Have you watched “Partners” yet?
Oct 8, 2012 Paid/Sponsored Post
[I am participating in a compensated campaign for One2One Network. All opinions stated are my own.]
Have you watched Partners yet? You can get caught up in only forty minutes – the first two episodes are available here. You’ll be all ready for tonight’s third episode (CBS, 8:30pm), which I’ve already seen, and it’s really funny. (Although you can just jump right in and start with tonight’s new episode – it’s a sit-com, not a detailed multi-episode murder mystery.)
Partners is a new comedy from the creators of one of my all-time favorite shows, Will & Grace. Max Mutchnik and David Kohan have based the series loosely on themselves: friends since childhood, one gay one straight, who end up working together. Except instead of writing partners, the show’s leads are partners in a architectural firm.
I have to confess, I’m coming into this very biased, because of David Krumholtz. He stars in Partners as Joe, and he also starred in Numb3ers, which I have running constantly on Netflix. So I started watching this show because of him, and so far I love it. Plus, the show has a big Buffalo connection, and as a native Buffalonian, I get giddy when Buffalo is mentioned anywhere. I don’t even really care if it’s a disparaging remark, I just like people remembering that Buffalo exists.
The rest of the cast is fantastic as well. Michael Urie (Ugly Betty) co-stars as Joe’s best friend Louis, who is dating a very handsome man (Brandon Routh, so amazing in the so-so Superman Returns) who grew up Mennonite and does not understand pop culture references. This creates some very funny situations, like in tonight’s episode when they play a game of Celebrity (remember, this is from the Will & Grace people: there has to be a competitive parlor game in there!). I don’t know about you, but I don’t know any gay men who don’t talk almost completely in pop-culturese, so I found this hysterical.
Sophia Bush plays Joe’s fiancé, Ali. The third episode centers around some secrets she’s kept from Joe, and how he handles them. I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s just say that it involves former boyfriends and that game of Celebrity I mentioned.
Real-life partners
I find the idea of friends partnering in a business very interesting. I used to co-host a podcast with three friends, and it’s definitely a weird dynamic. If the business doesn’t do well, if there are hard decisions to be made, it’s not just the business that’s at risk, but the friendship as well. It’s a huge risk to take, with the potential for huge rewards. Join us tonight on twitter for a live Partners viewing party from 8:15-9:15 as real-life work partners and friend Audrey McClelland and Vera Sweeney talk about what it takes to make that kind of situation work. There will, of course, be prizes.
Hope to see you tonight!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 13. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Photo credits: Warner Bros. Television Entertainment/Monty Brinton © 2012 WBEI. All rights reserved.
An “Unforgettable” set visit with Marilu Henner & Poppy Montgomery
Nov 15, 2011 Around NYC
A few weeks ago, when it was somehow much colder than it is today, I got to visit an on-location shoot for the hit CBS drama Unforgettable. (Actually, that’s where I was headed when I got pulled over for running a red light.)
Cathy & Sheri, from Have U Heard, watching Unforgettable being filmed
The wind was really whipping along the waterfront in the Queens park where the shoot was happening. A group of bloggers put on headphones and watched the monitors as series star Poppy Montgomery (Without a Trace), playing detective Carrie Wells, filmed a touching scene with guest star Marilu Henner (playing Carrie’s aunt), for the episode airing tonight:
Once the scene was done we escaped the cold into a trailer, and got to hang out for a bit with Poppy and Marilu, peppering them with questions about motherhood, acting, Unforgettable, and the incredible memory that Marilu has – a condition called hyperthymesia.
Hyperthymesia, also known as superior autobiographical memory, has only been confirmed in twenty people. Marilu can recall details from every day of her life since she was eleven years old. She’s the inspiration for Poppy’s character on Unforgettable, and a consultant for the show. Poppy’s character can also remember every day of her life, except for one: the day her sister was murdered.
Marilu’s character, in an ironic twist, appears to be suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s.
Marilu Henner & Poppy Montgomery
Acting probably seems glamorous from the outside looking in, but it can be brutal on families. Marilu and Poppy discussed how working on a one-hour drama is pretty much the hardest acting work in terms of hours, with extra-long days being the norm. Poppy complained that she leaves home when her child is still asleep and comes home after he’s gone to bed, which causes her to be “nice mommy” on the weekends because she feels guilty for being gone all week. I think that’s a feeling many working mothers encounter, but as Marilu quickly pointed out, when you mother out of guilt you make mistakes.
Marilu didn’t have such issues when her children were little, though, since she was doing a lot of stage work. She seems to have integrated acting into family life fairly easily, taking her children on tour with her when they were younger. On one tour they went to twenty-two cities in thirty weeks, being homeschooled the entire time.
