Some of you may know that I have a soft spot for singing actors, Ewan McGregor being my favorite.

I was pleasantly surprised last week to find out that another of my favorite actors could sing and well. Matt Bomer, star of White Collar, guest starred on Glee. I don’t watch Glee religiously, but I do like a lot of their song renditions. I had no idea Bomer sang. He did a small bit on White Collar, but nothing that really showcased his talent. When I watched the episode of Glee, I was blown away.

In this episode, Bomer plays the famous older brother of Blaine. He’s quite pompous, arrogant, and rude to Blaine. This song showcases Blaine’s feelings toward him near the end of the episode. Enjoy!

What do you think? Wasn’t it a great performance? I love this song (although I only encountered through this episode). But, I thought both did a great job.

I truly love Bomer’s voice and look forward to more opportunities to hearing him sing. Hopefully, it will be a lot. *crosses fingers* I’m sure I’ll be disappointed by the frequency, though, because I don’t hear Ewan McGregor sing nearly enough as these singing actors spend most of their time acting and not singing. Weird, huh?

I’m a huge zombie fan! I wasn’t one until my husband turned me on to them with 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead (I love Simon Pegg movies!), and the Resident Evil movies.

When I heard AMC was airing a zombie television show, I was so excited! Corey and I watched the pilot of The Walking Dead with great anticipation. The first season was only six episodes, but it was our favorite show on TV.

When the second season started, we were really excited to see where it would take us, especially with how the first season ended. The first two episodes were fantastic, but then it really slowed down. I was still enthralled by the show, but Corey, my niece and her husband, and their friend were all getting restless with it. They kept saying things like, “This has turned into a soap opera with a token zombie in each episode. They need to step up the ante.” While I agreed, I still enjoyed the drama because I felt it added to the character development. I just wish that it would’ve been a little faster paced.

The mid-season finale, in December, was a doozy and made me excited for the rest of the season after the holidays. I felt that the second half of the season was better, much faster paced, but still a little slow and with a lot of character development. But, again, I still really liked that. (I’m not a character-driven reader rather than a plot-driven reader for nothing.)

The last four episodes of this season, however, have been fantastic! They were fun, enthralling, and edge-of-your-seat suspense-filled episodes. Nothing, however, prepared me for the season finale last night! That episode was so intense! Half-way through the episode, I was breathing hard and sure everyone, except Rick, was going to die because there were so many zombies!

I’m really excited to see what happens in the third season. The second season confirmed that no character is safe, except Rick as he’s the main character. And, that it’s not a matter of if the other characters bite the dust, it’s a matter of when. I love that they introduced a new character right in the last five minutes because now I’m on pins and needles waiting to find out who this mysterious person is. (I realize that if I followed the comics, I might already know who this person is.)

Are any of my readers fans of the show? If so, what did you think of the season finale? Are you excited for season 3? Who’s your favorite character and why?

On Friday night, my friends and I had a party.  We haven’t had one since the end of February so we were all having withdrawals.  I felt like I hadn’t seem everyone for an especially long time because I wasn’t able to go to the party in February due to midterms so it was nice to spend some quality time with my friends.

As usual, we just enjoyed each other’s company with lots of fun conversation.  We talked about books we recommend and we even made plans for almost the entire year, taking a lot of the guess work out of our get-togethers. We have some fun things planned in the next few months so stay tuned for the recaps. I’m very excited!

*****

Saturday felt like a big day of nothing, honestly.  I didn’t get up until late because I didn’t get home from the party until around 1:30 am.  And, Corey and I just hung around home for most of the day.  We cleaned, I did some homework (very little), and we went to Office Max to buy some Post-its to help me with annotating for my summer term class.  Wait … what?  Summer term class? You probably thought summer term didn’t start until June 21st. You’re right. It doesn’t, but I already have homework for that class.

I received an e-mail from my summer term class teacher last Wednesday.  Here’s a little tidbit of that e-mail:

Welcome to English 295 for the summer term! This may seem a little premature, but I wanted to give you a heads-up as to what we’re doing. This course is on “writing literary criticism,” … and so I’ll be asking you to examine texts from the inside out, moving from basic summaries of the text you choose to work with to a critical examination in light of a theory or issue which you find particularly prevalent in the text.

… [I]n the event that you aren’t aware yet, the set of texts we’ll be working with for summer term is (drum roll, please) The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. … I’m telling you this now because within the first week of classes, I’ll have asked you to finish reading all four books and make a decision about which of the [four] you want to focus on during the term….  I think it’s fair to give you all a chance to start reading now so that you won’t feel overwhelmed by reading in the first week.

There you have it. I not only have to keep up with my full-time job, church calling, and homework for my current class (which isn’t light I might add), but I also have to read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the next five weeks and remember enough to be able to critique them using different literary criticism theories. It was nice of my teacher to give us some time to accomplish this, huh?

Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve always wanted to read these books.  I even tried reading The Hobbit seven or so years ago.  (I couldn’t get past page 42, but I wasn’t an avid reader back then.)  I’m just stressed to the max with trying to make sure I get them done in time.  Luckily, I don’t have to go to Girls’ Camp anymore so I’m going to take the time off work that I would’ve taken to go to camp and use it to read!

*****

On Sunday, Corey and I went up to Aymee and Dave’s, my niece and nephew-in-law, so Corey could watch the LOST series finale with them.  All three of them are huge fans, Aymee and Dave since day 1 and Corey since this January.  (Corey watched the first five seasons on Hulu in January to gear up for the final season.  I would’ve joined him if I didn’t have as much homework as I did/do.  I did see a few episodes here and there so I knew enough to get by, but not enough to have a firm grasp of the show or all the characters.)

I really enjoyed the series finale.  I thought it was well done and I cried several times.  Corey sent me this link earlier today.  It’s a guide to the series finale and helps you understand what happened and how it affected the entire series.  I think it’s quite insightful.

I can’t wait for tomorrow because the new season of 24 starts.  Finally!  Because of the writer’s strike last year, 24 hasn’t been on since early 2007, except for a 2-hour teaser in late November.  The last season wasn’t the best, but the 2-hour teaser got me pumped for this season because it looks like it’ll be a lot better this time around.  I can’t wait for all the twists and turns!

This weekend has been fairly eventful. On Friday, Corey and I went to see The Golden Compass movie. I enjoyed it a lot as did Corey. Obviously, because it was a movie, it didn’t have everything the book did. But, it was a very good adaptation. The actors were cast very well and portrayed the characters as I imagined them. I always wish the movie can explain as much as the book does, but alas, it isn’t possible. Corey said he understood the story really well so anyone who hasn’t read the book should be able to enjoy the movie as well as someone who has.

On Saturday, as I said in a previous post, it snowed a great deal. We did receive about a foot of snow. Our porch must have an untapped source of heat because my second rendition of Chaim didn’t last through the night, even though it’s still snowing.

We were supposed to go to my work’s Christmas party last night, but when we got on the freeway, we decided the roads were just too bad to go. We couldn’t see the lines between the lanes and we were slipping and sliding everywhere. Corey said we could’ve made it to the party, but he was worried about coming home when the roads would be icy.

We decided to stay home and watch a movie instead. We watched The Invisible. It’s about a teenager who’s almost beaten to death. He gets caught in between the living and spirit worlds and tries to convince his attacker to tell the authorities where his body is. I enjoyed the movie a lot. It was pretty cool to see Alex O’Loughlin as the bad guy since I’ve only seen him as a vampire on Moonlight.

Corey’s foot started to hurt on Saturday morning. When we went to the mall and started to walk on it a lot, he told me he thought he might’ve broken it, but he wasn’t sure. This morning, we went to the ER because his foot was hurting really badly that it kept him up almost all night. They ran some X-rays, but it didn’t show anything. The doctor told us that he could have a sprain or hair-line fracture as hair-line fractures won’t show up in X-rays for at least a couple of weeks. So, until then, he gets to wear a walking boot and be on crutches.

As you can see, Tigger wanted to be a part of Corey’s picture. I think he decided he hadn’t been mentioned on my blog enough. The cats are actually very afraid of Corey unless he’s sitting down. They don’t like his walking boot or his crutches and run out of the way every time Corey moves. However, Cassie has decided to be brave. He loves Corey so much. While Corey has been sitting and laying down today, Cassie has been keeping him company.

I’m really excited because the Fall TV season starts tonight. (At least it starts for me.) I know it’s sad that I’m looking forward to TV, but a few of my shows ended with some doozy cliffhangers.

On Mondays, we watch CSI: Miami. The season finale for last season wasn’t that much of a cliffhanger. The only thing we’re really wondering is whether or not Ryan Wolfe will get his job as a CSI back.

On Tuesdays, we watch Bones, our favorite TV show (other than 24). I’m rooting for Bones and Booth to get together this season. Of course, their tension is what makes the show. If it keeps the show on longer, then keep them apart!

On Wednesdays, we watch CSI: NY. Corey doesn’t like this one as much, but I do. There wasn’t much of a cliffhanger for this show either. In fact, I think this season is starting completely independent from last season.

On Thursdays, we watch CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Without a Trace, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. CSI had a huge cliffhanger! We find out whether or not the miniature killer succeeded in killing Sarah. I think Without a Trace and CI are like CSI: NY; they’re starting completely independent from last season.

On Friday, I’m going to watch a new show this season called Moonlight. It’s a vampire story. Now why would I have interest in that? Ha ha! Supposedly, the vampire falls in love with a human girl, which sounds awfully familiar. However, I’m sure it won’t even come close to the swooniness of the Twilight series. It’ll be fun to watch. Heck, it may end up being my new favorite show.

I’m so interested in reading now that I’m not sure how well I’ll keep up with my shows this season. Corey and I have been watching reruns of Star Trek: Voyager over the summer and I missed over half of them because I was more interested in reading. We even TiVoed them. I guess this is a good thing, right?