It's Not What You Say, It's How You Say It

Playing Catchphrase with my sister's friends makes the "BABY FISH MOUTH!" scene from When Harry Met Sally seem totally plausible.

A sampling of some actual guesses that some reasonably intelligent people actually made:

"Blind mailman!"
"Clothes laboratory!"
"When someone has a heart attack it's called...?" "A heart attack!"
"This is the name of a toothpaste and also a famous painter." "Aqua-Fresh!"

Alphabet City

An engineer left this comment today on the manuscript I gave him to review:

"I do not understand the symbol that looks like a big lower-case u written the size of a capital."

In other words, a capital U. He doesn't understand a capital letter U.

I love my job.

From The Mind(less Drivel) Of M. Night Shyamalan

So, yeah, I rented that M. Night Shyamalan atrocity Devil last night — don’t ask why — and I just wanted to share some of my utter disbelief at how bad it actually was...

Basic Premise: 5 people are trapped in an elevator; one of them is the devil. (They are all shameless clichés.)

Within the first 15 minutes, I had already figured it out.

***SPOILERS!***

1. Obvious choice would be the mysterious quiet guy, so it's obviously not him (unless they were counting on us to think that and were pulling a double twist, which I don't believe they were clever enough to come up with).

2. They all hate the annoying salesman, so they all automatically blame him, which automatically makes it not him. (Sure enough, he is the first one to die.)

3. The angry black security guard is both a symbol of authority and new on the job, which makes him suspicious, so it could be him, only that would be racist, so it's not him (unless, again, they were trying to be clever and controversial, which I don’t give them credit for).

4. The pretty rich girl gets mysteriously hurt early on, so it couldn't be her, which means it is her, unless...

5. ...they go the very obvious "least obvious" route, which means it's the scared, harmless old lady.

Who it was.

Moviemaking at its effing finest.

Give 'Em Hell

Today I attended a departmental procedural meeting in which these two sentences, in regard to the same topic, were spoken within minutes of each other:

"EVERYTHING has to be EXACTLY the same."
"Ignore any inconsistencies."

And it was 83 degrees in the office.

I don't believe these incidents were unrelated or coincidental. It is my belief that they pointedly serve to prove that my job is, literally, Hell.

Seriously?

Perhaps it's fitting that the two words best describing my reaction to this post are "stupefied" and "dumbfounded." But then again, I am only a white girl...

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

A Christmas Miracle

And now, some good news for the forthcoming holiday season...

GOP pledges to block all bills!

This part's my favorite:

"All 42 Senate Republicans signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, vowing to prevent a vote on 'any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers.'"

How, exactly, do these imbeciles expect to FUND THE GOVERNMENT by CUTTING taxes? Where are these "funds" supposed to come from? Jesus??

Merry Christmas, assholes!!

The Department Of Redundancy Department

There is a definition listed in the book I am proofreading right now for "Tolerant Tolerance."

Editor Cat is editing.

Lessons Learned From Last Night's Episode Of Survivor: Nicaracgua

1. New York is full of gay people.
2. Louisiana is full of douchebags.

Walking With Psycho-saurs

Since when did they start letting Insane Clown Posse teach religion classes in Australia?

Some real scientific-like intellectual shit.

My favorite excerpt:

"The scripture teacher told the class that all people were descended from Adam and Eve," he said. "My daughter rightly pointed out, as I had been teaching her about DNA and science, that 'wouldn't they all be inbred?' But the teacher replied that DNA wasn't invented then."

Maybe the teacher has a point. That statement does make her sound inbred...

NERD ALERT!

Yep, this is how I spend my weekends...

"EINSTEIN'S RIDDLE"
There are 5 houses on a street, each a different color. A man of a different nationality lives in each house. The 5 owners each drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigarettes, and own a certain kind of pet. No owner has the same pet, smokes the same brand of cigarettes, or drinks the same beverage.

GIVEN:
1. The British man lives in the red house.
2. The Swedish man has a dog for a pet.
3. The Danish man drinks tea.
4. The green house is to the left of the white house [NOTE: the reader's left].
5. The owner of the green house drinks coffee.
6. The man who smokes Pall Malls has a bird.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhills.
8. The man who lives in the middle house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blend lives next to the one who has a cat.
11. The man who owns the horse lives next to the one who smokes Dunhills.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man that smokes Blend has a neighbor that drinks water.

The question is: "Who has the fish?"

Your time starts...NOW!

Dream A Little Dream...Again

Tonight, I will be seeing Christopher Nolan's Inception...for the third time in 2 weeks.

Who says I have an addictive personality?

