Movie Review Time

Since I'm not currently in school, and I work at a movie rental place, I've been watching a lot of movies lately. I thought I would give you a rundown of recent movies I've watched and what I thought of them.

World Trade Center - Excellent movie, very respectful and well done, especially considering this is Oliver Stone. It does make you go back to that day and what you were doing when you heard about what happened. You do ask yourself if America is ready for movies about 9/11, I say we are. Part of healing is moving on, and after five years, we should be able to do so.

Superman Returns - Typical Popcorn movie. The guy they got to play Superman fills the shoes well. But overall, I was watching it while working on other things so I got distracted pretty easy. Kate Bosworth looks like Natalie Portman when her hair is dark.

Little Miss Sunshine - Favorite Movie I've seen this year. Hilarious, I was laughing so hard. A lot of what these people go through I can relate to, and what makes it so funny is you can picture these things actually happening to people. Loved it, would recommend it to anybody who

Avatar, the Last Airbender, Season One - This is a kid's show on Nickelodeon. And it's excellent. We've gotten around to collecting Season One and now I'm looking at finding a way to see season two without having to wait to buy it on DVD. Being an animation major, I've been watching a lot of kids shows lately.

Green Street Hooligans - I heard about this through word of mouth and wanted to rent it. Its kind of along the lines of Boondock Saints and similar movies, but about Brits who follow Football as if it was the mafia.

Devil Wears Prada - Meryl Streep is awesome.

I've seen more, can't think of them all off the top of my head right now. Because I'm also lazy.

Pause for a Moment

Saddam Hussein died yesterday. Or rather, put down.

Let's have a moment of silence in remembrance.

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Ok, time to celebrate! Good riddance you psycho dictator! Bwhahahahha!

Christmas, 2006

I consider myself a practical person. And apparently, I'm very difficult to shop for on account that, well, I'm a practical person that doesn't need a lot of stuff, and if I do, I tend to buy it before somebody else can. I've been told by my family members that I'm one of the hardest people in my family to buy for.

Christmas was considerably toned down and not very commercial from Christmas's past. To help with the family, I let them know what I wanted, and more specifically, what I could REALLY use that I couldn't necessarily provide for myself, or that I can never have to much of. I asked for socks (got six pairs :) and a recipe book with some of my mother's easier to make recipes in them. I prefer not to get things that are kitschy that clutter the house, like figurines, decorations, or picture frames (which I never use) unless there is a picture in the picture frame and I can hang it on the wall. Gift certificates are always nice and save people a lot of trouble.

So what was my haul this year? It was pretty humble really. Six pairs of socks, a pair of pajamas (I'm currently wearing), a cookbook, a frame with my last name done up fancy, a gas card (SWEET!), Pajama Bottoms (seperate from the Pajamas), a CD, a breadmaker (brother/roommate's idea, and therefore combined gift), a couch quilt. . . or something?, and a few other gifts.

My big gift for me is going to be a new laptop that I'll be purchasing this week. Its kind of going to be a necessity with school, my current computer doesn't have the capability of running this software I'll need. I've also decided on a rule for it. I will only go online for official school business. Playing, surfing the internet, writing stories, whatever, will be reserved for my beat up but otherwise dependable but not to the degree I need it to be current laptop.

I'm also going snowboarding with my season pass this Thursday. YES. I'm going. And nothing short of a blizzard or me just waking up with no motivation to move will stop me.

Hope everyone had a merry christmas, and here's looking to 2007!

Still Amongst the Living, I Promise

Ok, I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth, I promise. I've just been. . . busy, that's all. Busy doing a whole lot of nothing.

Coupled with working retail during the holidays. Yep, THAT was fun.

So, a quick rundown of my life in the last three weeks.

Blaine had a un X-rayable ear plug in his stomach, which caused him to lose a half a pound in about three weeks, which is a lot for a ferret. I finally took him to see a vet again (foregoing the emergency routine and scheduling an appointment this time) and a little Boriam and Xrays confirmed that there was something in there.

Surgery was necessary to save the ferret. These are turning into some expensive pets. *sighs* Blaine is recovering well. But he's looking a bit scruffy and his shaved belly is kind of interesting. Abby, meanwhile, is really fat and fluffy now.

I am now floating around my store, working a lot in music lately, which I find interesting that I'm progressively becoming a music associate. The elusive Tech N9ne and Nickelback Cds that our system says are in our store that I cannot find do plague me however.

Christmas was nice. I'll post about it in its own post.

