Okay so this is a post some who read my blog might be interested in. A lot of people ask and probably want to know . . . do I still watch the soaps? The answer, kinda, but not really. Sorry folks, this post might depress or upset some of you.

When I stopped doing “the page” back in March I had every intention of continuing to watch “Days” and “Passions.” I had watched “Passions” since the beginning, and “Days” since I was in 7th grade. Unfortunately in March is when “Days” started going downhill and fast, at least in my opinion. Two weeks of the whole “Locked in Crazy Ava’s room” was enough for me, I just turned the show off and honestly stopped caring if I watched every day like I used to.

Since then I’ll turn it on if I’m home when it’s one’o'clock, but if I walk out the door because I have to do something during the middle of it, or before it’s even set to come on knowing I’ll probably miss it, I don’t really care. Does that make me sad? Yup. But if the show chooses to go in a direction that doesn’t hold my interest, then I won’t beat myself up over not watching. I probably see one whole episode a week now, two if I’m lucky. Usually I end up watching the days it is the “Phillip and Chloe” show, or like Friday when it was the “Max and Stephanie” show. I don’t like these characters, and when they are the majority of the hour, I tune out even when it’s on in the background. Don’t get me started on the never-gunna-be-resolved EJ, Sami, Lucas mess. They are the new Austin, Sami, Carrie; it will never end until the actors leave the show.

Only one other time comes to mind that I have been so disinterested in “Days” as long as I’ve watched it. It was during my third year of grad school and I was swamped with classes and teaching, so I stopped watching for about six months. It was also when the whole “Austin and Greta Virtual Garden of Eden” crap was going on, and that had a lot to do with my decision to tune out for a bit.

“Passions” I tend to have the 3 hour Thursday marathon on in the background while I’m doing other work. That show ends soon and since I watched it from the start, I’d like to see how it actually ends. Plus I’m stuck paying for this DirecTV so I might as well watch it! But like “Days,” I don’t pay attention like I once did (cause I had to in order to run the page). Come August when the show ends, I will call DirecTV and cancel that service, even if they don’t want to let me out of some contract I might be in (and think I am). I’m sure I won’t be the only one doing it either!

I do not watch any other soaps on other networks. I was always an NBC soap watcher, and doubt I will pick up any others at this point. I just don’t have the time anymore, and it seems I don’t care for the ones I used to like enough to watch them regularly anymore. I like my night time shows enough as is, they are enough for me

Please note, this isn’t meant to insult the shows or the shows fans. I’m just being honest about how I feel and answering a question many people have asked or might be curious about. Like I said earlier, it makes me sad I’m not as interested in the shows as I once was, but shows change and so do people. Honestly I wonder if I would have given up or just not watched as religiously as I did a lot sooner if I hadn’t been doing “the page.” If I see a change in the shows then who knows, maybe I’ll begin to watch more regularly again.

Cross posted at The Primetime Dish

So after my attempt at running yesterday, I woke up today and my legs didn’t feel so good. In fact they hurt, a lot, a lot more than they do from using cardio equipment at the gym. That was pretty telling to me. I thought they’d get better as the day went on. Nope! They still hurt. Needless to say I didn’t even attempt to run today, except to run across the street . . . and that hurt a lot.

Last night I watched the Tony Awards on TV. One of the presenters was Alec Baldwin and he brought his brother with him . . . no not Billy . . . Stephen! I was shocked and pretty appalled. They showed a shot of them sitting there and Stephen smiled and waved at the camera. I wanted to throw something at him, and I hope someone at the Tony Awards did . . . and that they hit him in the head . . . hard . . . real hard.

For those not aware, Stephen has become a born again Christian recently, but the insane kind like Kirk Cameron where they feel the need to tell everyone how they are going to burn in hell and it will really hurt. Stephen also got into a war of words with his brother Billy, who stars on “Dirty Sexy Money.” Billy plays a character having an affair with a post-op transsexual on the show, who is played by a real life post-op. They’ve gotten into arguments over gays, gay rights and gay marriage. Yeah you can pretty much guess what Stephen thinks and had to say about the subject. So color me shocked that he had the balls to show up at the Tony Awards, gay central.

