[MOSTLY] WORDLESS WEDNESDAY - A NIGHT IN AMSTERDAM

The Bounty!

This evening, the Ladyfolk and I had an exceptionally poetic night out. We attended a local event called Literary Death Match, which has been hosted in the Twin Cities for 10 years, including tonight’s performance. The first nine took place in Minneapolis, while tonight the show was hosted in St. Paul, for the first time, at Amsterdam Bar and Hall. There’s a bunch to highlight about the night (and to personally critique), but I will leave a majority of that for a specific post.

Tonight I just wanted to share some prizes we won for participating in the pre-show games, which were hosted by Paper Darts and I believe The Tangential. We won a book titled Vacationland by Sarah Stonich, along with book-cover-matching coasters and magnets! The author even came over to sign the book, which was presented to us by Jay Gabler. He doesn’t know, but I know of him and so it was exciting to meet him face to face, even if I was too anxiety-bound to make small talk and shake his hand. I did, however, shake the authors hand… even if she did add a “C” to Jak...

Have you ever heard of Literary Death Match?

XVIII | TRAILER TUESDAY | XVIII

This week I decided to gather together a handful of movie trailers for animated films coming out soon. I believe all of them are due to release in 2014, pending schedule changes. I contemplated saving this list for next week, as it’s a holiday week. They would make for a great “family” theme, but I am hoping for some sweet trailers to be released with The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, hitting theaters this Friday, which I can then share next Tuesday. I feel I really missed the mark by not having a horror theme for the week of Halloween too, but there is always next year, right?

The Nut Job (1/7/2014):

As you all know, I love me some squirrels. When they are featuring the voice talents of actors like Will Arnett and Liam Neeson? Even better. Part of me feels (from the trailer) that this animated film is of the lower budget, more independent end of the spectrum. I could be wrong, though. The animation doesn’t look to be poor quality, but I guess I worry about just how predictable it may be, and/or the funnier bits used up in the trailer. That being said, however, I am definitely not opposed to seeing squirrels commit a nut heist in the theaters! I mean come on, let’s be serious now...

The Wind Rises (2/21/2014):

I am a fan of Hayao Miyazaki’s work, my favorite being Howl’s Moving Castle, which I highly recommend if you haven’t yet seen it. Other animated films of his I’ve enjoyed include Spirited Away and Ponyo. I’m not certain if many others share his style, but every time I’ve seen a trailer for one of his animated movies I know who it is right off the bat. This title seems a bit different from what I’m familiar with, but I’m sure it will be great. It’s already released, and I’m sure you can find it easy enough online to watch, but the US theatrical release isn’t due until next February. Pretty excited to see this film!

Mr. Peabody & Sherman (3/7/2014):

I wanted to post this a week or two ago, after seeing a fellow blogger — Clark — using a still shot of Mr. Peabody and Sherman, but am glad I waited until now. I used to watch The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, but I honestly can’t remember the segments featuring these two characters. I think I would be more excited to see this if I did. It doesn’t look too bad, but I definitely have no emotional/nostalgic attachment to it. Maybe someone can fill me in on their part in that animated show? This animated feature is sure to have some good laughs and appeal greatly to a younger crowd (and the older nostalgic crowd?), but I am definitely okay waiting until RB/Netflix.

Rio 2 (4/11/2014):

Admittedly Rio is a movie I never got around to watching, and I watch a good many animated flicks. It originally never appealed to me, but I heard good things about it, and so I hope to watch the first installment sooner than later. This trailer (which is technically a teaser), however, doesn’t give me much to go on (Rio is the blue bird right?). I did find it funny, though, so I will wait to see what the full trailer reveals once it’s finally released before I determine where I stand with it. Pretty hit or miss at the moment... Edit: Was able to find a trailer, the "teaser" I mentioned is featured at the end of it. Was probably the best part of what the trailer [for me], so I think I may be waiting for RB/NFlix on this one.

Planes 2: Fire & Rescue (7/18/2014):

ACK! Another animated sequel of a movie I never saw. I really liked Cars (mind you, I haven’t seen any sequels), but Planes never really appealed to me. Then again, neither did Cars originally, so maybe I should finally give the first movie a go. It isn’t likely to make me want to check out the sequel, though. I’ve been pretty anti-sequel with most animated films. There are sometimes exceptions like the Toy Story franchise and the upcoming How to Train Your Dragon 2, but I’m really picky about it. Despite my thoughts, the first installment was met with quite the financial success and so it only makes sense that they would continue to pump out sequels. Again, like most animated features, this is likely to appeal to the younger crowd, some fans of the franchises, and bring in some good cash. I’ll be content with waiting it out.

