Black Belt Living

BHo's Annual Oscar Fashion Review

Wow, it's been nearly a month since I've updated. I guess I've been spending a lot more time sweating than web surfing. That's a good thing.  I'll report on my progress in that department later in the week.  I also have an update and some pics to share from meeting Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, a week or so ago. 

But even though I've been letting so much slide by, I can't let the Oscars slide by without my two cents on the red carpet fashion, now could I?  No, no, absolutely not. It's a tradition, just like Elton John throwing a party, or Oprah binging on mac and cheese. 

I have to admit that I saw very few fashion disasters last night. There are usually a good handful of shock-value freaks out there, but not last night. In fact, I had a lot of trouble picking my favorites because there were so many. 

Let's go for my losers first (because they're always the most fun!).

Of course, it wouldn't be an Oscar show without the perennial fashion freak, Helena Bonham Carter. I know that she wants to be known for her acting and not her fashion, but her consistant over-the-top, cartoonish freak fashion ends up being exactly what overshadows her acting abilities.  So when she says it's all about the acting and not the fashion for her, I call bullshit! 

Missing this year was fellow fashion freak, Tilda Swinton. I was kind of disappointed, as she's always good for a laugh. Sharon Stone actually decided to dress appropriately this year, which I'm sure was a bummer for the straight men out there. 

Let's move on to Florence Welch. When she performed, her gown was gorgeous and really complemented her hair. This one? It looks like she and her stylist had to beat up Nellie Olson from Little House on the Prarie for the dress. Could that color be any more wretched?  Baby poop colored ruffles. No, I think not. 

How about Celine? I don't know why, but this just looks so 1970's Jane Fonda to me. Me no likey. She looks old to me here (but compared to her husband, she looks eternally young!).  I have to give the chick props, however, she had twins just five months ago. Who are we kidding. Any woman who willingly gives birth to twins in her late 40's deserves props (and a lot of Xanax or Grey Goose...wait, that's her husband). 

Anette Bening. I used to love her, but as she's gotten older she's got that "F-You, I married Warren Beatty and I don't give a crap anymore" look.  I admire that attitude to some degree, but at the Golden Globes she was a scary hot mess and last night was not much better. I swear I've seen this dress on clearance at JCPenney. 

Scarlett. If I had just split with Ryan Reynolds, I would probably crawl in bed and never get up for two months as well. The dress is okay (doesn't do that bangin' body much justice), but pick up a hair brush. I hope you picked up a toothbrush. 

And Giuliana. Girl, I think you're really great and the Chrisian Siriano dress is really cool, but you look horrid. I swear she is so skinny that she looks like she's got a terminal disease. Her shoulders/collar bones/arms look like she just flew in to LA from Starvation City.  She should ditch the Jersey Shore tan too.  GTL. 

Over on the opposite end of the starvation spectrum, Thanksgiving comes to mind...dressed and OVERSTUFFED. Pass the mac and cheese, if there is any left. Shannon said that her hair looked like an ungroomed standard poodle. 

Now for some highlights.  Like I said, I had a tough time choosing my faves becase there were so many. Let's start with my favorite of the night...Halle Berry. For years I've been saying that she is the most beautiful woman in the world, hands down, and she can look smashing in anything. She may have bad luck with men, but it's obvious that she's got it going on with her stylist. 

I really loved all the soft colors with sparkle last night.... How cute is Haylee Steinfeld? She's only 14. That dress is every girl's dream, isn't it? She was so poised and charming too. 

My other faves of the night.  Anne Hathaway had someting like 1000 gowns on last night and they were all fabulous. She's another one of those chicks that could make a Kroger bag look chic. Sandra Bullock's dress was gorgeous, but something about her bothered me last night. She looked old, or sad, or something. I know it's been a rough year for her. I wish her the best. Anyhow, here are some more of my favorites from last night, including Camilla Alves, Matthew McConnehey's girlfriend's dress. Bow chicka wow WOW! He's pretty good too. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I admit that I was underwhelmed by Nicole Kidman (who I always think is amazing), Amy Adams, and Natalie Portman. I really didn't like Gweneth Paltrow's dress at all, but it's probably because I really don't like her. She can choke on a celery stick for all I care. The guys all looked fantastic, with the exception of Christian Bale, who I think was getting ready to audition for a remake of Jeramiah Johnson, or the Abomadable Snowman. I was disappointed to not see Brangelina, George Clooney (but he's here instead!), Cameron Diaz, and Katy Perry.  

Who were your pics and pans?

