Pickles Fermenting by an Open Fire...

...kind of sad, I know.

Anyways, to commiserate that I have but one week of summer left and also celebrate going back to school I'm going to post movie reviews of some of my favorite summer movies, because I'm just that cool.




I'm Reed Fish (2006) PG-13 **** Indie, Romantic Comedy

Super cute film. The main actor is by no means good-looking, but he's adorkable and pretty perfect for the part. Alexis Bledel also does a great job and the pair is joined by a slew of wonderful obscure actors. The movie is set in a small, rural town with Reed Fish providing the town's only source of amusement - his radio show The Fish. He is engaged to Bledel; however, when his old high school flame comes back from school things get messy. He is torn between the two girls and no matter what he does, he suffers for it since news travels fast in a small town. This movie isn't a sit-back-and-zone-out kind of movie though, it really makes you think, especially with an added twist about half-way through. I enjoyed it a lot, and while the ending could very easily have bombed,it was done very well and definitely added a lot to the film.


Bob the Butler (2005) PG **** Indie, Comedy

I hadn't even reached the title in the movie before I was laughing. Picture a talking Mr. Bean on steroids. That is Bob (Tom Green.) He's essentially a loser with a hampster who's life ambition is to go through the phonebook and try every profession available. After being fired from a Burger joint he decides to go to Butler school, lands a job, and awkwardly attempts to butler a super rich family while appeasing the children from hell and the germ-phobic over-achiever mother (Brooke Shields). Oh, the mother also has a psycho french boyfriend which makes EVERYTHING better. The movie is hilarious.



Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008) PG-13 *** Indie, Romantic Comedy

Strike one for this movie was Michael Cera, whom I cannot stand. The movie takes place entirely within one night, which is pretty cool. Norah wants to one-up her rival at school so she asks Nick to be her boyfriend for five minutes. Problem is, Nick is the rival's ex. Nick and Norah are joined by Norah's drunk best friend who gets lost pretty quickly on. They go for a wild goose chase through the city trying to find her, and figure out each other. Nick is joined by his gay band members who are pretty dang funny. Strike two was the stick of gum Norah's BFF chews through the entire movie - it goes in some REALLY disgusting places and I couldn't concentrate on the movie towards the end because I was grossed out by the gum being chewed. The movie was all right, but I prpobably wouldn't watch it again.


Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) PG ***** Romantic Comedy

This movie ends my Summer Indie streak! Isla Fisher plays a (gorgeous) compulsive shopper. After landing a $16,000 credit card bill she decides to piece her life back together and lands a job at a financial magazine. Her boss (Hugh Dancy) doesn't quite know what to make of her, but when her first article is wildly successful, chemistry becomes apparent. Throughout the movie, her debt, and debt collectors loom, and her habit of lying threatens to come to a head at any moment. A Devil Wears Pradaesque fashion magazine upstairs also beckons her, and in the end she must decide who she really is. Hugh Dancy is super cute, but probably takes 2nd to James McAvoy (Becoming Jane, Ella Enchanted) Definitely recommend the movie.


So there you have it! I've watched other movies this summer, but these were probably the highlights, for one reason or another. I suppose I'll do some book and song reviews later on, but these should be enough for now. Enjoy!

17 Nickels

Hello out there,

I miss you all at college already.


Also, stealing this off of Erin's blog: www.givemehope.com

If it wasn't so late at night for me I wouldn't say this, but right now I don't care: by page 4 I was ready to cry. Granted I've had a roller coaster kind of day, but still, if you know me, you'd know it takes a lot to make me cry. I guess that is just what I needed right now.
Next I should go to bed and continue working on college applications and math and life.
I've been really drawing into myself lately. I could just sit wrapped in silence thinking for hours if I had time. I've been going on walks almost every day to end up sitting at a park, lost in contemplation.

Also, I'm listning to Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley right now which I think is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard.

And now I'm going to get off my emotional soapbox and go to bed - because if you also knew me, you'd know I am a morning person, and this is extremely late for me and when it gets this late I often do/say things I wouldn't normally.

Good night.

how tall was the trojan horse

First of all....excuse me? I seriously find the best titles for blog posts just going through past subjects. I'll give you a few runners-up:

- back to those raw foods
- Cats Rule! Dogs, well you know the rest...
- daddeeeeeeeeeeeeee, i waaaaaaaaaant one!
- Had an odd experience at the garden nursery yesterday
- eatin' stuff rocks

...And these are just a FEW of the myriad which grace the screen and save me from writers block. Which I never have. Because I can always talk about myself.

Anyways...life! Well, I had a great time in Mexico. Everyone was amazing and Erika's cousins are AWESOME. There were 7 of us 13-17 yr. old girls in one corner of the girl's bunkhouse and I had hence to thought that I had finally outgrown giggly teenage girl slumber parties. Nooooooot so. They follow me like a curse. On a diamond. The. size. of. my. HEAD.
Quite the contrast to debate-laden Birmingham.

