Cold medicine makes me feel random

[cleolinda]

I don't want to sound like Gawker's Crazy Us Weekly Guy (you know, the one who was trying to prove that he was destined to run the magazine and marry Jessica Alba, using Crazy Math), but I do kind of believe in signs. Like, just as little bits of encouragement saying, "You're on the right track." Which is probably the same way Crazy Guy looks at it, but... we won't dwell on that idea. I was researching ghost stories and general weirdness today, to get an idea of the kind of local legends I could put together for a fictional place, and I remembered that we had a copy of More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark around here somewhere. Now, I had never actually read this book; the one I read in middle school was the original Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, with the terrifying head on the cover. Seriously, the stories themselves aren't even that special; it's the frickin' illustrations that have terrified kids for like twenty-five years now. (Man, I want the boxed set so bad.) My point is, I had never actually read this book before; it was my sister's, and I remembered seeing it in a box when we moved. So I go fish it out now, and what's the first thing I see when I open it? For Lauren on the dedication page. Lauren is my real name. That's what a frickin' "sign" looks like, Crazy Guy. Not "the first letter of the name of the character she played is the third letter of my favorite vegetable."

(Friday's topic of research: herbal abortifacients. Yesterday's topic of research: gout.)

 "Snakes" Down the Drain? You know, I never thought it was going to break records. Number one, it's about snakes, which automatically removes a lot of people from the Potential Viewer list. I mean, there's a reason I've had so much trouble finding people to go with.

Did I go? Well... I woke up on Saturday with a sore throat and have been wrestling with a summer cold ever since. My stepfather was off at a gig last night and my mother asked if I wanted to go see a movie, and I was like, "Yeah, not so much with the leaving of the house right now (ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!)." "You don't want to go see a movie?" she repeated. "That's it, I'm calling Dr. A. You need an antibiotic or something." So she went and got dinner and some DVDs, and we watched V for Vendetta, and I sneezed a lot. Good times. (I am very disappointed in the extras so far. It's like, Generic HBO Featurette; Designing the Blandly Vague Sets of the Future; More Stuff About Guy Fawkes Even Though You'd Have Already Hit Wikipedia If You Cared; They're Not Comics, They're "Graphic Novels"; and We're Calling It a "Cat Power Montage" Because MTV Wouldn't Run It as a Video. WHERE ARE MY COMMENTARIES AND OUTTAKES? WHERE ARE MY STUNTS??! Shit, there's more in-depth stuff than this on the website. It wouldn't be so disappointing if they hadn't done such a good job with the extras for the first Matrix. I know this ain't no Matrix, but come on, a commentary takes two hours of your life. Pony up.)

(Meanwhile, "Pirates" nears $1 billion at box office.)

From bubosquared: Get free stuff, stuff Focus on the Family!

Daniel Craig to play Lord Asriel. Dammit, I was really hoping they'd carry Timothy Dalton over from the stage production. You know, since I'll never get to see that.

blinkliz: "Would you mind linkspamming this, if it strikes you? Teacher fired for being FEMALE." Now, I read the link, and the thing is, she was fired from teaching Sunday school after a weird power shift in the community. Which is at least a train of logic I can see--I mean, it's Crazy Logic, but I can see how someone would be like, THE WEAKER SEX SHALL NOT TEACH THE SCRIPTURE! before I could see them being like, "Let's fire all the female schoolteachers! ...Wait."

Stuff I found while browsing the "Weird NJ" section on Wikipedia (and yes, eventually the Weird NJ site itself:) Worst. Amusement park. Ever. Just to give you an idea: "The park at first disputed that the electric current caused his death, saying there were no burns on his body, but the coroner responded that burns generally do not occur in a water-based electrocution." A completely different death-inducing, water-based attraction there: the Wave Grave Pool. I kind of love it.

(Speaking of Weird NJ and its sister site Weird US, if you have any freaky-ass stories to tell, I highly suggest that you submit them. Because I want more stuff to read. Also, it seems that half the states of the Union have their own Midgetville, murderous clan of Melon Heads, Gravity Road, abandoned asylum taken over by satanists, Road Where Terrifying Things Happen, and colorfully named psycho-beastie. The latter genre is one of my favorites--the stories range from the mostly-animal Big Foot/Jersey Devil end of things to the mostly-human Bunnyman of Northern Virginia end. Favorite story in that vein so far: The bloody box of La Llorona. Most of these things, you stop and realize that if they were true--particularly that last one, where the police got involved--you'd have something about them in the news. They're still great stories, though. I'm more in the market for older stories, but you know how the internet is. You start out reading about haunted roads and you end up on a page about a French washerwoman with a horn growing out of her forehead.)

(You think I'm making that up, don't you? Don't click this link. I'm telling you.)

Sebastian, the blinged-out cat.

From particle_person: For those of you buying stars, did you realize that you're neither buying nor naming a star in any actual sense of the words? It's pretty much like buying a deed to real estate on the moon. Which, by the way, if you're interested I can sell to you at the low, low price of ten dollars an acre. Hurry, supplies are going fast!

