Oh Nashville, You Never Cease To Surprise Me

So on Wednesday night as I was laying in bed, I became concerned because I thought someone was being shot near my home.  I mean, I do live in Nashville after all – the crime rate here is pretty high.  Also there was a gang shootout (nobody died, so it’s all cool) a couple of streets over from my apartment.  But then I was all like, no – that’s not gun fire (I have shot a gun before, so I totally know…kind of), that sounds more like fireworks.  But then when I looked out my window, I couldn’t see any fireworks!  So I would lay back down and then pop pop pop!  Jump back to the window – nothing.   Lay back down – POP!  It went on like this for a few minutes.  I never saw anything, but I swear to you – there were fireworks!  

Then I promptly fell asleep and forgot about the whole fireworks incident.  Then this morning I was laying in bed (it’s thunderstorming – don’t judge me), reading my fave Nashville blog, Nashvillest, and what do I see?  A story about how John Rich (of Big & Rich, or as I like to think of them – the save a horse, ride a cowboy guys – I only know one of their songs) pissed off all his neighbors by throwing a party with helicopters and fireworks.  FIREWORKS!  I wasn’t hallucinating guys!  I almost lived a few houses away from John Rich, but that apartment got snapped up before I could even see it – the pictures looked super nice and the price was super good!  Now I understand a little better why such a nice apartment would be so reasonable – John Rich.  Turns out he’s quite the nuisance.  His neighbors hate him with an absolute passion.  I live a mile away from his house and his fireworks bothered me – I can only imagine how pissed his next door neighbors were.  

I think it’s pretty hilarious that out of all places he chose to live, John Rich chose the place he did.  He build this 73 foot modern looking mansion thingy in this super cute, average sized house neighborhood.  It’s kind of like if someone built a 73 foot mansion next to my parent’s house back in Iowa.  It looks way out of place and is an eye sore (it is actually kind of ugly – plus, all the times I’ve been past it, I have never seen a pool.  What kind of country music star doesn’t own a pool?  It’s just wrong).

But anyways, I read the article, and he wasn’t actually throwing a party – he was shooting a video.  I don’t know if helicopters were really involved.  I don’t doubt the fireworks, but the helicopters could easily be explained away by the fact that we all live next to the hospital.  And there are helicopters flying around here all the time.  Plus, is it just me, or does it sound really not smart to have helicopters flying in the vicinity of fireworks at the same time, on purpose?  

So that’s the latest in Lindsay’s brushes with fame in Nashville.  I’ve only had “3”.  First one was … what’s his face?  Keith Urban?  or Toby Keith?  The one that’s married to Nicole Kidman I think – whoever that one is.  Amber told me that we saw him at Panera in Green Hills.  I’m not sure it counts if I don’t know who someone is.  The second one was totally legit though – Ben Folds (SCREAM!) was totally eating at the table behind me at my favorite Thai restaurant.  I didn’t see him come in, and I really wish I had, because I remember talking to husband about how he really needs to leave the toilet seat down at night because I was afraid of falling in (because I don’t turn on lights and I kind of sleepwalk to the toilet).  So Ben Folds knows of my fear of falling in the toilet at night.  And now brush 3 was being alarmed at John Rich’s fireworks.  I’m totally not even counting the time that Miley Cyrus was in the children’s hospital (which is right across the street from my work building), and the time that Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift ate at the pancake pantry while I was a half mile away (again working.  Do you see a theme here?  Working is holding me back from meeting all these stars).  So really I could have like 4 shaky brushes with one legit brush.  

I look forward to sharing more Nashville Brushes with Fame with you in the near future.  I’ve really got to brush up on my country music stars – I bet they’re all around me and I just don’t even realize it!

<3, lindsay

Save a dinosaur, ride a caveman.

Quick Review….”Miles to Go”

Last night I started off my week by reading Miley Cyrus’ engrossing biography called Miles to Go.  That has to be the most fitting biography title I have ever seen.

I checked it out just for kicks, but I really learned a lot of interesting things.  If you can sift through all of the inspirational hooey (not to knock inspirational stuff, but to me it is mostly just hooey) there are several juicy facts found inside.

1.  Miley and Emily Osment did not get along at all during the first two seasons of Hannah Montana.  WHAT!!!!  I was horrified and saddened to read this.  Lily is my favorite character on the show, and it hurts to know that her friendship with Miley was all “fake.”  Okay, I know they are acting so it really is fake, but still.  Apparently things were really awkward until they started shooting the movie and now they are the best of friends.  At least it has a happy ending.