I hope Cheyenne Jackson kicked him in the balls.

Okay let me preface this by saying this is a childhood memory. Next to the introduction and the “Queen Bee” episode of Spider-man, this is what I always think of when I think of “The Electric Company.” I only said suffer because if you remember this song from when you were a kid, it get stuck in your head!

Tune in next time when I force you to watch “The Bloodhound Gang” from “321 Contact!”

When ever there’s trouble, we’re there on the double . . . .

-Dustin

P.S. clearly Billy is gay!

So last night was supposed to be our infomercial movie night. However we got such a late start that we didn’t make all that much. Plus because my old house is devoid of any overhead lighting, it makes a not very optimal setting for filming with my digital camera. We did end up making lava cake though and took pictures.

The GT Xpress 101! The best and last cooking device you’ll ever need! (Unless you don’t like half-moon shaped food)

We decided to use it to make dessert, chocolate lava cake! I had made this before in cupcake form, so I knew it was good. However I had always used the Duncan Hines version, which is a very large package. If we used it we probably would have ended up with 6-8 half moon chocolate cakes, and I didn’t want that much chocolate cake sitting around because I would feel the need to eat it. So I found some unknown brand (Dr. Oeteker) at the supermarket that I knew was the right size for 2 half-moon cakes. So we used it.

Emily makes and pours the batter

The problem of course turned out to be that I had NOT tried out this brand of lava cake. It turned out okay bake-wise. It had the gooey center, but only in the middle. I think the half moon shaped wells cooked it too well near the ends. The real problem though was the taste. It wasn’t that good at all. It wasn’t a very rich chocolate, it was very sweet and dare I say they may have even used chocolate flavoring rather than real chocolate? I haven’t looked at the box, but that is how it tasted.

Emily shows off the baked cakes on my brand new Tar-Jay plates

Today on my own I decided to make some cornbread with the thing. This time I went with name brand!

Jiffy brand! It kinda looked like someone vomited in the GT Xpress 101

They came out okay, aside from the fact that I let them cook a little too long and the tops burned a tad. Also one it seems got an air bubble in it and this made the inside hollow and a little moist . . . ie it didn’t seem to cook all the way. Other than that, they were good.

Cornbread goodness!

So does the GT Xpress 101 work? Yes it seems to. But the quality of food you put into it matters, and I think there is a bit of a learning curve with it. It makes great omelets, that much I can attest to. I’ll probably use it for breakfast mostly

On Saturday Emily and I hit the mall to go clothes shopping for . . . . . Las Vegas! We have a trip coming up in the near future, since she’s always bugging me about going somewhere with her So it seems for the third year in a row I’m going to Las Vegas for a fun weekend, though this one is more of an extended weekend. Twill be fun, especially since I’ll have someone to go dancing with. Maybe this year I’ll finally be able to get on the coaster at New York New York too! Plus it will be my first vacation in too many years to count where I don’t have to run back to the hotel room at 1pm to watch 2 hours of soaps. Nor will I have to utter the words “Before dinner let me just make a few page updates.” That’s going to be very odd let me tell you!

We are also probably going to do infomercial movie night. What’s that? It’s where we watch movie and cook food with my infomercial products! Drinks from the Magic Bullet™ and possibly also a cheesecake for dessert from it, but more than likely not. We’ll probably be going to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch as is. One of these days though I will attempt to bake my own cheesecake. Strawberry season at the farm is next month, maybe I’ll make one then. Oh also some kind of snacks complements of the GT Xpress™! Oh yes, I got one . . . you knew I would though right? Mmmm, corn dogs, pizza pouches and whatever else we can invent!

