National Memory Screening Day

November 13, 1007 is National Memory Screening Day. My step-grandmother has Alzheimer's so she's recently had to be put into a full-time home for Alzheimer patients. The whole ordeal has caused a lot of problems for my aunt and my mother. (Mostly because my grandfather and his wife live in California while we all live in Pennsylvania.) That is why it is very important to get your memory tested. You can find a screening site in your area for you and your loved ones. It can be difficult to recognize the beginning signs of dementia and Alzheimer's. A good idea would be to read the Alzheimer's Foundation of America website for tips on the signs of the disease as well as tips on how to age well.

While it is important to find a cure for Alzheimer's, it is even more important to find proper care for those that suffer from the disease. Often times, patients require around-the-clock supervision so they don't wander away or injure themselves. Making a donation to the Alzheimer's Foundation of America is a good start to making sure that caregivers can give their patients the attention they need. It must be scary to not remember who you are or where you are. Let's all work together to take care of those that need our help.

NaBloPoMo For Me?

I'm sure a lot of you have heard of NaNoWriMo or the National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November. Since November tends to be a really busy month for me, I'm not able to even come close to accomplishing the task. However, I have come upon something that I can do in November. NaBloPoMo is the National Blog Posting Month. The goal is to write at least one blog post per month for November. Including Saturdays and Sundays. So I have taken the challenge. I hope that I can do this. One post per day isn't so bad, right?

Chuck

For some reason, I just can't get myself into an actual television watching schedule. Instead, I've been watching shows online. Luckily, Chuck is one of the shows that NBC streams on their website. Let's get the general synopsis out of the way: Chuck is a computer geek who works in the Nerd Herd at Buy Mart. (Yes, this is a parody of Best Buy and their Geek Squad. The Nerd Herd even has a company car that looks quite similar to the Geek Squad's cars.) One day Chuck get an email from an old college "friend," Bryce. Bryce, who was responsible for getting Chuck kicked out of college, is a CIA agent and the email contained a database of top secret government information. All of the government's secrets have now been downloaded into Chuck's brain. It is up to CIA agent Sarah Walker and NSA agent John Casey to protect Chuck (or at least his brain) while stopping the bad guys that roll through town.

When I saw the first commercials for the show, I knew it could go either way. It could be awesomely amazing or absolutely terrible. Now that I have sat through three episodes of the series, I am classifying it as "awesomely amazing." The show doesn't take itself too seriously, which is usually the downfall of spy series. Chuck spends his time trying to work his way up the management ladder at Buy Mart while being bounced back and forth between Sarah, who took an undercover job in the weiner hut across the street from Buy Mart, and Casey, who took an undercover job IN the Buy Mart. Poor Chuck doesn't know if he can really trust either of them yet he has to trust both of them to protect him.

I still have quite a few episodes to work through in order to catch up to the latest episode. I really hope that the writers are able to keep the humor in the show and don't turn this into some melodramatic spy series.

Music review: Barenaked Ladies - Shoe Box

Artist: Barenaked Ladies Members: Steven Page (vocals), Ed Robertson (guitar), Tyler Stewart (drums), Jim Creegan (bass) Album: Born on a Pirate Ship Release date: 3/19/96 Video link: on YouTube

Lyrics: A key in the door, a step on the floor A note on the table, and a meal in the micro Note says "I'm in bed, please make sure that you're fed if you're taking a shower, you can borrow my bathrobe When I'm asleep I dream you move in next week" I crumple the note and save it to put inside

Chorus:

My shoe box Shoe box of lies Shoe box Shoe box of lies

it's under my bed, it's never been read it's in with my school stuff and my mom never cleans there From my first little fib, when I still wore a bib To my latest attempt at pretending I'm someone Who's not seventeen, doesn't know what you mean When talk turns to single malts, or stilton, or

Chorus

Did somebody tell you This is how it's supposed to be? Or did you just find it And you don't want any more from me?

Chorus

Was it something I said, or was it something you read That's making me think that I should never have come here I can offer you lies, I can tell you good-bye. I can tell you I'm sorry, But I can't tell you the truth, dear And what if I could -- would it do any good? You'll still never get to see the contents of

Chorus

You're so nineteen-ninety And it's nineteen-ninety-four Leave this world behind me 'Cause you don't want me anymore. About the song: Shoe Box was a track on the first soundtrack for the tv series Friends. As such, it was added to BoaPS at the last minute. It's a rather cute song about the secrets and lies we all have.

Born on a Pirate Ship is an interesting album in the BNL library. When it was recorded, the band only had four members. Andy Creegan, who played a variety of instruments, left the band before the album was recorded. His replacement, Kevin Hearn, was invited to join them on the album's tour. This also makes the music video for Shoe Box a little weird. While Kevin isn't on the actual recording of the song, he is in the video for it.

