I recently watched the final bonus Special Act episode of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, thanks to the amazing efforts of TV-Nihon! This hour-long episode was only released on DVD, and tells the story of everyone four years after the original series. The big event is the wedding of Usagi (Sailor Moon) and Mamoru (Tuxedo Mask), but of course there's a big fight with the Dark Kingdom first. Mio (the bizarre cute gal you love to hate) wants to take over the world and steal Mamoru, so the sailor soldiers have to get back together for one last battle. It was cool to see what the girls were doing - Ami (Sailor Mercury) is a doctor in America, Minako (Sailor Venus) is doing concerts in Europe, and so on. I was sad that Rei (Sailor Mars) didn't get to transform with everyone, since she was wounded early on, but the big fight was cool anyway. The wedding at the end was awesome, and I cried like a girlie, but the best part was when Motoki (the turtle otaku) proposed to Makoto (Sailor Jupiter) and she accepted! Hurray for the geek getting the girl!
Thank goodness my Flickr self-portrait series is now complete! Tomorrow I'll begin the new year with a PEZ camera photo series, and maybe I'll recap 2004 for you, too.
A long time ago I discovered 
Getting back to normal life after a wonderful Christmas isn't easy. I have to make myself do things again after relaxing for over a week, not to mention switching from Mom's terrific meals back to ramen noodles! Before I forget to mention it, did everyone notice how many remakes of Dickens' A Christmas Carol there were this year? There were tons of them on the 
Yesterday was a fantastic Christmas! Santa was extremely generous this year, and now I have so many DVDs to watch that I need another vacation. I think if you add up all the DVD content it would be well over 100 hours! Dad and I got a good start by watching eleven Road Runner cartoons in a row, then we all drank egg nog and watched the awesome Walt Disney World parade. Christmas dinner was amazing, too!
Whenever my parents and I are together, if there's a silly comedy in the theater, we'll see it. I think I saw Meet the Parents with my parents a few years ago, and as expected, this sequel just doesn't live up to the hilarity of the original. Still, it definitely has its funny moments, and it was certainly a fun way to spend a holiday afternoon! I'm sure you know the plot from the trailer or TV commercials - Ben Stiller and his fiancee travel with the crazy parents from the first film to meet Ben's crazier parents, the Fockers (and yes, they take every opportunity to milk the name, including the DJ at a party saying "Dance, you Fockers!"). There's plenty of added jokes to fill in when the families just aren't enough, including a cute little humping dog (how do you train a dog to hump a Albert Einstein puppet?) and a cute grandson who uses hand signals to say he wants milk whenever boobs pass by. Every now and then some series of events would seem totally frivolous, but I guess the truly funny sequences were spaced out well enough to keep you looking for the next big gag. I prefer my comedies with a little more heart, but it was worth seeing just to listen to Mom laugh anyway!
Today was an ultra-holiday day! We had a little bit of snow and slick roads this morning, so Dad and I both stayed in our pajamas all day long and put together a puzzle (last night's gift from me). It's a panoramic shot of Times Square, which I picked out because the photo includes the hotel we stayed in during our vacation there a while back. It's over three feet wide, and it took us over six hours to put all 750 pieces together, but it was a lot of fun!
I couldn't talk my parents into seeing The Incredibles, so we went to see this Adam Sandler comedy-drama instead. The story is about a Mexican woman and her daughter who becomes the maid of a chef and his neurotic wife, and Adam's character is similar in many ways to his character in Punch Drunk Love (without all the surrealist symbolism), since he's a nice guy who often gets walked on. The maid (who is completely beautiful, of course) speaks no English at first, so she struggles to understand this strange family. The wife is so bitchy and needy that it's difficult to have any positive feelings for her at all, but I guess that helps you understand Adam's character. Eventually a kind of love story develops, which is wisely (and beautifully) unrequited - it's nice to see such tender moments without them devolving into simple lust. The story is mostly told through the eyes of the maid's daughter, who is played by a fantastic young actress - the scene where she translates for her angry mother is fantastic! Even though Spanglish didn't get me to the tear point, I have to round up my rating to a four, because it's really a well-made, compelling story.
My family and I are still enjoying some holiday fun together, opening gifts, doing some shopping, and eating wonderful food! So far I've opened a great book and some nice clothes, and I'm enjoying a nice pipe each evening (I hadn't smoked in several weeks since I had a cold, so it's especially relaxing!). My pal Matt asked to see some photos of Mom's decorations, so I took a few with my camera phone. I'll have more pictures with my real camera after Christmas, but here's a taste of Christmas Central for now! Mom gets more decorations every year - in fact, my first iMovie project was a little documentary of all the decorations a couple years ago. I love the way everything looks!
My parents and I always see a few movies during the holidays, so today we saw this pretty exciting film. I didn't know until today that it's a remake of an old Jimmy Stewart movie, so I can't really compare the two, but this version was definitely an enjoyable story. The plot is about a plane crash in the middle of the Gobi desert, and they only hope the passengers have of surviving is to use parts of their plane to construct an entirely new aircraft! It was fun to see this with Dad, since he's actually flown on the same type of plane back in ROTC. I thought the actors did a fine job, and it was neat to see the beautiful actress who played Eowyn in Lord of the Rings in another role. There were definitely some problems, though - I thought the soundtrack didn't fit well in several places (especially during a dramatic death scene, where the music was better suited to an X-Games broadcast!), and the end definitely felt like it was really cut short. But, it was still a good movie and a great way to spend some family time at the theater!
