Life List: I Fully Support Your Avenging

I've wanted to go to a drive-in movie for literally years. YEARS. There was one in Oklahoma City when I was living there, but for some reason in four years of college, I never once made the trip up there.

I'm not even totally sure why I was SO into the idea. I mean, the only time I'd ever even seen anything about drive-in movies was this:

Why was there a swingset in front of the movie screen in Grease?

It just seemed so quaint! Like going back in time.

Anyway, we discovered that there was a drive-in theater nearby, and so Matt suggested we go see The Avengers: Age of Ultron when it was playing last weekend.

Starlite Drive-In Theater

We got there pretty early and there was already a line of cars pulled along the side of the road waiting to get into the gates before they opened. Once we got in and got our tickets, a sign directed us to park in the back three rows because we were in a truck.

We picked the first of the back three rows to get closer to the screen.

Once we parked, we made for the snack bar. Typical snack-bar foods. I can't say I was super impressed by the options, but we had brought a small cooler's worth of food in with us too, so we had plenty of snacks for the movie.

You can see in the photo above that they even had those audio boxes you hang on your window! I tried to use the one next to us, but it wasn't working. I'm not sure if they're supposed to work, or if the theater stopped using them since you can now play the audio over your car speakers by tuning into a specific radio station.

They didn't show any previews, which was fine by me, but there also weren't any cute, old pre-show snack-bar ads like Grease had, either. Oh well.

I hadn't seen the first Avengers movie, nor any of the movies of any of the other superheroes involved, with the exception of the first Iron Man. So I didn't really have any expectations for the movie. But I thought it was pretty good. There were a lot of explosions, and you had to ignore the reality of some pretty big things like gravity and science, but it was entertaining, and I was just excited to be there. :)

It was a lot of fun, and definitely a different experience! Matt thinks that once we trade my truck in — likely before next winter, because there were times I thought I might die in Esmeralda this past winter — if I end up with a smaller car, we should come back and park in one of the rows further up. Even though there weren't that many rows, we were still far enough back that he had some trouble seeing the details of the movie, with his bad eyesight. (I thought it was fine where we were, but I would have liked to sit closer too.)

Have you been to a drive-in theater? And here's my real question: Who would win in a fight, the Avengers or the X-Men? (I had this conversation with Matt the other morning. He said Thor would destroy the X-Men because he was basically all powerful. I said Magneto would destroy Thor, and Iron Man and Captain America too. He said Magneto wasn't actually one of the X-Men, but either way, Hulk would destroy Magneto. What say you?)

I Don't Know Lots of Things About World War II

Perhaps this is presumptuous, but despite not being alive yet in the 1940s and 1950s, I thought that I had a pretty good grasp of the goings-on during World War II. Through high school and college, it was one of only two historical periods that I was interested in (the other being Tudor England), and I didn't care at all about any of my other history classes.

Thankfully I've become more interested in other time periods since then, because there's a lot of interesting stuff that's happened in the world, but WWII still fascinates me. And there have been a few good books and movies that I've experienced lately that have shown me just how little my pool of knowledge is. There is SO MUCH that I didn't know, and, I'm sure, still so much to learn.

"The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II" by Denise Kiernan

I started thinking about my knowledge — or lack thereof — when one of my book clubs chose to read "The Girls of Atomic City" a few months back. The book is about the compounds at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the women (and men) who worked to build the Atomic bombs that fell at the end of the war. Only they didn't know what they were working on, they were just recruited for these high-paying government jobs and knew they were contributing to the war effort, but the project was kept so hush-hush that no one ever talked about what they were doing. I found it fascinating because I really had no concept of the Manhattan Project and what the U.S. was doing through most of the war (though I did watch Bomb Girls on Netflix? and it was kind of sort of similar, except in Canada?). Most of the people in my book club didn't like "The Girls of Atomic City" and tore it to shreds, but I thought it was interesting, even if it had some weaknesses. (I agreed that there were too many characters and that they were difficult to distinguish [there was a summary of characters, places and events at the beginning for reference], but thought the overall view of the Project was very interesting.)

