Cricket: Color Me Confused.

I am American.  Soccer is played with your feet, and football is primarily played with your hands.  Baseball is the national pastime, and the team will never take a food break.  Yet, in all my sporting glory, I found something on ESPN that baffled me – Cricket.

Ladies and Gentleman I have been confused, astounded, baffled, intrigued, and above all else frustrated with the sport since I found it on my ESPN app on my Xbox360 a few nights ago.  I was instantly enthralled when I found nothing else was on other than recaps of games I had either seen, heard the outcomes of, or just didn’t want to see.  Now cricket, that’s not something you see very often here in the states.  In fact, the sport is most popular in England, South Africa, the West Indies, Australia/New Zealand, and India.  In any event, I watched a little of a test game between Pakistan and Bangladesh.  First off, test games have some different rules than a regular match.  This added to the initial confusion.  Secondly, the cameraman would always focus on the ball.  This made figuring the game out even harder seeing as I had no clue what the batsman was doing during this time.  I assumed he was running, but to what end?

So, to educate myself on the sport, I went to the one source I know will never fail me: The internet.  After dodging past the puffery of articles on the sport and league informational websites I found the Wikipedia page for Cricket.  Now normally I do not advise the use of Wikipedia, but as far as sports go I have found it is fairly accurate.  The page is direct and to the point, which is exactly what I was looking for.  Am I going to waste my time explaining the whole process to you in this blog?  No.  Of course not.  I will however mention that after watching part of one game, reading the basic rules of play on Wikipedia, and mulling over the confusion this brought, I have found that I keep searching my Xbox ESPN application for new games.  I am strangely intrigued by this foreign sport.  Wicket, bowling, batsman, innings (plural and singular are innings – weird, right?).  New words to add to my vocabulary.  Alright, so maybe I knew that their pitching was known as bowling, and I knew that the three sticks at either end of the pitch are called a wicket, but that’s beside the point.

However, this does bring up a new question in my mind: Did cricket have some influence on J.K. Rowling’s creation of the game of Quidditch?  Think about it.  The area of play that sees the most action is called the pitch.  The name of the Quidditch field is the pitch.  A wicket is a group of three sticks at either end of the pitch which the bowler aims his throws at and the batsman defends, for the bowling team will get credit for taking a wicket if the wicket is hit.  A Quidditch pitch has three hoops on either end of the pitch which will be defended by the keeper, and chasers try to throw a ball through the hoops to score.  The batsman defends the wicket by hitting the ball away with his bat.  Beaters are armed with bats (that look like a hybrid between baseball and cricket bats) with which they strike bludgers, aiming at the other team to try and throw them off.  The game of cricket is played on an oval shaped field of play.  A Quidditch pitch is in the shape of an oval.  Am I wrong or does there seem to be more than a few similarities between the games?  JKR is English, after all, so it is quite possible that the sport had some influence on her – if even subconsciously – when she was creating the magical pastime of Quidditch.  Maybe I’ll write her a letter and ask her someday.  Still, it’s some food for thought.

Cricket on a Quidditch Pitch.  It's a sports mash-up!

I hope you all enjoyed this very random distraction that ended up being a comparison between fictional literature and reality.  I thoroughly enjoyed discovering both!

Stealth Rules the VG World

In the wake of Spike TV’s Video Game Awards 2011 (which aired Saturday, December 10^th at 8pm EST) I wanted to share one of my addictions with all of you.

I am very much a gamer.  Why?  Because it’s hands-on entertainment!  I feel like I’m really a part of the story.  Yes – I get wrapped up in the stories of video games.  There is no problem in that.  Any gamer out there will tell their own story.  They love the graphics, or the action, or the plot, or the characters.  For me it’s a mix of all of these things.  

Now when it comes to shooting or war games like Modern Warfare or other Call of Duty games, I’m more of a sniper kind of girl.  I like to hide out and take head shots from a safe distance.  That’s where I’m lethal.  Games that involve running out into the thick of things sometimes gets me in trouble.  I wasn’t a fan of cover in the beginning (thanks to playing Mass Effect on insanity I learned to love cover) and I was the type of person who just wanted to be in the middle of the action.  I would run right into the middle and try and get a good look at everything while killing people up close and personal, but I would die too quickly to do too much damage.  I just figured you can always respawn.  Well, after a while I learned how to work out a middle ground, but I’m still not a huge fans of shooter games like CoD and MW.  I either have to be far off sniping, or up close and stabbing.  Basically, I’m a fan of stealth moves.

