Love to Travel

Author: Jonathan Suarez

I really love traveling but in the last few years it’s been harder and harder to find the money to do it with the economy the way it is. I especially like Europe but there’s never been a time when it’s been more expensive to get over there and then travel around. I can’t do it like I used to so what I’ve actually been doing a lot of is watching travel shows on TV. I went to satellitetvfamily.com a while back and got some additional channels so now I feel like I get to travel vicariously through the world while I watch on the TV! Samantha Brown’s shows are my favorite because she’s so relatable and she goes to a lot of the places I wish I could be – it’s really fun being able to feel like I’m walking through Belgium or Italy even when it’s just her. I don’t know what I would do without this form of escape because my job and my whole life are so stressful right now!

Chocolates For the Birthday Girl

When you are getting your stockpile of gifts for the lady in your life you know what you have to do. Be a bit romantic . Start out with some chocolates for the birthday girl to go along with the flowers. Unless you are money bags and can afford expensive jewelry you need to be a bit more creative.

Finding birthday gifts for her is a lot easier I think than finding them for him. The ladies actually like romantic and "cute" stuff. Us guys could care less, and want fancy electronics most of the time, or we already bought what we wanted. We're a bit more practical. Girls like to know you put some thought into it. Maybe hook her up with Chocolate covered Birthday Berries & a Birthday Bear, or a Cheesecake Trio & Full Dozen Gourmet Dipped Fancy Berries.

Lindsay Lohan Just Never LEarns

I'm not sure anyone feels sorry for this girl. The amount of times she has been arrested, violated probation, and just plainly disregarded the law has become commonplace. That she continually gets let out of her responsibilities is not just absurd, but it is completely wrong. It's not even like you can figure she gets the special treatment for being a celeb anymore can we? Why would any judge care? She looks like death and could probably do much better locked up for a while.

Today she was supposed to show up for her first day of community service at the MORGUE, but of course she arrived late and missed her first day. 40 minutes late for her orientation on her FIRST DAY. She might not even be able to sell laser printers in a couple years the way she has gone. If she lives that long that is.

Steve Honig, Lohan's spokesman, said in a statement that the actress was late because she didn't know which entrance to report to "and confusion caused by the media waiting for her arrival." (Hurrr durrr)

That's the exact kind of excuse people who never take any responsibility toss out there. Thinking anyone actually believes it is their biggest mistake.

Netflix Drops Plans to Split Streaming and DVD Services

So...after a lot of people called the idea to spin off the two services and have some stupid name like Qwickster, Netflix has gone back to their old ways and cancelled the whole deal. Gee I wonder why. Maybe it's because streaming is too limited, and people still need DVDs?

I haven't used Netflix in probably a year, but when I did the streaming just wasn't good enough. If you want to watch old movies, or some older TV shows it's not a bad deal. For those that want to rewatch classics they have seen many times it may have been great. For me I go by the philosophy that there is so much entertainment to watch now that it makes little sense for me to watch anything several times.

The surprise reversal, coming three weeks after the plan was disclosed, follows the company's unpopular 60% price hike in July for subscribers who watch both DVDs and online video.

The changes led the Los Gatos, Calif., company to predict it would lose 600,000 U.S. subscribers for the third quarter, instead of gaining as many as 400,000 as it previously forecasted. Might be time to branch out and start selling restaurant equipment too.

Did Breaking Bad Make It's First Real Mistake Last Week?

I've seen a lot of theories around last week's episode. The episode right before Season 4's finale on Sunday, and I don't like any of them. It almost feels like I'm reading 9.11 truther conspiracies this week in regards to the episode.

There are basically 2 major things that annoyed me about the episode. First was that Jesse went to Walt and accused him of poisoning his girlfriend's kid. How he would jump to this conclusion is bad enough, but let's just say he was a little paranoid like they all were this episode.

What was most annoying though and was actually cringe-worthy was the final scene. Gus all of a sudden catches Spidey sense and figures out he is in danger to be blown to bits by Walt? People have tried to explain this away in many ways, but all of them are stupid. Jesse saying the kid was poisoned put him on alert, he knew Walt would be there because of it. Blah blah blah. It's just asinine. Then knowing that someone was looking to take him out he decides to walk over to the railing in full view of anyone on another building to get sniped as if he already knew it was a car bomb.

These weren't even the conspiracy theory scenes. The theories are all based on the ricin poisoning of the kid. Trying to decide between Walt, or Gus doing it. The same people that have for weeks theorized it would be accidental and end up being the kid, or Jesse's girl (haha). Accident better be the answer because nobody in this situation is a god and omnipotent. I assume this IS what happened and all the character work done here is just them all being paranoid. If this isn't it I find no explanation worthy because the timeline doens't fit. It would make me recommend the writers to look for a new career in something like Technical Recruiter Consultant Jobs.