The Imitation Game

A few weeks back, Matt and I went to go see The Imitation Game at this little local theater by campus, and sorry to yell but IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS YOU SHOULD DO SO IMMEDIATELY. It was fantastic. Benedict Cumberbatch is so good. Everyone in it is so good. It's about the code-breakers at Bletchley Park in England, led by mathematician Alan Turing, and how they were trying to crack the Enigma machine that the Germans were using to communicate with their military. It was deemed to be an impossible task, as there were some 190,000,000 possible settings for Enigma and the settings were changed every night at midnight. The movie was wonderful, funny, fast-paced, heartbreaking and smart all at once. Now I very much want to pick up the book that it was based off, "Alan Turing: The Enigma." (Catherine has also suggested the show The Bletchley Circle, which is on Netflix, but I haven't gotten around to seeing it yet. Also, I have since read about some inaccuracies in the script, but it was still a beautifully done movie.)




"All The Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

I loved this book. Loved loved loved. Marie-Laure is a blind French girl who evacuates Paris during the German occupation to live with her uncle. Werner is a German orphan that is recruited into the German army when it's discovered that he has a talent for fixing radios. Two teenagers growing up in war-time with such different expectations for life.

I loved the main characters. I loved the secondary characters. I loved that the good guys were flawed, and that the bad guys could have been good guys, depending on your perspective. I loved that this book gave me such a unique glimpse into the German armies: prior to reading "All The Light," I had this idea of what a Nazi was, and what that person must be/believe, and this book completely threw me through a loop; the idea that there were people fighting under the German flag that may not have agreed with any of the things the Nazis were doing, but that were afraid to refuse to fight for their country? It was a fascinating perspective and an excellent read, and it made for a GREAT book club discussion.

What historical periods are you obsessed with? Have you read any good historical books — fiction or non — lately?

Infidelity and Movie Adaptations

Because I'd never seen any of Woody Allen's movies before, I put several of them on my Netflix list and watched them back to back: Annie Hall, Match Point, Midnight in Paris.

I also recently finished reading The Last Letter From Your Lover, and The Emperor's Children. I'm about 1/4 of the way through Anna Karenina. (You can follow me on Goodreads here.)

On Sunday, we finally watched the Leonardo DiCaprio version of The Great Gatsby.

All of these pieces of art were lovely (except Annie Hall, I hated Annie Hall), but after the credits rolled on Gatsby, I just felt this overwhelming sadness.

I'm tired of watching movies and reading stories about infidelity. Do we, as a culture, have this idea that staying with your partner, fulfilling your vows, loving one person until death do you part is boring? I don't think it has to be boring. I don't think it has to be cheesy or sappy either, ahem, Nicholas Sparks.

It makes me sad that, off the top of my head, the only happily married book or movie characters I can think of are Arthur and Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter series.

I know that books and movies are a means of escaping your own life for a bit, but why do we want so badly to escape into lives that are even more messed up than our own? What is the appeal of escaping into someone else's life, when theirs is in shambles from their poor decisions or the decisions of their significant other?

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My friend Sara and I went to see Divergent yesterday. We both really enjoyed it, despite both of us having major problems with/reservations about the book (though I hear many of my problems with it get answered in the third book; I just got book two from the library). Shailene Woodley was a much better actress than I expected her to be, and made the character of Tris much more likable than she was in the book. We agreed that it was probably one of the best book-to-movie adaptations we'd seen, with so little detail left out.

On the way back home, we were talking about Woodley's next role in The Fault in Our Stars, which is coming out this summer. I really, really want to see it. Because the author was involved in the production, I figure he couldn't ruin his own book by making the movie not as good, right? Sara didn't want to see it at all, because she loved the book so much and couldn't bear the thought of the movie not living up to the book.

Which makes sense. It's a good, hard read. I've read it twice, and both times Matt has walked in on me clutching the book to my chest and sobbing. It makes you think about life, and death, and it seems like a daunting task to take it from words into pictures. I just hope they can do justice to such a beautiful book.

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Have you seen Divergent? What is your favorite book-to-movie adaptation? Are there any topics that you're tired of reading about?

Look At All The Movies I Haven't Seen!

I know everyone and their mother is going to be recapping the Golden Globes today, letting the internet know which dresses they loved and which ones were just plain bad. But because other people can do that so much better than I can, instead I want to tell you what I was doing while the Golden Globes were on.

Matt and I really don't go to the movies all that often, which is a CRYING SHAME because in College Station, movies are only $4 a ticket. I managed to miss all the movies that were nominated for anything. So I spent the evening with my Netflix page open, adding movie after movie to my queue in the hopes that someday I'll get around to seeing all of them. Most of them were current nominations, but some were ones I missed wayyy before this year.

