(Bold) Storyline

I love soap operas.

I've never hid this fact. I watch All My Children with my boss, Bold and the Beautiful when I get home from work and As the World Turns on weekends. In high school I used to watch General Hospital (before it became a terrible, terrible show about the mob,) One Life to Live (when it was a beautiful show about race, class and gender struggles, which THANKFULLY it is getting back to) and Days of Our Lives (with my Nana - and for mindless entertainment.)

There are two reasons that today's episode of B&B prompted me to create an entry about my soap addiction. 1) The casting directors deserve credit for casting Jacqueline MacInnes Wood as Taylor (Hunter Tylo) and Ridge's (Ronn Moss) daughter Steffy

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Though you can't totally tell from this picture, this girl is a dead ringer for what I think Hunter Tylo might have looked like as a teenager. From word one I TOTALLY buy her as Steffy Forrester. She's even got similiar vocal inflection as Tylo. It even makes me forget that Steffy and Phoebe are supposed to be identical twins. It's the soap universe...they'll either re-write history or they won't even mention it - doesnt matter - I'm excited to have Jacqueline around all summer.

2) Heather Tom shouldn't have to wait until next Summer to get her Emmy. This whole Storm-kills-himself-so-Katie-can-live-on-with-his-heart storyline felt painfully contrived and forced when it was initially happening. Storm's weird little decent into attempted murderer, stalker and eventual gun toting crazy was laughable to me and his weak attempt at redemption by actually killing himself in order to save his sister was not the direction I would have taken this plot, but shit if it hasn't provided Heather Tom with simply some of the best acted scenes I have ever seen on a soap. She is absolutely flawless.

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Observational Tennis

So the French Open is coming to a close and if you remember I selected Dinara Safina, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic as my final four ladies and after today's quarterfinal round of competition I am batting 1000! Good for me! I still think the all serbian half of the draw is the toughest - both Jankovic and Ivanovic routed their opponents up until this point. I'm still backing Ivanovic but I expect Thursdays semifinal to be some killer tennis.

On the men's side I predicted Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and David Ferrer. I called 3 out of 4. Ferrer fell this morning to France's Gael Monfils. I'm still backing Nadal here - I expect his match against Djokovic on Thursday to be amazing (sucks that I'll have to miss it...why arent the semis being televised on ESPN or ESPN2? WTF...the tennis network...do YOU know anyone with the tennis network?)

(Wii) can finally celebrate!

So now that I've finally spread the word to most people with ears, it's safe to blog about my. new. job!!!

I'll be starting June 16th at Press Here Publicity (www.pressherepublicity.com.) The agency is a top-of-the-heap indie music PR firm - just check out some of the bands on the roster, I mean, Arctic Monkeys, Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley, Raconteurs, She & Him, Black Kids, Bloc Party, Interpol, Peter, Bjorn & John, Mos Def...it's like the bands on my iPod got together and formed one super collective and asked me to represent them!

Now obviously I won't be meeting Jenny Lewis my first day on the job or working the new She & Him record right out the gate - but jeez...what more could an aspiring super-publicist ask for. I am primed to learn so much and work so hard...and it's the kind of work I really thrive off of. I keep thinking the annoying ring my cell phone/alarm clock emits at 8:30 every morning has got to be about 10 minutes away from ruining my best dream ever.

I finally got a hold of my Mom today and told her the good news. She must have heard the ear-to-ear smile on my face when I left her the message because she said she figured it was either that I'd gotten a new job OR that I'd found a Nintendo Wii. LOL. Friends, I'm sure you're aware with my 11 month odyssey to find that damn machine and in a wild twist of fate, that journey is finally ending too. Madre happened to luck out and snag me a Wii up in Gloucester last week and, while she was waiting for the perfect moment to surprise me with it (and BOY would it have surprised me to find it at my doorstep one day) this is really the perfect time - my birthday is June 28th and I feel like i'm starting a new chapter of my life, it's really exciting.

Now I just have to find a way to get it from Gloucester to Jersey!

this is about to be me:

Today's Track - Wednesday, June 4

Scotland Yard Gospel Choir - I Never Thought I Could Feel This Way For a Boy

Scotland Yard Gospel Choir first caught my ear this past winter when their song "Aspidistra" found it's way onto my bi-weekly mix CDs. I think I first found them on My Old Kentucky Blog or WOXY or one of the blogs out there that invite up and coming acts into the studio for a live session. Crazy name aside, this band is easy to remember.

SYGC (because the full name is just too long to keep typing) are a chamber pop-meets-folk band with an uncountable number of musicians that contribue their uniqueness to the overall sound. They churn out little pop gems that set stuck in my head anytime they cue up on my iPod. But they aren't from the British Isle (they're from Chicago,) they have nothing to do with law enforcement (in fact they used to buy drugs as explained in "Aspidistra,") and they sound less like a choir and more like a southern hoe-dwon, jam band.