For this reason I love games that let me utilize stealth abilities.  I bought Batman: Arkham Asylum and had a lot of fun with that game when it was first released.  Batman has a lot of stealth abilities that he uses as he hunts down the criminals loose in the asylum.  Thinking out the strategy is half the fun!  I guess you could say I’m a cerebral player.  Soon I’ll get Batman: Arkham City and let you all know how that stands up to the first modern Batman installment.

My November Game of the Month has to be Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.  I’ve been with the AC franchise from the very beginning.  The stealth abilities along with a compelling story make this game series a double threat.  Revelations sees the return of Ezio Auditore de Firenze but he has aged a bit and is now in Constantinople.  Weapons have evolved and probably the best new feature is the hook blade.  It helps Ezio climb faster, make longer jumps, and, best of all, he can now zip-line through the city!  Death from above takes a whole new meaning.  Well, actually it means the same thing, but it looks super cool!!

Showing off Ezio's new zip-line capabilities with the hook blade.

Another new addition to Ezio’s bag of tricks is the bombs.  You can craft multiple kinds of bombs that perform many different actions.  There are three bomb categories or pouches as they are labeled in game: Lethal, Tactical, and Diversion.  Lethal bombs are designed to take down your opponents for good, as the name suggests.  My personal favorite is a poison bomb called the Datura bomb.  Datura is the name of the lethal powder explosive that goes into the bomb and actually kills your targets.  The best part of using this bomb is that it serves two functions: the first being that it kills the guards you are initially targeting, and the second is that it draws any guards nearby out into the open to investigate their fallen comrades.  Tactical bombs are used to gain an advantage over your opponent.  These can be smokescreen bombs that make your opponents blind and send them into coughing fits while you use Ezio’s incredible eagle vision to see his targets through the smog.  Or you could use a Caltrop bomb, which essentially paralyzes your targets which makes taking them down much easier.  The diversion bombs help distract the guards or crowds of people – whether with a loud noise or a bunch of coins – which can give you an opportunity to sneak past while they go to investigate.  You should really try out this new feature and have fun mixing and matching all different elements to create the perfect bomb for any situation.

For me the one thing I was missing from this game was the Italian.  As someone who studied Italian I had fun with AC2 and AC: Brotherhood since the games were set in Italy.  A lot of the people on the street would speak Italian and even when Ezio spoke to someone in a cut scene you would have random pieces of Italian speech thrown into the mix.  This game had very little Italian with Ezio and a woman named Sofia being the only Italians you really interact with in Constantinople.  This, of course, is a personal problem and nothing that would deter me or should deter anyone else from playing/enjoying the game.  I LOVE THIS GAME.  And, without revealing too much, the Desmond story really takes a big turn with a lot of new information into his character personally.

If I had one problem with the game it would be in the new face of Desmond.  I understand graphics are updating on a daily basis, but Desmond literally looks like a completely new person in this game.  His skin is much darker than before, and the structure of his face even looked different.  I don’t know how to explain his new look, but it seems as though he went through some massive reconstructive surgery between Brotherhood and Revelations.  Again, this is not enough to deter me nor should it deter anyone else from playing the game, just an observation. 

The game continues the storyline that was set up in the first three games as far as Desmond is concerned.  His story has progressed normally through the series but this game brings a surprise to the table.  SPOILER ALERT There is no real world Desmond action in this game.  Desmond is stuck inside the animus – inside his mind – because he has fallen into a coma in the real world.  Subject 16, or Clay Kaczmarek, is also inside the animus safe zone, also known as the Black Room.  He helps Desmond as much as he can so the same thing that happened to him won’t happen to Desmond.  You also hear voice-overs of the people in the real world talking around Desmond’s unconscious body.  In fact, one of the biggest lingering questions from Brotherhood to Revelations is answered in one of the first voice-overs: Whether or not Lucy survived.  I won’t spoil that outcome for those of you still reading this.

