Fall 2011!!!

Happy Fall everyone!

The Wife: Sorry for the lack of blog last week and the lateness of today. We've been tired and busy. Excuses excuses! Oh well, deal with it!

Well, this will mainly be a picture post. Fall has certainly arrived and we've brought in the season with festivals, apple cider and jack-o-lantern making. The Bob Evans Farm Festival, a yearly tradition, provided us with fall fun. Good food was had there and apple cider slushies were consumed. Apple cider was purchased as well, of course. Nothing says fall like warm apple cider on a chilly evening!

I also visited the Field of Screams for some Halloween terror. Unfortunately terror quickly became annoyance as the maze workers decided it would be fun to manhandle me and my friend. Next time a masked man proclaims that "the short blonde girl" is his, I will give a swift kick and run through the corn! Despite that, it was still a fun evening.

Pumpkin carving has of course been done and the husband insists upon making the traditional jack-o-lantern and as usual refuses to do any fancy designs. One of these days I will win that battle and we will get the carving stencils!
Also, our dog has enjoyed playing in the leaves.

Yes, fall has arrived. What are some of your fall traditions? We'd love to read about them! Also, stay tuned for next Monday's special Halloween post! We will be discussing our top Halloween movies!

2011 Pumpkin Festival

Today we are differing from the usual "Movie Monday" post and are here to tell you all about the awesomeness that is the Pumpkin Festival!!!! We attended this amazing event, which was held in Milton, West Virginia, yesterday afternoon. Read on for pictures and ramblings about the festival's atmosphere and yummy treats!


The Wife: I often claim that summer is my favorite season. This is simply because of the weather. However, it seems that fall as well as the months leading up to the holidays and the holiday season itself is my favorite time of year! So, naturally I really enjoyed the Pumpkin Festival! I had always wanted to go and finally got to this year. The weather ended up being great for my first festival visit! I loved all of the fall decor, including the beautiful mums and well, obviously all of the pumpkins. The food was another great thing. I usually love anything pumpkin...so the festival was like a dream come true! Of the pumpkin treats, I bought some pumpkin fudge and then had pumpkin ice cream. The pumpkin ice cream was particularly amazing! I really want some more! The husband and I also snacked on roasted corn on the cob, which was a wonderfully delicious and light festival snack. I've never just chowed down on corn on the cob at an event like that, so it really amused me.


The vendors at the festival were pretty cool too. We ended up buying some WVU stuff and mixes for dips and salsa. Yumtastic! I would really recommend the Pumpkin Festival, especially if you enjoy the fall season, and of course, all things pumpkin! I would rank it as one of the best festivals I've ever attended. Everyone should plan to attend the Pumpkin Festival next year! I know I'll be back *terminator voice*!

Hobo Dan: The Pumpkin Festival was fun. However, I do have a few complaints. First, why do we have to drive three miles through back county fields to park? It doesn't help matters to be following Mr. Glass car who can't imagine breaking five MPH for fear or his car shattering into pieces. Second, and this is a general grievance to all festivals and gatherings, if you have a lot of people coming from far away, put the restrooms close to the entrance. Some of us have to pee. As we walk the Appalachian Trail from the car to the festival The Wife decides to try and hold my hand. I love her greatly but say: "Dear, I'll hold your hand for the rest of the day, but not until after I pee!" Seriously, put your restrooms close to stuff. it doesn't help that the place was more crowded than Disney. I wish I'd had my machete. All and all it was a great day and sometimes I need not complain so much, but then what would I do to fill my time? I did enjoy the roasted corn on the cob. I find it odd I waited until October to have it for the first time.

Review: Abduction

Hobo Dan: I'm embarrassed we went to see this movie. The Wife wanted to see a movie to celebrate her new job. We should have seen The Lion King 3D like my wife wanted to. Before I get into how truly terrible this film was, I'd like to address the title; Abduction. As far as i can see there was not one single abduction in this movie. I guess that name is better than "We don't know what the hell to call this crappy movie!" This movie is the perfect storm of terrible writing and acting. I'm going to spoil the crap out of this movie, but don't worry, you do not want to see it. So instead read my intentionally funny version.

That werewolf kid from Twilight stars. The film starts off with him riding on the hood of his buddies truck going down the highway. They are all laughing like idiots. They arrive at the party and suffer through line after line of terrible blood curling line of dialog before they all get drunk and pass out in the yard without their shirts on. Then werewolf's dad drives up and is really mad about the drunken shirtlessness of his son. He is so mad in fact that when they get home he forces his hungover son into martial arts training? Before long the training has lead to the father and son straight up beating the crap out of one another. Mom's just watching from inside the house smiling. I'm sitting in the audience thinking "So is no one else considering a call to child protective services?"

Later the kid goes to school and gets a totally unfair homework assignment where he is paired with some chick he likes. We will call her 'eyebrows' because it looks like she has two chipmunks glued on her forehead. They go to her house and look on the internet for help with the homework. A ton of boring crap happens to lead our werewolf hero to the conclusion that his parents are not his real parents. Meanwhile the movie begins flashing to show us some Russian guys who are really bad actors. Twilight boy confronts his mother and she caves in but our emo teen doesn't let her explain. Then the terrible Russian actors show up and starts killing people, mostly his parents. He escapes with eye brows into the woods where they sleep. Some how they get to a house and steal a cell phone that has a bunch of CIA information on it. Then he finds out his parents were really CIA agents meant to protect him. Also Ripley from Alien shows up for a while as a CIA agent. It was weird. I thought she died in Avatar?

