Dreambiscuit

I don't often have time to pursue my hobbies, but I'm trying to squeeze them in where I can. I just started a new painting, and I Imagineered my own ultimate Disneyland, Westcot Center, Animal Kingdom (with a new name) and several hotels and entertainment districts. I'm about to start on a new Hollywood park but it's in its infancy right now, with only ten or so attractions and a few restaurants on the boards. I don't know how I managed to find the time, but it somehow happened. 

I guess a minute here and a minute there add up.

I keep foam rubber strips wrapped around the legs of my bed because I've stubbed my toes on them so many times, and they can be rather painful.  

Getting a little pissed at this new laptop I bought. I just got it and it's already failing on a fundamental level. The keyboard is all screwed up. Whenever I type anything, the cursor suddenly blinks to a random part of the screen, so whatever I'm typing ends up getting melded together with another sentence two paragraphs previous. It does this constantly so I have to watch every single word I type, one at a time, and it's maddening! 

I bought the laptop I'm typing this response with. It's a used Dell Latitude, a step up from my old Dell, but I haven't had any of my programs or personal stuff put into it yet. I'll have someone knowledgeable do that when I can. Right now I'm still getting used to its various piccadillos. 

I'm hoping I don't get heat stroke mowing my parents' lawn tomorrow. I don't want to get stung by bees either. I hate it when that happens. 

I'm grateful that a family member living in the Midwest was not as badly affected by tornadoes this weekend as he could have been. His business took some structural damage and he lost five trees, but it could have been much worse. I'm grateful his neighbors were able to help him with timely repairs.

My sneezes are mostly quiet and I do my best to stifle them so as not to attract too much attention. They come out sounding like 'pth'shkh' and I almost always sneeze twice in a row. If I sneeze once, the people around me usually say, "And now the other one..." which usually follows a second or two later.

I'd cover travel and entertainment. I love travel, and I watch a ton of movies, so I have some rudimentary knowledge at least. And light stuff like this make the most interesting subjects.

I'd be happy covering Christian religious topics as well, even though I don't think of that as lightweight subject matter.

Yes, I use Suave (Ocean Breeze or Cherry Blossom). On rare occasions I use conditioner, but that's only on days when I shower twice or at times when my hair gets a serious workout. 

I assembled a new painting easel for my mom, did some painting of my own, and watched two movies. 

I was wearing a black t-shirt depicting Chewbacca photo-bombing Darth Vader and a pair of stormtroopers. Olive green shorts rounded out the ensemble.

I always think of the Chinese Chicken I had at the Plaza Inn at Disneyland. I was sick as a dog and couldn't even look at food, but I tried a little of the chicken, then tried a little more, and a little more until I was ready for another plate. Dang, I think that chicken cured me of my cold. 

I also had some really comforting Bangers and Mash at the Rose & Crown Pub at Epcot.

My mom's fried chicken is miraculous. I'm also fond of fried clams, which I first tasted in Nantasket, Massachusettes when I was little, and it was magic. Oh, and I mustn't forget the deep fried Vietnamese spring rolls made by some college students of my dad's. Those qualify as the best ANYTHING I've ever had.

I coud do this strategically and make it a Vegas-style buffet, but I'll try to narrow it down. I love good quality pizza, the best I've had being Geno's in Boston, Massachusettes. But a good steak is hard to beat, the best I've had being from the Blue Bayou in Disneyland. Prime Rib (whether you classify it as steak or not, also from Blue Bayou). I had some pretty impressive Vietnamese spring rolls once as well, at the college where my dad worked. All of the above qualify.

Sports I like to do include swimming and sometimes skating, even though I'm not good at the latter. Sports I like to watch are swiming-based, like in the Olympics, basketball and parkur. Parkur is something my cousin is very skilled at, and it's fun to watch her doing her stuff. It's nothing I could ever do, and nor would I try.

Feeling okay. Tummer is a bit off today, but nothing serious. I'm dreading being outside in the heat all day. 

I love to fly. I don't have the ability or means to pilot my own craft, and I've never tried skydiving. But I love commercial flying, which is the only means available to me. I love to fly as often as possible, but I absolutely MUST have a window seat. If I can't tell I'm soaring above the clouds with that million-dollar view, what's the point?

I had a bowl of leftover Mexican rice. Not much appetite today. 

Best: The Forum Shops in Las Vegas. Spendy but awesome decor!

