The sort of The Hobbit fangirl

*one of my favorite pics from New Zealand, also is the background for this blog.
It’s a big day on the other side of the world down in New Zealand. It’s the World Premiere of The Hobbit in Wellington. Starts at 4:30pm kiwi time which means 6:30pm PST. It will be televised live too on Cinemax. I don’t subscribe to that channel. And it seems weird that that network will broadcast something where everyone will be keeping their clothes on. I mean, Cinemax isn’t nicknamed “skinemax” for nothing. But now that I think about it, they do show some shows from the UK and most likely have some sort of deal with Sky over across the pond. And New Zealand is still part of the British Empire and all that. Would be a lot easier on me if BBC America was doing it instead. Anyway, there are also several places on the web that will live stream it. So the question is will I watch it?

I don’t know. I’ve been sort of overloaded with Hobbit hype of late and I don’t really want to spoil the experience of seeing the film. On the other hand, the footage of the Premiere is only that. I won’t be there actually seeing the film so it won’t be spoiler-ish. Perhaps I will watch it later and not tonight. I do have things I need to do. I should be mowing my lawn right now.

Which brings me to something else I’ve been worrying about... sort of. With all this hype and excitement and little clips, interviews, previews, behind-the-scenes snippets: will it all make me so excited that when I finally do go and see the film in December, will it live up to my boosted expectations? So I’ve been perusing the pre-film juggernaut and not delving in and reading and watching everything there is out there. I don’t want to get my expectations so high that it will be a disappointment when I go to see it. I know it will be a good film and it will be entertaining, but I went to see Tron Legacy in the theaters in 3D expecting to get my mind blown with the special effects. I know the actual story was weak so I wasn’t expecting that. But I came out of it disappointed. My mind wasn’t blown. I don’t want that to happen with The Hobbit.

Also, I hate 3D. It gives me a headache. The eye strain is exhausting. When I walked out of Tron Legacy I practically had a migraine! So I never went to see Avatar or Hugo or any other film that showed in 3D. Movies are so expensive these days and 3D is even more money. But I’ll be going to see The hobbit in 3D and at the HFR (high frame rate). I decided that I need to see it as the Director (Peter Jackson) intended. So I will give it another shot. I’ll be taking drugs though (legal ones). I will most likely pop some Ibuprofen before hand and have some more in my pocket, just in case. I will most likely be taking my nephews as well. So it might be their Christmas present from me. We aren’t doing the midnight showing though. I didn’t buy those tickets, and plus we wouldn’t be getting back home till after 4am!! I’m not that hardcore. Sorry. Perhaps later in the week or the following week. The movie isn’t showing in 3D HFR in my city, so we will have to travel 40 miles to San Jose to see it. And of course I’ll have to splurge for the snacks and such, because this is part of “the experience”. Part of the experience will be traveling to the theater, waiting in lines, getting all the junk food, and picking out the best seats, and then of course the movie itself.

I fell in love with The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. I was a bit late. I reread The Hobbit prior to going to see The Fellowship of The Ring. I was greatly confused the first 10 minutes figuring out who this Frodo character was. Face palm, I know! I then went home and prior to The Two Towers, I reread the Trilogy. I came away from that trilogy experience wishing I was somehow part of it. I wanted to be part of the experience that all the actors and production had. Everyone who worked on those films kept saying how amazing it all was and how it changed their lives. I wanted that. And of course that was the first time I had seen the beauty of New Zealand. I knew that place existed, but just figured it was like Australia to its north.

*at left is one of the places I got to visit where LOTR was shot.
So years after the films came out and several DVD editions came and gone, I finally made it to New Zealand myself. You can read about that here. Many other films had been shot in New Zealand since then. So while I was there, I traveled with a trekking group for 10 days. Midway through we had a day off in Queenstown, on the South Island. So what did I do besides jump off a cliff and live to tell about it? I went on a Lord of the Rings Tour. I felt like such a dork, but there you go. You can read about that here.

