My favorite places for ghost hunting

Well, it has been some time since I last was able to post anything.  Hope you all are still awake out there.  So I thought I would start this new round of blogs with an old favorite for all:

My favorite haunted locations!

I would like to share this with you in honor of my upcoming trip to Deadwood, South Dakota for a hopefully fruitful trip.  These are some of the few places I've visited/investigated.  Most of them are museums and in tourist locations, but some will provide excellent night time tours that I highly recommend for at least the fun factor and the history that goes with it.  Here we go (and I threw in a few pics for fun; sorry, nothing of paranormal note on any of them, those ones are for my private collection!):

5)  Anybody's personal home:  I start with this one, and I leave it a little vague for a reason.  My interest in the paranormal began in my own home, and I have investigated some homes that are far more interesting than many of the tourist attractions.  I will not give any names to protect the identity of those who have asked for my help or input, but some of my best video and audio evidence has come from private homes.  Even if I don't end up with any solid evidence of spirit activity, I can usually provide relief to some of these people by demonstrating that this noise or that sound can be caused from very normal and everyday things.

Here's a word of advice for anybody out there who is interested in having their home investigated:  it makes our job a lot easier and you will be much more satisfied with your results when you can leave the home while we do our investigation.  Too many people present during any of the investigation can cause a lot of background noise, and it becomes too difficult to identify what is normal and what might be paranormal.  Wouldn't you be disappointed if there was a disembodied voice on a recording, but we had to throw out the evidence because it was contaminated by too many people moving around?  There may be a point during the investigation when it is appropriate for you to return to the home and be a part of the investigation, but for the best results, let the investigators tell you when that would be.

4)  Fort Ticonderoga:  In upstate New York, this place was really remarkable.  Although only able to investigate during regular operating, daylight hours, this location was still full of good stuff.  The museum is a treasure trove of excellent history too, for all you Revolutionary War history buffs.  The buildings are plenty eerie, even in the daytime.

3)  Fort William Henry:  Also in upstate New York along Lake George, this place provided a night time ghost tour.  I obtained some very unique and unusual K2 activity in the center courtyard.  I got some great photographic evidence in the cellar as well as some spontaneous movement of objects while I was down there.  Super great place for the history of it.

2)  Gettysburg:  Easily one of the most spiritually active places that I have ever been.  First of all, you can't go anywhere around there were you don't feel a hundred unseen eyes watching you.  I spent 3 days there by myself, just wandering all over the battlefields, snapping a hundred pics.  I stayed in a bed and breakfast that was established what used to be an old farmhouse that had been converted into the first field hospital on the first day of the battle.  I was able to stay in old part of the building, in a room that had once been the operating room where doctors would amputate limbs and toss them out the window.  I investigated the B&B as well and got some of the best audio that ANYBODY has ever recorded in an investigation.  I sat my audio recorder out on an old mantle in my room, went to bed and fell asleep while the device recorded 3 solid minutes of somebody walking around my room on hard wood floors, moving furniture around, all while wearing some pretty heavy boots.  Pretty good stuff.  I also recommend spending some quality time up at Culp's Hill and the covered bridge.  Excellent locations for feeling a really creepy vibe.  Also, a shout out to Miss Betty!  Her tour is the best.

1)  Birdcage Theater:  Located in Tombstone, Arizona, this is my long time favorite place to visit.  The Birdcage never disappoints.  They provide a nighttime ghost tour, and I have gone so many times, that some of our experiences are now part of the walking tour.  A big moment occurred for us, on the third time I had visited, and Nova (awesome tour guide) let me wander ahead since she knew me and knew I was well versed in the location.  I began with my K2 and headed back behind the stage when I saw 5 large items from the museum strangely arranged in front of the stairwell going down to the high-stakes poker rooms in the basement.  Nova came around and immediately called the owners, which was something she was supposed to do anytime there is any unusual activity in the location.  That night, our group including Nova and the owners had a great lights-out session with audio and K2.  Even got a woman's voice on the recording.  Love this place and it will always be the top of my list.

I also need to give an Honorable Mention to Virginia City and Nevada City in Montana.  Excellent locations with great history attached to them.

I'm hoping to make some new stops along my tours.  Having moved to Montana, I am now interested in the ghost town of Garnet and would like to make a visit to the old prison at Deer Lodge.

Here's to a great summer for investigating.  On to Deadwood!

