Your Halloween Trick, err Treat

So, the letter 'r' and I were talking the other day about Jason X which lovely wife and I had just seen. (It's terribly silly and terribly good all at the same time.) He commented on how Jason movies, and horror movies in general were like the original versions of fairy tales. And I had to agree with him. And so he decided we should write a book of horror movie fairy tales. Here are the first several I came up with. He contributed the bare bones of the Friday the 13th tale, but I fleshed it out for him. At any rate, please to enjoy these fine horror movie fairy tales.

Tale the first:
Once there were two friends, who upon finishing school decided to see the world. They traveled to a far country where they didn't speak the language, but they were together and thus felt safe. One night they encountered some women who offered to show them a good time. Since this was part of what they had set out to do, they happily followed the women and soon found themselves experiencing the good times they had sought. The women then told the young men of a special hostel where they could experience the same and more. Entranced by the young women one of the young men finally convinced the other to travel to the hostel. Upon arriving at the hostel the young men soon realized that the young women had tricked them with their words and ways and they paid a heavy price for the pleasures they had so brashly sought. Alas, the young man that hadn't wanted to visit the hostel in the first place paid for his knowledge with his life. And several bodily bits that were eventually washed off the walls. The other young man managed to escape the torturous dungeon and exacted some small revenge upon the people that had brought him there in the first place, but his escape was not as it seemed and ultimately he too learned the price of seeking the pleasures of the world without proper planning.

Tale the thirteenth second:
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful summer camp called Crystal Lake. This summer camp was guarded by a Mother that loved her son. And didn't love counselors busy discovering that tab b does fit into slot c. Her poor deformed baby had only wanted to swim with the other children, but due to things like gravity and breathing and lack of gills instead discovered that lungs and water do not mixed. So she taught the counselors a lesson in situational awareness. With an axe. And a machete. And several arrows. Oh and mustn't forget the very sharpest knife. Unfortunately other counselors did not find these lessons so helpful and so they banished the Mother to the lake with her son. But that was ok, because the mother's love helped her son obtain great rejuvenative abilities. So he took over teaching his mother's lessons. So if you decide to experiment with your own tabs and slots, make sure your situational awareness is also up to snuff. Although it won't really help because the machete is already swinging your way. But rest assured, Mother and son both live happily ever after, frozen in suspended animation. In space. With the rainbow asteroids and a bomb that could think for itself. But that is another story...

Tale the third:
Once there was a puzzlemaker that was good with his hands and good with machines, but not so good with his health. On account of the brain tumor. This made the puzzlemaker very sad as he enjoyed living and knew he would only be able to do so for a short while. He was also sad on account of all the people that ignored their own health and treated life as something that happened while you busy making other plans. So the puzzlemaker came up with a plan. He would use his puzzle making and machine building skills and teach people that life was something to be treasured. The people he chose were not always thrilled with his lesson, what with the blood and the knives and the exploding body parts, but the few that learned his lesson found themselves strangely drawn to the puzzlemaker's ideals and would often help him in his quest to spread the word that life was to be cherished. With or without all your limbs. Now you may be wondering exactly what this has to do with the cage on your head and the rats and the cheese scented oil, but then I suspect you haven't really been listening to my story. Allow me to start again, oh wait the rats seem to think we're out of time...

Tale the fourth:
Once a young girl had trouble sleeping. She kept getting interrupted by a strange old man with a skin condition, a desperate need for a manicure, and some fashion sense that suggested it might be near Christmas. Needless to say these things did not help her to get her much needed rest. She talked to her friends about the strange man, but they seemed to be having the same trouble sleeping. And the few that did manage it were no longer in any condition to help. So she talked to her parents. But they just mumbled things about the neighborhood watch and darn kids getting in trouble and it was only a little fire, what was his problem anyway? Just because they couldn't sleep at night didn't mean their kids should have the same trouble... So she chanted old nursery rhymes in an attempt to fall asleep, but that didn't help. She tried talking to the strange man, offering advice on skin conditioning and nail files, but he seemed more interested in making her feel his pain. Rather literally. So ultimately she decided to let history repeat itself and retire to a nice mental institution, where the drugs would help her sleep.

