Why you should avoid buying anything from an infomercial at 3AM

You have to be careful because everyone wants to separate you from your money. I think about this fact every time I read the emails that land in my inbox advertising for this or that.

And then there is all the commercials on tv. Buy our product because you're getting older, uglier, sadder and sicker as time rolls on and if you buy our products you'll be less of those things. But you need money to buy all of  those things. And when you don't feel like you have enough, people will go through all sorts of lengths to get it. So here I am, currently unemployed and wide awake at 3AM watching the latest infomercial selling the idea that life can be easier if you follow our system to be a real estate investor. Immediately, I'm skeptical. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Bait and switch. These were the things that were running through my head watching advertising for a seminar to get rich quick flipping homes cloaked as become a real estate investor.

So here's how it goes. You attend a seminar. You are baited by a book and some sort of minimal free giveaway of cheap electronic equipment they bought in bulk. You get some general information, but not enough to do anything with unless you buy into additional workshop. So you have to then buy into the workshop. And then at the workshop, you are sold access to the experts and walkthroughs. "This is how I did it and if I can do it, you can do it, too."Learn the steps to success and repeat these steps over and over again."

Doug Clark. Who is this guy? Someone from Utah that flipped houses and was filmed doing so to make a certain type of reality tv show. You can find this out if you search for "Flip Men" and watch shows on youtube. The tv show went off the air four years ago. Investigating further, the Better Business Bureau currently has a great example of what it's like to go through their learning process and you can read how these poor people from New Mexico feel like they were duped:

http://www.bbb.org/utah/business-reviews/seminars-and-training-wealth-building-and-real-estate-results-not-substantiated/doug-clark-in-lindon-ut-22364446/Complaints#breakdown

So how does this go for them? They buy an LLC. They make a business selling you the same LLC paperwork to you. You pay the filing fee. They call an infomercial company and create 10 minutes of script that's repeated 3 times to create a 30 minute show. They hire a host to ask scripted questions of spokesperson. The background for the host looks like a newsroom or a talk show stage. The spokesperson looks like they are sitting inside a beautiful home, but it can be a photo projected on a green screen which provides the desired appearance for you to think, "Yeah, I want what this guy has." In actuality, he's sitting in another part of the studio. Once the infomercial is filmed and produced, they rent seminar rooms in hotels around the country. They develop presentations at four different levels. One for the free talk to get you to come in (the infomercial). Two to provide some more information to bait you to buy the seminar. (They have to sell enough seminars to pay for the space they rented on credit cards.) Three is to buy the access to the process and techniques they are familiar with but you're not..Maybe even a website they feed with the foreclosures that you can get from newspapers yourself.  They prey on the fact that you're not confident you're doing things right because you're not gaining the expected results they tell you you should be having so... Four you get access to the experts... the people that keep you in the process so they can use any amount of success you may have to bolster what they are trying to sell in the first place.

You paid for a seminar, a LCC, you maxed out all of your credit cards and then paid for access. You haven't bought a foreclosed home yet which is what you wanted to do in the first place. You'll need more money to do that so you'll have to get others to pay for the purchase of a foreclosed home reducing your profit margin. You'll have to pay for others to fix the home because you're probably not a licensed contractor and then will reduce your profit margin more. If you couldn't find other serious investors, you went to a bank or mortgage company to get a loan and then the mortgage comes due between 30-60 days. That's the same time frame you have to fix the property and sell it. This is why you want a buyer on contract to get you out from under having to pay for that mortgage payment. They also forgot to tell you you also have to file two tax returns, one personal and one for your business. They also don't tell you that as a real estate investor, you're responsible for self employment taxes on all money you make.

You don't need to buy someone else's seminar to know that everything you do involving a home is expensive and you end up paying for it in the end. You don't need to buy someone else's seminar to tell you that if the mortgage payment is more than the going rental rate, you'll forced to sell. Guys like these love to sell seminars like these in states where the real estate is expensive so you have no recourse when you fail because you didn't follow their program.

