13 Things You Just Never Want to Hear From the Mouth of a Hero From a Romance Novel

Okay, since I am a romance writer despite the fact I hardly ever mention it on this blog anymore (Try talesfromthecrit.com) I thought I would make a nod to my true roots today. This is a list of things you just really hope you'll never hear a romance hero say...


1. "Mother said she saw you last night. Through your bedroom window."


2. "I had a test. It's not my fault it was a false negative."



3. "We'll have our own happily ever after. Just you, me and your hot sister."



4. "I'm actually afraid of guns--and spiders. Also mice, certain kinds of popcorn, my aunt Lois, midget porn, fixing cars, eating at a Chinese restaurant, people who have last names that begin with F, Levis 501's, aggressive women..."


5. "Sure, I'm totally into the idea of marriage. I've already done it thirteen times before."


6. "I'm looking for an old-fashioned girl, you know, the kind of girl who doesn't actually expect me to do anything."




7. "I've never had this kind of problem before. It must be you."


8. "I'd like you to meet Nadine. She lives in my basement. Well, I don't know if lives is the right word."


9. "I'm really trying to be abstinent right now."



10. "I wasn't lying, per se. There are many levels of truth."



11. "Here's all truths and all my hang ups. I love you for what you are. Who needs two hundred pages of conflict? Let's get married."



12. "You should come over for a little you know what. Honestly, my parents don't mind if I have people over."


13. "I'm not here to solve your problems. If you've got a stalker then YOU'VE got a stalker. Not me." (Just so unhero like.)



Now remember this is not representative of real life. Just of my heroes baby. Yeah.

13 of the Cutest Things I've ever seen

Okay so I'm feel uncustomarily sentimental today and I decided to go for a more personal note where I don't insult anyone at all. At least not sincerely. So here they are folks, the thirteen cutest things on my hard drive. (Sappy happy endings aside.)


1.

E learning to potty train. She's a fashionista and a genius, what can I say? Except that for some reason the date on my camera almost perpetually reads January 2005 and I have no idea why.



2.
The boy is slightly obsessed with Star Wars. This is last Halloween. He's Obi Wan, the young Obi Wan not the old one and he'd be happy to tell you the difference.


3.
Look at that face, couldn't you just pinch it?


4.

I wouldn't say they did it exactly themselves but they certainly made the majority of the design decisions.


5.

I'm going back in time now. But gosh, what a cutie.


6.

My sister's dog Sushi, that we sat over Christmas while she was out of town. Do you get cuter than this dog? I think we all know the answer to that.



7.
Now who could have said no to a proposal from this cutie? Eight years!


8.
It's an R2D2 mailbox. How cute is that? Pretty darn cute.


9.
I could have just eaten that baby up. But I'm pretty sure that's illegal. So I just settled for a lot of kissing and hugging instead.


10.

Getting a good picture of an autistic child isn't easy so we don't have many good pictures of the boy but I think this one is high in the cuteness factor.


11.

The boy was premature and way too small for a crib. Here is baking in a basket before we discovered that bassinets were the perfect size for him.


12.

E on July 4th, 2004 at our Annual Independence Day BBQ Bash. She was about three months old at the time. Not quite three months.

13.
My boys, clearly surprised. Maybe they saw how cute they are. :)


Well here they are folks. I don't know that they're in reality the cutest pictures we have but they're some of my personal favorites.


Happy TT!!

Hey, look at me!!

How cool is this. I got awarded the excellent blog award from Project Mommy. Thanks so much. Really. I'd like to thank all the little people. ;)

Amber

13 Fictional Characters I Wouldn't Kick Out of Bed For Eating Crackers

I made this list under another name about a year ago on this very blog but I thought it would be worth using again. Especially since that means I won't have to compose a new list. ;) I was never the type of teenager who lusted after the heartthrob of the day whomever he happened to be. For example, Zac Ephron, most currently of HSM 2 fame where he sings a whole bunch of angsty numbers with the same exact expression frozen on his face. (The first movie was really good, I actually liked it very much. 2 is terrible and I almost included it on last weeks list. The only good number is the curiously homoerotic baseball/anti-dancing number) But at any rate, my little loves were always guys who didn't even exist. So here's my list of thirteen of em.

1. Batman: Or more specifically Bruce Wayne, despite the fact that he is possessed of possibly the gayest name ever (Bruce Wayne? Come on people) and eventually ends up living with a vaguely post adolescent boy he's incredibly sexy. So tortured and raw and hovering on the edge of insanity all the time but using that edge to fight evil. Sweet. Even though I find him wholly unattractive on a larger scale Michael Keaton's portrayal of Batman is the only one I accept. Also nowhere in his movie does anyone say anything that makes me want to start them on fire with my eyes like, "Bruce it's me Barbara. I'm Batgirl." Ugh.


