Bearded Dragons, and other such exotic animals.

After hanging out with a friend who owns a Bearded Dragon for the past couple weeks, I gotta say, I've grown kinda fond of the little lizard.

It's kind of strange. I would usually never consider owning a pet other than a cat or dog, something that is affectionate (and fluffy) and enjoys having human attention. However, just chilling with the lizard is pretty cool. Sort of just clings to you, licks things to see what they are, and then wanders until she finds another comfy, dark spot.

I have never known anyone who owned something other than a cat, dog, or fish before, so hanging out around a lizard has been a neat experience. I sort of want to see what hanging out with a snake is like, I might try to do that soon.

I recently found out our friendly neighbourhood David Beirne (check out his blog!) has owned a Tarantula before. Have any of you owned some exotic pets? Any interesting experiences?

Good snacks for a person who doesn't like healthy.

So the past few weeks, I have been eating a LOT of popcorn.

Watching movies and TV shows on netflix is just better with popcorn, and as a whole, it is not an awful snack. It is better than potato chips or cookies.

However, it is a snack that becomes boring. I've been looking for new ideas for stuff to eat while watching movies. A snack that tastes good, but also won't destroy my digestive system. Popcorn seems to fulfil both of those things rather well.

Anyone have a snack they swear by during movie time?

This week in video games..holy crap.

So I know I have done a few posts about video games, but this week was really something. As an employee of GameStop, I know first hand how much advertising is put into the games that come out at this time of year, and how the developers push them back to maximize sales. This week was a little more crazy than usual.

I worked two midnight releases (an event were we stay open until midnight to release a new game). Usually, we only do them every once and a while, and only for really big games (Call of Duty, for example). But within these past couple of months, we have already done about five, and this week had two in one week!

Now I don't usually mind midnight releases, and I expected the first one for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 to be huge, many people of all ages play Call of Duty. And it was. At midnight, and through about 12:30, we sold over 200 copies of the game to some very eager people. It was a fun night though, we had lots of freebies to give out, and throwing out hats and dogtags to the crowd randomly was like watching seagulls fight over fish. Entertaining stuff.

Later on in the week, we had a second midnight release for the fifth game in The Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim. Now, like I said, I expected Modern Warfare 3 to be huge, but for Skyrim (an Action/RPG/Adventure), I expected maybe 25-30 people. Boy was I wrong. By the time it hit midnight, there were over 100 people at the mall, and the crowd was actually worse than Call of Duty's. Whereas Call of Duty had a ton of people, with ages ranging from 5-60, the Skyrim crowd was a much smaller gap (mostly 20-30 I would say) and I expected them to be pretty behaved, but some of them got a little rowdy, making the night a little annoying.

Overall though, it wasn't so bad. People got their games, I got paid, and I myself enjoyed some Call of Duty. I still can't believe how many games are pushed out for the holidays, but I suppose its the way its going to be when there is money to be made.

A movie that hit home; Toy Story 3

I suppose this seems pretty un-original, as my last couple of blog posts were about movies and such, but I really wanted to write a bit about another movie I just watched for I think the fifth time now: Toy Story 3

Toy Story is a series that I can easily say is my favorite of all time. When the first film came out in 1995 (boy do I feel old), it was something that really got me as a kid; a movie that had an extremely new style of animation, had a funny story, and was about toys, which (as I think most kids were into) was really cool to see. When my parents got it for me on VHS, I have no idea how it survived so many plays and rewinds in the VCR. When the sequel came out (1999), it was as amazing as the first, the new characters mixed well with the old, and the story line even grander. I could not wait for Toy Story 3.

However, Toy Story 3 was a long, long ways off. I would be waiting until June of 2010 to finally see it, and when I did, it was a pretty amazing experience. Our main character, Andy, who was a kid playing with his toys like I was, was now off to college. The family dog, Buster, first introduced in Toy Story 2 as a loving, rascal of a puppy, was now old and just barely moving.

Pixar had done it again, I was sucked into the movie seeing those two characters (along with his mother and sister) all grown up, as if they had been growing up in their own world like I had over the years. After the movie, it brought back memories of my childhood, its not common for any movie to really make me think too hard, but Toy Story 3 sure did.

Are there any movies or television shows that hit home with you or made you think about life at all?

This week in Netflix Part 2; a strange and awesome movie

So I decided to split up the stuff I enjoyed on Netflix into two posts. With this one, I would shortly like to review the latest concoction by Sacha Baron Cohen, Brüno.

Cohen's first project, Borat, was a film that was the news of my high school for a week or so. A strange film about a guy from Kazakhstan coming to America to make a documentary. A film that many seemed to love or hate (me with the former), I was not sure what to expect from Bruno. What I got was another hilarious film, which might have been a little more funny due to the fact I was a little buzzed. A gay guy from Australia looking to make it big in America, the film contained the same amount of stupid humour, male genitalia, and controversial topics as Borat, and watching the life of someone who tries to fit into American culture, and sticks out so much, is extremely entertaining for me. If you are a fan of said humour mentioned above, give Bruno a shot. I also look forward to The Dictator, Cohen's next project.

This week in Netflix Part 1; a short review of a show I watched growing up

So these past couple weeks I have been watching quite a wide array of things on the television (always a good use of my time) and I figured as something to write about I could review some of the stuff I have watched. I'll start with one of my favourite TV shows from my childhood: Malcolm in the Middle.

Malcolm in the Middle is one of the very few shows that I actually enjoyed growing up (we only had 5 channels, no satellite or cable!). A show about a crazy family, consisting of four out of control sons (Malcolm, Dewey, Reese, and Francis) of the two parents who are also crazy in their out right: Hal and Lois. The show is mainly a sitcom that I could recommend for pretty much anyone teenager or older. A series about the lives of each of the brothers, how they never get along, the many ways in which they drive their parents up a wall, and how Lois and Hal can never seem to control them. While each of the episodes usually has something awful happen (usually to the whole family) they each end on a pretty good note, which I enjoy. If you haven't heard of it before, give it a shot if you enjoy comedy.