But it gets better! First we’ll probably be on web cam making a mess in the kitchen if you all want to watch, but we are also going to try and make our own infomercial of our using the products. A few months ago I wanted to get into doing a video blog every now and then, but it never happened because as usual, I didn’t have the time and had too many other things on my plate. Now I think I might be able to do it, but need to get the software as my trial period ended long ago. So I’m going to do that and who knows, maybe I can make a short infomercial of our fun night out of it.

Oh yeah the movie part of the night. Um, I don’t know what we’ll watch. We keep saying we need to have a Patrick Swayze movie night, maybe we’ll just do that.

So after reading my infomercial post, Emily introduces me to the GT Xpress 101. What is it? Just the most amazing piece of crap, I mean cooking invention ever! You can make eggs, pita pizzas, chicken cordon bleu and so much more in it. Oh and did I mention it also makes stuffed soup! That right there is a reason to own it, even if you don’t know what stuffed soup is (and trust me, you don’t want to know).

So I had to go look it up and read about it, of course. While there were some good reviews for it and people did like it, others of course can’t stand the thing. These are some of my favorite quotes from online reviews . . .

. . . . that lady (Cathy Mitchell) can take her bull$%!& product and shove it up her a$%.

I don’t know why I bought the product really, as there’s no way I’d ever serve up half moon shaped meals to my guests.

. . . .. the woman from the infomercial obviously doesn’t have 4 kids, otherwise I’d have to ask her some questions. It can be useful, but who wants everything they eat to be half moon shaped?!

While those reviews should make me want to run from the contraption, they only make me want it more! Silly I know. For some reason I couldn’t get those quotes out of my head and when I went to go to bed I busted out laughing. I mean tears streaming down my face, tried to hold it in, had to leave the room and come downstairs and just laugh hard. I don’t know why, it really isn’t that funny. I think I just needed a good hard laugh, something I haven’t done in awhile for various reasons, and this was the facilitator.

Oh and by the way, yes I still want a GT Xpress If I can find one at Kohls or the “At Seen On TV Store” I am going to buy it. If I can find one then Emily and I are going to have our own little GT Xpress cooking party. Maybe we’ll film it and make our own infomercial for it.

I’m such a sucker when it comes to infomercials. Recently our kitchen sink broke and parts needed to be replaced. The BF put in a whole new spigot. Unfortunately because of this, we lost our water filtration system. It was this large metal canister that sat next to the sink and a hose basically attached to the spigot and diverted water to it when you chose to have filtered water. He needs to now find the right washer or something to make it work again, and as usual is taking his sweet time. Besides, I was never fully convinced this contraption really worked. It’s one of these “industrial” filters that supposedly only needs to be cleaned and changed every five years, and you have to send it in to have it serviced. Hmmm.

So I figured that I would just buy a water pitcher with a filter. We used to have a Brita system, but honestly I don’t even know where the pitcher is anymore. Plus I never liked it, the little charcoal bits always fell into the pitcher and that grossed me out. On TV they advertise this Z-Pitcher thing, which you can also but at Walgreen’s. It’s a bit more than Brita and even the Pur filters, but I’m a sucker for the infomercial and got one. Plus it comes with this great water tester thing to test how much contaminants are really in your water Anyway I got it, set it up, now we have nice clean taster water.

Have I mentioned yet that I hate water? Yeah, I hate water. The only time I’m able to drink water is if I’m at the gym working out or if I’m outside walking around in the heat. Otherwise, I don’t want to drink water. I don’t like it. I know that is very weird. Most people ask how it is I don’t like water? I say I don’t like how it tastes. Most say it doesn’t have a taste! My response is it definitely has a taste, one I don’t like! However I know I need to drink more water, so I spent the whole 40 bucks on this pitcher and by damn I will drink the water! I will probably have to put lemon slices in my glasses, that way I get a little flavor in it.

