Missing You Blogfest & Box Office Blitz Week 18

Today is Andrew Leon's Missing You Blogfest where you're supposed to talk about a blogger or two who you've been missing.  So here's a roll call of blogs that haven't been updated in a while:

A Simple Writing Machine - on hiatus now for over a year!  I reckon he ain't coming back.
Blogging Chasness - idle for over 3 months now.  I follow him on Facebook because he has some neat photos.

Lisa M Potts - Almost 2 years and counting.  I knew her from a writing message board.  She was one of two occasional readers of my Wordpress blog its first year.  I still see her around Goodreads sometimes.
The Interrupted Writer - Almost 7 months now.  Also knew him from a writing message board.  His book A Heart Lies Within Us was good.

It's always sad how people can disappear from your online life so much easier than your offline one.  It's like when a morning news show or radio show changes people and you never hear anything about it, just one day you turn it on and there's different people there and you think, What the Hell?  By the same token a blog might update steadily for a while and then POOF it just stops for one reason or another.

If you got one go pour a 40 on the curb for those blogs that have fallen.

And now it's time for Box Office Blitz!  You're pretty much guaranteed 200 points this week unless you're a complete idiot and don't know what #1 will be this week.  Here's a hint:  it's a movie about a Norse god with a hammer.  I know that doesn't really narrow it down, does it?  You'll just have to strain your brain to figure it out.  I'm sure my sisters will be first in line to see it.  I'm not much of a Thor fan myself.  He's probably my third-favorite Avenger behind Captain America and Iron Man but just ahead of the Hulk who especially in the movies is pretty much a one-note character, which is probably why his movie franchise failed twice.  A Norse god fighting evil in the 21st Century seems a little goofy to me.  Given all the weird shit I do in the Scarlet Knight series that's probably saying something.

Anyway, here's the list of movies from my local megaplex (* denotes a new release)

12 Years a Slave*
About Time*
All is Lost*
Captain Phillips
Carrie
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2
Diana*
Ender's Game
Escape Plan
Free Birds
Great Expectations*
Gravity
Jackass: Bad Grandpa
Last Vegas
Prisoners
Pulling Strings*
Rush
The Counselor
The Invertible Defeat of Mister & Pete*
Thor: The Dark World*

 And I'll pick

1. Thor 2 (duh) $85M
2. Ender's Game $12M
3. Bad Grandpa $10M

I'd look for movies like "12 Years a Slave" to pick up as awards season kicks in but obviously it's going to get crushed by Thor, which is already #1 in the rest of the world.  I honestly can't tell you much about the rest of those new movies except Mister & Pete, which I saw a preview for.  Again it's another that might get more traffic if it gets some award nominations.  BTW, an odd fact is the theater I use to get my lists from still shows pretty much a full slate of "Despicable Me 2" despite that it was released back in July!  That is staying power.

And now you can make your picks in the comments!