Video Games > Movies

Now before you flip out and say that there is no flippin' way video games could be better than movies....let me explain.

I've been a gamer since I was less than 2 years old. I don't have the picture, it's at my parent's place somewhere, of me when I was barely old enough to walk sitting in my dad's lap playing "Sticky Bear Bop" on an old amber screen something-or-other. I was born a gamer. But it wasn't long after I learned to walk, my parents say no older than 3, that I could sit through my favorite childhood movie, The Wizard of Oz, without moving. That's quite a feat for someone so young if I do say so myself!

Perhaps I should just say that I've always been attracted to the warm glow of a tube. Like a moth. I'm a moth? God how did I get to being an insect.....ANYWAY!

I'm picky too. About my games and movies that is. Ask anyone who has had to go to a movie with me. Between the hubs and I, I think we have almost 2,000 movies rated on Netflix. We don't mess around. I would venture even to say that I have seen enough movies to be able to maybe even have an opinion worth listening to.

So here it is.

As the talentless goons in Hollywood continue to get blockbuster amounts of money for shit like Transformers 2... what need have they for story? Plot? Character development? Creating empathy? NONE! NONENOENOENOENEONEONENONEONEOENNONE!
So they don't. Because that stuff costs money (in the form of hiring talent).

On the other hand. The games, as of late, have some pretty epic story lines! For instance, a simple FPS like Dead Space has enough story that I sat behind my hubs while he played it, with my knitting, and watched it like a movie! Now just think about that. I had more fun watching a video game played than the sum of the "decent" movies I've seen in the last few years. A game like Dead Space you can probably get, I dunno, 6-8 hours of game play. Lets break it down.

New release movie that prolly sucks: $13.50 x2 (at our nearest theater)
Popcorn and a drink: ~$10 (probably more)
Hours of entertainment: ~2
-------------------------------------------------
$37 / 2 = $18.50 per hour for questionable entertainment



New release video game that's prolly good: $60
Popcorn and drink from costco: $0.50 per person
Hours of entertainment: ~7.5 (for argument's sake)
-----------------------------------------------------
$61 / 7.5 = $8.14 per hour for possibly enthralling entertainment


If that math isn't intriguing enough to make you want to go try a game instead of a movie...let me...pique your interest in some upcoming movies, sure-to-be classics.

"Butter: In small-town Iowa, an adopted girl discovers her talent for butter carving and finds herself pitted against an ambitious local woman in their town's annual contest."

Really...butter carving.....

"American Reunion: "

Yeah....even IMDB didn't have a blurb for this POS....

"What To Expect When You're Expecting: A look at the lives of five couples as they prepare to become parents."

You know it has gotten bad when they are making movies of self-help books....

"Mirror Mirror: An evil queen steals control of a kingdom and an exiled princess enlists the help of seven resourceful rebels to win back her birthright."

Srsly? Apparently we aren't smart enough to create some new fairy tales we'll just keep rehashing old work....wait just a second....what is that?!

"Snow White and the Huntsman: In a twist to the fairy tale, the Huntsman ordered to take Snow White into the woods to be killed winds up becoming her protector and mentor in a quest to vanquish the Evil Queen."

Hey now Hollywood this is too much! TWO!? TWO!!?!? Really we need two totally screwed up Snow White rip offs? Speaking of two....Two words: Kristen Stewart.

"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: President Lincoln's mother is killed by a supernatural creature, which fuels his passion to crush vampires and their slave-owning helpers."

There aren't words for this.

"Total Recall: As the nation states Euromerica and New Shanghai vie for supremacy, a factory worker (Farrell) begins to suspect that he's a spy, though he is unaware which side of the fight he's on."

So if this movies sounds familiar you to you...let me just say...IT SHOULD. The original is a cult classic and there is ZERO need to remake this. Also....remaking one Philip K. Dick movie rendition leads me to believe some jack ass will try and do something epically fail like remake Blade Runner. And then I would have to kill someone.



Well those are just some of the joys we are looking forward to this coming year. I did not even mention the plethora of movies they are re-releasing 'Now in 3D!!' like Star Wars and Titanic. I can't wait to not watch any of them.

