It's Wednesday and that can mean only one thing - It's Business Time!

Watch and enjoy. Happy Wednesday!

Presenting Today's Eye Candy - The Fellows from LOST

Just makes everything seem better somehow. Sigh.

Movie Review - Taken starring Liam Neeson

OMG. If I beg, pretty please with sugar on top, can I please, please get those two hours of my life back? I won't even ask for a refund of the $50.00 it cost for three of us to go and eat some popcorn.

Liam Neeson in Taken

I love action movies. My family can all attest to this - I would rather see James Bond than Sophie's Choice. But when they take someone of Liam Neeson's stature and throw him in an action hero role, well, the writing and the plot better hold up. I don't think they did in this venture.

Liam Neeson's character is a former CIA "preventer". When his 17 year old daughter Kim asks him what that means, he replies that it was his job to prevent bad things from happening. If that's so, how come he couldn't prevent this movie from being made?

Liam has quit the CIA in order to move to California to be closer to his daughter. I had a big problem with the premise from the start. Unless he has been living in a vacumn for the last century, he had to know that she is going to graduate from high school soon, go off to college and there is really no need to turn your own life upside down to go be near her. Not unless you are planning to move to wherever she attends college. Then you can move to wherever she finally gets a job, and maybe you can live with her when she gets married. Come on. You don't have to live near someone to be close to them. You can visit, after all, and so can she. So if he didn't realize this wasn't going to achieve his goal, he was delusional. A delusional CIA agent. Hmm. That might be an oxymoron.

Now that he lives closer, he is visited by his former CIA buddies who talk him into helping them with a security gig. He protects a Britney Spears-type singer from a man with a knife and wins her devotion. His own daughter wants to be a singer so she gives him her vocal coach and agent's name...aww. Wasn't that sweet? Liam intends to give the info to the daughter when she asks to meet him for lunch, only to be sidetracked when she reveals that she met him (with his ex-wife Famke Jensen in tow) because she needs his signature on a passport application. The daughter wants to go to Paris with her friend for a few weeks. Since she's 17, she needs him to sign.

Being former CIA and aware of the dangers in the world, Liam is not comfortable with two 17 year olds going to Paris alone, but he eventually caves. He insists that the daughter call him on arrival in Paris and every night...and he provides the phone for her to use. She promises and off she goes.

On arrival in Paris we find that she not only forgets to call him, the cousins of her friend that they are supposed to staying with are in Spain. So they are on their own in the big city. While waiting for a taxi a young Frenchman approaches and asks to share a cab, then invites them to a party later that day. As they enter the residence and he walks away, he calls someone on his phone and gives the address.

Daddy Liam keeps calling the phone and finally she answers. When she does, she apologizes, then looks across the courtyard window to see that several men are now in the house and forcibly taking her friend. Liam gives her instructions on what to do and tells her he will find her. Then she is also "taken".

It gets weird from here. Liam gets into one insane situation after another trying to find her. He goes ape-you-know-what at the airport and although he is initially chased by police, he walks around free. He steals cars, he breaks into places and never gets a scratch. And you know what is almost worst? His hair looks like crap throughout the entire movie. The back is like crazy. Like it needs cut, for one, and it sticks out like it's never been washed, and he leaned back on something and then came back up. You know what I mean. This sort of shows the look (I couldn't find a pic from the back):


The movie ends on a WTF? moment when Dad and daughter return to the U.S. (how'd they get out of France with the police looking for him?). She diddy-bops out of the jetway into Mom's arms but it's more like she's coming home from a rock concert than having been drugged and sold into white slavery. But then again, I guess you would have had to have a brain to have psychological damage.

I read online someone having the temerity to compare this to the Jason Bourne movies. Give me a break! Those movies rock, and the situations are certainly more plausible than they are here.

One good thing, though. Liam has lost weight and I know he's going to play Abraham Lincoln in Steven Speilberg's production of Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals. I think he'll look like him - he has the height and now the gauntness. Sure hope he can lose that accent.

Television Review - CSI After Grissom

There is no bigger fan of William Petersen portraying Gil Grissom than me. Seriously. I've watched CSI since inception primarily for the smart acting of Petersen. So when he revealed he was leaving the show I had an oh-no! moment.