Comments

[theatre-angel.livejournal.com]

It's funny, but I've found a lot of people who thought that Snakes was actually BETTER than Pirates, as in more well-made. I'm not sure if that's the case (because I was covering my eyes through most of both of them, honestly), but it is kind of baffling, seeing as how it always struck me that Snakes was infinitely more hyped-up than Pirates ever was. Who knows, though.

I think the majority of HDM-loving Americans are bummed that they couldn't see the London stage production. Daniel Craig's a good choice, though.

[theatre-angel.livejournal.com]

And by that, I mean that I find it baffling how Snakes isn't doing as well as Pirates.

[morgan-c-hoax.livejournal.com]

GAH I REMEMBER THOSE BOOKS OH GOD THOSE PICTURES!


Ahem. I'm okay now, really.

[bigeyedrabbit.livejournal.com]

I know, right? Those pictures STILL freak me the #^$% out when I think about them.

::shudders::

[linz-lou.livejournal.com]

WHERE ARE MY COMMENTARIES AND OUTTAKES? WHERE ARE MY STUNTS??!
Ugh, thank you! I absolutely loved the movie, but the fact that there are no nifty extras, such as the commentary - which I had really wanted to listen to, by the way - is just lame. But the movie itself was awesome.

And I hope you feel better soon!

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Hee, thanks. (What really pisses me off is that they talk to Hugo Weaving only, like, twice in the featurette on the first disc. He just plays the main character and all; I'm sure no one cares what he thinks about any of this. GAH.)

[lordavon.livejournal.com]

I loved Action Park when I lived in NJ. It was very different from normal amusement parks, though, and required a higher degree of consciousness on the part of its patrons.

[sorchar.livejournal.com]

Were you the one who posted about the easter egg on disc 2 of V for Vendetta?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

No! What is it?

[oceans-heart.livejournal.com]

Having lived in NJ for my entire life, I can tell you that most of the places in Weird NJ are just as strange and creepy for real.

[silk-noir.livejournal.com]

Alvin Schwartz is the shit. First Trina Schart Hyman, and now Alvin--you've been looting my Cricket stash, haven't you?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_stormthesea/]

I own the third Scary Stories! If you want it, I would have no qualms about sending it to you. It only cost me ~$.50 at a bargain store. The scariest thing about those stories are the pictures, the stories themselves are mostly lame.

[krazykarot.livejournal.com]

i don't know if you've linked this before, but could you put something up about the national suicide hotline in danger of being shut down? it's the largest suicide hotline in the nation and is extremely important to many people not just those who call; it helps connect smaller hotlines and services across the country.
http://www.save1800suicide.org/


thanks!

[krazykarot.livejournal.com]

also, i saw snakes on a plane today (my friends and i were almost the only people in the theater! i guess there's no love for snakes on planes in rochacha) and it lived up to all my expectations. lol it is definitely pretty shitty but in that ridiculously hilarious sort of way. i loved it!

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

Hey,

SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK looks keen. I remember as a kid being enthralled by Helen Hoke's anthologies CREEPIES and WEIRDIES, WEIRDIES, WEIRDIES, which had absolutely terrifying illustrations (one, of a zombie in a spacesuit looking towards Earth hungrily, gave me some serious nightmares) and equally chilling stories, including some by Lovecraft. And it was for kids!!

Looove the Amusement Park of Death. Sounds like they almost set out to kill people, a la ITCHY & SCRATCHY LAND (snakes in the lake beneath the motorboats? giant electric turbines under kayaks?!)

I don't understand why people are afraid of snakes. They're just animals, and only a handful are dangerous. *Bees* kill far more people a year, but you don't have a Samuel Jackson battling DRONES ON A PHONE...

[maliekai.livejournal.com]

Because they are Creeeeeeeeeeeeeepy. They slither and move WAY too fast (it's unnatural, really), and they are scaley and have creepy eyes and the forked tongues and the whole deal is just NOT COOL. *recovering snake phobic*

[rinabeana.livejournal.com]

Action Park (which most of my acquaintance did indeed refer to as Accident Park) is within ten miles of where I grew up and where my parents still live. A friend used to be an EMT and he hated it when he was assigned to the park, and has a plethora of awful stories. I never graced it with my presence, a circumstance I do not regret. I have to admit I was amused by the Wiki, if only because of the complete lack of an effort to write impartially. I don't think it was a nice place, either, but I think people can draw their own conclusions from the facts.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Re Sunday School: Welcome to the modern Southern Baptist church. Seriously.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you'll notice I was completely unfazed by the whole story. "What? I can totally see that happening."

[silk-noir.livejournal.com]

Oh, and now I have a hella case of creeps.

[dramedy.livejournal.com]

"And she is a woman, and when we women fought for equal rights for a long time, since 1929 hasn't it been?..."

