Jillapalooza

IM IN UR OCEAN. EATIN UR CARDZ.

Shooter

Shooter is an action packed movie about an ex-military sniper played by Mark Wahlberg (a.k.a. Jordon). Bob Lee Swagger (Wahlberg) is a retired marksman living alone with his dog in the mountains of some state with a lot of snow. He spends his days happily shooting away at cans of Dinty Moore soup in solitude when one day he is approached by a dude with Invisaligns (played by Danny Glover) who wants him to plan an assassination on the President. Not really. They believe there is a plot to kill the president, and they want Swagger to tell them how he would do it in hopes that it will help them find the killer before it’s too late.

Turns out it was all a big setup and now there’s a full out man hunt for Swagger. Through the course of the movie he ends up dodging multiple snipers and machine guns and almost single handedly takes down a bunch of fully armed men with a gun, some homemade bombs, and an FBI agent who really isn’t trained in anything at all.

I give this movie 4 out of 5 paloozas. Realistic? No. Entertaining? Yes. Good enough to see in a theater, especially with all the crap that’s out right now.

AAAA

AAAAA paloozas = See this movie in the theater for optimal viewing
AAAA paloozas = See this movie in the theater if you can
AAA paloozas = Pop some popcorn and rent this movie
AA paloozas = Watch this movie on TV … for free
A palooza = … I think you know where I’m going here…
No paloozas = Reserved for Eyes Wide Shut

Taco Dip

Here is the recipe for my famous taco dip. I think it’s fairly easy to make, but since the same people always ask for instructions, it must be real difficult. Apparently I’m a culinary genious. Just don’t bring this to any function that I’m attending. It’s my recipe, got it? Mine!!

Ingredients

  • 16 oz cream cheese, softened
  • 16 oz sour cream
  • 1/2 – 1 cup salsa
  • 2 cups shredded cheese
  • Optional Ingredients:

    • lettuce
    • tomatos
    • taco seasoning
    • olives (yuck)
    • broccoli & cauliflower, finely chopped (sounds odd, but it is yummy, hide it under the cheese, shhhh… don’t tell)

Directions
Using a hand mixer, thoroughly blend cream cheese and sour cream, scraping sides of bowl often. Add salsa until the dip is desired color/consistency. Add optional taco seasoning (to taste). Spread dip evenly in shallow sided pan or other serving dish. Top with cheese and other desired ingredients. Serve with chips and enjoy!!

What to do

It seems I have pondered most of my day away trying to decide what to do with jillapalooza. Nick notified me that there was a free website maker called WebSite X5 on giveawayoftheday.com. Apparently everyday the website gives away free software. He goes there everyday and declined to share this information with me until now. Maybe I wanted the Watermark Factory, or the Zoner Panorama Maker, or the Direct WAV MP3 Splitter. That would have been real cool. Oh well. Anyway, I digress.

So I was thinking about using WebSite X5 to make my website. Is has more of a page feel and it’s not so “blog” like, which I’ve never really liked the look of. I played around with it for a little bit. I never thought anything could be simple and cumbersome at the same time, but it really is. It’s straight forward page making, but there’s no code to customize or plugins to download. But the menu is a real pain to navigate through. And there’s no blog. I’m starting to like the blog feature of this. I can talk to myself, without actually talking, fooling people into thinking I don’t have a case of the crazies.

Anyway, I’ve decided to stick with WordPress. It’s more technical, and nothing says “you’re dumb” more than editing something while having no idea what you’re doing!!

What’s with the music these days?

Is it just me, or has anyone else been irritated by music lately?

First of all, I’m annoyed by all the spelling that goes on. Apparently Fergie did too many drugs and now thinks singing is synomymous with spelling. On her album The Dutchess she (or a background singer) sings spells F-E-R-G-I-E (2 songs), T-A-S-T-E-Y, D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S, and G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S. Add a melody to it and it takes so long to spell these ridiculously large words that by the time she’s done I have no idea what she just said. That’s probably why everything is spelled 20 times in a row. It’s the only way to figure out what the hell they’re saying. I’d like to include V.I.P. in the above referenced lyrics, but since it’s technically an acronym I don’t think I can, although I really want to.

