Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Swampy Redneck TV

Last night I somehow got sucked into watching 2 tv shows I thought I would never watch.  ‘Swamp Pawn’ and ‘My Big Redneck Vacation.’  When pigs started flying I don’t know, but I watched those two shows.

‘Swamp Pawn’ was not as bad as I expected it to be.  The show is supposed to be about a man living in a Louisiana bayou who runs a wholesale fish business and also a pawn business on the side.  But to say it is a show committed to televising the pawning of items as the title implies is like saying that I am going to build a rocket ship and then only lighting a match to watch it burn.  During this whole one hour episode, do you know how much time was actually given to a pawned item?  A single pawned item?!  About 30 seconds!!!  30 short seconds out of a 3600 second long show.  I wound up liking the storyline of the featured people and wished them well in their business.  However, I think having the word ‘Pawn’ in the title is fraud.   They should just call it ‘Swamp People Who Want to be on TV.’

Furthermore, I think television has gone too far with all of these spin-off tv series about the same damn thing.  We have one too many shows about stupid pageant parents where the shows border on the brink of child abuse and child exploitation; more dumbass, hot-headed, soulless, gold-digging housewives than you can shake a stick at; and more than enough pawn shows to last a lifetime.  But if tv producers insist on making more ‘pawn’ shows, I have a couple of suggestions.  (Keep in mind that the majority of the items pawned on pawn shows are sold to the business owner and not actually pawned.)

1)      ‘Boob Pawn’   The storyline would consist of strippers pawning their breast implants so they can try to buy back their daddies love.

2)      ‘Soul Pawn’   This show would be about talentless, debauched heathens pawning their soul to the devil for a tv show.  (*cough cough*  examples: The Kardashians, Honey Boo Boo, Bachelor/Bachelorette people, Bridezillas etc  *cough cough*)
3)  'Silent Time Pawn'  Here some movie patrons would pawn/sell their silence in movies for theater food or gold jewelry.

Now on to ‘My Big Redneck Vacation.’  This of the two was the worst for me.  In this episode, the redneck family was driven down to Miami Beach.  Oh, those poor Miamians.  The Miamians would more likely prefer the swimming Cubans and drug dealers to these out-of-place rednecks.   The locals of South Beach probably did not know what hit them when this bunch rolled into town.  There were so many awful awkward moments, they were tangible through time and tv.  One particularly terrible awkward moment happened while the family was on South Beach.  The men decided they would be sly, charming and flirty with a couple of topless women.  Instead, the men were dumbstruck, clueless and way out of their league.  Watching them try to talk to the sun-bathers was so painful, it made my ta-tas and vajayjay cringe.
I am sure this redneck family from Louisiana is super nice and willing to help people who may be in trouble, but for the love of all things great, please get them off tv.  We have enough train wrecks (figuratively speaking) in this world that to put them in places and situations that are so incalculably out of their comfort zone is equivalent to rapper Chris Brown to Abusers Anonymous meetings.

Oh tv, you hurt my brain.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

JUST STOP IT – FaceBook Posts Edition


People updating their Facebook status with uninteresting and worthless posts that no one really cares about really irritates the hell out of me.  Here are some examples of what I mean:  “off to work” or “have to go pay bills” or “I can’t sleep” or “grocery shopping at (store name) with (name of person who may have been drugged and then forcefully hauled off to the grocery store).”  To the people who post these kinds updates, let me assure you of one thing – 99.999% of this world’s population does NOT care. 

There are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people who go to work every day.  Those of you who feel the need to tell the Facebook world that you are off to work are not special.  Good for you for actually being employed, especially in today’s economy, but working is not new.  Being employed has been around since the beginning of humans.  We are all constantly employed in one way or another – growing a garden, cleaning house, raising children, walking your dog(s), maintaining your car’s operability or actually working a job that pays  – I think you get the point.  So I will reiterate: working is neither new nor only done by a few.

For those of you who feel the need to inform us you are paying bills, we get it.  It is a mundane task that regularly sucks the life out of you and most likely ruins your checking account.  But be happy you actually have services to pay for (like phone, power, water, cable etc) and shut the hell up.  Again, we do not care and you are not special.

Also, for the people who inform the FB world that you can’t sleep, telling us isn’t going to help your problem.  Put away the phone/ipad/laptop because they stimulate your brain, which in turn keeps you awake.  Want to go to sleep?  SHUT OFF THE ELECTRONICS!

And finally, there is no reason to bring us up to date about grocery shopping or other errands that you have to do continually to maintain yourself and household.  You are not the only person in this whole wide world who does these kinds of tasks.  Telling us you are going to/at the grocery store does not mean crap to us because 99.99% of us will not share any meals with you at your house anytime soon.  Keep it to yourself people.  Unless something bizarre, extraordinary, just plain wrong or unbelievable happens – examples: you ran into Hugh Jackman and attached his face with your tongue or you saw a 3yo child throwing back shots of bourbon - just keep it to yourself!

So to these people who think that we have to know every insignificant thing you are doing, get your heads out of your rears and know that we do not care about posts of the similar variety stated above.  But if you feel that you need to post something or otherwise your day is not complete, and you have knowingly done nothing interesting in your day, for hell’s sake make something up!  Say you fought hand-to-hand combat with a dragon after tracking it down on a unicorn or planted an empty m&ms bag hoping to grow your own giant m&m tree or swam the depths of the ocean and danced the salsa with an octopus. Or how about post no status - nothing at all.


