Category: Favourites

Another belated review, this is becoming somewhat of a habit isn’t it? Regardless, another DVD review, this time of a movie that Robyn wanted to see from last year when she saw a trailer for it on TV.

Stranger Than Fiction is the story of Harold Crick (played by a very un-Will Ferrell Will Ferrell) who’s rather boring life of a tax auditor turns out to be the next novel of celebrated author Karen Eiffel (played by a fantastic Emma Thompson), complete with narrative voice over who “warns” him about his upcoming death. Thinking he’s going crazy, he ends up at the door of Professor Jules Hilbert (an equally fantastic Dustin Hoffman) who tells Harold he needs to find out if his life story will be a comedy or a tragedy, as that will determine the outcome…

This was a seriously good movie, an brilliant cast and a great story. There were so many nice little touches to it, like on screen graphics showing Harold’s obsessive counting during his day, the voice over semi breaking down the fourth wall as Harold interrupts it, one of the best visual puns in the history of cinema (you’ll know it when you see it), just a great, great movie. I’m not sure who was better, Will Ferrell playing a straight character, Emma Thompson’s author dealing with writers block or Dustin Hoffman’s bizarre professor who takes Harold’s situation quite literally.

Highly recommended, especially as it’s a rental now…

Next up: I have the choice of 300 or Casino Royale… Shame it looks like I’ve missed my chance to see Grindhouse, but there is always Spider-Man 3 to look forward to.

Yes, I bitch a lot about somethings, like last week I was complaining about Dreamhost disabling “allow_url_fopen” in PHP so I’d have use cURL instead to get a little tumblelog kind of site. Instead I cheated and used a basic WordPress install and Chris J Davis’ Lifestream plugin (of sorts) to create my own lifestream/tumblelog on the gregorsmith.com domain that was just sitting vacant since I got it in late December/early January. Quick and dirty, well dirty and not so quick, but it does the job.

Basically it does everything that my tumblr tumblelog does except archive information, it’s just the most recent information from the feeds, usually the last 15 to 20 entries. Currently it pulls in the main blog here, the links I post, uploaded Flickr images and my many twitter tweets. Completely automated, 100% meta and easy to expand, my kind of site.

My infamous movie reviews are now turning into DVD reviews (or in this case, and the case of Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, it’s a download review) as we rarely get to the cinema nowadays, but it’s the thought that counts really.

Now I love the Rocky movies (even Rocky V, but not passionately), I grew up with them, I’ve seen them all multiple multiple times. I remember going to see Rocky IV in a movie theatre that no longer exists in Bearsden. A few years back AMC ran Rocky through Rocky V in one big serving and I watched them all so it’s only logical I’d love this, right? And as clichéd as this movie is, I do like it, a lot.

Rocky Balboa picks up years after the conclusion of Rocky V, Adrian is dead, Rocky runs a restaurant and his son has grown up and moved on to a life in big business, Paulie is still hanging around but, really, the years haven’t been good on anyone. So up pops an ESPN show about who would win in a make believe fight between Rocky in his prime and the current heavyweight champion, Mason “The Line” Dixon, a computer simulation says Rocky would win by knock out which piques his interest in local, small-time fighting again while also riling up the champ… The only logical way to find out is in the squared circle. So Rocky comes out of retirement with his usual, highly uplifting training regime and steps through the ropes for one last fight.

Now I won’t spoil the end, but if you’ve seen any Rocky film then you’re more than likely to know what’s going to happen. It’s just one of those feel good movies where you know the underdog is going to come good in the end… Very much recommended.

It’s one of my favourite times of year, the time where I anoint myself as a college basketball expert and offer up my words of wisdom in the form of a brackets graphic. Like last year, I have a whole slew of scientific mathematical equations on my side, I’ve been paying attention all year, I can’t fail… Or can I?

This is version 6 of my brackets, originally I went easy with a Final Four of Florida, Kansas, North Carolina and Ohio State with North Carolina beating Florida for the National Championship. But then teams like Texas and Georgetown are more than capable of screwing me over, so I’m going with them. I also face more Jayhawks heartbreak as I’ve backed them again… I swear, if they drop out in the first round this year like they did the last two, never ever again, well, at least until next year.

