Freakin’ Fantastically Fun Friday!

Or as I like to call it, “FFFF.” Much to the discontent of anybody within range of my spit.

So, my very dear and amazingly awesome friend Erin (visit her blog here) was sweet enough to include me in a post concerning her favorite blogs that she enjoys visiting, so I figured I should probably cook up a nice little post. Had some fun stuff happen in the past couple weeks, so here’s a rapid fire update for you, starting with something incredibly exciting.

I got a haircut.

Okay, okay, I’m sorry.

I grilled a heart-shaped ribeye for Jenn and me on Valentine’s Day.

I used a new seasoning on it that I hadn’t used before, much to the delight of my easily amused palate. Jenn loved it, too. She cooked a mean pot roast that day for lunch. Our V-Day gift to each other was to stay at home and cook for each other. Best V-Day ever, seriously.

It snowed shortly before V-Day.

Just a little.

Some jerk kids knocked over our snowman. Here’s a dramatic reenactment of the discovery from after our second snowman fell over on its own…

Also, here’s Maddie catching a snowball.

Words With Friends is awesome. Here’s a screencap of the most epic opening word I’ve ever started a game with.

You can see my username on there, so feel free to challenge me. It’s a fun little diversion when I have some downtime at work.

I found this really awesome artist who makes some killer poster art based on favorite comic book characters. Here are two of my favorites, Green Lantern and Iron Man.

I especially love that GL poster. I mean, GL’s my favorite in general, but that’s just cool in its simplicity. Wish I had it framed for my nonexistent man cave. Heck, might as well throw in that Iron Man poster, too, if we’re talking nonexistent things. 🙂

Let’s see, what else? School’s going okay, graduation’s getting closer and closer. Work’s going fine, even though I’m beyond ready to move up into the world of teaching.

Jenn and I doing marvelously. We had our first premarital counseling session with our pastor and his wife last Sunday, and we’ll do our second/last one this Sunday. Planning the wedding and the honeymoon have really brought us together as a team more than ever before, and it makes me all the more excited to tackle life together with her.

Speaking of the honeymoon, I’ve been using Yelp and this excellent book to assemble a “bucket list” of sorts of restaurants and other stuff we have to check out while we’re in Kauai. It’s turning into quite a list, and I’m having a blast compiling all this info. There’s so much to do during the week that we’ll be there, and we’re so freakin’ excited about it. 🙂

Guess that’s about it for now. I hope you have a blessed and FFFF.

Excuse me, I need to get a paper towel.

Clash of the Titans Trailer

AWW YEAH.

Caffeine Withdrawal Sucks.

Trying to quit soda again. Freakin’ sucks, my head is killing me. Hopefully I’ll get over it soon enough. Sorry for not blogging yesterday. I was lacking inspiration, I guess. Wasn’t even a busy day or anything!

Anyway, this past weekend was a blast. Friday night, Misty and Jenn and I had dinner at Los Lupes. Had some most excellent tamales. 🙂 On Saturday, Jenn took her bridesmaids to Ocone’s to look at dresses. They found the one they liked best, so they’re on order and will be delivered in February! Afterwards, Jenn and I took Angela to Crystal’s Pizza in Irving, because her sister organized a surprise birthday party for her. It was fun, their pizza is REALLY good! The restaurant itself was interesting, though. I felt like I was on the set of a Ghostbusters movie or something. Just, like, oddly creepy, but not in a bad way. Regardless, we still had a great time!

That night, Jenn, Misty, and Samantha had a girls night while I stayed with my brothers. Mom and Dad were out of town for their anniversary, so I hung around to keep an eye on Mark. Allen came over, and we watched Snatch and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. Snatch was hilarious as always, but we hadn’t seen Public Enemies yet. It was a sweet little flick. Probably my favorite out of these new animated movies DC has been putting out lately. The animation style matches exactly with the drawing style used in the comic it was based on. And it was sweet to hear Tim Daly as Superman again, along with Kevin Conroy as Batman. Cool stuff.

