Homemade Almond Flour

There's so much that I want to post, but for now I'll post about this.  

Homemade almond flour.  

Pre-made almond flour is fucking expensive.  A 16oz bag runs about $11.  What.The.Fuck.  I may be done with grad school, but I'm still applying for jobs and figuring my next move(s) out and let's be honest.  I'm a friggen social worker.  I'm not going to be making enough to stock my pantry with enough pre-made almond flour to satisfy my baking habit on a regular basis.    


So why almond flour if it's so damned expensive?  Well, as perviously mentioned I have a baking habit.  And since I am no longer bogged down with papers and presentations and pages and pages of reading to do on daily basis, my itch to be in my kitchen making delicious things is pretty severe right now.  Usually I bake and give away.  Which is great and kind and blah blah blah but every now and then a girl wants to have her cake and eat it too.  So I've been looking into healthier substitutes and recipes to satisfy my baking addiction that way I can bake, still give away but also keep a little with a lot less guilt.  Blah.  Okay that's the really long way to say that almond flour is a great sub for regular flour.  Jesus.  

In order to make sure that I got the right kind of texture, I first consulted the pre-made almond flour.  It looks like flour.  

The pre-made stuff.  Red Mills brand I believe.

When I was at TJ I picked up some raw, blanched, slivered almonds (per the recommendation of The Detoxinista) and dumped some into my food processor.  This is what I got.  

Looks the same, yeah?  Then I touched it.  It felt coarse.  Much more coarse than the pre-made stuff.  My blender was drying in my drying rack and I was way too impatient to wait for it.  Considered not caring about having more coarse almond flour and then I spotted our coffee grinder.  This is what I got.

I know.  They look exactly the same.  But they aren't.  The coffee grinder got the flour to a much finer powder that more closely resembled the pre-made stuff than the food processor.  So I finished the two bags I bought with the coffee grinder and put it into my freshly purchased glass jar for storage.  Two bags yielded so much more than I thought it would.  Just look at all that almond flour! 

           

I haven't baked with the stuff I made yet, but I'm assuming it's going to make everything awesome.  

Review: Pure and Natural Body Wash

So, lately I've been itching like crazy.  I mean, like crazy.  Have you ever had that super intense itch that makes you drop everything in your hands and rip off all your clothes so that you can dig your nails into your overstimulated flesh and no matter how much you itch it doesn't go away?  It's no longer about an inconvenience, it's an itch so intense that you have this instinctive reaction to take care of it any way possible.  Well I get that.  Every day.  

My skin is dry, has been since I moved out to the desert but lotion doesn't help the itch.  I thought maybe it was stress related but it's gotten worse since we moved and someone brought up the good point that I'm now living in a different part of town with different pollens that my body may not be used to.  In addition to that, I live in a developing community, which means tons of construction, which means extra dust and dirt flying around that I'm also not used to.  So now I'm thinking it might be allergy related and have switched us over to a hypoallergenic laundry detergent and soaps (as well as taken to stripping down whenever home and jumping in the shower whenever an itch episode happens).  This is our new body wash:

We even have the Rosemary and Mint scent.  My skin is still itchy and I'm not gonna lie I'm not sure if it's gotten better or worse or stayed the same.  But I will say that if I get in the shower with an intense itch, my skin is soothed faster with this stuff than any our old body wash.  And oh my god, the smell.  Jesus the smell is so friggen fresh and relaxing and calming, but not overwhelming and it's just amazing.  And the bottle is made from 100% recycled materials.  

My grade, A.  Even if it's not fixing my itch, I like that it's 94% natural ingredients, that the bottle is made from recycled materials and it's got way fewer icky chemicals.  So far I've been lucky and have been able to get this stuff on sale for under $10, I'm hoping my luck continues.  

Review: Alka-Seltzer Plus

So I'm sick.  And I started to feel the itch of sickness on Friday and was talking to another woman about cold meds and how crazy it is that I have to get carded for friggen cough syrup and how the national guard practically got called out when I purchased Advil Cold and Sinus.  Then we started talking about how expensive it can be blah bah blah and she suggested Alka-Seltzer because it works just as well as the popular stuff but it is way cheaper.  

So I went to the store and sure enough, the stuff I usually got was upwards of $15 and this stuff was $7.  I got stuck with the effervescent tablets (god saying that in my head is almost as annoying as writing it) because they didn't have the pills but I figured what the hey, it's citrus flavored!  