Other infomercial crap I have? The Vidalia Chop Wizard (LOVE this thing), the Magic Bullet (a birthday gift from friends, just used it today to mince up herbs) and the George Forman grill. Okay I don’t use that unless I’m cooking a burger. The BF recently got Sham-Wow and the Sham-Wow mop. Oh I think he got the Ped-Egg too. He also got the Jack LaLane Juicer last year, which he no longer uses and needs to be moved cause it’s taking up valuable countertop room. I really want the Vidalia Slice Wizard to go with my Chop Wizard, but resisted getting it (though I could have bought it today for only $19.95!).

When I was in high school every morning I would watch “Amazing Inventions” before school. I think that’s what it was called. One of the best shows ever! I had no furniture I needed to strip, but man they used to sell this power paint stripper that just looked fun to go around and pour on stuff. I also still need the Popeal Pasta Maker and Ronco’s Showtime. I have no need to cook an entire rotisserie chicken mind you, but I just want to “Set it and forget it!”

I think though by far my favorite infomercial is the one that aired a few years ago for this cooking system. There were two competing varieties and two infomercials , one hosted by Florence Henderson (Carol Brady) and the other by Carolin and Marilyn, better known as the comedy team “The Mommies.” It was this crock pot like thing that cooked all your food for you, it never burned the food and everything ALWAYS cooked perfectly and was never over done. You could, according to the commercial, throw in dry pasta, a jar of salsa and some frozen chicken and come home to a Mexican fiesta. You could also cook a cake in the same device above the Mexican pasta. Yes, two different foods that normally cook at two temperatures in the same pot! WOW! Don’t you want to go get one now?

So I need to get back on a regular sleep schedule pronto. I’ve always been a night owl and off and on through grad school I’ve had bouts of insomnia when I’ve been overly stressed. Lately though my sleeping issue hasn’t been that, it’s been “Big Brother After Dark” on Showtime. I’ve been staying up too late to watch those morons and I’ve paid the next day as I don’t want to get up! However I have to nip this in the bud. For one, they are getting boring and not doing anything fun to watch, at least not until very late their time which isn’t on Showtime my time. I mean if they are going to be boring, can’t they be naked? At least I can look at something then and be somewhat entertained.

Anway, I’m in a crunch the next two weeks to processes a lot of my dissertation data and write it up, so I need to force myself to get to bed and get up early. I have a conference at the end of February I have to go to and I agreed to give a paper at it. Why why why! I said I wasn’t going to do this again until I was finished! Grrrrr! Fortunately I don’t have to start from scratch this time, which I think is why I agreed. I’m taking the paper I presented at the last conference, taking some things out, adding new stuff in and solidifying the results a bit more.

So a few months back, actually now that I think about it several months back, I had blogged about a big decision I was facing. I made it, but couldn’t comment on it and didn’t know when I could. Now because an announcement has been made, I can. Well, kind of an announcement has been made, but not everyone may know about it yet.

*Sigh* Here goes . . . .

As you may or may not have heard, I have in fact sold my site SoapOperaFan.com to one of the companies that advertise on my site. The sale was actually made months ago, I had just stayed on to continue running the site for the time being until they took over. It now seems they are finally going to be taking over soon, and even posted on the site’s forum about the site being sold and what not. It’s not on the main site yet, but soon changes will be made there and it will become evident. Probably within a month I’ll no longer be working on the site anymore, or if I am in a very limited capacity while they take over and get the hang of things.

I’ve actually been waiting to be bombarded with emails about this from the forum, but they never came. Most people who post there asked me questions, I answered them. I had also written this standard explanation right after the sale and plan to set it as the “auto-response” for my email when the time comes and I start getting tons of emails about what happened. Here’s what I wrote . . . .

I’ve been doing my various soap pages (Days, Another World, Passions, The O.C.) for almost fourteen years now. What started out as a hobby essentially blossomed into pretty much a full time job over the past several years.

For well over a year I had been receiving offers from parties interested in taking over or purchasing the page. I turned down initial offers, but a year later when more came along, I was at a point in my life where I had some choices to make regarding my future. As many of you may or may not know, I’ve been in graduate school for a long time now, and I’d really like to finish! The soaps were supposed to be a hobby, not my life and career, but that’s what it started to feel like for me. Due to the fact that I am now on a very strict deadline to finish school, I opted to make the difficult choice to give up the page.

