A question about cable

Bright House Networks uses two slogans frequently in their ads: 1. "No long term contract to sign," and 2. "No asterisks -- we're not fond of asterisks." Shouldn't a more truthful slogan be "No long term contract to sign  *unless you live in Live Oak Preserve" ? There, you must have a 10+ year contract.
John Carter, Live Oak Preserve

We are wired, and we need a break

By Maya Vaidya

Admit it. There have been times when you have dropped everything you were doing to watch a video on YouTube. And perhaps there have even been occasions when watching TV for 10 minutes ended up being an hour.

But it’s not your fault, right? That Internet snared you in its web and refused to relinquish its grip. That television show cast a spell on you and put you in a zombie-like trance. You still are completely innocent.
Right?

I too have fallen victim to the enchantments of the Internet and TV. There have been times when I was riveted to the computer or television screen and just could not tear myself away.

Still, I wonder what price we are paying when we give so much importance to the computer and TV. We read news, listen to music, talk to friends, and look up almost everything we have a question about on the net. We schedule our lives at home around the times of our favorite TV shows.

Meadow Pointe mom a national semifinalist

Lisa Couture and her husband Ron, who nominated her. Photo courtesy of NBC Universal

A Wesley Chapel mom is one of 15 semifinalists nationwide in an "America's Favorite Mom" contest and will be featured on the Today show, NBC officials announced today.

Lisa Couture, 35, who is blind, identifies her three children by the feel of their hair. She once recognized that her father was having a heart attack by the sound of his sigh.

Couture's husband, Ron, nominated her, placing her among thousands of others nominated by friends and relatives across the country. Voting took place online at www.Americasfavoritemom.com and 15 were selected as finalists.

There are three moms in five categories: military mom, working mom, single mom, non-mom mom and chairman-of-everything mom. Couture is a finalist in the "chairman-of-everything mom" category.

The Today show will highlight a category a day the week of May 5, when America will be able to vote online at www.nbc.com to see who will continue to the final round.

The winning mom will be revealed during a Mother's Day prime-time special airing on Sunday, May 11 at 7 p.m. The special, "Teleflora presents America's Favorite Mom," will include a performance by Donnie & Marie Osmond. The grand prize winner will receive a cash prize of $250,000, a family vacation package to St. Lucia, a Teleflora America's Favorite Mom diamond encrusted pendant, a year's worth of Teleflora flower arrangements, all-new General Electric kitchen and laundry appliances and an all expense paid trip to New York City, including a makeover and shopping spree.

"Mothers are the nucleus of life," said Marie Osmond, a mother of eight. "We really do need to honor these women."

-- Dong-Phuong Nguyen, Times staff writer

The newest Brady child

The writers’ strike was a drag for Brady Reiter. This is pilot season, and she should’ve been in Los Angeles auditioning for producers and directors. Now is the time of year when aspiring actors need to be seen, and the three-month strike, which ended in late February, put those plans to head for the West Coast on hold.

But this story, of a girl named Brady, has only just begun.    

Reiter is a precocious 7-year-old who knew at age 4 after some early modeling jobs that acting was the life for her.

Her parents, Judy and Eric Reiter of Pebble Creek, knew something was different very early about Brady,  named after the TV show “The Brady Bunch” because she was part of a blended family with six kids.

“From the moment she was born there was something about her,” Judy Reiter said. “When she was with the other kids she was like everybody’s toy. She loved to perform in front of everybody.”

Living in Naples at the time, the Reiters met with a modeling consultant when Brady was 3 and began the arduous task of finding the right manager and agent. Realizing there’s not much work for toddlers in the entertainment field, they kept up her photos before Brady landed her first modeling job in 2006 for Bonita Bay Properties in Bonita Springs.   

Two months later Brady landed her first acting job in an advertising campaign for Disney’s "Year of a Million Dreams." She won the principal role among hundreds who auditioned, her role depicting Disney through the eyes of a little girl.

Those commercials have been seen on national TV, Disney web sites and Disney hotels.

Her photos have been in numerous Disney pamphlets and brochures. She has also been on the Travel Network to promote Disney World.

She was in a commercial for the Toronto Blue Jays during spring training last year that ran in Canada, and this January went to Fort Myers for a commercial involving the world champion Boston Red Sox.

Brady earned a part as an extra in a movie filmed in Tampa last year called “It Could be You,” a true story about the first girl whose face was shown on a milk carton and who lived in Tampa. The movie should be released soon.

But while their youthful child prodigy has time on her side, the Reiters are realizing much of the process is hurry up and wait.

Live Oak must refile cable suit

LIVE OAK PRESERVE -- A judge has dismissed, for the moment, a lawsuit filed by the Live Oak Preserve Homeowners Association against the company that provides cable television, internet access and alarm services to Live Oak's residents.

Circuit Judge Frank Gomez today gave the homeowners 20 days to refile the suit with more specific allegations about how the cable provider, Century Live Oak Preserve, failed to live up to its four-year-old contract to serve Live Oak.

All Live Oak homeowners receive Century's service and must pay for it through their homeowners dues. Many have complained of sub-par service, and some have signed up for competing services, meaning they pay both Century and a rival.

The homeowners association filed suit in December, seeking to have Century's contract invalidated. Their attorney, Joshua Burnett, said he would refile the case and would push for a ruling in the homeowners' favor.

Century's attorney, John Foster of West Palm Beach, told Gomez today that the contract should be considered binding.

"My clients have gone ahead and put in millions of dollars of infrastructure," Foster said.

-- Bill Coats, Times Staff Writer

"Survivor" isn't telling

If I were sending Jan Gentry flowers I would send her favorites, shasta daisies and birds of paradise. Gentry's a Home Depot gal and could easily kill an afternoon at the nursery with her Capital One credit card. If I were really trying to get her attention I might renew her subscription to Runner's World magazine or give her a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, size medium, a bit loose through the shoulders just the way she likes it. What she has always wanted, and we're getting kind of personal here, is a facelift.

Mind you, Gentry is 53 and happily married to a tallish man named William, whom she calls "Mr. Bill," so at best we'd just be friends. Still, my attempts to woo her would consist of 18 holes of golf in the morning and deep-sea fishing off Clearwater Beach in the afternoon. I would be sure to keep a chess board, a pack of cards, and a copy of Mary Higgins Clark's latest thriller on the boat. If I were well-connected I would get Tom Hanks to join us and dish the dirt on the making of Forrest Gump. For dinner we would eat fajitas, lobsters, T-bone steaks, corn on the cob, garlic mashed potatoes, Snickers bars, maybe an orange or two. Then again, Gentry doesn't eat much. She doesn't sleep much, either, so there'd be time, after dinner, to sit around listening to Willie Nelson while we split a six-pack of Beck's beer and smoked Cuban cigars.

But if Gentry wins $1-million on the reality show Survivor Thailand, which she competed in over the summer, she won't need any of my tokens of friendship. She can take her own fishing trips and sing Willie Nelson tunes in that distinctive Texas twang. And she can buy a lifetime supply of her signature outfit: blue denim overalls.

Win or lose, all of McKitrick Elementary School, where she teaches, will certainly be watching the Tampa triathlete's stint on the largest pristine jungle island in southern Thailand, Koh Tarutao. No one knows how long she was out there _ except Gentry, producer Mark Burnett and a few in-the-know CBS executives, who, as usual, are treating the episodes and their million-dollar ending like a state secret.