Happy 2015!

Man, has it been almost 3 months since my last blog post? So much for blogging more last year. :P But...it's a new year! New year, new me? I don't like that phrase. I don't like New Year's Resolutions either. First off, most times you break them and, really, shouldn't you ALWAYS be striving to be better? Why does the first of the year have to start that? Sure, it's a nice "even" spot, but still...

At any rate...HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Looking back to last year, not a lot of "significant" things happened, but I had some small things that happened. Most of which involves my health.

I managed to lose 42 lbs from June to December! Woohoo! I have gained 6.5 lbs thanks to the holidays, but I'm slowly starting to get myself back on track. I'm basically buying no more sweets. So once what I have is consumed, that's it! I could just get back fully on calorie counting, but that means I won't consume the stuff I have left and it goes to waste. So...I might as well finish it. ;) I need to get back to it hard. My goal is to lose another 20 lbs in the next 6 months. So, basically, in a year I want to lose 60 pounds. :)

I've learned to like new foods! I've learned to like avocado. Who'd of thunk. For years I've tried avocado and never liked it. For whatever reason, I learned to like it this year. I still don't eat a lot of it, but I will buy it to have on hamburgers and salads. So, that's cool. I also have decided I like brussels sprouts (they remind me of a more bitter broccoli with the texture of lettuce), kale, and quinoa. Kale is fantastic because it's better to eat it cooked rather than raw and putting it in anything reminds me of cabbage in soups. They're pretty flavorless in soups and I like the texture they give. Quinoa has been a trial and error...I don't like it on its own, but I like it in soups, chilies, and things with a light sauce. It's healthy for you and I like the texture. Plus, it's so cute and tiny!

I'm cooking! Since mid-February last year, I have been cooking at home on a weekly basis. That's part of why I've managed to lose weight, but it's also really helped my digestive track. I'm lactose intolerant and before cooking at home, I would HAVE to take lactaid pills with any dairy I took and hope it would actually work. Now that I'm cooking at home and eating a more balanced diet, I don't have to take the pills! I can actually eat dairy and be okay. I'm not 100% off of them (heavy dairy days require the pills), but I'm much better off than I was. I have noticed the past two weeks (basically since my birthday when my eating went downhill) I can't get away with that as well, so it's a definite sign my diet makes a difference in how I can handle dairy. But the cooking has been great. My only problem is food is so expensive! LoL I have to be better about food budgeting...With that said, by planning meals out a week in advance, I'm definitely buying less than I would without planning, I'm eating out less, and I'm snacking less (well, snacking less is also calorie counting).

I bought less nail polish! LoL Maybe not a big thing, but an accomplishment for me. :) My goal this year is to spend less than I did last year. I'm starting to find my pitfalls and really judge my "needs" on polish. It's still hard...especially since I shop almost exclusively with indie polishes so "waiting" to buy that polish doesn't exist since they won't make it again, but I'm trying. January is going to be a "no buy" month, which I'm hoping to extend into February.

I watched 103 movies this year. :) Not as many as last year (I watched 110 in 2013), but I broke 100! Considering I slowed down a lot towards the end of the year, not bad. I actually wasn't sure I'd even make 100. I'll blog a HUGE post about the movies I watched later. It's half-done since I've been working on it off-and-on for weeks (months?) now.


In other things, I went down south 4 times. I went to the racetrack 3 times. I got appointed (or, most likely will be appointed - find out Monday or Tuesday) to the Marina Coast Water District Water Conservation Commission. I made it a priority to visit the chiropractor monthly (the exercise, weight loss, and chiro almost fixed my lower back problem I had last year, though it's still a constant work in progress). I didn't have any weird doctor visits! No weird cysts or hives. :P I survived my work's management changes.

Mostly, I can't complain about the year. :) It was a good year for me and it was definitely the year of getting my health in order.

Welcome 2015. It'll be fun to see what you bring. I'm hoping for a new job, driving license, meeting my weight goal, having more fun times with family and friends, and maybe some traveling. :) If you want to throw in winning the lottery, that's cool. ;) Cheers, everyone!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014!

Welcome to the New Year! It's fresh. It's sparkly. There are 364 days of "unknown" about what will transpire and how your year will look at the end. :) There is something "nice" about starting a new year...Not sure why my birthday doesn't give me the same feeling, except minor excitement for my birthday along with minor-gloom that I'm getting older, but a new year always seems more invigorating. Maybe it's the fact most people on the planet are excited it's a new year and it's a big "thing" and individual birthdays are what you make of them each year. Not sure, but the new year is exciting! This Chinese New Year (Jan 31st) will also be The Year of the Horse. I am partial to this year, even if I am Year of the Ox and, before anyone asks or says it, despite the fact I'm not even Chinese. :P So, here's hoping 2014 is a terrific year for everyone!

Ending with 2013, I watched ONE more movie to make it a solid 110 movies I watched in 2013. I'll do the movie "year in recap" post later, but I wanted to review my final movie and say...I read 68 books! Made my 2 books goal in 4 days. I forgot I was halfway through one book and started and finished a whole other book. Phew. I also did, from my FB posting of pictures, 86 different manicures through 2013 (there might be a couple I never posted, but close enough). That makes it about every 4 days (4.2 to be exact) I changed my nails. That seems to be about right. I'd have said twice a week or every 3-5 days. Wasn't quite twice a week, but close and the middle of 3-5 is 4.

Also, quickly, back update. Second chiropractor visit was a good thing. I had a pretty big adjustment and my spine feels better now. I have another one tomorrow (Thurs) after work. I have less pain and feel less like my spine and bones are rubbing against each other and my movement is smoother. Unfortunately, I think I'm to the point where I think the tissue or ligaments or tendons or whatever AROUND the spine has been damaged. Now it's just waiting for that to all heal and build up my lower back muscle again. I also need to be careful not to overdo the bending. Yesterday, I had a relatively pain free day with minimal bending. Came home from work and started to bend a lot to attend to the rabbits and do other things. By the end of the night, the pain had come back and now, with me sitting, my back hurts. *sigh* I definitely overdid it yesterday, which is good to know what is going on, but bad that I'm still suffering through this. I'm going on week 4 now.

Last movie...and a short review...

We're the Millers (Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Emma Roberts, Will Poulter) - Funny how Sudeikis is the main start of this movie and, yet, most people refer to this as an Aniston film...This wasn't a terrible movie, surprisingly. It was funny in that typical adult-comedy way you'd expect from a film like this, but it also wasn't potty-humor either. I thought everyone did a pretty good job. It's a predictable film, but had some funny lines and some funny scenes. It, of course, has that happy ending and it was predictable, but still happy. Grade: C/C+

With that...110 movies! Yay! And, I'm off to go read or eat or something else that will relax my back... :P

Happy New Year!

Well...I'm late to THIS party...

I knew years ago that Xanga was a gamble to keep blogging on when blogging took its nosedive and Blogger and Wordpress emerged. Either of them were a solid choice, but I was being stubborn since I've been on Xanga since my high school days (Sept 20, 2003 was my first post) and far before either ever became popular. Consistency, right? Well, Xanga has converted to Xanga 2.0 and though I could keep blogging there, I'd have to sign-up for Premium (only $48 for a year), but I figure I'll start migrating myself somewhere else.

At first, I thought my posts were lost to time because I couldn't figure out how to get my XML files that Xanga (thank goodness!) very graciously had made available to me. (I was completely oblivious to the future Xanga change...Way to be observant, me!) Blogger wouldn't accept them and I couldn't get WordPress to accept them either. Turns out, I was doing it correctly on WordPress, but I just had to hit the account I wanted to use and I figured it was "optional" as I only had one account. Apparently not! After some research, I tried again and I got them to upload! Yay! After I uploaded all the files to WordPress, I could export the blog and use a converting program to get them to upload to Blogger. Yay! So, though I haven't posted on Blogger in absolutely years (my first Blogger post is now mixed in with all my old Xanga ones, but I think it was posted in 2007), I have ALL my old blog posts (and pictures) here! Technology...How I love thee. I wasn't so sad to lose the past 9 years of blogs, but I was sad to lose 2013's posts. I can't say it enough. I'm very thankful Xanga exported all my files for me and WordPress is so accommodating. I do still miss my Xanga site and feel bad I wasn't able to give a "I'm moving!" post, but I was totally oblivious to the whole situation! Perhaps one day I'll do the Premium account just to support it. It is my childhood!

With that said, I'm still undecided which platform I want to use. I've got the blog here and also the blog at wordpress (mjk1221.wordpress.com). At this point, I'll be using Blogger because I like the customization it allows, but I like the ease-of-use wordpress provides and its transferability to more platforms and future endeavors (if those occur). We'll see. I have a feeling I'll just stick to Blogger since it's all Google uniform (Google's slowly taking over the digital world!).

I do have a major movie update I need to do and need to complete at least one "My Life..." post! I've started two of them and then I got busy and then the whole Xanga thing happened and I think I spent a good two weeks going, "What is going on?" before I decided to look into it. Movie update will happen first. I just need to get back into the idea of blogging. I'm a little sad, I suppose. Oh well. What are you going to do?

3rd time is the charm?

I have attempted to write this blog post three times now. I write half of it and get tired of writing so I save it and go away thinking I'll get to it the next day. Little do I realize, the next time I get to it, it's been a week and I don't feel like posting anything I wrote! So I start all over again. Hopefully, this post will actually make it to fruition!

Weather for a while here was really warm. Our store has almost no airflow unless the front doors are open and if it's windy, you can't have the doors open because the wind just BARRELS through it. So we tried to keep the doors open as much as possible, but the humidity was gross. The temperature this week has gone down a little, but our store still gets pretty warm and the weather of late has been that it's just a little too cold to leave the front doors open or the cashiers start to freeze to death. It's unfortunate that anywhere away from the doors ends up being warm and stuffy. I've been in the office a lot with our manager being gone and that room has no vent for anything so it's either stuffy as all get out or an ice box. Yuck.

Anyway, beyond that, our manager had the baby! Or, I should say, his wife had the baby. :) Baby will be three weeks old on Sunday (depending when I end up posting this, this could be either tomorrow or today). I've been managing the store and will be managing it for a total of 5 weeks. I'm glad he can take that time to be with the baby. Only get them at that age once, right? Mostly, the store is running. It's had its rocky moments for various reasons and we did, mostly, finish the month out strong, but we did miss plan altogether. Oh well, at least I got some good 4 days in there at the end. The start of July has been good (knock on wood!). We'll see if we can maintain that momentum the rest of the month, though. It's kind of early to be saying things like that. It took me about a week, but I think I've finally got my manager groove on. The first week was a big scramble because it was the end of the month and a lot of things happen at the end of the month. I got it all done, but I felt like I spent a week just scrambling. In fact, because my days off changed (just till our manager gets back), I almost had 4 days off in a row. I had two days off, worked one, and had another two days off. The one day I worked I spent almost all day in the office because I had a lot of things to do that had to be done before I left for another 2 days off. It was crazy! Mostly, though, it's been going well. I haven't seen any higher-ups and I'm not sure if that's because I'm managing the store well so they're not worried or if it's because they're all busy with our new CEO/President coming on (our old one's last day was June 28th -- he retired) and the new store opening in Soledad (opens the 25th). At any rate, I definitely feel like I've firmly planted in the "manager" role, though. Before, it was a lot of questions about where to send things and being a little more timid about doing some things. Now, I feel like I've got this. I think... :P

Other than that, not a whole lot is going on. My Aquarium report is in for peer review so I've got a little down time right now (it was ready for peer review on the 20th of June). So that's kind of nice. I'm doing some reading and have gotten into reality TV a lot. I'm watching Hell's Kitchen, MasterChef, Whodunnit?, and Top Shot. Mostly watching Hell's Kitchen because it's an easy extension of MasterChef, but I really like MasterChef more than Hell's Kitchen. I find MasterChef more interesting to watch, whereas Hell's Kitchen is a lot of yelling and people messing up how to cook food. MasterChef is more about how they cook the food and then criticizing how they cooked/prepped/handled the food. I've always enjoyed Top Shot, but I forgot the new season started and that it was an All Stars season. I have to admit, I was maybe a little *too* excited for the fact Top Shot was back. I'm enjoying the season and it's fun seeing people from the past 4 season. I really liked some of the people from the past so it's good to see them back and how a lot of the episodes and challenges are the same things from past seasons, but amped up. Whodunnit? was a fluke that I got into. It was just there and I had read about it so I just started watching it and now I'm curious to see how it finishes. I think it's clever, but I think part of its current cleverness is because it's a new show so you're not entirely sure how it'll play out. I will say, thus far, I think they're handling it in an interesting way. It is a little cheesy at times (there are no real dead bodies) or overly dramatized, but it works to a point.

Been feeling nostalgic over the closing of Hollywood Park lately. Its last summer meet is about to come to a close (1 more week) and it'll be sad! They'll get a winter meet in Nov-Dec, but, after that, it'll be closed and construction should start the first of the new year. 75 years of history demolished to build new housing and retail in Inglewood, CA. Sad...So many great and well-known horses originated and ran at that track. Three triple crown winners (Citation, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed) ran there. Zenyatta and I'll Have Another (last year's Kentucky/Preakness winner) were based there. Seabiscuit ran there too. So sad. Bay Meadows closing down was sad, but nothing like this. It's historic! The Warner Brothers (yes, THE Warner Bros) managed the track when it first opened. Great Hollywood industry leaders helped get that track off the ground. No clue who where all the horses will be stabled when Santa Anita is closed. Looks like California is getting closer, but we'll see. If I can, I think I'll try going to one of its last days in December (closing day and its LAST day is Dec 22nd). It was the first track I went to and I got to see Zenyatta there. I should try going.

Anyway, movies I'm watching about one a week in theater and rentals have been sort of low. A lot of "eh" movies to watch on DVD. I want to see Beautiful Creatures, but I really had problems reading through the book (not even sure how I made it through the 2nd one!) that I can't seem to bring myself to watch the movie. I am curious to see how they did it, but...eh. We'll see.

Monsters University (Pixar) - Good Pixar film. Not their best, but it was cute. I liked learning the little tidbits here and there about the characters when they're in Monsters, Inc. It is pretty predictable, but what are you going to expect when this is a prequel? I did like how they made you see the parallels between Monsters University and our Universities. That was fun to see. I just don't think it was *that* good, though. It was a little too "kiddy" perhaps? I'm not sure. Some of the enjoyment of Pixar films is how an adult can see the film and get just as much enjoyment out of it as a kid can (or so I think it does), but this was maybe just a little too predictable...? Not sure. It just didn't quite live up to my own hype, but it was still cute and a good film. Grade: B

Man of Steel (Henry Cavill, Amy Adams) - This actually was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. True, Cavill doesn't say a whole lot, but I generally liked it and I liked the origin building and how they explained things. I liked his costume, flying stance, and the way they did the story. I liked how they didn't go immediately into a Lex Luthor story and I liked how it was more flashbacks to the past instead of starting firmly in the past and building forward. I liked Russell Crowe and Michael Shannon. Costner wasn't the greatest, but that was also how his role was written. Adams was a little flat for me, but she wasn't terrible. There were some bad/stupid moments, but it was generally pretty good and fulfilled the reason you're seeing it in theaters rather than at home. Grade: B

Side Effects (Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum, Jude Law) - This was not what I expected the movie to be when I saw the previews. I saw the previews enough that I wanted to see it and thought it'd be more like a thriller version of Contagion. Yeah, that wasn't it. I had the thriller part right, but it was NOTHING like Contagion. I think if I hadn't had Contagion in my head, I would have been okay. This was much more of a thriller than I thought it was going to be too. I rather enjoyed it, though. I thought the acting was good and the plot was good. There's a twist that you catch on to about midway through the movie, but you're still somewhat unsure how it's completely going to pan out. You get the general idea of how it's going to end, but you just don't have all the facts. The trailer also leads you slightly off the correct path too so I was surprised how instrumental Law's character is to the movie. To say the least, it's a good drama-thriller and leads you on a little chase. Grade: B

Oz the Great and Powerful (James Franco, etc) - I knew this was going to be bad (reason I didn't see it in theater), but I was curious to know how bad and what they'd do to the "origin" story of the Wizard of Oz. Uhm, yeah. My conclusion from the movie: Oz became the Wizard of Oz because he was a player. Yes, he was a player. Being a player gets him into all sorts of trouble that result in him needing to "become" the Wizard of Oz behind all the theatrics. And, him being a player, is what turned the Wicked Witch of the West into the, well, Wicked Witch. Wow, it was bad... Grade: D (it entertained a little, hence the reason it's not an F)

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton) - I was curious to see what they'd do to Hansel and Gretel and knew it'd be bad, but, again, I didn't realize how bad it was going to be. It's laughable sometimes, but it did entertain if you can go with the fact the plot is supremely weak and it's just a lot of chasing and nonsense. With that said, I do think they appropriately cast because Renner is good for the females and Arterton is good for the males. So, I guess they got something semi-right... Grade: D

The Call (Halle Berry) - If they took out all the screaming and whining from the abductee in the first half of the movie (maybe 2/3), I think I'd have liked it better. I mean, okay, if I was abducted and thrown into a car trunk, I might be a little hysterical at times, but this girl (and, again, she was young) was really grating on my nerves. I just couldn't take all the hysterics...And, again, I understand that a girl who is 16 or something, abducted, and tossed into a trunk is going to be devastated and scared, but it wasn't pleasant to listen to or really watch. I did enjoy Berry's character, though, and thought it was actually kind of interesting to watch even though Berry's character is on the phone for 3/4 of the film, but...gah. The girl! When she got over the hysterics, I was more inclined to watch. I could NOT stand the ending, though. I 100% disagree with that ending. The ending completely killed the movie for me. Sure, they're both traumatized and everything, but I honestly can't fathom that ending. The ending was more about vengeance and I can't support that type of ending. So, despite the fact I probably would have given the movie a C on its own, I'm giving it a D for the ending alone. Grade: D

I'll be seeing Despicable Me 2 in theater on Monday. Don't think I'll see Lone Ranger in theater...I don't think it'll be bad in the sense I'll dislike it, but...I don't know. Something turns me off from the trailer. I need to find someone who's seen it...

Anyway, off to keep reading. :)

Redbox and Lots of Polish

I, once again, have cancelled my Netflix account. This 2nd time, I only had the streaming plan (no DVDs) so it wasn't that terribly pricey; however, there also wasn't a whole lot I was using with Netflix. When it comes down to it, Amazon Prime Instant works just as well. In fact, they seem to have the same contracts so it was really kind of useless to be paying for both (to be fair, I have Prime for the free 2-day shipping (regardless of order price point) and not for the Prime Instant, that came a year or so after I started with paying for Prime). The only real plus to Netflix over Amazon Prime Instant is the "next episode" auto play (or option) on Netflix. Amazon Prime doesn't have it (makes sense since some things you might have to pay for), but I wish they could figure out a way to make it do that. I strongly dislike having to exit out of my full screen, find the next episode, hit play, and then go back to full screen. I know...what an absolutely harsh life I live (aka #firstworldproblems), but...come on!

At any rate, I'm really interested to see how Redbox does their streaming service. Their service has been "coming soon" for a few months now and I'm really interested to see how it's different than Netflix. It's fairly cheap (cheaper than Netflix at $8/month for unlimited streaming and 4 DVDs out per month) and if it carries the NEW DVDs on streaming, it will be well worth the money.

Let's do some math:

1 DVD = $1.30 (tax included)
$8 subscription / $1.30 movie = ~ 6.15 movies/month
6.15 movies * 12 months = 73.8 movies/year

Let's round up to 74 movies. I watched 101 movies last year and 16 of them were in theaters (I rewatched 2 of them in theater too, but that's not in my count). That's 85 movies I did not watch in theater and all of them but one (to my recollection) I rented from Redbox. That's 84 movies! And also $109.20 for the year (really not a large number for watching 84 movies...). So, I basically get to watch 10 movies for free or save $13.20. Not a large sum, admittedly, but let's factor in my potential wait times (I still haven't been able to track Frankenweenie down) and also sometimes out-of-the-way driving to return a Redbox (why isn't there one at the Monterey mall or anywhere near the mall?!). Not to mention I lost out on a $1.30 once because I reserved a movie ahead of time, but when I got there, the machine was broken (last time I've reserved a DVD...). So, based on time and convenience, it's worth the money. The fact I actually do save money (if I watch at least 75 movies), it's like icing on a cake. With that said, it'll mostly be worth it for me if it carries the new movies. If I have to wait weeks after a new movie comes out, I might make do, but since I'm currently caught up, I'm going to have an awkward lull; however, I could go check out a physical DVD too, but it also sort of loses its appeal for me. So, anyway, it'll be interesting. If it carries the new stuff, it'll be ahead of Netflix and Amazon Instant (no clue with iTunes). If it doesn't, what's the point? I will say that Netflix is relying more on its TV show availability than its movies, so, we'll see!

Had some good and interesting nails the past week or so. I've been trying to cleanse my palette lately (i.e., I've been in a nail funk), but I had two recent incidents that required fancy nails. Both were a pain to do and only one turned out really good. Not to say the other one is bad, but it's definitely not my favorite and lasted a sort of 2 days. LoL My current mani is just pretty. :)

Before I get to the photos, though, I was looking at some blogger photos of a new Valentine's Day collection from an indie brand. I saw one of the polishes and instantly went, "GUM!" Gum, as in bubble gum. I sat there thinking about it for a minute and then figured out WHICH gum it reminded me of. I went and found a photo and, yup, I'm a dork. I know I love my gum (goodness knows I eat enough of it and try all sort of flavors regularly), but I didn't realize I was starting to become a connoisseur of gum!

This is what I mean:

        

Left: Pointless Cafe's swatch of Nail Junkie's Bouquet. Right: Ice Breakers Ice Cubes in Bubble Breeze.

See what I mean? Pink (not sure why that shade of pink always says "bubble gum," but it does) base with blue glitter. That gum is pink base with blue flavor crystals! Of all the gums in the world, I think of this gum. I will say that I've only bought that particular flavor twice too. I enjoy the kiwi watermelon one the most. I just tried the new grape, which reminded me of Dimetapp grape flavor. It was, by far, my favorite medicine as a kid. LoL So, I didn't NOT enjoy the grape medicine flavor of the new grape Ice Breakers Ice Cubes gum. :P

Anyway, on to photos...

 

(Click photos to enlarge) Glitter Gal Lizard Belly for the tips, China Glaze Devotion for the silver stamp, BM 16 for the stamp, and Northern Lights in silver for the holo glitter in the clear base. I did this to show a co-worker I could do something similar to what she wanted (leopard on a gold base). This was more me than doing an animal print. :) I have never done something like this so it was a total shot in the dark and it turned out really good! I really liked it. Some of my tips could have been angled a little more, but it still looked good. This took a LONG time, though. Base primer, base, Northern Lights, tip color, tip stamp, top coat. Yeah, work! I had to wait for Northern Lights and the tip color to dry before the next steps too.

I had a meeting that was going to be a Superbowl theme (meeting was focused on teamwork) and we were asked to wear our favorite team's colors or jerseys or whatever. I don't watch football, but my manager and a co-worker are 49er fans. To honor that, I did 49er nails. Red is nubar Fiery Red and gold accent is Zoya Goldie. The gold moons are nubar 24k. The logo are various nubar nail art pens. I knew I was never a moon person (the crescents at the top), but I decided to try it. Yeah, first off, I didn't really like how I drew my moons and, second, I just didn't really like them. It's just weird to me. Then I drew the SF 49ers logo and it took a ridiculous amount of time to do and I did NOT like how it looked. There were flaws all over it and it drove me nuts. Sure, it's better than most people could do, but the flaws drove me bonkers. I wore the logo for a day, but the rest of the colors (had a white plain nail) for 2 days. I had a male customer said he liked my nails. It was funny.

Luckily, for those polishes, I already had red and gold polishes. I bought them for my Gryffindor colors (every nail person should have his/her Harry Potter house colors in polish!), but then people started pointing out to me they all thought it was Iron Man. Hm. The red is a smidgen darker in person, but whatever. I can see it (and started seeing Iron Man towards the end). It's scarlet and scarlet is bright, which is what it is on the color wheel and what Gryffindor's colors are. :P So...They're my Gryffindor colors!

 

Above the Curve Risen Angel. This is a loose linear (I think it's linear) holo and it's PRETTY! It's like a purple-gray color and the holo in it is amazing. It's really distracting to look at because the shift is really neat. I like linear ones because it's a strong rainbow, but this loose one is almost more distracting because it's softer and is ALL over the nail. The two left photos are in artificial light, but show the color shift. The right one (excuse the dry cuticles...ick) is in the sun just to show it's all sparkley! It looks better in person.

I also stamped the ring fingers, but it's hard to see and sort of moot when you've got a pretty holo polish! It's BM 306 with China Glaze Devotion, though. This is what the polish looks like without the bling going. :)

With that...Not much going on. Work hasn't been fun, but what are you going to do about it? Hopefully not murder anyone, I suppose...*sigh* Watched Frankenweenie, but will post about that later since I'll be watching Hotel Transylvania this week. Started doing my taxes too. Fantastic that Goodwill pays me just enough to mess me up, but not enough to really live on. *rolls eyes* My student loans ended up saving me and also being a renter in the state of California. Who'd of thunk...

Anyway, I'm off!

My new geek obsession?

Some years ago (okay, precisely, it was July 16, 2008 - check it here), I posted about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Since then, it's become a cult favorite and we expect season 2 (or a prequel sequel) to air sometime in the future (it's in the works, but not sure when it'll be available). It was a fun project that was free to the public to watch and it was entertaining (not to mention I enjoy the tune of "Bad Horse Chorus"). In that show, Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris, and Felicia Day stared. I, of course, knew of NPH and Fillion before then, but the Blog was my first real exposure to Felicia Day. I just knew she was a "Whedon girl," which is basically like any actor who tends to become associated with a particular director or producer (e.g., Christian Bale and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are becoming Chris Nolan guys, Helen Bonham Carter is (always) a Tim Burton girl, etc, etc). In other words, they just tend to do projects with the same director or producer a lot. I liked her in the Blog, but hadn't thought much of her beyond it.

The other day (or week), Chris was watching The Guild on Netflix, said it was funny, and I should watch it. I basically put it on the back burner since I was trying to complete all my summer TV shows (it was an intense few days of Royal Pains, The Closer, Necessary Roughness, and Political Animals. I still have Common Law and Burn Notice to finish). Well, the other day I was bored at work and didn't want to watch Vampire Diaries, but wanted to watch something while on lunch so I started The Guild. Yeah, that was pretty much the beginning of the end.

I.am.hooked.

The Guild is basically about a group of people who are in a guild for a MMORPG (for those that don't know, MMORPG is basically an on-line game that has quests, etc, etc). The main person is Felicia Day's character whose on-line name is Codex and she does video diaries; however, the show chronicles the interactions of "The Guild" on- and off-line. It's pretty nerdy and hilarious. If you play a MMO or are at all in the "know" about them, it's funny. If you don't play one, I'm not sure if it'd be as funny, but I think it'd still be funny in its own way. It's silly and doesn't take itself seriously. There are definitely things in it anyone could find funny, but it is for adults. It's not like it's rated R or anything, but it is more of a PG-13 thing. There are 5 seasons and a 6th season starting October 2nd.

So, The Guild is amazing and lots of laughs. I haven't laughed out loud to something like that in a while, but the best thing about the show? It's on YouTube and totally free to watch. How amazing is that?! They've grown significantly since the first season, which was helped by funding from fans. Now Microsoft, Sprint, and someone else sponsors the show. In addition, they've branched out to do webisodes with the main cast doing various different things ("Written by a Kid" is pretty funny). You can watch all the geekiness here: Geek & Sundry.  To wade through all the various playlists, you can find the individual seasons (stitched together into one long "movie" instead of the individual episodes) here in the playlists page. If you want the original webisodes and/or want to laugh at the Christmas stuff ("Twas the Night Before Christmas" (hilarious) and the Christmas Raid Carol (also hilarious)), go to their old YouTube page called Watch The Guild (uploaded videos at the bottom has the individual webisodes). They also have some fun music videos and some other songs that you can find on iTunes and/or on YouTube ("(I'm the One That's) Cool" is practically the nerd/geek theme song of now..."(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar" is funny...and "Game On" is especially funny since it's a Bollywood-themed video/song).

So, I can't wait till Tuesday when season 6 starts! Not to mention you can't say Felicia Day isn't talented...

In other news, started reading the new JK Rowling book. I'm not very far in it because Amazon was ridiculously SLOW in shipping it to me (come on! You charged me sales tax, you can at least get me my book on the day it was released rather than the NEXT day!). Okay, so most books/things I wouldn't care about, but...when I pre-order a book back in April, I expect delivery on the day it's released! :) I almost cancelled my order and re-ordered it they were so slow on notifying me my book was coming to me. I almost even bought it at Costco...! At any rate, it is an adult book, but what'd you expect? We were all warned and I at least went into this book knowing it's a) not Harry Potter, b) not going be a great literature work (a good read, but not great), and c) going to be FOR an adult. So far, it's met my expectations. I think it's interesting that I'm 60 pages into a 503 page book and so far it's all been about how everyone is passing on the news that Barry Fairbrother is dead and HOW he died. At the same time, it's a great way to introduce the townspeople, the characters, and each of their personalities. I will say that it's fantastic reading a JK Rowling book. Her writing style hit me from the first page of reading it and brought back the way I would read Harry Potter. That lady certainly can write. However, we'll see how the rest goes!

With that...I've got a bathroom to clean or reading to do or the trivia episodes of The Guild to watch. Oh, I suppose I've got my week's TV shows to watch too (Fringe starts its final season tonight! :( ). I'm now convinced I want Christopher and Sonjia to go to Fashion Week on Project Runway FOR SURE. Dmitry and Fabio are toss-ups. Melissa, as much as I like her, I just don't think she's strong enough. She's been melting down the last few episodes (just finished this week's episode, so it's fresh in my mind!). Hm. I want to redo my nails before tomorrow too...Oh the things to do...

Cha-cha-changes!

Believe it or not, but this will be a life update post! Well, maybe I'll throw in a nail photo or two at the end, but mostly life update with an abundance of work-related stuff.

So, I had hinted in my last post that things at work were sort of up in the air and I would update when things settled down. Well, things have settled down. The outcome? I am now assistant manager! Long story short, a manager position became open at another store and our manager decided to take the position. Our assistant manager became our manager and then the assistant manager position was open. The other lead and I applied for it and I got the position! I should say, from start to finish, this all took about 1.5 months. It did, however, feel significantly longer than that. It's not fun being down a person and not having a manager around (before she officially became the manager at the other store, she was filling in). Not to mention we leads and (former) assistant manager had no idea how the outcomes would all turn out either (our (now) manager also applied for the manager position at the other store) and it was all rather "who knows?" for a long time. Instability is never fun and it was pretty stressful for a while. I do dearly miss our former manager as I really liked her, but there's not a whole lot I can do about that! I do like our assistant manager turned manager and get along with him so that's good. :)

Now it's mostly me getting used to the idea that I'm now the assistant manager. Not much really changed for me, but we do now have a lead position open that we'll have to fill. That is sort of a whole other can of worms that I can't really discuss, but I'm not too worried about it either. It will be nice to have the 4th keyholder so one of us leads or above can be sick and not have to pull a 12-hour day or pull overtime or something. It'll also be nice to have our missing employee back too. We're fine with the numbers we have (we've gotten used to it), but it will be nice to have another full-time person to help round out the days.

Other than the leadership thing, work is okay. We're currently full-swing into Halloween and are currently drowning in the excess of costumes. A glitch in shipping happened early last week and we received 19 boxes of costumes instead of 4. That is a HUGE difference! We just aren't selling enough to keep up with our 4-boxes a day shindig. We'll likely have to remove some of our normal clothes to fit in more Halloween, but we'll see. I'm sure once the end of Sept hits, it'll be pretty chaotic. Halloween is the Christmas equivalent for Goodwill. It's nuts and they save and stash stuff away ALL year just for Halloween. We won't keep getting new things the entire lead-up to Halloween, but I think we'll get a ton of stuff till early October (maybe even late Sept). I've heard horror stories about Halloween last year, so it'll be really, really interesting!

We've been having an unfortunate amount of sticker-switching lately. It's been an epidemic, it seems. Yesterday seemed like it was the case of the $0.99 stickers. It was like, for a time, everything was coming up to the registers with $0.99 stickers on them and, to be frank, not that many things are $0.99! We all wanted to know where they were finding the stickers! I've also had some rather temperamental customers about discounts the last few days too. I get it that people want to be frugal and I get it that you may be struggling so you want deals, but some of these people just want to be difficult to be difficult for a $1 or $0.50 even!

Examples...

I had this guy want a student discount on Friday. Student discounts (10%) are only on Saturday and Sunday with an ID. This guy wanted to talk to me (after talking to my coworker at the register) because he wanted his student discount and wanted to know if I can do anything for him. I told him, no, we can't give him the discount and it's only on the weekend. (Side note: unbeknownst to him, but if I gave him the discount, it sends up a red flag to our loss prevention (LP) guy and I could be in BIG trouble over giving discounts on a day I'm not supposed to.) He looks at me and says, "When does the week END? Not Saturday, but Friday." I look at him in total disbelief and go, "No, Saturday and Sunday are the week end. Mon-Fri are a week DAY." It was a poor comeback, but, come on! Then he tries arguing back to me and I cut him off and go, "It's on the calendar that the discount is only on Sat-Sun. I can't do anything about it. Come back to tomorrow." So he goes, looks at the calendar, comes back and goes, "But I'm not a student on Sat-Sun and I'm a poor student." Oh.my.gosh. I really wanted to do something bad so I just said, "Sorry, I can't do it" and walked away. I felt bad leaving my co-worker there to finish with him, but I was going to lose it if I stayed there! As is, he couldn't really argue since the calendar said Sat-Sun. As it is, I think he bought less than $5 worth of stuff. Really? Was it worth all that hassle for $0.50 savings? I guess the argument for some is more important than anything else.

Another example is the senior discount (55 and older). I know a 10% savings is better than no savings, but people hold onto that senior discount like it's a lifesaver or something. Our senior discount days are Mon-Wed. It's not everyday, but it's 3/7 days of the week. That's not too bad. Well, I can't tell you how many times people will say to us, "Oh, I'm only old those days?" Really, people? You're going to complain about that? Aren't we nice enough to even GIVE you a senior discount at all? Do you go to the movies at 5pm and complain that senior early birds are only in the morning and not all day? Well, probably, but still. I think we get more complaints over the senior discount days than when we lowered the discount on clothes from 50% to 25%. So silly.

My least favorite customer dealings are the regulars who, every time they come in, try and barter with you. On one hand, they're regulars so you somewhat know them, but, on the other, I shouldn't have to go around-and-around with you that no, I won't sell this to you for a lower price and no, I can't exchange it for you and, no, I can't do a damage discount. We have this one customer who comes in once or twice a week and CONSTANTLY tries to get you to reduce the price for an item. Today he wanted an item for $2 instead of $2.25. Every time, we stand there and go around-and-around about 3 or 4 times of "No, no discount. It's this price..." before he finally just gives us the money for the item. Did I really just expend that energy for him to buy it at said price? *sigh of disbelief*

So, last (last) Saturday, I went to Del Mar Racetrack! It's the last of the "Big 3" SoCal racetracks I haven't been to. I got in free through a friend who works at the racetrack. Man that track is small. I had no idea it was THAT small. I almost think Hollywood Park is bigger than Del Mar. It's no wonder everyone says that there is no way that Del Mar could host the Breeders' Cup! It was good to go, though. The tracks all have a different piece of history and culture attached to them so it's fun going to see how they look and feel. I find I still love Santa Anita the most. It's a kind of deep seated instant love. It's also the most handicapper/race fan friendly of the tracks. Hollywood Park is slated to be bulldozed and turned into apartments, but the economy has stalled the project. I think they're still trying to save it too, but it's, so far, pretty imminent. Del Mar is probably upkept the best of them all, but it's definitely got the dazzle of money being poured into it to keep it's very Spanish influenced paddock in shape. Santa Anita is, by no means, run down, but it's not as "pretty." It has a simpler taste and luxury to it that stems more around its layout and its many, many bronze statues and fan accessibility. In other words, Santa Anita feels "homey" while Del Mar feels "richy." To be fair, there's nothing wrong with Del Mar, but it just can't compete with my love of Santa Anita.

The racing was good, though, and the people were fairly nice. It has a little bit more of a "fair" feel to it, but I'm not sure if that was because the beerfest was there too. They also have more eateries on the premises than Santa Anita. Santa Anita has a cafeteria-like eatery and maybe a restaurant or two, but Del Mar had all sorts of things other than the food tents. I got to see my first Grade 1 race in person! I have always had to leave or missed it before. So that was exciting! Most of the races at a racetrack are claimers, maidens, etc so when you get a graded stakes race, it's more exciting because the caliber of horses in the field are much better. The handicapping is much more exciting, in my opinion, in those races. They do tend to be a little easier to handicap also. Claiming races and maidens are hard to handicap sometimes because the horses have had such a varied number of races and such. Course, that might also be because I'm used to keeping up with graded races more than the claimers so I find the claimers harder to handicap. Who knows. I usually hypothetically bet each race, but the heat at Del Mar and everything got me lazy after the 3rd race. I will say, I called the 3rd place winner of the first race and the horse was 23-1! 

Anyway, here are some photos of the track I took (along with some other photos of my weekend): Del Mar Racetrack (Mostly)

So, movies...I haven't seen any movies since my last post. Not much out right now and I haven't had time to go see the Bourne movie with Jeremy Renner. Maybe this week I'll get to see it.

Now, nails...

Been a while and I'm still changing about twice a week. Typically one mani lasts around 4-5 days and the other lasts about 2-3. Not too bad! I need to trim my nails desperately, but I always need a good frame of mind to do that since trimming is sort of tedious and I dislike trimming. :P Here's a few backlog of photos, though!

   

The photo on the left is my favorite mani of the past 2 months and it was the one that only last 24 hours! Crushed me! the white base is Rescue Beauty Lounge Bella Donna (now called "Bella) and it's a great off-white color (sort of a beigey white). The glitter on top is Lynnderella Snow Angel. This photo does NOT do this justice at all. It was really pretty in person. It definitely screamed "wedding" mani, but it was just really pretty. It had a class and sophistication to it that I loved.

The center photo is Smitten Polish Confection. She created a collection centered around Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and this is one of them. It's a really fun polish! I like how it's white, but not a really "bright" and "harsh" white. The glitter is mixed into the white color and it's opaque in 2 coats! Opaque glitters are kind of rare in the indie polish world. Most glitters (3/4?) are clear based glitters (so top coats that need a base). I really like opaque glitters because it cuts my work down on trying to pair them. On the other hand, clear based glitters are nice to mix-and-match too.

The photo on the right is also by Smitten Polish and is called Mint Chip. Can you guess why? This polish had me craving mint chip ice cream so badly! I could almost taste it as I was painting my nails! It's also a great fun and opaque glitter by Smitten. Smitten is pretty much my new favorite indie!

My current mani is pretty plain and is just Rescue Beauty Lounge's Oriental Poppy (now called "Poppy"). The shimmer in it is really hard to see and it's a pretty bright coral-red color. On my long nails, it's kind of stereotypical for long nails. :P I need to stay away from glitters for a few changes, though. The glitter removal is wrecking havoc on my poor nails so I'm banned to shimmers and cremes for a little!

Well, with that, after this loooooooong post...Time to go rewatch Hunger Games and/or read and get ready for my 7th day of work! Yes, that would be my 7th day in a row I'll have worked tomorrow. I get Tues off and then work another 2 days and get Friday off and then I work 6 days in a row and then get 2 days off. After that, I should be back to 5 days and then 2 off. Phew!

Life Update and Movies

Since I haven't posted about my life lately, I thought I'd do a small update. :)

Other than work, Aquarium report (it lingers!), the pets, movies, and nail polish, life is pretty much the same. Reading and Harry Potter have sort of felt abandonment issues given my new found love in nail polish and movies/tv shows. Right now, it's mostly just nail polish and movies since TV shows have tapered off and I'm waiting for the summer shows to kick in.

I can actually say, of all the nail polishes I own -- I own quite a few and will never say on here how many I have -- that I have used EVERY single polish I own! It was a crazy few days of swatching (think of a paint "swatch" when you're trying to figure out what color to paint your house/room in as to what "nail swatching" is) and smelling fumes (admittedly, I don't smell/remember nail polish fumes much anymore), but I did it! I'm quite proud of myself because I never liked having so many untried polishes and now I can say I've tried them all! It's a matter of keeping up with them now, which isn't a big deal. I also found a great combo for chunky glitters to make them smooth. So, in the nail department, I'm a rather happy camper. :)

Work is going okay. We've had our employee drama and, for the most part, it's calmed down some. We have some minor issues here-and-there, but it's pretty good. One of our favorite employees left us for another job the other day so we're trying to get into the swing of our new employee (who happens to be a friend of the employee who left). Work is still showing me quite the personal look at consumerism. I still buy the odd-ball item that I just think is an amazing deal, but you definitely learn what is considered a "good deal" and what is actually "unique" while working here. I will say, for as much plasticware as companies create and the amount people donate, no one wants to buy it even if it's super, super cheap. Glassware (pyrex for example) and metalware (tin pans, etc) sell far better, which makes you wonder why plastic has been so popular!

I did, I can say, update my "books coming out" list last night and found out one of my favorite childhood authors (Robin Jones Gunn) had new books involving the Christy Miller world that I TOTALLY missed somehow! They were snuck in somehow without me knowing late last year...At any rate, read the last Katie book last night (read it in 3.5 hours...) and I loved it. It was a good ending and I'm hoping she'll continue Katie's adventures because I can see there being PLENTY more adventures there. Sierra's book I haven't read and she wrote another book that is, pretty much, standalone, but it has Todd's dad in it! Yes, oh yes, I do need to read those two. End of summer/fall is the best time of the year for books this year for me. It was last year too.

With that said...Pets are good. Having to re-potty train the rabbits because we were really bad with changing their box so they unpottytrained themselves. At least re-potty training isn't too bad, but their rug and old blanket both had to go since they pee'd all over it. We bought them a new blanket from Goodwill and have to figure out how to redo their pen situation since we want to utilize the cubes and take up less space with them, but the cubes can't support the pen on top and aren't strong upon to be on top of the pen either. Conundrums...

TV show this summer I'm looking forward to Suits! Yes! I'm hoping it can keep up its momentum because I really enjoyed it last summer and it's rewatchable worthy (i.e., DVD buying worthy). I will get season 1 eventually...I'm currently rewatching all of Numb3rs, which I haven't done in a little over a year (I tend to rewatch it every year or so). I also want to buy season 1 of Once Upon a Time. That season finale BLEW my mind away. Did NOT see that coming, but I also wasn't reading interviews either so I was totally in the dark. Excellent show and Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin is by far my favorite character.

With that...On to movies! I've been watching a lot of "not on my radar" movies lately. These will help me make my goal...Because they're on my radar, they'll mostly be PG-13 action/suspense films.

Men in Black 3 (Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin) - It's a decent film. I can't say it's fantastic and it's not as good as the first one (a film sequel rarely is!), but I enjoyed it. Brolin made an interesting young Agent K. You still don't learn a whole lot about why K is the way he is, but you did have a small insight into Agent J's father. The bad guy was okay. You wish the movie was a little funnier, though. It falls a little flat like there should have been laughs where there just weren't any. I liked the film, but would probably recommend a movie rental for most people. Grade: B-/C+

Rampart (Woody Harrelson) - I got this just because Harrelson was in it and I was looking for something to watch. I sporadically watched it so this review is probably not reliable, but it is a drama and, mostly, chronicles the trouble that Harrelsons's character (a cop) gets into. He has sex with a lot of random women, is distant with his two daughters, uses police brutality to get people to confess and even, "the big problem," is caught on film beating a man. It's a rather downer of a film, but you do learn whether he did really "commit" a crime he is nicknamed for. It's good acting and it's nice to see Harrelson in a more "serious" role than the ones I've seen him in recently, but it's not the typical film I'd normally enjoy watching. Grade: C

Contraband (Mark Wahlberg) - Finding a film to watch, again, this one was kind of interesting in the fact Wahlberg's character is a top-notch smuggler. His wife's nephew or brother-in-law or something gets into trouble (lost several hundred thousand dollars worth of drugs) and he's threatened and Wahlberg's family is also threatened if they can't come up with the money to replace the drugs. Wahlberg who used to smuggle stuff in all the time (fake cash for instance) is out of the game to protect his family, but decides to take on a job to get the money to protect his family. The story unfolds in two parts: 1) Wahlberg trying to get the stuff to smuggle and is on a cargo ship to central America and 2) Wahlberg's family back home and the "thugs" and "best friend" interacting with them. Movie is sort of bland in the middle and kind of picks up towards the end when you figure out who is behind the threats to his family and how he got his "goods" (counterfeit money) into the country after his ship was searched. My normal type of "fluff action," albeit the topic isn't one I normally gravitate towards. Grade: C+

Gone (Amanda Seyfried) - Sort of a suspense thriller (or maybe it was supposed to be?). Basically Seyfried's character was kidnapped, but no one believes her. Her sister disappears and she's convinced it was the same man who kidnapped her and goes to the police and they don't believe her. So she heads out on the hunt to find the man who kidnapped her sister. It winds around and up and down and gets to the end. It's a somewhat interesting end, but nothing surprising. It was not that great. Grade: C-/D+

Man on a Ledge (Sam Worthington) - Having seen the trailer for it more times than I wanted to, I had to watch it just to see what happened. It's actually a little more interesting than I suspected. I thought it would be more man on the ledge trying to proclaim his innocence and then it'd flashback to what happened, but...it actually was more flashback, man on ledge proclaiming innocence, while, at the same time, a break in is occurring to prove his innocence. The cast was really kind of funny as I kept ticking off all the movies/TV shows I've seen them all in recently (a lot of B actors). It was more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be (did induce some palm sweating), but it still wasn't great. Grade: C

Up to 46 movies now! Snow White and the Huntsman comes out Friday, Brave June 22nd, and I've got 6 films coming out in June I want to see on DVD. So...54 movies by end of June? Maybe. :)

Huge movie backlog (and neon tetra death)

Been too tired, busy, and then totally forgot to actually post my movie list. I've been keeping this post for a while and keep forgetting to post it because I never manage to finish it in one sitting so there is quite a few movies to go over.

Contagion (Gwenyth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, Matt Damon, etc) - Interesting ensemble cast and an interesting movie. I can't say it's as "exciting" or "riveting" as it's made out to be in the trailer (it's supposed to be a sort of medical thriller), but it was interesting on how accurate it is on how a disease can be transmitted and stuff. I also like how the movie was set-up, but it did take me a little while to figure it out. You essentially start the movie on day 2 and work your way across the days (several hundred) to how the disease spreads, how the vaccine is created/distributed, how the investigation of what it is, etc. At the VERY end of the movie, it shows you day 1 to know how correct or incorrect the CDC was and how the disease came about. In a lot of ways, the movie has a feel to a CSI episode (I suppose that's sort of fitting since Fishburne was in CSI for 2 seasons). Good rental. Grade: B

Real Steel (Hugh Jackman) - Not too shabby of a movie. Not quite your stereotypical ending, but, at the same time, wasn't earth shattering or anything. I enjoyed Jackman and the robot was pretty neat too. It's a pretty good famly-ish movie and something different than Jackman being Wolverine. I liked the boy too. He was likeable and tough, whereas Jackman's character in the beginning wasn't as likeable. In a lot of ways, it was the instance of the kid teaching the parent, I suppose. If there's not a whole else to watch, I'd recommend Real Steel, but it's nothing to run out and watch or try to watch. Grade: B/B-

50/50 (Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) - Well. It's definitely on the "crude" end given it's a Rogen film; however, for a Rogen film, it's not that bad since it is based on the serious side with the cancer. I liked it, but it's definitely not going to be for everyone. It's a film about dealing with cancer and how those around you also deal with it, but it's also about finding your life. I really liked Gordon-Levitt, but I also like him in general too. Grade: B-

Abduction (Taylor Lautner) - I still can't decide if it's not as bad as I thought or if it's as bad as I thought. It's somewhere in the middle maybe? The story is mostly pretty boring and the acting isn't spectacular, but it also somehow passed the time rather well without realizing it. So, maybe it's where your expectations lie. I expected it to be bad, but also had a friend who said it wasn't that bad. At any rate, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless you already want to see it. There really isn't much beyond what the trailer shows you, except maybe who his parents really are. Grade: C

What's Your Number? (Anna Faris, Chris Evans) - Well, this went somewhere exactly as I thought. It was rather predictable from the get go, but it wasn't horrible either. Course, it certainly wasn't great even amongst other chick flicks. The concept is rather stupid, though. All starts with an article in Marie Claire that women, on average, sleep with 10.5 (I think) men and Faris's character panics and starts counting and realizes she's slept with 19 people (far more than sister's bridesmaids). She makes a promise that she won't sleep with another man and #20 will be her husband. She gets drunk and ends up sleeping with a former co-worker and panics and, thus, with the help of her male neighbor who sleeps around, tracks down all her former boyfriends to see if one of them is "the one." Yup. That's the premise! It just doesn't work as well as other chic flicks and it's probably to do with the premise.  Grade: C

Scorpion King 3 (Dave Bautista, Bostin Christopher, etc) - Wow...Scorpion King movies have definitely tanked. #1 and #2 isn't too bad (#1, of course, is the best), but I thought I'd see this one anyway. Yeah, it was bad. The acting was bad. The special effects were bad. The fight scenes were sometimes like a scene from a bad wrestling match. It was also predictable too. I knew who Cobra was the first time we saw Cobra, etc, etc. I watched What's Your Number? after this and it made What's Your Number? seem far better than it should have been (at the time) because SK3 was so bad. So, don't bother seeing this. At the same time, it did hold some interest because I did manage to finish it...LoL Grade: D

Rum Diary (Johnny Depp) - Best thing? Harry the jewel encrusted tortoise. Hands down it was the best thing in the movie! Not to say the movie was horrible, but it does appeal to a certain audience. I think Depp's performance is great (when isn't he?), but the movie sort of rambles on as Kemp (Depp's character) learns the culture, lusts after a woman he can't have, and drinks too much. There are some funny moments here and there and the other actors were also excellent, but it just wasn't my type of movie. Grade: C-

Hugo (Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz) - Good film. It's definitely family friendly and makes me want to finish the book. I bought the book when it came out (it's signed by Selznick) and started reading it, but never finished it. It's a rather BIG book, but it's mostly because about 1/3 of it is all illustrations. I liked the filmography too. The look and feel of the movie had a neat non-real look to it so it felt a little more "magical" I suppose. It's a slight mystery, but it comes down to the end of the film about each of us having a purpose and need to have a purpose. I liked it, but it is rather "docile" and I was tired when watching it and had to make sure I was staying awake. You do get to a point where you're engrossed in it and then I was fine. I definitely don't think it deserves Best Picture. It's a good film, but not THAT good. I do think the cinematography is pretty amazing and I liked the "feel" of the movie. The look also worked for the storyline and what the story was. Grade: B

The Big Year (Steve Martin, Jack Black, Owen Wilson) - Last year I got the opportunity to see Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers perform in Santa Barbar and, during their performance, Martin talked about filming The Big Year. So, naturally, when it came out I had to see the film. I had looked at the ratings for it, which weren't particularly high, but still wanted to see it. I'm glad I did. It's a nice film. It's got heart in it and has an interesting message/point that winning isn't everything because of what you give up to achieve that. Jack Black's character is the narrator of the film and I really enjoyed all 3 of them. I like Jack Black when he's not doing his "stupid comedies" and this movie is no exception. Owen Wilson was good at being the "bad guy" in this film (more like "the competition") and Steve Martin has a nice role of being the older birder with a wife he's had for a long time, successful businessman, and new grandfather. You also learn a little about birding too. I knew what a Big Year was, but...wow! I didn't think about it being so intense! At any rate, I recommend the movie. It's clean, some funny moments, and it has heart in it. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. Grade: B+

In Time (Justin Timerblake, Amanda Seyfried) - I wasn't sure how this movie would play out: bad or good. It turns out it's pretty good. I'm very glad I didn't see the extended trailer before watching it (ironically, saw it in the previews of The Big Year, which I watched after In Time) because it's the entire movie in 2.5 minutes minus knowing if they live or not. It's an interesting concept that currency changes to "time." Humans became genetically engineered to stop aging at 25; however, that's when your clock started. Everyone gets 1 year and if you can't earn more time after that, you'll die when your clock runs out. Timberlake's character is in a different "time zone" as Seyfried's character and is, therefore, living from day-to-day trying to make ends meet with his mother, Olivia Wilde. I will first say, everyone stopping at the age of 25 is interesting, but most of the actors were all around 30 (or even slightly older)! That point sort of annoyed me, but it's mostly besides the point. I liked the feel of the movie because it was our world, but the small changes they made gave it a futuristic feel without hitting you upside the head that it was in the future. Just the simple change of the cut of Seyfried's dresses and the way her hair and make-up were styled was enough to give her that edge. The cars had an electric sound to them, but looked mostly like ours or cars of the 1970's (or earlier). It was a clever tweaking here and there. At any rate, I enjoyed the film more than I thought I would. It's kind of silly at the end, but it has an interesting angle about economics and how "the system" works and the acting wasn't too bad. The premise was interesting too. If you're thinking of watching it, I wouldn't say no to it, but it's definitely not great movie making or anything either. It's a good renter. Grade: B

Puss in Boots - Another Dreamworks and it didn't win Best Animated Picture. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I had a feeling Rango would win since it has some realistic animation in it rather than the more cartoon-y feel of Puss in Poots or Kung Fu Panda 2. Plus, it figures the Academy would pick the movie I have bad memories of thanks to my fellow moviegoers next to me! At any rate, I liked it. If you're a cat owner, I think a lot of the cat references would make more sense -- there are a lot of them. The dance off was funny with the "kitty litter move" and the "butt crawling move" (considering my own cat, the butt crawling one made me laugh in remembrance). This story has Humpty Dumpty, Jack & Jill (thugs, basically), the Goose that laid the golden egg, and the beanstalk/castle in the sky. I really liked Kitty Softpaws. The story wasn't bad and the animation, of course, was excellent. I will say it's a little weird seeing a cat be a "player" (he's a "lover not a fighter") when it's a family movie, but oh well. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't know if I'd buy the DVD. Grade: B

J. Edgar (Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer) - It's definitely a biopic rather than a historical film. It starts with Hoover, in his later years, talking to a writer to tell the story of how the FBI came about. It chronicles the more important parts of his life and culminates with his death. This film does have Hoover be gay and there's a quick kiss between DiCaprio and Hammer after they have an argument and have a physical fight, but it doesn't really go beyond that. I thought the acting was good. I liked DiCaprio as Hoover and Hammer as Tolson. The accents and aged make-up did bother me a little. It's not to say the accent or make-up was bad, but I think I've gotten too used to DiCaprio without any accent and looking like, well, himself that it was just odd seeing him in the make-up with the accent. Sometimes I'd forget, but sometimes it'd come back too. It has a similar style to most of Eastwood's film too. I enjoyed it, but there did seem to be just something small missing. The history facts were interesting about Hoover, but I think the connection to Hoover was slightly missing. Not to say you couldn't like him, but there was just something a little off with the way the movie portrayed him or was organized or something. I will say, just from the movie, it definitely portrays him as an interesting person. Grade: B/B-

With that...I think I'm FINALLY caught up on all the movies I've seen!

Footloose, TinTin, The Three Musketeers, The Muppets, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Tower Heist are next movie rentals. Might rent Young Adult. I'm interested in in Melancholia, but highly doubtful I'll see it. Ghost Rider is in theaters, but not seeing it in theaters. Looking more like Lorax I'll see on DVD too. So I guess that means Mirror, Mirror is really the next movie (3/16) I'll see in theater.

With that said, onto something more personal. My crooked neon tetra was euthanized today. I bought it when it was crooked (v-vent shape in the middle of its body) and I thought it'd die soon afterwards or be the smallest, but it turned out to be my most active and biggest neon tetra. However, last week it lost the ability to float and was struggling to swim. It wasn't too bad for 2 days, but we both thought it'd die within a few days. Last night, after watching it severely struggle (it had been 6 days of this), I decided I wanted to do something to help ease its suffering. It was to the point where it was swimming more and more at a more vertical angle than horizontal, it couldn't swim through the current of my pump (admittedly, it's rather strong), the other fish were out competing it for food (it did okay for the first few days), it seemed to get more cooked (if that's possible), and my shrimp had taken to trying to grab it to eat it (normally my shrimp leaves the fish alone). So, I Googled last night how to euthanize a fish, which then sent me into a panic because I can't deal with dead fish! I think a childhood event with a dead fish left in the fish tank too long so it molded has severely left me severely scarred (and traumatized) over dead pet fish. At any rate, I told Chris he had to do it, but when I was at work! The end result was the fish being put into a baggie with water, put into the freezer, and then flushed when it was dead. The cold water makes it go to sleep and then it dies from the cold (similar to us humans). I just couldn't take watching it anymore, which I suppose says something about my animal suffering tolerance -- it's rock bottom low. If I can't stand seeing a fish suffer, I definitely can't see a bigger animal suffer! So, yes, I had the fish for about 1.5 years (probably alive 1.5-2 years) and it lived a good life. With that said, I'm down to 1 algae fish, 1 ghost shrimp (who is getting quite old at over 2 years old), 2 glowlight tetras, 2 neon tetras, and a bazillion snails. I have yet to find a good private freshwater fish store in the Monterey area so I'm not sure if I'll ever restock. There's a place in Salinas I need to check, though.

Work at Goodwill has been good and I'm still plugging away at my Aquarium report. Work has been exhausting lately and drama issues have cropped up, but it's work. When isn't there some sort of drama? Report is consisting of a lot of emails to people in foreign countries (India, China, Indonesia, Australia, to name a few). It's been an interesting and frustrating process of trying to get information, which isn't really unusual. The report does make me feel like I'm back at school, though.

Well...Time to eat, shower, and go to bed for work tomorrow.

I've signed up for what?

So, I meant to blog about this a month or so ago (basically, right when I signed up), but FireFox ate the post and I didn't have the heart rewrite it then (same time I wrote those movie reviews). Then I simply forgot to post about it and now, well, I am posting about it!

I have jumped off the cliff with everyone else -- I have joined Twitter. Me, the person who said she refused to join Twitter and wouldn't join! Sadly, I only signed up in December because a nail polish company I like was doing FlashPromos (mostly giveaways) and were posting some on FB and some on Twitter. So I signed up so I could better track them. I have yet to really do anything with it other than follow a bunch of nail polish people. I probably won't do anything with it either since I can't text on my phone. My Twitter name is mjk1221 if you want to follow me. Who knows, maybe I'll post someday. :)

I also signed up with a tumblr account. I have a lot of friends who use Tumblr and I was curious about it so I signed up. I initially thought I might use it more given it has a spiffy "share on tumblr" hot bar thingy, but I've posted once on it other than my initial one. So...I guess that was sort of a bust. However, maybe I'll actually use it at some point. I suspect it'll end up mostly as pictures and possibly a nail blog. I haven't decided yet. I already post all my nail stuff on FB, but tumblr might be easier? I haven't decided or figured it out yet. That is one I don't want to totally want to give up on, but I guess I'll figure out one day what to do with it. That account name is also mjk1221

In other news...Day 4 of the year and I've watched 4 movies! Granted, I already watched one (Cowboys & Aliens), but it's still 4 movies. Which....makes me have to rethink my total movie count from last year. I should say that my movie watch list is for all movies that are NEW and have never seen before. I rewatch a good portion of my movies every year and, of course, rewatch some of the better releases of the year again. At any rate, I won't be changing anything of the movie thing, but it was just a random point I wanted to make. :)

So, on to the 3 movies I haven't seen before!

The Debt (Meryl Streep, Sam Worthington) - I didn't realize, for whatever reason, that it was basically one big flashback and then the present day. For an espionage thriller, that did make things a little confusing and disjointed. You spent the first 20 minutes or so trying to place who the two guys were from young to old. At least there was only 1 female so you knew the old and young versions were the same female, but it was a little more difficult for the males. You do figure it out eventually, but I can't say the movie was that surprising either. The big "twist" I guessed in the beginning of the movie so it wasn't so surprising. I also got a little confused at the end because there was a repeat of a scene we'd already seen in the present and it took me a minute to realize I'd already seen it and it wasn't new information. It was an interesting premise, I suppose, and it had good acting, but I didn't think it was that great. I feel like it fell just a little shy of its potential or something. Grade: C+/B-

I Don't Know How She Does It (Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan) - I don't think this film is as bad as it was made out to be, but I can't say it's particularly great either. For a rom-com, it's more drama leaning and it's kind of "wholesome." SJP's character, Kate, is a married working mother and they really stick to the fact she's married so she doesn't have any ideas of running off or having an affair with Brosnan's character, Abelhammer, and her character makes sure whatever she writes and stuff isn't construed as flirting (or very well tries to). She does have her quirks, but the main point, from my point of view, is that a woman can have it all -- high profile job, marriage life, and kids. However, it does make the point that she has to have her priorities or work will overtake the home. It does poke at working mothers vs stay-at-home mothers and working women vs working men. For example, the "does everything right" mother basically drops her kids off at school, goes to the gym till they're off, picks them up, and goes home to make dinner. As for the professional woman vs the professional man, if a man has to do something for the family and be late for work, it's seen as endearing and sweet, whereas if a mother does that, she's seen as lazy and incompetent. The style of the movie is semi-documentary-ish as it "interviews" several people throughout the movie to weigh in on things. In all, it's a cute movie, but has some stereotypes ("trying to be a man is a waste of a woman") and slight feminist feeling. On the other hand, she is completely loyal and loving to her husband (who is pretty accommodating and understanding) and basically says that having kids doesn't have to be the end of a woman's career (there is a nice point where her assistant gets pregnant and thinks of aborting, but she talks her out of it) if she can set boundaries. (Though, I suppose that career + family thing comes after she neglects her family for a while too...Hmm...). At any rate, if you've got nothing else better to watch, maybe you'd want to, but I can't say it should be anywhere near a priority. Grade: C

Hangover Part II - Said it'd be for sure in 2012 and it's 2012! Just came out at RedBox yesterday. It's not as good as the first one and I'm not saying that because the skeleton of the movie is exactly like the first one. I'm saying it because the hangover trail (or what they did while hungover) just wasn't as funny or good as the first one. The beginning was kind of funny because there were references to the first one and all that, but as it progresses, it's just not as funny. I didn't particularly enjoy the missing brother theme, whereas the first movie was the missing groom. They couldn't just repeat exactly like that, but the things they did along the way just weren't as funny. It was much more slapstick and deserving of its rated R too. I can't say the first one doesn't deserve its R rating either, but it had a different feel to it. The first one was more like it was part of the situation rather than it WAS the point, if that makes sense. Mostly disappointed, I suppose, but I guess I shouldn't be either given I kind of knew from the reviews it wasn't going to be as good as the first. If you really liked the first, you might want to watch the 2nd, but I wouldn't watch the 2nd if you haven't seen the first. Nor would I suggest the 2nd over the first one. Grade: C

With that...Off to finish Cowboys & Aliens and to repaint my nails. :) Happy New Year!

Zenyatta Celebration (and a new movie)

*Sigh* This year the Breeders' Cup threw a Zenyatta Celebration at the Kentucky Derby Museum and it just sounded like loooooads of fun -- not to mention they got favors or some sort that I'm still trying to find pictures of! Here's an article from the NYT of someone who attended: http://therail.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/05/the-zenyatta-experience-one-year-later/

I am quite jealous and with the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita in Arcadia, CA next year...I hope they do it again because even if I can't afford to attend the Breeders' Cup, I'm going to the Zenyatta Celebration! Cost $170 this year to attend all the events from 11:30am to 9:30pm. They also did "packages" for chunks of time in between (lunch was $95 (11:30-3:00), hospitality $75 (3:30-9:30 -- includes a buffet), and after party (7:30-9:30), but you might as well go the whole time, IMO, to enjoy it. Plus, they stream the Breeders' Cup. I REALLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYY want to go next year. I will even put on hold going to Florida for Wizarding World of Harry Potter to go. :P

At any rate...I miss Zenny and am wanting her new poster like nothing else (I hope it's cheap....!)! I hope they also make her street signs available and all the other stuff that was made available during the party. Her new web store goes up the end of this week...so...hopefully!!! Oh, yeah, LA Zoo's new carousel has a Zenyatta to ride. :) The Mosses helped fund the carousel so, in addition to the zoo animals, they added Tiago, Giacamo, and Zenyatta to the carousel. Costs $3 to ride, but all the money from the carousel go to conservation efforts for the zoo. Never managed to go to the LA Zoo when I was in Santa Barbara, but now I really want to go. ;)

Anyway, the Breeders' Cup last weekend was good. I can't say I was as disappointed as some people, but it definitely wasn't last year. In some ways that's good because I thought I was going to be ill last year and then cried when Z lost, so I guess in comparison this was just better. :P Of all the scenarios I thought about for the Classic and who won, I didn't factor in Drosselymeyer and Mike Smith winning. In a lot of ways, it was kind of therapeutic for Smith to win this year since he lost last year by such a little amount with Z. It was one of those "See that, world!" moments since he won. It makes up for Zenny's loss by just the smidgen of margins.

Anyway...movie!

Watched Horrible Bosses yesterday. It was funny in a kind of stupid way. The bosses were TRULY horrible, though. And they made it so the bosses were total jerks that they couldn't just "leave" their jobs easily and then they had the dose of reality that they'd have to go into new trades to get new jobs and the job market wasn't favorable. It had its funny moments, its stupid-funny moments, and just its stupid moments. Can't say it was as bad as some people thought, but it also wasn't great either. At least I didn't feel like I wasted 1.5 hours of my life watching it, though. :) My real complaint, though, is I felt the end was a little off. Or perhaps the part right before the conclusion. It was tied up too neatly for where the movie went, but it was okay too, I guess. Anyway, I'd give it a C. It was a good solid C.

Born Pretty Store Giveaway

Just wanted to participate and let you all know that Born Pretty Store (beauty and nail stuff) is having a One Year Anniversary party and is giving away and discounting lots of stuff.

Right now, they're doing a giveaway that ends the 31st for nail stuff (mostly). You can check the link out here (hyperlink) to see how to also participate!

Upcoming movie reviews will be Something Borrowed and Bad Teacher (watching Bad Teacher tonight). Watching Hood Winked Too later this week.

In the life of me, applied to random retail jobs recently (Costco, Kohls, and Apple). We'll see how it goes -- that and my aquarium jobs still pending. *sigh* Job hunting...

It's been a while...!

So...Life...Not much has changed since graduating. Finished my contract position and am job searching/applying. Slow going in the market, but I've got a hopeful job that's seasonal I will be applying for this week (app goes in tomorrow) at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It's a seasonal job through 2011, but they want to make it a 3-year stint, so...hopefully I get it! It's pretty similar to the contract jobs and when I told my contract contact I was interested in it, she said she was glad to hear I was interested.  Being jobless and having a friend recently get into it, I have gotten into nail art, which has been interesting and fun. Boy is there are a LOT you can do with nail stuff. :P

I also have started to immerse myself into dressage as my goal is to understand the sport and the key players/favorites for the 2012 Olympics. It's been a little brain numbing because a lot of the names are not easy to remember (German, Danish, etc). And then, just like horse racing, you need to know the horse, but also the rider. At least trainers don't really exist as world top riders tend to also be the horse trainer (with maybe a side trainer there too). Farms/breeders/owners are also good to know, but aren't AS key (same in horse racing). So...yeah. Working on that. It's been interesting. I have learned all the movements and can identify them and learned the basic history of modern and classical dressage.

At any rate...MOVIES! I've seen a few movies since my last update.

Cowboys & Aliens (Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde) - If you go into the movie knowing it is NOT a comedy and understand that the movie IS the title, then you'll get through this okay. For some reason people thought it was a comedy and it's not. You also have to realize what the title is and that it MEANS what it is. It was a good movie if you understand the two aforementioned things. Harrison Ford is certainly looking old, but at least his character was supposed to be his age. Daniel Craig I'm sure has it in his contracts that he's not meant to speak a lot because he does more "looks" than speaking. The looks are good, but it is an odd thing. Olivia Wilde is okay and has her own moment of "weirdness" in a movie that is already somewhat "weird". I enjoyed it, but it's nothing near great movie anything. I might buy it when it comes down in price just for the action (and the horses...hahaha). Grade: B/B-

Source Code (Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farminga) - What a predictable and also mind bending movie. It's an interesting movie and once you understand what is going on, it's pretty easy to predict the end. At the same time, you get to the end and you go, what just happened? Course, movies that play with time always end up in headaches, I think. At any rate, it was an enjoyable film. Interesting concept of the Source Code and pretty good acting. In some ways it reminds me of the Adjustment Bureau, but instead of altering our choices by a spilled coffee, trip, or whatever without us knowing, this one is reevaluating a certain time period as many times as it takes to stop tragedies. Grade: B

Conan the Barbarian (Jason Momoa, Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang) - Does this really need a review? My gosh...I went out of curiosity as I never watched the Schwarzenegger one (I still find it sad I can spell his last name correctly first time around...) and fell asleep through it attempting to watch it. Chris has played the game and read the entire series so he wanted to watch it. It's your typical male movie and it was okay, I suppose. Some of the green screen shots were horrible (could it be more obvious you're in front of a green screen?) and let's not discuss the blood flying everywhere either. Not to mention the sex scene, which goes on just a little too long. So, yes, male movie. Funny enough, almost everyone in the theater seemed like on a "movie date." Males still ruled the theater, but there were more couples than singles. Chris does think Conan is not of our generation, though, as most people in the theater (especially the couples) were all older (40's at least). Anyway, it was okay. Wasn't horrible, but I definitely won't be watching it again. Grade: D

Beastly (Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Hudgens) - Surprisingly, it's really not that bad of a movie. It sticks to the story of Beauty and the Beast, has an even more blatant message of not judging people on their looks (as it's set in modern times of high school), and doesn't have any swearing and/or sex in it! Amazing! At any rate, Mary-Kate Olsen plays the witch. Neil Patrick Harris makes an appearance as a blind tutor and Vanessa Hudgens, of course, is the the love interest with Pettyfer as the "prince" or rich, snobby, good looking guy. Can't say it's the most amazing movie feat or anything. It's "sweet" I suppose is the better way to describe the movie as it's not really riveting and not really boring, so it falls somewhere in between there. So, in ways, I suppose it makes the best type of DVD rental movie because I can't see myself buying this film to watch it again, but it was a decent watch that kept me awake too. Grade: B

Sucker Punch (Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens, etc) - Wow...Somewhere between Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Anime, and a video game for the movie style. The end, I have to say, is highly unsatisfactory and I still don't get the connection to the rest of the film. I think it was trying to have some sort of "meaning" in it and it just gets lost till the end. You get to the end and I went, "WHAT?!" Really unsatisfying for an ending. The middle of the movie is okay...The little side-scenarios as the girls try to collect these objects to escape (put themselves into an "alternate" world to fight to get the object that they get in the "real world") are interesting to watch and are probably the best thing about the movie, but the movie just felt a little disjointed and I'm still a little confused as to what was real and what was not. So there's that too. Perhaps I'm overthinking or something, but it just baffled me at the end. I'm still baffled at the entire thing. Grade: D (almost an F)

Rio (Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway) - This animation was a good one. I think I liked it better than Rango, but Rango will always be tainted because of my first experience too so I may be slightly biased; however, this was a good movie. The voice cast for the minor characters is a little fun (Jamie Foxx, Jane Lynch, Wanda Sykes, etc). The story itself is good and interesting. You don't feel like you're being bashed over the head with an environmental message (Rango, you can't miss the environmental message, unless you slept through the end), but it is subtly there about exotic birds, poachers, and the Rain Forest. It had its sweet, funny, scary, and adventure moments. It's also a little musical. It starts with a singing number and there are a few throughout it too. They're not bad and somehow seem appropriate in the film that is based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (hence the movie name). I enjoyed it a lot and now am kicking myself quite profusely for missing Cars 2 in theaters to compare. However, since Cars 2 comes out November 1, I can see it before the Oscars at least (one good thing about summer movies -- will always be out before the end of the year!). At any rate, it's a good family film and I'd recommend it. Rango is a little on the older end for animations (Rango says words that even make me, as an adult, go, "Whoa...Big word for an animation..."). This will be a movie that I will eventually buy. Grade: B+/A-

Next movies...? Not sure. On the list for high possible theater watching is Three Musketeers, Puss in Boots, Twilight (do I want to? LoL), and Sherlock Holmes. I did want to see Crazy, Stupid, Love in theaters, but just can't find the absolute need to go see it. Almost saw it twice and ended up skipping it. Would eventually like to see The Help (I think...still debating that). I might want to see Contagion and The Debt at some point (DVD probably). There are more than a few upcoming movies movies I might want to see too (most will be DVDs, but some may not): 30 Minutes or Less, Drive, I Don't Know How She Does It, Moneyball, Footloose, In Time (looks interesting...), The Rum Diary, J. Edgar (Eastwood's new one and a friend is an extra in the court scene), Hugo (liked the book), The Muppets (they filmed at Santa Anita for a little AND I saw some of the props for it), Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (will it be as good as the Swedish version?), and The Adventures of TinTin (I'm curious), and maybe War Horse (play is supposed to be good for families and I'm sure Speilberg will do a good job (he wanted to keep it so families could see it together), but...I don't know if I can watch it).

So...yeah...that brings my movies to now and my movie watch list up to the end of the year. Next year is already looking to be an interesting year for super hero/comic movies: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (Feb), The Avengers (movie I'm most excited for, so far - May), GI Joe: Retaliation (June), The Amazing Spider-Man (prequel - July), and The Dark Knight Rises (tied runner-up for most excited - July). I suppose we should be lucky Man of Steal (Superman movie) got pushed, once again, to 2013 (was summer 2012, fall 2012, and now 2013). Not to mention, a totally different Bourne Legacy (different character -- Aug), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (tied runner-up for most excited - Dec), Brave (Pixar's next one - June), MIB 3 (10 years since MIB 2 - May), Hunger Games (show for most excited for - March), Wrath of the Titans (sequel to Clash of the Titans - March), Battleship (looks lame, but there's your game movie - May), Madagascar 3 (June), Ice Age 4 (July), and Twilight Sage: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (Nov). Phew...And those are just the big named ones!

Anyway, with that, I'm off to water marble my nails (it was that or this cool purple with this cool glitter on top or stamping...so many things!).

Movies and Fish

Apparently I am a bad keeper-of-the-fish (i.e., fish tank owner) because I just noticed I'm missing a fish...I'm down to 3 neon tetras (red and blue) and only 2 glowlight tetras (orange). It's my big, fat glowlight tetra that is missing (I assume the oldest since it was always the biggest of them all and the glowlights were the first ones I bought). I'm kind of appalled that I never noticed it died because it would take the snails and shrimp a few days to eat it... : I'm sorry little fishy that I did not save you from being consumed; however, as I have been told by Chris, "It's what happens in the wild." I just hope I don't find some errant body part when I'm cleaning. Ick. I doubt I will since my shrimp are quite the carnivores and they burrow into my gravel. At any rate, I am keeping a close eye on my last shrimp since she's the last one. She has molted twice since the male (and last shrimp) died so that's a good sign, but it seems like the last two kind of died randomly. So...who knows.

On to movies!

Gnomeo and Juliet - I rather enjoyed this. It's a "random" animation company and not one of the major ones, but it was rather cute. They liked to throw in random Shakespeare lines in, but the movie was good. The voice caste is amazing too: Emily Blunt, James McAvoy, Patrick Stewart, Maggie Smith, Michael Caine, Jason Statham, Julie Walters, Hulk Hogan, Ozzy Osbourne (I know...), etc. It was fun picking out everyone's voice. You know the general premise based on the title, but how they did it and the funny moments were cute. The end, of course, is different than the actual play given it's a family movie. :P The animation was also well done and you never lost sight of the fact that these are ceramic gnomes and not, well, people. I would recommend people to watch it. Families with young kids (around the 6-8 range) would probably enjoy this the most. Grade: A-

I Am Number Four - Definitely has a 2nd movie lined-up, but I don't think it did well in theaters so I don't know if they'll try for a 2nd one; however, it was okay. It wasn't a great sci-fi, action film, but it wasn't a total dud either. Chris and I were trying to guess the entire way what would happen and who this beagle was that showed up (we thought it was a bad guy, then that it was one of the 2 chicks on the cover, and then decided we had no clue till the end of the movie). It was your pretty typical Hero's Journey (mentor and hero, mentor is killed, hero goes on alone, etc) so we knew the mentor (or guardian, in this case) was doomed from the get go, but it was interesting. I don't think I'd readily recommend this for anyone. It's pretty average... Grade: C

We might go see Fast Five later in theaters, but we'll see. Not sure if we'll see X-Men: First Class in theaters (comes out June 3rd). It's an iffy one. Won't see Hangover 2 or Kung Fu Panda 2 in theaters either (will watch it on DVD). After that, it's Super 8, Green Lantern, possibly Cars 2, Transformers, Horrible Bosses (we liked the trailer for it), Harry Potter, Captain America, Cowboys and Aliens, The Change-up (also liked the trailer), and Conan (for Chris).

I think that's all the summer movies. Friends with Benefits and Bad Teacher will probably be movie rentals. I still joke that we saw the entire movie for Conan when we saw the trailer (we've seen it twice in theaters). There's this particularly long one with lots of snapshots of everything and it really felt like you watched the whole movie in 2 minutes! Oh well. Chris has read most of the books in the series and also plays the MMO so we'll go see it (we're struggling through the Schwarzenegger version on Netflix right now, or I'm struggling through it at least).

With that...One week left of classes! I have to edit a paper and write a paper by next Saturday and I'm finished! :) That is both a terrifying and exciting thing...