These are a few of my...

Scariest things:

• Movie: The Changeling
• TV character: The Smoke Monster
• Article of clothing: Tie between the ascot and the dickie
  
• TV show: Gossip Girl (I've never actually seen it, but it looks terrifying.)
• Personality trait: The One-Upper!
• Sound effect in a scary movie: Child's music box
• Thing to see in the dark: a lady ghost
• TV show commercial: Medium
• Politician: Kwame Kilpatrick (ok, maybe he's not the scariest - by far - but he's been on the news a lot again lately and what he says scares me.)
• Fact about me: I know 2/3 of the Jonas Brother's names
  
• parody: scary Mary Poppins
  
• Time of day: dawn

What are some of your scariest things?

A clip about the Changeling:

Wednesday Thoughts

You know it's "that kind of day" when you check the clock four times in the first hour of work.

You know what, you guys? I will never understand men. Games, games games... They are mysteries to me. I'll leave it at that.

I feel embarrassed whenever I hear that Party in the USA song by Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana. Is anyone with me on this?

Is blogging vanity? I've been wondering this lately. Why should I assume that any of you care what I have to say? Do any of you struggle with this in your blogging?

I hope you're not too mad at me for blogging about vampires yesterday. I've almost forgiven myself.

Three more days till Halloweekend and I can't wait. I think a haunted hayride might be in order.

Happy Wednesday.

Blood Lust

Of all the creepy, spooky, lurking things out there, vampires are consistently on top when it comes to hottness. But who's the hottest of them all? There are so many options - there are at least two or three vampire shows on this season, not to mention the movies and books about vampires. When I was a teenager, my favorite movie was The Lost Boys, a vampire movie featuring some of the hotties of that time period. And I'm pretty sure Brad Pitt was a vampire in the 90's. But for my money, these are the top three contenders for hottest vamp:

Spike. Spike, Spike, Spike... In my opinion, he's the winner. He's definitely my favorite character from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. His attitude, his humor, his personality, his bad boy persona, his disregard for rules, his physical strength, etc.... Spike's hot.

Angel -Also from BTVS, Angel's a close second and at times almost beats Spike. But although his looks are more classically attractive, Spike's attitude makes him hotter (in my opinion). Angel's brooding and sensitivity do make him a contender though.

Edward - I'm not going to post a picture of Robert Pattinson because I can't stand him as Edward. I'm talking about the Edward in the book. He's hot, sensitive, loving, lonely, brooding, etc... He's basically number one in the Twilight books (after Jake).

What do you think? In the spirit of Halloween, who's your favorite vampire? Is your favorite on this list?

Thoughts from this weekend

It was an interesting weekend. It came with the good and the bad. Here are some thoughts from this weekend (as with Wednesday Thoughts, these thoughts are unrelated):

1.) Starbursts should not be trusted. I bit into one yesterday and its sharp edge made a huge cut in my tongue. My tongue is all swollen now and it's nearly impossible to talk normally! I don't blame you for laughing - it's ridiculous.

2.) Whenever I talk to my married friends about having a crush on a guy or wondering if he likes me, they always get nostalgic and say they miss those days of "not knowing" at the beginning of a relationship. I suspect that they're not remembering the insecurity, self doubt, and confusion clearly. But I could be wrong. Maybe some people enjoy those feelings.

3.) I am easily scared when it comes to ghost stories. At my Halloween party on Friday, my friend Adam told me some scary stories and I could hardly sleep that night. I am turning into a serious light weight as I get older.

4.) I really need to step it up when it comes to costumes. I never give my Halloween costumes 100%. Are any of you going all out this year? I still have six days to come up with something awesome.

5.) I went to a Halloween concert last night where the whole orchestra was in costumes. A ton of the guys dressed as women, which caught me off guard (why wear heals if you don't have to!?). One section of the orchestra went as Tetris pieces, which I loved. It was fun to see the group costumes (others included the Scooby gang, secret service with Obama, mimes and many others). Have you ever been part of a group costume? I only have once and it was as Earth, Wind, and Fire. We dressed as the elements, not the band. People didn't get it.

So there you have it - a few thoughts from this weekend. Now it's Monday and I've been informed that some toxic waste is being removed nearby. I had no idea there was toxic waste on this block but it does explain my third eye.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Wednesday Thoughts

I just got back from a walk with The. Most. Stubborn. Dog. (Some of you know her as Daisy.) On our walk through the park, Daisy fell in love with someone - a human who was walking her dogs. She (Daisy) refused to walk past this woman, and insisted on walking with her the rest of the way. Luckily the lady was cool and thought it was funny. And even more luckily, we were near the end of the trail when Daisy decided she would walk no more than five paces away from her new best friend. It was still slightly ridiculous though.

I am so glad it's Wednesday. Partly because that means Modern Family is on tonight! If you guys haven't seen this show yet, you should check it out! It's hilarious.

In other thoughts, it's almost November. Am I the only one who is shocked by this? When I was a teenager my uncle told me that time goes faster and faster the older you get. He was right!