Thanks to Robyn’s new job in the unnamed home improvement company not headquartered in Atlanta (maybe I should drop this charade and just say she works for Lowe’s?), we scored sweet suite tickets for a hockey game yesterday between the Charlotte Checkers and Florida Everblades. NHL this was not, it wasn’t even “minor leagues”, this was the blood, sweat and tears of “AA” ECHL hockey, it’s far from glamorous, but enjoyable none the less…

It was actually a really exciting game that Charlotte won 5-4 after overtime, it had multiple lead changes, penalty minutes by the score (54 total), a couple of fights and a cruel overtime winner. What more could you ask for? I have to say, we were spoiled sitting in the suite, free drinks and snacks will make another non-suite visit seem like less of an experience, we have tickets for the Bobcats game next Monday in the upper level, these are free Lowe’s tickets too so we’ll see how that goes. Jill and Ryan came with us as Robyn scored 4 tickets, so it was cool to get to hang out with them, they had been to a few games before, and they are self confessed “booth snobs” and I can see why…

I can see us visiting the fabulous Charlotte Bobcats Arena (strange seeing a new arena without a corporate sponsorship) more often, given Robyn’s luck in scoring free tickets, it was funny as we were looking into seeing a hockey game against the Gwinnett Gladiators before Robyn scored these, she definitely likes hockey a lot better than basketball, she’s only going to the Bobcats game because they were free… I won’t complain, I know she does this because she knows I like basketball and hockey, shame we’ll miss Braves baseball over the summer.

Exchanging Words

Originally uploaded by FLC.

Long before we planned on moving to Carolina, we bought tickets for Spamalot at the Fabulous Fox, which meant one thing, another 4 hour drive along I-85, which makes it our 13th time (it would be 14, but we drove down I-77 to I-20 one time to stop by Robyn’s parents house in Milledgeville) doing that journey in the last 10 or so weeks. Frankly I’ll be happy if we never do it again, but we have to drive back to Milledgeville next month to pick up my mum…

So we left home at about 6:30, and by the time we got to Carnesville, just past the South Carolina/Georgia border, we were both running low on energy, so we stopped at the Petro there for some coffee and sugar to get us the last 80 or so miles. We eventually rolled into Atlanta around 11pm. An early rise the next morning was not what I really wanted but we had to go to Lowe’s, IKEA, Restoration Hardware, Container Store and Bed, Bath & Beyond as well as cleaning up the condo before headed downtown for a meal at the Gordon Biersch on Peachtree before the show.

We were going to the show with a handful of Robyn’s old co-workers, Dave and Lori also showed up to “have my back” as I’d be outnumbered by Robyn’s friends… It would also be the last chance I’d get to hang out with any of the APWBWGTTD for the foreseeable future, so that was cool. I spent pretty much all my time talking to Dave and Lori, sharing jokes watching Dave wax lyrical about the virtues of spam, he apparently loves the processed pork. Not my choice of meat, but in the words of Dave, whatevs…

The show it’s self was side splittingly funny, highly recommended if you ever have the chance, it’s only in Atlanta till March 4th or thereabouts.

It’s not often something so different comes along and grabs my attention, I mean most of the movies I watch are your typical action/adventure/comedy fares, but Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait is more of an art project than a movie.

It’s so surprisingly simple and amazingly executed, one game, one man and 17 cameras… For 90 minutes you follow Zinedine Zidane, arguably one of the greatest footballers to grace the field, during a game between Real Madrid and Villarreal on April 23rd 2005. Now while for some of you, this might sound boring, but seeing Zidane in action is like poerty in motion. To best describe this is like Sky Sports Interactive PlayerCam on steroids.

During the course of the game you see Zidane stroll around, coming in and out the game with those little touches he’s famous for, setting up a goal by beating three men and guiding a pinpoint cross and the relief that brings not only to Real Madrid, but their supporters too. You also see how little he interacts with his team, in the first half he barely says a word, in the second he loosens up, sharing a joke with Roberto Carlos, talking to David Beckham as opposed to his usual “heys” when calling for the ball. Ultimately you also see his temperamental side, that so famously appeared during last years World Cup final, as he is sent off in the final minutes for lashing out at an opponent during a heated moment, bizarrely he is applauded by the Bernabeu crowd as he exits the field…

Another thing to point out is the soundtrack by Mogwai which complements the action on the pitch, taking over the sounds of the crowd, leaving only the sound of Zidanes beathing and the crunch of the grass under his feet before rising to crescendos drowning out everything else. It just works, that’s all I can say.

