I'm Not Dead Yet...Unlike These Zombies Over Here

Posting Location: My Home, Parma, OH.


Honestly, I'm not sure when I'll next get the opportunity to post to my blog (what with trying to find a job before now, and next month looking to be a busy one as well) but I didn't want my favorite holiday to go by without at least one post, so I figured I'd put this up. This is from about three years ago, so it no longer quite syncs up with my sense of humor, but close enough (I've edited out the most embarassing bits). Enjoy!

What Makes Costumes Scary

[]...I thought I’d do a little look at one of the holiday’s most well-known traditions: “Egging the crap out of houses that don’t give you candy.” Whoops, sorry, I meant “Dressing up in scary costumes and egging the crap out of houses that don’t give you candy.” Now, we all already know why we traditionally dress up in scary costumes on Halloween. It goes back to the Middle Ages, when people would dress as monsters on All Hallows Eve to frighten the ghosts and devils that came out that night into giving them candy. But exactly what makes these costumes scary in the first place? This is what I will explore in this week’s segment.

1.) Vampires: Vampires are undead beings that drink people’s blood, and were invented by Vlad the Impaler in 1889. They are vulnerable to sunlight, unless they’re wearing sunglasses. They’re vulnerable to crosses and holy water, unless they’re really really powerful. They’re vulnerable to garlic, buried wine, scattered grain, and cannot cross running water, unless you live in the 21st century. A person bitten by a vampire automatically turns into a pale-skinned person who dresses in dark clothes and attends LARP sessions. A vampire in the area usually means that you get vampire slayers, which are either sexy, quick-witted female slayers or silent, half-vampire male slayers. Either way, you get the fans associated with vampire slayers, which are typically enough to frighten Alfred Hitchcock.

2.) Werewolves: Half of the fear associated with werewolves comes in the uncertainty of what kind of werewolf you’re dealing with. Getting bit by a werewolf is like getting bit by a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get. You could end up a Wolfman-type, you could turn into a normal wolf, you could turn into a half-wolf half-human, you could turn into a wolf that can open doors, you could turn into one of those Wolfos things from Legend of Zelda --- it’s a toss-up. The other half of the fear comes from the fact that they remind you of furries, which are always immensely terrifying unless we’re talking about Sonic The Hedgehog, or maybe StarFox.

3.) Frankenstein: Despite the fact that Victor von Frankenstein only made one Frankenstein Monster, you see literally hundreds of these things all over the place come October. While I at first had a “Santa’s Little Helpers”-type theory to go with this, I stumbled across the truth --- they’ve been warring across the millenia ever since their creation in the late 1800’s, following the mantra “There Can Be Only One!!!” And they’re all trying to become “The One,” and whenever one dies, all the rest get stronger!!! And it’s said “The One” will be able to fly around and dodge bullets and lead the human resistance to victory against our heartless machine masters!!! I think I forgot what I was talking about.

4.) Ghosts: For some reason, these creatures are immaterial enough to walk through walls and tell people they suck in Ouiji boards, but solid enough to kill one of your men unless you eat a power pellet first. They get even more frightening when you eat them and they’re reduced to a pair of floating eyes, however, because then they steal your sheets and cut eye-holes in them (sometimes too many, which results in them getting a lot of rocks). This, in turn, leaves your bed uncovered, thus making it easier for the alligator underneath it to sneak out and eat you. You can, of course, stop an alligator quite simply by holding it’s jaws shut, because the muscles that open the jaws are horribly weak, but the only way to do this without losing your hand is to become Steve Irwin. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Who's probably a ghost himself by now (*ba-dum tish*)]

5.) Skeletons: The human form, reduced in death to it’s basest component, the skeleton reminds everyone instinctively of Health class. This in turn frightens us with the prospect of recieving apples and other “healthy alternatives to candy” during Halloween. But the horror doesn’t stop there, for this in turn conjures images of exercise, developmental health, puberty, and sexuality. Soon you’re thinking of STD’s and safe sex and gods only know what other horrors from your youth. Skeletons typically dwell in graveyards, in dungeons, in closets, tacked on front doors, and sporting fashionable new clothes in Ambercrombie & Fitch ads.
Their lesser cousins, Skulls, are just as frightening, reminding us of Hamlet, pirates, and the Punisher.

