Mockingbird Lane

I few months ago, I started hearing that Bryan Fuller, the creator of the severely under-rated show, "Pushing Daisies," was going to be creating a new show based on "The Muensters," I was at first very excited and then filled with dread because I knew it wouldn't last. I thought it would be a marvelous surprise if the show ever even made it on air. Much to my surprise, just before Halloween, people started telling me about this weird new show with Eddie Izzard in it that they were all sure I would love. Miracle of miracles, they were talking about "Mockingbird Lane" and I couldn't have been happier. But then things got complicated for me. NBC announced that instead of bringing back recurring favorite, "Community," they would instead be bringing out new shows to promote their new line up and the other shows would have to wait until a then-undetermined date. Now, we know that time is mod-February. So instead of getting the shows we've been waiting for in October, we got new shows which were not destined to live long. Our shows were in jeopardy and that made both the actors and the fans very nervous. It would be so easy for NBC to just never bring those shows back at all.

All of this run-around with NBC made me very hesitant to even watch "Mockingbird Lane," despite my appreciation for short-lived Bryan Fuller shows. I recorded the show and it sat on m DVR for at least a week. It was hard for me to think about NBC spending money on this show, which I now knew was only going to have one episode see the light of day, when they could be bringing "Community" back that much sooner. It pained me to think that we wouldn't get a chance to see what Jeff and Britta would be up to this Halloween,

Eventually I got over it once an official air-date for the new season of "Community," was announced and watched "Mockingbird Lane." On the whole, I really liked this show. I loved the fact that they just let Eddie Izzard be himself and didn't try to make him act normally. He's such a wonderful character, it would be a shame to see him do anything else. I also enjoyed that the show was both light-hearted in its humor and also very, very dark. This show never would have survived on a traditional television station which is really unfortunate.

A few things bothered me but for the most part, I was pleased. I mean, it isn't really necessary for them to use expensive CGI to put a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge in every shot of the house. It would have been so much easier to use a less specific background.

I wish this had been a Bryan Fuller project that had made it at least one full season but there really never was any hope for this show.

The Cabin in the Woods

I don't watch scary movies. I can't. I have a really over-active imagination and I get nightmares. This is a fact of life. I wish it weren't so but I'm a big ol' wimp. So when I told my boyfriend I wanted to see "The Cabin in the Woods," he stalled. I rented the movie and it it just sat next to our tv for at least two weeks. It wasn't that he didn't want to watch the movie, he just didn't want to have to deal with me tossing, turning and fighting monsters in my sleep. I can't say I blame him. It's dangerous to date a violent sleeper. But I'm a Joss Whedon fan so I wanted to see, "The Cabin in the Woods." I knew that this wasn't going to be a typical slasher thriller and I would find some way to handle it.

I am so incredibly relieved to be right about this movie. This was so much more than a slash-fest. There were deeper themes and and the gore wasn't over the top. I really appreciate a horror movie that doesn't just kill for the sake of killing and has a sense of humor about itself. It is really unfortunate that this movie didn't leave any openings for a sequel because I would definitely watch it. I loved every twist and turn, I loved the characters, I loved the monsters. I don't really have any way to compare this to other horror movies, but I feel like this is a horror movie that just about anyone can enjoy.

Thank you, Joss!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday weekend. I know I certainly did. If you traveled, are currently traveling or if you have family and friends traveling, I hope everyone arrives at their destinations safely and happily. I'm sure a lot of you did some shopping, I hope nobody got trampled while trying to pick up the last Call of Duty and that you all also remembered to support your local businesses.

Let us all be thankful for the good things we have in life and be thankful for the discount comic books we picked up this weekend. ;)

Doctor Who minisodes!

Have you seen this? If you live in the UK, you probably have. As I do not live in the UK, I'm just seeing it now! Pre-Christmas, Doctor Who minisode! (Yes that is a terrible name)

Enjoy!