Happy Halloween everyone!

In which I tell a fish story, and history mostly repeats itself

First things first, I finished No Door No Windows by Joe Schrieber. I think that's how his name is spelled. I read it based on a review that sold it mostly as a haunted house story featuring a house that had no true corners and no straight lines. This reminded me of House of Leaves and the lovely domicile contained in those pages and so I thought I'd give it a try. It's a decent little horror story if you know what you're getting into. And it's not really a haunted house story. Although it does feature a nicely trippy lodging. It's more a haunted family story. It takes a little to get started, but there are some nice creepy bits and it tells a decent tale although I felt that the ending was a little off. Still, if you're looking for something spooky to read, give it a shot.

I think I'll detail the history repeats itself (mostly) story next. Younger sis will probably remember slamming a door in my face and chipping my tooth. That's the context. So this morning McK and M decide that their room is far too tidy and proceed to free all of their stuffed animals from the tub where we store them. They needed some air or whatever. Lovely wife was none too thrilled and orders an immediate re-incarceration of said animals on the lam. Also the girls were to put some clothes on and basically get ready for school. The things they should have been doing instead of staging fuzzy jailbreaks. A couple minutes later M comes downstairs and informs lovely wife that instead of performing said tasks they were playing Kenichi [anime series about a kid that learns to fight] and McK had hit M with an uppercut and chipped her teeth. Apparently she hit her with the flat of her palm knocking her teeth together (her mouth had been open). And so the two bottom teeth on either side of the middle ones got chipped/jarred pretty good. I guess one of them has a nice chip knocked off, I don't know about the other. Oh and they're permanent teeth as well, natch. Lovely wife then morphs into terrible visage of motherly justice, inflicts some small harm upon McK and basically proceeds to lose it. (Yelling, weeping, gnashing of teeth, Old Testament type stuff)

After she manages to have M try eating (bread of all things, I mean who tests chipped teeth with bread?) she ferries them off to school. After I get the email detailing this I give her a call and try to sort out what's going on. She then calls M to see how eating breakfast went (I had Captain Crunch but chewed on the other side and I had juice but I drink through a straw... Seriously what kind of tests are these?) So we now have a dentist appointment scheduled for tomorrow morning first thing. Fortunately (or not) we just got school pictures back, so I guess this won't be detailed any time soon. Although I may have to take a picture and attempt to update the post later. I feel bad for all those involved, but mostly chalk it up to every family having this exact same story to tell. Well ok, their kids probably weren't aping random cartoons from Japan (although that's certainly more prevalent now - Bakugan and Pokemon and Yugi-oh say hi)
but still...

As for the fish story. Lovely wife made Parmesan Tilapia the other night (McK still calls it Parmesan chicken) and it was all duly consumed with G trying to steal pieces from everyone else. Apparently he likes his Tilapia. The next day he asked for something from the store, but lovely wife informed him it wasn't shopping day.

"Are you going food shopping on Thursday?" G asks.

"Yes."

"You don't need to shop for food. We can have fish for dinner. Fish fish fish fish fish."

"I don't think we want to have fish every night." She opined.

"Hmm...."

Then later for lunch G decided he wanted chicken noodle soup. Lovely wife prepares said soup.

"Hey, this is chicken soup."

"Yes, that's what you asked for."

"I will pretend it's fish soup. Fish meat." *bite* "Fish meat." *bite*

And so on. As mentioned little dude apparently loves his fish (oh and guess what he asked for for his upcoming birthday dinner...)

Oh and Zombieland is awesome. Best. Cameo. Ever. Plus some really decent lines and, well, zombies. Plus a quest for Twinkies. Yeah, it's really that good.

And this cracks me up.

