Grammar sucks sometimes

I have randomly been thinking about a lot of different words so I am going to make a list of sentences that help prove why English is so hard to learn, even for native speakers.



The lead actor's footsteps were like lead as I led him off the stage.

The tear in the dress made me tear up and because it was torn she teared up as well.

He was close to the clothes and asked me to close the door, then bring him the cloths.

We're wondering where you were and did you wear that dress.  

I told him to read the paper so he read it and corrected it with red pen.

The costumer was a great customer.

They're going to their house over there.

You're going to go to your room.

Those pants look loose.  Did you lose weight?

Are those two going to the store too?

Do you have an apple that we could halve for them to share?

John was too sore to get on the glider and soar.

Our plan is in an hour.

The price of that fare just doesn't seem fair to me.

The cough was tough but he got through the rough patch because his doctor was thorough.

I threw the ball through the window.

Due to the dew on the grass we can't finish our to do list.

I had to raze the old building in order to raise a new one on that plot.

The bass in the music seemed to attract a lot of bass to our fishing base.

We had to wind the ropes tighter because of the wind that was coming.

The bow on her dress made it hard for her to bow.    

John at his cereal as he read the serial in the newspaper.

She had to let her ankle heal after a broken heel caused a sprain.

The steel sculpture proved almost impossible to steal.

I find it very hard to accept anything except the truth.


That's just 25 examples.  There are so many more.

feet/feat
peek/peak
pray/prey
way/whey
or/oar
for/fore/four
lightning/lightening
way/weigh
wait/weight


The list goes on and on.  And let's not forget that some of these words are homographs and some are homophones making pretty much all of them homonyms depending on who you ask.

And let's not forget:

I before E except after C or in sounding like "A" in neighbor and weigh unless it's weird or science.  

There are rules, there are exceptions to the rules and then there are exceptions to the exceptions to the rules.  It's really no wonder it's so hard to learn.    

The Return of the Jar of Hotness

This is something that I actually started on another blog but that blog has fallen to the wayside.  I also, kind of, maybe, lost the Jar of Hotness on my desk that my daughter has deemed "The Land of No Return."   Well, she's wrong because something has been returned to me.  So here's how the Jar of Hotness works.  I have a jar that has a bunch of names of hot celebrities in it.  Whenever I feel like doing so, I will draw a name from the Jar of Hotness and then proceed to gush about said celebrity.

And today's celebrity is......  *insert drum roll here*

James McAvoy

First of all, look at those gorgeous blue eyes.  I could stare at them all day long.   

It's really hard not to just fall into those eyes.  They're gorgeous.  

And then there's his adorable smile.  He has one of the best smiles out there, really.  It's not absolutely perfect and that's one of the things I love about it.  

And added to all of that beauty is the fact that he really is a wonderful actor.  He's very talented.  Almost sickeningly so.  

But the most wonderful icing on this fantastic cake is the fact that he's Scottish.  I am a sucker for that accent.  So you have a gorgeous man who is extremely talented and throw a Scottish accent on top of it.  Ugh, it kills me, really it does.  

And that is my incoherent, fangirly babbling about James McAvoy.   

Never Judge a Movie by its Poster.

So I've been having a discussion with a friend of mine about what gets me to continue to watch or read something.  I laid it out pretty specifically.

TV:  You have 5 minutes.  Not even joking.  If you do not grab my attention in that first 5 minutes and make me want to watch more, I turn it off and move on.  That is why I don't watch BBCs Sherlock.  It's why I don't watch any of the NCISs.  It's why I don't watch a lot of shows.

If you grab me in that first five minutes I will give you three episodes to keep my attention.  That is all.  Three whole episodes.  Then I stop watching.  It's why I stopped watching How To Get Away With Murder.  It was confusing and hard to follow and I didn't like it.  So I stopped watching.


Movies:  If it's a movie in a theater that I paid $10 for a ticket I will sit through the entire movie.  I will mercilessly nitpick it in my review afterward, but I will sit through the entire movie.

If it's a movie that I rented, you have 30 minutes.  I will watch a movie for the first 30 minutes.  Now, you have to understand that when I watch movies and TV shows at home, I am almost always on my laptop chatting or doing things online.  If, in that first 30 minutes, I spend more time looking at my laptop than I do at my TV, I turn it off.  If I am drawn in and spend more time watching the movie than looking at my laptop, I go the distance.


