Mashed Thoughts

The Secret World of Arrietty is a Studio Ghibli film, released in North America by Walt Disney Pictures, and is based on the book The Borrowers by Mary Norton. It follows fourteen-year-old Arrietty (voiced by Bridgit Mendler) and her friendship with sickly boy named Shawn (voiced by David Henrie) who has moved into her house. Arrietty is a Borrower, a little four-inch tall person, who lives with her parents underneath the house and it is against Borrower rules to let themselves be seen by "human beans". Shawn in his desire to help Arrietty inadvertently causes more trouble for the Borrowers as the housekeeper, Hara (voiced by Carol Burnett), begins to get suspicious and will do anything to prove to the world of the existence of the "little people".

I remember reading the Borrowers when I was in elementary school. It was one of my favourite series back then so I was thrilled to hear that Studio Ghibli had picked up the classic childhood book. The Secret World of Arrietty is another amazing movie produced by the studio and joins the likes of Spirited Away and Ponyo. What I really noticed about the movie was the detail drawn into each frame. And the soundtrack. The music blew me away! Get the soundtrack if you can, it is a very uplifting music.

The version I watched in theatre is dubbed and the voice actors all did a fantastic job. Arrietty's mom Homily, voiced by Amy Poehler, and Carol Burnett's Hara got most of the laughs from the audience.

The entire movie was beautiful and magical to say the least. Great storytelling, amazing artwork, stellar music and the pacing was just right. You can tell when children don't get restless in the theatre that the movie has captivated them. There were many children in the theatre and they all squealed with delight and laughed at Hara's antics. It is a great family movie that addresses loneliness and friendship that everyone will enjoy.

The Secret World of Arrietty comes out in theatre on Friday, February 17th, 2012.

Saturday night was the Simple Plan concert! I was really excited to go since I love their song Jet Lag and also Marianas Trench was performing!

These Kids Wear Crowns

These Kids Wear Crowns started playing their famous (and also my fave) Jump Start!

All Time Low

All Time Low started a lingerie collection! You can see all of them hanging off the microphone stand. LOL

Next up was my favourite Marianas Trench, a band based in Vancouver! The lead singer Josh Ramsay came out of a box. Watch the video! (Sorry the ending was cut off. My camera overheats when taking video.)

Josh is such a talented singer and has awesome hair! It was silver glitter that night! Woo loved it!

Finally Simple Plan came on. They had a very funny video intro but because of some technical difficulties, we weren't able to hear the sound in the last bit! "Where's my white tiger? How do you expect me to be a party animal out there when I don't have an animal in my backstage environment?!!!"

You say good morning when it's midnight, going out of my head alone in this bed

My heart heart heart is so jet lagged

Simple Plan are party animals even without the white tiger! It was an awesome concert!

Before the Simple Plan Concert on Saturday, we paused for a bite to eat at Trocadero Pizza & Steak House. The place wasn't too busy at 6pm but started to pick up nearer to 7.

We ordered Deep Fried Zucchini Sticks (yum) and the Roast Lamb to share. The entry came with a small greek salad, bread, rice and potato. Even sharing I thought it was too much. Ending up paying about $25 for the meal. The food was ok. I might come back to try a steak or pizza. lol

Zucchini sticks

Greek Salad

Roast Lamb

Yesterday night, I participated in the Chapters Indigo tweet up at C Restaurant. This was my first tweet up and I had expected a large group of people but it was actually quite personal. Our group consisted of 7 guests and 3 people from Chapters. We had a private room in the Wine Cellar! We were encouraged to tweet during dinner using the hashtag #VanIndigoTweets

I finally got the pleasure of meeting Jeremy Cammy, Captain Awesome of @IndigoGreenRoom on Twitter. Follow him for entertaining tweets and contests! He is an amazing person to get to know and his personality is as big in person as it is on Twitter.

Complimentary Bread and Butter

We started off with bread and Smoked Salmon Lollipops as Cammy calls them. C Restaurant was serving us a modified version of their Dine Out Vancouver menu which consisted of five instead of four courses and two other small tasters.

Amuse Bouche

Our conversation started off deciding which companies on social media are the best and why. Some suggestions were @LondonDrugs @Translink @CanadianBeef @CactusClubCafe and of course @ChaptersIndigo and @IndigoGreenRoom. Why? All of them interact with their followers and are very helpful at answering questions in a timely manner. It is the engagement that people like.

Throughout the night the topics went from vegetarianism to the hotel industry to contesting to books.

C Restaurant took very good of us and our server Jason was very enthusiastic and informative when it came to all the dishes. C Restaurant is an Oceanwise restaurant and they pride themselves on serving sustainable food. Jason was very well informed and gave interesting descriptions and facts about each dish. Everything was delicious beyond compare. I'll let the photos to the talking.

First Course:

North Arm Farms Beet Panzanella Salad

Second Course:

Seared Albacore Tuna

Third Course:

Seared Lake Babine Salmon

Fourth Course:

Roast Beef Tenderloin

Sauteed Spot Prawns? This was an alternative to the Roast Beef. It ended up at our end of the table.

For dessert:

Spiced Chocolate Pudding

Lemon Poppyseed Biscotti

Prior to the tweetup, each one of us were asked to bring in our favourite book and a picture of an animal that represented our personality. We all had to guess who was what. There were two wolves, who coincidentally sat next to each other, a platypus, two kittens, a puppy, a dog and a tarsier. We also all decided that Cammy's animal is the dog from Up!

Favourite books of all time? Little Women, The Giver, Beautiful Joe, Calculating God, The Andromeda Strain, The Golden Compass (but actually Alice in Wonderland), Something Borrowed, Star Trek, The Demon's Lexicon.

Group photo time!

These are an amazing group of intelligent people. We are YA lovers, animal lovers, contest addicts, and most of we all enjoy a good book to read (sometimes several at a time).

At the end of the evening we were all given a swag bag filled with awesome gifts which included a limited edition cook book C Food!

Thank you Chapters Indigo for an amazing evening!

On Thursday, I went to the Cherry Tree Tour Concert which features the artists from Ubisoft's awesome game Just Dance 3. I was lucky enough to score VIP tickets which included a meet and greet with Far East Movement and LMFAO! We were given glowsticks too!