The Inevitable After-Holiday Crash

That's right, folks, it's happened. People around the world (or at least in Christmas-celebrating regions) are sacked out on their couches, casting glazed stares onto football games (or Food Network or Spongebob or whatever) as they sleep off their food comas from the holidays. My brother and I are no exception. We camped out on the couch all morning in sweats watching Toy Story and sipping tea (or in my brother's case, sparkling apple cider; don't know why).



We got all three of the movies for Christmas, and even though 2 was definitely my favorite, 3 was the most fun to watch today. I haven't seen it since I saw it with my best friends over summer, and it always gets to me! It's even better because I'm part of the generation that grew up with the movies. The fact that we're growing up and leaving our toys behind really applies to our lives as we go through it.

Of course, every time I see a Toy Story movie, I want to take all my stuffed animals down out of my closet and host a tea party. Which is weird, because I was NOT a tea party kid when I was little.

I could watch these movies a million times and they wouldn't get old. The plots are amazing and very in-depth for kids' movies, and they could almost be watched as comedies or classics instead of just Disney kids' films. I still love the movies just as much now as I did ten years ago, and I can still quote the first two word for word.

I also love how every movie they introduce new characters: the first, Buzz; the second, Jessie, Bullseye, and the aliens; the third, Lotso, Big Baby, Barbie, Ken.

And oh, how we all loved Barbie and Ken in this movie. They were so vapid and so superficial and so... STOREBOUGHT that you just had to laugh.
I think Barbie's actually my favorite, and I could use a full-size poster of Ken striking a pose in his hippie costume for my room (if you've seen it, you know what I'm referring to). And even though they were goofy, they made nice assets to the film. Plus I think all Toy Story fanatics were reminded of Tour Guide Barbie in the second one who led them through Al's Toy Barn.

Plus, this movie solved the question of "What would happen if Barbies were brought to life?" It was exactly as I thought it would be.

Stay tuned, part two of my after-holiday crash post coming up, just since it's on the horrid commercialism of the fast food industry, I thought I would keep it separate from this bright, optimistic movie review. =)

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Well it BETTER look a lot like Christmas, since it's December flippin' 23rd. Hello, tomorrow's CHRISTMAS EVE! This is a picture from our Christmas last year (thanks to my mom for her photo skillz). We got the tree set up, we got lights, we got indoor heating, everything's all nice and cheery. And although you can't see it, we have cashews and candy canes in the kitchen and I'm sliding around in my pajamas and uber-fuzzy socks, which means it's pretty much the best day ever.

I gotta tell you, we have a lot of good holiday memories. Especially last year. Last year was the year I got SOCKS for Christmas. I know it's a cliche... kid gets socks for Christmas and realizes they must have been naughty, because, hello, who in their right mind wants socks for Christmas? I DO. I'm a sock FANATIC... I gotta upload a picture of my sock drawer, it's like an explosion of rainbow cottony KABLAM. It's pretty intense. This is why my grandpa thought it a good idea to get me a cardboard packing box filled entirely with... socks. Rainbow socks, camouflage socks, striped socks, knee highs, leg warmers, fuzzy socks, mismatched socks, socks with dogs on them, and my favorite, BOOK SOCKS. That's right, THEY EXIST! *cue Holy Grail-esque music here*

This year, we're hanging out at my Aunt Janet's on Christmas Eve. They always have a party and serve tons of seafood, and even though I'm a vegetarian there's usually a lot of dessert, so, you know, I'll survive. Even if it means I have to eat only chocolate, I refuse to go hungry! I'm slightly disappointed because I kind of wanted to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" this Christmas Eve and I can't because we're going out for the night. Maybe I'll TiVo it. (Does anybody even say "TiVo it" anymore?)

Saturday Night Live did an awesome parody of "It's a Wonderful Life". Cracked me up, plus it had Jeff Bridges, how good can it get? Unfortunately I can't find the video anywhere, so you'll just have to take my word on how great it is.

After Christmas Eve this year, things get tricky. We go to my grandparents' on Christmas Day for a food-and-presents FRENZY, then the next day, the day where normally we're all in food comas, lethargically cleaning up wrapping paper and drinking leftover peppermint tea, we'll be hightailing it to the Bay Area to see my dad's side of the family. I haven't seen my cousins in FOREVER, so I'm really excited. Plus I have a ton of reading to do, so I don't mind the 7 hour car ride.

