Today, WM told me that before I had to get ready for work, I needed to Google “Sorcerer’s Apprentice Movie.”

Go ahead. Watch the trailer. I’ll wait.

What the hell, Disney? What the effing hell?

Why would you knowingly piss all over one of the most famous and brand-making images of your entire animation franchise?

Why would you tar the memory of this:

I once wanted this as a tattoo

By dressing up Nicolas Cage (?!??!?) as Harry Dresden and pairing him with a clone of 16-year-old Shia LeBoeuf for this pile of horseshit?

This shit ain't right.

There are two types of Disney fans: Those who know everything Walt would have wanted for his company even though they have never met him and those who roll their eyes at group 1. So help me, I don’t trot out Uncle Walt very often at all* but here goes:

Thank God I'm already dead.

WM: It can’t be worse than Haunted Mansion.
Me: @#^&#%^*&^@!^!!
WM: This is what everyone said about Pirates of the Caribbean.
Me: !$@$#%$!@$@%$#!
WM: But that movie had good actors. This has Nicolas Cage.
Me: @^%&^#@$%#&!!!!

What the hell is next? Lindsay Lohan as Ariel? Pete’s Dragon played by the GEICO gecko? Lindsay Lohan as Madame Mim?

When I’m sour at work today, you’ll all know why.

* I disapprove of the sales of Mickey Mouse branded drinking accessories, like shakers & martini glasses & jigs. I don’t think Walt would have wanted that. He’d have loved cigarette lighters though.

(Edited to remove an egregious use of an apostrophe. Bad me!)

The thyroid gland is butterfly-shaped. Photo by Vicki's Nature on Flickr.

Results after 2 months of treatment

With thyroid stuff, we’re looking at two factors: TSH and T4.

Happily, my TSH came down from 6-ish to 3.77, which is normal according to the lab, but still high according to the new guidelines from the AACE, which would like to see TSH under 3. This means the medicine I’m on (Levothyroxine, 50mcg) is working.

Unfortunately, my T4 shot up to 12.44, which is called “high” and is a sign of hyperthyroidism.

Hm.

Doc believes the high T4 is a result of the changes in TSH. Normally, he’d want to up my meds to bring that TSH lower, but that high T4 is preventing him from doing this.

So I’m continuing with the Levothyroxine 50mcg for the next 3 months. Then I’ll go for another round of labwork and we’ll hopefully see a lower TSH and a lower T4.

How am I feeling?

It’s seriously hard to tell. I’m staying up later at night, but that could be because it’s lighter later, and I do love that. By Friday/Saturday/Sunday though, I’m wiped.

I’m not as chilly, but that could be because it’s warm out. I do still carry the sweater around even in 75 degree weather.

I’m not as blue. But my blueness comes and goes. Like everyone else’s blue. Plus, I love Spring!

Wacky side effects?

I can’t take the pill when I’m going to eat. I usually take it at night before bed, but one time I forgot and took it in the morning. I ate breakfast right after and ugh, hork, the nausea! Bleah! Never again.

Also in the first month of treatment, I’d occasionally feel a whooshing lightheaded dizzy sensation. It would only last for a few seconds, but it’s definitely weird. It stopped in the 2nd month.

Why am I blogging this?

1) This is my diary. 2) Because if you Google “levothyroxine side effects” you will find the biggest freak parade of side effects ever seen. It’s scary! Maybe someone will Google that and find this and see that… meh. No big deal. I’m not losing hair. I’m not falling over with vertigo. My tongue isn’t forked. All is well.

***
The Dancing with the Stars finale was tonight. I tossed all my votes to Evan and Anna, although it looks like the judges tossed them under the bus. I’ll miss the results tomorrow night because we’re going to a free screening of Prince of Persia. Not my #1 choice in movies, but since it’s 1) from Disney and 2) based on a video game it shouldn’t suck TOO much. Right? RIGHT?

Ooops.

Anyway, here is everything I knew about the movie going in: First Black Princess, 2D animation, New Orleans/Katrina, Oprah.

I really hope EVERYONE can get past all of that (some well-deserved, some a bit over the top) hype and see the movie for what it is: a BEAUTIFUL, FUN, FUNNY and POIGNANT story of Tiana, a hard-working girl from New Orleans who wants to make her own dream come true. Wishing on a star comes secondary.

