I Have Conquered Oatmeal

In an effort to be healthier and hopefully shed a few pounds, I've sworn off refined sugar and enriched flour including foods containing those ingredients. Infusing the right amount of sweetness and flavor for my taste into a bowl of oatmeal has been a particular trial for me. 

My perfect bowl of oats used to be topped with brown sugar, a dollop of butter, a good squeeze of maple syrup and a dash of vanilla. I don't even want to know the number of calories or grams of sugar I desecrated my healthy, plain oatmeal with then. And since giving up all the good stuff I have tried all kinds of combinations and experiments with my oatmeal to no avail... until now... 

This morning I tried a couple of scoops of powdered sugar free vanilla pudding in my oats. It made all the difference! I added some cut up strawberries and viola! Strawberries 'n' Cream Oatmeal! I am so excited about this it's ridiculous, but I just had to share this amazing breakthrough! The countless new possibilities are all running through my head right now and I can hardly wait to try them! Woohoo!!! Yay for oatmeal!

Redraw The Line Between Hollywood And Washington DC

I'm just so troubled over something. Normally, I don't think I would give it so much of my energy and almost non-existent time, but I think it's eating at me so much because the source of this annoyance is from an actor I have absolutely loved... and I mean LURRRRRRRVED! for 20+ years of my 35 years of life! I thought anything this guy touched (or even his lovely wife and kids touched) turned to gold on screen. I had even further respect for him as his personality off screen seemed to ooze greatness and well roundedness. One of the rare examples in Hollywood that it is possible to be "in the biz" but not "of the biz." 

All of that respect (20 years plus!) I held suddenly got gut punched, square in the center when my hero, of sorts, Tom Hanks said this: 

“The truth is this takes place in Utah, the truth is these people are some bizarre offshoot of the Mormon Church, and the truth is a lot of Mormons gave a lot of money to the church to make Prop-8 happen,” he told Tarts. “There are a lot of people who feel that is un-American, and I am one of them. I do not like to see any discrimination codified on any piece of paper, any of the 50 states in America, but here's what happens now. A little bit of light can be shed, and people can see who's responsible, and that can motivate the next go around of our self correcting Constitution, and hopefully we can move forward instead of backwards. So let's have faith in not only the American, but Californian, constitutional process.”

uhhhh... EXCUSE ME??? ... WHAT THE JUNK???!!! Thanks for that proverbial punch in the stomach, Tom! Oh and by the way... the truth is... you have NO idea what the TRUTH is!!! 

Tom Hanks is an executive producer of the HBO series "Big Love" which is good soap opera drama if that's what you're into, but FARRRRRRRR from accurate portrayal of any of those offshoots from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, of which polygamy practicing groups are in NO WAY WHATSOEVER tied to. Nor do the members of these groups or compounds just mingle among mainstream society in Utah any more than they do in Arizona, Colorado, or Texas. So, in short, Tom... first and foremost, I think you have a pretty tainted or maybe even twisted view of the truth about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

For the next part of the punch in the stomach, I'd like to clear up that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints did not give money to the church "to make Prop 8 happen" members gave a lot of money to the cause itself. Just like other churches such as the Catholic, Baptist, African American denominations, etc. etc. etc. did. (I find it so interesting how the mormons are singled out in this whole Prop 8 issue... how many churches were involved? with how many dollars raised aside from what LDS members raised? ... look into it.) So, as for the "people can see who's responsible," you might want to go fact check that one, too, Tommy boy. 

And for me, no curse word can sting worse than the slur "un-American." GAH!!! What is more American than exercising the right to vote? Why is it "un-American" for anyone to believe differently than another fellow American? 

Ahhh... Tom, Tom, Tom... *shakes head* I'm so disappointed. I adored you from the beginning. From the cross dressing comedy Bosom Buddies, to your guest star appearance on Family Ties as the alcoholic uncle, to The Man With One Red Shoe, Money Pit, That Thing You Do, Philadelphia  and on and on and on, I loved them all. And then you go and spout mindless political blame-throwing statements like that. UGHHH!!! 

