Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull

OK, I have been anticipating the release of this movie for a year now, when I first heard that there would be a fourth. I must say I was not disappointed, however a fifth would certainly be pushing it. Like many children of the 80's Dr. Jones is one of my heroes and isn't so bad to look at either! I of course never saw the first three in theatres since I was less then 10 years old when the last one was released, I do however own the box set which I watch quite often. The fourth one, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull, was an older more mature Dr. Jones yet still had the adventure and excitement of the previous three. I really enjoyed the subtle references to the previous movies and thought that they really incorporated past characters into the plot well. The supernatural theme that is in the past movies was very present in this one as well, a little too much for my taste, but still keeping with the trend. It fit nicely with the time period that the movie is set in so it worked. Harrison Ford was charming as always and Shia LeBeouf was nice eye candy as well. All in all I can't complain. I went in expecting an exciting movie and it delivered.

Visitors from TX

Hello all! After a month I can finally say that I am all settled in my new apartment. It is so convenient to lots of restaurants and shopping, I just have watch out for where I park! Two parking tickets so far, but I am learning.

A few weeks ago I had a nice visit from my sister and her friend Margaret. We had alot of fun exploring Northern California. Our trip to San Francisco was my favorite, I have fallen in love with that city! New York still has my heart followed closely by Austin but I can say that San Francisco is right up there. We were unable to get a tour of Alcatraz which I was disappointed about, but we did get to take a Bay Tour that took us out around the SF Bay, under the Golden Gate and then around Alcatraz. It actually turned out better because we got to hear more of the history of the city and nearby, which we would not have gotten with the Alcatraz tour. Then we had a nice picnic near Pier 39 and Fisherman's Warf, walked through Ghiradelhi Square, and then took a cable car ride down Hyde St. The cable car was fun, Hyde St. is the one that is super steep (almost at a 90degree angle, at least it felt like it anyways), and we felt very cool hanging on to the side of the cable car. We must have been in every tourist's picture as the car went by! After a long day of walking around we then ventured to our car to do some driving around, and around, and around! HaHa! We went in search of the famous Lombard Street aka "the Crookedest Street" and several hours later we found it. Many of the streets were not through streets or they were one way in the other direction, needless to say it was an adventure just driving around. And I can't forget the steep inclines that we met going up and then down each street. It was certainly a good thing that my brakes were intact! Oh how it would have been to be a fly on the wall in that car as we were driving! We finally made it to Lambard St. and made our way down the sharp curves that certainly give the Crookedest Street it's name. We then made our way back to Sacramento. I was surprised to learn that it is only about a 2 1/2 hr drive from here so I will definitely be going back. You really get a sense of the arts and culture that "the city" has. Everyone here refers to SF as "the city" so I have to as well to fit in.

The next day we had a lazy day and slept in then went and walked around the mall for a bit. That night I took the girls to one of my favorite places here, Tower Records. They have a restaurant and movie theatre where the old Tower Records was, and I enjoy it. It doesn't matter when you go to eat there, it is ALWAYS super busy. We then went and saw the new Indiana Jones Movie, see my next post for my review on that.

On Memorial Day we decided last minute to make a drive down to Napa and experience wine country. Again I was surprised to learn that it is not far from here either, only about 1 1/2 drive. Unfortunately alot of the winery tours we were closed for the holiday, which I thought was odd, so we just drove through a couple of them and enjoyed the scenery. We got out and walked around the Mondavi winery, and drove through the Cakebread winery because those are some of the more well known and larger wineries. It was very picturesque everywhere there. The grapes were not on the vines yet but it was still cool to see the rows of the different types of grapes they use. The trip home was yet another workout for my car since instead of going back the way we came, we decided to take an alternate route, through the mountains! I don't think I have ever driven on such winding and narrow roads before in my life!

Oh, I forgot to mention our trip to Davis for the Farmer's Market. I'm not sure if I've mentioned before about Davis, but it is where my school is about 20min. from here. They have this really great Farmer's Market on Wednesdays and Saturdays with live music and then of course booths with fresh fruit and veggies. On Sat. they even have lots of activities set up for children like face painting and others. There are booths set up with prepared food as well from different restaurants in the area, and people just come to hang out and enjoy the free concert.

After all the fun we had it was sad to see them go, but I am really glad I got to spend the week with them. They made it home safely after a 5 hour flight delay and then a 3 hr drive home! Aaah, how miserable! As usual I don't have pictures yet, but I will post as soon as possible!

Theater Review: Thoroughly Modern Millie

Guess what, I won again! The tickets were to the same 24th Street Theater to a showing of the play Thoroughly Modern Millie. This play was super cute, about a girl from Kansas that moves to NYC and tries to survive with all her new modern ideas about life and love. I just love the concept because I like to think of myself as alot like Millie, smalltown girl moving to the big city where life is faster and more "modern". This Runaway Productions Company does a great job at bringing these Broadway musicals to the smaller theaters. The cast was familiar as I had seen many of them in the previous show of Cabaret. The only main criticism I have this time is that there wasn't much room for the orchestra so they had them down front and the conductor kinda blocked, or obstructed, the view from the first couple of rows. Other than another job well done! Kudos!