The Boxtrolls (9/24/2014):

I don’t know a whole lot about this animated film. I like the trailer, and it piques my interest, but not much is explained in the feature. It makes me feel like I am unaware of some common folklore that I wish I was more knowledgeable about. The animation looks really good, and the mystery surrounding it all intriguing. I worry, though, that this trailer has been released a year before it’s release date. If it were being released by a very prominent animation company or a part of an already sound franchise, that would be a different matter entirely. As it is, this is not the case with this animated film. Well (brief research shows) it seems they did Caroline and ParaNorman, so who’s to say. I was going to mention how sometimes these movies never see the light of day. All I can say for sure is that we have nearly a year’s wait to find out.

Did any of the highlighted trailers interest you? Do you have a favorite animated film and/or franchise? Any thoughts about the continual making of sequels for animated films? Are you familiar with Mr. Peabody & Sherman? Are you a fan of the original Rio and/or Planes movies?

XXIV | 10 THINGS OF THANKFUL | XXIV

I’m sure after my XXII | 10 Things of Thankful | XXII and XXIII | 10 Things of Thankful | XXIII entries that most people are sick of hearing all about my recent hit-and-run incident (it hasn’t been the first time involved in one), but really, it’s been about the biggest event over the past two weeks. Hopefully people don’t skip my (long-winded) story version of the event when I finally get that up post-November! Yesterday I truly did plan on only using half of the list to highlight the wrap-up segment for the event and move on to other things for the last half, but shit happens. So today I will be going over the past two weeks in broader strokes, covering some other news and events that have been an impact of a Thankful nature, and wrap up this weekend’s TToT Triple Threat.

I also realize that I may be “abusing” the multi-post format for the TToT (regarding each post this weekend being listed as number XXII, XXIII, and XXIV instead of each post on the same weekend denoting a continuation of the official weekend’s number - 24.2, 24.5 or 24 part 2, etc etc), but stranger things have happened during this here blog hop that it’s safe to say I’m not breaking any rules in signifying each post with my own personal catch up scheme (I've done it before when missing a weekend) as we approach the big 25. Also, I don’t really know if anyone has ever posted three days of Thankful on any given weekend. This is, of course, counting Friday, but the link-up does go live for those of us here in the States on Friday evenings. So here is to the possibility of “breaking the mold”, but no worries, this will likely be the one and only time, which has been a result of recent circumstances.

Without further ado, I present to you an additional round of Thankfulness:

1. Stopping a possible robbery. In the week following the hit-and-run, Tuesday into Wednesday to be exact, I was doing my building cleaning and at around 3:30am I heard someone entering the apartment complex. At this time I was in the laundry room of our second building (a location I have dubbed the “Dead Zone”). I’ll be saving details for a blog post on the matter, but essentially two men had somehow gotten into the building and after a brief confrontation they left.

2. I’m Thankful, in hindsight, that the two individuals mentioned above were non-violent. I would have hated resorting to unleashing my mad Ninja skills upon them *cough*...

3. That I may have an actual “super power”, as I like to call it, that may have saved my ass if they had happened to be violent. That is, were I given the opportunity to utilize it, which may not have been the case. That and the fact it’s been over ten years since doing so last.

4. That the threat of snow last week was reduced from 6+ inches to barely 1-2 inches and that it wasn’t cold enough to stick around. It’s safe to say that I’m not yet ready for WInter.

5. I’m very grateful for my girlfriend treating me out to one of her favorite steak restaurants — Texas Roadhouse. They may embrace a cowboy/country motif, which doesn’t exactly jive with me — more so the country music. Once upon a time I wanted to be a cowboy — but it’s irrefutable that their food is amazing. The portions were very generous, prices decent, and service was very friendly. I would definitely go back again and would recommend the restaurant to friends and family.
   
6. Hazel’s. Speaking of food, my girlfriend and I were finally able to check out a breakfast/brunch eatery that has been on our radar for months. It’s an extremely popular joint and each time we would go by there would be a waiting line built up all the way outside the building. This usually causes my anxiety to kick into overdrive, especially when it’s somewhere I’ve never been before. We resigned to make an attempt earlier in the morning if we happened to be awake, which is generally a rare occurrence with how late we stay up. This weekend, however, was one of those times. The food and service at Hazel’s was also great and we plan on venturing there again — in the early mornings before the younger generation bustles there after recovering from their hangovers… Highly recommended!