2. Simon Templar: Another character possessed of flaws that should make a man unacceptable (and in reality certainly would) but somehow just make him incredibly hot. Simon has all the factors that almost always make a character spicy to me. Terrible past, slightly shady and yet inherently good at the same time, and just a touch of insanity. Even though he's a killer and a liar (the book) and a man whore who will sleep with anything with a vagina for anything from secret plans to extra foam on his latte (the movie) there's just something about Simon that screams, "I am immanently doable."


3. Valerius Magnus and Zarek...Magnus (I guess): Sherrilyn Kenyon surely is a writer I must admire when she can take a premise that is patently absurd and make me devour them like they're coated in crack. The idea behind these books is completely, utterly ridiculous but the men in those Dark Hunter books are like incineration level hot. Especially Valierus and Zarek (spoiler alert) half brothers of the same father who grew up not on the best of terms with each other. For sheer yumminess I have to go with Val whose uptight ways and tragic past intermingle to create this package that I would be more than willing to have sex up against a wall with. (Another spoiler, sorry.) But for sheer psycho hotness I have to go with Zarek who is balancing right on the edge of complete insanity but you gotta love him anyway. And, if given the chance, who wouldn't want to love him anyway?


4. Will Turner: I know, it's a gimmee but it isn't just that he's played by Orlando Bloom although I ain't gonna lie that's a gosh darn benefit. Will is a great character who has strong...character. I encourage my pirate loving son to go for Will Turner marketing because Will is a strong, silent, manly guy who does what needs to be done regardless of the personal cost. Who wouldn't want to get a...sword from a guy like that?


5. Rome Masters- from the book Playing With Fire by Gena Showalter. Rome is animalisticly attractive. In fact he is part animal. And let's face it, what chick doesn't think that's hot.



6. Indiana Jones-come on admit to your childhood fantasies about good old Indy. You wanted to be a part of the grand archaeological adventure where you'd get to save the world, kiss the tasty professor and melt some Nazi face. At least I did. But then again I wanted to marry a guy exactly like Egon Spengler from Ghostbusters so possibly I lack a certain amount of judgment in this department. "Egon, this reminds me of the time that you tried to drill a hole through your head." "That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me."


7. Hmm, Egon Spengler. This wasn't on my list before but now that I think about it I'm adding it now. I always did love him. There's just something about a guy with a giant brain that just does something for me.


8. J.R. Damien- from the early nineties book Break the Night by Anne Stuart. I actually think these might have been reprinted sometime in the last few years. This book is incredible and JR is painfully sexy. I don't know that I'd use the word hot so much as sexy. It just rolls off him in waves. Read it if you can. I highly recommend it.


9. Snape- Yeah, call me nuts but Snape does something for me. Maybe it's the fact that he's played by Alan Rickman who I think is smoking but there's just something about a man I don't quite understand who has plans and allegiances that no one understands. Is he bad, is he good, is he both? No one knows until the end of the series what the heck he is and man is that hot.


10. Davy Dempsey- from Faking It by Jennifer Crusie. Jeez, I love that book. I would recommend it to anyone who would listen and then I'd tell them twice. Davy is wonderful. Not just sexy but amazing. Charming and funny and constantly coming to the rescue of everyone even people he doesn't like even though he's a crook and a con man. There's just something about a guy who makes his own rules without being a rebel for no particular reason, which I hate, that just does it for me. Davy's awesome. I want one.


11. Edward Scissorhands. Okay I admit that this may just be a result of the fact that I saw this movie at a very sensitive time of my sexual development but I felt so sorry for the guy I was in the bathroom at the movie theater crying my eyes out and some girl who was about six came in and asked me, "What movie did you see?" in awe of my sob fest. I said, "Edward Scissorhands." And then she patted me on the back and said, "That is a sad movie." Comforted in the restroom by a preschooler. That's me. But I never did see why they didn't just get him some prosthetic hands or something. He could have tried them out on me.



12. Dr. Damien Cole from the book Dark Desires by Eve Silver. Good heavens the sexual tension in this book is so thick you could pry it open with a crowbar. And why shouldn't it be? Cole is all kinds of hot. There's nothing like the totally tortured good guy/bad guy. Is he the best guy you've ever met or a serial killer. Eh, sometimes you have to go on faith, right?