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas is a complicated movie. I like this movie in concept very much and it was a visually stunning film but by the end, I found myself feeling incredibly over-stimulated. For me it felt like standing in the middle of a small, crowded room where I didn't know anyone and was desperately trying to learn everyone's story but I was also drunk and making up stories of my own. After watching this film, I felt the need to sit quietly by myself and read simple books about food preparation. I was overwhelmed.

I would have been very happy to see this movie made into a series of movies with more focus on each individual story line but I know that wasn't the point. It was very interesting to see all of the actors portraying different roles and I'm sure it was a fantastic exercise for them but at the same time, some of the makeup techniques used were very distracting for me. An example would be turning a British man into an Asian man. Just looks funny.

I wanted very much to enjoy this movie as much as other people have but it really just made me uncomfortable. I think I am going to try to read the book and see if that makes the story a bit more digestible for me.

You should all still go see it and judge for yourself.

Doctor Who Christmas Special

In which we finally meet Miss Clara Oswin. And apparently and army of ice...

And now the torture of waiting.

Better trailer.

The Hunger Games

Young Adult Literature is a very special beast. It has to be a very specific blend of wholesome and exciting. It needs to be a quick read to keep teens hooked and it needs to be both simple enough to not frustrate a kid and also sophisticated enough that it makes the kid feel smart. There are very few authors who perfect this mixture and those who do, sell millions. As much as adults like to yell about how kids these days are distracted and no one reads books anymore! This just isn't even remotely close to reality. If teens find a book or a series of books they are passionate about they will scream about it to every single one of their friends, relatives, teachers, bus mates and random people in the grocery store. They will ridicule their friends for not reading the books and generally make life hell until they do. Teens have passion and talking about books that speak to them is far more important than adults seem to remember.

I grew up in a group of severe Potterheads. The only excuse for having not read any of the books was if someone's parents wouldn't allow them to and this was a fate to be whispered about in hushed tones. We would eventually accept that some people could read a couple of the books and just not get into them. We were pretty sure they were secretly actual wizards and just didn't want anyone to suspect. Having a book fandom like Harry Potter was so important to my youth. Instead of being out late at parties in high school, I'd be in costume at the opening night of the newest Potter movie or at the bookstore for the midnight release party for the latest book. My friends and I would call each other to tease spoilers for goodness sake! There is nothing worse than realizing that you were the one person in the group who decided to sleep after getting your new copy instead of staying up all night to read. This stuff is important to kids.

This is why I am thankful for "The Hunger Games." After Pottermania died down, there was a lot of anticipation about what the next thing would be. There were the dark days of "Twilight," which I will not even speak of and then "The Hunger Games" peaked over the horizon. These books are intellectually stimulating, packed with adventure, insight some feelings of rebellion and really make the reader think about their priorities and how they view the world around them. This is a very solid trilogy with an unambiguous beginning, middle and end. I think it is important for teens to have to think about a post-apocalyptic world. Who knows what the future may bring? They are the only ones who can make the world they'll live in. The have to be able to see consequences. I think this should be on every 15-year-old's reading list.

All of this being said, I have to admit something. I HATE Katniss Everdeen. She is a cold, whiny, brooding little twit. She doesn't deserve all the help and positive attention she gets and she should never have had the chance to choose between Gale and Peeta. She's an awful person and she doesn't deserve either of their love. Someone should have just let her die. I think Peeta would have been better off that way. The only person she shows any unabashed love for is Prim and Prim is the only person who even begins to make Katniss an almost likeable person. It's really a shame that Katniss was the narrator. I would have loved for her to be killed off in the middle of one of her little pity parties about how the government is using her.

So if you have a young adult in your life or if you need a quick and exciting read, you should definitely check out "The Hunger Games." The problem you will soon have is then trying to read any book after. Reading a book about modern, simple cooking in your Hunger Games Voice gets a little bit weird. No one has ever been that violent toward broccoli before, I'm sure.

