The Conjuring

Went to see The Conjuring Sunday.  It was a good movie that had me grabbing my sister's hand for comfort (That's right, I'm a scaredy cat.  I like to freak myself out.).  And it was scary, but the end wrapped it up in a very happy style that lets you rest easy.  Funny how I usually think, "It was scary, but it wasn't that scary." after I see a scary movie.  The best kind of scary movies are the ones that continue to haunt you after the credits (Final Destionation, and Slenderman-okay, he's not a movie figure, but when you live where I do, it kinda freaks you out) and give you nightmares (Tremors-not a very scary movie, but when your only six years old those monsters haunt your dreams).  I didn't care for the religious message at the end, but I did appreciate that the ghost wasn't a demon.  Honestly, people don't need help to be evil.
The movie was good however, it would have been 60% better if the audience wasn't filled with a bunch of idiots.  I may have mentioned that this movie wasn't showed in our area the first week it came out despite it being the #1 movie last week.  So everyone around here had not seen it, and most people like to see a scary movie at night.  We went to a 7-ish showing Sunday, and there was a pretty good sized crowed.  But there were major problems:  1.) A family brought a baby-in it's baby carrier.  Luckily the baby was very quiet and didn't cry, but still.  A crying baby is just going to piss everyone in the theater off and make you look like an ass.  2.) Obnoxious people:  they would make remarks as the suspense was building up, and after something did happen they would go into full on babel mode.  And after the "hide and clap" element was introduced, people would randomly clap during the movie-no it's not cute and after the tenth time, it gets old and really annoying.  This behavior was throughout the crowed and at one point, when the movie was playing some old song as the characters were setting up the house, I actually thought the phone of the guy in front of me was going off and almost kicked him!  Luckily, I waited for him to take out a phone before I made a move.  He was one of those talkers.
This is another reason I like going to matinees during the week.

Sorry if I got really snippy there.  I just find that movie etiquette is important.

104 Page Views!!!

And the prize goes to Russia!
Yep, I don't really care so much about page views or some such but I do think it's AWESOME that I have so many people from other countries checking out my blog!  Altogether I have somewhere like 242 page views, but 104 of those are from Russia!  In second place is USA and Third goes to Latvia!
Now I know no one really cares a lot about this blog, and that's just fine.  I just think it's cool and very funny.  I am a Hetalia Fan, and these results just make it so much fun.

R.I.P.D.

Went to see R.I.P.D. yesterday.  It's a good movie and pretty funny.  I liked it a lot but honestly, it's one of those movies that's better to watch at home again and again.  Now I didn't see it in 3D (most of the matinees aren't) but it really didn't need it.  The beginning was really cool with the effects but, as usual, I stopped paying attention to that as I got into the story.  And I wasn't a fan of the "deados" (don't get me wrong, I liked the concept!  I just wish movies would use less CG when it came to monsters).
Don't get me wrong!  I did like the movie, and I will be looking forward to watching it when it comes out on DVD.  But I had see Pacific Rim just last week and there was a smell...
Usually, if there is a smell it's my brother who farted.  But not this time.  At the end of the movie I left for the bathroom and came back to watch the rest of the credits.  My brother and sister told me I was sitting over a diaper... I knew there were little kids sitting in the row behind us sometime that day, the blue booster seats were still there.  BUT REALLY!!!!  If your kid is still wearing diapers then they don't need to go see a PG-13 Movie!  It's not age appropriate and they probably won't remember it in ten years!  I mean, I grew up on SciFi (that's what it was before SyFy, you know, when they had good movies.  What's with Sharknado anyway?), but my parents would preview a PG-13 movie before taking us to the theater.  I didn't go to movies that often, but we usually had a Friday movie night with 3 or 4 rentals.

The house is making a lot of noise for a calm day.  Dogs are barking, better go see what that's about.

