Blogs: Cassandra's Caprice

Today, we will review a blog that we read regularly; our mother's blog. She writes about her life and her observations. We love it!!!

Found at: cassandraane.blogspot.com


Quick vote: Read it! We love it!!!

TV: Arrested Development

Today, we have to review one of our all time favorite TV shows, Arrested Development. The story line is, a family full of trust-funders falls into hard times when their father gets thrown into jail for shady business dealings and has to learn to deal with life on their own.

This is one of the most humorous tv shows that we have ever had the pleasure of watching. One thing has to be said about the show, however. Though this is one of the funniest shows we've ever viewed, we have a hard time contemplating how the show would ever work on the air. The show is riddled with serial inside jokes, hilarious when watching the DVD, but confusing and bizarre when viewed week by week, or even missing a week. So, huzzah for DVD's, or we would never know the wonders of the tremendous comedy styling of this cast.


Quick vote: A must watch! Literally, if you don't watch it, we will come and eat your furniture.

Movies: The Royal Tenenbaums

This movie is one of all time favorite movies. Wes Anderson is a tremendous director, and this movie includes several big playing actors such as: Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Gweneth Paltrow, Gene Hackman, Bill Murray, and Anjelica Houston.

The Royal Tenenbaums is the funky, indie sort of movie that we traditionally love, and we highly recommend it to you! It documents the bizarre and tremendously gifted family, the Tenenbaums and their search to come to grips with their problems.


Quick vote: One of our all time favorite movies! Check this one out...

Music: Songs for Christmas

We have been making a concerted effort as of late to "get into the holiday spirit." In the light of this development, we're placing our new favorite Christmas album, in the hopes that our glee and cheer will become infectious.

Sufjan Stevens, one of our favorite alternative artists has put out an iconic Christmas album. His soft, dreamy, and yearning voice lends itself perfectly to the traditional yuletide hymns. We especially love Come Thou Font of Every Blessing and We Saw Three Ships.


Quick vote: If you're looking for a wonderful way to ring in this Christmas season, Sufjan Stevens' Songs for Christmas, is the greatest new(er) way to do so! We wuv it!

Books: Love in the Time of Cholera

This week, we've read Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marque. This novel was a beautiful exploration into the tragic end that is unrequited love. We also enjoyed A Hundred Years of Solitude by the same author, but this novel resonated in a more specific way in our lives.

Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza have a brief stint during childhood in which they write love letters. Fermina moves on, marrying a prestigious doctor, Juvenal Urbino, and falling madly in love. Fermina and Juvenal have the kind of marriage that is adored by all those around them. They remain completely in love until old age eats at their brains and bodies. Juvenal dies in Fermina's arms with the words, "God only knows how much I loved you." And yet, Florentino Ariza never moves on from Fermina, following her throughout his life, and being tagged as a homosexual from his reluctance to wed. The book was beautiful.

(BTW, some may recall this as the book from the movie Serendipity in which she writes her name and phone number.)


Quick vote: This book was incredible. Recommended for all those interested in a romantic read with excellent writing.

Blogs: Boing Boing

Boing Boing: A directory of wonderful things. A zine turned into a newsmagazine, and now turned into a blog is a wonderful thing. And that's really all there is to say.

Previous titles of blog posts:
- Anatomical Heart of Candy Hearts
- Disneyland Sign Generator
- ASCII Art's Grandfather: Paul Smith
- I Am the very Model of a Psychopharmacologist
- Robot Controlled by Moth Brain

Found at: www.boingboing.net


Quick vote: This blog truly is a "Directory of Wonderful Things," we urge YOU to check it out!!!

Movies: Live Free or Die Hard

Bam! Don't worry about it, Bruce Willis is back for another episode of the Die Hard saga, Live Free or Die Hard!!! This action packed thriller felt to us like one large, unrealistic action scene. McClain hits helicopters with cars and shoots a bad guy through his own body (realistic because he had already been shot there.... right.

We loved the action, and the plot was decent as well. Exactly the kind of movie we expected based on the title and the previous Die Hard films.


