IRONMAN is AWESOME!

Went and saw it yesterday. Man, that was a mind-blowing movie! Haven't seen a film in theatre since Rattatouille (that was fun too!), but this was totally worth it to be able to see it in a GOOD theatre with good seats and a good screen and an excellent sound system.

Do yourself a favor and don't go to a crappy movie theatre to see this flick, it's worth it to see Ironman in a great theatre!

There's character development, a good storyline, and it's not really that cheesy, especially for a superhero movie. And the action scenes are good, and there's no lag time. Something is always happening. Tony Stark is hilarious, Miss Pepper Potts is hot, and the dialogue is great between all characters. Oh. And I want one of their computers . . .

I'm not going to spoil it for you, but if you want to know the basics-- Tony Stark's father helped build the atom bomb, sets up this world famous weapons manufacturing company, and Tony Stark becomes CEO at a young age because he is genius mechanic. His life is on the top of the world; he can have any girl he wants, be invited to any party, is on the front of every newspaper imaginable. Then everything goes south when he gets kidnapped, and Tony has to come to terms with who he is and his life in general. And that's ALL I'm telling you. GO SEE this movie!

Even though the Batman movie is coming out later this summer, it's going to have to work hard to pull ahead of Ironman, in my opinion. ^.^ I look forward to watching that, too.

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Also! Finished school, am still waiting for a report on one of my grades in my classes (I've got 3 A's and a C so far).

We also just sat down and watched the new Avatar episode DVD with my sister, who hasn't seen them yet, and that was fun as well. Avatar is picking up. Hopefully I won't have to wait so long for the next episode. >.<

AND I downloaded GIMP to my Mac, since I no longer have Photoshop (crappy elements 2 works on classic mode for Mac, which Leopard doesn't support.)

two animal drawings (charcoal and white pastel)

*Cough*. Anyway, two new drawings for you guys. I don't think I've uploaded any pictures to my blog yet, but yes, I draw as well as read and cook. I hope you like these. I really enjoyed drawing them, maybe I'll do some more today after I'm finished with my cleaning!

Only a few people came to the artshow, but that's all right I guess. It was a new experience, and definitely interesting; I'm hoping some of my artwork does sell by the end of the month, though. I may have to figure out how to start an Etsy account, because that website looks very interesting. I'll just need to set up a paypal thingy, and I KNOW who to ask about that.

EASY Italian Minestrone Soup

Well, I think it's delectable, anyway. And if you're wondering just what right I have to call it Italian soup, I'm 1/8 Italian through my father's side, and we inherited a lot of family recipes. So yeah, I make homemade facassa bread and real pizza and gnocci (I'd like to make ravioli, but we don't have a pasta roller-- for shame.) Everything that's important. And Minestrone is pretty important; for one thing, it's easy and is essentially just a mish-mash of odd ingredients.

Here's my version. I think it's just as good as Olive Garden's. Yeah, I'm bragging here, but it really is tasty-- even if I'm not putting all the same ingredients into this soup.




1 1/2 cups Tomato juice
1 quart water
~1 2/3 T beef soup base
1 can Italian diced tomatoes
1 can kidney beans, drained and washed
1-2 c chopped carrots (you can never have too many)
1/2 onion
1 c spinach
1 c fresh green beans (frozen might work too, I guess)
some kind of small pasta. I used bow ties.



ADD all but the last two ingredients to a big pot, let simmer 1 hour. Stir occasionally. Add green beans and pasta and simmer 30 more minutes. Serve.

That's it-- seriously. Now go take the taste of Italy home with you. This fed a family of five and there were still leftovers, but if you want to double it and freeze it go ahead.

And I'd post a picture, but I've already eaten the bowl I heated up for myself last night. If you don't like such thick soups, go ahead and add more broth mixture.

This video? Sweet.

This is pretty cool. I mean, it takes three guys four days to film a D-Day scene that took Saving Private Ryan 1,000 extras and who knows how many days. ^.^ Definitely watch this-- see, if you have the proper tools and people who know what they're doing, you don't have to have a huge budget for a movie. Of course, there's no plot or story line to this, it's just showing what is possible with a bit of brilliant ingenuity.