What on earth?

What could possibly be the story behind this picture? Well, if you want to know, you can read my merchandise and decor trip report from Disneyland from February 1, 2009.

"Dollhouse" - February 13, 2009 episode

Caroline nervously paces the room, as she has to make a very difficult decision that she doesn't want to make. Something has happened, and one of the ways she can get out of it is to volunteer for a program, and after five years, she'll be done and free.

Next, two mopeds are shown racing through the streets, and as the two veer off, one driver ends up crashing the bike to the ground, and it's revealed that Caroline (who we later learn is now called Echo) is that driver. She picks the bike up and catches up to the other driver, racing through Chinatown and into a sort of restaurant/club with a big banner that says "Happy Birthday, Matt". It turns out that the other driver is the birthday boy himself, and the two continue to have fun at the party. Echo is in this very, very short white dress, (yeah it's barely-legal short), but she looks amazing in it, dancing with Matt. He goes to get them a drink, and Echo ends up leaving the party and getting into a black van. She is taken away to a compound where she tells people that she may have found the guy, and she's trying to figure out if she should go back to the party after her treatment.

However, her treatment is actually a mind wipe, as we see a rewind of all the memories they're stripping from her. It turns out that Matt had paid for a weekend of fun with her, and we see how they met and what their weekend entailed. After she left the party, one of Matt's friends asked where she was, and Matt made a Cinderella reference about the clock striking midnight (metaphorically since the friend confusedly pointed out that it was 5am at the time), but Echo's transformation back to her old self is very different than Cinderella's.

After the treatment, Echo has a blank look on her face and doesn't remember anything that's happened. She's taken to see a doctor, who arranges a massage for her, but while she's waiting, her attention is caught by flashing lights, and she goes upstairs to investigate and sees a girl (who is a new recruit being mapped) strapped to a table with gadgets all around her. The tech who wiped her mind notices her and ushers her out, trying to come up with an explanation of what she saw.

We learn that Echo is an "active", someone who has had their own personality and memories completely wiped and who is imprinted with the memories and personality of whatever type of person is needed and requested by the company's clients. But none of them seem to know what's going on or that their memories aren't real, so I wonder why they all think they live in this big house. Really nice set, by the way.

Some kind of big-shot executive is shown talking to his daughter (she's supposed to be 12, but she looked younger than that to me) at home, but as soon as she hangs up, she is subdued by strangers and kidnapped. The man shows up at the Dollhouse offices and says that he just wants someone to facilitate the ransom exchange - he doesn't want the people caught or brought to justice, he just wants to pay the money and get his daughter back. Echo gets this task and arrives at the man's house. He is uncomfortable with the way she is handling the conversations with the kidnappers, to the point that when she says she knows what she's doing because she's been doing this for years, he laughs derisively at her since he knows that she's simply an active. He knows he's not supposed to reveal to her that she's an active, but he makes a cryptic comment about whether or not she was a clown or something else the previous day, which confuses her and which makes her flash on her imprintation process, which disorients her.

A meeting is arranged on the docks, and the money is being taken away by the head kidnapper's men but suddenly, something goes wrong with Echo and she collapses. When the client asks what's wrong, she says not to let them all get on the boat. The deal had been that when the money was on the boat, they would release his daughter. Echo says they have no intention of releasing the girl. When the client tries to stop the last man, the client ends up getting shot, and the kidnappers get away with the money and the girl.

Echo is picked up by the van, and she's talking what sounds like nonsense. But then it's revealed that her imprint personality was a kidnap victim, and one of the men she saw on the docks was one of the who kidnapped her, which is what caused her breakdown. She is determined to track them down to save the little girl, right after her treatment. The word "treatment" seems to be a trigger that works with the actives. Echo's Watcher...ummm...I mean...Handler figures out what's going on and tries to get them not to wipe her memory just yet because Echo is the key to finding the little girl. The tech nerd who's been wiping minds turns out to be one of the people who developed the system, and there's some discussion about the ethics of what they're doing and whether they're simply providing a service or engaged in something more sinister. The imprints come from a composite of multiple personalities, and one of the personalities used for this particular character had been abused as a child and had never gotten over it, having killed herself within the past year. The handler manages to convince them not to wipe Echo's mind yet, so they set out to find the kidnappers. Based on her phone conversations with the kidnappers and what the little girl had said when she was on the phone with her father, Echo figures out that one of the kidnappers knows the little girl and is probably one of her teachers. When a suspect is identified, they head to the suspect's sister's secluded cabin.