13. Eli Masterson from the book Baby Jane Doe by Julie Miller. I was fascinated by Eli from an earlier book where he'd played only a small part. For one I find the name Eli extremely sexy and for two I really do think there's something about the cold, stalwart type that just makes you want to dig underneath. I especially like that he has a relationship in this book with an older woman, not that that's a favorite theme of mine but in this case it just really adds to the book. I just like the image of see how hot the cool, collected type can get.



Happy TT. Go read something!!!


Amber

The 13 Worst Movies I've Ever Seen.

Last night the awesome Miss Emily Ryan-Davis linked me up with a website called The Spoony Experiment. There are several things that are fascinating on that site given that you're able to ignore his propensity to curse like someone with a bad case of Turrets Syndrome. But I got distracted for hours reading his reviews of movies he hated. None of my movies are the same but that got me thinking of a list so here it is.

These are my personal hates which are not likely to mirror yours so no getting offended. :) These are in no particular order except for number one which really is my most hated movie of all time.

1. Titanic. Ugh, this supposed masterpiece was a titanic waste of my time and dollars. It was so long that most men probably had to shave in the middle and when it was over I left thinking, "Well there's ten hours I'll never get back." I didn't even mind the money lost. It was more like the amount of good minutes I could have spent doing something more pleasurable, like burning my inner thighs with cigarettes. I will admit that this movie is beautiful cinematic-wise and maybe if I'd otherwise had no idea what was going on I would have enjoyed it more. Sort of like literature class. Mainly though, it had a ridiculous plot, bad acting and trite dialog. Kate Winslet's Rose was the most annoying thing in this flick in I was left with the strong impression that she was just in the mood to go slumming and she would have done the horizontal mambo with any joe from below deck. As it was Leonardo DiCaprio (One of the men who wouldn't have had to shave during the length of this movie) was the lucky stiff. They fall in love instantly and for no particular reason and after proclaiming her undying love and jettisoning his frozen body into the ocean she spends the rest of her life, which includes a marriage and children, longing for the guy she knew FOR THREE DAYS. WTH? She dies and instead of going to be with the person with whom she lived for fifty years and had children and a life and a history she goes back to the lightly calloused hands of her working class stiff that she loved for less time then the average menses. Ugh.

2. Pearl Harbor. I watched this movie and was far more interested in the lives of the people on the the ship, I believe it was the USS Arizona than I was in the main characters. Affleck, Hartnett and Beckinsale are the worst love triangle ever known to man stumbling along destroying any actual possibility of enjoying this piece of crap on almost any level. Affleck and Beckinsale fall in love, again for no particularly compelling reason and make out a lot. Then Bennie takes a dive and disappears. So what's a girl to do at that point but make it with his best friend even though she's been, apparently arbitrarily refusing to have sex with Affleck prior to this point. After doing it in an airplane hanger she gets a little bun in the oven. Affleck suddenly and rather unmiraculously returns from the dead and then what is a slutty WWII nurse to do? But don't you worry your pretty little heads. Hartnett's clueless character goes to that big airplane hanger in the sky leaving these two losers behind to raise his poor defenseless child who will have two of the stupidest parents ever known to man. But on the plus side this movie is another venue to give Cuba Gooding Jr. a chance to do what he does, cry on camera. Rock on man. Rock on. I'm crying too.

3. Meet Joe Black. I ain't gonna lie. The most watchable part of this movie is when Brad Pitt's character gets munched by a moving vehicle. I laughed so hard that I thought the other people in the theater were going to come out and lynch me. But to be honest that was the best job I've ever seen Brad Pitt do in a movie. How odd that it should be the movie where he's not required to exhibit any actual emotion. Hmmm... Claire Forlani's character falls in love with Joe Black because he's never had a peanut butter sandwich and has sex with him until she realizes that he's death, there to steal her father, Anthony Hopkins who is by far the best actor in this movie. As a consolation to her death lets Brad Pitt have his pre-car-mangled body back and of course she wants to be with him because they had one conversation in a coffee shop and of course, as any good time travel romance will tell you, if someone looks like your true love that means that it will be just like being in love with them all over again. All I can say is during the course of this movie I almost wished that I had been the one hit by a car.

4. Where the Truth Lies. I watched this movie because not only am I sucker for a good mystery, I'm a sucker for Colin Firth. Sigh. Okay, back to my bad review. This movie was atrocious. I kept waiting for it to get better or at least slightly less depraved and sexually disgusting but alas it never happened. And if I was going to be exposed to pointless, graphic sex at least it could have involved Colin Firth. Sigh.