Annie Hall
When they did that tribute to Woody Allen for having like a billion (okay 74) movies out in the last 40 years and he won whatever award that was, they showed a whole bunch of clips from a bunch of Woody Allen movies, and I realized that I have not seen a single one of them in my entire life. So Annie Hall had to go on the list, because it seems like that was one of the more iconic movies of his career. I also added Take the Money and Run, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona was already on there.

The Wolf of Wall Street
I also added this one to my reading list, because the previews were so compelling and books are always better than the movies based on them. But then I got a text message from my sister, and this was her review of the movie: "Well, it was three hours long for one. It never seemed to end. And there was a TON of drug use and vivid prostitution. It was good, just way too long. I think it's worth it if you're prepared to sit for three hours. But they really didn't hold back. They show like everything. [Matteo, Rachel's boyfriend] says it will be worth watching on Netflix. Or Redbox. Lol So you can pause and stuff."

Plus I found out via the Golden Globes that it boasts 500+ F-words in three hours. I'm kind of amazed they were able to string together a preview at all. But I still kind of want to see it.

Dallas Buyers Club
Both Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto won awards for Dallas Buyers Club, and I really want to see it. I've heard amazing things about it. (I told Matt that Mr. All Right All Right All Right won, and he was like, "The guy from Fool's Gold??" Yes. The guy from Fool's Gold. Worst movie ever.) And while I normally don't like movies about illnesses that kill you, this seems like it comes from a different angle than the usual ones.

Honorable Mentions
I had not even heard of a LOT of the nominated movies last night, so for no particular reason other than they looked interesting, I also added Enough Said (which from the description actually sounds kind of cheesy Lifetime), American Hustle (duh, JLaw is my BFF), Frozen (HOW DID I MISS THIS MOVIE?), Her (a unique movie idea in Hollywood?! It's a miracle!) and Labor Day (which I didn't realize was even nominated until like an hour in, but they played the preview about 6000 times during the broadcast). Obviously, Behind the Candelabra was already on the list, because ... um. I don't have a good reason. Sequins?

Have you seen any of the movies that were nominated? How often do you go to the movies?

(all images from IMDB)

"Extreme Cheapskates" Makes My Head Explode

Have you seen this new TLC show "Extreme Cheapskates"? It's like a train wreck. You can't look away even though it's awful and you feel bad for every person involved.

I was channel surfing last night while eating dinner, and I came across "Cheapskates" in the middle of an episode. It featured a woman who was trying to help her daughter plan a wedding on a shoe-string budget. Now, I'm all for bring frugal. I know a few women who had very small wedding budgets and still managed to pull off lovely, joyful celebrations. But when you're buying a pee-covered wedding dress at a pawn shop? And serving your guests mayo-and-Wonder bread cheese sandwiches for the reception? Um, something might have snapped in your head. Don't even get me started on the eight-months-pregnant woman in the next episode who would go dumpster-diving behind hospitals for pre-natal vitamins. (I watched like four episodes before I couldn't handle it anymore.)

Then there was the couple that shares not only a toothbrush, but also a single piece of floss and a single cotton swab. This show just makes me feel gross.

I mean, seriously??? I consider myself to be an expert penny-pincher, but I would NEVER share my razor with Matt. You've gotta keep SOME mystery in the relationship, right?! Besides, you can get floss for free from the dentist when you go in for a cleaning, so how much is that really saving you? Same with toothbrushes. GET YOUR OWN.

Then there was the girl who was earning $4k a month at her job, but would bring her own food to restaurants and ask the server to heat it up for her. And this is where I started to get REALLY pissed off. If you're too cheap to eat out in restaurants, DON'T GO TO RESTAURANTS. If you're too cheap to pay for a wedding cake, DON'T TRY TO LOW-BALL THE BAKERY. If you are too cheap to pay for paint for your baby's nursery, DON'T TRY TO HAGGLE AT THE LOCAL HARDWARE STORE. I mean, these people that run these small businesses have to make a living too!  (No one was trying to pull this crap at Wal-Mart or Home Depot or Chili's — it was always the little places.)

