‘Entertainment’ Category
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I’m with Coco
January 13, 2010
Category Entertainment, TV | Tags: | No Comments
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A Cowboy Needs a Horse
December 7, 2009
A Disney short from 1956. If you can ignore the racism, robbery, kidnapping, and attempted murder, enjoy the amazing artwork and the seriously catchy song.
Category Art, TV | Tags: | 1 Comment
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Male Prima Donna, by Subtle Sexuality
November 2, 2009
I cannot stop watching this!! Also, I cannot stop laughing. The writers of “The Office” are effing brilliant.
Ed Helms (“‘Nard Dog” – dancing in the elevator) and BJ Novak (“Mr. Understood” – with that wink and crotch grab)…. hee hee hee ahahaha hahahahah!
Category Music, TV | Tags: | 1 Comment
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A big boy
July 5, 2009
Jamie’s moving right along in the business of growing up.
For some time now, he’s been able to roll over from front to back and back to front, and he now uses that skill liberally as a means of getting where he wants to go. He’ll roll over and over and over to get somewhere. Yesterday he rolled right off the guest bed onto the floor when I looked away for like two seconds. It’s only a 12″ drop because the mattress is just on the floor, but it still scared him and he started crying.
He’s now able to get up on his hands and knees, and rock back and forth. He gets so excited! He can get from his back to his belly to the crawl position, and from there to sitting up. And he can use all these moves in combination! It’s clear to me that he realizes the implications of this… you can almost see the wheels turning in his little head. Just in the past couple of days he’s occasionally done something like putting one knee forward or one hand forward, probably accidentally. The crawling is coming, and it’s coming soon!
In preparation for this stage, we’ve built a play area for him in the living room, consisting of a big puzzle-piece mat, some baby corral fencing, and a bunch of toys. We also bought some things that you stick in unused electrical outlets, and we have some furniture straps to secure bookshelves to walls. As he gets closer to mobility, we’ll need to crawl around taking baby’s-eye-view of things and put up temptations, secure cabinet doors, lock down toilet seats, etc.
The other cool thing he’s doing now is making “Da” and “Ta” sounds very clearly. It’s so fun to have a little “dadada” conversation with him, because it is almost like having an actual conversation. He’ll say something, and we’ll imitate him, and he’ll smile and imitate back, and so on. I suspect his first real word will be “dada.” Maybe “mama” will follow closely behind.
This afternoon I discovered that a laundry basket is a GREAT way to keep a baby contained and entertained! He wasn’t satisfied in his bouncer, and I needed to be on the floor of the kitchen cleaning and sorting out my spice cabinet. So I stuck him in an empty laundry basket with some books and toys, and presto! Super happy baby for about an hour.
A few nights ago, we watched “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” I’d forgotten what a good movie that was, probably because I haven’t seen it since I was 11 or 12, sitting in the dark in Suzanne Plunkett’s living room at a sleepover. I think we scared ourselves into not being able to sleep. Jonathan Pryce was fantastic as Mr. Dark, and he looks so different with a beard that we actually didn’t recognize him as Sam from Brazil until afterwards!
Today we watched (repeatedly, for Jamie’s and our own amusement) a classic Disney short called “Funny Little Bunnies” from 1934. I highly recommend it!
Hey, did you hear that Michael Jackson died? You did? SO DID I. Now could the news stations PLEASE move on to actual news? Like Sarah Palin’s resignation as governor of Alaska? Maureen Dowd wrote a fantastic column about it in today’s New York Times:
What looked like a secret wedding turned out to be a public unraveling as the G.O.P. implosion continued: Sarah wanted everyone to know that she’s not having fun and people are being mean to her and she doesn’t feel like finishing her first term as governor.
That’s about all for the moment. I’m sure there’s a lot I’ve left out, but I think two posts within a week is pretty good for me. :)
Category Baby, Entertainment, Jamieson, My Boring Life, Politics | Tags: | 3 Comments
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More baby news: The great digestive mystery of 2009 continues…
June 30, 2009
Sadly, my blog posting is taking a hit lately. It isn’t that I don’t want to, or that I have nothing to say; it’s just that all my free time is taken up either with taking care of Jamieson, working, sleeping, doing chores, or spending quality time with Doc. It’s hard to find an hour or two where I’m actually in the mood to write, AND have the time to do it.