There has been snow on and off again, but the mountains have been open for nearly a month now. And I haven't gone snowboarding once. . .

I think I can attribute this to having nobody to go with me. *sighs again*

Blogger in Beta!

So Blogger has finally decided to add labels to posts. I think this is pretty nifty because I've been wanting labels for my posts for a while now, as it helps when one wants to go back and review them for whatever reason. However, because I do my own HTML and don't use Blogger's ready made formats for my blog posts, I don't know how to do the formatting to get it done.

Meanwhile, I'm finally done with school for this quarter. And I have an entire month before I have to go back. This is freakin' sweet! So for the next month, I can just work my butt off and go snowboarding every chance I get.

I haven't gone once this season yet, and the mountain has been open for three weeks. I don't know what's come over me.

Oh yeah, its called School and Work taking up my weekends and prime snowboarding time. I'm going for the first time this season on Thursday.

And I'm taking a break from Horseback Riding for now. Haven't had lessons in three weeks. I've gotten to this point where I need to be riding much more then I currently am to make it worth my while.

PS - the Blogger overhaul complete with Labels continues, and is a slow process, but I'm enjoying the results thus far!

Third Time

Apparently, I didn't knock hard enough.

Yes, I got smacked THREE times this last week. Twice on Sunday (within 5 hours of each other) and a third time on Wednesday, a phantom driver apparently backed into my back door. I only noticed it because my car was filthy and it was kind of hard to miss the scrapes on the door (which is dented in). And of course, the pea sized hole in the bumper which actually pushed my bumper into my car. And don't forget the dent in the fender (can't open that door all the way now).

Police report done on the fender and turned in, and estimates done on the three accidents. Of course, the back door is a phantom driver, so I think I'll find another way to get it fixed rather then call my insurance about it. Meanwhile, I'm waiting on the other two.

Sadly enough, I know the guy who ran into my front fender. He leaves for Fort Benning in three weeks.

I went out and got studless snow tires on my car yesterday. I'm not taking any more chances with my car.

Apparently it's a black hole, and other cars are drawn to smack into it. I've been on the defensive with driving for the whole week.

Vets

A couple of weeks ago I had a sick ferret. We were worried he had a blockage, so I took him to the vet.



Learning the more expensive points of pet ownership. . . but good news, no blockage!

More Randomness

Kids Scared of Santa! - my favorite one was Number 55, Kid, you SHOULD be scared of Santa!

The CG got me on this one, Building Airplanes

The Infamous Frogs, the Assassin Ferret, and two Lizards

I don't think Volkswagen appreciated this one that much.

Drill Sergeant Update

This was a Drill Weekend. Yay for Drill Weekends!

I've got two more to go before Drill Sergeant School. In Fort Benning. Being an active duty school, I have learned that there is a chance that I might be able to get online while I'm there. But no guarantees so I might suffer radio silence for 9 weeks.

Hmm. . .

Anyway, the latest with the Program is I have to memorize a lot of words. Ver Batum. See, nobody knows D&C (that's Drill and Ceremony) quite like a Drill Sergeant, and there is a reason why the Drill Sergeant knows the position of Attention backward and forward, up and down, and can correct a soldier out of the corner of his eye. Because he literally knows this position from the 45 degree angle of the soldier's equally pointed out toes to the vertical alignment of the head and neck. And now, I know it backward and forward too.

There is so many times that I've seen soldiers screw up the position of attention. Including me. I can guarantee you I'll never screw it up again, because it is engrained into my braincells now.

Furthermore, I have now routed the rest positions while at the halt into my braincells as well. I have recieved a go at stating both of these modules, using the step by step method of instruction practically ver batum. And now that they are engrained into my head for life, when I was in formation today the fact that the platoon leader didn't know what she was doing was more evident then ever.

We were called into formation with a Hospital unit (first sign) who put the unit At Ease. So we sat there looking around, wondering what was going on when the other units started putting their units at Parade Rest (for you civilians out there, a different rest position that is more formal, and more locked up.) It didn't help that we were in a formation with a naval unit in charge, which was throwing us off that much more. So the Platoon Leader calls us to Parade Rest from At Ease.

This is what has been engrained into my braincells from the module on Rest Positions at the Halt.

"Parade Rest will only be commanded from the Position of Attention."

In short, if the unit is At Ease (they can move when they're at ease), you have to call them to Attention to bring them to Parade Rest. Civilians might be looking at me and saying "why are you so anal retentative about this? Does it matter?"

