Yes that is a word. Yes it sounds like it came from Mortal Kombat II. Modal dialogs are a usability nightmare. Joel spoke about it, and we all have experienced it.
For some situations, they are necessary however. When it is necasary it is important to only interrupt the user for what really matters. IE doesn’t do a great job at this.
The next time you are in IE and get prompted for a user/pass, try to change tabs. You can’t! The whole window is waiting on this modal dialogs.
How does Chrome handle this?
Chrome allows you to change tabs. In fact it isn’t really modal at all, because modal doesn’t really make sense. You can’t can continue to the current website without a user/pass, but who says you even want to continue to that site. This small difference improves the usability of Chrome greatly. How many times have you needed to check your email tab to see what the user/pass is for a certain website?
To sum it all up, don’t use modal dialogs and when you do make sure the modality adds value, not detracts. Oh, and stop using IE and use Chrome.