Where To Stream Christmas Music!

If you haven't broken out your holiday cd's and mp3's by now, chances are you've decided its just to hard to get that box from the top of the closet, under the bed, or back of the shed. You're wishing you'd just grabbed that box when you were getting out the rest of the Christmas stuff, but its too late now.

Don't sweat it, I've got you covered. There are several places you can easily stream your favorite holiday songs! There are several free ones, but you can also purchase albums. I'll just assume ya'll know about iTunes, and I'm not an Apple fanboy, so we'll just leave it at that.

Google Play works really well, and easily streams to your computer, Android phones, or nearly any other device you have that can stream. You can check out their list of albums for sale HERE. If you did get your music out, but you're tired of swapping out CDs, and really wish you could carry them all with you, Google has you covered for that as well. They let you upload a pile of music (20,000 songs) for free. They can import your iTunes music (Yeah, I've given them money too.), your music from Windows Media Player, or it can pull your mp3's straight out of your folders. I've uploaded a few albums, and it was fairly pain free. Just grab the music manager, and you're set.

Amazon has their own cloud player. They also sell digital albums and will let you upload your music. Amazon's $5 Holiday Albums's are here! Sadly, they only let you upload 250 songs, unless you pay for more storage. The digital albums that you buy from them don't count against your total though.

Find the free places after the break!

My Favorite Christmas Movies!

I've been thinking about this post for awhile now, and its really hard to write! Ya'll know I love movies, but I REALLY love Christmas movies! I love their corny sappy smiling goodness. And sometimes it seems the cornier the movie, the more I like it!  So I'm going to throw down a few posts here over the next couple of days, because I don't think I can write just one post, and do justice to the Christmas movie genre. I'll do some ABC Family Originals, stuff you can find on Netflix, old stuff, and just my faves. Maybe I'll even be able to dig up a favorite Christmas episodes from some of my favorite shows.
SquishyBug

Tonite I'm going to list a few of my all-time favorites. These are movies I can watch all the time, whether its December or July. I'm not putting these necessarily into any order, but here are some of the movies I LOVE at this time of year.

All the movies after the break!

Guild Wars 2 Guardian Builds

In my time playing Guild Wars 2, I have learned that there is never one ultimate build that will allow you to become the best at tanking, healing, or dpsing. There are always more possibilities, and I have tried to make every build specialized to leave little room for hybrids. However as it turns out all of my builds were hybrids. So what I have started is to see how many different viable builds I can make for the Guardian.

Videos after the jump!

Big Movies Still Coming This Year!

2012 is almost over, but we still have a few HUGE blockbuster movies coming out this year. There's a good looking romantic comedy that promises to be fun, and you might even need a kleenex. Monster's Inc. is being released in theaters again, but this time in 3D. Unless you've been living under a rock, you're sure to know that the Hobbit comes out this month, and that's going to be huge! And finally our big Christmas day release this year... Les Miserables.

Trailers and summaries after the jump!

NFL Fantasy Newbie

Howdy all!

Ok, so I'm not huge into watching sports. I love to play everything (although my current back issues limit that somewhat), but watching... sure I can get into a game at times, but I've never been much of a spectator. Also I have a wife and four daughters...and somehow none of them ever really caught the sporting bug.

Recently I was talking to a buddy of mine though, and we started talking about fantasy football. I've read about it, tried to figure it out once back in about 1998, but never really got into it. Well Chris made it sound kinda fun, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Review: The Bourne Legacy

Saw "The Bourne Legacy" today. It was pretty great...I'd probably give it four of five stars. It was almost everything a Bourne movie should be. The action in the movie was very good.

We start out watching Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) pretty much proving he's superhuman, and getting caught up on some of the back story. He's climbing over a mountain "nobody ever crosses", hunted down by wolves...before meeting up with his contact.

Time in the park!

There is a lot of fun wildlife in the Bear River State Park. I love hiking through the place, and my kids love the park as well. As you saw in the previous post, there are moose around, this time I'm filming the 3 large elk the rangers keep in a large enclosure. This was the closest I've ever seen them to the road, and I got some great footage. These videos were also taken with the new Sony Handycam I bought!

Watching the video you'll see the elk, and then as we were hiking around I spotted a skunk. We decided to avoid the trail he was by, but I got a little bit of video of him. As I was moving to the side to get a good view, my daughter warns me, "If he starts to do a handstand, run!".

Finally I spotted a woodpecker sitting up in a tree. I haven't yet been able to capture them working on their condo, but you can hear a few of them around the forest if you sit still for a little while and listen. Leave a comment here, or on the video page at YouTube and tell me what you think!

Music provided from Mevio's Music Alley. Check it out at 'music.mevio.com'. They have a great selection of Creative Commons music!

Moose!

Went hiking in the local state park a few days ago with a friend of mine... Enjoying being in nature, sitting by the river for awhile I spotted some little guppies. Watched the seagulls playing in rocks where the water was shallow. Went a bit further up the path, there's an old train bridge that crosses the river, standing out on the bridge a hundred yards or so off in the trees there's a big dark spot.

I tried getting closer taking the trail on the same side of the river the moose was, and decided that was bad idea. So I went back over the bridge and down the river on the other side to try and get some better pics, and maybe some video. I was really excited, this is my first time spotting a moose!

I finally got down into a good area, and got a few pics and some video! Turns out there were three of them! A mom, dad, and baby moose!  lol. The video isn't the best in the world, I took it with my phone, but I hope you enjoy it! Check out my YouTube channel, or other entries for more videos.

The Great and Powerful!

I thought it was pretty awesome to see a new "Wizard of Oz" movie coming out...my first thought was that maybe they were remaking the original. As much as I love the original movie, and Judy Garland would be difficult to replace... the things they could do with a new movie would be grand.

But no, its not a remake, but a new movie entirely. Oz: the Great and Powerful! In this installment:

Disney's fantastical adventure Oz The Great and Powerful, directed by Sam Raimi, imagines the origins of L. Frank Baum’s beloved character, the Wizard of Oz. When Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, he thinks he's hit the jackpot--fame and fortune are his for the taking--that is until he meets three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone's been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity--and even a bit of wizardry--Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well.

Check out the trailer below.

Leave a comment, visit our Facebook page, leave a +1, or any number of other things if you think this movie looks promising!

The Great Outdoors!

Like many people, one of the things I love to do to relieve stress is get out into nature. There are few things more relaxing, and more able to bring you back to center then spending some time "away from it all".

Bluegrass Festival!

Locally today we had the "Beer, Brats, and Bluegrass Festival". Now personally I can't vouch for the quality of the beer they had available, but the brats were good, and the music was good.  :)

One of the vendors had some gator sausage, they talked me into trying some.  It was pretty tasty, but since it was sausage...I didn't really see where it was that different from sausage made from anything else.  Their Jambalaya was excellent though!

There seemed to be a few more vendors this year, which was nice, and there were a LOT more people this year compared to last year.

Overall, it was a fun even...and there are even fireworks tonite!

Who's the Fairest?

Snow White and the Huntsman...it was a good movie. Even very good, I didn't think it was legendary though. I've had to think about this one a bit, and sift through my thoughts on the movie after the movie. Its doing very well in the theaters, so well that there is disturbing news that a second movie has been green-lighted. (If you haven't seen anything about the movie yet, check out my post HERE for a trailer.)

Naturally the movie is a little predictable, it is a fairy tale after all. I like the dark take on the movie... it shouldn't be all roses, there's a wicked witch killing, poisoning, destroying... Disney kinda glosses over that fact in their version. That wasn't the problem.

The acting was all good I thought. I liked Kristen Stewart as Snow White. She's not the traditional (again Disney) Snow White, there's no little birdies chirping to her, no merry songs as she cleans a cottage. Its a dark, cruel world. A world ruled by hate and malevolence. Kristen Stewart fits into this world. She's an armor wearing, sword wielding Snow White, and that works.

Summertime!

We're starting to see regular 80 degree weather now, and that means we're finally on our way to summertime! Summer is really the ultimate low stress month. Although many of us (me included) still put in lots of hours, there's so much to do outdoors, that its hard to stay inside.

This image here I took of our wonderful main street. The city really goes all out to hang up and put out lots of amazing flowers. Where I live there is so much to do, it often feels like summer isn't nearly long enough (and it really isn't) to get them all done.

Changes.

As you can see, there's a new bar just under the beach header...and it has a few words across it. Most of the links won't work right now, but I thought people might like to see part of my dream for this place. I'm planning/hoping to grow...and encompass all things that might be thought of, or used to escape the every day grind.

Monday blues...

So its Monday and many of you are dragging yourselves back to work for another week of the drudgery. Many people will be working on their strategy for how to survive the week, but I think most of us are just trying to figure out how to get through the day. How can we avoid that pain in the ass boss or co-worker that for some reason just insists on making every day miserable? How can you stand to listen to one more whiny customer.

Avengers, Legendary!

I think they've really been knocking it out of the park lately with all of the superhero movies. I liked Thor, Captain America, Ironman... and the Avengers is no exception. I'm definitely giving it five stars. They've been building up to this one for a long time now, and I wasn't sure it would live up to the expectations they've set up for us. I think it was awesome though. Decent story, lots of actions, repeat of several people we've seen before. Thor and Loki, Ironman with Pepper Potts, Captain America, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson's character we saw from Ironman 2), Agent Phil and Nick Fury... and a couple people that we haven't seen before. Of course we got our Stan Lee cameo in the movie as well!

Don't Shoot!

Howdy All,

Sorry it has been awhile since my last post, but I had caught a cold, and was just getting over that, and managed to get the flu. So it hasn't been a very fun, or exciting time. To make it even more fun, I get to work even when I'm sick...I think that seriously delayed how fast I could get better. I'm mostly better now, but I still have this stupid cough from hell that seems determined to stick around for awhile yet.

I did manage to finish seasons 3 and 4 of The Big Bang Theory. The show keeps getting better and better, and I think they've really hit their groove. We've had a couple new characters introduced to the show as well, balancing out the girl to guy ratio a bit.

Hunger Games... Loved It!

Ok, so I was finally able to get out and see Hunger Games. I was thinking, ok its been out for a bit now, and I live in a small town...should be a mostly clear theater right? WRONG! The theater was packed! Not quite sold out, but still, mostly full. I was really surprised. It was hard to tell if a lot of people were there for the first time like me, or if it was mostly repeat watchers. If you haven't seen it yet, there's a trailer you can watch in my previous post, Upcoming Blockbusters.

If you haven't read the books yet, you really should. I could see people being totally lost if they haven't read them. They tried really hard to fill in a lot of the back story, and let you know what was going on, but if I hadn't read the books, I'm not sure I'd get the whole "hunger games" thing. You can pick up The Hunger Games Kindle edition at Amazon for only $5 right now.

Minecraft Ho!

I sort of feel like I'm a little late to the whole "minecraft" thing, and yet it was only officially released November of 2011 (And has sold over 5.3million copies!). I remember looking at it a few months back. I kept hearing noise about this Minecraft game, so I took a look. The website was just ok, and the game is all pixelated and blocky. I wasn't really impressed.

Well just a couple of weeks ago, I was browsing around Youtube, and came across a couple of videos for the game. I was fascinated, so I watched a couple more. I then headed over to the website (http://www.minecraft.net/), and they had put a new "promo" video on the site, and it looked cool. I've always really been into sandbox kind of games, and I LOVE building things in games. It's one of my most favorite things to do. So I downloaded the game, and started messing around with it. It was actually a lot of fun. I had to go look up a few tutorials to get a start on how the "crafting" part of it works, but there is a lot videos out there, and an entire wiki (of course).

How Could I Have Missed It?

It would appear that in my latest post, I missed the release date for a movie coming out.

Snow White & the Huntsman is released June 1st, and it looks amazing! Especially with the new 5 minute trailer that they have released. This movie is definitely on the MUST SEE list! Starring Kristen Stewart (Twilight), Charlize Theron (many films), and Chris Hemsworth (Thor).

I'm really excited to see this one. Play the new trailer (courtesy of http://www.traileraddict.com) , and see if you don't agree.

Upcoming Blockbusters!

After a week of hell, I need to write something fun, and escape a little bit. So we're going to go with upcoming movies that I'm really looking forward to! I am looking forward to the Hobbit coming out, but that is still a ways off, and I'd like to be just a little more relevant. Although if you're needing your hobbit fix, The Hobbit Blog is pretty awesome.