Books:  If I pick up a book and a time comes that I have to put it down and I am perfectly okay with putting it down, I most likely will not pick it back up again.  This happened with Blood Canticle.  The book came out in 2003.  I borrowed it from the library, got about halfway through and had to take it back.  I did not renew the book.  And actually, all these 11 years later I still have never finished that book and I have no intention of doing so.

I have had times, however, when I have picked up a book and did not want to put it down again.  I have gone through entire book series in a matter of a few days.  This does, of course, depend on the availability of the books.  I went through an entire 13 book David Eddings series in roughly a month because the books drew me in that well.  And this was while holding down a full time job and taking care of a (at the time) toddler.  I didn't sleep much during that time.


Yes, I am very picky about my entertainment.  I mean, the only reason I honestly keep watching Once Upon A Time is in the hopes of seeing Sebastian Stan return at some point.  Yes, actors that I like have gotten me to watch some SERIOUSLY shitty movies.  I have watched movies for Robert Downey Jr that made Sharknado look oscarworthy.  I sat through one of the most boring movies in the history of boring movies just because Jeremy Renner was in it.  A movie that was so boring I had actually forgotten that I watched it.  I watched a movie that had literally every teen drama cliche known to man and a few I didn't realize existed all shoved into one movie just for about 5 minutes of Chris Evans.  But if an actor that I adore isn't in it, I am one of the pickiest people you will ever meet.

Halloween Memories

Every year around this time I think about the time, many years ago, when I helped raise money for the Tex-Annes (my sister's drill team) by working in a haunted house at Six Flags Fright Fest.  One time I was the nanny for Rosemary's baby.  I had to sit in a rocking chair and make it look like I was a robot and then jump out and scare people.  I was wearing this really creepy mask along with the old school dress they had me in.

One guy came through with his little girl, who was maybe six years old, and she was screaming and crying and saying "She's gonna jump out at me!" over and over again so I stayed perfectly still and did not jump out because I have been that little girl before.  I understood what she was going through and didn't want to scare her even more than she already was.  I did want to smack her dad for taking her into the haunted house in the first place, though.

  The best moment, was when this group of guys who were in their late 20s or so came into the room and started messing with me, flipping me off.  One even stuck his finger in the hole in my mask (if I had any idea how clean his finger was I would have bitten it).  They were cussing at me as well.  They started to walk away and I jumped out at them.  They all screamed like little girls and then started apologizing for the stuff they did and said.  I laughed so hard because I scared the crap out of guys who were literally twice my age at the time.

Another time I was the demon that was possessing this woman (who was a mannequin).  That mask was tighter on my face than the nanny mask so it was harder to breathe and I really hated being in there.  I had to leave after about twenty minutes.

Here's something you have to understand about that whole experience.  I hate haunted house.  I don't like being scared.  I don't understand the purpose of intentionally scaring yourself.  I have been forced into haunted house by my siblings and by a girl's club field trip and I hated every single minute of both of them.  I spent the entire way through one of them with my head ducked down and my fingers in my ears and trying to get out as quickly as possible without looking at anything.  So you can imagine that working in a haunted house was not the most fun thing in the world for me.  Especially since I had to go through the haunted house to get to my station.  But I did it because it was a way to raise money for one of my sister's various and sundry trips.  And it ended up not being the worst experience I've ever had.  It was kind of fun getting to be "behind the scenes" at Six Flags for a little while.  I got to go into the costume department and things like that.

I have a lot of other Halloween memories but that one is the one that sticks with me the most.  

The Staff of Awesomeness

That is the Staff of Awesomeness.  I'm open to suggestions for other names.  It's approximately six feet tall. (I haven't measured it since it was completed).  I made this to go with a costume that all started with two bracelets that I got on clearance.  

I started with two 3/4" dowel rods and one 1/4" dowel rod.  The two dowel rods were actually four feet each and I cut one in half. 

The next step was to paint it gold.  I used hammered gold because it has kind of an antique look that goes with the bracelets.  After the paint dried, my dad drilled holes into one end of each dowel and then I used a small piece of the 1/4" dowel as a dowel pin to support it so it would wobble less.  (Sorry no pics or video of that)

I then had some more painting to do because there were some spots I missed the first time.  