6.) Mummies: Mummies are a sign of the end times. It was because of a mummy that The Rock became a film actor [EDITOR'S NOTE: The Doom film only further validates my opinion that this was a bad thing]. It is because of mummies that we have mummy jokes (“Who did the monster cry to when he stubbed his toe?”). It is because of mummies that we have a Food Pyramid instead of a Food Groups now. But possibly most frightening of all, a person dressed as a mummy symbolizes a complete lack of toilet paper at their house. *shudder* If you disturb a mummy in their tomb they curse you for a thousand years, but the joke’s on them because most people cursed by mummies don’t even last the next couple months!!

7.) Witches: These servants of Satan fly around on their broomsticks at night, dressed in their pointy hats and black dresses, to do evil to us normal humans. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Poorly executed jokes confusing the Halloween witch with real-life Wiccans and other Neo-Pagans removed to protect the guilty.] Witches were invented by The Dark Prince working through William Shakespeare when he wrote about the Three Old Witches in his immortal 1996 classic, William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. In that movie, the witches made the Titanic sink, which shows you how evil they are!!!

8.) Devils: Although one might argue that devils are more sexy than scary, they are traditionally capable of summoning something truly frightening: Radical Christians Convinced Halloween Is Dedicated To Worshiping Satan. With every new devil sighted on Halloween, our fear of getting Harvest Time Cross-Word Puzzles and WWJD Bracelets in our bags increases. (If any of our readers actually do this on Halloween, then I’m very sorry. I’ll make sure not to go to your house for candy this year, and instead skip right to the hiding in [your] basement with a roll of duct tape and an untraceable cell phone. I mean I don’t trick-or-treat anymore. I mean I don’t hide in people’s basements on Halloween to scare the crap out of them on the phone and tape up their pets. I mean...fuck, okay, which is worse, trick-or-treating at my age or the duct tape thing?)

9.) Pirates: These high-sea thieves are the predecessors to cyborgs. When they lose a limb, they replace it with something else --- much like the use of prosthetic limbs today --- but their substitutes are twisted mockeries of the human form. Instead of a fake hand, pirates get hooks, which they use to rip through their enemies and terrorize horny teenagers at Make-Out Ridge (he’s only got One Hand!!!). Instead of getting bitchin’ prosthetic metal legs, they fashion peg legs which they use to stab opponents with great efficiency in their Pirate-Fu. And instead of glass eyes which look really creepy but really cool when you tap them with a pen, they get eye-patches that steal your soul. Sometimes you get skeleton pirates, which make you think about having safe sex with cyborgs.

10.) French Maids: Aside from reminding one instinctively and uncomfortably of Fran Dreschner, french maids are cold-blooded killers. I’ve read one or one murder-mystery novel before. I’ve [played] Clue and Clue Jr. And I can tell you, if it’s not the butler that did it, then it was the maid!!! This kind of thing is so common that I would go so far as to say that the body-count associated with the average French maid is greater than all the escaped psychos, undead spirits of revenge, possessed dolls, hockey goalies, and people in Scream masks combined. If you ever see one in the Conservatory with a Lead Pipe, run like fucking hell.

11.) Cardboard Boxes Painted To Look Like Robots: I swear those goddamn cardboard boxes are getting smarter every year. Although their plot to take over the world has so far been unsuccessful [...], they are rapidly adapting to new scenarios. Their plot to hide all our new stuff under fuck-tons of paper popcorn has been failing due to their underestimation of the human will to dig around for shit, so they have now upped the ante by pretending to be robot costumes to gain our trust. DON’T BE FOOLED!!!

12.) Clowns, Scarecrows, Med Patients With Their Butts Showing, Yu-Gi-Oh Characters: Do you really need an explanation on why these are terrifying?

13.) Zombies: Now this one I don’t get. I mean, I can’t think of anything cuter than a flesh-eating zombie! Unless they’re Nazi zombies; that’s, like, the ultimate enemy right there. I mean, let’s face it, no matter how much you hate someone, if it comes between fighting that person and teaming up with them to fight a bunch of Nazi zombies, you’re going to team up with them and fight the Nazi zombies!!

Ah, memories.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Happy Wintereenmas!

Posting Location: University Village.

Today marks the beginning of the week-long made-up holiday of Wintereenmas. Wintereenmas is a celebration of gaming and the gamers behind it. Due to scheduling constraints, I've chosen to celebrate through music. I currently have a playlist going of various game songs taken from VGMP3.com over the past two years. Hopefully I'll get some actual gaming in later this week.