If you’re a fan of the beautiful game, this is highly recommended, if not then you best avoid as you will probably be bored within 5 minutes, but if you can last past those first 5 minutes, you’ll be rewarded. It’s just a shame you have to go out and find a movie like this, I have no idea what kind of release it’ll get over here, I had to download a copy of it in order to see it…

AKA: A Day In The Life Of…

Finally, after literally weeks of planning, our big moving day arrived, and as it coincides with my annual “a day in the life” post, I was on hand to document it…

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In an ideal world, this would be the point I shut the computer off, pack it away and prepare to load it into a moving truck so it can make the 251 mile journey to it’s, and indeed our, new home. But alas it’s more than likely that it’ll be packed up and forced to sit for 5 days before being loaded into a moving truck for its 251 mile journey… Yes, our moving date has been postponed until Wednesday, which is good as Robyn’s last day at her current job is Tuesday. My last day was today and it was a little bit bittersweet…

Yes, I’ve said in the past that it sucked for the long hours and low pay, and even though I was only there a little over 3 months, I’ll actually be sad to leave the place as the people I worked with were a lot of fun, sometimes saying goodbye is sadder than you think. Speaking of goodbyes, we’ve got far too many to do and not enough time to do it in. Robyn’s work is throwing her a leaving luncheon on Monday, so that gives her a bit of closure in that respect, but we’ve still got all our friends to say goodbye to. Right now we’ve just been slammed for weeks on end packing, arranging stuff and every bad thing that goes with moving, so time is running out and it really sucks.

So yeah, we’re moving on Wednesday, a special day for me, it was Saturday January 24th 2004 when I first landed in Atlanta. I knew pretty much nothing about the city, all I knew was it held the Olympics in 1996 and the Braves were a good baseball team. I didn’t know where anything was, I pretty much hadn’t left the confines of Marietta before I started dating Robyn, now I can safely say I know Atlanta better than her, and she’s lived here for 22 years. Not a slight on her, I’m just good at getting my bearings. 3 years to the day, that’s actually kind of spooky really, it means my silly day in the life posts I make to commemorate it will be a bit more interesting than the 2005 and 2006 versions. Something for you all to look forward to.

Strange as it may seem, but I’ll miss Atlanta, sure it may be a sprawling metropolis where the main roads are nothing more than glorified car parks, but it has it’s cool stuff too. I’ll miss the monthly APWBWGTTD meetings, especially the ones I didn’t go to. I’ll miss all the bloggers of Atlanta, yes even Dave. I’ll miss the Atlanta Flickr group, far too many to name from there. I’ll miss going to Braves games, even if last year is best forgotten about, I wonder what my final record at Turner Field was, probably something like 15-9 (.625) (or *15-10 (.600)) which isn’t so bad overall. I’ll miss places like Decatur, Virginia Highlands, Midtown and various places I’ve ended up in a bar in. I’ll miss the continuing misadventures of Ron Mexico Michael Vick. I’ll miss Thrashers hockey, just as we were getting into it.

I won’t miss MARTA and it’s hit or miss schedule. I won’t miss the drive along 285 I have to take nearly every day, it’s the longest 6 miles in history. Along the same lines I won’t miss the construction on 400. Actually, that’s pretty much it, the horrible public transport and the awful highways, without those Atlanta would be an awesome place to live, instead it has that stigma of long, slow commutes. But hey, I learned to drive in Atlanta, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere…

Breaking up is hard to do, but worry not, for we shall be back in Atlanta next weekend, we have to clean up and repaint the inside of our condo so we can sell it, hopefully sooner rather than later, we’ve also arranged a bon voyage meeting at Meehams in Sandy Springs next Saturday, if you can make it then cool. We’ll also be back in late February as we have a date to see Spamalot at the Fabulous Fox on the 24th. So hopfully with these two opportunities we’ll finally see everyone we need to see. And if any of you usual suspects need a bed in Charlotte, give us advance warning…

So long Atlanta, it’s been emotional…

As you I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Apple revealed the much sought after, almost mythical Apple iPhone today as well as releasing the Apple TV (formerly iTV) all thanks to the much hyped MacWorld Keynote speech, if not, what rock have you been under?

Apple TV

This looks like a standalone Front Row machine that streams (or stores on a 40gb hard drive) video and music from iTunes and photos from your desktop, but Apple claim it can output 1080i and 720p, so does this mean Apple are going to offer HD content via iTunes. Which begs the question, how much will that cost as regular movies are around $10 and they take a good few hours to download at 640×480 (or 640×266 if it’s a widescreen movie), how long will a 1080i and 720p movie or TV show take, sounds like an overnight shot.

