The Groupon Debacle

Remember the days before Groupon where we had to buy everything full price? Or just not buy anything at all because we didn’t have any money or friends? Yeah those were the days. Now it feels like there’s a deal for everything. I’ve used Groupons for discounts on food, manicures, surfing, hotel rooms, and many other random things that I wouldn’t purchase on my own unless they were a really good dealio.

But sometimes Groupon is tricky. Let’s say you get all excited and buy a super cool discounted movie ticket (or something equally as dumb), print it out, put it somewhere for safe keeping, and then wait for the next time you want to see a movie. You end up dragging your spouse to Monsters University and you forget the Groupon that could have saved you some money. You tell yourself that you’ll bring it next time. But you forget again and again until the deal expires and you actually end up wasting your money. Sucker! Groupon gotcha!

One time my husband bought us a Groupon for a restaurant in town called Sauce. What a stupid name. Anyway, every weekend we kept telling ourselves “Okay we have to use the Sauce Groupon” until one day we walked past Sauce and it was closed. Like, it went out of business. Luckily Groupon refunded our money, but still. I really wanted to use that coupon.

Perhaps the worst Groupon experience I’ve had as of late involved the purchasing of hair tools. It was an amazing deal–spend $15 and get $115 worth of product. SUCH A GOOD DEAL, RIGHT? Wrong. I bought the Groupon and went to the website to buy a new curling iron, only to find out that nothing was cheaper than $200. Groupon got me big time. Or at least that hair tool company did. I could have just left my mistake alone and realized that I wasted $15 dollars, but I just went for it and bought a crazy curling iron for like $89 bucks. FML.

So children, I ask you to do your research. Learn from my Groupon mistakes. And don’t let your husband buy a tandem kayaking Groupon without your consent. If you don’t hear from me in the next month, I probably died by drowning in a flipped over kayak and an orca whale bit my torso off.

A Post About Nothing

I haven’t been feeling very inspired to write anything recently. Sometimes I feel like I’ve talked about everything there is to talk about. Sometimes I can’t even remember if I’ve written about a certain topic already or if I just dreamed that I did.

These days if you have writer’s block (or any kind of block at all really) you go onto Google and see what there is to write about. I typed “what should I blog about?” into Google, clicked on the first entry, and this is what it said:

1. What is your expertise? Readers want to read about what you know and your special experiences. Really!

Okay, geeze. I believe you. Problem is, I don’t have an expertise. Unless you count being able to name every Pokemon an expertise, I’ve got nothin. Are most people experts in a certain area? Is this some sort of life requirement that I missed out on? Should I look into something? I guess history would be my expertise because I got my degree in it, but we all know that’s a lie and I forgot everything I learned right after the final exam.

2. What’s the news? While you don’t have to necessarily be a news breaker, you can give your view on what’s happening in your industry and how it relates to your hobby, life, etc.

Am I supposed to have an industry? I don’t even know what day of the week it is, never mind what my industry should be. I feel like I break the news occasionally, but I usually sway towards celebrity gossip more than newsy news. Can we call it newsy news from now on? The reason I didn’t write about the newest celebrity news is because my heart is broken and talking about it just makes it hurt more.

I’ll give you a hint: It has to do with these two.

3. What is your personality? Do you like to take a stance? Are you funny? Do you like being a contrarian? These insights can help you to write about your topic.

Can’t I just be everything? Why do I have to choose just one of those things? Can’t I be a funny contrarian that likes to take a stance? Maybe I don’t want to be defined by one personality type. I think there are sides of me that are soft and kind and other parts that are funny and playful and other parts that are deep and thoughtful. Notice how I didn’t name any character flaws? It’s because I don’t have any, in case you’re wondering.

4. What are your hopes and fears? Things that you can’t stop thinking about or what keeps you up at night could be good things to share with others.

I would say one of my hopes is trying to live a good solid life. A life I can look back at and feel proud of. A lot of the time I get caught up in trying to make other people proud, but I think I should just be focusing on making myself proud. I try to be the best example to others that I can be.

My fear is that I’ll go to a restaurant and they won’t have my favorite thing on the menu anymore. This scenario has happened to me multiple times and it’s scarred me for life.

5. What are your hobbies? Things that you like to do on your free time are often great topics to discuss.

Um let’s see here. Sleeping is a big hobby of mine. Eating is also another big one. Going online. Driving and listening to music. Walking and listening to music. Just listening to music in general. Traveling to new places. Did I say eating? Um petting soft animals. Laughing at people. Laughing at myself. Not exercising. Shopping. Painting my nails (but only when they’re grown out). Going to movies. Eating popcorn. Eating chocolate. Eating.

