My name is Elizabeth, and I am a neurotic housewife. This journal is somewhat less interesting than the average, since I don't enjoy having fun, but the spelling is likely to be better.

My old LiveJournal, defunct: psychodyke42
My DeadJournal, also defunct: beware (the lazarus joint)
My website, in dire need of updating: the sibyl of cumae

If you'd like to add me to your friends list, you should know two things:

1) I often miss being added until well after my new friend gets impatient and defriends me, and
2) I also frequently manage to add someone to my friends list but not to the proper viewing filter.

Therefore, if I don't add you back or comment on your journal, don't take it personally, because it may well be that I am a moron.

Okay, so I hate Belichick, not because of the taping really but because HEY COULD YOU HAVE MAYBE COACHED LIKE THAT FOR THE BROWNS SO MODELL WOULDN'T HAVE SOLD US YOU STUPID BASTARD anyway, I hate him but I didn't agree when he caught shit for going for it on fourth down against the Colts. It's a thing, you take the chance, they'd call him a genius if it'd worked.

Well, in response to that criticism, tonight he appears to have decided to go for all of the fourth downs.

HATERS TO THE LEFT

(Note: I still want the Saints to win. It's just, I gotta recognize. That's some style.)

Comment to my mother: Sometimes a girl just wants to dress up, and sometimes a girl's jeans are all in the wash.

Five random facts about me, not as a meme but just because I feel like it:

1) I hate cruise control. It makes me feel like I don't have control of the car, which makes me really nervous and tense.
2) My pupils are unnaturally large, an inherited trait. Last time I went to the eye doctor, he was able to inspect my retina without using the dilating drops. Even the weakest drops, diluted, keep my pupils huge for hours and hours. I can't drive at night because of the halo effect on oncoming headlights, and my eyes can't adjust to full sunlight. Oddly, my night-vision isn't that great.
3) I don't like fruit. Juice is okay, and bananas are okay, but the texture of citrus fruit and berries drives me insane. I also can't stand the taste of melons and peaches.
4) I take off my wedding band at night. When I was small, my mother told me never to wear jewelry to bed; while I think she was mainly talking about the possibility of being strangled by a necklace or having something break, neither of which applies to my ring, I just feel weird sleeping with it on.
5) I know how to make balloon animals. Haven't done it for years, so I've forgotten most of the designs, but I can still muster a dog (or a giraffe, I suppose). Never could blow up the balloons myself, though -- I had a little hand pump.

Unspoken fact 6) is that I love talking about myself (given specific conditions), but we all knew that.

Hey all, I'm back! Thanksgiving was good, we watched a ton of football and argued about the BCS and ate about a metric ton of pie (okay, that was mostly me). I'm eagerly anticipating the Notre Dame/Stanford game. GO GET 'EM TREE

(Their official mascot is the color red and their unofficial mascot is a tree. Kind of wish I'd gone to Stanford now.)

The Central/Northern Illinois game was excellent; we came out to a big early lead, and then NI decided "hey, um, we don't like being blown out" and started playing super-hard. We still beat them by two scores, but they made it interesting. Being the Huskies, they also had their mascot with them -- a real live husky whose owner took him for a jog around the end zone after every score. Yay, pup!

Central's QB, Dan LeFevour, is really something else. I've been watching him for four years now and he's just great -- very mobile, not afraid to take the ball and run. Rumor has it he's being scouted by the Colts to develop under Peyton Manning -- what an opportunity that would be! Someday I can say "yeah, I saw him play as a true freshman and I knew he was going places."

Hey! Any of you folks have football fans on your holiday list? Sure you do. I recommend this. History of the Super Bowl with recaps of every game through 2009, plus lots of history, plus top-10 lists that will surely foster some good arguments.

I recommend it not only because it's good (okay, I didn't read the whole thing, but I read some games and the writing is great) but because the author is Charles's uncle. My uncle-in-law, I guess? Anyway, go buy it, football fans will love it.