To wrap things up I would just like to add that this game was a welcome continuation in the Assassin’s Creed line.  I was happy with the playable storyline as well as the multiplayer online portion, a trait started with Brotherhood.  The game was a quick finish but it is nice to be able to go back through and replay portions from wherever you would like.  Your money travels through time with you, which is especially helpful if you forgot to buy the books at the bookstore in Cappadocia and wish to complete the Sage achievement.  Warning: Those books are VERY expensive.  I suggest sending your assassins out on a bunch of missions to earn some money before you waste time going back to that memory.  While in Cappadocia you cannot contact your assassins.  Try and save up 350,000 before you head back (that is Sequence 7: Underworld just for your reference). 

When all said and done I give this game an A because it's that Awesome.  I hope this encourages you to go get a game system and enjoy some hands-on procrastination! 

This game is available on Xbox360, PS3, and PC.

Fairytale Showdown!

Hey Guys! I know this has been a long time coming but I've been doing other things instead of sitting down to right this blog.  Now I know that is unfair, but look, I named the blog "Things I Do Instead of Doing Things" for a reason.  First order of business - The Fairytale Showdown!

And the verdict is in:

NBC's "Grimm" missed the mark while ABC soared ahead with the new series from the writers of Lost, "Once Upon A Time".  "Grimm" had problems right from the beginning.  In television there is such a thing as knowing too much.  The first episode left little mystery in the identity of the killer as early on his face was revealed.  As a viewer you just had to sit back and wait for the main character, Detective Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli), to catch up.  As far as main characters go he is not the best.  This is no fault of the actor, but more a problem with the script he was given.  Nick has just learned of his status as a Grimm descendant so now he's seeing supernatural beings everywhere.  Problem?  He knows nothing about that world so he has to study up.  All the normal monsters have weird names, like blutbad - which is the name for a werewolf.  Now I did not read very many of the Grimm fairy tales, but I do not remember coming across any weird names like blutbad or hexenbiest, though the second sounds more reasonable.  The odd names just add to the confusion which, when your main character is confused about everything under the son, does not help to keep viewers invested.  Now with the story being laid out in front of you in mot episodes, waiting for Nick to catch up is less like watching a chase and more like watching a mouse make his way through a maze in search of cheese.  The thrill is just lost when the mystery is gone.  The show is missing that "CSI" vibe - the intrigue of finding the killer with the most minimal evidence to work with.  In these stories the evidence is right there in your face and it takes him an hour long program to get the bad guy?  Not really my cup of tea.

Strangely the one thing I like about the show is a particular character: Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell).  He is a reformed blutbad and serves as Nick's link to the world of supernaturals.  Monroe as informant works because otherwise Nick is lost.  However, Monroe does not get enough screen time to warrant watching the show.  He's only around when Nick needs him, and so far it has been in very little doses. 

Now let's talk about the HIT!  "Once Upon A Time" is shaping up to be everything I hoped it would be.  Some mystery over who knows what, some drama, some fairytale stories thrown on their heads, it's a wonderful tale.  The best thing about the fairytale world for this viewer is the way you can recognize a story for what it is - like Cinderella or Snow White - but it's not the traditional story.  Each one has its own twist.  For instance, Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) becomes a thief?  Well to live her life out in the forest after the hunter spares her it seems that is one way she knows how to survive.  She takes on a bit of a Robin Hood quality and is not the prim and kempt Snow White from the magical world of Disney.  The show has a good variety of characters that one can get invested in, not to mention a story that keeps moving.  By this I mean that there is the big picture story = Get back to fairytale land; the mini-every-episode stories = which fairytale character will be highlighted in this week's episode; and the real life story = a battle between Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and the Mayor of Storybrooke Regina Mills (Lana Parrilla) over their (Emma's biological and Regina's adopted) son, Henry (Jared S. Gilmore).  There is enough to make everything mysterious and intriguing but not so much that viewers just get lost.

My personal favorite thing about the show, however, happens to be a who and not a what: Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle).  Carlyle plays a fabulous part, transitioning between the upstanding owner of Storybrooke Mr. Gold, and the wonderfully devious and revolting Rumpelstiltskin.  The make-up work on his character alone should win the show an Emmy.  His portrayal of the slimy magically proficient madman is incredible and exactly what you would expect from such a character.  I cannot express in words how interested I am in his character.  More so Rumpelstiltskin than Mr. Gold, however there is one thing that I will never be able to shake with Mr. Gold that keeps him near the top of my favorite real-world characters: Whether or not he knows what is going on.  To me it seems as if he knows more than he lets on.  I feel that he knows about the curse - to some extent, at least - and he's just playing his cards right to figure out how he wants things to play out.  The beginning credits suggest that Regina/The Evil Queen is the only one who knows about the curse, but little things seem to say Mr. Gold knows as well.  And why shouldn't he?  He was the most powerful person in the magical fairytale world.  His magic can't be all gone.  I wait in extreme suspense to see how the rest of this season will pan out - though SPOILER ALERT I will not be happy if they kill off the eye candy that is Sheriff Graham (Jamie Dornan) next week.

