Manic Monday: 50 Shades of entertainment

Texas may not be under Blizzar conditions but we woke up to freezing rain this morning in DFW and we expect possible ice tomorrow.  The metroplex will virtually shut down with all of our bridges and overpasses should be get ice tonight....so secretly I am kind of hoping for ice.  Today has been such a Monday.   Sadly, I had so many great ideas for a post for today and I can't recall a single one right now!  Typical.

So instead I thought, because I had shared some kind of deep stuff and sappy-emotional stuff lately, I would share something lighter.  


50 Shades of bored:
I don't understand the fascination with this book series at all.  I tried to read the first book and got maybe halfway through before I  tossed the book across the room put the book on the coffee table and buried it under a pile of magazines never to be seen again.  I just couldn't care less about the characters and I found the writing so lacking there was no way I wanted to invest another moment of my time in that book.  It was a good remedy for insomnia but I heard some single lady on the radio say she has read the series 4 times because she just loves it and I can't help but think, what am I missing?

Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Episode:
I have to admit that I loved almost every minute of the show.  I came in about 45 minutes late and I really wish we had taped it.  I enjoyed the look back and the memories so very much.  I was a little confused about why Chris Rock spent more time talking about Eddie Murphy then Eddie Murphy spent talking and I laughed at myself when I literally sighed in relief that Miley Cyrus had cloths on but I felt so overwhelmed by Paul Simon's performance and I was just glad Paul McCartney is still around.   I totally get that Kanye West has made his career pushing the box but could he not just turn it off for one night?  This wasn't suppose to be a night about how weird Kanye is and yet the main drawback to the whole show was Kanye's performance.  Actually, the main drawback was that Kanye was invited to perform at all.   Aside from that it was amazing seeing all the stars from the past and I absolutely had to hold back tears when I watched the tribute piece to those SNL has lost over the years.  So much talent has come off that stage.  So many laughs.  Is there anyone alive who hasn't been touched by SNL?

Gone Girl:
I read the book first and watched the movie Friday night.  I thought the performances were good but considering I knew exactly how screwed up these characters were to begin with I found myself putting up barriers as I watched the movie.  I did not want to get reinvested in these people because I didn't like them the first time.   I did think Ben Affleck made Nick Dunne a lot more likable in the movie, which says a lot about the fact that leaving out the first person point of view helped redeem Nick a lot.  There is still nothing about Amy Dunne to like. It is a strange thing to hate the characters, not really like the book and although I did kind of enjoy the movie in the end, I feel like it is a good read and the movie was worth the time invested.   I can't explain it but I guess it becomes about being fascinated with the train wreck and not being able to stop looking combined with knowing that inside we are all just a little bit less mentally sound than we appear to be.  Some of us, like Amy, do a really good job of hiding just how disturbed we are.  Most of us, just feel on the edge at times and walk slowly away and coming back to normal.

source

The Walking Dead:
I have to admit, I haven't caught up since it came back 2 weeks ago.  I didn't realize it was back and when I planned last night as my catch up night, I ended up watching SNL instead so, please nobody spoil it for me.

South Park:
I know this is stupid.  I know this show has been out for 15 years.   I know, I know, I know, but I never watched it until......Joe.  Now I can't get enough of the stupidity of it.  Seriously, I think I fall asleep to South Park almost every night. I laugh at some of it.  I cringe at a lot of it.  I roll my eyes at most of it but every once in a blue moon there is a little piece of gold hidden in one of those stupid cartoons that just makes it worth it.   The characters just make me laugh and that's okay M'kay?

source

CNN:
I wake up to CNN because life isn't life if you don't know what ISIS is doing and that is just sad.  I wish I could just forget them.  Don't we all?

What I am looking forward to:

Game of Thrones:
Just waiting...waiting...waiting.

What I am reading:

source

I first heard about this book when I was reading one of the many articles I read in the last two months on Amanda Knox and I have been putting off reading it only because I have it in paper not on my iPad.  This means I don't get to read at night in the dark like I prefer because the hubs is asleep so it is harder to find time to read.   I am not far in but I am loving this book.  I will do a review, evantually. Someday, but it has sex, murder, mystery, and I am only a few chapters in but I can promise you the writing surpasses 50 Shades...of anything.

Alright, I hope everyone is having a safe, warm, and dry Monday!   Happy Fat Tuesday Eve as my Lousiana friend just reminded me.

  

This Night Wounds Time: The story of Susan Smalley and Stacie Madison

Goodreads Synopsis:

This Night Wounds Time: The Mysterious Disappearances of Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley

by Shawn Sutherland

Shortly after midnight on March 20, 1988, Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley, two seniors at Newman Smith High School in Carrollton, Texas, ventured out into the night. Their destination was Forest Lane, the legendary cruise strip known to every Dallas teenager as the premier hot spot for meeting up with friends. The girls were never seen again. 22 years later, their disappearance remains perhaps the most infamous unsolved mystery in North Texas history. The product of the author's original research, this book, which the Carrollton Police Department credits with revitalizing its investigation into this cold case, examines: the lives of these two young women; what is known about that fateful night; theories and speculation regarding their final fates; the person of interest original case investigators insist was never "properly eliminated as a suspect"; and the impact this haunting event continues to have on the Carrollton community. For additional information, see http://www.thisnightwoundstime.com(less)

This wasn't the blog I intended for today but thanks to a craft project that is giving me fits, you will have to wait for my latest crafty/DIY blog.  :(    That's okay because I feel like this blog is much more important in the grand scheme of things. 

