Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year
Gift of Friendship Edition
Director: Jamie Mitchell
Voice Cast: Jim Cummings, John Fiedler, Ken Sansom, Kath Soucie, Peter Cullen, Nikita Hopkins, Michael Gough, William Green
Studio: Disney Home Entertainment
Release Date: November 5, 2013
Retail: $36.99
ASIN: B00DGWZKBI
Running Time: 64mins.
Rating: G

Review:

Disney is releasing Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year: The Gift of Friendship Edition on Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD and Digital Copy today, just in time for the holidays. Pooh-rific bonus goodies are Disney Intermission (pause the movie to find games and activities), Sing Along With the Movie, Disney's Song Selection and Enchanted Environment.

A Very Merry Pooh Year was released direct-to-video back in 2002, which combines the 1991 Christmas television special, Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too and Happy Pooh Year. In this tale, Winnie the Pooh and friends (minus Owl who is not in this film) are getting ready to have a New Year's Eve party and they tell Roo the story about the Christmas that almost didn't happen. Christopher Robin had written a letter to Santa, giving him everyone's Christmas list. He drops the letter into the wind and hoped it would arrive at the North Pole.

Pooh realizes he didn't write down what he wanted for Christmas and retrieves the letter. He goes to Rabbit's house where he writes in the letter that he wants a pot of honey, but Rabbit, Eeyore and Tigger make a few changes or more like enhances to what they want for Christmas.

Pooh tosses the revised letter into the wind, but the wind is now blowing south, therefore the letter comes back to him. There is no time to get the letter to Santa before Christmas Eve, so Pooh along with Piglet decide to bring gifts to their friends. He disguises himself as Santa to deliver homemade gifts to his Hundred Acre Wood pals.

Dora's Ice Skating Spectacular!
Voice Cast: Fatima Ptacek, Regan Mizrahi, Marc Weiner
Studio: Nickelodeon
Release Date: November 5, 2013
Retail: $14.99
ASIN: B00EC9UHXU
Running Time: 69mins.
Rating: Not Rated

Review:

For thirteen-years, Dora the Explorer has become one of the most popular animated series on Nickelodeon. Today, Dora's Ice Skating Spectacular! arrives on DVD just in time for the holiday season. For an added bonus there are two bonus episodes, "Catch That Shape Train!" and "Dora and Perrito to the Rescue."

Dora's Ice Skating Spectacular! has arrived on DVD and will premiere on Nick Jr. on November 25th. In this 22-minute tale, Snow Princess has been injured and cannot skate anymore. The Ice Witch becomes the best skater in the Snowy Forest and takes away everyone's skates. A snowflake asks Dora for help, so Dora and Boots travel to the Snowy Forest and along the way she has to takes on several obstacles. When she finally arrives at Snowy Forest, she challenges Ice Switch to a skating competition.

Dora and Boots jump into a sticker book in "Catch That Shape Train!" and make a train out of shapes. The winds pushes the train down the tracks before the steering wheel shape could join the other shapes. It is up to Dora and Boots to help the steering wheel rejoin the train.

The holiday shopping season has stared earlier this year with department stores having pre-Black Friday sales, giving shoppers a chance to get a few bargains at a discount price, but most people work during day, spend their evenings running errands, taking care of kids, etc., so they don't have as much time to do Christmas shopping. That's where the internet comes in handy, as you can find about any present for just about anybody, but there is always a few family members or friends that are hard to buy for.

Teenagers and adults are more technology savvy with their computers, iPhones and DVD players, so I would like to recommend the perfect present - the DVDFab DVD copy software.

What exactly is a DVDFab DVD copy?

Well, it is the best DVD cloner on the market, featuring the ability to clone/burn/decrypt/copy/backup any DVD from your movie collection or family home videos. With only a few clicks of a mouse, you'll be able to copy and burn any DVD or ISO file to a blank DVD. It is a great way to backup your favorite DVDs.

