i'm married to a better orderer...

You know those people that always seem to order the right thing at restaurants? When their food comes out you say, "Dang it! I should have ordered that" or in my case, "Can I have a bite of yours?" Well, I'm married to that person. 9 out of 10 times I want what is on his plate. Because I'm a sucker for trying new restaurants, (I mean, who isn't) Mr. T and I tried Texadelphia the other day. I had to have a cheeseburger. It is what I wanted before I even went in the door. Tison ordered the Founder's Favorite cheesesteak- some of you might be thinking- duh, Lindsey! It's the founders favorite- but, honestly this better ordering thing happens all the time!

After lunch we went to The Robinson to see The Kings of Summer. We both agreed it was one of the best movies we had seen in a long time and we watch A LOT of movies! I think this may have been Megan Mullally's best roll yet. She plays an over protective mother of a teenager -"Girl check, checkin' for a girl in a bikini." Tison and I were giggling in the theater.

the hands of time...

As little as 2 years ago I wouldn't have imagined that my St. Patrick's Day (really any day) would be spent along side my dearest friends with their respective child or in some cases children! Looking around at Russell's 30th birthday party, where green was the most popular color of the day, I was struck with the realization that most of my friends have produced an offspring! I can't wait to see Easter egg hunts this time next year when these newborns have learned how to use their legs! :) I don't know what kind of time table I live in, but it is very unrealistic and I'm okay with it. I just graduated from high school....riiiight?!

 In other news, does anyone remember Darby O'Gill and the Little People from when they were younger?!? I didn't realize it until now, but the main character is Sean Connery! Nothing like St. Patrick's Day to put you in the mood to watch this Disney classic.

a bunch of hocus pocus...

I love Halloween, but as my fiance knows quite well, I don't do scary movies. I watched Zombieland and had nightmares for a straight week. me = tiny little baby. However, I do enjoy getting in the Halloween spirit through movies. I guess the words scary, spooky, and creepy are all relative terms. If I had my druthers, I would stay home on Halloween with my honey and some popcorn to watching these movies:

 TRAILERS:
1. Hocus Pocus

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (movie not series)

3. Beetle Juice

4. Practical Magic

5. The Addams Family

6. Casper

7. The Witches of Eastwick

8. The Birds

9. Carrie

10. Dracula: Dead and Loving It

11. Van Helsing

12. The Craft

13. Ghostbusters

14. Edward Scissorhands

15. Interview with the Vampire

16. The Nightmare Before Christmas

17. Monster House

18. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

19. Sleepy Hollow 

20. Do you remember The Legend of Sleepy Hollow narrated by Bing Crosby?

Some other ways I have been enjoying this spooky time of year includes a family trip to Betty Virginia Park for Pumpkin Shine on Line...

   and hosting a Halloween book club:

 Leslie took a stage makeup class at LSU. Didn't she do an excellent job!?

 Happy Halloween!

Shreveport-Bossier Film Trail...

{Sunday afternoon: birthday weekend}

Tison, Lauren, and I went on a photo scavenger hunt Sunday afternoon, inspired by all the sites in Shreveport-Bossier that have been used by the movie industry. Go on your own tour using this pdf. We didn't exactly go in the exact order suggested by the map or even make it to all the places on the list, but we sure did enjoy our afternoon exploration.

 

 {unbelievable acoustics, imported hand carved teak wood, German glass light fixtures etched by hand, and the simplest dressing rooms imaginable}

{This jail cell prop is from an actually film set left in the basement of the Municipal. It looks like steal, but it's made out of wood. Cinemagic, eh?

 {Tison also walked up yellow fever hill. During the time of the yellow fever outbreak, the grave diggers couldn't make the plots fast enough, so they buried approximately 1000 Shreveportians in a mass grave. Nothing like going to a cemetery on your birthday!}

 Just in case you missed it above, here's the film tour brochure.

my notebook...

"The best love is the kind that weakens the soul, that makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me. That's what I hope to give to you forever."

- Noah, The Notebook

Today, I was reminded of my love for this movie by my current blog obsession, The Daybook. This precious little piece of the blogger pie really warms my heart. If you haven't checked it out yet- go. now.

What is it about The Notebook that makes my heart beat faster and my tear ducts work overtime?

Netflix and...Qwikster...

I usually don't have tech talk on this blog, but this whole Netflix situation is really grinding my gears. As a Netflix user for over 2 years now, I consider myself a devoted customer. Even when the prices went up and several of my friends were dropping their accounts with Netflix I decided to stick with them... that maybe with the increase in price they might increase the selection of streaming, continue the user-friendly features of watching movies at home....instead I got an email today from the Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings. His email is below in red.

_____________________________________________________________________________


Dear Lindsey,
{It began as most do.}

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.
{at this point I am thinking- who is this? What have they done? This sounds personal.}

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.
{First of all, your "feedback" is your stock points and NOW you are explaining and apologizing? 2 months later?}

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn't make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

{Did you know that 75% of Netflix users only use streaming, but that their Starz contract was not renewed?}

So here is what we are doing and why.