Sleepy Hollow and "The True Blood Effect"

Season one of Sleepy Hollow, I got. I liked it a lot. I understood where the main character came from as I was force-fed the origin story in mini form during the opening title sequence. The stories were derived from Ichabod's experiences intertwining him within American history. And the ultimate goal was to defeat the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

And then season two... what happened? I want to call it "The True Blood Effect", where anything and everything can happen to the main characters in reality or in the supernatural worlds and, oh, lets add new characters, too. Boo! The witchy stuff turned supernatural. The fight of good over evil turned satanic. Ichabod becomes disillusioned by his witch/wife who was stuck in purgatory; a place that now the main characters can travel in and out of through mirrors.

F*cking TWC!

Sometimes, all you have to do is call and plead your case to the nice customer service folks at Time Warner Cable to get your monthly bill reduced.

I initially changed to TWC to get cable internet, which is the fastest internet in my neighborhood. That was their only service I had for awhile. Then my DirecTv bill spiked right before I found myself laid off from work, so I turned it off I bought a digital TV receiver. It was O.K. for awhile, but to be honest, just watching local channels plus PBS kinda sucked, but especially after KTLA turned off their music video channel.

So I called TWC to turn on the cable, which I never had since I've lived in the condo. It was an ordeal because the regular guy didn't want to run the drop to my bedroom. He had to call his supervisor to do it. Once the supervisor was here, the installation I wanted was no problem. Later, I decided to dump AT&T in order to get "bundled" service AKA phone, cable TV and internet at a discount.

Well, as of this last bill, all of the discounts finally expired and I was in payment shock. And that's exactly what I told Kendall- customer service professional at TWC. First, I said I was thinking of turning off my cable phone because my highest bill with AT&T was $32. So, Kendall puts me on hold for about 30 seconds, and then comes back on the line to tell me, we don't want to loose your business, so we can give you a deal for $125 a month for the next 12 months. And then I say, well I also called to turn off some of the cable packages because I'm just not watching them (and I just bought a Roku box for Christmas), so if you could do that, too, we've got a deal. So I turned off the HBO and Showtime because honestly, True Blood is the only thing I watch on HBO and that doesn't come back on until June. And I also turned off the Choice Tier, too. So this brought my monthly payment down to $108 or about $100 less than the bill I'm going to pay in December which is GAG-CHOKE, WAY TOO much!

A Retirement Wake-up Call

I woke up really early this morning, my body anticipating the time change this weekend and to the noise of the TV being on to that Ed Slott infomercial about saving your retirement. I've seen it before. I'm sure I'll watch it again. But something struck me. 2012 went by so fast and I probably have about 20 more working years before I retire.

FACT: The three things you cannot live without are food, shelter and clothing. People will give you clothes and share their food with you as these things are relatively cheap but you have to maintain a roof over your head or eventually you'll die of exposure to the elements.

FACT: The single most expensive financial decision one will ever make is to buy a house.

I went to lunch the other day with my cheapskate lunch date (who is in retail loan sales) and somehow the conversation always turns to money. Previously, I discussed with him my need to refinance my home  because I currently have a Hybrid 5 year Fixed/6 month Libor Note that's been adjusting for awhile now. Since LIBOR rates are tied to the European economy and it followed the U.S. economy decline with the credit crunch and the housing market crisis, my Note rate dropped from the initial rate and has stayed low... but the economy is improving. Jobs are coming back to the finance market because even I've had opportunities to interview recently for what I do which is highly specialized and I'm not looking for a new job now. And with an improved economy, interest rates will start to creep up higher. And the interest rate I'm paying today for my home loan is close to market rate and I don't want to put myself into a situation where I have a high interest rate and may not be able to refinance in the future. I also know that my loan is owned by Fannie Mae and HARP Loans, that are easier to qualify for with a high LTV and that require no appraisal, are going away next year.

After getting back to work, he sent me this email:

"Your goal this week or next is to contact HR in order to open a 401(k) because retiring poor sucks. I have to turn down seniors all the time (for cash-out refi home loans) and it makes me sad."