Books I Would Love To See As Movies

I would like to first start off by saying that I am not a book-to-movie purist.  That means that I have never been one to say "well, the book was better", like a hipster.  No.  A book cannot be turned into a film at 100% accuracy, so I don't expect it.  As long as the general feeling is there and the same story comes across.  I really hate it when people get so caught up in inconsequential little things like, "her hair is not the right color in the movie because it was supposed to be blonde in the book".  Come on.  Get over yourself.  Congratulations.  We all now know you read the book.  Good for you.

With that said, I actually really love to see books turned into movies.  Books are a great source of story material (duh) and for that group of tremendously sad people who don't read (I'm looking at some of my brothers!), this is a way to expose them to some excellent stories.  I was so excited to see that The Maze Runner was going to film, and I have to say that I was very happy with it and I'm hoping to be able to see The Scorch Trials as well.  One book I have loved so much was Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz.  Fortunately this was made into a pretty good film.  Unfortunately, it was so muddled by legal woes that it never got wide release and the finished film floundered.  Lucky for you, Odd Thomas is available on Netflix and I would strongly recommend it.  So I wanted to compile of list books that I would love to see made into films if only to expose more people to some of these great works.  Here you go, in no specific order:

1:  A Spell for Chameleon:  This is a fantasy book by Piers Anthony, written in the 70's, but is one of my favorite fantasy series ever.  This was one of the first books I remember finishing as a kid and loving the story, which is still a great tale even by today's standards. It won the Best Novel of the Year Award back in 1977.  It's a tale about a land called Xanth where everyone is born with a magical talent, whether it is killing your enemy with a death curse or being able to turn a white rose into a red one.  Every once in a while someone is born without a talent and that person is then exiled when he/she comes of age.  Bink is such a person, who seems to have no identifiable talent and is on the verge of exile when a magician tells him that he has a wizard-caliber talent, something so powerful that he could use it to defeat an evil magician that held the land in fear, but if he can't find out what it is, then would soon be banished.  Chameleon is a great fantasy story unlike anything that you might have read and it spawned a large series of sequels to follow that are equally fun.  If I had to cast it, I would love to see Anton Yelchin as Bink.  He's got the youth and humor that would really bring out the eventual hero of the story.

2:  A Discovery of Witches:  A novel by Deborah Harkness, Discovery is a wonderful fantasy of a woman who happens to be a modern witch, raised with simple spells, who now studies old literature at the university.  In her attempt to uncover an ancient text to research for her studies, she inadvertently triggers a series of events that put her in danger.  She learns that the book had been bound by a spell to stay secret from other witches that want to learn its dangerous spells.  Discovery is a great and engrossing read.  The story is fun and there are two other books as part of the All Souls Trilogy.  This would be a fun adventure on film, and I would put Rachel McAdams or Scarlett Johanssen as the lead.

3:  Ready Player One:  Alright.  Anybody who loves this book knows that Steven Spielberg heard our pleas and is actually going to helm this project.  With that said, THANK HEAVENS.  Spielberg would be the perfect dude to head up this story.  For all of you who haven't enjoyed this book yet, I can try to give you a little taste.  In a dystopian future, a teen boy Wade Watts gets away from the daily problems in his horrible life by logging into a world-wide computer game named "The Oasis", which is like a virtual reality world that allows its players to be anyone and to travel endless worlds.  When the gazillionaire creator of the game world dies, his will offers his entire fortune up as a prize to anybody who can complete a complex treasure hunt within the game.  The hunt has been going on for years now and as Wade gets closer to understanding the difficult clues, he finds himself up against corporations who would do anything, in the game or in the real world, to make sure he doesn't win.  This is such a fun book, filled with lots of video game references from our atari and nintendo faves of the 80's.  If/when I see this in the theater, I would really love it if the video game world was not animated, but more of a TRON-esque landscape of characters and places.  But like I said, I am very happy that Spielberg is a part of this and I trust his excellent judgement.  After all, he has created some of my favorite films.