The movie’s opening card is a Steamboat Willie animation with the “Walt Disney Animation” title. Very nice, since this is Disney’s first classic 2D animated feature since 2004′s Home on the Range. Remember that one? No? That’s okay. I didn’t either.

The music was catchy New Orleans-style jazz. I admit to doing a bit of dancing in my seat the whole way through. I wasn’t the only one.

Looking for a message in this Disney Classic? There are quite a few:

• Working hard vs. partying
• Haves vs. have nots
• Being boy crazy vs. keeping a level head
• Good magic vs. bad magic
• Working for your dreams vs. wishing for your dreams
• What you WANT vs. what you NEED

But funny enough, I never felt beaten over the head with any of these themes. For example, when Tiana and her mother left Big Daddy’s house via streetcar, you see a change from the mansions to the smaller working-class housing. You immediately know Tiana’s family doesn’t have as much as Big Daddy and Lottie. But Tiana’s family doesn’t whine about being poorer or having to work harder. They just are and do.

And yes, Virginia, there is a happy ending.

But I need to tell you something every review I’ve read failed to mention: there will be tears. Serious sad tears. At one point, everyone in our theater was sniffling or crying. I cried, WM cried, kids cried. If your youngling can’t bounce back quickly from a very sad moment to a very happy one, then I’d actually suggest you want a bit until they can.

I loved this movie. I will buy it when it comes out on DVD and own it forever.

2) I’m ice skating and there are obstacles everywhere. This dream is a direct response to playing Professor Layton & The Diabolical Box, where I had to navigate the little Professor character through 3 different maps. Neat!

Plans:
Heading to a Farmer’s Market with Mom. They’ve advertised with us online for years and after years of doing those ads, I want to see the little farm in person. I will be purchasing at least one apple cider donut while there.

Tonight, WM and I are going to see 9. “A post-apocalyptic nightmare in which all of humanity is threatened.” Should be… fun.

Rabbit rabbit!

Mondays suck after great weekends. Here are the highlights:

• WM and I went to see Wolverine on Saturday night. This is a BIG deal for me as I really don’t like sitting through movies much. It was pretty good. I don’t have an “X-Men” comic background so I entered with no predispositons for/against the characters. Because of that, I like the Victor (Sabretooth?) character more than the Logan (Wolverine) one. This girl ain’t right. After the movie we went to the Cheesecake Factory for dessert. Mmmm…
• I discovered the glory of the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. WM had used it before, but I wanted to try it on the grubby marks that are always on the refrigerator door handle. And it worked! Then I tried it on the cabinet corners (my kitchen and bathroom are all white) and it worked! Light switches! Dishwasher handle! I had no idea how dirty things were until Mr. Clean opened my eyes. Now, actually, I’m somewhat depressed.
• Mom wanted me to make a necklace for one of her friends. I always enjoy that kind of thing. I’m very pleased with how it came out. I have pictures which I’ll post after the recipient receives the necklace. I had a dream the other night that I started a blog just to chronicle my beading/jewelry making adventures and it managed to make a few dollars, too. I also had a dream I had a pair of cute brown flats to wear to work today, so I’m not too sure of putting stock in what I dream.

The only lowlight is I *think* I *may* be coming down with a cold, which is par for the course for me. I always get a cold in June. But I’m not doing the Vicks Vapo-Rub gimmick this time. Nosiree. I’m doing the Zicam nose swab gimmick instead. The runny nose I had this morning stopped, so we’ll see.

Anyone know when I can take the swab OUT of my nose?

(whoa…this is wordy and history-based. Bet WM will eat this up)

1. On March 6, 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev presented the first Periodic Table of the Elements to the Russian Chemical Society. What memories do you have of your high-school chemistry course?

My high school chemistry teacher, Mr. S. was a very sharp dresser in his early-60s. (I remember him being older. He was probably 36. :/) At times, he’d even wear three piece suits! My best friend and I tracked his wardrobe choices in our chemistry notebooks, and he went almost four weeks without repeating a suit.

Wait, did he mean academic memories? Oh. Um. If you chuck a chunk of Potassium (K) into water, it sparks and almost explodes.

2. On March 6, 1899, the Bayer company registered aspirin as a trademark. When did you last take medication for pain?

The Vile Goddess Menstrua (remember when she used to be a semi-regular blog character?) made not one but TWO appearances in the last 30 days. So I took a Naproxen (I may be divorced from the pharmacist, but I still know that generics are a better deal!) early this week.

3. On March 6, 1853, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La Traviata premiered in Venice. How do you feel about opera?