I think that’s about it.

Were those prompts supposed to solve my writer’s block? Because I think they made it worse. And they made my self esteem plummet because I don’t have an industry or an expertise.

I guess technically you can’t have writer’s block if you’re not a writer, so I probably have nothing to worry about, right?

Anatomy of Titanic

Yes, I went to Titanic 3D last night. It’s perfectly acceptable to be jealous. I’ve stayed true to my love Titanic since I first saw it in fourth grade. I was the only one who saw it in my class and I remember telling all of the boys that the girl was naked in the movie. A storyteller in the making.

I had seen Titanic a couple of times since then, but there were so many things that I didn’t catch and didn’t realize until I saw it yesterday. This time, it was extra special, extra life changing.

Let’s go back to a time when Leo was super hot, Kate was almost skinny, and people actually knew who Billy Zane was. Titanic was the coolest, biggest, longest, best movie ever made. No competition. For some reason though, my little brain only remembered the “good parts”. Aka the dancing scene downstairs, Rose’s clothes, the drawing scene, etc.  This may sound extremely dumb, but there’s so much more to the movie!

Let's be real. Best scene in the movie.

I think my selective memory had to do with the fact that I didn’t have emotions until I turned 21. I never really cried or felt bad for people up until then. Don’t worry, I’ve made up for the lack of tears almost every day since then. Hormones. More like whore-mones, am I right?! I didn’t really see the people dying in the movie. I mean, I could physically see them, yes. But I didn’t really understand. I didn’t think about how scary it would’ve been to be a child and see everyone panicking, or to be a mother and try to keep your kids alive.

The scene after the ship capsized and everyone was flailing around in the water really freaked me out. Like, that was a lot of people. My mom, my brother and I used to talk about what we would do in a worst case scenario. Titanic always came up. My mom’s idea was to string together a bunch of life jackets and use them as a raft. I took notice in the movie that everyone was only given one life jacket. I guess you’ll have to think of a plan B, mom. I definitely would have found some wood like Jack and Rose did. And let me go ahead and state the obvious–there was enough room on that door for the both of them. Jack could have lived, Rose. His death is on your shoulders.

It always bothered me when Rose said, I’ll never let go and then….LETS GO. But after watching it this time, I realized that Jack told her to never let go of the promise she made him. Hence her never letting go. Now I get it!

"I'll never let go." Cut to Rose releasing her icy grip.

Instead of exiting the movie feeling fulfilled by my intake of young Leo, I was super depressed! The scene showing all of old Rose’s pictures, all of the things she promised Jack that she would accomplish–so heart-wrenching! I was also exhausted from the length. I don’t remember it being over 3 hours. I mean, I remember talking about how long it was, but I don’t remember sitting, watching it for that long.

All in all, Titanic is a wonderful movie. I have no complaints. The story is historic, with a good romantic story and loveable characters. It’s hard not to love. But don’t think about the reality of it too much, or you’ll plummet into a deep depression.

Seriously, don't start thinking about these two holding each other before they drown.

Catfish

Paul and I decided to rent some movies last night. We canceled our Netflix subscription because we never ended up using it. I used it a couple of times to watch Rugrats episodes to fulfill my nostalgia quota, but I don’t think we really got our money’s worth. I wasn’t going to tell Paul about Rugrats, but Netflix sent Paul an email asking how he enjoyed watching it. I got made fun of a lot for that one.

So we went to one of the 3 video stores left in the entire world and picked out some movies. It was 9:45pm and they closed at 10 so I was kind of pressed for time. I couldn’t browse the store like I wanted to. This place has about every movie ever–top notch selection. I wanted to rent “Like Crazy” because I heard it was good, but they were all rented out! Grr. So I grabbed Catfish and Paul picked some weird Nazi movie with Stanley Tucci and Kenneth Branagh. Seriously.

We watched Catfish and it was about as weird as I thought it would be. If you want to see the movie, stop reading now because I’m going to spoil it for you.

The main character, Nev (prononuced Neev) Schulman is just your typical Jewish New York photographer. One of his pictures got published in a magazine. A 9 year old girl, Abby, painted a picture of his photograph and sent it to him. Nev was flattered and he started to write back and forth with Abby, sending her more photos for her to paint.

Yaniv "Nev" Schulman

This seems harmless to me. Granted, it’s still weird for a 24 year old guy to be emailing a 9 year old girl. Even if it’s purely innocent. Nev eventually comes in contact with Abby’s mom, Angela, and Abby’s half-sister Megan. He’s spoken to all 3 of them on the phone, becoming facebook friends with all of them, texting them, etc. Nev and Megan end up talking a lot. They flirt, they call each other “babe” and they seem like they would date if they weren’t separated by the distance (Megan and her family live in Michigan).

