So I've seen some movies lately! Besides Dark Knight, which, again, was probably the best Batman movie made. Even if only for the Joker. Srsly.

Anyhoo this morning for the free Lucas screening they were showing Mamma Mia! (The exclamation point is part of the title. I was not quite that excited.) I enjoyed the play when I saw it many years ago, so we got up early (yes... we woke up early for ABBA) to see it.

It was fine. A lot of the voices were kinda rough overall (except the main character, who I thought was just great but she got the least amount of songs) so I didn't like it as much as the live show. I also remember the play seeming a bit funnier, but perhaps that's just my hazier memory of the play? Or maybe it's just that a mere two hours of ABBA isn't enough. You need at least three! Who knows. Anyway if you want some ABBA filled campy fun, this will do nicely. Also you get to see tons of shots of pretty, pretty Greece!

Next I finally watched Grindhouse. Err. Half of it. I watched Death Proof.

( SPOILERS!! Though I doubt anyone cares by now.... )

Short non-spoiler version: A movie that will only appeal to those with a robust knowledge of and passion for the genre with a magic ending. Way to go, Tarantino.

I haven't watched Planet Terror yet. Madeleine says it's wonderful, though, and she disliked Death Proof as well so I believe her. We shall see, though. As soon as Scott has enough time to watch another movie. :O

Gamenight Update, whoo! I have other stuff to say, about movies! But I'll put that in a separate entry.

Gamenight was fun. We got there a little late, but Jeff was just reading through the rules to a new game - Galactic Emperor. There was one seat left, so I jumped in on it. It was decent. It was sort of like a slim TI... only took about two hours to play, and I'm sure it would go faster if you knew the rules. Nobody seemed overly thrilled with it when it was done, but I'd give it another go... but not with six players I think. I also MAY have implied that James, who was playing black, ought to be my slave (as I was playing white.) I may have also referred to his ships as "colored." I'm going to hell. Anyway, I won hardcore. With Jeff's help, though! Jeff, James and I were all on one side of the table with Robert & Sean on the other side and Chris at the end. We decided that our side of the table was superior to all others and thus worked together to overcome the evil that was... everyone else. When I won, I declared it a victory for all on Our Side even though James DID turn traitor toward the end there.

After that, two games of Liar's Dice. Amazingly, I won both! Even MORE amazingly, I knocked Jeff out (he was to my left!) FIRST both games! OMFG.

Then we did Werewolf (plus the expansion, which was new to all of us.) The first game was fucking EPIC. In fact, this entry is going directly into my Memories. That's how epic it was. Anyway, 10 player game with two werewolves. It was cold tonight, so we had each grabbed a blanket from the stack. All of us that is... except for Jeremy and Rustin. So the game begins and Jeff immediately casually points out that Jeremy and Rustin are the only two without blankets and thus MUST have extra body hair to be able to keep warm. Therefore, werewolves. I support this theory, adding that Jeremy has the super long hair and Rustin was the only one in the room with facial hair. A comment was also made that Chris could not possibly be a Werewolf due to being of Asian descent.

So we make it known that everyone who agrees with us should vote for Jeremy. We vote, Jeremy gets lynched... he's a Werewolf!!!

So we sleep, and upon the morning... Jeff is dead. AHA. I immediately step in and say we were definitely onto something and should fulfill Jeff's campaign and vote for Rustin. We debate a little but when the vote comes up it's all Rustin. He was the second Werewolf.

Silly baseless accusations FTW! I love you Werewolf.

Anyway, we topped off the evening with two more rounds o' Werewolf. Did two of the scenarios in the expansion... the first one was fun but kinda poorly explained to us by Scott, but it will be a lot of fun from now on I think. The next one was just a change in the way voting is done and was REALLY cool and interesting but we realized all too late that you really have to work together fast to take down the Werewolves to have any shot at winning. I can't really say for certain yet if it's flawed and needs rule tweaks for the endgame or if it'll work better now that we now that we really have to be ontop of things. Time will tell.

And that's it for gamenight tonights. I'll update about movies in a few minutes, whoohoo!

Today, my friends, marks an important moment in Mandy History.

For tonight, I saw Eddie Izzard live at the Orpheum Theatre for the second time in my life! Whoo!!!