After that paint dried, I used this stuff called Fiber Fix.  It's basically the same stuff they used on my cast when I broke my hand last year.  It's easy to use and hardens quickly and it's VERY secure.  So that staff is put together and will not wobble.  I decided to leave it black to give the staff a little character, and that is a natural place for me to put my hand. 

Next I did the orb for the top.  I used a clear plastic Christmas ornament and some glass paint.  

I poured a whole hell of a lot of paint into the ball and then shook it around to get that kind of smokey look.  It actually turned out a lot better than I thought it would.  And it took forever for the paint to dry because there was so much paint. 

I'm still not completely sure that the paint was dry when I got around to attaching it to the dowels.  I had to do a little sanding but I did slide the dowel into the ornament and then taped it in place with gold duct tape. 

I then cut the 1/4" dowel into six pieces approximately 5" in length.  I put glue on one end and attached that to the ornament and then I taped the dowel in place on the staff part.  (No pics of the step by step process of that because my dad helped and he was in his underwear at the time.) 

Once the glue dried, I used some more of the gold duct tape to reinforce the dowels and hold them in place.  I then coated the duct tape in glue.  

I then wrapped the whole thing with twine to cover up the duct tape to give it a really cool look.  

Once that was done I put painters tape around the top part and painted the twine with the same hammered gold as the rest of the staff.  

This is a close up of the top of the completed staff.  It only took me a few hours total over a couple of nights.  Once I have everything done, I'll post a picture of the entire costume.  I think it will be epic.  And I did mean that, I'm totally open for suggestions of other possible names.  

Building the Moment Box

This is the step by step process that I used to build The Moment Box.  You know, the Moment from Doctor Who.  I am building the box and my friend James is going to do all the decorating.  We are both part of DFW Cosplay Gallifrey and he cosplays the War Doctor.  We also have Ashley who cosplays the Interface so this will make a nice addition.  

I've got video of the first several steps as far as the sawing and measuring goes.  It's 19 minutes long or there about but it's kind of funny.  I also have the final lacquering process at the tail end of the video.  I don't have any video of the staining but here are the pictures as promised.  

I said in the video that I needed four 16 inch pieces and eight 12 inch pieces.  That was incorrect.  I actually needed four 15 inch pieces.  That was an easy fix, though.  

I almost ended up getting more stain on my hands than on the frame pieces.  It was an interesting process.  I had to use a paper towel to rub the stain on in order to get the right shade of the stain, but I did it.  

With the side panels, I actually went ahead and used the brush to apply the stain so that I could get the right shade.  Rubbing it on with a rag made it too light.  But the brush applied it at just the right shade so that was easy.  

I made the top and bottom panels first because that was the easiest to do.  I just had to place the panel down and then attach the frame pieces to it with wood glue.  The whole box is being put together with wood glue.  It's very strong wood glue that I use for all of my projects.  

I did two of the side panels like this.  Attached the frame pieces to the side.  That left me with the other two frame pieces to put in place.  

Here you can see the three support pieces that I put inside the box for weight support.  I have them attached to the bottom panel.  Then I attached one of the side panels with the two frame pieces.  

The next step was to attach one of the side panels that didn't have any frame pieces attached to it.  

And then there was the second side panel with no frame pieces attached.  And as I said, all of this was being attached with wood glue.  

And then there was the final side panel piece with the frame pieces attached.  It was very interesting getting everything lined up.  I will admit that I got wood glue all over my hands but it comes off skin very easily even though it attaches to wood like white on rice.  

And there you have the completed box.  The final step was spraying the clear lacquer onto the box.  I managed to do it on all of the sides except for the bottom.  That will have to wait until the lacquer dries.  

That is the moment box before all of the various gears and other decorations are added to it.  Just waiting for everything to dry so I can finish it up and then hand it off to James for the finale touches.  Woot.  

Dollar Shave Club

Today I am going to talk about something most people don't talk about.  Shaving.  My legs to be exact.  I know that most people don't like talking about that but it happens.  And this is not a paid advertisement.  I really wish I was getting paid for this.