Monday, January 21, 2013

VEGGIES ON THE STOVE

The other night I had what seemed to be extra veggies in my fridge that would not be eaten individually before going bad.  And as I am the only one in our household who gladly eats cooked veggies, I knew I had to something with all of them and do it soon.  So I rounded them up and got some out of the freezer too and decided to sauté them.  **Please note – I did not measure anything.  I just kind of threw it all together.
                            
 I started with a medium sauté pan and put in some olive oil, sesame oil and soy sauce.  I put in just enough of the liquids to barely cover the pan.  In the back, those are frozen brussel sprouts boiling until they are just turning tender.  I did not have any fresh ones on hand otherwise this part would be unnecessary. 

As the oils were getting hot and after the sprouts tenderized, I set to work to getting the other veggies together to dish them up for their Olan Mills style picture.

Here I have frozen corn, frozen green beans, fresh white mushrooms, the tender brussel sprouts and raw cauliflower.  **The reason I boiled the brussel sprouts and not the other frozen foods is because of their density and thickness.  (After the boiling bath, I did cut the sprouts in half.)  The beans and corn I knew would be cook just fine as they were.**

Here are the veggies sautéing  
           
I put the cauliflower, brussel sprouts and green beans in first, followed by the corn and mushrooms about 5 minutes later.  Let all of that sauté for about 3-4 minutes and then added in dashes of garlic salt and nature’s own seasoning.

I must say I found this dish to be really tasty.  Obviously, if you wanted to try this, different veggies could be put in to suit your own personal taste.  Other veggies such as carrots, broccoli, celery, asparagus etc.  Spinach would be good too – cooked till barely wilted.  I wonder how pineapple chunks would work in something like this???  Hmmm that will be something to try the next go round.  Anyway if you decide to give this a whirl, I hope you enjoy it!

Thursday, January 10, 2013


I did not expect my first post (introduction excluded) to be somewhat political about a controversial topic but here goes.
The woman in Walton County Georgia, I think, did a remarkable and brave thing the other day when she shot the home intruder to protect herself and children.  I am happy that she exercised her 2nd amendment right and felt confident enough in her ability to use the weapon as needed.  Throughout this week, while listening to many news reports, there was a mention that once this intruder recovers from his injuries that he could possibly sue the woman and her family for said injuries.  I hope that is not the case because I believe he lost all rights to sue for injuries once he premeditated the burglary and intended on hurting those inside.

As you are very well aware, there are, what seems to be, thousands of individual discussions occurring now about gun control and gun violence prevention given the tragic actions of a few people in the past couple of years.  During these conversations there are many ideas tossed about and argued regarding banning certain firearms, doing mental back-ground checks on people purchasing guns and many more.   One idea is to have a national list of people who have been diagnosed/treated for mental illness so gun/ammo dealers can identify them when these people try to purchase said merchandise.  It seems like that once it gets wholly fleshed out there is a small chance it could work.  The one major roadblock to this plan I see is that some people with severe mental illnesses may not always seek the necessary treatment; therefore they fall through the system cracks, and then a few decide they should go shoot many innocent people.

So, instead of doing background checks to learn if potential gun/ammo purchasers, maybe there could be a test that every gun/ammo selling business should have people take to determine if they are stable enough to buy this merchandise.  So I have come up with a list of questions for just such a scenario. (And yes, I realize I am probably being outlandish with this but I just could not help myself.)  They are:

      1)      Do you have the capacity to love yourself and others

2)      Do you value life

3)      Do you have honest healthy relationships with others

4)      Are you able to respect and empathize with others

5)      Do you understand there are consequences for your actions

6)      Do you believe your evil-eyed bunny slippers talk to you and like doing cocaine

7)      Do you believe that you will become leader of a kingdom of nugget-sized people made of marshmallow fluff, have three eyes, have horse tail for hair and octopus tentacles for arms

8)      Is Hitler one of your heroes

9)      Do  you frequently wear tinfoil on your head to prevent the aliens from taking over your mind

10)   Do you often try to eat your shoes

11)   When going out in public, does your normal outfit consist of a court jester’s hat, clown make-up, boulder-sized shoulder pads, parachute pants made of llama fur, a sword made of bedazzled foam and sparkles , elfin shoes covered with feathers and a small but real birdhouse as a necklace
If there is more than 1 ‘no’ to questions 1-5 and more than 1 ‘yes’ to questions 6-11, then, please send those people to the crazy farm!

And today's pun – courtesy of the internet - Biologists have recently produced immortal frogs by removing their vocal cords. They can't croak.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my blog!  Lately I have come to feel that I might have ideas, opinions and tips/advice I perceive to be helpful that people may like to waste their precious time reading.  ;-)

I chose the title because it seemed fitting for all that I might blog about.  According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word 'view' has several meanings; the paraphrased definitions are 1) range of vision; 2) the act of examining; 3) an opinion; and 4) a pictorial representation.  Since there is no telling what all I may write about in the future, I thought 'the view from my view' seemed fitting and would not limit me to specific topics.

There is a great chance the entries will neither be insightful nor philosophical.  So I caution you all to keep your expectations low.  What I do hope you find are amusing, thoughtful reads and maybe, just maybe, something new to try when I share things I have tried and found worthy of sharing.

Oh and since I love puns, I will try to add one to every blog.  A pun created by my own genius wit or one I heard elsewhere.

Enjoy!