Yaaaaaay weekend! :D Had a busy week last week, have a busy week this week.

Tuesday - Went to SeaWorld with ariellen! OMG, so much fun! I haven't been there in forever. I loved Blue Horizons. It was like Cirque-meets-dolphins. Gorgeous music. It totally breaks my "I hate dolphin shows without education" rule, but it was just too pretty. And since when can you not even go poolside to pet the dolphins without fish? I understand why you can only have fish in that one area (so they can monitor feeding) but why can't you just go wait poolside and hope a dolphin swims by anymore? Ugh. I loved that there were no lines, though! We waited like 20 minutes for Journey to Atlantis (which still kicks San Diego's all over the place) and only had to wait for Kraken when we wanted front row, otherwise it was a walk-on. I got an annual pass and added Busch Gardens onto it as well. So now I have an excuse to go there! Photos for the day are here!

Wednesday - Cast preview of the Halloween parade! I had to kill time until midnight, so I went to Downtown Disney and saw The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. It was pretty entertaining, but it really felt like they just reused all the plot points from the first two movies. And I kept getting distracted by the fact that Rachel Weisz was not Evy. It felt wrong. No offense to Maria Bello, she wasn't horrible, she just wasn't Rachel Weisz. Loved Brendan Fraser, though, as always. Then onto the cast preview! It was NUTS. OMG, there were so many people there, and they were practically all CPs, LOL. Ihe parade was awesome, though. It's changed a lot since 2002. OMG, they had the hyenas from The Lion King! And I got lots of candy of course. And then it took 25 minutes to get the bus back to WestClock because so many people were trying to get back there. :P Took a few photos. They're pretty crappy, but they're here.

Thursday - So I signed in at work and got a message to go have a meeting with a manager. I wondered what I was getting in trouble for, but there were like three other people going. So we get back there, and they take us all by pargo to the back of Main Street, and start walking us through the tunnel to the base of the castle. The trip? A surprise visit to tour the Cinderella Castle suite! OMG, that place is gorgeous. It's smaller than it looks in videos and pictures. LOVE the TV that's a mirror until you turn it on. Magic Mirror FTW! And the bathroom ROCKS. The tub is a jacuzzi, and in the ceiling above you there's lights that look like stars. The whole suite is so ornate, it's mind-blowing! I got pictures on my cell phone, but alas I can't get them onto my computer. Here's the GIS for it

Had a lot of day parade this week! I am in LOVE with playing with bubbles for my PACtivity. It's so simple, and the kids adore it. Seriously. Most popular game I've found yet. Just start blowing the bubbles and within minutes you'll have a whole herd of kids chasing you around and popping bubbles. Sooo much fun. I've also been getting a lot of 7:15 (trackwalker/tower opener) shifts on Sundays, which rocks. I'm pretty comfortable opening tower now, even when I have days like yesterday when I had to call maintenance 4 times just to get the mountain open because everything kept breaking down. :P The parks have been DEAD, too, which rocks. I <3 offseason. On Friday, the longest wait we had all day was 10 minutes. Most of the time, you could walk right on. We never even opened FastPass. <3.

Candlelight Processional rehearsals start this week! Yay! I picked up my music last week, and now I just gotta figure out how to get to the rehearsal location.

We have movie night at work next week. Woo! They're holding it out on Tom Sawyer Island, which should be really cool. They have like 8 different movies to vote on, but all of them sound good, so I can't decide. :P (Ratatouille, National Treasure 1 or 2, Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, or 3, Fantastic Four, and Cars)

Seahawks lost on opening day yesterday. D: My Fantasy Football team, however, won, so that rocks. And if I'm pointing and laughing at Tom Brady, does that make me a bad person? Saw the end of the Chargers-Panthers game, too. OUCH. Two Monday Night Football games tonight, yaaay!

So I finally went and saw "Journey to the Center of the Earth"! Loved it! It was nice to see that it was really like an "inspired by the original novel" take on it, rather than a page-for-page remake. Playing in Verne's world with new characters, with nods to the original novel, and even a few of his quirks. Plus I always love Brendan Fraser. The 3d was a cool gimmick, but I don't think it really added much to the film other than a few corny gags worthy of a theme park 3d movie. If it's convenient, by all means go for it, but I wouldn't go out of your way for it. ( Spoilers... )

In other news...

