friday fixations

{dollar shave club} This commercial makes me want to join! (I already use a man's razor anyway. I think they work better and last longer than those prissy women's ones.)

 
{real actors read yelp reviews} Oh! This made me laugh so hard!

 
{the human jukebox} Wait for the dinosaur. Oh hell. Watch it all.


{call me maybe chatroulette} I'm so sick of this song, but this still made me smile.


{how to draw simon's cat} Cuz you need to know how to do that, right? (also see the hedgehog)

what we saw at the vancouver aquarium

We saw the beluga show. They don't do much of a show, really, just some smaller jumps and waves, but they were very pretty.

We saw various sea creatures in small tanks. We thought we'd experience more... magic. Like, dark caverns and rippling blue shadows and quiet, but really it was more like screaming kids, rooms that were bright enough not to be magical yet dark enough to make it hard for pictures, and wall-sized tanks where only about 1-5 people could look in successfully. That made it lose some of its appeal.

We saw a bunch of birds and animals that kinda didn't have anything to do with an aquarium. Let me describe them for you:

little monkeys that were having so much fun together but would. not. look. at. anyone. I also have four more of these monkey-back pictures.

two of the largest parrot species (the hyacinth macaw, I believe) who also could really care less that anyone was around them.

ibis in trees just out of a good viewing zone

and this guy who was extremely pissed off.

oh and bats flying around in a cage in the dark so you could kinda tell they were bats, but they were going so fast there was no point to even trying to watch them.

We saw one sea otter. He was pretty adorable, eating on shrimp. They're a lot larger than I thought they were. I don't know where I got the impression that they were a little larger than a gopher, but they're like a medium sized dog.

We saw penguins sleep. It seems like everyone's getting penguins these days. These guys just arrived at the aquarium and were in need of names. We just caught the end of their "show" which I think consisted mostly of them sleeping. At least they chose to do it near the glass. (I wanted to touch him so badly.)

We also saw porpoises and dolphins (and about the last 5 minutes of a dolphin show, actually), but I don't have pictures because all they did was circle their tanks. We saw sharks who did the same, so I got a video but I don't think it's worth it to post. Ho hum.

We did see some amazing jelly fish. I went back for more pictures because I loved them so much.

I think they were by far my favourite part and they were one of the first things we saw when we came in.

Here's a little video because this one is kinda magical (I think). I wish there'd been seats by these. I could have watched them all day.

I want to recommend the aquarium so badly, but, like, don't drive to Vancouver JUST for the aquarium and Stanley Park (both are together) or I think you'll be a little disappointed.

friday fixations: christmas movies edition

I'm going to be watching a whole lotta Christmas movies this weekend. How about you?

{elf} Number one favourite holiday movie. Santa! I know him!

{the original rudolph the red nosed reindeer} This is my favourite childhood Christmas movie. My gram had the piano music and her and I would play the songs from the movie at the piano every year. I learned a lot of piano from that book, actually, but I'll never be as good as she was (dual hands confounds my brain). Wherever it is right now, whoever has it, it's marked up with all of my little cheat notes. I wish I had it.

{national lampoon's christmas vacation} The best National Lampoon ever. I would watch this one in July.

{a christmas story} For whatever reason, this cute story escaped me until a couple years ago when I made it a mission to watch after constantly hearing about it everywhere I clicked. Now I love lamp.

{home alone} One or two or both! (Hint: go with both.)

{the grinch} It's worth a watch just based on the facial expressions Jim Carrey manages to make in his grinch suit.

{the santa clause and christmas with the kranks} Is any holiday complete without Tim Allen? (And while we rolled our eyes at Christmas with the Kranks, we have already watched it twice this year.)

{the muppet christmas carol} Is any holiday complete without the Muppets?

And some unorthodox Christmas movies to sneak in for your man (you know, in between the classics):

{batman returns}

{gremlins}

{lethal weapon}

{die hard}

{the ref}

{trading places}

And that's it for me until (at least) after boxing day!

Have a wonderful Christmas! (and these! You must look at these!)

early morning storm

I was chasing storm clouds this morning.

orange storm from Idle Wife on Vimeo.

And then the storm clouds chased me.

rain and thunder from Idle Wife on Vimeo.

I was totally soaked.

make the buttercream stop!

things would be so much easier if I had a musical montage, too

Please remind me to see these when they come out

Kick Ass


MacGruber

Oh, drab Wednesday

Normal Life Greek Joke
Ok, I suppose this isn't really a "normal life" Greek joke, but I'm trying to throw out some random post-its I have laying around and it was on one of them. Hey, if I've forgotten it up till now, there's a chance I'll forget it forever if I throw the post-it away without mentioning it.

You've seen the movie The Golden Compass, right? You know, the one with Nicole Kidman and their souls (I guess you can call it) walk around in the form of an animal and there's talking polar bears? Ok, well, I'm hoping you have cuz otherwise this won't make a stitch of sense.

