Just checking in to let you know that since Brian woke up he has well embraced the concept of Blissmas, and we're currently laughing and dancing about to '90s dance music as I play Buffy the Vampire Slayer on PS2.
It's crazy, lol! :D
It's one thing for me to experience this cool-ness, but it's another to have my li'l bro so thoroughly embrace the Blissmas spirit, lol!
IT'S A BLISSMAS MIRACLE!!!
I hope that whatever you're doing, you're enjoying a Blissmas of your own!
PEACE!!!
:D
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Happy Blissmas!!! :D
Today feels like an actual holiday to me, so I'm giving it a name.
Brian & I drank and watched a marathon of House yesterday (disc 4 of Season 2) and then I crashed and woke up around 5:00 am, while it was still dark outside. Before I went to bed I talked him into sticking Peter Jackson's King Kong in the player, and when I woke up the movie was still playing. (Usually, Brian goes to sleep with a DVD playing, and when he wakes up in the middle of the night he'll press "Play" and roll over and go back to sleep. But sometimes before he goes to sleep he'll change the disc out with one of the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings movies, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that he hadn't switched the King Kong disc out.)
I don't know how or why, but it felt like waking up on Christmas morning. Brian & I are both off work for several days, so no responsibilities pressing down on us and our only obligation is to enjoy ourselves. When you hear or read the word "contentment" this is the feeling described by that word.
So I grabbed my comforter from my bed and hunkered down in the comfy chair and watched me some King Kong. :)
Then Brian woke up and we started chatting and enjoying the genius of Peter Jackson's film, and the holiday feeling just grew and grew!
So I decided that since we sort of create our reality, this actually is a holiday for me. So I decided it needs a name.
Hence, Blissmas.
The neat thing about Blissmas is that it doesn't have to happen on a certain day of the year, AND it can come more than once a year! So if you have a day without responsibility, and you have someone cool to share it with, and you get that groovy vibe like you got when you were a kid on Christmas morning or Halloween night, that is your Blissmas.
The only thing I wish is that my Gnomey-Goddess were here with us to share this with me. I can just imagine waking up before her, watching her sleep next to me for a couple of minutes before I wander into the living room and see that King Kong is still playing. Then, after I grab the comforter and hunker down to watch the flick, she wakes up and wanders into the living room and snuggles in next to me. I imagine she dozes for a bit, her head against my neck, and as I watch the film in near-silence, I can feel her breathing against my body. Then when she finally wakes up, and she and Brian & I are all watching the end of the movie, the day begins in earnest and the 3 of us laugh and joke and chat and enjoy this day of perfect leisure together.
Mmmm... :)
Okay, so I've got some PS2 King Kong to play, so I'll leave you to ponder your own Blissmas day.
PEACE, LOVE & HAPPINESS!!!
:D
Brian & I drank and watched a marathon of House yesterday (disc 4 of Season 2) and then I crashed and woke up around 5:00 am, while it was still dark outside. Before I went to bed I talked him into sticking Peter Jackson's King Kong in the player, and when I woke up the movie was still playing. (Usually, Brian goes to sleep with a DVD playing, and when he wakes up in the middle of the night he'll press "Play" and roll over and go back to sleep. But sometimes before he goes to sleep he'll change the disc out with one of the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings movies, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that he hadn't switched the King Kong disc out.)
I don't know how or why, but it felt like waking up on Christmas morning. Brian & I are both off work for several days, so no responsibilities pressing down on us and our only obligation is to enjoy ourselves. When you hear or read the word "contentment" this is the feeling described by that word.
So I grabbed my comforter from my bed and hunkered down in the comfy chair and watched me some King Kong. :)
Then Brian woke up and we started chatting and enjoying the genius of Peter Jackson's film, and the holiday feeling just grew and grew!
So I decided that since we sort of create our reality, this actually is a holiday for me. So I decided it needs a name.
Hence, Blissmas.
The neat thing about Blissmas is that it doesn't have to happen on a certain day of the year, AND it can come more than once a year! So if you have a day without responsibility, and you have someone cool to share it with, and you get that groovy vibe like you got when you were a kid on Christmas morning or Halloween night, that is your Blissmas.
