Purple Mountains Majesty

Sun over the mountains! Okay, so they're clouds and yes, I post a lot of these but it amazes me so kick rocks!

$#@*

Oh, great ball of fire floating in the sky, thou art thy reason people drive 30 MILES PER HOUR!

Blinded By the Light

It's amazing how something so purdy could be my demise. Did the sun ever stop to think that maybe we can't see the road?

Stupid time change.

True Happiness

I can't imagine living anywhere else besides here in Florida (at least at this point), but I've also finally come to terms with being able to admit that aside from a boat load of good beach days, I'm not happy at all. 
There are a LOT of people that I've come into contact with throughout this 7 year stint here and they all say the same thing: weather is great, people suck. Yes, I know, I know. It makes me miss the great friends I have in New York - the people whom I'm truly happy around. I noticeably feel like a completely different person with them than I do here, and that's not to discount the few friends I have here. I'm happy to spend time with anyone who has substance!


With that said, I booked my trip to New York for this year's Odiepalooza! Three days of sleeping in a tent, no showering, peeing behind trees, beer, dirt, music and the people who I can honestly say I love.

The real point of this post is for me to physically note how lucky I am to have been able to be with those people so much in these past few months. I was able to see my best friend on my annual October trip, I was flown back up by our wonderful friends for New Years 2010, she drove 3 hours to see me in Boston in January for my birthday and now soon again in mid-July!
While part of me is beating myself up for spending the $260 (JetBlue only, sorry) on travel at this time with my world slowly crumbling around me, the rest of me is reminding myself that you can't put a price on happiness. And they're what truly makes me happy.

 

11 AM: The New Night Time

I guess this means time for bed!

Adventures of A&A: Down on the Farm

 "A day in the life of a girl and her wife."

Allie: this may be a stupid question but do you own a tent? 
Alicia: nope
Allie: ok
Allie: i may have another one
Allie: i think jj has a few
Allie: miller has his own and so does dave
Allie: i dont think rag does
Alicia: i'm gonna be a tent whore
Alicia: i'm gonna sleep with everyone
Allie: he stayed on "Poopy Pants Lane" last year 
Alicia: lmao

My Take on Alice

Okay, everyone has a different opinion and since this is my blog, here's mine. I'm biased - I'm going to say that right off the bat. Three reasons: 

1. Alice in Wonderland was always one of my most favorite Disney movies as a child (and now).
2. I love Tim Burton's visions
3. I adore Helena Bonham Carter

(via)

 

I'll start with her, I guess. Her lines in this film were simple, but effective. Her delivery was amazing, I could've listened to her all night. I find her brilliant and mysterious, not to mention a dark kind of gorgeous. She's definitely the cheese to Tim Burton's mac - which reminds me - does anyone else see Ellen Page in 15 years when they look at her? 

 

 (via)

 

Moving on, I've had some friends mention to me in passing that they felt as if the story lacked a little. I agree in the sense that if you're comparing it to earlier films, there wasn't nearly as much exploring going on in Burton's take, but I feel it's because of the exact opposite reason - They've created more of a story. Alice was on a mission as opposed to walking around aimlessly and interacting with singing dandelions and marching with umbrellas. I would've liked to see more wandering around for Alice solely to watch how Burton would've described it.

Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter swapped between Willy Wonka and Jack Sparrow. I felt it worked for him, though. When he was the calm and playful Hatter I heard the soft Mr. Wonka as opposed when he was in an angry trance and he would growl like the excited Captain Sparrow.

Mia Wasikowska made for a rather unexpecting Alice, but a good Alice. We haven't seen much of her, so I kind of wanted to dislike her, but I couldn't. 

Anne Hathaway is good at any part she plays, but as unnecessary the White Queen is to Wonderland, she was necessary for this story. The only annoying part from her was her hand-dancing the entire time. Stop that.

It was everything you'd expect from Burton - dark, different and because of that, pretty dang good!

The Corey's

First of all, R.I.P to Mr. Corey Haim. I hope your drug habit was worth it (and I'll feel really dumb if the autopsy comes back that you were clean). As my Facebook status displays: "Corey Haim was my favorite Corey," but my point is this:

Why are there so many needless deaths lately? Granted, I know there are needless deaths every day, but I don't remember it being like this. I can name a handful off the top of my head (and in no particular order):

• Corey Haim
• Farrah Fawcett
• Patrick Swayze
• Michael Jackson
• Heath Ledger 
• Brittany Murphy
• Casey Johnson
• Michael Osmond
• Andrew Koenig
• Anna Nicole Smith (Even though it was 2007. I just remember it vaguely because she was found down the street at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.)

Out of the (10) people I listed above - off of the top of my head, remember. I'm very well aware that there are many more and not all are celebrities - at least (8) of them could've been prevented.

Most of the people listed above died of drug overdoses. Those are easily prevented whether battling an addiction, or ingesting a dangerous concoction of prescription medications. Sometimes we take things that simple for granted. I remember when I was on Prednisone and I had a neck ache I was afraid to even take Ibuprofen without asking a doctor. I was afraid of what the reaction of that with the Prednisone could do to my stomach. Sometimes our bodies just can't handle it and we need to take care of ourselves.

Others were suicides, which I feel can also be prevented. There are signs we're told to look for from our peers (click here to read some) and it's important to act upon positive findings. For example, I watched a documentary about how to survive during emergency situations: plane crashes, terrorists attacks (yes, terrorists attacks - they deconstructed how the survivors of the Twin Towers attacks actually managed to make it out), earthquakes, car crashes, etc. One of the segments showed a study that was performed to see how a group of people would react to a fire in an adjacent room compared to how a person who was alone would react. The study showed that when there was a group of people in the room, the fire was ignored because nobody wanted to be "that guy" who made the fuss about what could be a simple issue causing the smoke to come through the doorway. The person who was alone immediately left the room to tell someone when they noticed the smoke coming through the door. 

note: Click here to watch the interesting documentary on how to survive disasters. Interesting watch.

My point being, if we notice suicidal behavior(s), someone else needs to be notified in order to prevent the potentially inevitable. We can't be afraid that the person will get upset or mad or angry because even if they do, they may one day thank you.

I suppose in all is we need to take care of ourselves and each other.

Holy crap, I've turned into Jerry Springer.

(via)

Miles Fisher

(via)

I know I've seen this guy around before perhaps doing Tom Cruise impersonations in random shorts and videos, but I never knew how awesome he is until this morning when my buddy Lauren posted the link to my Facebook page of a video of his covering a song by the Talking Heads. 


A few things with this video: 

• The video is an homage to American Psycho - brillaint (even the sex scenes)
• He looks like Tom Cruise, but can manipulate his face to resemble Christian Bale as at the 2:15 mark of the posted video below
• He sings well

Upon further research, I found another song (original this time) and I love it! I hope he puts out more stuff, apparently he's been dabbling in music since childhood. 

Two thumbs up for Miles! Thanks, Laur!

Alice in England

This morning (or afternoon) I was catching up on my celeb gossip a la Perez Hilton, which I find entertaining and I'm not sorry, and he had posted a rather interesting video:

Of course, I got excited and I watched it, but then I questioned it's authenticity. We're in a world where now it's possible to replicate so many different things: money, jewelry, change appearances in photos, well - pretty much anything can be altered via computer programs. I almost felt bad for questioning its legitimacy being that it lacks a lot of complicated features that we have these days, but then again, I suppose that would make fabricating it that much more simple. 

After reading the information to the right of it posted by the British Film Institute, I'm leaning more towards that it's indeed real. My, how fascinating!