Kirsten: Moving! Tuesday!
Weather: pwn3d, b1ch!

Joy!

Oh, man, it felt SO FREAKIN' GOOD to be back at the zoo today. The sun was out, I had coffee... and right off the bat I fed Blackie. She was such a little lady... until she swung around and growled an open-mouthed threat. And then looked at me with a "Bitch! Oh no you di'nt!" look on her face when I gave her the signal to go back into the water. Oh. Yeah. (She went eventually... just sloooowwwwllllyyyy) Mostly did stuff around the food prep kitchen today (thawing fish, breakout, putting together puffin pans). While I was doing breakout, there was an ad on the radio for Atlantis and I totally squeed. I've never heard an Atlantis ad on the radio, especially on a mainstream station like Jack FM. I also spent a long time sitting in the office and reading all the notes since I was last there a month ago. It's nice to see that not a whole lot changes in a month. :D

I've been very productive the last few days, too!

Remember the Elphaba "Defying Gravity" dress I started sewing last summer? I FINISHED IT. FINALLY. It looks fan-freakin'-tastic. I'll have to get a picture of it! Still looking for a really good Elphaba hat, though... and green makeup... and a wig... and a pair of boots... and a broom... XD

Finally sewed my fleece whale blanket tonight! That was an easy one - all I had to do was put the blanket tape on the ends of the fleece sheet - 30 minutes, easy. I can't find a picture of the fabric print online, so I'll have to get a pic of that one, too. It has killer whales! XD

Decided that I still wanna do Marion's Raven Bar costume, 'cause it should be fairly easy... unfortunately, finding a fabric print like that for the shirt is proving to be impossible... *sigh*

Got another application ready to mail, this one for the Texas State Aquarium. I'm basically applying for any opening that I meet the requirements for at this point. Still need to get myself to the pool, though, 'cause I have NO idea what their swim test is like.

I also watched "Borat" last night... and while it was humorous, I was less than impressed. I think it got over-hyped to me. I love offensive jokes, but the movie itself was kinda boring. Hrm. Ah, well. Not sure what's next of my Netflix list. It'll be a surprise.

Oh, and was anyone else in the US really amused by the preview for next week's SG-1, where the announcer called Carter "Amanda"? I thought I was just hearing things, but apparently not. :P

Okay. Rambling post done now.

I had a bitchy!day today at work. It was one of those days where I have to literally bite back snarkastic replies to everything. Actual examples of things that popped into my head in response to customer comments: "No, that's not the real price. We put fake price tags on there just to confuse you." "When you hang up your damn cell phone and acknowledge me, then I will ring up your purchases." "How about next time you tell me you don't want a bag before I spend five minutes sticking all your books in the bag?" Ah, how I wish I could actually say what I'm thinking... On the bright side, one of our dirty, lecherous old guy customers didn't give me any dirty, lecherous comments today. I think the "talk to me and you die" vibe I was giving off saved me. :P

In need of a good fantasy, I watched Eragon tonight. Okay, so good didn't quite fit the bill. Some of the dialogue was so bad that I suppose it paid appropriate homage to the horrid dialogue in Paolini's original novel. And ooooh, the Eragon/Arya HURTS MY BRAIN. Seriously. Crap. And the kid playing Eragon? His acting was atrocious. But Saphira was fantastic (baby Saphira? CUTEST THING EVAR), beautifully animated. And Rachel Weisz did an amazing job voicing her. Jeremy Irons was a perfect Brom. That man is so sexy, in an old guy way. I think it's the voice. And the surprise for me was the guy playing Murtagh - I really liked him. The cinematography was gorgeous. I'm such a sucker for those grand, sweeping shots along the mountains. Story-wise, I was sad to see some stuff from the original novel go (no mention was even made of Katrena, and she kinda becomes a driving force in Eldest!)... and left wondering why Angela seemed like a skank, and Sloan wasn't really a jerk at all. And where were the dwarves? Also kind of an important part of the story. Bottom line: like the novel, it's very entertaining, but horribly written. Watch it for the fun and the great effects, but I wouldn't expect greatness.

