Catch a Ride in Atchison!

At the Walmart (a college kid's best friend, literally) in Atchison is a pig waiting for someone to ride him:



It's my favorite Disney pig!
Picture taken by THE Disney Freak;
do not remove watermark.

Sadly, "Hakuna Matata" doesn't play when you ride him.  (The Beast thinks there's a bit of the song playing.)

They need to fix that.

ttfn!

Just Can't Wait to be...Queen?

While I live(d) in Minnesota, I was actually born in Maryland, unlike my other siblings.  When I was a year old or so, my parents decided to move to Minnesota, as my dad's family all lived there.

And until we bought our own house, we lived with my uncle, aunt, and...Nicest Cousin Ever.

We were young at the time.

And he wasn't named back then of course.  But I can't (or won't, is more like it) use his real name.

Now, NiCE is not a guy who likes Disney.  No.  We used to watch Disney movies together -- we still shout "Football!" during Robin Hood, and a tradition when we visited them was watching The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride.  But that's really the extent of his Disney past.  When we'd play with his toy animals (this is years later), he'd choose all the tough animals like snakes and dinosaurs, while I chose to be Kiara, Kovu, and Simba and Nala.

Speaking of The Lion King, the roles used to be...well, a different story.

Rewind back to when we lived with them: me, my mom, my dad, and I.

Our favorite game to play -- we played together a lot since we were young, the parents didn't want to play with us, and we're only three months apart in age (I'm the older one!) -- was re-enacting The Lion King.  The first one.

We'd play Simba and Nala.

Guess who was Simba.

Me.

That's right.

And the male cousin played Nala.

I've decided to call him that.

Anyway, the reason I shared that was because it makes me laugh (gender-switch!) and it's an interesting story about how Disney and I have been connected for a long time.

By the way, I tease NiCE/Nala all the time about this.  Drives him crazy; his favorite excuse is: "I was little then!  And Nala's pretty sweet."

See ya all real soon! Check me out on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and NetworkedBlogs for more Disney fun.  Coming soon -- Pinterest!

Is He Okay?

Another surprise post during my hiatus! MMM and The Beast went out tonight, giving me babysitting duties, so I took advantage of time and four movie-enthralled kids to write this all this.

Hopefully you all know about Finding Nemo's 3D release (which is technically a re-release even though it wasn't in 3D before) this September.  If not, sorry I haven't been keeping you up to date.  Hiatus, remember?  (And on a further note, Finding Nemo 2 coming in 2016.)

As is customary with Pixar's releases, there will be a Pixar short before Finding Nemo 3D.  What short?

Another Toy Story short!

This one will feature Rex as its main character, revolving around his life as a "partysaurus" during his new life as Bonnie's toy.

Entertainment Weekly just released an article online about the new short, giving us a sneak peek with a few pictures.

Notice anything funny (er, fuzzy) about Bonnie (in the bubbles) and her family's toilet?

Somebody should check to see if you-know-who is okay.
Picture from EW.com.

ttfn!

Check me out on Facebook, Tumblr, NetworkedBlogs, and soon, on Twitter!

I See the Light

A friend of mine also graduated this year.  And here in Minnesota, there are these things called "Open Houses."  Supposedly they're to celebrate the graduate's successful graduation without dying (high school is tough these days, you know!).  To be honest, it's more of a free food fest ("So how do you know the graduate?"  "What? Oh, we're just here for the food."--no that doesn't really happen).

Well, this particular friend of mine happens to be extremely cool and came up with a fantastic idea to end her Open House.

Floating lanterns.

(Does not come with matching Flynn and Rapunzel.)

The Beast and I, being introverts, discussed whether or not we wanted to stay to see the lanterns.  Good thing we did!

At the appointed time (9:30 I believe), everyone was called over to the side yard, where there was more room.  Various kids held unlit lanterns by the strings attached.

Yes, the lanterns weren't really going to float up into the sky as in Tangled.  The idea was to hold onto the (invisible) string, making the lantern like a kite.

(Or was that the idea?)

Oh, Please...

Sorry for the lack of a creative title.  Usually I'm good at those.  But today + what I'm writing about + someone certain = not a very good mood.

Hey, that was kind of creative.

Another day at piano.  And another time looking through the pages of TIME Magazine.  (Ooh, that was creative there too!)

The article's title?  "10 Questions for Angelina Jolie" by Belinda Luscombe.

Yay.

I admit that Jolie is a talented actress, though I really haven't seen many of her movies.  All I can think of right now is Kung Fu Panda.  And that was just voice acting.

My parents have seen The Tourist and love it (at least, MMM does).  So I'm guessing she's great in that too.

However, there are some roles that certain actress should not play.

More after the jump....

My Disney Dad

So last weekend, my father and I went down south to visit a college.  Great trip, but that's not the focus of my post today.  No.  I'm gonna talk about something that happened on the trip home.

I hadn't slept well during the overnight part of the trip, so I slept for a while during the trip home.  My dad put a couple of his cassette tapes into the tape player in a car (yes we have tapes and a tape player--in the house and in the car!  And a record player.  And a VCR.... But I digress).

And when I'm talking about Dad's tapes, I mean old.

Like young George Strait.  And people I've never heard of.

Anyway, there pieces of his past.  I respect that.  I just tease him about them because I think they're boring old tapes.   Not what I like to listen to.

When I woke up, he and I listened to the tapes for a little while longer.  Then he said something about...I don't really remember what he said exactly, but it was something like he didn't know which one to listen to next (he's got a whole case full of them).

I grinned and leaned back in my seat. "I know what we can listen to!"  And I took out a Disney songs tape from the three drawer container in the car (where the kids--mostly little kids--tapes are).

Dad took one look at the tape I'm offering to him and said, "No Disney."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because I'm not a kid anymore, and neither are you."

Now let me explain something.  My dad is not a Disney hater.  Everyone in my family knows I love Disney.  My dad likes the movies too.  I guess he thought I was just being weird/kiddish that day.

But it burst my happy Disney bubble.

So now my quest is to change this Beast into a Disney Prince....

My dad now.
Picture from the Disney Wiki.

But I will change him into a Prince...
Picture from the Disney Wiki.