One of the reasons I don't shave my legs that often is because of the cost of the replacement blades.  In order to get a good shave every other day I would have to replace the blades once a week.  In order to do that with my current razor, it would cost me about $16 a month because of the cost of the replacement blades.  That's $4 per blade.  Yes, it is a 5 blade razor, but still.

I decided, out of the blue, to try the Dollar Shave Club.  For $6 a month I get a 4 blade razor and I get 4 replacement blades each month.  That's a new blade every week for less than half the cost of my current blade.  And the best part?  This four blade razor actually gives me a better shave than a brand new razor with my 5 blade.  I am very glad that I tried this out and I recommend it to anyone.  While the advertising for the club is mainly geared toward men, they do have a razor that is designed for both men and women.

Dollar Shave Club.  Go for it.  You won't regret it.

The Auto ABCs

Because I'm bored.  I posted a list similar to this on livejournal a long time ago and here I am doing it again.  The Auto ABCs  There is either a car make or model for every letter of the alphabet.  Here you go.


Audi
Buick
Chevrolet
Dodge
Equinox (Chevy) 
Ford
Golf (VW)
Honda
Isuzu
Jeep
Kia
Lexus
Mitsubishi
Nissan
Optima (Kia)
Plymouth
Quest (Nissan)
Rio (Kia)
Suzuki 
Toyota
Uplander (Chevy) 
Volkswagon
Wagoneer (Jeep)
Xsara (Citreon)
Yugo
Zephyr (Lincoln)

Yes, this is exactly how bored I have been lately.  There you go.

The Car Statistics

Yeah this is the sometimes boring part of the trip.  This is how well my lovely little car, dubbed Mickey Smith, has done on this trip.  It was pretty cool.

Total miles driven was 2947.4 miles.

My car has an "average mpg" display and the lifetime average miles per gallon on my car went up from 25.1 mpg before I left town to 27.7 mpg when we got home.  LOTS of time spent on the highway, obviously.

Gas prices in LA weren't nearly as bad as I thought they would be.  It didn't get up to $5 a gallon.

Total gallons of gas purchased is 90.125 including the gas I got right before we left town.

Total spent on gas $314.67.

That gives me an average gas mileage of 33 mpg and an average cost per gallon of $3.49.

Over all the trip was pretty cool.

From Arlington to LA. The fun begins

Road tripping out to LA from Arlington because my daughter is attending a boarding school out here and with all of her crap, I just couldn't afford to fly her.  Plus, I love to drive.  I mean, I do it for a living.  A living I wish paid better but still.  Anyway.  So the trip from Arlington to LA has been pretty cool.  We took I40 across and we're going to take I20 back.  It'll be a nice change of pace.  

It took us a whole 8 hours just to get out of the state of Texas.  Now, the halfway point between Arlington and LA along I20 is Deming, NM.  That is a whole 105 miles outside El Paso.  So yeah, Texas is friggin HUGE.  As I said, we took the I40 route to get here so that's a more northern route.  We went through the mountains and there was a lot of really cool scenery.  We stopped in Gallup, NM for the night.  That hotel was okay.  It had a microwave and a fridge and a TV.  It didn't have an air conditioner but the area is relatively cool.  We did have a fan, though.  

I noticed one major difference between the states other than elevation and terrain.  That would be the "don't drink and drive" campaign.  Arizona wins the award for the most hilarious one for sure.  Both Texas and New Mexico use the "Drive sober or get pulled over" campaign.  California uses the "Driving sober saves lives, including yours" route.  Arizona, however, decided that they would go with "Drive hammered and get nailed."  That made me laugh.  It's a great campaign.  I like it.  

On the way to the hotel in LA I noticed that the people here in California drive a lot crazier than the people in Texas and that is saying something, let me tell you. People in Texas are crazy assholes and the people out here in California are about 10 times worse.  I had so many people nearly scrape the side of my car because they were extremely impatient to get around me.  One guy flashed his brights at me because I wasn't going as fast as he would have liked.  He then nearly took off my back bumper to change lanes and nearly took off my front bumper to get in front of me.  