I'm happy to now reveal that Laurence Fishburne is doing better than expected (by me, anyway) in the role of Dr. Ray Langston. When I heard of his casting I was incredibly skeptical. First, how dare Petersen leave? And to be replaced by Morpheus from the Matrix? Come on! I went into this situation with a huge chip on my shoulder.

Turns out it has been okay. Fishburne's Langston, rather than attempting to come close to filling Grissom's shoes, has been low key and a learner rather than someone coming in like they know everything already. It is really, IMHO, giving the rest of the cast a chance to shine. They instruct him along each case and it seems to be working to let us get to know him slowly rather than having him rammed down our throats.

Of course, the show is complete crap. Not the acting but the concept. No police department has a forensic lab of the proportion shown on CSI. Not even the FBI has a lab with all those toys. And typing DNA, doing all those wonderful experiments...well, in the real world they don't exist in the same way and the results are certainly NOT instantaneous. Additionally, CSIs do not carry guns or interview witnesses/suspects/prisoners. They stick to their work and are not sworn officers. It's hard for me to watch a lot of shows due to my police experience. But sometimes, as is the case for CSI, I can completely suspend my disbelief and enjoy the show.

As I watched last week's episode I didn't once think "I miss Gil". And that is saying something.

Although Our Tango Was Sublime, We Fell Far Short of a World Record

Participants Practice Before the Event

Well, it's official. Decatur sucks. Not that I didn't know that before this event came up, but still one harbors hope. I went to more than one practice for this Guinness Record attempt and it was packed. Lots of people dancing their fool hearts out, so foolishly I assumed we had a real shot at getting this record. Bah. Once again Decatur let us down.

Where was everyone? One theory is that the weather kept them from coming. It was about 10 degrees with winds of 25-35 mph. Okay, that might have discouraged some, but surely the younger college students could have walked over and participated! It was Millikin University's idea to do this - they couldn't recruit enough people in a college of approximately 18,000 students?

I'm disappointed but not all hope is lost. Apparently we also have a shot for a record regarding the fact that everyone was doing the tango. Wow. The organizers were happy that so many showed up and felt good - I was disappointed that so few showed up and felt bad. Well, not bad exactly. We danced and we were pretty good, we had fun. It wasn't all gloom.

Afterward we all went downtown to eat some Argentinean food, just to keep in the spirit. Many of the bars/restaurants downtown had special menus to celebrate the event. We had a good time and that helped ease the sting of the no-shows.

The positives from this experience? I learned how to dance the tango. I got to spend quality time with my children and a potential future daughter-in-law. Everyone seemed to have fun. So I guess the "world record" was not important, after all.

The Spell is Broken!

Something happened to a friend of mine yesterday and she was upset and embarrassed. I won't go into detail, but what was a truly unhappy experience for her had an unusual side effect. It FREED me!

Compulsions, attractions - they are very dangerous things. They can take you down paths that you thought you'd never go. They make you feel things too deeply, they make you imagine things that aren't true. They are a sickness in the worst sense.

So by having this event occur to my friend, it helped me put my own situation in perspective. A good old fashioned dose of reality - like cold water thrown in your face - and the sleeping brain awakes to the absurdity of it all. Result - I'M FREE!

Thanks for the cold water, friend. You inadvertently provided it just when I needed it most.

Nathan Gunn Wins Hottest Baritone Poll!

Thanks to you, my grateful public, Nathan Gunn won the hottest baritone poll here by the slimmest of margins over The Gunnster.

Take that, you David Adam Moore fans. HA! In your face!

Trips, Trips, Trips!!

The trips I mentioned a few weeks ago are now closer to reality. Yesterday I booked the flights for Las Vegas for the May conference. YAY!! Adult beverages shall abound and now that I'm more comfortable playing craps, I shall attempt a table or two while I'm there. Won't be as much fun as if I were going with just my co-worker (taking the husband and two sons along) but it'll still be fun. I have made myself a promise to drink myself into a stupor every day and I intend to hold myself to that. No, I'm not an alcoholic, I just want to reward myself for the seven months of Hell from 2008 when I didn't feel like walking, let alone drinking anything.

