As I’m sure you’ve heard, the movie Tropic Thunder received much hype in the media because of several controversies.  Part of this hype is a normal side effect of a movie’s release – spin doctors go to work; sometimes even people who are associated with the movie spread their own rumors because there’s a saying that goes, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”.  Tropic Thunder is under scrutiny for two reasons:  Robert Downey Jr., a white actor, plays a white man in the movie who undergoes pigment infusion in order to portray an African-American man in the movie within a movie.  I guess I should go back and give a summary of the plot so that my explanation of the controversies of Tropic Thunder make more sense.

A group of quirky actors are filming a big budget war movie in Vietnam, and they get stuck there – that’s basically the plot and explains why we have a movie within a movie.  Before seeing the movie, I was under the impression that the actors didn’t know they were on their own in Vietnam and that’s when the hilarity would ensue.  But I was wrong on both accounts.  The actors knew they were no longer filming the movie pretty much right off the bat, and Tropic Thunder is not funny.  It is violent and crude; two things I could handle if the movie had other appealing qualities, but this one does not.  I do not recommend Tropic Thunder to anyone.  I can’t see who would like this film since it’s not funny nor is it really an action film – it just seems like a poor excuse for total crudeness and senseless violence.  I’m surprised about this because of its major star power: it was directed by Ben Stiller who also stars in the movie, along with Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Matthew McConaughey (who has a difficult name to spell, by the way!), Nick Nolte, and Tom Cruise, who makes a “special” appearance.  Turns out what is so special about Cruise’s appearance is the audience getting to see an A-list actor spewing out apallingly crude lines.  I have to admit though, they do a good job of disguising Mr. Cruise, and since I hadn’t heard he’d be in the film, I only recognized him because his voice was familiar and my husband leaned over and asked me, “Isn’t that Tom Cruise?”  Seeing Tom Cruise as a middle-aged bald jerk barking out insults and orders was probably the only entertaining thing in the whole movie but still not nearly enough to make it worth seeing.  Not quite so bad as to be put on my famous movie stinkers list, but it was a close call!

And that was going to be the end of my post until I realized that I forgot to go back and write more about the controversies surrounding this movie.  There was the one about Robert Downey Jr. portraying an African-American; I guess the feeling was why couldn’t they hire someone who was really African-American to play the role.  And then there was the controversy about the use of the word (and please forgive me if I offend you, I’m just repeating what I heard in the media) “retard”.  I can see how people would be offended by both circumstances; mostly I’m all for people lightening up about being politically correct and those kind of things, but perhaps these complaints have merit, especially the latter.  The movie’s portrayal of a “special” person and use of the word “retard” was quite condescending and like the rest of the movie, not the least bit funny.  But what I would say to the people who were offended is don’t waste your time because this movie’s not worth it, especially if the “no such thing as bad publicity” theory pans out – why give this bad movie any more press than it’s already gotten?  Waste of money.  Period.  Not a waste of time, however, but only because I saw it in good company 🙂

There are some really busy railroad tracks that run along the north border of the town where I live.  There are basically 3 roads that go out of town to the north; only one of which has an overpass for the tracks so cars don’t have to stop for every train that passes by.  This morning on our way back into town, we got stuck by a train.  Taking the route with the overpass is not an option right now because the other road we would need for that route is currently under construction and closed.  So we were stuck by the train, and it was a lengthy freighter (aren’t they all when you live in the country?), and it decided to stop – it was at a standstill on the tracks.  Not knowing how long the train was going to be stopped and because we were running low on gas, our only option was to turn around and try the third route.  Thank goodness it wasn’t being blocked by the stopped train also, which could have very well happened given the way these roads are laid out.  And talk about timing – right as we were going over the tracks, the bells and whistles on the gates sounded because yet another train was coming!  So if we had waited just a few more seconds to turn around, we would have gotten stuck by another train and probably run out of gas.  I didn’t realize we were so low on gas – I think there’s something wrong with our gas gauge because it fluctuates a lot.  But anyway, the point of this story is not to keep a full tank of gas – at today’s gas prices, who could afford that?  But I really hope they finish the construction soon so we can go back to taking the route where you don’t have to bother with the train crossings – I’m so not used to sitting in traffic, even if it is just waiting for a train to pass!