The highlight of this time was when this motorcycle came roaring through traffic, weaving in and out of cars and going about 20 to 25 miles per hour over the speed limit.  So we're going along and a little bit later here comes CHiPs.  It was a patrol car not a motorcycle though.  He's going along and we see the lights up ahead and he's gotten pretty far ahead of us.  I'm sure he was going very fast.  A little bit later we see people slowing down and we slow down and see the CHP officer on the side of the road and who does he have pulled over?  That's right, motorcycle asshole.  My mom, daughter, and I all cheered and I would have clapped if I hadn't been driving.  Stuff like that never happens in Arlington.  At least not that I have seen.  And I have seen motorcyclists doing stupider stuff than this guy did.  

So whoever you are CHP officer that was on I605 S around 930pm PDT I want to say thank you.  And I certainly appreciate you.  

We got to the hotel and checked in and my daughter and I came to check out the room and we had been given a suite.  Four beds, two bathrooms.  A microwave, a fridge.  Two TVs.  It's pretty epic.  And the place has a pool and a jacuzzi.  I am very glad this is where we're spending two nights.  Woot.  

I'll have another post in a few days when we get back to Texas from LA.  As I said, we're taking the I20 route so it's going to be different and could be fun.  

Along the way I have collected stickers for my car.  I just need an Arizona sticker, that I couldn't find at any of the stops we made, and I will have the full set.  Woot!  

Snowpiercer (spoilers if you haven't read the graphic novel)

In order to get a screening of this movie I had to drive to Grapevine because none of the theaters in my area are showing it.  I do not regret the decision to do this at all.

This movie has Chris Evans, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Octavia Spencer, Tilda Swinton and so many other people that I don't want to disrespect by misspelling their names.  It's based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob.

In this movie a failed attempted to fix global warming causes a second ice age.  There's a small percentage of the population that manages to get on a train that travels the world.  It takes exactly one year to make the full circuit.  During the time on the train a class system evolves.  People at the front are the rich people in first class, people in the back are the poor people in third class or the tail section.  The whole train was designed and built by a man named Wilford.

Chris Evans plays Curtis Everett, a man that is set to start a revolution that will actually succeed this time.  All he has to do is get to the front of the train.  To the engine.  He plans to kill Wilford and take over the train and then there will be no class system anymore.

The journey from the tail to the engine is a hard one with a lot of people dying along the way, including his best friend.  He's tortured by the fact that he has to choose between capturing the person that is essentially the second in command of the trail or saving his friend and he chooses to capture her which results in his friend's death.

Essentially, the "end of the world" happens on July 1st, 2014 (yup, four days ago) when a chemical is released into the atmosphere to try to cool down temperatures caused by global warming and ends up causing a second ice age.

The movie is very good and very well done.  The cast is brilliant.  Never in my life have I been as happy that a character dies as I was when Curtis (Evans) shot Mason (Swinton) in the face.  She was that kind of character and Tilda did a beautiful job.  Ed Harris plays Wilford and you find out a lot of very interesting things when he has a conversation with Curtis.  It's almost heart breaking.

Over all I give the movie a very high score.  I definitely plan on owning it as soon as that becomes an option and if it comes to a theater near me I will go see it again.  It's slow at the beginning but it does pick up about twenty minutes in or so.  The action is great and there is a lot of violence but that kind of thing is expected from a revolution.  The movie is rated R because of it, though.

I definitely recommend going to see this movie.  Chris Evans will break your heart in more than one scene, but then he's really good at that.  I've lost track of how many times I've been in a movie and just thought "Damn you Chris Evans."  because he brings on the feels in epic proportions.  I still can't believe I used to hate that guy.  I was kind of stupid back then.

If you have a chance, go see Snowpiercer.  You will not regret it.

Chef

Written, directed and produced by Jon Favreau, Chef did not live up to my expectations.  It surpassed them.  This is a movie that follows the decline and rise again of the career of chef Carl Casper played by Jon Favreau.  Favs actually managed to get me to like Sofia Vergara which is an accomplishment in and of itself.

Everything starts to fall apart for Carl when he receives a mediocre (at best) review from food critic Ramsey Michel who is played by the wonderful Oliver Platt.  That man is and forever shall be, in my opinion, the best Porthos in the history and future of Three Muskateers movies, but I digress.

With an all star cast which included Dustin Hoffman, Scarlet Johansson, John Leguizamo, and Robert Downey Jr, I honestly believed this movie would be good before I even bought the tickets.  I was wrong.  The movie is great.  It touches your heart in ways that I never thought a movie about food could.