All right, things.

Big story of the weekend, of course, was the Lions' messy, incompetent, frustrating, and thoroughly glorious victory over the Browns. Yes, yes, I know, "it's the Browns." Do remember that we lost to St. Louis this season. We'll take anything.

And Stafford! Matthew Stafford, rookie QB with a face like a baby's foot, thrower of picks and uncatchable balls, down with a crushed left shoulder and zero seconds on the clock but there's a pass interference call on the Browns so we get one last chance... he jigs left, he jogs right, he breaks the tackle from four team MDs and sends second-string QB Culpepper back to the sidelines and IT'S PETTIGREW WITH THE RECEPTION, TOUCHDOWN LIONS, HOLY FUCKING CHRIST and we're celebrating like we just won the goddamn Super Bowl while Stafford the Beast limps into the locker room and you know, it's ride or die with him now. This is our quarterback. Oh, there's a long way to go for him and for the rest of the team, but what we needed to start with was the conviction that somebody on that team actually gives a shit about winning, and here it is.

And he probably won't even play on Thursday. :( Not that I'm complaining, since a) we didn't have a chance against Green Bay anyway, and b) I want Stafford 100% before he even thinks about stepping on the field again. Nobody better begrudge him the rest, but I don't think they will; like I said, we'll kill for this kid now.

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We watched Marathon Man and enjoyed it; I'd read the book, Charles hadn't, and he had to cover his head during certain scenes but otherwise it was quite fun. I don't mind the changed ending, I guess. Went back and reread the book, having not done so in years, and found it as good as I remembered -- though I'm much more familiar with different lit styles now and could smell the '70s all over it.

I am now reading Women in Love, haven't gotten very far, and I'm not at all sure I like Lawrence's style but I don't think that'll keep me from finishing it.

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Upon re-viewing Hellbound: Hellraiser II, I think the first two movies ought to be re-cut into one. Hellbound has at least 10-15 minutes of footage from Hellraiser, and it also ret-cons the first movie's ending (which could also be explained by "demons pull weird shit," of course). Plus, Hellraiser has a lot of slow buildup, while Hellbound just dives right into the crazy shit. The seams would be visible, but not terrible. It'd be a pretty brutal viewing experience, though.

Funny, I generally don't like Barker -- I read one of his books and it was just, I mean, what the fuck -- but I like those movies well enough. They're interesting, and engaging, and it's rare to see horror that acknowledges the possibility of lawful evil. Plus, it occurs to me that I've overlooked Kirsty Cotton in my mental list of Badass Horror Heroines. Bitch is hardcore, for real. Not saying she's up there with Sarah and Ellen, but anyone who willingly enters Hell to save her father is something else.

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I keep thinking of stuff to write but forgetting it once I sit down; this entry is several days' worth of what I can remember to write about. No big deal, I mean, I wasn't sitting on the secrets of the universe or anything.

Thanksgiving will be spent at the in-laws', as usual. Reading holiday horror stories makes me thankful (there it is) for drama-free family gatherings. There's drama in both our families, yeah, but the principals aren't people we see very often. For those of you spending this time with family, I hope things are drama-free for you too, or at the very least drama-lite.

So I was up early this morning, and I read Ender's Game.

Then I cried, a lot, and I had to go back to bed. Jesus, Card doesn't pull a single punch, does he? It's one of the saddest books I've ever read.

Feel free to discuss other Ender books in the comments, I don't really plan on reading any of them. I like where the ending left me.

So I bought two pairs of shoes this week -- well, the one I actually bought a while ago but it was back-ordered, and then a pair of house slippers. The others are these, in the black, and you guys they are so comfortable. Finally! It took me months of searching and a giant Zappos order of failure and a week spent running around a conference in miserably uncomfortable cheap shoes, but I finally found a pair of comfortable heels that aren't hideous! I still wish I could have gotten something completely plain, but the detail on these is cute enough, and at least it's not a buckle or a moccasin-tie-thing or a faux loafer. I've been doing housework in them for hours and they're great, except for a slight cramp in the first joint of my right big toe, but that's more of a "not used to heels" thing.

