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Scary Kid Stuff (with pictures!)

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Paul the Spud at Shakespeare’s Sister asks the question “What creeped you out as a kid?” Here are my answers, many of which were from TV shows that I probably shouldn’t have been watching.

1. The Star Trek episode “Miri” where the crew beams down to a planet that at first seems deserted. But they soon find out it’s occupied only by children, because a strange leprosy-like disease attacks adults and kills them. The crew gets the disease, and has to find a cure. I still vividly remember the disease was like a strange blue-green mold growing on the crew — gross!

Star Trek Episode: Miri
Star Trek Episode: Miri

I couldn’t find the image that sticks out in my head – Kirk pulls back his sleeve and he’s got blue mold on his forearm. Ugh.

2. The Space 1999 episode “The Dragon’s Domain” – There’s a creepy-ass octopus-like monster with a glowing eye that sucks the characters in and spits back out their mutilated corpses. Until I started searching for it just now, I had no idea what the show or episode was. I found it by searching for “space creature glowing eye tentacles.”

Space 1999 Monster
Space 1999 Monster

Shudder. I’m going to have dreams about that. I had nightmares about this thing for YEARS.

2. The Towering Inferno — which we weren’t supposed to watch on TV, because we were too young, but the babysitter let us stay up. I don’t remember a thing about the movie, but I’ve hated disaster movies ever since.

Towering Inferno
Towering Inferno

Hmm. Why do I suspect this is a movie that will never get a remake?

3. The Wicked Witch popping into Munchkinland. (Although this was also my favorite part, because Dorothy backs up and Glinda puts her arms around her to protect her from the witch. “Rubbish. You have no power here! Begone, before someone drops a house on you, too!” Sigh.) Unlike some of the comments from other people, I was never scared of the flying monkeys, cause I thought they were prisoners. I was afraid of the castle guards. Apparently the witch surprise is pretty universal — my aunt Rosemary ran out of the theater and refused to see the rest of the movie.

The Wicked Witch of the West
The Wicked Witch of the West
Dorothy and Glinda
Dorothy and Glinda

Completely an excuse to post another picture of Glinda.

4. The original Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life” – the creepy kid who can make any of his wishes come true — I vividly remember the image of his sister, who had no mouth.

Twilight Zone - It's A Good Life
Twilight Zone – It’s A Good Life

I looked for a picture of that, but couldn’t find one, so here’s a picture of a flying monkey instead. I love their little cape/jackets. (2021 Update – found a pic. Still creepy.)

Flying Monkey
Flying Monkey
Continue ReadingScary Kid Stuff (with pictures!)

Weekend Update 2006-07-31

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We spent the weekend doing lots of work on the house — unpacking things on Saturday, and with the help of our friends David and Garrett we moved quite a bit more stuff from Stephanie’s house. There are still a few more loads, but the bulk of the moving is finished. Our house is pretty chaotic, but I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

To change the subject entirely… have you ever known someone for a really long time and still been mystified by the contents of their mind? Like you find out things about your friends that are a complete revelation? I’m still sort of agog at something I found out today. In a strictly metaphorical sense, if you owned a Corvette, why would you ever borrow someone else’s Yugo? The human mind is a mystery to me.

Continue ReadingWeekend Update 2006-07-31

Freshly Poured Concrete

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I went to Bagel Fair this morning to get a bagel and coffee for breakfast. There’s a construction crew around the building on scaffolding working on the exterior, and they were also pouring fresh concrete on the sidewalk in front of the building. To get into the store, you had to walk across a wooden plank laid down over the concrete.

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After getting my bagel and coffee, I turned to leave, but there was a guy standing on the wooden plank, blocking the way. He was wearing dress clothes, and he was surveying the work being done above — he had an air of authority, so I’m guessing he was a builder or project manager or something. I stood for a few seconds and waited for him to see me waiting, but he was completely oblivious. The lady after me was ready to leave also, and I realized there would soon be a traffic jam, so I cleared my throat and got the guys attention: “Excuse me. I’m sorry, I just need to get through.”

But rather than stepping backwards off the plank as I had expected, he stepped to the side. Into the concrete. He didn’t even realize what he did until I looked down at his nice dress shoes, now covered with cement.

He jumped back out really quickly, looked at his construction guys, and said, “Hey, someone stepped in the cement, there,” sort of jokey… like it wasn’t him that did it. And the foreman guy said, “um, yeah, I saw that.”

And I walked the plank back to my car in the parking lot, satisfied at my morning accomplishments; I had a bagel and coffee, and I ruined a guy’s shoes.

Continue ReadingFreshly Poured Concrete

Weekend Update 2006-04-09

On the design front, I’ve been restructuring my cascading style sheets for this site; separating layout markup into a separate style sheet than the one for design (color, font face, size etc.) and doing a bit of testing on that. That will help when I finally get my new design in order and start building. So I’ve done a bit of work, but behind the scenes.

Also, on the home purchasing front, Stephanie and I are going to see eight or so houses this afternoon to assure ourselves that the one we’ve already picked out is right for us both price-wise and size-wise. We just want to get a feel for what else is out there to confirm our decision about the house we like.

Also, if you’re on Flickr and you’re in my “friends and family” contact list, you can see pictures of the house we picked out. We have the privacy turned on for it, so the pictures aren’t public (we don’t want anyone else to steal it from under our noses).

