TT Review: The Life of Reilly

Posted on March 5, 2012 | 2 Comments

So my dearest Amanda has been the best person in the entire world lately and has allowed me to use her Netflix streaming on my Roku, because I can only watch Big Fat Quiz Of the Year so many times. (That amount of times is infinite, but you know.)

Anyway, I’ve never had Netflix before so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. There’s a bunch of things streaming that I’ve wanted to see (neat!) but the first thing that caught my eye was The Life Of Reilly.

If you guys know anything about me, I’m a HUGE retro game show nerd. Match Game is among my all-time favorites, right up there with the Richard Dawson version of Family Feud and any version of Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy! I can get my hands on. (See previous article about Wheel of Fortune.) I’d flip whenever we’d get a free preview (remember those?) of the Game Show Network and would stay up to stupid hours of the morning wondering why I couldn’t stand anything that Dick Clark ever hosted and hoping beyond hope that Blockbusters or Card Sharks would be on next.

Nostalgic distractions aside, one of the most iconic game show figures is Charles Nelson Reilly, the sarcastic bespectacled pipe-smoker who sat in the upper right. So when I saw his autobiography come across the Netflix queue, I knew I had to watch it.

Boy, am I glad I did. It was an incredibly moving story, a little emphasized at times, but hey, that’s theater for you. He was in so many things that I was unaware of, and it definitely cued the waterworks more than once. His recollection of the 1944 Hartford circus fire was eerily moving.

Overall I’d give it a 4.5 out of 5. I’d give it a higher rating but I kept turning around playing Neopets while watching.

Be prepared for more TT posting soon!

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Elyse & Cheese: A Love Story

Posted on February 23, 2012 | 3 Comments

Everyone, I have a problem.

That problem is cheese.

“But how?” you may ask.  “You’re not lactose intolerant, Elyse!  How can cheese be a problem?”  The problem is that cheese is slowly consuming my life.  When I go to the grocery store?  Cheese section.  Costco?  Cheese section.  Google?  Lookin’ up cheese LIKE A BOSS.

I was out at Shop-Rite with my sister this weekend and they had a little display set up of Cheez-Its.  Apparently they’re running this promotion where you get to vote for your favorite flavor…and honestly, I didn’t even KNOW there were more than three flavors of Cheez-It.

Image(Photo courtesy Google Image Search)

So I bought this tiny box of crackers, which contained samples of Cheddar Jack, Baby Swiss, and Colby.  We got back out to the car, and I decided to eat them in the order I thought I’d like them least.

First up was Cheddar Jack.  I’m not a big fan of cheddar jack in concept and don’t really like it on food, but DAMN were these delicious!  They have a flavor powder on the outside similar to Flavor Blasted Goldfish and are zesty and tangy.  Those words are probably synonyms but I cannot accurately describe how good these are.

Next was Colby.  Apparently Colby won the new flavor contest last year against Asiago and Romano, and I can totally see why.  They also have a flavor powder like the Cheddar Jack, but they’re generally milder and richer.

Up last was Baby Swiss.  I was desperately hoping that these would be like the old Nabisco Swiss Cheese crackers that got discontinued that I really miss, but no.  Oh, no.  These tasted like mayonnaise.  If I wanted mayo crackers, I still probably wouldn’t eat them because they were so gross.  Who voted for these??

Anyway, Cheez-It, your marketing ploy worked.  I went back to the grocery store the next day and bought three boxes of Cheddar Jack and a box of Colby for myself.  And now I can’t stop.

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Elyse and cheez: true love at first nom

On top of that, Hot Carl and I are going skiing in Vermont next week.  Why am I so excited?  Because I get to bring home the most delicious hickory maple smoked cheddar I have ever eaten.  When the most excitement I get in my life comes from cheese, I just may have a problem.

…I am thinking that this may end up turning into a food blog sooner rather than later.  What do you all think?

(Please note that I have not received anything from Cheez-It or Sunshine Brands to talk about Cheez-Its…I just really, really like Cheez-Its.)

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I am REALLY FUCKING GOOD at Wheel of Fortune.

Posted on September 20, 2011 | 3 Comments

Dear Pat, Vanna, Merv, and all you wonderful folks down at Sony Pictures Entertainment:

This is half blog post, half open letter to the casting crew for Wheel of Fortune. You see, I have been in love with Wheel of Fortune since I was in the fourth grade. (Sorry Carl, some things run deeper.) Every night at 7:30 PM, I would call my grandmother and we would watch Wheel of Fortune together and try to solve the puzzles. This went on for two years, until I got too much homework that half an hour on the phone was too much trouble. My love for the game, however, has not faltered.

I was there through the set changes, through the new touch-screen board, through the inception of the Wheel Watchers Club (of which I am a member) and countless prize puzzles. I would give my left leg to get on the show. I have put in applications on the site, I watch endlessly for the Wheelmobile, but yet my dream evades me.

