Modern Family

I recently just started watching Modern Family. I had watched it twice before, and inexplicably I had seen the exact same episode both times I tuned in. It was decent, but it didn't rope me in. The teacher that I am student teaching with is a huge fan, so I decided to give it another try (it never hurts to have some extra material to chat about). 2 episodes later, I'm definitely hooked.

The premise of the show is about Jay (aka Al Bundy). He has 2 grown children, Claire & Mithcell. He is now remarried to Gloria (young, attractive Columbian woman) and has a step-son. His daughter Claire is married to Phil and they have 3 kids. His son Mitchell is gay and has a boyfriend Cameron and an adopted daughter from Vietnam. My favorite characters on the show are probably Jay, Cameron & Phil.

Jay reminds me a bit of my dad. (My dad is remarried to a much younger Puerto Rican woman and has a some of the same crotchety ways.) I love his jokes about gays and race. One of my favorite quotes to his gay son: "Hey, hey, you're not mad at me. You're mad at the old balls and chain."

Cameron is the cliche gay guy. Mitchell is always trying to get him to be less fruity, but to no avail. In the last episode I saw, Cameron accidentally lit a bouquet of flowers on fire and was running around with them screaming. Mitchell said: "Look at that. Two things flaming at once."

Phil is kind of a weird guy. He makes me feel uncomfortable in a lot of the episodes, but it is kind of that Michael Scott uncomfortable that is really funny. He always wants to be the cool dad. He is also totally awkward around Gloria.

Anyhoo, Modern Family is on tonight at 8pm/7pm central. Oh, and it's on ABC.

Hitched or Ditched

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I'm kind of glad that most of my shows are on their summer hiatus right now. With Taryn around, it is hard to get through a show and actually pay attention to the whole thing. I can't even IMAGINE trying to watch LOST and tend to a newborn (with no DVR).

The shows I have been watching are pretty mindless ones where it doesn't matter if you have to stop paying attention to change a poopy diaper.

One of these shows is Wipeout. This is the perfect mindless show. You can just laugh at people falling down and be entertained by the announcers making fun of people. Some others I've been watching are the Deadliest Catch, Dirty Jobs, and the Alaska Experiment (aka the Discovery Channel lineup).

Recently, I started watching the show Hitched or Ditched. Basically, in this show, someone nominates a couple that has been dating a long time, but not quite pulling the ol' marriage trigger. The show approaches them and they have one week to decide whether to get married or break up. Let's just say, this makes for LOTS of good drama. So far, I have seen two episodes of this show. One couple ended up breaking up, and the other couple got married. The show, of course, throws some curveballs like exes showing up and bachelor parties. If you have a free Tuesday evening CHECK IT OUT!

What has Lee been watching?

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I'm sure this has been a question on everyone's mind since we gave up ESPN, HGTV, the History Channel, etc: What has Lee been watching? Some of the shows, I think, are slightly better than the hours of Sportscenter he had been logging.

However, some of the shows are a little worrisome...

Good shows:
The news
Family Feud - LOVE the Feud!
Cash Cab - Lee is scary good at this show. I think he needs to start cabbing around NYC trying to get on this show. Unfortunately, cabbing around NYC is super expensive.
Doing Davinci - other than the name (did they really have to call it that?), this is pretty educational and interesting.

Worrisome:
The Lake County news show - worst news show ever, it is painful to watch. I'm pretty sure there are junior high news shows produced by the students that are better than this!
TMZ - Oh. My. Gosh. I don't even know who half the "celebrities" are that they talk about on this show.
Time Warp - there is nothing really wrong with this show. I just think it is boring. How many things can you watch in slow motion. Really?
Lots of nature shows - which is good for him, but I hate them because I don't like watching animals die.

How I Met Your - NEW - Mother(s)

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Let me preface this by saying that I don't keep up with celebrity gossip at all!

Lee and I noticed a few weeks ago that Lily on "How I Met Your Mother" always had something in front of her stomach. It was the episode where Marshall was coaching the kindergarten basketball team and she always had a guitar or a basketball or a shelf of basketballs in front of her. Lee was like "She's totally prego." Then, she was totally missing from a couple episodes.

This week, Lee made the same comment about Robin. I was like "No, it was LILY that was pregnant." But, sure enough, Robin was hiding her stomach too.