Stay tuned for more of what I've been doing instead!!

Monday Night Mayhem

Now I know I promised a follow up on the fairytale stories, but I figured that can wait until Saturday after "Grimm" has aired.  Don't forget, folks: 9pm on NBC, this Friday night!  As if you guys have nothing better to do - that is why man invented DVR.  Mine saves me every Monday night.  Now in exchange for a follow up I figured I could regale you all with the sheer number of shows that are recorded in my house on Monday nights.  Of course this number was more impressive a couple weeks ago - so let's jump into my Delorean and head back a few weeks!

Welcome to the Monday night line-up!  In my house we have three DVR's.  Yes - THREE.  And we need them all.  Scary, I know.  My family is a tv family.  My mom blames my dad, and I blame the wonderful distraction of colorful pixels and stories I seem to always try to predict (and 98% of the time I am right *toot*toot*).  Anyway, the first show to leave the Monday line-up was the wonderful new series "Alphas", a SyFy original series that made me reminisce about a lovely show I used to watch called "Heroes".  The two shows do not have many similarities at all - unless you make wild associations like Red Flag=Sylar, etc. - but the theme of super-powered human beings is one that I love.  The first season introduced a motley crew of Alpha investigators, and I fell in love with each character...especially Gary.  The first season wrapped up at the end of the summer, but they are already signed up for a second season.  This news makes me super happy and I give the new show an A right out of the gates.

Now having lost one Monday night show Fall Season started to amp up!  First we have "The Lying Game", a guilty pleasure for my Monday night line-up.  This ABC Family new series is about twin teenage sisters who swap places and cause a big commotion with scandal and a very attentive DA hovering around them.  Why do I watch this show?  Or more importantly, why do I enjoy it?  Because everyone needs a guilty pleasure.  For one - I love Emma's character.  The way she changes Sutton's world around, I mean, kudos to her.  Sure the possy of people who call themselves Sutton's friends should have noticed if they were true friends, which I'm sure says something about those relationships, but this is not an Emma problem.  The problem is with Sutton - who plays evil twin in the worst way.  She's selfish, greedy, and unappreciative.  I understand wanting to find your birth mother, but being a bitch to the woman who raised you just because she wasn't your real mom?  Come on, Sutton - that's low.  All in all this show lacks the mental suspense to keep me dying for each episode, but holds strong on the drama and character content that makes me still come back every week.  It may be low brow, but I'm not a teenager, so I'm not their target audience and probably not the best person to judge.  I give it a solid C+.

Next we have the first show of the season to bite the dust: "The Playboy Club".  To say I was disappointed about this outcome is an understatement.  Right off the bat the show emerged as an early favorite in the new series race for me, but only three episodes in and the show was shut down.  It was extremely disheartening, especially because I am a big fan of Amber Heard and I was excited to see her on the flat screen.  I had the show running at a solid B, and was intrigued by the hidden gay and lesbian plot but alas we shall never know what that amounted to.  I hate when shows get cut off so early on.  Makes me wonder what could have been.  Le sigh.  Wonder if they will release the remaining three episodes that were definitely filmed according to IMDB?  If you know the answer please fill me in!

Moving on we have the double trouble of two two-hour shows!!  "Dancing with the Stars" and "The Sing-Off" both air from 8-10pm on Mondays.  "Dancing with the Stars" gets special treatment, recorded downstairs on the big tv in the living room.  This is because it is one of dad's shows.  Most seasons, I will be honest, I did not watch.  At least not the whole time.  It's hard when you're in college.  There's no time for tv.  Clearly I'm making up for it now!  Anyway, this season has quite an interesting cast.  I know when I heard the cast revealed there was one person in particular I was excited to see on the list: Hope Solo.  First off talk about a gorgeous and strong woman!  She was incredible in the World Cup, and USA should have won in my opinion (I'm still bitter about some ref calls that were made but c'est la vie).  Still, having her in the spotlight was a really cool kicker at the end of the biggest summer for US Women's soccer in quite a while.  I still route for her every week, and this week especially.  Sometimes the judges make me mad, and I'm kind of glad Maks fought about this.  They judge people individually rather than as a whole.  What I mean is they expect more from certain competitors and judge them harsher when they are not up to par.  I am going to stop this rant before it gets out of hand.  Tuesday nights for me are a big deal - not because of the elimination but because of all the professional performances.  This week is Broadway week!!!  So I cannot wait for the incredibly talented Kristin Chenoweth to perform again!  Now this is a show I could live without, and one we fast-forward through most of, so unfortunately it gets an average approval rating of a C.  Let's be honest - anything lower than this and I probably wouldn't watch it.