Echo is dropped off and knocks on the door, and they eventually let her in. She tells the other men that they're not going to get anything out of this because the one man is going to kill them all, and that he wants something more than money, namely, the little girls. She explains exactly what the man is going to do and what he has done, killing his partners, taking the little girls, abusing them and then dumping them for dead, and she confronts him and tells him to his face that she's not afraid of him anymore. As the men engage in a firefight, she goes to rescue the little girl. The man who had been the abuser is killed, and the others are letting her leave, but then the door explodes in, and a team from Dollhouse, including the new recruit she'd seen earlier, take out the rest of the men and recover all the money and will remove all evidence. The client is still alive and will be happy to get his daughter back.

This time, Echo's mind is thoroughly wiped, and the girls lay down in recessed beds that are about the size and shape of a coffin with a glass cover overhead. Weird sleeping setup.

Meanwhile, an FBI agent has been trying to track down the Dollhouse, something that seems more like a rumour and myth than reality, but he's convinced it's real. He takes measures to get more information about the location of the Dollhouse. At the end, someone is sending a picture presumably to the FBI agent, and it's a picture of Echo. The person is also watching a video of Echo when she was Caroline while two people lay dead behind him. I don't really understand this part, but based on the previews for the next episode, the husband is speculating that the man watching the video is Alpha, a rogue active (since all the actives seem to be named after the phonetic alphabet), and the dead people are Caroline's parents.


There were parts of the story that I found to be a bit confusing, but overall, I really enjoyed the show. I liked the marked difference in Caroline and Echo - whereas Caroline was frazzled and nervous and jumpy and looking worried and concerned, Echo is cool and polished and calm, almost to the extent where she would probably fit right in if she decided to move to the town of Stepford. The imprinting idea also has a bit of the Stepford Wives feel to it, although in that case, they didn't just replace the personalities, but rather, the entire being. However, the FBI guy did say that getting rid of the personalities is a kind of murder in and of itself.

They've set up the question of Echo's past, what happened that led her there. And that also makes you wonder what the backstory is for all the other people there. And why do they all think they're there, living there, sleeping in weird quarters and not even questioning how weird that is, and what exactly do they think they're getting treatment for?


Much of the advertising that I've seen has focussed on Eliza Dushku with mannequins, which I think is a good representation. Mannequins are a clean slate (and Caroline doesn't think a clean slate can be possible), and you can dress them up to be and look like whatever you want, to suit whatever you need. That's the same for the actives - they're clean to start with each time and then they're dressed up through imprintation.


Echo and the mannequins, instead of the bunnymen


Echo in the mind-wipe chamber with her handler and tech.


I really liked Eliza Dushku, who played all the different aspects of her character, or multiple characters. I know her a little from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", but I got into Buffy late in the game, so I've only seen some of Eliza's appearances on that show. I can see why she'd be interested in this role since she will be mostly playing a different character every week because of the imprints and yet still be building the character of Echo as time goes by. The variety of challenges will be like it was for Scott Bakula on "Quantum Leap", but in this case, she will actually be playing different characters every week, not one character pretending to be different people every week.


Because the debut of "Dollhouse" was right after the return of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" on its new night, they had little vignettes of Eliza Dushku and Summer Glau talking about the two shows and each of their characters. It's funny that they're packaging the two together. Even one of Eliza's publicity shots as Echo resembles a publicity shot of Summer as Cameron.


Eliza Dushku as Echo

Summer Glau as Cameron

Another publicity shot of Summer Glau as Cameron, showing Cameron's terminator roots.

Summer Glau, in a picture that better shows how pretty she is.


So, yeah, I know Summer is pretty, and she's pretty hot too, but in the vignettes with the two of them, Eliza looked so much prettier. Sorry, Summer, you're pretty, and you're hot, but Eliza is just smokin'. Yeah, I'm jealous.