World War Z

Do you like zombies? Are you ever seeking things to with zombies? If so, you've probably read this book. You've also probably head that it is being/has been made into a movie that is on course to be a major summer blockbuster next year! If you've read the book and you've seen the trailer, you're probably also kind of peeved.

To start, here is the trailer:

World War Z the book and the audiobook (duh) have a very distinct documentary interview style which appears to be entirely ignored in this movie trailer. Instead of getting something that resembles the book we get... Brad Pitt and oceans of speed zombies... hmmmmm...

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I will probably see the movie anyway.

The Firefly 10th Anniversary Special

It has been ten years since "Firefly" went on and off the air. This is the sad reality of network television in 2002. If a show wasn't the proper flavor of exciting and if the writing was too dark or too smart, the show got cancelled. Anyone who has been to any ComiCon in the world knows that just because Fox pulled the plug on this show prematurely, doesn't mean the fans have forgotten. Even in unrelated protests, no matter what the greater cause, there will always be one guy with a "Bring Back Firefly," poster waving proudly. "Firefly" is still a very large part of our culture. People still say something they like is shiny and and quote lines at each other on a regular basis. It would be no stretch of the imagination to say that "Firefly" is much more popular now than it was in 2002.

The Science Channel's Firefly 10th Anniversary Reunion was a beautiful thing to witness. You could tell that the cast, the writers and Joss all care about each other deeply still. The hugs were real and heart-felt and it really just felt like a bunch of long lost friends getting to meet up and swap war stories. It turns out, as fun as we all thought it would be to be a part of that show, it really was. The actors cared about what happened to their characters as much as we did not only because they wanted to keep their jobs, but because they genuinely liked the characters. What was most upsetting to the cast and Joss and really, the entirety of the fandom is that Fox cut this show off before their stories could be told. There is so much we all would like to have seen and learned about these characters that we may now never know.

One of the questions that the moderator asked Joss and the writers is where the show would have gone if it hadn't been canceled. If they show had been allowed to live out its life instead of getting shoved into a movie, what would we have seen? Joss said that first of all, he probably wouldn't have killed anybody... yet. There is so much more of Wash and Book's story that needed telling that now just can't ever be. The good news is that Joss did say that he is unwilling to close the book on "Firefly." He said he will not declare it dead and that you never know what the future may bring. For now, we have our one season, a wonderful movie and a comic book series. For now that has to be enough.


Here is a link to the Science Channel's page about the even and also the online auction to get a little bit of Firefly history. http://science.discovery.com/tv/firefly/10-anniversary/

Almost Famous

I cannot remember the first time I saw "Almost Famous," but it very quickly became one of those movies that I felt as though I had known all my life. I can't even begin to count how many times I have seen this movie. It is without question, one of my all-time very favorite movies. I feel like I should be embarrassed by how much I let this movie impact life, but I'm not. I saw this movie enough times that I really did think that my ability to write and my deep, passionate love for music would eventually translate into a career as a rock journalist. I thought I would be William and band would find me totally endearing and invite me to go out on the road with them to be their writer while lovingly calling me, "The Enemy." I thought that if I said, "It's all happening," enough it really would be.

Because of this movie I worship Kate Hudson. She is my goddess. I have tried for years to come anywhere close to her radiance and while I know I will never achieve my goal, she will always be the person I strive to emulate. Penny Lane in not a perfect human but I think that is why I love her so much. She is entirely undone by how trusting and open her heart is. If she was even a tiny bit cynical, she wouldn't be as endearing. But her love is entirely honest and pure. It is absolutely beautiful. I think I'm still convinced that if I could perfect those little looks she gives and those little lip pouts, I could have anything I want in life. I tried quite a few times to put together a Penny Lane costume but I could never pull it off. I just have to be honest and admit that I will never be as cool as Penny Lane.