Doesn't this look like my kind of Christmas tree? I kinda like it. Maybe I'll do this when I grow up. It's kind of... festive. Although I still love the SUPER decked out, mega tree with tinsel and popcorn chains, so weighed down with ornaments that it looks like Atlas holding up the world. Just saying. Our tree looks more like that. Although my mom's convinced it's crooked this year, even though we keep reassuring her IT'S FINE...

Well, I better go finish Breaking Dawn (just club me now) so I can get around to reading some better books. Like my library books. I NEED TO SPREAD SOME CHRISTMAS SPIRIT!

Holed Up Inside

I've been holed up inside ALL DAY. No, more than that... ALL WEEK. Since LAST SATURDAY. And it's NOW WEDNESDAY. That's a PROBLEM, if my caps can't get that point across to you.

It would be fine if I had some awesome new book to rave about... but I don't. No, I have Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. It's kind of sad because I couldn't read when we went to Target for Christmas shopping today (okay, maybe my holing-up hasn't been SO drastic) because I was too scared to take that book out in public. Can you imagine the humiliation? I even hid it under the seat so my mom's car wouldn't get keyed.

No, talking about books is out of the question. Nobody wants to hear about the Twilight saga, its hype is over (HALLELUJAH!). Instead, I've been occupying myself with music. And more Brian Regan, but I already buzzed about his hilariousness last post. Seriously, how much better can you get than "TAKE... LUCK!" or "When's that BABY due?"

Back on topic! My music buzz is going strong, with the new stuff I bought off iTunes. Got some Jet, some Shinedown, some Wallflowers... yeah, I have diverse music tastes. Got a problem? It's better than my friend Adrie... she gets all hyper-aggressive if you let her listen to too much Rage Against the Machine. But how can you not? I think everyone has that problem, they're pretty... Rage-ful.

I've been obsessed with One Headlight by the Wallflowers for oh, say... 24 hours now. I actually put my iPod on repeat last night and fell asleep to the song over and over, something I haven't done since Dani California hit its peak.

"Me and Cinderella... we put it all together..." *starts humming blissfully* This song originated as a Bass Lake song in my family, meaning it was playing incessantly one year on our big Bass Lake family vacation. Sure enough, I remember the first time I heard this song was... on a boat. Before I almost drowned tubing.

And now I introduce to you... Rag and Bone by the ONE AND ONLY WHITE STRIPES!!! I cannot impress upon you how great this band is. Two words: Jack White. Two more words: Meg White. Last two words, I swear: MUSICAL TALENT.

This song cracks me up. I love when he gets REALLY into it with the houses:

"Got plenty of places to go, lots of homes we ain't been to yet. West side, southwest side, middle-east, rich house, dog house, outhouse, old folks house, house for unwed mothers, halfway homes, catacombs, twilight zones. Looking for techniques, turntables to gramophones. So take a last lick of your ice cream cone. And lock up what you still want to own. But please be kind. And don't rewind."

He sounds so wound up! This song's unique (even for them) because Meg actually speaks up in it. You have to understand, she NEVER talks. Sure, she sings a couple tracks, but she's got anxiety problems and she's painfully shy so you almost never hear her talk. She never even talked this loud on their documentary, Under Great White Northern Lights (yes, I own it and have watched it obsessively, yes, the White Moon scene makes me tear up)!

Unfortunately the White Stripes seem to be over, which REALLY sucks because they're one of my favorite bands. It seems I always get into the good bands too late: White Stripes, Nirvana, the Beatles, Johnny Cash, Tori Amos... sure, Tori is still producing, but let's face it, everybody, her glory days are OVER.

But yeah, they're split up for now while Jack goes on to bigger (but probably not better, or as-good) things and Meg copes with her anxiety issues. Hopefully one day she'll get over them and the White Stripes will reunite, but until then, no dice.

For now, I'm stuck replaying their CDs endlessly (especially Get Behind Me, Satan) and trying to appreciate the Raconteurs or the Dead Weather. And they're good, but I miss Meg's simply epic drumming.

"'I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen,' observed Jo mysteriously."