If you knew me, you would know that I am a true crime fanatic.  I can't get enough of the stuff.  This book is different however, in so many ways.    I went to school with these girls.  Susan and I were in several classes together throughout High School.   We were all suppose to graduate in the spring of 1988.  I did, Susan and Stacie never got the chance. 

Personal persepective first:

This book is written by an author (Who I do not know) that graduated a few years before we entered Newman Smith High School so while he knows the area, he did not know the girls.  First, I want to say a little about this event from a personal perspective before I talk about the book.   While Susan and I had several classes together and she was always very kind and polite to me, we were not friends.  It was a graduating class of something like 500 people that year so to know everyone was not really possible.   I don't remember Stacie and I ever having any classes together but I can't swear we didn't   Still, the girls were known to me.  They were both in one of the popular groups.  I wasn't.  I was the fat, shy, insecure, quiet girl.  To say that this particular event did not touch most of us graduating that year however, is just plain wrong.  The girls apparently disappeared from a popular hangout at that time and the place where they may have ended up was another place that many of us hung out, granted it was a cemetary but we were 17 and 18 years old and just mostly looking for a place to drink a beer and not get in trouble.  Because of the details of the case, I am sure this crime was personal but to say that this could have been any one of us at that time, is just truth.   I will never forget Senior Night.  The girls had disappeared several weeks before and it was tradition in our school that the seniors spent one last night as a group before graduation. We got together, had dinner, watched slide shows, and I don't remember what else.  During the dinner there was a point when they dedicated a song to Stacie and Susan.  I want to say it was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" but really, it was almost 27 years ago (GASP!)  so I don't know that my memory is right.   I do know that everyone got very quiet as they showed pictures and everyone was sad.   Senior year was hard for me.  I 'broke up' with my two best friends right before prom.  Don't ask me why, the only thing I recall was that I had lost a bunch of weight and was starting to get the attention of boys and suddenly they were telling me that I was ugly and I needed a reality check.  I think I probably let some of it go to my head.  The attention from boys, not the ugly part.  Additonally, I was leaving school early that year to go to The University of Texas for summer school. Talk about stress!  I followed this case while at UT and have continued to Google it periodically throughtout the last 27 years.  In fact, googling it was how I found this book. 

The book:

First let me say this book was hard for me to read.   Hard because I found the author was including information that, to me seemed unrelated to the events, although after finishing it, I realized he was simply trying to give the reader a feel for how innocent Carrollton, Tx really was at the time. It goes without saying that even though it is a suburb of Dallas, Carrollton at that time, had no experience with anything like this.  To be honest, I don't think it has had anything like this happen since. Carrollton-Farmers Branch, in spite of the fact that Vanilla Ice (yes he makes an appearence in the book) wanted you to believe otherwise,  was an upper middle-class suburb and at that time, Newman Smith was the school where the upper part of the upper middle-class sent their kids.  The book was also difficult to read because it is a self published and therefore doesn't have the benefit of fancy editors and people who fix all the little stuff.   The author seems to have quoted a lot of people the way they speak and I found the way they speak kind of distracting and repetitive.  Aside from that, the book was filled with information about the case that I found both shocking and unsettling.  It may not be the best book you ever read.  It may not be the fanciest, but it certainly should be something you are touched by and remember.   I finished it in one afternoon and I think it is also important to state that the author is selling this book at cost.  He truly wants the mystery solved because like most everyone in Carollton, Tx in 1988, he was touched by this event. 

Why I think you should read this book:

First of all, you are not going to have the memory overload I received.  Second, you never know who may be out there reading who might have some crazy piece of evidence that could finally bring Stacie and Susan home.   Third, it is important to preserve the memories of these girls and for me personally, it is important that anyone touched by the case have some closure.   27 years is a long time for parents to wait for their daughters to come home.  27 years is a long time for brothers and sisters to wait for their sisters to show up.   27 years is a long time for friends to miss someone.   27 years is a long time to investigate a missing persons case and have no answers.  27 years is a long, long time for whoever did this to get away with murder.   

  

WWH: Remember When Sports Happened...

Words...and other things, really.

Unless you live under a rock you have probably heard the tape of Donald Sterling the Los Angeles Clippers owner and his girlfriend-mistress which shed public light on his personal (stupid) thoughts.

Remember when sports were about the things that took place on the field? I guess, in reality that is probably a child like view because we all know there have always been bigger meanings to sports. I love Jackie Robinson and I am proud of Major League Baseball for honoring him every year, so clearly sports were never just about what happens on the field of play.

Unfortunately, lately it seems there are way too many ugly issues that show up in sports that have nothing to do with sports themselves. I miss the days when I didn't have to think about athletic assistance molesting children, racist team owners, bigotry and homophobia in the locker rooms, PEDS, coaches verbally abusing students or worse, sexual assault charges against the star athlete, DUI and vehicular manslaughter charges pending against this player and weapons or murder charges pending against that one, suicides and out of control parents on and off the field of play. Somewhere along the way, sports became ugly. Somehow it became representative of not only what is right but what is very wrong in our society.

When I turn on my TV to watch a baseball, hockey, football, or basketball game, I don't want to think about or worry about these things but it has become a sad fact. Instead of just being able to listen to Dirk Nowitzki talk about the Mavs-Spurs series we get his opinion on the sad state of the Clippers. Instead of hearing about a Rangers playoff run we have to face possible suspension rumors of PED athletes and how the players feel about those things, instead of just enjoying sports we are faced with the sad reality that these people that we elevate to stardom because they can play a kids sport really well, no matter how nice they may seem or how often they use Jesus' name in post-game interviews, may actually not be that smart or that nice. They are, after all, really fallible human beings. That kind of sucks. We are looking for heroes and all we get...are people just like us.


Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone