It might seem counter-intuitive, but they are big fans of this song by Adele, and whenever it comes on the radio, we all sing along. Enjoy.

{Sorry about the ad in front of the video, but even youtube has to pay the bills…}

The Big Year describes a challenge that, at first glance, might not seem worthy of a major Hollywood film: spotting and identifying the largest number of bird species in North America in a single year.

Am I right? Sounds like a little British film to me. Or maybe from the Czech Republic.

And yet, here it is, made in Hollywood, with an enormous cast of well-known actors and a location list that reads like any seasoned traveler’s bucket list, with gorgeous vistas and what must have been at least 45 company moves.*

Owen Wilson is the defending champion as the film opens, with a Big Year Record under his belt, and he’s apparently a man who doesn’t like to be outdone, so while he may have been content to sit this one out, when he finds out that Steve Martin’s retiring CEO character may be looking to beat his record, jumps in to try and beat him.

Jack Black plays a hapless slacker, a character he’s no stranger to, but this time with a passion for birds and a dream to do a Big Year of his own.

Of course, Big Years take money. There’s an inordinate amount of travel involved (see above), and Jack’s character doesn’t really have much. Luckily for him, his mother bankrolls his passion – which comes with its own set of issues, as you might imagine.

Steve Martin’s character is stinking rich in the film, so the Big Year expenses are no trouble for him; instead, he has to contend with employees who don’t want to see him run off to birdland and lose them millions more in revenue. (By the way, these “employees” are played by Kevin Pollack and Joel McHale…)

Owen Wilson’s issue isn’t money, either. He plays a contractor whose wife is remodeling their house with his competitor to spite him for his wandering away to count birds instead of staying home to make a baby with her. At movie’s end, he’s the one with the bereft life, hollow title in hand.

All the characters have a Big Year in their own way in the film, and watching them go through it is really enjoyable.

Steve Martin finally retires to spend more time in his fabulous Aspen home with his wife, played by JoBeth Williams. Jack Black meets and falls for a woman played by Rashida Jones. Anjelica Huston, Tim Blake Nelson and Steven Weber are among the other big names making cameos – and spotting them all is half the fun!

My whole family loved this film. It’s a nice, little movie you can all sit down and watch together. Big Thumbs Up.

* A Company Move is when a film crew packs up all the equipment and moves the entire shebang to a new location for filming. Hey, I did this work for 15 years. It sticks with you.

{Photos and video courtesy of 20th Century Fox.}

Wikets works by letting you recommend (or rec, as they call it) places and products you like. It links you directly to a photo of a restaurant you love on Yelp, for instance, and lets you make a comment about why you like eating there. Of course, if you’re not feeling particularly pithy, there’s a default setting for your rec, but as with most things, the more personalized you make it, the better.

If you’re rec’ing a product, the app will link you to online shopping portals, like Amazon, where you can leave a trail for your fellow Wiket-ers to follow all the way through to a purchase, if that’s what they choose.

Which leads to this great bonus: Wikets has a reward system.

You earn points by making recs, or if people re-rec your rec, or if they wish-list it – and if someone buys your rec through the App’s online partners, you’ll get points based on the price. Then, once you reach 2500 points, you can redeem them for a $25 Amazon gift card.

A bunch of us Bloggers were hired by Wikets to give it a little trial run and see what was working and what needed to be tweaked. So I’ve been poking around and I have to say I’m liking it.

It’s still in beta, so they’re making improvements all the time. For example, there was an annoying thing happening when you saw a rec someone made and commented on it, the stream would jump up and you would have lost your place. But that’s been fixed now, making it much clearer when you’re exploring through the realm of people’s recs.

So give it a try: Sign up for Wikets using my promo code SAuerswald and you’ll get double points. Then use the search feature and find me to see what I’ve been rec’ing. You can follow me there, too! SAuerswald.

{Full Disclosure: I was compensated for trying out Wikets and writing this post. My opinions about Wikets are my own. And I don’t get any money if you sign up using my promo code; just wanted to share it.}

Now, I must tell you, I had a little help: at the Playstation Family retreat in November, some of the game developers showed me how to play and use the Move controller correctly. So when I came home, I was the resident expert. And I enjoyed it!

Of course, my kids are now back in their rightful place as better Gamers than I, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying Medieval Moves.

Basically, after an explanation of the story (which is rather long, in my opinion), you play the game as Deadmund (formerly Edmund, but now he’s dead, sort of), and you fight off evil skeleton henchmen by swinging the Move controller as a broadsword, using it as a shield, or doing this really cool move where you make it into a bow and arrow. My favorite.

Turns out you can be super accurate with the Move controller, which is helpful when you’re fighting henchmen, and the way you have to move your body to make it work means you’re actually working some muscles.

And when you really get into it, you’re working a lot of muscles! I end up with a sore bicep every time.

But above all, it’s fun. And my kids and I can play it together. Thumbs up here.

Medieval Moves: Deadmund’s Quest is rated E 10+.

{I am a member of the Playstation Family, and receive game titles to review from time to time.}

The first two episodes of Alcatraz set up the mysterious disappearance of all the inmates of Alcatraz prison, the one on an island in the middle of San Francisco harbor, in the early 60′s and added tantalizing details of Lost-like twists and turns (same producers), albeit with a bit of a grim undercurrent, what with all the crimes the inmates committed and keep committing, now that they’re back from the netherworld where they’ve been hiding from the last 40 years.

There was an especially great twist at the end of the second episode, with Lucy (played by actress Parminder Nagra) appearing in the 1960′s flashback, proving that we don’t really know what the full extent of the mysterious disappearance is. It was a very Lost-like moment and made me think there were more to come.

