Saturday, November 24, 2012

Lunch, Guardians and Argo

Today my buddy Christopher came over to my place for a visit. We went out to lunch at Chili's before coming back to my place to watch some screeners. We choose Rise of the Guardians and Argo for our movie selection.

I wanted to see Rise of the Guardians as soon as I saw some standee in a movie theater. I didn't know anything about the story but the characters looked cool. Then I saw the previews and it was a must see for me. I was actually going to go to the movies this weekend to see it but as I mentioned in yesterdays blog, I got a screener of it. I was so happy when Christopher picked this movie as his number one movie to watch. Here's a synopsis: When an evil spirit known as Pitch lays down the gauntlet to take over the world, the immortal Guardians (Santa Clause, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Sandman and new addition Jack Frost) must join forces for the first time to protect the hopes, beliefs and imagination of children all over the world.

My Review.. I love this movie. The story, the characters, the animation.. everything just came together so perfectly. This movie had such heart, right off the bat you love these characters. I mean maybe it's because they are characters from our childhood, ones that we grew up with and loved. The Sandman character was my favorite.. which is crazy since he doesn't ever say a word.. but that's how great this animation and story telling is. The main character Jack Frost was charming and fun. You wanted to see good things happen to these characters. When it was over I turned to Christopher and said.. wow this has now been put on my list of Christmas movies to watch every year and even when I just need a pick me up. I give this movie a big A.

The next movie we watched was Argo. Here's a short synopsis: In 1979, the American embassy in Iran was invaded by Iranian revolutionaries and several Americans are taken hostage. However, six manage to escape to the official residence of the Canadian Ambassador and the CIA is eventually ordered to get them out of the country. With few options, exfiltration expert Tony Mendez devises a daring plan: to create a phony Canadian film project looking to shoot in Iran and smuggle the Americans out as its production crew. With the help of some trusted Hollywood contacts, Mendez creates the ruse and proceeds to Iran as its associate producer. However, time is running out with the Iranian security forces closing in on the truth while both his charges and the White House have grave doubts about the operation themselves.

My Review.. Now I was a kid when the Iran Hostage thing happened.. but I do remember hearing about it as it was on every TV station. But I knew nothing about this six who escaped. So I didn't know how this story was going to play out. This made watching this movie very intense. I kept waiting for something bad to happen or someone get killed. This movie is very well acted but I didn't feel it was Oscar worth. It was well paced and never gave you a moment to breath. I enjoyed it from beginning to end but I don't feel the need to watch it again and again. I give this movie a solid B

Friday, November 23, 2012

Podcasts, Hobbits & Screeners... Oh My!!

Today was a fairly productive day. I spent a good six or seven hours working on the next two episodes of my MASH 4077 Podcast. Got them edited and uploaded and ready to go with show notes and all.

Peter Jackson released a ninth production blog, this time it was all about post production, and for me being a post super it was a lot of fun seeing how they go about things in post. All nine of these videos are amazing and so informative. I do hope these production videos wind up on the Blu ray when it comes out. I'm super stoked about seeing the Hobbit in a few weeks (Dec. 3rd). It's going to be AMAZING...



And just when I thought I was only getting that one screener (Amour) this week I checked my mail and sure enough there were two more.. Flight and a movie I was actually considering going to the theater this weekend to see because I wanted to see it so much Rise of the Guardians. Super excited to sit down and watch that one. Flight wasn't on my list to see but I'll watch it if one of my friends wants to watch it with me.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Thanksgiving - Food and Family


This year for Thanksgiving I went to Aunt Joyce's place. She moved there a little over a year ago and this was going to be the first family event she has put on. She lives about an hour and twenty minutes away from me but with the horrible LA traffic and the way the GPS took me, it took over 2 and a half hours to get to her place.

Joining me for this Thanksgiving was of course my Aunt Joyce, Uncle Marty, Cousin Matt, Cousin Austin, Mother, Father, Step Father, Brother, Sister-in-law, nephew, niece and grandmother.  So it was a good amount of family. When I got there my mom, step dad and grandmother were already there. I helped a bit with he dinner until my brother arrived and dinner was ready. As always with my Aunt's cooking the food was fantastic.

Afterward we played a game of Yahtzee before my mom, step dad and grandmother left. Then we played a few more games of Yahtzee before my brother, sister-in-law, niece, nephew and dad left. I was the last guest there and played a game of Cards Against Humanity with my Aunt Joyce and Cousin Matt. 

It was a fun day filled with family and food.. two of my favorite things.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Podcasts and Screeners

Not a lot happening today.. it was way to windy to do any painting outside. Instead I stayed inside and caught up on some TV recorded on my DVR. I did manage to worked on the next episode of my Knights of the Guild podcast. It wasn't to complicated of an episode and only took for about two hours to finish, upload and release.

Knights of the Guild Episode #45 Show notes.. On set of "I'm The One That's Cool" music video, I interview "Extras" Jen, Anne and Gabe and Costume Designer / Wardrobe,  Kristen Ingram

Besides the podcast I really didn't do anything productive. I also got my first screener of the week, Amour. Never heard of this movie but looked it up and it looks to be a very depressing drama love story. Now sure I'll be watching it anytime soon but if I do I'm sure I'll blog about it.

LOTR Tattoo - One Week Later

Well it's been a week since I got my Lord of the Rings tattoo and I have to say that's it's healing great. I mean it's itching like crazy but that's a good sign. Another week of maintenance and it should be good to go.

