One of the parties is being held at the new luxury condo high rise downtown as a fund raiser, and that one has peaked my interest. They are having a menu based on the movie, with chinese take out, bottomless cosmopolitans, and cheesecake. There will be a fashion show and a surprise guest appearance – so now I REALLY have an interest in going. It would be fun to have a girls night out and celebrate a fun new movie – I think I’m talking myself into it!

There’s been a lot of publicity for the new movie coming out this weekend based on the Speed Racer cartoons, so I think if it is a rainy weekend we might take the grandkids to the movies to see this movie. If it’s not raining, I’d rather find something for them outside and active, but it’s nice to have a rainy day backup plan.

Something I do for fun when I am watching a DVD on the set with a remote control is to use the Spanish subtitles and then watch it again in Spanish if the DVD has that option. I took Spanish in school and I can understand a lot of it when I hear it, but I never have the opportunity to speak it to anyone. I feel terribly handicapped when I am around a lot of Spanish speaking people and cannot participate in the conversation.

I would love to go to the Spanish immersion camp they host every month out west. You go for 2 weeks and everything around you is in Spanish. Being able to speak it and have feedback from someone interested in helping you improve your speaking ability would be the best part for me.

It is a documentary of the way prison officials in Arkansas and other states allowed the collection of blood from inmates that were infected with contagious diseases, such as HIV and Hepatitis. This contaminated blood was then introduced into the nation’s blood supply and thousands of people were infested with HIV and Hepatitis.

The film is by Kelly Duda and well worth watching, because people are still dying as a result of their actions.

When I was growing up, the father of our next door neighbors worked as an air traffic controller. He was a nice guy to us, but he was pretty mean to his kids. I think he wanted to come home to a quiet house and his 4 kids were typical active and loud kids. There was always a lot of yelling at his house, but no hitting that we knew of. They moved away before we graduated from high school. I often wonder how those kids turned out.

The cool thing about falling asleep to a DVD is that it plays decent music when its over and waiting for you to push start again. The music is like white noise and helps me stay asleep through all the neighborhood night noise, like dogs barking, dummies with their windows down and their boom boom boom on the stereo blasting the air, occasional fire trucks or cop cars, etc.

What a cool idea. I’d like to skip the cheating husband and divorce and depression part, but I’m down with going to Europe. If any of you friends want to send me to Europe – perhaps France? – I will certainly be glad to go.

It was great for families and had a lot of special effects, but the story was the magic behind that movie. To think that an alien would be discovered by and make friends with a boy around 10 years old and have a series of adventures with the boy’s family and friends took a lot of imagination to write.

We watched the movie again just a few nights ago, and I was surprised to see that most everything in that movie was still applicable in today’s world. Kids still play Dungeons and Dragons, which is what they were doing in the beginning scenes of the movie. They still order pizza by phone and have it delivered. Kids still eat Reeses pieces and ride their bikes around their neighborhood. They still hide things from their parents and teachers.
A lot of that movie is almost timeless, and we still enjoyed watching it.

It was a strange movie and I’m still not sure if I liked it. It particularly bothers me that people not living in America might watch it and think that the way these characters behaved is typical for Americans and their values, because I don’t think that is true. At least, I hope not.

If you haven’t seen it, the premise is that a couple of guys are going on a short trip to California’s wine country as a type of bachelor party for Jack. The two guys are good friends but can’t tell the truth to each other nor the several girls that they meet. The comedy is in the consequences for their lying.

My favorite part is at the very end – (yah! it’s over!) when Miles gets manipulated into breaking into someone’s house to get back Jack’s wallet. The very premise and the chase scene that ensues is absolutely hilarious.