Shit is disgusting.  It has this weird residue that is very similar to shit I had to drink for my bowel prep and it made me want to vomit every time.  After I choked down about 3 dosages I pleaded, literally begged, Juan to go to the store and not make me take anymore.  

That's not to say it didn't work, it did, but choking that down was god awful.  From now on I will be throwing down the 20 some odd bucks to get the stuff I "like" (if you can truly like cold meds).  

My grade: D

Movie Review: Red Tails

When you don't feel well, or your significant other doesn't feel well, you spend a lot of time either drooling in front of the TV if you're the sick one, or watching your loved one drool in front of the TV if you're the healthy one.  Juan's been sick for TWO WEEKS and right when I was starting to do my happy dance for not getting it, wham I wake up with a fever and feeling like shit.  So there's been a lot of TV going on in this house because that's about as much brain capacity as this stupid goddamned virus is allowing for (even writing this blog is seriously challenging my brain capacity right now).  Anyways, onto the review.

It's a movie about the Tuskegee airmen of WWII told from their side.  The discrimination they faced, the ridiculous "medically proven" articles published declaring blacks incapable of the same kind of reflexes or critical thinking skills to be of any use in combat situations, not to mention just the overall distress of being in war.  

I love movies/stories like this.  I always go for the underdog, and in time of serious racial discrimination the Red Tails (thus named for their painted red tails on their planes) are undoubtedly the underdogs.  But more than that, I like being reminded of a time when we as a society were not at our finest.  Not because I'm a debbie-downer, but because it it's important to remember.  Civil rights have come a long way (not far enough for my liking but we're working on it) and it's important to remember that we have come a long way.  While I feel that equality should be our baseline and not our goal, there was a time when it wasn't even thought about and that is important to remember.  It's important to remember that we were once capable of such a thing and that we still are capable of such a thing and to keep fighting the good fight.  

Aside from it pulling on my heart strings, it of course had all the things a good action movie should have: action, shit blowing up, great CG, a little love to offset all the blowing up, and of course, tragedy when the good guys get hit.  

I really love this movie and would watch it again and recommend it to others to watch and would even buy it.  

My grade: A+

Movie Review: Battleship

Today's post will be short and possibly lame.  I'm kinda brain fried.  So.  Onward.  

We watched this a while ago, one of the first things we watched when we moved into the new place.  It satisfied all my points I have for an action movie.  Graphics were rad.  Shit blew up.  Good guys win.  

The only really terrible thing about the movie is that you don't get see Alexander Skarsgard naked.  Bummer.  Guess I'll have to wait for this summer's season of True Blood instead.  

My grade: A

Movie Review: In Time

In my time on the couch recovering from Jan-Removal I have been able to watch a lot, a lot, of movies.  One of them is In Time.

Remember that I am an easy movie critic.  I don't expect a lot from movies except that they entertain me for the duration of the film.  I expect things to blow up and people to get beat up in action movies, passionate kisses in romantic comedies, to laugh at comedies etc.  If the movie fulfills those needs, it gets a decent grade in my book.  

I wasn't expecting much with this movie.  I mean, it's Justin Timberlake.  I'm not even a big fan of his music, so I wasn't expecting much from his acting.  He was pretty decent though.  It might be because my expectations were low to begin with, but I was a little surprised by him.  

The concept of the movie I enjoyed.  Time is the new currency, the new class divide, the thing to have, the thing to live by and die by.  The rich have centuries and the poor have minutes.  You stop aging after 25, and that's when your clock starts.  So you look 25 for as long as you have time.  What that translates to is that if you're Justin Timberlake, your mom is Olivia Wilde.  Kinda weird to have that hot of a mom, but I guess you could get over that if that was normal.  

I won't get into the plot line too much, but there's death, and romance, and an unveiling of the wizard behind the curtain.  I was entertained.  And would watch it again.  

My grade: A

Stupid Bread (AKA TJ Cinnamon Swirl Bread)

Pre-surgery, I was ravenous.  I was so friggen hungry going into my pre-op I could hear my stomach eating itself and I was cranky and grumpy and feeling weak and queasy from the lack of food.  Whenever a nurse asked how I was doing, all I could manage to say was "hungry" and try not to glare at them like a zombie from The Walking Dead.  

My surgeon told me that I probably wouldn't be hungry after surgery and to stick to things like broth and crackers and really just hit up the fluids because that was all I would be able to handle.  I nodded and silently laughed on the inside and continued to think about the cheeseburger I was going to inhale once I was out of the hospital.  

