Spooky/Scary Movies for Halloween

Halloween is not my holiday of choice. I never liked it as a kid, I do not really like it as an adult. Getting dressed up in costumes and/or makeup was/is not something I have ever enjoyed. The candy part was all right, but the really good treats are a thing of the past after too many faux Halloween scares surrounding dangerous extra additives. Still as a kid the one thing I did like about Halloween, beside the Charlie Brown specials, were all the spooky movies. I was never an enthusiast for slasher movies but I did like a good scary movie. Most creepy movies are best watched at night in a completely dark setting with limited distractions. As a kid Halloween added to that mood. As a young man, the addition of a pretty lass, did not hurt the mood. As an adult of 29+ years they are mostly just another movie.

The IMDB Top fifty choices for horror movies are listed at this link. Compare them with your choices. As a nod to the part of Halloween I liked growing up, I am offering up my choices of best movies to watch on a Halloween night.

Alien and Aliens were and are still my top movies of choice when I want to watch a Horror flick. It is rare when a sequel is as good as the original but Ridley Scott’s and Cameron’s one-two punch of sci-fi masterpieces about aliens with acid for blood and a penchant for using humans as host for their offspring still leaves chills in my spine when I watch either movie. They made you remember, “In space no one can hear you scream”.

Poltergeist. I am not normally a big ghost movie fan but the original Poltergeist was the type of movie that could induce ghost-filled nightmares.

The Exorcist. Demon possession and projectile vomiting what else really needs to be said. Also, lots of foul language and adult situations in this movie. I remember by the time my mother actually allowed me to read the book it seemed like most of the lines had been magic-markered through.

The Birds. Anything by Alfred Hitchcock is miles ahead of the competition when it comes to scare tactics. I remember hearing a saying attributed to the scaremaster that went; it is not the gunshot that scares the movie watcher but the anticipation of the gunshot. He was the master of timing in scary movies. And The Birds is a movie that will make you reconsider about how nice Tweety-bird really is.

The Shining with Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duvall. This was one of the few Stephen King books that I felt carried his fright tale from the book to the big screen. (Another King book I felt that made the scare transfer well, but to the small screen as a mini-series was “Rose Red”.)

The Prophecy. I like Christopher Walken warped-persona characters. And he excels as a maniacal angel feeling rejected and consumed with a hatred of mankind. And Viggo Mortensen makes a pretty nasty Satan in the movie. There are several quality character actors that keep this movie on the path.

The original Halloween. This is one of the few slasher movies I actually enjoyed. This is the movie that earned Jamie Lee Curtis her reign of the title, The Queen of Scream. It is what it is – and it was the awkward popularity birth of the malevolent slasher genre movies. There were previous slasher movies bit no early ones really caught the publics taste like this one.

The Last House on the Left. Wes Craven’s early stab at a frightening sadistic slasher movie. It was crude but it worked for me.

Jaws. Not your normal Halloween style of horror but still a terrifying movie. The only movie I have ever been physically attacked at when the guy behind me jumped and stuck his foot where it doesn’t belong during the head rolled out from under the boat scene. (Beware of the landshark!)

North by Northwest. Another atypical Halloween movie. Though it is not spooky in a Halloween sense, it is my favorite Hitchcock movie, a very good cast and it is full of suspense and action.

Honorable fear-provoking scream-producing mention also goes to:

The Thing (the 1982 version)

Poltergeist 2

The Omen

Scream

Frailty

Bram Stokers Dracula

The Fog

Interview with a Vampire

The Howling

Rosemary’s Baby

Fright Night (not scary, but a above average vampire flick with Roddy McDowell and Chris Sarandon)

Ghost Story (1981 – Fred Astaire, John Houseman and Melvin Douglas)

Cube 2: Hypercube

Thir13en Ghosts

Ten Signs of a Man’s Aging

Cold weather is one of life’s reminders that your body is getting older whether or not you are. Here are theScoundrels ten signs a man is getting older.

10–> You start selecting your soaps by allergic additives rather than cost.

09–> You are swearing at your bifocals in the same manner your father does.

08–> Your plate of food in front of you looks too enormous to finish.

07–> You choose vehicles by rating comfort over sporty.

06–> You prefer to watch sports on your TV rather than participate in the fun.