So please, write your congressman, your favorite directors, your aunts, ANYONE. We need better movies! Otherwise.....I fear the state of moviedom pictured in Idiocracy.... just a giant Ass for 90 minutes. Winning best screen play.

If our outsides always showed our insides.....

So the hubs is in Omaha this week for a work convention thingy and I drove him to the airport on Monday. As we drove we talked about some totally random stuff. The night before we had watched a stand-up comedian on Netflix (I can't remember the guy's name and Netflix appears to be down at the moment....did the world just turn upside down?) who started his show off with death as the main topic. He joked about how his father had been attacked, not by terrorists, but by his own heart. Honestly it was hysterical and I laughed myself silly. On the long trek to DIA though, we were recapping that comedian and giggling, and I mentioned that heart attacks are rarely these huge events where sparks fly and guns go off and bombs are dropped. They are creeping and painful.

The hubs and I thought about this and the comedian, who said he was planning on preemptively attacking his heart with a defibrillator just to show it who's boss, and I posited that perhaps if hardening of the arteries was as visible on the outside, as say obesity, then perhaps people would care more about it. Is it an out of sight out of mind thing?

Though you see the pink ribbons, hammers, shoes, license plates, food, mixers, and pet supplies that support 'finding the cure' for breast cancer....where is the concern for the ACTUAL leading cause of death in women? HEART DISEASE. On an aside...I've always disliked those damned ribbons. And the selfish attitude of some of those stupid runs/walks/jogs for 'the cure' that sometimes disallowed men from participating. AS THOUGH US WOMEN ARE THE ONLY ONES WITH TITS YOU BOOBS. Hell yes I just used two anti-feminist breast slang words in one sentence...and you liked it.

Click here to see how you too, for a small fee, can have a ribbon, pin, magnet, bangle for every horrible thing in your life!


Or what about setting up some more walks/jogs/runs/whatevers for prostate cancer? A cancer that basically all men are ACTUALLY going to get if they live long enough? Get over it pinkies.....you aren't the main problem. I'm not trying to undermine the dehumanizing effects cancers of all kinds can have, especially those really horrible cases of double mastectomies, I'm just trying to put some perspective on other types of diseases that are also important and more prevalent. Ehem, moving on.

Anyway, the hubs said he didn't think it would matter if hardening of the arteries had a larger effect on the external appearance of people. He suggested that if obesity wasn't a deterrent enough to eating total crap, then neither would an external display of hardened arteries prove useful. I can't deny that, much like how 'everyone' knows smoking is bad for them there are still a ton of smokers and that 'everyone' knows eating a few Big Macs everyday is bad for you people still eat them. But isn't there a sort of stigma now? I mean, if you're a smoker today man you gotta really like smoking. Here in the mile-HIGH (I do mean pot smoke here) city, if you're a pot smoker you're more than welcome to smoke inside venues, in your home, outside your home, really ....wherever. But if you DARE smoke a cigarette, you've gotta not only leave the building you work in but also trudge 3 miles uphill both ways in the snow (literally) to have that cigarette a legal distance away from a building. That's determination! My point though, is there is a stigma around smoking cigarettes. I think there is a stigma around being obese as well people just aren't as willing to talk about it.

I mean, lets face it. There you are in your window seat on the plane. It's not a long flight, maybe 2 hours, but you're ready to get it over with and the plane hasn't even taken off yet. It looks like you're going to have the whole row to yourself, which is friggin' awesome!
Let me give you two scenarios:

1. Then suddenly, a guy flops down in the aisle seat in your row. Instantly you're struck in the face with the smell of old cigarettes. Dismayed, you wrinkle your nose and try and cleverly cover it with your sleeve to deter the smell from assaulting you. Out of nowhere the guy whips out a cigarette and lights up right there on the plane! You shocked and appalled! "HEY! You can't do that in here! This is a plane dude! FLIGHT ATTENDANT! HELP!" --- You immediately jump to action to prevent this guy from assaulting your airspace.

2. Then suddenly, a Beluga whale appears. Cramming the rolling folds into the adjoining seats the whale realizes that without putting the arm rests up between you and it, it won't be able to sit down completely. Now that two hour flight has become the 4th level of Dante's hell and you're suffering from respiratory distress as the weight of the folds crush your rib cage. But do you say a word? When the whale looks over at you apologetically do you not...even wrestle up a small, somewhat knowing smile to let him know that even if you do die of asphyxiation you wouldn't dare hurt it's feelings by mentioning you couldn't breathe?