I hope to be able to find more time and energy to write as the weeks go on.
Anyway, here is what’s been going on during the last month.
The last part of May and first part of June pretty much sucked. Doc was sick with a bad chest and head cold, then I was sick with the stomach flu and exhaustion, then Jamie got the cold, then I got the cold. Luckily, Jamie had gotten the stomach bug earlier in the month, and Doc didn’t get it at all. I went to Kathryn and Brett’s Memorial Day cookout, but probably shouldn’t have, and we missed Valerie’s birthday dinner altogether. My doctor tried me on several different medications in an attempt to alleviate my exhaustion and feelings of being overwhelmed and anxious, but the side effects made me feel even MORE sick to my stomach and also plagued me with insomnia, both at night and while trying to nap. Shortly thereafter, I came to the conclusion that actually getting sleep would make me feel better a lot faster than trying to fool my brain into being happy, so I stopped taking it.
The weeks since have kind of been a blur. I definitely have been feeling better, probably largely due to the fact that I’ve been sleeping for one long stretch most nights. When I think back to just a few months ago, when I was lucky to get 3 or 4 hours of sleep in a row, this seems like an impossible dream!
We changed up our night feeding schedule. Doc does the first feeding (usually; if I’m still up I will do it sometimes) and the second feeding, and then I get up in the morning with Jamie. He’s usually up some time between 5 and 6:30 a.m., usually closer to 5. Although recently he’s taken to not really going back to sleep after his second feeding, which is kinda messing things up. We hope that he’s just starting to change up his own nocturnal schedule towards sleeping through the night.
Jamie turned six months old on June 8. Doc and I bought him some presents, and Grandma sent some too. We had some pretty intense storms blow through in early June, including some tornadoes nearby. Our power went out about 10 a.m. one morning after massive amounts of rain, and was out until nearly 11 that night. The house heated up quickly; Doc and Jamie went to the mall to cool down in the afternoon, and then we went out to dinner and ran some errands in the evening. The power came back on as we washed baby bottles by candlelight. The stoplight at our corner blinked red for almost a week before they fixed it.
We continue to try to get Jamie’s digestive issues fixed. He’s been on Nutramigen AA formula for about a month now. It costs $155 for a week’s supply. No, that is not a typo. We’ve been lucky enough to get a few samples from our gastroenterologist’s office as well as a couple of shipments from Dr. Debbie. I’m not sure that it’s really making that much of a difference for him, to be honest. Doc has observed that when he’s relaxed, he seems more relaxed now but when he’s fussy, he seems more fussy. More peaks and valleys, in otherwords, whereas on the regular Nutramigen he seemed fairly consistent with a low-grade fussiness. He has learned to accept the taste of it but he really didn’t like it at first. We think it doesn’t stick to his ribs as well as regular formula. It does seem thinner and more watery, like skim milk. He certainly continues to put on weight, but he’s not as satisfied with it.
We are going to a new pediatrician now. Our first pedi just wasn’t a good fit. I don’t think she ever really believed that there was anything wrong with Jamie. She once called him “high strung,” as if it was a personality issue that was causing his constant activity, crying, pain, and crankiness. She suggested that we just run the vacuum cleaner in his room all night, since constant loud noise often was the only way we could get him to sleep. Her bottom line with us was that he was gaining weight and thriving, so he was fine (and she repeated this to us at every visit). I know she thought that we were overreacting and exaggerating. It was as if she would prefer that Jamie just outgrow whatever was going on with him, rather than work with us to try to get him help. He may be gaining weight and growing properly, but there’s a whole quality of life issue that she was completely ignoring.
In fact, we finally went to the gastroenterologist (Dr. Annette Whitney) completely on our own, not because of any suggestion of the pediatrician’s. And Dr. Whitney knew what was wrong immediately, since milk and soy protein sensitivity is one of the most common infant food allergies. You’d think that the pediatrician might have picked up on this and at least suggested it to us as a possibility, but she never did.