Quick vote: Surprisingly clean and un-surprisingly thrilling!!!

TV: The Weeds

A suburban widow seeks solace in marijuana, and eventually deals and then grows the pot herself. City Council elections, dating a DEA agent, and the coming of age of her children all whirl around in Nancy's life, leaving her deeper into trouble than ever.

Dark, dark comedy, and a Showtime maturity level (Beware the language and sex-scenes!) make this an interesting watch, but not for younger audiences...


Quick vote: This dark comedy about suburbia is brave and unique. We recommend it.

Music: We are the Pipettes

When we first heard of the Pipettes, they immediately piqued our interest, a pipette being a scientific tool, which our mother is constantly talking about.

The bubble-gum sweet voices of these girls harmonize like a 1950's pop tune and the rock band in the background keys them up to a Spektor-esque genre. We love it!


Quick vote: These sassy "scientists" rock our house! If you like rock, harmony, and sweet singers, check these ladies out!

Books: I Am America (And So Can You!)

We dogs just completed Stephen Colbert's new book, I am America (And So Can You!), and we have yet to stop laughing.

Stephen Colbert addresses America as if we were all guests on his tv show. He "tells it as it is" and leaves no prisoners. Unlike many of the Daily Show personnel, he doesn't take himself too seriously, and he's not afraid to mock himself.


Quick vote: This book is irreverent and hilarious. We would recommend it to all with a sense of humor.

Blog: Engadget

This Friday, we dogs would like to share our greatest new blog interest, Engadget. Our father is one of those gadget-minded men and we finally feel like we can have a discussion with him and understand where he's coming from.

This blog reviews and leaks rumors about the newest technological breakthroughs. Every day brings several exciting posts you can impress your doggy friends with.

This fun can be found at: www.engadget.com



Quick vote: You like the latest and greatest in technology? So do we. Check out this blog!

Movies: Meet the Robinsons

Having recently convinced our parents to purchase a Playstation 3, we also convinced them to purchase their first cartoon on Blu-Ray disc, Meet the Robinsons. This is the first computer-animated Disney film done without the accompaniment of Pixar, known for Toy Story, Monster Inc, etc...

This movie was the classic cutesy Disney movie with an orphan who has to look inside of himself to find the family he's always dreamed of. Oh, and he's an inventor.


Quick vote: This movie was cute, and not too memorable. Good for a Sunday afternoon watch with your nephew. (We don't have any nephews, we're just saying...)

TV: Ugly Betty

We dogs sit at home during the long days and appreciate the tv shows that ABC puts online for our enjoyment. Lately, we've become very attached to the show Ugly Betty, a remnant of The Devil Wears Prada were a young "ugly" girl from Queens becomes an assistant to a Vogue-like publication.

The plots are simplistic and predictable, and the characters are caricatures of actual people. But despite these gaping flaws, we find ourselves again and again turning on to see the dazzling metallic smile of America Ferrara.


Quick vote: Though written like the worst of the Disney cartoons, this show will warm your heart and leave you giggling to yourself over the high morals of Betty juxtaposed with the shallowness of the world of fashion at Mode magazine.

Music: Into the Wild Soundtrack

Eddie Vedder (from the band, Pearl Jam) plays the soundtrack to Krakauer's book gone movie, Into the Wild. He played nearly every instrument on the soundtrack and composed the majority of the songs.

The songs in this album are eerie and incredibly memorable. They inspire one to adventure into the wild as Chris McCandless himself did so many years ago.


Quick vote: An incredible book and a fantastic movie demand a mind-blowing soundtrack. Eddie Vedder fulfills this requirement and goes above and beyond.

Books: Three Cups of Tea

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin is the true story of Greg Mortenson. Greg, a mountain climber, gets lost on the K2 descent and ends up in the isolated village of Korphe in the mountains of Pakistan. He got to know the families there and realized the devastating poverty they lived in. He decided to build a school for these children, doing his best to help.