4:  The Farm:  The book by Emily McKay has spawned sequels as well.  It's a tale set in yet another dystopian future, where the world has been over run by blood sucking mutant humans called Ticks.  The survivors have built barricaded shelters around the globe where the youth of the world are rounded up and quarantined.  These shelters, termed Farms by the kids that live there, use the kids to produce blood to keep the Ticks at bay.  Lily and her autistic sister Mel live in such a Farm and the conditions there are becoming too dangerous.  Mel has uncanny abilities that help her see things that others can't see, like a portion of the electric fence that gets turned off every night.  Lily devises a plan to escape with Mel, which becomes more complicated when a new guy shows up at the Farm, a kid that Lily once knew before everything went to Hell.  He learns of their plan, but Lily must decide if he is trustworthy enough to help them on the outside if they can ever leave the Farm.  Dark and compelling, I really have loved reading these books.  The world is dark and very apocalyptic (Walking Dead-esque), which I totally enjoy.  This is like a vampire story, if the vampires were also like zombies.  This would be such an exciting story for film, and I would cast Brit Robertson as Lily and maybe Alex Pettyfer as Carter, the guy that shows up at the Farm.

5:  Storm Front:  Okay.  I know that The Dresden Files (TV show that ran for a short while on SciFi) already gave this a go, but it kind of failed miserably, and I think that that was because it wasn't true enough to the source material.  So I would like to see it again, maybe silver screen this time.  The first book in the Dresden series by Jim Butcher tells the story of Harry Dresden, a wizard that lives in modern day Chicago, who occasionally consults with the Chicago PD on any of those cases that don't quite make logical sense.  In Storm Front, he is asked to consult on a grisly double murder that seems to have black magical tracings.  The stories of Harry Dresden are both fantasy and mystery with a modern noir twist.  Dresden is quirky, and the many characters that surround him are equally as fun.  Like Bob, for example.  This is where the TV show really got it wrong.  Bob is an ancient spirit trapped in a skull who gives Harry advice when needed.  That sounds scary, until you realize that Bob is quiet obnoxious and the best payment for his advice is to provide him with steamy romance novels.  He really likes that.  In the TV show, Bob was just some boring dude that helped Harry every once in a while.  If done right, these stories would make for really fun films.  I don't know why, but I often think of Harry portrayed as James Roday, probably because of his comedic wise-crack timing but also a little ruggedly handsome.

There's a brief list of some of my favorites.  But this is not all inclusive, by no means.  If you have any others I would love to hear about them.  Maybe someone out there will heed our desires (I'm looking at you, Joss Whedon or Guillermo Del Toro)!!!

Until next time,
The pen is mightier than the sword.

Tales to Love and Hate

I love books.  There.  I said it.  But it's really no surprise now, right?  And I will also admit that I really love mainstream books (as opposed to literary fiction, for example).  I'm not one for non-fiction either, although I have a few that I really like.  But I love to focus on those mainstream stories, which also translates to what I love to watch as well.  So fault me for loving big blockbusters and exciting tales.  I read and go to the movies and watch the TV that takes me away from the ordinary.  That's what it's there for, right?

Anyone who knows me will also know that I really hate romantic comedies, most war movies, and high drama.  Why?  Well let me tell you . . . .

(Before I begin, please note that I understand that there are some exceptions to the things that I will be pointing out -- "but what about such and such movie with so and so in it . . . that one was different" -- blah, blah, blah.  I know, okay.  But stereotypes are out there for a reason, and that is what I'm talking about.)


Romantic comedies:  These movies are a dime-a-dozen.  They all have the same plot, more or less.  One of the things that I hate the most about these movies, though, are they way the women, especially the love-interest, are portrayed.  The female star is usually some obnoxious, overly-talkative, overly-neurotic female that is somehow "tamed" by the male star.  These types of films, no matter what genre, are especially annoying to me.  I often just get mad by the end of the film and wonder, "what does he see in her, really? She is the most irritating person on the planet and for some reason he is totally in love with her.  Oh yeah, she's got a face for movies and a nice rack.  That must be why."  The characters are usually so one-dimensional except for the one very interesting person (usually the female or male star's best friend) that is so overlooked, but I would honestly rather see a movie about them.  Romantic comedies are such a cliche that Saturday Night Live now has a recurring character on Weekend Update dedicated to such characters, entitled The One-dimensional Female Character in a Male-driven Comedy:
Weekend Update: One Dimensional Female | Saturday Night Live - Yahoo Screen

Exception:  Adam Sandler has an uncanny knack for making a good romantic comedy.  He is funny as hell, and is able to disguise many of his films as ROMCOM.  These are the few romcoms that girls may be able to get guys to see, such as The Wedding Singer and Just Go With It (may I also point out that these films veer away from the quirky, neurotic female lead character).