But YAY! Got a call back from the zoo yesterday, and I'm going to be volunteering at Rocky Shores one morning a week! It'll be so nice to get back into the swing of it, and see my whale again! :D

Buh, and am I the only one that didn't know The X-Files was originally supposed to end with this scene of Bush being in on the conspiracy? As amused as I am, I like the Mulder/Scully lovefest better. :P

I've been cleaning my room today. It's taken all day. :P I should have done before and after pictures, because the mess on the floor was about as bad as it's ever been in my life... and that says a lot. :P I can see the floor again!

We went out tonight and saw "Meet the Robinsons." Really good movie! It started out fairly slowly and it took me awhile to really get into it, but as it got closer to the end, it really picked up. And (without spoiling anything) the last moment of the film is the perfect touch. :) The villain totally stole the show for me - he's an absolute riot! The animation felt rather slapdash, almost sub-par for Disney, but I also have an extreme bias towards traditional hand-drawn animation. Pixar it's not... but I definitely recommend this one! And they have a classic Mickey Mouse cartoon ("The Boatbuilders") beforehand, so it was awesome to see some vintage 1930's Mickey!

I also got my bird photos up! On the way home from Vancouver on Saturday, I stopped at the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary west of Ladner, BC. Wow. Just wow. I could have spent HOURS there - there were so many birds! There were at least 6 or 7 individual bald eagles - when I first got there, they were all circling in one area together! They have a bazillion mallards that are really tame, and they'll actually follow you around. I'm sure I only saw just a small fraction of the species there, since I spent so little time. ( The list and the links... )

ETA: Eeeeeee! The Disneyland Secrets, Stories, and Magic DVD that was promised and never came will finally be getting a release!!! *bounces around*

Okay, I so totally just walked in the door and I'm ready to flop into bed... but I have to say...

OMFGWTFBBQLKJNSAFLKJNABSDNFCKJABDSFCJKB! We have to wait another year?!?!?!

( BIG. FATTY. SPOILERS. FOR. PIRATES. )

...ZOMFG WE HAVE TO WAIT A YEAR?!

Okay, I just watched what has to be one of the worst films EVER MADE. MST3K seriously missed the boat on doing this one.

Those of us in the killer whale circles have no doubt heard of a movie called "Keiko En Peligro," a Mexican movie from the late 80s. Well, Netflix had it, and luckily it had English subtitles, so I gave it a go...

( The Recap of Snark - Keiko En Peligro spoilers... if anyone is even inclined to care about being spoiled! )

I may later go through and do a play-by-play on this one, because I totally had a zeropointsnark-like commentary going on as I watched. Long story short: Keiko En Peligro is fun... if you want a movie that you can TOTALLY MSTie.

"...but Disneyland didn't have KEIKO!"

So they made me use the PHONE at the Wolf Center yesterday. :P It's no secret that I'm terrified of the phone. Hell, I get scared making calls on my own phone, much less a business call for another facility. It's no secret there, either, and I get my share of good-natured teasing for it. :P But I was working on a project with someone, and I was urged to be the one to make the call. I survived! Yaaaaay! Did mostly office work, and a little bit of chaperoning a group of kids. We made a trek into town in the afternoon to check out a bed and breakfast, and that place was GORGEOUS.

For some reason, since yesterday afternoon I've been feeling really weird/sick. It came on while I was riding in the truck back to the Wolf Center from the trip off-property, when I felt kinda light-headed. I thought maybe it was just my motion sickness being oversensitive (or the quadruple mocha I bought at the coffee shop in town), but it stuck around long after I left for the day. I actually ended up crawling into bed by 6 pm, although I got up periodically after that, checked email til I felt really icky again, then went back to bed (and stayed there after about 10). It was bad enough, though, that I felt nauseous just laying there in bed. Grr. I tried everything I could think of - water because maybe I was dehydrated, food because maybe I just had low blood sugar (memories of one Really Long Night in Orlando remind me of just how nauseous I get if I don't eat when I feel hungry), Sudafed because maybe it was a sinus/ear issue... no cigar, anything I tried. And it certainly wasn't exhaustion - I tossed and turned in bed until amost 3 in the morning. :/

So I slept til about 10:30 this morning, then got up and still felt sick (although marginally better) so I watched cartoons. Dude, the Disney Channel is showing the old Timon and Pumbaa cartoons again! WOO! Saw an ad for Cars, and realized that came out today, so I ran out to see that one.