Worst: Twin Lakes Plaza, Mountain Home, AR. It had an Army recruitment office and a restaurant that closed at 2pm every day, and that's about it. It was freaking empty! Nothing there but old folks using it for indoor jogging.

On 2024-05-20 at 9:58 AM, Fluttershutter said:

Lol, I like Slim Jims but I couldn't see living on them. 

Me neither. That's why I turned out the way I have. lol 

Aside from the premiere of the series, I don’t think Hasbro was ever all that inspired by it. I think their board room may have been enthused by making the ponies all polished up with CG, but the writing has never been hugely inspired, and the way they scheduled, released and planned the show with different series and sub-series, it’s incoherent, messy and to this day I can’t figure out what timeline to follow or how each storyline fits into the overall tapestry of the show.

The characters are mostly pale retreads of the G4 ponies with just a few minor changes, and most of the actual changes don’t work anyway. This feels like what I predicted for G5; a nice-looking product with adequate-though-uninspired writing, and a general lack of excitement. But Hasbro has never been interested in quality as much as selling toys, that’s why we have so many Equestria Girls movies and only one G4 My Little Pony movie. If they thought in terms of box office or commercial revenue as much as they did merchandise, we’d see a much different G5 and a lot better promotion and handling of the later seasons of G4.

Godzilla x Kong (2024) Yeah, okay, been there, done that; lots of special effects, very little plot, and the usual fight in a city as the finale, all the usual boxes checked off, but really lacking in any suspense or gripping story. It’s a Godzilla movie so it doesn’t have to be anything epic, just entertaining and original enough to justify itself. As long as people turn out to see it, Hollywood is not going to elevate their game because they don’t need to. Godzilla Minus One wasn’t intricate or insanely original, but it didn’t have to be; its characters were strongly written and acted, and the plot took some actual intelligent thought. I didn’t have huge hopes for Godzilla x Kong and it delivered exactly what I expected. Sadly that wasn’t enough to justify the cost.

Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024) Well, it sucked. Guy Ritchie has never made a good movie in his life, so hey, let’s give him another script and pile of money and see what happens. Guess what, he turned in another flop. This movie is so pretentious and stupid, with Quentin Tarantino-style, self-consciously ‘cool’ actors, and a spaghetti-western score which is a poor gimmick that doesn’t elevate it to a good movie. The story is fine; a covert team has to stop German U-boat dominance in the Atlantic during WW2. Fine, but what we get is a convoluted demonstration of how brilliant the director, writers and editing team aren’t. In past years (decades) this would have been a simple task; create a war movie with a simple plot, streamlined and entertaining. They never needed to be ‘epic’ or use gimmicks. But it seems the people who made this mess never even seen a movie older than 1970. Their loss and mine. There goes another two hours I’ll never get back.

Howard the Duck (1985) Known for being a huge flop, this movie’s failure at the box office could have easily been avoided or fixed. There isn’t anything all that wrong with it fundamentally; it has a clear plot with engaging characters and a good sense of fun. What it needs is one more draft of the script to polish off the rough edges, and someone to put a leash on the writers, one of which directed as well. George Lucas got the blame for everything largely because he’s George Lucas, and everyone wanted to jump on the bandwagon and see him fail. It’s the same hive-mind thinking that generated the Jar Jar Binks backlash. But taken on its own merits and discounting all crowd-following ‘opinion,’ there is potential here. Howard the Duck is a pretty easy character to make work; a cynical, cigar-chewing duck transplanted into a human world and left to sink or swim. Much can be done with that. This movie simply went too far in some areas and not far enough in others. On the plus side, Lea Thompson is such a gem; she keeps the perfect balance between tongue-in-cheek humor and ego-free innocence. She really is the best thing about this movie.

10 minutes ago, TheRockARooster said:

You look amazing, Kates. 

Never forget that.

I have a terrible memory. You might have to tell me over and over and over again. 

1 minute ago, TheRockARooster said:

@Dreambiscuit

You look like a dream, Kates. 

Yup, from the top of my head, up. 

Right now I’m less than satisfied with my midsection. I managed to lose most of my excess weight after being pregnant last year, but getting muscle tone back is proving really challenging. I’m staring down a looming swimwear season and I want to get firm. I have people who are willing to put me through a rigorous fitness routine, but that sounds like torture right now. I’d rather eat a cupcake.