This book chronicles Greg's philanthropist missions to Pakistan and Afghanistan and the measures he takes to build schools for children (mostly girls) in the midst of the War on Terror in a time when most organizations have fled out of fear.


Quick Vote: This nonfiction work will make you feel as if you are incredibly selfish. But it's touching nonetheless...

Friday: Human Biology Blog

How often have we, as dogs, heard a random "scientific fact" on the news or from an acquaintance and wondered its validity? This blog takes recent scientific articles (published in reputable journals and the like) and discusses in layman's terms, the results thereof.

Excerpt from a post about breast-sagging and its relationship to breast-feeding:

"The results showed no difference in the degree of breast ptosis (sagging) between the women who had breastfed and those who had not. However, factors that DID correlate with breast sagging included the woman’s age, how many pregnancies she had had, and whether she had smoked."

Human Biology Blog: http://humanbiologyblog.blogspot.com/

Quick vote: This cool blog will allow you to impress your friends with your smarts as well as learning some valuable truly scientific information.

Movie: Running with Scissors

Thursdays are movie review days...

Having previously read the book of the same title by Augusten Burroughs, we dogs were excited to see this memoir hit the 'silver screen.' See, being bitches, we don't have much to keep up busy during the days but reading, watching tv and movies, and up-keeping our judgmental blog. Running with Scissors was a fascinating book into the lives of characters with mental illness (always a favorite with the Fawsons), and the people that try and help them. The film had a stunning cast list and was played in previews as a bizarre, hilarious film, reminiscent of The Royal Tannenbaums and the like. The film, though thought-provoking, was hardly hilarious. It was depressing, filled with schizophrenics and suicide attempts. It was devastating to watch the main character see everyone he cared for become ruined by mental disease.


Quick vote: This film IS NOT A COMEDY. But it was an interesting watch nonetheless.

TV: It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia

Wednesdays are TV Show review days...

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is one of our new favorite TV shows, and a great recommendation to more mature audiences. The show has an amazing capacity to approach a touchy subject (molestation, underage drinking, crack, etc..) and push the limit leaving you simultaneously laughing very hard and cringing.

The show is about a set of twins in their early-thirties/late-twenties, their father, and two of their friends who all own a bar together in Phili. They are vain, egocentric, selfish people who will go to any end to get ahead, and yet always end up where they started from, leaving the watcher with a general feeling of karma in the world. You'll love to hate these characters.


Quick vote: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is crass, sacrilegious, and breaks all the rules. If you can stomach these flaws, you'll have a hilarious time watching it.

Music: Raising Sand

Robert Plant, who our father and others like him will recall from Led Zeppelin; and Alison Krauss, who our mother and others like her will recall from the soundtrack,O' Brother Where Art Thou?, join together to create a masterpiece of an album; Raising Sand.

Several of the songs on the album have the ethereal, fantastic aura of the Azure Ray genre, (e.g. Trampled Rose) and others feel almost Beetle-esque (e.g. Gone, gone, gone). Their duets (e.g. Killing the Blues) see their voices blending like Johnny and June Carter Cash and in a similar genre.


Quick vote: A bizarre combination of artists come together to create Raising Sand, and the result is incredibly memorable and an album for any occasion. We loved it!!!

Books: Twilight Series

We have recently read the Twilight series (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse) and have fallen under the spell of the author Stephenie Meyer. Though it always causes us a twinge of chagrin to love a book prominently displayed in Walmart, we cannot help it this time.

Though Ms Meyer writes with a lack of sophistry that some may find astounding, she has a way of describing emotion that can lead the reader to realistic tears. Our hearts ache when Bella, the main character, is ripped from her beloved mother to live in Forks, quite a juxtaposition from sunny Phoenix. We feel the hunger that Edward the vampire feels when confronted with his perfect match, the woman immune to his mind-reading powers. Anguish, lust, thirst, horror... the most extreme of emotions are contained within the ~1500 pages of these books.


Quick vote: If you're looking for a lusty, quick-read about vampires, werewolves, and love; Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series will keep you up at night, yearning for more.