17 December 2010

TRON



Seeing anything Sci-Fi and awesome at the movies is cool. Seeing TRON:Legacy in 3D on opening night was fun! Certainly not the “coolest show I've ever seen!”, but definitely worth it.

First off the movie oozed resonance all over the theater. There were Star Wars moments, Star Trek moments, old TRON parts . . . loads of good stuff in there. They beefed up the special effects and someone obviously had a great time flexing their imagination and coming up with new gadgets. The motorcycle scene was probably my favorite, oh, and when the old Flynn takes out the club. The glowing monk robe . . . I liked that.

Either the acting was bad or the writing was bad. I couldn't decide which. I wasn't there to analyze the movie, so I didn't really delve into the problem, but it did seem labored at times. Downright slow at moments, actually. The entire plot was totally predictable, but that's not so bad. The movie was fun to watch and it took us away into a new world! What more can you ask? Oh, and there was even just a bit of fan service for both the ladies and the gentlemen.

If you loved the old TRON (in all its cheezy glory) then you'll surely appreciate all of the bits and pieces they threw into this movie. Good times, good times.

16 December 2010

Blond(e) Moment

Last night I went to water aerobics. Water aerobics involves chlorinated water. Chlorinated water gets in my eyes and bugs my contacts. So this morning, when I put them in and couldn't really see out of them, I wasn't surprised. Usually a few minutes will resolve the problem, but it didn't. I drove all the way to work, trying to blink them into submission. No luck. Well, the lucky part was that I'd brought my glasses and a contact case in my bag. After two minutes at the office, I plucked the contact lenses back out and stuck my glasses on.

The sun was out this afternoon—so bright and so shinny—so I thought I'd be cool and wear my sunglasses home. This required putting my contacts back in. I figured that after eight or more hours out they'd be glad to go back in. Uh, no. Blurry, gritty, yucky . . . no.

Then it dawned on me. Grumbling, I took one out and put it in the case. I moved the one left in my eye to the other eye and blinked a few times. Bingo. Had them in the wrong eyes. I don't even remember the last time I did that. Hello, blonde moment. Yes I have them and yes, I realize that when I am eligible for senior blonde moments life will get infinitely more interesting. Of course at that point I'll probably forget everything I do after ten minutes, so maybe it won't be so bad . . .

12 December 2010

Doh!

As if I'm not confused enough as it is . . .

I've been madly editing my novel. When I get the chance, I take it to work and edit during lunch. Thumb drives are great, can I just say that? However, apparently last week at some point I did some editing at work . . . and forgot to save it to my laptop at home. So today, after some serious noveling this weekend, I'm reading through chapter 4 and get to a paragraph I'm pretty sure I deleted.

Drat. (Not what I thought, but I'll edit—for the kids)

I shut the laptop down. It was a good three hours before I dared start it back up, retrieve my thumb drive from my purse and work up the fortitude to start comparing the two files.

Hopefully I got it all. Grr . . . I was doing so well too.

09 December 2010

Discombobulated

It started with my brain. I've been writing like mad, trying to stay on my self-imposed deadline for this YA novel I want to have finished before the end of the year. I'm about two-thirds of the way through. Some very nice people reviewed my first third a week or so ago. This week, because I figured why not make the pile deeper, I decided not only to try to edit the second third (so I can send it out to some of those nice people) but also to incorporate the comments I've received into the first third.

Don't worry if that entire paragraph didn't make sense. I have no idea what I'm trying to type right now.

Tonight people have been talking to me. I only catch about half of what they say. Not just one person . . . everyone. My brain is trying to focus on writing, but it keeps wandering off into what it considers “greener pastures”. Pastures that include the fact that I haven't started my Christmas shopping, we're a week behind at work, we haven't put any Christmas decorations up, my closet is still spilled across my room, waiting for me to put a shelf together so I can clean it up, I haven't started Christmas cards . . . the list goes on and on.

The brain is fried. Down with an overload of stimuli and no idea what to do with it all. Now it's spreading to my hands.

