Yet Another House Update

I swear I'll try to think of something more interesting soon. The whole "sell the house/buy a house" thing has just become so entirely all-consuming, it eats up all my attention!

Okay, so we had our first open house today. Ten couples came through. No one made an offer. Our real estate agent is going to try to get some feedback from other agents for us. I suspect it's primarily things we can't change (i.e., it's on a busy street, or it's an odd layout, etc), but maybe there are some minor things we could fix/change to appeal to more people. Who knows. It's only been on the market for 4 days, so I'm not getting worried yet.

On the house hunting side, I am getting a little worried. We haven't seen anything that would be acceptable yet. Today we saw the nicest house yet, but it was at the VERY top of our price range, and it was on the LITTLEST lot. I doubt there'd even be room for a swing set, except maybe on the side of the house. Oh, and it was pretty darn close to the commuter rail tracks. A lot of negatives for completely maxing out our budget.

Yesterday, though, we saw what was both the most awesome and most depressing house ever. The good: very affordable, in an awesome location (closer to TK's work than most of the houses we're looking at), and it had a frikkin' secret room! Off one of the bedrooms, there was a fake built in cabinet. When you pulled on it, it was door to a rather large secret room! So, so cool!

The bad: it was in a swamp. Literally. The basement would flood regularly. There was standing water right up to the edge of the house. Can you imagine the mosquitoes in the summer?

The best part of a house in a swamp: Monty Python quotes :)

Worst movie

Another topic courtesy of one of the write-ins I attended. I'm guessing you've figured out we sometimes got a little distracted!

What is the worst movie you've ever seen?

I've got to give it up for Johnny Mnemonic. It doesn't even cross the line from awful to funny. It's just...awful.

Also in the running: Star Wars Episode I, and the third installment of The Matrix (I can't even be bothered to look up the title is how bad it was).

What's your vote?

And on the flip side, I have to mention Clerks, which contains some of the most ridiculously bad acting ever to grace the big screen. And yet the movie is STILL awesome. Nice.

What's Your Tag Line?

I have a post up over on The Book Nook reviewing Cell by Stephen King. I try not to be entirely tangential over there, but here, well, all bets are off. So I'm going to own up to you all why I picked up Cell even though I haven't read any Stephen King in years. It was because of the tag line. Printed right across the front cover is:

YOUR NUMBER IS UP!
CELL

I mean, how genius is that? I love a good tag line. They crack me up and yet still pull me in.

Which brings me around to my favorite all time tag line. It's for the movie Popcorn. And here's the tag line: Buy a bag, go home in a box. You can just hear announcer guy announcing that in his announcer-y voice, can't you?

Have I ever seen the movie? No. Do I ever plan to see the movie? No. But am I *still* cracking up about that tag line over 15 years later? You betcha! So thank you, makers of Popcorn. Thank you, tag line writer of Cell. You keep me entertained.

What's your favorite tag line?

____________________

Replies to comments on The Redemption of the Coffee Wench:

Thanks, Nancy! Hope this is another out-of-nowhere post for you!

Gio, I'll email you offline. Yes, I travel out of my way to go to a supermarket that has Caramel Macchiatos :)

Sheri, Splenda, say it ain't so! I can accept you voting for McCain, but please, using Splenda? :)

Melodie, yes, that was my issue, too, about the inherent undertext that maybe I should be drinking a low-cal beverage.

Something for all you non-Twilight fans

Okay, per Nancy's request, here's something for all you non-Twilight fans. TK and I caught this preview on On-Demand last night. We cracked up for about 10 minutes. It's for the movie Strange Wilderness.



There's a darker side to this story. We were total suckers and actually rented this movie last night via On Demand. It was not funny. In fact, it was one of the worst movies ever. However, that preview still stands as one of the funniest things I've ever seen. So watch the preview. Heck, watch the preview 40 times in a row, and it'll still be funnier and make more sense than the actual movie.

I'm so sweet...not only do I give you a funny trailer to watch on your day back from a long weekend, I also save you $5 by warning you not to rent the movie. You can thank me later!

Random unrelated thought: I took most of the long weekend off from being on the computer. I checked email a time or two, snuck in a few peeks at blogs, but was mostly offline. I missed my drug of choice: the internet. Welcome back, sweet digital drug!

For all you Twilight fans

Oh my gosh, you have to see this spoof of the Twilight trailer. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I suspect it will be funniest to people who have read the book, but I don't know, I think it's funny enough that even people who have no idea what the book is about will crack up. Well, so long as you know it's about vampires. Here you go:

Muppet-tacular!

We took the boys to their first movie this weekend. Guess what we saw? The Muppet Movie. Yep, you read that right: The Muppet Movie. And no, I'm not blogging from 1979.

Even better, it was a sing-a-long. I forgot to tell TK about that part, so when the whole theater burst into song right along with Kermit, he burst into laughter.

The boys were really good. N-man was really enamored by the movie. It helps that he's in love with rainbows. I mean, he LOVES rainbows. So he was pretty excited to see a movie with rainbows. His favorite, though, was Rowlf. When Rowlf came on, he announced loudly, "It's a DOG, Mommy. A DOG! Playing piano!" I know, dear, it's pure genius.