*UPDATE* – This afternoon as I traveled toward the north edge of town, the construction seemed to have been completed, thus opening the route that goes under the railroad tracks!  Maybe ODOT read my blog…

And mostly due to my laziness I am subbing once again, and that is good news for this blog.  I have been on hiatus from this for too long.  I still intend to have some posts of my life outside of teaching, but for a while I have just been turned off from writing during the best time those post would have fit.  Well, to tell the truth my life outside of teaching really hasn’t been too exciting.  Remember back in June when I went to camp?  Well, I am finally making the DVD I have done for my cabin for the last few years.  I have two slideshows and a video finished, along with a video I borrowed from my DVD two years ago in which I just had to modify the end to fit my more recent cabin.  I have been using Ulead VideoStudio which I got free with this computer.  It really is a nice program, and not ridiculously high-priced like some packages out there.  Last year I used a 30-day demo of a $250 DVD authoring package which was nice, but not worth that price in my opinion.  Maybe $100 like this one, but not $250.  I also used a slightly buggy freeware program to do one of the slideshows, and maybe another one.  I haven’t decided yet what to do about this last one to make it different enough from the first two.  Well, I still have a week to put the DVD together before the next church time.  This weekend is the last one of the month, so 4th and 5th grades don’t meet.

As for subbing, I was actually able to get three half days during this first full week of many districts.  Apparently the special ed meetings started right away.  I could have had a fourth, but they called me after 8:00 to arrive there at 8:30.  Well, I might have been able to do that if I was ready to go when they called, but since it was 25 minutes away and in fact I was woken up by the phone call, that wasn’t going to happen.  Besides, I had to take my car in that morning for a new muffler.  Anyway, the three days I did have were pretty similar.  They were all at different Junior Highs (that district doesn’t call them middle schools) and were 8th grade, or a 7th/8th mix.  Two of them were 7:15 AM jobs (too early!) but fortunately I got to sleep in for the last which was an “afternoon,” starting at 10:45 AM.  I didn’t have to leave notes for two of them either, which is always nice, since the teachers came back.  Surprisingly one of these times was the “afternoon” job.  I guess she came back from her special ed meeting for the weekly school meeting.  Since school started last Thursday in this district and the meetings are on Wednesdays after school, this may have been the first one which would probably make it important to attend.  As for the other morning job, that teacher only teaches there in the morning, so I she wouldn’t have come back.  I would presume she teaches somewhere else in the afternoon.

All in all the three half-days went well.  Hopefully I will have more work next week even if there is one day off for labor day.  I am signed up again in three of the districts I worked in last year.  The last was still on the hired subcaller system and barely called me so I switched them for another district that is computer-based so I have more of a chance for work.  That is, I am still working on being signed up there, but that is for a rant in another post…

Today marks the half-century mark for one of the strangest, most celebrated (in his heyday), and most controversial performers ever to dance across a stage. At one time, the mere mention of Michael Jackson’s name sent teenage girl’s hearts a-flutter. Now, it seems that it sends chilling thoughts of child abuse charges, skin color changing, surgical mask wearing, and sleeping with chimpanzees. I do remember when he was rightfully given the moniker “The King of Pop,” but 1983-84 was some time ago and most people born just a few years after that would wonder what all the fuss was about. In fact, they frequently laugh at the mere mention of his name (as most people do… even most of his fans wonder what happened).

I remember vividly my experience with most things Thriller: the album itself (still the world’s largest selling of all time), the video, the sequined glove, the marketing, and the introduction of the Moonwalk during the 25th anniversary of Motown. I remember seeing the video while staying overnight with my cousin. My uncle stayed up with us as he was a fan going back to the Jackson 5 days. At the time, it was on of the scariest things I had ever seen. A tribute to the old creature features of the 50s and 60s. Zombies, werewolves, creatures rising from graves. Even Vincent Price’s voice made an eerie appearance in a “rap” toward the end of the 14-minute movie. Days later, the video was banned from network airwaves and was only allowed to be played on MTV after 10pm.

In 1984, the phenomenon sparked the “Victory” reunion tour of Michael and his brothers. While visiting our relatives in Texas that summer, the group was performing in Dallas. And not forgetting the hair-burning incident during the filming of a Pepsi commercial.

Although Wacko-Jacko is now almost in total seclusion, at one time he was a powerhouse of performing dominance seemingly invincible. However, his success with Thriller was never surpassed as rumors began to take control of his life just as its popularity was at its peak.

I know that it has been awhile since I have last written, but I have been busy. I have been trying to plan my wedding while go to school and work at the same time. I guess I could write how much school is driving me crazy, or something like that, but at the moment, I am going to write about my wedding.

Since the wedding is the ‘bride’s day’ I am sure that I should be planning most of this myself. Or at least, that is the tradition. There was no way I was going to plan this huge event all by myself, especially not when it will effect both of our lives. Nope, he is helping me with all the planning for this wedding and he is not even complaing. He really does not mind helping me and I am so glad for that.