John Leguizamo made my life in this movie.  I love it when he plays characters like this.  I feel like you get to see a side of him that he rarely lets out.

As for Marvin, played by Robert Downey Jr.  There could not have been a more perfect part for Mr. Downey.  I thoroughly believe that it was really just Robert showing up and being himself.  Marvin is off the wall and erratic and weird and that's the impression I get of Robert when he's not playing Tony Stark.  Or should I say Tony Stark when he's trying to convince everyone that he's really Robert Downey Jr?

Like the many fine meals that were prepared therein, this movie is a masterpiece.  If you love cooking, or even if you just love food, go see this movie.  I really did enjoy every minute of it.  And I loved the integration of social media into the film.  Gave it a real world vibe that you don't see much anymore.

Thank you, Jon Favreau, for making this movie and thanks to the people that helped bring it to theaters.  I will certainly be buying it when it becomes available.

And do stay for the credits.  There's a little behind the scenes moment right before the very end that is definitely worth the wait.  

Forget the men, I just want the cars

When people find out I am a Supernatural fan, the question is always asked "Would you rather have Sam or Dean?" to which I answer "Can't I just have Baby?"  That's right, I would rather pass up on both of the Winchester boys for a chance to ride in that car.  And that made me realize that it's kind of been that way my whole life, really.  As much as I would crush on the men in the cars, it was the cars I wanted more than anything else.

This is the car that started it all.  Maxwell Smart's 1965 Sunbeam Tiger.  Not only is it in one of my all time favorite colors, but it's a convertible too.  I loved this car so very very much.  I really hated it when they changed cars later on.  This one was my absolute favorite.  

My second vehicular love affair was the 1936 Auburn belonging to Remington Steele.  Yes, Pierce Brosnan buttered by bread back in the day, but it was that car that got my motor running.  Even though I was only like 10 at the time.  Didn't matter.  I wanted that car.  

And then there was KITT.  Voiced by the man who would later become Mister Feeny on Boy Meets World, this car was awesome.  A 1980s (not sure of the specific year) Pontiac Firebird Trans Am.  With all of those wonderful features that can only be found in the wonderful land of Knight Rider.  The car made me happy and I loved seeing it more than seeing Hasslehoff every week.  

I know that I have mentioned this before in my "Celebrity Husbands" post but it bears repeating.  The Ferrari 308GTS used in Magnum P.I. was a joy to me.  It's the only Ferrari I've ever actually liked, to be honest.  And it was a beautiful car.  Driven by a beautiful man.  And once again, a nice bright red.  

I can't talk about my love affair with cars without mentioning this beauty.  The 1983 GMC G Series that transported my favorite team of military criminals turned heroes.  I loved that van just as much as B.A. did.  And I was not the only one.  My dad had a 1977 Dodge van that he tried to paint to look exactly like the A-Team van.  It didn't work out well but he did try.  It was an awesome van.  

Of course I have to show Baby.  This 1967 Impala is the highlight of the show.  When the car that carries them around is an actual character in the show, you know it rocks hard core.  I actually feel worse about bad things happening to Baby than I do when Sam and Dean get hurt.  I love that car more than both Winchesters combined.  Hell, I love that car more than I love Crowley.  That should tell you something right there.  

And last but certainly not least we have my most recent vehicular love affair.  

The 1962 Corvette Convertible lovingly known as Lola.  I don't even car about all the fancy SHIELD gadgets in this car.  I would take her as is off the factory line.  Lola is a beautiful piece of machinery and I love her as if she were my own.  Clark Gregg is a very lucky man just for getting to sit in her.  Wonderful car.  

I'm sure there are more cars that belong on this list but those are the ones that are first and foremost in my mind.  Those are the cars that have made a lasting impression on me.  The ones that I would do anything to own.  

I should mention Christine in here.  The 1958 Plymouth Fury is a gorgeous car.  I think I didn't mention it originally because I've never actually seen the movie.  I just know about the beautiful car.  

Yet another beautiful red one.  I would own this car if I could.  I would own any of them if I could, honestly.  They're all amazing cars and I love them very much.  Almost as much as I love my daughter and certainly more than I love the people that drive them.  So there you go.  I would take cars over people any day.  Even one that is a demonically possessed killer car.