Rating the TV Romance, Part 1: Felicity & Ben

So, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, a recent season finale of one of my TV shows has prompted me to do a list and rating of some classic TV romances (my faves), to figure out what made them enjoyable, and see how they stack up against each other.  I'll get to the TV show that prompted this in the final blog post.  But for now here's the categories that I think I'll use for my ratings:

• The "Danger" Factor - I mentioned in my "Confessions of a Former Soap-aholic" post that if the t.v. show contains a "danger" element for the couple in question, my level of interest instantly shoots up by several notches, heh.  If that sounds ridiculous, it's because it IS ridiculous, but what can I say, I can't help it.  It's something I realized in my soap-obsession days as a kid.  :-P  Anyway the "danger" factor is not essential, but if it's there, it usually brings my interest level up even higher than it would be otherwise, simply because it adds extra drama (or melodrama and angst, ha) to the mix.
• General "Soapy-ness" Factor - Since the post that started this revolved around my former love of soaps, I'm throwing this in there too.  I'm putting it in here to see if the "soap" factor increases or decreases my enjoyment of the show and the romance storyline.  I consider the "danger" factor to actually be an important part of the "soap" factor, and I think it's the soapy element that reels me in the most, by far.  But I want to see if any other soapy elements also have any effect.
• Overall Rating of Show Itself - How good is the show as a whole?
• Rating of First "Couple Getting Together" Scene - It's hard to title this one ... but by this I just mean the scene where the couple first get together, which usually translates to a kiss ... a make-out, sometimes even fake simulated t.v. sex, that type of thing.  It's usually the scene the entire audience has been waiting for, for however many episodes or seasons they've decided to drag out the "will-they-won't-they" dance.
• Rating of First Sexy Times Scene - Ha I know this sounds pervy, but I'm not rating this on like, a porn level.  :-P  Many t.v. shows don't even show much of anything in this scene anyway, they only show you the "hey it's about to happen!" and/or the "hey it just happened!" moments.  But I'm including it because it's usually an important milestone for the progression of the plot.  And it doesn't always happen in the same scene as the first "couple gets together" moment, so that's why I gave it a separate section.
• Overall Rating of the Romance - When you take the entire course of the t.v. series and the fake t.v. relationship into account, how good was it?

Confessions of a Former Soap-aholic

When I was a little kid, my brother and I were babysat regularly by a teenager who lived on our street named Cheryl.  Cheryl was actually only about 5 years older than me, but when you're 10 and she's 15 it's a pretty decent difference in maturity level.  Between Cheryl and her older sister Connie, their family provided babysitting duties for our family for quite a large chunk of my childhood.  My parents divorced when I was 7, forcing my mom into the undesirable territory of single mom-hood, and the necessity of good after school babysitter became quite apparent by that point.  Cheryl filled the role quite nicely and dutifully.

When I was 10, I started to weasel my way into watching daytime soaps with Cheryl, her mom, and sometimes our other neighbor friend, at Cheryl's family's house.  Before that I had never been allowed to watch soaps at all, and had always been pushed out of the room whenever anyone (Cheryl or otherwise) had them on the t.v.  But I guess by the time I was 10, they started to get sick of telling me "no" all the time when I would beg and beg them, and they eventually kinda gave in and let me start hanging out while they were watching them.  Specifically the two soaps they were into were General Hospital and Days of Our Lives.  I never got super into General Hospital, but Days of Our Lives quickly became a daily obsession for me.  That may have had to do with the fact that it was on later than most of the others: 3pm.  I think the key was that it may have been on just late enough that I was able to regularly catch some of it when I would get home from school.  Though I honestly don't recall if my regular soap watching started during the school year or the summertime.

Judges and Ruth

Yikes I've apparently been bad at updating this blog with my latest Bible reviews.  Here are the two most recent reviews:

Judges: http://biblereviews.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/judges/

Ruth: http://biblereviews.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/ruth/

Spoiler: Judges is awful but it has some pretty hilarious stuff in there.  Ruth is surprisingly pretty decent.

The Hunger Games: Movie Review

"Forget Twilight's insipid Bella Swan. This is a literary heroine girls can cherish."  

(Note: It's a little embarrassing that I took that quote from People Magazine's review of The Hunger Games, but it's accurate, what can I say??)

Joshua

Oops I almost forgot to post my Joshua review here.  Here it is, from earlier in the week.  Spoiler alert: It's the worst book of the Bible that I've read so far!

http://biblereviews.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/joshua/

One Year Later

As of this past Friday (1/27), it has been exactly one year since my aunt Amy's suicide.  Since that was the impetus for me to start this blog in the first place, I decided to do a "year later" check point on this topic.  The blogs I previously wrote on this were the following:

Initial gut reaction written shortly after it happened: http://maryploppins-brainpoops.blogspot.com/2011/02/pros-and-cons-of-suicide-note.html

More gut reaction posted shortly after the first blog: http://maryploppins-brainpoops.blogspot.com/2011/03/for-us-it-isnt-over.html

The "few months later" update from June: http://maryploppins-brainpoops.blogspot.com/2011/06/disappointment-and-why-i-might-be.html

The place I was at when I wrote the first two blogs was the point where you still feel like that knife is in your gut, and that someone is twisting it around every time you think about it (which is very often at that point because everyone is still kind of standing in the middle of the "rubble" of the aftermath and trying to pick up the pieces, if you will).  It's shock, it's devastation, heartbreak, anger, etc.  My brain subconsciously defaulted back to anger a lot during that timeframe because IMO, anger is a WAAYY easier emotion to have and to deal with than sadness and hopelessness is.

Deuteronomy

O.k. Deuteronomy is FINALLY done after my sinning detour ... I actually posted it last week but I forgot to post the link here.  Here it is:

http://biblereviews.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/deuteronomy/