Twilight

Sam told me that I have to read Twilight before the movie comes out. She told me this back in July. I realized the other day that the movie comes out next month. Since the book is longer than the comics section of a newspaper (which is all my attention span can handle), I decided that maybe I should start reading it now so that I'll be about a quarter of the way through the book by the time the movie comes out. The past couple of days I've made it through three chapters, and here is what I've gotten out of it so far:

The main character in the book is Elisabeth [create your own last name], but she goes by Bella. Why does she go by Bella? I don't know, maybe it's because she wants to confuse people when she first meets them with the Elisabeth/Bella thing, and while they're busy pondering that she picks their pockets. At the beginning of the book her mother kicks her out of the house and she has to go live with her father, who works for the secret service in Washington. It talks a lot about the rain in Washington, and I always thought of that area as being kind of sunny, so the book must be set in the future after the oceans have risen 40 feet due to the melting polar ice caps.

On Beth's (I'm gonna call her Beth from now on, just for kicks) first day of school, she meets some kid named Matt who has two classes with her and follows her around everywhere. (Turns out Matt followed her because he's trying to convince her to invest in his friendship bracelet business.) I kind of lost track of where the book was going from there. I think in chapter three she met a boy named Eddie who is good looking, except for his pale skin and bags under his eyes. Turns out his washed out appearance is due to the fact that he is a professional gamer, and he plays Halo3 fourteen hours a day trying to increase his world ranking. Also, he is addicted to meth and PCP. Something happened where Beth almost got hit by a car, but Eddie saved her because he's a wizard or something. After Eddie saved Beth from the car, he realized how short life can be and decided to profess his love for Matt to her just so he wouldn't have to hide it any more.

That's as far as I got in the book. I hear that the rest of the book goes something like this: Beth finds a magic apple in her backyard (see the cover picture) that gives her the ability to read minds. She is faced with the decision to use her new-found powers for good or for evil. At first she uses the ability for good, as she plays matchmaker at her school between people who were secretly in love with someone else, her first set up being Eddie and Matt. Eventually she tires of making other people's lives easier, and starts using her power for evil. It started with cheating on a test or two, and eventually grew to finding out the innermost secrets of those around her, and posting those secrets on her My Space blog.

At the climax of the book, Beth loses her mind reading ability as she snacks on the apple when she is unable to find a misplaced bag of Cheetos, not realizing what she has done until she reaches the core. In an effort to retrieve her gift, she plants the seeds from the apple if her back yard, hoping to grow another magic apple tree.

The second book in the series, New Moon, tells about Beth's cultivation of the tree as it begins to produce blossoms (see book cover below), and her thirst for the power she once had.

I wonder if the movie will be anything like the book.

Sharing

If mom leaves her stuff lying around, it means it's up for grabs right?

A New Post!!!

Wow, it's been over two weeks since we've posted anything. Oops. Sorry. I guess that "something" post didn't count. I did that because I thought "I really should put something on the blog." So I did. Ba-dum-cha. Sadly, even though it's been a while, I still can't think of any one big event that's happened that I can stretch out into one post. So, here are some quick thoughts of stuff that's happened.

We kind of got hit by hurricane Ike when that passed through Texas. By hit I mean the eastern most part of it passed over us after it had degraded to a tropical storm. It wasn't really all that bad, it was like a really long thunderstorm without the thunder and with more wind. I think the worst thing that happened to me because of the hurricane (besides a raise in gas prices) was I got the song "Rock You Like a Hurricane" stuck in my head for a week. It's much funner to play on Guitar Hero than it is to watch the music video.

Dylan's team won their first football game Saturday. Woo hoo! It had nothing to do with the fact that I was running the scoreboard. Honest. I wasn't planning on running the scoreboard. I went to the press box to sort of announce, and nobody else was up there to do it, so lucky me I got a crash course in scoreboard running. As soon as I got up there, the officials were signaling for me to change the clock to eight minutes. (That's pretty easy to do, if you have four minutes to kill.) Eventually I figured it out, and despite the protests from the visiting Greenville parents, our team won 98 to 6. Muhahahaha. It was like our team was made up of little Mike Ditkas.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not stay awake through the entire CSI: Miami season premiere last night. I used to love that show, now it's like Nytol to me. I guess it's Horatio Caine's soothing voice that does it.

