Happy Friday to you!

After seeing Indiana Jones, I felt a little burned by the movie industry (and possibly the planet Mars). But today Hollywood redeemed itself by a little flick called Kung Fu Panda. My super cute nephew and I went to see it. My nephew had popcorn, Pepsi, a King-sized Reese’s, and M&Ms. Don’t need DNA to see he’s related to me.

Anyway, I recommend Kung Fu Panda. As a fu expert myself (I’ve seen two Jackie Chan movies plus some old Chinese movie with subtitles), this movie isn’t sheer slap-stick like Shrek. It’s got a little message. And it has some cool visuals and effects. I was pretty impressed. And even though I haven’t liked all of Jack Black’s movies, he is almost unbeatable for voice-overs.

Kung fu would sure come in handy in a lot of situations. Like when I’m standing in the 100 deep line at the post office (the one that’s open like 2 hours a day), and I want to sweetly “ask” people to let me cut to the front. Or you’re driving with a friend in the car and someone cuts you off. You can say, “Here. Take the wheel. I need to jump over to that other car and do some kung fu.” When the Starbucks barista gives you a lukewarm hot chocolate? “Um, excuse me, barista, but my lethal karate chop hands would like another hot chocolate. Oh, and unless you want to see my crazy roundhouse skills, I’d like extra whipped cream.”

Did you ever see the movie A Christmas Story? You know, the movie that shows for TWENTY FOUR hours on TBS on Christmas. The company that makes the Red Rider BB gun, Daisy, is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary. It’s located about 15 minutes away from me. I totally worked there one summer before I left for college. There were people there that had worked at Daisy for like 30 and 40 years. One lady I worked with got married at age 16 and had worked at Daisy ever since. After shooting bb guns all their lives, a lot of these people had severe hearing loss, so I heard the word “huh?” a lot.

My favorite job was assembling and testing paintball guns, which sounds a little cooler than it really was. Nobody ever let me play with the paint cartridges. I don’t know why. To me, it would have been the thoughtful thing to do. I also got to carve the extra plastic off of the paintball containers. My supervisor told me I did such a good job I should consider a whittling career at Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO. I always pictured myself more as a square dancer or saltwater taffy taste tester. Possibly a yodeler.

Finally, congrats to Jamie Lynn Spears on the birth of her daughter. And Jamie, if you are reading this, seventeen is too young to get married, and please do not let the Jolie-Pitt team adopt baby Maddie. And you did an awesome job of turning Hollister t-shirts into maternity wear. I tried to turn Hollister T’s into teacher uniforms, but no luck, so I applaud you.

Have a great weekend.

JEN