I'm all for getting a good price, but that's what shopping around is for! I feel like the people on this show are incredibly rude — not for wanting to get a good deal, but for taking advantage of local service providers. Small business owners (of which I am one) have to decide what their products and services are worth based on expertise, project scope, market rates, overhead, supply/demand, and a myriad of other factors. I would be royally insulted if someone tried to argue that I should work for free just because they don't want to pay. I have to pay bills just like you do. OH WAIT, most of the people on this show live with their parents, so they can force mom and dad to foot the bills instead. (Dude, you're a professional wrestler. Your mom should not be shaving your back every day.)

Have you watched "Extreme Cheapskates"? What do you think of these antics? Do you consider yourself to be cheap?

Blogtember: "Girls" Makes Me Feel Old

I'm participating in Blogtember, at least when there's a prompt about which I have something to say. :) Blogtember is hosted by Story of My Life. Today's prompt: Pass on some useful advice or information you learned and always remembered.



Do you watch Girls? I don't. I've tried. I understand the point of the show, and Lena Dunham's other work — that when kids graduate college today, it's a lot harder to get a job, support yourself and keep up the standard of living you had when your parents paid for everything — but it just irks me to watch. I hate that they're so entitled. I'm only a few years older than the characters, but watching this show makes me feel like a crotchety old lady. I just want to tell them to make better life choices.

And why are they always such a mess? I mean, no one really has it together all the time, but is it that hard to run a brush through your hair before you go to a job interview or on a date? (That's all I could think about when I watched Dunham's Tiny Furniture.)

Yesterday, I didn't dry my hair. And I had a work appointment in the afternoon, so when I got home from tap class, I decided not to fight my hair's natural texture, and I curled it instead of flat-ironing it. And that was when I found my inspiration for this prompt.

Hey Girls girls! You DO know it's possible to see the back of your head when you're doing your hair, right?

My mom taught my sister and me that all you needed to make sure your hair looked nice all the way around was a hand mirror. And then you just turn your back on the big mirror, and hold up the hand mirror so you can see a reflection of your hair.

Magic!

I thought that this was one of those things that everyone knew, but maybe I'm wrong? But it's so simple. And it prevents you from looking like a ragamuffin.

(I sound like my mother.)

Did your mom teach you anything that's stuck with you?

Being Okay With Being Alone

My sister is terrified to do things alone. If she doesn't have someone to eat with, she'll order takeout. If she doesn't have someone to hang out with, she'll stay home. One time she tried to go to the movies by herself, and the guy at the counter made a comment about her being alone, so she cried and went home without seeing the film.

Meanwhile, a friend in my book club said that she loves going to the movies alone. She said every weekend for years, after she dropped her kids off at their dad's house, she would stop at the theater on the way home, and it became her own personal time; a little ritual. She said it was something I absolutely had to try.

Even Matt has been to the movies alone. But for some reason, the idea was incredibly intimidating to me, even though I've eaten alone, and generally don't mind flying solo.

But I really, really wanted to see Jobs. And Matt really, really didn't. So I went by myself.

via USA Today

And really, the experience wasn't that exciting or unnerving. I went, I bought my ticket, I sat down in the theater. It wasn't very crowded, and I was early, so I sat and read my book and tried to tune out the "pre-show entertainment." I watched the movie. It ended, I left, and I had time to let it marinate before deciding whether I liked it or not.

The only downside to going alone is that there's no one to watch your purse if you have to go to the bathroom after you're already in the theater.

The movie was pretty good, though I thought it ended rather abruptly. It focused a lot on Steve Jobs' early life, and then seemed to gloss over the last 15 or so years of his life, and I wish it had slowed down a little at the end. Especially because those years contain the stuff I remember growing up with: the first iMac with the five fruit-colored exterior options, the original blue and orange iBook laptops, the first generation iPod and how it changed the way we consumed music (which they do touch on very briefly at the very beginning of the movie, but I would have liked to see more).

There is almost nothing about the end of his life, his famous keynote and commencement speeches, his battle with cancer. It just kind of ended at the concept vision of the first-generation iMac.

Overall, I thought it was good, and Ashton Kutcher did a really good job of portraying Steve Jobs. All of the actors looked eerily similar to the people they were portraying (they show side-by-side images in the credits). I would recommend it, especially if you are an Apple fan, though I can see how this movie wouldn't mean as much to someone who doesn't love the products.

Would you go to the movies alone? Have you seen Jobs? What other movies have you seen lately?

