Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Twilight Powers Activate | Eclipse Advance Screening

Thanks to Amber for giving me her pass to see an advance screening of Eclipse yesterday! It was at the Angelika in Dallas at Mockingbird Station.

I thought it was going to be super crowded and heard that I should get there early. The screening started at 9pm. I was there at 5pm! Good thing there were ample retail stores and a Starbucks nearby.

After a couple of hours I went back to the Angelika and finally things were set up and people were hanging out and excited. Vitamin Water was the main sponsor of the Twilight party and the free screening. They had a lot of activities and Pinkberry was there handing out free frozen yogurt.

There were makeup artist there ready to make you look like Bella or some sparkly looking vampire.
But I did get my nails painted and got a dumb ass stamp on my hand. I think the stamp came out bad due to my dry skin.


There were three stamps you could choose from depending on which team you liked. Team Jacob or Team Edward. And there was a stamp for the Bella freaks.

 This guy stamped his neck.



For some entertainment there were these guys called PK O.U.T. They were jumping in the air and flipping around just like vampires.



All in all I had a nice time and got to see Eclipse for free. I still like the books better than the movies. The women in the audience sure did have the hots for Jacob who had his t-shirt off for most of the film.  And I thought it was funny to hear the audience clapping and cheering in certain parts of the movie. Audience participation was high that's for sure.

If you are a fan of the Twilight Saga I'm sure you will agree that the books are way better. Roger Ebert only gave Eclipse 2 stars and I bet he hasn't read the books, but go and check it out and see what you think.


Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog :)

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

OWN Casting call in Plano

The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) had a casting call here in Plano, Texas and I gathered up the courage to go and pitch my show idea. My show idea was about happiness.

I showed up at 5:45am and when I got there I saw a ton of people already in line. This is a pic I took when I got in line. I heard that people got there super early (3am) to get in line! The casting directors didn't start seeing anyone until 7am.

I was excited about the whole thing and was comforted to know that a friend would be there to pitch her idea so at least I had someone there I could text. She was in a different group but I did see her after the pitch.

The system they had in place was pretty organized and the fact that the weather was decent helped a lot. It was overcast and windy and it looked like it would rain but didn't thank goodness. Once I got in line I waited a while then got to a crew member who talked to us. He told us that we will be getting a wristband that has a number. So after that you got to get into a second line. I think there were 4 or 5 lines you could pick from. I got in line A.

 Here is another pic and all those people under the tent got there super early. When I took this picture I was way way back in line.


Once you made it to the tent it meant you are that much closer to the casting directors. They saw us in groups of about 10 to 12 people at a time. Once your group was called they had us sit around a table and each tent had a casting director and a production assistant. Our guy was polite and I could tell that he was working hard to make us feel relaxed. He gave us a rundown of how the audition works and we each got about a minute to pitch our ideas. If anyone started to ramble he would cut us off (in a nice way). I was the last person to pitch, but that didn't bother me. I was happy to hear everyone's ideas. There were mostly women in my group except for a couple of guys.

As each person stood up to pitch we handed our long ass application to the casting director. While we pitched he was looking through the application to make sure we filled everything out and signed it. When I pitched I felt a little nervous but as I got into it I became comfortable because I felt my idea was unique (I'm sure everyone else felt the same way).

Once we were all done he explained to us what the next steps were. If your pitch was successful you would get a call to comeback for an on camera pitch. If you didn't get a call don't feel bad. I didn't get a call and I didn't feel bad. I'm just glad that I showed up for this opportunity!

This is the tent I was in and I had a blast! Thanks to Oprah's team for coming out to Plano, Texas. Oh and thanks to KOHL'S for having this whole thing in their parking lot.

Monday, June 28, 2010

2010 FIFA World Cup Noise

A few weeks ago there was a lot of Tweeting going on about the world cup so I decided to tune in to see how the game was going. When I was watching the game I heard some strange noises. At first I thought it was the audio signal gone bad but it never stopped. The sound kept going and going. Like a crap load of killer bees coming at you.  I did mute the sound but I wanted to hear the sport announcers since I don't understand football. But I had to change the channel because the noise was so annoying.

Yesterday my husband told me about vuvuzelas. I said what the heck is that? Apparently these are instruments (a horn) that people at the world cup were using to make that noise in the stadium. I went to You Tube to see what videos I could find and saw this one.




Now I know what a vuvuzela is and if you get enough of them together it sounds like killer bees...cool.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Time out Facebook...You Make Me Sick.

I'm sick and tired of hearing about people's political views, religious views, and all the other crap that people talk about especially when it involves sports. Yuck.

The other thing I found annoying was FB sharing my information with the WWW and there was the potential of my friends sharing my information with the world that I did not appreciate. So after readjusting my privacy settings (again and again) I stopped the madness. Oh and the other thing that was dumb was if you created a page you couldn't pass over the rights to another admin person. I waited weeks for this to happen and apparently there were a lot of frustrated people who were trying to do the same thing for over a year. Then finally the FB folks granted our wish and that was the last piece of the puzzle I was waiting for so I could leave.

So if I need to chat with a friend I will contact them through email or with a phone call. Just like in the good old days. 

I guess if I ever want to go back I will start over with a new account but for now I am FB free.


Monday, June 7, 2010

Happiness for Everyone!

Delivering Happiness A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose is a wonderful and honest look into the people behind Zappos and how it has become an online juggernaut. It's not very often I hear of a CEO that is hands on and shares company information with all of it's employees. As you will read in the book you can see the path and experiences Tony and his partners encounter (both good and challenging).

The fun part for me was reading about the young Tony especially when he was figuring out how to make money. Both the worm and button making ideas gave me a sense of his work ethic and commitment. Even if the job was temporary each one came with a valuable lesson. And I was amazed by the profits he was making while in middle school. I can't even remember what I was doing in middle school…something uneventful like trying to straighten my hair.

Once in high school he was involved in some shenanigans in the computer lab but that ended which led him to find other ways to create a better schedule to make money. He gets a job as a game tester at Lucasfilm that pays him $6.00 an hour. Then he quits Lucasfilm after finding a higher paying job of $15.00 an hour as a computer programmer. I wonder if George Lucas is aware that he had Tony as an employee? I wonder if George orders from Zappos? Oh the silly questions I can come up with.

Also in the book Zappos shares their 10 core values and a sample of courses offered by their Pipeline Team. Lots of interesting things going on and from the employee stories sprinkled throughout the book they enjoy the Zappos culture. It must be really gratifying to work at a company that cares.

At the end of the book it talks about what your goals are in life and what will bring you happiness. When I read the about the 3 types of happiness (pleasure, passion, and higher purpose) it made me think about my life. I have been discontent with my career for a while. And now I can see that I have been missing that "higher purpose" stage. To be involved in a higher purpose means to be a part of something bigger than yourself that has meaning to you :) Now that makes perfect sense!



I highly recommend this book for your Summer reading. Thanks to Tony and Zappos for sharing their Happiness with me and the world. You can find out more about this book at Delivering Happiness Book.com. I hope that my honest opinions about the book will inspire you to get a copy.

Since I received an extra advanced copy of the book I will give it to the first person who asks for it! Go!

Thanks for stopping by :)