Friday, February 27, 2009

Edibles

Well, it's no wonder why I struggle with eating too much food -- most of the time I am very thankful for something delicious.

  • Dried cherries
  • Oatmeal
  • Back-rubs
  • The excitement of possibly a good movie (Watchmen)
  • A good story

Monday, February 23, 2009

Family, food and fun

Last week's thanks are late because I was on vacation all week. So I start this list appropriately:

  • Vacation
  • Cooking Day (1407 meatballs!)
  • A family that laughs
  • Pasta

Friday, February 13, 2009

To my love

In honor of Valentine's this weekend, here are several things about my husband I am very thank for:

  • His beautiful blue eyes
  • His kind heart
  • His strive to be the best
  • His desire to always do right
  • His thirst for knowledge
  • His quirky uniqueness
  • His attempts to make me laugh
  • His love of movies
  • And of course, I am most grateful for his love for me

Friday, February 06, 2009

Hanging in there

Another tough week with bad news all around. This week's few bright spots:

  • Spending a day with my husband watching movies and talking
  • Friends that try help and support me
  • Coworkers that send funny emails

Monday, February 02, 2009

Mini Movie Marathon

So on Saturday, I convinced my husband to go out for a change and see a movie. We started with this vague idea that we'd see one and maybe have lunch and then see if there was time for another. Sometimes it is nice to start a day with little planning in mind. He really wanted to see The Wrestler and I really wanted to see Slumdog Millionaire. I thought we'd start with his choice, but when we got to the theatre, I realized I had swapped the show times in my head so we ended up watching my movie first.

Slumdog Millionaire - Rating: 7. You might be as surprised by that number as I was while watching the movie. This is one of those few times where I let all the press and hype raise my expectations and went in hoping for something spectacular. While I did enjoy the film, it did not impress me the way I had hoped. The music was enjoyable and the acting performances were very good, and although things end on kind of an "up" note, I still left the theatre kind of sad.

So we went to Zios for lunch, where my day did not get any better. I used to love this particular chain restaurant, but things have been slowly going downhill over the past couple of years. Our lunch was edible, but just barely. The service was passable, but again, just barely. So we got in and out of the restaurant pretty quick and decided to try our luck at the theatre again and see Justin's choice.

The Wrestler - Rating: 6. There are certain aspects of this movie that I can respect, but in the end, I didn't feel that it brought anything new to the industry. This time I was not expecting as much, so I didn't come out disappointed. However, my growing depression for the day kind of exploded during that movie. My husband tried to explain it to me later -- tragedy is an accepted form of entertainment. In hindsight, I can see it and even understand -- heck, I've like many of the Hamlet films and other tragedies -- but I was not in the right frame of mind for it on Saturday.

Now that I was in a complete bummed-out mood, we decided to get some pizza for dinner and rent some "happy" movies to watch when we got home. So we got my favorite, Wheat State pizza along with 4 rentals.

Kung Fu Panda - Rating: 9. This is just what I needed. An enjoyable comedy that included the awesomeness of Kung Fu. Nothing like the mixture of laughter and action to make me feel better.

Death Race - Rating: 7. After a movie with more laughter and some action, we switched to one with more action and only some laughter. Again, when you start a movie with low expectations, usually you won't be disappointed. This one actually surprised me a little and I enjoyed it more than I anticipated. And I was literally laughing my head off at the disclaimer shown at the end of the film. For some reason, Hollywood executives think it is more likely that someone will try to duplicate the stunts of cars with Gatling guns, rather than say, the similarly crazy stunts in XXX. Their logic is .... well, laughable.

WALL-E - Rating: 8. Another enjoyable Pixar animation that made me laugh at their prediction of overweight humans on a star-cruise-line. Oh, and I can't wait for the pizza plants!

So that was enough for one day. We saved the fourth rented movie for later, and ended up watching it last night.

Max Payne - Rating: 4. Not much to say about this one.