The bombshell’s Oscar review 2011 February 28, 2011

I have to say that there aren’t many events that I actually bother to watch on television.  Everyone knows that I’m not interested in sports, as evidenced by my most recent superbowl post.  But it’s actually a little realized thing that I actually don’t watch any of the entertainment award ceremonies either.  Sure, I have a passing interest in them and what’s going on but I never feel much inclined to watch them.  I satisfy my curiosity by reading about them the next day.  This can be for anything like the Grammy’s, the AMA’s, the Golden Globes and even the Oscars.  But I will say that it’s only the Oscars where I truly seem to care about one thing.

What the actresses are wearing.

I think I don’t often care about the movies that may or may not win the actual Oscar award from the Academy is that, for the most part, I’ve likely only seen about maybe 10% of the movies that got nominated.  Every year I pronounce my desire to see more movies the next year and possibly see the ones that get seriously praised and nominated for Oscars and whathaveyous.  But inevitably I don’t and the next year rolls around and I’m luckily to have seen a small percentage.  It happens and I don’t bother with it.

So then that leaves me with the clothes.

And what lovely and/or varied they are!

And so I leave you with my pick for the best and worst dressed at Oscar 2011…

My pick for the absolute worst

I have to admit that I’m not very fond of Cate Blanchett.  She has what I term the “pinched nose” look for actresses.  It’s like their faces are always pinched and they never seem able to quite breathe.  Look at any of her performances and you’ll see what I mean.  It’s like she can’t get a full breath.  But… I didn’t just pick her as the worst dress on my blog because of her pinchy face.  Oh no!  It’s because this Givenchy Couture gown is just absolutely atrocious.

When the Stalker and I first saw it, we likened the front to the paper toilet covers one finds in bathrooms because of it’s weird front cutout. A paper toilet cover draped over her front that got pearlized.  It wasn’t until after I looked for Cate’s dress to blog about it that I realized that said ugly pearls are actually multi-colored.  Since I only saw the dress when she was a presenter, I also did not get to appreciate the full unflattering effect of the back.  So I was sure to include it here for everyone to see.

Now… for the best accessory but runner up to most unflattering dress:

Nicole Kidman

 

You see, I was so mesmerized by the 150 carat necklace that Nicole Kidman was wearing that I didn’t at first notice those unfortunate saddle bags this L’Wren Scott dress was adding to her.  I understand that everyone is always harping on how thin the actress is.  It’s a little sad that one needs to resort to extra fabric to give a look of heft to Kidman.  But seriously, next time have a couple of cheeseburgers instead.

Now for my pick of the most unflattering dress goes to….

For shame on Scarlett Johansson for doing this to her body with the help of Dolce & Gabbana.  I wanted to love this dress.  It’s magenta and the color does wonders for Johansson’s skintone.  However, this lace frock does nothing for the knock-out curves we know the actress harbors.  Instead, she looks saggy and dimply in all the wrong places.  How old is she anyway?  I think this dress ages her.

This next one isn’t on my best or worst… just that when I saw her I knew that we had just gotten an Oscar barbie.

Reese Witherspoon

Those were the very thoughts I had to myself when I saw Reese as a presenter last night.  It was funny to read that I wasn’t the only one who thought that when they saw Witherspoon.  Still, she looked flawless and elegant in Giorgio Armani Prive gown.  Her gorgeous Neil Lane emerald earrings were what stole the show for me, however.  Can someone please lend me a million dollars so I can have them?  Pretty please?

Mila Kunis

I don’t know if I love this Ellie Saab number that Mila Kunis wore enough to say it’s the best of all the gowns I saw last night.  However, Kunis looked absolutely gorgeous and ethereal in it.  The lovely glittering effect on the chest area really took the dress to a whole new level with the lavender.  It could have been a disaster but it’s romantic and lovely and I don’t think I could have blogged about the Oscars without at least mentioning it.

Now for someone whose name I didn’t know until I googled it because I liked her dress…

Hailee Steinfeld

Apparently she was in True Grit and only 14!  So she gets major props for my best dressed award.  This sparkly Marchessa dress was fun and sophisticated without aging the young actress.  I fell in love with it when I saw the camera would catch her during the performance.  Because its so memorable to me, I have chosen it for my best dressed.

What does everyone think?

Did I miss your favorites or do you feel I was out of line with some of my assessments?  Let me know!

 

A girl terrible at crosswords February 27, 2011

I’ve never been one to read the newspaper.  If anyone has seen Puerto Rican newspapers, you’d really know why I have boycotted reading anything but the horoscopes in them for the many years I inhabited the island.  They are just not pleasant to read and truly were not an example of proper grammar.  You would think a newspaper would be a good source to expand one’s vocabulary.  I guess PR lost that memo as they have begun to conform their news to the very improper Puerto Rican jargon that frustrates so many nowadays.

However, in the mornings, if I’m on the elementary school rotation, the kids get an hour to read newspaper articles and later the comics if they have the time.  During this time, it’s important for me to read the paper as well so I can suggest appropriate articles for them to read and discuss them with some of the kids.  After that, while the kids have to do their Science, Math and English, I still get to keep the paper with me and try to sort out the little games that are included with the comics.  In the newspaper packet there are at least 6 sort of word games I can play but only one of which I’m really good at…. the word scramble.

From Friday’s newspaper there were 3 crosswords.  THREE!  Since the crosswords comprise of approximately half of the available games to fill in, I always try to solve them.  I’ve always wanted to be the sort of person who could.  But in this week I have come to the sad realization that I am just terrible at them.  When I say terrible, it doesn’t mean that I should just try doing them in pencil.  I mean that not even having a pencil will allow me to get more than 5 clues written in…. and does not guarantee that those are right more than 30% of the time.