Fifth grade birthday present.

I have a keen eye for puzzles of this nature. I am very good at spelling and occasionally feel the need to throw things at the television when people don’t get puzzles right away. (BANQUET ROOM.) Don’t worry, though. If I were on the show, I would not throw a single thing. I would, however, be the following:

a) a great contestant
b) engaging, exciting, fun, but not embarrassing
c) really good at the game and potentially win

I also promise not to wear any extravagant dresses. That way, people won’t mistake me for Vanna. Not that I look like Vanna, but we can’t run the risk. I may, however, have to dye my hair pink again. It has been my life goal to get on Wheel of Fortune and I think that together, we can make this happen.

In short, I think I would be a vital asset to your show and if for whatever reason you need to get in touch with me, I can be contacted via elysetheamazing AT gmail DOT com.

Very truly yours,
Elyse

ps: I’m serious.

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Posted in elyse, elyse of course, humor

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Tattooed Trilobite Book Review: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris

Posted on June 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

I make my first venture back into public blogging with a book review that will probably turn into a rant. Hooray!

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk is the first David Sedaris book I’ve ever read. Prior to this I knew nothing about him other than many people seem to enjoy his writing and that his sister was pretty funny in Strangers with Candy. Okay, that might be incentive enough to read, right?

Boy, was I ever disappointed.

The book is a collection of short stories that simultaneously lampoon humanity and make you regret being a human. In essence, it’s like a Pixar movie met Rodney Dangerfield. Every story save the last was intended to be humorous, but I found myself getting more and more angry with them. Was that Sedaris’s intent? Probably. I suppose I’m not the target audience.

I interpreted Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk as a series of short stories about humanity, superimposed with animals as characters rather than Joe X or Jane Y off the street. In fact, I don’t think I’d even like them were they written about humans. The stories are about the kind of characters I am loathe to be interested in – self-righteous, boastful characters who only think about others when it benefits them in some way. The only story with any merit to me was “The Grieving Owl,” with likeable misfit characters that didn’t make me want to punch them in their respective faces.

tl;dr – I’m glad I took this out of the library and didn’t pay real money for it.

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How To Play Bathroom Survivor

Posted on April 5, 2011 | 5 Comments

When I was sixteen, my father got me my first summer job. I worked at my county’s Transportation division. It was a relatively cushy job where I sat around playing Neopets and getting moved around from office to office because they’d never had a summer help person that wasn’t a bus washer. Needless to say they didn’t hire me back the next year.

The next year, though, I was moved to the Roads and Bridges department. I loved it there. I worked alongside a bunch of crass 45-year-old plus dudes (and one lady) who had rough senses of humor and were generally awesome, and two other female secretaries who were a bit milder but still pretty great. The rotation of secretaries changed frequently, some insanely awesome, some raving bitches.

Either way, there weren’t enough computers in the main office so they had me sitting at a computer that was intended for the generic use of the bridge crew, but who never used it. I sat there, isolated, for most of the work day. I’d get an hour for lunch and occasionally some of the guys felt bad for me and came over to talk to me for a while. One summer they hired another awesome girl to work with me (hi Nikki!), but she was only around one year. It kind of sucked at times, but it paid nicely so I dealt with it.

I would do ANYTHING to pass the time. I often took to doodling. One summer I made a comic about me as a ninja. I read a lot of blogs (I remember going through the entire site archive of BoingBoing one year, along with Collector’s Quest, and the sleeveface Flickr pool, among others), played Neopets until the filter came back up, and was generally bored. The work they gave me was easily accomplished so I attempted to stretch it as much as humanly possible.

One day, I was so bored I decided to go sit in the bathroom for a little while and play Bejeweled on my phone, because it was the only thing I had keeping me entertained at that point in time. It was so early in the day that nobody else had gone in to use the restrooms yet, and when I walked in, the seat on the toilet was still up. This wasn’t unusual, as the cleaning crew left the seat up after they’d cleaned on a daily basis. I thought nothing of it.

The next day, I went to use the restroom. Same thing – seat was up. This went on for a couple days, and I felt a little victorious that I would be the first one to use the clean bathroom that day. I turned this into a game in and of itself. If the seat was up, I would win Bathroom Survivor. If it was down, it meant that someone else had used it already, and therefore I lost automatically.

This went on for MONTHS. Months turned into years. I worked at Roads and Bridges for five years, playing Bathroom Survivor the whole time I was there.

Today, I walked into the bathroom at my current job to find the toilet sparkly clean with the lid up. I smiled and knew that I was, in fact, the winner.

Outlast, outwait, outcrap?

