Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Ode to a Classic



Today I am going to talk a little about traditions. Specifically, Christmas traditions. Everyone has them. Whether it is going to see the lights downtown, a special meal with the whole family, or specific movies that you watch every season to get you in the spirit. One of my family’s long-standing traditions is one of the latter: watching “Scrooged”, starring Bill Murray every year and practically reciting the whole thing, all the way through. I love this tradition. We have even adopted my husband into our clan and hope to have him learning his lines by next year.
The reason I bring this up is because of a very disturbing article my father read a little while back. It was a list of the top, and bottom 10 Christmas movies of all time. Of course, in the top ten were classics like “A Christmas Story”, but I could not believe what ended up in the bottom ten. Yep, you guessed it…”Scrooged!” Can you believe such an injustice? Talk about mocking one of the only things I hold dear! Ok, maybe not one of the only things, but you get the idea.
Have the critics ever even seen the movie? I would pose the argument that they have not. No one who has witnessed the genius of Bill Murray portraying one of histories greatest success stories could ever even think of demoralizing such a classic. Maybe they just didn’t get the close resemblance to Charles Dicken’s heartwarming tale, “A Christmas Carol.“ Does that seem a little harsh? Maybe, but I have some very strong feelings toward this movie.
What is the moral of this story? Don’t judge. No, wait, its, be wary of other people’s feelings. Or maybe it is to watch as many old, cheese, or uplifting Christmas movies as possible before the season ends. Yeah, I think it’s that last one.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

3-D Nightmares


Friday night my loving and adoring husband took me to see The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D. It was possibly one of the single coolest things I have seen in a long time. Don't get the wrong idea, I have seen some very cool things in my day. I love that movie to start with and it may seem a little redundant to see a stop-action movie done with three-dimentional puppets in 3-D, but it is totally different. Not only to the figures themselves have debth, but you can actually tell how far away they are from their surroundings and each other.
I was amazed with the famous scene where Jack is walking down the hill with the curly-cue on the left side, and it uncurls as he walks down. Well, in this scene even the moon behind Jack is in 3-D. And you can see that he is far away from it, and how thick the curly-cue is. Probably the most essential, and most taken for granted is that, as a character moved around you could see how far way their limbs were from other limbs, or other characters, or from picking something up. It made the whole movie so much more realistic. So cool...
Anyway, there is just something about a flat movie screen that just doesnt do this movie justice, and if you even liked it a little, it is totally worth it to see it again in......THRrREeeEE-DeEeeEE(imagine that coming out toward your face in the manner of old, cheesy 3D movies)!!

Friday, October 27, 2006

Ghost Investigator Squad


The other day I was listening to 101.9 The End on the way to work and they had a special guest on from the Ghost Investigator Squad. I love it when this group is on, and they are on every year. This year they had two shows infact, and I was lucky enough to catch them both. For those of you who don't know who the GIS is, they are a small group (about 6 people) who go to supposedly "haunted" places and take pictures and EMF (Electromagnetic Frequency) readings to determine if there is ghost activity. These readings can be kind of spooky when you know what you are listening for. The GIS member says "We made this recording at the Old Mill in Utah on November 3rd at two o'clock in the morning. (then they tell the story of what they were looking for and why the owners had them come in) You will hear Roger talking to Sandy, then something in the background that sounds like a child saying either 'he touched my head', or 'he broke my neck.'" Then they play the clip and YES you can hear all of that and you want to wet youself because of how unnerving it is. But dont take my word for it, listen for yourself.
Now, I know some of you out there are skeptics. And you have every right to be. But keep an open mind as you look through some of these pictures and videos. Some of them are amazing. I especially encourage watching "The Door" video. It is probably the best one. I liked a lot of the photos too.
As far as I know they us a mix of regular 35mm film and a high resolution digital cameras. They scan and flatten the images for the website so they dont take up as much space, but they dont doctor them at all. Some are filtered (probably in Photoshop) to show more detail in the ecto but, thats all. This site is the perfect time passer for the halloween season. ENJOY!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

But I don't wanna!