Terra Nova: Next Great Drama, or Next Cheesy Sci-Fi?

This past week Terra Nova debuted with a 2 hour pilot on Fox. The show promoted itself with dinosaurs and jungles, making it look somewhat like maybe it was the next copy of Lost. As we have seen every year since Lost hit it big we are getting all kinds of sci-fi shows that try to be "mysterious". While these serve their low level purpose, most of them tend to be on the level of SyFy Channel movies that are just made with little regard to quality writing.

We see shows like this a lot now. The Event, Flash Forward, and even the remake of "V". What all of these shows seem to be are trying to catch the magic that Lost had. The problem is that every one of them miss the point entirely of what made Lost so great. It had very little to do with the mysteries. It was about the good to great writing, and character development that made the show have the right mix of ingredients. Lost is closer to a cable drama than a broadcast one. It may not be on the level of say Breaking Bad, but it clearly was leaps and bounds above any other broadcast television dramas. Especially ones that are mystery sorts that have followed since.

This is one thing that makes me less likely to watch shows now. That they try to coat tail off of Lost by claiming they are the "next Lost". I don't want the next Lost. I have LOST. I want the next something good. None of these shows are that sort. They don't know the formula. At least they don't have the talent to pull it off anyways. Their characters always suck. I can find better written characters by download a youtube video of one of the top Youtubers.

So, now we have Terra Nova. Is it any different? Not really. IF you have watched such shows as The Event, you know exactly what I'm talking about here. Terra Nova has the same problems. The characters just aren't that good, and unfortunately neither is the CGI for the dinosaurs. This is another cheeseball sci-fi show that is enjoyable, but not a "must see". It's a time waster, and not much more.

Honestly, I don't have a lot good to say about it. I may watch it again, but I have the same feeling I had after the pilot of The Event. It was just OK, but not something that grabbed me and made me a fan. The depth of the characters, the dialogue, and the writing are all pure low level talent made for broadcast TV. The kind that takes the users for idiots, and basically tells us that there is a school somewhere that teaches writers how to churn out mediocrity.

Lindsay Lohan Loses Phone, Gets Back and Offers No Reward

Looks like Ms. Lohan just doesn't care. She lost her cell phone this week and apparently it had all kinds of incriminating, or embarrassing data on it. Something she definitely did not want in the hands of anyone. Lucky for her, some good guy found it and returned it without putting out any of it. She thanked him by giving him...nothing. Guess he should have gone to ComeToBarter.com instead.

According to our sources, the screen read "LINDSAY LOHAN'S PHONE" when he plugged it into his computer. He somehow figured out how to contact Lindsay's people and then returned it ... without even asking for a reward. And you guessed it ... she didn't give him one.

We're told Lindsay was ecstatic ... the phone contained lots of important phone numbers numbers and emails, as well as personal photos and "a lot of stuff" that she wouldn’t want published. TMZ

What is the September birthstone?

If you are unaware, every month of the year has a birthstone related to it. Many people like to wear their various birthstones on jewelry such as a necklace, earrings, or just a plain old ring. Someone asked the other day "what is the birthstone for September?" and I did not know so I looked it up. You can see it in the link there along with the birthstones for all the other months.

To keep you from guessing of course I will let you in on what it is right here. The September birthstone is none other than the lovely sapphire, which represents wisdom, love, faith, and purity.. To find out the birthstones for the rest of the months check out the link above.

80 year olds on facebook?

Thanks to Wm Rowe

My eight-three year old Aunt recently got DIRECT TV And Internet at her home. She was delighted and wanted me to come over and show her how to work the television and also how to get on Facebook. I was surprised that she knew about Facebook. She said that a lot of her friends had recently created accounts so that they could keep up with their family. I showed her how to use the site and helped her create a profile. Much to my surprise, by the end of her first week, she already had seventy friends! Most of her friends on Facebook were her age. I never thought about her demographic being tech-savvy. She figured out how to upload and share pictures, write on walls, and post articles via-Facebook. She also has a habit of commenting on everything. My Aunt comments on any status update I make or photo I post. She always wants to chat when we are both on Facebook. I usually get on and sign right off, but she has been keeping me busy with activity. I don’t know what I got myself into!

Weekend Box Office Blames Hurricane Irene

This weekend the box office reportedly took a $25 million hit from the east coast storm Irene. While the movies available to see weren't exactly top notch anyways who's to know how much it really took off. Other than "The Help" there wasn't much that was hyped going into the weekend anyways.

The weekend finished about 25% lower than the same weekend last year so it was rough. It was actually only the 2nd lowest weekend of the year, however. I wonder what weekend that was? Probably whatever weekend didn't have a horrible movie about robots blowing things up I'd guess.

Using their free trial conference calls I'm sure The Help cast was excited to see themselves overcome being #2 last week and jumping to #1 this week.