Is there a way for one to get better at them?  Can you practice that or is it just really a matter of gaining enough general knowledge to figure them out?  Do you have to understand better the way the clues are worded or is it a matter of educated guesswork?

The bombshell wants to know.

Because if I am to continue at my job, I will likely spend 2 days or more with the younger kids on my shift rotation and I really want to be able to have something to do.  Or, at the very least, I want to feel not as sucky at crossword puzzles.

PS/ On another note: It’s funny how I’m feeling terrible at my blogging lately.  I’m still managing to get a blog entry out every night and it’s often by sometime in the evening when I’ve gotten home from work and can switch mental gears enough to get thinking about what to blog.  I only have myself to blame for being in this conundrum.  I stopped scheduling entries but for a day and I feel like I’ve been playing catch-up ever since.  But the silly thing is…. while I feel like I’ve “fallen behind”, isn’t this how other people usually blog?  They just wander around and sit down and manage to type something out daily?

So then why do I feel so bad about doing it that way?

A girl with a girl crush February 26, 2011

There comes a time when we all have to admit that there is an actress we adore above all others.  One who has magnificent talent and makes us wish we could somehow spend some time with her.  But maybe it goes beyond adoration.  Perhaps it borders on a full on love.  I’ve read many other bloggers profess when they have a girl crush on some media icon or movie star.  So I thought that I should reveal mine.

Helen Mirren

 

Honestly…

Need I say more than this photo?

But in case I do have to say something besides her being gorgeous, sexy and oh-so talented, then maybe we need to reconsider whether we’re really friends.

A girl not watching TV February 25, 2011

You know, one of the things I never realized would interfere with my tv watching was the fact that being on Central time zone, everything is now one hour earlier than I mentally have the show time for.  By the time I remember that I was going to watch something in particular, it’s already 15-30 minutes in.  Back in PR, I could do that.  I could let time slide by and remember later because we also had the west coast stations for the same channels with our satellite programming.  I would then set tv auto-tune reminders for myself and then just hope I was awake the almost 3 hours later it would take for me to watch a show.

This alone makes it a big difficult to remember the shows I like to watch but there is also the fact that there are 2 other people in the house and they each have the right to watch whatever they would like.  Sometimes, if I remember in time, I can call dibs for a certain time slot.  Other times, I just let it slide.

One thing that makes up for all this is that I can watch the shows online.

I couldn’t do that before.

It’s a great thing for me to do on weekends.  Luckily I have a few select shows I watch.  There’s House and How I Met Your Mother on Mondays.  Modern Family on Wednesdays.  The biggest conflict is Thursdays since I like to watch CSI and Grey’s Anatomy but also Royal Pains on USA.  So I do try to tune in at least on Thursdays to one of the shows so I can watch the rest of them online.  However, lately USA has not been adding the full episodes of Royal Pains and they messed with the new episode schedules.

Then there is Big Love on HBO.  We have the channel, but I always forget to watch it on Sundays.  I can’t watch it free online so I find myself trolling about the channels hoping they do a mini-marathon of recent episodes so I can get caught up.

I’m sure many will tell me that it would be just as easy for me to download episodes but I don’t even download music.  I have no interest in the full download and keeping of these shows that I watch.  I like to take a bit of time, stream it for a bit and that’s that.

As for all the other shows on tv lately…

I really don’t care for them.

True that, because of my sparse tv watching, I can’t just sit down and give a new show a chance to reel me into their audience.  That doesn’t mean that I haven’t given it a shot in the past.  Things like Glee and Castle and V…. meh, just weren’t that worth watching.  Then there were other shows, like Mike & Molly which were pleasant as tv filler in between other shows I like to watch but don’t care for enough to find online.

But… I’m giving everyone a chance to state their cases below on what other shows I should try to watch and where I can easily find it online to watch.

Go on…

State your cases.

A girl with tired feet February 24, 2011

So, the bombshell worked a double shift yesterday.  That means that I worked from 7am-3pm, then stayed from 3pm-11pm… only to go to sleep sometime around midnight and get up at about 6am to do the 7am-3pm shift all over again.

The good news is that I’m done shadowing.

The bad news is that my feet are killing me.

With my job, I can say that I don’t spend too long a stretch of a time doing the same thing.  Sometimes I’m sitting, sometimes I’m standing, sometimes I’m sitting on the floor… other times I’m walking slowly along rooms.  But something I do know is that, to be able to do these sorts of things and not be in severe pain, one needs the right shoes.

But what are the right shoes?

That is the question I have been asking myself for the past 72 hours.

It has been some 13 years where I’ve been anywhere with colder weather.  Because of my workplace, I need to be able to always wear socks and be comfortable.  Not to mention that I need to maintain a business casual sort of appearance.  Looking around, I can’t say my other coworkers are particularly inspiring when it comes to footwear.

They just wear sneakers.

Now, I’m not saying that sneakers wouldn’t be fairly practical but I hate them.  A part of me absolutely refuses to wear them day in and day out.  But as I mentioned yesterday when it came to my musing about make-up and everyone’s lack of it, I’m determined to keep myself on a different personal standard of appearance.  It’s important for me to stress that I’m not making a commentary about them.

A bombshell is never cruel in her own vanity.

Because that’s what it is, I feel.  It’s personal vanity.

I just want to look and feel pretty in my comfortable work attire.  Now, given that I haven’t gotten paid yet, I have slowly been compiling lists of things I would like to acquire for myself with time.  Top on my list is shoes.

But what kind if I don’t want sneakers?  That leaves me with what?

I feel like I’m having some sort of existential crisis.