House on Haunted Hill (1959)

I checked it out of the library. As much as I'd like to precisely describe the experience, I may fail.





The movie, made in the late fifties, was about scary as Easter Bunny. Rubber skeleton drops, and the girl screams. The highlight of the scares was the manquin with a horrid grimace, being pulled around by a rope out of camera view. And what a Grimace it was.

It was great. This thing was just rolling along, just randomly scaring the sympathetic character. Of course, there's the Acid pit. At the end, You'd need to keep tally about who got dumped in to the acid pit.

Vincent Price was surprisingly reserved. Nah, He actually just phoned it in. Carol Ohmart was actually more interesting, vamping it up at the height of her career.

The 50s horror film used shadows and perspective shots to effectively build fear. This film did none of that. It just flipped the lights out, a scream and then you have the sympathic character running, cringing, and/or crying for help.

Bordem

What happens when your brain becomes bored? The chemicals build up? The neurons begin to fidget and watch the clock?

Suddenly, You notice things like how dirty your fingernails are. You try to pay attention, but the eyeballs and the ear drums are wandering to all sorts of items and events, none relating to subject at hand. There, in the craw of your neck, builds a silent scream, a primal urge to yell "Hurry the fuck up!"

My brain is funny. It does well in comprehending info. But it can't retain anything.

What was this class about again?

Anagram FUN!

I'm just starting the 3rd week of a 6 week training course for my job. Today is review day, so I got SOOO BORED. I tried to teach myself how to sleep with my eyes open. No go.

Suddenly, I look up and see a bunch of classroom edicts. For some outer-spaced reason, I decided to do a bunch of Anangrams.

- "No Web Surfing" can be Enuf Browsing, Fur wing bones, Grew bun No wings.
- "Be Flexible" becomes Flexebible.
- "No sleeping" becomes Long Peenis, or Penis Longe.

BTW, Participation be used to make over 25 words.

Partition, Part, Icon, Acorn, Pica, Cap, Cat, Ion, Pat, Tap, Art, At, Artic, Rap, Rip, Ton, Tin, Action, Tarp, Tart, Patio, Prion, Pit, Spat, To, Sot, Sat, Sit.

Junkyard Adventures!

Whilst driving home from work one day, the control knob on my car heater busted. Damn. So I took it upon myself to glue it together.

...Bad Idea... The plastic was too weakened to hold together, but for future reference, It does a smashing job of gluing my fingers to the side of the glue tube. I had to run my fingers under hot water and gently pry the fastened fingers to the tube.

So I had a crazy idea instead. I'd drive out to the junkyard and pick up a new knob. While there, I could also pick up a new overhead lamp and headlight control. But thats not all! My mother's car antenna was broken off by some slack jawed car wash guy. So there.

Grabbed my toolbox and showed up at the junkyard. The guy looked in inside the toolbox, inspected the random tools I've gathered and with a look of pity, let me in without even charging me a dollar for admission. The yard was full of cars, none that seemed to match what I needed. So I wandered throughout the yard and noticed that I wasn't the only one to think about removing the heater control knobs. In fact, it was a fairly common idea, since every car I saw was missing the heater knobs. So much for thinking outside the box.

The process was harrowing. I'd think "There's no way I'll find this part..." quickly followed by "Hey, there is it!" I repeated this process many times. Suprisingly, I found everything on my list.

Even more suprisingly, I installed everything, including an antenna for my mothers car. I had to hammer the living hell out of the mounting bracket and the Antenna sits at a 15 degree angle, but Its installed. :D

Money sucks.

Let me ask you something. If you worked 40 hours a week, aren't spending like crazy, you should be to at least make a living. No kids, no wife, and yet you're broke?

Some American dream.

My Favorite Bass Players.

Now keep in mind that I'm just listing my FAVORITE bass players, not the best. If I had to list the best, That list would include the Late Jaco Patorious.

1. Paul McCartney. If you listen to his work in songs like Penny Lane or Something, you'd hear the fantastic melodic work. McCartney isn't a rhythm bass player.
2. Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers. He did for the bass what Eddie Van Halen did for lead guitar.
3. Mark King of Level 42. He's a poppin' madman! And he's British to boot!
4. Doug Pinnick of Kings X. Doug is an awesome bass player, with style and timing that fits perfectly with the amazing playing of Ty Tabor.
5. Bootsy Collins has been the backbone beat for so many bands that it would be difficult for me to list them all here.
6. Chris Squire has been a great example of someone with a really distinctive style of playing. No matter what he plays on, its obviously him playing.
7. John Entwhistle of The Who. He died just before the start of the 2004 tour at the sad age of 54. He wasn't the greatest bass player, but he knew when to how to play. I really liked his solo album, "Too Late the Hero."