The only thing I wish is that my Gnomey-Goddess were here with us to share this with me. I can just imagine waking up before her, watching her sleep next to me for a couple of minutes before I wander into the living room and see that King Kong is still playing. Then, after I grab the comforter and hunker down to watch the flick, she wakes up and wanders into the living room and snuggles in next to me. I imagine she dozes for a bit, her head against my neck, and as I watch the film in near-silence, I can feel her breathing against my body. Then when she finally wakes up, and she and Brian & I are all watching the end of the movie, the day begins in earnest and the 3 of us laugh and joke and chat and enjoy this day of perfect leisure together.
Mmmm... :)
Okay, so I've got some PS2 King Kong to play, so I'll leave you to ponder your own Blissmas day.
PEACE, LOVE & HAPPINESS!!!
:D
Monday, November 24, 2008
Ghost Trackin'...
G'Morning! :)
It's just about 9:30 am as I write this, and I've already had a full night's sleep. That's because I decided to go ahead and flip my sleep schedule to Normal Folk Time. Lately I've been having trouble getting to sleep on Sunday morning when I get home from work, so since I'll be spending Thanksgiving with normal people on a normal sleep schedule, I decided to go ahead and stay up as late as possible last night. I went to be a little before 8:00 pm and woke up a little after 4:00 am.
Fascinating, isn't it?
Anyway... My bro wanted to research the towns we're going to be driving by/through on our way to and from Mom's house. He wants to know where the hauntings are. (Not that we're planning on stopping and investigating on either trip -- we've yet to actually go on an investigation so far -- but just to know.)
Well...
Obsessively looking things up on the Net happens to be something I do regularly, so I volunteered to write up a report on which towns are supposed to be haunted and what's supposed to be haunting them. We don't have printers that work, so I can make text files out of them and upload them to my iPod for convenient travel and reference.
3 HOURS LATER...
My shoulders are tense and my vision is blurring, but I've got the best superficial notes available! :)
(Ideally, one would actually visit the libraries and local newspaper and hall of records and so forth of the individual towns, if one were doing real research. But since we may not even be stopping in any of these towns, superficial -- i.e. Internet-only -- research suffices fine.)
I haven't created the text files and uploaded them to the 'Pod yet. I wanted to rest my brain for a moment.
So, here's why you should be impressed with me. Besides Google-ing each town, I went to Ghost Village.com and searched through a decade worth of Personal Experiences archives, we're talking 1999 to 2008, scanning each year for 18 different cities.
I also took notes on 4 towns from so-called reports on Ghosts of America.com before realizing that these accounts are COMPLETELY FABRICATED! Probably using a computer program! I came to this conclusion when, on the 4th town, I noticed that certain aspects of the excounters were identical to other encounters in other towns.
For instance: Austin might have "reports" of skeletons sipping blood from a jar, and a girl with a machete sticking out of her head throwing throwing into Town lake. Then Houston might have a sighting of a girl with a huge knife sticking out of her head sipping a jar of blood, and a coal miner throwing bricks into Lake Houston!
I boggled at the revelation!
Then I read the About Us page, on which the webmaster(s) states that they "believe that everybody has the right to read about ghost sightings in their own towns or cities. So for the towns and cities around the country that are not lucky enough to have their own sightings we have made up fictional sightings as a public service. As a city or town gets more and more sightings submitted the fictional sightings are automatically dropped."
Okay, so I have to give them props for that. Had the Net been around when I was a kid, I would have dug reading about a scary skeleton with a clever sticking out of its head throwing jars of blood into Buffalo Wallow, lol. Though, interestingly, Odessa (where I grew up) actually has real sightings there. So they wouldn't have had to create fictitious encounters for my home town.
Still, before I read that I was pretty annoyed. The fictitious accounts are written with hair-curling-ly poor grammar that is not merely an aesthetic pain to read, but also a logistical nightmare to wrap your brain around! Like this little nugget of prose gold:
"The ghost of a coal-miner is rumored to have been witnessed on frequent instances being carried by a bicycle on a murky highway near Franklin (Texas)."
Did your head explode?