Uh-huh. The stigma is still there though right?

-- And now for something completely different --

Later that day I tried to force myself to do some schoolwork. There is an organization that I'm actually quite keen on called the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. These folks are trying to help make hospitals a safer place for patients. I know, sounds weird, but people in hospitals make mistakes because people are people so why should it be....oh ehem, sorry. Anyway, people screw up.

So anyway, IHI has these modules to help teach everyone (not just healthcare people) about how to make stuff better. Lots of it seems like common sense and lots of it is interesting but there was one quote that blew me away.

"A 1984 study of physician-patient interactions, for example, showed that physicians listen to patients' concerns for an average of 18 seconds before interrupting.*"

So this study is ancient by information standards but still...you can only think that that number has gotten worse over the last almost 30 years. It is actually a little scary to me. It immediately makes me think of my 88-year-old grandmother who retains all of her mental faculties but is a little slower and has, oh, I don't know about 88 years of medical history to shuffle through. I can't tell you what I ate for lunch yesterday and I don't have her kind of excuse.

This got me thinking. I have a handful of nursing classmates who are planning on going on to get a nurse practitioner degree. I think it's great. Go for it guys! On the other hand, rumor has it, that by something like 2015 you're going to have to get a doctorate in nursing in order to prescribe. Aaaaannnndddd...well. Maybe I'm crazy..but a doctorate in nursing sounds like a presidency for senator-ship or a captainship for deckhandnes...or....well JUST DUMB YOU KNOW!?!? So power to you guys. Why does it always take me so long to get to my points? Anyway, my point here is that nurses are trained differently than doctors. This is for good reason. The way the current hospital system is set up, nurses spend a LOT more time with the patient than the doctors do. Nurses are the ones the patients talk to the most. Nurses listen and incorporate that gained information into their "plan of care" for the patient. A more all encompassing view rather than the diagnostic grit the doctors spend their time looking at. But I think this is why so many people are happy to see a nurse practitioner, in the outpatient setting, rather than a doctor a lot of the time -- because they are better listeners.

I'm not sure I actually have an end point to this little rant... Maybe that stuff needs to change...maybe if doctors had a more quality of quantity approach to their patients they would be able to spend more than 18 seconds listening before butting in. I'm not sure. What do you think?

*Beckman HB, Frankel RM. The effect of physician behavior on the collection of data. Annals of Internal Medicine. 1984;101(5):692-696.

Another Semester...

Ok don't ask me why blogger is too stupid to handle something simple like image mapping but it took me a long bit to figure out how to even make this show up. So just ignore the first bit of the post that has...empty.....haha.

Anyway so I finished knitting up my Stripe Study shawl and I have all this leftover yarn and I was trying to think of ways to use it. I could just knit some weird item....like a strangely colored hat or something, but then I got an idea. I used to be able to draw and make some artistic stuff and then....well I stopped and if you don't use it you lose it! But I can knit up a storm....why not make it artistic? So I browsed the fair isle on ravelry and made this silly little thing on paint shop pro. You can click on the picture to see where I "stole" the stitching from.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Has anyone see it in action? I think I could find some cheap frames at Ikea....hmm....


Anyway, school is starting again tomorrow and I'm ready and dreading at the same time. I really wanna start doing something again. My break was nice at the beginning but then....it just dragged on as I had nothing to do and my husband doesn't really care for going out and doing things on weekends without more encouragement than I can muster most of the time. All he wants to do lately is play Battlefield 3 anyway. I just need to get back in school so I have a reason to get out of the house and be productive. Of course, day one of class there is a math test. So...hate that.... stupid numbers....stupid books I have to buy....stupid...

Tama is still doing pretty good although it is apparent NOW that he is drinking more water. He wasn't doing that before. I'm afraid I'm going to take him in to get another over-priced glucose curve and he'll have to go up to 3 units BID which means yet ANOTHER curve....christ.

So I found some funnies today and made me laugh out loud (not that the husband could hear me over the killing in BF3 through his headphones.... >.>; ) and I thought I would share some of my favorites with you.

