Category Archives: Television

Happy Birthday, Donnaville!

My birthday is tomorrow but there’s an even more significant birthday coming up the day after. On September 3, 2001, I purchased the domain Donnaville.com.

Happy Birthday, Donnaville

YEP! 10 years folks! Amazing longevity for a girl with nothing to say!

Let’s take a look back at all the different incarnations of Donnaville.

Here is a screenshot of the very first post… note how it is dated September 2… I have no clue why the dates don’t match up. I am 99.9% sure I placed the order on September 2 because I distinctly remember it was a birthday present for myself. Whatever.

2001

Just a few days later, planes crashed into the Twin Towers and so much changed.

A few months later I ditched the default blogger template and came up with my own design. This may also signal the end of my usage of Blogger and the beginning of Movable Type. I simply can’t remember.

2001, a few months later

The next design that I have evidence of is from 2004:

2004

What I LOVED about this design are the pictures on the left hand side. I would take pictures with my cell phone and upload them to BUZZNET which would then update on Donnaville. You can see an archive of all those pictures, if you want.

I am pretty sure I must have changed the design between 2004 and 2007 but I never took any screenshots. I recall a very 60’s looking design with a fish eye background that my father HATED! Sadly, I can’t find any screenshots of it. I think it was probably around 2007 that I made the move to WordPress. Here’s the 2007 design:

2007

In 2009, I updated my theme to Thesis. It looked like this:

A year or so later, I played around with it a bit:

2011

Now it looks like this:

Prior to September 3, 2001, I had a Website on Geocities. If memory serves me, I started the Geocities page sometime in November of 1996. This is how it looked back in those old days:

1996

And here’s a recreation of the old page.

Ten years with Donnaville, 15 years total. That’s a lot of words.

Looking back, it’s been a fun ride. You’ve been there with me as a I’ve had fun, traveled, lost pets, got dumped, dated, bought a house, fell in love, got fired, hired, fired, hired, started a business, had my heart shattered, lost my dad, and who knows what else is in store ahead. I have no intention of stopping. And I have no intention of getting interesting. In the immortal words of Popeye (words my father would often say as well), I am what I am.

Saturday Coffee

It just feels like it’s going to be a great day. The sun is shining, the sky is clear!

I have a ton of stuff to do here in my office but it won’t take much to draw me away.

As I was making coffee, I remembered I had a bag of blueberry muffin mix that I could whip up. And I was just about to do it until I noticed it was over a year expired. In the past, the date of 08/2009 wouldn’t have stopped me but I read a Dear Abby column that said flour-based products are a haven for mold! She said that they should be tossed after expiration because they could cause DEATH from the toxic mold brewing within the mix! Even though that sounds like total BS to me, I don’t want to risk it.

Last night I watched two episodes of Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel. Can I tell you how much I love this show? I LOVE THIS SHOW! My favorite part is how they use a cheap digital Dictaphone to catch “EVPs.” It’s the same Dictaphone Pookie Bear bought at Staples a couple years ago. The EVPs they catch rarely sound like anything other than static. The first episode of last night found them in Louisville’s Waverly Hills Sanatorium. They brought out a new tool which was a motion detector. They set it up and moved around it… and surprise… the thing kept going off. They said it was evidence that a spirit was in the room with them. After they left the room, they noted the motion detector STOPPED GOING OFF thus proving that the spirit left the room.

And why does Zak style his hair in such a ridiculous manner? I want to wash the gel out of his hair and take him to a barber who will cut his hair in a more age appropriate style. He could look so much better with just a tiny bit of effort.

Nikita

I don’t know if you guys are aware of this, it’s something I’ve kept hidden… but I totally love the old late 90’s show, La Femme Nikita starring Peta Wilson. And recently I found out that the CW remade it as Nikita, starring Maggie Q. Last night was the debut. And I tuned in. Let me say this first and foremost, I WAS OPEN. Totally open. I really wanted to love it. But I didn’t.

