Herald News cutting back on Proofreaders

Unless, of course, the moral of the story is supposed to be "too much fun will kill you." Check out the typo in the headline at the very top, in the blue.

The real moral of this story is this: Just because SpellCheck didn't catch it, doesn't mean there aren't any typos. PROOFREAD!!

America's Next Top Groupie

I shit you not, this is the dream I had last night. Obviously I've been watching too much America's Next Top Model and Legally Blonde: The Musical: The Search for Elle Woods. Have you been watching the Legally Blonde show? It's classy.

Anyway, back to my dream.

I'm on my way to a concert with Abby M (or is it Abby F now? She just got married and I'm not sure if she changed her last name) (also the concert we're going to in my dream is a concert we're going to in real life in a few weeks) and we realize that neither of us has bought tickets to the show. It's probably fine though, because I've seen this particular musician in concert several times and never was it a sold out show. But when we get to the venue, there aren't any tickets. Abby is very upset that we have to miss the show, so then I decide to throw some weight around. I tell the ticket taker dude to go tell Musician that Miranda is there, and that he should remember me. Apparently this works and we get the ok to go in.

And this is when things start to get weird.

Inside, it's not a concert. It's a competition. Scantily-clad girls are everywhere. Apparently they're all vying to be the girl to spend the night with Musician. We have to do rediculous things like photo shoots and musical numbers. It's all very America's Next Top Rock of Love: The Search for Elle Woods.

But, the thing is, Abby and I know I'm going to win. I'm a ringer in the competition. We kind of have an attitude the whole time like "Oh, look how cute, these girls think they have a chance. Ok, I'll play along." Abby doesn't actually participate in the shenanigans. She's a married lady now, so she's just there to support my whoring. She's my pimp.

So, after several rounds of challenges I am, of course, named the winner. And then I think we went to the hotel. And then I woke up. Is it weird that when I woke up my first thought was "Dude, he didn't even play a show!" That was apparently my biggest concern, not "Did I just dress up like a 1950s pin-up and sing 'Omigod, You Guys!' in front of a huge crowd of women in an active pursuit of a one night stand with a musician?"

My subconsious is weird.

The Hero Is the One That Stays

I don't know if it's wrong or not, but well-written pieces about Veronica Mars make me cry. I once cried just reading a comment someone left on an article about VM. It was a really well written comment about how Lilly was a metaphor for Veronica's lost innocence and, yes, that's all it takes to make me cry. I wish I could remember where I read it, but I can't, so I can't provide a link so that you can cry also.

There were so many moments in the show that make me cry. Every time I watch the scene where Veronica's paternity is revealed? Waterworks.

From episode 2.22: "So this is how it is. The innocent suffer, the guilty go free, and truth and fiction are pretty much interchangeable. ...There is neither a Santa Claus, nor an Easter Bunny, and there no angels watching over us. Things just happen for no reason, and nothing makes any sense." This reminds me of a similarly toned, yet not as completely bleak quote from the first season : "What was I thinking? Christmas in Neptune is, was and always will be, about the trappings: the lights and the tinsel they use to cover up the sordidness, the corruption. No, Veronica, there is no Santa Claus. " Careful, V. What with all your claiming that Santa ain't real, people will start to think you're a cynic.

The exchange from which I pulled this blog title always really resonated with me. I'm not really sure why, but I think it's one of the best scenes between Veronica and her father, and there are millions of great Veronica/Keith scenes.

Keith: It's just that I never want you to think your mom's the villain in all this.
Veronica: Isn't she?
Keith: No, it's not that simple.
Veronica: Yeah, it is. The hero is the one that stays and the villain is the one that splits.
Keith: I don't think that's a healthy perspective.
Veronica: It's healthier than me pining away everyday, praying she'll come home.

I think it might have something to do with the way Kristin Bell delivers the line "The hero is the one that stays and the villain is the one that splits." She's truly a terrific actress.

I won't go on too much longer, but I just wanted to mention the one line that will always make me cry, always always always. Again, a lot of it has to do with KB's delivery. From the Season One finale:

"I could never."









What? You want more context? Here's the whole scene:

Veronica: Isn't it better like this?
Lilly: So much better.
Veronica: This is how it's supposed to be.
Lilly: Totally.
Veronica: This is how it's going to be from now on. Right? Lilly?
Lilly: [sighs] You know how things are going to be now, don't you? You have to know.
Veronica: Just like this. Just like this.
Lilly: Don't forget about me, Veronica.
Veronica: I could never.