Anyway, we really like our new pediatrician, Dr. Michael Brown. He’s personable and seemed to truly understand what we’ve been going through with Jamie, and he wants to help us get him feeling better. We’ve only been in to see him once, but so far I am pleased.
Dr. Brown prescribed a steroid cream for Jamie’s torso rash/eczema, and within a week the rash was completely gone. Poor baby isn’t scratching at his own skin all night and day now. I think that has really helped him to feel better overall.
He’s drinking prune juice (mixed with water), which smells like ass (and Doc confirms that it tastes disgusting too). But Jamie seems to like it just fine! And it’s helping keep him regular.
We started him on rice cereal, AGAIN. This is the third time, and the third brand we’ve tried. And at last! Success!! Healthy Times Organic Brown Rice Cereal does not give him 48 hours of intestinal cramping like the previous brands we tried. It says “NO SOY” right on the box in big letters. I suspect soy may be a bigger issue for him than dairy, because of his reactions to the other cereals, both of which contained soy (one from Vitamin E in an undeclared form; Earth’s Best Organic Brown Rice Cereal, I’m talking to you! Please label your cereal as NOT SOY FREE!). And of course, it’s twice as expensive as regular rice cereal, and only available at Whole Foods. Sigh.
He’s really getting the hang of eating from a spoon, and he seems to like the cereal. He’s figured out (mostly) that the spoon goes on TOP of his tongue, not underneath. When he’s cooperative, he doesn’t really even make much of a mess. We are usually giving some to him in the morning and the evening. We’ll be able to try a pureed fruit or vegetable in another week or so, I think, with guidance from Dr. Whitney.
She had us bring Jamie in for a barium enema, which was about as fun as it sounds. They filled his lower intestine with barium liquid and took x-rays of his little guts, and although they didn’t see anything immediately wrong, they found it really interesting (and so did we) that it took him about 30 minutes and a feeding to “expel” the barium. Most babies get rid of it immediately and forcefully. Not so Jamieson. We heard today that the results came back normal. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I am really glad that there isn’t anything seriously wrong with him. On the other hand, if they had found something, it would have at least been an answer and we could have been on the road to getting it fixed. Mostly I’m thrilled that the tests were normal, though.
So now we wait, and keep searching for answers.
We had a nice father’s day. Jamie did a drawing for Doc with giant crayons — his first artwork! I framed it in a special frame that opens with a magnet and allows you to swap out artwork whenever you please. He also got another Bluebird of Happiness for the bedroom. Then we all went out to lunch at Picasso’s Pizza, and later went shopping at Fry’s. For dinner we grilled bacon-wrapped filet mignons (Mom’s gift to Doc) and had rice pilaf, salad, and wine. A good day.
We finally unplugged from spoon-fed entertainment… we cancelled our cable and Tivo service! I have had some form of cable television since I was about 11 years old, save for the three years I lived in the dorms at college. And you know what? I don’t miss it one bit. Since all stations are now required to provide local over-the-air programming for free in digital, we bought a converter box and antenna for the upstairs TV, and an eyeTV and antenna for the downstairs TV. Upstairs, I just watch whatever’s on if I am interested (which is rare), and downstairs, they eyeTV streams the over-the-air HD and digital content to the mac mini and into the TV. The mini works as a DVR, and we also are using Boxee (although now are moving to Plex, which just works better), Netflix instant streaming, Hulu desktop, iTunes, etc. etc. Almost anything that we used to get through cable and record on the Tivos, we either watch through the good ol’ Interwebs or record it using the eyeTV and the mini. There was an initial cost to get all the equipment, but the amount that we’ll save each month on cable and Tivo bills will make up for all that in just a little over a year. Doc did a ton of research and spent hours and hours trying to find the simplest and most elegant solution for us, and he really did a fantastic job!