Alan Parsons Projectile vomit lyrics.

I grew up enjoying the APP. They were at best, an ok pop band. Considering that Alan Parsons won a grammy for engineering Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon", he occasionally proves to be second to ripping off Pink Floyd. The first place winner for ripping off Floyd goes to Queensryche.

But one thing about APP always bothered me. (Well, mostly one thing.) Their lyrics. They consisted of ramblings and free association. Granted, they rhymed and matched the music. Their earlier albums, "Tales of Mystery" and "I, Robot" didn't have that issue because, lyrically, they were written by Edgar Allen Poe and Issac Asimov.

But then off their "Eye in the Sky" Album, they had an aptly named song called "Pychobabble."

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you evidence item # 1

Psychobabble

Tell you 'bout a dream that I have every night

Tell you 'bout a Dream that I have every night

It ain't kodachrome and it isn't black and white

Take me for a fool if you feel that's right

Well I'm Never on my own but there's nobody in sight

I don't know if I'm scared of the Lightning

Trying to reach me

I can't turn to the left or the right

I'm too scared to run and I'm too weak to fight

But I don't Care it's all psychobabble rap to me

Tell you 'bout a dream that I have every night

It's in dolby stereo but I never hear it right

Take me for a fool well that's alright

Well I see the way to go But there isn't any light

I don't know why I'm scared of the lightning

Trying to reach me

Help me to find what I don't wanna know

You're taking me There but I don't wanna go

I don't care it's all Psychobabble rap to me

Psychobabble all psychobabble

Psychobabble all psychobabble

I don't care it's all psychobabble rap to me

You're readin' my mind you won't look in my eyes

You say I do things that I don't Realise

But I don't care it's all psychobabble rap to me

Psychobabble all psychobabble

Psychobabble all psychobabble

You're lighting a scene that's faded to black

I threw it away cause I don't want it back

But I don't care it's all psychbabble rap

One would argue that its unfair to judge lyrical pychobabble based on one song. True, but the entire album is like this. Loony brits..

Shampoo

All my life, I've been trained to buy the green bottle. Prell.

But lately, I go the the shampoo aisle and there is red bottles, blue bottles, white bottles and green bottles. My primitive brain thinks Green = Shampoo. Then something strange happens. I pick up a Green bottle and I read it. "Shaamm-pooo", It says to me. By a twist of an evil spell, It changes to "Conditioner" when I pack it from my groceries.

This evil curse has happened to me 3 times. So I've taken precautions! I read the label carefully. Rub my eyes. Ask the helpful clerk if it does indeed say shampoo. They often give me a look that says "dude, you should totally sign up for an adult education class" but they confirm that it says shampoo.

Since that time, I've never had another problem with buying shampoo. Now if I could find a good trick for not buying Lady SpeedStick.

Arthur C. Clarke has left the Planet.

One of the greatest of the Golden Age Science Fiction writers has passed away.

Heinlein, Asimov beat him out the door, but we still have Poul Anderson and Harlan Ellison.

In 2001: A space Odessey, Clarke introduced us to HAL, the Confused AI. Some argue that HAL was a allusion to IBM.

H + 1 = I

A + 1 = B

L + 1 = M

But if we look further at it...

H + 2 = J

A + 2 = C
L + 2 = N

We have Jupiter is CLOSE to NEPTUNE.

H + 4 = L
A + 4 = E
L + 4 = O

And we know that Leo is a famous constellation. See, I can do Bible Codes stuff all the day long!

Happy Saint Patty's Day!

Many may not be aware that Saint Patty's day started off as a Religious holiday, but then became yet another day of drinking and being nuts.

Saint Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland during the earliest years of Christianity, earning his title of Saint. However, you'd think that after 2000 years of Catholicism, you'd have more than about 50 Saints, and at that, more days of drinking and being nuts.

Thematically, You could have all sorts of holidays.
...BBQ weekend for Saint Joan of Arc.
...When the Writers Strike is over, The writers could give thanks to Saint Clare of Assisi, Patron Saint of TV writers. Yes, TV writers have their own Saint.

But after 2000 years, where are the Saints for the rest of us? And why aren't we going out drinking and going nuts over those Saints holidays. I'd gladly raise a pint to the Saint of Tech Support. Alas, The Church has yet to annoint that particular Saint. I'm not hold my breath. After all, The Vatician still uses smoke signals to communicate.