In which I discuss word games, books and a stunning loss

And another week goes by. Hard to believe October is about to call it quits. Lovely wife had a grand birthday. (And apparently we sat just across from Dale Murphy at dinner.) She got a Professor Layton game to help keep those wits sharp and Bananagrams to scratch the word game itch. It's basically competitive crossword puzzle building. You draw a set number of tiles and then at the same time turn yours over and start to build your own crossword. As you run out of tiles you yell "split" and everyone draws one more and on it goes until there are fewer tiles than players and then the first one out of tiles wins. You can dump a tile at the cost of drawing three more, which is occasionally helpful as it gives you more to work with. It's fun. If you like word games it's certainly worth picking up. I like it better than Scrabble as you can work at your own pace and compete that way. McK enjoys playing it as well.

I don't believe any more movies have been watched although we're about to watch The Wrong Guy, so more on that later. I did tape The Dunwich Horror on Syfy last weekend, so Lovecraft goodness coming up as well.

I finished reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman. I really enjoyed it. The pitch is Harry Potter/Chronicles of Narnia for grownups and it mostly delivers. There are a few (not so) subtle nods to those series throughout the book, but mostly it tells its own tale of what it would be like if magic was real. And real people used it. So while it's not a completely depressed Harry Potter, it's close. I think the best description I read was how the main characters were able to consistently snatch failure from the jaws of success. That really does sum it up well. It's a pretty fascinating story though. Great style and fun to read.

And now I'm on to the new Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett and Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (steampunk zombie novel). They are both quite good so far.

Lovely wife and I got stomped on at Settlers of Catan last night by the letter 'r'. It was a pretty disgraceful loss on our part. Although he really did have much better options than either of us. I was arguably close in points, but getting those last couple would have been a real struggle. That's a pretty decent game as well if you've not tried it. (And it sounds like the new Dominion supplement is trés cool.)

In which Horror is watched, but not necessarily understood, and a couple other things

So, we caught A Tale of Two Sisters over the weekend. It was a little on the confusing side. And not just because we had to read the subtitles. I suspect The Uninvited (the American remake) is much different. Partially because wikipedia confirms this and partially because the original definitely took a few turns that left us scratching our heads. It starts off a little slow, but just at the point where you start to get fed up it picks up nicely. There were some nice creepy moments and you definitely want to know what's going on, but the end makes you work for it quite a bit. I'm not sure if something was lost in the translation or if we just weren't quite up to the task. So give it a go if you want, it's not bad, but you may wonder just what happened. (And all without a single plot detail - nicely obscure letter 'd')

And now another installment of Games my Wife Hates. Mostly because she's about to have to play it again. This time we're talking about Arkham Horror. I picked this up because of my oft noted love with all things Lovecraft/Cthulhu. First things first - this is published by Fantasy Flight Games and they're known for a few things: their main line board games are not cheap ($80 is not an uncommon price), they have some amazing artwork/components, the games themselves tend to take a while, and their rulebooks can leave a little to be desired. The biggest strike against this game is that it takes 3-4 hours to play. And it is certainly difficult to carve out that sort of time commitment when you have 3 hellions kids running about. I can't really argue that one. Strike two deals with the difficulty, and this comes in a couple flavors. Arkham Horror is a cooperative game - all the players work together to defeat the Great Old One rising from the depths bent on world domination/destruction of humanity. The victory conditions the game sets really do require that you all work together as it's tough to save the world. A lot of the time you feel like you're spinning your wheels - gateways to other worlds will open again if you don't have the proper bits to make sure the darn things stay closed. And you actually need to play a bit to get the feel for the way the game works - which locations are the most notorious for opening said portals, which locations offer money or items or other things you need, how best to set up your characters stats so you can safely navigate the world you find yourself in. The rules themselves are also a little on the complex side and take some getting used to. It's also recommended that you track down some of the player aids created by others as the rulebook is a bit of a nightmare. And when the game takes a long time to play, it can be difficult to get that experience. Unless of course you happen to just fall in love with the thing.