I had a 401(k) before I was laid-off from my mortgage job (the company closed) and because it lost half it's value and I didn't know when I was going to get my next job, I liquidated it the moment I could. Almost right after my severance pay ran out, in February 2008, I was hired as a contractor to Fannie Mae for a year and a half driving 150 miles round trip for work each day to manage the default vault at 1800 Tapo Canyon (if your're in the industry, you know that address holds one of the highest number of mortgage loans on the west coast) of loans moving from Countrywide's safekeeping into my custody. I supervised the vault's growth to hold 325,000 files (who knows how large it is today). The stock market tanked in October. HBO produced an excellent movie called "Too Big to Fail" which is a portrayal of what happened in October 2008. I was sitting in the belly of the beast and the beast was required to be bought by B of A and the behest of the U.S. federal government due to B of A exercising a large repurchase of poor performing loans.

FACT: You only have about 45-50 years to save before you retire.

When you're in your 20's and busy establishing your career, home and family, you're probably not thinking a whole hell of a lot about your retirement. My cheapskate lunch date is actually the same age I am, mid-40's, and as he's also a Realtor,  he's put his money to work more than I have in the past so I have to give him some respect for the financial position he's in now as compared to mine own.

My parents, when they retired, didn't really plan for it. Both had to work after retirement because they didn't have homes to sell and live off of the proceeds or even homes that generated a net income from rent. They had no savings accounts, just checking accounts. Both had meager life insurance payouts. I was able to settle my father's estate, but my mothers???

She lived off of credit cards until the day she died. As I cleared out her apartment, I found many newly bought items and at the time, couldn't figure out how she could afford it. That is until I found a brown box in the back of her closet full of unpaid credit card bills which turned into charge offs. She couldn't afford it. She consulted with a family friend, a lawyer, that told her not to pay them after she was 75 and had triple by-pass heart surgery.

I took back to the store those items I could find receipts for and threw the contents of her apartment in storage because it was right before Christmas when she passed. I paid the final utility bills with the cash on hand and that refund money and also ignored those credit card bills. Because of the lack of her financial and retirement planning, I had to pay out of my own pocket for her cremation, her headstone, her funeral and the transfer of her ashes to New York where they were buried with her parents, my grandparent, as she wanted. It took me a year and a half to get rid of that storage unit, finally donating the majority of the contents to Goodwill after giving away some things to friends and I paid for that storage unit, too. I can imagine my story of not being able to settle my mother's estate multiplied by the number new retirees and the debt river that's coming.

So in essence, if the vast majority of people now have the lack of retirement planning, execution and savings like my parents had, you and I will be paying for it all the way through the period the baby boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964) goes into retirement (2011 to 2029)  and subsequently passes away passing their unpaid debt onto the large financial institutions who will pass it on to the consumer in the form of higher fees and interest rates. That consumer is you and me.

Ed Slott says the biggest retirement killer are:
1. taxes
Tax free safety zone (life insurance and annuity)
Payouts from Life Insurance are tax free.
Roth IRA's conversions. You can get an annuity inside your Roth IRA.

2. risk 
You cannot rely on the stock market for a secure retirement future. Think about an annuity. It guaranties your retirement income for life.

3. saving money
Sometimes you have to spend money now to save money later. Buy life insurance. Seek out qualified financial planners.

4. uncertainty
No one will ever care about your retirement money more than you.

5. inactivity
Doing nothing will be costly because prices rise and taxes increase. Do something now when you can. If you want a secure financial future, you have to do something about it.

I emailed HR about establishing a new 401(k) blind-copying my friend and then I called and was qualified for a HARP loan all in the same day.

Lets see where I am this time, next year...

The local news...

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Wayward-Dolphin-Bolsa-Chica-Wetlands-Huntington-Beach-149496715.html

A Thought Provoking Question on C-Span Today

The question posed to callers on C-Span today was, "Do you see signs of an economic recovery?"