The Penner-Ash Winery near Portland, Oregon

Today I booked the Portland, Oregon flights for June. I'll be taking my oldest daughter and my two grandchildren out to visit my veterinarian son. Won't be a lot of drinking on this trip...hold the phone! I forgot! He lives in the heart of the Willamette Valley wine country and on our last trip we did some winery hopping. Penner-Ash (pictured above) was a favorite stop. Do you think it would be wrong to take a 6 and 3 year old winery hopping? I can bring along some juice boxes and they can pretend it's wine. That would be a fun role-play, don't you think? And you really can't get drunk just tasting so they won't be in any harm, right? This is shaping up to be a plan!

Drinking aside, the purpose of the visit is to let my daughter and grandkids see where he lives, his work, etc. They haven't been to visit before so it should be fun. This will be my 4th trip in about 3 years. I miss him and it's fun to go out there. It doesn't hurt that there is an outlet mall about 20 miles from his house. Not a cheapy one like we have around here, this has Tommy Bahama and other high-end stores. There is also a very nice mall nearby as well. He lives in the heart of Intel country and the upscale yuppie population have made the area a very nice place to visit.

We're also going to do some boring kid things, too, live visit the Portland Children's Museum and the Oregon Zoo. There is also talk of a trip to the coast to visit another child's spot the Pelican Brew Pub in Pacific City, Oregon. Okay, that last one could be a kid's dream! It's right on the ocean. Last time we took our beers outside and drank them with our feet in the ocean and watched a number of people surf. A kid would like that, right? Must remember to take along extra clothes - I can see the grandson jumping in.

Last but not least we'll either go up to Mt. Hood and eat lunch in the Timberline Lodge (the exteriors were used for the hotel in The Shining) or go up to Mt. St. Helens and let the kids take a look at the destruction the last eruption caused. We've been there before, on the west side while visiting some of my husbands relatives in the area, but I want to go to the Johnston Ridge Observatory on the east side and see the mountain close up.

It's a lot to fit into 3 1/2 days, but we'll make it. And there is no schedule, so we'll do what is easiest for the kids, I'm sure, before we do anything for the adults. We can always go into downtown Portland, too. There is an Illini bar there that my son goes to when he's not on call on the weekends to hang out with fellow ex-patriot Illini and have a few. We watched the Illini in the final four there a couple of years ago on a visit. Lots of fun, and they gave out Illini prizes, too. Gotta love those alumni.

Anyway, I have trips in April (conference in Peoria, Illinois), May (Las Vegas for 7 days), June (Portland, Oregon), September (conference in Chicago, Illinois), October (conference in Springfield, Illinois) and possibly one more trip with the family in August to Boston. I am a traveling fool, and I like it.

Music Review - Rodgers & Hammerstein's Allegro

Here's the good news about these CDs. Nathan Gunn and Audra McDonald sing on them. And they are very good, although there is a bit of dialogue that feels as if NG forced it. Not the music, never the music. But the dialogue...well, I'm still trying to understand what happened there. Feels a bit fake, feels a bit forced.

I've had the CDs since their release date but I waited a couple of weeks before I would allow myself to review it. Why? I wanted to give it a fair chance. It's an old work, never done more than a handful of times, and it shows its age. By that I mean it is definitely a product of the time in which it was created.

While in high school, one of my younger sons was very involved in the drama department. The reason I bring this up is that they did a stage production of the Jean Shepherd book "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories". (Jean Shepherd also wrote the perennial favorite "A Christmas Story".) The play was done with the entire cast speaking the narrative, then the 3-4 leads would say their lines individually. No sets, just all the cast in white shirts and khakis and they moved around the stage in various configurations as the action was played out. I immediately flashed on this when listening to Allegro.

The story centers around Joseph Taylor Jr.'s life from growing up to growing wise. Sort of follows his rise and fall and then redemption, if you will. Nathan is only in a few songs and bits of dialogue and the chorus figures largely in the storytelling. Audra McDonald sounds wonderful - I can't say enough good about her songs and her dialogue.

It feels so dated that I can't imagine seeing this as an actual stage/movie production, but I suppose it would be possible. The story is as old as time - kid does good, makes it big, meets a woman who has other ambitions for him, he plays along for awhile, finally gets his head on straight, remembers where he came from and goes back there. Nothing new, nothing anyone hasn't seen before.

