2009 October | Table for Five

Ally McBeal: The Complete Series and Season One now on DVD

October 16, 2009 By Elizabeth

Ally McBeal Complete

I didn’t realize how nostalgic I would get about Ally McBeal until Fox Home Entertainment sent me screeners with a sneak peek of The Complete Series, released on DVD October 6th. Ally McBeal: The Complete Series is an incredible THIRTY ONE discs plus you get the “Best of Ally McBeal” soundtrack by Vonda Shepard. Fox also released just the first season of the show on DVD.

Ally McBeal Season One

I received Disc One to review, which is these four episodes from Season One: “Pilot” “Compromising Positions” “The Kiss” “The Affair”. The cast of this show is like the Who’s Who of TV Actors- Calista Flockhart, Greg Germann, Gil Bellows, Portia de Rossi, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Peter MacNicol, Jane Krakowski, Lucy Liu, and Dyan Cannon. Plus the series was packed with special guest stars like Christina Ricci, Robert Downey Jr., Hayden Panettiere, Jesse L. Martin, Taye Diggs, and Jon Bon Jovi. Combine all of that talent with the writing of David E. Kelley and you have a TV series that was five seasons of awesome. And, it gave us The Dancing Baby!

If you aren’t familiar with Ally McBeal, this description tells you everything you need to know:

This original Comedy follows the trials and tribulations of an eccentric and neurotic single 28-year-old lawyer (Flockhart) fresh out of Harvard Law School, looking for love and fulfillment in life. Working in a Boston law firm with her ex-lover, his new wife, money loving boss and a nosy, gossiping secretary, the hilarious groundbreaking series featured amusing fantasy sequences, flashbacks and voiceovers to reveal Ally’s innermost thoughts and feelings. The show also had many offbeat running gags and themes, such as Ally’s tendency to immediately fall over whenever she met somebody she found attractive, and Richard Fish’s wattle fetish and humorous mottos, a.k.a “Fishisms.” The series was also known for its wide array of music from pop culture icons including Frank Sinatra, Elton John, Steppenwolf, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Mariah Carey and Jon Bon Jovi, as well as the heartfelt performances from artist Vonda Shepard.

I was also sent Disc 31 to review, which is the fab bonus features that you know are my favorite part of a DVD. And this is a good one, it’s 135 minutes long! The bonuses are:

Retrospective

Vintage Featurettes

Season 2: Fox Behind The Scenes

Season 2 TV Special: Life And Trials Of Ally McBeal

Season 3 Featurette

Behind The Scenes Of Season 5

Season 5: Goodbye, Ally

“The Practice” Season 2 – “Axe Murderer”(The Ally season one episode “The Inmates” was one hour of Ally and then it continued and wrapped up in the second hour on “The Practice”, another David E. Kelly production)

Did I Like It? Heck yes I did! After having seen those first four episodes, I have to at least get Season One on DVD. I’m hooked! Ally McBeal: The Complete First Season is $27.99 on Amazon, and the Complete Series is $129.99, both qualify for free shipping. Either one would make an excellent holiday gift!

Remember The Dancing Baby? If Not Ally McBeal On DVD Will Remind You October 6th (cinemablend.com)

Filed Under: DVD and Blu-Ray reviews Tagged With: Ally McBeal, Calista Flockhart, David E. Kelley, dvd reviews, Jon Bon Jovi, Television, Vonda Shepard

F-Secure Internet Security 2010 & Gift Card Giveaway!

October 14, 2009 By Elizabeth

This giveaway is closed.

FSC_IS2010_Left_200x240 Are your kids getting a computer for Christmas? Do you want to keep them safe while they browse the web? If so, then this is the giveaway you need to enter! I’ve been given a very, VERY generous offer from the creators of F-Secure Internet Security 2010 just for readers of Table for Five! Before I tell you what you can win though, let me share some information with you about F-Secure and why I think it’s important to have it on your home PC or laptop. It works with Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows Vista 32-bit, Windows XP, and Windows 7.

When you first install F-Secure Internet Security 2010, the first thing it does is scan your computer for viruses and malware (malicious software that infects your computer). While this is taking place, your computer will run slightly slower, but not so much that it affects your ability to do pretty much anything. Once the scan is complete, you’ll know what to fix and what kinds of sites to avoid in the future. Then, you can set Parental Controls that let you choose whether users of that particular computer can visit blogs, forums, or social networking sites. Finally, Browsing Protection alerts you if a site you are trying to visit is suspected of being unsafe. It puts YOU in charge of what your kids (and anyone else in your house) sees when they are online.