Movin On Up...

...to the east side (well, sorta).

Well I am coming back after my unplanned blogger leave of absence over the past few weeks. No worries cousin J, I am alive! I have just been so busy that I haven't taken the time to write, but have no fear I am back. I currently am in the process of moving into an apartment that is in fact to the east of where I was living before. I am so excited about this move, it is a much more convienant location and a cute little studio apartment. Once I get everything settled and my internet up and running I will post some pictures of my space.

The past few weeks have brought some exciting things into my life, mainly being that my two day a week job has now become three days a week. May not seem like much but it has certainly been nice to keep busy, plus the extra $moola doesn't hurt! I am really enjoying this job and starting to feel very comfortable in understanding what I am doing, which gives me a little more independent work to do.

I also went to Carmel and the beach a few weekends ago and had a great time with Cousin C and family. Carmel was such a cool, quaint little beach town that was fun to explore. I will be posting pictures of that trip and tell you more as well, soon.

Sadly, soon I will no longer "officially" be a Texan as I am getting my CA driver's license and having my car registered here. I must say it is kinda sad to loose that part of my identity, but life must go on. I am actually surprised that I am sad about this because I have always been slighly indifferent about having that identity. Don't get me wrong I LOVE TEXAS, but I am not as hard core a fan as most. I guess as many say "You can take the girl out of Texas, but you can't take the Texas out of the girl!"

Movie Review: I Am Legend in the IMAX

Another one of the tickets I won was to see I Am Legend at the IMAX theater. When the movie was released back in Dec. I was slightly neutral about whether or not I wanted to see it, but when you get free tickets why not? The big plus for this movie is that Will Smith was the main character, and in fact the only human in many of the scenes. The premise behind the movie makes you think, but I didn't realize how violent it would be. The whole idea is that you are the last human on Earth when you discover that in fact you are not really the last one. It was amazing to see the scenes of a completely baren NYC. The scientific ideas in it were interesting as well. While this movie was on a special showing at the IMAX, it was not in 3D, which was probably a good thing. I normally enjoy a scary movie, but I wasn't thrilled by this one. I must be going soft! It was just too violent scary.

Theater Review: Cabaret

Note: I posted the previous post using Word and the pictures didn't work, so if you don't see any know I am working on it and if you do, then good!

Now on to the review… I have had a streak of good luck in the past two weeks winning tickets to both the theater and to the movies. Thanks to the TicketClub that is through the local newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, I got to enjoy some really great shows. First the theater; where I saw a production of the Broadway musical Cabaret. It was held at The 24^th Street Theater here in Sacramento and they did a lovely job. The theater is a small community theater that is located right in the middle of a cute neighborhood, obviously off of 24^th Street. The cast did a fine job, especially the lead characters of the Master of Ceremonies/Emcee, Clifford Bradshaw, and Sally Bowles. The other "smaller" roles did well also, however there were a few numbers that I noticed one or two cast members looking fairly lost. The tickets I was given were front row so I had a perfect view. It is one of those musicals that even though it is kind of racy in subject matter; it looks like it would be lots of fun to be in. The setting is a "burlesque" club in 1930's Berlin as the Nazi party is coming to power. It really has a lot to offer in the form of entertainment, fun, love, political issues. I am so glad I won these tickets.

Snow, Skiing, and Sickness!?

Well I have been putting off writing a new post for the simple reason of feeling somewhat uninspired. I do however have a lot to catch you up with. I will begin with back in Feb. when I took a trip to Tahoe with some fam. and had a marvelous time. The pictures I have posted are just some scenery shots that I managed to get out in between bouts of nausea. Yes, I spent most of the weekend sick and in bed, but the parts that I was able to stomach were great. I managed to make it skiing the first day that I was there which was an adventure. Being my first time I took a little lesson in the morning and then was able to hit the slopes by myself later that afternoon. Of course when I say "hit the slopes" feel free to take that with a literal translation because most of my trip down the mountain was sliding down on my back (Luckily there are no pictures to record that sight)!! I did well in the lesson but after lunch I lost some of my confidence and found myself making crash stops a few times. It was all in the name of fun though and I would go back in a heartbeat. The second day however was not so much fun. That is when I woke up sick and, not to sound gross, needing to stay near the bathroom. The day we came home I woke feeling better but as the day progressed and we started to make our descent down the mountain the previous days nausea came rushing back. That is the day that I managed to take pictures, but I am not very thrilled with most of them. I discovered first hand how difficult it is to capture the nice pristine snowy images that are everywhere, with this being the first time in my life to every actually experience snow. Check out the one with the car that is buried in snow. I found it fairly amusing!

 

This is the Truckee River I believe, don't hold me to that though.


This one is actually Donner Lake, which is where the infamous Donner party was stranded. I'm not going through the history lesson again.


I took a picture similar to this on my trip to Tahoe in the fall just without the snow of course. It was the same pier on Lake Tahoe and everything though.


Here's the car! The snow was gross and dirty but I couldn't resist taking this picture. Wouldn't you hate to know that was your car?!

As usual I posted more pictures on my Flickr page.