It provoked a lot of different answers, many of which reflected confused and disgruntled citizens, in my opinion. How the host was able to keep a straight face when some of the people rambleed on regurgitating the news blurbs that are spoon fed to them, was beyond me. I imagine it's a very high stress job and that's why the host constantly changes.

The one gentleman who seemed to be conscious and on topic was, thankfully, engaged by the host to answer a few more questions.

If I ever had the nerve to call into this show, this is what I'd have to say on the topic.

California's economy is in a shambles and it's mode to recovery is sadly "one step forward-two steps back".

We see new business development in the form of Kohl's Department stores opening up in spaces where the bankrupt Mervyn's once stood, stimulating the economy of the cities where they are located bring tax dollars once again, but the majority of the jobs in these stores are low wage, part-time and come with no benefits.

We see road construction along our major highways, but that construction was spurred by bond measures the people voted for years ago and will have to pay for in the years to come while the repair of our city streets lay waiting. I recognize that one of President Obama's initiatives was to fix this country's roads. Those companies who fix roads the people who work there are in that business specifically and you're not going to find an out of work roofer or framer or an automobile dashboard assembler being hired on a road crew to repair potholes or widen streets. You may be able to employ that water truck driver or that materials hauler or the heavy equipment operator for a time, but that is not enough.

...and this is where the discussion turns from economic recovery to economic despair.

In this instance, the goal was big, but not big enough. Modeled after an era where train track was necessary to connect one community to another, public transportation in the form of high speed trains should of been the top priority to replace an ailing government owned AmTrack system. Look at the devastating train accident that occurred in Chatsworth, California, on September 12, 2008. Look at the technology that could have, that should have been in place to stop a train from an impending collision. It harkens back to 1895-1900 at Grand Central Station in New York City when it took human tragedy to make mass transit safer. Why does it always have to come to the loss of lives to make things change for the better?

Our century old water infrastructure is crumbling under our feet because cities across the state asked it's citizens to cut back on their water usage and only water their landscaping certain days of the week, but the ebb and flow of the pressures have created great strain and we have seen more water main breaks than at any other time in history.

California laid off teachers because property tax revenue dwindled due to the credit crisis and the ensuing mortgage industry downturn. Everything good in a prosperous economy is tied to housing. If you build a house, you just put people that manufactured the products that go into that house to work; you employed construction workers to build that house, you created service jobs to maintain and improve that house and people with jobs will buy that house, people working at a mortgage company will make a loan and now a home owner will pay taxes to benefit the community. A homeowner will want to buy new furniture for their home and get a better job and a new car because of their higher income and on and on it goes. But people are fleeing California because the cost of living here is too high. The cost of establishing and running a business in California is prohibitive when you have to consider taxes and health care insurance. When employers hire unskilled labor pools due to these high costs, people desperate to support their families both here and in foreign countries, it drives down wages and there becomes a bigger disparity between the seemingly middle class and those who struggle constantly with poverty.

...and this is where the discussion turns from economic despair to political opinion.

US Citizens should get a free education. You have to be able to take care of yourself and your own before you can take care of others. That was big screw up #1 that helped to drag down the California economy. Butter it up with NAFTA and you added insult to injury and drove manufacturing jobs away. The auto industry seized up and those good paying jobs that were there for so long, for generations, are now gone and won't ever be coming back.

And this next sections outlines how the medical and insurance industry failed.

The next paragraph was taken from The Centers for Immigration Studies, "Guestworker Programs for the 21st Century": "The United States has had two agricultural guest worker or Bracero programs with Mexico, and one program, H-2 and H-2A, that permits U.S. farmers to recruit foreign farm workers in any country, although most come from the Caribbean and Mexico. None of these programs fulfilled their stated purpose: to add workers temporarily to the U.S. work force without adding permanent residents to the population, and to do so in a manner that does not adversely affect U.S. workers. Instead, the Bracero programs laid the groundwork for one of the world's great mass migrations — that from Mexico to the United States — and the H-2A program has been wracked by costly disputes."