2.  I didn’t know that Billy Ray wasn’t originally scheduled to play her dad.  I thought the whole show was built around the two of them, but I was way wrong.  The whole first part of the book is about the multiple auditions she had to go through to get the part.  According to the book, Billy Ray getting the part was based on an offhand comment made by her mother.  The audition stuff is really great to read.  Apparently they wanted a 16 year old girl to play Hannah……imagine how different that would have been.

3.  Miley’s sixth grade experience was just as hellish as the rest of ours.  She writes about being bullied repeatedly by several girls in her school.  They tormented her at lunch and even locked her in the bathroom once.  I don’t know why I was so surprised by this.  I guess I pictured her childhood being filled with sunshine lollipops and rainbows.

4.  She has lots of sweet things to say about her “Prince Charming.”  (Not her current illegal prince charming, but her first one.)

5.  She struggled with really bad acne during the second season of the show.  I totally can’t tell at all when watching the show.  I can’t even imagine how awful it must be to have to go through things like that while the whole world is watching.

Anyway, I found the book to be an entertaining and quick read (There are even full color pictures!!!).  It is rambling in some parts and filled with lots of the aforementioned hooey, but it really does sound like it was written by a 15 year old.  That may sound like a bad thing, but it lets me believe in my mind that she actually DID write this book herself and didn’t have too much “help” with it.  So if you are a fan of Hannah Montana or Miley it is definitely worth your time.

Jen

I Have Seen the Hannah Montana Movie!!

I have been looking forward to this day for a long time and it totally lived up to my expectations…..tonight, along with a theater full of kids (all ages, girls and boys) I saw the Hannah Montana Movie.  Thanks so much to Abby for going with me so I was not the creepy old lady sitting by myself.  I really enjoyed the movie and will probably see it again.  Since my mind doesn’t work well in paragraph form, I will make a list of the things I loved and some I didn’t so much love.

Things I loved!!!

**Miley’s acting.  Not once did I look at her and think, “there’s that sixteen year old with a skeezy 20 year old boyfriend,” or did I hear “It’s Miley” from The Soup.  The whole movie I saw her as nothing more than Miley Stewart and cute as a button Hannah Montana, which didn’t always happen with the tv show.

**The songs.  I liked the new stuff that was in the movie, and was happy to hear a new version of “Best of Both Worlds.”

**Jan from “The Office” was in it.  I liked seeing her as something other than crazy trophy-weilding Jan.  Although I was sad that she didn’t sing because apparently she has an amazing voice and I think she even has CDs or something like that.

**Travis.  Oooooh Travis.  He plays Miley’s little love interest, and wow, he is pretty fantastic (I can say that because he is 18 so it is not illegal……….kind of disturbing, but not illegal).  The little girl behind me literally hyperventilated everytime he showed up on screen.  Or maybe she was just making shrieking sounds too high for humans to hear.

**The end credits are awesome…..actually beyond awesome.  Every movie needs to end with a dance number.

**I love how Rascal Flatts is randomly hanging out at Miley’s grandma’s house.  Apparently in Tennessee famous country singers spend their time traveling from porch to porch singing their most well known songs.

Things I didn’t really love:

**Vanessa Williams’ character.  I hate it when they cast “stars” in these types of movies that have absolutely nothing to do with the tv show.  I’m pretty sure no one in the theater was there to see one of the stars of “Ugly Betty.”

**Spoiler Alert!!  Miley and Lily’s fight gets resolved too quickly.  Miley did something really horrible to Lily and after two weeks of not speaking Lily completely forgives her for the sole reason that she wouldn’t be in the movie if she didn’t.

**Speaking of that……where were Oliver and Rico??????  They are in the movie for 5 minutes total………and that includes three minutes of the end credits.

**Not enough Jackson!!!!!!!!!!  He didn’t really do anything in the whole movie except fall down………but he does really know how to fall down.

All in all, I really loved the movie.  It made me laugh, almost cry, and even dance around in my seat a tiny bit.  The best part was being in a full theater where people clapped along with the songs, sang along to “The Climb,” and screamed like they were at a Hannah concert when the movie ended.  When Travis finally admits that he has a crush on Miley, all the girls in the theater went “Awwwwwwww” (I was totally one of them).  That is what makes a fantastic movie experience.