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.
{errrr- WHAT? Two different companies?!?}

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.
{Qwikster- really? You couldn't come up with anything better than Qwikster?!}

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.
{The websites will not be integrated!!! So I will have two different queues - only confusing the whole process of what I am able to get instantly. If I can get it on instant streaming, why would I rent it and wait for it to come in the mail? Therefore, I will always be opening both websites to compare the two queues.}

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.
{Thanks for letting us know in advance...}

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that lovely red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be similar for many of you.
{Obviously I chose Netflix over Blockbuster, Amazon, and iTunes because of the lovely red envelope....}

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.
{Treated or treating?}

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully Yours,
Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix

_______________________________________________________________________________

I just love that this email feels like a boyfriend's apology after a fight. It is months late and instead of just straight up saying "Sorry, please forgive me for blah blah blah," there is an undertone of something that is self-serving and selfishly promoting their new business.

Interesting articles about Netflix controversy here and here and I am sure a zillion others if you type qwikster in your search bar.

Have any of you dropped your accounts? If so, what are you using? Maybe I should start renting movies at the library.

Your intense movie lover,
Linz

little dates...

Yesterday morning I got a phone call at work. It was Tison asking me out on a date! I was so surprised I think I might have even blushed on the phone. What a sweetheart. 

It was something I looked forward to all day :)

{I couldn't help but say "MMmmmm" after every bite!}

Thanks, Tison. I had such a nice time out on the town with you!

Bistro Byronz

Christmas Movie List...

There is nothing like a Pandora radio station created around White Christmas by Bing Crosby or the feeling you get after watching one of these Christmas flicks listed below. Isn't it amazing how a movie can make you feel all warm and cuddly inside. These are a few of my Christmas season required viewings: (in no particular order, mind you)

1.       National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

2.       White Christmas

3.       The Holiday

4.       Elf

5.       Always Sunny In Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas

6.       Miracle on 34^th Street (1947)

7.       Miracle on 34^th Street (1994)

8.       How the Grinch Stole Christmas

9.       It’s a Wonderful Life

10.   Home Alone

11.   A Charlie Brown Christmas

12.   Scrooged (1988 version)

13.   Prancer

14.   The Bishop’s Wife

15.   Love Actually

16.   Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

17.   The Shop Around the Corner

18.   Four Christmases

19.   While You Were Sleeping

   20.   The Polar Express

What puts you in the Christmas spirit?

lovely weekend

What my weekend usually consists of...

Friday nights are super low key. I feel that Friday is technically still a work day, therefore I refused to do much more than dinner and/or a movie (most of the time at home.) This Friday was no exception. However, I did have a mighty interesting guest that shared in the weekly "sud pup and tube" extravaganza. My sis, Les, was in town for the weekend. Guess I was too lazy to take pictures of that, but I think you get the idea.

If we are talking about usual weekend activity, I wouldn't have been out of bed on until 10-10:30, but I (surprisingly) got up on Saturday morning at 8:00am! Shocking honestly... this allowed enough time for me to get ready for the 10 o'clock yoga out at the temple. I was happy our instructor, Kate, decided to hold the class outside on the patio. It was such a gorgeous morning.

Saturday afternoon Tison and I went on a little date to the second annual beer tasting festival called Shreveport Brew at the Festival Plaza downtown where we tried a few new and interesting beer flavors... and ran into our friends Ross and Lauren.

{my IPhone pictures from the weekend are purrdy blurry...sorry}

After the tasting, we went home to change our outfits for a costume party! We had a lot of fun with Natalie, Cory and Shelley (aka Tha Situation and Snooki). I love dressing up!!

{Can you tell what we are?}

{Leslie came up with her outfit on the fly- I would love to know if any of you can guess what she was!? *hint- she has one horn and wings...}

On Sunday I typically lounge around- maybe clean something- maybe i just cuddle with the dogs....this particular Sunday Tison and I attempted to make an Alfredo sauce for our whole wheat pasta and crawfish.... it smelled so delish, but the texture reminded me of grits (not what we were going for.) *note to self: when you don't have enough parmesan cheese to add to the dish, DON'T use the stuff in the green container- it does not melt down- eww!!!

I did watch one of the cutest cartoons I have seen in a long time on Sunday- The Princess and the Frog. The story was set in New Orleans and I just loved it!

I hope you all had a great weekend!

ps- duh- of course I watched the season finale of Mad Men!!!

weekend: neuro update, scottish rite & knit-flix

This weekend was filled with excitement. Friday night I joined a gym called Fit Nation and I love it. It has a room called Cardio Cinema, where they play a movie 24 hours a day! This place has mine name written all over it!

The conference we have been planning at work was Saturday and it was a complete success, even if I must say so myself. (and I think I have to since this is my blog!) The only weird/unexpected thing that happened was the odor when we arrived. It was reminiscent of a barn yard....sure enough there was a cattle sale going on in the building (who would have thunk it!!!) There was a room FULL of cows! It smelled of heifer sheet. I thought I was going to die, but it turned out to be kind of funny once the boss made a joke out of it.

We rewarded ourselves with a geauxsicle- which proved to be just as exciting as the decor! Seen here.

When I got home from the event, my honey left me a sweet note and these flowers. Isn't it amazing how a few flowers can say more than words? Love it.

Saturday night Lauren and I went to a coworkers wedding.

It was lovely.

Sunday was probably the most gorgeous day yet this season.(or at least one in which I could spend outdoors) I kept finding different things to do outside. I read a book, played with the dogs, watered the lawn... and that's when I found these spider lillies growing in my front yard! They are so unique looking.

Sunday night Diane invited us over for a knitting lesson. She made homemade chicken pot pies. It was so delicious! After dinner we watched Brewster's Millions while we practiced our knit and pearl stitch.

Happy Monday everybody!