Pacific Rim

Earlier this month I had read a review in the paper about Pacific Rim, and it really didn't sound like they liked it too much.  They wanted more use of the brain sharing thing.  But critics are usually people who are no fun and want loads of the sappy human drama.  But anyways....
GO SEE PACIFIC RIM!!!!
It was an Amazing movie!  I didn't go to the 3D showing but I wish I had!  This was the most fun I've had in theaters since the Avengers!  Big Monsters, tetchy machines, fast paced action, and destruction of cities that don't include New York (seriously, New York is the staple city for movie destruction)!
Now, I could just be biased because I like giant monsters and giant robots, but really?
Alright, the pace was really fast, and sometimes during the fights they would switch to the cockpit and I could barely see anything going on there, and the story was a little weak.  But once the action picked up I really didn't care about any of that.  Anyway, good movie, go see.

Was also planning to see The Conjuring today, but it's not showing anywhere near here.  Too many new movies, no place to show them.  Hopefully R.I.P.D. will still be around next Wednesday....

The Lone Ranger

I saw this movie for Independence Day (4th of July).  I wasn't really planning to see this movie, but since we were going to see one anyway, I got really pumped to see it.
Now, I don't really like westerns and I've never seen anything involving the lone ranger.  But at the end of the movie, as I sat there watching the credits (I'm one of those people who will stay until the credits are over) I was thinking, "I wouldn't mind seeing this in theaters again!"
I know Despicable Me 2 was the big winner in the box office this week, but Lone Ranger was still really good.  You had the action, humor and they filmed at a real location (Utah not Texas, most westerns that have those deserts and stone mountains are filmed in Utah).  It had a good plot with a lot of twists that you really should have seen coming, and that horse was really funny.  It did leave a few unanswered questions, but reality doesn't explain a lot of things either.
It's not Pirates of the Caribbean, but you should still go and see it.

Independence Day

Even though it's called Independence Day, most everyone around here calls it the 4th of July.  Now, I don't know how Canada celebrates Canada Day (July 1st), but here we do so with parades, flea markets, and fireworks.
Now in my state, fireworks that fly off the ground or go over 6 feet are illegal.  Luckily, my mom hails from a state where they are legal and we live close enough to the boarder that we can go and buy fireworks from another state.  We live in a rural area with a big yard and I've been blowing bottle rockets off since I was in elementary.  True, we have had mishaps, but I'll tell you about those later (unless we're talking bottle rockets, we only have one incident a year)
Since we usually go out of state for the 4th, we get to blow fire works at my aunts house.  But recently we haven't made that trip.  So we started going to a town that has a parade and flea market.  There's too many people so we just go to the flea market, and last year we went to a movie (Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter).  So we did the same thing this year.  I got chocolate, a necklace with a red marble pendant, a glass nail file made in Czech Republic, a necklace, and a replica of an antique perpetual German calender.  Then we went to see Lone Ranger.  Good movie, it had humor and action!
I'll tell you about the firework mishaps and movie later.  I get to work all weekend since I got the 4th off so I'm worn down.  80+ degrees with humidity and my car has no air condition-honestly I prefer 20 below with 40 mph windchill and blowing snow...at least you go numb after hoping in and out of your car stuck at the edge of your yard!

WWZ

Spoilers, or anything that could be, will be in green.  Warning: I will get really into this.
Well I went to see World War Z this Saturday, it was really good.  For almost a 2 hour movie (1 hr 56 min) it went by really fast, which makes sense sense the zombies and the infection were really fast.
Honestly, these must  be the scariest zombies they've come up with!  They are fast, don't let anything stop them (be it a wall, door, fence, the edge of a building), determined, and there are a LOT of them.  There are literally waves of zombies coming at you.  If these kind of zombies were to actually take over, it's safe to say we'd all be screwed.
Think about it: when slow zombies take over, there aren't that many survivors; when fast zombies that can't open doors take over, there aren't that many survivors; when smart zombies take over, we're replaced as the dominate species.  In case you can't tell already, I love these zombies.  They make sense!  The infection is just a virus and like most viruses, it's main purpose is to spread.  That's why the zombies weren't really devouring anyone.  The bodies are already dead they can't feel anything or think, so there's no problem with getting crushed, jumping off a building or breaking every bone in their body.
The cure makes sense-World War Z: The Terminally Ill Will Inherit the Earth!
A bit of dark, ironic humor.
I was hoping they'd go to more places, but at least they actually went places (or at least made a set for most scenes) instead of CGI backgrounds.  Those are pretty, but you can't top some of the real places on this earth (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter even Twilight).
And it has Brad Pitt.  Now I don't go to movies for the actors, but I'll admit that Brad Pitt is a good looking guy (I love Interview With a Vampire).
I didn't see it in 3D, but it was fast paced and pretty low on the sappy human drama.  It also adds a few good insights.  I recommend going to see it if you're a zombie fan ^^