At the moment we have the guest list finished for the most part. It might change every now and then, but for the most part it is finished. We also have the place where we are having our reception reserved for us. We really wanted to make sure we could get it reserved since we are getting married the same time so many people are graduating and having graduation parties. I know that it might seem like we have picked the wrong time to get married, but my younger sister is graduating next year, and we are trying to make things easier on one of my older sisters who lives in Florida.

I have picked out what dress I want. Unfortunately, it really does not exist, so my oldest sister is going to be making it for me. She had to spend hours upon hours to find a pattern really close to what I want. Tony and I had wanted to have some Star Wars in our wedding, but since we are having it our church, our Pastor said no. It wasn’t going to be the entire wedding party dressed as Jedi or anything. All we wanted was for me to wear Mara Jade’s outfit and Tony was going to wear Luke Skywalker’s black outfit. Oh, and of course Artoo Detoo as the ring bearer. Well, now instead of wearing the green outfit of Mara’s, I am wearing her wedding dress. Pastor does not know that my wedding dress is related to Star Wars in anyway and I am not going to tell him. Besides, what can he do? It is a wedding dress after all.

There are some other planning that we have finished all ready, and we have slowly begun to buy things that we are going to need for the wedding. I refuse to get stressed about planning for this wedding. My oldest sister was the one who paniced for her own wedding and then my other sister’s wedding, so I am just going to let her do the panicing and I will remain calm. At least, that is the plan.

This title refers to a hilarious skit performed on The Carol Burnett Show as a spoof of those neverending daytime soaps. If you watch one episode and wait a year you haven’t missed anything. However, I have read articles that suggest that they are good training for the professional actor as pages of script need to be memorized in a very short time. Thanks again to my morning radio news I learned that a young man from my neck of the woods has recently left the soap As the World Turns to become a cast member of the primetime series, Friday Night Lights. Since i am unfamiliar with either show, I can only wish Zach Roerig the best of luck in his new role. Some of today’s (and yesterday’s) big names got their starts steaming up daytime television.

• Morgan Freeman
• Marisa Tomei
• Tommy Lee Jones
• Mark Hamill (before he became Luke Skywalker and the animated voice of the Joker)
• Leonard Nimoy (played a drug addict who checked into General Horsepital (oops Hospital…) thanks Mom)
• Demi Moore
• David Hasselhoff (HIM AGAIN… definitely one of yesterday’s so-called stars (sorry if I offend any of my European readers).. grudgingly included… thanks again, Mom… I dunno how she remembers all these so well)

These are of a few of the famous alumni of the suds. Since no one within my reach can think of any others, I will leave it open for further comments. But as I know that none of my regular readers have an undying passion for All My Dingbats, The Young and the Breastless, One Life to Die, or any of the others, I will leave it up to those silent critters from other parts of the US, Germany, Sweden, Canada, and wherever else you may be hiding.

While surfing for stuff to put in our haunted house, I came across this site that has a lot of FX that we may be able to use. Fake hands, heads, zombies, and some other cool stuff.

I wasted a good bit of time just checking out the FX. Most can be done on our short budget too. We have the wood, but we would need some of the other items to make molds and finish off the projects.

So any of the people working on the haunted house, check this out. I will be adding different sites to this blog if I find anything else we can use.

I’m glad you asked.  A rusk is a rectangular, hard, dry biscuit or a twice baked bread, commonly called zwieback.  These biscuits are often used in child weaning.  They also, apparently, go quite well with garbanzos.  The dish plays a pivotal and hilarious role in our fast approaching production of The Nerd.  The cast had their first practice run through the entire piece tonight and except for about a page and a half being jumped over.  It went EXTREMELY well.  Although, a certain nephew of mine could stand to jump on his entrances a bit quicker.  I’m not one to shirk blame since I was beside him and missed telling him of one of his upcoming moments.  But for it being only his second time on stage, he is doing quite well.

I have failed to mention one of my cast mates from  Little Women who has also had limited stage experience.  She plays the role of Clelia Waldgrave, the dim bulbed wife of Warnock (Worncock, Ticky, Tocky, Tacky, whatever his name is) and mother of the precocious Thor.  Clelia has some funny moments herself, not the least of which involves dishes.

One of my other favorite parts is played by that guy who has a name that reminds me of an omelet (not to worry Colorado).  Axel is one of the characters who shares the secret of the show (to find out what the secret is you have to get your reservations in soon).  Some of his on screen antics are sure to bring down the house.  “Hideous pagan ritual” indeed.

