Has anyone ever noticed how the majority of horror movies that are released to theaters begin with “The”? I don’t mean like, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” or “The Hills Have Eyes”, or movies that actually need a “the” to make it a proper title. I’m referring to titles where it’s obvious they picked the main theme of the movie, slapped a “the” in front of it, and called it good.

Case and point:

The Ring, The Forsaken, The Grudge, The Cave, The Dark, The Descent, The Fog, The Omen, The Mist, The Orphanage, The Reaping, The Strangers, The Eye, The Ruins, The Broken, The Uninvited, The Unborn…

…and so on and so forth.

Personally, I think some of these movies would sound a whole lot scarier, given the effect that one solitary word generally has on the human psyche. For instance, the people who titled Bug what they did had it right. The title sucked me in, made me near shiver with the thought of creepy killer bugs who take over the planet, or something to that effect. Unfortunately, the title of that movie was the only thing they did right, and the rest was a flaming pile of cow patties that didn’t deserve to even hit the box office (although it would be great Mystery Science Theatre fodder). But I digress.

Which is more intimidating? The Dark, or simply Dark? The Mist or simply Mist? The Strangers, or Strangers?

I rest my case.

That said, however, a friend and I have decided that we’re going to make a movie titled “The The”. The premise of the movie is going to be anytime anyone utters the word “the”, they’re given 7 minutes to live (think The Ring, where you die 7 days after watching a videotape).

The complete title of our movie? Well, that’s up for debate, still. It’s either going to be The The: Don’t Say It or The The: Shhhhh. We’re still undecided.

Filed under: Humor, Movies by Angi
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As soon as I set up my new blog domain a couple weeks ago, I decided to waste no time in setting up a separate e-mail address for blog followers. I figured it was a good idea in case anyone ever wanted to e-mail me, but I could still keep my personal e-mail address private. Little did I know that within a few days of getting it set up, I’d get an e-mail from someone who apparently randomly stumbled across my little blog.

The e-mail was in response to one of my “dislikes” on my About Me page, which states that I don’t like it when people don’t leave me voicemails on my cell phone, but then complain that I don’t call them back. The way I figure it, if it’s important enough to warrant a return phone call, it’s important enough to leave a message over. I’m just crazy like that, so sue me.

This person, we’ll call him Mr. X, decided to let me know that he fully agrees with me - if it’s not important enough for a message, it’s not important enough for a callback, yadda yadda yadda. The part of Mr. X’s e-mail that really got me intrigured, though, was when he pointed me to a CRAIGSLIST personal ad he had set up for himself. I thought my occasional Friday Freak Show postings were hilarious, but this one really took the cake. He has since deleted this posting, hopefully because he’s thought better of advertising himself in such a pathetic unique manner, so I am unable to share with all of you exactly what it said, but let’s just say there were plenty of the “I am 30 and jobless” and “My parents pay all my bills” and “You must be able to salsa dance” and “I want a girl who looks exactly like Eva Longoria”s to go around. Oh, and he also wants a girl who is “between 18 and 24.” I guess they’re the only ones who are young and naive enough to be suckered in by a jobless, broke loser Mama’s boy person. (No offense to all you smart 18-24 year olds.)

My favorite part of his initial e-mail (yes, there were two) was his closing line: “You’re not quite Eva Longoria, but you’re not bad either…can you salsa dance?”

Well gosh, thanks so much!! I’ve never been called “not quite Eva Longoria” before - not surprising, since she has brown eyes, and I have blue…but to be associated in the same sentence as her! Wow. The honor.

My response e-mail to this jobless, broke loser Mama’s boy person, and I quote:

You sure know how to romance a girl. “Not quite Eva, but you’re not bad.” Should have tacked on an “I guess” at the end, made me swoon!

Nope, can’t salsa dance. Also, I’m 25, so according to your ad, I’m too old for you.

Good luck with that, though.

Personally, I think I was too nice, but I’ve never been too great with being mean to people. But you didn’t think I’d forget his 2nd e-mail, did you? Oh heck no, it’s precious:

I’d have said something more “swoonable” if you didn’t live all the way over in Seattle. But being 3000 miles away, it doesn’t matter much. Seriously, though, I’m sure God will bring you someone awesome.

Cheers,
Mr. X

Darn the luck, man. I could have dated a guy who used “you” and “Eva Longoria” in the same sentence. And I have ALWAYS wanted to play mother to a boyfriend/husband while I support them financially. (Oh wait, I’ve pretty much done that.)

Sigh. Next time, next time…

Filed under: Humor, Life by Angi
12 Comments »

Happy 2009 from Seattle!!

(Disclaimer: This video is from last year; obviously it’s impossible for me to post this year’s video, since it hasn’t happened yet. Apologies for the fireworks glitch they encountered, although it was pretty funny!)

Filed under: Life, Music, Readers, Seattle, Videos by Angi
10 Comments »

Today, I have the story to beat all stories. Well, maybe not, but it’s pretty far up there. I’ll try to make this as least complicated as possible.

To give some background, I do medical billing for a living. It’s not exciting, trust me, but it pays the bills and that’s what I’m concerned about at the moment. The majority of my work involves doing the billing for a pediatrics clinic in the area.

While registering a few new patients today, I came across a newborn baby girl. We’ll call her Kelly Jones-Smith, for the sake of the argument.

In the midst of entering baby Kelly’s information, I noticed something suspicious about her mother/father’s information. For the sake of the argument, we’ll say the mother’s name was Pamela Brown-Jones, and the father’s name was Andy Smith.