The Most Wonderful Day of the Year

Yes, that's right. It's the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

I will admit that this year, I haven't been as excited to see the first day of school roll around, but it's still a good day. As a kid and all through college, I loved every single FDOS. Shannon this year, not so much and I really don't know why, as she LOVED everything about 7th grade. At least she told me that she loved 7th grade.

Anyhow, in honor of the FDOS, I am treating you to what I think is one of the best television commercials ever made. It blows my mind that so many parents have been offended by this. Some people really need to get a grip, or perhaps get some therapy.

Happy FDOS! It's the Most Wonderful Day of the Year!

Random Ridiculousness

I just read Andy's blog and she posted a bunch of random thoughts today. I've been about as unmotivated this week as you can get. But as usual, I do have some thoughts as well, so I'll just toss them out there and you can take them or leave them...as usual!

LeBron - you're a great player and you seem to be a decent guy. You're probably the best thing to ever happen to Cleveland. But I still don't care. The hype? Ridiculous. (I do like the Vogue cover, however, even if it was the lowest selling issue EVAH.) 

It's HOT. It's like blast furnace hot, like the depths of Hell hot, like Elin Woods angry with a nine iron in her hand hot. Ridiculous.

Bill Cosby was right. Children ~ especially teenagers ~ have brain damage.  Ridiculous.

Mike Modano as a Red Wing...now that's HOT in a good way. Mo was born and raised in South Detroit just like me baby. Home to the Motherland! Ridiculous great!

Closet Wars Continue.... as I try to get a handle on hidden clutter.  Ridiculous.

Booked another wedding today. That will be two in one month.  Ridiculous fun!

I get to be a hair model tomorrow. Free cut and color at my salon. Ridiculous awesome unless my stylist was serious about the nude photos with body paint.

Four Months. That's how long I have been without my grocery store. It reopens in three weeks and it can't some soon enough.  Ridiculous. And today the road that takes me to the back up grocery store that I hate is closed indefinitely. Double ridiculousness.

Kindle.  After six weeks I can report that it's true love, the real thing. I"ve read more books in six weeks than I usually read in a year. Right now I'm reading The Game by Ken Dryden, a must-read for all hockey lovers. Super interesting and beautifully written. Ridiculous good good good good. 

Big Brother. It's probably the most stupid, most ridiculous show on television and I love it. It starts tonight. Yeah!

That's it for now. I have to go get dinner in the oven. That's right, it's 97 degrees at 5pm and I'm firing up the oven. Now who is being ridiculous?

Who the Hell is Spencer Pratt and Why Would I Care?

You know it's summer when the really cheezy reality shows start popping up. Some are silly and give you a laugh, like Big Brother or Wipeout (which Shannon loves, it just looks painful to me!), and some are just ridiculous. Okay, they're all ridiculous, but some are just BAD.

I had ten minutes of misfortune the other day and tuned in to "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" to find this train wreck of a show full of "celebrities" that I really only hear about when they're suing Us Weekly, going in or out of rehab, or something (you know, making the gossip rags by creating gossip over making the gossip rags). Along with other ridiculous over-botoxed people like Janice Dickinson, there was this bizarre couple called Spencer and Heidi. 

Now I'm no fool, I read People Magazine when they put Hugh Jackman on the cover, if they're ripping up TomKat, or if I'm sitting in the dentist's office. But, who IS this Spencer Pratt dude? All of a sudden he's everywhere. I know that he stars on a show geared for people who fall into the demographic that I POTENTIALLY could have given birth to. I don't watch (I had enough Melrose Place back in my 20 somethings). And I know that he married his Barbie Doll girlfriend. I think he married her on the television show, but I'm not sure. I think he married her more than once in real life, because I occasionally stand in the grocery store line longer than I want to. And it's Thursday, so he's probably getting ready to marry her again. She probably has Day-of-the-Week wedding rings.

And now here he is popping up on Leno (oops! Not Leno anymore!) and Letterman and The View and Regis and Kelly and Larry King and ESPN and JIm Kramer's Real Money and Barney. And in looking for a picture of this dude, I accidently found out that he's getting his own advice column. Seriously? If he supposed to be the next Dr. Phil with hair? What's up with that? 

It seems like this dude is more overexposed than Britney Spears on a bender. And why? What's he done besides play a role in one television show and married his girlfriend ten trillion times (I only use trillion because it's a popular number to toss around these days)? As if that takes any talent. Can he act? Can he talk about anything but himself and his deja-vu bride?

This guy looks like a first class narcissist to me. Am I wrong or am I just old?  Because I don't get it. 

Snoozing.......