I was surprised to see another familiar face - Amy Acker, whose name the husband recognized, but I didn't until I saw her on screen as the doctor attending to Echo - she played Fred in "Angel". I'd only really watched the last season of that show. She's not included in the cast pictures I've seen online, so I'm not sure how big her role is, but they've certainly set her up as an intriguing character because of the scars on her face.


I'm looking forward to seeing more of the show, and Hot Chicks Night on FOX looks like it's gonna be terrific.

"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" - February 13, 2009 episode

Sarah wakes up in the hospital and hears a sheriff's deputy and a nurse talking outside her room. The deputy is trying to get information on and from Sarah, but the nurse won't let him disturb her. Sarah feels the gunshot in her leg and looks at her chart, which identifies her as a Jane Doe. Sarah feigns being asleep/unconscious when the nurse checks on her, and the nurse then closes the door. Sarah hears the voice of Kyle Reese, but then she hallucinates his presence in her room as well. Kyle is telling her to pull herself together. She still has the bullet in her leg, but she manages to trick and overpower the deputy and escapes. At Kyle's urging, she calls Derek to tell him about what happened to her and that he needs to go take care of the van and building to erase evidence of her visit. In the parking lot, she then kidnaps a female doctor and takes her to a motel room, where Kyle is waiting. While pointing a gun at the doctor, Sarah tells the doctor to take the bullet out of her. She says she can't go to a hospital, and the doctor notices healed marks on Sarah and asks why. Kyle notices as well and asks Sarah what happened. Sarah says they stabbed her to get to their son. Sarah is really talking to Kyle, but the doctor thinks she's just talking to herself and Sarah doesn't correct the doctor when the doctor thinks Sarah is the victim of abuse from a man, a situation the doctor is evidently sympathetic to.

The doctor agrees to try to get the bullet out, and she tells Sarah that women have a high pain tolerance, especially those that have given birth. When Sarah asks whether it's going to be similar, the doctor says yes, and as she starts, she tells Sarah it's like the first big contraction, and Sarah is shown reacting to pain. To distract her, the doctor asks Sarah about John, and Sarah talks about John while Kyle is listening.

Sarah later wakes up, and the doctor says that because of the location of the bullet, she can't take it out under those primitive conditions without the risk of Sarah dying. She gets Sarah to trust her and agree to go back to the hospital. Sarah and the doctor sneak into the hospital and end up in the morgue, where the doctor can operate without the high risk of being seen. Sarah is still hesitant to let her operate, but Kyle implores her to let the doctor do it, especially when the doctor says that the bullet is moving and will kill her if they don't take care of it.

Meanwhile, Derek leaves Jesse and goes to meet John at the hospital, since John has taken Riley there after her suicide attempt. Derek questions why John brought her to such a public place as a hospital where they would ask all kinds of questions, but John says he made the call. When Derek then gets the phone call from Sarah, he tells John about Sarah being shot, and John wants to go, but Derek says that he'll go and John has to stay with Riley since there are consequences to making a call.

John is told by a doctor that because Riley tried to commit suicide, she would be on a 72 hour 5150 hold and that CPS would be called since she's in foster care and there could be issues with that. John later goes to see Riley, who is mostly embarassed about what happened. Riley is surprised and a bit unnerved to see that Cameron is also there, and it's evident that Cameron is still suspicious of her.

Out in the hall, John doesn't know what to do about Riley and asks Cameron what the future him would do since Cameron knows the future him. She says that the future John has much more important things to do.

As Riley is in her hospital bed, Jesse shows up and says they're leaving. John and Cameron are later questioned by the doctor because Riley is gone. John says they need to split up to find her, but Cameron says that no, they don't need to find out and walks off. Meanwhile, Jesse has brought Riley back to her place and agrees to let her stay for just an hour or so.

The Sheriff and his deputies are investigating Sarah's car with all the blood as well as the recording device that Sarah had with her. The Sheriff then receives word that Sarah has escaped, and when they get to the hospital, he is disgusted that Sarah was able to subdue his deputy and escape. He realizes that Sarah couldn't have gone far with the bullet still in her leg, and it's later reported to him that a particular doctor is late for her shift, and it's apparent that he knows the doctor.

