Zengrrl dot com :|: The Personal Website of Writer Michelle Snow

when kittens attack…

Aug 25, 2008 online humor

Ok, how freakin’ cute is this video?

I love that he keeps popping back under the blanket. LOL  Big bad jungle cat is he, eh?

Tags: cute kitten, humorous video

my top ten movie songs

Aug 20, 2008 quizzes and memes

My friend Jeff did a post yesterday about his top ten favorite movie songs – you know, the main theme identified with a film – and it got me thinking about mine. Since I watch a lot of movies, I thought it might be interesting to put out my own list. Here it is:

1. Serenity – No surprise there, right? I love it so much I even have a ringtone of it on my phone.
2. Star Wars: A New Hope – The theme for the very first film is so imprinted in my head, I can even picture the text scroll at the beginning of the movie.
3. Raiders of the Lost Ark – Every road trip I do, this song comes out of my mouth as we pull out of the driveway. The ultimate adventure theme.
4. Jesus Christ Superstar – Makes me want to dance and sing every time I hear it.
5. Rocky Horror Picture Show / “The Time Warp” – If this film has a theme song, this is the one. How can you hear, “It’s just a jump to the left…” and not want to dance in the aisles?
6. The Sound of Music – The hills certainly are alive with the sound of music because I love to sing this song
7. Ghostbusters – C’mon, who you gonna call? I bet you even know the dance.
8. Footloose – Speaking of dancing…
9. The Wizard of Oz / “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” – Like the “Time Warp” maybe not the “official” theme, but it’s so closely associated with the film, I think it qualifies. Judy Garland’s voice is so perfect for this song.
10. Tie:
    Lord of the Rings – Howard Shore did an amazing job with this theme.
    James Bond – You know the one… Bond, James Bond. The theme has been redone and re-imagined by many musicians, but the original version is still the best.

It was hard actually narrowing it down to just ten tracks. So many others almost made it onto the list, like The Lion King’s “Circle of Life” and Top Gun’s “Take My Breath Away,” that I think I spent more time pruning the list instead of making it. LOL

So what would your list look like?

Tags: film, lists, movie, music, themes, top ten

as a writer this pisses me off…

Aug 18, 2008 writing

So I get this message in my Facebook mailbox about a new application that I can add to my profile. It’s called iGo iWrite and basically it allows travelers to write about their trips and other travel experiences – like any of the other travel blog sites out there that are user driven – but with a twist. The creators of the application will compile the best posts into a book and publish it as a new and innovative series of guidebooks created by Facebook users.

Sounds great on the surface, doesn’t it?  But wait a minute. Let’s examine this closer.

You do the hard work of writing the story. You maybe even contribute photos. Then they publish it in a book.

But you don’t get paid for it. Nada, zip and zilch.

I joined the app just to make sure and here’s what it says:

“Will I get all the fame and glory?
Yes, you will a receive a byline for your work and will be credited for your participation in the world’s first published writing project conducted entirely on Facebook. In addition, your Facebook photo, or one you select, may accompany your published article.”

So you don’t get any pay. You don’t even get a free copy of the book.  You get nothing, but your name as author and “maybe” a photo of you, and in return, they make money off of your writing and hard work.

Don’t fall for this guys.  I know everyone who has ever blogged about their travels or read a guidebook has had dreams of their work being published. But you’re better off keeping your own travel blog and then using a service like lulu.com to self-publish than falling for a scam like this.

Unless, of course, you like getting nothing for something.

Tags: Facebook, iGo i Write, scams, travel writing, writer

i gotta read?

Aug 17, 2008 life

“Hey, I’m looking for self-help books on retraining your mind to be more successful and more focused,” says the late-20s looking guy at the store.

“Right over here, we have a full rack of books on that subject,” says I.

“Whoa! Big books!” exclaims the guy. “I wasn’t looking to have to read so much…do you have any smaller books on the subject?”

It was really all I could do to blink and bite my tongue before answering…

Tags: stupid people, work humor

paris hilton spoofs mccain ad

Aug 6, 2008 Uncategorized

So last week, John McCain compared his opponent, Obama, to the likes of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Well, it appears that Hilton has a sense of humor about the whole thing and has put together this video in response:

I’m not much of a fan of Hilton or McCain, but I have to admit, it’s a funny video and a great way to handle the situation. It’s nice to see her not taking herself so seriously.

And is it me, or does her energy policy actually make sense?  Scary.

was it a full moon yesterday?

Aug 3, 2008 life

Yesterday was a short shift at the store and it started normal enough. We had more traffic than normal because of the release of Stephanie Meyer’s “Breaking Dawn” book, but otherwise, things were chugging along.  I’m in the middle of putting out my second cart of books when a manager from the store next door comes in and asks if we had any bathroom leaks in the back. Not that I knew of, but I went to check anyways.

Now we have two bathrooms in the back, but I guess when the store first opened, someone got the bright idea to transform one of those into a storage room. Over time, the storage just involved into people throwing stuff in there to get it out of the way.  Well, it seems sometime earlier in the day, before I came on shift to close, someone had dug in the room for something and inadvertently turned on the sink.  The sink which was piled with plastic bags full of metal brackets blocking the drain. The sink with all the cardboard signs for the store piled on top of the basin.

I think you can see where I’m going with this.

In however long the sink was actually running, since the water couldn’t empty down the blocked drain, it overflowed over the cardboard, onto the floor, eventually creeping through the wall and soaking the carpets in the fitting rooms of the store next door.

Guess who had to take care of all this.

So I called the new asst manager because the head manager, who just started last week, too, was moving this weekend and had no phone. I had to deal with the angry manager from the flooded store. I had to deal with trying to pull everything out of the storage closet and seeing what we could salvage from all the wet cardboard. All this on top of trying to put out the rest of the week’s shipment before we get our next shipment of 160 or so boxes for the next week, and dealing with a non-stop line of customers buying “Breaking Dawn” (we did double our normal sales for a Saturday night) and a sales associate who kept making really silly errors like not noticing discounts weren’t taken when the book was scanned, making me constantly have to go to the registers to fix things and soothe angry customers.

I swear a 5-hr shift never felt so long before.

And the most ridiculous thing is every employee I talked to about it said to me, “I didn’t know that was a sink.”  Umm…there’s a big sign outside the door saying “bathroom” and the faucet was clearly visible.  You generally don’t see a faucet sticking out of nowhere without a sink in the general vicinity.

I’m just saying, observancy not big here, obviously.

Anyways, I can’t wait until tomorrow when the head manager comes in and finds all this out.  Yes, that was sarcasm.

The only bright part was when I got home, my puppy curled up next to me and gave me uber kissies to make me feel better.

Today I’m just taking it easy. It’s my gramma’s birthday today. She would have been 83. I still miss her so much.

Tags: flooding, stupid people