Key Features:

Real-time virus and spyware protection, and protection against unknown threats (F-Secure DeepGuard™).
Manual scanning of viruses, spyware and rootkits.
Browsing protection, which includes the unique Exploit Shield, protects from malicious sites, malware and vulnerabilities.
Firewall with Application Control, Intrusion Prevention and Dial-up Control.
Spam Control with protection against spam and phishing e-mails.
Parental Control with protection for different user types against unwanted web content, including profiles for different types of web users.
Frequent automatic updates that keep both the databases and the software itself up-to-date against all the latest threats.

BUY IT: F-Secure Internet Security 2010 is affordable to buy. A 12-month license that lets you install the software on up to 3 computers is only $59.99 ($49.99 right now for a limited time!), and a 24-month license for up to 3 computers is $99.99.

FREE TRIAL: Not ready to buy? Here’s a link to a Free 30 Day Internet Security 2010 Trial Version.

GIVEAWAY!

WIN IT: I have Four copies of F-Secure Internet Security 2010 to give away. But wait, there’s more! Not only are each of the four winners getting the software, they will also get one of four $100.00 Gift Cards! It’s a “grab bag” type thing, I won’t know who’s getting which gift card, but the choices are:

$100 BestBuy.com gift card

$100 ToysRUs.com gift card

$100 BarnesAndNoble.com gift card

$100 Gymboree.com gift card

MAIN ENTRY RULES: For your main entry, leave a comment on this post telling me who’s computer you will install F-Secure Internet Security 2010 on if you win. Make sure your email address is correct when you fill in the comment field. Open to U.S. entrants 18+ only, enter by October 30 at 12:00 PM EST.

BONUS ENTRIES: You can earn as many bonus entries as you would like, leave a separate comment for each.

Subscribe to my feed in a reader or by email, links in top right corner
Follow me on Twitter and tweet this: Enter to win F-Secure Internet Security 2010 & a $100 Gift Card from@Table4Five, 4 Winners! Ends 10/30 http://bit.ly/1nFCrR You can do this once per day and leave a separate comment for each tweet.
Become a Fan of F-Secure on Facebook -they are giving away an iPod Touch!
Mention this giveaway in a blog post or giveaway round up, leave the URL in your comment.
Post my button on your blog by copying the code inside the box. If it doesn’t work let me know.

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Winners will be announced in this post and contacted by email for their mailing addresses. If any winner doesn’t reply within 72 hours, a new winner will be drawn in their place (so watch your email!). Thanks for entering and good luck everybody!

F-Secure Internet Security 2010 compensated me for my time in writing this post and hosting this giveaway. All opinions are mine and were
not affected by the compensation.

Filed Under: Contests and Giveaways Tagged With: F-Secure, personal computers, software

Toy Story 3 Trailer!

October 13, 2009 By Elizabeth

Toy Story (1995) was the first fully computer-...

Image via Wikipedia

When the first Toy Story movie came out in theaters in 1995, Chris and I had been married two years and still had that luxury of being able to look at each other on a Friday night and say “hey, let’s go to the movies!”. We had seen a trailer for Toy Story and because of the animation and seeing some of our favorite childhood toys brought to life, we knew we wanted to see it.

I can’t seem to find any info online regarding when Toy Story was originally released on video, but I’m pretty sure it was 1998, Ryan got it for his birthday, and watched it every single day from October 2nd until New Year’s Day when I declared that I could not watch it any more, as much as I loved it, because that was enough.

Toy Story 2 came out in 1999, and we took a then-3 year old Ryan and then-1 year old Nathan to see it with us. Nathan got the Woody doll that had the guitar, “Sing and Strum Woody”, and Ryan got the Buzz Lightyear that made flying noises when you swooped it around the room, with retractable wings and buttons that made Buzz talk. Those were very successful gifts! In fact, when Buzz broke, we bought another one, and it’s still in their toybox and now Kaitlyn plays with it!

And now, Toy Story and Toy Story 2 have been re-released in 3D and you can see them in theaters in a double feature, and in June of 2010, the Toy Story 3 movie comes to theaters! I found this trailer and you can bet that I will be in line with my whole family to see this next summer. It looks AWESOME. Even if it is weird to see Andy as a teenager Enjoy!