Wordy Words Words

Wordle makes fun little word cloud thingys. I tested it out with the text from my last five entries or so:

And that was so much fun that I went back even further, these are all the posts for the last six months or so. It's all the posts since I've been back from Hawaii.

A new low

I have a word of the day thingy that comes up on my Yahoo! homepage. Usually it's a word I already recognize, even if I don't know the dictionary definition. Words like "spurious." But today's word really sucks.

Today's word is "Plastic."


Also, The Happening was not very good. At least it didn't try to pull one of those last-minute surprise endings.

What's Happening

Laura and I are going to see the new M. Night Shyamalan movie The Happening today. It currently only has a 22% rating on rotten tomatoes, so I'm a little worried. I have about as much hope for this movie as I had for Sex and the City, which I saw last week. I was actually pleasently suprised by SatC, it wasn't nearly as awful as I was worried it would be. But I think the opposite will happen with The Happening. I'm worried all my fears about the movie being complete crap will be justified.

I know some people hate all M. Night Shyamalan movies. I don't feel that way, at least not about all of them.

I like The Sixth Sense. I saw it in the theaters with my dad, and I'm pretty sure it's the only movie the two of us have seen together without my sister with us. And the only memory I have of the three of us at the theater was going to see a batman movie (I think it was the Val Kilmer one) and she fell asleep and later told my mom it was because it was "so God damn cold in there!" She was about six.

Unbreakable... I don't really love. I just checked on imdb, and I was suprised to see that it's only 106 minutes long. I really thought it was well over two hours. It just seems like it takes forever to get from point a to point b in the movie. I guess this comes from the fact that in most superhero movies, the discovery of the super powers and becoming the hero takes about fifteen minutes, and then you get some good action and fighting the bad guy. This movie is 106 minutes of becoming the hero, and very little action. I'll still watch it when it comes on USA, because it's usually on really late at night and I can fall asleep really easily to it because NOTHING happens.

Signs is a special movie for me and Laura. We saw it in a theater in Florida because it was raining and whatever activity we were going to do that day was rained out. The whole movie was hilarious! Much funnier than The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable. It was like a comedy with some creepy parts. We laughed so hard in the theater, I'm sure we bothered some of the other viewers. Also, Joaquin Pheonix, who despite being both crazy and vegan, is still pretty hot.

The Villiage. I figured out the twist about ten minutes in. The score is really creepy though. Now I kinda want to watch this movie again to see how bad it really is.

Lady in the Water. I almost forgot about this one, and it's probably better that way. I never saw it, and I think my brain thanks me for that.

I'm not really sure what The Happening is about. The tv spots look sufficiently disturbing, and it stars Zooey Deschanel (one of my favorite people, Amazon is being unbearably slow in delivering my copy of her CD) and Marky Mark (C'mon, C'mon!), so it can't be all bad, right?

Also, I just read this post on Chez's blog, which makes me kinda hate Shyamalan.

Tornado Watching

The power went out today around 5:30. I was right in the middle of some intense Yahoo gaming, so I was quite miffed that I had to find other ways to entertain myself. It was stormy outside, even hailing for a bit, so I went to see what the rest of my family was doing. The power flickered on and off a few more times as I made my way through the kitchen to the family room. My mom was swearing like a sailor because the power went off right in the middle of the big horse race thingy and she really wanted to see that one horse win the triple crown. Apparently she had "pretend money" on the race. I don't really know what that means. My sister yelled at me from the other end of the house to find a flash light so she could see to finish straightening her hair before the iron lost its heat. Unfortunately her straightener cools down really fast, so that didn't happen. My dad decided that hail+no power+ tornado watch = go on the front porch and look at the storm. So my degenerate gambler mother, 1/2 wavy haired sister, and myself just sat around for a couple seconds before my dad yelled at us to come to the front door.

He was sitting down on the front porch looking at some pretty freaky looking clouds. I looked next door and saw my grandpa leaning against his car, also watching the clouds. Some other neighbors were out in their yards also. It was still raining, but I knew I couldn't get a good look at the clouds from the porch. So I kicked off my house shoes and ran barefooted down to the East end of our yard to where I could see behind the Southall's house out over the cornfields. That's when I became the only person on our block to get a decent look at the funnel cloud. I immediately cursed myself for not grabbing a camera.

I yelled and motioned for mom and dad to come look, but by the time they got down the tornado was already moving behind the far line of trees. You could still see the top of it though, the turning motion. And the sound! I seem to recall always being told that tornadoes sound like freight trains, but that's not at all how I would describe the sound. I can't really describe it at all, but I do a pretty spot-on impersonation. If you ask me next time you see me, I'll be glad to give you my tornado impression.