I mean, the fact that the entire thing is in the passive voice is enough to make you want to vomit prepositions. But exactly HOW can a highway be "murky" and did the bicycle in question possess arms?!
But if the folks at Ghosts of America are using a computer program to randomly generate
these stories, that explains the sense-bending grammar, lol.
I was helped a bit in my research by Texas Ghost Hunters.com. They didn't have reports on many of the towns we'll be driving through, but the shed some light on a couple.
I started out with Shadowlands.net. Most of their info seems to be culled from other web sites, but it's a decent place to get started. It's easy to navigate, and if you find reports there you at least have some ideas to follow up on. If you don't find anything in their index, you know you've got more intense searching ahead of you, and you're braced for the possibility you may turn up nothing.
Like I said, though, Brian & I haven't even performed a single investigation here in town, yet. We're still piecing together the equipment and reading up on the subject and whatnot. We just want the info for this trip to amuse/educate ourselves on the drive.
Okay, so I'm going to get this info onto my iPod and then rest my brain for a few hours.
Hope you have a spooktacular day!!!
:D
It's just about 9:30 am as I write this, and I've already had a full night's sleep. That's because I decided to go ahead and flip my sleep schedule to Normal Folk Time. Lately I've been having trouble getting to sleep on Sunday morning when I get home from work, so since I'll be spending Thanksgiving with normal people on a normal sleep schedule, I decided to go ahead and stay up as late as possible last night. I went to be a little before 8:00 pm and woke up a little after 4:00 am.
Fascinating, isn't it?
Anyway... My bro wanted to research the towns we're going to be driving by/through on our way to and from Mom's house. He wants to know where the hauntings are. (Not that we're planning on stopping and investigating on either trip -- we've yet to actually go on an investigation so far -- but just to know.)
Well...
Obsessively looking things up on the Net happens to be something I do regularly, so I volunteered to write up a report on which towns are supposed to be haunted and what's supposed to be haunting them. We don't have printers that work, so I can make text files out of them and upload them to my iPod for convenient travel and reference.
3 HOURS LATER...
My shoulders are tense and my vision is blurring, but I've got the best superficial notes available! :)
(Ideally, one would actually visit the libraries and local newspaper and hall of records and so forth of the individual towns, if one were doing real research. But since we may not even be stopping in any of these towns, superficial -- i.e. Internet-only -- research suffices fine.)
I haven't created the text files and uploaded them to the 'Pod yet. I wanted to rest my brain for a moment.
So, here's why you should be impressed with me. Besides Google-ing each town, I went to Ghost Village.com and searched through a decade worth of Personal Experiences archives, we're talking 1999 to 2008, scanning each year for 18 different cities.
I also took notes on 4 towns from so-called reports on Ghosts of America.com before realizing that these accounts are COMPLETELY FABRICATED! Probably using a computer program! I came to this conclusion when, on the 4th town, I noticed that certain aspects of the excounters were identical to other encounters in other towns.
For instance: Austin might have "reports" of skeletons sipping blood from a jar, and a girl with a machete sticking out of her head throwing throwing into Town lake. Then Houston might have a sighting of a girl with a huge knife sticking out of her head sipping a jar of blood, and a coal miner throwing bricks into Lake Houston!
I boggled at the revelation!
Then I read the About Us page, on which the webmaster(s) states that they "believe that everybody has the right to read about ghost sightings in their own towns or cities. So for the towns and cities around the country that are not lucky enough to have their own sightings we have made up fictional sightings as a public service. As a city or town gets more and more sightings submitted the fictional sightings are automatically dropped."
Okay, so I have to give them props for that. Had the Net been around when I was a kid, I would have dug reading about a scary skeleton with a clever sticking out of its head throwing jars of blood into Buffalo Wallow, lol. Though, interestingly, Odessa (where I grew up) actually has real sightings there. So they wouldn't have had to create fictitious encounters for my home town.
Still, before I read that I was pretty annoyed. The fictitious accounts are written with hair-curling-ly poor grammar that is not merely an aesthetic pain to read, but also a logistical nightmare to wrap your brain around! Like this little nugget of prose gold:
"The ghost of a coal-miner is rumored to have been witnessed on frequent instances being carried by a bicycle on a murky highway near Franklin (Texas)."