Just by the name you should be able to guess the book. That's right, Little Women. I must say it's a much better reread now that I'm older and can appreciate it. But yeah, this quote just kind of struck me as powerful, like TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR LIFE, YOU HAVE POTENTIAL SO USE IT! The castle in the air Jo refers to is the perfect place, like her personal mental image of a perfect life. And she's saying she knows the way there, she simply has to persevere and take charge, I guess. I like that idea.
I'm actually almost finished with Little Women, which is good because it's starting to wear on me. After the first half, I was saying to myself, "Geez, this is so CONDESCENDING!" Louisa May Alcott really talks down to her readers, even for a children's book. I guess they didn't care as much back in 1861? Huh. Don't get me wrong, it's a great book, but it's starting to wear on me. I forgot that the second part is a lot more slow-moving than the first, too.
The romance plotlines also bug me. (FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T READ THIS, SPOILERS AHEAD!) Just the way Laurie jumps from Jo to Amy... if I were Jo, I would be a little weirded out that Laurie had felt so strongly for me and settled so readily for my sister. Maybe it was meant to be, though. Let's face it, if I was one of the girls, I'd be Jo. I'm such a tomboy, I "speak in slang," and I love to read like her. I think she's the one Louisa modeled herself after. I also love Amy, because she's so... well, not vapid, but superficial until Laurie comes along.
But even though this book is a classic, just a warning for all of you, it's pretty much the book version of the TV series, Full House. Tragedy does strike, but it's dealt with a bit too heartwarmingly, if you get what I'm saying.
Okay, moving on. Winter break is going well so far, even though we're two days in. I'm making myself useful by cleaning out the fridge. Meaning, I eat all the desserts that's left. We have cake balls (AMAZING!), chocolate, candy corn, baklava, and cookies, and there's no way I'm letting it go to waste. It's good stuff, man. Thus my food coma continues.
Another thing my brother and I have amused ourselves with is this completely stupid (yet addicting) game called CUPONK. It's completely annoying, but yet so enthralling when there's nothing else that holds your attention. All it is is a cup and some ping pong balls and you have to bounce the balls into the cup. Sounds easy but it's actually sorta hard, and it's easy to sit there for a half hour getting mad at that danged ball for NOT GOING INTO THE FRICKIN' CUP! *ahem* Sorry. It's just so aggravating when you're trapped indoors because of all the rain and this game winds you up.
The funny part is, it's just a cup and some ping pong balls. If kids today were still original in making up games, we'd be playing this against the wall with a Styrofoam cup and a few old ping pong balls and it would be the same, except we wouldn't get the cool sound effects. It's amazing, the irony you find in kids' toys, eh? It's like how you get a kid a toy and they get just as excited over making a fort out of the box.
The other thing we do to amuse ourselves over this break is listen to Brian Regan. I have to say, he is the BEST stand-up comedian I've ever heard, especially since he's CLEAN. No swearing, no jokes at people's expense, no bad humor, it's just HILARIOUS. Take a look (or technically, listen) for yourself.

I'M BACK!

Wow, haven't been on here in FOR. EV. ER. Seriously. The last time I posted was for the amazing 24 Hour Readathon, and before that it was early January. And now it's mid-December! It's been so long! So in order to get myself all psyched back up for blogging again I redid my entire blog, changed the name, layout, and my picture, FINALLY, since that other one was a few years old. Not much has changed since then... except finding new best friends, losing old ones that shouldn't have mattered as much as they did, starting a new year of school (with WAY more homework, so I haven't been reading as much anyway), and becoming hopefully a little more mature.
Wait, still immature. I think I'll always be that way, though. Same way I'll always be short. That's right folks, a whole year and I didn't grow ANY. Aren't I supposed to grow at this time of my life? It's so weird... *ahem* ANYWAY.
I'm back on book blogging, but I'm going to try to include a little more of my life on here to give it a little variety. Movies, music, stuff going on, my friends, the usual. And, of course, the unusual. In fact, the usual is a very small percentage of my life. The random takes up a lot more.
To start it off, NEW CAKE! Cake is one of my favorite bands, they've got a good vibe and even when they're talking about sad stuff they make me laugh SO HARD. And they've got a good sense of humor while staying deadpan and straight-faced. And they have new music! Like this song. I heard it on Music Choice the other day and I started skipping around the house with my dog Katie (obviously I was home alone).