Nursing School Makes Me Want To...

**Heads up, some things are a little ...graphic? Not really the right word...yarnic? Anyway...**

Alright well it makes me want to do a lot of things. Sometimes laugh but mostly just burn buildings down and hit people in the face with their own bureaucracy. I still haven't heard jack diddly about my SIP placement and yeah, that class starts next week. I realize that there is only one person doing placements for all the nursing students but...I'm a senior now guys, c'mon, don't we get first call? About ready to lose my go-ram mind here.

Yesterday I had a good time. Went and did water aerobics with a friend which is always fun but hard on the feet and then went to lunch with another friend. Then froze. Our damn heat seems to be on the fritz and the house is just frigid. I got the space heaters out but they occasional pop the circuit and then we have to deal with the breaker....jeeze.

So I'm almost done with my Oregon Coast Shawl (that's what I'm calling it now) and I was browsing ravelry today and saw that someone posted a pancreas. Yup. A pancreas. Now..... I have long thought that people who primarily crochet are a little odd in the head...I mean, what's with the amigarumi food items? But this got me thinking. How many body parts are on ravelry and can you make all human innards by now? Here are my findings.

























Pretty impressive so far huh?! I know I know, some of these above aren't "innards" but I couldn't help but post up some random body parts. So we are obviously missing some things:

Stomach
Liver
Spleen
Intestines
Bladder
Gall Bladder
Other various glands

These may have already been created but I haven't found them yet. Lemme know if you find them and I'll add them to the collection here!

I wonder how long it would take to create a full set of human innards.


Edit to Add:

This was just posted today! Had to add it to this post!

Tama Update and More

Tama has been on his insulin since the first of the month and he has definitely perked up! His begging has gone to the next level in fact. Goodness it's like fighting off a wild animal every time you try and eat something. I am glad that he is feeling better and he is getting back to his old self. Amazing what a tiny bit of insulin can do!!

I have to say, though, that I am a little miffed. I have worked as a vet tech for a number of years and I worked at the vet clinic that I take Tama to for awhile as well. Maybe the hard part is that I know they give discounts there to other people who used to work there.....but apparently not me. The killer is that I know how much markup there is on things! I don't mind paying people for their time. People deserve to get paid for their work... I just figure that if people who haven't worked there for years are getting massive discounts (as in, most stuff for free)....couldn't I get a little one?

The doc did not charge me for the office visit, which is very nice but...here is how that pans out to date:

First visit + bloodwork + rads = ~$260
Urine culture + scripts for insulin + small amount of diabetic food = $100
Insulin = $120
Blood glucose curve on Weds = $87

-$50 discount
----------------------------------------------------------------
$517


His curve showed that we need to up the insulin dose from 1unit twice a day to 2 units twice a day. Which means he has to go back in for another glucose curve in a week to 10 days. Another $87 bucks. For my nursing school buddies who read this, literally they use a handheld glucometer just like humans use and take the blood sugar level like 5 times throughout the day. Wouldn't you like to make an easy $87 for every 5 glucose sticks you did? HA. They know I know what they do. Tama stays there all day but looking at it objectively they probably spend less than 20 minutes on him. Get him out of the kennel, poke him, put him back, read the glucometer. So if they know I know what they are doing, and it is something I could do at home with fairly little help, why do they charge me the full price?!  I WORKED WITH THESE PEOPLE FOR GOODNESS SAKE!

I'm just miffed. I'm glad Tama is feeling better, but diabetes isn't rocket science. I'm thinking about finding another vet. Why should I be faithful to this one?

Oh my gosh I forgot to add that Tama had the most horrible day on Wednesday. So I woke up to get him to the vet early and wouldn't you know it? 3 inches of snow on the ground and still actively snowing. GREAT. So I got bundled up and got Tama in his carrier and we trudged out to the car. It took us almost an hour to get there (usually takes 10 minutes). I stopped at Starbucks and got the doc her favorite coffee beverage on the way. So then I drop him off so he can get a buncha needles stuck into him throughout the day and leave him there until almost 5pm. It's 13 degrees out when I went to get him and again it took a long time to get home. When we finally got home....well the poor little guy had had an accident in his carrier and it was all over him. So out of the carrier and into the bath with the poor little man!! Worst day ever for a cat right?