Did your head explode?
I mean, the fact that the entire thing is in the passive voice is enough to make you want to vomit prepositions. But exactly HOW can a highway be "murky" and did the bicycle in question possess arms?!
But if the folks at Ghosts of America are using a computer program to randomly generate
these stories, that explains the sense-bending grammar, lol.
I was helped a bit in my research by Texas Ghost Hunters.com. They didn't have reports on many of the towns we'll be driving through, but the shed some light on a couple.
I started out with Shadowlands.net. Most of their info seems to be culled from other web sites, but it's a decent place to get started. It's easy to navigate, and if you find reports there you at least have some ideas to follow up on. If you don't find anything in their index, you know you've got more intense searching ahead of you, and you're braced for the possibility you may turn up nothing.
Like I said, though, Brian & I haven't even performed a single investigation here in town, yet. We're still piecing together the equipment and reading up on the subject and whatnot. We just want the info for this trip to amuse/educate ourselves on the drive.
Okay, so I'm going to get this info onto my iPod and then rest my brain for a few hours.
Hope you have a spooktacular day!!!
:D
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Gearin' Up For Turkey Day!!!
Sorry I haven't been around for a while. I spent last weekend in bed. (And not in the sexy way, either, lol.)
It's 60° outside and it's sprinkling, and I just could NOT be in more of a Holiday Spirit!!! :D
Which is really cool, because I JUST STARTED MY VACATION!!! I'm off work for the next 10 days!
Brian & I are going to Louisiana to hang with Mom, her hubby, Gan-Gan and our new "sister" Daisy. (She's Mom's new dog.)
That's going to be cool! :) It'll be the second time we've been in Louisiana (though we've driven through it twice before).
Also, I'm on a bit of a mission:
I was listening to a back episode of Jason Hawes & Grant Wilson's radio show Beyond Reality Radio that featured a guest named Charles J Adams III who informed me that telling ghost stories during Christmas is an age-old tradition, and A Christmas Carol isn't Dickens' only Christmas ghost story!!! :O
This thrills me to no end!
I've always had trouble deciding if my favorite holiday was Halloween (with goblins & ghosties & all things spooky) or Christmas (the time of year that folks agree to band together as a human community and treat each other with love). Even though I enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas -- the whole Yule season, if you will -- I always feel a bit resentful when the Halloween decorations come down and the Christmas decorations go up. (I don't really have a problem with the Thanksgiving decorations because they tend to be brown and orange and yellow and have pumpkins and stuff, so they still remind me of Halloween. But Christmas decor is just 180° different to Halloween decor.)
BUT NOW...
I can continue enjoying my goblins and ghosties, even as I'm celebrating peace on Earth and good will toward men! :D
But here's my problem: I can only track down 6 of Dickens' known 10 (thought there may be more) Christmas Ghost Stories.
Hmph.
The way I got the number 10 was by doing a quick Google search for "charles dickens christmas ghost stories" which turned up this discontinued book on Amazon.com, cleverly titled Charles Dickens' Christmas Ghost Stories. Now, if you read the product description, it says the book is:
A anthology featuring ten seasonal ghost stories written by Dickens includes ""The Signal Man,"" ""The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain,"" ""The Haunted House,"" and A Christmas Carol...
So that gives tells me that at least 10 of the 22 books/short stories Dickens wrote about Christmas are ghost stories. And that tells me that 4 of those are "The Signal-Man," "The Haunted House," The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain and (naturally) A Christmas Carol.
Further poking around reveals that Dickens wrote 5 Christmas novels, starting out with A Christmas Carol in 1843 and wrapping up with The Haunted Man in 1848. Of those novels, only one wasn't supernatural: The Battle of Life (1846).
So that gives me the titles of 2 more of Dickens' Christmas ghost stories.
Then I also discovered that "A Christmas Tree" is another one of the short stories.
So that's 7 of the (known) Dickens Christmas ghost stories:
1. A Christmas Carol (1843)
2. The Chimes (1844)
3. The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)
4. The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1848)
5. "The Haunted House" (1859)
6. "The Signal Man" (1866)
7. "A Christmas Tree" (18??)