Since our country's borders were not secure enough, now you have a growing population of undocumented workers having babies to create an anchor child. You now have a population of citizens of poor workers with compromised health care. And you wonder why our health care system is failing? Everyone knows that hospitals won't turn away a patient who comes through the emergency room doors regardless of their ability to pay.

I'll go on and write more later, but once I started to touch on the health care crisis, as I was laying down on my stomach on the bed typing on my laptop, in my distress over the subject due to the fact that I have a preexisting health condition and cannot secure health insurance on my own, I had to take a shit.

I'll be writing more later on: Redefine the path to citizenship. Make English our national language. Making college mandatory.

Crazy Dream

My head was compositing things I saw and talked about into this crazy dream that woke me up feeling startled and abit bewildered.

Over the weekend, I was watching some TV show that profiled a man who was a scamming women out of thousands of dollars. He initially made contact with women through the online dating website called millionairematch.com. He had posted a photo from about 20 years ago to create interest in his looks, but ultimately what you got to meet in person was someone old, overweight, disheveled, jobless and homeless. He preyed on women to feed his gambling habit. The show had mentioned that he at one point while in Pennsylvania left a duffle bag with some of his belongings in a park that he was sleeping in.

Similarly, yesterday was also a day in which I had talked about my purse. You see, my purse was stolen from my home when it was burglarized a few years ago and all of my keys were inside my purse at the time. I was talking about my purse to my co-manager because yesterday I noticed that the strap on the purse I'm currently using was beginning to fray and I had mentioned that the purse I had before this one (the one that was stolen) was one I had bought from Stein Mart and was made of Spanish leather. It matched the leather coat I wore at the time and had white stitching and braided strap and chain links on it, too. I liked it a alot and I think it was the first purse that I ever bought that was over $100. Figures it would get stolen?? So anyway... on top of that, when I was online chatting with my new guy friend, I saw that an old 'boyfriend' (I say that in quotes because what do you call a man in your life for five years who is married to someone else? Asshole, bad news, cad, jerk, pig, fraud or the good old fashioned word adulterer? Pick one.) popped online for the first time since last August and I was agitated to say the least because I did not want to chat with him at all knowing what hell he can put women's lives through. I was so upset that I had mentioned this to a girlfriend who I was chatting with on line at the time and she simply said "ignore him". Her perspective got me to lighten up some, but not much.

My dream was in color and it was of me in a park, where kids were playing on a jungle gym in the sand but I didn't recognize them. I fell asleep in the park under a tree but still kind of in the sun, too, I don't know for how long. Later, the kids that were with me woke me up to go home. I couldn't find my purse. I looked for my purse in a panic underneath a jacket or a blanket, then I stood up and looked for my car (again one I didn't recognize... some small gray four door) and I couldn't see it where I parked it. One of the kids said Ochoa put my purse in a locker. I didn't know who this Ochoa person was nor where the locker was located. And in that panic, I started to walk toward a school? made of red brick with the kids. Most likely, I woke up in a jolt startled and feeling panicky about the dream.

I tried to make sense of the dream, like I am now writing it down, but in my head while I tried to get some more rest. I had woken up at 3:30 AM and that is too early for me to do so. My alarm goes off at 4:45 AM each morning for work.

Super Bowl 43

I had the pleasure of watching the Super Bowl this year with a professional football coach. Oh yeah, even his email address says he's a coach. It was a kick to hear him call out the plays before the commentators did. We ate homemade guacamole and drank mimosas throughout the game. I also got to talk to him about all that is going on in his life and remodeling my home. I normally don't like sales people, but he turned out to be not as obnoxious as I thought he'd be. Would I see him again? Probably not because of "GU"... geographically undesirable or in other words. lives to damned far away. NEXT!

