A Rescued Baby Hummingbird

I don’t have much to say about this video, except that it is amazing. I love all birds, but especially hummingbirds, so I had to share it. :) Enjoy!

Deer In the Headlights

Owl City’s latest music video came out today, and I have to say that it is my favorite so far! I love that there are jellyfish flying around him. :D There may be a couple of octopus too, but they went by so fast I couldn’t tell for sure. Plus a T Rex!? Bonus awesome points! :D And for anyone who might know who she is, the girl in the convenience store is Lights, another singer who uses electronic music.

In case you are wondering about the guy at the end, that was himself, from his previous music video for Alligator Sky.

And just because I feel like it, I’m going to add his four other music videos. :)

First is the song that launched him to fame, Fireflies.

And then there’s the music video for his song “To the Sky” that he wrote for “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole”. I love that movie so much! I really need to watch it again. This might be my favorite Owl City song of all. I’m not sure, I have so many favorites. Regardless, this song is the most played Owl City song on my iPod.

Next is Vanilla Twilight. I love the cinematography in this one, and the lighthouse is really beautiful.

Last but not least is Umbrella Beach.

This one has more of a dance feel to it than the others, but it loses none of Adam’s signature cheerfulness. That’s what draws me to his music. It has such an optimistic feeling to it. It never fails to cheer me up when I hear it. :)

Cars 2 and a “Brave” Debut

Last night I went to see Cars 2. I can say for certain that it was 10 times better than the first one, and I really liked the first one. The movie focused mainly on Mater and two new characters, Finn McMissile, and Holly Shiftwell. Mater is caught up in an espionage plot that eventually threatens the life of his best friend Lightning McQueen. It was like a James Bond film if James Bond were a car. All the other characters from the first film were there as well, but Mater was the star.

It was hilarious and exciting. I highly recommend this movie, and if my cousin is able to go with me, I will be seeing it a second time. I almost never see a movie twice in the theater, so you know it was good. :)

Also, now that it has debuted in theaters, the teaser trailer for Pixar’s next film, “Brave” is now out. It is very short, but it looks like it will be a beautiful movie. It appears that it will be Pixar’s most mature film to date. Pixar has always made mature films, they just do them in such a way that the entire family will be engaged. What I mean by most mature, is that it appears that this will be more of a drama than a comedy, as Pixar’s other films were more comedy than drama. Either way, I can’t wait! It looks amazing!

As an aside, the new short, Toy Story: Hawaiian Vacation was a laugh riot! All the Characters from Toy Story 3 were back. The plot focus was on Ken and Barbie, who wanted to go to Hawaii with Bonnie. When they are left behind, the other Toys do their best to bring Hawaii to them. Make sure that if you go to see Cars 2, you get there early enough to See the Brave Trailer, and Toy Story: Hawaiian Vacation!

Kittens!

Inspired by Kittens!
Wow! 2 in one day? Yes, because I found an absolute riot of a video! This one I didn’t even wait to blog about, I shared it to Facebook immediately.

Kid History

It’s time for another YouTube discovery! This time it’s a series of films called “Kid History”. The premise is that all these kids in this family have been told a bunch of stories about things that happened to their dads/uncles. Sometimes the stories are from when they were kids themselves, other times they were adults. The kids do not get all the facts straight, and sometimes make up whole sections that never happened, but the stories are hilarious. That is not all though. The adults all reenact the stories, not as they happened, but as the kids tell them, they even lip sync to the kids dialogue. It is gut bustingly funny! So far there have been four episodes released. The first three were released on the channel that one of the brothers posted his videos on, but they just recently created their own channel for the Kid History videos as they plan to make it an ongoing series. Here are the four that have so far been released. Enjoy!

UPDATE! How coincidental is this? The very day I blog about this series, they upload the latest episode! This one is the longest one of all, and like the others, is a laugh riot! :D

A Sugar Cereal High

A couple weeks ago I wrote about taking a personality test from the back of a cereal box in which I had attained the personality rank of “Sweetie”. You can find that post by clicking HERE.
At the time it had not even occurred to me, but the cereal that I had been eating was Cinnamon Toast Crunch, which is a General Mills product. Why is that significant you ask? Oh, no reason. Only the fact that the graphic design company that General Mills uses for their package designs is Ultra Creative, my cousin Kyle’s company.  Yes, they designed it. So in a way, I unintentionally implied that the people at my cousin’s company are on drugs. Good thing he has a sense of humor… :D Here is his reply from facebook.

A “Brave” New World

As anyone who knows me knows, I am a HUGE Pixar fan. Pixar is hands down the best film company in the world, and there is no way that anyone will ever be able to convince me otherwise. The last original movie that Pixar released was “Up”, and that was over two years ago. Last year they released Toy Story 3 and this year they release Cars 2. As great as Toy Story 3 was and Cars 2 is sure to be, I am really anxious for an original story and I can’t help but be wildly excited for their next film, the first original story since Up.

The film is called “Brave”, and it is set in ancient Scotland. It is a first for Pixar in many areas. It is the first Pixar film to feature a female character in a lead role, It is Pixar’s first attempt at a “Princess” film, and it is Pixar’s first Fairy Tale. In the last few days, There have been a few glimpses as to the nature of the film
The biggest one was the release of the very first poster for the film.

