Halloween 2016

On my crusade to catch up on blogging everything, let's jump back to Halloween.

This year, I decided fairly early that I didn't want to be something 'sexy'. And by 'sexy', I really mean 'slutty and uncomfortable'. I didn't want to have to wear Spanx and worry about pantylines and have numb feet from teetering in heels all night.

And when I bought a giant, brimmed hat for our Hawaii trip, my fate was sealed: Dr. Alan Grant from the cult classic Jurassic Park.

It was a remarkably simple costume. I already had a denim shirt, aviators, boots, and my newly acquired hat. I added in a pair of khakis that Dan hadn't worn for more than a decade and some handkerchiefs that I bought off Amazon and the look was complete. My own bit of flare was a dramatic smoky eye, but it was hidden by the sunglasses most of the night anyway.

The other half of this amazing costume was talking Dan into being my T-rex. Since my dinosaur onesie is so warm and it is his go-to costume, he was Waldo inside a T-rex. He had great fun being both through-out the night. Here are some of my favorite pictures from that night.

Dr. Grant running from the T-rex:

Dr. Grant shooting the raptors as they came through the window of the control room:

All of the Jurassic franchise characters, including Owen and Claire from 'Jurassic World':

Me swimming in Dan's giant, old pants:

And trying to make them and the glasses look sexy:

And one of my favorite pictures ever, of a beautiful Waldo butterfly emerging from his chrysalis:

It was a great year for costumes. I told Dan afterward that I didn't want to do a slutty costume ever again and he was hurt, but it made the night so much better. Maybe next year I'll be a sack of potatoes or something. Oh! Or on theme, a pile of triceratops poop.

Jurassic World Recap

OK, you know how I've become reaaaaaally terrible lately about posting anything in a timely manner? I keep thinking I'll finally catch up, but it's not looking good.

Anyway, here's a post I should have written over two months ago. I'm just the worst.

The Jurassic World Premiere! We did the 7PM show the night before it officially premiered. Like I mentioned in my Jurassic World prep week post, I dressed up in my awesome dinosaur onesie. {Sidenote: please excuse the poor quality of the pictures from inside a dark movie theater.}

It was a wee bit warm in the onesie. It is fleece and it was June in Tucson. Granted, movie theaters are always cold, but it wasn't cold enough. I really thought I was going to overheat by the end of it.

You know what's a weird feeling? Trying to sit for any length of time with a fake tail. The only comfortable way to sit was with it sticking out from between my legs. I may or may not have taken this picture to send to one of my friends who couldn't come with us as an obscene text.

Since this movie was a big deal to me, I wrangled up as many friends to come as possible. There were probably a dozen of us. It was a great time.

In a weird twist I still don't fully understand, I was the only person dressed up for my showing, the first showing. However, sooooo many teenagers dressed up for the second showings of the night. Here's me and Dr. Grant and Ian Malcolm.

There were also two guys in full raptor Halloween costumes. They were getting full applause from the movie theater lobby. I slowly plauded after them until I caught up and we had a little dinosaur circle of excitement. After the movie itself, it was the highlight of my night.

Since it has premiered, I have seen Jurassic World three more times: once with my mother, once in 3D with my friend Kristine, and this past weekend with my friend Bekah.

The first time I saw it, I was a little disappointed. It wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be. However, in seeing it several time since, I really like it now. There is still a lot of backstory I wish they could have covered, but ignoring that, it was a great movie.

Not all of this post is horribly late. I wrote a review of the movie the first weekend I saw it. Here's an excerpt of it:

Some people who have seen Jurassic World have called it sexist. I'm not sure if I agree. I'm not sure I disagree.

Yes, there are only five female speaking roles in the entire movie. They include: Claire, the female protagonists; Vivian, an employee who manages park services from the control room; Zara, Claire's annoyed assistant; Karen, Claire's sister and the kids' mother; and Zach's nameless girlfriend. 

However, the remaining three female characters are played with incredible nuance that make them real, not necessarily 'strong'. Claire is a HBIC. Her job is her life and she takes no prisoners. But, at the same time, she is shown trying. She tries so hard to have authority and control. We're supposed to believe this effort for control is counter intuitive when dealing with such a fluid, flexible system, but I interpreted it differently. She's not exercising control to bend nature to her whim: she uses it to be taken seriously by all her male coworkers looking down their noses at her. She's the odd woman out and she doesn't want any mistakes that they can pick apart. As a woman who works almost solely with male coworkers, this may be one of the first characters I've seen to portray this feeling correct. When things do start to go wrong and crumble, she pushes back against the men who try to take over with mixed results. You can see the fear in her eyes as she loses control to these men who don't have the parks or the animals best interest at heart until she breaks and goes rogue, working to fix the situation without them.