It seems like you can't go into a department store without seeing some kind of merchandise, from band-aids to candy bars (Yes, I saw them at Walmart), for A&E's hit series Duck Dynasty. The Robertson clan just released their Christmas album last week and today LIONSGATE is releasing Duck Dynasty: I’m Dreaming of a Redneck Christmas on DVD.

I’m Dreaming of a Redneck Christmas is actually the season finale from the second season that aired on December 5, 2012. In the double-length episode, the Louisiana's bearded camouflaged millionaires celebrate the holiday season.

Every year, Willie gets out of playing Santa Clause at the local church, but his luck has ran out this year. Of course every Santa needs a helper and this is where Uncle Si comes in as Willie's elf assistant, who doesn't exactly brings Santa's bag full of toys, and instead Uncle Si brings a garbage bag full of office supplies.

From left to right: Willie Robertson (left), Si Robertson (center) and Korie Robertson (right) in Lionsgate Home Entertainment's DUCK DYNASTY: I'M DREAMING OF A REDNECK CHRISTMAS. Photo by Zach Dilgard

With Halloween over, many people will be getting ready travel around the country for Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas celebrations, but whether you're flying on a plane or driving in a mini-van, the long journey to wherever you are traveling to can be stressful for adults and tiring on children.

In today's technology world, I'm sure everyone has a laptop computer you can play movies on, but streaming movies over Wi-Fi while traveling is not the most reliable choice as an internet connection is never guaranteed. The next obvious choice is bringing along a DVD or Blu-ray, but most media players that are pre-installed on computers are never quite up-to-date and don't have the best picture quality.


Luckily, there is the DVDFab Media Player Software, which can be downloaded for a trial-run for 30 days. It has been called "the world's leading Blu-ray Player Software," with the ability to playback DVD & Blu-ray discs, DVD & Blu-Ray folders, ISO image files and other different formatted video files directly from your computer. You can play any movie you own or any digital copy with only a few clicks of a mouse.

November 22^nd 2013 will mark 50 years since the death of influential British novelist C S Lewis, author of the Chronicles of Narnia series.  But the UK has seen its fair share of influential authors, from J K Rowling to Roald Dahl.  Here are just a few of the authors who have shaped the way we read in the UK.

Joanne Rowling’s Harry Potter books have to date generated more than £237 million in revenue, but this famous author began writing as an unemployed single mum in 1995, when she wrote the first Harry Potter book, ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.’  Telling the story of a young boy wizard and his magical escapades, the book was initially rejected by several publishers until it was snapped up by London publishing house Bloomsbury in 1996.  Original print copies of the book are now worth around £25,000, and the novel went on to win the British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year.  Rowling quickly followed this up with a sequel, ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ in 1998, with a third novel in 1999. In 2000, the 4^th book, ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ broke sales records in the UK with around 373,000 copies being sold on its release day.  In total there are 7 Harry Potter books, which have been translated into 65 languages, and J K Rowling is often credited with sparking an interest in reading for children who may otherwise have turned to TV or computer games. Today, J K Rowling is working on her next piece of children’s fiction and also recently released ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ under the pen name Robert Galbraith.

Wow! This makes it two weeks in a row that I have published my post in the actual morning. I guess I'm on a roll, which is shocking considering I'm practically running on fumes. It is a good think I had a cup of coffee this morning.

Let me start out my announcing my new co-bloggers. Brenda will be posting Writing Tips Wednesdays on the first Wednesday of the month. On the weekends, Camelle will be writing Top 5 Best Book Covers and Emma will be posting book reviews.

Despite the rain last week, I did drag out the inflatable Frankenstein's monster and Homer Simpson in a skeleton costume and set them up in the yard, which I hammered in some stakes around the area and stapled crime scene tape to the stakes. I didn't want any kids tripping over anything. Then I set up my graveyard with a fence, lights, tombstones, skeletons, etc.

My annual tradition is carving a Jack-O-Lantern, which I continued this year by carving the Grim Reaper! After all the years, I have never made roasted pumpkin seeds, but this year I made a batch. They were quite tasty, almost like popcorn.