the best of two worlds

First of all, note the date of this post, so I am so not kidding.

Regular readers of my blog know that I'm a fan of sushi and I'm also a fan of Peeps. Well, what if you combined two great tastes together? No, I'm not talking about Reese's peanut butter cups, although those are really yummy too, especially if you have a nice tall, cold glass of milk to go with it. (And those in the know will be virtually staring at me because of how many rules that particular little snack would be breaking for me, but I digress.)

I'm sorry, what was I talking about? I got distracted there for a second.

Oh, right, sushi and Peeps. Now, it's not as bad as you might think. My first thought was, ummm, marshmallows and cold dead fish wouldn't seem to go very well together. But it's not really sushi, it's "sushi".

Here's the article that @thinkgeek tweeted today about Peepshi. (Hey, I didn't make up the term. I did almost make a huge mistake with that word though. I posted about the Peepshi in another location, and I added an exclamation mark after Peepshi to show my excitement. Ummm, yeah, that ended up looking really odd and was conveying a negative connotation that I totally didn't intend, so I left the exclamation point off. Wait, I think I'm sort of digressing again, aren't I?)

Beheading Peeps is a concept I can't quite wrap my head around.



[crickets chirping]





This picture is just so wrong.




I like the suggestion for what to drink while eating a Peepshi. But here's my favorite instruction.

5. Don't let silent Peeps screams deter you from your task. You're a professional.

Peepshi would make a terrific Easter treat!

But do you mean that literally?

Some weeks or months ago, the husband mentioned to me about some funny videos he'd seen where people had taken the music videos of songs and re-written the lyrics of said song to match what was actually being shown on screen. Well, tonight, he had me pull up one of the videos, and dang him, he got me hooked. I ended up watching quite a few of them, and yep, they're pretty hysterical. The lyrics are actually pretty clever, especially since they generally rhyme as well.

Two things I discovered in watching the videos:

1. It's funnier if you actually know the music video and the song really well, because then you know what it's supposed to be and what they've changed it into.

2. I was turned off immediately when the singing was really bad. I tried Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" but couldn't get past the first couple lines. I tried The Cars' "Drive" and couldn't get past the first line because the last note of the line wasn't even correct. Sorry, pass. I'm not a big fan of cover versions of songs anyway, but if it's at least decent and for comedy's sake, I'm ok with it. When it's a bad singer, nope, sorry, I'm out.


The video that the husband had me watch was a-ha's "Take On Me".






I then went to look up what other songs were available. I stopped on Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield" because I really like the song, but I've also always loved the video. The singing isn't quite what I'd like, but it's seriously hysterical enough for me to overlook that.






And then I saw that they had Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean". Wow! There's a particular line that I loved, but instead of spoiling it here, I'll put it in a comment.

For some reason, the embedding on this video has been disabled, so here's the link instead.



The husband then had me watch Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf". This version is APPARENTLY done live in a karaoke bar or something because you can tell from the sound quality and the occasional laughing in the background.






And then, the husband had mentioned that there was an Air Supply video. He knows that I used to love Air Supply, but he couldn't remember the name of the song. And then it came up on the list - "Making Love Out of Nothing At All". A song and video I loved. And I got to see Russell and Graham the way they were back when I was totally into them. Perfect.






There are a bunch of other songs/videos available, so just go to youtube and search for "literal video". That should pop you up a good list.

contortionist cat

OK, Orkid puts herself in some funny positions, but this cat just tops all that. And from a door jamb no less! Too freaking funny!

Contortionist Kitteh @ Yahoo! Video

a lovely day

I had a lovely day yesterday. I lounged around at home during the day instead of going to work. Then the husband and I went to the Academy for a symposium for the Best Animated Film nominees. Unfortunately, a horrendous accident on the freeway meant we were crawling along at under 5 mph for about 40 minutes, which made us incredibly late for the symposium, so I'm really disappointed that we missed the segment on "Coraline", but there wasn't anything we could have done about it. Wes Anderson didn't end up being there, but I did enjoy the segments on the other three films, especially for "The Secret of Kells", an Irish film we hadn't known about but which I now want to see. The scenes they showed look great, and when all the directors went up at the end, it was pretty cool to see the director up there with his first animated feature being nominated for an Oscar, and he's sitting there with Henry Selick and Ron Clements & John Musker and Pete Docter. He seemed thrilled and excited to be there.

The husband was very sweet and thoughtful to me yesterday as well. There was a particular special gift that I was getting from Dianne's (the currently-still-open jewelry store at Disneyland in New Orleans Square), so the husband left work early on Thursday to swing by to pick it up so that I'd have it yesterday instead of having to wait for today. And, I'd been jokingly lamenting that with all the stuff going on yesterday, I was going to end up having dinner at Denny's, so the husband actually made reservations at two different restaurants for after the symposium, and then we picked which one to go to (with a friend who also came to the symposium) afterward, so we ended up at Genghis Cohen. It's been probably 8 or 10 years since the last time we were there, but the food was still good.

And to top off the evening, we then headed to the El Capitan to meet friends for a midnight screening of "Alice in Wonderland". The theatre was pretty crowded, and the audience was really loud and excited, and many were dressed in costumes. Loved the movie.

One of the trailers they showed before the film was "Tron Legacy", and it looks awesome! I'm just sad that I have to wait another nine months to actually see the movie.