Now "The Sing-Off" is my show!  This one I get to watch when I crawl into bed in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.  I love acapella music.  Spell it how you will it is still incredible and unique.  It is the third season for this show and the biggest yet.  I have my favorites as always but for this one I like to keep those groups to myself.  I will say that this season has been the hardest for me to narrow down my favorites.  If you like music you will love this show.  This is music in its rawest form.  So pure with only the voices of the contestants to carry them through each round.  And the panel of judges can't be beat!  This season Sara Bareilles joined Ben Folds and Shawn Stockman, replacing Nicole Scherzinger.  She has been such a great addition to the team!  Each week she is funny and her critiques are always good without being mean.  She even made light of her newness to the position which made the audience laugh and I'm sure put the vocal groups at ease.  The three judges are all so talented it is easy to leave the decisions of who stays and goes in their hands.  That's right, people.  Unlike all those other reality competitions this one does not rely on audience votes.  The judges alone decide who goes home in every episode...at least for the majority of the season.  Some people might not like this, but I think America can get these things wrong more than they care to admit.  I mean, look at this season of "America's Got Talent"!  Team iLuminate should have won.  That is an act that was fresh, inspiring, and something that could sustain a Vegas act.  Again, my opinion, but after all, this is my blog.  Back to "The Sing-Off", I give the show a solid A-, and it gets the minus only because I find myself fast-forwarding through a lot of fluff (mostly the videos for the groups I don't care for in order to save time).

This entry is already way longer than I had anticipated, but I did warn you that Monday was a big night for me and tv.  I'll just get the 'parent shows' out of the way.  "Castle", a great show from what I've seen, but unfortunately I did not get into it in the beginning.  It started at a bad time for me college wise so I never really got on track with watching it, but I wish I would have.  From what I've seen the characters have enormous depth and the detective and writer side-kick bit is fresh and new.  Plus it made me want to write watching through the first season on DVD.  That is a definite plus.  This is one of my mom's shows, and yes, we buy the books.  I'm not sure if she finished the third because she has been trying to get through The Help since the middle of the summer.  For the reason that I do not watch the show regularly I will not rate it.  The same goes for "Hawaii Five-0" which I will occasionally sit down and watch with the parents for one very good reason: Eye Candy!  Need I say more?  Of course I still call Alex O'Loughlin's character Mick because of a little show he was on a few years back called "Moonlight" but my parents have caught on to Mick = Steve.  Again, I will not rate this one because I do not watch the show on a regular basis. 

Now I'm down to my last three shows; One old, two new.  The old one is "Gossip Girl".  Now I love drama, but recently this one has been a bit much for me.  For two years this show has been one of the ones that I push aside in favor of homework, but this season - now that I'm actually watching on a regular basis - I see that it can be forgetable...hence my lack of watching in the past.  I feel that sometimes the things happening are things I have seen over and over again.  Some lack of originality mixed with super drama (beyond the level of drama I like) and a heaping spoonful of predictability has moved this show from its once high and mighty A rating all the way down to a C+.  Maybe this season it will pick itself back up.

My two new shows start in the 8 o'clock slot on Fox with the new hit "Terra Nova".  Dad and I love our science fiction shows (our summer show this year was "Falling Skies", something we looked forward to watching every week).  The show is new and while it has set up some good storylines, I am not entirely sure what direction it will be taking.  To me this is a plus!  I like not being able to predict things about a show as this is a rare occurrence for me.  Though I will say that some predictability will be appreciated in the future - because if I can't see a story arc I may just toss the show out - right now setting up the characters and the foundation are the main focus, as they should be.  I am happy to give this an early approval rating of a B+ with hopes for improvement as we move along in the premiere season.