Cars gets two thumbs up from me! LOVED it! It felt different to me than some of Pixar's past efforts. It felt much more drama-oriented, although it did have its comedic moments. But that was a good thing - I found myself forgetting that they were cars, and really getting emotionally involved in the story. Mater = teh AWESOME. I could have done without one rather predictable Larry the Cable Guy line, but it was blink-and-you'll-miss-it, so I'll live. And OMG, the credits practically had me rolling in the aisles! The short ("One Man Band") is a pretty good one, too. Overall - I DEFINITELY reccommend people check this one out! Pixar wins again!

Feeling a bit better now, although I still get waves of dizziness every so often. My best guess is that it's a mild bug or something, it was just odd that it came on SO suddenly.

My feeling sick was mitigated, however, by MORE promo pics... ( Cut, because I can't help but repost these pics and am jumping on the LJ drooling bandwagon! )

Someone forgot to tell the weather that there's a JUNE between May and July. We went from upper 60's to mid-80s REALLY fast. Yesterday it almost hit 90 in the city even. For those of you who weren't playing in my LJ last summer to see my ramblings/whining: I have no A/C. I rely on open windows and a box fan - which I have yet to get out for the summer. I should do that today. *glares at the fish now occupying the fan's old spot, and the rearranging job coming up*

( Wolf Center fun! )

( Bambi II review! )

Why is it than in the LAST WEEK EVER OF COLLEGE, I get 50 bajillion projects? For ONE CLASS? *headdesk* I spent yesterday afternoon - a Saturday! - on campus taking a biology assessment test. Can I just say how much I still suck at the microbiology stuff, even after taking Cell Bio twice and Invert Phys once? Hooray for multiple guess tests! :P Not that it really matters, anyways - it's just a test to measure the department's success, not ours. Sadly, they don't let us graduate until we show up to take it, so I had no choice. Then today - a Sunday! - I had to get up again go back to campus to spend all morning working on a group project. After three and a half hours in the library putting it together, our group tracking presentation is ready to go. And because we're all like six years old, we included the picture of the human poo and used TP that we found at the tracking site as an example of human disturbance. And then we giggled over it for twenty minutes. ...what?! I told you I'm mentally six! And now I have to write up a chapter Q&A assignment, research and write my final paper, and somewhere get around to doing my graduation announcements.

Yesterday after the exam, I was gonna go to SeaWorld, 'cause I wanna see this Ignight dolphin show. I remember one of the fireworks guys telling me about it last August, but I didn't realize they were showing it to the general public (as it was just created to be a night show for special events, since they couldn't do events at Shamu Stadium). And I need to see Sea Lions Tonite now that it's back, 'cause that's the damn funniest SeaWorld show ever made. But I wanted to get fireworks photos, too. I was gonna get a tripod before I went, but there's one in particular that I want, and despite Circuit City telling me that specific stores had it in stock, they couldn't find it. Grrr. Maybe next weekend. I haven't been back since I stopped working there, and I really need to make use of my free admission. :P *is really anxious for Cirque to start back up*

Anyways, I finally got around to continuing with my Netflix list, after a long time of slacking on it and renting old movies that I just wanted to watch again. So last night I sat down and watched Rent! ( Rent )

OMG, I had insane amounts of fun at the Wolf Center today! When I got there, the manager was just getting ready to go on a run to pick up a couple of goats. See, the area around the Wolf Center is really rural - mostly farmers and ranchers. Whenever one of their animals passes away, they call the Center and as long as the deceased animal fits certain health restrictions, we go pick it up so we can feed it to the animals. So I tagged along on the trip out to pick up a couple of goats. We got back, and had no room in the freezers so we went ahead and fed them straight to the wolves. Oh, man, the boys ripped into theirs. They were very excited. :P Unfortunately, the girls got a smaller, frozen one, so they had to wait for it to thaw.

