Last night, we saw Alice in Wonderland in 3d at the IMAX downtown. I’ve been looking forward to this movie ever since I heard Tim Burton was going to be applying his particular brand of crazy. Alice seemed like the perfect vehicle for his talents. As the cast was announced, I became even more excited. Of course there would be Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter because he can’t seem to do a movie without them. But Alan Rickman and Anne Hathaway? Yes, please!

I was disappointed when early reviews were not overwhelmingly positive. No, I had waited too long! And due to demand, I was destined to wait a bit longer as we couldn’t obtain opening weekend tickets – the best we could do was last night.

First, I’ll address the questions I’ve heard over and over again. Is it too scary/violent for my kid? My answer, as a non-parent, is that it’s probably okay. There were a few intense moments involving battles or chasing or crazy birds swooping out of the sky to abscond with characters. Also, the Red Queen is as fond as ever of demanding “off with their head” when she’s unhappy. And of course the whole premise of the movie is that Alice must slay the Jabberwocky. But in all, I didn’t find the movie to be too violent or too gory. The second question – will my kid like it? I don’t know your kid. In general, I don’t see young kids being in love with this. Older kids may get into it a bit but it’s not the fluffy Alice from past versions of the tale.

Also, be warned that this is not a remake of the original Alice in Wonderland story. It is actually a sequel that involves Alice as a nineteen-year-old returning to Wonderland. Anyone expecting a remake will likely be disappointed.

Beyond all of that, I’m really just not sure if I liked it. There were moments I downright despised. Johnny Depp was a little creepy, even for a Hatter, and newcomer Mia Waskiowska as Alice felt a bit flat and unaffected by the events happening around her. Mostly, I couldn’t quite lose myself in the movie because I couldn’t quite SEE it – I felt like the 3d images weren’t merging together correctly. I’ve heard this movie wasn’t originally shot to be a 3d movie and was edited for the technology afterward. I’m not sure if the problem was that or my vision but much of the time I saw a shadow as if the projector was experiencing bad reception. Mike didn’t notice this so it may have been me.

I’d recommend seeing this on a regular screen as opposed to 3d. I also don’t know that it really benefits from the large screen. Unless you are a die-hard fan of Alice or Tim Burton, I’d advise waiting to see Alice in Wonderland as a rental.

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In addition to the work I’ve put into webchicky.com lately, I recently launched another project with a friend. That project is Girlyfight.

I met Brigitte online several years ago. We’ve bounced ideas off each other for various projects, some more successful than others, and have finally come up with a project we can work on together.

Girlyfight is aimed at women everywhere who want to help make themselves and the world around them a better place. The aim is to educate, support, and rally so that we can each be empowered to find our way, whatever that may mean.

We’re just in the beginning stages right now – the site is officially “up” and we’re creating content as we’re moved to do so. Hopefully The Nice Things Project will be launching soon because we’re both very excited about that. It’s hard right now for both of us to find patience because we have such dreams for the community we envision around this cause and we’re anxious to see it gain momentum.

Anyways, check it out and jump in early. I’d love to see you join the Girlyfight.

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I’ve redone my site once again. I’ll admit I’m not totally in love with the way it looks but I like it better than previous versions.

I’ve been re-evaluating my online presence lately and felt it was time for something more representative of me. Something with more of my personality and interests. The key seemed to be regular blogging which just wasn’t happening in the Blogger version of the site.

So after the first version of the blog, which was a self-hosted ColdFusion blog (BlogCFC, which I still think is a great application), I moved to Blogger just to get rid of the constant updates and tinkering. And now I’m back here on my own server with self-hosted WordPress.

Like I said, I’m not totally in love with the look. I know just enough PHP to royally screw things up on the backend.

But most importantly, it will allow me to blog easily. Which is important because I plan to greatly expand the content here. Some will be geeky, some will be leisurely, some will be self-interesty.

Hopefully, at least some of it will be interesting because the last few years have offered only a handful (maybe) of posts worth anyone’s time.

So here we go! Officially launched and open for business.