The last show on the list - if I haven't forgotten any - is actually the newest star to the line-up.  "Hart of Dixie" is a new show on The CW at 9pm.  This show has a Sweet Home Alabama feel to it, though I have seen promise.  This is the newest show to my line-up because I watched all five of the first episodes today.  I apparently felt the need to fill in some missing time from the loss of a few lingering summer shows.  Rachel Bilson plays a young doctor who comes to Alabama to take up a general practice given to her by the father she never knew was really her father.  Confusing?  Not really if you watch the show.  I like this show because I love small town living and this show is full of that kind of atmosphere.  It has that "Gilmore Girls" Stars Hollow charm with the quirky characters and the "Everwood"-esque doctor vs. doctor mentality.  There's drama and humor, a good mix to make for a nice easy to watch show to fill out the Monday night agenda.  The early rating on this one is also a B+, for very different reasons.

Well, I hope you had a pleasant Monday.  And just in case there was something that you would rather not be doing, well, I think I just gave you a few options of what you could be doing instead.

Summing up the Ratings

"Alphas" = A

"The Lying Game" = C+

"The Playboy Club" [Cancelled] = B

"Dancing with the Stars" = C

"The Sing-Off" = A-

"Gossip Girl" = C+

"Terra Nova" = B+

"Hart of Dixie" = B+

Fairytales are IN this season!! ...Or are they?

An image from the upcoming ABC series "Once Upon A Time"

What's with the fairytale market these days?  Seems like this year is the fairytale year for television.  Even the latest episode of "Gossip Girl" (one of my Monday night guilty pleasures which airs at 8pm on The CW) referenced the classic fairytale lifestyle in their latest episode.  The new fairytale stories begin with "Once Upon A Time" which will premiere Sunday, October 23 at 8pm on ABC.  The show is about fairytale characters that have been trapped in a modern world by the Evil Witch of the fairytale land.  This idea to me is reminiscent of Disney's live-action princess story Enchanted which came out in 2007 starring the adorable Amy Adams and the always dapper Patrick Dempsey.  Spoiler Alert:  In Enchanted the Evil Queen - played by the incredible Susan Sarandon! Love her! - sends Giselle (Adams) to New York via a magical well which leads to a pot hole in the middle of Time Square. [/Spoiler]  And that's where the similarities end. The promos for "Once Upon A Time" show a disgruntled evil Queen/Witch character, a few other characters that seem akin to Snow White stories (i.e. Snow White and her Prince), and your friendly neighborhood baby-stealer Rumplestilskin.  The witch casts a spell that sends her along with her subjects into a modern day sort of world where they all live in a quaint town called Storybrooke. The fact that Storybrooke is located in Maine just feels right to me.  Maine has its own special small town quality.  And for some reason I always think eerie thoughts about it.  Maybe it's the vast expanse between towns, or it could be Stephen King's fault (Storm of the Century happens to be a particular favorite of mine).  Either way the town is nestled away somewhere that no one would really question a mysterious town popping up.

The first episode of the season promises to introduce us to both sides of this show - The Fairytale "real world" and the Modern Storybrooke world, which for the purposes of the show, is in fact the "fictional world".  Now hold onto your shorts, people, because I'm about to reveal some of the goodies about this show.  First off, the top-billing reason to at least watch the pilot is that the show was born from the brilliant minds of some of the people behind "Lost"!  That's right, some of the former "Lost" writers and producers are behind this one, so I'm expecting a good mind shag to put this in American PG-13 terms.  Sorry for all you brits reading this one, no offense intended by my language.  While "Lost" had me in the first couple of seasons, and - for lack of a better term - lost me in the later ones, I'm hoping this show will stay on a good suspenseful track; one that is not predictable or confusing to a point where I stop caring.  The fairytale idea has promise, though.  I am intrigued to see how that will play out.  My second little goodie comes in the form of a repetitive character idea that I found quite interesting: adopted kids.  Well, one is not a kid any longer, but the theme seems to run in the family.  Emma Swan [Jennifer Morrison], who seems to be the main character from modern day world, has no idea that she is meant to be a part of this fairytale world.  None of the fairytale characters know who they truly are and that they are just trapped in Storybrooke because of a spell.  Anyway, in the first episode it will be revealed that Emma is not only a child of the foster care system, but that she also became pregnant when she was 18 and decided to put that child up for adoption when she decided that she would not be a good parent.  The fact that Emma was given up by her parents is something I'm going to have to guess could only be the work of our good friend Rumplestilskin.  Based on the previews I have seen, and some very interesting info I dug up from reliable sources, I'm guessing that Emma is the daughter of Snow White and her Prince Charming.  Emma was born in fairytale land, but Rumplestilskin probably made a deal to find a loophole back into fairytale world at the expense of Emma.  For this reason, Emma is separated from her family in the "real world" and is probably going to be the key to breaking the evil Queen's curse.  Funny enough she finds out about the whole 'Everyone in Storybrooke is a fairytale character trapped and you're the daughter of Snow White" from her own son, who is ten-years-old at this point.  He ran away to Boston to find her and she drives him back to Storybrooke.  Emma apparently makes the decision to stay in Storybrooke, but this leaves me wondering if that is really her choice or an act of witchcraft/spell-trickery.  For instance, she stays because she wants to learn more but this impulse is something that is an effect of the curse placed on the people in the town.  Think "Hotel California" if you are a classic rock fan, or more likely think a reverse Repelling Charm if you're a HP fan.