5. The Piano. Some of you may remember that this Holly Hunter movie won three Oscars in 1993. I didn't understand why then and I have luckily never been forced to watch it a second time so I could catch the subtle nuances that caused the Oscar committee to find this thing worthy of not vomiting profusely let alone the presentation of awards. This movie had one of the most bizarre romances ever, punctuated by gratuitous leprechaun sex with Harvey Keitel. Harvey Keitel, people. Now that I'm done shuddering... He buys the mute chick's piano and tells her she can have it back if she gives him lessons which consist primary of creepy stalker like behavior on his part, like crawling under the piano while she's playing and sticking his finger into her socking. She apparently finds this strangely erotic, emphasis on strangely, and I found myself, not so strangely, disturbed at their behavior.

6. The Ring. This movie is directed by Gore Verbinski who also directed the Pirates movies which I also have mixed feelings about. But that's another blog. I saw this movie under duress anyway so it's probably not a huge shock that I didn't like it. But the ring video that they all watch before dying is so stupidly college film major like that at no point could I ever imagine feeling frightened by it. Also I am confounded by the relationship between the main character and the little boy. Apparently he's her son but they don't act as though they have any kind of even remotely warm, let alone familial relationship. The video causes death via some psycho sleep adverse little girl named Samara Morgan and they chase down the family to get the 411 and save people lives but frankly I think they should have just shown the video on CNN or something and poor Samara would be so busy trying to kill every would be political pundit in the world and she wouldn't have time to go off innocent little boys. Or make anymore really stupid home videos.

7. Any movie ever shown on Lifetime. Okay, I admit this isn't a movie, per say but I think it would be safe to those all these masterpieces together under one tent of stupidity. Any movie they put out has a formula that involves cataloging every traumatic and horrifying event that ever actually happened to another human being. I've always been slightly confounded by the term, "Television for Women." I always thought it would be more appropriately called, "Television for women who enjoy watching other women get victimized." But I guess that just isn't as catchy.

8. Wing Commander. This movie was bad in ways the defy explanation. Luckily Mike and I saw it on a date and during a movie theater viewing which meant that no one was there but theater employees and their guests so we could talk all we wanted. It turns out turning this junker into an impromptu episode of MST3K is the only thing that makes it bearable. For one, apparently every one in space has a French accent. And also they like to wear chef hats. Matthew Lillard, who I honestly think is great, plays a fellow space pilot to the star, He's All That, Freddie Prinz, Jr. Lillard's random love affair with a fellow pilot adds nothing to the plot and when she predictably bites it he pulls a Titanic and proclaims his undying love for her after a relationship of less than 36 hours. Nothing in this movie, including a cast of fun little teenage boys, can redeem this one.

9. Step-Mom. I saw this piece of...work on my first date with Mike. It was the only movie that we and the other couple had all never seen. Too bad I can't continue to say that's the truth. Although Susan Sarandon's pot smoking Mom-droid is semi amusing mostly this movie is just designed to blackmail me emotionally by trying to pull all the strings they think women will respond to. Maybe it's my like of estrogen from the PCOS but I really hate it when movies try to that. Although it does provide another venue for the ubiquitous movie song, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" because Heaven knows we can't get through another Hollywood tearjerker without someone wiggling their bits and pieces to that little ditty.

10. The Haunting. I watched this because it was a remake of the 1960's movie The Haunting of Hill House which I've always found incredibly frightening. But I should have just stuck to the black and white original which was frightening because of how much mystery remained behind the haunting. In this moving way too much info is given and the special effects are ridiculous. Although who doesn't appreciate watching someone get decapitated by a fire place every once in awhile? I mean, honestly.

11. Rose Red. I admit to not being a huge fan of Stephen King movies but this mini-series takes the cake. The big towering red one. A group psychics are led to a haunted house to participate in an experiment headed by Nancy Travis, who I can not look at without thinking, "Harriet, sweet Harriet. Hard hearted harbinger of haggis." But that's really not the thing that chaffed my hide about this one. Aside from the first half being almost fatally boring, at some point I'm sure my heart actually stopped beating for a moment, Kimberly J. Brown's portrayal of a powerfully psychic autistic is terrifyingly bad. Half the time her behavior borders on perfectly normal and the other half of the time she acts like she's mentally retarded but at no point does she act autistic. She should have watched some videos on the neurologically atypical behavior she hoped to portray before letting it go to film. This movie was another three or four hours that I'll never get back. And as the mother of an autistic child I actually found it somewhat offensive.

