Variety is the Spice of Life, eh?

Ok, so it’s been a while since I was blogging. What follows is the variety-pack version of what’s been up with Rose:

Farmtown Addiction: I’m still severely addicted to Farmtown. And I got the Sibs addicted and they took their spouses’ Facebook accounts and created extra farms… which I think is cheating, by the way, but… And mom suggested that Farmtown might be something fun to entertain Dad, so we got him a Facebook account and a farm set up. And we all enjoyed chatting while harvesting each others’ crops. Now that Dad’s gone, we are continuing to farm his property and once we get him to level 28, where you can buy river bits, we are going to turn it into Fuzzbutt’s Memorial Garden. It’ll have rambling hills and a river, and trees and flowers and park benches and bunnies and cats wandering around. Dad would be proud.

Vampire Wars: Haley now has me and Holly addicted to another FB application – Vampire Wars. Not as involved as Farmtown, but still fun. But I logged on this morning and find out that someone put me on the hitlist! Why? I can only assume it was because I have a nasty habit of attacking more than twice. Haley says it’s ok to attack twice… and she has a habit of naming people to the hitlist, so I’d think she’d know. But yeah! Humpf.. I thought about tracking the person who put me on the hitlist down and killing her (figuratively speaking) but I decided to let it go. The best part of Vampire Wars is the minions:

Minions and Tiaras: Ok, my regular readers who commit my ramblings to memory will recall, no doubt, that for Christmas I humbly asked Santa for minions and a tiara among other things. Well my birthday was last week (#41 – only one year away from #42!!), and my boss’s wife (Shannon) and kids trotted into the office with a balloon flying and kazoos trumpeting and what to my wondering eyes should appear in the gift bag? A tiara!! and matching earrings. (Ok, they were the cheap-o kind you buy for kids, but I was thrilled!) I put the tiara on and wore it the rest of the day!

I broke one of the clip-on earrings trying to get it out of the package, but I quickly covered up my faux pas with the faux jewels so the kids wouldn’t notice. Shannon told me that she was sorry but she didn’t know where to get me minions, so I told her that that was ok because thanks to Vampire Wars I have plenty of minions! In fact, I’d gotten my first college fraternity just that morning! That earned me an odd look. :) My goal now is to get me a lawfirm – mwahahaha!! Steve (Boss#1) asked what their specialty was and if they were hiring. I don’t think he gets it.

My peeps at work took good care of me for my birthday. I honestly didn’t expect much, as they’d put on all but a 4-course meal for my 40th birthday last year. But I got to my desk and there were cookies, and donuts, and banana bread, and chips and salsa. It was, needless to say, not a Weight Watchers sponsored event. But it was my party so I ate what I wanted! Then mom came into to town that evening and we went to Logan’s for my birthday meal - the first of many upcoming events without Dad. And we cried a few tears, but for the most part we just had a good time talking.

The Friday after my b-day, my fiend, Jennifer, (whose birthday is the day before mine) and I took off work and spent the day together for a mutual celebration. We went to Absolute Beauty and I got a pedicure (see picture) and she got a massage (no picture available). Then we hit Yen Ching and dined on Crab Rangoon and Garlic Chicken. Now for years, our absolute favorite Chinese restaurant was the Panda, but it closed and we don’t know where the chef went…(I think we’d have followed him/her anywhere. But we’ve found a strong contender in Yen Ching. Although they don’t put enough spice/heat to it, so we have to order extra spicy. Which means we have to order LARGE glasses of ice water to drink!

After our delicious dinner, we went to go see the new Gerard Butler movie, The Ugly Truth. Now, I think I’ve mentioned in these pages before that I would pay to watch Gerard Butler read the dictionary for two hours… especially if he’s using his Scottish accent…(let’s say it together: “if it’s not Scottish, it’s CRAP!”). So with that in mind it was an enjoyable movie. The language was a bit blue at times, so it earned it’s R rating. Personally, I was hoping to see a little skin (his, not Katherine Heigl’s) for the R, but… It was predictable and your basic romantic comedy, so without GB, I’d have probably suggested we go see Harry Potter again, but with GB, the DVD will find its way to the Gerard Butler wing of my DVD collection. Heck if I still have the Tales of the Mummy movie where his character literally is killed in the first 3 minutes, I’ll get this one!

Review – Terminator – Salvation

(Disclaimer: If you haven’t seen this movie, there may be information in this review that might be considered a “spoiler” - although I consciously try not to put major spoiler info in my reviews. Proceed with caution.)

I have been awaiting this movie to come out from the very minute I heard that Christian Bale had signed on to play John Connor. For two reasons: 1) I LOVE Christian Bale; and B) I LOVE the Terminator series. Although, as I’m typing this, I’m thinking it’s been a while since I watched the older movies, so I may have to have a Terminator-a-thon this holiday weekend. Hmm… I’ll have to ponder that.

Anyway, the first Terminator was great and I had a thing for Michael Biehn, the guy who come back in time to protect John Connor’s mother and in doing so became John Connor’s father. To see the first movie acted out in 30 seconds by bunnies, click on the link above - it's especially cute where the machine has lost it's flesh, so it's all machine, and it's hopping around with bunny ears! The second movie was good because of course Arnie’s machine was a good guy and the whole interplay between him and the teenage John Connor had some humor in it. That and the machine who melted like Mercury and then reassembled itself was cool! Now, my problems with the third movie are that I don’t remember it very much. I think I've only see it twice … hence the need for the thon this weekend. And the TV series, the Sarah Connor Chronicles has been really good. And this past season’s finale was… oohh!! REALLY good, I'm just crushed that FOX canceled it. :(

So obviously I entered the theater with high hopes. Of course, this was despite my reading a review that called it silly. Now, first the movie is loud. And John Connor doesn't really speak so much as he yells. Although at one point, if you closed your eyes, he sounded like Batman. :)

It starts out in modern day. A prisoner named Marcus Wright (played by Sam Worthington) is being put to death for his crimes and before he gets the lethal injection, Helena Bonham Carter persuades him to sign his body over to science. Then we shift to 2018 and we are in the middle of the war with the machines and John Connor and crew are blowing stuff up, trying to do something... I was vague on that point... and he found humans in a lab. Anyway, those with keen eyes noticed that one of said humans on the slab was Marcus Wright. When the lab blew up, he woke up and escaped and managed to find Kyle Reese (John Connor's father) in the LA arm of the resistance.

Meanwhile, John Connor has been advised that he and Kyle Reese (only John knows why this unknown civilian teenager is on the list) are numbers 2 and 1 on Skynet's hit list. So you know that John Connor and his crew are going to have to cross paths with Marcus and Kyle. Don't want to go into details that will spoil the plot, but it was cool with dad and son (who's probably twice dad's age) meet for the first time!! And a lot of things blow up, and a lot of machines try to kill John and Kyle, and once again I'm reminded why I totally disregard movie reviewers (ironic, since I'm writing one, eh?) because I thought it was great! Odds are I'll see it again, maybe even this weekend! And of course, I'll get the DVD. Two thumbs up! Well, at least one and 1/2 thumbs up! :)

Next up: Well, I'll have to look. I'm not sure what's coming out between now and Harry Potter 6.