But that's where the trail goes cold. (No pun intended.)
I mean, I know that's pretty damn good, and that I really shouldn't obsess over it.
But...
My curiosity is up now, lol. I'd love to discover the titles of the remaining 3.
Okay, now somebody has to be wondering "Why don't you just buy a used copy of the silly book?! Then you will not only know, you'll also have them for yourself!" But the answer is that I don't have any money, so I'll be reading them free online. Like at Online-Literature.com or Dickens-Literature.com.
And I've already tracked down text copies of all of them, as well as free audiobook copies of The Cricket on the Hearth, "The Haunted House" and "The Signal Man" thanks to Librivox.org! :)
(You can also score a few different readings of A Christmas Carol, but I have one read by Patrick Stewart (back in 1992), so I'm good on that one. ;P)
Still... I'm obsessive, lol. Even if I couldn't read ever one of them, I'd like to at least know which ones are the ghost ones.
I mean, yeah, I could simply read all of them -- which I will probably end up doing eventually -- and then I'll know for myself which ones are the ghost ones and which ones aren't. But for the time being, I'm too impatient for that, lol.
Okay, blah.
I figure I've bored you long enough with this, lol.
Okay: Vacation time! I've got me some Tomb Raider Legend to replay, hee-hee.
Thanksgiving is 4 days away: I hope you find plenty to be thankful for!!! :D
It's 60° outside and it's sprinkling, and I just could NOT be in more of a Holiday Spirit!!! :D
Which is really cool, because I JUST STARTED MY VACATION!!! I'm off work for the next 10 days!
Brian & I are going to Louisiana to hang with Mom, her hubby, Gan-Gan and our new "sister" Daisy. (She's Mom's new dog.)
That's going to be cool! :) It'll be the second time we've been in Louisiana (though we've driven through it twice before).
Also, I'm on a bit of a mission:
I was listening to a back episode of Jason Hawes & Grant Wilson's radio show Beyond Reality Radio that featured a guest named Charles J Adams III who informed me that telling ghost stories during Christmas is an age-old tradition, and A Christmas Carol isn't Dickens' only Christmas ghost story!!! :O
This thrills me to no end!
I've always had trouble deciding if my favorite holiday was Halloween (with goblins & ghosties & all things spooky) or Christmas (the time of year that folks agree to band together as a human community and treat each other with love). Even though I enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas -- the whole Yule season, if you will -- I always feel a bit resentful when the Halloween decorations come down and the Christmas decorations go up. (I don't really have a problem with the Thanksgiving decorations because they tend to be brown and orange and yellow and have pumpkins and stuff, so they still remind me of Halloween. But Christmas decor is just 180° different to Halloween decor.)
BUT NOW...
I can continue enjoying my goblins and ghosties, even as I'm celebrating peace on Earth and good will toward men! :D
But here's my problem: I can only track down 6 of Dickens' known 10 (thought there may be more) Christmas Ghost Stories.
Hmph.
The way I got the number 10 was by doing a quick Google search for "charles dickens christmas ghost stories" which turned up this discontinued book on Amazon.com, cleverly titled Charles Dickens' Christmas Ghost Stories. Now, if you read the product description, it says the book is:
A anthology featuring ten seasonal ghost stories written by Dickens includes ""The Signal Man,"" ""The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain,"" ""The Haunted House,"" and A Christmas Carol...
So that gives tells me that at least 10 of the 22 books/short stories Dickens wrote about Christmas are ghost stories. And that tells me that 4 of those are "The Signal-Man," "The Haunted House," The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain and (naturally) A Christmas Carol.
Further poking around reveals that Dickens wrote 5 Christmas novels, starting out with A Christmas Carol in 1843 and wrapping up with The Haunted Man in 1848. Of those novels, only one wasn't supernatural: The Battle of Life (1846).
So that gives me the titles of 2 more of Dickens' Christmas ghost stories.
Then I also discovered that "A Christmas Tree" is another one of the short stories.