Cable vs. Satellite

Cable vs. Satellite. When the Time Warner Sales Rep finally tracked me down at my front door, he told me he could reduce my monthly bill if I switched my cable away from Directv. For me, it came down to the money in my pocket. I did the math and finally succombed to the fact that cable+internet bundle=savings for me. I wasn't happy about it because I enjoyed my reliable service, but there it was on paper in black and white. If I went with Time Warner Cable (internet+basic cable/locals/Showtime hd receiver/hd dvr), I was going to save about $30 a month over Directv (with locals, basic, and a Showtime package).

Old - Cable Internet 46.95 + Directv 72.98 = 119.93
New - Bundled Cable Internet + TV = 89.00
Monthly Savings = 30.93

So we set a date for the installation and I didn't really think about it much at all until the day came. The time rolled around and the installer contacted me to verify the location and direction. Fine. He got to my home and didn't even come to the front door. I found him at my patio door because the neighbor's damn dog was barking again, so that irratated me. He then examined where the internet cable was located and came into the house, asked me for a ladder and told me he would run the cable around my front door. NO. I live in a condo and I can't have the wiring like that. I said the wire was previously ran in the attic, so thats where it needs to go. Oh, he didn't like that. Then he went out onto my patio and said he would cut my directv line to install the cable, and I said NO, that's my property. The cable company was supposed to do a full install and not damage my directv because if I want to get rid of cable, then I can reconnect my directv. I told him he needed to run the line into the hole I previously made and he said he couldn't? Oh, my god. We ran around arguing for a good 30 minutes and I finally came to the conclusion he wasn't prepared for the installation and didn't want to go into my attic. My son left the house so he didn't have to listen to me tell this guy what he needed to do, but wasn't. He called his supervisor, and he went to the next job.

I was left angry and without cable. So the supervisor shows up at my door and I explain that the first guy came and he was arguementative, unprepared to preform the installation because he came without supplies and equipment and ultimately did not want to go into the attic to make the connection. He looked at everything again, asked where the connections should be and left to get supplies. Again, not prepared to do the installation. The supervisor came back with a ladder and coaxil and ran the lines in my attic like I asked, dropped the line in my closet, but left me with the duty to get it through the wall which was fine, and then the first guy shows up again with the hd receiver/dvr and installs that. He put the sound through my tv instead of the stereo, but I didn't care that this point, I just wanted him out. I was still irratated, hungry, and had other things to still to do.

So my appointment lasted over three hours with four visits from two people installing my cable tv. I finally got what I wanted with a new drop in the bedroom and a drop in the service hole that was already in the wall in the living room.

The Tonight Show - Mon, Dec 22, 2008

The Tonight Show - Mon, Dec 22, 2008
Jay performs a hot monologue on this pre-Christmas show with Robin Williams as his guest.

This is sad

This is sad, but it's not about me. I watched a documentary entitled "Autism Every Day" over the weekend on the Sundance Channel or IFC. Anyway, what it did was briefly showed a snapshot of these children born with autism, their family, level of disability and how the parents coped with the daily struggles. It also asked some pretty hard questions like, where did this come from and why if 1 out of 166 kids are affected by autism, it's not considered a national epidemic.

This is sad to think, but the women's liberation movement and in some way the invention of birth control pill brought on this wave, this higher than "normal" statistics for autism. The need for women to be treated equal in the work place, to strive in their own goals for themselves outside of the home and then after college and then after working for some time they want to have children after age 24, which is the peak time to have a child for a woman, is what brought this wave mental illness.

How does this tie into me? Once again, I put up an ad again on Match.com with the hopes of finding a soul mate, but more over any suitable mate because being single bored and lonely is getting old. I'm 42 and I had my son at 21. I do no want to start another family, mainly for my own health concerns, but moreover because I do not want to bare a child with mental developmental difficulties or be almost 60 when they graduate from high school. My golden years financing a college student is not in my future plans. And yet, I see all these men who now in their 40's want to start the family they put off having while they pursued their goals and dreams.

Never in the land of the free and the home of the brave have an age limit to having children, licenses for the birth of a child and genetic testing seemed so meaningful to me. Otherwise, eventually as this tragity progresses as it will, autistic children will become lifetime wards of the state.