Tonight, a bit more lounging at home, and then I'm hanging out with a friend at the DLR for a while, and then we're meeting the husband and other friends for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in DTD.

Yeah, it's all good. :)

"Fantasia 2000"

10 years ago, "Fantasia 2000" was released, and to commemorate the anniversary, the film is currently being shown at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, running through the end of the month.

The film's run actually starts tomorrow (Thursday, February 18), but there was a special screening tonight that included a panel discussion with some of the people who worked on the film. I was excited to be able to see the movie on the big screen again, but we also like the panel discussions that are often held at the El Cap, so we made sure to attend this one.







The film took a long time to make and complete and went through a lot of changes as far as what segments were going to be used in the final film. It was fun to hear the different stories that each of the participants had.

My absolute favorite segment of the entire film, though, is the Firebird Suite segment, and that's because I absolutely love the sprite that's the main character in the piece. She's just gorgeous.



During the panel discussion, they showed some screen shots from the film. This is the sprite during the early part of the segment.



This is a different picture of her, showing the details of her face and hair.



I love the story of the piece, and the firebird himself is pretty scary and cool, and then there's the rebirth of the sprite after the firebird sweeps through.


The husband has known how much I love the sprite since we saw the film during its initial release. Some years ago, for my birthday, he bought me the maquette of the sprite. It's a gorgeous piece, even though it's in maquette form and not fully painted, but then, I like maquettes. Here's a picture and description of the piece.



For anyone who is interested, it's definitely worth making the trip to see the film at the El Cap.

he only *plays* Jack Bauer

I'd heard some blurb on the TV a couple days ago about Kiefer Sutherland needing surgery for something and was it going to affect "24", which is still in production. Well, then I heard something about some kind of cyst that burst, and then I found this story.

I don't know what kind of cyst he has, but things bursting inside your body is never a good thing. Jack Bauer can be shot and stabbed and go through heroin withdrawal while having a really bad day at work, but hey, Kiefer is only human! I'm glad to hear that there won't be any disruption to the episodes. I'm enjoying this season with Renee being a whackjob, but I'm not as much enjoying Dana's story. Yeah, lady, your sleezy ex-con ex-boyfriend is going to just accept some money from you and then leave you alone. What, are you from another planet? ;)

Here's to Kiefer healing quickly!

"The Last Station" - trailer

When I was going over the recently-announced Oscar nominations, I mentioned that "The Last Station" was probably not a film I was going to see, even though it boasted a fairly impressive cast. But a movie about Leo Tolstoy just didn't grab me.

While I was at the movies today, they happened to show a trailer for this film. And now, I want to go. It doesn't seem to necessarily matter that it's about Tolstoy - it's just a story about a man torn between two sides. It's just circumstance that it was him in this case. Christopher Plummer and Paul Giamatti look to be good, but the scenes of Helen Mirren looked amazing, and that was pretty much what made me decide to see it.

Here's the trailer that I saw today.

hearts and tigers

I was amused when I noticed some time ago that this year, Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year happened to fall on the same day. The endless possibilities!

For Valentine's Day, it's often common for men to buy chocolates for women, and on the lunar calendar, it's now the year of the tiger. So how do you combine the two? Well, I found this heart-shaped box of chocolates with a tiger print cover. That's a pretty good combo.

For Chinese New Year, it's also traditional to give out red packets, and I found this link on how to make your own heart-shaped red packets.

Happy Valentine's Day, Happy Chinese New Year, Happy Presidents' Day Eve, Happy Mardi Gras Eve Eve! ;)

separated at birth

Here are pictures of two actors. Do you know who each is?












OK, the actor in the first picture is Colin Firth, who is pretty well known and who I happen to really like, except for when he played the sleeze in "Circle of Friends", but it wasn't that I didn't like him - his character was just an ass.

The actor in the second picture is Peter Sarsgaard, who has been in a few movies I've seen, so I must have seen him before, but maybe this is the first movie I've seen where he has a prominent role. And for most of the film, I kept thinking how much he looked like Colin Firth, but I knew Colin wasn't in this movie because 1) I didn't see his name in the opening credits and 2) As much as I like Firth, I know he's not *that* young anymore.

Here are a few more pictures of him in the movie that I saw today.













There are so many other moments in the film when he really looks like Colin Firth. Now, he's almost 11 years younger, so he looks like Colin in his younger days, but the facial structure and smile reminded me so much of Colin.


And, since APPARENTLY, I don't remember his exact name or the spelling of his last name, I mistakenly thought that Peter was the son of Stellan Skarsgard, which he's definitely not. Peter's not even English (though he did sport an English accent in the film I saw) - he's an American who was born in Illinois.

2010 Winter Olympics

The 2010 Winter Olympics begins tonight in Vancouver with the opening ceremonies, and in celebration, Google's logo today pays tribute to the Olympics.






That's the picture you get when you save off the image, but it's actually the truncated version. Below is the logo that covers the entire length of the screen, which I like better.







I haven't really been into the Olympics for some time, though I did watch quite a bit more of the last Summer Olympics than I had planned or expected to, and I really enjoyed it. I'm kind of interested in some of the events this time around. I used to really like figure skating and all the downhill skiing stuff, and I was even watching the speed skating stuff during the Eric Heiden days. I'll probably end up catching some of the events over the next couple of week.