I tell you all this because I watched an interview this morning about The Hobbit and one of the actors said something to the effect of, “Even if there wasn’t a film at the end of this year, it has changed my life. Just coming here to New Zealand and the experience has changed my life forever.” Not exactly what he said, but close enough. They all spent the better part of a year down there. I only spent just under a month. Reflecting on it now, three years out, had my own experience down there change my life? Today I thought, “I missed it again.” After my own trip to New Zealand, I wanted to move there. I went as far as looking for jobs there and looking into what I’d have to do to immigrate. Had I actually done it, would I have had the opportunity to be part of the making of The Hobbit? Who knows.

Did my own short journey change my life? I think so. I wrote about this here and here soon after I got back. Now three years later, I still do think about it sometimes. I look through my photos, I reread my blog posts sometimes. It was a huge deal for me to go there... alone. I didn’t know a soul. I had never traveled internationally alone before or that far. For some people traveling overseas alone is no big deal. But for me it was huge. I had put off the trip for years because of that. I felt that, and still do, even this extremely introverted person can take on the world. Okay, maybe not the world, but you get what I mean. I can overcome whatever obstacle comes along.

So in a way, the Lord of the Rings movies and now The Hobbit films, have changed this closet fangirls life.

*and no, I will not be dressing up. I am not a cosplayer.

**we'll see if I get any new views besides my normal readers when I tweet this with a Hobbit hashtag.

then do it anyway

Oh dear, watched Roadtrip Nation again. I talked about the show before here. This time it was 3 recent college graduates. And the quote that one of the people they interviewed that stuck with me this time was, “Commit... then figure it out”. His name is Jimmy Chin, who is a photographer and climber. He’s climbed Everest as an expedition photographer. After graduating college he lived out of the back of his Subaru for 7 years.

I’m not going to do that. It’s already been over 7 years since I graduated from Graduate school. But I like what he said. It’s what he did. He knew that he needed to climb and ski, so he did. Which led him to photography, and got photo’s published, which led to expeditions... etc. You can see his full interview here.

I like to think that I am doing the same. I have committed to opening my own business. I don’t have a job, I don’t have any money, I don’t have any business experience, never took a business class in all those years of college. I don’t have wealthy family members or friends. Neither of my college degrees have anything to do with the retail/restaurant business. I may fail, I may not. Whether or not I fail or succeed isn’t the point really. It’s what happens during the journey that is important.

It has taken a long time to get to the point where I am now in the whole process. And it isn’t very far... at least to me anyway. There is still a lot that needs to happen before this business can become a reality. It has taken almost a year now... just to write my business plan. That is dreadfully scary. I hope that the rest of the process before opening doesn’t take that long. But, I have learned quite a bit in that time. It wasn’t a waste of time, perhaps a bit mismanaged, but not wasted. I’ve learned how to write a business plan, create a menu, make financial projections, a bit about commercial real estate, types of loans, investors, etc. I’ve also met some pretty neat people who really want me to succeed. The people at the Chamber of Commerce, the Small Business Development Center, the Economic Development Center, the Welcome Center, the Downtown Association, and the City Planners and others at City Hall.

Everyone I have talked to has said it will be hard and difficult to do what I want to do. But they all have also given me advice and encouragement to keep going and do it. No one has said to me, “don’t do it” or “don’t even try”. At this point, I’m not sure I would even listen to someone with that kind of negativity.

It’s like the quote from the last time I wrote about Roadtrip Nation. “Feel the fear, and do it anyway.”

Cheesy TV

Many things and ideas have run through my head about what to write on the blog. This is just one of them.

The new cheesetastic tv shows I am watching this tv season or guilty pleasures (however you wish to see it). And yes, they are cheesy. But for some reason, I like them. What are they? Arrow and Beauty and the Beast, both on the CW. I know, I’m to old for their demographic now, but these two new shows plus Nikita, now in it’s 3rd season are what I watch from that network.

So why do I like these? They are predictable overall, meaning I know the overall story and know the major story arcs, however, within each episode there are surprises and how they deal with the overall story. The dialog can be over the top or bad (a la George Lucas... ok not that bad). But the actors are pretty to look at (petty, I know). And overall they are redemption stories and how these characters deal with what they have done in the past, how they atone for them, how they help people now, and their ultimate goals for their futures is interesting to me. Also they are all normal humans (i.e. not aliens from another planet with super powers)... well, except for the “beast” in Beauty and the Beast, he’s a genetic experiment gone wrong, but anyway.

So yeah, no deep thoughts here or anything, just admitting my guilty tv pleasures.