Lots of good movies coming out soon though, and after looking through dozens of movies coming out in the next several months I picked the five that I am most hoping to see on the silver screen! All the trailers come courtesy of Trailer Addict. These are in order of the stated release dates...

Netflix is a Lying Pile of Excrement!

Yes, you read that right. I think they are a big giant lying pile of steaming dung!

Yes, we've known for a few months now that Netflix was probably not going to renew their Starz contract (News Link). Then they announced yesterday that everything from them would be leaving at midnight tonite...Wednesday February 29th. Well they lied. Its all gone already...and it is Wednesday morning as I write this. Not only that, it was pulled last night at midnight, so when we tried to stream Howl's Moving Castle for the last time as my daughter was getting ready for bed....it was already gone. If I were going to try and give Netflix the benefit of the doubt, I'd say...

Free Kindle Book: Make More, Worry Less!

I haven't read the book "Make More, Worry Less" yet, but I just came across it as a free kindle book. It might only be free for the day, but I just bought it for $0, so I know its free right now. I thought some other people might be interested, so I'm just throwing it up here quickly with out having even downloaded the book.

Rowling Announces New Book!

Earlier today the publisher Little, Brown Book Group announced that they will be publishing J.K Rowling's first novel for adults.

While an exciting announcement, my first thought was "Harry Potter isn't for adults?". I know that what she means is that she won't be writing it for children... and possibly it won't even be kid friendly, but that was still my first thought. That was pretty much all the meat to the announcement. Other information like subject matter, title, release date, et cetera will be coming out later this year. So while it is an exciting announcement, it also almost feels like a rip off. Sure I suppose that its nice to hear that she is going to be writing again, I can't even imagine trying to fill the shoes of writing an epic saga like Harry Potter, and after spending more then a decade writing it, I'm sure taking a break was welcome. But writers write, and it is nice to see that she couldn't stay away.

You Read Too?

Of course I read, its one of the premier forms of escapism! Real world sucks, escape into one someone else created.

Its not always easy to find time to read, but if you love to read, then somehow you manage. I read during commercials (although sometimes with those Hulu commercials, by the time I've grabbed my book (kindle, kindle fire, phone, whatever), the commercial is over. I've read books while waiting in a theater for the movie to start. Doctor's offices can be great for a couple of hours of reading...I was even reading yesterday while standing in line at the bank! I often even grab my kindle when I'm planning to nuke some lunch...there's no way I'm going to just stand around for those 4-8minutes!

Bang!

Just a short post from the phone...

Finished Season 1 of Big Bang Theory. It's still funny, and I'm moving on to S2. That show with your mother is still funnier, and that person that started me on big bang agrees now too.  :)

Got stuck for a few days with out any How I Met Your Mother. Installed a new router, and both my tv, and my ps3 were having issues with it. Finally got it sorted out, and now I'm streaming again with the best of them!
Not sure what to watch tonite... The options are: Real Steel, or In Time. But first I gotta get out of here for a bit. Going out for food, and I think a little shopping is required.

I'll polish this baby up, and add links when I get to the computer.

What are you watching tonite?

I've Abducted Planet of the Apes!

Howdy all!

I'm writing from my kindle fire. It's tedious and slow going (Don't those mean pretty much the same thing?), I'll have to edit later and hopefully catch the errors, but it is marginally better than blogging via phone.

Well it has been a few days since my last post, and I've managed to watch two (A third now that it took me a bit to get this post finished, but hey, who's counting?) movies and an episode of Better Off Ted. Another hilarious comedy, in today's episode Ted manages to get himself in trouble for sexual harassment while he's trying to help out Linda. Veronica comes up with the idea, and gets the "guys from upstairs" to declare sexual harassment a disease, and therefore as long as the employees attend a seminar, they can't be fired or disciplined for being harassing. Fun ensues in the office...  :D Two seasons worth is streamable on Netflix.

What's so funny?

There are some really good comedies running right now, and I LOVE to laugh.

As you all know from my last article I've been watching How I Met Your Mother. Well one of my employees thinks that the Big Bang Theory is funnier, and I had only seen part of one episode. It was decent, but funnier then HIMYM...I don't think so. So she brought me in season one on DVD, I'm five episodes in now, and it is a pretty funny show.

