Flushed Away review

I used to get excited when a new animated film came out. That feeling has changed. There’s been so many mediocre movies for kids that I dread some of the films. That’s how I felt about Flushed Away…until I saw it. Read my review. The movie surprised me. It’s good.

Wii Love It

I have a great job. Can you imagine a meeting where everyone sits around playing with the new Wii thingie, plus an XBox? One of our co-workers decided to set up the meeting to show off his Wii (pronounced “we” for those of us who are so technically illiterate), while another co-worker brought in his XBox.

We got to play for a bit with some of the games on the Wii. I suck at video games, or whatever they are called today,  but I could find a way to enjoy these games. When you roll the bowling ball or swing at a baseball you actually do these motions with your body and push a button on the control in your hand at the same time. One person was pitching and another batting at those pitches. Neato mosquito.

Then Wally showed us the XBox. We watched a bit of King Kong in high definition then he put in “Gears of War.” This game is the shoot-em-up type, and watching two folks try to figure out how to move “themselves” among the ruins and not get killed was hoot.

Anyway, this is what one of our work meetings was like. It doesn’t happen often, but it can happen: a meeting that has everyone smiling.

Brrrrr

It be cold out. Today it never got over 25 degrees. Looking at the local weather page the temperature is at 14 degrees Fahrenheit with a lovely low of 4 degrees tonight. Chilly, ain’t it?  Okay, those of you living in Canada, the Northeast United States and anywhere “up there” have it colder. I live in Arizona. So there.

My Life so Far

This meme is going around. Dawn had a fascinating life, but mine … eh … it has its moments. This is long, so ignore it if you want. Anything I’ve done is bolded and comments are italicized.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink. (unless I was drunk and it was only a few people in the bar)
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain (small ones, but I’ve climbed a few)
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula (it wasn’t for a long time and I was ready to freak)
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone (baths but no candles)
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris (I want to go back)
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise (oh yes, in my younger days)
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (7^th game of the World Series – Diamondbacks won)
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper (I only volunteer now for pee-pee pants and not poo-poo)
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne (nasty-assed hangover the next day)
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment (on stage)
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger (um…not sure about this one. Does asking out include taking someone home for a “good time”?)
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can (frustration release)
32. Held a lamb (pet one at a petting zoo though)
33. Seen a total eclipse (maybe, but memory is playing games with me)
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run (sheesh, I’m lucky to even hit the ball)
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking (I love dancing)
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day (I’m saying yes, but it would be due to a play that I was practicing for with a performance that night)
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment (you betcha)
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales (okay, it was one killer whale who was curious about us folks in a boat).
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe (just around southern England for a few days, but hey. I lived in England and it was just a short vacation)
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach (um…have never lived near a beach)
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland (does hanging out at the Shannon airport count as a visit?)
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love (I’m saying a reluctant yes to this one).
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them (do restaurants where you sit with strangers count?)
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs (in their separate categories, of course)
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day (one of my favorite indulgences)
60. Played touch football (not well)
61. Gone scuba diving (I’ve snorkeled)
62. Kissed in the rain (my memory doesn’t recall a time)
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business (does Mary Kay count?)
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken (I’ll assume this means a romantic love)
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie (it was a very cheap independent film)
74. Crashed a party (it was at one of the Phoenix Suns’ house)
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days (you’re kidding, right?)
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest (no, but I have won first prize in dancing contests)
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice (oh I so want to)
80. Gotten a tattoo (I have one planned, but never seem to get around to it)
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert” (well I have been on as a guest talking about events that I’m involved in)
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage (I’m a big ham and loved doing community theater)
85. Been to Las Vegas (lived there for a while)
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date (alcohol was involved)
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone (was in the military, but never during a war)
92. Buried one/both of your parents (my father)
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently (I know a few words in a couple of languages, but can never put them together in a coherent way, much less understand others speaking a foreign language)
95. Performed in Rocky Horror (only in my living room…by myself)
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over (wanted to many times)
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge (just don’t look down – still, it’s the best location for 4^th of July fireworks in San Francisco)
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication (only small publications)
106. Lost over 100 pounds (well, if you count every diet over my lifetime, sure)
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane (just for a short time until the pilot took back the controls)
109. Touched a stingray (when I was a kid one of my friends was whipped by a tail of a stingray and had to go to the doctor)
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol (M-16 training)
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse (bucked off too)
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet (for all of half an hour until my mother talked me out of it)
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (it’s the hiking back up that gets you)
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours (let’s just say that partaking of drugs that keep you up for three days straight and you’re inclined to do this – thank god I don’t do this anymore)
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper (I wrote a column for the local paper)
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about (I’m not sure)
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach (or it touched me)
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad – and the Odyssey (the Odyssey, but not Homer’s Iliad – just some friendly version for young adults)
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office (does precinct committee person count?)
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair (I’ve been many colors)
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

Homeworking

Well, I’m working hard today to get my homework done for my class. Let’s just say that it is not something that goes too smoothly. It always takes longer than I think it should, but by golly, if I can get enough done today then I’ll only have to do some leftover homework by Thursday.  Fingers are crossed, ’cause I’m on a roll.

