Once upon a time, I was in a video store with my then boyfriend trying to pick out a movie to watch. I picked up John Carpenter's Vampires, and proceeded to tell the boy about the coolest scene in the movie, where a guy uses his hot-from-being-fired gun to cauterize a wound he received. Said boyfriend looks at me, shakes his head, and says, "You're not like other girls, Betty."
Name::Braindead Betty From::Indy, Indiana, United States
I can't believe I've gone all week without mentioning a very important holiday. This week is National Karaoke Week. So happy singing everybody!
Top 5 Karaoke Songs:
Garth Brooks - "Friends In Low Places." The one time I ever actually did karaoke this is the song I sang. The funny part is I was 10 years old and it was at my aunt's wedding reception. So in front of my whole family, I stood there in my floral print dress singing about how the "whiskey drowns and the beer chases my blues away." How little did I know that it was a prophetic song.
The Clash - "Should I Stay or Should I Go." Do I really need to put an explanation on this one?
The Sugarhill Gang - "Rapper's Delight." Yes, the song goes on forever, but it's so much fun. Who can resist seeing if they can successfully navigate all the "on n on n on n on's" or the "a hip hop the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop, a you dont stop the rock it to the bang bang boogie, say up jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat's" If the old lady in The Wedding Singer can do it, surely you can too, right?
Whitney Houston - "I Will Always Love You." More popular for the likelihood of being able to make fun of the poor girl who's convinced she's the next American Idol singing it than for actual enjoyability.
Anything by Abba, the Village People, or other cheesy 70's disco group. Easy to get the audience involved, best when falling down drunk. Yeah.
If anybody decides to go out and properly celebrate National Karaoke Week, make sure to document it, or at least leave a comment letting us know how it went.
Bean just started sleeping in her big girl bed. She's doing really well with it so far. Honestly, I don't think she realizes she can get out of it by herself. We'll see how long that lasts.
We also bought her her first fishing pole this week. She hasn't had it in the water yet, but we took it in the backyard to teach her how to cast. She's got pretty good form, she just has problems with the timing on pushing the button. One time she had the pole behind her head when she pushed and released the button, so the weight dropped to the ground behind her. Then she whipped that pole forward and tried to look for where it landed in the yard. She looked at me with eyes big as saucers and said, "Wow! That went far!" not realizing that it was actually right behind her.
Pregnancy is going well. Jay and I still haven't decided on a name, but we'll get there. If the baby hasn't gone head down by my appointment later today, they're going to try to manually turn her. I'm kind of nervous about that, because I've heard that it's pretty painful. And, honestly, I'm a wuss. I have all the respect in the world for women who do all-natural child birth, but it's just not for me. The doctors have the drugs, whey the hell shouldn't I use them? My fondest memory of Bean's childbirth is still when that 4'6" woman burst in my room announcing, "I'm Dr. Lee. Anesthesiology!" That was quite a digression, but I think I made it pretty clear that I'm a big wuss, so any well-wishes for today would be appreciated!
I absolutely love making lists. Goofy lists, shopping lists, lists of lists I'd like to make, etc. So I thought I'd start a new feature on my blog with a new Top 5 List for every week. Today's Top 5 is going to be my 5 favorite pack members.
Brett Favre (Green Bay Packers) - There's a reason everybody in Wisconsin loves this man. I don't know if it's his "Aww shucks, can do" attitude, or his dedication to the game he loves. Regardless, even in a season where his team flat-out sucked, his QB rating was still comparable to one of the Superbowl QB's. (Favre's was at 72.7%, Rex Grossman's was at 73.9%)
My mother-in-law (packrat extraordinaire) - You should see this woman's attic and garage. Boxes upon boxes of stuff that somebody might need, someday. I won't complain too much though, because it has come in handy a time or two.
Judd Nelson (Brat Pack) - I admit this was a bit of a toss up between him and Molly Ringwald, but it was his performance as John Bender in The Breakfast Club that really sealed the deal on this one.
Dean Martin (Rat Pack) - I first became a fan of his comedies with Jerry Lewis (At War With the Army being one of my absolute faves), and then found out about his singing career, his other movies, his variety show, and his celebrity roasts. He makes alcoholism fun.
Shaun Ellis (Alpha male-wolf pack) - I don't know what to make of this guy. He lives with wild wolf packs and actually becomes part of the pack, going so far as to put cooked organs back inside a carcass for him to eat with the rest of the pack. That's a pretty high gross out factor, but it's really interesting at the same time.
So that's my first Friday Top 5. If anyone ever has any suggestions for a top 5, let me know. I'm sure I'll have problems coming up with new and original ones every week.
I don't know if you've read my "About Me" section over in the sidebar, but I had an eerily similar incident happen the other day that I just had to tell you about. Jay and I were talking with his father when we got on the subject of the movie Fargo. Jay seemed surprised to find out that his father really liked that movie, and I just blurted out the first thing I thought of, which was, "Who doesn't like a movie where a body gets put through a wood chipper?" (Yes, I have absolutely no filter between my brain and my mouth.) My father-in-law kind of awkwardly chuckled and said, "I don't know about you sometimes."
Whoever knew that liking gory, violent films would be such a defining measure of my personality? I guess I shouldn't complain too much. I like what that says about me much more than if my favorite movie were, say, The Notebook.
