We're Back to the Future!

As I'm sure everyone is aware (how can you not be?), yesterday was October 21, 2015, the exact date that Marty McFly went to the future in Back to the Future II. I was glad to see that everyone kind of made a big deal of it, since the trilogy has been one of my favorite films my whole life.

We celebrated by seeing the trilogy at the Cinemark near us. But first, Marty and Doc joined us for some Moscow Mules at Whole Foods!

They also insisted on grabbing some drinks to go, for during the movie. And can I just say how much I love that movie theaters are allowing you to take drinks into the theater with you?

It was a pretty packed and enthusiastic crowd, cheering and clapping at all the right parts. That's the best kind of audience to see a movie with, especially one like this!

Now, where's my hoverboard??

Cultivating the Magic Disneyland Tour!

This weekend, we took the Cultivating the Magic tour at Disneyland. This tour is aimed at the horticulture found around Disneyland. "Flower and stuff, that's dumb," you might say. No, you're dumb and this tour was awesome and incredibly interesting and made me take more notice of details around the park that I normally overlook.

This tour was one of the cheaper ones at just $30 per person, and it was a ton of value for the money. It includes the 2 hour tour, a pin with your name on it, 3 rides, and another special pin, plus a packet of seeds!

There were so many new facts about Disneyland that I didn't know before. I don't want to give too much away, so I'll just give some highlights. For example, the trees on Main Street are in the same 3/4 scale as the other buildings, and when they get too big, they are taken out and moved elsewhere, and new small ones are put in their place. 

The first ride we got to skip the line on was Jungle Cruise, but it wasn't the normal spiel. We had the whole boat to ourselves, as our tour guide talked about all the plant life throughout the ride. The bamboo trees throughout the ride were there before the park was, and Adventureland and Tomorrowland switched from their planned places in order to leave them where they were and have them within the ride!

Next, we went on Haunted Mansion, which is currently in it's holiday overlay of Nightmare Before Christmas, and thus has a line of well over an hour. Some people in our group literally jumped and clapped their hands they were so happy to go on it!

We also went on the Storybookland boats, and again had the whole boat to ourselves so that our tour guide could tell us all about the plant life and how they get those little trees so tiny.

This is an actual redwood tree, found in Adventureland!

I love unusual colored roses! These are peppermint roses, meant to be reminiscent of Alice painting the white roses red.

This is probably my favorite detail that our guide pointed out. This area is right between New Orleans Square and Adventureland; look how the fence changes to reflect the different lands. AMAZING.

We also checked out the Drawing Disneyland: The Early Years exhibit at the Disney Gallery. I think I'd seen some of the artwork at D23, but there was a lot more cool stuff to be seen. Like this statuette of one of the paintings in the Haunted Mansion.

And check out this glass slipper from Cinderella, and the tiara!

The Disney Gallery is in the lobby of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, which you should be sure to check out, because they've got an improved animatronic that actually has facial expressions! It's pretty cool.

Almost as cool as this chillaxing dog wearing Mickey ears. That dog is living his best life.

Weekend Roundup - Four Movies, A Bunch of Food, and Some Video Games!

My weekend was full of movies, food, and fun! First, we went to the Landmark to see the movie Steve Jobs. Starring Michael Fassbender, the movie follows Steve Jobs during product launches and the ensuing personal and professional drama in 3 separate years: 1985, 1988, and 1996.

From there, we went to the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood to catch another Beyond Fest film. We ended up catching the end part of the 1925 silent film, Phantom of the Opera, with a real life orchestra providing the music! It was a really cool experience to see the film the way it was originally seen.

After a dinner and happy hour at one of our favorite Hollywood spots, Boardner's, we went back to the Theatre to see Dog Day Afternoon. I'd never seen it before, and didn't even really know what it was about beforehand, but I really enjoyed it. Al Pacino gave an amazing performance of an inexperienced bank robber trying to figure it out as he goes along. Pacino was on hand afterwards for a Q&A moderated by Brett Ratner.

The next day, we headed downtown to the Ace Theatre to see Monster Squad.

The Ace is just spectacular inside; it's one of those classic movie palaces. They don't make them like this anymore!!

We had VIP tickets, so we got a couple drinks in the VIP section before taking our seats.

I had never even heard of Monster Squad before this screening. It's a cute '80s kid horror-comedy about a bunch of kids battling the classic Universal monsters.

Before the movie, they had a Q&A with some of the cast and guys who played the monsters.

After the movie, they had another Q&A with 3 of the kid actors.

From there, we met up with some friends at Manna Korean BBQ, where I ate my weight in various meats.