Ellison is still working with John Henry, and when Ellison goes to visit him, John Henry has some put-together robot toys and talks about how the ball/socket movement on them is so much more efficient than the hinged socket approach used by humans. Later, John Henry recounts for Ellison all the crimes that his former incarnation committed, and as he's listing them, the images of the crimes flash on the panel next to him, much to Ellison's horror. Ellison finds out that John Henry has access to the internet, which he tells Catherine is a bad idea. However, Catherine wants John Henry to be able to learn and discover things for himself, to answer the questions that he has.

Catherine later visits John Henry because he asked for her, and he tells her that he knows she's not human, that she's made of metal like him, but different metal. When she asks if he's told anyone else that, he says no, and she says she'd like it to stay that way. John Henry also mentions what element he's made out of and that quite a percentage of mines that have that element are now owned by Catherine's company. He plays a recording he accessed of an unsecure line where there's a problem with one of the mines. This discovery perturbs Catherine, who gets up to leave, but John Henry asks what she's doing with all the mines and elements and such, but Catherine declines to answer. Before she leaves, though, she becomes possessed by the spirit of Bryan Adams and tells John Henry that "everything I do, I do for you". When John Henry asked what Catherine was doing, it didn't seem casual or friendly but rather suspicious. John Henry presumably is eventually supposed to turn into Skynet, but since he now has the benefit of Ellison's teaching, which Skynet didn't before, it would be interesting if John Henry himself ends up stopping Catherine from having Skynet created.

Back at the building where Sarah was, the people are packing stuff away and are getting ready to clear out. I'm presuming they're packing the element that's being mined. Catherine shows up and kills everyone, presumably to erase all the evidence, and she even blows up the entire building. Her walking out of the exploding flames reminded me of a similar scene in T2, when the T-1000 emerged from a flaming explosion in its molten form before reshaping.

Back at the Sheriff's station, the Sheriff and a deputy are starting to piece things together. As the Sheriff is about to leave, a huge explosion from outside can be heard, and when they go outside to investigate, Sarah's Jeep has exploded and is in flames, completely destroyed. Meanwhile, Derek has snuck into the station and burns the other evidence as well.

Sarah wakes up after surgery, and the doctor says she got the bullet out and that everything is ok. Derek arrives, but the doctor points Sarah's gun at him, thinking he's the one who has been abusing Sarah. Derek tries to talk her down and after distracting her, pulls out his own gun to point at her, so they're kind of at a standstill. Then the Sheriff shows up, but it's evident from the interaction that he and the doctor are in a relationship and that he's the one who's been abusing her. In the end, the doctor shoots him. Sarah and Derek leave, but as they're driving, they seem the plume of smoke emanating from where Sarah says the building was.

Overall, I liked the episode, but I'm a little annoyed that they didn't say anything about who brought Sarah to the hospital. OK, they don't have to reveal to us who it is right now, but it would have been nice to have had *someone* at least voice the question. And, considering the last episode had Sarah seeing a descending UFO, it would have been nice to have that addressed, whether any of it was real or whether it was simply a hallucination. Or whether they are the ones who dropped Sarah off at the hospital on their way out of town. But then, she was hallucinating images of herself previously, and this episode, she hallucinated the entire presence of Kyle, so who knows.

And speaking of Kyle, I'd read in TV Guide earlier in the week that Kyle would be back in this episode as a figment of Sarah's imagination, but I was really surprised when I read that Kyle would be played by Jonathan Jackson, who I kind of know from a long time ago as Lucky Spencer from "General Hospital". I wasn't sure how he was going to be, but I really liked him as Kyle, though I have to admit that Michael Biehn will still always be THE Kyle Reese to me. I was struck at the resemblance that Thomas Dekker, who plays John Connor, has to a young Jonathan Jackson - good casting of father to son.


Jonathan Jackson as Kyle Reese

Jonathan Jackson in his younger years.

Another picture of Jonathan Jackson when he was younger.

