To Whom It May Concern

Last night and this morning I had a couple of ideas that I want to share and pass on. I think they're good ideas and I think people should listen. So here goes:

To the producers of Dancing with the Stars - I've watched your show from the beginning . . . season one. The only episode I've ever missed was the one that aired the day my new dog (at the time - I've had him several years now) chewed through the cable line and I had no antenna. In my defense though, I DID watch it online the next day. I only say this to point out my dedication to the show over the years so that you know what I say is out of love and intended as constructive criticism.

That said, let me get to the point . . . stop wasting my time. I've long ago accepted that elimination night is roughly 20 minutes of commercials, 35 minutes of crap no one cares about and 5 minutes dedicated to announcing who is going home. I quit watching it live so that I can fast forward through all the useless stuff and get right to the point of Tuesday night's show.

I've also stopped watching competition night live. This season I started watching How I Met Your Mother first, then jumping over to DWTS so that I can fast forward through commercials and the timing works out such that we end at the same time. BUT, these last two weeks, when I've switched over to DWTS, competition night hadn't even started yet! The last two weeks the first thirty minutes or so were wasted on showing us useless stuff that had nothing to do with the competition. Don't get me wrong, I loved watching the Top Ten Favorites last night but that's usually useless stuff that's aired on elimination nights. What gives with that? If you don't have enough competition to fill the night, cut down how much time you allow for it. Give another show a shot at the wasted air time.

But I said I wanted to offer some constructive criticism, and I do. So here it is, let's cut out elimination night. I know that sounds like I'm eliminating something kind of vital to the competition but hear me out. In season one you only aired one night a week. Go back to that but put a spin on it. Here's what I propose . . .

On week one, everyone dances for judges scores and viewer votes as usual. The following week, the first five minutes are dedicated to announcing the bottom two dancers, who have prepared a new dance for the week. They have a dance off for scores and the it's the judges scores that week that send a dancer packing. The scores for the saved dancer carry over and are combined with viewers' votes that week and the show continues in that way. That way only one night a week is dedicated to the show and it kind of kicks up the tension each week.

Just promise you'll think about it, okay?

But there's something else. You need to get some published authors on the show (publishing agents/editors you need to get on board with this too!). If you did, you'd get viewers that you might not otherwise get because I can tell you from experience, writers (romance writers in particular) are very supportive of one another. (To the publishing agents out there, get cracking on this because not only would your authors get free marketing, they'd get paid, which means you'd get a cut!)

I even have a few suggestions to help you out with this. I think Mary Higgins Clark would make a great partner for Tony Dovolani. Or how about Julia Quinn with Derek Hough? Jill Shalvis with Max-with-the-unspellable-last-name (I'd love to see how he did in the wilderness when she does her nature walks and hears wild animals. Or how he reacts to spiders. I bet he'd scream like a girl! heehee). You could even partner up Stephen King with Kym Johnson.

So there you go. I've given you a few suggestions to start with, what you do with it is up to you. But the bottom line (and forgive me for repeating myself) is, you need to stop wasting my time with useless crap that adds no value whatsoever to the show!

There now, I feel better. :-)

Premiere Week

I remember a time when the summer only offered re-runs. I think it was the early 90s and the original 90210 that first offered first run shows during the summer. And now that I think about it, that may be what started the decline of the "Summer Blockbuster Movies". People didn't have to go out to see something fresh.

Anyway, I like having options during the summer but it's always been a little weird to think of a "season" of shows to be 8 to 12 episodes. Way back when shows offered 39 new episodes every season. I think it's at 26 now. I wish I could work somewhere, only work 26 weeks a year and make the salaries they do, but I digress.

But that all said, I'm glad that my regular shows are starting back up again. And last night was the kick off.

Let's start with Dancing with the Stars. I really didn't want to watch it this season. It's on two nights a week and that's more than I really wanted to devote to one show this season (although I guess it makes it good that it's only on 10 to 12 weeks, right?).

From the moment they announced the celebrities I started a campaign to vote off Bristol Palin. Seriously, what makes her a celebrity? She's the daughter of a vice presidential candidate who is also a teenage mother who promotes teen abstinence. Maybe it stands up in Hollywood but if it were made into a movie, I wouldn't watch it.

Anyway, I decided she'd be my first vote off, and that was my downfall. Because I felt so strongly about it, I had to watch the first episode. And now I'm hooked. *sigh* As for Bristol, she wasn't as bad as I thought she'd be but I didn't think she was nearly as good as the judges thought she'd be. Before the show started I really wanted to root for Margaret Cho but goodness she was bad. I believe that her "wardrobe malfunction" was deliberate but I totally would've said it was a glitch because, it was bad. Really bad. Bad enough that I think I would be okay if she went home tonight. I'd rather it be Bristol or the Situation (seriously dude, no one cares that you only had five days to practice - that was your choice and no one cares!). In fact, I think they should have a double elimination tonight and get rid of both of them. Yeah, that would definitely work for me.