Oops. Do you think I just jinxed it?

Is it Christmas yet?

Well, Thanksgiving has passed and all went well.  I’m still cleaning off the bits of cranberries that flew everywhere when making a cranberry-based salad dressing.  An immersion blender just leaves something to be desired when fixing certain foods. I may break down and ask for a real blender for Christmas.

I’m not a fan of electrical appliances that I have to store and then pull out for special occasions. My kitchen is small and where I have room — a large peninsula — there are no outlets for plugging all these appliances. Still, a blender does come in handy sometimes.

The salad dressing was and is delicious. My faux turkey came out nice, but my mashed potatoes were more mushed and lumpy then fluffily mashed. I still have some semi-homemade pie leftover. It was a good meal.

I’ve started on Christmas early (for me) this year. Christmas shopping is in progress and I even have my Christmas cards ready to go. That’s a Christmas miracle. I haven’t mailed out cards in years, but decided to go for it this year. I swear the whole FlyLady thing makes a difference. Not only have I got cards to go, but the Christmas decorations have been pulled out and some are even in place.  I often wait until too late in Decemeber and end up pooh-poohing the idea of putting them up so late. Not this year. My Christmas socks and clothing are even ready to go this year. In fact, I’m wearing some Christmas socks today.

I did pull out the Christmas jewelry and, though now in my normal jewelry dish, I’ll hold off until December to start wearing the earrings and pins. What a disappointment though. I lost one of my HO HO earrings (each ear has the letters H and O hanging down). The thought of wearing only one earring with the word HO on it just doesn’t sound too appealing. There’s also a falseness in advertising.

Anyway, I’m ready for Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving

Ah, that day of feasting is here. I decided to stay home and not visit family. Hey, it allowed me to sleep in and enjoy the holiday in my own lazy way. I talked to my brother last night. He’s preparing a meal today for 20. He’s got his schedule written out in 15-minute increments. When he asked about my schedule I declared that it is basically this: if I decide to stay in bed all day my Thanksgiving dinner might happen on Friday or Saturday. Now, that’s a schedule I can live with!

I did get up and even baked a semi-homemade apple pie. I’m about to start on a salad dressing that has cranberries in it. I’ll pop my version of turkey in the oven and start on real mashed potatoes. I’ve never made homemade mashed potatoes before, so it could be … interesting.

Oh, what’s my version of turkey? It’s a vegetarian version. I like the Quorn turkey-style roast.

Speaking of turkeys, here’s some lovely turkey-themed videos for you to enjoy this holiday:

“Oh, the humanity!”

Turkeys celebrating Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

TED – Toys I Can Use

Wow. I’m not sure if this is the future for computers, but I’m definitely interested. The demo is fascinating.

An Inconvenient Truth

I couldn’t resist. I bought the DVD of An Inconvenient Truth. Sure, there’s not much sex and violence, but damn, what a great documentary. Al Gore manages to bring charts and graphs to life with his presentation. I love what he says so much in the presentation that I find the bits in between about his life are a distraction — and I adore Al Gore.

Of course, my love of the presentation may have a lot to do with what was going on when I first saw the movie: I was trying to create a workshop on effective Powerpoint presentations.

Now, Gore is not using Powerpoint — he’s got a Mac. It doesn’t matter. What his presentation shows is the power of graphics mixed with talk. You don’t see a bunch of bullet points that he just repeats (a common method of using Powerpoint). I was in awe. How do you create something like this? I can only hope that someday I can create an effective presentation like he does. It does help to have an amazing topic.

Global warming has been pooh-poohed by many; mainly oil company executives and their Republican friends. What I don’t understand is how facts can be ignored?

If you believe that global warming is happening, but not due to humankind’s output of greenhouse gasses, then we still have a problem. Why not limit the greenhouse gasses so we don’t make it any worse?

An Inconvenient Truth is a remarkable film and it leaves the viewer with some very easy steps to making a difference. They don’t look like much, but it’s all about numbers. If everyone did many of those steps, the impact would be tremendous.

Please take some time this weekend while enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday to watch this movie. It may give you more to give thanks for (an amazing world) and a lot to think about.

The Most Successful Movie of All Time?

I just watched a documentary about the most successful film of all time. It’s a movie I have never seen, but know a lot about. Movie buffs often know scenes and dialogue from films they have not yet seen, but this one, made in 1972, never got the American Film Institute Best of acknowledgement. How could it? The movie is Deep Throat.

Released when I was in high school, Deep Throat was a punch line to hundreds of jokes and as the documentary Inside Deep Throat makes clear, it was also a groundbreaking X-rated film. People who never went to an adult film went to Deep Throat. The star, Linda Lovelace, was a household name.  Made for $25,000 the film supposedly grossed $600 million. Of course, the shady money men, who had ties to the Mafia, never kept strict accounting of the film’s profits.

Whether or not the most successful movie of all time, the documentary does show what an impact the film had on our culture. Prosecutors and judges went after the movie and its actors on obscenity laws. People defended or protested the film. It was banned in 23 states. Yet, that didn’t stop the role the movie had on sexual mores. Blow jobs became a normal part of sex (trust me, it wasn’t an expected sexual act during my early sexual encounters sex in the mid-70s – now, it’s obligatory). The act even gets the presidential treatment when Clinton is in office (though you can’t tell me he’s been the only one in the Oval Office to find a special way to release all that presidential tension).

The documentary takes a look at what happened to many of the people involved in Deep Throat and also what happened to the porn industry. It isn’t a happy ending for many. Of those still alive (Lovelace died in 2002) they are very willing to talk about the film. It is fun to see these older folks and realize that many were porn stars back in the 1970s. The bonus features also have some great details. Watching Marilyn Chambers get embarrassed as she tries to explain the best way to do a deep throat kind of blow job is funny.

Anyway, enough about blow jobs and porn. My mother does read this blog every now and then. Of course, I have a sneaking suspicion that she isn’t “uneducated” about these topics. Still…

Do check out Inside Deep Throat and discover the culture-changing phenomenon that was Deep Throat.

Smart Women – Funny Blogs

Susie at Suburban Guerilla shares her discovery of another woman blogger. What makes this discovered blogger special — besides a clever, humorous style — is her background. Little Quinn Cummings, child star and Oscar nominee for The Goodbye Girl is the blogger. Of course she’s all grown up now.  I loved her take on working at a talent agency:

Upon being hired I imagined a life of bringing exactly the right actor to the attention of a young and passionate filmmaker who would give us all a reason to go to the Sundance Film Festival the next year. In reality, my projects fell into three categories; Horrible but Financed, Wonderful and Will Never Get Financed, Horrible and To Be Shot in Bulgaria. Really, Bulgaria; at least once a month I would be reading a script about half-naked teenagers being terrorized by a cheap-looking giant red ant in a small Midwestern town which was going to look suspiciously like Sofia, Bulgaria. This movie inevitably starred someone like Morgan Fairchild, on whom they had spent their lavish cast salary. That was the other pleasure of my movies; if I was very lucky, they actually paid Screen Actor’s Guild minimum wage. Most of the time the original casting sheet would say “Salary deferred”, which meant we all were supposed to buy into the collective hallucination that a 16mm movie about a struggling writer/director in Los Angeles (played by the writer/director) and his devoted, incredibly hot, frequently naked girlfriend (to be picked after extensive auditions) was going to be picked up for distribution and then, hoo BOY, wouldn’t the money roll in!

Such was my life. Most clients passed on nearly all the scripts I covered, and I couldn’t say as I blamed them. I was just grateful I didn’t work on commission.

Check the QCReport out.  Also spend some time at Susie’s place.  All her posts are passionate, funny, and smart, plus her dreams are way cool:

I’m watching TV and there’s a Berkeley Breathed animated special starting. (Which is unusual, because I’m not an avid fan.) To my shock and delight, the camera’s eye swoops over a warehouse where, painted on the side, is graffitti that says, “Susan rocks! Suburban Gorilla is No. 2.”

“Number two? What do I have to do to be number one around here?” I say. Then I wake up.

I love reading what smart women have to say.

Grocery Shopping?

Okay, I did not get groceries this weekend. I did get a lot of homework and housecleaning done, and even managed to pick up some Christmas gifts, but did not buy food. So, do I dare it tonight? The Monday before Thanksgiving?

I’m seriously thinking of postponing it until late tomorrow night. Hey, there won’t be much of a crowd after 9:00 pm.  Tuesday night is classic movie night on campus and it’s An American in Paris this week.  If I got groceries tonight I’d have to drag the groceries up the stairs along with my laundry. Yep, I’ll just deal with laundry tonight and groceries tomorrow night.

See, this can work out for a procrastinator. It just takes skill on how you procrastinate.

Who Killed the Electric Car review

I’m catching up on posting my reviews.  I wrote this one several weeks ago. This documentary was an eye-opener. I thought electric cars were still around, but no. If you watch the movie you’ll learn why they’ve been removed from the market.

Little Mermaid review

I posted about my obsession about The Little Mermaid a while back. Well, here’s my review.  You can guess that I loved it.

A Report from Disneyland

Sorry about not posting for the last week, but the blogging mood had deserted me. What has now put me in the mood?

TBogg and his view of Disneyland:

As for Disneyland, this was my first visit in some time and I was amazed that most every ride now has it’s genesis in a film, no matter how flimsy the connection to Disney’s own studio; Indiana Jones, Star Wars. Needless to say, the Deliverance Whitewater Flume Ride and Country Hoedown was unexpected in more ways than I care to describe. Also there were too many kids there today and, don’t get me wrong I like kids as much as the next guy as long as the ‘next guy’ isn’t Mark Foley, but shouldn’t they have been in school or buying PS3′s or something?

TBogg rocks my world.