Showing posts with label Muppets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Muppets. Show all posts
6.18.2013
11.27.2011
Thankful for the Muppets and more
We said goodbye to Kates’ family about 9:30 this morning and capped a weekend of much joy, celebration, togetherness and thanksgiving.
We filled the rest of today with cleaning, watching Toy Story movies, and naps.
As I write this, Phoebe is napping in our bedroom closet. At about 4:30, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her carry a stack of blankets up the stairs. I figured she was doing something with her dolls in her room, but after 10 minutes of quiet I went looking for her and eventually found her cozied-up in our closet. “Dad, close the doors. I’m trying to take a nap,” she whispered. So I did, and Kates found her snoring away about 10 minutes later.
After Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day to Remember, we all got a good night’s sleep and rolled out of bed one by one. We treated Friday as we would have treated Thursday. The ladies took to the kitchen to prepare the Thanksgiving meal, while the men pitched in with the food when needed, between reading and romping around with Phoebe, inside and out.
The meal was served around 5, and it just might have been the best-tasting -- or at the least my favorite -- Thanksgiving meal of all time. It was Kates’ first-ever turkey, and she cooked it to perfection. The meat was tender and we loaded our plates with mashed potatoes and gravy, corn bread stuffing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, almond-covered green beans, fennel salad, cranberry-orange relish and crescent rolls.
The men took care of the kitchen clean-up -- very efficiently, I might add -- and we settled in for the night cap. Phoebe put on her concert for the girls in the living room (In addition to “Deer in the Headlights,” she’s now added “Fireflies,” “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” and “Now” to her repertoire.). Then Grandma S. got the honor of reading her bedtime stories and tucking her in.
Once Phoebe was asleep, we thumbed through our movie collection and broke open the pies -- apple-cranberry, pumpkin and pecan -- for a late dessert. “Juno” proved to be the popular movie choice, and it turned out that Kates and I were the only ones who had seen it. I certainly didn’t mind watching it again, and it got a thumbs-up all around the living room as the end credits rolled. … Afterward, we flipped through the TV channels in search of another good flick. We landed on “The Shawshank Redemption” and watched some of it before each of us headed for our beds, one by one.
The house didn’t begin stirring until after 8:30 Saturday morning. After breakfast, we bundled up -- the gusty winds made the 50-degree temperatures feel like 30 -- and we headed outside for a walk and tour of the university campus.
By the time we returned to the house around 12:30, the ’Cats football playoff game had begun. I got the game going on the radio, and we unloaded the refrigerator of Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch. … After that, I took Orrin and Kelli for a driving tour of The ’Ville, as we continued to listen to the game on the car radio.
About that game. Last weekend, the ’Cats played from behind for most of their first round game until the defense recovered a fumble at the opponent’s 8-yard-line and ran it in for what proved to be the game-winning score with eight minutes left in regulation. So this weekend, the ‘Cats headed to Texas, where they took on the No. 1 seed in the region. Again, they found themselves behind, by as many as 18 midway through the second quarter.
But as they’ve done again and again, the ‘Cats clawed back and tied the game at 31 apiece with under five minutes left to play. With 10 second left in the regulation, the ‘Cats got new life once more when their opponent missed a 27-yard field goal attempt into the wind and sent the game to overtime.
In overtime, the ‘Cats wasted little time scoring a touchdown and went ahead 38-31. That meant their opponent got an opportunity to match the score … It came down to a fourth down and a pass attempt. When the dust settled, the radio announcers shouted that the pass was incomplete and the ‘Cats had won, our house erupted. … Not that there was any doubt the ’Cats would win it. On to round three next weekend to avenge that loss at Arrowhead Stadium a couple months ago.
Once the excitement of the ‘Cats game died down, we turned our attention to the Wisconsin-Penn State game, which the Badgers won handily. … Better yet, I learned later that my high school alma mater, Olathe South, won the state football championship yesterday.
Before the Badgers game was over, everyone in the house retreated somewhere for a nap. The house was quiet until 5:30 p.m.
Finally, it was the show we’d all been waiting for: The Muppets. Aside from our Thanksgiving dinner, it was the most anticipated event of the weekend. But the plans were thrown into doubt when things went south Thanksgiving Day. Kates, Phoebe and I were readying to head out the door to see it Thursday night when Kates’ parents called with the good news that they were going to make it after all.
We saw it as part of the local movie theater’s dinner show series. Kates prodded me Friday night to make reservations for the showing, and it was a good thing because the place was packed. … The wait staff wasn’t exactly on their game either, which was an annoyance. First, we waited more than the average time for our food. Then, they brought the appetizers with our main course, and they messed up Kates’ dad’s pasta order by putting cheese on it, which he can’t eat.
The film, on the other hand, was pure movie magic. Whether Phoebe was sitting in Kates’ lap, Grandma’s lap, or Grandpa’s lap, she sat mesmerized, wide eyes staring at the screen, for most of the show. Interestingly, she never did make the connection of Amy Adams’ Mary character in the Muppets movie to Adams’ Giselle character in Phoebe’s beloved “Enchanted” -- which by the way, we also watched after we returned home last night.
The movie was a delight to watch from beginning to end. Jason Segel nailed it, and the casting was perfect, too. My biggest beef may be that I wanted more out of the cameos -- particularly Neil Patrick Harris and John Krasinski, who were relegated to pretty much answering phones. On the other hand, Jim Parsons as the human version of the newest Muppet, Walter, was pretty great; and when Emily Blunt appeared as Miss Piggy’s assistant at Vogue, you could hear whispers across the theater as people leaned into one another to acknowledge Blunt played the assistant to Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly in “The Devil Wears Prada.”
There were moments the film dragged, but the plot always picked up with “gags like the “travel-by-map,” montages and other Muppet zaniness that helped make the puppets so popular in the first place. The movie also produced several smart and ironic one-liners that were easy to miss if your mind was wandering. (Mary, early in the movie after the quest to reunite the Muppets appears to be finished: “This is going to be a really short movie.”)
Of all the reviews I’ve read, Entertainment Weeky’s seems to align to closest with my thoughts. They gave it a B+.
Good reads ...
a The New York Times: Getting the Gang Together Again
a The Kansas City Star: ‘The Muppets’ make a triumphant return
a Boston Globe: Pure fun, no strings attached: ‘Muppets’ revels in ingenious absurdity
a USA Today: Jason Segel's green with admiration for 'The Muppets'
We filled the rest of today with cleaning, watching Toy Story movies, and naps.
As I write this, Phoebe is napping in our bedroom closet. At about 4:30, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her carry a stack of blankets up the stairs. I figured she was doing something with her dolls in her room, but after 10 minutes of quiet I went looking for her and eventually found her cozied-up in our closet. “Dad, close the doors. I’m trying to take a nap,” she whispered. So I did, and Kates found her snoring away about 10 minutes later.
* * *
After Thursday’s Thanksgiving Day to Remember, we all got a good night’s sleep and rolled out of bed one by one. We treated Friday as we would have treated Thursday. The ladies took to the kitchen to prepare the Thanksgiving meal, while the men pitched in with the food when needed, between reading and romping around with Phoebe, inside and out.
The meal was served around 5, and it just might have been the best-tasting -- or at the least my favorite -- Thanksgiving meal of all time. It was Kates’ first-ever turkey, and she cooked it to perfection. The meat was tender and we loaded our plates with mashed potatoes and gravy, corn bread stuffing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, almond-covered green beans, fennel salad, cranberry-orange relish and crescent rolls.
The men took care of the kitchen clean-up -- very efficiently, I might add -- and we settled in for the night cap. Phoebe put on her concert for the girls in the living room (In addition to “Deer in the Headlights,” she’s now added “Fireflies,” “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” and “Now” to her repertoire.). Then Grandma S. got the honor of reading her bedtime stories and tucking her in.
Once Phoebe was asleep, we thumbed through our movie collection and broke open the pies -- apple-cranberry, pumpkin and pecan -- for a late dessert. “Juno” proved to be the popular movie choice, and it turned out that Kates and I were the only ones who had seen it. I certainly didn’t mind watching it again, and it got a thumbs-up all around the living room as the end credits rolled. … Afterward, we flipped through the TV channels in search of another good flick. We landed on “The Shawshank Redemption” and watched some of it before each of us headed for our beds, one by one.
* * *
The house didn’t begin stirring until after 8:30 Saturday morning. After breakfast, we bundled up -- the gusty winds made the 50-degree temperatures feel like 30 -- and we headed outside for a walk and tour of the university campus.
By the time we returned to the house around 12:30, the ’Cats football playoff game had begun. I got the game going on the radio, and we unloaded the refrigerator of Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch. … After that, I took Orrin and Kelli for a driving tour of The ’Ville, as we continued to listen to the game on the car radio.
About that game. Last weekend, the ’Cats played from behind for most of their first round game until the defense recovered a fumble at the opponent’s 8-yard-line and ran it in for what proved to be the game-winning score with eight minutes left in regulation. So this weekend, the ‘Cats headed to Texas, where they took on the No. 1 seed in the region. Again, they found themselves behind, by as many as 18 midway through the second quarter.
But as they’ve done again and again, the ‘Cats clawed back and tied the game at 31 apiece with under five minutes left to play. With 10 second left in the regulation, the ‘Cats got new life once more when their opponent missed a 27-yard field goal attempt into the wind and sent the game to overtime.
In overtime, the ‘Cats wasted little time scoring a touchdown and went ahead 38-31. That meant their opponent got an opportunity to match the score … It came down to a fourth down and a pass attempt. When the dust settled, the radio announcers shouted that the pass was incomplete and the ‘Cats had won, our house erupted. … Not that there was any doubt the ’Cats would win it. On to round three next weekend to avenge that loss at Arrowhead Stadium a couple months ago.
Once the excitement of the ‘Cats game died down, we turned our attention to the Wisconsin-Penn State game, which the Badgers won handily. … Better yet, I learned later that my high school alma mater, Olathe South, won the state football championship yesterday.
Before the Badgers game was over, everyone in the house retreated somewhere for a nap. The house was quiet until 5:30 p.m.
* * *
Finally, it was the show we’d all been waiting for: The Muppets. Aside from our Thanksgiving dinner, it was the most anticipated event of the weekend. But the plans were thrown into doubt when things went south Thanksgiving Day. Kates, Phoebe and I were readying to head out the door to see it Thursday night when Kates’ parents called with the good news that they were going to make it after all.
We saw it as part of the local movie theater’s dinner show series. Kates prodded me Friday night to make reservations for the showing, and it was a good thing because the place was packed. … The wait staff wasn’t exactly on their game either, which was an annoyance. First, we waited more than the average time for our food. Then, they brought the appetizers with our main course, and they messed up Kates’ dad’s pasta order by putting cheese on it, which he can’t eat.
The film, on the other hand, was pure movie magic. Whether Phoebe was sitting in Kates’ lap, Grandma’s lap, or Grandpa’s lap, she sat mesmerized, wide eyes staring at the screen, for most of the show. Interestingly, she never did make the connection of Amy Adams’ Mary character in the Muppets movie to Adams’ Giselle character in Phoebe’s beloved “Enchanted” -- which by the way, we also watched after we returned home last night.
The movie was a delight to watch from beginning to end. Jason Segel nailed it, and the casting was perfect, too. My biggest beef may be that I wanted more out of the cameos -- particularly Neil Patrick Harris and John Krasinski, who were relegated to pretty much answering phones. On the other hand, Jim Parsons as the human version of the newest Muppet, Walter, was pretty great; and when Emily Blunt appeared as Miss Piggy’s assistant at Vogue, you could hear whispers across the theater as people leaned into one another to acknowledge Blunt played the assistant to Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly in “The Devil Wears Prada.”