So here's the video from they're new song, "Sick of You". I would kill to see this live. Well, maybe not kill, but... burn a Metallica CD. Or a Harry Potter book. And that's saying something.
So yeah, life's been good... out on winter break, the perfect time for getting back into blogging with all my reading, now that I have spare time to catch up. I'm actually deciding to reread a lot of stuff right now.
I started with the Twilight saga (I know, you want to throw rotten vegetables and bottles full of questionable liquids at me) because I was bored and I needed something to make the time pass for finals week. Because otherwise you sit there in class with bated breath as the clock.... just... keeps... ticking... So I brought Twilight. Let me tell you, I got SO MUCH crap for bringing that. The eye rolls, the scoffs, the grabbing my book and hurling it into the nearest trash can... *shudders* But the thing about the books is, they're not actually that bad. Yes, some of the story line gets cheesy, yes, there are a few plot holes and you find yourself screaming "Come ON, Bella, you know he wants you, he's just playing hard to get!" or "That SO doesn't happen in real life," when the stupid, unbelievable stuff happens, but other than that, the books are kind of good. I'm currently on Eclipse, and I don't think I need to go into plot summaries because every reader of this generation pretty much knows it. And if you don't, I'm sure you've seen the movies. Or had a teen girl come up and give you a detailed play-by-play on her way out of the theater. I think that's where the problems started: the movies. Once the whole movie hype hit, the books lost all credibility because let's face it: the movies aren't the best. They're okay movies, but unless you're a blind fangirl like my friends and I once were (gasp, I know! Yeah, we wore the shirts, obsessively reread, and went to the midnight release of Breaking Dawn too, just like the rest of them) they won't hold your attention for long. They're not cinematic masterpieces, like, say, the legendary Harry Potter movies, or THE PRINCESS BRIDE *cue Inigo Montoya quote here*.
Okay, so maybe I'm biased. But anyway, rereading the books just made me realize how much the movies really screwed it up. No offense, Catherine Hardwicke. I guess it's a matter of opinion, but, well, here's mine.
I'm also going to start reading a few classics. I just downloaded a bunch of free Jane Austen novels onto my Kindle (thanks, Grandma and amazon.com!) and I'm looking forward to reading them over my almost-month-long winter break. (Yeah, our school district's messed up.)
And to combine rereading and classics, I'm... rereading some classics. =) I've got my old paperback copy of Jane Eyre lined up, and Little Women on my Kindle too. I've got to be honest, I know it's an amazing book, but I really didn't get into Jane Eyre the last time I read it. That could be because I was only eleven or twelve, though. So I really want to reform my opinion on it and see what happens. Same with Little Women, although I remember really enjoying that. Again, I read it when I was eleven or twelve.
And, on top of all these books I'm planning to read, I AGAIN went overboard and checked out my limit from the school library. I snagged Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls (another nostalgic reread from fifth grade), No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman (wanted to read this for years now), Chew On This by Eric Schlosser (part of my fast food nation OBSESSION which fueled my research paper), and Night's Child by Cate Tiernan (epilogue to the Sweep series, EEEE! See my older posts on those books!). Yeah. I'm stocked up.
Lastly, to go over what I've ALREADY read, the last book I finished was this novel from the eighties, When No One Was Looking by Rosemary Wells. I found it at a used book sale and it looked like one of those generic authors from the seventies/eighties where they just kept churning out young adult books that all were semi-okay reads. And that's kind of what I got although the book actually was really good. It starts off with this girl with a temper, Kathy, who finds out she has a gift for tennis. It's sad how her parents and her coach push her, even forcing her to cheat in algebra so she can keep playing. (Of course, the author may be a bit far fetched, but still. There are probably kids who have parents like that.)
Plus, Kathy really reminds me of me: she's sort of a tomboy with a bad temper who feel left out and awkward a lot of the time. But she has it worse, because she has a know-it-all sister who resents her playing.
Things only go downhill when Kathy's opponent drowns in a pool and an investigation is started.
I have to say, I did figure out whodunit before they revealed it, but only barely. It took 150 pages and an emotional catharsis to figure it out. But the book was pretty good.
The only thing that cracked me up was all the stuff that was commonplace in the eighties that WOULD NOT happen now. For instance, "Kathy, I got your favorite dessert, Twinkies!" When was the last time you heard that? And the parents are really lenient on drinking, letting Kathy and her friends have a celebratory glass of wine at dinner after her tennis matches. I don't know about you, but my parents don't let me, let alone my FRIENDS, have wine here. I got offered champagne ONCE, and that's when my cousin was born. We have to have A NEW LIFE IN THE FAMILY to even consider a SIP of anything for a teen in this family, not just A TENNIS MATCH.
Just a few discrepancies I noticed. But still, entertaining. Just what I needed for finals. And it made a great match to read alongside Twilight, people kept staring at me weird because I would break out giggling in class over how far-fetched things got in these books.