Happy Wintereenmas Everyone!

Blogkakke

Posting Location: University Village.

Okay. LOT to cover, so despite my better judgement I'll just pull a megapost to make sure I get it all in.

Post-Holiday Plugs

I received some very good gifts this year. Among them:

*GURPS OGRE, GURPS Religion, and GURPS Y2K --- Sourcebooks for Steve Jackson Games' fine GURPS line, my RPG system of choice. These came as no suprise, since I knew I was receiving them back in August. That was when I bought a ton of sourcebooks due to a sale going on at a local store, and my mother bought three of them off me to give me as X-mas gifts this year. Yeah, I know, but my collection was large enough that it's hard for my family to remember what I already have, so this way at least they knew I'd like it.

*The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution by Dougal Dixon --- This book completes my trio of books by this author that look at possible far-future/alternate ecosystems, the other two being After Man and Man After Man (technically, if you count The Future Is Wild!, I have four). Honestly, this one's probably my favorite out of the three; what can I say, I'm a sucker for color. My honest opinion, there aren't enough works out there in this genre.

*The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks --- The book everyone should have, just in case (and in fact, many people I know do have it already; I seem to be the last in my circle of friends down here to get it). Complements my How To Survive A Robot Uprising quite nicely.

*The Handy Religion Answer Book by Visible Ink Press --- Joint gift from my sisters, who also got me some incense and a burner to go with it. The book should help in my search for enlightenment; the incense will probably be better appreciated when I'm living somewhere that doesn't have rules against it's use (d'oh!).

*Digital Sci-Fi Art by Michael Burns --- Actually, another gift with better intentions than results; in searching for a straight sci-fi artbook, they accidentally got one that was more of a "how to." Not a complete miss by any means, though; the art is still great, and....hey, looking at this thing again, I just realized it covers 2D art as well as 3D. In fact, it covers Adobe Photoshop specifically.

Well, shut my mouth. This book is actually going to be pretty and useful.

*How To Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card and Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy by the Editors of Analog and Asimov's Science Fiction --- Both gifts from my boyfriend Carlos. I've often complained that while I've got the world-building part of writing down pat, I can never just sit down and come up with an actual plot. He got me these to help remedy that, which I very much appreciated. But what really got me feeling all warm inside...

*...way back at the beginning of November, I ranted about the film Zeiram 2, within which I mentioned, in passing, that I had also seen Rollerball that week. It was one sentence, one link, and in the title tag for that link I mentioned, half-jokingly but half-genuinely, that I'd like to have the jersey worn by the main character in that film. The untold reasoning behind that was that as an obscure refference to an obscure sci-fi film, it was probably the only "sports"-related shirt I'd intentionally seek out. Yes, I'm that much of a geek; that's not the point.

The point is that Carlos searched for that very shirt online for a week before tracking down a store in Germany that actually sold it.

And bought it for me.

And hid it under the two previously-mentioned books in the gift box.

Words cannot really describe how that made me feel.

*Alien Planet DVD --- Another Discovery Channel special that I had missed the first time around. Based off the book Expedition by Wayne D. Barlowe, which I guess you could count as the "fifth" alternate ecosystem book I own. Thoroughly enjoyed it, despite odd changes in some creatures' biology, and a change in the overall "plot" to make the actual expedition better grounded in realism (Alien Planet has a ship carrying robot probes going at relativistic speeds, while Expedition had a manned mission that was a joint venture with a different group of sentient aliens). I also thought they could've credited Barlowe a little more thoroughly in the program itself, but whatever.

*Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith DVD --- Not much to say, except that this one was all but an inevitability.

*The Simpsons - The Complete Sixth Season Collector's Edition DVD set --- This one came as a suprise from my one roommate. Fortunately, she and I appear to share the same opinion of when the "good" seasons of The Simpsons aired. And, saints be praised, Sideshow Bob has an episode in this season!