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About six weeks ago I started the Couch to 5k program. Again.

I find it’s much easier to run on the treadmill than it is to run outside, even in perfect weather conditions on a flat course. Because of that, I’ve been trying to do most of my training outside.

Tonight, I finished week 5 day 3 which means running 20 minutes with no walking breaks. It went well and I felt good afterwards. Still, I did it inside so it’s not as big of a victory as if I had run it outside.

But I’ll take my running victories where I can get them, thank you very much.

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Yet another rendition of webchicky.com. I think this is as least the 4th version since switching to this domain name but I could be wrong. I know it’s the first major overhaul and backend tech change the site has undergone.

So what’s shiny and new? I’ve moved the entire site and blog into WordPress. I think the two versions of the site featured a table layout, version 3 moved up to CSS layout, and they all ran on ColdFusion server. (Sorry, end of geekspeak!) My blog was originally in ColdFusion as well, with a brief stopover on Blogger.

Since programming isn’t my primary focus at this point, it seemed it would be better to bring the entire site into one application. Enter WordPress. I won’t yet say it’s perfect or that I love it, but I’m learning to recognize its virtues.

The message boards, by the way, remain untouched. Good ole phpbb2. The rest of the world (including other installations I’ve worked on since) have moved on to phpbb3 but the ole webchicky is solidly functioning on the last release of the previous version. And I’m okay with that.

My main purpose in doing all of this is to start blogging here more frequently. I’m not nearly as dull as my blog has been making me out to be lately. It’s time my blog represents who I am. So here we go!

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Last week I fell a bit short:
2000 calories burned (approx 4 workouts) – I burned 1150 in 2 bike workouts.
500 crunches – I completed 450 so closer to my goal this time.

The scale is still down about 4 lbs in total but I had a heavy meal last night after a headache all day that meant no bike time.

This week, same goal:
2000 calories burned
500 crunches

I have no work today and a late start (due to a late evening) tomorrow.

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Last week:
2000 calories burned (approx 4 workouts) – complete, did all 4 on bike.
500 crunches – due to continued back pain, I only managed 200.

Also, the scale is down 4lbs. Which still leaves a ridiculous amount to go.

This week:
2000 calories burned
500 crunches

Popularity: 70% [?]

This week:

2000 calories burned (approx 4 workouts)
500 crunches

Not very exciting, huh?

Popularity: 70% [?]

Ahh, another year is upon us. Must be time for a post about resolutions I won’t keep…

I’m not bothering with specifics. I plan to build on some things I set in motion last year both personally and professionally. 2010 will find me doing a lot more writing. Hopefully some of it will be here but I suspect this blog will continue to serve mostly as my personal log of workouts, etc.

Most of 2009 was spent battling an inability to sleep. The good news is that this seems to finally be under control again. The bad news is that I really fell apart in the meantime. I’ve reinstated my gym membership and am back on the wagon to make some changes.

Plans for 2010? My sister is due with a baby girl in just a couple of weeks. We’ll be heading north to visit, probably in February. Mike’s class from NDHS is due for a 15 year reunion. And I think we may be due for a trip to Europe.

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It has recently occurred to me that I often tell people that while I have a job as a webmaster, what I really enjoy is writing, blogging, and building online communities.

And then I imagine (because I’m sure people find me that intriguing) that maybe they click a link on Facebook or Twitter or Google and end up here at my blog.

They read a post about how I’m going to workout three times this week (three!!!) and think “holy snooze – she says she blogs?”.

Let me let you in on a secret. This blog is the blog associated with my actual name. It is part of the results that come up if you go looking for me online. Acquaintance? Church member? Potential employee? Yep, right here. So while the blog probably doesn’t have to be quite so boring, it’s not where I put the good stuff.

I do my writing on several blogs. I do a lot of writing offline. A lot of it is submitted under various names depending on my mood and planetary alignment that day.

Please don’t just find this blog and assume I’m boring. Nope. Just assume this is very very abridged.

Popularity: 73% [?]