Thanksgiving just ended and I'm thankful for movies.

So, I just came off Thanksgiving break and I realized that I never talked about what I am thankful for. One of the things I am thankful for is the movies! I absolutely love watching movies, especially at the movie theater, and this week off let me take a trip there...or several trips there. I went quite a few times within the week, and ended up watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Love & Other Drugs, and Tangled.

Let's start off with Harry Potter. This is the beginning of the end for the series, as it adapts the seventh (and final) Harry Potter book into film, but split into two parts. This was probably the best way to handle the finale. Although it is not the complete story, it is fast-paced and it ends on a perfect note, leaving you anticipating more. It is set up perfectly and personally, it is my favorite Harry Potter movie yet.

Love & Other Drugs, starring Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal was another movie I watched. It's advertised as a sexy, light, romantic comedy. However, there are parts

of it that are more serious than your typical romantic comedy. These type of movies really rely on the strength of their leads and both Hathaway and Gyllenhaal work perfectly together. The movie was much more serious than I was anticipating. I don't know if the seriousness of it could be considered a twist, so I'll just keep quiet about what it is exactly. Despite the more serious tone, it still retained some of the typical elements of romantic comedies. Overall, it was funny and entertaining, and Anne Hathaway was extremely strong in her role.

The last

movie I watched (in theaters anyway) was Disney's latest offering, Tangled. I am still basically twelve years old and watch Disney movies. (Is that weird?) Promoted more along the lines of the Shrek movies, the film ended up being anti-Shrek. It really stands along side with other Disney classics, like Beauty & The Beast, The Little Mermaid, and The Lion King, even if it is not in the traditionally hand-drawn format. Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi are perfect voice actors for Rapunzel and Flynn Rider. The story is interesting and it is overall a fantastic film. It's funny, the songs are great, and the character are interesting. would say it'd give Toy Story 3 (which I also loved) a run for its money.

So, which one would I recommend? I enjoyed all of them, to be honest. Harry Potter was more action-packed and had that fantasy element. Although deemed a chick flick, Love & Other Drugs was surprisingly dramatic, but funny at the same time and Anne Hathaway is fantastic in the film. Tangled is a fun, feel-good movie, and while it is a kids movie, it's fun and adventurous, and has a lot of appeal towards older people too. (Or maybe that's just me.)

When it comes to my next trip to the movies (which will probably be very soon), there are a few films I would like to watch. The two that I am most looking forward to are The Black Swan and 127 Hours. It looks like I'm not the only one looking forward to at least one of these.

New Music that's Alright With Me

If I had to pick my favorite song at the moment, I'd say it would be Alright With Me by Kris Allen. If you don't know who he is, he also sang the song, Live Like We're Dying. If you still don't know who that is, he won the eighth season of American Idol. If you still don't know who that is...well, he's a singer. Anyway, the song is bouncy, fun, and super catchy.

You can listen to a live, stripped down version of it here:

This stripped down version of the song has a little bit more of a country-ish vibe and is a bit different from the album version, which is here:

Personally, I think it's a great song and it's kind of refreshing to hear a catchy song devoid of auto-tune or electronic elements. I really hope that it'll take off.

So, check it out and comment on it, if you want. Oh, and if you like it, buy it on iTunes.

The Giants won the World Series!

So, if you didn't hear, the San Francisco Giants won the World Series! There was a parade and everything! You may have heard something about it if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, as I do. Anyway, I for one could not be more ecstatic!

Let me just say that I am not a baseball person. While I am happy that the San Francisco Giants won, the reason I am happy is for reasons unrelated to baseball. So why am I happy that the Giants won then? Well, frankly, because the World Series is over! While I am not not happy for the Giants, I am more happy about the fact that I can return to my regularly scheduled programming!

I am a huge fan of The Simpsons. Okay, "huge" may be stretching it. The only merchandise I own is a couple of shirts and I only own one of the seasons on DVD. (Although I should probably fix that.) Anyway, "huge" or "big" or whatever, I love The Simpsons and watch it religiously every week. However, because of the baseball playoffs and the World Series it was gone for almost a month. The last new episode aired on October 10th. (Ironically, it was about baseball.) That's a month without having new episodes of one of my favorite TV shows. But alas! The Giants won, ending the World Series and the disruption of my television show schedule! Now, my favorite TV family is back with its annual Halloween episode! (Yes, a Halloween episode in November. See what the World Series does!)



Harry Potter as a vampire, Twilight spoofs, and cannibalism! This seems like it will be a promising episode of The Simpsons. On that note, I want to say congratulations to the San Francisco Giants! I'm excited that you guys won! (But more excited to have my TV shows back.)

Stat Counter

For class we had to install a snazzy stat counter on to our site. So far, the only visitor is...me. That's all well and good since I have a grand total of three posts, one of which is a test post.

Well, what does this Stat Counter thing do? It basically counts any visits to this blog. It lets me see how many page loads I have had and how many unique visitors I get, as well as where they come from, if they're returning visitors, and any popular pages. (Kinda creepy, right?).

So, what can I use this information for? Hmm...well, nothing much really. This is just a personal blog. So it is nice to see how many people come visit this blog. However, if I had any commercial interests (which I don't) I could possibly use this to concentrate marketing via popular pages and target any specific regions that my blog visits.

While I don't have any commercial interests and the number of visitors doesn't do much to me (except to maybe boost my ego a bit), it is entertaining to see how many people visit.

If it's Halloween, it must be Saw.

So I'm finally getting around to posting here. It took me long enough...

Anyway, so yesterday was Halloween, and while everyone was out partying and doing exciting things, I was off doing other exciting things! Things like going to the movies!

Okay, so a trip to the movies isn't too exciting, but it's something I like to do anyway. For this trip to the movies I ended up watching Saw 3D. Except it wasn't in 3D. It was in 2D. I wonder if they should have picked a different title for the non-3D showings...Anyway, that doesn't matter.

So, the saw franchise is seven films in, with Saw 3D supposedly being the last installment. I think it has been a long time coming. While Saw and Saw II had interesting premises, by Saw IV, things had gotten stale and predictable. The standard plot had become: people are trapped, people fight for their lives, and a surprise twist ending!

Saw 3D is no different. However, instead of being interesting the traps are tired and predictable. The only thing different about this movie is the ending, which was a nice way to tie things up.

So, would I recommend watching it? It depends. To be honest, when it was announced I wasn't too excited to watch it. The only motivation I had to watch it was the fact that it was the (supposed) finale of the series. Having seen all six prior movies (out of a sense of being a completest), I felt that I had to watch it.

If you're interested in seeing how the series ends (again, supposedly), I guess it's worth checking out. If you just don't care, you can skip it.

(Saw 3D movie poster was provided by IMPAwards.com)

So, I guess I'm picking my subject now.

I guess the focus on my blog will be pop culture. Everyone participates in it. Although some people are more active than others, by watching TV, going to the movies, or listening to music, everyone takes part in pop culture to some extent. (Plus, I have a pop culture and religion class, so that can lead to some interesting posts...I hope.)

That being said, there are a number of people that complain that popular culture is rotting people's mind. However, there's a book out there named Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter. As the title suggests, the book is about how pop culture is actually helping people learn more, not making them dumber.

I personally haven't read the book yet, but a book review by Anthony Coccilio, a professor of Communication and Education at Columbia University gives an overview of the book. Not only is there a quick summary of a book, it also offers a critique of the book. Reading it is quite interesting.

This is a test post!

So, we're creating a blog for class. I don't know exactly what it will be about, but here it goes.

This is a test post, so I don't know exactly how long it's supposed to be. Also, I don't know what I'm supposed to be writing about either.

I guess that's why this is a test post.