My 2010 Top Fives

As we welcome 2011 with much anticipation and hope,  please allow me to share my top 5 2010 Music, TV, Movies, Netflix choice, Chick Lit novels and Books. They are already my top five and are in no particular order aside from them being my favorite. Please don't judge me as I know our tastes may differ.

Happy New Year everyone!!!!

Music
Ingrid Michaelson
Jack Johnson
The Bird and The Bee
Lady Gaga
Michael Jackson








TV Shows
Lie To Me
How I Met Your Mother
True Blood
Dexter
Human Target









Movies
Let Me In
Kick Ass
How To Train Your Dragon
Daybreakers
The A-Team










On Netflix

Stardust

Spartacus (TV Series)

Avatar The Last Airbender (All Seasons)

Couples Retreat

The Hangover

Chick Lit

Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff

Time Of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch

Pieces of Happily Ever After by Irene Zutell

Belong To Me by Marisa De Los Santos

Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

Books

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Let Me In

My Sister's Keeper

White Oleander 

Shutter Island

The 2011 ChickLitPlus Challenge

I have been a part of several chicklit groups in facebook, two equally important reasons are... first, I truly enjoy reading chick lit books and second is that the novel I am currently working on fall into this genre. Also, chicklit women are smart, fun and are very creative especially in crafting contests. As a matter of fact, one of them is holding a 2011 challenge the rule is pretty simple which is to read 12 chick lit novels - two of which should be released in 2011. Isn't that loads of fun and of course I signed up!

http://chicklitplus.com/category/chicklitchallenge/

I have 4 books in this category right now, two of which I won through Chick Lit Central, as soon as I complete each book, I will write a review and post it on my blog.

For those who read my blog about movies, tv shows, books from other genres, no worries as I will still keep on blogging about them as well.

Happy reading everyone.

Also, if you have any highly recommended titles, please send them my way. Thanks!

My Review of Dexter Season 5

If you haven't seen this season's Dexter, just a warning that there may be some spoilers ... but, if you want to continue reading my blog, it's your call.

The first episode of season five opened with Rita's death (which personally is still hard for me to believe, she's Rita, why her?) The succeeding 2 episodes continued to show more of Dexter's humanity as he had a surge of emotions in dealing with her death namely rage, confusion, sadness, love, he did not have the same hunger for killing bad people as he also felt guilt. His step children Astor and Cody moved to Orlando, Astor blamed Dexter for her mom's untimely death.

Dexter decided to move from their home back to his old tiny apartment, so he rented a van and saw blood. Being the blood splatter analyst that he is, then this tiny dried up blood ignited some curiosity. And with that minor incident came Lumen who turned Dexter's life around and made it better. She was one of the "barrell girl" victims and was the sole survivor. Dexter had a new inspiration in killing and had a new purpose which is to find vengance for Lumen (played by Julia Stiles). Their love story progressed and as will all things ended on the season finale.

If there was one word to describe Dexter season 5, it would be ... INTENSE (please take note of the all caps because, yes, it's that intense).

I really enjoyed each episode, in fact, we would record them on Sunday nights and Bong would watch it the day after, call me and say that I should see that particular show. He would then be extremely quiet as we watch it together, with me seeing the episode for the very first time and it being his second time. When the show ended, I would consistently say, "Oh my gosh!" and he would look at if as if to say, "I told you so."

I just wish Lumen would stay or at least come back next season.

On a side note, now that Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter are divorced, do you see Deb getting killed in season 6?

My Movie Review Of Tron Legacy

We left a Christmas Open House Party excited to see Tron Legacy in 3D. I say this with much importance because of what we think of the movie.

If you are among those who've seen the first Tron during the 1980's when it was first shown or have recently seen it and still remember the key players, games, the gameworld, vehicles, etc... in my opinion, you are not missing a lot. Tron Legacy has its visual highs and vibrant music provided by Daft Punk ... that's it.

The CG creation of Jeff Bridges' younger version, Clu was well created. The plot was a different matter. I found the storyline of the original Tron to be very impressive, a user (developer) went into the game world and had to fight master control, who, in the real world was Dillinger and he stole the user's (Flynn) game idea.

This sequel did not have any original concepts, nor were there any interesting characters.  In fact, the question that Bong and I thought about was, why would they create a bar in the game world, is there any logic to it? If you have an answer, please share. Also, why did Clu give a speech to his army when he can just re-purpose or destroy the programs? Oh well, now I am nitpicking, apologies.

Tron was not even  present in the film but the title of the movie is Tron Legacy...what was his  legacy since the story evolves around Flynn and his son. The film was very predictable. After the movie, Bong even gave 2 possible ways on how the story could make sense. Maybe we should write a fan fiction novel...mmm....Also, where was the state-of-the-art (in the 1980's) tank and bit?

If you are among those to see this film solely  for it's visual effects, sure. But if you want it to go hand in hand with a well crafted storyline, then, you're in for a big disappointment.

If you ask me if it was worth the anticipation, I say no.

My Movie Review of Tangled

The streets were wet, as it was dark and raining on this particular cold night in December...when my friend, Kathy and I decided to go see Tangled in 3D.

We were looking forward to seeing this for weeks, so when an opportunity presented itself, (both of our husbands were not available) we went ahead and had a girls movie night, this also gave us time to talk which was even more important than the movie.

Another back story is days prior, I told another friend, Avery how I thought the movie was going to end, of course I was spot on!