I don't care what political ideals you subscribe to, if you're an entertainer your job is to entertain. If you're gonna publicly run your mouth and politically finger point, you run the risk of alienating those who otherwise would continue to enthusiastically praise your talent. The line between Hollywood and Washington DC is far too blurred in my opinion. And the guys on the Hollywood side are ruining all the fun and enjoyment of going to a movie, watching a good TV show or even watching an awards ceremony, which are common forms of escape from all the exhausting political back and forth bantering. 

Man, what a bummer... Tom Hanks was really cool. *sigh* 

Fun With Hate Mail - Part Deux

Once again I fall victim to blame for events which I had no prior knowledge of. Apparently, members of my website have been committing the unforgivable sin of "cheating" on an online poll! *gasp* - say it isn't so! - but, in defense of this concerned email writer, this is an online poll of the utmost importance! This isn't just ANY poll! This is a poll by hellomagazine.com asking, "who is the Most Attractive Man?" (can you feel the urgency now??? ... or at least my sarcasm?)

Below is the email I received from a concerned online voter... whose choice of hottest male celeb is obviously losing.

*names have been changed to protect the stupid

xxxxxx to admin
show details 11:39 AM (10 hours ago)

I would like to say that it seems a bit pathetic that your members
feel they need to insult another human being in order to appreciate
Rob Pattinson.

But...beyond the insulting, nasty comments I've been seeing... it
would probably help your cause in this magazine poll if your members
didn't PUBLICLY discuss your methods of cheating the "one vote per 10
minutes" rule.

Hello Magazine will be checking the votes, and probably the IP behind
those votes, before they publish the final results. Isn't it best to
play fair, than to cheat and feel like you're winning, only to have
tens of thousands of your votes removed because of cheating?

Those of us on the other side of the battle have simply been using
timers to make sure we know when our ten minutes is up. No cheating,
and we encourage all our fellow fans not to cheat. For us, we already
know who's the best, and we already know that attractiveness goes
beyond mere shallow appearance. We'd rather lose honorably, than win
by cheating. Now, if both sides were like that, it would be a much
less nasty competition.

Just thought I'd let you know the reputation your members are giving
your forum, and it's not pretty.

In response to this, I ask - is life so bad that losing an online poll about who's the hottest has you that stirred up? Personally, I'm not even a fan of the Rpattz! My website has plenty of other members who feel the same way too! 

For anyone to think that this is about such a noble and worthy cause as finding out truly, who is the most attractive male, female, or whatever is terribly naive. Likewise, for anyone to think that there is going to be a team of highly trained professional judges to be sure that this vote count was completely and totally accurate by cross referencing tens of thousands of IP addresses from the frantic teen-to-middle aged female online voters and questioning every cyber hanging chad, is absolutely... absolutely....... oh... I can't even come up with a word for it... I've already used "naive," and "stupid" is just condescending. (Fill in the blank with something combining those two words and there you have it!)

Let me educate you... When you go to this website to vote, you may notice something other than the actual poll off to the side, top and/or bottom of the page... those are called "ads." Websites make money from these "ads."You may notice that lots of times the "ads" change each time you click and the page loads again. Each click by each visitor makes the website money thus, lots of visitors means lots of clicks which means... money.  But, how does a website go about getting lots of visitors to their website? Once the visitors are there, how does the website get the visitors to click lots and lots of times? Hmmmm... I think a poll involving highly popular celebrities will do just the trick! After all, we females are fiercely loyal to our favorite attractive celebrities... even to the point of wanting them to, say... win a fun yet ultimately meaningless online poll. So, we vote and vote and vote! And how do we vote? We click! And what does each click mean for the website? That's right - $!  

And so, in summation, I'd just like to say - Chill out... it's a gimmick! - a stupid online poll about who's hotter!... all's fair... And can you really account for each of the individual voters on your "side of the battle... using timers???"... yeesh! come on!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to vote for Orlando Bloom...