Someone found my blog the other day by searching for "pro vs. con driving curfew." Sorry that I probably wasn't any help, but Bean keeps me on my toes enough without having to borrow trouble worrying about what to do when she gets old enough to drive. Whatever I decide to do at that point in time, I can garauntee one thing: Bean won't like it. What 16 year old ever thinks that their parents' rules are fair? Plus I've already been told that I'm strict with her. And that's coming from my own mother, the one who took me for a tour of a working convent when I was in high school. So for now I'm just enjoying the ride, and we'll worry about dating and cars and cell phones and all that crap somewhere down the line.
I'll never forget the last time I saw you. You were working at McDonald's and it was busy, so I left without telling you good-bye. Little did I know the rain-slicked roads would keep you from making it to school the next day, or ever again.
I can't believe it's been 9 years. You weren't there for graduation, the fun college years (even though I didn't go, but I'm sure you would have), and now we're all settling down and having babies.
I actually named my daughter after you. As she grows, I'll tell her stories about you. About your determination, your (let's face it) bitchiness, your loyalty to your friends. Most of all what I want her to know about you is your strength of character. During those tumultous high school years, when everybody's more worried about fitting in, you were never afraid to be yourself. You argued with teachers and students with equal facility, were firm in your beliefs, and refused to be swayed.
I just remembered when we took debate class together. Undefeated, baby! I may not tell Bean about your famous freshman English exploit, when you wrote an outstanding opening and closing paragraph for a research paper, and filled the rest with gibberish. Yeah, you called the teacher out, but she doesn't need to know about that.
11/24/81 - 4/14/98. A life cut short. A star softball and basketball player never allowed to meet their full potential. I still miss you.
That's the fear of Friday the 13th. Very closely related to one of my favorite phobias to say, triskaidekaphobia, plain old fear of the number 13. I figured that in honor of this very special day, I'd share a few of my favorite phobias with you.
Bathophobics should live in Hollywood, as they have a fear of depth.
Clinophobia is one I think my daughter may have occasionally. It's the fear of going to bed.
Dentophobia is, not surprisingly, the fear of dentists. My mother suffers horribly from this phobia.
Erythrophobia is not actually a phobia. It's the technical phrase for pathological blushing. Wonderful to know there's a name for it next time I go all red-faced.
Geniophobia may make it impossible for you to watch Jay Leno. It's the fear of chins.
Helminthophobia is the fear of being infested with worms. Eeewww.
Olfactophobia is the fear of smells. Often suffered after a person's first time in a bachelor pad.
Uranophobia is the fear of heaven. Because those halos are pretty intimidating, y'know.
If you know of any other interesting or unusual fears, feel free to leave them in the comments.
I'm not as upset as some people about this springtime cold snap, but I do have one complaint. I wish it were warm enough to wear sandals because I'm far enough along in my pregnancy that it's impossible for me to tie my shoes.
Every holiday, I try to get a picture of Bean with "that look" on her face. You know which look I'm talking about - the look that says "I'm so excited I can't possibly contain it in my earthly body." I finally got it on Easter when she walked out of her room and saw her basket. So without further ado, may I present to you: Easter by a 2 year old.
If you want to check out the bigger version, or any of my other pics (they're not all of cute kids, I promise), you can always check out my Flickr page.
I'm not a big fan of Smallville. Really, I'm not much of a DC fan, period. I happened to catch an expisode of Smallville on Sunday, though. You know, when there's absolutely nothing on TV. Anyway, this particular episode featured none other than my <>favorite superhero, Aquaman! The writer's apparently think their viewers are stupid, because they were laying it on pretty thick. He can swim faster than Superman, hears ultrasonic noises that others can't, and even gets made fun of by Lois Lane for his orange and green wardrobe. I had to laugh because it wasn't until after all these references that Jay looked at me and said, "Y'know, I think that's Aquaman."
The cheesiest joke of the entire episode came towards the end:
Aquaman: "We make a pretty good team. We could start the Junior Lifeguards of America or something like that." Superman: "I don't think I'm ready for the JLA just yet."
I don't know how the actors kept a straight face for that one.
I've always been against dog fighting anyway, but I recently found a new reason for it. Several pit bulls have been dumped in my neck of the woods recently. They have been obviously abused and more than likely used for dog fighting but are still considered adoptable. Why? Because they were used as "bait dogs" rather than fighting dogs. They've had their canine teeth cut out, their other teeth filed down, and are about 20 pounds underweight. Basically, they're kept for the fighting dogs to "practice" on, but left with no ability to defend themselves. It's so sad.
If you'll allow me, I'd like to get up on my soapbox for a minute...
I was at the Dollar General store the other day and saw something that's becoming way too common in my opinion. There was a woman in the Dollar General grocery shopping with her two kids that were in clothes two sizes too small. Yet while she was shopping, she had her cell phone glued to her ear, held by her perfectly manicured fingers. It's entirely possible that I could be reading too much into the situation, and I don't like to make snap judgements, but it seems to me that if she can afford manicures and a cell phone, she could afford decent clothing for her kids and to shop at a real grocery store.
I worked at a grocery store for over 5 years and saw several variations on this theme. People would buy steak and lobster with their food stamps, then head to the office to buy $100 worth of lottery tickets. I know not everyone is like this; in fact, several of the people who worked at the store were also on food stamps. I think that's why the other people made me so mad. I watched people work hard for 40 hours a week, jump at the chance for overtime, obsessively clip coupons and still not get the luxuries that these other people were getting.
I just can't help but wonder how people's priorities get so out of whack.