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz.........

Okay. This is how my evening went down last night. 

- at UC for our grad student's Capstone presentation
- home to watch hockey, which went into overtime (Wings win - yay!)
- caught the end of Dancing With the Stars Finale
- watched American Idol finale

I normally write my blog posts around 6am, but I'm sleeping in this morning (yeah, I'm writing this last night at about 11:15pm). You can understand, right?  Come next month, television and sports will be boring and I'll be writing here every day and (hopefully not) boring you to tears every day!

Did you watch American Idol last night? What about Dancing With the Stars? Are you happy that Shawn won? I am, she's a cutie and really stepped it up at the end when it counted.  And what about Idol? I love both guys, but I stick by my glam and glittery guyliner guy Adam to take it all.  What about you?

Will you hit the snooze bar for me?  Pretty Please?  

Oscar Time

I love the Academy Awards. Now I really couldn't care less about who wins and who doesn't, but I really love the fashion. In these days of DVR an the internet, there's really no good reason for me to stay up until midnight watching, but I always have and I always still do.

There were lots of beautiful gowns in white, silver, and champagne last night...pretty!

Anne Hathaway was my favorite.

Here are other light colored gowns that I loved:

 

 

I loved Sarah Jessica Parker's dress, but sometimes too much boob is just too much. I thought she could have used an inch or so more of coverage on the top, I swear Daniel Craig was just standing there waiting for those girls to bounce out on to the stage. 

Here are more gowns that I loved in different colors. I think Diane Lane is SO beautiful, and it doesn't matter what she'd wear.

   

 

There were plenty more that I loved, but couldn't find photos of, like Halle Berry, who always looks great.  Oh, I almost forgot...look at these two, aren't they cute? And Ginger, this one's for you...

   

Here are some on my thumbs down list.

Angie...the dress is okay, but you looked tired and dare I say it, a bit old. Too much motherhood on your face, perhaps? And what was with those silly looking emeralds? I know they weren't fake, but they sure looked like it.  You looked like Cruella deVille to me last night.

Queen...just because you're the Queen doesn't mean that you rule. You wore two shiny satin gowns last night and they were both equally bad. Haven't you been to enough weddings to see that big girls don't look good in shiny satin?

Normally I love these two, but I didn't get their gowns last night.  

  

Here are more that I didn't like.  I think Beyonce was getting dressed to go to a bullfight, Heidi was getting ready for Project Runway - Jetsons Edition, and Jessica Biel looked like she had my daughter's old blankie sewed on to the front. Me no likey.  

 

And finally, what can you say about Tilda. She just gets weirder every single year. You can achieve this level of bizarre without working hard at it. Can we say blood transfusion anyone?

Well there it is, my Oscar fashion review.  

Now I need to get moving, or at least try. I've been having spasms in my neck and it's really bad this morning, to the point where I'm screaming a bit when it tightens up on me. And to top it off, Shannon's got that whack virus that's going around.  Great. 

This week is starting off well.  

Worth Three Minutes of Your Time

I have zero time this morning, but I wanted to post anyways. 

But even if you're short on time like I am this morning, take the extra three minutes and watch this. It's really worth it. A friend sent it to me last week and it's really cute. I love spunky older people like this. 

Meet Gladys from Texas.....

Have a great day!

Survivor at it's Finest

It's no secret, I LOVE Survivor, and this season has to be one of the best ever, right up there with Colby, Rodger and Elizabeth hanging out in Season 2. 

 

Last night, viewers saw one of the greatest bamboozles ever in Survivor history, probably the best.  I'm not going to spoil it for you if you haven't seen it, but if you did, you know what I'm talking about. 

Jeff Probst wrote a great blog entry about last night's episode, and if you want to view a bunch of additional scenes that didn't make last night's show, click here:  Jeff's Blog - Episode 10

And if you're a real Survivor geek like me, check out THIS ARTICLE for some real behind-the-scenes look at what life is like for the cast and crew in Gabon, a true to life "Where the Wild Things Are" in West Central Africa.

Last night's episode rocked!

Extreme Makeover Blog Edition

So what do you think? I thought it was time for a big change, and time to lighten things up a bit around here, so I gave the old blog a new makeover yesterday. I hope you like it!

 

Can you believe it's October already?  Without a doubt, this is my favorite time of year. The weather is great ~ I especially love sweater weather and cool nights with the windows open. I love making soup and chili, so it's also getting to be that time of year again as well.