Turns out we were both right, but my surgeon was more right.  My mind stayed firmly in the cheeseburger zone, but my body was not up for anything beyond saltines and chicken noodle soup.  My mom found whole wheat and multi-grain saltines with sea salt, which are delicious by the way, and so every couple of hours I was having to down some of those so I could take my pain meds without getting nauseous and wanting to heave and rip my stitches open.  

By Sunday I was feeling like a giant, over-full balloon about to burst.  Every two hours I was having to eat something and drink something and take meds and I hadn't actually felt hungry since before I went under.  I was also full of air, literally, because laparoscopic surgery makes you fill up like a balloon.  And, I was sick of saltines.  Saltines are great middle-of-the-night snacks to take your pain meds with but they are not meant for long term sustenance.  So out to the store my mom went, for like, the millionth time in a two days, and she comes back with Stupid Bread.  

She hands me a piece of this bad boy, slathered in melted butter, still warm from the toaster along with my vicodin and tells me I can graduate to toast and at first, I admit, I was skeptical.  I wanted something different, but the pieces are a good 1/2 inch thick and I could smell how rich it was and I was pretty sure I was going to take a bite and my body was going to reject it.  How very wrong I was.  My body managed to become hungry for this, to want it, to crave it.  It's so good it's stupid (hence the name).  

I don't even want to look at the nutritional info.  In fact, I'm trying to not look at the picture above too closely because I just don't want to know how horrible it is for me and my non-exercising ass right now.  My mom and I killed the first loaf, and then, thinking I was in the clear from the evil Stupid Bread, the husband comes home with another loaf.  ::face palm::

So here's to making him eat it as quickly as I can without shoving it down his throat and only sneaking a bite or two (or 12) of his slices.  

Body Rock

I'm always looking for new things in the fitness world.  I try not to spend too much time looking at fitness blogs and following too many figure competitors or fitness models or even just super duper inspiring fitness gurus because I could literally spend hours and hours and hours reading up on them and reading their blogs and doing the research on exercises etc.  

I have been working out with a girl friend of mine, MoJo, who I met through pole.  She was one of my students, and it wasn't that long ago that I was helping her invert and do the basics, and then she went back home to CO for the summer, trained with a champ, and came back and has been teaching me ever since.  We started this tradition on Sunday mornings where I go over to her place, we work out crazy hard, then play on the pole for hours (which she has mounted in her living room).  And it's been lovely and now she's back home for the next 6 weeks and I'm not sure what I'm going to do without her and our workouts.  I may be a trainer, but every now and then I want someone else to tell me what to do, to push me instead of me pushing myself, to teach me something new, and Mo does just that for me.  We feed off each other's energy, we get each other amped up, and we've become dear friends in the process.  

Anyways, Mo introduced me to BodyRock.  And I'm hooked.  Hate all you want on Lisa-Marie for her skimpy outfits and giant boobs.  Do these workouts and you'll be on your knees at her feet with nothing but respect.  Mo and I modified the workouts to do the intervals for 50sec on, rest for 10sec and we mix and match her exercises depending on how long we want to work.  Mo has the equalizers, and a set of power blocks, of which I want both to add to my home gym, and so we set up stations and rotate between strength and plyo sets, grunting and dripping sweat on the floor as we go.  

These workouts though, a new fave and I try to incorporate them as much as I possibly can with my training clients, my own personal workouts and in the fitness classes I teach.  They are amazing and I love them.  They have given me a leg up in a lot of areas and have helped define my core in a way that I haven't been able to do in a while.  

AND, the great thing about doing intervals, is that you can choose how long your intervals and rests are (I always recommend 1min total and generally don't recommend going below 30sec on, 30sec off), you don't necessarily have to stay at 100% for every on interval, you just have to keep moving, which means you can modify down if you need to and still get a crazy workout, and intervals, especially if you do plyo, burns way more calories than traditional long distance moderate intensity cardio like jogging.  

Loves it.  You should try it.  It's amazeballs.  

Movie Review: Brave

Last night we got to do something we haven't done in literally ages.  We got to sit at home, in our PJs, chowing down some dinner and enjoy a movie.  And before that we did a marathon of the 2011 season of Bones because Netflix finally stopped being a jerk and updated itself with new episodes.  Way to only have us 2 whole seasons behind, Netflix...  

Anyways, last night we watched Brave. 

First thought, I want her hair.  God I love her hair.  Anyways, I know we're behind the times, but being in grad school full time, working part time, the husband developing his business like, full time times 100, getting ready to move and close on a new home leaves little time to do anything else in our "free time" except eat and sleep.  