Tonight at Kempo class we did a hitting combination that had two blocks and four strikes in it. Uh, I think I did it correctly twice. Twice out of at least 30 times practicing. My hands are all mixed up, throwing wrong punches, scaring people by hitting them in the nose (just a brush, nothing hard, I promise) and in general being unruly.

Brain first, then hands. I wonder what happens when it hits my . . . well, let's not think about that.

On the bright side, I got to go down the water slide last night!

07 December 2010

Ninja Hickies and Rug Burn

You naughty people! Get that image out of your head right now! Sheesh, creeps.

Tonight at Kempo class we were on the ground a lot. Most of the time, actually. I'm not very tall, but I am wide, so being on the ground is okay, but moving around, or getting my wideness off the ground is a bit of a challenge. At least I didn't have on the extra gravity gi today. Left that at home.

First we did Over-Unders. One person gets in push-up position. Their partner crawls beneath them--army style. Then the person on the ground lays down. The crawler then jumps up and jumps over them. Just when you think you're finished, you do it again!

I mentioned that I'm wide. Well, thick might be a better word. Belly crawling on the ground with your elbows and toes is delightful, just wonderful. That's where the rug burn came from, my elbows are all scratched up. I did manage to keep from knocking my little, tiny partner over with my extra large bum, which was good. And I didn't fall on her or anything. She, at least, had a good night.

After that fun was over, we did grappling. Wait, let me clarify, we did grappling techniques. One of them included the choking technique that results in the Ninja Hickey. Hopefully I avoided that, but who knows what tomorrow morning will show. Oh the stories I could tell . . . Ninja wanna be has fun!

05 December 2010

Glad that's Behind Me!

This morning was the day! Well, I guess it was the morning, not the day . . . although morning is technically part of the day. Huh, I wonder how that works.

Let me start again. This morning was the end! No, that sounds far to dramatic. If I put that up on my blog someone will think I'm finished with my novel. Hah! Or, infinitely more interesting would be the end of my chocolate consumption. But don't worry, that's not likely to happen unless the world ends, and I'm pretty sure I can hold on with one, last pretzel M&M (which should make it past end of the world security) so I can say the world ended before I quit chocolate. Hey, everyone has to have a plan.

Hello, waaaay off topic.

Today was the day I got to sing in church. It must be said (and this is true, I'm not feigning false modesty here) that my sisters have taken and cultivated the musical talent in the family. I have a bit, but I left it behind somewhere between High School and the end of college. It's been replaced with writing and hitting things. Don't make that face, someone had to branch out and be “different”. Couldn't let the sisters do it all.

And that's why I asked them to help me! Okay, I whined and begged them to help me. One sings and the other plays the piano. I got to try my vocal chords at the alto part of a beautiful, but not particularly easy, arrangement of I Know that My Redeemer Lives. Well, it wasn't easy for me. We practiced four times this week just so I could get my notes right, and even then the piano playing sister had to add a few notes to the accompaniment so I could get it right. Still, I'm grateful for their help.

Everyone at church said the song was beautiful. Granted, most of my Relief Society is full of awesome women over the age of 70. Perhaps they couldn't hear me, or they just turned their hearing aids off (a trick my own mother plays). Still, they were nice and said we sounded good.

I'm just happy it's over. Hopefully I was unimpressive enough to make anyone think twice before asking me to do anything but lead the music.

04 December 2010

My Boring Life

A blog should say something interesting. If not interesting, at least entertaining or informative. Frankly, I've got none of that going for me at the moment. I haven't done anything more exciting than going to play BINGO the other night with a couple of friends. (Which was fun, but not terribly exciting) The only informative topics I could ramble about would be Kemop or writing. Not feeling very good about either at the moment, so those are out. And entertaining? After writing every day, trying to make my goal of having New Sight finished by the end of the year, I've got nothing entertaining left. Not that I could describe. Watching me try to form coherent, complete (it just took me a good 10 seconds to remember the word complete) sentences might be entertaining, but no one is around to do that either.

So why am I writing? No idea. This is my blog, and I can write anything I want to in here, right? Write? Haha, that's funny to me.

And now I've wasted your time. Perhaps I should make that my goal! Wait, I've got enough of those already.