good.

“Bolt” is beautiful, the animation is amazing, the characters are FUNNY (especially the first set of NY pigeons!!LOL), the backrounds are well done, and it is overall a great adventure for family, friends, and everyone of any age. Highly recommended!

HANCOCK–Will Smith is great, really and truly. I usually enjoy watching him. Even “I Am Legend”–which wasn’t the greatest movie, was made better by him. But when I finally sat down to watch “Hancock” this holiday season, on DVD, I was glad I hadn’t paid money to see it in the theatre. The preview people had seen a zillion times tells nothing of Charlize Theron’s pointless sister-superhero-type-character, or of the fact that the movie isn’t funny at all, it’s merely a drama about a drunk, and a guy who tries to be a good man in a crappy world. It was an alright movie, if you have time, and don’t bore easily. Don’t get me wrong, Will is still a great actor, but this movie wasn’t really worth the time. It had nothing extra special. And they took a great super hero theme and screwed it up pretty bad, making a drama. Oy vey.

TROPIC THUNDER (unrated version)–Ok, this movie, starring Jack Black, Ben Stiller, and Robert Downy Jr., was extremely funny. Made so by Matthew McConaughey and Tom Cruise sub-characters, especially! Tom Cruise has a scene where he is just swearing like crazy, and everyone is looking at him like he’s crazy, which his character is–and it’s worth cracking up over.

Jack Black isn’t as funny or prominent, but Ben Stiller and Robert Downy Jr. are great hysterics, and the character R.D. Jr. plays is impressive.

We watched the unrated version, which has tonz of cursing, and lots of perverted humor, which I could’ve done without, but other than that stuff, it would’ve been a GREAT comedy. So it’s good, but be careful if you’ve got kids around. It was fun to watch with the guys and hubby.