There were moments the film dragged, but the plot always picked up with “gags like the “travel-by-map,” montages and other Muppet zaniness that helped make the puppets so popular in the first place. The movie also produced several smart and ironic one-liners that were easy to miss if your mind was wandering. (Mary, early in the movie after the quest to reunite the Muppets appears to be finished: “This is going to be a really short movie.”)
Of all the reviews I’ve read, Entertainment Weeky’s seems to align to closest with my thoughts. They gave it a B+.
Good reads ...
a The New York Times: Getting the Gang Together Again
a The Kansas City Star: ‘The Muppets’ make a triumphant return
a Boston Globe: Pure fun, no strings attached: ‘Muppets’ revels in ingenious absurdity
a USA Today: Jason Segel's green with admiration for 'The Muppets'
7.18.2011
For the love of Honey
We had another birthday to celebrate today. The wonderful and incomparable Kates.
Being the birthday girl, I made it totally her call when it came to how we’d celebrate today. While Pheebs went to school and I headed to work, she chose to spend the day at home, relaxing and reading for most of it.
For dinner, initially she suggested our favorite Chinese restaurant. But when her plans for a day of shopping in Joe Town didn’t work out, she suggested we head there tonight. Her idea was to go for a dinner at Cheddars -- a place we'd never been, a place that everyone we talk to raves about and a place we had yet to try because it’s always so busy we can't get in the doors. We would then do a little bit of shopping before hitting the 7:10 showing of the new “Winnie the Pooh” movie. A film the whole family could enjoy.
I surprised Kates by taking off of work a little early, she picked up Pheebs from the daycare, and we were off.
We pulled into Cheddars at almost exactly 5, just in time to beat the dinnertime flood, and finally got to taste what all of our friends and coworkers have been talking about. Kates had a chicken salad, and Phoebe got the kids plate, which came with three mini corn dogs and French fries. I settled on the steak and chicken fingers, with sides of -- two favorites -- sautéed broccoli and mashed potatoes. … I can’t speak for the others, but my plate was darn good. The chicken fingers were so tender and juicy they melted in my mouth, and my sides were just as delicious. The steak, however, was a little overcooked for my liking. Either way, I ate it all and the meal left me so stuffed I might have popped a button from my shirt.
After a couple pit stops to cross a few things off our shopping lists, we arrived at the movie theater.
From never having been to a movie theater before April, Phoebe has become quite the little movie-goer this summer. In addition to our “Tangled” outing last month, she gets the privilege of trekking to a movie with her daycare each Wednesday.
Best part of the pre-movie trailers: Seeing the trailer for the new Muppets movie. Jason Segel. Amy Adams. Can.not. wait.
The Winnie the Pooh film is absolutely charming. And its especially refreshing if you saw Disney's recent stab at a computerized X-games version of the Pooh adventures, which was plain awful.
The new film is so creative in its playful dialogue -- and not just the spoken kind. Like "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
" the storybook illustrations and the book type are kay players in the film. And the adventures are just as whimsical and funny for the adults as for the kids.
A definite bonus is hearing Zooey Deschanel's voice on the music, which I had known but forgotten until that first song played in the film.
And watching Phoebe on edge of her seat, soaking in every word and scene never gets old.
Being the birthday girl, I made it totally her call when it came to how we’d celebrate today. While Pheebs went to school and I headed to work, she chose to spend the day at home, relaxing and reading for most of it.
For dinner, initially she suggested our favorite Chinese restaurant. But when her plans for a day of shopping in Joe Town didn’t work out, she suggested we head there tonight. Her idea was to go for a dinner at Cheddars -- a place we'd never been, a place that everyone we talk to raves about and a place we had yet to try because it’s always so busy we can't get in the doors. We would then do a little bit of shopping before hitting the 7:10 showing of the new “Winnie the Pooh” movie. A film the whole family could enjoy.
I surprised Kates by taking off of work a little early, she picked up Pheebs from the daycare, and we were off.