Turns out, they're both preggers! A HIMYM baby boom! Actually, I think both of them may have had their babies by now. I couldn't find it anywhere online, but I know "Lily" was due March 24th and "Robin" was due 2 months later.

At least we know none of the other main characters can get pregnant!

Busted...

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So, Comcast figured out that we were getting additional channels and they are gone now. Lee nearly cried yesterday when it happened. I said that we couldn't be too upset since, you know, we weren't paying for the channels.

Goodbye HGTV... Goodbye TLC... And for Lee, goodbye ESPN.

I got this email from Lee this morning when I got into work. I think it sums things up pretty well:
Check out the miss USA scandal. A gay judge screwed Miss California out of the crown because she was anti-gay marriage. See what happens when i dont have Sportscenter.

Good news!

As I mentioned, last Friday we gave up our DVR and downsized to basic cable. After having DVR (or TiVo) for about 5 years, I am still adjusting to not having the rewind option. What, I have to pay attention the first time? Plus, the whole having-to-be-home-to-watch-your-shows thing is going to take some time...

BUT, the good news is... We still get basically all the channels we used to. Comcast took our DVR and gave us a Nazi Box (I mean cable box) for the living room. We went to the other tv in the den, and turns out we still had all the channels. So, we just unplugged the Nazi Box, and poof. All the channels. Suck on that Comcast! We no longer have the guide feature, but I'll take all my channels over the guide any old day!

Now hopefully Comcast doesn't have some sort of stalker-mode that can tell that we unplugged the cable box...

Lauren just can't get into the Bachelor

Sorry folks, but I just couldn't get into the Bachelor this season. Something odd has been happening to me. I only managed to watch one episode of the destined-to-be-douchey show Mama's Boys... Normally I would have suffered through the entire season questioning my sanity and the intelligence of everyone on the show. And now, the Bachelor can't keep my interest? I'd like to say I'm maturing, but I'm sure that's not it. I think having to share the tv with Lee has made me cut down my tv watching and other shows are just more important to me! Oh, and the Comcast ordeal didn't help things either.

So, no Bachelor updates here... Please check Fubar's blog for recaps!

Oh, but you will be able to find some Biggest Loser updates here. I'm still in love with that show!

We don't exist...

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More woes with Comcast... I mentioned in a post before about how dumb Comcast service seems to be.

Well, Friday, our remote control stopped working. We changed the batteries, NOTHING. It turns on our DVD player, so I know it is functioning. But our cable box/DVR thing does not acknowledge the remote. This really doesn't surprise me that much since the DVR is a piece of dung.

So, we tried calling Comcast on Friday. Lee spent a lot of time on hold and then was having trouble getting a live person. I told him just to hang up and we would call when our cell phone minutes were free.

Lee called back today. They couldn't find our account.

Seriously, how can you not find out account? You take money out of our bank account every month. We have functioning cable & internet. WTF? We tried phone number, name, address, social security number and even-EVEN the account number. Nothing.

Finally the woman figured out that we were in Northwest Indiana, so we actually should be talking to the Illinois Comcast and not the Indiana one. Oh, that makes sense since I live in Indiana.

We finally got to someone that could find our account. They asked all the "Are you an idiot?" questions like "Have you tried changing the batteries in the remote?" "Is there anything blocking the DVR box from the remote?" "Did you try turning off the DVR and turning it back on?" Yes. No. Yes.

So, now we have someone coming to fix our remote on Wednesday morning. Until then, we're back in the olden days where we have to press buttons on the box to do things. Especially annoying when you like to fast forward through commercials. Argh!

Good News / Bad News

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The good news is, some awesome shows are coming back on tv. These include 24, the Biggest Loser, the Bachelor, Damages, Nip/Tuck, and oh-my-gawd-I-just-shat-myself-with-excitement-LOST!

The bad news is, tonight there are too many shows to record because 24 is 2 hours long, so something has to get the boot.

That something is the Bachelor. (To be honest, I have trouble concentrating when there are still so many girls, so this isn't a huge loss for me.)

So, no Bachelor updates this week.

Also, I am off to Savannah, GA for work, unless the blizzard we're getting stops me. So, I will check ya all at the end of the week.

Called Out

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At the beginning of last night's Biggest Loser premiere, Bob totally called me out. He & Jillian were doing a "wake up call" for America about not sitting at home watching TBL while eating ice cream... Hmm. What was I doing? Watching TBL & eating ice cream. Oh, and cookies. Didn't see that one did ya Bob?