05–> You actually start combing your hair, out of necessity to cover up those deepening furrows in your field of follicles.

04–> Midnight finds you tucked in your warm bed rather than heading out on the second leg of your Friday Night party run.

03–> Your body creaks and pops when you get up like Nick Nolte’s in the movie “North Dallas Forty“.

02–> You would rather talk about romancing the pretty ladies than actually romance the pretty ladies.

And the theScoundrel’s number 1 sign you are getting older:

You are more excited about your morning bowel movement than your morning wood!

Energy – Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t (UPDATED)

According to a BBC article United Nations expert Jean Ziegler has went on record condemning the use of corn and sugar crops to make biofuels. He wants a five-year ban on the practice for technology to look at other options. His argument is that it could create more hunger. That is very possible in my estimation. Still it has just been weeks when we were told that the US needed to quit shipping in donations of food products into third world countries as it was hurting their farm economies. Another problem is even if it doesn’t create a shortage of the world’s food crop, it will probably drive up the expense of food around the world. Another possibility is that it will do both. The alternative certainty is a shortage of increasingly expensive fuel and energy. Oil is supposedly at the point of decline in availability. We seem to have multiple possibilities for home and industry usage, some sources such as nuclear energy have their own drawbacks (Three Mile Island - Chernobyl). But most, other than nuclear, are in their infant stages and will not answer the call for our complete energy needs in the near future. The usage of oil in its energy byproduct forms is also considered a major pollutant. And though there seems to be some drawbacks to biofuels, they seem to be the powerbrokers choice as quickest available and most promising at replacing oil as the main clean energy component for a large section of our economy needs. They can be worked in tandem with oil products or used as an eventual replacement. They reduce the amount of oil we have to use. They burn cleaner. They reduce our ties to the centuries old war torn Middle East. And they give our economy a boost by using renewable products that we can produce ourselves. If biofuels will make us energy independent, then it is a win-win situation for our country. Then I choose biofuels. If it does create a food shortage, it is just another problem that the World and Mr. Ziegler will have to deal with.

I have added a couple of links on the topic of biofuels:

biofuel link 1

biofuel link 2

And for all you conspiracy lovers out there, you do not want to miss tonight’s (Saturday 10/27) Coast to Coast AM radio show with Alex Jones! He is planning on discussing how the elitists are going to reduce the Worlds population by 80%. Whew, oughta be room to breathe then!

Coast to Coast AM Radio Link

Alex Jones Info Wars Link

Whew, I checked and all my neighbors still seem to be here this morning. But more on this later!!

More on Human Predators and Jack McClellan

Several posts back I talked of human predators. The main focus was about an individual named Jack McClellan, who had set up an Internet site designed to help direct child predators on the where and how to find their victims. McClellan, though he has never been charged with acts of sexual exploitation of children, has made statements of his desire to do so, and he is not alone. There are even those who are actively trying to make sexual practices between children and adults legal. One such individual is talked about at this news link. McClellan had moved around several times and my understanding was that he was through with his Internet site. However reports are that McClellan has setup another website talking of his pedophilia urges and stalking advice to other individuals like himself. An individual tracking and keeping McClellan exposed to the public has setup a website dedicated to letting people know about McClellan’s activities. In a recent post he has stated that McClellan has included a link on his Internet site that leads to a site that includes (legal) nude pictures of children. (It sounds as if we were time traveling backwards to the Michael Jackson coffee table book of nude children controversy.) I am not sure how healthy that type of site is period, much less that type of a link located on an admitted would-be child predator to the site. But I am not sure what you can do to individuals like this that fly around gray areas of the law. And is this new website –> flaunting his ability to circumvent sexual predator laws –> or is it some hidden desperate call for help? Could you take on the individuals through stalking laws? Perhaps there are some type of child endangerment laws that would cover the situation? If a way is not found at stopping these individuals how do you explain the damage they help create to the eventual families of victims.

update inside:

Interactive Media Hate Wars

I do not visit the Quad City Times Internet Page as often as in my earlier Internet excursions. But I was over there this morning and I noticed they have changed the look. I have yet to decide whether the change is for the better or the worst. They have crammed a lot of information on the main page and it has a busy look. But I like the folder click sections idea that they have implemented. I used to visit the site more often as their Internet Story Interaction Comment posting is usually updated more often than QCOnline’s section and you can tell by the difference in the amount of posts content. It also gave me easy access to visit Jim Fisher’s and Davis Burke’s posts on the Times site. But I only visit there on occasion any more as the comments sections have become an extremist hate spewing battleground for a handful of the individuals, with many of the posts overrun with vitriolic content attempting to silence opposing views through ridicule and demonizing. One post I was following had reached such an obnoxious state that I went to the comments section to check the posts by the members that were most vocal. And the same handful of people had spent a whole posting period (from the opening right up to the closed for maintenance) attacking similar articles while repeating the same information and bashing other posters that tried to make opposing arguments. I see that the same people have now started to invade The QCOnline comments sections also. The hate rhetoric basically kills the whole idea of the Interactive posting, since nonregulars trying to actually discuss the post are often driven away. I see that the paper has actually buried most of the Interactive posting in a folder section. Maybe by not having it so prominent it will settle down and discussion can replace the hate wars that have taken over the QCTimes comments sections.

Breaking News: It’s Not My Fault!!!

Breaking News: UK Science researchers have determined –> –> –> It’s Not My Fault!!! WooHooooo!!!

According to UK researchers, I can now officially blame genes (or do they really mean blame my jeans) from my mom and dad for my mesmerization by plates full of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, homemade gravy with cracklings (not the prepackaged restaurant versions – that ain’t nothing more than flour soup), fried onions, barbecued pork ribs drenched in a sweet/spicy sticky tomato sauce, french fries, mounds of cole slaw, steamy bowls of pinto beans with chunks of ham floating, hot cornbread (NO – not that cake-like Jiffy mix) slathered with slabs of butter melting on top, lightly salted freshly sliced watermelon/muskmelon, peach ice-cream on top of fresh baked peach pie. I suppose I can also blame them for my fanatical need to spread various quality candies in a circle of burning candles as I chant choc-o-late, choc-o-late, choc-o-late while my mind ascends into higher state-of-being from the sweet smell of quality chocolate (NO – not that faux-chocolate called a Hershey Bar, YUuuUCK!) warmed by the heat of the candles. Yum, that makes me lightheaded and woozy just thinking about it!

BBC News Article link: Diet Choices.

Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney Dominate Saturdays Values Voters Polling

While the winner of Saturdays Value Voters’ Members 2008 POTUS polling might be debatable – the biggest losers in the poll were not in question. One winner was Mitt Romney in the overall polling (which was a total of onsite kiosk voting + mail-in voting + Internet voting), barely edging out Mike Huckabee by thirty votes – 1595 to 1565 votes. The next closest in the overall voting was Ron Paul, with 865votes. Mike Huckabee won the onsite-only voting by a landslide. In what is a Republican dominated coalition/conference that had an attendance of around 2000 people there were 952 votes cast, of which Mike Huckabee received 488 votes with Mitt Romney coming in a very distant second with 99 votes. The biggest losers were three of the Big4 leading Republican candidates – Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain – all with a a poor showing among the votes tallied. And though the fourth member of the Big4 club, Romney, won the overall voting, it is clear that second-tier candidate Mike Huckabee evenly matched his popularity in the overall choice and was clearly the overwhelming choice of those members that made the physical effort to attend the conference. In fact after reading many of the online articles and blogs about the conference, they signaled that the crowd on hand was enthusiastically rallying behind Huckabee and his talking points. That has to be somewhat crushing for all of the Big4 Republicans that were hoping that the conference would help make them the clear leader of the Christian and Family voting coalition. Instead the result is that it probably made the contest tighter as it showed Huckabee as belonging among the first-tier contenders. There is also suggestion that there is some Democrat crossover voting for him. My guess is part of that is the Hillary Clinton runaway train towards winning the Democrat Primary. The conference results should help boost Huckabee, who like Ron Paul is already an Internet favorite, get more recognition from the media that has been giving him the oh!-are-you-still-there? in the debates and media exposure.