And seeing as it’s priced at $299, it’s competing with every other home entertainment device, I’d love to see one in action though…

Apple iPhone

This is what everyone was waiting on, and with the near hour long build it was reaching fever pitch, a touchscreen iPod, built in phone, OSX, 2mb camera, the whole 9 yards. Everything for everybody, all that and then some… Then came the price and capacity:

4gb for $499
8gb for $599
Shipping in June

God damn, I was hoping for something close enough to my current iPod capacity, but 8gb for 600 bucks? That’s like PS3 levels of pricing and as long as my iPod still works and my phone can make and receive calls, I’ll politely decline thankyouverymuchly…

Though I’m sure some people will buy it regardless, not me. Not until the price drops and the capacity rises. I’ll probably buy a touchscreen iPod when they come out though, if they come out, but not the iPhone.

So now the Christmas hullabaloo has died down, I can finally kick back and relax, no more driving to North Carolina (well, hopefully we will if you know what I mean), no more fretting over gifts, none of that.

Yes, we drove to North Carolina for the second time in 2 weeks, we must be mad, especially as we drove on Friday, the full 6 hour, 370 miles to Bynum (where Marchellina (my mum’s cousin) and her family stay) in non-stop pouring rain. Which got scary once we got off I-85, dark country roads ain’t where you want to be in that kind of weather. Thankfully we made it there in one piece and only saw traffic around the Charlotte/Concord area as last minute shoppers headed to Concord Mills so we arrived just in time for dinner. We crashed in bed shortly thereafter.

The next morning we were taken for a walk around Bynum, which is an old mill village on the banks of the Haw River, which is full of cool houses, all different shapes and sizes, and an old general store. The old textile mill is closed down, now a shell of the building remains, there is also a famous folk artist residing in Bynum by the name of Clyde Jones, he makes critters, lots and lots of critters. It’s a really quiet place, I think we saw a grand total one one single car driving by during our time there. After lunch we said our goodbys and headed off for the 130 mile drive to Jill and Ryan’s house in Huntersville.

Again we saw traffic in the Charlotte/Concord area, and again we arrived just in time for dinner, after dinner we walked around the little village community where Jill and Ryan live, as some people had to do some last minute shopping also, Robyn and I found our way to a GameStop where she played Zelda Fishing on the Nintendo Wii, she now wants one bad, so I guess when our local Best Buy gets them in stock, we’ll be first in line.

The following morning, Robyn’s mom busted out a racing set for everyone and anyone to play with, Jill and Ryan’s cat Leo played with it more than anyone as he was chasing the cars around. Later that afternoon I took a walk around the community, potentially spying future homes for us, but really, the whole place is really nice, I’m especially fond of the “easter egg houses” even though we have seen a larger place available.

We had Christmas Dinner that night as most of use would be leaving the following day for the long drives back to Georgia, we also did a “Secret Santa/White Elephant” gift exchange, the pets were included, an apparent annual tradition in this family. To round off the night we all played a couple of games of Pop Culture Cranium, lefties against righties (50% of us are left handed, that’s Jill, Ruth and me), needless to say the lefties layed the smackdown on the righties in the first game, the second one was much closer, decide by a single point in favour of the righties.

The gift opening was delayed til 10am as we were all a bit late in waking up and getting ready, I won’t bore you with the details but I think everyone was happy, I know Robyn was, thanks to my family and the excellent exchange rate she walked away with a Scooba to compliment our Roomba. Also thanks to my family I walked away with a 19″ widescreen monitor for my computer (mainly to watch TV via Media Center in bed, honest, seriously, who needs a 1440×900 resolution for everyday use?) and enough in Best Buy gift cards to buy a Wii when it becomes available.

Christmas 2006 (Set)

Originally uploaded by FLC.

List time! Now in it’s 5th year, it’s time to hand out props to my favourites… So who will follow the likes of Radiohead, The Strokes, Doves, Modest Mouse and Sufjan Stevens as my hot picks for best CD? Well you need wait no more.

Favourite CD’s of 2006

1. The Wreckers – Stand Still, Look Pretty

Who? Ahhh, therein lies the beauty of this hidden gem. Michelle Branch does country with the help of Jessica Harp and it’s hard not to fall in love with this surprising release. Seriously, listen to songs like “Tennessee”, “Cigarettes” and “Lay Me Down” and then say this isn’t one of the best things you’ve heard all year.