In the interest of time and spoilers I will end my discussion on this show there and revisit after the pilot has aired.  The second fairytale genre show will be coming Friday, October 28th at 9pm on NBC.  From the executive producers who were gracious enough to give us Buffy and Angel now bring to the flat screen "Grimm".  The tagline for the show is "This isn't a fairy tale. The stories are real." which says it all really.  In this show all of the stories that the Grimm Brothers wrote were real.  Those things really happened and they were documented, not fictionalized.  This show takes place in a modern day setting where the main character finds out that he is the descendant of the Grimms, so he himself is a Grimm.  He has the ability to see supernatural beings which are hidden from the rest of the world.  Think Men in Black, where J and K know that aliens exist so they are able to spot them in a crowd.  I had a better analogy but I forgot what it was.  Anyway, it looks like Grimm is a cop AND he's going to befriend a werewolf that he tries to stalk.  That's a good way to make friends.  "Hey man, I know you were all set on killing me 'cause I'm a werewolf and you're a Grimm and that's how things go, but maybe this time we could just share a beer and I'll help you get over all this 'I'm seeing supernatural beings wtf' shit and you can repay me by not shooting me with silver bullets 'cause that's totally cliche."  I'm afraid I don't know as much about this show as I do about "Once Upon A Time".  There wasn't as much to find on it.....or maybe it's just because it's 3:35am and I'm too tired to care about the spoiler details.  Probably a little of both.  Either way I'm excited to add another supernatural show to my Friday nights, considering all I have now is "Supernatural" and while I love to watch Jensen do his thing I still need more to sustain me through the weekend.  OH! I remembered another analogy, though I don't think this was my original one. Okay: So Grimm being able to see the supernatural beings is like in the movie The Last Unicorn and the unicorn gets caught by Mommy Fortuna and she looks around at all the other beasts that Mommy puts on display and she can see through the magic; She can see that the manticore is really just an old lion, and the dragon is a snake, etc. etc. SEE! I came up with a better analogy.  It's been an off day.

So now you know to keep an eye out for the new fairytales coming to a flat screen near you. 

     Reminder: "Once Upon A Time" airs Sunday, October 23 at 8pm on ABC
            &        "Grimm" airs Friday, October 28th at 9pm on NBC


Feel free to comment here with your thoughts after tonight's pilot.  Do you think fairytales are in this season?  I know I am looking forward to it, and I can't wait to hear what all of you have to say!


Coming Soon: Hot new TV Bromance, and Decade Pieces: What hit and what missed.

Procrastination 101

Surfing the internet when you're supposed to be doing a paper.  Cleaning instead of working on homework.  Playing video games instead of cleaning. Been there done that.  Hopefully I can make your procrastination a little more fun.  This shall be my letter of intent:

Dear Reader;

I intend to give you something to do when you don't want to do what you're supposed to be doing.  Makes sense, right?  Welcome to the fabulous world of procrastination.  My name is Effie and I shall be your host on this lovely adventure.  My go-to procrastination forms are movies, tv shows, video games, books, music, and random internet content.  I have now taken it upon myself to make your procrastination a little bit easier. Here's to hoping I can get you addicted to something that won't be detrimental to your health - but possibly to your GPA.

It is time to discover the things I do instead of doing things.