That and the fact that Jorge Garcia, who played Hurley on Lost, is one of the main characters, had me and my sons ready to watch on.

But Monday night’s episode was about as creepy as they come, with a criminal come back from the past to continue his kid-killing crime spree. Yuck. Take it from me, if you have kids, you probably don’t want to watch this. It might give you nightmares. And keep your kids away.

That’s just my 2 cents.

I hope the show gets back to what I liked about it originally, but I have a bad feeling this was a sign of things to come. If so, this is not the show for us.

Yes, my son’s voice dropped a few octaves in the past week, shocking a friend of mine who hadn’t seen him lately, and turning him ever more obviously into a Man.

When my younger brother’s voice changed, lo those many years ago, I was merciless. I teased him non-stop and schemed to make him say words that would really show off that crackling sound. And I laughed a lot.

I guess I feel lucky for my son that he doesn’t have an older sister like me to torture him, and I wonder if he’ll inflict that on his younger brother when it’s his turn to go through it. Only time will tell.

I will take this opportunity (and Yes, I’ll do it person as well) to apologize to my Brother for my adolescent behavior as an adolescent. (Sorry, Dude.)

My son, my once tiny baby, now stands eye-to-eye with me, has a mustache, pimples, and a deep voice. To say I am ill-prepared may be putting it a bit mildly, but I plan to keep muddling through as the changes roll in.

But in all seriousness, SOPA and PIPA are two very badly-written pieces of legislation that, were they to become law, would mean the Internet as we know it would change forever – and not in a good way.

Many websites are protesting today by going dark, including Wikipedia and Reddit - and my other website, MomsLA, where we’re also running this amazing post by Jessica Gottlieb about the whole hullabaloo. I urge you to read it.

And then please take action. Email or call your Congressperson and Senators. Or both. The Internet is too cool to let it slip through our fingers like this.

We are huge fans of NOVA here at my house. We love Science and no one does it like them. To me, it’s the best use of television, and it’s such a great tool to get my kids excited about learning.

And no one gets too much more excited about learning than David Pogue, host of NOVA’s upcoming mini series, Hunting the Elements, which will air in April 2012.

Hunting the Elements follows Pogue as he learns about elements, those chemical building blocks of our world, like carbon or oxygen. Many of us learned about the Periodic Table of the Elements in Chemistry class, of course, but this series will teach you things you never knew before about them.

I got a chance to meet David Pogue and I interviewed him about his involvement with Hunting the Elements at the PBS Press Tour.

1. They got the clothes right about Hawaii. The filmmakers experienced and portrayed the real Hawaii on screen, not the Hawaii 5-0 version. I can say this with certainty because I grew up there. When we moved from Greenwich, CT to Maui in 1972, my father didn’t wear a suit and tie again for 20 years. All Aloha Shirts, All The Time.

2. George Clooney played a character about his real age. And since his real age is so close to my real age, I couldn’t be more proud of it. (The age, that is.)

3. They got the shoes part right about Hawaii. No shoes in the house. When Clooney runs to his neighbor’s house and has to put on and take off shoes at the door, I was dying. So pathetic and so real at the same time.

4. George Clooney’s character could be quiet. The filmmakers were not afraid of scenes without dialogue, and he’s a good enough actor to make stillness work. I loved it.

5. They got the Missionary Family part right about Hawaii. I grew up with many a descendant, kids from families that had a hand in shaping Hawaii’s statehood, mostly from the White side of the tracks, but with some Hawaiian blood in the mix somewhere. There’s a tortured history of land rights in the story of Hawaii, and it’s not unlike the story of other Native People’s land when the White Man comes to call. So many generations later, I think it’s still complicated.

6. George Clooney’s character didn’t have any love scenes and – brace yourselves – I think it’s much better that way. They wouldn’t have worked in this film, and to their credit, they didn’t just tack some on just because it was him.

7. The film portrays a Dad taking over when his wife dies, which is what my Dad had to do when my Mom died of breast cancer in 1979. Some of the scenes were so reminiscent of my family’s life, I just watched in awe. When all the friends come over to the house for a potluck – that happened at my house, too. So many people loved my Mom.

8. The daughter character is about the same age I was when my mom died. And while there was no infidelity in our case, I nonetheless felt angry at my mother for dying, when I could feel at all. Seeing an onscreen situation so similar to my own life really moved me.

9. Hawaii is so beautiful. I just sat back and enjoyed looking at it.

10. Two words: George. Clooney. That one was pretty obvious, wasn’t it?

I really loved The Descendants, for all those reasons, and I congratulate the filmmakers on their Golden Globe win. On to the Oscars…

I will freely admit that I let my Striiv gather a little dust over the holidays, but it’s back in use now, right along with all my New Year’s Resolutions to get in better shape.

Now in 2012, the Striiv has added features, including Personalized Challenges, based on the user’s individual activity level, which is great for me, since I don’t need to be expected to run like Yvonne in LA or According to Kelly does. I need to be judged against myself.

Also new is that the Striiv will track the actual Minutes of Activity per day, in addition to steps and calories. Perfect if you have a goal of doing 30 minutes per day, for example, regardless of how far that gets you.

They’ve also expanded the Game Play aspect, which, I will confess, is not something that’s of much importance to me. But hey, I’m probably in the minority here. The built-in game, Myland, is adding a new island, as well as updated plants and fixtures that can only be unlocked by physical activity. Rock on, Myland fans!

The Striiv units are also now available at select Best Buy locations, as well as online and on HSN.com.

{I was given a Striiv pedometer for review. Photos courtesy of Striiv.}