Further down on the registration form, I noticed the odd part - under “Other Parent/Other Guardian”, there was a completely separate name - we’ll say it was Angela Smith. Next to Angela Smith, it was noted, “Co-Mother”.

Co-mother? I thought to myself. That’s really weird…

The odd part, to me, was that the “co-mother” and the “father” had the same last name, while the “birth mother” had a different, hyphenated last name.

So…to straighten it all out for you, this is what we have thus far:

Birth mother: Pamela Brown-Jones
Birth father: Andy Smith
“Co-mother”: Angela Smith
Baby: Kelly Jones-Smith

Odd, right? I sat thinking for a minute, and finally the most logical conclusion my co-worker and I could come up with was that either A) Angela Smith was a surrogate mother (but then why not just write “surrogate”?), or B) Pamela Brown-Jones and Angela Smith were lesbian partners, and Andy Smith (a brother or cousin, maybe, to explain the same last name?) perhaps donated his sperm to the cause of the two women having a baby.

How wrong I was.

My co-worker and I placed a phone call to the office manager of the pediatrics clinic, because now I was curious.

**It turns out that Pamela Brown-Jones is married to another man, we’ll call him Toby Jones. Angela Smith is married to Andy Smith.

The two couples live approximately 3 blocks away from each other.

The two couples are good friends.

The two couples decided it would be neat to have a baby together. TOGETHER.

So…Andy Smith (Husband B) impregnated Pamela Brown-Jones (Wife A, and we’re not sure whether it was the traditional way or through in-vitro), while apparently Angela Smith (Wife B) and Toby Jones (Husband A) stood by and thought to themselves, “This is gonna be great!”

My first thought after hearing this story (which I hope made sense, by the way)?

“That poor, poor child.”

What I want to know is, how does that even come up in conversation? Were Angela and Pamela out to coffee one day and somehow they got to talking about babies and one of them said, “Hey! You know what would be fun? Let’s all have a SHARED BABY!”? And somehow their husbands high-fived and chest-bumped and said “YEAH!”?

And what happens if one of those couples someday decides to get divorced? Does a 3 or 4-way custody battle ensue? Legally, I’m pretty sure the birth mother and birth father get custody - but what about when those two belong to completely separate families?

I reiterate: that poor, poor child.

“See, Kelly, what HAPPENED was, Mommy and Daddy liked Aunt Angela and Uncle Andy soooooo much, we all wanted to share you!”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is apparently how you get around the “No Polygamy Allowed” law in Washington State.

There is one thing I can say for my job, I end up with some pretty interesting/funny/strange stories.

**Toby and Pamela already have 3 other children, by the way, ages 11, 7 and 5, respectively. That oughta be a fun family discussion…

Filed under: Humor, Kids/Pets, Work by Angi
21 Comments »

They tend to be laid-back around my house. One thing I have noticed, however, is that although I am not (nor have I ever been) much of a television person, post-holiday weekends provide me with a chance to catch up on all my favorite television shows/movies via DVD. Therefore, believe it or not, I have watched the following since last Wednesday:

Television:
Lost, Season 3
The Office, Seasons 1-3
House, Season 4 (all but the last disc)

Movies:
Grosse Point Blank
Grace is Gone
A Christmas Story
It’s a Wonderful Life

Don’t even ask me how I managed to cram that many hours of television into 4 days off from work. I don’t even want to know. I’m a bit ashamed. I have almost forgotten what fresh air smells like, and I’m pretty sure my pants are a bit tighter than they were on Wednesday at quitting time. The snow is almost all melted away (welcome back, Seattle rain) and I didn’t even make a proper snowman, or even any semblance of one.

But, I do plan on joining a gym again in the next couple of weeks (and not because of any New Year’s resolution, thank you but no thank you, I don’t do those and never have) to take care of these too-tight jeans and, thanks to this Christmas weekend, I now know that Lost is addicting, just as I was told; The Office is still my favorite sitcom in the history of sitcoms; I liked season 2 of House way, way better than season 4; Grosse Point Blank is a good movie although I could have done without the colorful language; Grace is Gone is the 3rd movie I have discovered that I will cry at every single time I watch it; It’s a Wonderful Life gets better every year; and A Christmas Story is still the best Christmas movie ever.

It was a good weekend.

Filed under: Humor, Life, Movies, Seattle by Angi
23 Comments »

So, imagine my delight/surprise yesterday when I logged into Entrecard (a new addiction of mine, talk about a great way to find fabulous new blogs) and discovered a message from Patricia over at Subjective Soup telling me to stop by her blog for a gift!

Here’s what I found when I got there:

Proximidade Award - thanks Patricia!

Here’s the scoop:

“This blog invests and believes in PROXIMITY–nearness in space, time, and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who will choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

I think I can handle this. Here’s my eight - a few of my favorite bloggers as well as a few recently discovered:

Kev at Special Kind of Stupid (And happy birthday!!)

Erin at Tooting Bec

Corrina at My Random Blog

Diana at Are You Kidding Me?

Marvin at An Alien Mind

Sarah at Things Men Say

Jean at The Skinny Queen

Jenny at I’m Having a Thought Here

Merry belated Christmas all, thanks for the great reading and keep it up!

Filed under: Awards, Readers by Angi
12 Comments »

Quite possibly my favorite instrumental Christmas song/arrangement ever…

Merry Christmas, everyone!!

Filed under: Life, Music, Videos by Angi
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