Super Soap Weekends

People are often surprised to learn that many of my favorite stars aren't movie actors. Most of them are primarily on television; in fact, quite a few of my favorites are soap stars.

For thirteen years, ABC Daytime stars participated in Super Soap Weekends. These huge fan events took place twice a year and alternated between Disney Land and Disney World. I never went, but I thought about it more than once. I really wanted to see Michael Easton, Thorsten Kaye, and the other Port Charles stars who normally attended the event. Then, in 2003, my favorite soap was cancelled, and its stars were no longer invited to participate unless they had moved to other ABC soaps.

Five years later, the final Super Soap Weekend was held. There have been other large fan events, though, with many of the same stars in attendance. Of course, with the obsolescence of ABC Daytime, there won't be many more opportunities such as those.

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This post is part of Alphabe-Thursday.

Restraint

Restraint is a good thing. It's not always easy, and it can be downright hard at times. For example, I have a hard time using restraint when it comes to certain foods.

Sure, I can eat two potato chips or two mini candies. No problem. After all, the idea is to have something that will put a nice taste in my mouth, and more than two would be unnecessary. Why waste them when they could come in handy later?

The problem is using restraint when adding black pepper to food. It's funny, because I didn't even like pepper until I was well into adulthood. I could eat it if it was already in something, but I probably didn't add it to anything on my plate before I hit my thirties. My tastes changed, and I started using it.

I don't use pepper on everything, but I do like it. So does my husband, which is why I was surprised when his eyes widened one day as he watched me shake pepper onto my food.

I finally found out what his deal was. I had switched from buying regular fine black pepper to coarse ground pepper, and it's much stronger. I understand that it's possible to get too much, but I wasn't even close during the aforementioned incident. Now I have to be careful and use restraint when cooking, since I don't want to ruin his meal by overdoing the pepper.

Things sure have changed over the years. He used to marvel about how much salt I added to my food. Well, I cut back drastically on salt long ago. I guess it's pepper's turn now.

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This post is part of Alphabe-Thursday.

Quotation Marks

While trying to decide on a topic for my first Alphabe-Thursday, I came up with a few possibilities. Then something interesting happened.

I came across The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks recently while trying to figure out why some people put quotation marks around the names of pets. The last paragraph of Marinka's comment is the reason it showed up in the search engine, and it's a good one.

All I can figure is that people who do this think it isn't the pet's real name. For example, Sir Barks-a-Lot of the Waggy Tail might be affectionately called "Waggy" or "Barkie," complete with quotation marks. I can understand this; I don't agree with it, but at least I understand it.

However, this theory breaks down when a pet already has a simple name, such as Jasper. Even if that's his whole name (other than the owner's last name), the same people who would use quotes for Sir Barks-a-Lot would also use them with Jasper.

Why use quotes with animals but not with people? If Ellie, Kenny, Angie, and Mike are pets, they'll often end up with quotation marks around their names. If they're people, that's unlikely to happen.

What Food Looks Like Dirty Socks?

Tyson has a new commercial out now for their chicken nuggets. Like its predecessor, it shows several "picky" kids talking about foods they don't like. My favorite is the little guy who says, "They just look like dirty socks."

What food looks like dirty socks? I've thought about this and haven't been able to come up with any answers. Maybe I'm not meant to; maybe there is no answer. It's always possible that the line was just supposed to be funny, and it certainly is. Who would want to eat something that looks like dirty socks? In any case, the little boy's delivery is priceless.

If you haven't seen the commercial yet, you can check it out here or watch for it on your TV screen.