Resolutions This Year

*Focus on academics more. I want to see if I can't turn that "three A's and a C" to "four A's" this quarter, at least.
*Don't let myself take my relationship with Carlos for granted. I had fears such was happening last year at several points.
*Conserve money better this year. Self-explanatory.
*Read through the Holy Bible all the way at least once by year's end. If only to be able to say I've done it.
*Up the insanity when I do role-playing. Both in how much I get into my character(s), and how much I get into GMing.
*Make blog more than the sum of how my week has been. And more what the description has it as.
*Update to blog more often, and more regularly. Actually, on that note...
*Make sure I actually post my blog updates *coughthisonecough* instead of just "saving as draft." Whoops ^-^;

Well, This Is New

This past Thursday night, I was up at 2:00 AM and just about to head to sleep when my boyfriend IMed me. We had a bit of idle conversation, in which he seemed a little down. Right out of the blue, he asked me what my reaction would be if he asked me to go over to where he lives off South Campus, right then and there. This, and a bit more conversation, ended with me getting dressed again and heading out to spend the night with him. Right out of the blue. Keep in mind, I live off of North Campus, and by a far larger margin.

Honestly, I'm not sure what my thoughts on this are. He said it meant a lot to him. It meant something to me as well, I'm just not sure what. One thing's certain, though; some form of precedent has just been set.

And For Good Or For Ill...

...Seafood Japan may no longer be carrying Black Black. I've bought some Green Gum, Cool Mint and Sumi-Yaki Coffee Candy to test for effectiveness in it's absence; after all, despite past problems that gum has also occasionally helped me out. Time will only tell whether or not I've lost a valuable ally (or deceptive foe).

The Two Christmases

Posting Location: Family Home, Parma, OH.

So from my previous post expounding on Christmas and the surrounding traditions, one might assume that I'm a practicing Christian. That's not entirely accurate, but I'd like to focus on something that not many people like to openly admit: The fact that Christmas is no longer a strictly religious holiday. Actually, I'd like to take things one step further. I'd like to make the claim, here and now, that Christmas is no longer a single holiday.

I'm not talking about the trivial distinction between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I'm more talking about the subtle difference between Religious Christmas and Secular Christmas. I've personally taken to distinguishing the two as (respectively) Christmas and X-mas.

I'm sure some people can see where I'm going with this already. Christmas is the holiday of Jesus Christ, while X-mas is the holiday of Santa Claus. Christmas is the holiday with songs like Joy to the World, Silent Night, The First Noel, and O Little Town of Bethlehem. X-mas is the holiday with songs like Jingle Bells, Deck The Halls, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

One point in favor of this interpretation is that both government and commerce enhance the distinction. For example, think about the songs I mentioned above; which ones are more likely to create complaints if they were included in a public school holiday pageant? If they can slip a holiday song under the Separation of Church and State filter, then it's probably a X-mas song rather than a Christmas one. It's hard to picture anyone getting away with a nativity scene in a store like, say, Krogers --- but who would seriously object to a scene with Santa and Frosty?

My biggest proof of this, however, can be found in the nation of Japan. Simply put, Japan celebrates Chrismas, despite the fact that only 1-2% of the Japanese population is actually Christian. To me, that says that Christmas is no longer strictly a religious holiday.

Due to this opinion, I tend to get annoyed at two different groups of people around the holidays. The first are the people who feel that all mention of "Christmas" specifically, or anything even remotely associated (like Santa, ect.) has to be avoided in order to preserve Separation of Church and State. The second are the people who feel that any attempt to "take the Christ out of Christmas" is a crime against their religion and an attempt to suppress their faith. Both groups associate Christmas as inextricably tied with the religion of Christianity, which I really don't see as the case. I'm the kind of person who objects just as strongly to the concept of putting a nativity scene in front of City Hall as I do at the concept of removing Santa Claus from the mall (both hypotheticals where I live).

And on that note, I'll sign off for now. With the holidays coming up, I have no idea when I'll next have a chance to really post here. I'll probably get at least one more entry before New Years. Speaking of which, I've also got a few plans for the blog for the coming year, that I may go into detail on later.

Until then, Happy Holidays and Merry X-mas!

So Many Distractions, So Little Time

Posting Location: Family Home, Parma, OH.

There's a very good excuse for the dropoff in blog entries lately. Unfortunately, it involves admitting how behind-the-times I am currently.

You see, it's mostly been because I've been reading the fifth Harry Potter book.

That's right, I have not yet read the fifth Harry Potter book all the way through; what's more, I only just started Saturday. I meant to read it the summer it came out, but then work hit, and one thing came after another...suddenly it's two and a half years later. Needless to say, I've not read the sixth book yet either. My shame knows no bounds.

Other than that it's been the usual rush that so many of us find ourselves in towards the end of December. I still haven't got all my Chrismas shopping done yet, although admittedly I haven't had to do much. I've already gone halfsies on gifts for every other immediate family member, all by request by other family members who'd already bought expensive gifts and were looking for someone to get half-reimbursement from. Whatever, saves me the trouble.