And now for the brutal honesty. The songs aren't that good - there is nothing catchy or memorable...due to the talking/chorus nature of the work, it's really an ensemble that has no breakout numbers. That is not to say that Nathan's voice isn't good, you know it is, but the songs he sings are not anything to write home about. Marni Nixon sings the grandmother parts and she is very much past her singing career. Sorry, Marni, you know I love you, but it is just not happening for me. (In case you don't know her, Marni Nixon did the singing for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady and for Natalie Wood in West Side Story, among others.) Judy Kuhn, the voice of Disney's Pocahontas and a longtime stage/concert performer is good as is Patrick Wilson who sings the lead.

The lack of fire, the lack of anything memorable or catchy is probably why this piece lay dormant for 50 years, and why it probably won't go much farther. To quote Dennis Miller, that is just my opinion of course, I could be wrong.

If you are a Nathan Gunn lover, you can buy this, but if I were you I'd go to Amazon.com and download the mp3s of the tracks that he is in if you feel compelled to have them. They won't make much sense since they are not set up by the singing chorus, but you'll get to hear him and that is NEVER a bad thing. It'll cost a lot less and won't make you want to hit yourself in the face for wasting money on the two disc set.

Oh, Come On Now - Vote for Nathan Gunn!!

There are only three days left in the poll on this blog (check the sidebar, please) and Susan, devilish Susan, I'd-rather-be-sleeping Susan, is stuffing the ballot box for her favorite, The Gunnster.

Are you people going to allow The Gunnster to beat Nathan-The-Pearl-Fisher Gunn? (I'm discounting that Top Gunn thing 'cause I just borrowed it for the poll.)

Only eight votes and yet The Gunnster is pulling ahead.

I call upon all fans of Nathan-Billy-Budd-Gunn to come out of the woodwork and VOTE!! I want to shove this poll down those Moore fans at Barihunks throat!

Come on now - we want Nathan-The-Barber-of-Seville-Gunn to pull this one out!

Nathan and Julie Gunn Wow Them at Oberlin College

Nathan and Julie Gunn at the Oberlin Q&A Session February 15, 2009
Photo Courtesy of Banawoman

Okay, perhaps "wow" isn't the right word, but they would have wowed me if I'd been there. A couple of fellow fans attended, took pictures and gave their accounts of the experience. For details, and the pix, check out I'd rather be sleeping (but opera is keeping me awake). Susan obtained permission to post the images and the stories and rather than go to all that work myself, I'm gonna leech off of her. Don't worry - she's already used to people leeching, but at least I give her credit. Thanks, Susan!

There are a few things that struck me as I read the attendee accounts. First, I am squeeing here over the fact that Nathan KNOWS that I want a Broadway album. Okay, that's not exactly what was said, but to a delusional fan such as myself, that's close enough. He wants to play Billy Bigelow! (insert sad face here) Why am I sad, you ask? Well, that guy is NOT gonna get the girl, if you know what I mean. And if you've seen Carousel, you do. No HEA (happily ever after) included. And I really, really want to see Nathan in a role where he doesn't get electrocuted, or hung or banned from a kingdom or thrown overboard or whatever besides The Magic Flute.

However, I am not complaining 'cause I know he would rock that score beyond belief. I was raised on musicals and I still love them all. Oklahoma, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Kiss Me Kate, Unsinkable Molly Brown...my mom dragged us to all of them and I know most of the scores by heart. My fondest wish is to hear Nathan sing any/all of the musicals from my childhood.

I gleaned from the account that NG said he had been approached about doing a musical and that he didn't want or couldn't do the open-ended commitment that would take. I totally get that. I don't need to see him playing the parts, I just want the music. And Broadway is so risky. A play opens and closes in the same breath, and there goes all that wasted rehearsal time and your payday. He has a large family to support, I assume he wants the guaranteed money of opera, which is what I would do.

Second, I'm interested in the family talk. Again, none of my business, but the fact that they brought their oldest daughter along and she didn't lose her mind or complain that anyone could tell is fabulous. I'm not saying that she would have, but I have been around kids of that age (13-14, I think?) and sometimes they can really make an experience a chore due to boredom. On the other hand, it was only for about an hour so not much time to get too restless.

The thing that absolutely floors me in both these accounts is that they didn't ask for a picture with either/or/both Nathan and Julie. I would sooo do that. Of course that might not be proper etiquette, but I would still give it a shot.

I would also probably make a complete nuisance of myself asking JULIE questions. (You thought I was gonna say Nathan, didn't you?) But I'd want to find out about how she does what she does and maybe compare notes on parenting a large family. Especially considering his long absences. He can chime in, too, but I really want to pick her brain a bit. I'd also like to know if she sings at all.