7. My vision/eye appointment. It had been been over ten years since I made an eye appointment, and the visit (which many had been prodding me to do over the years) wasn’t one I was looking forward to. As it turns out, my right eye was the same and there was barely any change in my left. He even said with the lines I read that my vision was 20/15 or whatever. I’m not exactly sure how, but I’m not complaining. He said I should make another appointment in two years. I said “see you in ten” and went on my merry.

8. New Glasses. Even though my eyesight had apparently survived the test of time, my glasses had not. They were beat to hell, scratched, and decrepit. In fact, the nose piece broke off just as I was heading to set up the actual eye appointment. An added Thankful note for the employee being able to fix that when visiting. Anyway, I’m glad I was able to find a decent pair of glasses. Considering I was pretty limited to what was covered by insurance, I was dreading the picking process just as much as the eye appointment.

9. Game Nights. I’ve probably highlighted this before, but this weekend was a Game Night hosted by one of my girlfriend’s friend. It was a smaller group, which was nice. We had dinner (everyone brought something — we brought chocolate chip cookies. Okay, Kate made them. I only licked the extra dough off the mixer thingies and taste-tested…), and played a variety of games. It was a lot of fun and I’m hoping we can do it again soon!

10. I’m ever Thankful for my girlfriend who is there offering me encouragement and support when needing it. I’m also Thankful her oral surgery went really well, and that we were able to spend a lot of time together over the past two weeks. I guess I feel we balance one another out in our times of need and hope that continues.

This concludes the Triple Threat TToT Weekend. I will try to do some blog hopping tonight, but I want to make sure I get in some NaNo writing as well. That reminds me I forgot to mention some things I’ve been Thankful for regarding that. Looks like I’ve got a head start on my list for next week, which I plan to participate in “on time”.

But no pinky swears…

Feel free to leave your Thankful List in the comments below, if you aren’t participating directly with the blog hop!

XXIII | 10 THINGS OF THANKFUL | XXIII

So yesterday, or really one minute to today, I expressed some Thankfulness involving a recent hit-and-run that my car was involved in. It was an interesting weekend, followed by an interesting week. Some of today’s post will be follow-up, and some will be unrelated to that incident. I want to get this in before I continue with some NaNoWriMo writing and Game Night tonight with some of Kate’s friends.

1. I’m Thankful, as I briefly mentioned yesterday, that the individual who struck my car was insured. I had just recently dropped my insurance to “Storage” leaving me with only comprehensive coverage and no property damage coverage. Since I found the guy involved with the accident I was able to proceed forward with filing claim, which ended up being placed against their policy.

2. That all of the agents I had to deal with during the process of filing and proceeding with the insurance claim were all very patient and helpful. The first one worried me, because it sounded like they didn’t believe what I was saying, but it was just they needed to verify all the facts, which is natural.

3. The fact I didn’t loose it after having to explain the entire incident over and over again with each new agent brought into the process. I had sent emails and pictures, but apparently it seems that they don’t intercommunicate with one another at all. This was annoying since everyone worked for the same insurance company.

4. Which reminds me… I’m glad that the individual who hit my car was insured by the same insurance company. It expedited the entire process, or so I’m going to assume. I haven’t exactly been someone who has had the need to continually make insurance claims and so I was (am still?) quite a bit unfamiliar with the process.

5. I’m Thankful the the Adjuster was very thorough and answered all the questions I had about multiple details concerning the process of them coming out to look at my car to assess the damage.
   
6. I appreciated the fact that I didn’t have to be around for them to look over my car. As it turned out I was home, and went out to say hi and to discuss the appraisal. It was nice, however, to know that I didn’t have to be. I was extremely nervous about having to speak with someone face to face, but I feel I handled myself well.

7. I was ecstatic that they declared my vehicle totaled. Given the circumstances, this was actually the best case scenario. Those who have been following along likely know why.

8. I’m Thankful that this whole incident has given me a blog post to write for my NaNoWriMo endeavors. It’s over 3k words long and I’ve only just got to the part of finding the culprit’s car. Mind you, I’m going into as much detail as possible in order to wrack up my word count. There will be the need for much editing so it isn’t completely dull and boring. Then again, it may still be boring regardless…

9. That this experience has been a wake up call for the other driver. Whatever factors were involved in causing the crash on his end (some of us have our suspicions), he was lucky things didn’t end up way worse than they had. He now has a hit-and-run on his record, but that’s a far cry from vehicular manslaughter.