And then there was Castle. I love that show! I didn't realize how much I'd missed it until I watched it last night. In fact, if they wanted to do away with DWTS all together and have Castle on for three hours on Monday nights, I'd be good with that.

On my DVR I have the season premiere's of How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men. I haven't watched them yet but I know they're there, waiting for me.

Later this week there's Private Practice, Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters to look forward to. I have my DVR set to record the premiere of Cougar Town, even though it's not on my list of shows to watch . . . I want to see the reunion of Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox so I'm only recording/watching the one episode.

At the moment that's all I can think of on my "must watch" list for the new fall season. How about you? What's on your list?

Challenge Accepted

Have you ever seen that show How I Met Your Mother? I ask because my blog title is kind of a take off on something from that show. For those who haven't seen the show, Neil Patrick Harris (who will be the subject of a upcoming blog post) plays Barney Stinson. Barney has quite a few catch phrases, one of which is "Challenge Accepted." This is usually followed by his friends saying, "But, um Barney, we didn't challenge you." But he doesn't let that deter him from his mission.

Same thing applies here.

What does that have to do with today's blog post? Well, this morning I was doing my usual blog hopping and came across this post. Truth told, I probably saw it yesterday but this morning I went in to read the comments. The post is about interesting recipes. One of them was for an avocado pound cake. Personally I'm not your biggest avocado fan but all the commentors were interested in the avocado pound cake.

So that's the "challenge" I "accepted". To make the avocado pound cake. And then report on it. This post is my report.

Let me start by saying, I made a couple of substitutions because I don't eat meat or dairy anymore. So for the buttermilk I substituted soy milk, and for the eggs I used EnerG Egg Replacements. I also cut the recipe in half because 1) I only have one 9 x 4 (actually I think it's a 9 x 5 but that's beside the point) pan; and 2) I don't need to have two 9 x 4 (aka 9 x 5) pound cakes available to me, if you know what I mean.

(Not pictured: avocado . . . because the idea to take pictures didn't come to me until after the fact and I only bought the one avocado.)

So anyway, I set about preparing it per the directions. I only have one mixer and it is stationary (as opposed to hand held) and it started locking up when I mixed the butter and sugar together and I had to keep stopping it, scraping down the sides and manually turning the bowl (which, under normal circumstances turns on its own). It worked better the more wet ingredients that went into the mix. By the time I was mixing the last ingredients, the mixer was working as it's supposed to.

The recipe says to bake for 40 - 45 minutes and then notes that they put the timer on for 30 minutes and then checked it every 10 minutes thereafter until a knife came out clean. I just set my timer for 45 minutes and let it bake. I actually took it out when there was one minute left and the knife came out covered in batter so I set the timer for five more minutes. The next test came out mostly clean . . . clean enough for me to take it out of the oven.


Obviously these last two photos were taken after I'd removed the cake from the pan (I did take a picture of it while it was still in the pan but it adds no value so I left it out). When I pulled it out of the oven it looked great but by the time I went and got my camera, the middle had fallen a bit. But there you go.

I tasted it a few minutes later and well, not sure where to start here. My first thought was that it tasted a lot like the cornmeal. My second thought was that I may not have cut that portion of the recipe in half. I'm pretty sure I did but there's always the possibility that an ingredient may get full recipe portions when I am making a half recipe.

The outside of the cake is crusty and the inside is moist. There are parts that tasted like a normal cake but enough of what I sampled tasted like cornmeal to make me not really be able to rave about it (I did more than one sampling - just be fair). As I said, I'm pretty sure I used the correct portion of the cornmeal though because I DID pull out the 1/4 cup measuring cup and the cornmeal is the only ingredient I would've used that for.

So, bottom line, it's not terrible but I'm not likely to make it again. If I do, I will likely substitute blended tofu for the eggs because my tofu cake (really called Vanilla Yogurt Pound Cake but because it has tofu in it, it will forever be the tofu cake to me) uses blended tofu and I think it's the substitute for eggs in the recipe because there is no mention of eggs or egg substitute in the recipe and I have a couple of recipes where tofu is used in place of eggs ("egg" salad sandwiches - which are great by the way and on the meal plan for this week - and scrambled tofu to name two).

Thanks to Alyssa Goodnight for the "challenge" and if anyone else decides to try out this recipe, let me know what you think - whether you agree or disagree. :-)