Not very interested at all. I was never exposed to it as a young adult (through much fault of my own) and now all I like is the Rabbit of Seville.

4. On March 6, 1947, American film director Rob Reiner (Meathead!) was born. Which of these Reiner-directed films have you seen, and what do you think of them?

Ugh. I’m not a movie person.

* The Bucket List (2007)Didn’t see it. Why grow attached to characters I know will die?
* Rumor Has It… (2005) Didn’t see it. Aniston’s best movie work was Office Space. And I’m Team Angelina, anyway.
* Alex & Emma (2003) Didn’t see it.
* The Story of Us (1999) Didn’t see it.
* Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) Didn’t see it.
* The American President (1995) This one I saw many times and still love. Andrew Shepherd is my 2nd favorite fictional president. My fave is the president in Independence Day.
* North (1994) Nope.
* A Few Good Men (1992) I know I have seen this, but all I remember is the Nicholson quotes.
* Misery (1990) Not a suspense person
* When Harry Met Sally… (1989) Didn’t see this until 2 years ago, when WM promised me it’d cheer me up after BvP and I separated. It was okay.
* The Princess Bride (1987) I avoided this one until 2 years ago. Inconceivable. Very sweet movie. Makes me miss my grandparents.
* Stand by Me (1986) I saw this in 1986 when I as 14. It had cute boys and a dead body.
* The Sure Thing (1985) Nope
* This Is Spinal Tap (1984) Nope

5. On March 6, 1972, American basketball-player Shaquille O’Neal was born. How do you feel about basketball?

Don’t like it at all. Why spend all that time watching the back and forth when all you have to do is watch the last 5 minutes? Also, I think basketball has single-handedly ruined college education for many. They should just draft out of high school rather than make these players pretend to play school for four years and waste money and slots that could go to more qualified and willing students.

***
I’m on furlough today, which means I’m technically not a Gannett employee. So unlike a vacation day, I can’t even be called if something goes wrong. The five days unpaid is a hardship, yes, but I think we’re going to squeak out of the first fiscal quarter without layoffs. Which is good.

Shameless self-promotion: I blogged on the newspaper’s gadget blog yesterday about a World of Warcraft-related product: Authenticate me! I’m now listed as an official author to the blog even though I only have that one post. Which is pretty nifty.

I’m accruing a readership on the World of Warcraft blog too. Which is weird, since I never thought it would catch on. Many of the readers are not local but they certainly love to comment. Makes me feel good.

Of the top five blogs on the C-P site, two are not written by newsroom staff members. One is mine, and the other is Fish Head, written by Coworker A in our IT department. It’s hysterical, and I don’t even fish. If you do fish, check it out! We’re proud of our blogs, because up until now we didn’t have the benefit of name-recognition or promotion from the paper like the reporters do.

Although I’ll likely never see a dime from it, I want to call myself a writer. And the more I’ve been writing, the more ideas I have. Which is good for me, and good for my blogs. Probably not as good for you.

As always, thank you for sticking with me through the writers block and countless memes.

So Mom and I went to see Mamma Mia last night. In a summer where most of the movies feature comic book characters, assassins, murders, ass-kickings* and caricatures of women, it was a pleasure to FINALLY see a light-hearted movie!

The plot was contrived, the singing was inconsistent (Oh, Pierce Brosnan…you are SUCH a Trooper. A “super” Trooper. Bwah!) and I loved it!

I sang along in my head the entire movie. It helps that I’ve loved ABBA for years thanks to a cassette tape that was always played when I was young. I even got weepy in the middle, but I have issues.

And I know the characters of Donna (Meryl Streep) and her friends are purely fictional…but darned if I didn’t feel inspired to grow my hair long again, to stop being afraid of growing older, and to walk as if there is a mile-long line of Greek women singing and dancing behind me.

After the movie ended – half the women in the ladies’ room stalls were singing “Waterloo.”

Anyway, we loved loved loved it and I definitely want to see it again when it comes out on DVD.

*Even Kung Fu Panda, though light-hearted, had tons of ass-kickings. I haven’t seen WALL-E yet. I’m tired of “humans suck and are lazy and ruin EVERYTHING” storylines.

***
Tonight we’re off to GGs restaurant in Mt. Laurel to celebrate a cousin’s birthday. I’m getting cheaper in my old age, but at $19.00 for pasta marinara, there’d better be someone feeding it to me.