Which my wife hasn't (see title of this segment in case you forgot). There are things to love - the pieces and board are a thing of beauty. Fantasy Flight is known for their bits for a reason (of course, my wife would argue there are way too many of them). It is nice to play a game where you all work together - it's not something that happens a lot. And the theme is indeed part of the game - it's not hard to feel the urgency that the characters themselves would be feeling as another monster has just shown up, but you're low on health and sanity and maybe you should just try sneaking past the darn thing... I have managed to convince lovely wife and the letter 'r' that we should play the game at least once a year. Mostly because I can't quite bring myself to part with it. I'd really like to give it a go with a few more people (it can play up to 8 I believe) as I suspect that really helps with some of the difficulty. Of course it might make things a touch more confusing too. One thing is certain, if you do decide to give this one a go, make sure you have somewhere to set it up, it takes quite a bit of room.

And this is the point where I send a quick Happy Birthday to lovely wife as she is certainly worthy of said felicitations. You're the best sweetie!

Recently stumbled upon the Yoshida Brothers thanks to the vastness that is the internet and the randomness that is Pandora. They're a couple guys that play the shamisen. And they're good at it. Also the Jonathan Coulton cd Best. Concert. Ever. is quite nice. I'm really looking forward to checking out the DVD of the concert that's part of the package.

Here's a lovely, creepy short story for your October pleasure. It's in the same vein as Paranormal Activity.

And on a final note, ListenUp has come to an end of sorts. The show's host, Garnett Lee, as well as regular guest John Davison have moved on to new jobs. There will continue to be a podcast of sorts, but it won't be the same. I'll miss that show, I listened to it every week for the last several years. The members of the cast definitely fell into that strange internet friend type territory. I listened to them enough that I felt like I knew them. So good luck to Garnett and John and good luck to those still with 1up. Here's to the future.

On properly raising children

Some initial notes: the girls are 11 and 8. Over the summer they attended an overnight Girl Scout's camp. They came back telling ghost stories. At least two of three children were emotionally scarred in the making of this post.

So it's October. October means horror movies, ghost stories etc. Ol' letter 'd' decided to break out one of the ghost stories from his youth and tell it to his kids at bedtime. So off goes the light, on goes the flashlight under the chin and the kids are in a circle sitting next to lovely wife. I then proceed to (badly) tell The Golden Arm. It's been a while since I've told this story, I hit the high points and make up my way through the rest. As the ghost of the wife makes her way through the house, the girls scootch closer to lovely wife. Good, at least I've gotten the atmosphere right. Then comes the big reveal, You've got it! The girls scream and burst into tears. Oh yeah, I've still got it. Lights come up. Girls are in hysterics. "Daaad, that story was scary! We don't like scary stories!" (Note: this is patently untrue, see initial notes) I make some brief attempts at calming them down.

We head out of the room telling them to go to bed. Lovely wife is helping G get ready for bed. (And laughing) The girls start talking in their room. This is the point at which true parenting comes in handy. I lowly whisper outside their door, "Where's my golden arm?" Shrieks ensue. I wait a five count, throw open the door and yell "You've got it!" Shrieks become full blown panic attacks. Tears, screaming, the whole nine yards. Lovely wife? In the bathroom doubled over in laughter. Unable to breathe laughter. We then spend the next 10 minutes calming the girls down (and by we, I mean lovely wife). I get several "How could you" looks from the kids. And then proceed to call little sis to relay the story. More laughter ensues.

Oh and through pretty much this entire situation G just wondered what all the fuss was about.

Parenting is an art. It takes a soft touch to raise kids. And a flashlight to scare the crap out of them.

Couple quick thoughts on Art (and some other things)

The Tap Dogs were in SLC the other day and they put on a free preview of their show here at the Library. It was quite amazing. They were a lot of fun to watch and had it not been so last minute (they were in town that night and the next) and had we not been recovering from several illnesses, I might have gotten lovely wife and myself some tickets to the show. I suspect it was great.

The thing that struck me while I was watching them was how it's important to experience some Art in your life every so often (be that a good book, some nice live music, an art gallery, or a wandering band of tap performers). That's certainly one of the neat things about working at this particular Library - we often have most if not all of those available. So take 5 minutes, head on over to your local Library and see who they have visiting in the not too distant future, you'll be glad you did. (And if the Tap Dogs find their way to your neighborhood, go see them.)

