30 years for Sun Sounds in Tucson

Tuesday evening at the Z-Mansion. We had a wonderful celebration along with a nice dinner. David Fitzsimmons was the MC. Many volunteers, the backbone of Sun Sounds came and it was a wonderful night.

Mitzi

Makeup

As I get older, putting on makeup seems to get harder, so I was just wondering if anyone had some tips. I am sure that there are things that I can do that I just do not think of.

As of right now, I use Bare Minerals, which works just fine. But, I need to figure out how there is makeup on the brush for sure. My biggest problem is mascara: getting it on just right and even and not getting extra on my face. Anybody have any good tips out there?

Mitzi

More on descriptive movies...

It is so nice that just about all the movies you go to at the theaters are descriptive now but for some reason I am not liking them. I think besides the book club it would be really nice if there was an email group to talk about the movies that they just saw and what they thought of it.

Mitzi

The SAZCB Book Club

SAZCB, the Southern Arizona Council of the Blind, has a monthly teleconferenced book club meeting, and there’s a lot of talk on how to make the discussions better. Every caller talking at once on a pricy phone connection can certainly be improved upon.


EMVIA is looking into new ways to host the SAZCB book club. It’s looking like a dedicated forum format could work well. If you have any ideas on this, including experiences with things that really work well and things that are stinkers, let me know your thoughts!

ACCEPTABLE RISK

ACCEPTABLE RISK is the SAZCB Book Club book of the month for November and anyone can call in to give their two cent’s worth. Each book we read for the book club is different, some I do not like so I have a hard time getting through, but not this one. 

 

This one kept me listening. This was one of the more interesting ones and I think you should try it out, especially if you like spooky books. It fits Halloween well. 

 

Much of this description is taken from BARD. ACCEPTABLE RISK is a medical thriller by Robin Cook and it’s about 13 hours long. In 1692, Elizabeth Stewart is hung as a witch in Salem after a young girl in her care experiences hallucinations. Now, 300 years later, Elizabeth's descendant Kim Stewart, who inherited Elizabeth's house, is dating a scientist who suspects a mold on Elizabeth's rye caused the problem. His search leads to the discovery of a possible antidepressant, but his odd behavior is scaring Kim. 

 

Download from BARD DB39876 (read by Martha Harmon Pardee) or Bookshare.

The Taking of Pelham 123

The Taking of Pelham 123 is a crime caper movie that came out in 1974 with Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, and Martin Balsam. It was remade in 2009 with Denzel Washington and John Travolta.

The remake was released with described video and even though it was an action thriller, I really enjoyed it with the descriptions at home. I had gone to the theater a few years ago when it was released but it didn’t have descriptions available and, because it was an action film I didn’t enjoy it then much at all.

I was also surprised that I liked John Travolta as the bad guy. I give it 3 and a half stars out of five.

Mitzi

Bears!

We went to see the documentary called Bears and really enjoyed it, but there was none of the promised description coming over the headset.

When ever there have been such audio problems in the past, someone I am with has had to go turn in the “bad” headset and get another one, and this can take some time. My son was willing to go get me a new one but I did not want him to miss part of the show. I figured that since there was a lot of main narration I would be fine.

I really did wish it would have worked though and think I missed some good parts. I do not know how we can fix that but we need to come up with a solution. I do not think that a lot of the staff really knows how to work the headsets and are not really sure of themselves with them. The only thing that I can think of at this point is that we need to go to the movies a lot more and use them.

Mitzi

SAZCB SCHOLARSHIPS

Two members of the Southern Arizona Council of the Blind (SAZCB), Marlene Dekker and Lindsey McHugh, will be giving away small amounts of money for students going either to the U of A or to Pima. It will be for books or supplies. This first year SAZCB will have enough money for 5 awards at $100 a piece, but it will grow as the years go on.

On Mondays here there will be tips for the two schools from Marlene and Lindsey. So please check them out then for more details about the scholarships.

Mitzi

OUR PRICKLY PEAR FESTIVAL

On August 23, 2014 EMVIA will be having a very different event that will be focused on a lot of sampling and learning about Prickly Pears. Aside from actually being healthful there will be lots of yummies to eat at this event. I’ll say more as the details come together and settle, but the web site is at pricklypearfestival.org. Check back here occasionally for updates and details!
 
Mitzi

DESCRIBED MOVIES

I did not realize that not all movie theaters have described movies, I thought they all did not but no. We do have a list on EMVIA of all the described movies that we can find across the state of Arizona ordered by theater. It changes every week just before the weekend. On the SAZCB.org site we whittle that down to theaters local to the club, which is Tucson and Pima County. 

One new thing I will be doing is surveying which main stream theaters have specials and how well equipped with headphones they are. I’ll try to be clear and timely about upcoming new films, and Thursday seems like a good day for that.

So if you are a movie lover and like to go to the movies, check me out every Thursday evening, find out what is going on at the movies, and add your two cents’ worth..

Mitzi

The Solstice Is Coming

I took some time off from blogging but am back now. I’ll try to keep a reliable schedule.

Mondays will be mostly about school with some other people contributing.

Thursday evenings I’ll try to weigh in on upcoming movies, other entertainment, and things like that.

Saturday will be a mixture of all types of things. An olio! I’ll bring some of the highlights from our EMVIA Weekly Calendar. SAZCB will not be left out, either. That’s the Southern Arizona Council of the Blind and they have a call-in monthly book club, fundraisers, scholarships, and more.

Saturday is also the longest day of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere. Just thought I should mention it.

So check back blog frequently to see more news and views.

Mitzi

ANY GOOD MOVIES OUT THERE?

I have not looked lately but there just did not seem like there was any good movies out lately. If anyone knows of some seriously good movies coming out please let me know. I would love it if a large group of us could get together and go see one. Now that just about all of them are descriptive, I enjoy them even more but of course that doesn’t mean any of them are worth going to!

Mitzi

SAZCB book club

We are adding new books for the rest of the year, please check out SAZCB.org for the next 6 months of books and shortly we will add the rest of the years' books. Join us! We try to have a nice variety of books and we have really good discussions about the books. We would love to have new members.

Mitzi

Giveaways

We are going to be selling crafts through ETSY for under the price of what that sort of thing would go for if you were going to buy it pretty much anywhere else. We are starting out with crafts and will be expanding from there.  

In our EMVIA Weekly Calendar we are going to be giving away things about every six weeks or so; give or take, so if you are an EMVIA Weekly subscriber be checking us out.

The next giveaway will be on February 12 in celebration of Lincoln's birthday (and mine). Do not forget that Valentines Day is just 2 days away!

Mitzi

Descriptive Dependence

I went to see the movie August: Osage County. It was a bit different than the movies that I like but it was good. I went largely because I really like Julia Roberts.

My son and I wanted to see different movies that day so I went to the one and he went to a different movie; something with explosions. I got the describing head set and was getting into the movie, but about half way through it the head set died.

I was thinking it should be fine, that I had the drift of the movie down, but I was wrong. After getting used to being told all that was going on in movies by the descriptions was something I was used to so it really was very different not knowing those things.

I just wanted to talk about this because I was really shocked at the difference. I did not understand what happened much at the end of the movie so that was not a lot of fun. I guess that I am really enjoying descriptive movies.
 
Mitzi