After we stuffed ourselves, we walked over to Eighty-Two, the barcade with a full bar and 2 rooms full of classic arcade games and pinball games. I had fun with a Terminator 2 game that I think must have been new because I don't remember seeing it last time we were there.

Things I Love Thursday - Rimmel Lift Me Up Mascara, Impress Press-on Nails

Lift Me Up Rimmel Mascara!

I was browsing the makeup section at Target the other day when an employee offered me a sample bag of various toiletries. Um, yes, please! In that bag were some small sample sizes of various face cleansers and moisturizers, and a full-size tube of Rimmel's newest mascara, Lift Me Up. Contained in a pretty, shiny green tube, this mascara is fortified with cucumbers and vitamins, and it literally even smells like cucumber, which I love. Cucumbers are awesome; I mean, not to eat, but they make great cocktails! The brush is an hourglass shape, and it goes on smoothly and not at all clumpy, like some mascaras I've had lately; plus, it doesn't make my eyelashes feel crispy either. This is definitely going into my regular rotation of mascaras!


Impress Press-on Nails!

I recently got a couple sets of Impress Manicure press-on nails to try out. Now, I love painting my nails, but it usually does mean you have to set aside a small chunk of time to remove your nail polish, shape your nails, apply base coat, let it dry, apply a coat of nail polish, let it dry, apply a second coat, let it dry, apply a top coat, let it dry. It's kind of a lot. With these nails from Impress, all you have to do it peel the backing, press them on your nails, and you're good to go! They have a special pressure sensitive adhesive, so no need to worry about glue or anything. Plus, they're easy to remove, just peel them off carefully. They're perfect for when  you need your nails to look amazing, but just don't have the time to put into it. They even have a great variety of not only colors, but also fun accent nails, glitter tips, patterns, etc.


Disclaimer: I received products from Impress Manicure in exchange for my review.

Twin Galaxies Entertainment Festival & Morongo Casino!

This weekend, we took a short vacation to exotic Banning, CA! It took a little less than 2 hours to get there, not counting our stop to eat lunch and go to Walmart for supplies. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express there, and it was really surprisingly nice!! We had a fancy king suite, with two rooms, a big bathroom, and a little bar area. They even had a great continental breakfast with cinnabuns, omelettes, and biscuits and gravy!

The main reason we went to Banning was to attend the Twin Galaxies Entertainment Festival held at the Museum of Pinball! They had over 800 games, both arcade games and pinball games, dating back to the earliest versions, all on free-play!!

One huge room had rows and rows of classic cabinet arcade games; the other had more rows of pinball games.

They had everything from the old Atari games to Fix It Felix Jr. from Wreck-It Ralph. They even had the original Mario Bros game (they weren't Super yet), wherein you knocked down turtles from below, and then kicked them. (Why does Mario hate turtles so much? Did a turtle kill someone he loved?)

The other room had hundreds of pinball games.

Jurassic Park was a fun one; there was a t-rex that tried to eat your ball.

Back to the Future pinball!

They also had quite a few super old ones. Of course, they didn't have as many bells and whistles as the modern ones do, but I'd never seen any like these, so that was pretty cool.

 They even had a super big Hercules pinball machine!

There was also a smaller room with some original shooting games. I had no idea there were any games like these. 

Some of them just had miniature things, like actual physical things, in the distance for you to shoot at. 

Some of them superimposed figures over glass. It was hard to tell where you were aiming though.

They also had a mini bowling game!

It was a TON of fun playing all these arcade and pinball games, most of which I'd never even seen before! We hung out there for a good 4 hours, before we went over to Morongo Casino for some food. This Native American casino is what Banning is probably known best for. We hit up Potrero Canyon Buffet. (Make sure to sign up for the rewards program, and they'll knock 5 bucks off your price!) I was pleasantly surprised by the selection! It's probably one of the better buffets I've been to. I had two huge platefuls of food, plus another one with desserts! I was stuffed after that.

We didn't do very much gambling while we were there, but I couldn't resist playing this Garfield slot game!

The next day, after we'd lazed around the hotel room for a bit, we went over to the Desert Hills outlet center. It has so many stores, you literally can't walk the entire thing.

We hit up a bunch of stores in one area of it, and found some good deals at the Banana Republic and Express outlets.

For dinner, we hit up the buffet at Morongo again (two days in a row, it was that good!). This time, I knew exactly what foods to load up on, and what to avoid. I didn't eat quite as much as the night before, but pretty close to it.

We went for some after-dinner drinks at Cielo, a restaurant/bar that's located on the 26th floor. We sat at a table by the huge windows, and had a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains and farm areas.

 Old fashioneds at 400 feet up.

 It rained a bit on our way back, making the mountains look quite misty.

It was a pretty great weekend!