But it's a "kid's" movie about tradition, obligation, family dynamics, finding your own identity, magic, faith, hope, awe, courage, bravery (duh), growing up, finding your voice, breaking the mold, you know, the usual kid type things.  

As I sat there enjoying all the complex life lessons that I can now fully appreciate as an adult who is fascinated by, and studying, human behavior, I also got super excited by all the stuff that I recognized from reading the Outlander Series.  "The circle of stones!!!"  "The wisps!!"  All stuff in my very grown up book that just tickled me at it being in the movie.  It made it feel more authentic.  

Story line, I think goes without saying, was awesome.  I love that a girl in a movie is being idolized by little girls in today's world who rides horse back and shoots bows and arrows and goes against the more traditional princess mold.  I love that the princess, who is not like other princess, is the heroine and comes out on top.  I love that mother and daughter learn to love and accept each other for who they are and change and grow together.  I love the little brothers because they're hell on wheels and exactly what I imagine having sons would be like.  I love the dad, this big, powerful king who loves and submits to his wife.  I love that this story idolizes a family that is probably more to what a "real" (and by real I mean not cartoon movie) family is like and lets kids know that it's okay and that "happy ever after" exists in our plane too.  I love that it idolizes a girl with a strong will, who stands up for what she believes in, owns up to her mistakes, and takes risks. 

All in all, my grade: A+ and I am really glad that we get it for 72hours :) 

TV Review: Glee

This show was the husband's pick.  And at first I was resistant because I thought that it was the next High School Musical and I was not about to support that.  But then we started watching it, and at first I wanted to punch Rachel, run away with Brittany and have Puck's babies, and after watching several seasons of it, I only want to pull Rachel's hair (and only sometimes), I still want to run away with Brittany and possibly still have Puck's babies, but I want the rest of them in my little fantasy world too.  

Aside from the amazing singing and dancing and awesome nostalgic stroll down high school drama avenue, this show hits on all the toughies: gay kids, being raised by gay parents, teen pregnancy, being disabled, cliques, bullies, adoption, suicide, it hits it all.  It makes the kids that are too school for cool the stars, and I totally dig it.  

We recently watched Glee the 3D Movie and they structured it around the Glee concert and then showcased a couple of people where Glee has literally changed their lives.  What?  A TV show changed a person's life?  Yes, it did.  When you're feeling alone and constantly being reminded that only the "cool" kids are the ones that make it unless you're a vampire that glitters in the sun, sometimes the only person or people you get to connect to are fictional characters.  You spend a bunch of your time wishing you were these other people, or wishing you had an ounce of their life.  You spend so much time feeling so alienated and secluded that when you find someone you see yourself in and they are struggling, yeah, but they're also making it, you're given hope, even if that person is someone in a TV show.  Their stories are touching.

My grade: A++++ and I cannot wait to catch up on the current season.  

Review: Burt's Bees

I'm kind of a chap stick hoarder.  It's common practice around here to check all my pockets before throwing anything into the wash because I've usually got some sort of chap stick stashed somewhere.  It's also pretty common around here to find all kinds of brand new chap sticks stashed in all sorts of places because I'll misplace them, then buy a new one, only to find the only-used-once one I just misplaced a couple days later.  

But I'm a loyal chap stick hoarder and my go to fave is anything Burt's Bees.  I haven't tried their other bath or body products because I'm afraid it will turn into a problem, but I have tried basically every lip balm they have to offer.  My all time favorite is the round tin.  Love, love, LOVE the tin.  I can't even really explain why I love the tin so much, but I do.  If I had to choose between the Beeswax stick or the Beeswax tin, the tin wins every time.  

My favorite kind though is probably the original Beeswax.  It lasts for a really long time, it has that nice cool, refreshing tingle and it tastes good (not that I just sit around eating sticks of lip balm, but when you forget you're wearing it and lick your lips, it's always nice to be wearing a balm that is pleasing to your taste buds).  

That's not to say I don't like their other kids.  I really like the Replenishing one that has pomegranate extract in it for when I go to bed.  It packs a lot more moisture than the original beeswax, almost like a gloss, but without that gross sticky feel.  It too lasts forever and I wake up in the morning with silky soft lips.  

I've also tried the honey, which is a great, regular ol' chap stick.  Doesn't pack that tingly sensation like the beeswax, but isn't glossy feeling like the replenish. It's a good in between.  