It was a good show! Very anti-religious, so we all approved. There were people in the audience who tried to reference the Dress to Kill tour by hissing like snakes (which was filmed in SF come to think of it) and he didn't quite get it, but they continued to hiss at various moments throughout the show and his "banter" with them was hilarious.

It all started when he said something about snakes, and a group of people began to hiss and he was just like "...Yes that is the sound snakes make. Thank you, sound effect audience."

One dude heckled him for not being all femme. pshh! He was super hot all butched up. Rawr!!

Anyway that's all for now. I'm off to watch stuffs!

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF DARK KNIGHT!

This isn't a spoiler AT ALL, but just for all you people who want to avoid seeing even minor things about the film before you see it...

( I've put it under a cut )

It's like they did it on purpose.

Just got back from The Dark Knight!

( Impressions inside! Spoilerzzzz )

Non-spoiler version: I liked it! Heath Ledger was really good you guys. :( Now I will go cry.

There was also a trailer for Watchmen! Lookin' good. Looking... accurate. Which is more than I can say about some other Alan Moore adaptations (V for Vendetta lololol.) The people next to us described the trailer as looking "like a great big hunk of crap." They said it pretty loudly too... I hope some serious comic book fans overheard them. =D

Yay, I beat Ratchet! Good times, as always. Kinda surprising ending. Looking forward to the next installment.

Yay! I beat Trauma Center 2. It took me DAYS to beat that infernal final stage.

I've also picked up Ratchet again for the first time in months. :D Figure I might as well play it while I"m here. It's sooo shiny on the huge TV of doom, too.

I bit the back of my tongue (with my molars) earlier. It hurts like a bitch. It's hurt like crazy ever since I did it today at like... 3 p.m. Sooo uncool.

What else? Umm. I watched There Will Be Blood finally. I thought it was really good, but in a see-it-once-to-appreciate it kind of way. I doubt I'd watch it again. Daniel Day Lewis was, as always, amazing. And the score/use of music was excellent.

I also watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang finally. I gotta say, it was kinda overrated. Everyone kept telling me to watch it and saying I specifically would like it. It was fine, but nothing stood out to me about it. I think it was trying too hard to be funny at times.

What else... watched the stage version of Sweeney Todd. It was good, and a lot different in some regards. The only things I didn't like were fucking Joanna and Toby. They were awful. Antony was okay, but I prefer him in the film. As for Lovett and Sweeney... they were so different from them in the movie that I don't really want to compare them. I really enjoyed singing the full versions of things like A Little Priest and By the Sea, though. :D I like the added puns/jokes in the former, particularly. :) NOBODY can compare to Sacha Baron Cohen for Pirelli though. Seriously. Like, that cannot be topped. Ever.

Anyway. That's it. For now. I guess I will go... I dunno, dance. Okay probably not.

Hey guys!!! I've been neglecting Journal lately, so I figured I'd update with my gamenight escapades.

Got to play a lot of good stuff this weekend, it was good times all around! Friday we only played Last Night on Earth with the expansion (my first time playing the expansion.) I enjoyed it! The new scenario we tried was fun and I like the new characters.

Saturday was good times. We played a large Mafia game... me, Robert, and Jeremy were the mafia members. We lynched Sean and made him narrate. James died of autoerotic asphyxiation (at Scott's suggestion.) Scott died by being suffocated by Chupie the Flatulent Gnat. Eventually it got down to us three and two townsfolk left... and they pulled out for the win! Maaan.

We also played The Big Idea. I made the best invention EVER. A permanent dog! A dog that never dies!! But ONLY Jeff invested in it. Jeff is the only person there with a soul.

We finished the evening off with two games of Lifeboats. It was Robert, James, Scott, and I. We had a LOT of fun thoroughly annoying everyone at the other half of the table by yelling "BOATS!!! YAY BOATS!!! I LIKE BOATS!!!" in our best excited retard voices, and high-fiving and clapping whilst we screamed. Oh man, I get giggly just thinking about it.

Yesterday was also good times! Seri, Jeremy, and I played a four-epidemic game of Pandemic and managed to lose within the first three turns, wtf. I feel so failsauce.