Sweet, soulful, funny and just downright rocking, what more could you possibly want?

2. The Knife – Silent Shout

Another who? The Knife are a Swedish electronic/synth pop duo who should really get more exposure then they do. Recently they had a song available for free on iTunes so thats a good start. This is a darker album than their previous releases, good music to put your headphones and just drift off with, especially the opening track “Silent Shout.”

It might take a few listens to get into it, but it’s well worth it.

3. Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins – Rabbit Fur Coat

Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis goes it alone with the help of The Watson Twins (and the alt/indie superstars Ben Gibbard, Conor Oberst and Matt Ward on a fantastic cover of The Traveling Wilburys “Handle With Care”) and comes out with a really endearing album.

Impossibly not to like, listen to “You Are What You Love” and try not to bob your head along with the beat. Simple but simply brilliant.

4. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not

Hyped up to the rafters by all and sundry, but was it worth it? I’d say yes, even if they do sound like a glorified pub band in places, though for me that’s part of the charm, and not to mention it’s sung in a broad south Yorkshire accent, something most people in the UK find undeciferable at the best of times, a truely unlikely band to conquer America, but time will tell. I’m also a sucker for a song with a catchy bassline, and this has plenty of that.

Too many songs to list that I like, this is the perfect type of CD, 45 minutes that breezes past and before you know it you’re looking to play it again.

5. Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere

After just 4 beats of the into to Crazy, you knew this would be the sound of the summer, “Crazy” is probably my pick for song of the year, it’s just a shame that this album lacks in places. Sure, outside of “Crazy” there is plenty to be had, but in he end I can’t help but think that maybe if a couple of songs were trimmed off it would be a tighter cd.

Still, a stunningly original album and like I said, it was hard to go anywhere and not hear the beat of “Crazy” blasting at you.

Bubbling Under: The Beatles – Love, Red Hot Chili Peppers – Stadium Arcadium, Muse – Black Holes & Revelations, Snow Patrol – Eyes Open, The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers

Favourite Movies of 2005

1. Little Miss Sunshine

Where was I? Oh yeah, Little Miss Sunshine, this can be wrapped up in seven words “dysfunctional family go on a road trip” but really, it’s so much more than that. As I said, it’s the tale of a dysfunctional family who drive from New Mexico to California so the young daughter can take part in the “Little Miss Sunshine” beauty pageant, along the way they fight and argue and eventually come together when needed. The characters are very engaging, from the loud, abrasive, heroin snorting grand father (yes, you read that right) to the silent, angst-ridden, Nietzsche reading teenage son, they are all very well written and portrayed on screen.

Read my full review here

2. Capote

What we got from the adaptation of these events was that Capote was basically manipulating one of the killers, Perry Smith, into telling his events of the night of the crime, aiding and assisting him with the help of lawyers to get stays of excecutions, but as the years (about 5 or so) went by it became clear he couldn’t finish this great american novel while the killers remained alive which drove him to a mental breakdown, or near enough. The classic case of his ultimate triumph being his eventual downfall…

Read my full review here

3. V For Vendetta

Now, some people aren’t happy about the useage of a terrorist/freedom fighter/anarchist as a hero (more like anti-hero if anything) and that’s all fair and good, but c’mon now, it’s just a freaking action movie… An action movie I really enjoyed… Though I have to admit I felt somewhat indifferent when the Houses of Parliament were blown up at the end, most people around me thought that was a cool bit, but I guess it’s comparable to them seeing the White House blown up in Independence Day, it was kinda cool, but a bit scary at the same time…

Read my full review here

4. Superman Returns

I really liked this, and the 3D bits were worth the hike in ticket price alone. From the opening credits which was a nice homage to the original 1978 movie ones to an appearance by Marlon Brando from beyond the grave, it was perfect in every way. Brandan Routh is a very believeable Superman, Kevin Spacey is damn near perfect as Lex Luthor, a nice preogression from Gene Hackman’s Luthor, Kate Bosworth is so-so as Lois, a bit on the young side but OK… The most underrated performace was probably by Parker Posey as Kitty (this movie Miss Teschmacher for all extents and purposes).