12. Mike's Martial Arts Movies. This is another one that's admittedly not a single title. However I like to lump them under the same completely pointless umbrella. I don't understand how a man with an IQ of over 180 can sit around and watch people using fake martial arts moves to beat each other up in slow motion. With a dubbed over English soundtrack and a plot that almost always completely confounds me, I always regret being made to watch these little wonders. The things one does for love.

13. Silent Hill. I have to admit that there are certain things about this movie that I found fascinating but overall the finished product made me want to stab the director, Christophe Gans, in the eye with an ice pick. Maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough but I felt like I watched this movie for two hours and it never freaking went anywhere. There was no real answers that made sense to me, there was no resolution and there was no relief from the nightmare that was Silent Hill.


I hope I haven't offended anyone and I'm sure there are many more movies that are worse and deserve to be on this list. But I probably haven't watched them and if I did I probably blocked it out out of self preservation. Happy Thursday!!

Amber

Meme confuses me me.

Okay I got tagged by Playful Professional to do one of these meme things. I'm gonna go ahead and be honest. I don't wear deodorant. No, I'm just kidding about that. I'm technologically impaired and that's the truth. But I think I understood the rules. But you know what, don't hold your breath. (Or breathe too close to my underarms.)

The rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you;
2. Leave a comment on their blog so that their readers can visit yours;
3. Post the rules on your blog;
4. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog;
5. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post;
6. Include links to their blogs;
7. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Okay here are seven random facts about me that many of you may already know.

1. I've been married for almost eight years.
2. I met my husband in a religious institute choir class at UNM.
3. I wrote my first piece of book length fiction when I was in the eighth grade and it was really, really awful. It was about some twins and one of them was a druggie and had a boyfriend named Marvin. Yeah, it was a good one.
4. We're seriously thinking about adopting.
5. I have four pen names for different genres.
6. We have two cats, Kathrine and MacGregor. "Kat" and "Mac"
7. I love almost every kind of music. From the Andrew Sisters to Justin Timberlake.

Then I'm going to tag---Lauren, Morgan St. John, Savannah Chase, Kaige, Haven Rich, Emily Ryan-Davis, and Mike.

13 Songs I Can't Get Out of My Head

1. Sexy Back, Justin Timberlake. I mean seriously. Every time I think of the word sexy, Which is a lot, I'm a romance writer people, this song will be stuck in my head for approximately six hours.

2. Low, T-Pain and Flo Rida. Whenever I hear this song I'm just grinning because I have no idea what the h*ll he's talking about but I love it anyway. And then it's stuck in my head for like the rest of my life.

3. Pretty Fly For a Rabbi, Weird Al Yankovich. You think I'm kidding but I'm so not. If I hear it somewhere it stays in my head FOREVER. Oy Vey!

4. That Freaking Alicia Keys Song, Alicia Keys. I can't remember right now what that gosh darn song is called but I hear it everywhere I go. I'm in freaking Amish furniture stores and there's Alicia Keys. I think I liked that song before it took over my life like some kind of fast moving fungus.

5. Pretty Much Any Song From a Musical. But especially songs from Musicals I've been in because I know all the words and as soon as I hear a note they all come back to me. And then they never go away.

6. Unwell, Matchbox Twenty. I love this song but I'll be lying in bed trying to sleep and all I can think about is singing this song. You may think that I'm insane here...but I'm just a little unwell.

7. The Titanic Song, Celine Dion. This one is particularly sad because I hate that movie and I hate Celine Dion so the whole thing is just painful for me. But once it worms in there there's just no getting it out without major surgery.

8. Paralyzer, Finger Eleven. Man do I love this song so I don't mind that hearing it once means hearing it for the rest of the afternoon.

9. 19 Something, Mark Wills. I just have such an infinity for this catchy little ditty that I keep singing it at the top of my voice even when it's long over.

10. The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, VeggieTales. Alas, I actually mean this. If anything sets off my memory of when my son used to watch Jonah all the time and I can't get it it of there until I'm done singing at the top of my lungs for hours.

11. Speaking of kid songs... Don't make the mistake of starting to sing the song, "This is the song that never ends." Sung by the creepy lady with the sheep. Cause if it gets in there it ain't comin' out.

12. Christmas songs, especially I'll Be Home For Christmas. In July I'll be singing these little ditties. Long after the tinsel is gone these songs are not.

13. If I Had A Million Dollars, Bare Naked Ladies. Heaven knows I love me some BNL. But if I had a million dollars I still couldn't buy this one out of head.

AJ