Soaps By Remote

Blogiversary

Today this blog is 3 years old.

Happy birthday blog.

Honestly, it feels like longer. 

I originally started the blog because I had started to get back into the soaps after a hiatus and didn't have time (and, in many cases, the fan-girl sensibility) to hang out on boards and chat about all the nutty goings on on the shows. That's still the case.  In fact the starting of the blog ironically coincided with me taking on a major new role at work that involved a lot more work and travel.  Which does interfere with soap watching from time to time, but also makes me appreciate coming home to curl up on the couch with the soaps and blog away.

There were a few other soap blogs around in July 2006, but absolutely nothing compared to the number there are now, which is such a cool thing.  I love this soap blog/site community that's grown up in the last few years and continues to grow and feed itself and build a soap community within the soap community.  It's supportive of the genre, it's generally pretty smart, and it keeps me in touch with what's going on on all the shows I might not be watching so that if there's something good I'm missing out on, I know to check it out.

Or, as with the moment, it gives me the hint that steering clear, even when I'm tempted, is still the best way to go. 

See, General Hospital has been doing a few things that make me think that perhaps it could be on an upswing.  More Alexis, getting back into great casting with Michael and Kristina, having Michael get back involved with the Quartermaines, ending the post-partum story with Robin, Martha Byrne, not actually killing Ric or turning him into a serial killer even if his send-off was virtually non-existent, remembering to throw in things like little uncomfortable scenes between Jason, Elizabeth, Lucky and Jake.  All of that sounds good.  But just as I know all of that from the blog-o-verse, I also know that there's still mob crap, not one but two pregnant women falling down the stairs, Sonny impregnating someone else, some rewritten history giving Luke another kid, Emily having a long-lost badly acting twin, and that Dante is about to maybe, finally, make an appearance.  But, more importantly than all of those negatives, and despite the potential of all of the good stuff above, it seems that everyone still watching is bored to tears.  And it was boredom that had me cease watching in the first place.

So I won't be tuning back in right now.  Thanks soap blogoverse.

On with year four.

Excuses, excuses

My excuse for not posting (or watching) this week is that I have been busy working, traveling, cruising sunny locations on million dollar yachts and attending waterside parties with private fireworks displays (and getting the hangover to prove it).

Haven't been near a TV all week.

To make up for this, I will probably live in front of the box in the week to come, and posting will follow.  Really.  I'm almost certain.

I've been in a coma

Well, no, not actually in a coma. Just on a little vacation from soaps that had I been an actor would have landed my character in a convenient coma for a couple of weeks.

My soap vacation just sort of happened, spurred on by Easter and pre-Easter workload, and I'm not quite back into the "soap space" yet even though I do want to catch up with OLTL and Y&R and sneak a peak at HD GH just for giggles.

What have I been doing on this little hiatus?  The usual:

- working
- drinking
- eating
- knitting
- more eating
- catching up with friends
- more drinking
- catching up with family
- watching a lot of cooking shows
- cooking
- eating
- clearing my Tivo of a backlog of prime time shows
- home improvement projects
- drinking

You know, the usual. 

Soapy stuff will be back soon.

Coming Soon

I'm back from a very pleasant couple of weeks sitting by the pool sipping cocktails in Kauai, with a few mud-filled treks into the wilderness to break things up, and have embarked on the OLTL catch-up as a first priority. 

A proper post will follow shortly because OLTL is very easy to watch at the moment provided one douses, with copious amounts of alcohol, her impulse to reach through the TV and stab Stacey in the eye.  Which I am more than willing to do.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share the things people out there in the soap interwebs appear to be most interested in, based on the search stats for this site.  They are, overwhelmingly:

1.    Who is Rex's father?  Answer, I have no idea.

2.    A fascination with Natalia Livingston's new haircut.  Which is something much more worthy of fascination than her new character or acting.

3.    OLTL's Destiny.  Who I agree is super cute.

I'll return shortly with something of soapy substance.

Assailed

This evening I was standing in my kitchen making salad to take for lunch tomorrow - three weeks to Hawaii, three weeks to Hawaii, must eat salad, must eat salad - ignoring the TV in the other room when I was assailed by the sound of Cameron Matheson yelling at someone.

