This summer has definitely been a great summer for movies. The three I will discuss: Wall-E, Hancock, and The Dark Knight.

We can surely count on a hit movie every summer from Pixar. Wall-E is no exception. I found this movie to be incredibly adorable. Many people commented on the lack of dialog in the movie. Honestly, when I was watching it, I hardly noticed the lack of conversation. The movie was really well done, and really clever.

Hancock… I want my 2 hours of life back. The movie had such promise going in. If I had gotten up and left after the first hour of it, I would have been totally satisfied. The second part of that movie was just terrible. As soon as the plot twist occurred I was like, “This movie went from awesome to the worst movie ever in one second.” Now, I have talked to other people who thought it was… okay, but no one has really said they liked the movie.

The Dark Knight. Sorry, Batman, but you don’t make it to the top 5 favorite movies of all time. I thought the movie was excellent, but I think I liked Batman Begins more. I am of the opinion that the first movie was styled differently. I felt that Gotham City in the first movie was portrayed as more of a fantasy type city, one that you couldn’t pick out on a map. In The Dark Knight, Gotham was a whole bunch of scenes of Chicago shown in day light. I liked how Gotham was dark and scary in the first movie. Part of the story in the second movie is that Gotham has become worse, so I felt that showing the city in day light counteracted that. Now, did this ruin the movie for me? Absolutely not. I still really enjoyed the movie. Definitely a summer hit!

I started my new career shortly after graduating from college. My one month off was my last summer vacation ever. Now, I work full time. And so, to make working worth it to myself, I decided to buy myself a little graduation present. For the past year or so I have been eying new digital cameras. I really had no good reason to upgrade my current one. The one my parents bought me as a present years ago really is a nice camera that takes great quality photos and does almost everything that I want. At the time that they purchased it, the camera really was quite small. Cameras since then have become significantly smaller. For this reason, and this reason alone I decided to buy a new camera.

I bought a Nikon Coolpix S550 (in blue). This camera has a lot of functionality that I really liked. First, it has VR electronic image stabilization. I really liked this feature because I have hands that shake terribly. People are always asking me why my hands are shaking. This feature should reduce some of the blurriness that I have seen in other photos. Second feature, blink warning. This camera will tell me if someone blinked while I take a photo. This will definitely save me from being very disappointed later on. Third feature, it’s a Nikon. Personally, I am of the belief that it is best to buy a camera from a camera company. Nikon has been making real cameras for a long time. I feel that as they discover new technologies, ones that were once state of the art for them filter down to their lower grade cameras as an added bonus. Nikon is known for making some great cameras, so I figured my new digital camera would benefit from this. Finally, this camera is really tiny, and I just love tiny things.

You’re all probably wondering where I’ve been recently. I just started my new job, and have been very busy with all of that. However, I have a few days off now for the holiday, so it’s time to sit down and write a bit.

Spiders. They freak me out. Four possible things will happen when I see a spider. Possibility 1: I freak out and hide across the room. This usually happens when I’m surprised and completely unprepared. Possibility 2: If I happen to be in the bathroom, I turn on my hair dryer, set it to max and blow the spider away. This works only until the spider feels the environment is safe again. When I see him come out of wherever he’s been hiding though, hurricane Kimmie returns in full force. Not a great long term solution, but good enough for the duration of blow drying my hair. Possibility 3: I make a deal with the spider. “If you stay on that side of the room, I’ll stay on this side, and all will be cool. Cross that line and you die.” Sometimes I follow through on my death threat… sometimes I don’t. Most of the time I just agree to let the spider have more space until we’ve switched positions. Finally, Possibility 4: Instant Death. I grab whatever I can and kill it as fast as possible.

Possibility 4 happened tonight, with a little bit of Possibility 1. You see, the other day I was explaining to Jay how I sometimes think about how spiders crawl on you when you sleep, and how that bothers me. He thought I was being silly. So, I’m back here at my parent’s house for the holiday, sitting in bed, reading my mail and a HUGE spider comes down from the ceiling and lands right next to my pillow. Naturally, I freaked out and jumped across the room. Within seconds the plan changed, and I grabbed a flip flop and sent that spider across the room. Result: Instant Death.

So this is a warning to all spiders out there. If you put one creepy leg on my bed, INSTANT DEATH awaits you.