So… just over a week to go before our production of Larry Shue’s side-splitting comedy The Nerd makes its debut, be sure to reserve your tickets soon.

Well, I am no stranger to trying new and, what for some would be, exotic foods. I generally enjoy trying new things to eat, even when I don’t enjoy the taste. There have been a large number of foods that I really like, that if I had failed to try, I never would have known the taste sensations.

From A (for Ants), to Z (normal zoo animals — Hippo and crocodile), I have tried many different foods. Other than zucchini, I can’t really recall any Z foods, maybe someone could enlighten me. After the extreme recycling I wrote about I didn’t think I could see an article about food that would just turn me off. But I found one. The problem for me is that I have tried almost everything else, why wouldn’t I try this. I have eaten bugs, so why not rats? I guess that would be one way to make sure the rat population stays in check. They would no longer be just pests, but a food source. Maybe I’ll have to try some… Can’t be any worse than squirrel can it? After all a Squirrel is just a rat with a fuzzy tail right?

I love animals…  all animals, even ones I’m afraid of like frogs.  I can honestly say I would not want to see harm come to a frog even though I don’t like them.  I really love cats, even though I’m allergic to them.  When I was growing up, I always wanted a cat, so as soon as I moved out of my parents’ house I got one.  I had her for over 10 years, her name was Mally, and she was a sweetheart.  She passed away last January, and I miss her very much.  While she was alive, I couldn’t pet her as much as I wanted to because of my allergies, and that’s the only reason why I haven’t gotten another cat – I really like them.  Except for my neighbor’s cat.

When we moved in 2 years ago, we saw Phoebe the neighbor’s cat roaming around and we thought it was kind of cool to have a neighborhood cat.  That was before we saw how mischievous she can be.  Phoebe likes to sit on our window sill because she knows it makes the dogs crazy.  She also sits on the kids’ slide in the backyard which is just out of the dogs reach, further aggravating them.  One day, our dog Charity got loose and treed the cat.  I felt a little badly although part of me enjoyed the surprised (and pissed) look on that cat’s face when she was in the tree because she wasn’t expecting the dog to get loose and chase her.  One time, I noticed the front door was open and she was peeking in our house!  Don’t know how she managed that one; maybe one of the kids left the door open or something.  I used to have a bird house and a bird feeder in the tree in our side yard.  I would go out there and sprinkle seed, and we had a nice menagerie of creatures that would visit, giving our parrot some friends to look at out his window.  But then I saw Phoebe out there stalking the squirrels and birds that frequented the tree, and I stopped putting seed out because I no longer wanted to lure animals into her lair.  One day, I saw her playing with a baby bunny.  The bunny was alive, but not moving, so we scooped it up and took it to this lady who rehabs wildlife nearby.  Her place is really neat; she has raccoons, bandicoots, squirrels, rabbits, geese, ducks, and even a few bears!  Anyway, she said the bunny looked to be in bad shape and she didn’t expect it to survive.  Hopefully it defied the odds…

Being an animal lover, I was really sad when Phoebe hurt the baby bunny.  I was even more sad when I saw what she did the other day.  I was outside with my daughter, and Phoebe started to climb the tree in the front of our house.  I thought it was really cute, so I pointed to her and showed my daughter the cat.  But then I saw what she was doing – there were 2 doves sitting silently in the tree, and she was stalking them.  Suddenly one of the doves flew off the branch or at least tried to.  He flapped to the ground; I don’t know if he hit his wing on a branch or if he was hurt before he tried to fly away, but he landed on the ground, and Phoebe chased him.  He got lift a few more times, but he couldn’t fly.  Phoebe was chasing him until they both disappeared around the side of the neighbor’s house.  I grabbed my daughter and followed them, but I didn’t see anything.  When I got back to the front of the house, I saw the other dove in the tree, just sitting there waiting for her mate to come back.  She was there all day, just waiting, and it was the saddest thing because I didn’t think he’d be coming back.  The next day, she was gone, so I don’t know if she just gave up or what.  Maybe he survived the cat attack and they found each other again…  doubtful, but I am hopeful that’s the case because I don’t know what happened.  What I do know is that I don’t like Phoebe the cat.  She’s not even friendly; she never lets my kids pet her.  I’ve considered leaving a note on the neighbor’s door asking them to please corral their cat a little better…  but I don’t want to be one of those people.  For now, I just hold onto the hope the neighbors will move and take Phoebe with them, and when that day comes, I will promptly set up my wildlife area once again.