They also have a lifeguard one that has SPF in and is meant to protect your lips through heat, water and bitter cold.  Whenever I swim laps or go for a run, I like smacking this one on.  It makes my lips feel invincible to the elements.  

I've also tried various tinted ones, which I also like because for some reason I cannot apply lip gloss without a mirror.  I think the little stick thing throws me off.  But a tinted lip balm?  I can put that on while merging on to the freeway (not that I ever do that of course) and not look like some toddler applied my lips that day.  

In short, I love everything Burt's Bees.  It lasts a long time, they're reasonably priced, they taste good (always a plus) and other brands that I've had to get in a pinch just don't compare.  

My grade: A++

Review: Dragon Dog Toy with Chew Guard

I got this at PetSmart for about $13 on sale.  Kinda expensive for a dog toy, sure.  They market them as nearly indestructible.  And since I am the proud owner of a dog with jaws that could rival a tree chipper both in power and speed, I was intrigued.  See, we've purchased Sappho soft, fuzzy things like soft, fuzzy beds, little stuffed animals etc.  They've all lasted about 5 minutes before that awful RRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPP sound and all the guts and stuffing come out and then it looks like it fake-snowed in my house.  

This means we don't get her many toys because they're all destroyed within minutes.  She can't even have a stuffy to snuggle with because the poor thing just doesn't stand a chance against that massive mouth and chomping power.  Thankfully she only rips apart things that are hers.  Thank god.  

I have purchased four of them over the last couple of years.  See, they are pretty much indestructible, but they do have one weakness: the wings.  The wings can be ripped off and then the guts are exposed and then you have to pull all the stuffing out and the squeaker before she eats it.  But once the wings are off and the guts and squeaker safely removed, it doesn't really fall apart anywhere else.  She hasn't been able to rip off the eyes (oh poor little piggy...), the nostrils or the legs, and my dog doesn't know the meaning of light play.  They last several months, and best part, they're washable.  

My grade: A

Review: Advil Cold and Sinus

I know, I know.  I just wrote a post about how awesome Emergen-C is, blah blah blah, and now I'm sick and writing a review on cold medicine.  I jinxed myself, I know.  I'm still on the fence as to whether or not this is a full on cold or if it's a minor cold and allergies.  The cough I'm developing says cold though, but I'm not entirely willing or ready to say that I'm sick.  I can't be sick.  I don't have time to be sick.  Allergies, even bad allergies, those I have time for.  

The worst part has been the runny nose.  No one should be as excited as I was earlier today to open a new box of Puffs Plus (a nose in need deserves Puffs Plus indeed!).  But DayQuil doesn't help with nasal congestion, and so after I literally sat on the store floor comparing ingredients of different meds (for the record, they're all the same except for the ones you have to go to the pharmacy for), I finally decided that I was going to have to man up and go ask the pharmacist for one of them.  Advil Cold and Sinus was the cheapest option so I went and got that.  

So far so good.  The sinus pressure has been giving me headaches, but the 200mg of ibuprofen in this stuff takes care of that.  The pseudophedrine (the reason it's kept in the pharmacy and why the pharmacist requested my driver license and took down my info - it's the stuff you can make meth with) is the nasal decongestion and no runny nose.  I can tell when the meds wear off because then I start blowing my nose like crazy, but when it's working, it works.  I dig it.  There's no cough suppressant so if I develop a cough then I will have to switch things up, but I'm loving that my nose is under control.  

Grade: A

Review: Emergen-C

When I'm in school, I take an Emergen-C every day.  Not because I suffer from mysophobia (fear of germs!  I learned something new in school) or because I'm paranoid about getting sick.  I fully intend to let my future children eat dirt and things off the floor to build up their little immune systems.  I just literally do not have the time to be out of commission for even a couple days with how busy my schedule is right now.  It's literally taking all my energy just to keep myself from going bat shit crazy, the last thing I need right now is to be stuck on the couch or in bed (and can I just say that the only time I miss not having a TV in our room is when I'm sick and I just want to lay in bed and watch movies?) with no capacity to do anything except drool or sniffle.  World domination is not for the weak, let me just tell you.  

So Emergen-C.  A friend of mine prefers to take them like a shot, with only a couple oz of really cold water and tosses it back in one giant swig.  I can't do that.  Maybe that's because I'm not a champ like she is (the woman can drink whiskey for pete's sake - I can't even smell it), but I need to drink it down in 2-3 swallows.  It's definitely not something I can sip on, and I don't know if you've tried to take 3 quick and consecutive sips of anything that is really cold, but I get a brain freeze when I do that.  So I use room temp water (something that I NEVER do), which in my opinion makes it fizzier which I like, and then I can swig it down.  I also find that letting it sit for about 30seconds before stirring and drinking helps it all dissolve better so that you don't get the dregs and super bitter after taste.  