So anyway, I decided that I'm going to be Medusa for Halloween. I bought some little snakes to put in my hair, and I know how to do my makeup, but what should I wear? I have no idea. And I only have till Friday to figure it out. Any suggestions are welcome!

Happy Wednesday.

Communication Breakdown

When I was young and I wanted talk to a friend I had two options: call them or go to their house. If they lived far away, I had to call them long distance (sparingly) or write them a letter and wait days or weeks to hear back.

As you know, the ways to stay in touch with friends and family have changed dramatically in a short time. E-mail, texting, free long distance, video chat, non-video online chat, blogs, facebook, myspace, etc... These methods are wonderful when used to stay in touch with friends and family who live far away, but when it comes to loved ones who live nearby, I think they might be overused. Are we connecting emotionally less? I don't know. I haven't done any research on this, it's just something I've been thinking about.

From time to time I stay with a friend's teenage kids while she and her husband are out of town. When the teenage girl gets home from school, the first thing she does is get on her laptop and starts chatting online with her friends. I did something similar when I was her age, except that I called my friends on the phone after school. When she wants to communicate with a guy she's crushing on, she does so via Facebook or some kind of online chat. I didn't have that option at her age - I had to either call the guy I liked or talk to him at school. I know I sound old school when I say this, but I wonder if there's something dangerous or numbing about the one step removal from voice to voice communication. I could be wrong, it's just something I'm curious about. Does it make it easier to say things you would not say (or should not say) in person? Do you feel as close to your friends when you're not hearing their voices or seeing their faces? Does the same bonding occur? Does it make you more lonely?

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate technology. I think all these things can be used for good and quite frankly, I use all of them. And maybe I'm being a hypocrite. After all, I grew up without this technology and heaven knows I'm no master communicator because of it! But still, I can't help but wonder. The changes in communication technology all happened so fast that we haven't really had a chance to think about them. Some things have become normal that maybe shouldn't be.

Here are a few more questions/thoughts I've had on the subject:

1.) Is it ok to ask someone on a first date via e-mail? This has happened to me several times, and while it doesn't offend me, it also doesn't give me the butterflies being asked on the phone or in person does.

2.) Should you make a major announcement in a Facebook status update before you've told your family and close friends? This includes pregnancies, engagements, or life decisions.

3.) Do you find yourself always using an e-card to replace a paper card for your closest friends/relatives (for anniversaries, holidays, birthdays...)? I do this a lot, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing necessarily, I'm just wondering if it's over done.

4.) This last one is more of a statement than a question: long texting conversations do not count as real conversations. This is especially confusing when it comes to dating. So often after a friend of mine has gone on a good date, I'll ask her later, "So, have you heard from him since the date?" And she'll say, "well, he texted me..." with a confused sound in her voice. When it comes to dating, texting is confusing. Who's with me on this? I'm not saying it should be banned, but I think it should be used sparingly, at least at the beginning of a relationship.

I know this post is a bit random and out of character for me but I have been thinking about this stuff lately and I thought I'd post about it. I'd love any insights you have. I really hope this post doesn't sound judgemental - I just think that sometimes we use technology when it would be more appropriate to actually talk to each other. (Ironic that I'm communicating these thoughts to you via my blog, no?)

Top costumes

According to this article I read, these are some of the costumes that will be most used this Halloween. Which do you think would be the most fun to dress up as?

The Balloon Boy

The Swine Flu

Joe Wilson

Lady Gaga

Kanye West and Taylor Swift

Susan Boyle

Dreams...

I had a dream last night that I was a full time bridesmaid. By that I mean that it was my job. The whole dream was of me in different dresses marching down the aisle at various weddings of strangers. At one point in the dream I wondered why these brides didn't have their own friends to be their bridesmaids. It was a weird dream. Do you think it means anything? Do I subconsciously think I'll always be a bridesmaid, never a bride?

It was an amusing (not depressing) dream full of ugly dresses and I just had to share it.

Wednesday Thoughts

With the weather getting cold and the leaves changing colors, I'm finding myself in the mood to watch Ghostbusters. Remember that scene with the ghost librarian? Terrifying. (The rest of the movie, not so much.) It's sad how as you get older, movies that scared you as a kid are no longer scary. Another movie in that "used to be scary"category: Watcher in the Woods. Remember that one? NAREK!! (That's a reference to one of the "scariest" parts of the movie, in case you haven't seen it.)

This has been quite a week. I got my oil changed and found out five things need to be replaced in my car. I got a jury duty summons in the mail. My phone broke. My earring broke, etc.. etc...

But lots of good things have happened too, so I'm trying to focus on those. Don't worry, I'm not too gloomy - I'm sure things will pick up as the week goes on.

Moving back to what I was saying at the beginning of this post, I am definitely in the fall/Halloween spirit. I feel like watching a movie that's scary, but not too scary. Any suggestions? I caught something called "Mostly Ghostly" on the Disney channel and watched about five minutes before getting spooked and changing the channel. So keep that in mind when making recommendations.

How are you getting into the fall/Halloween spirit? Happy Wednesday.

To shave or not to shave...