Yep, woman didn't sprout brains until 1929. Before that none of 'em even thought, hurr hurr. They just shut up and let menfolk do the teachin and the workin and the thinkin. Yep, thems the good days, hurr hurr.

SoaP scared me. I hate hate hate snakes. SO MUCH. And I still saw it.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about your cold, and the not-seeing of Snakes.

It's pretty much like buying a deed to real estate on the moon. Which, by the way, if you're interested I can sell to you at the low, low price of ten dollars an acre. Hurry, supplies are going fast!

I got some ocean front property in Arizona, and if you'll buy that I'll throw the Golden Gate in free.

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

By the way, for local scary stories and oral tradition, you really can't beat More Tales from the Fen or any other collection of East Anglia folklore. I want to get a copy of The Old Stories: Folk Tales from East Anglia and the Fen Country (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/1858817536/), seeing as it comes recommended by Philip Pullman.

[crickwooder.livejournal.com]

Man. I fell off that Alpine track back in the day. Good times, good times. Grew up smack in the middle of the Pines, too. Every oldtime piney has a Jersey Devil story...

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

Daniel Craig to play Lord Asriel. Dammit, I was really hoping they'd carry Timothy Dalton over from the stage production. You know, since I'll never get to see that.

Dalton is waaay too old, for the role AND for Hollywood. Craig is actually a good choice, providing you've seen him play Ted Hughes or the literal motherfucker in The Mother or the psycho son in Road to Perdition (among other like roles). He excels at playing stone-cold scary guys. Plus I don't think he'll have to stand on a manmaker when he's next to Nicole, which is always a plus.

Actually, I was thinking Ralph Fiennes would be a great Asriel (especially when recalling his very scary Heathcliff), but I suppose he's dealing with a surfeit of villain roles in kids' movies.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Mmm, Ralphcliff.

[ex-theatrica309.livejournal.com]

Oh, God, those terrifying illustrations. I used to read them in elementary school and was more or less traumatized for life. Can't even look at them now.

[timba.livejournal.com]

Gah!

Those books are getting around this week. Saw 'em in the store a few days ago, and I was talking about them at lunch today.

And, as far as the creep factor goes, I STILL get nightmares about one of the stories I read over 10 years ago. *bleh*

[clodia-risa.livejournal.com]

I know that you've been following the JonBenet Ramsey killer thing, so I just wanted to add a note.

Apparently my brother had Karr in fifth grade as a student intern. My brother disliked him, and said he was weird; several of the girls remembered him being overly attentive to them; and he left after he skipped a formal disciplinary hearing with the principal and his supervisors over his behavior with the girls in the class.

We lived in Alabama at the time.

I am seriously creeped out.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

AAAAAAHHHHHH. GET OUT OF MY STATE, KARR!

(Well, I guess he did, actually.)

[oohasparklie.livejournal.com]

I know everyone loved Pirates, I thought it was crap, and I can't believe it's outgrossed TTT.

[mercat.livejournal.com]

This might be a sign for several people as just a few days ago (quite possibly yesterday) I was remembering that book, and (as you have pointed out) remembered only the terrifying pictures and two stories: the disappearing house and the girl with the spiders in her face (now THAT was a scary picture). I read them 7 years ago... wow.

[apocalyptically.livejournal.com]

OMG I REMEMBER THE SPIDERS. And there was this other one, a pale creepy woman with a bloated face... I don't even remember the story, but I remember dropping the book when I turned the page to see that!

[slacker1985.livejournal.com]

Arrrgh, that thing about women not being allowed to teach is one of the biggest reasons why I left the Baptist church after like a year. (The other was when they literally kicked one of my friends out of the church because he was gay. Seriously.) It pisses me off.

[maliekai.livejournal.com]

What I'm truly curious about is why a gay person would want to be a member of a church that clearly disagrees with his or her lifestyle. Can you enlighten me?

[darastar.livejournal.com]

Dude - The Bunnyman! I'm from up there (currently a little further south), and I'd heard of the Bunnyman, and especially about the Bridge, but I learned more about it through an article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44387-2003Oct30) that ran in the Washington Post a few years back.

I think that especially with places like the suburbs in Northern VA, which were developed nearly overnight after WWII and continue to be a place of ridiculous building and development, that sometimes these scary stories get told as a way to give a place that doesn't have that much real history some background and a story to tell. Because if a place doesn't have a story about it, then it's not really special, is it?

[manasseh.livejournal.com]

Ever since I read an old book about California's ghosts and spooky goings-on, I have not been able to handle La Llorona. Reading about her when I was <10 was not smart. So I don't even need to click that "bloody box of La Llorona" link because just the title? DOES NOTHING GOOD FOR ME. D:

But "the Bunnyman of Northern Virginia" sounds kind of funny.

Up here in southern Canadia, all the freaky stories I have deal with a place called The Devil's Punchbowl and a haunted mill at a nearby waterfall. Pretty tame compared to horned washerwomen.