Thomas Dekker as John Connor


Michael Biehn as the real Kyle Reese


In watching the opening credits, there was another name that for some reason caught my attention - Connor Trinneer. Now, I have no idea why his name registered with me. If I had to come up with his name, I don't think that I would have been able to do it. But in seeing his name, my thought was "Hey, isn't that Trip from 'Enterprise'?" Considering that I only watched "Enterprise" in its first season and I've not been very good about paying attention to actors' names, I was really surprised that I recognized him. When I saw him on screen, playing the Sheriff, that confirmed it for me. How weird seeing him again after all this time.

Who doesn't love MILK?

This has been a particularly difficult week at work, so today, as a little break from the craziness, I decided to treat myself by having lunch at MILK. It was actually quite busy when I got there. All of the inside tables looked to be taken but I noticed that the very last table in the back was empty, so I put my order number on it to claim the table. As I waited for my food, I looked around the store, noticing that they had even more offerings than the last time I'd been there, which was a couple months ago.

The chicken minestrone was quite good. The pasta I had was good, but it was a bit saltier than I normally like. I picked up a few goodies to go, some for me, a treat for the husband, a treat for a friend, and a few things for the office.

As I was browsing the goodies and mentally going through the laundry list of what I wanted to get, my arm was unceremoniously twisted into sampling the red velvet poppers. I'd seen them before but cupcakes aren't really my thing, so I'd never thought to try them. Oh my goodness, they were yummy. There was only a bit of frosting on top, which was good because I'm not big on sweet frosting either. I ended up getting two dozen to bring back to my co-workers.


I didn't notice until I looked at the picture that even though I ordered two dozen, I actually got two bakers' dozen.

My co-workers seemed to enjoy the treats, and all the poppers were gone by the end of the day.


While I was at MILK, I had a chance to say hi and chat for a couple minutes with Bret, who owns and runs the restaurant, and Dave, who's the head baking dude. It was pretty busy, though, and I didn't want to monopolize their time when they obviously had work to do, so I didn't get a chance to talk to them as much as I would have liked to. Maybe next time.


One thing I did mention to each of them is that I'd noticed they would be returning this year for Disney's California Food and Wine Festival at the Disneyland Resort. Under the Signature Events listing, there's a category called Sweet Sundays.

Begin your Sweet Sunday with a sparkling toast and a light buffet. Afterwards one of the acclaimed pastry chefs in our lineup will demonstrate how to make three signature desserts. You'll get an opportunity to sample these luscious sweets throught the session.

Sunday, May 17, 2009
Bret Thompson & Dave Baker, MILK Cafe and Bakeshop, Los Angeles

Registration for that is in about two weeks, so we're planning to go.

Bret and Dave had a free demonstration at last year's Food and Wine Festival that we really enjoyed.

Disney jammies

Four years ago, the husband got me flannel jammies for my birthday. But they weren't just any kind of jammies. They were really cool Disney-print jammies. I'd seen them at one of the stores in Disneyland for a while and really liked them, so I was so happy when he gave them to me for my birthday.

Here's the print of the jammies.





I'm not into the teacups ride, but I like all the happy expressions on their faces.

And yes, I'm wearing the jammies right now.

the 13th

This year, there are three months in which the 13th day of the month happens to fall on a Friday. Some people view such days to be indications of bad omens. I'm just discovering that those days for me are indications of very busy weekends.


Friday, February 13, 2009

"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" returns from its hiatus to a new night, moving from Monday to Friday. The last episode before the break was a bit odd, so I'm interested to see where the story is going to go. And TV Guide online's description of this week's episode indicates the appearance of a particular character, which I'm interested in, but I'm also interested in seeing the person portraying that character.





This Friday also sees the debut of Joss Whedon's new show called "Dollhouse". I don't know much about it, but I love the look of the billboard ads I've been seeing as well as the tagline: "She can be anyone, except herself." And hey, I became a Joss fan with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and I also like Eliza Dushku, so I'm looking forward to seeing the show.





