The Hollywoodland Sign Girl

A very sad Hollywood story: a successful Broadway actress from New York (born in England) named Peg Entwistle who moved to California to follow her dreams. Instead she encountered failure after failure from her auditions and the one movie that Peg did manage to make, her scenes ended up on the cutting room’s floor. Depressed, Peg climbed up the H on the famous Hollywood sign (at the time it was Hollywoodland) and immediately jumped off, committing suicide. Ironically, after her death, Peg got an offer to appear as a suicidal woman in a play. Her story always fascinated me as a teenager and I always felt her story would’ve been perfect for a movie. Maybe someday…They say that Peg haunts that area with her perfume.

One Life to Live Canceled

Originally written on May 14, 2011

When I heard that One Life to Live was canceled I was LIVID!!!!! Although I'm not really livid anymore weeks after the announcement, I am still pissed off and hurt by the news. I think it will take me a LONG time to get over this, especially come January when it goes off the air.

I started to watch it regularly around 2001- prior to that I would watch it random only because in the promos during General Hospital whenever Roger Howarth as Todd was on, he was making some funny comment so curious me decided to check it out. I continued to watch OLTL in 2003 when Roger left to go on As the World Turns (which was on at the same time as One Life) and Trevor St. John stepped into the Todd Manning shoes. I did love Trevor and I didn't do what many viewers have done "he's not the real Todd" stuff. However, a good year or two so into when Spencer Truman character joined the show, it got too much for me. Spencer Truman was EVERYWHERE! Connected in every storyline imaginable with all the characters. I was so sick of this bad guy that I stopped watching for a few years. Even after Spencer was murdered, I didn't return. I figured it was too late to return now that most of the characters have moved on and there were also a lot of new characters in so it would've been complicated to go back into the loop. However, I did read up on it in Soaps In Depth magazines.

Then when news came out that Todd Manning will have another child, Dani with Tea, I decided to check in about it. I started off slow, recording the episodes that had the description about Dani and the Manning family. It wasn't long before I started to watch every day and putting OLTL on my season pass to record along with General Hospital and The Bold and the Beautiful.

A year later? This happens.

It totally breaks my heart, very heartbreaking. I've tried what I could do to convince ABC to change their minds but it appears that their minds have been made up long before the announcement became public. All My Children was canceled too. You know what they are going to be replaced? The Chew, which will be a foodie show with Mario Batali and Michael Symon. Now I like those two, from Iron Chef America, and the show will replace All My Children. Then some other show, I think it's called The Revolution, a doctor-type-health program that will replace One Life to Live. DON'T WE HAVE ENOUGH TALK SHOWS AS IT IS???? If I want to watch anything regarding about food, then I'll turn to The Food Network, Cooking Channel, Bravo's Top Chef, or Rachael Ray's talk show on network tv (for me it's on CBS). If I want to watch a health show, there's The Doctors, there's even a health network! We have enough of these things!!!! ABC already has enough TV shows about doctors- Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Body of Proof- why do they need a talk show about health? That stupid The Revolution show is definitely NOT going to be the show I'm going to watch. It will be over before it gets started and I hope ABC will one day be kicking their own asses for their stupidity.

Then there's that stupid Oprah who decided not to save the soaps on her OWN network. Lady, your network isn't doing very well as it did when it first launch and it doesn't have impressive shows to watch so do yourself a favor and reconsider it. You got the money, you are a smart woman, use your brain! But noooooooo...

UPDATE: The Revolution was canceled after about 4 months. General Hospital moved to One Life to Live's timeslot while Katie Couric's talk show took over GH's former timeslot. Brian Frons stepped down from being the #1 boss of ABC Daytime.