I know she’s not the first to do it. Famous artists like Elvis, Travis Tritt, Aretha Franklin, and Tammy Wynette are all guilty, but Fergie is on the radio all the time, so that makes her the most annoying to me. And speaking of annoying Gwen Stefani comes to mind. I love No Doubt. They had such creative lyrics. Now Gwen Stefani sings spells B-A-N-A-N-A-S for a living. It’s a crying shame, a C-R-Y-I-N-G shame.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good cover (Rascal Flat’s Life is a Highway, Lenny Kravitz’ American Woman, Black Crows’ Hard to Handle, Metallica’s Turn the Page, RHCP’s Love Rollercoaster and Train’s Ramble On all come to mind, I could go on and on), but in order to make a good remake shouldn’t the song have been good to begin with? Shouldn’t it be a song people want to hear again? Case in point: She’s Like the Wind by Lumindee (who?). Perhaps the goal is to make the cover better than the original, in which choosing a song by Patrick Swayze is probably a fairly safe bet. But come on. She’s like the wind through my trees [insert rap here]? No good. No G-O-O-D. And Quietdrive just had to remake Time After Time. The song wouldn’t be so bad but it makes me think of Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion and that’s bad. B-A-D. These people are making Puff Daddy Puffy P. Diddy Diddy look good.

Also, there should be a limit on the number of times a song can be remade. I understand how it worked back in the ’40s & ’50s. Someone would write a song, it would be done by a billion artists, and whoever did it the best was the most successful. That’s how it was, that’s just the way it worked. Now new artists use old songs to get their foot in the door with fans. But there is absolutely no reason for Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi to have been remade 11+ times.

It seems every time I’ve turned on the radio in the last couple of weeks, one of two songs has been playing. The Way I Live by Baby Boy Da Prince (who?), or Rihanna’s Umbrella. Umbrella, ella, ella, ey, ey, ey, ey, ey. It’s irritating. I think of Michelle’s Ella, then I immediately hope she never has to suffer through the song.

To end on a happy note, I can’t wait for the new Maroon5 CD to come out (It Won’t Be Soon Before Long). Songs About Jane is one of my top five favorite albums so hopefully the next one will top it.

…and now I feel better.

Premonition

pure awesomeness

WTF. I don’t even know what to say about this movie. Linda’s (Sandra Bullock’s character) husband Jim (Julian McMahon) dies one day. But the next day he’s alive. And the next he’s dead, and so on and so forth. But not really like that. She discovers a week of her life has been jumbled about. She learns she can control the outcome of some of the days’ events by the decisions she makes with the information from the days she has lived in the future. Ultimately she must decide whether or not to try to save her husband, which is outlined in the dramatic question, “If I let Jim die, is it the same as murder?”

I don’t know, is it? I was really confused during and after this movie. It consumed my thoughts for days. Now I’m just angry. Because I don’t want to recap my thoughts twice (and I’m lazy), I’ll just post a copy to the email I sent to Kristen (who saw the movie with me). Since she’s probably also the only other person who frequents jillapalooza, she will get to enjoy it twice.

**Spoiler Al… wait no, it still won’t make sense even after you see the movie.

I invested a lot of time yesterday thinking about that movie. You have a good point about why wasn’t the little girl’s face all cut up in the beginning of the movie since it apparently happened when he was alive. Then I was thinking about the week being all jarbled about. If the movie started on Thursday and we got to watch the Tuesday and Wednesday before that, does that mean she lived those days twice? Or did she go to bed on Monday and wake up and it was Thursday? And the same with the end of the movie when she saw her husband die on Wednesday…. when she woke up the next morning was it Thursday again she relived the next week, or did she wake up a week later. Or did she wake up quite a bit of time later like the movie portrayed?

Then I was also thinking that perhaps she couldn’t change the outcome of anything, only the pathway there. She couldn’t save her husband no matter what she did. The truck would have found some way to smash into the car. She couldn’t protect her daughter from getting her face ripped up, it would just happen a different way. Since “premonition” is a warning or feeling of a future event, it’s not something you can change. Ok, I feel better. Thanks.

I give this movie 3 out of 5 paloozas. I was going to go 2, but unless you have a rewind feature on your TV, you will want to rent it so you can rewind or watch it again. I did enjoy the movie. It was very mentally stimulating.

I know the picture of Kristen and me doesn’t have anything to do with the movie, but it makes about as much sense.

AAA

AAAAA paloozas = See this movie in the theater for optimal viewing
AAAA paloozas = See this movie in the theater if you can
AAA paloozas = Pop some popcorn and rent this movie
AA paloozas = Watch this movie on TV … for free
A palooza = … I think you know where I’m going here…
No paloozas = Reserved for Eyes Wide Shut

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