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Posted in elyse of course, humor

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Disney Gave Me Unrealistic Expectations Of Dinosaur Extinctions

Posted on April 4, 2011 | 5 Comments

Blog, I’ve neglected you. You have fallen into the pattern of things I have but never remember to update because the interface isn’t as inane as Tumblr or as personal as Livejournal, and that often throws me for a loop. What do I write about here? How personal do I get? I’m going to try and update this a bit more frequently because honestly, I need something to keep me sane while writing my thesis. The rough draft is due in two weeks. Score.

So anyway, I don’t know how many of you readers knew me when I went to Disney World a few years ago. Spring Break ’09 was spent with my then boyfriend and two of my best friends at the Happiest Place On Earth.

One day, we rode the Dinosaur ride in Animal Kingdom because I love dinosaurs. What I was not expecting was how godforsakenly terrifying the ride actually was.

The ride takes place at the K-T boundary, and you’re traveling back in time to save one last dinosaur from the end of the fucking world. The K-T boundary is, of course, the end of the Cretaceous when the mass extinction occurred. Disney chose to interpret this as a meteor collision, basically the Chicxulub crater theory, and therefore you’re on a track riding through this meteor impact. There are little shrapnel bits flying everywhere and you’re trying to catch this one dinosaur. I cannot remember which. The one you’re trying to get isn’t important.

What is important, though, is the fucking Carnotaurus.

This motherfucker means business.

This guy follows you around, trying to eat you. It’s kind of like he knows he’s dying and wants his last meal on Pangaea to be your sorry ass. So not only are you trying to catch this lost dinosaur jerk, you’re running for your life from this Very Angry Dinosaur.

And man, is it SCARY. The strobe effects plus the already dark end of the world scenario mean you only run into him when you’re just rounding a corner, or it’s pitch black and they flash on his face, and I am a wimp so this, quite naturally, kicked in my wussy instinct of “cover your ears and look down so you won’t have to see anything.”

The ride comes to a stop while we pick up our lost dinosaur buddy. When I finally thought the coast was clear, I lifted my head up for a brief moment.

Directly next to me was this awful horrible death machine of a Carnotaurus. The only thing between me and this monster was my then-boyfriend. I felt he would make a good sacrifice. I stop screaming long enough to regain my sense of “hey this is fake” only to have the ride start moving again. Clear! I was clear! I WAS ALIVE AND UNDIGESTED!

We stumbled into the lobby, and found the on-ride photo. Wouldn’t you know they were taking it as I was pondering throwing my ex to the beast’s mouth?

Apparently I was screaming so much that the girl in the front row had to turn around and look at me. You will notice a few things about this photo:

a) I still have pink hair
b) My hands are over my ears
c) I am screaming bloody murder
d) My ex looks like Jhonen Vasquez

We rode the ride again a couple days later in an attempt for me to be less scared. I really wish we’d bought the on-ride photo here because I am so scared that all you can see are my hands covering my ears and a little pink patch of the top of my head. I am looking down at the ground.

If this is actually what the K-T boundary was like, I am so glad there are no dinosaurs anymore because they would STILL be bitching about it.

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Posted in creepy shit, elyse of course

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Everyone Run, I’m Cooking Again!

Posted on January 6, 2011 | 2 Comments

Look at this pasta. Seriously.

No, really, look at me.

Hot Carl and I have started another quest this year. The deal is that I promised I’d help him eat healthily if he’d help me train for a 5K run. The biggest problem I face when making healthy meals is that 9 times out of 10 I work all day and get home and have absolutely ZERO motivation to cook, I forget to defrost things, and it usually ends up in either take-out or an old standard.

I vowed this year to NOT do that, though, so when I got home on Monday I decided to tear through the cabinets and see what could possibly go together well. And…well…it ended pretty well!

Elyse’s Last Minute Olive Pasta

1/2 lb uncooked pasta (I used Ronzoni Smart Taste Rotini)
1 package Roasted Garlic and White Wine Perdue Short Cuts (or 9 oz otherwise prepared chicken strips, unbreaded)
1 can mushroom stems and pieces (reduced sodium if you can find them)
1 cup lower sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup black olives in juice
2 tbsp chopped garlic
Optional: parmesan cheese (to taste)

Cook pasta to al dente and set aside. Add chicken, mushrooms, garlic, and olives to a saute pan, reserving the olive juice. Cook approximately 3 minutes. Add a couple tablespoons olive juice and chicken broth to pan and cook until most of liquid is absorbed, approximately another three minutes. Serve warm and top with parmesan if desired.

The times on this may be off because, well, I wasn’t timing, I was just cooking from scratch. I like the Short Cuts chicken for times like these, but in less of a pinch, regular sauteed chicken would do just as well. This seemed to be a big hit with Hot Carl, so it’ll likely get another couple gos. Yum!

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Posted in cooking, domesticity

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