Megan claims to be an artsy type–she dances, and sings. She sends Nev some songs that she’s recorded and he very impressed. He searches the songs online and finds out that she actually didn’t sing them, she just stole them from youtube. He get’s super freaked out by this. If she lied about her songs, what else is she lying about?

Nev, his brother Rel (WHO NAMED THESE KIDS?), and their friend Henry decide to go to Angela, Abby, and Megan’s house. Yeah guys, why the hell not? They go to their house and find this older, creepy woman (who is indeed Angela) who takes care of her husband’s two mentally challenged children from his past marriage. She proceeds to lie about things until they call her out. She admits that she was the one painting the pictures for him, not Abby. Pretending to be your 9 year old daughter is always a normal move. She also admits that Megan is actually in rehab for alcoholism, so she was actually pretending to be her as well. Talking on the phone with Nev, texting Nev, calling him babe, and handsome…it’s just all so weird.

Angela

During their meeting she also tells them that she has cancer. So they guys leave Michigan kind of amazed that someone could fool them and make up a totally different life. But you can tell that they also feel bad for her. Clearly she used her alter egos as some sort of an escape mechanism. She obviously wishes she could be a painter, or a beautiful dancer and singer. But instead she’s stuck taking care of people who are fully dependent on her.

Right before the credits you learn that Angela actually doesn’t have cancer or another daughter Megan. That probably creeped me out the most. Even when she was coming clean, she still had to spew out lies. I don’t understand why some people aren’t okay with telling the truth. Then they get caught in their lies and STILL LIE.

Lying is the one thing that anyone can do. Anyone can lie to you. Kids can lie, adults lie, high authorities lie–anyone can. The internet is weird that way. People can make their lies almost become a reality. There’s bound to be a Word Press user or two who aren’t who they say they are. I could be Stephanie In Florida for all you know.

Forever Traumatized

I’m a fan of scary movies. Granted, I’m always the one in the theater with my feet up on the seat, hiding behind my knees and whispering to the person next to me “Tell me when it’s over.” Afterwards, I go home and run as fast as I can to my bed because I don’t want any murders to get me. We all know blankets are the best form of protection. No one’s gonna get me if I’m safe in my bed! So realistic.

It’s funny because I can watch really gross stuff, but some of the most tame things can frighten me. Every now and then certain scenes from movies or TV shows will register with me in such a negative way that I won’t be able to ever erase them from my memory. A lot of the time they aren’t even scary. They’re just super bizarre and my brain can’t take it.

I’m going to share some music videos that have slightly disturbed me over the years. Laugh all you want, but just know that my dreams are being haunted.

Don’t Come Around Here No More – Tom Petty. This is a great song. But I simply cannot deal with a real life Alice in Wonderland turning into cake and being eaten by a Mad Hatter Tom Petty. In no way is that right. Tom Petty’s face is scary enough already. But when he’s in an oversize outfit and drinking an abnormally large tea, I just feel uncomfortable.

Land of Confusion – Genesis. Everything about this makes me want to throw up on Genesis. Why would they put these images in my head? First of all, puppets are scary as hell. Just no. The only thing I can stand puppets in is the movie The Labyrinth. Only because David Bowie’s greatness (barely) negates the atrocity of using puppets as actors. The only thing worse than one puppet, is hundreds of puppets. And that’s basically what Land of Confusion is–a lot of puppets. Which genius thought of that idea? A world full of puppets is what I imagine hell to be like. Jim Henson is clearly messed up and has absolutely no friends. Jason Segel is unfortunately following in his footsteps. I thought there was hope for him. But nope. He’s doing weird Muppet movies, so now he’s on my list of questionable people.

Tonight Tonight – The Smashing Pumpkins. There are things about this music video that I appreciate. I love the song. I also like that they’re paying homage to one of the first movies ever made, A Trip to the Moon (1902). Yeah, that’s right, I took Film Crit. The moon in both the movie and the music video is one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. Hands down. A blurry, old-fashioned Billy Corgan and crew play their instruments lethargically in the night sky, outlined by stars. There is honestly no other way to describe it.

The lead couple in the video journey to the moon and are attacked by moon imps. They end up  jumping to the bottom of the ocean where they’re attacked by a fish and eventually saved by Poseidon (or Neptune if you’re Roman). The whole thing is just too much for me to handle during this delicate stage in my life.

I’m sure there are an insane amount of creepy music videos. But these really make me cry inside. Has anything that you’ve seen freaked you out lately?