While we're confessing things, I chose my major in college because of this movie. I don't know why, but I thought that the beautiful age of rock journalism that was alive in the 1970s was somehow still around when I would be graduated in 2009. It didn't matter that Rolling Stone magazine had essentially sold out years ago and was now allowing the military to buy advertisement space. When you're young and you have a dream, it can blind you to a lot of the harsh realities about your profession. Journalism as I wanted it to exist is dead and even if I were to ever become a successful rock journalist, it doesn't mean the same thing that it used to. No one new actually gets to walk into Rolling Stone all fresh faced and invited to go on tour across the county with Queens of the Stone Age. Really, the best most people can hope for is fuel their habit by living in a large, metropolitan area, diligently tending to a personal blog you probably won't get paid for and accepting that you're going to have a huge "entertainment" budget each month.

Rock journalism is dead just as Lester Bangs said that rock and roll is dead. It will never be the way we imagine was or could be but it doesn't matter. Having the memory, even if it is a somewhat shinier than reality memory, is much better. "Almost Famous," is a past and future that I know isn't possible, but it still warms me inside to know that it maybe could have been if the stars had aligned just right.

Skyfall

I am a late-comer to the wonderful world of James Bond. I adore the British, I adore smart action movie and I adore things that go boom. This means that 007 is my kind of guy. He always gets the sexy lady, he always has the coolest gadgets and if his gal pal doesn't get your heart racing, his choice in vehicles certainly will. Much like The Doctor, James Bond has had many faces and every actor brings a little something different to the character. The Sam Mendes and Daniel Craig James Bond is a very dark and haunted James Bond. Sure, he gets the girls, drives the cars and kills the bad guys but he also talks about the death of both of his parents and shows some sentimental attachment toward M and his agency. It is nice to see some humanity behind his cold, calculated stare. I know I am always the person who wonders how other people got to be the humans they are and it was enlightening to see a small glimpse of 007's past.

The other thing I love about James Bond movies are the villains. They're all intelligent, cunning, resourceful and creepy as hell. There are no mindless killing sprees. Once they have been captured, they usually don't stay captured and most of their aims have more to do with proving a point than recklessly killing everyone. People die sure, but they're mostly casualties to the bigger picture. Silva, played by Javier Bardem (also seen in "Before Night Falls," and "No Country for Old Men.") was no exception. He was brilliant at playing an absolutely mad man whose mind had been severely damaged by chemicals that should have killed him. I appreciate that the Bond villains are evolving technologically right along-side the Good Guys if not even surpassing them. Modern villains don't necessarily fight in person with fists and guns anymore. They fight from remote locations with computers and remote signals. Anything else would really just be garish.

This is why I would like to start the petition to have Benedict Cumberbatch play the next Bond villain. "Sherlock" has already given him plenty of material for portraying a crazy person. Secondly, he could spout off nonsensical strings of words and still sound goddamn brilliant. The has the cold, piercing stare that could either drop a girl's panties or send a cold chill up your spine. He's absolutely perfect! Come on, who is with me on this one?

Bond fan or not, go out and see Skyfall. It is popcorn-munching, bouncing in your seat fun.

Wreck it Ralph

I'm a Disney nut. I would say I'm a huge, mega Disney nut but I have met my mother and comparatively, I am somewhat of a fan. My mom has a little shrine to that cheerful mouse in her home and she spends a large majority of her free time at Disneyland. She is a mega fan. For the most part, I really enjoy Disney movies but I have to admit that in the last few years, the movies that Disney has put out without Pixar have been somewhat sub-par. "Enchanted," and "Tangled" were pretty good but otherwise, a good deal of their movies have just been forgettable. It's really a shame. I recently watched a documentary about how the Walt Disney Studios kind of lost their way after acquiring Pixar because they saw how hugely successful the Pixar style was and wanted to get a piece of the action. they fired all of their regular animators, hired all digital animators and waited for the money to start rolling in... but it didn't. They had lost the Disney heart which is what people were really looking for when they went to the movies. Yes, the Pixar style was impressive because we had never seen anything like it before but in a couple years, everyone would be doing it and how is a studio supposed to stand out then? Substance.