Stink

Today is really windy, which normally isn't such a big deal.
Except it's coming from the north.
Where there is a dead cat in the ditch.
Again, normally not a big deal.  However, today our border collie mix caught a whiff of it and, as anyone with outdoor dogs knows, she rolled around in it!  If it smells bad to humans then it smells great to dogs.  Needless to say she reeked.  So we threw her in a cage and hosed her down.  Add a little dog shampoo and she doesn't smell as bad.
I love our dogs but sometimes they can be such an ache...

Who Needs a Tornado? pt. 2

With most of the debris (funny word that one is) cleared up, I can now see there was a lot more damage then I thought.
I saw that a tree had indeed fallen on the railroad, another one across the street and three blocks away had taken down a chain link fence, there was a garbage can wrapped around a street sign (not just bent funny, it's a plastic garbage bin and it's got two large tears where the posts of the sign is in), shingles were out of place on one roof of some building by the elevator, and that tin garage door I told you about?  Apparently there's a building connected to it that I can't see and it's pretty torn up.
Power had been taken out in certain areas of the town due to downed power lines, the grill cover we have for the grill at work was blown a couple of blocks down across the street (still trying to figure that out, the grill is on the patio which is basically enclosed by the building) and I pretty sure there was something dead on the side of the road that's not there anymore...a boot that was on the side of the road for a few weeks a couple of towns over is gone too.
Two towns west of that town (I have a 32 mile commute) there's a storage silo that is dented inward towards the top.  This thing has to be at least 3 stories tall, and, what's more, there are two other silos in front of it.  Now when I say silos, I don't mean the old stone ones.  Normally I call them storage bins or storage elevators, but they look more like steel silos.
Heh...this town has a place outside to dump all of it's corn, it's a good thing there is no corn this time of year, it'd be all over the place.  And just to give those of you who've always lived in a big city an idea of how much corn that is, here is a picture of a corn pile courtesy of Google images:

This almost looks drawn actually...but yeah the piles do get that big, and they even have tarps that cover the whole thing!

Who Needs a Tornado?

Early Friday morning (it had to be, I got to bed around midnight) I was woken up while it was still dark by lots of thunder and lightning.  Normally I don't care much about a middle-of-the-night thunderstorm, but there was so much that in my groggy state I went to turn on the radio beside my bed.  I listened as the usual updates that happen constantly when there is severe weather in the area played and they announced the counties the severe thunderstorm was affecting.  Ours wasn't mentioned so I shut the radio off and went back to sleep.
That morning I found out our neighbor's power poll was tilted and was getting replaced.  That was all the damage I was aware of.  However when I went to work today, I discovered it was a lot worse there.
Even after a day to clean up (granted we had another storm that night) there were still downed trees and branches and leaves and sticks filled the gutters.  I saw that bigger trees had been uprooted while others had lost major branches.  So many trees were reshape or down that I could barely recognize the area with all the open spaces where they had been.
At work there was a three story cotton wood in the parking lot, it's gone now (it was so badly damaged that they just got rid of the whole thing). The gazebos we have bolted out on the patio were still standing but the cloth covers were tore to shreds, and one's top was even inverted downward.  Trees were missing branches or even missing altogether.  One pine tree, I had heard, was even on the building.
In other places in town I saw that part of a road had been blocked off because of a tree that had fallen in the yard had spilled over onto it.  I'm pretty sure another tree may have even landed on the railroad it was nearby, by I can't be sure.  When I was driving to work I even got a little nervous of a branch that was hanging in a tree over the road.  As for structural damage, the only kind I saw was that of a tin garage door by the elevator.  It looked as if someone had punched it in.
It looked like a tornado had hit (I had this thought and later heard someone else say the same thing) but it was really just straight line winds going roughly 80 mph.  What's more, we're suppose to keep having bad weather through the rest of the weekend.