Just as I'd gotten a machete and was gonna go whack at some mustard grass overgrowth, we got a call from another rancher saying he had a dead goat, too. So off we went to get that one! OMG, that place was AWESOME. He had a few hundred goats, and there were TONS of kids (goat kids, not human kids) that he was bottle-feeding. As a result, they were like puppies. We got out of the truck, and a dozen of them started bleating and came running over for attention. So freakin' cute! We petted them and played with them for ages. It was about feeding time for them, so he asked if we wanted to stick around and help feed. So he made some formula and we got to feed all the baby goats! EEE! So cute! Eventually we got what we had gone there for and headed back to the Wolf Center and fed it to the boys, too (there's way more males than females). They're so cute when they're fed. I won't go into the gory details, though. :P

So now I totally smell like goat, but it was so worth it.

( Review of Lilo and Stitch 2! )

And because I think a lot of us need to hear something like this today:
"Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind. Or forgotten."

The rain is coming! Yaaaaay! We're under a "winter storm watch" (such as they are in SoCal) for Monday and Tuesday... supposed to get 1.5-2" of rain starting late Sunday night. That means more sleeping while I listen to rain on the roof. It's my guilty Seattlite pleasure. :P But I'm suddenly very glad that our Conservation Bio lab on Monday got switched to an indoor lab rather than poking around a canyon in Golden Hill.

Been kinda a mopey day. Slept in a bit, didn't get up til 12:30... did some grocery shopping, but had a bad migraine and ended up going back to bed by 4:30. Of course, I got woken up within 20 minutes by a helicopter circling nearby. Grr.

Can I just say how much I hate drivers here? After living in three different corners of the country (WA, CA, and FL) I can easily say that NOBODY does worse parking jobs than Californians. Seriously. I have never seen a place where more people feel the need to park halfway in between two spaces. IF YOU CAN'T FIT YOUR HUGE-ASS, GAS-HOG SUV IN THE PARKING SPACE (or are too lazy to do it properly), MAYBE YOU SHOULD GO FIND A DIFFERENT SPACE. I feel like I should carry around a stack of little notecard-sized snarky notes that I can leave on peoples' windhields when they do that. I see it at least once a day - and I don't really even drive much besides running neccessary errands and going to school.

I've got a ton of memes to do, but I'll stick those in a separate entry!

( And I've been watching a bunch of movies, so here's my latest reviews... )

I really should be working on my paper that's due tomorrow morning, but instead I'm procrastinating and watching Family Guy. *cries, 'cause it's a rerun* Anyways, I just finished watching Airborne, so here's a review!

Airborne
Airborne was actually pretty interesting! The basic plot: a volatile, sneaky virus has been created, and it's up to a special ops team called "Mach One" to try and keep it out of the hands of the enemy. They are, inevitably, all marked for death by opposing forces that they can't quite identify. Some decent acting, though! Torri was wonderful as always - yay for her getting to kick ass! And their gadgets... oh, man, they were spiffy, in a really nerdy way. I was all, "I want one of those!" every 30 seconds. I think my biggest complaint is that they kept hinting at a romance going on, but dodged around the issue so much that you were never quite sure what the deal was between them.

I don't complain about the eye candy - Sean Bean! Wooo! And Torri is always hot. I did not, however, need to see Steve Guttenberg walking around in Spandex pants with no shirt on. *shudders* Their asshole boss guy I referred to as CombYourHair!guy, 'cause really, he needed to comb his hair. And I loved the techie guy! Oh, and I laughed at their team leader, 'cause it was the demon guy from Storm of the Century. :P

However, I really liked the song they played over the credits (also used when they pumped themselves up before the first mission - got a "Star Trek: First Contact" vibe from that moment!) so I watched the credits to see if a title was given for that song. Oh the hilarity! Spot what I'm laughing at, and win an internet cookie! Never did see the name of the song, though. Grrr.