We pulled into Cheddars at almost exactly 5, just in time to beat the dinnertime flood, and finally got to taste what all of our friends and coworkers have been talking about. Kates had a chicken salad, and Phoebe got the kids plate, which came with three mini corn dogs and French fries. I settled on the steak and chicken fingers, with sides of -- two favorites -- sautéed broccoli and mashed potatoes. … I can’t speak for the others, but my plate was darn good. The chicken fingers were so tender and juicy they melted in my mouth, and my sides were just as delicious. The steak, however, was a little overcooked for my liking. Either way, I ate it all and the meal left me so stuffed I might have popped a button from my shirt.
After a couple pit stops to cross a few things off our shopping lists, we arrived at the movie theater.
From never having been to a movie theater before April, Phoebe has become quite the little movie-goer this summer. In addition to our “Tangled” outing last month, she gets the privilege of trekking to a movie with her daycare each Wednesday.
Best part of the pre-movie trailers: Seeing the trailer for the new Muppets movie. Jason Segel. Amy Adams. Can.not. wait.
The Winnie the Pooh film is absolutely charming. And its especially refreshing if you saw Disney's recent stab at a computerized X-games version of the Pooh adventures, which was plain awful.
The new film is so creative in its playful dialogue -- and not just the spoken kind. Like "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
" the storybook illustrations and the book type are kay players in the film. And the adventures are just as whimsical and funny for the adults as for the kids.A definite bonus is hearing Zooey Deschanel's voice on the music, which I had known but forgotten until that first song played in the film.
And watching Phoebe on edge of her seat, soaking in every word and scene never gets old.
11.30.2009
3.14.2009
Gervais + Elmo = Hilarity on 'Sesame Street'
This was going around my office this week ...
Muppets talking like adults. Funny stuff ...
Muppets talking like adults. Funny stuff ...
11.19.2007
More random musings
More random musings and observations ... I'm feeling lately like my mind is so discombobulated, and so many things are happening at once that I can't think straight to write any focused posts ...* * *
This Drew Peterson case has had us glued to the 6 o' clock news -- and eager to read our e-mailed news alerts -- for weeks now ...
In case you haven't heard: Our corner of the world was introduced last month to Peterson, the 56-year-old suburban Chicago police officer. After his 23-year-old wife -- his fourth wife -- disappeared. Sounds sketchy from the beginning right? But Peterson says his wife, Stacy, left him for another man and simply hasn't called ...
Then the family of the missing woman begins talking. They say Stacy wanted out of the marriage ...
Then, the death case of the third wife is reopened when revelations surface that her supposed fall in a bathtub was a little too suspicious. And last week, that woman's body is exhumed as part of the investigation ...
The case is getting more juicy each week. It's got everybody talking. And now Peterson's on the offensive with Matt Lauer ...
* * *
A police friend and I were having a conversation the other day about another man who fell for one of those lottery scams. This guy even showed it to his buddies, the police officer told me. And all of them told him they thought it was fake, but he still brought it to me and said, 'Well I thought it still sounded good' ...
It continues to baffle me how people fall for these scams ...
If the letter or e-mail is fraught with spelling errors ...
If it's written in nothing but capital letters ...
If it's asking you to send money, passwords or any other personal information ...
If it makes any mention of another country ...
If it's from an e-mail address you can't pronounce ....
DON'T RESPOND!
* * *
About once a week now, myself or one of my cohorts manages to come up with a video that gets our corner of the office either laughing to hysteria, jumping out of our seats, reminiscing about our good ol' childhoods or just smiling ...
And that one video usually leads us to about four or five others ...
Last week my cohort Laura reminded us of this classic. The Polyphonic Spree's "Light and Day." We had a good laugh about the fact that it made her cry ...
That video led us to reminiscing about the Scrubs appearance ...
And that video led to a clip of the Muppets on Scrubs ...
And all of that led to this. Ah, fun with YouTube ...
* * *
My cohort Joe passed along a link last week for the "Worst Album Covers ... Ever! "It also led to teary-eyed laughter.
Have fun.
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