What I'm Watching

I've picked up a couple of new TV shows in the past couple of weeks. See, most of the shows I watch over the summer are also ones that Matt wants to watch too — like MasterChef and So You Think You Can Dance (at least once they get to Vegas Week) — so when he's not around, I need things to watch that are just for me. I've found a lot of them. :)

Devious Maids

via

It's part telenovela, part murder mystery! It follows the lives of five maids as they work in rich people's homes. Everyone has secrets, and even the good people are kind of bad, and everyone is always trying to stab everyone else in the back — literally, sometimes. (In the first few minutes of the first episode, a maid named Flora gets stabbed to death after it's revealed that she's sleeping with the owner of the house behind his wife's back.) It's so juicy and entertaining to watch, and I want to share more plot points but it would totally ruin it for you. It's on Lifetime on Sundays, and the most recent episode is available on Hulu. Back episodes are available on Sidereel.

Orange is the New Black

via

In this gotta-know-what-happens-next drama, Piper Chapman is a former lesbian-adventure-seeker turned straight-and-straight-laced-WASPy-fiancée, when she is sentenced to 15 months in prison for that one time she moved drug money out of the country. It flashes forward and backwards in her life to show different aspects — from her life with her fiancée to her relationship with bad-news-girlfriend — but mainly focuses on her time in Litchfield Federal Prison and her typically failed attempts to keep her head down and stay out of trouble. You can watch all the episodes in the first season on Netflix, and if you're anything like me, you will power through all 13 episodes in like, three days.

Of course, those are only the NEW shows. Other stuff I'm watching this summer?

Project Runway

via

The new season just started! And Tim Gunn gets a say in the results this time! And love her or hate her, Kate's back! On Lifetime Thursdays, and the latest episode is always on Hulu.

Perception

via

It's back for a second season! YAY! Eric McCormack is Daniel Pierce, a schizophrenic psych professor, and his hallucinations help the FBI solve murders. It's all psychology and making sure the baddies get caught. What's not to love? Come for the drama, stay for the sexual tension between Pierce and his FBI contact, Agent Moretti (played by Rachael Leigh Cook). Watch it on TNT Tuesdays, and back episodes on Sidereel.

Burn Notice

via

Okay, I'm really behind; I'm only in season 5, and I think they're already airing season 7 or 8, but I love this show and watch it on Netflix all the time. Michael Westen used to be a spy, and now he tries to help people who have gotten themselves caught up in trouble, whether it's an illegal scheme, or just innocent people whose loved ones are in danger. It usually involves having secret identities and driving fancy cars and blowing things up, with the help of his friends Fiona and Sam. Also, Michael is totally hot. New episodes air on USA on Thursdays, but you really should watch from the beginning. You can find the early episodes on Netflix.

What shows are you loving this summer?

*Gargling noises*

I had the sore throat from hell this weekend, accompanied by a lovely mucus-y cough, nausea, achiness and an awesome headache. The only reason I know it's not the flu is because my darling husband forced me to get a flu shot this year (again).

So while I was camped out on the couch or in bed, I needed things to occupy my time. Here's how that went.

1) Watch eight or ten episodes of Downton Abbey in a row. I'm late to the party, and just started watching, and it took me a few episodes to really get into it, but now I'm about halfway through the second season. How good is it though?! Nobody spoil anything, but I totally want Mary and Matthew to wind up together, even if they're cousins and that's weird. And I think Anna and Bates are adorable together and his horrible blackmailing wife needs to go away. Also, I love the theme song. If my life had a soundtrack, I'd want the theme song to be on it.

2) Play a whole lot of Candy Crush. Again, late to the party. (Man, why don't I ever pick up on trends when they actually become popular?) That hasn't stopped me from powering through 40-some-odd levels in four days.

3) Drink a two-liter of Diet Sprite. I have a very nice husband who has so far managed to not get sick in the last few weeks, despite the fact that I keep coming down with random coughs and aches. He goes to CVS and buys me Sprite, because that is what you drink when you are sick. Being a nice wife — and assuming Matt would get sick too — I offered to let him go get me some Diet Sprite so he could drink it too, without it messing up his blood sugar. But Diet Sprite is not the same as regular Sprite, and I believe it does not contain the same healing powers that regular Sprite does, and that must be why I keep falling ill.