I am glad to say that "Wreck it Ralph," is a beautiful Disney dream marriage between the digital style and the Disney heart. The graphics are visually stunning but at the same time, you find yourself getting lost in the story. I absolutely loved the attention to details in each of the video games. Everything within the various games was true to the time and style of that game. Characters from a 1980s game didn't move in the fluid motion that the brand-spanking new game characters did. I loved that everything in the 8-bit games, stayed 8-bit. If someone spilled a drink, there wasn't a big round splash, there was a square splash! It is obvious that a lot of thought went into this movie and also a lot of time spent in the arcade. For research of course!

The voice acting was spot on. Go figure that Jane Lynch could be intimidating, John C. Reilly could play the big doofy guy with the heart of gold, Sarah Silverman could be an annoying little kid and Jack McBrayer could be the simpleton good guy with a hard on for the scary lady in the combat game. I loved the unconventional (for Disney) love story with the lady sweeping the mister off his dainty little feet.

This movie was an absolute delight even if you've never played an arcade game in your life. Although it does help with some of the jokes and references to have a love for the games. Go see it!

Hot Nerd Friday: Harrison Ford

Nerd girls, nerd gay men, you have to admit that one of your very first inappropriate nerd crushes was on one of this man's characters. I was an Indy girl first because there was a "No SciFi" rule in my house and also a "All of the Action Movies" rule. I didn't see Star Wars for the first time until I was fourteen or fifteen. But at a young age, I definitely found myself drawn to the intelligent, nerdy adventurous bad boy who was Doctor Jones. Yes, time for love Dr. Jones! This man is a cultural icon and we should all take a moment out of our day to bow down to him. Thank you, Mr. Ford. Without you, I'm sure they would have found someone far smarmier and far less charismatic to play our favorite space outlaw.

Now I have to take a moment and acknowledge the fact that when I looked Mr. Ford up on IMDB to see what he's working on now, the most recent entry reads "Indiana Jones 5." There isn't a whole lot of information about this yet. Only that both George Lucas and Harrison Ford are connected to this. I kind of feel like if this was really a project that Lucas Films was serious about, there would have been some sort of announcement during the Disney deal press conferences. I am skeptical, I am dubious. Please, please, please don't let the the secret at the end of the movie be aliens. Please let there be some sort of historically significant link instead.

Regardless of potential projects, Harrison Ford is a man I hope children look up to for decades to come and the first roguish man little nerdlets have a crush on. 

Seeking a Friend at the End of the World

This is a movie I really wanted to see in the theaters but it came out in that week over the summer where everything else came out. You remember that week? That was a good week... Anyway, by the time I made my way down my list and got to this movie, it was out of theaters and I was bummed. When I saw this movie out on dvd (I am one of the last dinosaurs who still rents things from Blockbuster. ROAR!) I was super excited! I remembered the trailer and it being super silly and tongue-in-cheek and looking great. I mean, it's a movie with Steve Carell and Keira Knightly! They're both brilliant. How could this movie be anything but awesome?

Okay, before I talk about the movie more, I want you to take a second to watch the movie trailer. Don't remember it? That's fine, I'll wait.

Sure, there are people crying and freaking out in this trailer but it seems jovial, doesn't it? I think I've figured out that the music in this trailer is what makes this trailer seem so deceptively fun. Well, here's the reality of it: aside from that one scene in Friendly's where the waitstaff are all on ecstasy, it's a major downer of a movie. It isn't fun at all. I feel like the movie focuses on the wrong things and that while it is likely that in a time of terror, people will band together, I do not think that total strangers would join up let alone fall in love. Although, I have heard that people who experience traumatic events together tend to fall in love. I think this is a severely screwed up thing but I guess it is a real thing. I also didn't like the ending. I feel like the last decision on earth that Keira Knightly's character makes was absolutely the wrong thing to do. I won't say what it was because I know some people still may want to see this movie even though I say it sucks. I'm going to guess I'm not considered an authority. Rotten Tomato gave this movie a 55% rating. In my own household, Rotten Tomato usually has more authority over movie picking than I do.