All told, it's a pretty generic action movie. Great stunt scenes, fun action. The plot had enough twists to keep it interesting. I'd say it's worth renting, if you can find it anywhere.

Okay, now that I've had a few hours to calm myself down, I'll try and make a more coherent post. :P

I started watching Bleak House tonight, but I just can't focus on a lot of boring period dramas like that. Sorry, Gillian Anderson, even you can't keep me paying attention to that one. She rocked in the parts I saw, though.

Jungleground

So, being me, I instead put on a movie where lots of stuff blows up - Jungleground. Basic plot: cop gets nabbed by a gang in the bad part of town (dubbed "Jungleground") and they play a game with him - he has to escape Jungleground and get back to the good part of town before dawn, or they kill him and his girlfriend. I think the whole movie was really an excuse to blow up cars, 'cause they did that A LOT. Not that I'm complaining, because the explosion footage was gorgeous. My pyromaniac side was drooling.

As for the characters... well, I ended up hating the "good guy" and loving the "bad guys." The good guy, Jake, was your generic, all-too-serious action hero with big muscles. In short, he was BORING. Also, it doesn't hurt that the lead bad guy was JR Bourne (Martouf on SG-1), who was particularly hot in this one. And one of his henchmen was Peter Williams (Apophis on SG-1) who was just cool. And the gang members were all so quirky that I couldn't help but love them. SurveySays!kid and the PowerRangerWannabe!guy were the best! In fact, half the time I was shouting "No!!" as the different bad guys got cut down. And of course, Torri Higginson was the girlfriend. I felt really bad for her, 'cause she was really innocent in all of the ordeal, and got dragged into it. Without giving anything away, though, I give her mad props for one trick she pulled on the bad guys while trying to get away. That took some brains! :P I do have to question, however, where an idealistic artist learned to fire an Uzi so suddenly. But props to her for dealing with being tied up in duct tape, 'cause pulling that stuff off hurts. Not as much as gaff tape, but that's another story.

Overall, it wasn't a great movie, but it wasn't awful either. As I mentioned before, at least to me, the bad guys are easier to like than the good guy! There's some serious eye candy in JR Bourne. YUM. The generic gunfight-action-fighting is pretty mediocre, but I give it extra points simply for the sheer number of Really Cool Car Explosions. There's also lots of stuff in there that just comes across as hilarious where I don't know if it was actually intended to be funny. Of course, having Torri Higginson in it adds to the coolness points. Bottom line: I wouldn't go out of your way for it. But if you've got something like Netflix where it doesn't cost extra to rent it, it's entertaining.

But seriously. All the cars blowing up are teh pretty.

The Magnificent Seven

Okay, forgot I watched this one last night, so I'm adding it in. AWESOME movie. Loved it! I'm talking about the old 60's film, not the newer series. For those who haven't seen it, the basic plot: a bandit and his 40 cronies (*giggle*) continually robs a poor Mexican farming village, so seven guys band together to defend the village.

The characters in this one were fun, but some of them sort of blended together. There were three or four of the "Magnificent Seven" that really stood out, and the other three I never could tell apart. Chris was sort of the leader, and probably the one of them all that got the most screen time (and was the most well-developed). Chico was the whiny one that annoyed the crap outta me. Lee was the chicken of the bunch. Played by Robert Vaughn, he's such a dead ringer for David Hewlett that I was a bit weirded out. His character was even a bit MicKay-ish. Fernardo I could tell apart because he was a dead ringer for my Vertebrate Natural History professor, Dr. Pregill. Creepy. Anyways, the other three I really couldn't tell apart well, if that says anything about them.

Great action scenes, though. Gotta love those classic gunfights! Seriously. The body count in this one even puts modern action movies to shame. The end caught me off-guard a bit.. it just wasn't quite what I was expecting. Still great, though!

And seriously, this has one of the prettiest movie themes ever. I hear it a lot whenever I walk through Frontierland, and it's always been one of my favorites!

Definitely worth watching this one!