Please come out and join us on Saturday, September 12 at 2:00 p.m. to support the Laney Herrin Scholarship 7K Run in Liberty, IN.  This scholarship is in honor of my mother who was a teacher at Union County Middle School.  She loved teaching and she had a special passion for encouraging children to read.  This race is designed to financially contribute to her scholarship fund which is awarded annually to graduating Union County High School seniors.

The 7K run/walk is open to all ages and will begin in front of Union County Middle School (488 State Road 44 E. Liberty, IN. 47353).  The entry fee is $20 and it is due by Friday, September 4.  All participants will receive a t-shirt and awards will be given to the top men’s and women’s finishers.  If you are interested in signing up, please visit the web site: http://www.wix.com/nolannp/LaneyHerrin7K or you can also click here to access the entry form: Laney Herrin Run 

Those of you who know me know how close my mom and I were – and I would greatly appreciate it if you would participate in this race if you are able – she would be so thrilled to have a scholarship in her honor since she valued higher education so passionately.

Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions and please spread the word!!

I was just rereading some of my old blog posts and I completely forgot about the predictions that I made almost exactly a year ago.  I thought I’d take a few minutes to comment on the accuracy of my predicting abilities: http://e2beard.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/end-of-the-year-predictions.

First up was Robert Pattinson’s rise to tween stardom – I completely hit that one out of the park.  He’s been consistently #1 on the IMDb star meter for months!  I can’t open an US Weekly without seeing his mug all over the gossip sections.   He even presented at this year’s Academy Awards! Next up was Henry Cavill from The Tudors – I think the jury is still out on this prediction. While he hasn’t exactly become a house hold name yet, he is currently filming a very big budget action movie called War of Gods – he’s playing the main character Theseus.  Plus, I actually get a huge number of hits on his picture from Google images. I’m optimistic, but it’s still too early to tell.  I crashed and burned on my final prediction – Jim Caviezel did not hit it big in 2008, and the space alien vs. Viking movie (Outlander) went straight to video – ugh. 

All in all, I’m pretty happy with my record and hopefully Henry Cavill’s new movie won’t go straight to video.

‘Twilight’ was god awful – but fans don’t seem to care.   The screenplay, makeup, and special effects were all kinds of cheesy.  I didn’t want to miss the pop culture moment, so I caved and went to a matinee yesterday.  The whole thing was, for lack of a better word, neutered.  It needed a little more testosterone – and more vampire stuff.  It took itself way too seriously and lacked subtlety – it was like killing a fly with a two-by-four.  Thank god for the Dad character, he added some very much needed comic relief, and I actually thought the baseball scene was pretty fun.

But based on the blogs, it sounds like (for the most part) all is forgiven. Most fans were expecting a low budget flick anyway, and they continue to go to the theaters again and again to hopefully give Summit Entertainment enough money to make the next one bigger and better (and also to stare at super-dreamy Robert Pattinson for a few more hours). However, in my opinion, the budget doesn’t excuse the poor script and hokey over the top melodrama – oy vey.   It’s possible to make a movie that is intended for one specific audience, but is watchable by all audiences. For example, once they added Chris Tucker to the Jackie Chan movies, everybody started enjoying them – not just boys obsessed with martial arts.  Here’s my advice to Summit – from what I’ve read online, the fans are being pretty easy on you (that glitter effect alone, complete with totally random sparkle sound effect, should have converted everyone into haters) – fans are pumping tons of money into this movie in hopes that they will get a return on their investment in the sequels.  In other words, you got a pass on this one because of budget, but if you fail to deliver in the next one, you’re probably going to have a mass exodus on your hands.  Hell hath no fury like a Tweener (and her Mother) scorned.

Now that my inconsequential review is out of the way – I do want to compliment whoever handled the digital/online communication strategy. I don’t know if that was handled by Summit’s marketing dept or by an external agency – and I don’t really care enough to research it – but I think it’s an impressive example of how to successfully market to youth (and, in some cases, their parents) online.  Is it weird that I’m a bigger fan of Twilight’s marketing department than the actual movie?  They covered everything -social media, blogs, widgets, Facebook, Twitter, iTunes, YouTube…the word of mouth was brilliant.  I thought the use of widgets, which counted down everything from trailer sneak peaks to Bella’s period (joking, but I wouldn’t put it past them), was clever…and ubiquitous.  The blogger outreach strategies were key – I think that’s why the bloggers are (for the most part) staying positive and focusing on the future rather than lamenting about the ho-hum piece of crap they were served.  The partnership with MTV.com also helped to target the right audience and throw tweens into a complete hormonal frenzy on a weekly basis.   They truly made it look like it was as easy as shooting fish in a barrel – seriously, bravo!!

Here’s another fun Twilight mash up from my favorite show ‘The Soup’:

I just found the best computer game ever!  I get really tired of the shoot ‘um up kick butt games and I have a difficult time finding fun games that aren’t centered around ripping your opponents head off.  Then I stumbled on Syberia, don’t look at the release date – it’s as old as the hills, but the main goal is to solve a series of complicated tasks and puzzles in order to find the owner of a dilapidated automaton factory….well, I’ll spare you all of the gory plot details, but trust me it’s really, really fun.  I played it so much that I actually burned up my mouse and had to buy a new one! 

Be sure to check out Syberia, if you haven’t already, and just a tip – dig out an old mouse that you don’t mind running into the ground.

Here are some pictures of my trip to Siesta Key with my husband Dave.  We also were able to spend some time with Natalie, one of my best friends from college, and her fiance Geoff.

PS - Click on the picture of me and Nattie — what’s the deal with the dude behind us with the balding mullet ponytail thingy?  Whoa!