So that's 7 of the (known) Dickens Christmas ghost stories:
1. A Christmas Carol (1843)
2. The Chimes (1844)
3. The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)
4. The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1848)
5. "The Haunted House" (1859)
6. "The Signal Man" (1866)
7. "A Christmas Tree" (18??)
But that's where the trail goes cold. (No pun intended.)
I mean, I know that's pretty damn good, and that I really shouldn't obsess over it.
But...
My curiosity is up now, lol. I'd love to discover the titles of the remaining 3.
Okay, now somebody has to be wondering "Why don't you just buy a used copy of the silly book?! Then you will not only know, you'll also have them for yourself!" But the answer is that I don't have any money, so I'll be reading them free online. Like at Online-Literature.com or Dickens-Literature.com.
And I've already tracked down text copies of all of them, as well as free audiobook copies of The Cricket on the Hearth, "The Haunted House" and "The Signal Man" thanks to Librivox.org! :)
(You can also score a few different readings of A Christmas Carol, but I have one read by Patrick Stewart (back in 1992), so I'm good on that one. ;P)
Still... I'm obsessive, lol. Even if I couldn't read ever one of them, I'd like to at least know which ones are the ghost ones.
I mean, yeah, I could simply read all of them -- which I will probably end up doing eventually -- and then I'll know for myself which ones are the ghost ones and which ones aren't. But for the time being, I'm too impatient for that, lol.
Okay, blah.
I figure I've bored you long enough with this, lol.
Okay: Vacation time! I've got me some Tomb Raider Legend to replay, hee-hee.
Thanksgiving is 4 days away: I hope you find plenty to be thankful for!!! :D
Friday, November 14, 2008
OMFG!!! :D
I just finished Breaking Dawn and IT IS AMAZING!!! :D
As I've said before, I read the Twilight saga because my daughter said it was great and I wanted to have yet another level on which to relate to her, but I ended up ADORING this PERFECT series of novels!!!
Any astute writer could tell you that you have power when you tell a good story well, but only the serial stroyteller can relate HOW MUCH power you possess when you carry characters and situations beyond a single story into many. And Stephenie Meyer utilizes that power with ASTOUNDING SKILL! Each novel is excellent by itself, but when you sign on to the saga as a whole and go from start to finish, she rewards you with a Happily Ever After that you never dreamed possible!!! :D Stephenie Meyer REINVENTS the phrase "Happily Ever After"!!!
If you're into the supernatural -- namely, vampires and werewolves -- and into romance and the concept of family, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this series!!! These novels are SO worth your time and emotional investment!!! :D
Btw, if you -- like many fans of the Harry Potter screen series -- prefer simply to watch the movies (unconcerned with experiencing the depth and breadth of the series available through the novels) be sure to be in theaters BE SURE to see the flick in theaters on November 21st!!! A strong performance for the first flick will help ensure that you get to eventually watch the 4th (and 5th, as they're planning to break the last book into 2 movies) which will ROCK YOUR WORLD!!! :D
If you're not that patient (like me, hee-hee) then rush out and buy the novels and read them all immediately!
As I've said before, I read the Twilight saga because my daughter said it was great and I wanted to have yet another level on which to relate to her, but I ended up ADORING this PERFECT series of novels!!!
Any astute writer could tell you that you have power when you tell a good story well, but only the serial stroyteller can relate HOW MUCH power you possess when you carry characters and situations beyond a single story into many. And Stephenie Meyer utilizes that power with ASTOUNDING SKILL! Each novel is excellent by itself, but when you sign on to the saga as a whole and go from start to finish, she rewards you with a Happily Ever After that you never dreamed possible!!! :D Stephenie Meyer REINVENTS the phrase "Happily Ever After"!!!
If you're into the supernatural -- namely, vampires and werewolves -- and into romance and the concept of family, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this series!!! These novels are SO worth your time and emotional investment!!! :D
Btw, if you -- like many fans of the Harry Potter screen series -- prefer simply to watch the movies (unconcerned with experiencing the depth and breadth of the series available through the novels) be sure to be in theaters BE SURE to see the flick in theaters on November 21st!!! A strong performance for the first flick will help ensure that you get to eventually watch the 4th (and 5th, as they're planning to break the last book into 2 movies) which will ROCK YOUR WORLD!!! :D
If you're not that patient (like me, hee-hee) then rush out and buy the novels and read them all immediately!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Surf's Up!!!