It's also football season, and unless you're a Cincinnati Bengals fan, that's a positive thing. I guess there's always college football, which I also love, but my beloved Michigan Wolverines are going to have a rough season as well this year.  Ah well, after growing up in the Detroit area and now living here, I'm used to my favorite teams losing....a LOT.

Then there's all of the new fall shows, and all my favorites are back....Survivor, The Amazing Race, and Dancing With the Stars.  I love it that Lacey Schwimmer is dancing as one of the pros this year, I loved her on So You Think You Can Dance. And I swear that Cloris Leachman died several years ago and that's a cardboard cutout trying to dance out there.  Get the hook, she needs to leave NOW.  It's one thing to not be able to dance, but her mouth makes her a total embarassment. Nobody wants to see an 82 year old woman shaking her boobs at the judges.  

I think my new favorite show is Dirty Sexy Money. I kind of got into it last year before the writer's strike and now I'm totally hooked! It's everything I like in a show...great cast, lots of eye candy, great clothes and sets, and over the top plot lines.  It's kind of like Survivor - New York City, only the tribe can shower before filming. I love it. My favorite character?  Jeremy. He's a mess. Okay, they are all a mess, but still....

Tonight there's another comedy/drama on television, the VP debates. Are you sick of politics yet? I know I sure am. I haven't decided if I'll watch or not...probably not. Survivor on DVR sounds a whole lot better to me. I with the election was today, let's just get it over and done with.

And finally, I'm still a bit annoyed that Kenley is still alive on Project Runway. The judges must really like her work to put up with her attitude. Suede should still be there.

 

And the Winner is David......

[CLICK]
Save or Delete?

That's what went down at my house last night when we finally got to the end of American Idol.  I should have been thinking ahead, I know the finale always runs over. But I forgot last night as I double checked the DVR and left for choir practice.  I got home around 9:30pm EDT and my friend Janet came over to watch with us.  I told Shannon that she had permission to stay up as long as she wanted to watch the end (I ended up having to wake her up, just to watch the DVR cut us all off!).

I'm telling you, the timing of the machine shut down couldn't have been more perfect.  There was that perfect pause by Ryan Seacrest saying David........then nothing.  Zilch.  Yes, there was screaming...we woke the dog.  What a let down!  I had to look up the winner on the internet.  Sigh.  Fortunately, I've already had a call from Janet this morning saying that HER son taped it for her and figured that it would run over, so I'll still get to see all the fun at the end. 

Technology ~ you gotta love it!  It did exactly what I told it to do....shut off at 9:59:59!  Next year I won't forget.

I am a huge American Idol fan.  I don't really know why, maybe it's because as a choir member, I know that even with lots of God given talent, it's not nearly as easy as it looks.  And the stage pressure, I can't even imagine that.  And I love Simon Cowell...LOVE him.  He always says what I'm thinking and he's got the cajones to say it in front of 100 million people every week.  I haven't talked much about Idol here this year, but I've loved this season.  Loved it.  And I think Mr. David Cook now has taken the top spot in my "favorite Idol ever" category, replacing greasy bad boy Constantine Maroulis from Season 4.  Love him or hate him, everybody had an opinion of Constantine.  But "C-Ya, Constantine", there's a new dude in town.





...last night show was GREAT!  America got it right this year for sure.  And props to the producers this year.  Normally I think the finale is a bit boring and bordering on cheezeball, but this year was absolutely great. 

• Loved the Davids playing with ZZ Top and One Republic. 
• Loved seeing Seal. 
• Loved that Jason Castro sang Halleleujah. 
• Loved Carrie Underwood and her funny song (which cracked me up). She's such a star now, and she's so smokin' hot, I could almost go gay.   Back in the Constantine season, I didn't get what Simon saw in her.  Well now I do.  Dayum!
• Loved that Brooke and Graham Nash sang "Teach Your Children" on  stage with guitars, just like Shannon and Andy did for the elementary school talent show this year (you can read about that HERE if you're interested).  Shannon got such a kick out of that. 
• Loved George Michael's new song.
• Loved Simon's apology
• Loved that Ryan didn't act like an ass, like he has for most of the season

But for me, the total highlight of the show wasn't the show at all, but the Guitar Hero commercial. So, once more for your viewing pleasure, I present to you one of my all time favorite movie scenes....a little Risky Business......

 
David Archeleta's version was cute, but not nearly as good (not even close!).  So for somebody who hasn't realy chatted about Idol for a while, I have gone on and on this morning!

In other news...Remember the Dr. Seuss, Glow-In-The-Dark cast?

It goes bye-bye today.  Stop by tomorrow to see the new version.....shorter and sassier, I'm sure!