"Oh Rocky!"
Monday my wife wasn't feeling too good and by Wednesday she was just miserable. I started feeling the effects of this nasty little thing Thursday night and yesterday was no walk in the park. Friday after work we went to see our doctor and he gave us some antibiotics to help get rid of this thing.
So what happened with the haunted walking tour I wanted to go on? My wife and I went! We made it to the Pensacola Historical Society Museum about 650 thinking we would go on the 700 Red Light Distrct tour. Wrong! The earliest tour we could get on was the 800 tour. Luckily that was one of the RLD tours. I never knew Pensacola had an unoffically designated red light area. The area was in operation from the late 1800's through the late 1920's. Thirty years after the district had been cleared out by the city parents would still tell their daughters "Don't go South of Government St" because they didn't want them to be mistaken for working girls. The tour lasted an hour and we really had a great time. We didn't see any ghosts but it was very entertaining. If you're wondering why I went on the red light tour the answer is simple: I just didn't want to deal with screaming and/or silly kids.
At the end of the tour we learned something we didn't expect to learn. There is a peep show in downtown Pensacola! If you head down to the Pensacola Little Theatre on a show night you might get to see more than you expected. The PLT is showing The Rocky Horror Show to celebrate the season and the fans are showing up in costume. Watching the "maids" show up was quite entertaining, but that wasn't the peep show part. The PLT was the last stop on the walking tour. Because we couldn't go into the building we stood across the street and listened to the story of the haunted stage. It turns out that in the past the town gallows stood where the stage now stands. Creepy. While listening to the story the people in the tour noticed that windows on the second and third floors on the left side of the front of the building were frosted. We quickly learned these windows are frosted to provide privacy as they are in front of the ladies restroom on the second floor and a changing room on the third floor. When it's dark outside and light inside the frosting on the windows doesn't hide much. I never realized how many women take the time to cover the toilet seat with toilet paper before they use it.
Click the image below to see a larger version.
Here is today's Halloween Movie Suggestion: Sleepy Hollow!
Didn't I recommend that one already? Sort of. This time I expect you to put the kids to bed and get the Sleepy Hollow DVD staring Johnny Depp out and settle in for a nice scare.
This time around Ichabod Crane isn't the awkward school teacher of old. This time he's the awkward police officer sent from New York to investigate the murders in Sleepy Hollow. Ichabod has some new detecting theories to test and the Headless Horseman is going to give him plenty of opportunities to test them. This is a great take on a classic story. Turn down the lights, find somebody to hold and get ready to scream together.
The movie hit theatres on October 1st 1968. This is significant because the MPAA rating system did not come out until November 1968. What did this mean for the movie? It meant that theatre owners weren't overly concerned about who saw the movie and sold tickets to anybody that had the money to buy them. The level of gore in this movie was unprecedented and nobody really knew what to expect. Young childern that saw the movie were blown away. The following excerpts from RogerEbert.com make this quite clear.
There were maybe two dozen people in the audience who were over 16 years old. The rest were kids, the kind you expect at a Saturday afternoon kiddie matinee. This was in a typical neighborhood theater, and the kids started filing in 15 minutes early to get good seats up front. The name of the movie was "The Night of the Living Dead."
I went to see it because it's been a long time since I saw my last horror movie. I vaguely remember some stuff from the 1950s, like "Creature from the Black Lagoon" or "Attack of the Crab Monsters." They were usually lousy, but it was fun to see them.
But that was 10 years ago. Since then, there's been a lot of talk about violence in the movies, and it seemed about time to see another horror film. The audience for horror movies is mostly drawn from children and adolescents. They usually play in drive-in or neighborhood theaters, and by tradition they're the most frankly violent kind of films. "Night of the Living Dead" seemed like a reasonable choice; it was selected by the National Association of Theater Owners as "exploitation picture of the month."
Well, the kids came early, as I said. There were a few parents, but mostly just the kids, dumped in front of the theater for the Saturday matinee (admission 40 cents). A lot of kids were racing up the aisles on urgent missions, and other kids were climbing over the backs of seats, and you'd see a gang of kids passing a box of popcorn back and forth. Occasionally some kid would get whacked by his big sister because he wouldn't shut up.
There was a cheer when the lights went down. The opening scene was set in a cemetery (lots of delighted shrieks from the kids), where a teen-age couple are placing a wreath on a grave. Suddenly a ghoul appears and attacks the boy and the girl flees to a nearby farmhouse. The ghoul looked suitably decayed, with all sorts of bloody scars on his face, and he walked in the official ghoul shuffle. More screams from the kids. Screaming is part of the fun, you'll remember.
(spoilers removed)
The kids in the audience were stunned. There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying.
I don't think the younger kids really knew what hit them. They were used to going to movies, sure, and they'd seen some horror movies before, sure, but this was something else. This was ghouls eating people up -- and you could actually see what they were eating. This was little girls killing their mothers. This was being set on fire. Worst of all, (spoiler removed).
I felt real terror in that neighborhood theater last Saturday afternoon. I saw kids who had no resources they could draw upon to protect themselves from the dread and fear they felt.
Wow! When was the last time you saw a review like that? Now do you see why I consider this one of the greatest horror movies of all time? At Google Video you can watch the movie in full as well as download a copy for your iPod/iPhone. Simply click here. Did I just say Google will let you download a copy? Yes I did! Due to a mistake made during the titling of the film the copyright notice was left off and the movie has become part of the public domain. You don't even have to go to Google to enjoy the film because I present to you: The Night Of The Living Dead!
A lot of the Halloween fun comes in the form of make-believe. We put on costumes. We fire up our imaginations. We look for monsters in shadows. This movie inspires us to do all of these things.