I just wacthed Surf's Up here at work, thanks to Netflix's "Watch Instantly" feature, and I REALLY DUG IT!!! :D
Very fun flick! The ads when the movie came out looked like just another CGI feature, but it's SO NOT that! This is a really sweet little flick with fun characters, a great world and EXCELLENT acting!!! The cast is all world-class character actors, the types of actors you don't expect to be in a CG animated feature, lol!
Now, granted, I watched the movie at work, and it was kind of free (sort of), and I had absolutely zero expectations, so...
Still, I look forward to watching it again soon! I dug it that much! If I had some money I'd rush out and buy the dvd on my way home from work! I really liked it! :)
Just thought I'd pop online and share that with ya.
PEACE!!!
Very fun flick! The ads when the movie came out looked like just another CGI feature, but it's SO NOT that! This is a really sweet little flick with fun characters, a great world and EXCELLENT acting!!! The cast is all world-class character actors, the types of actors you don't expect to be in a CG animated feature, lol!
Now, granted, I watched the movie at work, and it was kind of free (sort of), and I had absolutely zero expectations, so...
Still, I look forward to watching it again soon! I dug it that much! If I had some money I'd rush out and buy the dvd on my way home from work! I really liked it! :)
Just thought I'd pop online and share that with ya.
PEACE!!!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
I Ate Goat Cheese!!! :D
Brian had this Starbuck's Goat Cheese & Mushroom sandwich that he hadn't gotten around to eating, and he reasoned that it would probably go bad before he got around to it, so he offered it to me. And I ate it. Pretty groovy! :)
I believe that was the first time I ever ate Goat Cheese.
Now, I realize that health-conscious people and/or people who spend more than $5 a meal have probably had goat cheese several times. But that was my first.
Very exotic for me. ;P
I'm on Chapter 9 of Breaking Dawn, the last book of the Twilight Saga. I really enjoyed Eclipse, but Breaking Dawn, but they all start off with so much tension and angst that you kind of want to put the book down and do something else. But for 3 books so far, by the time the novel is over you're just in love with the world and characters and can't wait for the next one, lol.
One bummer about trying to catch up to my daughter with the Twilight Saga is that I'm not writing as much as I should be. :( More than that, I'm not the slightest bit bored. See, boredom is a creative person's best friend. When you're bored, your imagination does interesting things. But reading a great novel (or novels) is not really conducive to creation.
I mean, I learn stuff -- I see how one author tweaks a story point or conveys character in an engaging way and other technical stuff -- but I'm not creating my own stuff in that time.
So I feel this sort of dual joy/guilt thing when I'm engaged like this in some one else's genius.
Blah.
But my Gnomey-Goddess still believes in me!!! :D That sort of adds to the guilt a little, but it mostly reassures me that my career as a writer will begin when it's supposed to.
Okay, I need food now.
PEACE!!!
:D
I believe that was the first time I ever ate Goat Cheese.
Now, I realize that health-conscious people and/or people who spend more than $5 a meal have probably had goat cheese several times. But that was my first.
Very exotic for me. ;P
I'm on Chapter 9 of Breaking Dawn, the last book of the Twilight Saga. I really enjoyed Eclipse, but Breaking Dawn, but they all start off with so much tension and angst that you kind of want to put the book down and do something else. But for 3 books so far, by the time the novel is over you're just in love with the world and characters and can't wait for the next one, lol.
One bummer about trying to catch up to my daughter with the Twilight Saga is that I'm not writing as much as I should be. :( More than that, I'm not the slightest bit bored. See, boredom is a creative person's best friend. When you're bored, your imagination does interesting things. But reading a great novel (or novels) is not really conducive to creation.
I mean, I learn stuff -- I see how one author tweaks a story point or conveys character in an engaging way and other technical stuff -- but I'm not creating my own stuff in that time.
So I feel this sort of dual joy/guilt thing when I'm engaged like this in some one else's genius.
Blah.