It's funny I was checking out my tattoo in the mirror and I noticed that my Hogwarts tattoo (on my other arm) is a little lower then this one and me being super anal, it kind of bugged me. When I was getting the tattoo I was so focusing so much on making sure it was center on my arm and all I didn't think about it being symmetrical to my other tattoo on the other arm. Honestly it's not a big deal and if it was there is nothing I can do about it now.. it's not like I can take it off and move it down a few inches :)

I'm already getting excited for the fourth Tattoo which I'll be getting next year. It's going to be a Star Trek thing and it's going on my left calf as I have Star Wars (R2D2) on my right calf. Just have to come up with what I want. I know it's going to be Borg related.. just have to work out the details.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Twitter & Brownie Coats

I'm obsessed with Twitter, I have been since it started many years ago. There's not a day that goes by where I'm not tweeting at least a few times. I don't tweet about what I'm eating or anything to crazy like that. I basically use Twitter to keep my friends and family updated on what's happening in my life. I also use it to promote my podcasts and blog. I try and mix it up with geeky things and some personal things. I also use twitter to be up to date on the latest news. Breaking news hits twitter before it hits anywhere else.

Today I reached 2400 followers. That means that 2400 people receive my tweets when I post. That just blows my mind. I know being a podcaster (& The Guild) has helped me get some of those followers but they must like what I am tweeting as they are sticking around. I never thought I would have this many followers when I started. Obviously I'd be lying if I said I didn't like it. Being someone who has always been super shy and in the shadows for so long it's nice to get some attention now and then.

If you want to follow me on twitter just click on the LINK.

Speaking of Twitter.. I saw a tweet from i09 mentioning a Firefly thing with a link to a picture, so I clicked on it and saw this very adorable drawing/picture of the crew of Firefly as kids. It was titled Brownie Coats. I instantly fell in love with it and had to have a print. I clicked on the comments and noticed that someone had asked if prints were available and the artist said yes and all we had to do was email him. He was selling prints for only $15 plus $5 for shipping. This print was so worth the $20.

I also checked out his website and he had some amazing and geeky drawings beside this Firefly one. In particular he had two Lord of the Rings prints that I inquired about and those too had prints you could bye for $15 each.. I couldn't pass up those so I got all three prints.



Well today I got my Brownie Coats prints and it's AWESOME... the two LOTR prints will be arriving later in the week.

You can check out more of his stuff here on his blog http://www.patrickballesteros.blogspot.com/
He also have a website you can check out his other stuff http://www.patrickballesteros.com/

If you're interested in any of his things you can email him at patrick.ballesteros@gmail.com with any questions or requests.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Christmas Time

Yes I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet and I normally wouldn't even consider putting up my Christmas decoration until the Friday after Thanksgiving but since I'm not going to be around the last two weeks of December, as I'm going to be spending Christmas and New Years with Chris up in Montana. I wanted to start celebrating early.

Christmas is my favorite holiday and I love decorating and listening to Christmas music. So today I finished what I started over the weekend. I got my tree completely done and added the garland, lights and bulbs anywhere I could. I decorated about the same amount as I did the past few years. I normally go all out with lights outside on the house but since I live in a rural area and it would take so much work to do it I haven't done that since I moved to his house.

I have to say decorating alone isn't much fun but I did put on a Pandora Christmas station and just immersed myself info the Christmas spirit.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Twilight & Christmas Tree

Aaron and I got up around 9am, I made some breakfast and we watched Mockingbird Land. As Aaron had not seen it yet and I am saving it on my DVR. After that we started to watch.. yep you guess it.. another Lifetime Christmas special (it's a sickness :)).

He left around 11am and I bummed around the house and flipped the channels and noticed that Twilight was about to start. Now I haven't seen a single Twilight movie, which is strange since I'm into most things that are pop-culture. I did read/listen to the first book while commuting and enjoyed it and I've always wanted to watch the movies. So I figured since I caught it at the beginning I would take the few hours and watch it.

Of course I tweeted that I was watching Twilight for the first time and as expected received several response like "don't go to the darkside", or "don't rot your brain". There seems to be this negative stereotype that goes along with these books/movies... I never understood it. Lucky for me I don't care what people say, I like to judge things for myself. I still get flack because of my love for the Star Wars prequel... and yes regardless of what you say, I am still a true Star Wars fans even if I do love those movies.

Anyways back to Twilight, like I said I read the first book so I kind of had an idea where the story was going. And I have to say that I really enjoyed the movie, it was entertaining, fun, had some cool effects. It was your typical popcorn movie. It was cool to see how they portrayed the various characters compared to the book. They also cut quite a bit of the book out of the movie, but that's to be expected as this is an adaptation. I enjoyed it so much so that I want to see the sequels (and in fact recorded New Moon, which was airing next). I can see me buying the movies on blu ray in the future. Would I call myself Twihard... not yet :), but I am defiantly a fan and look forward to reading the rest of the books and seeing the other movies.

I could have watched the next Twilight movie but I really wanted to get something done so I put up my Christmas Tree and decorated it. It was nice because it was cold outside so I started a fire as I decorated the tree. I hope to get the rest of the house decorations up in the next few days. I'll post pictures when everything is done. I love Christmas.. it's my favorite time of the year.