Hello from Christmas Central! Yesterday I spent two hours wrapping my parents' Christmas gifts, and later that night we each opened a few things - my family's tradition is opening a gift or two each every night, then on Christmas Eve my parents open all the rest of their gifts, and on Christmas Day I dig into Santa's treasure for me. We all played a couple games of Scene It, a DVD-based game of movie trivia (one of my gifts to Dad), and had a great time screaming out trivia answers at the TV. One my favorite parts of the evening was cracking open a bottle of 15 year old Glenfiddich (Dad splurged and bought the Solera Reserve this year!). I quickly poured a triple and started feeling the Christmas spirit right away!
Here's the last "old school" WEBmikey icon - this time for the Creativity section. I used this section to post lots of my poetry, song lyrics, and even a couple college papers that I thought were worth reading. Now all of this stuff is scattered throughout WEBmikey based on the date I wrote it (very rough estimates!). I'm proud of some of my creative works, but I haven't written too much in that style lately. Someday soon I know I'll be inspired again, though!
This weekend I hosted a little Christmas gathering to present my pals with this year's video project! Last year I used iMovie to put together a video of all the events of 2003, using tons of photos and video that I had shot during the year, then burned everyone a copy using iDVD. It was a big hit, so I wanted to do it again this year with everything I shot in 2004. However, I went a little insane and decided to use all of the material to make 12 goofy fake TV commercials! Everyone laughed like crazy, so I'm glad it was as much fun as last year. (To my far away friends, your copy is in the mail!) I've learned so much about editing in the process - it's very cool! I'm definitely getting a faster computer before next year's project, though. Anyway, it was a wonderful evening - I'm so thankful that I have such great friends!
Ah, what a fantastic cry! Finding Neverland is based on the life of James Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, and since that story holds such a special place in my heart, I knew the movie would be amazing. Not only is the subject matter fascinating, but with the main roles played by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, this movie was practically made for me. It was released in late November, but just recently came to Austin, so I saw it the first chance I could. The film opens with Barrie's previous play, which is a terrible flop, and then follows the events in his life which lead him to right Peter Pan. He's definitely a complex character (which Depp does so well), struggling with a failed marriage and looking for escape, which he finds in Sylvia Llewelyn Davies and her four sons, whom he meets in the park. By spending time with the boys and playing with them, the events of Peter Pan begin to take shape. Of course, there is sadness, too, mostly involving Sylvia's disease, which causes her to miss opening night of the play. But in the longest tear-jerking moment I can remember, Barrie brings the play to the Davies' house so they can all watch what they inspired as a family. Of course, many details have been changed from the actual events, but I don't care - I've just enjoyed a wonderful film that helped me see the wonder of life!
Last night was an incredible trip on the swing time machine! The Merchants of Venus, Austin's definitive swing band of the 90s, played a special reunion show last night at the Carousel Lounge. Back in those days I was busy with The Day Jobs, so I actually only saw the band in their heyday a few times, which made last night a real treat. Ernesto (and keyboardist Rob) learned 30 songs in just a few days to fill in for "missing Merchants" - the horn section was fantastic! George was great, singing his way through the crowd with his wireless mic, Merrideth was solid as a rock, and Wayne was dynamite on the drums (I had a particularly good time watching his technique). The place was packed with dancers and devoted fans, and Stella was there to shake everyone up (especially when she danced on the bar!). It really was a fun show, and made me realize again what a great band they are. I'm looking forward to another reunion when Ian can join them on guitar!
Thanks for giving me tonight's topic, Matt! I love to watch Christmas movies and TV specials, and I'm sure many of my favorites are the same as tons of other people. So, in no particular order, here we go!
Continuing with my old WEBmikey design icons, here's the icon for Last 5, which was the section containing all of my reviews. I thought it would be cool if I could always look at a page and see what I thought of the most recent five DVDs, movies, CDs, and so on, that I had experienced, and once I started reviewing things, I couldn't stop. It's totally habitual now, and even though I don't bother to go in-depth into anything, I like having a record of my first impressions around (I can even see how my attitude toward some Disney movies has changed since I started this site!). The starfish has five legs, so I thought it fit nicely. If 
My Christmas level is rising nicely! Last night I went out with my pals to see the 
Why are there so few new Christmas movies this year? Oh well, at least it's another holiday with Tim Allen. The Santa Clause movies are much better than this year's effort, but I still enjoyed the Kranks. It's fun to see the semi-militant neighborhood and how they try to force decorating on the poor family, who just wants to take a cruise since their daughter is off with the Peace Corps (I imagine my pal Ryan's neighborhood is the same way!). Of course, their daughter finds a way to come home, so they have to do a million things in one day. The grocery story scene reminded me of Arnold in Jingle All The Way, but I liked the mysterious Marty (could he be Santa?). My pal Melinda (who has read the book) said they added the whole burglar thing, and it definitely did seem tacked on. The soundtrack of contemporary holiday favorites was better than usual - I'll definitely have to check some of those out on the iTunes Music Store! Anyway, this movie didn't deliver on the Christmas magic (meaning tears for Mikey), but it was still a lot of fun to see beautiful lights and snow and some family togetherness for Christmas.
Here's the old Today icon from the original WEBmikey. I guess I thought TV was my window into what's going on now, but probably I just couldn't think of anything else to use. The Today section started as simple thoughts on what was going on in my current life, which was kind of like a blog before I had discovered 