This makes me want to see it so bad! :D

Today they released the very first official image from the film, A picture of the heroine, Princess Merida.

I love her hair!
They have also released concept art for four of the main characters.

Princess Merida

Queen Elinor

Lord Macintosh

The Wise Woman

If you ask me, the wise woman looks like she could be related to Carl Fredrickson from Up. Maybe a very distant Ancestor? :)

The very first teaser trailer for the film is set to debut tomorrow with the release of Cars 2. As if I needed another reason to go see Cars 2! :D I won’t be able to see it on opening day, but I hope to be able to see it within the week, and you can bet I will be blogging about the film as soon as I see it! I will also let you know my thoughts about the Brave teaser, and the new Pixar short film, and the first in a series of Toy Story Toons, “Toy Story: Hawaiian Vacation”. It looks great as well! :)

Cars 2

My most anticipated movie this year is Cars 2, though, as you might guess from previous blog posts, The Muppets is a very close second.
As any serious Pixar fan will recall, Cars was Pixar’s least liked film. It didn’t get many bad reviews, but it received lukewarm reviews compared to Pixar’s other films. That’s why this quote makes me extremely happy. :)
Speaking of Cars 2, Justin Chang, a writer for Variety said:
"Unexpectedly delightful... The rare sequel that not only improves on but retroactively justifies its predecessor."
Here is a trailer for the film. It looks so amazing and hilarious!

Do I want to see it? Is the Pope-mobile Catholic?! :D

Here is a preview clip from the film as well. I know the results of this will be hilarious. :D

Close Encounter with an EnvironMENTAList

Today at work a woman brought in three reusable shopping bags and an old paper bag. This is not unusual, as lots of people are getting into recycling grocery bags these days. The woman was tall, and quite nicely dressed, new clothes, nice jewelry, well done hair, the works. Noting her looks, the old paper bag was a bit strange as the woman was obviously quite wealthy.
Toward the end of sacking her order I had already used up her reusable shopping bags and was starting to fill the paper one. The checker took the bread and put it in a plastic sack. Most of us do that, so that the bread won’t be crushed by any shifting groceries. The woman snipped that she shouldn’t have done that, as she wanted her own bags to be used. The cashier apologized and explained she didn’t want the bread getting squished. The woman looked down her nose at her and in an extremely annoyed and condescending tone, said, “Well, I’ll let it slide this once, but I do NOT like plastic. It is bad for the world!” and she marched off.
As soon as she was gone I burst out laughing. What a loon! This woman’s attitude is even more absurd when one considers that half of what she bought was already packaged in plastic, and she put each of her kinds of produce in little plastic sacks of their own.
Excuse me. I think I need to go stifle another guffaw.

Breakfast Personality

According to the ultra-scientific personality test I just took, from the back of a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, my personality type is "Sweety". Had I chosen my favorite pet to be a circus elephant instead of a parrot, my personality rank would have increased to the level of "Gobbler".

In light of these results I have come to the conclusion that mandatory drug testing should be enforced for anyone aspiring to design cereal boxes for a living.

A Kung-Fu Review

I went to see Kung Fu Panda 2 with my cousin and brother tonight. As with the first one, the animation was stunning. Story-wise, it can't hold a candle to anything Pixar has come out with, but this is one of the most beautifully designed and animated films I have ever seen. At times it could only be described as gorgeous. If you feel you're too old to see animated films, (First of all, you need to get over the tired notion that animation is only for children) but if you truly feel awkward seeing it without kids, find someone with a kid and ask to borrow them for a couple hours. You, and the kid, (And the kid's parents) will all be extremely glad you did so.

One of the things I loved about it was the villain. All great movies need a great villain, and this one had one, in the form of one of the most unlikely animals you would ever think of. A white peacock. Watching him fight was amazing.

Seriously, so cool!

If you liked the first movie, you are sure to like this one, and even though the story isn’t up to Pixar’s standards, it still had a great one. Easy criers will want a tissue or two with them for scenes with Poe and his dad, and maybe another for when Poe finds out the truth about his real parents. :)

The artist in me gives this film a wholehearted recommendation, and the kid in me wants to see it again. I can’t think of two better judges for a movie’s quality, an artist and a kid. If those two agree, it has to be worth seeing. :)

Sea Lion Show

This month I actually got to see the sea lions perform during their afternoon show at the zoo. I took tons of pictures, and I plan to feature some of the best ones on my photography blog, but the majority of them I will share here so you can see what all the trainers have the sea lions do.

Apparently the trainer’s building is underground.

I believe that those are whistles, not cigarettes. :)

This trainer was doing a little dance and the sea lion was following her steps with her flippers.

All the sea lions were born right here at the Henry Doorly Zoo except for the male. He was a wild sea lion who was injured and was deemed unreleasable as the keepers feared he wouldn’t be able to survive in the wild due to his injuries.

One of the major renovations planned for the zoo is to build a much better display for the sea lions. This pool is actually a relic from the 1950’s, and used to be a swimming pool for people. It was buried and uncovered years later, then modified to be a sea lion exhibit. I can’t wait to see what the new display will look like!