Apparently Doc Ock also works for the CIA and enters the film to find them. A lot of really boring conversation takes place in a dinner. Werewolf's real dad is a rouge CIA agent and his mom in dead. Sad face. Werewolf and eye brows run away when the Russians and Doc Ock get into a fight over a cookie. Werewolf decides he is tired of running so he calls the head Russian and tells him to meet up at a baseball game. Okay? They have a chase scene at said baseball game and Werewolf's dad shows up to save the day by shooting the Russians and reveling that Doc Ock is really bad too. Like the eight robotic arms didn't give it away. Werewolf doesn't get to see daddy though because he is a super douche. So Werewolf and eyebrows walk back into the baseball stadium (which is now over) and make out. Confused? I was too. What a waste of resources.

The Wife: Wow! This movie is simply terrible. I am not going to write much because the husband did such a good job explaining it above. It may appear that his review was exaggerating, but it is pretty much right on the money. Doc Ock, please go back to Spider-Man. The love interest girl, please tweeze or wax your eyebrows. You are not Brooke Shields and cannot pull the full brow look off. I could go on and get into the scattered plot that read more as a poorly written fanfic, but like I said, the husband covered that in detail enough.

So I will discuss the few good points. Taylor Lautner = eye candy. Also, the Pittsburgh setting. I enjoyed that the last action scene took place at a Pirates game and that Taylor wore a Pirates jersey. GO PIRATES! Ummm I think that pretty much covers the good points?

We should have seen the Lion King 3D like I wanted, but even though this movie was terrible it was pretty fun to mock it! At least there are some decent movies coming out soon!

2011 Mothman Festival: Recap

The Wife: Well the 10th Annual Mothman Festival was pure win as usual. It was the second year for the Mothman 5K, which we direct, and that also went very well. We had a great turnout and perfect running weather! Special thanks to all our great volunteers, we couldn't make the run a success without you! Great job to all the race participants as well! For more information on our race, go "like" the Mothman 5K Facebook page or follow on the Twitter @mothman5k.

Once our race was done, we were able to relax and enjoy the festival. (Seriously directing a 5K is way more nerve-racking and a lot more work than just running in one!) We took our families to Tu-Endie-Wei, the riverfront park murals and showed them the awesomeness that is the Mothman Festival. Of course, Mothman Pancakes were consumed. Following the festival, we had our annual Mothman Cook-out. It was an epic time as usual.

So we will leave you with an awesome photo re-cap of the 2011 Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia!

Best Picture Project 11, Crash

Hey, Best Picture Project here! FINALLY, we have our Crash review, just for you! Any suggestions for what BPP to watch next? No? Well boo you...

Crash, 2005

Hobo Dan: According to the internet, if you do not like this movie you are racist. The great anonymous hordes of the world wide web seem happy to proclaim this truth. What I can't seem to understand is why? This is not the greatest movie I have ever seen. In my opinion it's not even better than Walk the Line, a film not even nominated best picture. I did enjoy the movie. The acting was top notch and the story, even at times disjointed, was meaningful and came together at the end in an impacting way. So yes I like this movie, no I don't think it deserved best pic honors. So does that make me racist? If you didn't like Braveheart does that make you racist toward Scottish people? If you didn't like Slumdog Millionaire does it make you racist toward Indian people? If you didn't like Gladiator does it make you racist toward Roman people? If you didn't like Lord of the Rings: Return of the King does it make you racist toward Hobbits, Dwarves and Elves? No? So maybe people don't like the movie simply because they did not like the movie? What ever.

The Wife: Well, according to the internet and many ignorant people, I am a "racist" because I detested Crash. I, of course, may be a little bias because Walk the Line (one of my all time favorite films and the movie that should have won) wasn't even nominated for the Best Picture category that year. Crash was done in "Love Actually" style, which I do enjoy. I'll discuss the good points first. The cast was all star and I don't think there was a bad actor in the film; heck, even LUDACRIS did a good job! Acting can only a carry a film so far, however. Whereas Love Actually and even Valentine's Day, for goodness sakes, came together quite well, this film seemed very disjointed. Not to mention it was predictable as all get out. Only about one of the "shockers" actually caught me off guard...not the action of the scene itself, but how the scene happened. Yes, I get that one of the themes was to show that everyone carries a stereotype or racist attitude of some sort. That being said, almost every character had some type of "redemption moment," but Ryan Phillipe's character. If the whole burning his car is supposed to be it or his guilt of his actions,  than the movie failed to convey this BIG time. Yes, I consider myself to be an intelligent person and I "got" Crash...I just didn't care for it. I am not sorry either if I offend you for disliking Crash. I am absolutely not a racist person. I flat out didn't like this movie. As I mentioned previously, Walk the Line is the real Best Picture winner. However, if you haven't seen Crash, take the time to watch it, because maybe you will like it.