The Daily Grind of a Work @ Home Mom...

New Millennium for Monopoly?

Remember when you used to sit around the fireplace with your siblings (or friends or parents) and indulge in a game of Monopoly that seemed to last forever?  Remember the snow falling outside, the accompanying hot chocolate, the background music (or TV) and all that counting out of the Monopoly money?  Well, it seems Hasbro has taken this classic (among others) and swung it into the new millennium. 

There's no more Monopoly money - the game now uses "electronic banking."  I kid you not.  It uses debit cards instead of cash.  You swipe your card in the bank machine and presto - the money changes hands.  I guess this eliminates the possibility of cheating, but then, what fun is that?

And that's not all.  Hasbro has also replaced their classic tokens like the race car, the top hat and the dog with new pieces representative of today's society including a Segway personal transporter, an Altoids tin, space shuttle, flat-screen TV, baseball cap and a dog in a handbag.  I find this so not cute.

Hard to believe the game was originally played in 1935 with wooden pawns.  We sure have come a long (sigh...) way since then...   

News Junkie?

Are you a news junkie?  I'm not sure I qualify as hard-core "junkie", however I did go to journalism school and I do keep up with current events and try to get news in any way I can most days.  Sometimes that means the television, other times I'm getting news from People.com, but most days I do learn something new.  I'm not always following the most "important" stories though, and this sometimes makes me sad.

My father follows the news.  He typically knows what's going on in the world regarding politics, current events and most importantly (to him), the weather reports in the cities in which his children live.  This interest, coupled with his love of (auto-)biographies led me to buy him Dispatches From The Edge: A Memoir of Wars, Disasters, and Survival written by Anderson Cooper.  I actually bought him the CD version for his next drive from Montreal to visit my family in Boston.  When he was done with it, he passed it along to me and I just finished listening to it.

I watch CNN and on the rare occasion that I'm still awake at 10pm, I sometimes catch parts of Anderson Cooper's show.  I never really thought twice about him short of, wow, that guy is pretty young to be so gray.  But I always thought he was attractive and exuded an air of intelligence.

I was really impressed with his life once I started to listen.  Professionally, he is a risk-taker who goes to every location and does not just report the facts, but actually feels it in his heart.  His description of Somalia, of Africa, and Iraq makes the reader (or listener) really feel as if they are there.  He spends a lot of time on New Orleans and Katrina and I have to say, I learned more in these 5 hours of listening than I did from watching hours upon hours of news at the time it was happening. 

He talks about his personal life as well.  With a mother like Gloria Vanderbilt, it stands to reason Cooper's life was interesting from the get-go.  He goes on to describe his father's life and death and the untimely loss of his older brother to suicide.

It's unlikely that I'll pick up another (auto-)biography for awhile.  It's not my typical genre and I tend to avoid that section of the library or bookstore.  But I feel smarter having taken a peak into Cooper's life story and life stories. 

Do you watch MTV's The Hills?

If you don't, you really should start.  It's entertainment at its best.

But wait, start by watching whatever back episodes you can on On Demand.  You don't want to be left wondering why Audrina lives at Hillside Villas when you thought Lauren and Heidi were roommates or how come Elodie is still in a cube while Heidi is living in up in a private office with her own assistant.  What?  No On Demand?  OK, here's a quick run-down.

Lauren, formerly known as "LC" of Laguna Beach fame (another fave), moves to LA to attend fashion school with her friend Heidi.  The two are roommates living in a fab apartment sand hitting the pool when not in school or at work.  On top of classes, Lauren interns at Teen Vogue.  Where she meets Whitney, her fast-friend. 

Lauren dates Jason, Jason turns mean and abusive at the hands of the bottle and nose candy, Lauren breaks up with Jason.  Enter Spencer, Heidi's new boyfriend with the wandering eye.  Lauren notices this and doesn't like what she sees and makes no bones about it so drama ensues between Heidi and Spencer and Spencer and Lauren and ultimately and inevitably, Lauren and Heidi.  By the end of season two, Heidi moves out of Lauren's apartment and in with Spencer.

Enter Audrina, Lauren's new roommate and drop-dead gorgeous loser magnet.  Audrina has a killer smile and bod, but reserves it only for guys that will abandon her in Vegas, leave her sorry (but cellulite-free) ass at a beach party, and show her respect by belching at the dinner table in front of her friends. 

Meanwhile, Jason (the belligerent drunk ex-boyfriend) gets out of rehab and resurfaces and has more to say in one 5 minute scene than in all of first season and is actually looking, dare I say, adorable. 

And this, ladies and gentlemen, barely scratches the surface of what's going on on The Hills.  I highly recommend it.  This and Grey's Anatomy and consider yourself set.  ;)

"If" He Did It?????

So, in an attempt to capitalize on the 1994 murders of his wife, Nicole Brown ans her friend, Ron Goldman, OJ Simpson penned this book and titled it "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer."  You may remember a few months back, the deal was dropped by the publisher due to public outcry but since then, the rights of the book have been given to the Goldman family which hit stands today. 

I saw the Goldman family on Oprah the other day.  While initially my reaction to their involvement with this publication was far from complimentary, after hearing their side, it sort of makes more sense.  (BTW, Denise Brown, sister of the slain Nicole, refused to share a stage with them and backed out of the Oprah show).  What the Goldmans say is that a) they never saw a cent of their due from the civil trial and b) sort of a nah nee nah nee poo poo on OJ who stated that he would never word a day in his life to pay this retribution to either of the families as ordered by the judge.  He clearly "worked" to write this book and they will now profit from it.  However, somehow, though they will collect 90% of the profits, this translates to about $0.17 per book sold.  Nope, not a typo.

The Goldmans call it a confession.  OJ calls it fiction.  I call it a disgrace to our society and a pathetic excuse for literature.  It's one of the only times that I can remember wishing that freedom of speech weren't so damn free. 

What's worse is that on day #1, it is already stolen the #1 spot on the Amazon.com list.  People are buying this piece of garbage.  This manual for murder.  This crap that details how "the killer" nearly decapitated the head of his children's mother.  How sad for these two children that this is the parent they are left with.  How sad for society that we are rushing out to eat this all up.

If you're unsure if you want to spend the money, here's an idea.  Take your $25.95 down to your local battered women's shelter and hand it over.  No matter who is on the receiving end of the profits from this book, let's stop supporting these murders by paying it so much attention.  Please?