Movies VS. Conventions

Recently I've been thinking about attending another anime convention, but there is one problem: Anime Detour is gonna be tough to beat.  I live in an area where there are very few conventions and they are all very far away from me.  Another big one that would be great to attend is AniMinneapolis but 1.) it is next week 2.) I would be all by my lonesome and 3.) I don't have the money saved up.  So I was looking to go to one in the fall (Anime Fusion)-but it doesn't seem like it'd be very big and I may feel left out in the cosplay I have.  I don't know, I'll have to see.  Saving up for next year's Detour sounds smart but its so far away! (April 4-6, 2014)

In Other News: I went to see Man of Steel last night, great movie!  Now I'm looking to attend a movie a week.
World War Z is about zombies and I'm a Walking Dead, Zombieland, High School of the Dead, and 28 Days Later fan.  So that's a must.
Pacific Rim has giant alien monsters and giant robots to fight them.  In my mind it's a mix of Godzilla and Transformers so that's a must see (maybe, I just heard of it last night).
And R.I.P.D. I saw the trailer last night (again) and it looks like my cup of tea, so to speak.

Oujia Board

This was a game my mom found and we had fun messing with it.  It's an online Oujia Board and it's fun to ask it question and see what your "Ghost" is saying.  Almost like cleverbot only you don't have to deal with all the talk back.

Chasing Turkeys, Man Are Those Things Fast

So the other day I had planned to get a lot of cleaning done.  Instead the neighbor's turkeys decided they wanted to visit.  Now when I say neighbor, I don't mean the ones across the road, nor the ones about a half a mile down the road, no I mean the neighbors that are down the road-then turn right for about 1/4th mile.
These neighbors have six or seven wild turkeys they let roam all around and the other day, three of them came to visit.  Shouldn't be a big deal.  But we have chickens.  And when the turkeys come over the chickens hide in the coupe and the turkeys eat all their food.
So I chased two of these birds away but the third went and hid in one of our groves and so I gave up on it, figuring it would follow it's friends down the road.  Later I found her in our driveway, tried to chase her away, lost her in another grove, so I set up a trap.  Later still, spotted her by the chicken pen, yet again chased her into another grove (our yard is surrounded by groves on three sides roughly) and thought that was the end of it.  Yet lo and behold, as I was leaving for work, I saw her by our mail box!  At this time my sister was home so I made her go and chase it.
As for that trap, it caught a cat.  I had corn for bait, and I caught a cat.  I was expecting a chicken and I caught a cat.  Cat's fine, and for the record, when you let them out of a trap, they get super friendly....stupid cat.....

Anime Detour 2013!

I went to Anime Detour 2013 in MN a few weeks back and finally got the pictures uploaded.  Now, I was in  Cosplay (Hetalia) and I really hate having my picture taken (though I did get my picture taken a lot and I got a lot of hugs).  But turns out most of the group photos I'm in are blurry and so I won't be posting them.
Most of these are from the Hetalia Photo Shoot, and I only put up the non-blury ones.  Sorry, my sister took a lot of blury ones that I was in and my camera is a pain to take pictures with when you're just walking around (it just kills those batteries!)

Ask Arthur, Kiku & Alfred:  One of my favorite panels, there weren't so many people, but that  meant the audience could get more involved ^^

Belgium & China: China was getting upset cause no one was asking to take a photo with him/her

 Begin the Photo Shoot!

Germany:  There were probably only 3 there....

I don't know about any of you, but I see 4 Americas and a bunch of floating polar bears...

 Almost  Everyone

Special Thanks to the Korra I had take these Pictures!

Axis Powers

Allied Powers

Aisans
I have a clip from the Ask the Asians Panel where they are doing the Gangnam Style, but my camera takes crap quality videos....

Nordics
I think they're all there!

Soviet Union

Chibitalia
Chibitalia is sooooo cute!  The only thing that could compete is the Hunni from the  Ouran Dare Panel

BTT
Those Prussians are just too Awesome....