But my Gnomey-Goddess still believes in me!!! :D That sort of adds to the guilt a little, but it mostly reassures me that my career as a writer will begin when it's supposed to.
Okay, I need food now.
PEACE!!!
:D
Friday, November 07, 2008
How Was Your Halloween?
Mine was fine.
I worked, but I also found time to watch this year's Homestar Runner toon!!! :D In fact, there were a couple that were fun to watch, one of which was a funny costume commercial! (It's funnier if you're old, like me, and remember what store-bought Halloween costumes were like in the '70s.)
I don't remember if I had yet when I last checked in, but I finally got around to listening to several episodes of Jason Hawes' and Grant Wilson's Beyond Reality Radio!!! It's absolutely as awesome as Ghost Hunters is, but for different reasons! :) In fact, I listened to the last 10 or 12 episodes they broadcast a couple of times each, then had to go back and snag the last 10 available at Planet Paranormal.com because I was still jonesin', lol.
Then I get this text message from my daughter, like, Monday asking me how I was coming with the Twilight saga, and I had to inform her that I hadn't picked up the next book yet because of my script.
However...
On Thursday nights/Friday mornings I'm just workin', workin', workin' and I have no time to even think about any project I'm writing... So... I figured I could pass the time by listening!!! :D
So I started Eclipse (Book 3 of 4 (so far)) last night! I'm only on Chapter 6, but I'm diggin' it so far.
I really enjoy being back in that world again. It's a bit like reading the Harry Potter series in that you grow to know and love the characters so much that you're anxious to see what they're up to now, and the previous book always left you wondering how the world would be changed when you rejoined it.
I really hope the movie adaptation for Twilight does well, because I'd like to see the whole series (what I've read of it so far, anyway) on film! I'm diggin' on the actors they've cast to play these characters, and the source material is just golden!
I do sooooooo which I could see Twilight with my Gnomey-Goddess when it comes out, though! It's totally gay, I know, but the relationship between Bella and Edward just keeps on reminding me of Gnomey!!! The way the author describes what it feels like to both appreciate and long for another human being like that... If you've ever been TRULY in love, you can so relate!
Okay, I'm gonna unwind from my workday and listen to some more of Eclipse, so PEACE, Y'ALL!!!
:D
I worked, but I also found time to watch this year's Homestar Runner toon!!! :D In fact, there were a couple that were fun to watch, one of which was a funny costume commercial! (It's funnier if you're old, like me, and remember what store-bought Halloween costumes were like in the '70s.)
I don't remember if I had yet when I last checked in, but I finally got around to listening to several episodes of Jason Hawes' and Grant Wilson's Beyond Reality Radio!!! It's absolutely as awesome as Ghost Hunters is, but for different reasons! :) In fact, I listened to the last 10 or 12 episodes they broadcast a couple of times each, then had to go back and snag the last 10 available at Planet Paranormal.com because I was still jonesin', lol.
Then I get this text message from my daughter, like, Monday asking me how I was coming with the Twilight saga, and I had to inform her that I hadn't picked up the next book yet because of my script.
However...
On Thursday nights/Friday mornings I'm just workin', workin', workin' and I have no time to even think about any project I'm writing... So... I figured I could pass the time by listening!!! :D
So I started Eclipse (Book 3 of 4 (so far)) last night! I'm only on Chapter 6, but I'm diggin' it so far.
I really enjoy being back in that world again. It's a bit like reading the Harry Potter series in that you grow to know and love the characters so much that you're anxious to see what they're up to now, and the previous book always left you wondering how the world would be changed when you rejoined it.
I really hope the movie adaptation for Twilight does well, because I'd like to see the whole series (what I've read of it so far, anyway) on film! I'm diggin' on the actors they've cast to play these characters, and the source material is just golden!
I do sooooooo which I could see Twilight with my Gnomey-Goddess when it comes out, though! It's totally gay, I know, but the relationship between Bella and Edward just keeps on reminding me of Gnomey!!! The way the author describes what it feels like to both appreciate and long for another human being like that... If you've ever been TRULY in love, you can so relate!
Okay, I'm gonna unwind from my workday and listen to some more of Eclipse, so PEACE, Y'ALL!!!
:D
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