I don't know if it helps, I mean, I still get sick sometimes, but I feel like I'm doing all that I can and should be doing (along with excessively thorough hand washing) to stay healthy as much as possible.  And when I do feel under the weather and I take this, I feel like that Emergen-C commercial that shows Bruce Lee in all the fizzy bubbles defending your immune system from the evil ninja germs.  

Oh, and stay away from the berry flavored ones unless you enjoy the taste of vomit and ass all rolled into one.  Gotta stick with the tangerine or super orange flavors IMO.  

Grade: A

Review: Fiber One 90 Calorie Chocolate Chip Cookie aka Holy Mother of Pearl Deliciousness

Holy crap.  No really, HOLY CRAP!  These things are effing delicious.  DE-LISH-OUS!  I was trying to find ways to get in my needed 30g of daily fiber (I try to eat super clean and as unprocessed as I possibly can.  But honestly, there's only so many beans and so much broccoli a girl can handle.  Especially when I'm so on the go without fridge tied to my ass) without overloading on calories and without needing to take a supplement (did you know that most fiber supplements have a laxative component to them?  Yeah, don't need that) and I stumbled upon the Fiber One 90 Calorie Double Chocolate Brownie bars first.  Super delicious, decadent, and only 90 calories with 5g of fiber.  I can have 2 and not even start to think to feel guilty about it.  Score.  

AND because they have 5g of fiber in them, they fill you up a bit so they make an effective snack.  Double score.  

THEN, when at a friend's house and really hungry, I saw that they had a whole freaking Costco size box of these bad boys in their pantry and asked if I could try one.  And oh my god I think I have to cheat on my double chocolate brownies for these things.  They taste like a Grandma's Chocolate Chip cookie, but without the guilt.  Which, in case you were wondering, MAKES THEM BETTER.  

So go get you some.  But if you see me in the same isle as you, better luck next time 'cuz I am clearing the shelf out.  

Grade: A+

Review: Avocado and Oatmeal Clay Mask

When my sister was here we decided to give ourselves a mini spa day - you know, nails, facials, etc.  This turned into painting our nails on one night, and doing at home facials shortly before she left.  I've only had one facial before, and it was miserable.  The woman was trying to scrub and peel my whole damn face off and she kept peeling my eyelids open because her hands were so heavy and rough.  I've never gotten one since because it was miserable.  

So when Aud said she wanted to do facials again, I was skeptical, I almost ignored the request.  Then she proposed doing at home facials and I was more receptive to this idea.  So we went to Walgreens and picked this up: 

And it turned us into this:

I must say it worked pretty awesome.  Our faces were nice and clean and smooth, my skin, which is usually really oily, was well balanced for the rest of the day.  Taking it off was also really easy, just warm water.  It left our faces feeling nice and refreshed.  

So it was a thousand times better than the professional one I got, cost a fraction of the price, and was much more pleasant as I was able to talk to my sister, and occasionally giggle at the thought of someone seeing us at our computers chatting away with green faces.  

My grade: A+

TV Show Review: 24

We're only half way through season three of this show, so don't spoil it totally for me.  Anyways, 24.  

Keiffer Sutherland plays Jack Bauer, a federal agent working/directing the Counter Terrorist Unit, which, as the name implies, works against terrorism.  Each episode takes place in "real time," meaning that each episode is only 1hour long, and the events that take place only take place during that one hour, and one whole season, is just one day, broken up into several episodes that cover that one hour each.  


I really like the Sutherland father/son duo.  I think they're great actors, and while Keiffer usually plays the creepy villain way too well, he plays a really phenomenal good guy in this show.  Maybe because he's a good guy with a healthy if not robust disregard for authority and rules and so he's always in trouble with someone, but still.  He's awesome.  


In fact, all the men in this show are pretty awesome.  Their characters, the acting, all awesome.  The women, however, oh my god.  Most of them are annoying.  The only woman character that I like is Dessler, because she's the only normal one and she's totally badass.  But Jack's daughter, Kim, is dumb, and constantly making dumb decisions that put her in mortal peril and is constantly needing rescuing, and of course she only really accepts help from her dad, so while her dad is trying to save the world from ending, he has to stop what he's doing, and go save her.  And it's not like she makes dumb decisions about combat strategies or anything that a normal person wouldn't know about.  She makes dumb decisions on things normal people know better on.  She's just that girl.  Jack's wife (tiny spoiler ahead), I know I'm not supposed to say this because her character died at the end of the first season, she too was also dumb and needy and just overall annoying.  Kim is still around there and just... makes me want to strangle her through the screen.  On the bright side, the actress plays her character well, so kudos.  