So while I wait for my Proactiv mask to finish it’s work I wanted to show you the beady creations I made. (click on each pic to see it larger)

The first one (named “Concentric” for obvious reasons) arrived because I saw 2 strands of beads in Michaels last week – gray “Os” and black round flat beads. I thought “ME PUT ONE BEAD INSIDE OTHER AND MAKE PRETTY THING!” So I did.

The second one I’m pretty meh about. I wanted to see how to get three strands situated inside those cone endings. I crimped three strands around one loop and pulled them into the cone. It’s plain but functional, so I named it after the movie I was watching at the time, Helvetica. (LOVED the movie, by the way – my favorite line was by the aging hippie who blamed Helvetica for the Vietnam and Iraq wars.)

And the third one came because I saw a post on Craftster and thought “ME WRAP WIRE AROUND BEADS AND MAKE PRETTY THING!” So I did.

***
In diet news, I’m the SAME WEIGHT I was when I left work last Wednesday, which makes me so happy!

And the WeatherPixie is going away after all these years…the site’s been down for weeks and although I was patient I’m tired of the blank spot in my sidebar. RIP, WeatherPixie

And that’s all. I’m going to go and crack the cement off of my face. Enjoy your day!

(Yeah, I went there.)

RSS/Newsfeed reader: I have spoilers at the bottom of this post and I don’t think the white-font-on-white-background trick works in Feed Readers. Be warned!

Wandering Minstrel is a HUGE Indiana Jones fan. I say this as I sit to blog after he left for work wearing the brown fedora he wears every day. There’s an Indiana Jones brown bullwhip on the wall with a Mickey Mouse Indiana Jones beanie sitting inside the loops. The Indiana Jones theme song is his ringtone. It’s my ringtone for him. And basically, WM was first inspired to be a history teacher by Indiana Jones.

And for his birthday last week, I got him this little guy from an Etsy store.

So yeah, he likes Indiana Jones. And when I found out that our local theater was showing the movie at 12:01 am this morning on four separate screens, I knew what I had to do. So for his birthday, he also got a pair of tickets to the flick.

We arrived at the theater at 10:45pm hoping to beat the crowds. We did – they weren’t as thick or as freaky as we thought. There were fedoras a-plenty there, though. Oddly enough, WM left his home. When you’re genuine enough to wear a brown fedora every day, you don’t need to prove your fanhood by wearing it to the flick. And I couldn’t pull my Short Round costume together in time any way.

After sitting through 15 minutes of preview trailers and only laughing at Kung Fu Panda, the movie started. And despite my fatigue from doing nothing for an hour and a half and my disdain for movies in general, this was a VERY fun movie.

I thought that the character of Mutt Williams — Indiana Jones’ son (that’s not a spoiler…we’ve all known that since Shia LaBeouf was cast) — could have been a really stupid move. But it was well-written, well-played and not at all treacly. I also enjoyed the interplay between Indy and Marion. I’m just glad they didn’t recast the role with a 35-year-old. Or Calista Flockhart.

This was my first midnight movie ever. Despite the fact that this morning I want to hiss at anyone who looks at me I had a great time. You know that at 12:01am on a weeknight you’re getting real fans of the movie franchise who are happy and excited and not on cellphones the whole time. You’re also getting an adult audience, which you never see anymore, even at Rated R flicks.

The plot? A big bunch of loopy fun with jungles and waterfalls and tombs and everything you’d expect from an Indiana Jones flick. Just swap in Communist Russians (the 1957 kind) for evil Germans and you’re good to go.

My beef with the plot? Highlight the lines below with your mouse…spoilers..

It was established at the beginning that the FBI considered Indy a “person of interest” because of Mac’s dealings with the Russians. They ransacked Indy’s office at work, which forced the University to force Indy to go on a (paid!) leave of absence. He was headed to New York en route to London when Mutt found him and told him about Oxley. Then they go off on their adventures. When all is settled (and really people, ALIENS?) Indy comes back to a new title as Dean of Students and no mention is made of the FBI? Were suspicions cleared while Indy was adventuring? The stuff he did in w/r/t the skull wasn’t patriotically redeeming. I’d have liked one more scene where the FBI clears Indy’s name. Then he punches the agents as his military buddies laugh.

And kudos to Cate Blanchett for her work as the knowledge-obsessed Russian official. She was just over-the-top enough to make the character enjoyable without turning into Natasha Fatale.

Enjoy your Thursday!