Continue ReadingWeekend Update 2006-04-09

Stop Looking for Occasions to Be Offended

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I’m bookmarking this page entirely for my own self-awareness, but if you happen to find it helpful, that would be cool also.

Stop Looking for Occasions to Be Offended
When you live at or below ordinary levels of awareness, you spend a great deal of time and energy finding opportunities to be offended. A news report, an economic downturn, a rude stranger, a fashion miscue, someone cursing, a sneeze, a black cloud, any cloud, an absence of clouds — just about anything will do if you’re looking for an occasion to be offended. Along the extra mile, you’ll never find anyone engaging in such absurdities. Become a person who refuses to be offended by any one, any thing, or any set of circumstances. If something takes place and you disapprove, by all means state what you feel from your heart; and if possible, work to eliminate it and then let it go.
Most people operate from the ego and really need to be right. So, When you encounter someone saying things that you find inappropriate, or when you know they’re wrong, wrong, wrong, forget your need to be right and instead say, “You’re right about that!” Those swords will end potential conflict and free you from being offended. Your desire is to be peaceful — not to be right, hurt, angry, or resentful. If you have enough faith in your own beliefs, you’ll find that it’s impossible to be offended by the beliefs and conduct of others.
Not being offended is a way of saying, “I have control over how I’m going to feel, and I choose to feel peaceful regardless of what I observe going on.” When you feel offended, you’re practicing judgment. You judge someone else to be stupid, insensitive, rude, arrogant, inconsiderate, or foolish, and then you find yourself upset and offended by their conduct. What you may not realize is that when you judge another person, you do not define them. You define yourself as someone who needs to judge others.

Continue ReadingStop Looking for Occasions to Be Offended

Don’t Be That Guy

Cool Design Guy Brian Veloso has a fun forum called “Don’t Be That Guy” where you can post stories about the people who step on you in traffic, at work, as clients, etc.
It’s a funny idea, but I’m afraid I’m too often “that guy” (or girl, if you’re hung up on the gender of it) to go around pointing it out in others, except as a cautionary tale for myself. I strive not to be, and I’m a lot more conscious lately of where I’m automatically negative about something, when there’s no need to be. Being in a relationship has certainly helped me recognize where I’m inappropriately negative, and where I need to smooth out my communication skills to explain what I’m really thinking so as not to upset the charming, lovely woman who’s sweet enough to go out with me.
Another thing I’ve started doing, or rather stopped doing, is reading so much political news, which does nothing but make me angry about stuff I can’t change. And I have a whole Newsfeed category of “Positive Thinkers” — people who come at things from an optimistic, “how can I make this better” approach. I hope I can eventually put my own feed in that group.
So the “don’t hire negative people” slide at the Getting Real Workshop really struck home. Not that they’d ever hire me, but if I were rejected by them, I’d want it to be because of my work, rather than my personality. That’s a tough thought to express, I hope it came out right.

Continue ReadingDon’t Be That Guy

Weekend Update 2006-03-19

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It’s been one of those weekends where I putter about and do a lot of little organizing and putting things away, but the house seems as cluttered as when I started. I hauled a lot of the recycling in (I still need to work on the paper/cardboard recycling) but there are still major areas I need to get under control, like the “spare room” down stairs, which is where I store all my tools and household supplies, and the office, where I desperately need to get an organization scheme in place for office supplies and computer-related cords, cables, etc. I also need to consolidate items from the laundry room with items from the spare room and get them under control.

All my plans are complicated by my discovery that the bathroom sink downstairs has a leaky faucet, which is dripping down behind the vanity and making the floor damp. This is one of the really poorly plumbed utilities in the house (courtesy of the previous owner), so fixing it is going to be a headache. Even turning off the valve under the sink is a chore; the knobs on the valve are so old and corroded that they’re stuck.

Sisyphus
Futility

On the bright side, I just started watching the sci-fi channel’s new version of the Brit classic Dr. Who, and it looks smashing. (I can use that word; my sister’s British!) Watching this, combined with the BBC America production of Hustle, which is also set in London, so makes me want to live there. Why can’t we have red buses, black cabs and cool phone booths?

Continue ReadingWeekend Update 2006-03-19

Blogs are a viable form of writing

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The Financial Times has an article criticizing the “blogging” phenomenon, which is one of many that have been written in the mainstream press in the last 6 months.
This whole “anti-blogging” movement generated by the mainstream press strikes me as really pretentious and absurd on the part of “journalists.” People have been recording their thoughts and sharing them with the people around them as long as humans have been able to write; just because we have software that makes it easy doesn’t make this a new thing. It used to be a huge social thing to write letters to everyone; people did it religiously and prolifically. People wrote books and self-published them — the giant publishing companies we have today are a more modern phenomenon. Stephanie’s grandmother used to make her own christmas cards and send them out; they were clever and graphically oriented and if she had been my age, should would have been designing a website instead. Stephanie’s mother used to type up short stories and writing with a circle of people, photo-copy it and send it around in an early prototype ‘zine.
People have always been “blogging” — this is just a new name for an old behavior. And the critique that most blogs are “ignored” is silly, too. People are writing for the most part for their family and friends and own entertainment, and they are accomplishing exactly that goal. There’s no failure in that.

Continue ReadingBlogs are a viable form of writing