Speaking of debate, (my 2nd favorite past time, my first being debate itself) I finished the first rough cut of my Duo for next year and am fairly happy with it. It's running 12 minutes or so so I'm going to need to shave off another 3-4 minutes but I'm excited about it. It's a really theatrical piece, so it has lots of potential for really cool effects. I'm also excited to see how my duo partner will like the piece. He's agreed to do it with me but hasn't actually seen the script yet. He's a great actor - he's been in productions everywhere from 5th Avenue to Seattle Opera but he's a really reluctant sort of person so I'm looking forward to pushing him with this piece. It's dramatic (YES.) and I am sure he can do it, he just needs to be confident in his abilities. That is the unsurity.
I've decided for next year for Pattern A I'll do Duo and when my partner can't make it I'll do extemp (God save us all) and B will be Imp, and possibly an IR to shake things up. It would be on bubble gum, btw. As for debate, I'm going to do LD but definitely keep in the congress circuit. I would really like to effect some permanent, competitive changes in WA congress before I graduate, but it's a daunting task. I hear Brandi Spani (My congress hero) tried it and failed. But we'll see, I know most of the major congressmen in the state and I think if we all work together along with our coaches and parli's and judges from our respective schools that would be a good start. (One of them, Jon Mount, goes to TJ and if we could get Turnner on board I think we would have a VERY good chance.)
I don't know, though, because part of me likes the way Congress is a great entry event for all the newbies who just want to see what debate is like. They might get overwhelmed if we make it too like National-style congress, but on the other hand we more experienced congressmen need the experience. Gah, what to do, what to do.
Well...damn I like talking about debate. :D
On the home front, I'm reading some really interesting books this summer:

- Gaspipe *finished* - non-fiction account of American Mofia. Really exciting!
- War of Nerves *in progress* - non-fiction history of international chemical warfare. HIGHLY interesting.
- Zeno's Conscience *in progress* - fictional Italian classic, apparently, of man called upon by psychiatrist to remember & recount life's story. It was great until he started cheating on his wife. :( The book translated beautifully though, the language is incredibly humorous and the story is witty and imaginative.
And as always, these are balanced out by liberal amounts of Pearls Before Swine, my personal favorite comic book. :D

The rest of my summer consists of A&P2 and incredibly odd talks with my lab partner. I kind of got all my socializing in two huge doses in Birmingham and Mexico so right now I'm loving being largely on my own but I'll probably start being social more by the end of summer. Perfect timing, I know.

Until then, have a happy and safe summer! I'd love to hear from you - correspondence is always welcome (although I think I owe most of you emails/letters. Sikes...)


(And to answer the title "over two stories." and I used quotation marks because I am automatically skeptical of wikipedia due to my forensics background.)

a little bit of pie

Well dear readers, it has been a very long time since I last posted my thoughts.

But like any good blogger, I cannot forsake my blog completely. And seeing as how I'm on summer break for the week and it's 5pm and I have absolutely nothing else to do (except go get candy, but I can wait...) and I just read Erin's blog and got inspired I might as well pour forth.

So far my summer has been interesting. I just got my spring grades back an hour or so ago and I still have a cum 3.7gpa. Curse them, I want my 3.8! My quarter gpa was 3.8 but noooo still 3.74. It's a little infurinating, but I'll just have to work harder. I'm still really grateful for them, though, don't get me wrong. And I'm still safely in the net of PTK honor membership so life is good.

I got back from Birmingham and Nationals was amazing. I didn't break in congress but I met some really hot guys (it blew all my stereotypes about no such thing as a sexy debater completely out of the water) and flirted with them. :D Good times... I did a lot better in supplemental events, top 60 in expos out of 307 (Code E116) and top 35, more like 30, in Extemp Commentary out of 486 (Code C128). Considering I BSed extemp comm from the start, it was pretty awesome.

The social aspect of the trip was also exceedingly interesting, and I think I'll leave it at that.

In other news (other, older news), I got a 2080 on my SAT (740 Reading, 690 Writing, 650 Math) which is competitive for all the colleges I'm applying to so that makes me happy. As far as colleges go, I'm going to apply to UW, Gonzaga (possibly honors), and PLU definitely. Georgetown just sent me random crap out of the blue yesterday about their nursing program, so they might warrant a look into but if I do apply I doubt I'd actually go there. Like, give it a 5% chance I'd go there, if that much. Both UW and Gonzaga have big pluses and minuses and I'm hoping it's not going to be an epic battle of the century to figure out which one (provided I get into both) I will go to. But I'll take that in stride when it comes.

I've posted some failblog stuff up here and I'm going to add that website (www.failblog.org) to my list of site picks because they are hilarious. fmylife is okay, but most of the stuff on there just isn't believable. Photoshop disaster is also pretty hilarious, although some of it just goes plain over my head. :)

Well, I really must remedy my candy situation, so I think I shall bus down to QFC and buy eggs for mom and candy for me. I love living in America! Be good little readers, and I will try to post more often this summer.

(I was just looking through my tags and I saw "intelligence". haha, I love myself. It sounds like classified government information. Excellent.)

Laundry FAIL

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