While I did not enjoy this movie as a whole, there were a few things that I did enjoy. I really appreciate that at the end of the movie, the world actually did end. There are so many movies where the punch gets pulled and everyone is acting like a crazy person for no reason. Thank you for actually killing everyone like you said you would. The other thing I enjoyed was seeing the various reactions to the news that the world was going to end. I liked seeing the people who decided this was their time to try all the things they have never tried before out of fear, morality or whatever. Also, the people who allowed fear to rule the remaining bits of their lives as apposed to those who just tried to go about their day without noticing that doom is looking over their shoulder. All of the reactions were very human.

So all in all, I give this movie a "meh." If I were you, I'd avoid it entirely unless it is your goal to depress yourself.

The IT Crowd

There are a few things about me that aren't even a little bit of a secret. The fact that I am a nerd and that I love British television. If there were a way to combine these two things it would be beyond brilliant, right? Totally right! The IT Crowd combines the wonderful, sarcastic dry wit that I know and love from British comedies and is also about the sometimes painful life of the hired nerd. I feel the pain of the people who have jobs that no one understands. It is endlessly frustrating to spend ten minutes explaining to someone what it is you do to make money and pay your bills and they just look at you blankly and say, "So computers then?" Yes, computers. I do computers. The IT Crowd has a beautiful way of showing that relationship between the "computer people" and the "normals."

Moss (Richard Ayoabe) and Roy (Chris O'Dowd) are the basement-dwelling "Did you turn it on and off again," spouting, socially awkward, comic book reading members of the IT department of a very large company. It is never really clear what the company does but that doesn't really matter. Jenn (Kathrine Parkinson) is the IT department  "Relationship Manager" who thinks that IT stands for "Internet Things," is easily convinced that the internet is housed in the tower of London and looks like a smallish metal box with a blinking red light, and asks more questions about computers than she's ever able to answer. Watching Roy and Moss try to teach Jenn how a computer works and Jenn teaching them how human interactions work is beyond delightful. With every episode, they find new common ground and the boys convince Jenn that everyone else is an idiot.

This is absolutely one of the all-time funniest shows I have ever seen. This is a show I found on Netflix that I started watching on my own and very quickly turned from a "me" show to an "us" show in my house. We rationed our episodes so that we could make it last longer. We knew there was a finite number of episodes and we really just didn't want it to end. The jokes were so smart and sarcastic and the actors handled the characters brilliantly. I later discovered that Ayoabe is not quite but almost as awkward as Moss in real life. Even so, if you know anyone with a computer job or you yourself have a computer related job, you will love this show.

The only thing that makes me sad about this show is that it is such a short-running show. I know that Doctor Who aside, British shows are famously short-running. Usually the thing that happens after a successful British show has reached its end is that the American tv networks pick it up and the show lives on for far too many seasons until it doesn't resemble the original show at all. (*ahem* The Office) This is not the case with this show. In 2007 Universal filmed one episode of the show starring Joel McHale, Richard Ayoabe and Jessica St.Claire. That's as far as it got. While the casting is great, they couldn't match the original and it died before it could take off. Because of this failure, I'm sure that an American version will never get off the ground.

So again, please go watch The IT Crowd. Please. I can never watch it again for the first time so you have to for me.

The New Star Tours

There was a time years ago in which I would go to Disneyland two or more times in a month and often for no reason at all. Often, just the act of getting out of the house was incentive enough to trek from The Valley down to Anaheim for the day. I was never one of those people who would drive for two hours just to have lunch, but I was there a lot.

In 2007, I moved out of Los Angeles County to Humboldt County 700 miles away. Since then, I haven't had an Annual Pass and I've only been to Disneyland once in that time. Three years ago. Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure have made a lot of restorations in that time! The new Main Street in DCA is beautiful, their trolley cars are adorable, the "World of Color" show is fantastic and Cars Land is pretty damn awesome.