Current Big Show: HIMYM

As I polish this place up, I'm planning to add a page to list everything I'm actively watching/reading. In the meantime, and in an effort to post an actual post so there's more to read then just a "coming soon" type posts.

As with virtually anything I write, there may be spoilers. I don't plan to censor myself or put any further alerts. I'll try not to "ruin" a movie/show/book for you, but you've been warned!

Currently the big show I've been watching is; How I Met Your Mother. Its a pretty funny sitcom, and while Netflix says, "Playing around with traditional sitcom structure"  I don't see it. Its a great show, but I'm not sure where they think they're getting away from "tradition". Much of the show takes place at either Marshall, Lily, and Ted's apartment, or downstairs at the bar (Friends anyone?). IMDB has a much better show synopsis.

What is this place?

This is my blog (obviously).

The Back Story:
I've written a few articles around the internet and have another blog, but my other blog is more personal, and hard for me to write all the time because of that. I've been thinking for awhile about what I could start another blog about. My wife says I should write about something I'm very interested in about, so I'll want to write more often. This is true...so I spend some time thinking about "What the heck interests me?". Being a bit on the OCD/ADD side, I tend to lose interest quickly, and my job is pretty much 24/7, so I don't have time for a lot of hobbies, or pursuits. Not a lot of time for skiing, fishing, camping, or many of the other things I would love to do. So pretty much I watch movies and tv-shows, and I read books. I do a lot of both. Books are easily portable (especially thanks to my Kindle), and now so are movies (viola Kindle Fire).

About Me

I guess I should write a little bit about me.

I never really know what to write in these things. Am I going for a bio, a resume, convince people I'm someone who's ramblings they want to read... Is this a chance to write my memoir? Beats me, so I guess I'll just get started and we'll see where we end up.

What makes me qualified to write about anything at all?
Nothing really. Other then some articles on the web, a blog, and a poem in a book once, I'm not a "published" author. I do like to write though, and I think I write well. I have a good voice and style. As far as the subject matter for this blog goes...well, I watch movies. Lots and lots of movies. I've rated nearly 1,100 items on Netflix (and counting). My Hulu queue always has something in it (I have updates nearly every day), and I have a decent dvd/blu-ray collection. Its not complete by any means (I don't have those kind of funds...or the storage space), but its decent.

I also read, a lot. I read The Hobbit in first grade, and I've been reading ever since. I'm working on pairing down my "real" book collection since a buddy of mine got me a Kindle for my birthday in '10. I almost always have a book with me...at least one.

I'm a gamer, and I like to play most any game. Currently playing the new Star Wars MMO. Currently in my house we have...(one or more then one of the following), PS2, PS3, PSP, NES, SNES, N64, Wii, DS, DSI, DS-Lite, 3DS, Gameboy. There are currently 7 running computers (including laptops and netbook) in our household. I got my first computer somewhere around 1982. A Commodore Plus4, and then a Commodore64. I also like a few board games now and then, and I'm into tabletop games. Used to have a good D&D group going a few years back, but nothing like that now. I also love gaming (poker mostly). We try and have a weekly game going, nothing fancy, just trying to keep it fun, relax, and escape for a couple of hours.

You might be wondering at this point if I have a life. Not really. I literally live at my job, and I'm pretty much on 24/7. I'm working right now, as I right this. I've been married for 19 years, and have four daughters (3 of them teenagers)... you might be starting to see my need for escaping reality and relieving some stress. I sometimes miss entire seasons of sports, and couldn't tell you the last time I saw an NBA game (probably around 1996). I've tried to get my girls into watching football, or basketball, or even golf...but no luck yet. They are all gamers though, so that's something.

I'm not as big a participant in outdoor activities as I used to be. I hurt my back a few years back in an auto accident, so extended hiking, backpacking, and things of that ilk are out for me...for now. So maybe we'll get a guest writer now and then that can throw in some stuff for that area. I do like to fish, but I'm anti-hunting. I'm fine with some hunting articles, and hunting by itself isn't necessarily bad, but mostly I can't stand the people that like to hunt. Many of them lie about the reasons...but that's a WHOLE 'nother tangent.

That's mostly me...in a nutshell (Help I'm trapped in this nutshell!). I'm sure you'll learn more about me then you ever wanted to know if you stick around, and if there's something you're just dying to know...well ask!