War Movies:  Sorry, guys.  I understand that you love these movies a lot, but I just don't.  It probably ties back to the same reason I hate High Drama (see the next paragraph), because most of these films are about the horrible-ness of war.  But if that is all you've got, then I frankly find it not entertaining because war is not entertaining to me.  It's awful and I don't need to see it portrayed on screen.  I appreciate those who have participated in real war, too much to watch it as entertainment.
Exception:  Historical war portrayals are fascinating, mostly because we as the viewer are so far removed from it.  I'm loving Vikings, Gladiator, Braveheart.


High Drama:  I know this sounds vague, but these are the movies, TV shows, and books that about nothing except FEELINGS.  These movies are the worst of anything.  You know what I'm talking about.  These are the tales about grief, loss, lost-love, longing, hate, desire, blah blah blah.  When the moral of the tale is to explore a feeling, I'm so done!  These stories are so boring that I can't stay entertained.  I know that many of you really like these films (Oscars, I'm looking at you), but I go to the movies and read books to be entertained.  If nothing happens then I am not entertained.  And I'm not talking about the character-finally-comes-to-a-realization kind of something-happening.  That doesn't count.  That is still so utterly boring.  I have a saying:  If the story is "moving/touching, I don't want to be moved/touched."  For example, I love George Clooney (Ocean's Eleven, Oh Brother Where Art Thou:  awesome), but The Descendants was SO boring.  Up in the Air = boring.

I go to the movies, read books, and watch TV to be entertained.  Entertainment, in my opinion, is something that can bring me out of the ordinary and place me in something that is not the mundane, everyday life.  War Movies and especially High Drama are very mundane things that I don't find entertaining but they are too close to real life.  This is why I don't like reality shows!!  (I bet you guys that are trying to defend your love of High Drama are thinking, "but I really like Amish Mafia and Hard Core Pawn", LOL).
Exceptions:  Sorry.  Can't think of any.  I simply hate High Drama and why I don't really read literary fiction.

So what do I love?  Zombies.  Lots of Zombies.  Oh, and aliens, werewolves, vampires, robots, huge explosions, car chases (boat chases fit in this same category), heists, and other shenanigans.  Yes, The Walking Dead has a lot of drama.  That's pretty much the story.  But there are also Zombies.  Lots and Lots of Zombies (sorry.  Lots of Walkers).  Harry Potter is full of coming-of-age drama, but it's also about his magical world and something so very un-ordinary.

If the story you want me to read/watch is a War Movie, I want to see a war between Jedis and The Empire or Vampires and Werewolves.  If it is High Drama, I want it portrayed by Lego people.  If it is a romantic comedy, I would rather see it about a guy who is in love with a zombie girl, because she is so quirky and neurotic (hmm, maybe I should write that story . . .)




Until next time,
"Fear is the path to the dark side.  Fear leads to Anger.  Anger leads to Hate.  Hate leads to suffering." --Yoda

Adventures in Comic Con

The Emerald City Comic Con has now come and gone, with good times and great memories.  The organizers announced that it is now the 3rd largest Comic Con in the country.  Thousands of people converged on Washington State Convention Center to enjoy everything that the ECCC had to offer in books, games, movies and TV.  If you have never been to one, I highly recommend it!

Of course, the highlights for me would be seeing Gina Torres and Jewel Staite of Firefly come together for a panel with questions posted to them from Nathan Fillion.  It was funny and the time went by too fast with their memories from their days on Firefly.

I also got to see Clark Gregg (Agent Coleson of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,  Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, etc).  That guy is surprisingly hilarious.  And the always awesome, Orlando Jones, from Sleepy Hollow and Evolution (one of my all-time favorite movies).
















The cosplay is always an entertaining part of Comic Con.  Some people put hours of thought and preparation into some amazing costumes and I love appreciating them for it!  I wanted to take so many pictures, but alas, I can only do so much . . . .

One of the best aspects of the Con was the Lego display, brought to the ECCC by the Lego company and their crew of "Master Builders".  This was some truly amazing stuff.

I got to meet Kieron Gillen and Matt Wilson, some of the creators for The Wicked + The Divine comics.  Super awesome guys and very appreciative of their fans.

Great artists and some great prints!

So much fun in 3 days.  I need to lie down now.  I'm exhausted!

Until next time,
You're a scruffy looking Nerf Herder!