I’ll have to post more later. I’m tired now and want to get this out to the teeming millions (a.k.a. my two readers, who may very well have given up on me now that I’m only posting once every few weeks)…
Category Baby, Doc, Entertainment, Family, Jamieson, My Boring Life, Parenting, TV | Tags: | No Comments
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Infrequent Update #1
April 11, 2009
Posting frequently is just about impossible these days. I know it’s been something like three weeks now, maybe more, and I’ve probably lost my two readers for good. But, I do what I can.
So my life pretty much revolves around Jamie, of course, and I don’t have many other topics to write about, so if you’re tired of reading about Mr. Baby, you can pretty much just skip this one.
Goin' to Florida for the winter
I’m going to try something new here. It’s tough for me to write a cohesive blog post when I’m so tired and don’t have much time, but it’s fairly easy for me to keep my Twitter and Facebook statuses updated. So I’m going to share some of those posts here, and expand on them a bit to give you an idea of what’s been going on.
April 11
Jamie keeps trying to roll over from back to front. He’s almost got it, he just can’t quite get his legs over. I’m not ready for this!
April 9
I am grateful to Kathryn for cooking dinner AND cleaning the kitchen!!
Kathryn came over after work. We played with the baby, who was Mr. Cry-Cry Pants for a large chunk of time, gave him a bath, and then I fed him while Kathryn inventoried our kitchen and cooked us dinner (pizza and salad). AND she did the dishes. I LOVE YOU KAT!My baby has doubled his birth weight, grown over 7 inches, now drinks apple juice, and wears big boy pajamas! They grow up so fast… sniffle… ;)
Oh my goodness. He had his 4-month checkup yesterday. He weighs 17 pounds 6 ounces and is 27-3/4″ tall. That’s the 75th percentile for weight and off the charts for height. We grow ‘em tall in the Scott household. His colic is largely gone, although he definitely still has digestive troubles that make him very unhappy for days at a time. He got his second round of shots, which made him very sleepy the rest of the day and he also ran a little fever. We gave him half-doses of infants’ Tylenol drops to help him with the associated fussiness. He’s basically happy and healthy; the doctor seemed pleased with his progress, although she did say he was “high-strung.” She recommended starting him on 2 ounces of apple juice per day, to help him poop (he has only been going maybe twice a week, and is very uncomfortable for the 2 or so days leading up to The Poop Event.) He likes the juice but not as much as my milk (yay!) She also said that we could give him probiotics — acidophilus bacteria, the “good” bacteria in our guts. It could help his digestive issues, and certainly won’t hurt. He also can start having rice cereal, which may help his digestion and might help him sleep for longer stretches, since he’s such a hungry boy. We haven’t given him cereal yet but may start this weekend.The first step is admitting you have a problem: My name is Katy, and I need 8-9 hours of sleep at night.
It’s true, I do. I can get by on 7 hours without too much trouble, and clearly I can survive on 3-4 if needed, but Optimal Katy is 8 to 9 hours at night. I freely admit that I love sleep and need lots of it. Not everyone in my household does. :)
Mr. Bright Eyes
April 6
I feel like the walking dead today.
Didn’t get much sleep last night. Very rough night. Jamie didn’t sleep well and then got up super early.I need to stop reading articles about child kidnappings in China, before I completely lose it.
“Deng Huidong lost her 9-month-old son in the blink of an eye as a man yanked him from the grip of his 7-year-old sister near the doorway of their home. The car did not even stop as a pair of arms reached out the window and grabbed the boy.”I think “it gets easier” is a lie people tell new parents to get them to keep going.
I mean, it HAS gotten easier. He’s a totally different baby now than he was two months ago. But it’s happening so slowly, and we are so exhausted. I’m ready for a few quick changes to keep me going.April 5
Gosh, it sure is windy out.
Sure was. I think a cool front blew through.Jamie just went 4-1/4 hours between feedings. Yay!
But he’s not making it a regular habit! Boo!April 4
Sitting on patio, chowing down on Triscuits. Baby is in bounce house. Gorgeous day in the shade.