School sucks. I hate to sound like a pouty sixth grader who's teacher gave her too much homework, but it does...it really, really does. I know that I brought my school situation on myself, but these night classes are killing me. I HATE working all day just to go to school for another 3-4 hours. I want to go home and be with my husband. Or at the very least shop. But by the time my teachers deem it too late to have a life, I am too tired to care what we do as long as I get to sit down. I'm not even taking hard classes. I dont even have homework. I really shouldnt be complaining. But I am. If it werent for working all day, I could have graduated this semester. But instead, I got stuck taking the classes they stick the Adjunct teachers with that are taught whenever they ****ing feel like it. So, I am only able to take one (count it, ONE) class for my major this semester. Anyone want to guess how many more years I will be a this wretched place if I continue at this pace? Yep, five grindingly boring and useless years. Someone tell me it's ok to drop out of college with only (technically) one semester before graduation. Please...

Sunday, October 15, 2006


Count down-two weeks, two days. What am I counting down? Why, Halloween of course! Halloween is by far my most favorite holiday. When else are you encouraged and rewarded for dressing up and causing trouble? Not to mention the loads and loads of candy and treats. But my all-time most favorite part of Halloween is the costumes. I love being creative and trying to out think the other costumers. My cousin once went as a basket of laundry. He cut the bottom out of an old laundry basket that went over his waist and then tied straps to the handles so it would stay on his shoulders. Then he pinned socks and underwear to his shirt. I thought that was awesome. The best part of that costume I think is that he made it himself. Well, my aunt helped out, I'm sure. My biggest pet peeve about Halloween costumes is that most of them are pre-made and packaged with nothing left to creativity. All you have to do is decide what you want to be, and go to the specially designated Halloween store to pick it up. Oh there might be a small selection of hair color or tail length, or if your lucky, there will be three or four witch costumes to choose from. I would much rather spend a few days searching family attics and thrift stores for just the right pieces to make my costume exactly how I want it. Its usually cheaper that way too. So, with this wonderful, joyous event almost upon us, please, think twice about getting a pre-fab costume from a store that is only open two months out of the year. Make a trip to your local thrift store and exercise your creative side. Thanks for listening.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Yesterday I was in a car accident. Don't worry, I'm fine. The car is a little scraped, I think my back bumper is a little tramatised, but that is nothing compared to what i did to the other car. Yes, you heard me, it was my fault. I was backing out of a parking space a the community college to correct my horrendous parking job, and I only looked one way. Not the way the car was coming. I backed right into a 2005 Scion tC that didnt even have plates yet. Fun huh? Luckily no one was hurt (I wasnt even accelerating, just letting off the break) and they were really good sports. They werent going to buy me dinner anytime soon, but they didnt pull a noose out of their trunk either. I felt so bad that they had more damage than me. I wouldnt have been half as bad if my car would have gotten this huge dent or broken a window or something. Not that I want my car to suffer, but it would be better than me suffering. Needless to say, i didnt go to class that day. I went home to my loving husband who told me it wasnt that big of a deal, and that we would be ok with what ever happened. He is so wonderful. He made me feel so much better. Plus I got to watch Gilmore Girls...that helped alot too. I love Gilmore Girls. Anyway, the accident wasnt bad, and I will get over any damage that was done, both psycologically and vehicular. Thanks for caring.

Monday, October 02, 2006

Ok, so I love my in-laws...really I do. And that is really saying something if you ever met my husbands parents. No, they are great...just unique. Sunday September 24th was my 22nd birthday. I share this day with my sister-in-law and we are only a few days away from my other sister-in-law, so we all got together to celebrate with the family. Everyone but my father in law and his wife. This is fine, he lives in magna and we dont see him much. To compensate for this, he threw a similar party to include his wife's family. Despite having to drive magna, I was looking forward to this party...afterall, they are celebrating me too! I felt kind of bad, since my husband wasnt feeling well and I made him go, and stay. When we finally got to presents I told him that when they got done with me, we could go. After three or four little girls I dont know and two sister-in-laws I was getting a little excited about my turn. You can imagine my surprise when my turn never came. I was skipped right over. I wasnt very upset at first. I mean, I dont get to see that side of the family very often, and I dont know the step mother in law very well. But the more I thought about it, the more upset I got. I mean, I have known this family for more than two years. Everyone else remembers my birthday. Why cant my father in law! Especially at a mass family party? Now, step-mom-in-law called later to apologize again and ask me what I wanted so they could celebrate me in october. I was apeased. But I still get a little steamed when I think of someone else taking my place on that chair. Oh well, its all part of being a new in-law in a new step family.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

So, I hoped to have something profound and inspiring to write for my first blog, but alas, here I am, at a loss for words. So I will say just this: My name is Andrew Shephard, and I AM the President.