Reviews and More

Last night’s episode of How I Met Your Mother was called “Lucky Penny” and I thought it was pretty enjoyable overall. Let’s take a look what happened to Ted, Barney, Lily, Marshall, and Robin during the show.

We open with a scene of Ted and Robin running through the airport trying to catch their flight to Chicago. They don’t make it, so then older Ted (the Bob Saget voice over) takes us back a little bit before the airport scene to explain why Ted and Robin were late in the first place. It turns out that Ted was in court being sentenced for jumping a subway turnstile. As Ted and Robin sit there waiting to see if they can get on the plane after all, they start going back even further to determine the real cause of their tardiness.

Was it Barney’s fault? After all, Ted was going to pick up Barney when he had to jump the turnstile in the first place. Was it Marshall’s fault? If Marshall hadn’t broke his toe, he would have been able to run in the NYC marathon and Barney never would have been on that subway. Was it Robin’s fault? If she hadn’t walked in on Marshall in the bathroom, he wouldn’t have been startled and broken his toe. Was it Lily’s fault? If she hadn’t made Robin camp out in front of a bridal store all night, Robin wouldn’t have been at Ted’s apartment to startle Marshall.

The show keeps going back like that until we see that it was all Ted’s fault to begin with since the chain of events started when he picked up a lucky 1939 penny on the subway.

As I said, I thought this was an enjoyable episode. There were definitely some funny moments along the way, including Marshall rubbing Vaseline on himself, Robin suggesting that she and Lily sing along to the car alarm, and Barney’s legs suddenly giving out on the subway. “Lucky Penny” was a solid episode, and I’m looking forward to another good one next week!

I just wanted to make a quick post here about how my diet is going. One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to lose 10 pounds by the end of 2007. Well, I got off to a pretty slow start, but I’m happy to report that things have really turned around in the last two weeks. A combination of calorie counting and just 20 minutes of exercise per day has helped me lose three pounds already! I can hardly believe it, but the scale doesn’t lie! At this rate, I’m sure I’ll be able to hit my weight loss goal a lot sooner than expected. Then the trick will be to keep the pounds off.

I’ve lived in big cities or suburbs all my life, but now that my son is getting older, I often think that it would be nice to live in a small, quiet community. While I was surfing the net earlier today, I came across some information about Ellijay, GA that sounds pretty neat.

Ellijay is located in a very scenic area in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s got that small town feel, but is still just 70 minutes away from Atlanta, so it wouldn’t take much to get back to a big city if necessary. I also took a look at some Ellijay real estate listings and was pretty impressed with both the properties I saw and with the prices attached.

I’m not sure if my husband would be in favor of such a move (he loves the city), but I can still dream!

The second part of Monday’s back-to-back episodes of 24 takes place between 2:00PM - 3:00PM. Here’s what happened in episode 6×09, which I felt was more of a transitional hour than anything else.

• Jack comes back to CTU after failing to find Fayed. It’s the first time he’s been in the old building since he was imprisoned in China, and there are a couple of good moments as he takes it all in again. I also liked the way the writers handled the first face-to-face meeting between Jack and Chloe. I’m glad it was nice without being sugary.
• Bill tells Jack that he watched the video tape of when Jack was interrogating Graem. There were irregularities, and Bill is sure that IA will want to investigate. Bill doesn’t want that kind of investigation to get in the way of finding Fayed, so he tells Jack that he’ll rework the report before it gets sent on. But Jack won’t have any of that and prefers to face the consequences of what he did (he’s under the impression that he was responsible for Graem’s death).
• Morris comes back to CTU also and is understandably shaken up. He feels terrible about giving in to Fayed’s torture and now thinks any future deaths caused by the remaining suitcase nukes will be on his (Morris’s) hands. Chloe tries to knock some sense into Morris (literally), but he tells her to go away. Before the episode ends, however, he does the slow walk back to his computer, so we know he’s determined to go on.
• CTU figures out that Gredenko is the head of the terrorist operation, so they set their sights on him. Marilyn (Graem’s wife) says she vaguely remembers following Graem one night to a meeting with a house full of Russians. She tells Jack she can probably find the house again if they go driving in the area. She tells Josh to stay with Philip Bauer, and then leaves with Jack.
• In Washington, Tom Lennox and the Chad Lowe character continue to scheme about how to remove Wayne Palmer from office. Lowe asks for Palmer’s itinerary, and Tom agrees to give it to him very soon.
• Towards the end of the ep, Philip calls Marilyn on her cell and tells her not to let Jack know that she’s talking to him. Philip then orders Marilyn to take Jack to a different house and says that if she doesn’t comply, he’ll hurt Josh. Marilyn inexplicably follows along with this directive, and leads Jack and the rest of the CTU team into an ambush. Soon after the agents storm into the house, a bomb goes off. Jack manages to escape just in time, but the other agents aren’t so lucky.

  Meanwhile, Marilyn and Milo get chased by a couple of goons and just barely escape themselves. That’s how the episode ended, so we’ll have to wait until next week to assess all the damage.

My Reaction: As I said, this felt like more of a transitional episode. We’re shifting our attention from Fayed to Gredenko and we’re seeing Philip Bauer emerge as a cold-blooded villain who wouldn’t hesitate to kill his own son or grandson in order to get what he wants.

