Watch This Movie: The Secret of Kells

A friend of mine got me 2 free months of Netflix for Christmas and I am loving it! Seriously, I've watched three movies in two days. My first DVD (Once) should be coming in the mail today and I am sooooo pumped!

Last night I watched this adorable animated movie that came out in 2009 called The Secret of Kells. It's really short, only about an hour and fifteen minutes long, and I was delighted by every part of it!

It tells the story of a young boy living in the abbey at Kells while the Book of Kells is being completed. Although forbidden to travel outside the walls of the abbey, he ventures out into the forest (inhabited by terrifying wolves) and meets Aisling, a forest spirit. The two become friends and face evil spirits and scary vikings.

By far the best part about this movie is its stunning animation. It stays true to the spirit of Celtic art: everything is incredibly detailed and beautiful. If you ever get a chance, watch this movie!

(All movie stills from Google Images)

Chunesy Chuesdays

Whip My Hair, as covered by Neil Young (Jimmy Fallon) and Bruce Springsteen. Absolute gold.

New Years Eve Shenanigans

Hey guys! I hope your holiday was swell, I know mine sure was! I went down to my grandparents' house to spend some time with family. Matt came too, and it was the first time he met most of my family! Exciting!

On New Years Eve we went to this new restaurant in town called Abuelo's for Mexican. It was quite yummy. I got enchiladas (as usual), my sister got fajitas (as usual), but my dad went for something daring and got the grande. To say it's big would be an understatement:

And after:

Quite the feat, I'm sure you will agree. The food was quite delicious! If there's an Abuelo's near you, I highly recommend it!

After we ate, something magical happened. Allow me to paint a word picture.

We're all stuffed. After we're done eating we decide to walk around the mall for a bit. It's an outdoor mall. After we walk a long a little bit we hear some music. Oh cool! Live music! It's a Rush song. As we're jamming out to Tom Sawyer, another Rush song comes on. Is this a Rush cover band?! Does such a thing exist? We reach where the music is being played. Get this: the band is made of children. They are, no joke, all between the ages of 14 and 16. And they can shred. It turned out that it wasn't a Rush cover band, just a classic rock cover band. But still, it was a pretty cool night. We hung out for about an hour watching the band, Carbon Jam, then saw some fireworks and went home.

Not what anyone expected to do on New Year's Eve, but it was a night heavily infused with awesomeness.

Instead of blogging or being otherwise productive, here's what I've been doing all day today. And yesterday.

Playing this game. I just finished it. Some of the puzzles were really hard, so I cheated a little bit and asked the internet, but all in all it was really fun! And absolutely beautiful! The visuals are stunning.

How did I get this game, you ask? Well, let me tell you. I downloaded this wonderful thing called the Humble Indie Bundle. It's a bundle of five awesome games. And the best part? You pay what you want! And you decide how much of your money goes to the developers of the games, charity, etc.

And you know what's even better? The bundle I just bought is the second bundle ever released, and today I got an email saying I could have all the games in the first bundle for FREE! I am happy as a clam, even if it does mean my productivity will plummet. Of the eleven games I recently downloaded, I've only delved into three, and they have all been gloriously awesome! And different. This one, Machinarium, is a puzzle-solving adventure-type game. Another one I've played, Osmos, is kind of hard to categorize (especially as I am a novice at video games, to put it mildly). You're a blob and you have to float around and absorb other blobs.

And the last game I've played is called Revenge of the Titans. It's a tower defense game. It's really fun, except that it costs money to upgrade turrets and stuff, and I never seem to have enough money to upgrade anything. Sad face. It's really addicting, though. They all are.

 That's all I've played so far. I'm trying to limit myself so I'll have something new to play a while from now. One of the games, Braid, I can't get to work on my computer, but thankfully Matt is technologically inclined, so hopefully he can fix it. I googled it and apparently the game is buggy on Macs. Eh.

In other news, I bought, for two dollars at a thrift store today:

That's right. A Sigmund Freud action figure. Be jealous.

All pictures in this post are from google images. Mostly because I didn't feel like getting my camera out and photographing my own Freud doll. It looks exactly the same, except there's a big $2 sticker on it.

I'm a Guest at Life in Technicolor

Hey guys! Just letting you know I have a guest post over at Becca's blog while she's taking care of her beautiful new baby!

It's called:

The top seven holiday traditions I wish I participated in.

Christmas Baking

Oatmeal raisin cookies (with coconut!) from this cookbook. They are the "Famous Terre Etoile Oatmeal Cookies." They are delicious!

Confession time: Before yesterday, I had never used an electric mixer. I was kind of scared of them. I still prefer mixing everything by hand (call me old-fashioned) but the mixer did make it go a lot faster.

30 for 30: Days 25-30

I've been done with this for like a week. Apologies for just now getting around to posting them.

It's so nice to be able to pick from a whole closet full of clothes again! It was a bit overwhelming to begin with, though!