Despite all this, there was one specific thing I couldn't wait to see: the new Star Tours. Before it had even been announced that Disney was going to acquire Lucas Films, I was working on a Star Wars skirt to wear to Disneyland with my R2 in love shirt and my Yoda training backpack. All I wanted to do was show my excitement for the renovations to an already great ride. What this outfit allowed was for Disneyland cast members to strike up conversations with me about the acquisition and what this will mean for the future of Star Wars. Even Minnie Mouse wanted to chat about this! ...after we spun around a few times to make our skirts spin.

Star Tours used to be one of the rides in the park that you went on when you were tired of waiting in lines and you just wanted to walk onto something. For the most part, the only reason people go deep into the heart of Tomorrowland (if they don't have kids who like Autopia) is to ride Space Mountain. I was at Disneyland on a Monday in November and there was a twenty minute wait for Star Tours. No, this isn't a particularly long wait if you consider that It's A Small World usually has at least an hour wait. However, considering that no one has waited in line for Star Tours in years, this is significant.

The newly renovated Star Tours opened during the summer of 2011. The new version features eight distinctly different adventures, C3P0 as the pilot, a new queue entertainment sequence and 3D effects. If I had my way, the park would have been open until midnight while I was visiting and I would have gotten to see all eight adventures and 3D effects would not have nauseated us. But the reality is that the 3D effects, while making the ride much more realistic, did nothing to help with the motion sickness. On our journey, C3P0 accidentally took our crew to the ice planet of Hoth where we crashed around snow dunes, fell into deep caverns and narrowly avoided being stomped upon by AT-ATs! And then zoom! Off to face off with Darth Vader and thousands of Storm Troopers inside the Death Star! Oh it was so exciting!

While I will always miss the old Star Tours and long for the pre-3D days, I am very pleased with the way they renovated the ride. I'm now very curious to know how long the Disney/Lucas deal has been in negotiations and if the unannounced merger had anything to do with the decision to to give the ride a facelift. You know, it could just be a total coincidence but I like to think the two are related.

So if you're at Disneyland and wondering if it is worth the wait, I'll tell you that it absolutely is. Go see what new adventures Star Tours will take you on and then come tell me about it.

National Novel Writing Month

Happy National Novel Writing Month! And also, happy one year anniversary of this blog! I started this blog last year during National Novel Writing Month in order to challenge myself to meet the word count of the contest even if I do not meet the criteria in content. No, this isn't a novel, this is just a miss-mash of all the stupid things I care about and hope other people care about as well. One of my biggest fears early on was that half way through the year, I'd get bored with writing or run out of things to write about and quit all together. While it is true that I've had some lulls in my writing this year, I have never been at a loss for things to talk about and even in those times when I am not writing, I feel guilty about it. That's something at least, right? Writing takes a great deal of discipline which I am always striving for but I don't always have. I am also prone to following my whims more often than not. Some weeks, I'll do an hour of writing every day after work and feel very proud of myself. Other weeks, I'd rather focus on knitting, baking, yoga, reading or honestly, just staring blankly at the television. But writing is a life-long struggle that I feel is worth every bit of effort.

I actually have a game plan this year to make word count. I will be writing on the blog as always but I will also be working on a bit of fiction. This is the first time I have felt the desire to write any sort of long-form fiction since high school. This is very exciting for me! At this point, I don't care if it's good or if it sucks, I just want to get the writing done. I came pretty close to making word count last year and I'm really hoping this will be the one. The only problem I foresee is that I'm going to be out of town a lot. I'm going to be gone tonight through Tuesday and then again for Thanksgiving. It is my intention to bring my laptop in the car with me and write while we drive but there has been some doubt as to whether I will actually be able to accomplish anything that way. The plus side of taking the writing on the road like that, no internet. I'm not going to say nothing is going to distract me. I am a highly distractible human. What I'm saying is that I'm going to make the effort and that's what matters.

So for all of you participating in National Novel Writing Month, good luck and I'll see you at the finish line!