Yeah, this was a pretty good day. I took him outside in his little bouncer play center thing (they used to be called “Jolly Jumpers” and you’d hang them by a clamp from a door frame. Now they’re more like Exersaucers on springs) and the temperature was perfect. I love Triscuits. Just plain old salted Triscuits.Drinking coffee, nursing baby, reading “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.”
I’m not sure if I should be consuming caffeine while nursing — while I’m actually nursing, or even inbetween. Maybe Jamie’s sensitive to it? Hard to say. I think I’ll try to cut it out of my diet for a while and see if it makes a difference.April 3
Just watched Battlestar Galactica finale. Cried.
I won’t post any spoilers here. I’m going to miss The Best Show on Television, but I think it ended exactly when it needed to. The final scene between Bill and Laura made me sob like a baby. And I know baby sobbing, believe me!Friends don’t just randomly shout into the darkness, and hope someone’s listening!
Thanks to Doc for showing me this awesome animation about Twitter.April 2
Watching Baby Einstein videos while eating dinner.
April 1
Walking & tweeting at the same time.
I miss my Jamie and Doc. Love you, family!
I am a milk-making machine.
Simpsons stamps!
Too cool! The Simpsons can still occasionally pull off a good episode or two.Trying to convince myself to drink a can of V8 juice with breakfast.
It didn’t work. I like V8 and it’s always good to eat extra veggies, but I just couldn’t do it this morning.March 31
Interested in the results oriented work environment.
The concept is basically, as long as you get your work done and are reasonably available to your co-workers, it doesn’t matter when or where you work. Oh, and meetings are all optional.March 30
I miss my baby and husband.
We had a great Sunday. Happy baby, awesome weather, Schlotzsky’s, Arboretum & visit with Dad, freelance work, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, wine, cookies.
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- Goin’ to Florida for the winter
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- Mr. Bright Eyes
March 29
I am having a better day.
See below.March 28
I forgot to pay Rachel for the movie ticket. D’oh.
I had a horrible day, emotionally. I was very very down all day, and Jamie was very very upset all day, and I had a hard time dealing with it. I cried a lot. Everyone pretends that babies are all unicorns and rainbows and fairy dust, and nobody ever tells you that there will be days when you just don’t want to be a parent anymore. I went out to the movies with Rachel and Kathryn in the evening (AFI Film Festival, Student Shorts), and had a good time, despite initially not feeling like going. Doc encouraged me to get out of the house for a couple of hours. I wish I’d felt like having dinner afterwards, but I just wanted to go home and sleep.March 27
I forgot to pump this morning. I am going to regret this.
It wasn’t too bad, actually. I was engorged but not painfully so, and I got 7 ounces of milk instead of my usual 5.March 25
I feel overwhelmed with love for my son and husband. Family!!
March 24
I do not want to buy a whole new wardrobe, but still can’t fit into my pre-baby clothes. I’m tired of wearing baggy maternity wear.
Well, I am giving in and going out tomorrow afternoon to get some new clothes. I am tired of wearing pants that I have to hike up every few steps… and, sadly, I can’t even fit into my “fat” clothes from before. I know that while pregnant I kept saying that I felt so good about my body that I didn’t care if I never lost the baby weight… but my hormones are different now and I am NOT HAPPY carrying around a couple of spare tires between the boobs and the thighs. (I am happy with the boobs, though, I have to admit. They can stay the way they are!!!)Purse contains five paperclips, four loose pennies, one packet of Splenda, half an Obama button, but… no… keys.
Found office keys an hour or so later. They had fallen out of my purse onto the floor of my car.I know that the caves won’t save us!!
We went out to the movies the night before, on my mom’s last day here, so she could babysit and we could get some time away from Mr. Baby. We watched “Knowing,” with Nicolas Cage. The movie was not bad, but it was out of focus the entire time. We asked an employee to fix it, but nobody ever did. I got a headache. We complained to a manager afterwards and he gave us six free unrestricted passes, and I have no idea when we will be able to use them again. Anyway, the movie was decent but there were some seriously cheeseball lines in it, and that was one of them.March 22
Drinking a Newcastle Brown on the patio.