So if you even halfway enjoy the tv show, or like horses, or cute cowboys, go see this movie!!!

Jen

Girl Power Music

This isn’t a post about the Spice Girls.  Sorry if I misled you by the title!  I am making myself an awesome new CD soon, and a bunch of the songs on it are by current teenage girl rockers.  Here’s what’s sitting in my iTunes shopping cart. (I can’t download them until I’m ready to make the CD.  I know, weird rules.)

Demi Lovato – “Don’t Forget” — haven’t heard the whole song yet but love the clip on the Disney Channel
Demi Lovato – “La La Land” — ditto above
P!nk – “Just Like a Pill” — apparently that’s how she spells her name.  She’s not a teenage girl rocker, but I forgot all about this song until Amber & I recently tried to remember her first hits
Miranda Cosgrove (with Drake Bell) – “Leave It All to Me” — I soooo love the iCarly theme song!
Muse – “Supermassive Black Hole” — a non-teenage girl rocker, but it’s from Twilight, so it still counts
Iron & Wine – “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” — ditto above, LOVE it at the end of Twilight.  Every time I watch the movie (3 times now), it stays in my head for the rest of the day, which is fabulous
Miley Cyrus – “The Climb” — totally ready for the movie to come out!
Aly & AJ – “Rush” — discovered this while listening to the Demi Lovato station on Pandora (thanks for twittering about that Lindsay! 🙂 )

Any more I should get??

– jill

Uh oh, the iPhone’s coming

Howdy y’all!

So let’s see, it’s been about a week or so since my last post…probably longer actually, but whatever.  Hmmm so what do I have to tell you all that is so important?  Not a whole lot.  It turns out working takes up a lot of time.  I used to get through a couple of books a week and that has slowed down quite a bit.  Although yesterday I went to the library (in what seemed like was FOREVER) and returned some books and got some more. 

I am proud to say that I finally read the second installment of Meg Cabot’s Allie Finkle series, The New Girl.  It was adorable – I adore Allie (and Meg) and it’s just so fun to read!  I can’t wait until the 3rd book comes out in January (along with Princess Diaries 10!!!)  I also read another Clique book yesterday (I still am going to watch the movie although it looks totally lame) – I read Dylan’s summer story.  So now I have 3 more books (Alicia, Kristen, and Claire, all summer books) and then I’m all caught up with those books till the next one comes out.

Ooooh, today I read Ally Carter’s I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You, the first book in the Gallagher Girls series.  Totally loved it, and cannot wait to go back to the library to grab the second one, Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy.  I so totally want to be a spy!!  I think I’d be really good at it – when I was little and it was winter, I’d crawl around in the snow acting like I was sneaking around.  Only you always saw me because my snowsuit was bright purple (if I remember correctly…it was at least a bright color, I know that).  If I had been educated as a spy, I’d have a white snowsuit so I could blend better.  Although maybe I was being watched to see if I could blend with my brightly colored suit.  Hmmm.

Oooooh, so I am currently obsessed with Miley Cyrus’s song, East Northumerland High.  I always passed it up in order to get to See You Again, but the other day I didn’t get to the computer in time to pass it up and I ended up totally in love with it!  Also, I finally got around to reading my ARC of 3 Willows that I won about a month or so ago.  I totally loved it too!  Plus, the artwork was exquisitely beautiful (in my opinion).  Ann Brashares is such a good author!  I didn’t have any cry moments, like I did with Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Carmen’s story always makes me choke up, along with Tibby’s), but that’s OK, I think if I reread I might have a couple- there are a few heart twinging moments.  Speaking of SotTP, I need to see the second movie still!  I have it on my netflix queue – I should move it up so I get it next. 

Well, that’s all for now – I have to go get ready for bed while rocking out to Miley. 

<3, lindsayF

P.S.  Everyone make sure to wish Amber a Happy 58th (hehehheeheheheheheheh, JK) birthday tomorrow (the 8th)!

Also, you all need to watch this video.  I have trouble watching and not thinking traiterous thoughts about how these girls are the cutest little things in the world (it’s only traiterous because I’m supposed to think my neice and nephew are the cutest things in the world, at least until I have my own children – then they will be the cutest things in the world). 

Go visit them at their channel on youtube!  http://www.youtube.com/mugglesam