So, since I got those shoes and a bunch of stuff from my mom, it's time for a closet cleanout. I've got four big shopping-mall bags of clothes, four pairs of shoes, and two purses. I also threw out two pairs of slippers and three pairs of shoes that were a) on their last legs and b) redundant anyway. I have work boots I can wear for yard work, there's no reason for me to keep crappy sneakers around. The elastic-strap sandals I regret, but they were seriously about to fall apart. I'd like to have a pair of nice-ish casual sandals for wearing with skirts in the summertime, but that can obviously wait.

So that brings me to... let's see... eightsorry, nine pairs of shoes and one pair of slippers. Three of them are costume-y: black men's wingtips, flat-soled blue boots with buckles, and old-fashioned brown suede heels. I may get around to selling those at some point, but I've been threatening to do that for a long time and it never materializes because I'm lazy.

THIS JUST IN: I WANT EVERY T-SHIRT THIS WEBSITE SELLS

Last Exit to Nowhere

Omni Consumer Products (Robocop)
America Research Station Outpost #31 (The Thing)
Amity Police (Jaws)

AUGH HOLY SHIT THIS SITE IS SO FUCKING COOL

November 12th through 15th -- that's today (Thursday) through Sunday -- you can save 30% at Old Navy, Gap, and Banana Republic in-store.

5% of your purchase goes to DonorsChoose, a charity where teachers submit classroom projects for funding.

Print the coupon here: http://www.gapinc.com/giveandget/donorschoose/

Get yourself some sweaters and help some students!

(x-posted to poor_skills)

I've moved into the "sinus headache" phase that seems to come at the end of every illness I ever have, and boy is it unpleasant. It only takes a very small amount of pain to be completely distracting when it's right in the middle of your face.

One of the vexing things about Christmas creep (the progressively earlier marketing of holiday merchandise) is that, when you go to a store's seasonal section in November, you're liable to find a whole bunch of fake greenery and blow-up Santas, but no rakes. Or one type of very crappy rake. This is unfortunate, because my rake was broken for quite some time before I finally gave up on trying to keep the handle attached and threw it away, but now Meijer has no rakes. Even though I'm using the mower to mulch leaves instead of raking the entire lawn, there's still stuff that needs to be cleared up.

Oh, well, I need to go to the mall tomorrow anyway -- I'll pick up something at Sears. I wonder who'll pick up the Craftsman brand whenever they finally go under? It's got to be worth a ton, but I think Lowe's already has a deal with Kobalt, and Home Depot probably has something with somebody else.

Oh, and keep those horror movie recommendations coming on the previous post. It bears mentioning that I know approximately jack about foreign horror cinema, except that the Italians do great zombie flicks and the Japanese are scared of long hair. (Is there a thing about that? There's got to be a thing.)

Nothing to say for Armistice Day that I haven't said before. Our troops still deserve a better country.

Charles and I signed up for Netflix -- yes, we're that far behind the curve. So far, so good. The hard part is remembering all those movies over the years of which we said "you know, we really oughta see that."

I need to get cracking on my Horror Movies I Should Have Seen By Now list.

( suggestions from a few lists )

Any suggestions? Personal favorites? Don't assume I've seen it unless I've specifically said so in the past -- I've seen a weird cross-section of stuff, especially with all those B-movie festivals under my belt, but that also means I haven't seen a lot of stuff you'd expect.

The codeine cough syrup isn't working.

*cries*

HAHAHAHAHAHA HOLY CRAP WE SCORED THREE TIMES IN THE FIRST QUARTER

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS

Amazing how much better we play when half our starters aren't in the hospital, innit?