The Extreme Sporting Life

Looking for exhilarating activities? However has bungee jumping off bridges lost its thrill? Maybe shooting the river rapids, climbing tall mountains and normal skydiving for your thrill-seeking adventures has left your blood tepid instead of burning with the passion of excitement! Well no need to fear, because coming to thrill-seekers around the world (where expense is not an issue) in the near future will be the ultimate adventure of taking skydiving to the next level! According to an article by Michael Hanlon in the Daily Mail, a group of thrill-seekers are working on an attempt to duplicate the 1960 feat of former US Air Force Capt./Col. Joseph Kittinger. In 1960, Kittinger was part of a study in high altitude parachute jumps called Project Excelsior. The third jump of the project involved Kittinger jumping from a helium balloon platform over twenty miles above the Earth’s surface. According to the article that is over three times the cruising height of commercial jet airliners. (I wouldn’t know – and yes you can just call me B.A. Baracus, because the only way they are gonna drag me on a plane is doping me out of my mind.) Kittinger was estimated to have reached speeds up to 714 mph as he traveled the twenty-mile distance, before parachuting safely to the ground in thirteen minutes and forty-five seconds . Hanlon’s article goes on to state that the group of entrepreneurs planning on chasing and breaking Kittinger’s 1960 record are planning to attempt to expand the record jump to as far as sixty miles above the earths surface. I am assuming they will use totally equipped space suits, if not, then hopefully they will supply “Depends” to wear inside the suit! Hmm, sounds like fun but I think I will wait for the video game version! Story link below.

I highly recommend reading: Hanlon’s article on Kittenger’s jump and the newly planned adventure to break his forty-year old record!

Another School Commandeers Parental Authority Over Children

It was just back in May when I was talking about a school in Colorado that had decided to push administrators’ personal agendas
over Parents Rights concerning the requiring of high school students to sit through an assembly by a speaker promoting drug and sexual experimentation. A school in Maine has gone one-step further. The school, which teaches Junior High School students, has decided to promote the school’s morality and authority over the parent’s right to decide concerning the decision of distribution of birth control pills to girls as young as eleven. A newly adopted clause in their school healthcare form, that parents need to sign for children to receive treatment if they are sick or injured at school, allows the school health administrators to issue birth control pills to the young girls without parental notification or consultation. Huh! Another school has taken away rights of decision and direction in child rearing that should belong to the parents of those children. Those administrators have NO business in discussing or administrating birth control pills to kids of any age, especially so with junior high school age children, without parental notification, consultation and permission. Heck, the government is considering banning giving children cold medicines and this school is deciding they can give out medication that has far more serious physical and mental repercussions than a teaspoon of cold medicine. Is there any wonder more and more people that can afford it, are home schooling more and more. I think that situations like these make the idea of school vouchers for parents wishing to send their children to different schools very reasonable. There is no reason a parent that should have to endure a schools circumventing their parental authority because they cannot afford to send their kids to more sensible alternative schools. It is time that parents were given back control of raising their children and the schools kept to the business of teaching reading, writing and arithmetic.

Be Fruitful and Multiply, But Enough is Enough!!!

I understand the concept of the biblical passage of “be fruitful and multiply“. But I begin to question the wisdom/sanity of any man who already has eight wives (in a country that has banned polygamy) and states he is considering seeking a ninth wife. And I understand the desire for a large family. In fact I think large families are a great idea for a rich or a poor family. However, it is also my belief that anyone, rich or poor, such as Israeli Shahadeh Abu Arrar (who lives in a poverty region), who has sixty-seven children with eight wives, should be less fruitful at multiplying mini-mes. It would be enough of a problem properly raising eight kids – much less trying to nurture sixty-seven children from assorted wives. Yet he has an average of over eight kids per wife and wants to increase his family size. As the late baseball broadcaster Harry Caray, would have said, Holy Cow, though I am sure he would have had a great time trying to pronounce all their names backwards! Heck you could not even begin to remember all their names, much less be a father figure to them all. And there is no way for him to properly feed, clothe and educate that size of a brood, unless he is Bill Gates. Please, enough is enough, someone get that man a vasectomy; so he can quit flooding the gene pool with children that are doomed to suffer the despairs of poverty because he is unable to conquer his competitive reproduction fanaticism.

Whew, now that I have that rant off my mind, following is a fun link I found posted at Greta Wire about; the top ten women drivers of the year! (My finding great humor in that link is probably why Mr. Abu Arrar has already been married eight times more than I have.) I seem to remember George Noory reminiscing about being guilty of an action similar to what earned the number five award.