Needless to say I recognised this sound instantly given it's one we're all very familiar with. 

In this case though, it was coming from something called Instant Beauty Pageant and I was doubly horrified.  I'm sure this travesty has already aired in the US and has probably been around here for a while too, but I have managed to avoid it.  Because arrgg!  And I only came in for the last minute of Cameron yelling.

I'm not even going to get in the stupidity of that show.  But, how does he have the time?  And why is he still contaminating AMC with his "yeah he's a nice guy but his character and most of his acting sucks" if he's got 25 other jobs?

Anyway, just thought I'd share my annoyance.

Now I'm going back to watching Top Chef and eating steamed fish.  They balance each other out.

Three weeks til Hawaii, three weeks til Hawaii...

That time of the year

Things being on the mouse-wheel of end of year functions and obligations prevent me from doing include:

• sleeping to a reasonable degree
• doing the dishes
• vacuuming the apartment
• picking clothes up off the bedroom chair, floor and end of the bed
• picking up the ever growing pile of shoes inside the front door
• eating anything but finger food
• giving proper thought to Christmas shopping
• watching soaps
• blogging about soaps

I will return soon.

Emerging. Soon.

I know those screencaps below are cute, but there was actually an intention to follow up with a few posts.

As it turns out I have instead been diagnosed with my own form of multiple personality disorder having spent the last couple of weeks jumping back and forth between being a proper lawyer with court appearances and stuff, and being an entertainment lawyer-executive producer attending conferences in sunny locations and hanging out on set and stuff.  I don't think I need to tell you which is preferable, or how difficult it is to do both at the same time.

Anyway, all that has resulted in me being in a deep dark non-TV watching, non-blogging hole from which I am only now emerging.

In other words, posts to come.  Many of them, about the range of quite significant on and off-screen goings on that have been going on while I have been leading a double life.

Winey

That's winey, not whiny.

I've spent the last few days cruising around the countryside (translation: wineries), eating and drinking a lot of really good food and wine and have accordingly spent three entire days away from the computer and the television (though not, inevitably, the phone or the blackberry).

Regular programming (and whining) will return momentarily...

Momentary hiatus...

...due to unexpected house guests.

Back soon.

Probably in a ranting mood.

I blame Arvin Sloane

No, having my 400th post be about Belle and Shawn didn’t kill me, I’m just a little behind in soap viewing.

What have I been doing instead of catching up pre-sweeps? Um, hmm. It was a long weekend here and I spent a decent chunk of it hanging out with friends, and perhaps another sizeable chunk of it re-watching season one of Alias on DVD, which may just have inevitably lead to re-watching season two on DVD. The good news being, of course, that there’s virtually no chance of that leading to watching season three, because, just, no.

I have also been running, drinking numerous bloody marys, working, having business trips moved around, cancelled, uncancelled and ultimately actually cancelled this morning, watching the tennis, and the cricket, looking at photos of pretty dresses and no, no, not pregnant at all brown tent dresses from the SAG Awards, and pretty much doing anything but watching soaps or being near my home computer.

Which lead to, aside from being behind in my viewing, my photo hosting account hitting its bandwith limit without me noticing for several days, so sorry about the no photos messages that probably appeared around here while that was happening. Also happening around here? The appearance in the referral logs of at least the number of searches regarding Jane Elliot’s new hairdo as appeared last year for Laura Wright and Megan Ward’s hair combined. Which is really saying something.

Why haven’t I been compelled to watch? Well, hmm, I know there’s an over-abundance of Marlena waiting for me on last week’s Days. And Michael on GH. But now it’s sweeps and we’re going to have Sarah Brown and Shirley Jones and Robin being pregnant and Monica maybe getting a story and the ongoing Sorority story and, of course, the promise of Belle and Shawn going away.

So I’ll be getting on with the catch-up ASAP, probably with a major assist from my friend the fast forward button.

Just as soon as Sydney gets kicked through that mirror and into “two years later”, of course.