My issue is a simple one. The producers clearly never watched a single episode of La Femme Nikita. What made La Femme Nikita stand out was Nikita’s humanity. That’s what made the show special. She was not a killer. And you could tell she didn’t enjoy what she was being forced to do. She struggled with her choices. AND SHE GOT PUMMELED. Often. The Nikita of this new series doesn’t show any humanity. She seemed to enjoy killing people with her bare hands. PLUS, Maggie Q looked like a soft wind might blow her over. Seeing her fight and knock MEN to the ground with her fists was a joke. (Kinda like Brigitte Fonda in Point of No Return). At least Peta was a big girl… her height and muscularity made the fight scenes plausible.

Why remake a show and then throw away all it’s good parts? Why not just create something totally new?

I think what happened is that the CW got confused. They thought the world needed a new Nikita but in fact, we just need a new Peta Wilson vehicle. Back in 2006, I came up with a FANTASTIC storyline for an action/adventure television series starring Peta Wilson. I have no idea why no producers have reached out to me about developing this show further.

Hello!?!?! Hollywood!?!?! CALL ME!!!!!!

Alias Garber

Okay, I know you guys totally aren’t into this fixation of mine of trying to replace Nikita in my viewing habits… but whatever. Here’s another reason why I don’t like Alias. The man they have playing Sidney’s father, a hardened, cruel, heartless man, double agent, espionage expert, is portrayed by Victor Garber. Yes, this Victor Garber:

I just can’t take him seriously!!!!

Gosh I love GODSPELL! Especially the God Save the People number. Dang it, now it’s stuck in my head… probably for the next year!

AKA Alias

This evening as I tried to clean my room, I watched the first disk of the first season of Alias. There’s a lot of Nikita in there. The main difference is that Nikita was awesome and Sidney isn’t. It’s the whole Jennifer Garner thing. I don’t think I can get over her in the role. She’s not a bad actress and I actually kind of liked her in Juno, I just find that she doesn’t convey Amazonian strength to me. That and I find her annoying. I may queue up the next disk and see if I warm to her. Might as well give her another shot because I can’t keep watching Nikita over and over and over again. My obsession with that show has gone from cute to sick to creepy.

For Tue: Alias: Season 1: Disc 1

At long last I finally watched the first disk of the first season of Burn Notice. I quite liked it. There was a small La Femme Nikita vibe that I appreciated. And Bruce Campbell was in it and that’s always a good thing. I also like how the love interest wasn’t an 18 year-old girl but rather a mature woman. Unfortunately, I wasn’t happy with her connection to a notorious terrorist organization. Whatever. I’m not going to be picky. I might be able to fall in love with it… just gotta queue up some more episodes.

Tomorrow I am getting the first disk of the first season of Alias. I so want to love this show but I just despise Jennifer Garner. There is something about her I don’t like!

But I am going to try to look past it… Could some big time Hollywood producer please make a remake of The Fugitive and cast Peta Wilson in David Janssen’s role? PLEASE!?!

Netflix Queue Strategy

I keep watching La Femme Nikita episodes over and over and over again. It’s a freaking sickness with me. I’ve decided I need to expand my television horizons and so I’ve queued up the first disc of the first season of a couple shows I thought I might like but never caught:

  • Alias
  • Burn Notice
  • Mad Men

And so I ask you, my dear friends, are there any shows you think may take the place of my dear Nikita that I can queue on Netflix or Hulu? I like strong, smart, kick-butt, take no prisoners, women characters (Nikita, Xena, Avengers, X-Files). I like the lone hero fighting against forces much larger than himself (Fugitive, Incredible Hulk, Starman). I like partners helping each other (Starsky and Hutch, The Dukes of Hazzard, X-Files). I like men who dress up as women (Bosom Buddies). I love immortals who experience flashbacks to prior times in their long lives (Forever Knight, The Highlander). I like hokie Eastern mysticism and karate (Kung Fu). I think you get it. I want some suggestions!

Here’s a full list of my favorite shows:
La Femme Nikita, The Highlander, Wonder Woman, Misfits of Science, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, Batman, Starman, MacGyver, The A-Team, Avengers, It Takes a Thief, Run for Your Life, The Fugitive, Incredible Hulk, Zorro, Nikita, Black Adder, Due South, Xena: Warrior Princess, The X-Files, Double Trouble, Bosom Buddies, Forever Knight, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, MythBusters, Travel Channel’s Man v. Food, Flight of the Conchords, The Monkees, etc…