On the theatrical side, this Friday will mark, appropriately enough, the release of the remake "Friday the 13th". Yep, Jason reigns again. I'm not a huge horror fan, but not because I don't like them. I just have a really hard time not getting scared out of my mind by them, so because I often have trouble handling the really bad ones, I don't see many of them. But I have seen a number of films in the "Friday the 13th", "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Halloween" series, and the trailer for this new version of Jason's journeys actually looks really good. The husband wants to see the movie, so I've decided I'm going with him. He has agreed that we'll go to a daytime showing, as I hope that will give me time to get over the movie before it starts to get dark. And yes, I'll be bringing Teddy, who is probably going to have his head severely mangled.


Friday, March 13, 2009

The movie "Race to Witch Mountain", a remake of the original "Escape to Witch Mountain", will be released that day, and we already have our tickets for a screening at the El Capitan Theatre. I loved the original (though I don't remember much about it anymore), and the trailer for the new film looks great, so I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Also released that day is "Sunshine Cleaning", which I became interested in after seeing the trailer. I believe the film is opening in limited release that day, so I may not get a chance to catch it that weekend.

That may also be the weekend we drive out to Hemet for the day to see a Disney exhibit, though we're not set on which weekend to go yet.


And what about Friday, November 13, 2009? Well, we don't have anything definitely planned yet, but that day might very well be in the middle of a week of us vacationing in town, but it's too early to know for sure yet.

stupid people should be prevented from calling 911

There are so many people unclear on the concept of what 911 is for. Not getting directions somewhere, not to have your cat taken down from the tree, not because a convenience store clerk refuses to sell you any more beer, and not because a fast food restaurant has run out of lemonade.

40th anniversary of Haunted Mansion

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Haunted Mansion, Disneyland is holding a special ticketed event on September 9, 2009. Though the registration process has been much more tortured than it really needs to be, it's worked out now that the husband and I and a friend of ours will all be going to the event together, so I'm pretty happy about that. I know that even with the registration hassles, we'll have a good time.

These kinds of events also involve having related merchandise available for purchase. This time around, it's actually nice that I'm not terribly interested in too many of the items. There's one item in particular, though, that has caught my attention.





Disney is allowing special orders of sneakers that bear the design of the wallpaper in the Haunted Mansion. On the one hand, it's a really cool idea. On the other hand, high-tops have never been my thing, and I think these shoes would look awful on me. So, do I buy a pair simply as a collectible item since I can't imagine ever wearing them? At least I'm not spending much money on other merchandise, so this one splurge wouldn't be that big a deal.

I wish they'd had other items using the wallpaper design, like a bowling shirt or even better, notecards. That would have been awesome.

The deadline for orders isn't for two months yet, so I've got some time to decide.

more cat/kitten videos

Some more cute videos.

Cats like to mess with boxes. Orkid normally just likes to climb into them, even if they're entirely too small for her. But sometimes, a cat playing with a box gets into more than it bargained for.

Cat Stuck in a Box @ Yahoo! Video

What's cuter than one kitten riding a roomba? How about multiple kittens riding a roomba?

Kittens On a Roomba @ Yahoo! Video

And this parrot and kitten are just too cute together.

Parrot 'pets' cat @ Yahoo! Video

and the mystery caller is ... Christian Bale!

So I was listening to Kevin and Bean this morning, and it was shortly before 8am, so it was time for Ralph's Showbiz Beat. At the end of each hour, Ralph usually talks about different stories going on in Hollywood and such. Well, this morning, he mentioned that there was a special guest on the phone. And who should come on the air but Christian Bale! Kevin and Bean were actually surprised because they had no idea that was going to happen. Christian explained a bit of what happened that led to his tirade that's been posted all over the net this week. It was actually a really good segment.





With all the publicity and such having to do with the issue this week, I was figuring that news of Christian's call on the show would make the rounds. And it did. Here's an article about the call this morning.

Here's a link to the entire call so you can listen to it yourself.

I had thought about doing a blog post about this whole issue the day after the audio was released, but I never got around to it, and I won't now. Suffice it to say that the explanation Christian gave was pretty much what I figured happened, so I wasn't condemning him as I heard a lot of people do. It's nice that he apologized, and I can't wait to see the new movie anyway!