In somewhat related news I have been listening to several of the new remastered Beatles albums. And they are truly amazing as well. I think, so far, my favorite is Help, but that's certainly subject to change as I make my way through them. I would like to have seen them in concert. And don't let anybody tell you that Elvis is better. Because he's not. At all. (Not even close...)

The new kinder, gentler House still has a bit of pixie charm in him and that's good. Can't be all fluffy kittens all the time.

The first horror film of the season will be A Tale of Two Sisters. The original Korean version (yes, more subtitles oh favored niece. You should try them some time). I forget what it was remade as over here, but it's good to be watching something unsettling again. Feel free to suggest horror films to be watched. I think we'll do the Ring remake and possibly The Grudge as well. I actually liked the remakes of those two.

Finished Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. It was good. Since this one wasn't quite so Battle Royale as the original Hunger Games, it was a little easier to enjoy the story on its own merits. The plot twists were all pretty decent and it certainly ends with a good cliffhanger. I look forward to the next book.

Amulet, Book 2 by Kazu Kibuishi was also enjoyable. The story continues to pick up steam and there are some nice moments. And the art is amazing as always.

Well, so very tired. I suspect I had a mild-ish case of the flu over the weekend. I'm still not quite back up to snuff. I could use about a 2 day nap. Alas, those are in seriously short supply. So I suspect this will have to tide you lot over. Go find some Art, or even better, make some. And read a book. And get off my lawn ya durn kids.

Last line, some rambling, what? Are you new here?

It's been a while since our last Last Line, so I felt like another one. This time the ol' letter 'd' goes where he's not gone before. Romance novels. At least, I think it's a romance novel. I really don't know and more to the point, don't care. Anyway.

From Distant Dreams (Ribbons of Steel No. 1) by Judith Pella and Tracie Peterson. "Perhaps the dreams were not so distant after all." Now, while I am certainly not a professional writer (and based on the contents here, it's arguable I'm even an amateur) I offer this valuable tip: if the last line of your book is going to contradict the title, you might want to change one of them. Unless you are an artiste and darnitall that's the whole point! Why do you not get my Art?! Begone unworthy cretin!! (Artistes live and breath exclamation points!) Since this not Art (no, really, it's not) I have sincere doubts about the location of these dreams. And I wonder if they're really dreams at all. Perhaps flights of fancy. Or night terrors. I have a sneaking suspicion that's what this book would leave me with...

An on to the rambling. It's October. I'm not entirely certain how that happened. School has started and the weather is starting to finally cooperate, so I suppose it makes sense. But I'm not convinced I'm ready for the roll into the holiday season. It is nice to have a few Halloween decorations up. We need some more tombstones. Perhaps a scarecrow. I'll have to break out some horror movies soon.

I did read Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman and it was brilliant. I really enjoy Norse mythology and this was a pretty good tale set in that milieu. It was of course Loki's fault and possibly lessons were learned, but mostly it's a good romp. It's quick and it will leave you wanting a few more stories with the All Father and crew (in fact I checked out a collection of Norse mythology to scratch just that itch). So if you are at all familiar with Thor or want to be, it's a fun little story.

I don't think we've seen any movies lately... Oh wait, I did watch the Ghost in the Shell:SAC movie, Solid State Society and it was good (if a little confusing). It is sort of a retelling of the original Ghost in the Shell film (much like the TV series was a reboot of the film franchise) so that was interesting. It's actually a little hard to call it a retelling as there weren't a lot of plot details that were shared, but if you've read the graphic novel or seen the movies and then the tv stuff you probably understand what I'm trying to say. Which I suspect is very few of you, but this is not Brought to you by the letter 'whoever you are', so skip to the next paragraph already.

At this point I would like to mention that homework is stupid. Especially in the large amounts that the local grade school feels the need to pass along. I have no problems with work being done to teach concepts, but large amounts of it are not helpful. That is all.

Had a rather nice training session on Graphic Novels at the Library yesterday. It focused mostly on the non manga side of things, so lots of things I hadn't heard of. It was fun. And some new titles to look into. I'm sure you'll hear about them in the coming months.