Read my full review here

5. Clerks II

But be warned, if your easily offened then this might not be for you, it’s rated r for a good reason, put it this way, Joel Siegel walked out due to Randal talking about a donkey show, had he stayed to the end he probably would have had a stroke. Yes, there is an actual donkey show scene… But it’s not all offensive, it’s actually very funny too, espesially if you like previous Kevin Smith films…

Read my full review here

Bubbling Under: Snakes on a Plane, Mission Impossible III, The Da Vinci Code, The Chronicles of Narnia

Feel free to talk amongst yourselves…

I managed to get my hands on the new Beatles CD “Love” today, and It’s so good I need to share some of it’s fantastic compositions. Incase you’re wondering about the “new” Beatles CD, it’s from a collaboration with Cirque Du Soleil, who have a stage show set to music specially mixed by longtime Beatles producer George Martin and his son Giles… The result is an official Beatles mash-up CD as songs are mixed together seamlessly to create a whole new sound.

Love samples 130 songs to create 27 musical pieces. The songs are mixed so that the lyrics and instrumentation from one song blend into the next. One musical highlight of the show is the new version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (see below) that matches the first studio demo of the song with a string arrangement written for Love by Sir George Martin.

I’ve also included the mash-up of Drive My Car, The Word and What You’re Doing to highlight the blending of multiple songs.

Thursday and Friday were the last days of our wedding anniversary, and like I mentioned before, I got Robyn tickets to see Barenaked Ladies at the Arena at Gwinnett Center, and it was money well spent.

First of all, they only used half the arena, so even though we were sitting in the corner, we were still pretty close, secondly, Barenaked Ladies just rock! But I might have said that before…

Opening for them was Mike Doughty’s Band who were actually quite entertaining, be it telling strange stories, promising to sign anything and everything after the show and segueing Guns N’ Roses’ Paradise City into Kenny Roger’s The Gambler. But once BNL took the stage, it was non stop fun and sing-a-long’s, well almost, as we hadn’t bought the new CD till last Saturday, but we sang-a-long with the ones we knew anyways… Of course, no two Barenaked Ladies shows are the same, and they played up to the Atlanta crowd during the first adlib section, saying stuff like “We’re Barenaked Ladies and we’re no joke, we’re Barenaked Ladies in the land of Coke”, I guess you had to be there to appreciate it… Which reminds me, I’ll need to buy this concert on CD once it becomes available like I did with the Glasgow show 2 years ago.

Things were brought to a close last night when the final part of Robyn’s gift to me took place, the Thrashers vs. the New York Rangers, this would be my first live hockey game and damn, I’m hooked… Unlike Baseball or Basketball when there are plenty of lulls in plays when you can get up, stretch the legs and maybe get something to eat, not in hockey. We were literally sat in the one position (edge of the seat if you must ask) the entire night (even during the intermissions) as we were afraid to even blink incase we missed anything. I mean the Rangers scored after 15 seconds, and the pace didn’t let up from that point on. Plus there is so much going on, like trying to follow the puck, luckily our seats were great for this as we didn’t need to move our heads at all, there were explosions, fights, goals (7 in all), zamboni’s and an awesome crowd who were baying for blood at every chance… It’s like the modern day Roman Colosseum… Just a shame the Thrashers lost…

To make it even better, Robyn enjoyed it too, way better than the Hawks game, so it looks like we’ll be going to more hockey games in future.

1st Anniversary Celebrations (Set)

Originally uploaded by FLC.

Yesterday was our one year anniversary, hard to believe that one year has come and gone, time really flies when you’re having fun… And since the first anniversary is the “paper” anniversary, we decided to get each other tickets to things the other would like to see.

It all began on Saturday when I took Robyn the the Georgia Aquarium as she hadn’t been yet, so we arrived there around 5pm as it was a late closing and spent the next few hours walking around, Robyn was extremely happy she was able to get up close with the penguins. After the Aquarium we went to dinner at Fado’s in Buckhead, coincidentally that’s where we went for our first ever date many years ago…

Also as part of her gift I got us tickets to see Barenaked Ladies at Gwinnett Arena on Thursday…

As part of her gift to me, she went the sporting route as we went to see the Hawks play Orlando Magic at Philips Arena yesterday, and surprisingly they actually won, remember this is a team thats won a combined 39 games over the last 2 years (well, 41 now after 2 wins this year). To round things off she also got tickets for the Thrashers vs. Rangers hockey game on Friday night. Oh, how I love this woman…

So yeah, year one is done, here’s to many more.

Georgia Aquarium

Originally uploaded by FLC.