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Ok, the interview today? I have absolutely no idea how that went. I went into it with no expectations – I knew the qualifications that they were looking for, and I knew that I fit the description pretty well. But I didn’t really understand what it is that this group actually does (and yes, this is yet another team at the Giant Software Company), and I’m still not sure that I completely get it, even after being interviewed by three different people. So that’s kind of strange. I honestly just don’t know how well I did in the interview process – that big one a couple of weeks ago really shook my confidence, and these people all had poker faces, so I couldn’t tell at all if they liked me or not.

Bottom line: if they offer the job to me? I’ll take it. It’s a 6-month contract, so even if I end up hating it, it’s only temporary. And we could use the extra income. (More importantly: my ego needs the income to feel like a useful & productive member of this household.) But based on what I know of it, I don’t think I’ll hate it. It sounds like something that I would enjoy, and that I could do well. And if they don’t offer it to me? Meh. I don’t really care. Just have to wait and see, I guess.

In other news, after all that panic and chaos, the hurricane didn’t even cause my brother in Houston to lose electricity. Absolutely nuts. And in other, other news: I did nothing all weekend except play video games (Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker! Aaaaah! I’m reliving my childhood!) and watch season 1 of “Lost” on DVD. We still have a few episodes left, so don’t give me any spoilers. But man, I am totally loving that show.

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Saturday, Dave had to work all day (poor guy), so I took advantage of my day alone to tidy up & do the five or six loads of laundry that had been piling up. (I’m such the domesticated little wifey, no?)Somewhere near the end of the day, I went into the laundry room, and there was a mouse on top of the washing machine. Not that mice are uncommon out in the boonies where we live, but usually when I find them, one or more of our cats are playing with and/or nibbling on their lifeless little bodies. So this mouse was noteworthy because it’s the first live one that I’ve ever seen in our house. He was very little, and sort of cute. He didn’t run away either, he just sat there and stared at me. He had a ding in one of his ears, and he reminded me a little bit of Ralph Mouse from those Beverly Cleary books. Like if I got him a little toy motorcycle and half a ping-pong ball to wear as a helmet, he’d be Evil Knievel-ing all over our house. But, then reality sets in, and I know that he’s probably carrying Bubonic Plague or something equally horrible, so we’re supposed to be enemies. And besides, if the cats find him, he will meet a very prompt untimely demise. I was thinking about putting a pot over him and scooting him off the edge of the washer and using the lid as a base, so I could take him somewhere safe (like the woods) and set him free, but I’m pretty sure those little critters can run pretty fast when they want to, so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to catch him.

So I ran into the next room, grabbed the phone & called my mom. She told me to put one of the cats in the room with the mouse and close the door. Keep in mind that while we were talking, I had walked back into the laundry room, and the mouse was still sitting there, just looking at me. And dammit, he was so cute, and I didn’t want to listen to the cats kill him – the little mouse death screech is a sound that makes me cry and I absolutely can’t stand it. So I got off the phone with my mom and called Kris. She told me that I should make my husband deal with it. Luckily, around that time, my husband came home. I ran to the front door to get him, and by the time we went into the laundry room, the mouse was gone. I hope he found his way out of the house, but most likely, he’s probably in the wall behind the washing machine. Great. Stay tuned, folks, I think we’ll probably be seeing Mr. Ralph S. Mouse again sometime.

Totally unrelated: I don’t usually talk about my dreams here, because they’re usually very random and strange (whose aren’t?), but I had one on Saturday about another blogger, so I thought I’d share. I dreamed that Sally came to visit me, along with her dog, Lulu Mae Barnes. Only I kept calling her (Sally, not Lulu) by her pseudonym, not her real name. And she was really, REALLY pregnant. Like to the point where she was talking about how she was going to be induced if the kid didn’t come out on its own in the next week. And then, she, Lulu, Teenie and I broke into my next door neighbor’s house just to be nosy and see how they decorated the place. Admittedly, in real life the outside of their house is god-awful, so I am somewhat curious to know what’s going on inside. But yeah, that was weird. Especially since I’ve never actually met Sally in real life, although I think that the next time I’m in my hometown, we should totally meet up & go out for creamy margaritas. (Note to Sally: That’s assuming that you aren’t 9 months pregnant at the time, like you were in my dream.)

Movies watched this weekend:
* Hide and Seek – What a pile of crap. Yes yes, Dakota Fanning is a brilliant little child actress, but seriously. Every scary movie cliche you can think of was used in this movie. Shaky light fixtures and unreliable sources of electricity? Check. Something scary in yonder bathroom looms? Check. (Side note: what is up with scary things happening in bathrooms? I can think of at least a dozen movies off the top of my head where this happens. Does it have something to do with “Psycho”?) Creepy children’s singing voices? Check. Dopey policeman? You got it. Knife rack and one of the knives is missing? No doubt.
* Constantine – I’m still not sure what I thought of this. I guess it was ok? It was very weird. I think Dave liked it. Um, I don’t really have anything else.

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Ok, I’m probably going to get bashed for this, but seriously y’all, the Harry Potter thing? Why?? I’m reading on so many people’s blogs that they’re reading (and loving) this book, and I just don’t understand it. The people I know who are into these books are all intelligent and well-read, and I have the utmost respect for their opinions on literature 99% of the time. (Case in point: Angie, I just bought “My Sister’s Keeper” by Jodi Picoult based on your description of it. And I often check out Sally’s recommendations, too.) But I don’t get why anyone over the age of 14 would want to read a children’s book. Yes yes, everyone says they’re fantastic, and I admit that I have never attempted to read one to see if it held my interest, so perhaps I’m just totally talking out of my ass here. I did watch the first movie, and I thought it was just ok. Cool special effects, but it didn’t do that much for me. Granted, I was on a really awkward date at the time, with a guy who kept trying to run his hand up my leg, and I kept trying to either push his hand down closer to my knee, or remove it from touching me altogether, so I was a bit distracted during my viewing of the film. But why am I, as a 29 year-old American female, supposed to care about a pre-pubescent English boy who wants to learn how to cast spells and be a wizard (or whatever the hell it is he’s learning at that school)? Can anyone explain this to me? The overwhelming crazed popularity of those books makes no sense to me at all.

However, I am crazily looking forward to John Irving’s new book, “Until I Find You.” There was a great interview with him in last week’s Entertainment Weekly (the one with Ewan McGregor & Scarlett Johansen on the cover; you can see the beginning of the article here, but you have to subscribe to read the whole thing), and I am so-so-SO psyched for that book. I have 4 books in my to-read stack at the moment, but they may all get postponed for Mr. Irving.

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It’s strange how I’ll often think of something – a story, anecdote, whatever – that would make a good blog entry, and I think to myself that I’ll write it down the next day. Then, the next day, something like this happens, and all the clever funny stuff just flies right out of my head. Or at the very least, it seems totally irrelevant now. The first thing I did when I heard about the London attacks this morning was call Dave to check to see if he knows people there. He does, but he’s pretty sure none of them work downtown, so all of his friends and relatives should be safe. Thank God for that, but still. It’s absolutely horrible, I can’t imagine what it’s like over there right now.

A co-worker of mine mentioned that sometime in the next week or two, I should check to see if airline prices plummet, since we were going to fly through Heathrow for our honeymoon this fall. Um, yeah. Because when dozens of people die horribly, the first thing I think about is how I can angle it into a way to save myself a couple of hundred bucks on a plane ticket. God.

In other news that somewhat relates to current events, I’ve been sort of moody for the past few days. Nothing major, just typical girl stuff. But when I told Dave that Tropical Storm Cindy had hit, his response was along the lines of, “I’ll say it has.” Ha.

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Go. Enter info. Contribute. Whee.

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Britney is knocked up. Like we couldn’t have predicted that one.

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We watched “Rocky V” over homemade turkey burgers (mmm, yum) last night, and here are my thoughts:

* The beginning was good, showing how Rocky was brain-damaged after getting the crap beaten out of him by the Russian guy. And it seemed realistic – I don’t know how any professional boxer can get punched in the head year after year and not have brain damage. But there were a few major plot inconsistencies between Rocky IV and Rocky V. In Rocky IV, they show his kid watching him fight the big Russian dude on TV, and the kid is maybe 6 years old. At the beginning of the 5th movie, Rocky gets home from Russia and the kid is now around 13 years old. What the hell? How long was he in Russia, anyway?
* I think Stallone made the “Godfather III” fatal mistake of casting his own real-life son as his son in the movie. I’m not saying that Sage Stallone is hopeless – I looked him up on IMDB, and apparently he’s also a writer and a director now; he could be brilliant for all I know. Much the same way that Sofia Coppola is. I’m just saying that neither one of them should act. Ever.
* Speaking of Coppola, Talia Shire starred in both “Godfather III” and “Rocky V” in 1990. Sister apparently had a rough year. Poor thing.
* The big up-and-coming fighter in this movie has a mullet. I know it was filmed in 1990, but come on. Interestingly enough, I looked up this actor (Tommy Morrison) on IMDB too, and it turns out that he really was a heavyweight boxer in real life. OK, maybe that explains his horrendous acting skills. (Although nothing can excuse the mullet.) His only other claim to fame, besides “Rocky V,” is that he was banned from boxing in 1996 because he tested HIV positive. Which I think would’ve made a way more interesting plot twist in this movie, had it been used. Sadly, it wasn’t.
* No inspirational training sequence. No cheesy Survivor theme song. No good.
* The big street fight at the end? Was so obviously filmed on a soundstage and not in some rough neighborhood in south Philadelphia. It looked like the background of a video game like “Mortal Kombat” or something. Lame.

Moral of the story: No matter what he does, or how bad the movies might be (“Over the Top,” anyone?), I will always love Sylvester Stallone, because I associate the Rocky movies (the first four, anyway) with my childhood. I have some kind of weird nostalgia-crush on the man, which I cannot explain. It’s the same reason that I will always love Harrison Ford, despite the fact that he’s now a bloated alcoholic who hasn’t made a single good movie since “The Fugitive,” and that was 12 years ago.

P.S. to Lauren – I really want to know who your boyfriend was in this movie. Was he the little street thuglet who beat up Rocky Jr. and took his lunch money? Or was he one of the random kids on the playground?

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