Look, I'm going to just apologize in advance for blogging about Magnum again. I promise this will be the last time. But, of my celebrity crushes, he is the most controversial of them, by far. There's just something about Magnum. Not Tom Selleck, mind you. Magnum.

Today at work, somehow the topic of Magnum came up. I'm pretty sure I did not bring it up, although I'm sure some will claim I did. Anyway, Kathy hadn't known about my Magnum crush and was pretty shocked by it. Our conversation went something like this:

Kathy: Magnum, really!?

Me: Yes.

Kathy: What about the chest hair!?

Me: Yes.

Kathy: Ewwwwww!!!!!

Justin: I have no idea what Monica saw in him.
Me: Hey!!

This all led to a conversation about body hair. We were very divided on men's body hair, with me being against soul patches and goatees, and them being against beards and chest hair (I am a for both of those). We all agreed on mustaches though (no, at least, not if you're under 45 - I think it's a generational thing). We also agreed completely on women's body hair (how do some women not shave their legs?!).

So I decided to poll some of my friends tonight. I didn't give them any explanation before starting the poll, I just asked them if I could ask them a few questions for my blog. About two questions into the poll, Christi said, "Are you blogging about Magnum again!?" Sarah had a funny reaction too. She answered all the questions (solidly against all body hair on men), but when I said, "this post is going to be about Magnum, by the way," she said, "Oh, well Magnum is a totally different story! He's the exception." Katherine felt the same way. So without further ado, here are the results:

The type is very small, so to clarify, the first question was chest hair, yes or no, the second was goatee, then soul patch, followed by mustache and finally beard. What do you think?

I recently told someone that I should make myself wait 24 hours before posting the things I write on my blog. When I told this to Katherine later, she told me that would take all the fun out of it. This is the kind of post where I hope she was right.

Question

Do you think if someone said "yoink" when they stole your purse (or wallet) it would make it funnier?

Wednesday Thoughts

I had a horrible night's sleep last night. I woke up almost every hour I think. Needless to say, I feel like a zombie today. I'm not sure what caused my night of sleeplessness, but I think I can blame it on the Tigers game. It was either that or the nap I took from 7:00 to 9:00 yesterday evening. One of my more foolish decisions this week. In my defense, I had just had a big bowl of chicken and white bean stew and slipped into a stew coma. So it was more of a coma than a nap.

So, not to be too gloomy, but this has been such a long week. Last night felt like it should be Friday night. The upside: today's Wednesday. Hump day. We're almost there!

Today I'm feeling more optimistic but yesterday I was in a mood. I wrote a whole blog post about how my iPod was driving me crazy. The post had a list of complaints from everything to a tangled cord to songs that started out too quiet then deafened me when they started (because I turned the volume up when I couldn't hear them at the beginning). Aren't you glad I didn't post it?

Another thing I resisted blogging about: the Dr. Mario tournament I was a part of Monday night. Partly because I don't want to embarrass the people I beat (annihilated), and partly because I've been accused of talking (bragging) about Dr. Mario too much. Also, I'm pretty sure my grandma would tell me it's not helping my cause. Honestly, I'd have to agree with her.

Well, I just managed to blog about two things I told you I wasn't going to blog about.

Have a great Wednesday!

A visit to Grandma's

Tonight Katherine and I visited our grandma. We had a nice, pleasant visit but I was disturbed at how openly my grandma talked about getting things in order so she can die. She was very casual about it, not giving talk of death the forboding tone I usually use when talking about my own future death (insert sad/scary music here).

Because I've told you about her before, and because she makes me laugh, I thought I'd share two short conversations I had with her tonight.

Me, after picking up a throw pillow that had fallen behind the couch, "Grandma, do you want this on the couch?"
Grandma: "No, it needs to be washed. When I die you can throw it away."
Me: "Grandma! Stop talking about dying!"
Grandma, laughing: "Oh heavens, I'm looking forward to it!"

later...

Me, saying goodbye: "I'll come by to see you later this week. Don't die. At least wait till I get married!"
Grandma: "I've been waiting and waiting and waiting! I can't live forever!"

Oh, Grandma.

Pain + Pain = More Pain

Yesterday, after suffering through two weeks of constant headaches, I decided to treat myself to a seated massage. I had concluded that the headaches were stemming from a pain in my neck and that a massage was not an extravagance in this case, but a medical necessity.

I was assigned a massage therapist named Steve. He was a big guy with huge hands. I've had many seated massages in my life, but they've mostly been by the same small woman each time so I was kind of looking forward to the change. Little did I know...

The massage started out nice, but quickly became painful as Steve worked out the knots in my shoulders, pressing on each knot with his elbow and leaning on it with all his body weight. The pain increased as he started working on my neck. As his huge hands worked their way around my neck I thought, "so this is what it would feel like to be choked to death."

Eventually the choking part of the massage was over and the massage became slightly less painful. Until the karate chops started. Steve was probably three times as big as me and didn't seem to notice that his karate chops were breaking my spine into tiny little pieces.

The good news today: my headache isn't as bad as it has been. The bad news: it's possible I'm a candidate for a full body cast. Was it worth it?