Rat thoughts

When this washing machine gets spinning at full speed, it reminds me of that spinning ring machine from the movie Contact.

That must be why my socks keep disappearing.  They're passing through a wormhole and ending up on a planet orbiting Vega.

I read The Call of Cthulhu today and it got me thinking, I really don't care for modern horror.  You ask someone today what are their favorite horror stories, and they'll likely say Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Saw, or other gore-fests.  I don't like any of those movies.  I much prefer the horror stories of 50-100+ years ago. 

I don't think having blood and internal organs spattered across the screen really does anything to create a feeling of horror.  No, the greatest terror is inside your own head, your own imagination.  The old horror writers would plant the seed of fear in you and then let your mind do the rest.  They less that's shown, the more your brain has to work with.  That's why I think radio dramas and books make for much better horror than movies.

The acme of the horror genre, in my opinion, has got to be Orson Welles' radio version of The War of the Worlds.  Well written dialog, with some simple sound effects, mixed with the imaginations of millions, led to mass hysteria.  Countless people actually believed the world was coming to an end.  Radio stations and police were swamped with calls from frightened citizens.  And there were no pictures. no video.  It was all in people's heads.

The best horror stories are those that give you an idea about something terrible, something unknown or unspeakable, and then leaving it to you to fill in the blanks.  No graphic disembowlings, no hockey masks and chain saws.  No, far more horrifying is the idea that some horrific creature could be out there, lurking, waiting.

"In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

I just got through watching a movie on TCM.  It was about a WWII pilot named Ted Stryker whose squadron went down during a mission, leaving him afraid of flying.  The love of his life, Ellen, had boarded an airplane and was about to fly out of his life forever, but he buys a ticket and boards the plane.  Once airborne, the pilots (one of whom is played by a professional sports star) and several passengers become ill from eating tainted fish, and Ted must overcome the haunting memories of his past to land the airliner safely.

This movie, of course, was Zero Hour! from 1957, starring Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Sterling Hayden and Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch.

A large portion of this movie would later be parodied in the 1980 movie Airplane!.  TCM showed both movies back to back and although Zero Hour! was a drama, it was quite amusing seeing just how much of the movie was copied scene-for-scene and even line-for-line in Airplane!.  Lines like "I guess I picked the wrong week to quit smoking", "I may bend your precious airplane, but I'm bringing it down" and "Flying a plane is no different than riding a bicycle."  I laughed when they took the young boy up to the cockpit and the pilot hands him a toy DC-4, puts his arm around the boy and asks, "You ever been in a cockpit before?".  Even the scene with the woman who goes crazy and ends up getting slapped by a line of people makes an appearance.

If you choose to watch Zero Hour!, I'd highly recommend making it a double feature with Airplane! first.

Why do all aliens end up either being humans (weird forehead optional) or hideous bug/reptile/monster creatures?  Why don't we get more alien bunnies like Quozl or Redeeming Factors?

It's like a clown threw up all over The Matrix

I didn't realize I had that many geeks reading my LJ.  :)

The icon is the Curwen Hand Signs for the 5 note theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  It is used by Claude Lacombe (François Truffaut) to illustrate the 5 notes and to greet the alien near the end of the film.

The 5 notes are:

ray - me - doh - doh (lower octive) - soh

After much deliberation, and seeing just how fast my brokerage accounts were outpacing my money markets, I moved most of my inheritance money into the brokerage account.  I've now got about 10% in cash instead of the 50% I had before.  It's riskier, but I made as much in 6 weeks in stocks and mutual funds than my money market would make in a whole year!

I sold off most of my porn stocks on Thursday, except for Penthouse International (PTHL.PK), which I was still in the negative.  Unfortunately, my 45 day free trading period expired Friday.  I thought I was going to be stuck with the stock, but luckily, it shot up to $0.0065 a share Monday, so I was able to unload all 16,000 shares, pay the commission and still make a (small) profit!  Whoot!

While driving into Omaha on Saturday, Animale's car started overheating really bad.  We pulled off the road and checked under the hood.  Coolant had started spraying from under the radiator cap and I could see steam coming from a couple spots on the front.  Fortunately we were only a mile or so from a Chevy dealer, so we were able to limp in.  We had to stop twice more on the way because the engine kept heating up so quickly.  Apparently the radiator was both clogged and leaking.  That's another $500 expense we weren't ready for.  I had been worried about living out in the boonies and the fact that taxi service would probably be insanely expensive, but I learned there was a local cab company and it only cost about $30 (with tip) to go 15 miles.  I paid $25 to go 3 miles in San Diego!