Went down to Tower City Center with the family on Saturday as part of this not-shopping I've been doing. We'd split up and planned to meet at the Warner Brother's Store, which was my suggestion, as the storefront was pretty easy to distinguish. This didn't exactly work, since I was working off of memories of being there that were at least two years old --- as it turns out that store no longer exists in Tower City (luckily we all had cell phones). What they had in it's place was a games store, which was decent enough. I also noted that they now apparently have the whole place set up with WiFi, which I felt was interesting.

Best part of the trip, though? Waiting for the bus to take us back to Parma, we noticed all these signs clustered around each other saying "Happy Diwali," "Happy Kwanzaa," "Happy Channuka," etc. My sister had pointed out that there was no "Merry Christmas" among those signs, which I had noticed, too. Then I noticed why; these well-wishing signs were all clustered around a light up nativity scene. Even though I've never heard any word of this, I can quite clearly picture the chain of events leading up to this:

*City puts up nativity scene.
*Enough people complain that nativity scene is endorsement of Christianity over other religions, in violation of Separation of Church and State.
*City hastily puts up signs for holidays in other religions so it's not just Christianity and no one can say they're playing favorites.

Which, you know, still misses the point, but at least they're trying.

Speaking of the second most important holiday in Christianity, I can't believe that it's managed to sneak up on me like this. Not that I'm the only one; my family put up our tree and decorations just yesterday. We have a real tree this year, which is the first time we've had one in a while; so long in fact that we had to buy a new base for the tree, as the previous one was shot. It was a little too big when we brought it in, we had to cut the top off; the angel is actually nestled between branches at the top rather than sitting at the highest point.

Unfortunately, a few years of working with a fake tree have apparently made me soft as far as hanging ornaments are concerned. My fingers seem to have forgotten what it's like to work with needles that can actually hurt if you press down on them, and my creativity seems to have forgotten what it's like to work with branches that you can't bend into positions that better suit you. At any rate, the tree looks fine, and I'm almost done with shopping, so I guess it's all good.

Happy Samhain!

Even considering the fact that I had a Halloween get-together on Saturday, it just seems like Halloween sneaked up on me this year. For some reason this year I don't feel like I've "captured the magic" of the holiday, so to speak. I feel weird making a Halloween post at 10:00 PM the night of, almost as if it's too late to be talking about it. But then that's silly; it's still Halloween for another two hours, and Halloween night lasts until 6:00 AM. There's still plenty of time to get my Halloween on.

There's even more time when you consider the sheer volume of Halloween-ish holidays centered around Halloween proper, to say nothing of the fact that the holiday it all sprang up around --- Samhain --- technically lasts from sunset today to sunset November 2nd. Actually, the number of holidays in general is something that kind of suprises me. From what I could find:

Samhain (Druidism/Paganism): Oct 31 - Nov 2
Halloween (Modern Secular): Oct 31
Chanté Messes (Vodoo): Oct 31

All Saints Day (Christianity): Nov 1
El Dia Del Muerte, Children (Mexico): Nov 1

Diwali/Festival of Lights (Hinduism): Nov 1
All Souls Day (Christianity): Nov 2
El Dia Del Muerte, Adults (Mexico): Nov 2
Bunka no Hi / Culture Day (Japan): Nov 3
Bandi Chhor Divas (Sikhism): Nov 4
Guy Fawkes Day (United Kingdom): Nov 5
Confucious' Birthday (Confucionism): Nov 6

So, as you can see, I have plenty of time left to celebrate....something.


As for the get-together Saturday, I think it went alright enough. It was mainly me and my friends getting together and role-playing for the night (Ravenloft seemed appropriate for the night, although I used the sequel to make sure none of the players were familiar with it ahead of time). People showed up in costume, although most seemed to agree mine was the best (I dressed up as a character of mine in another RPG we play, a sort of alcoholic Old West-style preacher). We had candy available as, again, it seemed only appropriate.

Anyways, I'm going to see if I can't make this Halloween night more Halloweeny. Happy Halloween everyone!

I'm Not In The Closet, I'm Just Antisocial

Today is National Coming Out Day! In honor of this, and to clear up any confusion that may have arisen already, I'll state that I myself am bisexual. Oh noes, now my secret's out!

Have a good day everyone, and to all you straight people out there...don't be intolerant!