It is highly entertaining, despite the weird female characters.  I like the concept of how each episode only covers one hour of one day, I think it's cool and different and nice change of pace.  The scenarios are also pretty entertaining, and each episode often ends with a really good cliff hanger that tempts us to stay up way too late.  


So all in all, my grade: A-

Review: Tanning

I know, I know.  Tanning beds are just giant tubes of death and cancer, I know.  There's no research out there that says anything positive about them, but despite all that, I can't help but be curious about them.  And apparently everyone in Tucson is also really curious about them, because there's almost as many tanning places in Tucson as there are Starbucks and McDonalds.  


That's always fascinated me because I'm like, hello it's the desert we get sunlight 360 days out of the year.  Just go outside!  But the gym I work at has tanning beds and hydromassage beds.  Now the hydromassage beds I tried the first day I could and I love them.  The tanning though I never did because they scare me and I saw no point.  Everyone has been asking me though, and by everyone I mean patrons, how the tanning beds are and what they are like and I have to respond honestly and say that I don't know.  So I finally manned up, and said, okay fine I will try this so I can tell patrons that I have, but I am only spending 5minutes in that thing and not a second longer (5minutes sounds like a long time, but it's really short time apparently in the tanning world).  


First, you have to get naked for tanning to be effective.  I decided to keep my chonies on because I wanted to see if it worked, but I got naked down to my undies still.  Yes you have your own private room, so it's not like I'm naked in front of people, and the door has a lock on it, so no one can walk in on me.  But the doors have those button locks.  I have this thing with not trusting locks that aren't deadbolt fashion or a slider lock.  If I can't see the mechanism locking, I'm convinced that it didn't lock.  So now I'm naked and with a door that I'm not convinced is locked and convinced that someone is going to walk in on me... while I'm naked...


Second, I was of course convinced that I was going to burn immediately.  I understand that this is not possible, that I have a more olive-y complexion, that I can spend several hours in the Tucson sun and not burn, so 5minutes wouldn't make me burn, but I of course thought I was going to.  Plus, I didn't expect the bed to get warm from the lights, don't ask me why but I didn't.  So when it started getting warm, it took me a second to realize that it was just the lights in the bed and not my skin catching on fire.  Once I realized I wasn't meeting the True Death, I kept looking down at myself to make sure that no parts of my body were touching each other because I was also convinced that not only would I burn, but I would burn in weird patterns...


Third, I can't remember where I saw it, or what movie/show it was, but I watched something somewhere where a chick was murdered by being locked in her tanning bed and then she turned into soup.  Naturally, I had vivid images of some masked villain sneaking into my tanning room (because button locks don't work, remember?) and trapping me in the tanning bed turning me into soup.  So about every 30 seconds or so I kept impulsively shooting my hand out the side to make sure that I could still get out.  


BUT, despite all my anxiety, I am tanner.  So in terms of effectiveness, I would have to say that it's pretty darn effective.  In terms of me ever doing it again, I think not.  My anxiety is way too high to handle that kind of situation, not to mention the over all bad news bears it is for your skin.  

Movie Review: Snow White and the Huntsman

There are a ton of movie/tv show themed reviews I should write, because they've been sitting on my list of things to write for several months, but this one totally trumps them all.  

One word: epic.  


Yes, it's got the same chick in it as Bella from the Twilight series.  Fear not fellow movie goers, her acting is far better in this movie than it is in Twilight.  She's articulate, and the stumbling, staccato thing that Bella does with her words, doesn't happen in this film.  Yay!  If you want to be super critical then yes, she only has 1 major solo acting scene where she's giving this bitchin' pre war pep talk, but even still.  I thought she did a good job in this film.  


The Huntsman is hot.  The end.  Just kidding.  Not about him being hot, he's super hot, but he's also does a fantastic job in this movie.  He's a little heart broken, mysterious, loveable, funny, and super bad ass.  


Visual effects.  Oh my god, the visual effects.  Part of it is in the previews so I'm not spoiling too much, but the part where the mirror melts into a man-like figure, the milk bath is another one, the evil army being broken into shattered glass, all of it, so visually appealing.  The way the dark forest comes to life, everything about it was like massive feast for your eyes.  