Want to know what the best part of the movie is? The fact that it was the inspiration for more and more people to dress up like pirates for Halloween. Have you seen some of the pirate costumes for women? Thank you Mr. Disney.
Are you planning on going to any haunted houses this year? I would love to hear about them. Leave a comment and some links!
This year I don't want to go to the typical haunted house filled with actors, stage blood and strobe lights. What is with the damn strobe lights anyways? They aren't scary and they cause headaches. Because I am on call Halloween night I actually won't be going anywhere that night. I'm hoping to go out the weekend before and taking one of the haunted walking tours in downtown Pensacola with my wife. There are guides that take you on a tour of downtown Pensacola to the places that are supposed to be haunted. Will we see a ghost? Probably not. Will we have a good time? I sure hope so.
I saw the urologist today and I have both good and bad news.
- Good news: The backup of shattered stone fragments is gone! The last week I have felt like I worked for the Slate Gravel Company. Also, most of the remaining fragments in the kidney is gone as well! Wahoo!
- Bad news: The few pieces left in the kidney are going to hurt if and when they come out. The doctor says I may never get rid of all of them but the few pieces are so small it's not enough to worry about. The down side is one is working it's way out now. Ah well, so goes life. I'm still upbeat from the good news part.
I recently learned that I work with two of the three authors of Pro SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services. Granted, we don't work side by side but we do see each other every day in the work environment and I have used one as an on the job resource for SQL Server & Studio questions that have come up at the help desk. Knowing an opportunity when I see it, some of the time, I've asked one of them for pointers and help in learning SQL and it's like tore down a dam holding back a lake of knowledge. I plan to learn as much as I can.
Here's another on the job benefit that just came my way. The corporation I work for has spent I don't know how much money on training resources for the help desk. Why don't I know how much money? Because when I saw the resources that are being made available to us ran into the thousands of dollars I decided I was better off not knowing the total. We have training resources available for most CompTIA, Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle and you name it certifications. Because they are online resources (videos/books/software/etc..) we can use them from home or work. Hot damn!
It's October and the greatest holiday of the year is coming. Halloween!
So, what movie should you watch this month? Halloween!
There's a catch to watching Halloween. You can either watch the original movie or the Rob Zombie directed re-make. Although you could watch both the original and the re-make if you're really dedicated to the cause. You cannot watch any of the insane sequels that followed. The sequels started poorly and only got worse.
If you are looking for the original edge of your seat, creepy music and young Jamie Lee Curtis thrill then you want the original. If you are looking for more realistic gore, a deeper story line and more exposed female flesh then you want the remake. You really can't go wrong with either choice.
A brief plot summary: Young Michael Myers murders his sister one Halloween night and is committed to psychiatric hospital. Years later Michael escapes and the slayings begin. But what motivates Michael? Is it his baby sister he left behind when he was committed? If so, will she live? Will she die? Will her friends run naked through a deserted house for no real reason other than putting some flesh on film? You'll have to watch the movies and find out.
Grab that DVD, or VHS if you still have it, pop some popcorn, turn down the lights and let the movie scare the hell out of you.
More movies to come this month!
It's that time of year. Octoberfest!
No, not the beer. The movies! There is no better month in the year than October to watch scary movies. During the month I'll provide suggestions of movies you may enjoy. You can have your own scary movie festival.
Ok, it's a great month for beer too. I had McGuire's Octoberfest brew for my birthday plus I've enjoyed some pumpkin ale and cherry wheat ale so far this month.
You have probably received an e-mail like this before.
I couldn't help but reply to it
Hello,
My name is Mr AZRA JEFFERY SALLEH . I am a legal practitioner with Hat Law Firm in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.
I saw your contact and profile i decided that you could cooperate with me in this proposition.
I have a client who was deceased in November, 2001, in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.
I'm contacting you because you have the same surname as my deceased client and i felt that you could help me in the distribution of funding that were left in my deceased client's bank account. This funding is closed to be declared UN-serviceable by the bank as there were no indicated next of kin or next of beneficiary of the funding in the bank account.
The bank had issued to me a notification to contact the next of kin of my deceased client for either to re-activate the bank account or to make claim of beneficiary, of the funding in the bank account, with a month surcharge of 6% to be deducted as an Escrow safe keeping fee of the bank account,so as to avoid the indefinite closure of the bank account.
My proposition to you is to seek your consent, and to present your kind self as the next-of-kin and beneficiary of my deceased client, since you have the same last name with him.
This means that the proceeds of his bank account would be paid to you as his next of kin or the legitimate beneficiary. When the proceeds in his bank account are paid to you, we would share the proceeds on a mutually agreed-upon percentage of 60% to me and 40% to your kind self.
All the legal documents to back up your claim as my client's next-of-kin would be provided by me. The most important thing I would need is your honest cooperation to in this proposition.This would be done under a legitimate arrangement that would protect you from any breach of the law.
If this business proposition offends your moral and ethic values, do accept my sincere apology. Please contact me at once if you're interested by replying this mail and ignore it if you are not.
Best regards,
Mr AZRA JEFFERY SALLEH , Esq
My response:
You're the son of a bitch with my uncle's money?
You will promptly release 100% of the funds owed to me as the next-of-kin or I will bring the US government down on your ass so fast you won't have time to yell "Holy Shit!"
You KNOW how the US government is. We'll bomb another country back to the stone age, a short trip for some, over the smallest thing. Hell, we'll do it just because we can.
Now quit fucking around and give my my uncle's money. Small, non-sequential bills are preferred.
Sometimes I just can't stop myself.