Sunday With The Tudors: June 1, 2008

The Season Finale: :45 minutes of waiting, and waiting and more waiting with the tension building up until the release and banishment of Anne's father, the declaration of Elizabeth as a bastard, and the beheading of Anne.

What I think:O.K., what a disappointment as compared to the previous episode. And to top it off, they are going to begin the new season NEXT YEAR. Ug. I think it's time to cancel my subscription to Showtime.

Sunday With The Tudors: May 25, 2008

This Weeks Episode: The King gets the autopsy report that that Queen Anne's latest miscarriage was a deformed boy. Henry has moved the Seymour's in next door to his chambers, gives Jane's brother a job as Henry's private butler and then gives Jane a locket with his picture on it; Anne finds the locket and rips it from her neck. Madge gives it back to Jane. Henry instructs Cromwell to move Anne's father away from court; Anne gets mad at Cromwell. The Imperial Ambassador to Spain speaks to Cromwell and Cromwell discusses Anne's hatred of him. Janet Parker complains to his husbands sister Anne and she loudly speaks against the king's lack of virility at court. Anne's father is freaking out about loosing the Boleyn's place in society and demands Anne entertain the Imperial Ambassador. Henry is insulted by the same Ambassador because he's pushing for his eldest daughter Mary to be the next in line for succession; we all know Henry wants a son. Charles suggests Anne entertains men while Henry is away and others have committed treason. Henry orders an investigation. Henry also orders Jane to go back to her family home temporarily. Cromwell begins the questioning with Anne's ladies in waiting. Madge spills the beans. Janet Parker suggests Anne has slept with her brother (probably to get out of her bad marriage). Mark Smeatin is arrested and tortured with a head vice while being questioned by Cromwell about sleeping with the queen, then strung him up on the rack and questions him again, and is jailed. A bunch of people are arrested and coerced into confessing. Anne is arrested for adultery and immediately taken to the tower. Cromwell hands the divorce papers to the churchy guy. OH WOW- two expletives at 6:45PM PDT. "f*%#ing bitch" If this were network television, I'd smell FCC fines coming on. Heads are rolling of the one's accused of treason.


What I Think: Anne and her father get the axe in the last episode and Henry will marry Jane. Oh, another good show with lots of details packed in. Next episode is the season finale. Oh I can't wait. I hope they don't delay that finale like they did last year. And, OH!, another two expletives during the commercials-new series previews after the show was over.

Sunday With The Tudors: May 18, 2008

This Episode: The King of France, Henry's brother, is commanded by The Pope to invade England and kill Henry in order to make England Catholic again. Jane Semore arrives at court to be one of Queen Anne's lady's in waiting at the command of Henry and everyone is a buzz; Henry is falling in love with her. The Boleyns's feel the heat of the Semores arrival at court.

Henry now older, accepts Lady Jane's favors, jousts, and gets knocked unconscious. In hearing the bad news, Queen Anne turns to Mark Smeatin for comfort and her cousin Marge is witness to it. Cromwell is freaking out, the Boleyn's are freaking out, his best friend is praying by his side.

Henry wakes up and Henry is resolved to be with Jane now seeing how fragile his life is, holding her favors (ribbon) in his hand. He re injures his leg and now walks with a limp. While he's on bed rest, he writes to Jane and gives her a bag of gold through Charles. He later calls for her and Anne catches them kissing and freaks out. Later, Anne has a miscarriage. Henry's so pissed off about it then he's talking about voiding his marriage with Anne.

What I Think:Anne and the Boleyn's are going down in the next episode.

Monday with The Tudors: May 12, 2008

O.K. I was tired last night and almost watched the entire episode of an older taping of this show, so I wasted alot of time. I realized this only 45 minutes in. So I stopped the playback and located the proper episode. This is from memory so, so it probably won't be as robust as previous entries.