4) When tired of drinking aspartame, switch to green tea with honey. My college roommate was a big believer that tea could cure everything. We had an entire cabinet in our apartment devoted to the stuff, and naturally I couldn't stand drinking it, especially when I was sick, because Sprite is for sick! But hot tea + sugar packet + a big squirt of honey is preferable to feeling like I'm being stabbed in the throat, and Diet Sprite isn't very soothing.

5) Sleep. Don't get me wrong, I do like sleeping when I'm actually doing it, but I'm not one of those people who likes to go to bed, because there are usually other things happening that sound like more fun. That said, I've been sleeping real good this weekend. Nothing like cough syrup to knock you out. (Kids, don't do drugs. Also my cough syrup is non-drowsy, and I didn't even take the full dosage.  Maybe it was a sugar crash from all that green tea.)

What do you do when you're home sick? Any habits that have stuck with you since childhood?

In Which Wolverine Can't Catch a Break

We were supposed to read the abriged version of Les Miserables in high school, and I'm pretty sure that not only did I not read a single page of the book, but I know I saw the play when I was in high school, and I'm also pretty sure I don't remember any of it.

So when the previews for the movie first came out, I asked Matt to explain the plot to me (he was a good kid and read about 2/3 of the abriged version before he gave up). And what I want to know is, how did I NOT read this book?? His description sounded all dramatic and awesome and like the kind of thing I would enjoy, so I don't know how I totally missed it.

Anyway, we're several weeks later than everyone else, but we finally saw the movie over the weekend. I really enjoyed it! I actually did recognize most of the songs once I heard them. The music was gorgeous, and I was quite impressed that several of the songs appeared to be filmed in a single take (go Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway!). I'd heard complaints about Russell Crowe's vocal performance as Javert, but I thought he did a good job and that he fit his role well. Everyone seemed so well-cast. I especially loved Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen in their roles; I normally can't stand him, but apparently he is a great actor when he's not playing idiotic characters.

While we were walking out of the theater, Matt and I were trying to determine if anyone was auto-tuned, specifically Russell Crowe (Matt mentioned that some of the notes in his songs are higher in the original musical) and Amanda Seyfried (since she had some really high notes, though I reminded Matt that she was also in the Mamma Mia! movie musical, and therefore probably could sing that well). But I looked on IMDB and there wasn't any mention of messing with the audio. All the more impressive if there wasn't!

Have you seen the movie? What did you think?

Amazing

I'm not quite ready to come back yet (though thank you for your comments last week, this week is going much better), but since I posted a teaser about our Halloween costumes earlier in October, I had to share how the final result turned out. And you guys, it was AWESOME.

They turned out better than I could have expected! I feel like we look like an actual team that could be on the show. And Matt did a great job on the "clue" for us to carry around.

We went to a church Halloween party and had so many people tell us they want to be on Amazing Race so badly. Some people also thought we were hikers, but that's okay (it probably didn't help that I arrived late, and then Matt had to leave early, so half the time one of us was by ourselves).

I also ate two cupcakes for dinner, and that was awesome.

What did you end up doing for Halloween? What was the best costume you saw?

Our Million-Dollar-Winning Halloween Costumes

I'm starting to think about Halloween costumes early this year. Normally, I wait until the absolute last minute, at which point I'm either going to hit it out of the park or get stuck with a stupid idea. Usually I manage to come up with a fun idea that, thankfully, requires very little work. (See previous years: Spaghetti Cat, Lacey from Rock of Love.)

It's basically the same costume, plus or minus pasta and VIP pass.

However, last year was a total fail. I wound up having no ideas and a party to go to in like half an hour, so I put on Matt's Aggie overalls and called it a costume. It was super embarrassing for my Sooner self. I'm not showing you a picture of that.

But this year! Oh this year I started thinking about it at the end of September. And while watching the season premiere of one of our favorite shows, The Amazing Race, it occurred to me — our first ever couples' costume should be a team competing for the $1,000,000 prize!

Here's what we will need to make this happen:

T-shirt; Shorts; Bandana; Backpack: Athletic Shoes. And some swagger. Also, maybe a made-up yellow and red clue card.

Luckily we already have pretty much everything we need to do this costume, except that I'll probably go to Hobby Lobby and get us matching T-shirts for $4 or something.

What are you going to be for Halloween?

Routine, Interrupted

Matt and I watch a good amount of TV. We're young, we're busy and we like to eat dinner while watching our favorite shows. (Not that I need justification, but we genuinely use our TV time to bond, and until a time comes when we have impressionable velociraptors running around, I don't see a problem with it.)