Then we played Bohnanza for the first time in forevers. I won by ONE point (over Jeremy) and with only two bean fields. Take that, bitchezzzzz.

After that we split into two groups. Me and the other ELITE FEW playing Atlantic Star, and Scott/Yoshi/Jeremy/Seri for Time's Up in the other room. I won this game also!! It was my first time playing and I enjoyed it. The best part of the game, though, came when I was looking at all the boats and went "BOATS!! I LIKE BOATS!! YAY BOATS!!" and James immediately joined in and we started high-fiving, and then we heard Scott from the other room just go "Boats? BOATS!!" and came running in to join in the clapping, high-fiving, and manic shouting, much to the confusion of everyone who was not present on Saturday (and annoyance to those who were, except us four :D) There is something wrong with us.

Anyway after our games ended we split into groups again just as Devin showed up! It was weird, because we'd all been talking about him earlier that day. I think we summoned him. So we played Clans. It was new to all of us, but Scott read the rules and explained and Robert chimed in here and there to help out. Devin kicked our ASSES. It was good stuff though, I really want to play again.

Well that's it for my REPORT. I think I shall go cuddle some soft furry animals now.

Oh man you guys we saw the most badass cat on the way up to gamenight the other night. I think it was Sat. gamenight. Anyway, this cat was AWESOME!

It was a lil' tuxedo cat laying in the middle of the (extremely narrow) road up to the house... he was crouched and ready to pounce!!! And he didn't move or waver at all as our car approached him. As we got nearer, we realized he was having a staring contest with a growling dog in the driveway opposite. But the most badass part is we drove right by him (had to turn to avoid him) and he didn't even flinch. The motherfuckin thing didn't even blink.

I dedicate this post to you, Badass Cat! I hope we meet again. Soon.

DRY, AT LAST!, originally uploaded by jedicheesechick.

Oh my God is that me with purple hair?!?! That is SO me with purple hair!!!

Man, wtf! I spent some time last night rating all my shows on Listal, and it couldn't find ANY other members with similar tastes so I don't get any recommendations. Lame. :(

However, it does provide me with a nifty link to all the shows I've rated a 7 or above, so I can easily recommend things to friends. Spiffy! AND I can tag things as "want to watch" so I won't keep forgetting what shows I've been meaning to watch. :p

ANYHOW I'm over at Sally's now with Scott. We went to Powell's and Scott bought $30 worth of candy, jesus christ. I made him buy me a tasty grape flavored honeystick though. Mmm.

We're gonna go to the fair later to do some more rides and stuff and to see the fireworks! :O Whee!

Anyway I guess Scott is trying to rally people for a game of Time's Up!, so away I go!!!

Today is the anniversary of the original release of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Let's celebrate by setting off and/or watching fireworks!!!

Happy Fireworks Day, everyone!!

Hello again, Journal! I did even more stuff today, so I thought I would fill you in on it.

Well today Mike came over. It was good times! We went and got food and went to the mall so I could get Trauma Center 2 (DS)! Then we saw Wall-E. It was good! Very cute. Very... obvious message about consumerism, but I suppose when your film is aimed primarily at children you need to be a bit obvious. One thing I wondered about is how, if everyone lays in chairs all day and can't really move on their own (questions of bedsores and excrement aside...) and clearly never interacts with anyone else non-digitally... how does anyone reproduce? I don't buy that the human race becomes so lazy that people lose interest in sex. I mean, haven't they seen Futurama? All of society is built around impressing members of the opposite sex. Anyway apart from that... I especially loved the first half of the film, before there were any people or anything. But I realize that... well, if they didn't introduce any other characters there would have been a severe lack of conflict. Still, it seemed a shame to alter the great atmosphere. Oh well.

Anyway I hope someday when robots become that advanced and that integral to society that they, too, make adorable little noises like all the robots in the film. Oh, also, the short that preceded the film this time was like my favorite Pixar short thus far. :D So good!

After that we just generally hung out. He only left a bit ago.

Last night I watched more movies. First, I will treat you all to my review of The Mist:

The Mist: This movie made me take a dump.