I’ll have much more about Marilu later in the week – we were able to follow up with her during a conference call last week that was fascinating. For now, I urge you to tune in to CBS tonight at 10pm to watch this episode. If you like police dramas as much as I do, you’ll probably love this show.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 5. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Marilu Henner, NYC, TV, Unforgettable
Today’s Agenda: two-day hair edition
Oct 21, 2011 Posted From My Phone, Today's Agenda
So I’m still rocking the gorgeous braid I got yesterday from the ladies of Bergdorf’s braid bar, at a blogger event held at More Magazine (I slept with a scarf wrapped around it). And I even did my eyebrows with the little kit that the people from Benefit gave me. I may be exhausted, but at least I look good.
I’m on the set of the CBS show Unforgettable right now, watching some filming and getting ready to interview a few of the show’s stars. Fun day, but when I get home I’m going to sleep for about five hours. Then, I’m going to blog about getting pulled over on my way here. Good times.
Enjoy your weekend!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom, from Amy’s cell phone (so please excuse any weird formatting). All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 1. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
If they can put a man on the moon…
Feb 24, 2011 What's Going On
…why can’t they invent a better way to hook up audio/visual equipment than lying on the floor, squeezing your arm around to the back of the receiver/DVD player/DVR because the cords are too short to pull them out of the shelf and make the connections? I mean really, when will every part of this be wireless?
So yesterday, the cable guy connected everything up, but my new TV shelf came today. Great timing, right? And if you checked in on my twitter account at all in the past seven or eight hours or so you would know that I spent a ridiculous amount of time putting it together. I’ve put together a ton of furniture, including beds, desks, and too many IKEA shelves to count. This was definitely the most difficult. Or maybe I was just off my game. Either way, it took much longer than it should have. Even with Selma helping.
I promised on twitter that I would post pictures when it was finally done. So here you go! Isn’t it beautiful? It might’ve been the quickest furniture decision The Ass and I have ever made. I narrowed it down online to a dozen or so that fit into the space, and then we ended up choosing this one because it has sliding doors, and part of it would be blocked by the couch – those doors would be much easier to negotiate in a tight space.
Aside from the absolutely awful directions, I love it. Very modern and sleek. Unfortunately, I predict that I will have the top covered in crap within 24 hours.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Tags: TV
Yay, my new TV shelf is here!
Feb 23, 2011 Posted From My Phone, What's Going On
But boo, I have to put it together myself and it’s really heavy.
Originally posted on SelfishMom.com, from Amy’s cell phone (so please excuse any weird formatting). All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
So what is Time Warner’s SignatureHome?
Feb 22, 2011 Product Review
A Time Warner technician just left my home, after installing the new SignatureHome service. I have a feeling that when they came up with this service, they had someone exactly like me in mind. After I’ve been using it for a couple of days I can give you a better idea of the experience, but for now I can tell you what the service includes and what it’s supposed to do.
I went to a media event a few months ago to learn about the new service, and I was really impressed. Time Warner had the system set up in a bunch of different rooms on a couple of floors, to really give you a sense of what it would be like to have it in a real house. I walked out of the event totally set on signing up for the service myself. The offer a few days later of a free trial was a surprise bonus.
Digital Cable
The biggest attraction for me is the whole-house DVR system. The basic service includes two whole-house DVRs that work together. Each DVR has two tuners, meaning that we’ll be able to record up to four shows at once. Between them they have about one terabyte of memory. That’s enough to record roughly 150 hours of HD programming. That’s a lot of HD. Despite owning four HDTVs, I don’t watch a whole lot of HD right now, because I rarely watch TV live – everything is recorded. And if I record more than a few shows in HD the DVR is full and I’m screwed out of the rest of my shows. Now I’ll actually be able to record shows in HD routinely.
We’ve added two playback cable boxes to our service, which cost extra. While neither one will be able to record, they will both be able to access all of the recorded shows from the two DVRs. So it won’t really matter where we record anything: whichever TV we’re using, we’ll have access to everything.
Another cool feature is that if I pause live TV on one DVR, I can pick the show up from that same spot on the other DVR. So if I’m done cleaning the living room downstairs and want to move upstairs to fold laundry, I can pause the downstairs TV and un-pause the show in the guest room. (By the way, people who know me will find it hilarious that I used cleaning and folding laundry for that example, since they both happen so rarely.)
Two more features are Look Back and Start Over. For certain prime-time shows, you can Look Back up to three days and watch, even if you didn’t record it when it originally aired. Start Over I’ve used on my old DVR before: for certain shows, if you turn to them after they’ve started you can Start Over at the beginning. The drawback is that you can’t fast forward through the commercials after you start over, you have to play it through. But if it’s something you really want to see, it’s a small price to pay to be able to see the whole thing.
And now, the bonus feature that I completely forgot about until now: the ability to program my DVRs from my computer or phone! No more calling my husband when I’m out of town and begging him record awards shows that threaten his manhood. No more rushing home because a friend tweeted that she’s going to be on TV in fifteen minutes and could someone please record it?!? It’s also been hinted that in the future I’ll be able to watch recorded shows on the go as well. This makes me salivate.