This season should be an interesting one. We've got the biggest woman, the biggest contestant, the oldest couple... Oh and two girls that used to be models and are now fat. And last night they sent home NINE people. What? I looked at Lee and said "This is going to be a short season." Basically, two couples were left intact, but the other 9 couples had to decide which partner stayed and which partner left. If the partner on the show is still there in 30 days, then the partner at home gets to come back. Pretty crazy stuff. It does add incentive to the players. And it's just the latest gimmick to keep the show fresh. I mean, American Idol has a new judge, right? (I DON'T watch American Idol!)

Oh, and I should have some comments on the new Bachelor, but I don't get to watch it until tonight while Lee is at class!

Is anyone watching Survivor: Gabon?

Here are my two favorite contestants:

Marcus, the doctor.

And Matty, the personal trainer.
And it is totally because of their strategy and personality...

Although, I've got some competition for Marcus. The token gay dude on the show has a major crush on him.

Desperate Housewives - Season Premiere

Spoiler alert!
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Ok. First, I just have to say, um WOW! A whole heck of a lot happened in this season premiere. For those of you who don't remember, at the end of the season finale last year, they jumped forward 5 years. We saw that a) Susan was no longer with Mike Delfino (boo!), b) Bree had some big career going, c) Gabbie had two daughters!! I really thought that was just a glimpse into the future to keep us all watching and wondering, but I honestly thought that we would have to wait 5 seasons to figure out how all those changes happened.

Turns out... We didn't!

This season started 5 years later. I've never seen a tv show jump 5 years like that! Lee thinks it is because all the actresses were looking too old for their parts. I don't really think they do... For whatever reason, it worked!

I spent most the show assuming that Mike was dead and mourning the death of one my fave characters. Turns out, he's alive! He & Susan are just divorced. Which, at least gives me hope that he'll still be on the show. Bree has a catering/cookbook company. Her daughter is married to a lawyer now and came back and took her son from her. Orson served time in jail. We don't know a whole lot about Lynnette except that her sons are now 16 and they are huge juvenile delinquents. Edie is back and she's married to a rage-a-holic (he's addicted to rage-ahol) and he seems to want to harm someone on Wisteria Lane. Gabbie has two daughters, one of which is an obese 4.5 year old.

All in all, I was pretty satisfied with the season premiere. It definitely caught me off guard! Hopefully it will be a good season!

Livid

Yesterday I was working at home when my internet went out. This definitely puts a halt on my productivity. And it annoys me because I am pretty much addicted to surfing the web. I tried the normal fixes like unplugging the modem & router, etc. Then I went out and checked our tv. The cable wasn't working either. SO, as any normal person would conclude, we were having a service outage. I called Comcast.

After after 15 minutes on hold, I finally got to talk to someone. You had to pick tv or internet issues, and I chose tv first. Lucky me, I got non-native speaker. This is a great start. I'm bad with accents, so trying to navigate that adds another issue. I explained that the cable and internet went out at the same time. We tried restarting the cable box. Unplugging it. Plugging the cable directly into the tv, etc. I said again, I don't think it is the cable box. My internet went out at the same time and it is not even connected to the cable box. He insisted. Finally, he had exercised all his expertise and had to set up an appointment for WEDNESDAY between 10am - 1pm. Um, I'm supposed to go 2 days without internet & cable? Are you mad? I asked to be connected to the internet person next. I hoped maybe this person would be able to help me.

Nope. This guy insisted that it was my modem that was broken. So, my modem & my cable box apparently conspired to break at the EXACT same moment? Are these people f-ing idiots? I said about 10 times "Why would my modem & cable box both go out at the same time?" Apparently these people aren't taught to think outside the box. He said that there were no outages reported in my area so it simply had to be my modem. Um, isn't that what I am reporting right now? He added internet to my appointment for Wednesday. I am so freaking annoyed. And I am missing the first week of some shows. Oh Comcast. I am ready to go postal on you.

I heart TV

While doing some research for Reuter's Top 5 this week, I found this list of shows and the date of their premiere. I am so pumped for these shows to come back on! Except that I'm supposed to be studying and tv is not good at helping me stay motivated. The problem is that these shows aren't on my DVR yet so I can't set it to record.