This N' That:

I Fandangoed some tickets for last nights 10:20p showing of Batman at Universal Studios. That was the earliest showing available that was not sold out! The Dark Knight has received crazy good reviews-- even Best Picture talk on Ebert and Roper-- so we were pretty excited to see it. We thought we should arrive an hour before showtime to get in line for a good seat. Turns out, half the theatre thought they should arrive more than an hour before showtime to get good seats! The line was sooo long! We still managed to get center seats-- just pretty close to the front. It's so much fun seeing a movie like this with die hard fans who cheer throughout the film. So what did I think of Batman?.....

I don't know......

I haven't seen it yet.......

'Huh?' You ask? Let me explain: About 3/4 though the film-- the movie stops-- the lights come on-- and the fire alarm goes off. Keep in mind this is Universal Studios. Massive fire happened here a couple of months ago, remember? With this in mind, all of us in the theatre looked around and sniffed for smoke---- we smelled nothing and demanded the return of Batman! :) After a few minutes, admitting defeat, people started standing up and filing out. A worker came in stopping them telling everybody it was a false alarm. So we waited. And waited. And Booed. And waited. I decided now was a good time to visit the ladies room. When I returned, the lights were on, the movie was playing sans sound. There were shouts of "Rewind it!", "Turn the sound on!" and "Booo!". I believe The Joker had something to do with this!

Soon the sound came on. The movie was far enough ahead that nobody understood what was going on. People started filing out of the theatre in protest. We could hear fan rumblings outside demanding their money back. We had already invested 2 hours in the movie plus the hour in line... so we stayed in the well lit theatre and tried to continue watching Batman. A few minutes later-- the movie shut off again as the fire alarm went off. Now we all filed out of the theatre and was greated by a customer service line of Indy Mac proportions!

We now have 4 free movie tickets and will have to give Batman another try sometime during the week!

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I covered the big 4th of July celebration here on the Lot where our station is located. The lot was packed with people!
I had one very bizarre experience... I was shooting live shots in the middle of the crowd... My equipment was cordoned off by a series of orange cones with yellow tape wrapped around forming what looked like a mini crime scene. I finally had 20 minutes free to sit down by my camera inside my little space and eat a piece of chicken Dave brought me. I sat there with my headphones on listening to the show in case they needed something.... Then it became clear... I had become part of the attraction on the lot. As I took a bite of chicken I looked up and saw a crowd of people watching me. They were pointing. They were taking pictures. It was really weird. And it did not stop. Every last bite of chicken was documented. I'm sure there are pictures somewhere on the internets of me sitting on the ground eating chicken. I now know what it is like to be a zoo animal.
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Hartman has finally taken to the kitty condo I bought (and spent an entire evening putting together) for her! For the first couple of weeks she turned her nose up at it and much enjoyed the box it came in!


I'm glad it finally received the Hartman seal of approval. In fact, she's sleeping in it as I write this!

I'm 2 for 2 now. Here's a little video of Hartman enjoying her new Catnip toy! She used to be apathetic to the nip. Welllll, she's Hartman!

Soon, Hartman! Soon!

................................................Uncle John...............................................

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I'm back home in Kansas for my Cousin Sean's wedding! Later today there's a birthday party for Sara's twins. They're 1 already! I'll try to post pictures of the little---well, ok, they are actually GIGANTIC cuties! I swear they are going to be 7 ft tall when they grow up.

Happy Father's Day!!! Let's have dinner at the Cat House! hehe :)
Love you!!

Due to the unrelenting stares of Hartman and Cousin Alissa, I proudly present:

The Griswold Family Vegas Vacation!


Not to worry, this was nothing like the Griswold Family Christmas Cruise! Though there were a couple of close calls... which I will divulge in due time.
As you can see in the photo above, we were living the high roller life! Why?

Mom hit the jackpot on the penny machines! Woooo! Oh... wait a minute... wrong photo...


Ok, here's the right pic! Wooooooohooo! hehehe. Hey, not bad Mom. Not bad at all!

So we hopped in our Limo stocked specifically for me (for those of you who don't know: I'm a total coke addict).

We arrived at our final destination:


The Top of the World Restaurant at the Stratosphere!

The view was awesome. The meal was awesome. My family is awesome. You know what turned out not to be so awesome? Well, for me at least?

The restaurant rotates so everybody eventually gets to see the strip. It goes very slow. It takes more than an hour to do a full rotation. Nobody even feels it.... well.... almost nobody...


This is what it felt like to me! haha. The older I get the more sensitive to motion I become. Dave and I ate at this restaurant years ago for our anniversary and it didn't bother me a bit!

Not to worry, this was no Discovery Christmas Cruise. I just took a couple of five minute breaks away from the rotation and all was well. Phew! Until..... we tried to leave.


You see, the night was still young for us high rollers. We had 6 tickets to see the Blue Man Group after dinner. However, there were only 2 or 3 elevators that seemed to be in use taking people up and down the however-many-stories (like 80 or something) and there were always full when they came to our floor! I eventually asked a worker if they could get us an elevator:

Worker: No...

Me: Well, isn't there a service elevator or something we could please use? We are going to miss our show because we can't leave the restaurant.

Worker: No... sorry....

So, the next elevator that opened, I stuck my foot in the door so it couldn't leave and asked the elevator operator to please help us.

Me: Please, we've been trying to leave for nearly 30 minutes. We're going to miss the Blue Man Group.

Elevator Girl: No, sorry. I don't know.

Me: There has to be someone you can call. Could we take a service elevator?

I apologized to the people on the elevator I was holding up, but hey, we were not going to miss the Blue Man Group over this! The standoff ended peacefully with the Elevator Girl calling an elevator for us.

What greeted us at the base of the Stratosphere was--- a line for a cab! We were going to take the monorail, but we used up all of our time trying to negotiate our way back down to earth. It was 15 minutes till showtime when one of our cabs was available. I handed out the BMG tickets and dispatched Dave, Mom and Dad in the first cab.

Me: Don't wait for us. We'll catch up!

Minutes later, John, Olivia and I hopped in our cab. It was 10 till. How on earth were we going to make it?? I'm sure the cabbie appreciated the clock play by play. "Oh no, 9 minutes! 8! 7! 6! 5!"

When we arrived there was 4 or 5 minutes till showtime! And you know how Vegas is. You arrive at a hotel and you have to walk a mile in it to get to where you need to be.

We flew through the front door. Olivia and I shared a look:

Olivia: I've been training my whole life for this!

The whole world moved in slow motion.

Chariots of Fire began to play.

I think we passed a Cheetah racing through the casino.

We were giddy with laughter, actually, running through the Venetian like crazy people. We caught up and passed by Mom and Dad and Dave.

We arrived safely in our great seats to the Blue Man Group!

The show rocked!! One of the Blue men was stalking John after the show!
Ok. So you know how Hartman was staring at me until I wrote something about the big trip? Well, now she's staring at me telling me I need to pay attention to her... or else. I may write more later. It's up to Hart!

"I'm going to stare at you like this until you blog about your family's trip."

Ok, Ok, Hartman. I will do it tonight.


Hartman, I promise, I will do it tonight!


Ahhh! Stop!

I have to goto work right now. I PROMISE-- TONIGHT!!

Yes, I know, I should be blogging about the awesome Moriconi family adventures. I promise those tales will come very soon! First, I must share this video i found on Youtube. I was laughing so hard I was crying!