The Readiness Is All

Once upon a time, Jill and I decided to make Thanksgiving. And lo, we shunned things like store-bought pie crust and Pillsbury and did go "all out" to make it a Thanksgiving to remember, one worthy of the things our mothers taught us about Thanksgiving, particularly in terms of butter content.

Ann's shirt says, "Team Indifferent."

The front of my shirt just says, "Edward?"

My favorite part of this is the whole pretending to be self-righteous about Twilight while we're there on opening day, as well as the pretending that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is somehow less geeky. (Buffy does have more street cred though. There's a certain respectability despite things like this (thank you for being short and getting better quickly, season one): http://www.hulu.com/watch/1298/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-vampire-harvest-ritual#x-4,vclip,3,0) But I digress from my point, which was that we defied geekiness with uber-geekiness.

That being said, the movie was thoroughly enjoyable. I'm not going to say a lot, but this has always been my favorite of the books, and I wasn't disappointed. We laughed, we cried, we laughed hysterically at a few really choice parts, the bad CGI wolves and every time one of the guys took his shirt off again. (I lied about the crying. There was no crying. Except with laughter.) Overall though, I thought it was better than the first one (probably because of the budget being bigger this time and the translation into less moody guitar in the soundtrack and a better overall quality), and Michael Sheen was awesomely creepy. Speaking of which - did I just think Michael Sheen was more respectable than he is? Because I thought Frost/Nixon plus The Queen meant that he had higher standards. But then, I also didn't expect Justin Vernon to be such a teeny bopper sellout until I found out he wrote a song for the soundtrack (which sounded awesome, by the way, and I need it). I suppose if Michael Sheen and Bill Nighy can be in Underworld, Michael Sheen can be Aro. I think it just threw me because I didn't know he was in the movie until today. Regardless of any of this, he was awesome.

Yeah. Creeptastic.

Anyway. Don't be fooled by my laughter and scorn for some of the more ridiculous moments. I loved it, as I expected to, and I'm not ashamed. (Take that, haters. Also Jill.) You should all check out Julie's guest post on the blogject today. I think it sums up certain aspects of the hysteria perfectly, and I love it. I also really love Janssen's review. It says many of the things I didn't write about but agree with fully, so go ahead and read her post if you want a positive review that still makes fun of Edward's lipstick.

Also, watching the previews was even more enjoyable than it usually is because Ann instituted a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs sideways voting policy before they started. I started off with a thumbs down for When in Rome, switched to a thumbs up when Lee Pace came on screen, then was back to thumbs down by the end of the preview. It looks really bad. The next preview was for Dear John, and although I was already in a thumbs down state of mind when I saw that Channing Tatum was in it, I reserved judgment until the screen said, "From Nicolas Sparks," which was when Ann and I gave it a thumbs down simultaneously. Also, I'm grateful to the Letters to Juliet preview for giving away the entire movie so I don't have to be torn between my love of Vanessa Redgrave and how bad that movie looked. It was a great game.

Finally, I've been excited for Sherlock Holmes and The Lovely Bones for awhile, but I got more excited for the former after some pre-previews tonight, and I got more excited about the later when I realized the Peter Jackson is doing it. This is your chance to make up for King Kong, Peter!

Here's what I've discovered. There are certain clues or words that end up popping up a lot. Words that really have no business being in multiple cross word puzzles. For example: why has the word "dab" been in the last three IU puzzles I've completed? Why do so many puzzles reference British record company"EMI?" Must we always talk about "scabs" and how they're enemies to unions? (I mean, can't we at least mix it up and talk about scabs as things you pick off your skin once in awhile?) And hey, I watched Family Matters for years, but that doesn't mean that I know how to spell "nerdy Steve's" last name. Today I tried to start it with an E, but since no one grows "seger cane," I figured I was probably wrong.

On the other hand, I do like clues like, "climbing tool for frozen services." (Me: "Crampon! Wait, no . . . only five letters. I'll come back.") How great is it to have "ice ax" in your puzzle? I like it that today the New York Times had "rock and roll," "cock and bull," "lock and load" and "shock and awe" as answers and none of them crossed. I like that I now assume "Spanish 'that' " is always going to be "esa" even though I don't speak Spanish and am fairly certain there's more than one way to say "that." If it's been in more than one puzzle, it's the answer.

Finally, I like that because I'm mostly on campus Monday-Wednesday, I almost never have to remember that I'm not as amazing at crossword puzzles as I think, because I never see the reality check that is the Friday puzzle. Are you kidding me? I did two puzzles today without help! I'm awesome!

I'm pretty sure Ann and I talked about some others the other night. I guess there are significant anniversaries every year. Anything else you've noticed?