B-man loved the movie theater seats. He loved getting folded in half by them, as he wasn't really heavy enough to weigh down the seat. He loved jumping out of the seat and seeing it fold up all by itself. And then unfolding it. Geez, he must have annoyed the other movie-goers. Oh dear, well, he only did it a few times.

Anyway, it was a very fun day, and felt like a big milestone. I guess we're ready to start giving newer movies a try. Like something from the 80's. I don't want to rush into this whole Turn of the Century thing.

I wish my life was as good as an ABBA song

A girlfriend invited me last night to go see Mamma Mia. So we headed out, on a Tuesday night, to see a 7:30 show. It was sold out! What's up with that? Quickly, we got into our cars and drove to another nearby theater to see the 8:00 show. Whew, there were tickets left. But there were also THREE bus loads of teenage Italian tourists. That's pretty weird, isn't it?

I thought I was being so wild, going to see a movie on a weeknight. I guess people do it all the time. Who knew?

I enjoyed the movie, although it made me wish I was watching three other things:

Pride and Prejudice, the BBC version, of course. It is a truth universally acknowledged that all women of a certain age (um, my age) are in need of Colin Firth*. He was very good and very funny in Mamma Mia.

Muriel's Wedding: I'm sorry, but this movie still holds the title for "best movie to use ABBA for the soundtrack". Mamma Mia came close, but couldn't quite dislodge it.

Veronica Mars, the first season, of course. I believe Amanda Seyfried will always be Veronica's dead best friend, Lilly, to me, no matter how great she is in other things. And she was pretty good in Mamma Mia. But again, it was no Veronica Mars.

So all in all, a very fun night. And now I have a lot of DVDs to pull out and watch!

Random unrelated thought: I got some awesome purple beans at the farmers' market the other day. They look like green beans, they taste like green beans, but they're purple! The boys were pretty excited about them, and both took a bite of the raw bean as we were getting it ready to cook.

So I steamed them, took off the cover, and GASP! They were GREEN! I mean, it's kind of neat that the beans turn from purple to green, but I'm pretty sure my boys thought I just switched out the fun purple beans with regular green beans so they wanted nothing to do with them.

Don't you think the purple beans should come with a warning: "These beans turn green when cooked."

But anyone with older kids and a glass topped pot might want to plan a "watch the purple beans turn green" experiment that if you're lucky, will end with all the beans being eaten!

*Did I go a bit too far in mixing my Jane Austen references? I hope not! I also am being too lazy to pull out my copy of Emma, so I hope I came reasonably close to "quoting" it.

My first Meme

Well, here goes. I've been tagged by Goddess in Progress and Mommy Esq, and it's all fun, so I'm game.

Four Jobs I've Had:

• Carny. Okay, fine, it was a real amusement park, and I was a games' barker
  
• Accountant for a dotcom, during the dotcom bubble and bust
• Playground supervisor. Don't they need supervising?
• Resident Advisor in the evil center of the Universe

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:

• Dirty Dancing
• Heathers
• Stardust
• Happy Gilmore

Four Places I Have Lived:

• My parent's house
• My dorm room(s)
• My apartment(s)
• My house

Four TV Shows I Like:

• Firefly (and a shout-out to Buffy and Angel, too. I love Joss Whedon)
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
• Veronica Mars
• Heroes
• (Are you proud I've left So You Think You Can Dance off my top four?)

Four Favorite Foods:

• Pizza (Mushroom and Onion)
• Chocolate (no nuts)
• Tom Yum Talley (this awesome seafood coconut spicy soup at our favorite Thai Restaurant)
• Ice Cream (Coffee/Chocolate combo)

Four Places I Would Rather Be:

• In bed (where I'm going soon)
• At a Ani DiFranco concert
• Hiking to a waterfall
• Picking strawberries

Four People I'm Tagging:

• Mary Ellen
• Lit and Laundry
• Two Moms and A Baby
• Plus anyone who happens to be writing a super-secret blog, or just happens to be interested in meme-ing.

Have fun!

Name that movie!

From the Verizon show description guide:

A naive farmboy is thrust into the midst of an intergalactic civil war.

Do you know what movie this describes??

X-Bourne-Man

I swear, in the fourth Bourne movie, it better be revealed that the evil government agency grafted adamantium onto Jason Bourne's skeleton. Because that guy can survive anything. Oops, did I give something away? I hope I didn't spoil it for anyone that in The Bourne Ultimatum, he takes a beating with no apparent damage.

Really, if it doesn't turn out that he has some kind of superpower that lets him walk away from car crashes completely unscathed, I'm going to be sorely disappointed. Because the movies are otherwise so believable.

But I'll be honest, I really enjoy the Bourne movies. Of course, that has little to do with the plot...

Random unrelated thought: We tried out another very good winter-local recipe. Winter Vegetable Soup. It is a combination of butternut squash, parsnips, potatoes, and rutabaga. Besides the rutabaga, which came from Canada, I was able to find all the rest locally. Very yummy, and had the great addition of balsamic vinegar drizzled on top of the soup. I never would have thought of that, and it was so awesome. I'll have to try that on butternut squash soup, too, as the taste is similar.