In the long run, probably not. But in regards to discipline and military custom and courtesy, yes. It is a sign of discipline and respect when you perform these simple formations properly. And people who know better (like the plethera of Drill Sergeants that fell into this formation) won't look at you like you don't know what in the hell your doing and you aren't given the reputation of 'tore up'.

Meanwhile, the CG came by, and we were all commenting on the CG's aid, and being a Drill Sergeant Battallion, we were wondering if she was in regulation or not. I stated she wasn't, though some people were trying to argue that she was ok.

See, she had dark brown hair cut short with her bangs long up front. Now, her style wasn't bad, it was the blonde streak that she had in her bangs that framed her face. The one blonde streak. It looked like Rogue from the Xmen, seriously. People were stating that as long as it is a natural hair color, she can do it.

So I can put Red, Black, Brown and Blonde Streaks throughout my hair so I look like a calico cat? No, because it looks faddish and unprofessional! Besides, I think it is also supposed to blend naturally, you aren't supposed to have dark brown hair with a platinum streak through it and be a captain in the military! Gees!

At least I'm catching these things. I might make a good drill sergeant yet!

Undue Flattery

Am I heartless?

I don't get the reason to flatter somebody over a job that is subpar. Being an artist, I am a firm believer that if you see something you don't like about a piece, you tell the artist what it is (constructive criticism here). They can then use your criticism to either fix the piece, take it into heart the next time they do a piece, or tell you to go to hell and ignore what you said. I don't believe in being rude about it or anything, you can just say "hey, I really think that this color doesn't go well with this other color in the way you put them here, try a different shade, like a darker red perhaps.)

I've been getting this from my Image Editing class. There are some people who are awesome in the class, and then there are others who are still learning the software and therefore because of their experience, they are prone to having work that is not as clean as the others. Often times, I get the impression that other students in the class are catering to these students by telling them "this looks great!" when it is obvious that there is plenty of room for improvement. I won't cater to your feelings by telling you a piece looks great if it doesn't, however I will acknowledge improvement and encourage them to keep working at it. Undue flattery doesn't help anybody, and I have found that you learn greatly from your mistakes.

In fact, I learn more from my mistakes then my successes. As long as my mistakes aren't fatal, I generally only make them once because I learned from them the first time. I like to be told what I'm doing right and not have every mistake pointed out to me, granted, but please give me constructive criticism and tell me how I'm doing. Let me know if I totally messed something up or if it doesn't work. I'm a big girl, I can take it.

Bad Things come in Threes

Knock on Wood.

*does so*

Winter is here. In full force. And I experienced it today while driving around. I decided once I made it safely home, that I would park my car and not leave for the rest of the evening.

Because bad things happen in threes. And I've already had two incidents today.

And with how they are progressing, I'm predicting that if the third was to hit, my car will be totaled.

Let me start at the beginning.

I was at a roundabout about a half mile from my house at Noon today. I generally don't mind roundabouts but because its winter and conditions are icey, I don't take my chances with my accelerator and if it will catch on the ice enough for me to get out in front of the other car. And I couldn't see if the car was getting off at my exit or coming around again (I can't see their turn signal!) So I started creeping out waiting for this car to make its decision when *BAM!* Somebody rear ends me.

Grr. . .

See, he thought I was actually moving out and assumptions aren't always a good thing. Case in point. We get out, and fortunately, all he did was punch a pea size hole in my bumper with the screw on his license plate. The damage is negligable, however I take down his information anyway.

Around 4:45, we're finally given permission to leave the drill hall (safety briefing and all, which includes "Slow down on the roads, conditions are icey!") I didn't even leave the parking lot when while I was heading out, one of my battle buddies in his jeep fails to see my mazda and plows into my side. My door creeks when I open it now. He felt like crap and immediately asked "Do you want my information?" to which I reply "Yes!" The guy earlier today punched a pea size hole in my bumper, this is a massive dent on the side of my car! Poor Winston! (The name of my Mazda, btw)

As soon as that second accident happened, I hurried home (in a safe, observant and non-speeding manner) parked my car and found a large chunk of wood to knock on. I'm not normally supersticious but Hey! I'm not taking my chances! There's a thick layer of ice on the road and if it weren't for the snow, I could have breaked in time to get out of the Jeep's way. But at least neither accident was my fault.

I now have a police report on my to-do list, as well as the fact that I forgot to right license numbers of the two people at fault for smacking into my car (I knew I forgot something!)