Last, I would have to ask this - are any of the children interested in or talented enough to follow in dad's footsteps? If not singing, are any of them musical in any way? I had each of my children play a different instrument in the hope that one day they would be able to play something together. We made that goal when the youngest were in 4th grade. It was very touching and I loved the experience, but they were not destined for greatness musically speaking.

These are my burning questions, as the big O would say. (No, not *that* big O! I mean Oprah - keep it clean, kids.) Maybe someday I'll get to ask them.

Illini Hockey Game 2-13-2009

Having three Illini alumni sons, we are always attending some event or another at the University of Illinois campus. This week it was hockey.

The U of I hockey team played Lindenwood last Friday. I don't know where Lindenwood is, but the scoop in the stands was that they recruit mostly from Minnesota and Canada...bad news for our team since those kids are raised on the ice. Not to say that we don't have ice in Illinois in the winter, but we don't have a lot of frozen lakes to skate on and it's not a religion here like it is in more northern areas.

The game went about 2 hours and 45 minutes, which wasn't that bad. The bad part is that my alumni kids like to sit with the students and every single time that happens, in every single venue, it means only one thing for Mom - we're gonna stand the whole time. I've stood in the Orange Krush section for men's basketball, I've stood in the horseshoe for men's football and now I have stood in the cheap seats for men's hockey. Joy.

Standing should not be painful thing. I walk all day, I walk for exercise, I don't consider myself in horrible shape. But something about standing in the same place on concrete for close to three hours - well, it didn't feel too bad then, but today my back was telling me, hey, dummy, wassup with standing so long?

We always go early so we can walk down to Green Street and get some food before whatever we are there for. Friday was no exception. We went into Chipolte's and had a bite before the big game. I had the salad with steak and it was incredibly spicy, but very good. Their guacamole, by the way, was perfection. I would actually have loved to take some home, but couldn't figure a good way to keep it till the game was over. After eating we walked back and then is when the fun began.

The day had been pretty good weather wise - about 44 degrees, a bit of wind but not horrible. In that spirit I wore my orange Illinois t-shirt with my Ron Turner blue Illini jacket over it. I had my gloves, just in case, but I should have dressed more warmly because on the walk back it began to snow and the wind picked up, so that by the time we got to the arena I was frozen.

Once we got inside and had our tickets taken and our hands stamped, we made our way over to our seats, smack dab in the middle of the students. I'm really okay with that other than the standing. I have a lot of kids, I like kids, I feel I'm pretty young at heart and can get along with most kids. I got settled in, and then the fun began.

All around us the kids were like something from a social experiment. The kids directly beside me were more or less well-behaved, with their clothing doing the expressing for them - bursts of teal and pink and yellow from head to toe, including tennis shoes that had to have been designed by them. They didn't have a whole lot to say aloud that I could hear, unlike the kids in front and behind me.

The kids in front of me to the left, one of which had a chief headdress and blue/orange face mask on, had no problem calling the Lindenwood players pussies and (get this) fetus-munchers. It was so unexpected, it was funny. I mean who calls someone a fetus-muncher? It was crazy!

Behind me were two boys and a girl, all of whom had smuggled in rum to pour into their fountain coke drinks. There was much discussion of whether or not they had enough rum in the drinks, then discussion on who would go get more coke 'cause, man, they had used too much rum and couldn't drink it like that. Of course alcohol is forbidden at any college venue, but tell that to a college kid. The problem with these kids were that the more they drank, the louder and sloppier they got. One of the boys in particular yelled profanities at the team, and finally ended up having spittle fly out of his mouth and it fell on my glasses. I was like, huh? Is it raining in here or what? Then I started wondering if any had fallen in my hair. I didn't feel it on purpose - I didn't want to know or to come back with a hand full of spit.

A boy immediately in front of me and to my right yelled the entire time, specifically picking out two players from Lindenwood to harrass. The Lindenwood players all had their names over their numbers on the back of their jerseys except for one player. This kid yelled at him that his mother didn't love him, she didn't even give him a name. All the other kids in the immediate area thought that was hysterical. It was kind of funny, actually.

I spent most of the game watching the action, but I was constantly reminded of how very young the students were. I remember vividly thinking I was very grown up and sophisticated at that age. Now I just think I must have been pretty dumb.