But all of our shows have now ended for the season. We have to wait several more months to get new episodes of The Big Bang Theory and The Amazing Race, and as much as I love How I Met Your Mother, I'm getting kind of tired of the re-runs.

True story. via

And now that The Pitch has finished it's short summer run, we are down to one show on the DVR for the summer.

ONE.

And it is So You Think You Can Dance.

So we're in desperate need of summer shows. I'm not really interested in things that aren't currently airing. We don't have streaming Netflix and we don't usually watch TV on our computers. We don't have HBO, Showtime, or any channel that is above 100 on the cable box. We just want to watch SOMETHING that is entertaining, on any day of the week, that can get us through the summer until better stuff comes on.

What are you watching this summer? What do you recommend?

Halloweentown Cake

Because it's Friday, and this is cool.

Tim Burton-inspired cake by Alexandre Dubosc / via Colossal

Got any fun plans for the long weekend?

Obsessed with The Hunger Games

If you're anything like me, you've been obsessed about anything and everything Hunger Games-related in eager anticipation of the movie coming out. A friend of mine got us tickets to the midnight premiere, and I am SO excited. I've been watching the red carpet footage in hopes of hearing more about the movie. I've looked up any extra scenes or related footage that may not have been promoted as heavily as the trailers were. I've even watched a couple of spoofs of the trailer, because I just can't help myself:

The Hungry Games. Hilarious. via Yahoo Screen

But I have never been to a midnight premiere that wasn't for the Harry Potter movies. Am I supposed to have a costume? (I probably should have thought of this more than two days before the movie comes out.) It seems kind of creepy to dress as any character other than Katniss/Peeta or someone from the Capitol, since *SPOILER* almost everyone else dies *SPOILER*.

What do you think? Are you going to see the movie at midnight? Have you seen any good clips that I'm missing?

Big Love

I'm normally a comedy/reality TV junkie, but about a year ago one of my BFFs told me I needed to Netflix Big Love. And OH. MY. GOSH. did I get addicted to that show really fast. Sometimes Matt comes home from work while I'm watching it, and he will watch for a few minutes, but not before I have to spend about 20 minutes telling him all the DRAMAZ that happened in the previous hour-long episode.

via Entertainment Weekly

For those who have never seen it, Big Love is a drama about a polygamist family — a husband, his three wives and nine children — as they navigate life both behind closed doors and in public, while dealing with a painful family histories and a corrupt, self-declared prophet that aims to interfere in every aspect of their lives.

I'm at the beginning of season 5, and I know this is the last season, and I don't want it to end because the show is FASCINATING and grip-the-edge-of-your-seat good, and filled with so much drama it makes my head spin. I can barely fathom that this is almost the end, because there is still so much left up in air!

And it's really frustrating that the DVD-makers only put two or three episodes per disc, because I rush through them all in a day, and then I have to ship the DVD back, and wait to receive one of Matt's movies (because we alternate to be fair), and then wait for him to watch his movie and send it back before I can get the next one.

Did anyone else watch Big Love when it was on? What shows are you obsessed with?

Trick or Treat

I'm normally not a fan of horror movies, creepy stories or anything else that might give me nightmares. But I'm making an exception for a brilliant idea.

Have you been to Take This Lollipop yet? This video project has become a viral sensation, with it's disturbing portrayal of a man who is stalking ... you.

image via Advertising Age

That's right. With your permission, Take This Lollipop connects to your Facebook page and integrates your photos, location and friends into a short "horror" film that is not only legitimately freaky, but also an awesome message on protecting your information online.

Happy Halloween.

Do you like scary movies?

At The Close

I went to see the last Harry Potter movie at midnight last night. I can't believe it's actually over. I got the first book for my eleventh birthday, and actually believed I might get my Hogwarts letter too. I have invested more than a decade in this series. And now it's done.

WAY past our bedtime. Matt had a 5-hour Energy shot and a gigantic Diet Coke, and was still tired.

I didn't get a chance to come up with a costume like I had for so many previous movie and book premieres, but luckily my friend A sent me an early birthday gift — a T-shirt of the seven horcruxes — and I wore that instead. I have such awesome friends.

Harry and friends, I've enjoyed your adventures. Farewell ... until the DVD box set comes out ...

Anyone else head to the midnight premiere? Did you dress up?