Best Picture Oscar Nominees Out

So, my thanks go to the academy for changing the rule about the number of nominations in the best picture category to allow for UP TO 10 FILMS to be nominated. Fortunately they didn't go crazy and only picked 9. Lisa and I are FREAKING OUT about the amount of movie watching we have to cram in during the next month. That includes ~4 films in the theater which equates to $$$$. We may do a 2 for 1 deal, if you all catch my drift (pay for one movie and stay to see another, let's keep this between us, ok?).

Lisa and I had great plans to get up this morning to watch the nominations live at 5:30am PST, but due to work and the fact that she and I awesomely mentor high school students on Tuesdays, we dropped the plan (plus 5:30am???). So here's what we're up against:

1. The Artist


2. The Descendants


3. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close


4. The Help


5. Hugo


6. Midnight in Paris


7. Moneyball


8. The Tree of Life


9. War Horse

So far, we have seen The Artist. Lisa is one up on me as she has seen The Help, but will be rewatching with me on a movie marathon day. Please pray for us.

Oscar Countdown

Since the timeline for the Oscars is tight (announcements aren't until Jan. 24th) my P.I.C. for this mission, Lisa, and I decided we needed to start attacking potential best picture nominees stat. After analyzing the data, we decided this rumored nominee was the one most at risk for being caught in that space between theater and DVD.

I took my girl Lisa out on the town with my free movie tix and we ventured all the way downtown Portland to the Fox Tower Cinema to see "The Artist." It was a great movie, completely a silent film about a silent film star in the late 20s, early 30s. It was definitely an interesting way to watch a movie considering we are so used to hearing the dialogue when watching a film.

To be continued........

Trapeze Lessons - Getting a P.I.C.

I have seen this on TV and it looks fantastic so of course it had to go on my list. Matt and Jake (the Reverend) both have their reservations about me trying this, but Matt has agreed to come along as the filmographer. The best part: Groupon (as I said earlier, should be sponsoring my blog, perhaps I should write a letter) and a Partner in Crime (P.I.C.). This started the ball rolling, a text to one of my besties:

















I waited in anticipation to see if she would tell me, "hell no, you crazy", or perhaps just throw caution to the wind and say yes. As you can tell from the timeline, I had to wait 3 whole hours dying to know what she was thinking. Fortunately for me she went with option 2:






















Seeing myself use OMG in a text makes me feel multiple confusing feelings.

So then this happened and it made me happy (oh and Gretch, forgot to mention our little Groupon includes Aerial Fabric? What what?):

New Year 2012

Happy New Year all! New Year's 2012 looked to perhaps be another year with just Matt and I playing the Wii at home, drinking champagne, and watching Dick Clark's Rocking Eve hosted by Ryan Seacrest (which have been pretty amazing New Years). Turned out that by procrastinating the hell out of New Years we cranked it up to 11.

We made last minute plans to rent a hotel room downtown Portland with our Reverend Jake (hopefully all who are reading this know the story of how/why he's called the reverend and is our actual reverend otherwise you are probably thinking, "this is a weird scenario"). We hit the town, met up with some great friends, and Matt and I wound up with a first.......it was the first time in my 29 and his 34 years that we have actually been out on the town for New Year's and not at a house party, working, or playing the Wii and drinking champagne in our living room watching DCREHBRS (there's almost a pronounceable acronym there). Reverend Jake has a new nickname, Fireball, and let's just say it was memorable for all.

This was not on my list, but I realized I always wanted to experience New Year's out on the town, or do something grandiose so I believe I just knocked something off my larger bucket list.

I'm excited that I've inspired both my mom and Matt to start cracking on some bucket list things. Mom wants to learn French. Matt has a list (but I do not think his is a bucket list, it's more of a "short term things I want to do" list). Matt's is more geared toward getting ready for our summer garden that we will plant. I think he's worried if we both start attacking bucket lists with wild abandonment, we may have to start accessing our Cayman Island account for funding. And that just leads to hassle and questions from the government, IRS, my mom, etc....

And over the holidays with all the quality time with friends and family, I thought of one more thing to add to my list:

27) See an awesome concert (maybe I'm copping out by not naming specifically who I want to see, but when I come across it, I will know it's the right choice for my bucket list). Also to clarify, I have seen many concerts, most of them awesome, but again, looking for that amazing one!