2P Nations:  They had a panel that was super funny!
Warning:  Panel involves fan service, adult language, sexual-themes including yaoi, screaming, violence , Slender Men and Oliver falling in love with Jack Skellington.  Sorry not all the parts are easy to find, but you can find them.  You'll even see glimpses of me in those videos.

Cold War Anyone?

Ukraine & More Floating Polar Bears...

Belgium & Spain

The Slender Men are Plotting

I'm sorry in advance, I saw this and I just had to...

Where's Waldo?
This is where the photo shoots were being held.
But seriously, find Waldo. 

"It Looks Great on You!"   
This I drew in about 5 minutes on the corner of some poster thing.

Special Thanks to Everyone at the convention and Everyone in these photos and the people in the video links, I hope you don't mind.  I had a great time and plan to go next year and not be so shy with my camera!  If any of you are in the photos and want them taken down, I will.  If any of you manage to figure out who I was and want me to post some of my more blurry photos, I will.

Karma Owes Me and Spell Check Doesn't Work

Yep, Dracula was in the snow.  Now instead of just looking old and worn, it is worn.  The edges got all curled up.  I think it looks better this way....

Internet wasn't working, but that didn't matter cause I went on a trip over the weekend.  Unfortunately I had to sleep on a couch but only after everyone else went to bed (I had to take a headache sleepy pill earlier so I was getting dead tired), was woken at 6, moved to a room and then got up an hour later.  I got a room the next night but, yeah.....
It wasn't so bad, something interesting to talk about.

That thing I was worried about has yet to happen, so I'm still worrying about it.  Though by now I'm pretty sure I've passed the 7 stages (or is it 5?) and have moved on to "Coo-coo go boing-boing".

Headaches are back, did I mention that?  I get these headaches that come for a few days and give me hell.  No amount of ibuprofen has been able to help.  And they are headaches, not migraines.  They don't hurt that bad, but they are persistent.

Bad, bad karma.  Speaking of bad, today is a bad day, huh?  The Titanic sunk, Abraham Lincoln died, those bombs at the Boston Marathon (I've only heard a bit about this, don't know the details yet) and it's the Tax deadline.....But hey, Jackie Robinson joined the Major Leagues.  So that's one good thing.
Sorry, I don't mean to sound dismissive.  It's late, my head hurts, and I've typed a lot.  I'll try to get those pics up next time.  I don't expect anyone to read this much, but if you did, more power to you!

What can you do? (re-edit)

I'd read Dracula, but it's not where I put it so I'm hoping I didn't drop it outside...in the snow....
I have a paperback version and that snow is really wet.  And still going.  April snow showers May bring flowers....

In other news, I may try doing something.  You like comics?  I like comics!  I like to draw doodle sort of comics.  But I lack a working scanner....I have a few pics I've done a few years back on file somewhere.  I'll try putting some of those up sometime.

Memory Gaps Filled

I remember now.  I finished The World's Creepiest Places.  So now what happened to that book?

Memory Gaps

Wow, this is really becoming a something or nothing blog, huh?  I haven't been on my compy (a pet name for my computer ^^) since Wednesday.  I was a little scared to look at my email but it's mostly store stuff.  Wasn't that much either....

Anyways, April's just started, and like every month, I 'm looking forward to the songs I'm going to hate.  My car can get 2 stations and they both specialize in playing new songs so much that you want to smash your head in as soon as the melody comes through those speakers.  This system causes me to hate songs that I normally wouldn't mind.  Luckily, those artists are putting out music I'm enjoying as of late.

I've finished something recently, no idea what....I just know that I've picked up Dracula and started finished reading it.  Still not done with it, started it last summer and put it off.  Hey, it's doing better then that other book I've got.  I'll tell you about it sometime.

April 1st

Hello!  It's April 1st and I just finished reading all the Hetalia April Fool's specials.  One of them was a blog and well, after reading all that I just kind of want to post things up.

So...yeah.  Don't know what I'm going to do with this.  Maybe something will happen, maybe I'll just forget about it.  I just had a wild hare, you know?