Lead singer and songwriter Elia Einhorn crafts brilliantly inciteful and entertaining songs about drug rendevous and sexual identity and I suspect he has a whole lot more where those came from. These guys are DEFINITELY a band to watch out for.

if you are SYGC (whoa!) or their people and you want the track taken down, just let me know and I’ll be happy to oblige.

Today's Track - Tuesday, June 3

Jennifer Hudson - Spotlight

click here to be taken to the song

Jennifer Hudson rocks my world. I can't wait to hearing her debut album this fall, so when I found out she was about to put out her first single I got really amped. "Spotlight" is a mid-tempo, R&B track that finds J-Hud lamenting about being stuck in a relationship with a man that wants to keep her all to himself. The lyrics are nothing special, but it is pretty catchy just the same. The background "hoo-hoo's" remind me of early, stripped down Whitney Houston. Hudson does a perfectly good job of getting across the emotion of the song, but I really wish she had sung it with a little more attitude. She should really be givin' it to this man, telling him why she can't stand to be under his thumb - but instead she's just sort of complaining about it and letting it go...

I get trying to distance herself from the Effie White persona from Dreamgirls, and that if she came across too diva on this track she'd risk drawing comparisons, but frankly, the comparisons are going to come - and if her people wanted to avoid 'em, they should have released an uptempo summer jam as the first single and bypassed the whole angry lover route all together.

Even without the passion I expect from Hudson, "Spotlight" is still a favorite track of mine right now because I simply love listening to her sing. Can't wait to see what else her new album has in store on September 30th.

if you are Jennifer Hudson (whoa!) or her people and you want the track taken down, just let me know and I’ll be happy to oblige.

No one asked Top Ten (books)

Picked up my copy of the new James Bond novel Devil May Care on Wednesday and as I bury myself in it's pages I started ranking my favorite original Bond novels:

The book covers below are from Penguin UK's line of forthcoming reissues of the Ian Fleming hardcover novels:

10. The Spy Who Loved Me

9. Thunderball

8. Live and Let Die

7. Diamonds Are Forever

6. Goldfinger

5. Moonraker

4. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

3. Casino Royale

2. You Only Live Twice

1. From Russia With Love

LOST (my patience)

I'm starting to really worry about LOST.

LOST is one of my favorite TV shows, but after tonight's season finale (and last new episode of 2008!) I'm starting to get annoyed. The questions raised to questions answered ratio is plummeting and with 38 episodes shouldn't we, the loyal fans, be getting SOME answers?

OK, so we know the circumstances around the Oceanic 6's homecoming, but we still don't know why the O6 feel it necessary to lie to the world population other than "to keep those we left behind safe." WHAT? The ones left behind are hidden away on an island that can be moved at will. No one knows where there people are in the first place.

OK, so we know why Ben appeared in a Tunisian desert in a parka, with a wounded arm, expelling frosty breath...and we know when he moved the island, he also moved forward in time because when he arrives in Tunisia he sees Sayid on the TV...why does this revelation leave me feeling so meh?

and OK, we know (ish) how Jin died. Although, does anyone really think Jin is dead? Don't you think we can't really be denied another emotional reunion like we got tonight between Desmond and Penny. But we don't know why Michael saw Christian Shephard right before the explosion - but I do assume it has something to do with why Claire saw him shortly after her house was bombed by the mercenaries.

and GREAT, we know Locke is in the coffin, and that apparently he inherited Ben's penchant for aliases...so now we get to mull all summer and fall about how Locke died and how, in some freaky Weekend at Bernie's way, the O6 is going to return him to the island.

I was really hoping my theory about the coffin being filled with a total stranger would prove true when we found out about Jeremy Bentham. My thought was that either Bentham would turn out to be a conspiracy crazed loon bent on proving that the O6 were lying about their story to the press or that Bentham would turn out to be a character with a tie to someone on Flight 815 that never quite believed all but 8 members of the flight died on impact and was determined to prove their loved one was still out there somewhere.

My theory held that it might have been Mike Walton, Ana Lucia's ex-partner, in that coffin. Big Mike was clearly in love with Ana (as evidenced in the season 4 premiere when he was interrogating Hurley.) After that creepy interrogation Mike would be convinced that there was more to Hurley's story and started digging. When he got close to the truth, Ben would dispatch Sayid to kill Mike. No one but Jack would want to go to the funeral because to Kate, Sun, Hurley and Sayid he was nothing but a thorn in their side. Jack would go, because he was hoping Mike would discover what they did, discover all about the island, and be the key to going "baaaack." But alas, I'm just spinning my wheels.

And so now the countdown is on to the series finale. Let's just hope season 5 sheds more light on answering all the dangling questions before my patience wears thin.

Here's a swank recap of all the season 4 flash-forwards in chronological order: