In honor of my birthday party

I'm taking the day off to prepare for my party tomorrow!  Be back soon!

Another repost from the ASPCA

Thought this was important.

Dear Animal Advocates, We need your help! A few years ago, the United States was becoming flooded with designer puppies purchased from foreign puppy mills. These dogs were often bred in horrible conditions and arrived here in wretched health, endangering the people and other pets in their new homes. In 2008, the ASPCA worked hard to help pass a Congressional amendment to the federal Animal Welfare Act to prohibit the importation of young puppies for the purpose of resale. Thanks to this new law, dogs cannot be brought into the U.S. from abroad for resale unless they are at least six months of age, healthy and vaccinated. There are two phases to implementing laws like this: passing the legislation, then writing the "rules" that will allow federal agencies—in this case, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)—to enforce them. Enforcement of this law has been a problem because the USDA never adopted the necessary rules. But earlier this month, the USDA acted—it proposed detailed enforcement regulations to ensure the puppy importation ban has teeth.

Take Action Now »

ASPCA policy experts have reviewed the guidelines, and we support them. Please help us ensure that these proposed regulations are accepted and applied!

What You Can Do
For a short time, the USDA is accepting comments from the public on this issue. Visit the ASPCA Advocacy Center online today to quickly and easily submit a comment to the USDA, letting the agency know that you support the proposed regulations to stop the cruel import of puppies from foreign puppy mills.

The shortcut to take action is www.aspca.org/USDA.

Thank you for taking action for animals—in this case, animals around the world!

Birthday Party

So I'm still trying to keep up the posts here, but my party is coming up on Saturday and I have so many things to do I just need to focus on that this week.
I would love to post pictures of how the house is decorated but I don't want to spoil it for anyone coming to it.
I can tell you there's plenty of spooky stuff and the amount of planning I've done, should ensure it will be an excellent time.  I will post some pictures after it's all over.
I can tell you the menu though.
Appetizers:
Chips and onion dip
chips and salsa
ham roll ups
cheese and spinach puffs
Entrees:
White chicken chili
lavosh rolls of ham, turkey, or roast beef
desserts:
4 different kinds of cheesecake
spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting
yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting
Drinks:
A red wine from Australia called Benefactor Cellars
a white dessert wine made from Moscato grapes called Castello del Poggio
Sparkling Apple Cider
sodas, water, and juice of course!
I've spent a small fortune on this party so I hope everyone has a good time.
I'm just a bit disappointed that a lot of people that I really wanted to come cannot.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Released: 1992
Horror
Starring: Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Anthony Hopkins
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Running Time: 128 minutes of missed opportunity

The breakdown:
A reinterpretation of the classic novel with the same name, this is a story about love, revenge, war, and immortality.





This movie is based closely on Bram Stoker's original novel of the same name.  A lawyer, Jonathan Harker, played by Reeves, gets sent to a terribly scary village in Eastern Europe (Transylvania).  He begins working at a creepy residence for an eccentric old man with a huge obscene hair do.  Vlad Dracula (pronounced Drah Coo-la) the impaler, a.k.a. Dracula (now pronounced Drack u la) captures Reeves and imprisons him in his castle (who wouldn't?!).  It really doesn't look that bad since he gets seduced in bed by 3 female vampires including Monica Bellucci.  Dracula sees a picture of the lawyers fiancee, Mina, played awkwardly and terribly by one of the most overrated actresses of all time, Winona Ryder, and must travel to London immediately.  See when Dracula was Vlad his wife committed suicide thinking Vlad had died in the midst of battle due to a false report.  When Vlad came home, very healthy and alive, and saw what happened he desecrates his chapel and renounces God.  He is enraged that his wife, Elisabeta, has been damned for killing herself and wouldn't go to Heaven.  He says he will rise from the grave to get revenge for his wife's death with supernatural powers of darkness.  (This is the scene in the movie where the big cross is bleeding).  Mina is a spitting image of Vlad's long dead wife, and Dracula believes she is a direct reincarnation.
So, Dracula comes to Britain (in boxes of his homeland's soil and in wolf form) and starts raising Hell.  He goes to Lucy, which is Mina's best gal pal and bites her and has sex with her as a werewolf (though, I'm not sure how the whole werewolf/vampire thing works out.  I thought it was bat/vampire).  Anyway, people all come together at that point to try to save Lucy (she has many male suitors, but settled on one to marry) including Professor Abraham Van Helsing, played by Sir Anthony Hopkins.  Van Helsing recognizes Lucy's symptoms as being a vampire and wants to take action to stop Dracula.
So, of course, Dracula (who during the day is in human form) charms Mina, but Jonathan Harker sends word to her that he escaped the castle and took shelter at a convent.  Mina immediately travels to Romania to marry him.  Dracula is so enraged he turns Lucy into a full blooded vampire (pun intended!)
After the happy couple come back to London, Harker and Van Helsing lead the fight to kill Dracula.  They destroy the boxes of soil so Dracula can't travel anywhere.  Problem is, Mina keeps hanging out with Dracula and starts to remember her former life with him as Elisabeta.  She encourages him to change her over to a vampire.  As he does so, the hunters burst into their room and realize she is already transforming and is now Dracula's bride, Dracula flees.  Van Helsing hypnotizes her and learns all about her and Dracula, and their past life together.  They also find out he is already travelling home on a boat in a box of soil that they missed.
Extra box of Romanian soil - "I never leave home without it!"

Anyway,
The hunters leave to go after him, but now Dracula can read Mina's mind and evades capture.  As Mina is becoming more vampire she tries to bite Van Helsing, as she comes closer, he pushes a communion wafer onto her forehead and it leaves a burn mark.  She recoils and he escapes.
Back in Transylvania, at the castle, sunset is approaching and the hunters are close to catching up to Dracula.  Dracula's carriage arrives home and he waits until sunset to come out.  As he does Harker slits Dracula's throat as another hunter stabs him in the heart and leaves the blade in.  Dracula and Mina go into their castle away from the hunters.  The hunters allow them to without chase.
In the chapel where he renounced God, Dracula begins dying in a weird ugly demonic form.  He wants peace from Mina and she kisses him as she pushes the blade deeper into his heart.  The candles all light up in the chapel (on their own) and the mark on Mina's forehead disappears, meaning the curse is gone.  She cuts off his head and looks up at the painting of Vlad and Elisabeta rising up to Heaven together.

So let's start with the good things I liked about this film (because there aren't many).
The visuals - the colorful back lighting, the puppet stuff for the war scenes, wardrobe and costumes are gorgeous!  I love all the color and attention to detail in the visual stuff.  The scenes at the beginning of the film were very arresting and I was excited to see the rest.  Gary Oldman is an awesome actor and I really love watching his movies, normally.  I think, visually, this movie is stunning, but I have a lot of problems with other things. 

The bad.
The acting, including the accents.  Ryder, and Reeves are the two I'm targeting here for the worst English accents in the movie.  Reeves has even said he signed up for too many consecutive movies before acting in this role and he just "didn't have the energy needed" for this one.  I like Keanu, I really really do think he's cute and could be a much better actor overall if he just put some INFLECTION in his voice and quit with the monotone already.  But in this role, he's pretty weak.  Ryder, I can't stand at all in movies.  She just isn't talented and I'm not sure how she keeps getting work.  Her bad acting in this role was so distracting I think it really took a lot away from the movie.
The plot sometimes is so ambiguous and enigmatic that it can lose a viewer easily who can't keep up.  Even I needed some explanation for what I thought I already understood.  I didn't think the movie was scary enough honestly.  I went to go see this on opening night at the midnight showing and I almost fell asleep.  I was so looking forward to it and ended up just walking away disappointed.

The ugly.
I love Gary Oldman, but who's idea was it to style his hair to resemble a big old butt on his head as the old man?  They could've done a tasteful large single bun, or a ponytail.  He's Dracula, they could've done a million strange things that didn't resemble a body part.  I'll never understand why they liked that one.
On the same note, during the day in London,  Dracula kinda' looks like a well dressed, although strangely dressed still, homeless man.  Long wavy brown hair, some facial hair, gloves?  I thought Dracula might try to blend in a little better so as to not stand out too much in the minds of people on the street.

I don't know really.  I think this movie was a missed opportunity.  It could've been so much better with a few actors replaced and the script and plot reworked a little bit.
I still have not read the original book so I really couldn't say exactly how close this movie follows it, but allegedly it's very close.

I give it 1 out of 5 because the things I like are really good, but it's not enough to hold up the movie.

The Neverending Story

Released: 1984
Fantasy, Drama
Starring: Noah Hathaway, Barret Oliver, Tami Stronach
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Running Time: 94 minutes

The breakdown:
One of my favorites when I was a little kid, this is a fantasy movie of how anyone can have a big impact on the universe and beyond through reading.

This movie is based on a German novel written in 1979 by Michael Ende.  Basically a kid, who's mothers death has caused his father to be a workaholic, runs to a bookstore for relief from being chased by bullies.  In this bookstore, the owner tells him of a wonderful, but dangerous book he's reading called The Neverending Story.  The boy is intrigued and steals the book, runs off to his school's attic, and reads it for the rest of the day and all night not realizing he is becoming part of the book.  In this fantasy world he reads of (which is made up of humanity's hopes and dreams as explained in the movie), an empress who is very ill and the world she lives in is being consumed by The Nothing (this has been explained later in the movie as human apathy, denial of childish dreams, and cynicism.)  The Nothing is quite scary really,  pieces of the planet just start to cloud over, then a terrible wind comes, and soon huge sections of (the fantasy world) Earth just pull away from itself.  Very effective to me as a young child and even now as an adult.
Anyway, the empress calls on a young brave person, Atreyu, to find a cure for her and stop The Nothing.  If he can't succeed in this quest no one can.  He has a vast array of characters he runs into on his quest.  Some worth noting are Gmork, the werewolf who wants to eat him since The Nothing has summoned him to stop Atreyu (pretty scary), Falkor, the big white cute Luckdragon, who wants to help, and Artax, Atreyu's trusty horse who meets an unfortunate end (that always always makes me cry!)
Atreyu has to pass through this huge gate of the Sphinxes' gaze and then to the Magic Mirror Gate.  Once he reaches this, the boy in our world begins reading a description of himself and where he is located and throws the book across the room in disbelief.  He begins to wonder if somehow the characters in the book know of his existence.  He reads on and realizes they really are talking about him.  He can save this fantasy world if he chooses a name for the empress.  He chooses "Moonchild" but I never realized it.  The first time I saw it, in the theaters, and every time since I thought he chose his mother's name (which I thought would've been touching).  You don't know what his mom's name was, but I assumed he picked a girl's name for the empress.  He yells out the name out a window during a really bad rainstorm so it's hard to understand what he says at all.  I actually like my idea of his mom's name instead of Moonchild, but whatever.
This movie is so good I left a lot out to discover on your own if you haven't seen it.  And if you haven't seen it yet, you are missing out a really great story.

I give it 5 out of 5 ticket stubs because it never talks down to children, it's appealing to all age groups, and I love the amount of imagination it took to write this and produce it.  Plus I'm a sucker for symbolism and dissecting it.
Note:
The author of the novel said that this movie deviated so far from his book that he either wanted them to change the name or halt production.  Neither one of those things happened so he sued, but lost.

I've never read the book but I really want to since I discovered this was based on a book, and the lack of approval from the author.  Interesting thing is, the movie only covers the first half of the book (and obviously there's a lot of differences between the two), so there's a lot more story to go.

Big Trouble in Little China

Released: 1986
Comedy
Starring: Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, James Hong, Victor Wong
Director: John Carpenter (and by far my favorite movie of his)
Running Time: 99 minutes

The breakdown:
This is a truly unique 80's movie.  A salty truck driver gets involved with a kidnapping in Chinatown and the man responsible isn't of this world.  It's got a big mix of comedy, horror, sci-fi, and a little romance to boot.




This is a tough movie to summarize because it just has so many elements that simply don't work on paper, nevertheless, it works so very well on film that it has become one of my favorite's.

Kurt Russell plays Jack Burton, an American truck driver who's friends with a man named Wang Chi.  Wang, who's going to the airport (SFO a.k.a. San Francisco International Airport we can assume) to pick up his girlfriend, needs a lift from Jack.  As Wang and his girlfriends eyes meet across a busy airport, some Asian gang comes by and kidnaps her right in front of everyone.  It's now Jack and Wang's job to get her back.  Trouble is, they are fighting a 2,000 year old Asian wizard who has a ton of evil spirits at his command.  The wizard, David Lo Pan, needs a girl with green eyes to be his bride for a ceremony where he becomes young again and fully human.  During the movie, you see him switch between a very VERY old decrepit man in a wheelchair, to a young long haired very dangerous man.  Three of his minions are worth noting: Thunder, Rain, and Lightning. 

I think the video game, Mortal Kombat, totally stole their idea for a character, Rayden, from Lightning in this movie.  He wears a gigantic straw hat, a metal breastplate, and shoots lightning from all over his body at enemies.  Totally the same look for Rayden. 

One of my favorite on screen deaths ever is Thunder!  If you've seen this movie, you know what I'm talking about! 

The boys try to go undercover to find out where Wang's girlfriend is, but just end up alerting the bad guys that they are getting close to finding what they want.  Kim Cattrall plays a reporter who's doing a story on the Asian gangs and ends up getting kidnapped herself since she has green eyes as well. 

Wang gets in touch with Egg Shen, who seems to be the only one to help them with their quest to get the girls back.  He's good at witchcraft, and wizardry as well and leads them underground to Lo Pan's domain.  He also gives them some tools they need to help boost their confidence. 
Anyway, this is a great movie for laughs and a lot of imagination that just doesn't seem to permeate Hollywood today.

I give it 5 out of 5 ticket stubs because they just don't make them like they used to.  This is a classic that always brings me comfort and memories of my kid days in the 80's.

Dogs in Pick up Trucks

Just wanted to repost this important reminder from the ASPCA blog.

 

 

Cruelty Alert: Dogs in Pickup Trucks

A few years ago, Julien Roohani of Portland, Oregon, was at work when her roommates spontaneously decided to go on a hike. Not wanting to exclude Julien’s six-month-old Shepherd/Border Collie mix, Niña, they threw her into the back of their pickup truck and set off for an adventure.
Niña had never been in a truck bed before. Whether she was scared or just spotted something of interest, she managed to jump out during the drive. Panicking, the roommates called Julien, who rushed Niña to an emergency veterinary clinic where she was diagnosed with a broken spine and other severe injuries. Julien had no choice but to allow her young pup to be humanely euthanized.
Unfortunately, stories like Niña’s are all too common. It is never safe to drive with an unrestrained pet—especially with that pet in an open truck bed.
“When you drive with a loose dog in the back of your truck, you’re taking a huge risk and placing your dog and other motorists in danger,” says Chuck Mai, a vice president with AAA Oklahoma. “Even if a dog is trained, we’re talking about an animal who responds to stimuli on impulse. This irresponsible decision can start a deadly chain reaction on the road.”
Is It Legal?
Transporting unrestrained dogs in low-sided truck beds has been banned in a handful of states, including California and New Hampshire, and municipalities including Indianapolis, Cheyenne and Miami-Dade. However, in the vast majority of jurisdictions, it’s not even illegal to transport children in this manner, so we must rely on common sense and education to protect children and pets alike.
How You Can Help
One can feel terribly helpless witnessing a loose dog in a pickup truck. The best course of action is to try to get the vehicle’s license number (if you can do so while remaining safe) and call the local police. Rather than dialing 911, Jill Buckley, ASPCA Senior Director of Government Relations, suggests storing your police precinct’s phone number in your cell phone.
--------------------------------------------------------------
I cannot reiterate that point enough.  DO NOT CALL 911 for anything other than a real life threatening emergency!  Please!  Having a cop in the family, I've heard too many horror stories about real people in trouble not getting the help they need because the lines are tied up from some moron who calls about their neighbor having a party and they weren't invited so please can you go break it up. (This is a true story.) 
Just get the number of your local police station and call them if you need help getting a dog (or cat) to safety.  And if your neighbor's are having a very loud party very late at night call your local police station as well, not 911 please.

Dear John

Released: 2010
This is supposed to be a romance
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Channing Tatum
Director: Lasse Hallstrom
Running Time: 108 minutes

The breakdown:  This was based on a 2006 novel by Nicholas Sparks.  I really liked his book Message in a Bottle, but not so much the movie version.  I wasn't sure I would like this.


A college student (Seyfried) is vacationing in a coastal town when she happens upon a military man (Tatum) on leave.  They hit it off and begin hanging out a lot.  Soon, I think like a week later, he has to go back to the military and she has to go back to school.  They very much like each other (even though there's absolutely zero chemistry between them) and keep in touch through letters (the old fashioned hand written in a snail mail envelope kind).  She's looking forward to him coming home from the war (Iraq I think), but then 9-11 happens and he re-enlists like a dork, even though she's waiting for him.  In the end, she gets tired of waiting and marries this older handicap guy that she doesn't really love.  I think she felt sorry for him.  Anyway (SPOILER! DON'T READ ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU WANT TO WASTE YOUR TIME AND SEE THIS FILM!)
her handicap boring husband dies and the military guy's father gets really sick and dies, so he comes home for good.  They end up seeing each other by chance at a coffee house at the end of the movie and start talking.
I can only hope this means that they agree over a cup of coffee that they will never make another boring "romantic" movie together again or independently.
Where oh where do I start?
First off, it looks like Nicholas Sparks wrote a really good novel with Message in a Bottle and then it was all downhill from there.  The movie version, I disliked.  The book for this movie I've never read, but from the movie, it sounds really slow paced and extremely uninteresting.
The lead female character waits around for years (7 total I think) for a man to get out of the military that she essentially has only had a few weeks time in person with?  She married a handicap man out of pity, that is much older than her and he has a kid from a previous relationship for her to take care of after he dies?
The military guy re-enlists on 9-11 out of emotion instead of thinking his situation through and remembering there's this girl he really wants to be with back in the states?
I'm sorry but most of these situations are not believable and/or interesting.  I understand being proud of being in the military and serving your country, but I think he was due to leave soon before 9-11 happened (meaning he had served at least 4 years already and that's a lot more than any of us have ever served) and with this "great" girl waiting for him back home, he didn't think to check with her first to see if she approved at least?
There's no real drama here, there's certainly no chemistry or fireworks between the so-called "love birds" and there's no reason at all to waste your time and watch this movie.  Take it from me, it's very very forgettable.  Even this Channing Tatum guy that I've heard so much about, he's supposed to be hot or attractive, nope, not even for a second to me.  He's all yours ladies.  Give me Christian Bale for some real HEAT! Grrrrrrr!

I give it my worst rating ever - a 0 out of 5 ticket stubs because there's just nothing good here.

Letters to Juliet

Released: 2010
This is supposed to be a romantic film
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Gael Garcia Bernal
Director: Gary Winick
Running Time: 105 minutes


The breakdown:  A lonely girl wants to help an older woman find her lost love.


I was not at all impressed with this film.  It was trying way too hard to be funny, romantic, charming, and it failed miserably at all of those.  It seems to be the type of movie that this Amanda Seyfried usually stars in (See Dear John - another terrible "romantic" movie) where there's no chemistry and no interesting plot.

This wanna' be reporter for a big New York newspaper is engaged to be married to a chef and he is trying to start his own restaurant.  They go to Italy to investigate some of his sources of ingredients for food.  He's way too busy checking out vineyards, and other restaurants to pay any attention to her so she wanders off on her own.  She sees all these women writing letters and sticking them to a wall.  She's curious, and bored so she stays there for a long while, and then sees this woman with a basket come and collect all the letters at the end of the day.  She follows this woman and finds out that there are a small bunch of women who read the letters and respond to them.  These are the letters to and secretaries of Juliet.
She likes to write and starts hanging out with them and responding to letters.  She finds this very very old one way back in a crack in the wall one night and realizes no ever found it and she wonders what happened to the author.
She decides to chase down the author who is now in her late 60's.  The letter states that the young girl didn't know what to do about a love of hers that wanted to run away together.  She asked if she should go or not.
Seyfried finds out that she did not run away with her love, but instead stayed and eventually married someone else and had children.  Her husband died many years later and she is now single again and wants to try to track down her old flame.  In the meanwhile, her grandson is with her and encourages her and Seyfried not to do this.  Anyway, Seyfried and the grandson at first hate each other, but eventually become friends and possibly more depending on Seyfried's engagement going through or not.

My main problem with this movie is that it's generic, normal, boring, not a new formula on an old idea, and never really goes anywhere.  The characters are uninteresting and stereotypical, the plot is bland, and there's no chemistry between any of the so called lovers.

For something that's supposed to be a romantic comedy, it's very forgettable and drab.

I give it 1/2 out of 5 for lack of originality, lack of chemistry, lack of interesting plot, and just being overall ho-hum bland.  Don't waste your time.

Disclaimer

So usually I post a link to products with my Amazon button for my blog, but blogger has decided to take this feature away from me.  I don't know how to substitute something else for what used to work great so I'm stuck just showing images of things like movies, and books now.
I'm sorry for not being more computer savvy to fix this issue, but I'll still try to post images for just about all the movies, books, and other products I post about.
This means my posts will look a little different than they did before, but it's the same idea.  I just don't get paid for it now, which sucks.
PS I had some pre-written posts that I have not yet posted, so a few will look the same, but after that, the new posts are in full effect.

Bath & Body Works Candles

I have to say I'm impressed with the recent releases of candles at Bath & Body.
Before, I had smelled quite of few from their candle designer Harry Slatkin (who's according to B&B, world renowned home fragrance expert, though I've never heard of him before).  The scents were just a bit off to me or nothing particularly exciting.  It looks like someone has told him to step up his game to compete with other candle manufactures.
Here's a list of the new fragrances they have online, but not yet in stores
(This means I have not yet smelled them but I'm interested):
Spiced Apple Toddy
Candied Sugar Plum
Merry Mistletoe
Dark Chocolate Mint
Gingerbread
Winter Night
Cranberry Pear Bellini
Winter

Here's the ones I was quite taken with as I tried them for the first time yesterday at the store:
Apple Crumble
Described as Baked Granny Smith and McIntosh Apples topped with vanilla crumble, cinnamon and nutmeg. 
It really smells good enough to eat.  Sweet, soft and yummy.

Fresh Balsam
Described as Crisp, clean balsam fir blends delightfully with fresh Eucalyptus and sweet Pine and layered with notes of bright apple, cedarwood and musk.
It's just like standing in a Pine forest.  Really makes you think of Christmas time.

Cinnamon Sugared Doughnut (but they spell it Donut)
Described as A delicious combination of crushed cinnamon and vanilla cake donuts with a dusting of sugar. 
And it really does smell like a box of fresh powered doughnuts.

Kitchen Spice
Described as A decadent mixture of nutmeg, allspice, and caramel.
I really really love the smell of nutmeg so this is a total winner for me.  Smells like somebody's baking something wonderful in the oven.

Frosted Cupcake
Described as A delicious blend of butter cream frosting, sugar and fresh vanilla bean.
This is reminiscent of Yankee Candle's Christmas Cookie blend.  It does indeed smell like some yellow cake, frosted cupcakes.

Pumpkin Patch
Described as An invitingly warm blend of fresh pumpkin, spicy cinnamon, creamy nutmeg, whipped butter, and rich brown sugar.
I do like this a lot, but it has a bit of a smoky end note in the jar, ALTHOUGH once I did burn this yesterday, that smokiness was not present.  So, it's a good one!

Spiced Cider
Described as A warm, magnetic scent that mulls three varieties of fresh apples spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves.
The cloves are what sets this scent apart from other appley scents.  I really like this for Halloween and it smells like Fall.

They are having a special buy 2 large jars (14.5 oz.) for $20.00 instead of paying normal price - $20.00 for one.  I took advantage of this since I have never bought any candles from them prior.  I do not like that the large jars have 3 wicks, I just know they are going to burn down much faster than if there was only 1 wick in there, but I can't do anything to fix that.  The smaller candles just have 1.  B&B states that the large jars will last 40-65 hours so I'm going to find out.

They also have some cute metal candle sleeves with Fall and Christmas designs that are simple but very attractive.
Bathandbodyworks.com

It's a sad day in the fast food world

I knew this day might come but I was hoping against hope that it wasn't actually going to happen.
I went to the Wendy's today to order my favorite.....
The Berry Almond Chicken salad and they discontinued it : (
I asked if they knew when it would be back and they said maybe next summer, but for sure
it was out for this season.
I am so sad.
It was the most delicious salad I have ever eaten from a fast food place and now it's no more.
If you didn't get to try it - you missed out.  I liked it so much I even wrote about it in an earlier post.
Oh the humanity!

Better Off Dead

Released: 1985
Comedy
Starring: John Cusack, David Ogden Stiers, Kim Darby
Director: Savage Steve Holland
Running Time: 97 minutes


The breakdown:
This is a classic 80's movie of love gone wrong and believing in yourself.  A boy is in love with a girl who dumps him at the beginning of the movie.  The rest of the movie is showing him trying to kill himself, unsuccessfully, and then learning life isn't as bad as he thought.


Ok so Lane loses his girlfriend Beth, who he thinks he deeply loves, to a really popular jock at his high school.  Lane (played by Cusack) figures his life is over and he can't live without her.  Throughout most of the first half of the movie he tries killing himself (half-heartedly) in various manners (my favorite is attempting to jump off a ledge) but he never succeeds, thankfully. 
What I like so much about this movie is actually the supporting cast.  His family consists of his mom, who is totally spaced out and doesn't really pay attention to anything going on with Lane's life.  His kid brother who always buys books about building space rockets and how to get sleazy women, and then practices these things successfully.  His dad is convinced Lane is on drugs.  His neighbors, the Smiths (Ricky and his mom) are absolutely hysterical and socially awkward.  Lane's best friend is interested in "real" drugs but he claims he can't get any in the northern California town they live in, so he snorts just about anything he can.  There's a couple of Korean drag racing brothers that constantly leave Lane in the dust with his station wagon.  They have a loud speaker attached to the roof of their car and they only speak English by doing a Howard Cosell impersonation (that's how they learned to speak English).  And one of my favorites the character known only as the "paperboy" who desperately needs $2.00 from Lane's family for the paper delivery.  "I want my two dollars!"
The Smiths just happen to take in a gorgeous French exchange student, Monique, and she takes a liking to Lane.  Monique and Lane really hit it off when she reveals to him that she hates the Smiths so much she pretends she doesn't speak or understand English.  Lane tells Monique he's tired of losing races to the Korean brothers and she helps him restore his beautiful black 1967 Camaro to running (and racing) condition. 
Lane, even though him and Monique are now friends, still kinda' wants to win Beth back.  Her new boyfriend is an excellent downhill skier and Lane wants to beat him on the slopes (the killer hard K-12 to be exact) to prove his manhood/worthiness? I guess.
The film comes to its climax as the whole high school meets on the slopes to watch the big showdown between Lane and his rival to see who's the best.
I won't tell you the end if you haven't seen it, but it a really cute movie and I love it.
I give it 5 out of 5 for the unique characters and the numerous laugh out loud moments.

PS
I was quite upset to discover recently that John Cusack actually hates this movie.  This is one of his best and my personal favorites, but I've also heard that John is a real jerk, while his sister Joan is really nice.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Released: 1986
Comedy
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jeffrey Jones
Director: John Hughes
Running Time: 103 minutes

The breakdown:
One of my favorites, this is the story of a Chicago youth who skips out on high school for the day and takes his girlfriend and best friend along for a day of fun.

Ferris doesn't feel like going to school today so he fakes an illness and gets to stay home.  His sister Jeanie, hates him because he seems to get whatever he wants.  She leaves school that day to go home and catch him faking it.  Meanwhile, Ferris gets his girlfriend out of school as well, and convinces his best friend, Cameron to leave his bed to go out for some fun.  One of my favorite scenes in this movie is between Cameron and Ferris while they are on the phone with the school principal proving that Ferris is not pretending to be Sgt. George Peterson (his girlfriends dad claiming they've had a death in the family).

This movie is a classic gem that everyone should see, you can relate to at least one character.
This is also one of those movies, where I've lost track of how many times I've actually seen it.  It must be in the 300's I'd guess.

I give it a 5 out of 5 because I'm in love with Cameron (amazing big blue eyes!), no really, because it's a sweet, funny movie and it brings back a lot of memories for me.  I actually saw this on opening day in the theaters with my mom and brother.

Clue

Released: 1985
Comedy, Mystery
Starring: Tim Curry, Eileen Brennan, Madeline Kahn, Christoper Lloyd
Director: Jonathan Lynn
Running Time: 94 minutes


The breakdown:
This is another 80's classic (I'm in the mood) of a funny mystery based on the popular board game of the same name.

A lot of "strangers" get invited to a mansion for dinner by an absent host.  Once someone arrives (Mr. Boddy) to tell them what's up, he gives each guest a weapon and tells them he is the one blackmailing all of them.  The guests start spilling secrets about each other and murders begin happening off screen.  They all try to work together to find out who the murderer is amongst them.

I went to go see this in the theaters when it came out and the great thing is, it's probably the first movie to show 3 different endings in theaters.  Depending on what theater you went to, determined which ending you saw.  If you buy the dvd or see it on cable, all 3 endings are shown.

This is a great movie if you feel you need some laughs.  Don't miss it.

I give it 4 out of 5 for the comedic genius of it all and the iconic characters.  Tim Curry as the butler is my favorite along with Miss Scarlet (played by Lesley Ann Warren.)

Dead Space

Released: 2008
Scary as Hell Science Fiction
1st person shooter


Wow!  This is the scariest video game I have ever seen.  I can't say the scariest I played because, well, I just couldn't play it.  I had to watch someone else play through it, but I was just as scared.

Let's go through the premise first.
You are space engineer, Isaac Clarke travelling on a space craft with a whole crew of people riding out to check on the Ishimura.  The Ishimura is a very large mining space craft that lost communications with Earth after finding an alien artifact and is drifting out in the far reaches of outer space.  You're job is to get on board and repair communications.  The problem with this plan is once you and your team arrive, you all discover it's whole crew is dead.  Some alien life form is aboard and either killing, or turning everyone into a mutated abomination.  You run into the latter A LOT and no matter what you are doing or where you are in this game, you are never safe.  Your mission becomes your own survival.
It was awesome!

Here's a clip from the very beginning of the game.  This is the mini film that plays before you start the game.  Warning!  This video may disturb you, or scare you.  Don't turn the volume way up either.

http://youtu.be/pf39bQ2nMz8


You find some laser or plasma cutter weapons (good for shooting off limbs) and a few of your crew are isolated and let you know what they need around the ship to get out and survive this thing.   You are the only one they can rely on and so that's basically the game.  But on a personal level, your girlfriend was one of the members of the Ishimura crew and you hope she is still alive.  You in fact, got a brief hologram message from her before the game starts and that's kinda' why you're going.  So partly, you're doing stuff to help others, partly, you're looking for her.
This is a perfect game to play in the dark around October just for the scary as all get out feeling you get right away at the opening sequence.
It was so well done, so many good scary creatures, settings, sound effects or lack thereof when it was scarier, everything was really good.  You never feel like a badass, you never feel safe, always on the edge of your seat trying to get to some sort of safety this was a fantastic unforgettable game. 
I'll give you an example of how different it functions from the norm.
Usually, in a game you have to upgrade your equipment, or repair weapons, etc.  Well in this game, you have work benches where you repair your weapons and in other games, this would be a "safe" spot.  Where once you get there you can do whatever you need to and the game kind of pauses the outside world.  Not true here.  We fixed up our guns and as soon as we were getting out of that screen this gigantic arm scrapes across our field of vision.  You turn around and there's this huge monster there that wasn't there when you went to the bench.  Those are the kinds of touches that make this game so unique and scary.  Just like the real world, if you needed to fix your weapons, the monsters would still have a great chance to sneak up on you.....just terrifying in this game!

Here's a clip from youtube.  Sorry for the ad at the beginning and pay no attention to the Finish Him red box at the beginning.  I can't remove it.
Warning!  This video clip is scary, don't watch it in the dark or if you're easily scared.

http://youtu.be/LAiHfqnbGYo

P.S. on play through of this game, just when I thought it couldn't get any scarier, it did.  It's just amazing and if you like the crap scared out of you, this is the game to play.
Highly recommend!
I give it 5 out of 5 joysticks for it's creepy atmosphere and consistently keeping the player on the edge of your seat for the ENTIRE game.  You never get to relax.

Seconds from Disaster

A very good show, but not recent.  I only discovered it a few months ago, but it looks like it's from the 2005 range.  Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the episodes I caught.  They do things like look at disasters and then break them down sometimes to the second to explain what went wrong and how it all happened (minute by minute, or second by second.)  The last show that I saw was a 2 hour special about the sinking of the Titanic.  They also investigated the Hindenburg explosion, and the Concord Airplane crash that destroyed the airline.  It's usually an hour long and runs on channels like the History Channel or National Geographic.  I caught it wherever I could.
It was tastefully done and never cheap or cheesy.  They presented facts and then ask experts to help analyze the information to see if they could figure out what really happened, if that information is in question.  What I really like about the show is it's educational and never exploits what tragedy happened.
A rare show indeed.

Who's up for a PET scan?

So a few days ago I did a PET scan to find out how much blockage I have in my heart.
First of all a PET scan could be used for many things but in my case it was the heart.  They tell you to avoid all caffeine including soda, coffee, and chocolate for 24 hours.  Then 4 hours before the procedure you cannot eat or drink anything.

You get to the office and they first set you up on an I.V. drip with some nuclear chemical.  They let this collect in the organ of choice for 10-20 minutes or so.  They make you lay down on a table and then you put your hands up over your head.  They insert most of you (about chin high) into this tube that most resembles an MRI scanner.  You lay there trying to be still while they take images of your heart at rest.

Then they injected me with a stress chemical that simulates what the heart does under stress conditions like exercise, and then they take more images.  The scary thing about the stress agent is that it constricts all your blood vessels at once.  It makes you light headed, short of breath, causes chest pain, chest tightness, and sometimes nausea and palpitations.  I got most of those, but not all.  The good thing is, that feeling only lasted for about a minute or two and then it passed. 

After that they inject you with more nuclear chemical and see how your heart's doing.  This whole process took about 2 hours and I was very glad when it was over.  The stress agent made me feel like I was having a panic attack and I hate that feeling.

The doctor is supposed to be calling here any day now.  It's already been 3 business days today, so if I don't hear from him by tomorrow, he'll be getting a phone call.
I hope you guys never have to do a test like this, just for the amount of radiation alone.

This is the Best thing I've Ever Posted.

I love the Universe!  I love astronomy.  I love all the weird and wonderful things that are out there in space like black holes, supernovas, stars, and especially the images of these other worldly things.
Some absolutely beautiful and AMAZING images of Saturn have surfaced from Nasa.  Saturn has always been my second favorite planet, after Earth of course.

If you don't read anything else from my blog, you must read this post and look at all these awe-inspiring images.
This video is a Saturn fly-by composed from REAL photographs from the high-resolution images of the Cassini orbiter.  Truth be told this video isn't a Nasa film, it's IMAX.  No special effects, no 3D enhancement, no CGI.  It is a series of hundreds of thousands of still photos linked together into an animation.  This short video is really a preview for a movie dubbed Outside In and is slated for a short release.  I cannot wait to see this film, it's going to be amazing!  Just look at the video!!!!

http://vimeo.com/11386048


And you should look at this real life photo of Saturn from space.  The sun is behind it, illuminating all the splendor of this beautiful planet.  The Cassini orbiter was launched in 1997 and took 7 years to take these photos.  At a cost of 3.26 Billion, I think it's worth it.

Where were you on 09-11-01?

I thought it would be good to reflect on what happened 10 years ago today.
I'll share what my day was like, how I learned about the tragedy unfolding and what I think of the world and America today.

I was in my second year of college at ASU.  It's a long drive so I had to get up pretty early to make it to class on time.  I was living with my folks and the morning was pretty normal for me.  I got up, started getting dressed and I was in the bathroom doing my hair with a loud blow dryer when my mom came to the bathroom (the door was open).  I turned it off since she wanted to talk to me.  She said that the US was under attack.  The Pentagon and World Trade Centers had been hit by planes and they were all on fire and then she left.  I was confused, certainly my mom had been overreacting or misinformed I thought.  It just didn't seem right or even possible.  I thought she got some bad information.  I hadn't been near a tv or radio all morning while getting ready so I thought I should just continue to get ready.  I turned the blow dryer back on and finished my hair and make up. 
I finally went into the front room to look at the tv and when I did I saw one World Trade Center building standing and on fire, smoke pouring out into the sky.  The other had already collapsed.  The news showed the previous tower collapsing minutes before, then the planes hitting each building.  I saw the Pentagon on fire, all of it, I had missed actually happening since the East coast is 3 hours ahead of my local time.  I was asleep or getting ready for school while the United States was being terrorized.  I saw all of the footage, but it didn't sink in.  It just couldn't be.
I got my breakfast and listened to my mom talk while we stayed in front of the tv.  We saw the last tower go down and still I couldn't grasp anything.  I didn't feel anything.  I think I was stunned into silence.
I thought school could be cancelled, but probably not, so I better go.
I got into the car and turned on the radio, no music, just news of what was happening.  I had to pick up some blueprints on the way.  I realized while I was driving that there was no one else on the road really.  Just a few cars.  No noise, I looked up and saw no planes anywhere, no people along the street.  Everything was quiet and empty.  I got to the blueprinting shop and picked up my prints.  The lady I had dealt with was there, we didn't really mention anything to each other.  We were just polite and I left.
Continuing on with my drive, I listened to people calling in saying what they had heard, what happened.  Whoever was talking was saying that people had reported getting calls from loved ones on the planes that crashed, saying goodbye and I started crying.  The first time that day, but certainly not the last. 
I got to school and noticed, at least to me, that it looked half empty.  The people that were on campus were very very quiet.  They all seemed like ghosts.  Everyone seemed to move orderly, quietly, lost in their own thoughts.  Myself included.  I got to my computer design class and I was only one of a few that showed up.  When class was supposed to start my professor, Pepe, stated that his sister worked at the Pentagon and he was trying to reach her.  There would be no class today but we were welcome to use the computers.  I liked Pepe and felt very bad for him.  He was acting erratic, panicked, nervous.  There was nothing I could do for him.  The blond girl that sat next to me said that she just read on the internet the President made a statement that we would get whoever was responsible for this.  We talked a little, but I don't really remember the conversation.  She was a really nice girl and I should've made an attempt at friendship with her, but I didn't.  I stayed in class all hour and looked on the internet for news.  I knew I had a break in between classes that day, but I don't remember for how long or what I did.  I do remember walking into one of two of my design buildings and seeing a portable tv on a stand in the center of the lobby.  Kids were gathered around it and I stood with them for a while watching the images that still haunt all of us today.  The burning buildings, people walking around full of ash and dirt, the planes hitting, the fires, people running for their lives down New York streets as the towers collapsed.  I moved along from the silent crowd and went into my next class, manual drafting. 
Everyone in this room knew each other and were all talking about the morning.  Our teacher came in, really nice grad student teacher, and she said something like, "I know everyone is talking about this mornings events.  I know that's probably what you all want to talk about so we can for a few minutes and then let's get to work."  I remember people all raising their hands and wanting to share something.  I talked about how I had heard that the attackers chose 9-11 to attack because it was mocking our emergency system phone numbers.  Then we did a normal lesson plan.  Afterwards, the students and I talked about how strange it was that she seemed to want to avoid the topic all together.  It was very hard to concentrate on school work that day.  I remember a couple days later when I had that class again, the teacher had apologized to all of us.  She said that morning, she hadn't seen any of the footage before class.  Her exact words were, "I didn't understand."  She explained she saw what happened much later on that day and felt the same way the rest of us did, probably.  She then devoted that entire hour and a half class to talking about 9-11 without any school work.  I also found out days later that Pepe's sister was unharmed and I was glad.
On September 11th, I don't remember what I did after that class, it was the last one of two I had had on Tuesdays, so I knew I must've just drove home.  I don't remember that drive at all.  I remember being home in the afternoon and watching tv with my mom again.  I knew I learned of the Pennsylvania plane crash somehow, but not when during that day.  I just couldn't stop watching the television.  Seeing image, after horrible image, video after video of the planes striking the towers and their eventual collapse.  I still could not believe this was happening.  Reporters were estimating that maybe tens of thousands of people were dead.  I instantly recognized that everyone will remember where they were on this day just like in the 60's when JFK was shot.  Just like in World War II or I for that matter, how devastated those people must've felt.  How lonely and scared they all must've felt before I had that same horrible feeling on 09-11-2001.  I thought, this is my generation's most terrible moment in history, our Pearl Harbor.  I remember my dad getting home from work, the first time I had seen him all day.  My mom ran to him and started crying.  I remember my dad saying all this stuff on tv looks like some bad movie, meaning, it just doesn't look real, it can't really be happening.  We watched tv all night, including the presidents speech that night.  I wondered how they would ever find out who did this?  How would they punish them?  How that wasn't enough now.  Our country has changed, thousands of innocent people are dead, millions of people are affected, our financial system is crippled, our national defense building is torn open with more people dead, there's a hole in the ground in a field in Pennsylvania where a jet liner full of innocent people perished trying to be heroes and doing the unthinkable.  How would punishing whoever was to blame make things any better?
I went to bed that night and laid awake for a while even though I had a busy next day ahead.  I just cried.  I felt heartbroken like that for 3 solid days after 9-11.  I walked around school feeling like my heart had been ripped right out of me.  At that point in my life I had only had one boyfriend.  I fell in love with him right before he dumped me.  This is what that feeling was like, that's the only way I had to describe it at the time.  Heartbroken is still the best term for how I felt.  Even though I knew no one killed, never been to any of the places that were attacked, I was heartbroken, still am heartbroken over all of it.
The days after I remember seeing huge HUGE American flags everywhere.  The one I was the most proud of was one on Bell Road, down by the auto dealerships.  I can't remember which one exactly, but the biggest possible flag and flag pole you can own, they had.  They had always had it up, mostly to stand out from all the other dealerships and to get attention from the street.  But today, it was billowing out full in the wind.  Maybe 60 feet long and 30 feet high.  You can see it from a mile down the road.  It was beautiful to me.  I sat in traffic for minute and looked at it and cried a little bit.  Someone cut me off in traffic that day and it was no big deal to me.  Oh well.
I know it stayed that way for a while.  People all wanted to band together, to help each other out.  Little things that had annoyed me in the past were now no big deal.  Months go by, years go by.  Every year I would spend a little time thinking about it, watching the memorials on tv, crying, hurting, remembering.  But people got back to their lives, granted things are different now in all aspects of life.  The airports, airplanes, homeland security, terrorists, everyone is at risk, no one is safe.......Bin Laden is dead, but it doesn't change anything to me.  I'm glad he's dead, couldn't be happier about that fact, though I wished he would've been tortured and abused for years before being allowed to die.  He got off way too easy and I hope he's rotting in some sort of Hell for all eternity for what he did.
Anyway, the world has changed and I hate to fly.  It used to be fun, but now it's a stressful chore.  I remember that a clinical psychologist said that even if you had nothing to do with 9-11, only saw things through tv, that we could still all suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  I think that's partially true for me.  Sometimes, when I hear planes get a little too low to my house, or loud engines are heard, I sometimes think of 9-11, the images of the planes hitting flashes into my mind and my heart beats a little faster.  Even sometimes when the planes aren't low, they are just flying way off in the sky I think of planes crashing, or destruction and death.  Not all the time, but sometimes, and I know I never thought those things before.  I hated to fly before just from the off chance of crashing, but since then, I've had to fly a lot more than I would like, and I hate it now, more than ever.  I think of crashing into buildings in a plane at the hands of terrorists.
We, as a society have come to accept our new reality, our vulnerabilities as a nation.  We've come to learn to deal with terrorism as an everyday possibility, and the reduced level of personal privacy.  I for one don't think security increases at airports around the country make us any safer.  I think it's maximum public humiliation for minimal safety gains.  I know people who argue, "but we're safer now, TSA has to do what they do."
Here's the bottom line.  A lot of other countries hate us, hate our freedoms, hate our policies, hate our state of mind.  Some of these countries hate is well founded I think, others, not so much.  Regardless, if another country wants to terrorize us and attack, they will find a way.  They always find a way.  Look at how effective Osama Bin Laden's attacks were.  They were well thought out, and from a terrorism point of view, the attacks were brilliant.  Think about this (whether these are facts or my own speculations):
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When you have an emergency in this country, you call 9-1-1, other countries use different numbers if they have any emergency numbers to call at all.
The attacks happen on September 11, 2001 or 9-1-1.
This mocks our emergency response system.
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They used jumbo airliners full of innocent people as weapons of mass destruction.  The terrorists did not need weapons other than small utility knives that were perfectly acceptable according to FAA standards back then.  And they only needed those to kill the pilots or anyone else who got in their way on the plane.  Who needs to carry a bomb on a plane when the plane is the only bomb you need to make a statement to the United States.  The terrorists were all clean shaven, dressed in typical Western world attire.  They picked their seats on the plane strategically for the best control of the people and access to the cockpit.  They arranged for about 4-5 terrorists per flight to work as a team.
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They struck national symbols.  The Pentagon where our nations defenses are headquartered.  The World Trade Centers where our financial headquarters are (wall street trading) and the final plane was headed for either the United States Capitol or the White House.  The final destination has never been confirmed and I don't think anyone will ever know which target was the intended one.  I think the White House is unlikely granted that the president was in Florida that morning.  I'm sure the terrorists would have been aware of that, but still, had either one of those landmarks been destroyed it would have been another big symbol of the United States gone and the psychological damage even higher still.
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They choose the World Trade Centers not only for their financial domination over the entire country, but also because they were the tallest structures in the skyline.  Easier to hit with a jumbo jet, lots and lots of people inside both towers, and lots of people near them on the ground as well.  The terrorists knew lots of tourists are in that area and there would be lots of cameras and camcorders to record what they had done.
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They taught their terrorists how to fly a plane of that size, as well as make them as Western as possible, as well as studying the blueprints of the Towers.  Those towers were never built to withstand that kind of attack, and they used this to their advantage.  The initial blow of the airplane striking the building caused the fireproofing foam to break off of the reinforcing steel inside the core of the building.  The jet fuel melted the exposed steel and the buildings collapsed.
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So, in other words, they were very well prepared for this and we were grossly under prepared and overly confident something like this would never happen.  Much too much arrogant.

10 Years Later
So here we are, a whole decade later and what as a society have we learned?  Not a lot it seems.  I remember last year when I woke up on 9-11, I had actually forgotten all together what that day was.  I was going about my business and only when I caught my husband watching a college football game did they do a little tribute/remembrance of 9-11.  I thought, how bizarre, let's remember the tragedy by playing a meaningless game of football.  I know, I know, life is supposed to be lived and enjoyed especially knowing it's short.  Live life to the fullest everyday you can and enjoy it, yes, I know that, but still.   It just bothers me a little bit to see so many people together for a football game pretend to be remembering this terrible event for a moment, and then, okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk footballllllllllllllllllllllllllllll yeah!  Strange to me.
On the following 9-11's I've basically just did what I had to - work, school, errands, whatever I needed to that day, but sometime, on my own, I would remember, as I will this year too.  A moment alone to think, and remember how I felt, what happened, how many good people were lost, how I hope the bastards that were all responsible are suffering greatly in life and after in death.  That's all I need.  I talk to my loved ones as I always do to make sure they are ok and in good health.
But on days that are not 9-11, I think the country forgets, even though, they said they wouldn't, that they would never forget.  Road rage happens, murders, child molestations, drug deals, all of us, all of the worst, all of it happens all the time, and we've forgotten to be trusting, to be gentle, to be respectful and nice.  Society is back to what it was before all of this, as far as our behaviors are concerned.  I know not all of us are this way, but it seems the vast majority has forgotten and moved on. 
Even myself.  Little things annoy me on a regular basis again.  I get mad when people cut me off in traffic, I lose my patience with people.  I think it's just natural, or human nature.  You can't sit and think of such a horrible thing all the time, that's not healthy.  A little time to reflect once a year is all I need to honor it in my own way.  I think about it here and there every so often, every year, and I try to be respectful of those lost, and of the beautiful structures we lost that day.  I don't constantly need to focus on 9-11, but I'll never forget how I felt that day.  It will always be with me, even if it's not at the surface.

A Moment of Silence
(for the lost) note: hijackers are noted only for actual numbers, not honoring them.
United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania during a struggle for passengers to regain control over the plane.
44 dead including 4 hijackers

American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center
92 dead including 5 hijackers
approximately 1,600 dead at the north tower including jumpers and emergency workers.

United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center
65 dead including 5 hijackers
approximately 900 dead at the south tower including jumpers and emergency workers

Note:  This is the only flight seen live around the world, to crash and when we realized this was not an accident, but a planned attack.  The people sitting on the left hand side of the plane would've seen the north tower already on fire as they approached and realized before impact that they were about to crash into the building.

American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into The Pentagon
64 dead including 5 hijackers
125 dead on the ground

It's been said that the true number of people lost on this day is impossible to know for sure.  I've read anywhere from 2,750 to 2,977, not including the 19 suicidal hijackers.  There are bodies that were vaporized as the towers came down and identifying all the people is simply not possible.  Only 289 bodies were identified and described as "intact".  I'm assuming "intact" here means that somehow they were able to be identified easily, but not whole.  19,858 body parts were found and 1,122 people out of the known people dead are still not identified.  There is a medical examiner who is still working this.  They will also have the remains that are currently in storage moved to behind the 9/11 memorial in New York to continue DNA testing and hope that in the future, better technology will help the process along.  Some of the remains are only bone fragments and very small pieces. 

It is estimated that near 6,000 people were able to escape the North Tower.  I've heard no estimates on the South Tower, but I know that some people started to evacuate this building after the North Tower was hit.

I have thought, countless times, of the possibility of somehow travelling back in time before the attacks.  Of alerting the right people who could stop the hijackers before they ever got near the airplanes.  No one would die that day, no buildings would be destroyed, no planes would crash.  How wonderful that would be to thwart the plans of Bin Laden, save all those people and structures.  How wonderful it would be, and I wish somehow it was possible....even though they would probably think somehow I was in on it and I'd be punished or killed for helping to stop the most terrible and vicious terror attack on the U.S.  I still wish I could go back and change all of it.

Images
There are some beautiful images I wanted to leave you with instead of iconic tragic ones that we have all seen a million times before in what seems like a long time ago and yesterday at the same time.




Twisted steel at the Hudson River Memorial Site




Everyone has seen this image.  It's called Tribute in Lights as seen from Jersey City.  88 searchlights are in the footprints of the two World Trade Centers.  I think this was a beautiful way to remember.




But, have you ever seen images of it up close?  This photo was just taken in 2009 as visitors stand near it.




Another view of Tribute in Lights from 2009




This is the Pentagon in 2008 on the first night that the park and memorial were dedicated




Lights illuminate 184 benches at the memorial.  Each one represents someone who was killed on Flight 77 or in the Pentagon.  Each bench also has water underneath it that can be seen during the day.




This is a bronze statue titled "To the Struggle Against World Terrorism".  A gift from Russia seen here on it's dedication in 2006 at Bayonne, New Jersey.  It is 100 feet tall and features a 40 foot tall teardrop in the center.  This is a powerful and touching memorial.




This is the new One World Trade Center illuminated in red, white, and blue for President Obama coming to visit after the death of Osama Bin Laden was announced on May 2, 2011.  The first 15 floors are windowless to prevent damage from car bombs at street level.


So now that I've shared my personal memory of September 11, 2001, with you, I would like to hear from you.  The comment box is much too small for a long story, so if you'd like to share a longer story than that box allows, please email me with your story and I will post it here in its entirety in a following post.

All I can end with is I hope everyday for peace on Earth and that we all find a way to live and let live.
Peace be with you my friends.

I Shouldn't Be Alive

This show used to be on the Discovery Channel but has since moved to the Animal Planet Channel.  There was a great narrator and some really neat special effects and bits of scientific educational stuff presented with the Discovery channel version that I prefer, but some show is better than no show.
This is an hour long show dedicated to telling just one story of an individual, a couple, or family/group of people who went through some terrible stuff where they really should've died, but somehow survived (hence the shows title).  The show balances the people recounting their stories, with actors re-enacting what actually happened to them.  The amazing thing is, the actors are always really good in these roles and it's never cheesy or fake looking.  I mean, of course, they can't put the actors in dangerous situations, but with what they can do, it's very good.
This show, I can definitely learn things from and it's not as dark, most of the time, as I Survived on the Bio channel.
The most amazing story I saw in the years that I've been watching is a man who lost his boat in the middle of the ocean and survived, by himself, in a very very small rescue boat for 76 days.  He had something called a Solar Cell that helped collect clean water from salt water, and he made a spear to catch and eat fish.  Just amazing that he survived this ordeal.  He lost so much weight and could barely move in this little boat, he couldn't even stand up in it or much of anything but sit cross legged.

If you've never seen this show, you are missing out!  It's very well done, interesting, amazing, and the Discovery channel ones are pretty educational.  Animal Planet stays close to the original version but it's not quite as educational.  Animal Planet airs brand new episodes every Wednesday night about 9 or 10 central time.  It's in syndication on a lot of other channels including Discovery and the Green Planet channel if you have it.

Ah Hell, everybody needs to spill a secret sooner or later....

Well, I've had a shopping secret for a while and I guess I can let you guys in on it.
There's a couple of websites (there's more than that, but I trust and know of 2 for sure) that offer coupons on all kinds of things.

retailmenot.com
is a great place to search for coupons for any store and usually they offer at least one discount.

couponcabin.com
is the other site I use to check for coupons before I buy anything on line.

If you're a shopper and need to save some dough, I highly recommend you check these 2 places out before you buy anything on line or in the real world.  I've saved a lot of money this way!
Good luck and
happy shopping!

I Survived

This show airs on the Biography Channel Sunday nights around 8 or 9.  It first aired in 2005 and is a pretty simple show.
They feature 2 or 3 people within each show.  There's nothing but a person telling their own story of survival without charts, maps, diagrams, or special effects.  The background behind the people are even blank, it's just black space.  It's a lot like if you were talking to these people yourself in your home without any extra visual stuff or videos.
I found this show by accident late one night and got pulled in.  It's a pretty dark and intense look at people who survived terrible attacks, and accidents who lived to talk about it.  I'd like to say that I find the stories of survival inspirational or something noble, but I just watch because I can't believe what terrible things happen to people without them dying through it.
For example, the people on the show talk about airliners crashing, people being kidnapped, raped, seeing their loved ones murdered before them.  They talk about being robbed at gunpoint, or being shot in the head, attacked by wild animals, and things like that.  Terrible, terrible things and a lot of these people are mentally, emotionally, and physically scarred.
I do admit that I like to watch because I might be able to learn what to do if something like this ever happened to me.  I like watching because of my interest in psychology, but really it's just compelling to hear what things have happened to these poor people.
I suppose it's my guilty pleasure.
It's not a show for the squeamish or weak stomached though.  It's very gritty and detailed so you certainly have to be the mood for that kind of tv show.

It's Time I Bitched Again....

I just have to say that watching tv back in the eighties was a lot of fun compared to how it is now.
You used to be able to watch a show and it's credits at the end and then be subjected just to commercials, but it's soooooo different now.
Now during your show, whatever the channel, there's some sort of graphic in the lower left, or lower right, and sometimes BOTH corners.  Something showing what channel you're watching, in case you forget for a SECOND, and one for what's coming up soon, or maybe in a few days.  These started out being random, then they consistently stayed on screen and now they rotate, move, and float around to get your attention off of whatever your watching.  Sometimes they block text down at the bottom of the screen, sometimes they block subtitles you need to read during your movies, sometimes they block very important information.  It's maddening to me, and so so annoying!
It seems like a trend today so I know it's not going anywhere.
The second bitch I have is about credits.  I didn't mind watching credits before and I still don't, but some channels really feel the need to speed them along or scrunch them into a size of half the screen so you can't possibly read them anymore.  They talk over them, show a commercial along side them or both.  There's a channel that shows things in their schedule at 5 or 7 minutes after the hour or half hour just because they're cutting up shows all over the day.  This is not a big deal if you have a DVR set for a program but for the rest of us, it's just another inconvenience.
I know this is a stupid thing to bitch about, but this is my blog after all.  I suppose if you didn't want to read it, you wouldn't be here reading these words right now......
Sorry y'all.  Just had to get it out of the system.
I'm pretty much a volcano of stress these days and can't deal with a fraction of what I used to be able to handle.

Has anyone heard of Pinterest?

Pinterest.com is a new website to me.  I suppose it's been around a little bit, but I missed it.  Easy to do since I didn't have a Facebook or Twitter account.  You need one or the other to sign up.

So I created a dummy Twitter account for myself and started checking it out.  It's by invite only, so they need you to apply first, and then approve your account, and then they let you join.  It's free, but if you don't want your name out there for everyone to see.....well, I don't think they have any privacy settings, not yet anyway.

I made a board for Halloween and started collecting images that I liked.
You basically find things that you like online, anywhere, and through an application, you have a pin on every page.  It's very easy to start pinning all over what you like.
I already have things like recipes, designs, projects, and products I'd like to buy.
There's a spot for you to write a note about what you're pinning and it always keeps the original link to that website you're pinning off of.  I really like this myself.  I've been pinning for days and it's a lot of fun.

Now I have a place to keep all my ideas instead of writing them all down and I can log in anywhere and share with other people.  You have to follow other people to be able to pin off of their boards, but that's what the website is all about.  Everyone sharing different ideas, so I don't think that's going to change.

Give it a shot if you'd like to have a single place to keep several ideas.

Here's a link to my pin board so you can see what I'm talking about:
http://pinterest.com/lionessofthefal/pins/

Crazy Heart

Released: 2009
Drama
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall
Director: Scott Cooper
Running Time: 112 minutes

The breakdown: This is a bad character study of a man who used to be a big country music star, but now is a has been alcoholic who goes touring around the country's bars and bowling alleys to make a living.  Along the way, he meets a young small town reporter who wants to do an interview with him, he agrees, and they become romantically linked.


This wasn't as good a movie as it was touted to be.  I mean, Jeff Bridges got an OSCAR for this.  Most likely because of his body of work and his age and I don't really think it had anything to do with his performance for this film.  And I like Jeff Bridges, especially in his younger days, when he was really quite attractive. 
Like I said this is a bad character study film.  Bridges is a bitter washed up alcoholic who's slowly killing himself with no sleep, lots of booze and smoking, plus a terrible diet and overall unhealthy lifestyle.  He's lonely, depressed, and tired.  He had a son once with a woman, but after he was 4 he lost all contact with him and hasn't tried to reconnect since.  He travels from town to town, boozing it up, sleeping with random women, and being miserable.  He barely shows up for gigs, he's not reliable, or friendly, and he's broke.  He pesters his agent to get him better work and his agent tells him his protege wants him to write some new music for him.  He refuses and is jealous that his protege is doing much better than he did.  His protege isn't the bad guy he's made out to be (though, he's played by Colin Farrell and I can't stand him).  His protege is out on tour and asks, through their mutual manager, if Bridges can open for him.  Bridges proudly says no.

So he keeps playing little hole in the wall dive bars and eventually meets Gyllenhaal's character.  She's responsible, a single mother, and smart.  I'm not sure why her character is attracted to a man who's obviously on his way to the grave, plus he runs around looking like trailer trash most of the movie, unbuckled belt with his pants open, sweaty, scruffy beard, and long hair to boot.  They get involved and of course, things do not go the way he had planned.  I won't ruin it for you if you want to see this one, but my recommendation is to skip it.

This movie was trying to hop on the same path as "The Wrestler" but wasn't nearly as effective a character study, and not really entertaining at all.  If you do want to see a really good character study, check out the original plot "The Wrestler" released several years earlier.  It's the same idea as this movie, but done so so much better.

I give this one 1 1/2 ticket stubs out of 5 for too much singing from Jeff Bridges, annoying Colin Farrell being in the movie (though his character was fine), an unbelievable romance, and an overall boring movie.  No surprises, no drama, no zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, ahem, like I say it's boring.  Skip it.

Sailing Doesn't Always Take You Away to Where You Want to Be

Unfortunately, sometimes, it makes you sick to your stomach.

So this time I went out sailing, my friend has stepped up his certification ranking and now we can go out past the breakwater into the huge Lake Michigan.

Same boat, at least, size wise, but completely different water.  I understand why they call the breakwater, the breakwater.  It really does control a body of water better than what you get out in open water.  Lake Michigan is BIG, not as big as Superior, but still very very large, and the waves can get very very choppy.

So the evening I go out there, everything looks fine.  The breakwater is quite deceptive at how calm it appears to be outside of the wall.

We get out there and immediately start jetting up and down hard.  It's not like I'm going to fall out of the boat, but I know it's not going to be a smooth ride this time.  My bottom is already starting to hurt as my body gets lifted up off the wooden bench and slammed down time and time again.  I think to myself, I should've brought a pillow!

I did have a bit of fun, but at my stomach's expense.  It could've been a panic attack coming on, or a combination of panic and actual sea sickness but it was uncomfortable.  Man, just thinking about it, I start to get a queasy stomach.  Ugh.

Mental note: pick up dramamine next time I go to the grocery store.

A glass of green tea everyday

Doctors say green tea is excellent for the body.  Drink it in the morning for the most benefit.  Lots of antioxidants, which all green teas have, keep cancer away.  Lipton has quite a few delicious flavors if you need a place to start.  Drink up!

L.A. Noire

Released: 2011
First person shooter
Violent Crime Thriller

I was hoping this game was going to be like Heavy Rain, but it wasn't (well, the facial recognition software is).

The plot is that you are a new police officer, Cole Phelps, working in the post war Los Angeles area of 1947.  LAPD had a terrible reputation historically at that time with lots of crooked cops and unsolved or botched crimes.  You are thrown head first into this drama after serving in the Army during World War II and receiving a war hero status.

I love, love, love this genre and time frame.  Lots of Art Deco designs, a simpler America, and more innocent time than what we are today.  I love Noir films and thought this could be a very interesting game.  The acting is great and the animation technology they used allows for great detail in actor's performances.  So when you're playing this game, you will recognize some actors from film and television.  The animation is that good.
Here's a clip of the technology behind the performances so you get an idea of the kind of detail I'm telling you about.  It's really amazing.

The Technology Behind Performance #lanoire

The acting alone was excellent.  I enjoyed the storyline, but driving around the streets got monotonous after a short while and I was sometimes frustrated that I couldn't make more decisions on my own (perhaps this is due to the fact that I'm terrible at figuring out when someone's lying and that's huge in this game).  You do have to do interrogations and track down the criminals, but the process for me, was sometimes incredibly frustrating if you didn't ask the suspect in just the right manner.  There's definitely a linear storyline here and you basically have to follow it to get to the end.  The character I played, I really could identify with until they made him make a mistake (it's written into the story so it can't be avoided).  I totally thought this "mistake" was out of character for him and it distracted me from the game.  If they would've given me some more explanation as to why he did what he did, I might have enjoyed his character more.  There's also a point where you have to become a second character for a while.  This I didn't enjoy.  I was already used to being one person and then to force me to be someone else, was a bit disruptive.  The ending is certainly final, I'll give them that.  I was a bit disappointed with the storyline at the end, I think it easily could've been written a different more satisfying way.

One final thing.  A strange thing, but not the first time this has happened to me.  I found while I was playing my character, I got really intrigued by him.  I must say, a bit attracted to him as well.  If the characters looks hadn't been copied by an animation program I would worry for myself, but since this actor is a real guy, it's not so strange.  In real life, Aaron Staton is cute as well.  I haven't seen him act in any movies or tv but I hear he's been on Mad Men.
Here's a snippet of the game.

First Trailer #lanoire

4 out of 5 joysticks since this game could've had a better ending, less time spent in a car driving, and a different character flaw that was more believable for Cole Phelps.

Note: If you're interested in Heavy Rain, there is a separate review for it in a different post.