This week: Anne rejoices about the death of the former queen Catherine while others mourn her passing and one of the former queen's lady's in waiting is so distraught over the death, she hung herself. Anne is getting alittle nutty about loosing her status as queen and having nightmares about Mary taking the throne. Hot sex scene between Henry and a drunk Anne who is now determined she can bore him a son upon the death of Catherine. Henry meets Jane Lennox, a blonde beauty and daughter of a Lord. Henry takes possession of the catholic churches wealth and books in England to replenish his dwindling exchequer and establish a national library.

What I Think: Anne's days are numbered because she continues to piss off Henry by giving her opinion and now has started to take action behind his back.

Tonight Show Re-runs

I'm watching a re-run of the Tonight Show and Jessie Ventura just walked onto the stage. It appears he's morphed in to the old guy who lives down the street and fixes your lawn mower or chain saw. Thankfully, he now spends a significant amount of time living off the grid 850 miles south of the border in Mexico.

Sunday With The Tudors: May 4, 2008

This week: The Pope condemns the deaths of the cardinal and Henry's friend Thomas Moore and implies Queen Anne is a hieratic. Henry resents Anne for egging him on to kill Moore. George Boleyn married Jane Parker, a distant relative of Henry's, but George is fooling around with Mark Smeatin on the side. Queen Anne's imagination runs wild with Henry's affairs both real and suspicioned. Elizabeth is considered a bastard child by the French when Henry tries to betroth her to the french king's youngest son and is denied. The Duke of Suffolk entertains the french admiral and his entourage, which pisses off Queen Anne to no end, but slips up and screws the french admirals niece in the horse barn and his wife finds out.

What I think: Queen Anne's frustration with Henry's behavior is showing and Henry put her in her place.

For people who live in Ohio

My dear friend in Ohio and my one avid blog reader was complaining to me that I'm babbling on about the Tudors and he doesn't understand why. It's a series on Showtime cable. But it means more than just entertainment to me because, you see, I went to high school with Candy Stuart who is a direct decendant of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Mary Stuart had dealings with Elizabeth I, the daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and the show that I've been watching is primarily about them. And I'm into genealogy and I love watching this kind of stuff, so I think it's cool.

Click on the image above to make it bigger.
Pedigree courtesy of Wikipedia

Sunday With The Tudors: April 27, 2008

This Weeks Episode:'Life or Death' undertones to this weeks show. Thomas and Fisher will be beheaded because they refuse to take the oath, which would save their lives. Ann has a miscaraige as well as her sister gets married and now is pregnant to a commoner and her father thinks it threatens their position in court. Ann's sister is banished from court. Henry picks up a stranger on the road to take to his bed.
What I think:Things are getting tense and when the King doesn't get his way, heads will soon roll.

Sunday with the Tudors: April 20, 2008

This weeks synopsis:Elizabeth was christened, but the people are still questioning the validity of the Henry's marriage to Ann and the legitimacy of their daughter. Mark Smitten and son bolin have sex while Henry and lady Eleanor Luke do the same. Lady Mary was put up in residence as a servant for the kings new daughter. The old counselor Thomas Moore has had his income from the king cut off because he will not swear on an oath that the king is the head of the church of england and neither will Fisher who both now has been jailed for being catholic. He is made a cardinal by the pope. Another Christmas passes in court and still plots to kill Ann are pr evasive. Charles comes back to court and Ann banishes Eleanor; her brother blackmails Eleanor to leave court. Ann is pregnant again. Ann's father advises her to pick a mistress for the king if she doesn't not want the king to pick one for himself. Ann picks Lady Margaret Sheldon (her fatter and not so attractive cousin) for the task and they go forth and frolic on a horse ride to Henry's summer residence.

What I think:Lady Mary was placed in residence to keep her whereabouts monitored and purposefully separate from her mother. Ann doesn't like the idea of Henry screwing around behind her back and doesn't totally like the idea of her choosing her cousin doing the same either, at the suggestion of her father, but she does it not to loose him. The catholic clergy who doesn't approve of Henry taking the head of the church of england is going down.