So mom, dad, me, and the neighbs watched the storm pass about a mile and a half East of us. Laura, meanwhile, was sitting in the basement with the cat. Good to know at least one Calhoon would survive a natural disaster.

After the storm passed, or went back up or whatever the technical meteorological term is for "nothing cool left to watch," Mom decided it was a good time to have a hail fight. This consisted of her picking up hail and throwing it at me, but I wasn't allowed to throw hail back because she had a party to go to. Oh, my mother, what with all her partying and betting on the ponies. She's out of control, a Maury episode waiting to happen.

I went over and talked to my grandparents. Grandma told me she had been ironing when the power went out. Grandpa: "The power's out!?" ... I don't know where he had been, but apparently this was the first he'd heard of the power being out. Must have been out at the Corner pub playing cards with his buddies. I guess I know where my mom gets her wild ways. Grandpa was also unaware that it had hailed (seriously, where was he?), so I played a little of mom's one-sided hail-throwing game.

So then my dad, having just had one of his biggest dreams come true, had to call someone and tell them that he saw a tornado. He decided to call his sister Linda using my sister's cell phone. My mother, of course, had no interest in retelling the story, she just wanted to find out if her horse won the race. Before Linda even answered mom kept repeating "Ask her who won the race!!" Maybe mom should have called her pretend bookie about her pretend bet made with pretend money. Sadly, my mother's heart was broken when Dad passed on the message from Linda that her horse had not won the race. Dad continued to regale Linda with his tale of the tornado, all the while ignoring the beeping that would indicate that Laura's boyfriend was trying to call her. Eventually the conversation came to a close and Andy could finally get in touch with Laura. He was at work at the liquor store, and even though there was no power, tornado sirens, and an actual tornado just outside town, the liquor store was still open and doing a booming business.

So, mom left for her party, dad went back to sleep (he works midnights, he's not narcoleptic), and Laura and I tried to decide what to do with ourselves. It's really hard to play most board games with only two people, and our cousins Morgan and John wouldn't answer their phones. We finally decided on a game from the Cranium folk called "Hoopla" which can be played with two or more people. It was really fun and we played it for about two hours. By this time it was getting seriously dark and our two candles just weren't cutting it. Also, we were getting really hungry but we didn't have anything that we could eat without cooking. But thankfully Andy had called back again and informed us that the liquor store had power again, which meant that Burger King would also have power. WooHoo! Andy also informed us that the storm had blown off someone's roof in Ritchie. Me: "I'm not really suprised." You wouldn't be, either, if you've been through Ritchie.

That's not actually in Ritchie.

So Laura and I had a lovely candlelit picnic of BK. We spent about twenty minutes after dinner gathering up all the candles and kerosene lamps we could find so we could put together a puzzle. We got all the candles lit, and let me tell you, it was hotter than balls with all those candles burning and no air conditioning. We were just settling in to do our puzzle when the power came back on. And Finding Nemo was on TV! It was a pretty awesome day, if I do say so myself.

One of my Prophecy dreams?

I had a dream last night that I was moving to London. I think I had gotten a job there or something. A friend (although I'm pretty sure it wasn't either of my friends who actually live in England) was supposed to pick me up at the airport, but he didn't show. Pretty soon I was the only person at the airport besides the staff (apparently in my dreamland Heathrow is a small airport and my flight was the last of the day). It was like being the last kid picked up after camp is over. I bitched about my unreliable friend until he showed up. And then I hit him with my purse.

Aside from having stupid friends that won't pick you up at the airport, I think it would be badass to move to England. Well, badasser than living here.

Like Christmas in June

I got my pre-order of Tilly and the Wall's new album O today. It's like the best day ever.

Because I want you to have nightmares

Here are a few things to guarantee that you'll never sleep without a nightlight ever again:

1) A Creepy Pencil



2) The Gentlemen



I watched the Gentlemen episode of Buffy (Episode 4.10 "Hush") last week for the first time in more than five years. Holy. Crap. The Gentlemen are soooo creepy. I left the TV on that night because I didn't want to sleep in the dark. There's one shot in the episode that kept coming to mind when I was trying to fall asleep. The Gentlemen's minions have the first victim pinned to his bed and there's a shot from the victim's point of view of the Gentlemen floating up to either side of his bed. That shot's not in the little video I posted, I couldn't find one that was short enough for me to sit through that had it. I also find it endlessly creepy that they float. And that they have metal teeth. And that they cut the hearts out of their LIVE victims. And that they're so smiley and polite. That's just weird.