We saw Spiderman 3 on Saturday.  Ho-hum.  I think Stan Lee's mind is no longer in mint condition.

Huge storms on Saturday, but for some strange reason, they all passed right to the east and west of us.  There were tornadoes reported in Glenwood, IA, a few miles away on the other side of the Missouri.  There were also a lot of flooded rivers, including the Platte.  Here, we got a lot of rain, and one VERY close lightning strike (when the flash and the sound occur at the same time, it's hit less than 100 yards away), but no apparent damage.

Our ISP wasn't so lucky.  Lightning hit the tower housing their wireless transmitter, knocking them offline for a good while.  Service wasn't restored fully until this afternoon.

I've been running a fever since at least Thursday.  It got up to 100.8ºF (38.2ºC) Sunday night.  I'm not sure what the problem is, I don't really feel ill, other than a headache and a bit of fatigue.  I was coughing a bit last night, but I haven't today.  I've increased my intake of Vitamin C and garlic and started taking myrrh (nasty tasting stuff!), hoping to beat down whatever infection I might have.  I still need to rebuild my herbal medicine chest, just for these kind of situations.

Geez, haven't posted anything in over a week, so here's a huge freaking updatethingie. 

Lots of thunderstorms this past week (I unplug my computer just to be on the safe side), and my SO and I have been driving a sick friend to work/doctor/etc the past couple weeks, so I haven't been online much.

Investments are mixed.  Sirius (SIRI) and DJ Wilshire REIT (RWR) have been sucking, as have the Janus Contrarian Fund (JSVAX) and the  Janus High Yield Fund (JAHYX), but Exxon Mobile (XOM), the Prudent Bear Fund (BEARX, heehee) and the Excelsior Energy & Natural Resources Fund (UMESX) are doing gangbusters.  So far after a week and a half, I'm ahead by $120.  In order to match what I could get at a bank, I need to make at least $50 a week.  I still have a good chunk of money to move into some sort of vehicle, probably more mutual funds.  Lots of prospectuses (prospectii?) to read.

My SO lost his job last week.  The company he was working for has been dropping people like flies.  Apparently they lost their biggest client.  He was feeling really depressed, then I reminded him he could apply for unemployment and he started feeling better.

Monday we went to a job faire just outside Offut AFB.  Both of us ran out of resumes.  I still need to follow up and send electronic copies to all the addressed on the business cards I picked up.   One of the companies there was a construction firm.  They weren't hiring for any IT positions, as they don't feel they need any in-house IT, but that's what my last employer thought before they met me.  ;)

OfficeMax had 2 gig SanDisk Cruzer Micro USB flash drives on sale for $25, so I picked one up.  Then I discovered that RadioShack had the 4 gig version on sale for $60.  My old 2 gig flash drive was nearly full, 4 gigs will really be helpful.  (I have Puppy Linux, the entire PortableApps suite, Office 2003 Enterprise + SP2 and a ton of other useful utilities on it, basically an entire software toolkit)

Also picked up a weather radio from RadioShack.  It has come in handy already (see below).

Chocolate-covered Ginger Altoids are strange.

Saw Meet the Robinsons today.  Much better than I expected.  I thought it was going to suck, but it was actually pretty darn good.  You just have to forget everything you know about temporal mechanics.

When we came out of the theater, it was pouring rain, there was a wee bit of hail, and there were lightning strikes less than a mile away.  Fortunately it let up pretty quickly and I didn't get too wet.  When I got home, I noticed my new weather radio was displaying something about a tornado watch.  It didn't go any farther than a watch though, at least in this county.

I haven't been updating my LJ very often, because there really hasn't been much going on.

My SO got me a couple more DS games for Christmas, Star Trek: Tactical Assault and Big Brain Academy.  Both are interesting and fun to play.  I need to find someone else who plays Animal Crossing: Wild World, as parts of the game depend on having people visit your town.

I started to come down with a cold yesterday, and it's in full swing today.  I'm hitting the Vitamin C and garlic extra hard.

For Christmas dinner, I made maple-glazed ham, mashed potatoes, dressing, pasta salad, corn and green beans.

I saw Night At the Museum on Saturday, it was much better than I was expecting, especially considering it had Robin Williams in it.  I think he's been mellowing out lately.  The last two movies I've seen him in, Night At the Museum and Happy Feet, he wasn't his usual obnoxious over-the-top self.

Finally got my proof of insurance cards Saturday, so I can finally drive again.  It's rather annoying to be stuck at home just because some moron hasn't mailed you a piece of paper.

No snow so far this year, other than the scant dusting that melted instantly about a month ago.  There's supposed to be a 50% chance of snow this weekend, but I'm kind of doubting it.