Sunday, we took Allen to Genghis Grill for lunch. Allen’s getting ready to go to South America for his big solo adventure for three months, so we wanted to take him out one last time before he goes and gets lost in the Amazon. After lunch, we went down to Joshua to see his parents. It was the first time Jenn and Misty had met them, so that was pretty cool. We stayed until somewhat late in the evening, playing with the goats and watching the Cowboys game. Definitely one of the more relaxing Sundays we’ve had lately! I hated that we had to go home and get ready for the work week. That’s never fun.

Ugh, this headache is making me over-sensitive to noise. The kids yapping in here are driving me nuts, and I have to keep reminding myself that they really are being relatively quiet and good, it’s just me being too sensitive. Wish I had a soundproof room right now. Hah! Hopefully this headache will be gone soon, once the effects of caffeine withdrawal diminish. I’m back on the diet as of yesterday, too, so talk about quitting cold turkey. Think I’m getting the shakes. LOL

Guess that’s it for now. Hopefully I’ll get the pictures from this weekend online tonight, so keep an eye out for those on my Flickr. Have a good one, friend.

Legoland Discovery Centre Coming to Grapevine!

$12 million Legoland planned for Grapevine Mills

BY ALESHIA HOWE
October 27, 2009

+ enlarge photo

A new $12 million entertainment venue soon will be built at Grapevine Mills shopping mall – in more ways than one – as the property has announced the addition of Legoland Discovery Centre, a two to three-hour indoor Lego experience.

The latest addition to Grapevine’s growing entertainment, shopping and educational venues was announced on Oct. 27.

Global leisure giant Merlin Entertainments will build the attraction as part of an aggressive worldwide growth strategy.

Work is expected to begin on the project in June 2010, with the Legoland Discovery Centre set to open in March 2011. Models for the Grapevine site will be made in Merlin’s specialist studios and shipped in during construction, although plans and designs are already being drawn up, according to a release. According to the announcement, Legoland Discovery Centre will offer an interactive and educational experience aimed at families with children 3-12 years old. Based on the Lego bricks, Legoland Discovery Centres provide a range of interactive play areas including 4D cinema; master classes from the Lego Master Model Builder; Lego rides; special party rooms for birthdays and other celebrations; as well as a Miniland exhibit

Merlin currently holds 59 attractions in its portfolio – eight of those in the United States including Legoland California and Legoland Chicago as well as Madame Tussauds attractions in New York, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas and Hollywood, and a Sea Life aquarium alongside Legoland California and Underwater Adventures Aquarium in the Mall of America in Minneapolis. The Grapevine attraction is one of three Merlin projects set to open in 2010 and 2011.

“We believe Grapevine is exactly the right location for a Legoland Discovery Centre,” said Glenn Earlam, managing director of Merlin’s Midway Attractions Operating Group, which includes the LDCs, in a release. “It is ideally situated between Dallas and Fort Worth, and is already a popular destination for family visitors.”

Grapevine Mayor William D Tate said the attraction will “become one of the most unique and best family attractions in Texas. In developing Grapevine as a top destination city, we have pursued very unique and exclusive attractions and hotels. Clearly Merlin Entertainments is one of the best visitor attraction companies in the world, and the Legoland Discovery Centre will be recognized as a unique and integral part of Grapevine’s visitor appeal.”

Simon Property Group, which is working with Merlin Entertainments on a number of projects in the USA, helped to facilitate the deal.

Original story here.

Relief.

Well, thank God that’s over with. The Archaeology test I’ve been sweating over has been vanquished. I think I did a pretty darn good job on it, so hopefully the good doctor will see it the same way.

Big weekend ahead! Jenn and I are going to register at Home Depot, which will be our last one on the list. After that, we’re gonna go eat with Misty and then take a look at some furniture at the furniture store over in the Highlands. What is it, Ethan Allen? The one by PF Chang’s, whatever it is. Anyway, tomorrow is All Hallow’s Eve. Along with the el cheapo masquerade we’re gonna enjoy with the fam and some friends tomorrow night, I’ve volunteered my car as part of the church’s Trunk or Treat party tomorrow afternoon. If you’ve never heard of this, basically church members line up their cars in the parking lot, decorate ’em all spiffy, and the kids go around trickrtreatin’ for candy from the trunks. It’s meant to be a super-safe way for the kiddos to enjoy Halloween without worrying about evil folks out there in the world. Should be a lot of fun. I heard through the grapevine that everyone’s doing a fall/harvest theme with their vehicles. I’m like, UM WUT!? I’m so turning the trunk of my car into a monster mouth. Rawr! Happy Halloween!