We bought some Dr. Pepper last week. It had Cowboys logos on it to commemorate the final season in Texas Stadium. I feel all dirty now for having drank from a can with a Cowboys logo on it. It's just wrong.

Soni has like six or seven teeth now and is pretty sturdy when she pulls herself up on things. The fourth kid sure grows up fast. Every time I turn around she's doing something new. I feel old.

I'm sure there's more stuff than that, I just can't remember anything right now. I should take notes because I'm starting to lose my memory.

Something

Halftime Dance

Andi and her cheer team did a dance at halftime of the game. The coach did a pretty good job teaching four and five year old girls a choreographed dance. Sorry for the camera work. I was zoomed in a lot and holding a wiggly baby. At least they're in the frame.

Are You Ready For Some Football

You may being saying "Holy cow, three posts about a football game?" Well, compadre, it's going to be four after get a video clip uploaded.

Andi on the field ready to go.

Dylan with his team on the field.

Andi and her team (all three of them) ready to cheer.

Dylan is on the field in this picture. He's the kid the coach is trying to push up to the line. Why was Dylan reluctant to line up? The other team had two HUGE (for their age) kids in there on the line that probably outweighed him two to one. Dylan was supposed to block. After the first play, instead of blocking, he would assume the "don't kill me" position or the "protect the groin"position instead of actually blocking. I can't say that I blame him. He didn't play a whole lot because the coach kept having to push him up to the line for every play. Maybe next week.

Dylan and the bench warmers are in the background, with Andi in the middle of a cheer in front.

Final score: Panthers 46, Dawgs 30. We scored thirty points!!! Woo hoo! Not bad considering the pair of opposing giant kids, who I think ended up eating one of the kids on our team before the game ended.

Here's what Peyton was doing during the game. "I'm not interested in being your friend, strange boy."

We got the kids ring pops. This is what Peyton looked like after his was gone.

Brother and Sister

We got picture of the kids together in their uniforms before the game. Too cute.

Again, Peyton wanted to have his picture taken too.

Mr. Football Guy

Dylan had his first football game today. I've gotta say, some people sure take Pee Wee football seriously. The other coach took a timeout with three seconds left in the first half so that they could score and go to halftime with a two touchdown lead instead of just one. Butthead. Here are some pictures of our football player dude before we left for the game.

Dylan looking good in his football uniform.

It's so cool, they even had their names on the back of their jerseys. My Junior High School football team didn't even have that.

I told him to make a mean face because football players are supposed to look mean. Grrr.

Peyton got jealous of all the pictures being taken, so I told him to make a mean face too.

Ready to Cheer (finally)

Dylan and Andi have their first football game/cheering this Saturday. Andi was supposed to get her uniform two weeks ago, but because of a slow manufacturer she just got it today. I'm starting to rethink this because she's too stinking cute, and I don't own a shotgun. Still.

Like Father, Like Son.

Everyone that knows us, knows how much Peyton takes after Cameron. Apparently he looks just like Cameron did as a child, and that charisma...oh that charisma. You know what I'm talking about. The kind of charm that makes you laugh too hard to discipline even if your son has just emptied two tubes of toothpaste and a tube of Desitin all over himself and the nearest inanimate object. Yeah...he's gotten out of much trouble because I need to leave the room to gain control of my laughter, and then I forget what he did. Anyway...that kind of went on a tangent. On Friday, I had even more proof that Peyton is his father's son (as if I needed more). I was cleaning the living room (well, tidying mostly, I think cleaning is against my religion...at least it appears that way) and every time I would bend over to pick up a toy, I would hear Peyton "whistle" (which involves him yelling WHOO HOO, as loudly as possible). It didn't stop there. I was already laughing because of the "whistling" and so Pey decided to take it up a notch. Next thing I know I feel a "smack" on my bum, and this continued the entire time I was straigtening up. I even called Cameron at one point to tell him what was going on, and he could hear Peyton in the background encouraging me like any good construction worker would. I hope this doesn't continue too long, or I may need to be disturbed...