Warm weather, and good cold imported beer. Hell yeah.March 20
Date night: Coraline, then Red Lobster. But I miss my son..
Mom babysat. The movie was fantastic, and the 3D effects didn’t seem gratuitous (unlike the effects in the remake of “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” which we saw a few weeks earlier via Netflix). Red Lobster: Love the cheesy biscuits. Like, I could eat a meal of just those. We had a nice time out, but we sure missed Jamie.Category Baby, Family, Jamieson, Movies, My Boring Life | Tags: | 1 Comment
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Snowsharks!
December 22, 2008
I miss Calvin and Hobbes. They don’t make comics like that anymore. Thanks to Kathryn for sending these along today!
Category Entertainment | Tags: | 2 Comments
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Table Be Round!
October 14, 2008
Robot Chicken is awesome.
Category TV | Tags: | No Comments
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SciFi Channel Original Movies
August 20, 2008
I swear, if the SciFi channel would spend half their “original movies” budget on making more quality shows like the new “Battlestar Galactica” series, or even syndicating older quality sci-fi shows, the world would be a better place.
I have to hand it to them, the names that they come up with are hilarious. But seriously, how many movies do we need like…
Flu Bird Horror!
Monster Ark!
Anonymous Rex!
Kaw!
Supergator!and, my all time favorite:
Mansquito!
Category Sci-fi, TV | Tags: | No Comments
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With my freeze ray, I could stop the world
August 19, 2008
If you have not yet experienced the epic greatness that is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, I cannot recommend it highly enough!! Neil Patrick Harris cracks me up. The songs are great. The characters are great. (Bad Horse… Moist… Captain Hammer, Corporate Tool… )
The thing I really like about the charater of Dr. Horrible is that he’s not really horrible. He’s actually a pretty normal guy, sweet and well meaning, and just a little bit lost in this big horrible world. He feels useless and unnoticed, and tries to rectify that by acting as both villlain and anti-villain at the same time. He’s a very complex character, struggling and sad… sorta like all of us, in a way.
I laughed. I cried. I really actually sang along!
There’s only three episodes, and they’re something like 15 minutes each. Apparently, there is going to be at least one more episode made! Yay!
Category TV | Tags: | 1 Comment
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I’ve been memed!
July 14, 2008
Argh! Brett tagged me in his post and I feel it is my duty as a friend and netizen to follow through.
What I was Doing Ten Years Ago
I was unpacking boxes after moving into our first house, wishing the cats would do a better job at cockroach patrol, and working at a really boring job while trying to figure out how I could get paid for being creative.Five Snacks I Enjoy
1. tortilla chips
2. apple slices with peanut butter
3. crackers and cheese
4. cashews
5. pistachiosFive Things On My To-do List Today
1. vacuum the house
2. walk 2 miles and stretch
3. don’t fall asleep at my desk
4. cook dinner (étoufée, rice, green beans)
5. pay billsFive Favorite Recipes
1. Rice and black beans
2. Pizza
3. The Big Salad
4. Angel hair pasta with marinara sauce
5. Lentil soup and grilled cheese sandwichFive Jobs I’ve Had
1. Designer
2. File clerk for mayonnaise company
3. Cake decorator
4. Ice cream scoop jockey
5. Cat washerFive Bad Habits
1. Biting my nails
2. Watching Seinfeld reruns every night before bed
3. Not dusting
4. Forgetting to water my plants
5. Eating too many tortilla chipsAll The Places I’ve Lived
1. Houston
2. Plano
3. Sherman
4. DallasFive Random Things About Me
1. I am synaesthetic
2. I drive a Prius
3. I would love to go into outer space, except that I get motion sickness
4. I can wiggle my ears
5. My favorite season is winterFive People I’m Tagging
1. Doc
2. Yvonne
3. Bob
4. Nate
5. BonnieCategory Quiz | Tags: | No Comments
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I Am Ironman!
May 6, 2008
Go see Ironman. I loved it! And be sure to stay all the way to the end of the credits, for a special bonus/sign of things to come!Category Movies | Tags: | 2 Comments