Overall, I wasn’t too impressed by these episodes. I guess I’ve been saying that a lot this season, but honestly, 24 has felt off in some way. Or maybe this type of show has simply worn out its welcome and lost all shock value thereby making every single twist and turn feel boring. Either way, I hope things turn around soon. I hate having to give my favorite TV show lukewarm reviews!

I had lunch with a friend today and we decided to indulge in a couple of special Valentine’s Day drinks that the restaurant was offering. I can’t remember the name of the drink (it was Raspberry something), but it was delicious! I remember the server saying that it contained Chambord, vodka, and even some chocolate sauce. It was definitely one of the best drinks I’ve ever had!

After I came home, I was inspired to look for even more pink drink recipes in honor of the holiday. I figured that since my husband and I are staying in tonight, we might as well have a little party and enjoy ourselves. Anyway, I was went to the X-Rated Fusion Liqueur site and found tons of relevant recipes there. The X Rita sounds awesome, as does the X on the Peach. I can’t wait to pick up a bottle of X-Rated so we can try these out!

This post brought to you on behalf of Daucourt Martin Imports.

On Monday viewers were treated to back-to-back Jack: two episodes of 24 for the price of one! I’m watching/recapping separately so that I don’t get the events of the episodes mixed up. Here’s my recap for episode 6×08, 1:00PM - 2:00PM.

We finally got to see more of Action Jack this week. First, he tried to tail McCarthy, the unnamed blonde assistant, and Morris in a helicopter, but McCarthy was able to hide under an overpass, so Jack lost sight of the car. Then McCarthy and Co. escape in a different car, and all Jack can do is have the helicopter drop him off, jump in a car with other CTU field agents, and head “south.”

Meanwhile, McCarthy talks to Fayed and gets the location where Morris will be exchanged for $7 million dollars. It’s an apartment building not too far away. Unfortunately for McCarthy, he never makes it there because the blonde assistant shoots him and unceremoniously dumps his body in the street. She wants to make a play for the $7 million on her own, but little does she know what she’s about to get into!

When the blonde and Morris arrive at Fayed’s place, Fayed tries to get Morris to start working on the trigger device immediately. Morris holds out, so Fayed tells his goons to rough Morris up a bit. Later, when Morris still refuses to cooperate, Fayed takes an electric drill and proceeds to DRILL A HOLE in Morris’s shoulder blade!!! Then he shoots the blonde, who was getting antsy about her money. Finally, Morris decides to work on the device.

Meanwhile, CTU has managed to find the apartment location. Jack is on the way, and orders his team to set up one of their infamous “perimeters” around the building. Do you want to take a guess as to whether or not Fayed will be able to slip through said perimeter? Uh huh.

They set off the fire alarm to try to get everyone out of the building, but Fayed doesn’t bite. Jack is still able to locate the specific apartment, but by the time the CTU agents go storming in, Fayed is long gone. Oh, and he left behind an armed nuclear bomb. Sweet.

So Jack has to disarm the bomb with Chloe’s help. Of course they get it done in under three minutes, with the proverbial “Nothing’s happening!” moment after Jack pushes the wrong switch. Sorry, but that wasn’t tense at all. We know there’s no way in hell Jack would die this early in a season!

Also: in Washington, Tom Lennox decides to resign since the President won’t push Tom’s national security plan through. But the Chad Lowe character (still don’t know his name) gets on the phone with a mysterious outsider who tells him that they need Tom to be in place. So Chad goes back and hints to Tom that the President could be removed quickly, thus opening the door for the Veep to ascend to power. At first, Tom is horrified at what Chad is suggesting, but after he hears that the President is dealing with Asad, he comes to agree with Chad.

My Reaction: Another “meh” episode, as far as I’m concerned. I think viewers are supposed to find the Washington scenes intriguing, but I practically fall asleep whenever they come on. Palmer, Lennox, and Chad Lowe aren’t nearly as interesting as Pres. Logan, Martha, Mike, and Aaron Pierce were last year. Am I the only one who’s bored to tears by that stuff??

I’m thankful that we had some more action scenes in this ep, but am getting a bit tired of the way criminals can always slip through the CTU perimeter. The problem with the writers using the same formula year after year is that everything becomes so predictable. As SOON as Jack said “perimeter” I knew Fayed would escape. Yawn.

Ok, I’m off to watch the next ep. Hope it’s better!

Today is February 14th, which might just mean it’s Valentine’s Day to you. But to sports fans, it also happens to mark the day that this year’s much anticipated Swimsuit Edition hits the newsstands. The 2007 cover girl is Beyonce, meaning that she joins the likes of Elle Macpherson, Kathy Ireland, and all the other beautiful women who have graced the cover of one of the world’s most famous magazine issues.

In addition to purchasing the magazine, fans of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition or models such as Marisa Miller, Heidi Klum, tennis superstar Maria Sharapova, Ana Beatriz Barros, Bar Refaeli (Leonardo DiCaprio’s ex-girlfriend), and many more can now download cell phone wallpapers from SI Mobile. The SI Mobile site features more than 50 gorgeous models and the wallpapers are available for all major cellular carriers. Each image, taken straight from from actual SI photo shoots, cost just $1.99, so you’ll be able to download all your favorites. Here’s a sample of what you’ll find on the SI Mobile site, so go check it out today!