On another note, I still haven't heard about my SIP placement and I've been doing basically nothing this whole Winter break. Knitting up a storm but.....starting to lose my mind.....
I've watched documentaries about ancient Greece, Egypt, Rome, Japan, Petra, modern Chinese landscapes, origami, babies, god knows what else. I've listened to Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. All the while knitting. Occasionally browsing blogs. Here are some interesting things I've found recently!


This website is wonderful, all the tasty things you could ever want, super nice blogger who responds to questions in comments, and pictures that make you drool!



This is where I am going to get all my color inspiration for my knitting from now on!


Since Denver finally got an Ikea (yes, I still think this city is po-dunk and this is a backwater state, SO TAKE THAT!)

Happy $$$$$$$ New Year.

Sorry about my rambling last post.


Yesterday morning we got a call from the vet. Tama is diabetic.
His blood sugar was 502 (should be more like 80).

I was asked to bring him in to run yet another test and pick up some prescriptions and things. What a shittastic way to start the day. P had another engagement so I got Tama in the carrier and we set off to the vet to the sound of Journey. It was literally blustering and the wind was blowing so hard that the car moved as I drove it. Poor Tama.

It isn't a long drive to my old work place but I saw something on the way that made me think that... while this horrid thing was happening to one of my babies... it could be worse.

I was stopped at a rather busy intersection where a few homeless folk have been known to camp out with their signs. As I am usually one of those "get a job" type people I generally attempt to avoid eye contact and ignore them. Yes, I'm a bitch.  Anyway, the car in front of me was inhabited by less jaded folk and they happened to have some doggie boxes of food. 

A man, bundled up against the icey cold wind, was standing on the corner with a little sign. Crossing the street, at the same time, was, what looked to me, like a mother and her young 5ish-year-old daughter. The generous car in front of me gave a little honk and the guy with the sign started walking over but just as the person started handing out the box of food, the little girl ran over and intercepted it. I sorta giggled thinking that the girl just didn't really understand and thought it was fun that someone was handing something to her. But then the mother took it from her and kind of started walking away with it!  Now...my jaded mind just thought "What the hell lady. Neither you nor your daughter look starving, homeless, or are even dressed like you have money issues. This poor guy is out there with a sign and you are going to steal his food?"
Well, a second later another box of food was produced from the car which the man with the sign took, looked at for a moment, and then offered to the little girl. 

Instantly tears welled up in my jaded eyes.

Here is a guy, presumably homeless and hungry, who could have gotten two boxes of food for himself if this selfish lady hadn't walked by at the just right moment, who was now willingly giving away the one box he might ended up with.
At this point the light turned green and I was forced to drive on as I was, hopefully, watching the mother motion to the child to give at least the one box back.

Tama doesn't have to wait for handouts. Tama doesn't have to be out in the cold. Tama has more healthcare coverage that many humans and despite the fact that he cost us about $500 (YES I KNOW!) this weekend, he is going to get the best care he can get.

And he is cat.



P.S. If anyone has a cheap way to get Lantus....hook me up.

Christmas and the New Year

Well the holidays are over for us. Yes yes, I realize the new year hasn't quite rolled in yet, but we never have any plans on New Years and thus, as in all the years we have known each other, we shall most likely be spending the evening as we always do:  me knitting, P killing. In Battlefield 3 that is. Not some weird Dexter sort of way.

We flew back to Portlandia for X-mas as always and had a lovely stay with my family. They always spoil us and treat us to a very nice vacation from doing anything. They practically put the food in our mouths for us! It is a nice getaway and I always feel like the stay is too short (I wonder if I'm just that lazy in reality?)  We also saw P's sister and the kids, P's uncle and fam, and all manner of other family. Santa was extremely generous to us this year and we have much to be thankful for.

In fact, I was just reading through the popular blogs on bloglovin and came across this post about my secret crush: Taylor Swift
I just got a skirt JUST like this one from my sister for X-mas! Of course mine is gray 'cause I'm not as darned cute or skinny as Taylor so I can't be showing off like that. But that made me giggle.