America's Most Smartest Model - Episode 4

This was our first episode without Mandy Lynn. Her amazing stupidity has been replaced by the cattiness that is typical of models. Andre seems to have toned himself down this week so overall, this episode wasn't nearly as entertaining as the previous ones. Bill Nye the Science Guy made a guest appearance for the intelligence part of the competition. The models divided up into pairs to make presentations on sciency things. American!Rachel is pretty much the idiot of the bunch now but she doesn't say nearly as many funny things as Mandy Lynn did. The science presentations were a big bust overall.

For the model part, the pairs had to give a pasty white geek a fake tan then take a picture with him/her. This is really where the cattiness came up. VJ was accused of trying to sabotage Jesse by being the focus of the picture. At the judging, Andre stood up for Jesse, which is completely out of character for Andre!

As expected, Jesse got the boot this week. Mary Alice has been harping on him being a fatty since the beginning of the show so it really was just a matter of time for him. I feel bad for him because he's smarter than some of the girls that are still on the show. If Mary Alice was going to harp on his weight the whole time, then he shouldn't have been on the show in the first place. It's physically impossible to "lose 5 pounds" overnight without some sort of surgery or pills.

I was very bored by this episode. I really hope that it gets good again.

Jdorama review: Meitantei Conan: Kudo Shinichi he no Chosenjo

Title: Meitantei Conan: Kudo Shinichi he no Chosenjo Also known as: Detective Conan: Kudo Shinichi's Written Challenge Broadcast date: 10/2/06 Genre: Detective Drama Cast: Oguri Shun, Kurokawa Tomoka, Jinnai Takanori, Iwasa Mayuko Plot: Kudo Shinichi is a famous high school detective. Just before his class trip, he receives a challenge letter. A kidnapper will abduct one of his classmates unless Shinichi can stop him! What is good: The mysteries are actually pretty difficult. What is bad: Unless you are a Detective Conan fan, this will probably be rather boring for you. Overall rating: C+ Overall: I usually get a lot of enjoyment out of detective series. As long as the detectives aren't completely moronic and the cases aren't extremely easy, I'll be there every step of the way. However, I found this 10th anniversary of the Detective Conan series completely boring. The actors were good depictions of their anime counterparts. Even though I never watched the anime past a couple of episodes, I could easily identify each character. There was just nothing there to give it that extra 'oomph.' Shinichi seemed to be walking through the mysteries despite the fact that he was having trouble solving them. It would have been nice if there was a little more personality for each of the characters. Especially since, in the overall timeline, this special takes place before the anime series actually starts. There is another special coming out next year. Hopefully the characters will be a little more three-dimensional.

Christmas Lights

Even though Halloween isn't until next week, a lot of stores have already put up their Christmas decorations. I guess we should start thinking about how we're going to decorate our house this year. I think we got some LED Christmas lights last year but I'm not really sure. Generally, I leave that stuff up to my husband because he always wants the coolest stuff we can find. I know that LED lights use less electricity, which is always a good thing. And I seem to recall that they don't get at hot as regular bulbs do. I guess I should check the basement to see what is down there. Though I hate putting up lights and taking them down, they do make the house look pretty.

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Game review: Chocolatier

I played Chocolatier awhile ago and thought it was just OK. So I decided to give it another try. Maybe it's because I knew how the controls worked this time around but I enjoyed it a lot more. The basic gist of the game is that a large chocolate-making family has hit some hard times. They need you to help rebuild their chocolate empire. You travel around the world in search of their lost recipes while keeping track of your factories and their inventory. In your travels, you will come across people that will place special orders for candies. For the most part, these people will pay top dollar for your wares.

In some ways, the game gets very difficult. Every time you have to make a new type of chocolate, there is a mini-game for that factory. If you wish to make that type of chocolate in multiple factories, you'll need to replay that mini-game each time. While the recipe will transfer to all of your factories, how to actually make them will not. That part is a little tedious. Especially when you are trying to teach your factories how to make the new recipes as well.

Overall, the game was pretty fun. It takes awhile to get used to what you are supposed to do and I still have problems remembering what port sells which ingredients. I think that chocolate lovers might get a kick out of this but I don't think it's anything that people will be able to play for really long periods of time.

Things will get better

I know I'm been lacking in the posting department this week. I managed to catch a cold earlier this week and it is just now starting to go away. Since I've been sick, I haven't been doing a whole lot worth discussing. I've been putting off watching the final episode of HanaKimi. I'll be sure to watch it soon so the review can go up next week. There will probably be a few more music posts in the next couple of days. And I will probably have some sort of an announcement coming up soonish. Until then, please bear with me and my stuffy nose. I will resume posting as soon as I can breathe properly.