10. I mentioned it yesterday, but I am truly thankful I wasn’t in the car. I never found out if the other driver sustained any injuries, but I’d imagine Officer Lynch would have told me if so. I couldn’t help but notice that despite the how hard the cars hit, that neither airbag had deployed. I honestly don’t know how fast you have to be going or how hard the hit has to be, but this accident was bad enough to where his car was stuck in mine, I would have thought the airbags would have deployed. My bad.

Speaking of "my bad" I guess this entire list was follow-up to the hit-and-run incident after all...

I will be attempting to reply to comments and blog hop tomorrow. I should have a decent chunk of time to do so, as long as I’m able to get some NaNoWriMo writing in too. Hope everyone is having a safe weekend and are super Thankful!

Feel free to leave your Thankful List in the comments below, if you aren’t participating directly with the blog hop!

XXII | 10 THINGS OF THANKFUL | XXII

It’s much much later than I thought it was and I have thirty minutes to get this post in if I plan to catch up to the rest of the TToT group. I’ve been AWOL a few weeks as I concentrate on NaNoWriMo, but I have fallen very behind on my 50k word count. Almost 20k behind actually. Thankfully I was able to get in some writing early this morning after a ten day dry spell. Enough of a dry spell that I thought it would be best to just throw in the towel. It seems many from our original NaNo 2012 group are feeling the same. That this year just doesn’t have the same heart as the last.

I will attempt to slip in a few, quick blurbs of things I am thankful for. It may be hard to accurately recall when some things took place over the last 2 weeks, so this isn’t going to be in chronological order. Just random remembrances.

1. I’m Thankful for the fact that I wasn’t driving, or in my car in general, when someone slammed into it two weeks ago.

2. I’m equally Thankful that the culprit slammed into my parked car, and not into someone else driving early in the morning, or someone crossing the street for that matter.

3. That the individual driving the car wasn’t injured or killed. It appears he had to be going at a good speed to inflict the damage that was witnessed. Even the positioning of my car, after the fact, was testament to just how hard the impact was. Then there was the witness stating how his car was actually stuck in my car.

4. I’m Thankful for my neighbors, essentially the witnesses to the accident, for helping in their attempts to unfold the incident and getting whatever helpful info they could about the culprit and his car after he fled the scene.

5. That I have an adventurous girlfriend who was on-board with my desire in attempting to track down said culprit, believing that the police may not exactly give much chase. Granted, I’m pretty ignorant to the actual procedures involved with tracking down individuals engaging in hit and run scenarios.
   

   The repositioning of my car the culprit of the the hit and run felt was needed...

6. For the fun that was had during an almost high speed chase against a white Taxi (the neighbors told me they thought the car was white) who appeared to have had a malfunctioning horn, which I believed could have been caused by being in an accident.

7. That my hopes were not completely deflated when finally tracking down said taxi only to find that it wasn’t the vehicle and/or individual we were seeking and were now a few miles from home and a good fifteen to twenty minutes wasted on the chase...

8. I’m Thankful that my eight to ten year old moniker of “Eagle Eye” still applies. On the way home, after deciding it was likely we wouldn’t actually be able to find the vehicle, I spotted a car with substantial body damage out of the corner of my eye. Upon inspection we determined it was definitely the vehicle involved in the hit and run, regardless of it not being white.

9. Officer Lynch. I’m Thankful he listened to us and investigated the car we found a few blocks away, even though he was extremely doubtful that it was the culprit’s due to it not being white (there appeared to be white paint transfer on my car). Within ten minutes he was back and said that sure enough it was the right vehicle.

10. That Officer Lynch was finally able to get in touch with the driver of the car and confirmed he was insured, in turn sharing with me the needed info to file a claim for the accident. He was very helpful and sympathetic as he revealed to me just that week his own personal vehicle had been victim to two hit and runs and that at least one of the two culprit’s were uninsured. I’m sure we mentally high-fived one another over the phone.

Okay, so maybe that was all chronological after all… And all within the time span of about two hours. Not too shabby…

Feel free to leave your Thankful List in the comments below, if you aren’t participating directly with the blog hop!