Seriously, this movie has become an obsession. I can not stop thinking or talking about it. It's almost as if...

***SPOILERS!***

...the movie itself is an inception that someone was hired to plant in my brain. Or maybe the movie doesn't even exist and we're all just projections of Christpoher Nolan's subconscious! GOOD GOD, HELP ME! I CAN'T MAKE IT STOP!!!

If anyone who hasn't seen it yet has been reading my Twitter feed of late, despite the numerous "SPOILER!" tags I've employed, they either hate me for ruining the whole thing for them, or they REALLY have no idea what's going on. As Roger Ebert put it, you could give away the ending and it still wouldn't make any sense unless you understood how it got to that point. I tried explaining this to a friend who was adamant that I not reveal anything to him that even if I did, it would sound like: "When Leo went up the stairs, did Ellen Page's character release the chicken, or was it Valentine's Day?"

He didn't believe me, and yelled at me for mentioning the chicken, even though there really was no chicken and the chicken was completely hypothetical. Then he yelled at me for giving away that there was no chicken.

No chickens were harmed in the making of this film. Or this post.

Hassling Hasselbeck

According to The Daily News, Elisabeth Hasselbeck believes that "a lot of older lesbians would have turned out straight...if they could only land a man."

Well, I believe that a lot of former Survivor contestants wouldn't have become hosts of 'The View'...if they could only land a Playboy pictorial.

I also believe that stupid opinions like this wouldn't even be aired or considered...if only dim-witted, ignorant bimbos weren't hosts of a fatuous, asinine talk show.

Feed Your Head

I take 3 different medications daily. However, these particular medications are not manufactured in the specific doses I've been prescribed. Thus, I take 1 white pill, 2 blue pills, and 3 pink pills every morning. Being the only-half-conscious groggy mess that I am in the mornings, I sometimes get this routine mixed up. Today I think I may have accidentally taken 5 blue pills and a Tic Tac.

And I wonder why I'm so neurotic...

Scattered Thoughts On The 2010 Miss America Pageant

Pre-show (yes, I am such a fanatic that I watch the pre-show):

Good lord, since when does Clinton Kelly have facial hair? He looks horrible. You host a makeover show, dude! Didn't you look in the mirror?

Damn it, I was really hoping he was actually going to change into a bathing suit for his "swimsuit walk" lesson.

Hot DAMN! Miss Puerto Rico is GORGEOUS!

Are those clear stripper heels they're all wearing? Classy!

And Miss New York wins the preliminary swimsuit competition — heck yeah! REPRESENT!

OMG, Miss Puerto Rico's evening gown is GORGEOUS! I hope she takes this whole thing down.

Why does "the only redhead in the competition" have to look like Allison Janney?

I hate when they wear white. Bah.

Oh God, that ruffled periwinkle thing is atrocious. What is that, acetate?

Susan Powell says it's not all about the dresses and she wouldn't take points off if a girl stumbles. What's the freaking point of the whole evening gown competition then?

Jeez, none of these girls know how to work a runway. Totally stiff walks and frozen smiles.

...except, of course, Miss Puerto Rico. Strut that stuff, girl!

Holy shit, Miss New York's gown is FABULOUS! REPRESENT!

RUSH LIMBAUGH is a judge?? WTF??

I cringe every time one of these girls says "I, personally, am pro-life." I bet Rush is keeping tabs.

Oh, Christ: "It is my belief that marriage is the union between a man and a woman." Thank you, Carrie Prejean — NEXT!

Miss New York seems pretty chill and normal. Cool. REPRESENT!

Vivica Fox: "You aren't allowed to touch us." LMAO!

Ugh, stop calling them "chicken cutlets." That grosses me out. And how is that not cheating?

"Butt glue" sounds like a phrase I'd find in one of my engineering manuals. Or something really, really disgusting.

YES!!! WE HAVE A BATON TWIRLER!!!

Dang, Miss California! That was some back bend!

Speaking of flexibility, Miss New Mexico can tie a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue, and Miss Kentucky can zip herself into a suitcase. Just like Yen in Ocean's Twelve! How funny would it be if Clinton just left her in there for a few hours?

Oh my God, crazy eyes! Who the hell is this, Rhode Island? And she can recite like, a thousand decimals of pi? In a creepy monotone while staring into my soul, too? Good lord, this girl is scary.

"I believe I can be the next Miss America because it has been my dream ever since I was a little girl and I know I would be great at it." That's nice. I believe I could be a neurosurgeon because I've always wanted to be one and I think I'd be pretty good at it — hand me a scalpel!

More to come...