We also got a Dyson Animal Ball which has picked up an embarrassing amount of....cat hair.
Another awesome gift was basically a free trip! We got Southwest gift cards and I can't wait to see how we can use them! We got many awesome gifts but really it would be sorta silly to list them ALL haha.

New Year's projections.....

Well. I need to work off all this weight I gained over the holidays but I honestly don't want to be stuck with the new-years-resolution crowds at the gym. That's probably just an excuse but whatever.
I have one more semester left of nursing school. UHG! Speaking of, still no word yet on my SIP placement and it is driving me to distraction.

One more semester of nursing school has many implications. P and I dislike Colorado a great deal and would like to leave it as soon as possible but this would be a silly thing to do if I was able to get a job at a particular hospital here. It seems somewhat unlikely to me that I would be offered a position as there will be so many people applying for a job there come this summer....but it would be silly not to try.

We only signed our lease up until July which means that, whether or not we stay in Colorado, we will be moving out of the condo. If this alone was the only thing happening this summer it would be a big pain enough. But to put, on top of that, the idea that we may be moving out of the state.... Jeeze. My head hurts just thinking about it.  P and I often discuss places we would like to move to once we finally quit Colorado. P has made it...ehem...obvious that going back to Vegas is out of the question. It seems the only places he is remotely interested in are as follows:

Portlandia/Vancouver --> Family live there and fond memories of the city
Austin --> He has been there once and people say we would like it
Omaha --> If, and only if, his company offers to give him a hefty pay raise
Hawaii --> Because we are allowed to dream.

I think we should add Phoenix onto the list but he is reluctant. Why the nut can't I have my desert back damnit? This snow shit is for the birds. So are these sub-zero temperatures. Uhg. Anyway, 2012 is shaping up to be a big pain in the ass and I'm going to miss the steadiness of 2011. I hope that by the end of this upcoming year I will have a job, a house, and still have my husband! haha.

On a more somber note,  Tamatama has not been well. We have noticed over the past 2 months or so his weight has been dropping, energy level low, and just generally not quite himself. We took him into the vet yesterday and they did bloodwork and rads. I will get the bloodwork results back tomorrow, but otherwise nothing was evident on physical exam. Some signs point to diabetes and that would make me a very sad panda. He is a good little guy and doesn't deserve to have diabetes....I'll keep you appraised of the situation.

Like I said...2012 is going to be a bitch.

P.S. Oh yeah. So about 2 months ago I finally went to the eye doctor again for the first time in about 6 years and we went and picked out new frames for a script that has barely changed. Of course it couldn't be that easy! Took a week to get the glasses made and when they got to me the right lense is fine but the left one is all kinds of wrong. But I did the right thing and wore them for about 4 days before I couldn't take it anymore. The glasses maker said they couldn't do anything without a new doctor's order so another 5 days went by before I could get an appointment. So I got a SECOND exam that came back with the same script. The doc looked and the new and old glasses and the only thing they could find was that the pupillary distance wasn't quite right on the new lense.....so they wrote a new script and I took to the glassesmaker and they sent the glasses out. I went back to pick them up yesterday and, if anything, the distortion is worse. The glasses maker people are baffled - their only recommendation was basically that my ophthalmologist is a quack and that I should pay to have THEIRs look at me. Eff that crap. I'm not getting three exams done in less than 2 months it's ridiculous. So I called the doctor and spoke with her and she was at a loss also. Her thought was that the glassesmaker uses shitty materials. All this finger pointing.... I hung up with her promising I would give the glasses a try but that if this shit keeps up I was going to return them and keep using my old ones for the rest of my life. She actually called me back later and suggested I come in and see their optician on Tuesday to see if it is just shitty materials or something.....I tried putting them on this morning to 'get used to them' and I could only have them on for a few minutes before I almost threw up on myself. Who needs to see anyway?

Also during one of these glasses sessions I was sitting there waiting for someone to look at something on them and I was messing with my wedding ring when I noticed one of the sapphires was loose!!! Jeezus christ. So I took it to Tiffany's before we left for Portlandia and they sent me an email stating that it was going to be just over $100 to fix the "damage."  FFS/FML! 

And today I ripped out about 13 inches of knitting because it wasn't looking the way I wanted.

CAN SOMETHING PLEASE GO MY WAY!?