It was the first year since we moved up to East Texas that the family has been together for the holidays. My grandmother and cousin came up from Corpus Christi, and my Aunt and other cousin came down from Arlington, also my uncle from Louisiana. We had the usual family together again. I say usual because the rest of my family is in Michigan and Spain. But this little group is the group that always used to get together for the Holidays, back when I lived in Corpus Christi as well. I got a lot of great presents, sure, but the greatest gift was that which I just described. I kind of lost that feeling in the past few years because our holidays were so small, just my immediate family.  This definitely made me happy!

Now for my Birthday!! My birthday is today (December 27th). However, the celebrations kind of started a day early when two of my very best friends from Panola College in Carthage Levi and Michelle, surprised me when they called me to ask what the weather was like and made me walk outside to see them sitting in the drive way! We went to Lookout Mountain and saw the pretty landscape and rolling hills of East Texas. They then took me to the Olive Garden for a early birthday dinner, that dinner was a blast for reasons I’m not going to state in this blog… We headed back over to my house and waited for the movie Sherlock Holmes. When we got back my iPhone was blown up with texts of all different people wanting me to go to the very same movie my family was planning on going to! It was strange! We got to the movie theater and I found my sister going to the same exact movie! Wow! By the time all the friends started showing up there was Byron, Jennafer, Michelle, Levi, Me, Dustin, Mallorie, Matt, John Paul, Maria, and Chrissy. We took up an entire row in the movie theater. Levi, who doesn’t know anyone looks over and sees all of us sitting the exact same way, that was cool. After the movies, 7 of us decide to go to the local Applebee’s. I only had some dessert, as did a couple others. The funny thing was that Byron told the waiter that it was my birthday the next day and they should sing to me. Turns out that they forgot. So before we left, the entire table sang at the top of their lungs, getting the entire restaurants attention. After they finished there was an applaud from everywhere. It was nice. It made my whole year!

On the actual day of my birth, I ate breakfast with family, and just stayed home with them. We ended up going to Tyler and ate at TGI Fridays, for my third “birthday” meal. It was grand. The thing that made my night was when I come home and open up my MacBook, log onto facebook and find 25 wall posts wishing me a happy birthday…

(Click for Bigger Size)

I responded to every one of them! They all really meant a lot and it was just the thing I needed to top of this whole birthday thing! I LOVE ALL YOU GUYS! And for the ones I haven’t seen in a while I miss All of you!!!.

This was a very very special birthday. It was all because of my friends and family that made it so special!

10,000,000,000
Happy Points for Jeremy!!

Avatar is this year’s most anticipated film. Boasting a $500M price tag, Avatar now holds the record for the most expensive movie ever produced in the history of film. James Cameron held the previously held record when he directed the movie “Titanic” which until recently was the most expensive film. Cameron breaks his own record with this film. Should we even call these movies films anymore? As time goes on, they are using less and less film, and moving more and more toward digital. Just a thought. Anyway, Cameron hasn’t made a film for 12 years, since “Titanic” was debuted. All this time goes by and he is now given half a billion dollars to make his next movie, this sends up a bit if speculation.

After seeing the trailer, I was a little skeptical about how this movie would turn out. It seemed to me more like a Sci-fi flick that wouldn’t have the audience it deserved. Interviews with some people coming out of the movies, showed that the trailer didn’t really send the right message. It didn’t make the movie appeal to the audiences like it should have.

Walking into the movie theater I received a pair of 3D Glasses, Usually I try to stay away from seeing a movie in 3D because I am usually distracted by the uncomfortable glasses or the fact that the movie tries my eyes to the point that I have to take the glasses off every now and then to rest them. For this movie, all of that didn’t happen. I completely forgot about the glasses and just enjoyed the movie. I was sucked into it and didn’t want to leave. From the first 10 minutes, it caught my attention. Maybe it’s just my weakness for inner character narrating, I don’t know.

So the movie began. The entire time I was watching this 163 minute movie I was in no way bored. Cameron focused on such small details that made the story interesting till the end. My only negative thought throughout the entire experience was wondering when it was going to end. That’s only because I had to pee and didn’t want to leave. At some points I didn’t want the movie to end. I always wanted to know what was going to happen next.

Every thing in this movie fit. The action, the romance, the conflicts, the music! The music in this film was very good and helped with the overall feeling of the movie, however I did hear glimpses of “Titanic” melodies and I may be mistaken but for some reason there were some melodies that reminded me of the movie “Troy.”

Some of the things that were going to happen in the story were kind of predictable, but what movies aren’t predictable these days. Just like Star Wars, and The Lord of the Rings, Cameron created a brand new world, and even a brand new language.This movie is somewhat like a modern day Pocahontas.

Throughout the movie, something would happen and I would think to myself that the plot has just reached its climax, then the movie would push more and more conflict and tension in the story. To me, it was a good thing. The move as interesting from the beginning to the end. You learn about these people as the main character does too. I didn’t fell like I was in the dark when I left the movie. Avatar features some very good actors from movies I have always enjoyed such as Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana, Michelle Rodriguez, and one of my new favorites, Sam Worthington (Main Character Jake).

I very much enjoyed this movie. I think it has something for everyone. It is NOT what most people think when they see the trailer. I say disregard the trailers and just go SEE it! Trust me. It’s worth seeing.