Wideband Internet
Figuring out internet speeds has always been a little murky. I’ve read many stories about how certain areas get faster internet than others, how internet speeds change based on demand, how speeds change based on your own usage patterns. I don’t know what to believe. But SignatureHome promises the fastest internet available in my area. Since I’m often streaming TV, and uploading and downloading videos and podcasts, I’m very curious to see if I notice a difference in internet speed. My internet is actually very fast most of the time, but what I’d like to see is more consistency in my speed. Sometimes in the evening it just slows to a crawl.
The installer not only hooked up the modem, but also the wireless, with a new Wireless N router. The way we had it set up we only had WiFi on three out of four floors, plus the basement. It would be great if it reached that top floor.
Digital Home Phone
This service has me a little nervous, to be honest. I’ve resisted all of those other three-in-one packages up until now because I was suspicious of VOIP and didn’t want to give up my regular, old fashioned landline. But what has convinced me to try it is all of the integrated features that I’ll now have on my home phone, similar to many features I have on my cell phone, like getting my voicemails sent to my email.
Plus, I’ll have the option of seeing caller ID info on my computers and TVs. I’ll also be able to access my messages online, and email them if I want (this will come in very handy if I ever have a stalker who leaves me phone messages). And if I need one more way to apply my control freak tendencies to my phone, I can apply a distinctive ring to up to 30 incoming phone numbers. Not sure yet if I want to use that feature for calls I want to answer, or calls I want to avoid.
The Costs
So what does all this wonderfulness cost? I’m reluctant to give exact numbers because I’m sure that the charges vary in different parts of the country. I will say this: under our old system, we had digital cable with one DVR and Road Runner broadband with Time Warner, and our landline with Verizon. Under the new plan everything is with Time Warner, we have four TVs hooked up to cable instead of one, and we have two DVRs instead of one. I don’t know yet what the taxes and fees will be, but I think we’re going to be paying somewhere around $40-$50 more per month than we were for the old Time Warner plan and Verizon combined. But I’ll update this when we get our the second bill (the first bill will be prorated for the partial month plus have one-time connection fees and I doubt if I’ll be able to figure out what the real cost is).
If you need me for the next couple of days, I’ll be messing around with all of the new features and settings.
Please note that Amy is getting a free trial of this service.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 1. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Tags: Time Warner Cable, TV
Time Warner Signature is coming to my house!
Feb 22, 2011 Posted From My Phone
I just had to take pictures of all of the series I have set up on my DVR, because it’s about to go bye-bye!
I’m very excited. Installers from Time Warner Cable are here hooking my house up with the new Time Warner SignatureHome service. I had gone to an event a few months ago and was really impressed. The service includes two new DVRs, plus we’re getting replay boxes for two other TVs – anything recorded on either of the two DVRs will be playable on any of the TVs. This means more to me than it should. I’ll also be able to pause a live show on one TV and pick it up on another TV. How cool is that?
We’ll also be getting faster broadband and VOIP phone. And the best part? They hook everything up to the system during the install – XBoxes, DVD players, laptops, everything. So that it all works together.
I’ll give you a full tour and demo after they leave!
Please note that Amy is getting a free trial of this service.
Originally posted on SelfishMom.com, from Amy’s cell phone (so please excuse any weird formatting). All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 1. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Tags: Time Warner Cable, TV
Twitter had my back
Feb 21, 2011 Around NYC
So I’m one of those people who likes to live by statistics and odds. No matter how many Lifetime movies are made about people getting murdered after placing or answering an ad online, it’s just not likely to happen, even if you answered an ad a day for a year.
Today I was looking for a TV on eBay Classifieds to put in front of my treadmill (which I also bought from eBay Classifieds). I found one that was the perfect size and type, with a good price, in Brooklyn. I called the guy selling it and we set a time to meet at his apartment.
It wasn’t until I was actually walking in the door of his building that I realized nobody knew where I was! Normally there would be a husband and kids at home waiting for me to come back, but they’re in Florida right now. The cable guys are coming tomorrow, but I doubt if they’d call the police if I didn’t answer the door. And while it would be a little weird that I wouldn’t talk to my husband until he gets home on Thursday, it wouldn’t be completely out of the question. If something bad happened while I was in this stranger’s apartment testing out the TV, it’s quite possible that nobody would really miss me until I didn’t show up at the airport to pick my family up on Thursday.
So, as I was following him up to his apartment, I sent out a quick tweet letting my followers know exactly where I was in case something were to happen. I felt stupid doing it, but…just in case…
Of course, nothing happened. The guy I bought the TV from was perfectly nice – even carried the TV half a block to my car for me. I tweeted that I was back safe in my car. I got home to a whole bunch of tweets from concerned people, some of them saying I should’ve gone with a friend. I dunno. If someone asked me to take an hour and a half of my time to go buy a TV with them I’d be really annoyed, so I’m not likely to ask anyone to do that for me. But next time, I will remember to call my husband and tell him where I’m going.
As for the TV? Fantastic condition, perfect for my basement. Now I won’t have to bring my laptop downstairs and watch on a little screen while I’m exercising. If I’m going to make myself work out, I want to be as distracted as possible. How did people work out before TVs and mp3 players anyway?
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 14. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Tags: eBay Classifieds, jogging, TV