You would think Claire would be my favorite character given how I relate to this redheaded control freak, but you would be wrong. My favorite was Vivian. She is feminine, nerdy, vulnerable, and good at her job all at the same time. She wears sun dresses with leggings. She is one half of the pair that basically runs everything from the control room. She cries when people are killed. She worries about the safety of the visitors. And, in a minor spoiler, (SPOILER BEGIN) she shuts down a man who tries to play 'hero' and kiss the girl. She had a boyfriend, but she just doesn't talk about him at work. That would be unprofessional. (SPOILER END).

In that initial review, I was a little too hard on Claire. I've grown to appreciate her character a lot more. I've watched youtube tutorials on how to get her make up look. I've found her shoes and bought them. They frustratingly didn't fit, but still. The movie has grown on me each time I've seen it. 

I'm so glad that the movie didn't disappoint me and that it did amazingly well, basically guaranteeing several sequels.

Jurassic World Preparations

For being a self-proclaimed Jurassic Park super fan, this space has been remarkably quiet leading up to the premiere of Jurassic World today. And it's not that I'm not excited (because I AM), I've just been trying to avoid all the promotional stuff before seeing the movie so it wouldn't spoil it for me.

Have you noticed how rare it is anymore to not know exactly what's going to happen in a movie before seeing it from all the freakin' trailers and teasers and posters and interviews and toys and etcetera?

Anyway, I have been prepping for this movie. {Sidenote: by the time this goes up, I will have already seen the movie and I'll write a post about it next week.} To get myself psyched up this week, it had been the week of dinosaur outfits!

Monday:

Classing up a Jurassic Park t-shirt with a blazer, some simple yet pretty earrings, and a pair of boots. My dinosaur-ness went unnoticed at work.

Tuesday:

Day 2 was a weird day. I had just gotten this skirt from Express and I wanted an excuse to wear it. Since I was going to be in meetings all day Tuesday and not in the lab, I paired the skirt with some pantyhose and a pair of heels. Since the rest of the outfit was so professional, I was able to balance out my cheap, juvenile Forever 21 dinosaur print tee.

Because the rest of my outfit was a bit over the top, one of my coworkers commented and I made the mistake of telling him that the fanciness was to balance out the t-shirt. It spread through that small meeting of four people of my intentions to wear dinosaur shirts all week.

Wednesday:

It makes sense when you wear a dinosaur t-shirt and a T-rex skeleton necklace to wear your pretend admiral jacket, right? I should also probably note here that all of these looks involve layering or blazers to class up the dinosaur shirts. In Tucson. In June. In a freak humid month. I'm now a liquid from melting.

One of my chatty coworkers brought up my outfit plan in a much larger meeting. My entire department is now aware of my plan. The pressure is on.

Thursday:

By Thursday, I was down to dinosaur sweaters and kid shirts. To keep it a little more mature, I went with a sweatshirt over a long sleeve shirt, rather than my Christmas sweater. I'm so warm I've gone past the liquid stage and am now a gas. I also added in my insect trapped in amber necklace.

Since almost everyone I work with now knows of my obsession, people keep trying to find me to see what I'm wearing today. One of my coworkers even brought in his son's Lost World toys to show me. We've officially reached critical mass.

Thursday Night (for the premiere):

Since I'm not entirely crazy, I thought it was best to change into my dinosaur costume right before the movie, not at work. I wore it over the most breathable clothing I have in case I needed to remove it for some reason. Although, at this point, my tolerance for warmth has greatly increased. I think Dan was probably embarrassed by me wearing this outfit while walking from the car to the movie theater through a busy mall, but if it doesn't phase me, why should it phase him?

I love this onesie so much. Here's a little teaser of what it looks like on before my full post next week.

So freakin' excited!!!! Eeeeeieeee! Any bets on how many times I end up seeing it by the end of the weekend?

Blogmas 2014: This Ain't No Ugly Sweater

One of my big goals this holiday season was to get the perfect holiday sweaters. Ideally, I'd end up with two: a 'cute' winter, knitted sweater and an 'ugly' Christmas sweater. While I have yet to find the perfect 'cute' sweater, I have the PERFECT 'ugly' sweater.

My friend Rebekah was obsessed with ugly Christmas sweaters and kept sending me all the great ones she found. In a sad twist for her, but a great twist for me, she bought her sweater before she found this beauty.

Image Source

IT'S A JURASSIC PARK CHRISTMAS SWEATER! If you can't tell from the picture, it's a T-rex holding candy canes who is about to eat Santa on the toilet, a la the first Jurassic Park. And I can't believe I didn't notice until now the green pterodactyl.

