Wondrous Wall-E

I got to go see Wall-E yesterday. Fantastic movie. I really had my doubts about it, because none of the commericals really told me anything and I figured it would be very boring. Far from it, it was funny, sweet, heartwarming, and inspiring. I was amazed at the amount of emotion that came across with very little voice acting.

One of my friends had a small complaint that Disney seemed to be making a statement about our society and our environment. I did notice it, but since I can't say that I disagreed with what I noticed, I can't say I was offended. In fact, it's not all that new. We've used the same basic idea of "humans screw up Earth and go live in space" in movies and stories for a long, long time.

One of my friends thought that kids wouldn't enjoy it because there was hardly any talking, but I can say that there were probably 30 kids in the audience last night and all of them were laughing up a storm.

It was a great movie, and supposedly the last of the original ideas that the guys that started the Pixar movies came up with. If you've got kids, it's definitely a movie to take them to see.

...and if by the end of the movie, you want to see the movie that Wall-E watches throughout the movie and you haven't seen it, I suggest picking up Hello Dolly, as well. Great old musical starring Barbera Streisand and Walter Matthou.

________________

In other news, I have my other short story is up at Scribd. It's called Silence and Darkness. The same blah as before, if you read it, and happened to be moved to do so, any feedback would be nice. Most of all, though, enjoy it.

I'd Like to See More

A little known fact about me, I really like musicals. It's something that I've loved ever since I was a kid. Disney had some of the greatest: Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Jungle Book. But it wasn't just animated movies, I loved Mary Poppins, The King and I, and on of my all time favorites to this day is Guys and Dolls, starring Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando. To me musicals were like listening to a cd with a story attached. Eventually though, they faded out. I mean, even Disney has stopped putting out musicals in favor of 3D team ups with Pixar. (I could go into how I miss the 2D cartoons Disney used to put out, but that's a rant for another post.)

It's been many a year since Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music and Grease, and it seemed musicals were a sort of dead art form. However, they seem to be trickling back into society, much to my joy. With the success of modern musicals like Chicago, Rent, Hairspray, The Phantom of the Opera, the ever amazing Sweeney Todd, and the awesomely hilarious but under appreciated The Producers, it seems Hollywood is trying to bring musicals back.

I hope that the trend continues. Mama Mia! is supposed to be a musical, and I don't know much about it, but I'm tempted to go see it. I'm hoping they'll eventually cave in and make a movie version of Wicked for us poor broke buggers who can't make it to New York to see it on Broadway.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share a little something about me that I don't usually like to admit. You'd be surprised how many weird looks you get for admitting to something like this.

What do you guys think? Do you like musicals? Got a favorite musical? Do you think that musicals should be brought back or left to be admired as a once glorious but now dead artform? Let us know in the comments.

P.S. In other news, I uploaded one of my stories to Scrib'd. A Lover Scorned. If you're reading it and feel the need to share something you liked, hated, felt I could improve on, or anything else, I'd appreciate it, but most of all I hope you enjoy it. This is the link to my page with both my new story and my 1st e-book on there.

No, I Never Drink...Wine...

But I do read vampire novels.

January 2nd marked the release of Evermore, the new book in the Darkyn series by Lynn Viehl.

The Darkyn series, for those of you who don't know, is what Lynn considers a "dark-fantasy" series about vampires. There are 5 novels to the series, the fifth being Evermore, and another coming soon, Twilight Fall. There's also a novella, Midnight Blues, available for free on her sight, and a few short stories also set in the Darkyn world. All of those are available on her site, for free download as well.

Still not convinced to go check it out? Night Lost, the fourth in the series, was a USA today bestseller.

And, finally, if you act now, you can enter Majorie M. Liu's contest (January 2nd post). Send her an e-mail (marjoriemliu@gowebway.com) to enter and if you win, you win the first four books in the series!

So what are you waiting for? Go! Buy!

Free Books! REALLY?!

But not from me. Nope, they're from good buddy S. William Shaw. He's having an awesome give away to promote his novels The Santa Mysteries and Sherman Oak and the Magic Potato. He's giving away free e-book copies of his book to anyone who e-mails him, and! (as if that wasn't enough!) he's giving away ten free paperback copies of one of his books away too. All you have to do to get the free e-book is e-mail him with the subject "free book" or to win the paperback copy, mention the contest on your blog/website, and send an e-mail with "book contest" as the subject and a link to your post. Then he'll draw the names. What are you waitng for??!! Send those e-mails!!!

The Plunge

Well, I'm taking the plunge and putting some real writing online. It's kinda nerve wracking. I know it's not my best, I already established that, but the thought that a whole bunch of strangers from all over the world could be looking at and judging me because of what I write is a little jitter-inducing. I can't imagine how I'd feel about a book being published. Even still, I'm glad I'm doing this. As Jaye Patrick said, "We learn by doing."

A while back a wrote a detective-type story that I thought about sending to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, or Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. This is making me think about taking that thing back out and seeing if it's worth sending off, and if it's not, maybe I should try writing another to send off.

Anyway, enough rambling, I'm just stalling because I'm nervous. Here's Battle of the Wastelands. I'll be posting it as a link on my sidebar so anyone who wants to can read it, download it, etc. It's free, and free is my favorite flavor, I'm sure it's other people's too.

(Small update: I've also changed my template because I like this one a lot better. I wasn't very fond of the light blue.)

So I Was Wondering...

Hey everyone. You might notice a new addition to the side over there. That's right, I'm the winner of the Rockin' Girl Boy Blogger award. I was awarded by MerylF and I'm proudly displaying the badge at the top of my site to show I'm a good Girl Boy Blogger.

I'm supposed to pick 5 girls to award this to. Hmm...do I know 5 girls who haven't gotten the award yet?

I'll award this to: Pam, Jaye, Aurelen, Anne, and Misswriter. There, five! Wow, I didn't think I could find anybody.

Pass it on to five more rockin' girls that you know.

On a different note, I was wondering something. I have a short story on my hard drive that takes place in Jerucia, and I was wondering if you guys wanted to read it. See, I've been wanting to put a free e-book on this site for a while so that a little sample of my writing could be out there for people to see. The problem is, I wrote it a long time ago, and it might be kinda rough in spots. I tried to clean it up the best I could, but there might still be some errors. Despite all that, I've always like this short story, and if you guys want to read it, I'd be more than happy to put it on here.

So whaddya say? Yay or nay? (Haha, quite the set of rhymes there, eh?) Post in the comments to let me know.