Subtitle: First New State in Sixteen Years!

I’m going to a new state today, ya’ll! I haven’t been to a ‘new state’ since November of 1992, when Mark first brought me out here to Alabama! That’s a pretty cool thought – like I’m going to a whole new place. Pretty groovy, huh? I’m gonna have to sit down and figure out how many states I have been to – it’s not that many, but, it’ll be cool to figure it out.

I’m going with my daughter to see live theater! Oh gawd, how I love live theater – and I haven’t been to a show in yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeears! We’re going to see “A Christmas Carol”.

So if you guys don’t see me around on Twitter today – you know that’s where I’ll be. I might even get to hook up with an online friend while we’re there. We are eating lunch at the mall and she is going to try to meet us there for that. That will just be totally rockin’ cool!

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I’m so excited – I just got Ghost Town in the mail today to review for ya’ll! This is one movie that I have really been wanting to see!! It looks so funny! And if you know me at all, you know I eat up metaphysical goolash like it’s going out of style! I love Tea Leoni, I love big dogs, and I love ghosts!! So this flick is right up my alley!

I’ll edit this post with details ‘after the fact’. For now, just picture me cozy up in my bed with lots of blankets and pillows, eagerly and happily watching my laptop that is perched on my dresser.

powered by Splicd.com

I originally had this video segment in my sidebar, but, it was just taking up too much room. I had put it in the sidebar, because, I wanted it IN MY FACE all the time…so if I forgot….if I got down….then it would SMACK! …be right there in my face!

I really want my sidebar space back, though, so I’m just going to put a link to this post there, for quick and easy access.

I used this really cool software to get the video to start right where I wanted it to. It is supposed to end at a certain point right after the ‘brick walls’ part – making the clip only about 15 seconds long, or a little less. But the only part that worked was the beginning – which is good, so you can get right to the BRICK WALLS part. I just stop the player after he’s done talking about that – I just need my BRICK WALLS reminder every now and then. Sometimes I watch his whole speech over, but, it’s really long. So for the constant reminder – I just need that one section.

I’ll try to remember what the software was so that I can share it with you guys – surprisingly, I don’t see it in the code. And I’m going to try to make the clip again, too – to see if I can get it to cut off at the end where I want it to.

Anyway – for now – just remember about the BRICK WALLS! They are there for the OTHER PEOPLE!

Thank you to Carnegie Mellon University for sharing Dr. Pausch with the world and thank you to Splicd.com for allowing me to splice to one of my favorite parts!

So that will teach me to listen to movie critics! When I first heard about Tropic Thunder, I was really interested in seeing it. It sounded like a fun movie with an interesting twist. Then the grumpy movie critics started spouting off about it.

“Eww…we hate it!”

“Oh, it’s so dumb!”

Etc., etc……

And then …I was offered the movie to review! And I thought to myself, ‘I think I’ll try it, after all, I was really excited about seeing the darn thing before I listened to those critics!’ So I said, ‘Sure! I’d love to review it!’ And it’s a good thing I did, because, not only did I like it, but, my husband really enjoyed it, too!

Slapstick silliness? Yes!

Incredible goofiness? Yes!

Extreme personalities? Yes!

But, it was FUNNY!

Tropic Thunder’s tagline lets you know that you are in for an out-of-the-box type of movie:

The movie they think they’re making… isn’t a movie anymore.

So it’s a movie …about a movie …that isn’t a movie …and then gets made into a movie! I love that!

So you have these spoiled actors (and one unspoiled newcomer actor) in the fields in Vietnam, attempting to make a movie about a Vietnam veteran’s memoir. The supposed Vietnam vet is there, too, to lend a hand (bwahaha!) and advise as needed.

At one point, due to the intense spoiled attitudes of the actors, a $4 million explosion goes off with NO CAMERAS ROLLING! The press soon gets wind of the troubles they are having getting the movie filmed and soon dub the flick:

“the most expensive war movie never made”

The ‘Vietnam vet’ suggests to the director that he drop all of the spoiled actors in the jungle, after having placed hidden cameras and special-effects explosions along their path they are to follow. He thinks that will ‘un-spoil’ the actors and make their experience more real, so they can finally get into character and stay in it to get the job done!

The problem with that is that there are real explosives left in the jungle from an old war – and there are men with guns in the jungle! The men with guns are part of a huge drug ring and they think the actors are DEA agents!

When they first get left in the jungle, the director gets blown up – for real (for fake). Some of them realize it was a real explosion and that a human was just blown to bits in front of their eyes – and some of them think it’s all part of the movie set up!

For some odd reason, that is my favorite part of the movie! I think it was hysterical! And the hilarity continues from there….

Loved it! Glad I ignored the critics!

I’ve been singing Viddler.com’s praises for a long time now. I really like their service. It is so much easier for me to upload my videos there and I really like the embedded videos’ capabilities on my blog. I think the main reason I like their embeds so much better is when you go full-screen, they are still clear and crisp videos.

So YouTube.com released some updates to their site one day last week – and the first thing to cross my mind was – “Hey! They look like Viddler now!”

I wonder what’s up with that. Could they really feel threatened by Viddler? With the unbelievable amount of traffic that YouTube has, I can’t imagine that they would. I actually got to test the traffic differences around Halloween.

Sammie had produced, directed, and acted in a video and I uploaded it to Viddler. In a few days, she had eight views. I then uploaded it to YouTube – and in a few HOURS – she got eight views. That’s a major difference.

I’m still a Viddler fan, traffic or not. I like YouTube, for sure, and I’m not writing it off completely. I use both of them from time to time. Viddler is my favorite, though.

And maybe, like me – YouTube sees the value and ‘popularity climbability’ that Viddler possesses.

Now check out what I’m saying about the similarities. Here’s Viddler.com homepage:

And here is the new YouTube.com homepage:

Now isn’t that interesting? Hmm….

What video-sharing site do you prefer?