The character/actor/woman who, in my opinion at least, completely takes the cake in this movie is Charlize Theron.  Holy hell can that woman act.  While everything else was awesome in this movie, Theron's breath taking performance is what will make me go see this movie again in theaters and pay full price.  She's wicked, tortured, and scared, fragile, crazy, powerful, deranged.  She is simply phenomenal.  


For all you parents out there wondering if it's something worth taking your kids to, I would definitely consider your child's coping response to scary, yet visually appealing effects.  There's a very real looking troll, some scary dark forest scenes, violence with the battle scenes etc.  It is definitely not written or portrayed as a fairy tale, it is a grown up interpretation of the fairy tale we all grew up with.  


My grade: A+

TV Show Review: The Vampire Diaries

Yes, yes, the vampire thing is WAY overdone these days, I keep hoping that Hollywood will obsess over some of the other supernatural being so that the vamps can get a rest, buuut, I'm still totally into the whole supernatural thing.  In my defense, I've been on the whole supernatural wagon long before they became uber popular and glittery.  I think when I was about 12 or so I made a comment about vamps being cool, so my mom handed me 'Salem's Lot by Steven King to read, and instead of being freaked out by it, it just made me sad for all the characters of the book.  I wanted the priest to hold onto his faith, the vamps onto their humanity, it was very sad.  I had similar sentiments toward the movie, "Interview with a Vampire."  I found it a sad story of self torture and despair, not a scary story about blood suckers.  That's not say that I don't think vamps are scary.  I'm pretty sure I'd piss myself if I ever came across one.  In fact, when I got to college, I was pretty dead set on doing a lot of vampire lore research, more than I already had.  But then I read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (phenomenal, by the way) and became convinced that if I dug too deep, I too would end up like the heroine in her book, so I stopped digging and I now hold vamp lore at a respectable distance.  ANYWAYS...


Fast forward a little over a decade from the start of my supernatural interest, and we arrive at the TV show, The Vampire Diaries.

It's about vamp brothers, Stefan and Damon, who, in their human lives, fell in love with the same evil seductress, Katherine, who of course is a vamp, who plays and manipulates them both, turns them both, and then 150 years later, they both return to their hometown, and both fall in love with Elena, who is a descendant of Katherine and her supernatural doppleganger.  I keep expecting Stefan to look at Elena and go, "Soookaaaayyy!" and Elena to go, "Oh Beeeeeeeel!!!!!!" and for Damon to metamorphous into Alexander Skarsgaard and start walking around without his shirt on.  Except that Elena is in high school, not a sassy barmaid, and the only thing "supernatural" that she's got going for her is that she's a Petrova doppelganger.  But Stefan and Damon could totally be Bill and Eric from True Blood.  The acting isn't as good as True Blood either, but that's what you get when it's just network television and not  ShoTime that can afford big names and seasoned actors.  Even though it's a step down from True Blood, it is a big, and important step up from Twilight.  Every now and then the Elena character does weird Bella type things with her speech, but she can actually act, so I try to overlook it.  I also try to overlook the Edward hair that Stefan rocks ('cuz when did being a vamp mean you have to have a constant wind blown hair do?).


All in all though, I like it.  It's entertaining.  I appreciate that they touch on other supe stuff like weres and witches.  I also appreciate that the vamps don't glitter in this show (though from a historical storytelling perspective, I do find the possibility of vamp legend starting out as being told "their skin glowed as though on fire in the sun" and turning into "their skin caught on fire in the sun" through oral history being passed down through generations pretty interesting, but I digress).  The other thing I appreciate is that they do a relatively decent job at showing and expressing that while eternal life and super strength is awesome, it also seriously blows.  Especially for weres.  They make the were transformation just look like hell instead of all cool and sexy.  They do a good job at showing that both weres and vamps, at their core, are killers, and that what keeps them from being total assholes is their attachment to their humanity etc.  It's like working with wild animals.  They may actually like you and trust you and take food from your hand and let you rub their bellies, but they're still wild animals and will kill you if they want to; a message I appreciate with the recent idolizing of vamps as being the most awesome thing since sliced bread.  


My overall grade: B+  I don't think I'd cancel plans to catch the showing on TV as the current season plays on, I can totally wait for it to come out on Netflix (season 1-2 are on Netflix, but apparently there is a season 3 not out yet), but I will definitely keep an eye out for the new season to hit Netflix and catch up on my vamp diaries.