Mos Eisley, here we come!

Click to embiggen.

This is SO freakin’ sweet! Check out the Eigenharp…

Demo video on BBC.

Basically, it’s the most customizable electronic instrument ever made. Part electric guitar, part synthesizer, part woodwind, part percussion. The possibilities are endless! I so wish I could get one of these. Hey, it’s a bargain at £3950.00. LOL!

Can you imagine my little brother (Mark) with one of these? They’d have him on stage in a heartbeat. Amazing stuff. I will never ever get tired of the classics when it comes to musical instruments (especially my cello), but this is definitely part of the future of musical instruments. So awesome!

Yesssss.

I totally forgot that we have early dismissal today. Well, the kids do, at least. Plus, they have a four day weekend, so it should be nice and quiet starting around lunch time today!

I’m going to take Monday off to go with Jenn up to Southlake, so we can get started on our wedding gift registries. Very excited about that! We’re planning on going to Crate & Barrel, Macy’s, Target, and Home Depot for sure. I think there were one or two other places she wanted to go to, as well. Should be a very fun day for us, especially since we’ll get to go hang out at Southlake Town Square in the middle of the day, when (hopefully) it won’t be as busy as it is on the weekends.

I keep telling Jenn that one of the main things I’m excited about registering for is a really nice set of knives. I’m hoping we can find a really sweet set at Crate & Barrel. I dunno, something about having an awesome set of knives just makes me wanna cook more. LOL Of course, that’s not the only thing I’m excited about, but I definitely can’t wait to see what they’ve got there. Just going to Crate & Barrel and looking at all the cool stuff is fun in itself. Haha

So WordPress is going crazy for this new website called PicApp. It’s a great resource for high quality stock images. I found this really awesome picture of a cellist from 1850:

[picapp src=”7/c/3/1/Cellist_fe6e.jpg?adImageId=4877948&imageId=3345259″ width=”467″ height=”594″ /]

Pretty cool/creepy, huh? I also found this picture of Big Bird:

[picapp src=”d/0/7/4/f6.JPG?adImageId=4877977&imageId=2319203″ width=”380″ height=”556″ /]

I don’t know why.

Anyway, cool site. Bookmark’d fo sho.

Speaking of cool webstuff, heard about Photosketch yet? It’s this new program that makes it possible for pretty much anyone who can draw a stick figure to use Photoshop. Basically, you sketch out what you want. Like, you want a picture of a caveman riding a rocket in outer space while shooting alligators at a bearshark.

So you sketch a stick figure riding a basic sketch of a rocket, draw some stick alligators or whatever, then label everything in the picture. Photosketch then takes over and puts everything in its place for you. Ta-da, fancy Photoshoppage. Sounds sweet, doesn’t it? I can’t wait to check it out.

Oh, I finally heard from my advisor! We’re working out my scheduling concerns. It looks like there’s an English 3300 class that I can take for my Humanities minor, because it’s a Philosophy and Literature class. Ugh, just saying the name of the class puts me to sleep. I’m gonna have to work really hard to get through that one. On the bright side, it also looks like I can take another English 3300 class as an elective. Why is it the bright side, you may ask? It’s a class about Science Fiction literature, friend. OH YES. That’s gonna rock. Between that and whatever History classes I sign up for, that should make up for having to deal with the PhilLit class. Should be a fun final semester for yours truly. 🙂

Oooh, I like the sound of that. “Final semester.” I can taste it already, friend.

iPSotD:

I clean up nice. Haha

2016/2012

So I’m watching the International Olympic Committee vote on where the 2016 Summer Games will take place. Ol’ Wacky Baracky’s been busy forgetting he’s no longer a US Senator representing Illinois (whoops, did I say that out loud?), so obviously the news has been all over this particular round of voting.