Next I watched Ratatoullie! It was good! SO MANY CUTE LITTLE RATS! I was "awww!!!"ing the whole movie. Awww. Cute wittle wats. :O It's one of their better films, I think. :) Then again I've liked them all 'cept Cars and Monsters Inc....

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm off to play some Trauma Center.

Hello again Journal!! I have done some stuff lately, which I will now tell you about.

Let's start with two days ago! I went and hung out with Sally & Yoshi. We went to the Farmer's Market. I got a thing of kettle corn as big as me. And they bought some delicious raspberries (some red ones and some golden ones, which were super tasty!) We also went to the candy shop. I got some old timey Dr. Pepper, a fancy old timey Ginger Ale, a pack of sarsaparilla-flavored candy mustaches, and a licorice pipe. I am SO classy.

Other than that we just generally hung out. Watched some stuff on TV and YouTube an talked. Good times.

Last night I watched movies. The Orphanage, which was good, and Cars, which was meh. I was disappointed by Cars... the trailer made it look awful, but then when it came out everyone said it was surprisingly good. They are liars. It's not as terrible as the trailer made it seem, but it was still like their weakest movie. On the level of Monsters Inc. I would say. Meh.

Today I went to the Marin County Fair!!! Also with Sally and Yoshi. :) It was good times. We went to look at the art stuff straight away, which was nice and air conditioned. ;) There were some really cool exhibits! Yoshi's stuff, obviously. And a sweet giant model pirate ship made entirely out of Starbucks straws. Awesome.

We also went on the ferris wheel and the Tilt-a-Whirl. The Tilt-a-Whirl was weird... Yoshi and I were the ONLY people there over 12, but the entire rest of the line after our group was made up of like solely adults. No fair.

We didn't get funnel cake because the line was insanely long. :( But we DID get snow cones. Yay! We also tried some games but didn't win anything. :( And we looked at all the random stalls. There were some cool toe rings but I didn't have any cash. Oh well.

And we saw (well, I sat and thus didn't SEE anything... apart from other people's butts) Joan Jett play. Apparently she does songs besides I Love Rock 'n Roll?

So that was good times!

When Scott got home we watched Jesus Camp. It was... as I expected it to be. People are scary.

After that we watched some Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! but got massively sidetracked by my webcam. The results of this venture can be seen on my Flickr.

So that was my update. I hope you all liked it!!!

I'm sitting here in the dark on my laptop and the stupid cat jumped up onto my feet. Startled me, the little bastard! And since I can't scream IRL because it'd wake up Scott, I'll do it online:

EEP!!!

Well today was eventful. Yesterday was Moving Day. It was mostly lame except the end of the day when we sat around and played games on the floor.

Back to today, though. (Back to today? WE TIME TRAVELED!) I got a lot of boring stuff done. Got my permit again. I even did some driving!! Scott let me drive him to the store and back when he got off work. MAN. I hate driving still. Scott was super impressed and said my driving was near perfect (if slow :P) but god is learning to drive soul-draining. I'm a naturally nervous person, so this is just no good. Still, I was pretty calm this time so that's good I guess. Mom's tips for driving were "Just remember to act like you're playing Burnout." I love my family.

I hung out with mom most of the day. Did some shopping. Had lunch with dad, Yoshi, and Sally. That was SUPER fun. We were teasing dad because he was sitting across from the rest of us and we were like "man look at Mark and his girls." I kept trying to get him to be assertive about it but he wasn't! Lame. He was trying to guess what mom was going to get, and was like "You're going to get the burger." - "Nope." - "Oh okay." and I was like "No no dad!! You're supposed to be like 'No, you're going to get the burger.'" Crazy dad, doesn't know how to take advantage of a situation!

Oh and Yoshi showed me a picture of some graffiti she saw in the bathroom at some concert last night... it said "Bad Wolf" :D SO AWESOME.

What else? I forget where I was going with this. The internets distracted me. Time to end poast!11

I want to redo the Shaft theme with lyrics all about Sam so I can replace the "Shaft!" with "Fat!"

For the first time in my life I am not entirely sober.

I think "condensation" should have a verb form. Like "Aw crap, the damn glass just condensated all over the table!"

JELLO AND WHIPPED CREAM = DINNER OF WINNERS???