Other issues also factored in my choice. As I have said, it was not an easy choice as the page has been so much a part of my life for almost 14 years now that I couldn’t imagine not doing it anymore. That in and of itself was a major issue for me believe it or not. I felt I was putting too much of my time into the page, sacrificing school, personal time, and well a personal life for the page at times. As many who have been with me for a long time know, I would even keep the page up to date while on vacation. Let me tell you, that doesn’t go over well with those you vacation with!

So all these factors contributed in my decisions to give up the page, and I truly hope you can understand. Again this wasn’t an easy choice for me, but essentially for so long I feel I have put the page first and now it was time to put me first.

Well okay that pretty much is the explanation and reasoning why, but to be honest a little was left out of the story I had received my first offers 2 summers ago, but it just came out of the blue, I wasn’t prepared at the time to even enter negotiations of that kind without fear of being taken to the bank. I basically said not at the moment for a few reasons, but would be open to talks in a few months. I figured that would give me time to get my stuff together I needed, and it would give me time to decide if this was something I really wanted to do. They didn’t call back though, I guess they lost interest. Then a few months later came the decision at NBC to cancel “Passions” and remarks were made that “Days” future wasn’t so solid either past 2009. Immediately I thought about the opportunity I had to get out while the going was still somewhat good and wondered “WHAT DID I JUST DO!” I was pretty sure at that point nothing like that would come along again. Of course “Passions” was picked up by DirecTV, but “The OC,” another show I covered, got permanently canned around the same time. I honestly didn’t expect to ever get another offer for the site, imagine my surprise when I got two!

So here I was with two more offers to buy the site. I knew at this point I couldn’t just say I need time, I need to think about this some more. I did that before without even hearing any kind of offers and regretted it, I didn’t want that feeling again. I examined my options, the way the shows seemed to be heading, the fact had I gotten out the summer before I probably would have finally finished school already. What should I do? One option of course was to keep the page and either ride the current shows out till the end, and then possibly pick up some new soaps if need be to keep the page going. I always got emails asking me to cover this soap or that soap, so I knew it might work. However it also meant adding more work on, something I didn’t have time for, as well as the fact that I really didn’t feel like “starting over” with soaps I knew nothing about as is. Plus I had around this time started exploring doing more stuff with primetime shows, as that’s where more of my interest was laying (hence The Primetime Dish was born).

So I worked out a deal to sell the site. Of course the ironic part is now that I’ve sold “Days” is the best it’s been in years story-wise. “Passions” however has been canned yet again, and there is still no certainty that “Days” will survive past this year. No looking back though, only forward to whatever the future holds I am keeping The Primetime Dish, and once my dissertation is drafted I’ll probably explore expanding it a bit. Oh I have ideas for it, just no time right now. I also actually have a few other site ideas I have been itching to launch when I get the time.

-Dustin

I’m trying to adjust and get back into the groove of things and work. I’m still working on the vacation recap slowly and to get more photos up. I realized I never uploaded my photos to my webshots from LAST years cruise. My bad! For some reason I thought I had, but then I remembered that was when I was in the midst of computer troubles and dealing with HP to get my laptop fixed.

Slowly getting the house cleaned up bit by bit each day. The chore of course will be to KEEP it clean and straightened up once I get it there. One day I will tackle the hell hole that has become the basement, but not this day or year. The BF meanwhile is planning to re-wallpaper the bathroom, and possibly do something more in there, I don’t know. It does need to be redone . . . badly.

The lack of anything on TV lately is getting to me and is not helped by the lack of anything to rent at the video store! Big Brother 9 starts soon and will probably take over my television viewing habits once again. I just hope there is a more entertaining crew this time, not filled with people I just loath.

I wish I had something more thrilling or exciting to blog about, but I don’t. Oh for those who missed the New Years Eve cam craziness, this Friday as well as next Thursday might be a bit insane