After a sleepless and painful night, I found an urgent care center reasonably close by and went in for some help. I got exactly what I'd hoped for -- codeine cough syrup and a Z-pak. Whether or not I had the flu, I think the sinus infection that hopped on the bandwagon afterward is probably bacterial. I always get them when I get anything else and they're always awful but I usually just bull through it. This time, though, with the horrible sore throat and the cough and the not sleeping... I gave up.

At least now I know that you go to urgent care for stuff like this, when you can't get an appointment for whatever reason. I know this is the sort of thing you're supposed to understand, but I guess I always thought "urgent" was a synonym for "emergency," and of course I don't want to go into a free/low-cost clinic and take up their time when I have insurance.

I bought myself a little bag of wafer cookies because I've been such a good patient (ha). Now I really feel like I've been sick -- my parents usually didn't have junk food in the house, but illness meant you could have whatever you wanted. I wish Planter's still made their crunchy cheese balls in the round container, which were far superior to anything put out by the chip companies -- that was one of my prime sick foods.

Codeine is kicking in, and I was already tired. Think I'll go let the Lions lull me to sleep.

Event Horizon: Equal parts Hellraiser 2: Hellbound and The Haunting of Hill House (novel version), with a dash of Forbidden Planet.

Also, appears to be the basis for Ghost Ship. Odd, to see a remake/ripoff that's taken away from outer space and set back on Earth.

I don't know what makes this unsuccessful. It's pretty good. The studios demanded that extra gore be cut, but I'm not sure that would have improved it enough. I think the dialogue was wildly uneven, which certainly hurt the film -- how many times can you hear exchanges like "I need time!" "That's exactly what we don't have" before you just start groaning -- but I don't know if that's the whole problem either.

Eh. I enjoyed it quite a bit, though. I just felt like something was missing.

EDIT: I know what it was: there wasn't one single image that really imprinted itself on my brain. That may well have been the fault of the studio-ordered cuts -- maybe there was something in there, like the courthouse tableau from Silence of the Lambs, that would have done the trick. The quick-cut technique they used to show various horrors without dwelling too long on any single one was effective in its particular way, forcing your brain to fill in the gaps, but sometimes you just need to poleax the viewer with one huge, awful thing to make it all stick.

Eh. Still far superior to most efforts one sees nowadays, the effects have held up quite well, and they didn't get too explanatory. It's a better film than Ghost Ship in almost every conceivable way, except Ghost Ship has that stand-out moment and Event Horizon doesn't -- which means that, while the former haunted my sleep for some time, the latter probably won't. Does that mean the inferior movie is actually more successful, somehow?

Voting: accomplished. Realized that wearing a swine flu mask to a polling place probably wouldn't work, though.

The two big ballot issues today were increased funding for metro transit (yes) and whether we should let men in dresses use public restrooms, or at least that's what the opponents boiled it down to. Yes on that as well, as I think men in dresses should have options other than peeing on the sides of buildings, but if you don't hear from me again then my marriage has been destroyed by the gays.

Either that, or I'm dead of the swine flu, which I probably contracted from a man peeing in the ladies' room.

Okay, so now I have the swine flu. 101.3! Hooray!

I might have some sanding masks in the basement...

Top 10 Scary Movies:

The Exorcist
The Ring (American version)
The Haunting
The Thing
The Blair Witch Project
Jaws
Alien
The Wicker Man
Psycho
Night of the Living Dead

In no particular order.

Qualification: These are movies that scared the living fuck out of me when I first watched them. I give no guarantees as to their enduring quality, or their ability to scare you specifically.

People whose kids have deadly peanut allergies don't let them go trick-or-treating, right? Because half my candy bowl is peanut-based and the other half almost surely hung out with peanuts at some point.

I should think this is a no-brainer, but you never know...

Director Paul Haggis publicly resigns from Church of Scientology over gay rights, church practices

Oh hey so this is pretty fucking huge.