Anyhoo, there's a device in the movie called an alethiometer. Apparently this device tells the truth and only one person in the movie can decipher it. It's pretty damn important in the scheme of things. So we're watching the movie, and Idle Husband turns to me and says, elethiometer (note: it's said more like this than with an 'a' sound) is basically like saying idiotmeter because elethio is Greek for idiot.

the idiotmeter

So here's this important device that's supposed to be telling the truth about people, things, whatever, but it feels (even more) bogus (than it should) because it's secretly called an idiotmeter. I guess you can look at it two ways. The person reading it is an idiot or it only measures idiots. Either way it's pretty suspect.

On an unrelated note:
I guess there's a lot of buzz over Apple's new iPad, but I wasn't aware of it until IH complained about it.
Firstly, this is the WORST NAME OF A PRODUCT IN THE HISTORY OF PRODUCT NAMES EVER. Honestly, I really can't get over the word "pad." It makes me think of lady hygiene products and that's so not cool. (and I'm not the only one)
Secondly, it seems to be a large, awkward version of the iTouch. Features include turning it whichever way you want and it adjusts. Wow. That's, like, so, like, um...we've seen that before.
Thirdly (and kinda off topic), who the hell dresses Steve Jobs? Honestly. He makes a kazillion dollars (that's a guesstimation) and he can't afford a stylist? In what era has too-large-for-you washed denim jeans and a tucked in black turtleneck (who looks good in those?!) been the vogue thing to wear? I could get it if he were actually stuck in a decade -- hey, I'm Steve Jobs and bell bottoms work for my figure! -- but I just don't get this look. Just the fact that this guy, in his baggy washed denim jeans and terrible black turtleneck sells a product that seems to define the "cool hipster indie geek" persona is so super backward and weird to me. It's a cool product sold by an uncool man who's oddly accepted by all the cool kids. FYI: this wouldn't happen in any other situation except this one. Ever. Also, I'm not going to spend that much money on an electronic gadget before first dressing myself. And that should really be everyone's motto.

For interests sake:
I'm going to start using Jay Leno as a way to describe someone who gives you something and then later wants it back.
possible usage: "You want that picture back?! You're such a Jay Leno!!"
I'm already using Jim Belushi as an expletive.
actual event: [after banging my finger between the wall and the vacuum cleaner] "Jim Belushi!!" (it's really important to emphasize the Jim part)

Idle Friday

I'm so lazy today. I don't know why. I don't think this week has been particularly grueling or anything like that, but I just feel like I'm in need of a lazy day. We all get like that at some point in time, don't we? I can't be the odd one out.

So I decided to spend at least a couple hours of my Friday watching movies. I had just pushed play when I realized how great it would be to enjoy some chips and salsa while watching. I've been craving salsa for a little while, plus (word of the day) I had some leftover tortilla wraps in the fridge that I've been thinking about making into chips for two weeks now. Finally, I had a good enough reason to do so. These were easy to make. All I did was spritz them with some cooking spray, grind a little pepper (that one's for Idle Husband) and salt on them, and a sprinkling of garlic powder. Then I cut them in wedges and baked them in the toaster oven for about 10 minutes. I could have rotated the pan or rotated them around halfway through, because some weren't evenly crispy, but 10 minutes was all the time I could bare to spend waiting. Mmm, spicy!

I enjoyed these while watching...Twilight. Gah, I know. I swear to you, I was only watching it to get the jokes about it. It was research, ok?!

Louis Prima: The Bigger the Figure

I've found myself a little obsessed with halloween/monster themed cartoons lately, so I've been saving them up in our TiVo queue. This past weekend, I decided it was time I watched Igor. What I loved most about this movie was all the great classic music. This song in particular has found itself on repeat in my head since then. I had to search it out, so I could have some music around while I go about my idle day. Enjoy!

The last drive-in movie night

Idle husband has a bone to pick with these two youngsters. This was my view the whole movie, and I'm guessing his was a lot worse. Except this is before they decided they couldn't hear the movie very well and needed their radio on, and since they couldn't figure out how to hear the radio outside of the truck (hint hint: roll down your windows), they left their door open with the interior light on almost the entire movie. Sometimes I really wonder about people.

Free? Did someone say free?!

It’s summer, which means free drive-in movie night at the Millwoods mall!

Much to our dismay, they were showing Disney’s Earth. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but it's not a very interesting movie for either of us. We considered leaving and coming back for the next one, but since this was the first one we've been to, we decided to stay and see whether it was actually worth coming back for.

When someone decided it was time to bring out their laser pointer, we really started to enjoy the film. And while James Earl Jones calmly narrated the story of a polar bear mother and cubs, the laser pointed and jiggled all over the screen. Wait, ok, that’s not the best part. The best part was this rather large, biker-looking dude in a very festive Mexican poncho who decided he had had enough of the laser pointer. He was storming around swearing that if he caught the laser pointer guy he’d “drag him outta there by the hair.” We dubbed him the Poncho Police. It was too funny. The pointer would appear and he would come charging from his vehicle, only to have the pointer disappear again. This went on for a good 10 minutes. It's really hard to take someone seriously when they're wearing a poncho.

They’re playing Up next week and we’re definitely going to that. It’s free, the sound is great (we had the radio tuned to the station for a bit, but realized we didn’t need it at all), the picture is great (getting there early is a pain but worth it), and Up is relatively new with great reviews. I’m really looking forward to it!