Personally, I’m divided. On the one hand, Chicago’s a mess right now. If you’ve done any digging lately, you’ll see that crime there has just been hideous right now. BUT, if Chicago wins it, they’ve got a little over six years to clean up the mess before everyone comes over. And hey, anything to help clean it up has to be a good thing, right? So heck, more power to ’em. My vote’s for Rio, though, just because South America has never hosted before.

So let’s see what happens… Voting has closed, so now they’re tallying… Whoa, there goes Chicago! There’s a shocker. Tough luck there, BO. Now Tokyo’s eliminated. Tough break. And the winner is. . . going to be announced in an hour.

D’oh! Oh well.

Anyway, I also watched a scene from the 2012 movie this morning. In it, John Cusack is racing to get his family out of California as it’s sinking into the ocean. They barely escape on their plane, after driving them in a limo through the destruction of Los Angeles.

In other words, SWEET! LOL! I so can’t wait for this movie! I loved The Day After Tomorrow, so I’ll prob’ly love this movie even more. Very cool. I mean, yeah, cheesy. But come on, you know all that chaos is gonna look awesome on the big screen.

Taking it easy this weekend. Not really doing much tonight, but tomorrow’s a big day! I’ll mention the main reason later, but the other reason is because I’m taking a big step in reducing the clutter in my life. I’m going to go through my stuff tomorrow and get ready to sell off a whole bunch of my toys that I’ve collected in recent years.

I know, right? Didn’t see that one coming, didja? But yep, it’s true. Time for me to drop some baggage and hopefully make a little coin while I’m at it. Yes, I’m going to keep one or two things. But the vast majority is going bye-bye. I think I’ma try Craigslist for most of it. Might see if some of you guys, ie. my LEGO pals, are interested in buying via one of our online communities. So stay tuned and I’ll link ya through here, if you’re interested.

Oh, one more thing I wanted to share. I was watching Monday’s episode of Heroes on Hulu, and there was this deaf lady who has discovered she has the ability to “see” sound. Random noises produce pretty pretty lights that only she can see, and the effect is pretty cool to watch. She finally… I dunno, embraced(?) her power towards the end of the episode, and she played a cello so she could see the trippy lights.

Now, obviously, she was faking it. I doubt she really knows how to play. Which is fine, of course. It still looked cool! My only real beef was that instead of going the extra mile and actually bringing in a real cellist to play the music dubbed over this scene, they cheaped out and use a flippin’ synthesizer. LAME. Come on, it’s not like it was a difficult piece to play! Were all the professional cellists busy on the day you recorded this? Heck, call me. I’ll be happy to help you out. LOL

Have a good weekend, friend!

iPSotD:

XKCD comics. The teachers are usually the ones who get them.

Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue.

C’mon rain!

Click to embiggen

<– So have you seen this yet? The Empire State Building decided to celebrate the 60 year anniversary of China's commie regime by lighting up all purty ‘n red ‘n yelluh.

Seriously, who’s in charge of this? What on Earth is wrong with you!? 36 million Chinese starve to death (upwards of 72 million dead total), and you feel the need to celebrate this auspicious occasion by using the tallest building in New York City– and an iconic symbol of the world’s most awesome representative of freedom and capitalism– as a shiny happy beacon of commie goodness?

Smooth. Real smooth. So, I’m thinking we march. We get some of our greatest American heroes and have them lead a massive march to the Empire State Building. And when we get there, we drape American flags all over the outside of the building, and throw apple pies at whoever was responsible for this.

Is it possible to be tongue-in-cheek and serious at the same time? 🙂

iPSotD:

Workstation (BONUS: Click for details! Oooo!)

Nathan Sawaya

(click for gallery)

This is Nathan.

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Nathan is a professional LEGO sculpture artist.

(click for gallery)

Pretty sweet, huh? Well, check out what I just found on his site.

O SNAP! (click for gallery)

How friggin’ sweet is that!? I totally wanna build one of those.