Tangled is Disney's version of the fairy tale Rapunzel which most of us have read or was read to us. If you are like me who have seen most, if not all of Disney's animated movies then, I give the movie about 2.75 stars. It has the same formula of a Disney movie, boy and girl meet, they fall for each other, they are torn apart by an unforeseen circumstance or an evil stepmother/witch, they get past the hurdle and live happily ever after. And wait, I forgot about the songs, there's singing. Please don't take this the wrong way, Tangled is still delightful in its own way. Its just that I've seen it over and over in other Disney movies like Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc. It was not as captivating as I expected it to be. Again, this is just my opinion.

Cris and Rose, if you're reading my blog, I think Avery will like the movie. =)

TV Shows

Due to several personal and work related special events, it may be hard to believe but the truth is, I haven't seen any movies this week and I also took a break in reading (uh oh). The past couple of nights were devoted in watching tv shows in hulu.

1. Lie To Me (Season 3)
This is a show about deception detection through the science of micro expressions. The main protagonist is Cal Lightman (Tim Roth), his character is based on Paul Ekman, a psychologist whose line of expertise is in emotions and how it relates to facial expressions. The episodes of the third season is not as interesting as the first two seasons. Tim Roth is a terrific actor and hopefully the writers could make it more engaging and bring back the intesity of the show. I would love to see Foster, Emily, Locker and Torres' role be more substantial and interesting...please? We look forward to watching more episodes.

2. Human Target (Season 2)
During first season, we got to know Christopher Chance who is the human target, this means he provides protection to those who seek his help or hire him. We also met two of his most trusted team members, Winston an ex- police who gives Chance his second chance to make strait his ways because we later find out that Christopher Chance was a former assassin and worked for a man known as the Old Man. There is also Guerrero, despite his small frame and somewhat nerdy look, he is much feared as he is intimidating, effective and gets the job done.

This season, there are additions to the team - Mrs. Pucci, who Chance saves during the first episode of season 2, she then becomes their new employer/financier. There is also Ames, a thief who has found a mentor in Guerrero. This season has more action and is a lot of fun, to think that this is a TV Show and not a movie. I truly was pleased in watching this that on a weekday, we spent 3 hours catching up and now we are up to date. Human Target to me is like James Bond with less flair mixed with 24 with a more groomed lead actor and little of the A-Team. They have an awesome high tech computer table and screens (more modern but similar to the one used in Tron), would anyone know if that's surface? Bong and I enjoy this show as it provides a lot of fun entertainment.

3. Better With You
This is a sitcom similar to the likes of How I Met Your Mother but is based on one family, it's in its first Season. From the 1 episode that we saw, we laughed and identified with most of the characters. Bong saw the show first and when I got home, he said that I would like it, he saw it again with me, of course I loved it!

I will also blog about Dexter Season 5 when I finish watching the season finale this Sunday - I can't wait. It's bittersweet because I want to know what happened, yet, I don't want it to end. For the Dexter fans, here's a video of Michael C. Hall singing what possibly could be Dexter's Christmas song =)

Cookie Exchange...What did I get Myself Into?

My cookie creations.

About a month ago, there was a survey at work for one of our Christmas lunches and we were asked if we wanted to participate in either a potluck or a cookie exchange. Without giving it much thought, I voted for cookie exchange, how fun would that be, right? Well, no one told me that in a cookie exchange, the person should personally bake the cookies not buy them already made. That's when I realized that Houston, I have a problem, what did I get myself into? I need to bake 4 dozen cookies by tomorrow! It's T-11 hours and counting, with about 2 dozen to go. I do have a back up plan which I won't blog just yet and I am crossing my fingers that we won't resort to that. Seriously, I baked chocolate chip cookies and designed them. What do you think? As for how they taste, here's hoping that the rest of the cookie exchangers will still be nice to me after tomorrow.

I asked Bong how to make a star, he made this...
we're Catholics.

Looks like a face, I was running out of design ideas.

2010 Christmas Party

'Tis the season to be jolly and because 'tis indeed the season, then there are parties all around, in fact, we just attended one last night. To me, what made the party memorable are the wonderful friends we have.

Top on the list is Tina who is a terrific person and creative at that. During one of our normal daily talks, Tina mentioned that she would make me a sweater and even brought her book for me to chose a design which I did. I did not think anything of it but of course we talked about the dress I was going to wear, since I have several black dresses I guess any one of them would be "The One" for the upcoming event. The day of the party I received a text from Tina asking me if I was going to work because my sweater was done.  I was awed by her work, it is beyond words to describe her marvelous hand made creation. The sweater she crocheted is red with silver sparkles, it got a lot of compliments at the party. Tina, if you are reading this blog, you rock!

Tina's hand-made masterpiece.

The same day at work, despite the always busy schedule, I overheard some folks mention that they were planning to leave early because of the lack of lead time they gave their wives to get an outfit. I took that as my opportunity to have my girlie adventure - I had my very first pedicure which would be another blog altogether.

My very first "stop and stare red" pedicure.

For the party, Bong chose whatever he felt like wearing (appropriate to the occasion) which took him 15 minutes - is this a guy thing since it took me several days to pick which black dress to wear and on the last minute, I changed outfits even if they are all black?

Bong says he's ready for the party.

The party was a success, the person behind making it happen is Brenda, party planner diva extraordinaire! The food was abundant and like the attendees it was of an eclectic mix.

I got to try a dirty martini, a tres madras (music was too loud, hope I got the name of the drink right) and scotch, when I say try, I mean a sip from Bong's drinks. Bong and I danced for hours and even got invited to dance on stage which was fun! The band was phenomenal, this is because it is very difficult to make the folks dance but they managed to do so and also got them to participate. There also was a mystical magician and several women performing on stilts. There was a casino style section and a karaoke place, this provide options to folks depending on their preference.

That's how the party went and since that it was held on a Friday, I got to sleep in the next day.

But wait, on to another  project, this Wednesday is our house blessing.... I'll save the details for another blog.