Jillapalooza

IM IN UR OCEAN. EATIN UR CARDZ.

Breaking Dawn, Part 1

Yay! It’s that time again! The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 came out in the wee hours of the morning, and I’ve already seen it twice. Of course I knew I would like it, because I’m blinded by all things Twilight, but I really thought they did a fabulous job. They hit on all the important scenes, and for once they really nailed the script. Perfect amount of banter, seriousness, and comic relief, and no spider-monkeys.

I’m going to include some photos from TwiSarah’s party last night (she made everything, btw). Then I’m going to talk more specifics about the movie after the cut!

***SPOILERS BELOW***

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Reading goals for 2011

I recently signed up for Goodreads. It’s a really nice way to keep track of the books I’ve read as well as books I want to read. There’s even a nice little status update that allows me to track what page of a book I’m on, enter a quote or comment, and even tweet it. Back in January, I noticed they have a 2011 Reading Challenge. Oooh, exciting, right? How many books will I read?

While most of the people I know are setting goals of 20, 30, even 52 books, I kept it at a reasonable 6. I can read 6 books in 2011. That’s a book every other month . . . or 2 months to finish a book as I’d like to look at it. I’m hoping to read more than that, obviously, but I have a bad habit of not finishing things. I’ll be lucky if I post daily through the end of the month! So I figured, for once, just this one little time, I will set a goal that I will actually meet. Maybe it will motivate me to complete more goals and start a whole chain reaction of do-goodedness.

Here are the 6 books* that I foresee reading:

Mocking Jay by Suzanne Collins
Third and last book of The Hunger Games trilogy. The ending has already kind of been spoiled for me, so I need to hurry up and read it before it gets full-on spoiled. I’m currently on page 16.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Must read before the movie, starring the delicious Robert Pattinson, comes out on April 22!

Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick
Sequel to Hush, Hush, which I had my nose stuck in for two days straight at Blog Cabin last summer. Team Patch!

All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris
Seventh book in The Southern Vampire Mysteries aka True Blood.

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
I honestly have no idea what this book is about, but it doesn’t matter because it’s written by one of my favorite authors. If you haven’t read Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, then you are really missing out.

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Mar
First book in the series of the same name. Mary talked a big game about this book, and I managed to snag both this and the second book, Ink Exchange, from borders.com for $2.28. No lie.

*excludes audio books. ebooks are a-okay.

There’s the list. Wish me luck, and let me know what’s on your to-read list this year.

Let’s Play Catch-up

First and foremost, Happy Belated Birthday to jillapalooza.com!! It turned 3 on Feb. 28.

Second, for those of you wondering, yes I have seen New Moon. I know I didn’t go all crazy blogging about it this time around. Let me give you a summary:

Twilight8 & New Moon1: TwiSarah had a fantastic New Moon party on Nov. 19. There were 8 of us in attendance (including Katie, Marissa and Team Dog (btw, I listed them in alphabetical order because I’m anal, not because I like Katie the best or because I’m hating on Emily (a.k.a. Team Dog))). We watched the 9:00 pm showing of Twilight, followed by the 12:01 am showing of New Moon. It was totes awesome.

New Moon2: Emily and I spent the night at Sarah’s because we were up fangirling all night. What better way to spend a Friday off of work than watching New Moon again at 12:45 in the afternoon? I can’t think of anything. If you can, you’re wrong.

New Moon3: On Saturday Nov. 21 I made the traditional trip to Cloud to see New Moon at 9:00 pm with Blog Reader Kristen and Curtis. Oh, and Susan. We had to fill her in on the Twilight though because she hadn’t seen it. We ate at Red Lobster for dinner beforehand. It was yummy. Did you know if you go to redlobster.com you hear delicious sizzling noises?

New Moon4: On Tuesday Nov. 24 TwiSarah and I needed another fix, so we went to the 8:30 pm showing.

New Moon5: After filling up our bellies with Turkey on Thanksgiving, I saw NM again with my cousin Trish and her daughter Ashley.

New Moon6: On Saturday Dec. 5 I brought Sarah Taylor to the movie for her birthday. Carlos, who was in town for work, came with us as well.

New Moon7: Sometime in February TwiSarah, Team Dog and I watched NM again. It had been 2 months. Too long. Way too long.

New Moon8: After months of planning to go to the movie with my sister Lani, we finally got around to it on Feb. 18.

New Moon9: On Feb. 28 (and I blame me missing my site’s 3 year anniversary on this) I saw NM for the final time in theaters with my good buddy Laura. I guess I shouldn’t say the final time. Even though the DVD comes out in 9 days, it’s still playing at the discount theater, so…

I saw New Moon more than Twilight, which I said I would. Mission accomplished.

TwiSarah and I considered being Eclipse virgins, but I think we decided on just the tip (see post at Twitarded). We haven’t watched the 10 second teaser or the 90 second trailer that came out this week. We are holding out until tomorrow to see the trailer on the big screen before Remember Me. For the record, I’ve only seen the first trailer for RM a couple of times and viewed a couple of stills. I have absolutely no idea what the movie is about and I’ve been very careful to avoid the spoiler for the “twist” ending, which is quite difficult because it’s all over teh interwebs. I even fast forwarded through the RM clips on all the talk shows RPattz appeared on. *Pats self on back*

Although I admit I did consider looking at the spoilers because some of the scenes might kill me dead (see below) and then I’ll never know how it ends.

Twilight7

On February 13th I saw Twilight in theaters for the 7th time. By no choice of my own, mind you. I was practically forced by four of my friends: Sarah and Kristy who had just read the book, Michelle who was in the process of reading and Tara who was reading Breaking Dawn. For the record, it is just as good the 7th time around and Robert Pattinson is just as swoon worthy.

Fortunately the movie was only $3 this time since it had moved to the discount theater. Woo-hoo!! Of course the popcorn is just as expensive. Bastards. The five of us enjoyed the movie and then went to dinner afterward. We wanted to go to Champps but they were charging a cover (WTF?) so we opted for Houlihan’s instead. I enjoyed some delicious meatloaf. It was nice to have some fresh minds to discuss the book and movie with. In retrospect I should have driven with Tara alone so we could have discussed the other books. Instead we had to bite our tongues and be hush hush as not to ruin it for the slackers others who hadn’t read the series. But they will, just like Renee will eventually read Twilight. :o

Twilight comes out on DVD in three weeks and I’ve preordered the Border’s special edition copy. Nice.
twilightexclusive
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