Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

Hey all...I've added more pictures to my Flickr account. Check them out.

Paul, Brian, Todd, Bethany, and Matthew at Calico Jack's in Gainesville, Florida.

Fun with Fondant

Okay, so I had a mini vacation this weekend and went to stay in Grafton, WI with my friend Sarah and her family. We had a lot of fun and I helped her experiment with cake. She wanted to so a special cake for her daughter's, Teagan, birthday coming up in a week. She decided to try to make homemade Fondant and layer it over the cake. In case you do not know what fondant is, here is a definition from Google:

...a sweet icing made from sugar, syrup and gelatin that has supple qualities which enable a layer to be draped over the wedding cake like a fabric.

So we baked a chocolate cake and then experiemented with a recipe for fondant that she had. It was frustrating at first because the consistency just was not right. But we finally got it right and the cake turned out so cute. It took us three hours to put this cake together and we did not even get to taste it. We brought it to her next door neighbor (who loves sweets) to give us his opinion. We are still waiting for his thoughts.

We both thought it looked like it was decorated with colorful play dough. LOL. What do you think?

Chow for now!

King Kong

Photo credit: http://www.impawards.com/2005/king_kong_ver3.html

Matthew and I saw King Kong last night. I thought it was a great movie. Kudo's to Peter Jackson once again. I think PJ is the best director of our time. No one else could have taken J.R.R. Tolkien's classic Lord of the Rings Trilogy and made it into the epic movies that they were (people tried and they failed).

I enjoyed the original 1933 Merian C. Cooper version of King Kong a lot. It is a classic and there is no way around that. It was one of the classics (Psycho, Citizen Kane, Birth of a Nation, Casablanca, and many more) we studied it in a Film Noir class at SJRCC. It is a great movie.

I very much enjoyed PJ's version of this classic. It ran three hours and seven minutes, twice as long as the original (but then PJ is really good at making loooong movies). It varied from the original but I expected that. I thought the islanders were so much more creepier in PJ's version. I also have to admit that PJ's verision of King Kong had a certian "creep me out" factor. I do not want to ruin anything for anyone who has not seen the movie yet but beware of ginormous bugs. Eeks. Leave it to PJ to come up with ginormous creepy crawly bugs.

I had a lot of fun reading the posts on the IMDB Message Boards for King Kong
They were very comical and interesting. If you get a chance, head over there and read some. I must warn you, if you have not seen the movie, beware that there are some spoilers.

Again, PJ has done a great job casting. Naomi Watts was a great Ann Darrow (no Fay Wray but hey) and surprisingly enough, Jack Black actually did a good job playing a straight man (Carl Denham). I was not sure about Jack Black being cast in a movie that was all serious with no dick and fart jokes but it worked out. Who knew? I also thought his casting of Adrian Brody as Jack Driscoll was a good one. He is just so cute. And what PJ movie is complete without Andy Serkis (Lumpy and Kong)? Oh yeah...you have to look hard but PJ made it into this one too (but I will not give it away...message me if you really want to know).

Okay, so in all...I ENJOYED THIS MOVIE. I hope PJ gets some kind of recognition (OSCAR) for this remake.

Matt and I give it two thumbs up. Go see it.

Later!!!