There is no level of excitement and caps lock can explain how happy this sweater makes me. I don't know why I waited almost a week to buy it, but it arrived yesterday and it is now my favorite article of clothing.

It's remarkably well made and well fitting on me for a $30 men's sweater. The trees are knitted, not printed and the knit is clingy enough that you wouldn't necessarily think it's a men's sweater.

Besides Rebekah's ugly sweater party, I definitely plan on wearing it my last day of work this year. Nothing like an amazing Christmas sweater to make all the other engineers jealous.

Hawaiian Awesomeness: Day 3

What you are about to see are now officially my favorite pictures in the whole wide world. Don't tell Dan, but our engagement and wedding pictures don't compare to these. Don't tell our future children, but I'll probably cherish these photos more than all of their inevitably nerdy school photos combined. They are my new favorite thing.

Before we get there, here's a little bit of back story. When we were deciding to go on vacation and debating Hawaii, we were trying to pick an island. After researching what there was to do on each island, Oahu had one giant bullet point in the 'Pro' column: Kualoa Ranch. And for those not in the know, it's the ranch where Jurassic Park was filmed.

I repeat, dinosaurs lived there, people!

Let's get to it!

I'm freakin' Dr. Alan Grant hiding from gallimimuses

So happy!

Dan fails at camera jumping

My new favorite tree

Still excited on the bus

Actually, a bunch of things have been filmed at the ranch.

Hurley's golf course from 'Lost'

Godzilla's footprint from the terrible 1998 version. The original version was much deeper, but it had to be filled in because cows kept falling in and dying.

The road Drew Barrymore drives everyday in '50 First Dates'

A bunker that's been used in 'Pearl Harbor' and 'Lost'

Me. I was filmed there, too.

And here are the remaining random photos from the rest of the day.

Turtle Back Island

Cutie McCutiepants and Me

Enjoying some awesome shaved ice

Apparently I can't look attractive while eating. Who cares, though, it was delicious.

I am ruler of the seas

It was an amazing day. My favorite of the trip.

One of the Greatest Days Ever!

In case you've been living under a rock, there are two things you should know:

1. I really love "Jurassic Park". Have you not noticed that one of my blogs labels is so titled?
2. Jurassic Park was just re-released in 3D!

In order to truly appreciate it, we drove up to Phoenix to watch it IMAX 3D.

Yes, I wore my Jurassic Park shirt and a pair of dinosaur socks.

I don't care how many times you've seen it (and for me, that's nearly a million times), it is incredible in that format. Even though I knew exactly what was going to happen, it was still suspensful and awesome. Just awesome. I highly recommend it.

We'll see how many times I see it in theaters. Hopefully once a weekend. Don't tell Dan...

The Official Trailer

If someone would please PLEASE tell me when I can buy my midnight premiere tickets, I'll be forever grateful.

Yes, I'm this awesome...

This is how I spent my Saturday afternoon. Yes, I am a master at Paint.

I can really get behind this new layout.

Fan of Friday: Week of 1/6/2012

Ok, if I haven't made this clear enough, I have this strange love for Jurassic Park. Like watch it everytime it's on TV, hunting for sequel news, wish I had dinosaur pajamas (HINT HINT) obsessive kind of love.

Well, today I found this:

It's a bunch of art inspired by the people of Jurassic Park! How crazy is that? How insane of me is it that I would love a nice oil version of this over my imaginary claw foot bath tub? I also really like the 80's styled one of Lauren Dern. It's just awesome.

Anyway, while we're discussing the art of Jurassic Park, have you been to Minimalist Movie Poster Tumblr yet? It's amazing what can inspire some people to create a poster. And I love it!

It's worth a scroll through if you haven't seen it before. I just wish they had them on Amazon. I would probably wall paper our house with them.

Jurassic Park 4: Update 1

That's right. I'm calling this 'Update 1' because I plan on spreading any and all Jurassic Park 4 news I stumble across.

And now, from perezhilton.com, a quote from Steve Spielberg:

     The screenplay is being written right now by Mark Protosevich. I'm hoping that will
     come out in the next couple of years. We have a good story. We have a better story
     for four than we had for three.

I imdb-ed Mark Protosevich to see what else he's written: Thor (not bad), I Am Legend (haven't gotten around to seeing it but I've heard it's not bad), and Poseidon (oh dear). So I'm a little worried now, but as long as it's better than Steve Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, I'll be ok.  

But seriously?!? I have to wait "a couple of years"? That's movie speak for 2015. That's just not fair. I guess that gives me plenty of time to work on my costume. I'm thinking something like this now:

But in grown-up size. And with more fake blood