PeTA vs. Steve Irwin

Originally written on September 13, 2006

I was watching the news about Steve Irwin and how there's a possibility of revenge against stingrays as one killed him with their barb piercing to his heart (very sad indeed, but for the stingray, I believe it was their self-defense) and Peta found a new way to piss me off. Usually I don't really care too much- I'm glad that there's a charity to defend Animal rights; I don't like cruelty to animals either...anyway, I sent Peta a little email:
I saw in one of the newscast about Steve Irwin and about how Peta doesn't approve of his shows and believes that it's danger to the kids. Obviously you don't do much digging in your research. If you have noticed at all photos and footage of Steve and Terri Irwin's zoo of how little kids are placing flowers then you will see that they don't have any fright. Of "provoking" an animal, such as a crocodile- let me ask you something: without Steve's abilities and if he wasn't ever on the air, then how would we know how to defend ourselves? Do you know? Have you ever faced that for yourselves? Maybe you missed the news that in Florida, three women were killed by alligators. Steve didn't harm the animal, he never killed any of them- in fact it upset him to know that they were killed to make belts and shoes- you should give him that credit. Of course, I'm not surprised either of the fact he died by an animal (I am more surprised that it wasn't a crocodile). I thought Steve's documentaries were very educational, especially as I live near the Everglades and lakes were alligators and crocidiles are known to swim around.
That's about that for Steve Irwin. Sure he was over-the-top enthusiastic, but my golly, he was interesting to watch. I think that attitude had people watch him in amazement and like him. I confess, I didn't really watch the show religiously because I was either watching something else or doing something else or didn't know it's schedule was. I suppose I can say the same thing about John Ritter: know who he was, liked him, but wasn't into him as a faithful viewer. My heart goes out to Terri, Bindi, and Bob.

Now Peta...like I said, I'm glad that there's a group to speak for the animals but they have done things that I thought of were too far. I don't appreciate them forcing videos or whatever it is up the noses. Fine, voice your disapprovements, have a conversation with the person who you are up against but that should be it. At least the person would know that there's another option. You can't force someone not to wear fur or be a vegetarian. Let it be THEIR decision. I'm not a vegetarian- I do eat meat as I do eat my fruits and vegetables, if I want to be a vegetarian, then I will be on my own time and my own decision, nobody else's. That's the way it should be.

Another thing that had me pissed off about Peta- they had plans to make cats vegetarians. As a cat owner of two, here's a news flash you CAN'T get cats to be a vegetarian!!!! You can change a dog's diet easy, but cats are way too stubborn, that's for sure. What if you did think you succeeded? But then you let your cat go outside- guess what the cat's going to do? Chase a lizard, play with it, eat the insides of it. I should know- I have found enough dead lizards. You can't change that ever- no matter how hard you try, no matter where you start them as a baby kitten, they are bound to find an insect or a mouse and use them as their food source.

The Virgin Queen

Originally posted on January 29, 2011 at Jeannette's This and That Blog

I was watching Secrets of the Virgin Queen on National Geographic Channel earlier in the week and I thought it was rather interesting although a bit ridiculous. They were basically trying to figure out why Queen Elizabeth the first didn't get married nor have kids- could it be that she was really a man? Or that she was in love with a married man? Ok I doubt that she was a man, or really died as a child and was secretly replaced by a man for a cover up or something- if they are serious about that, then why not do a DNA gender test? Not only that, but do a biological DNA test as well since there has been a very long-term rumor that Elizabeth wasn't King Henry the VIII's child (I doubt that because she does look a lot like him, and her mother too). If it would help to make those doubters sleep at night, then why not just solve the mystery with DNA? Bingo!

Truthfully I think Queen Elizabeth I was smart not to marry and have children. I do think that the fact that her father ordered her mother's death had some part of Elizabeth's refusal to be in a marriage- during those times it was just gruesome, no mercy whatsoever. Besides, I think Elizabeth paved a way for the power of single woman everywhere. She proved that she can rule a country without a man by her side, she had the men obeying every word she says! Elizabeth was Queen of England for 40 plus years...the program also said that Elizabeth enjoyed being known as the Virgin Queen. Well all power to her! Kudos and bravo!