Pillow Fluffing: OF DOOM!

I don’t want to be a downer, but I haven’t been doing too great lately. I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m tired and listless and just don’t have any energy. It’s gotten to the point where I even dread coming home.

You see, my apartment is haunted.

No, seriously.

About twice a week, my TV will turn on when I enter the room. Sometimes, my phone will also click on when I walk by. There’s a vague, lemony smell in the kitchen (and no, I haven’t cleaned or mistaken the Lysol for juice again) and I swear the whole place has been dusted and obviously, I didn’t do that. I’m even pretty sure that at one point, the toilet paper roll was changed. And I don’t even have any.

It’s like I have an invisible, incredibly considerate roommate and it’s driving me nuts.

Now, I realize this sounds like a dream come true. Who wouldn’t want an incorporeal butler? Yet here’s the problem: I have an entire trunk full of undead fighting equipment that I can’t bring myself to use.

I’ve got Bibles, crosses, stakes, garlic, silver bullets, lead bullets, Shinto sacred rope, a recording of the tiny woman from Poltergeist saying ‘this house is clean,’ a blessed shovel, brass knuckles, a little electronic doohickey that makes ‘bleep’ noises so I can pretend I’m a Ghostbuster, three small-ish band-aids, a leg from a chair Sarah Michelle Geller once sat on, a mirror, a ten-foot pole, a magic 8-ball, and a plastic sword that screams when you push a button on the handle.

In short, I am prepared to fight anything from vampires (both regular and sparkly) to werewolves to poltergeists and I can’t do it. It would be like slugging a little old lady for making you tea. I have literally been itching to fight a ghost for as long as I can remember and when I finally find one, it turns out to be very pleasant.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s fluffing my pillow right now.

Screaming heads in the fridge I could handle. Knick-knacks flying off shelves? No worries. Voices cursing at me in Latin? Whatever. Blood dripping down the walls and flies everywhere? Pshaw, I do that myself.

NOTE: Yes, I do sometimes realize why I’m still single.

So, yeah. I’m prepared for a battle to the death with the forces of evil and I get a consideration and not having to turn on the TV.

Sigh. I kinda miss the ninjas.

Cheers,
-Jason

Good News, Everyone!

Forum registration is now functional again. I know this because I had three registrations in my inbox today, two of which were bots or spammers (or spambots). Oh, how I had missed the subtle dance of checking anti-bot sites, Googling names, and otherwise figuring out if a registration was real or not.

I am, in fact, being sarcastic. If you’re a real-human being who would like to contribute to our forums, please, register and I will happily let you in. If you’re a spammer, please smash your head into your monitor repeatedly. I’ll wait.

But, strangely enough, today’s blog is not about spammers or registration. It’s about ghosts.

I have complained before about the plethora of ghost hunter shows on cable now (and how I should have my own show, Ghost Fighter). Things, however, have sunk to a new low. There is now a ghost-show on Animal Planet.

I actually watched a couple, as I was curious how they’d incorporate the whole ‘animal’ angle into the show. Would there be ghost pets? Would psychics channel the spirits of animals? Would they somehow use animals to try and sniff out spirits?

The truth is even better: In the two episodes I saw, there was a passing reference to a family pet and then the animal was completely forgotten for the rest of the episode. It was literally “. . . and then Rover got really upset and I looked outside . . . “ with a quick cut of a dog looking at the camera. Needless to say, the dog didn’t look particularly agitated.

Now, maybe it’s just me, but if your channel is called Animal Planet and the show you’re running has absolutely nothing to do with animals, mayhap you shouldn’t run it? Or perhaps, change it to include animals?

Now, I’m not advocating throwing hamsters into haunted buildings to see what would happen (confused hamsters), but why not just have a show where the ghost hunters use dogs?

Just get a couple of high-strung dogs and have their handlers lead them through scary buildings. The dogs, being nervous by nature, will occasionally freak out. You then edit the whole thing together with the proper voice over and bingo, instant Animal Planet exclusive.

It would go something like this:

Narrator: “As the ghost hunters wound their way through the abandoned mental hospital which was built over an Indian burial ground and also happened to be the sight of several Civil-War battles, Mr. Jingles became nervous.”

Cut to Mr. Jingles licking himself.

Narrator: “That means he’s sensing something! But what?”

Mr. Jingles looks at a wall. And then the floor. And then the wall again. He resumes licking himself.

Narrator: “The spirit must be close! What will Mr. Jingles do now?!!!”

Mr. Jingles is now humping the camera man’s leg.

Cut to commercial.

Cheers,
-Jason

Ghost FIGHTER!: Part 1

Last I checked, there seem to be about 1500 different Ghost Hunter –type shows on television. I’ve watched a few of them and they all have the same basic format.

1. Each team consists of two or three heavy-set guys with names like ‘Vinny’ and one ludicrously hot girl.
2. They have a ton of fancy equipment that they set up in a very serious manner.
3. They travel to haunted places, set up said equipment, and then hang out, waiting for something to happen.
4. The hot girl can be counted on to scream at least once. Occasionally, one of the guys will scream as well. Sometimes there’s running involved.
5. The viewer will be shown several fuzzy images at the end of the show and the team will comment on how this was the most amazing haunting they’ve ever been to.

I just have one question: How do I get this job?

Seriously.

I am wildly qualified for this. I have a degree, can operate a video camera, and when needed, can wax poetic about what just happened.

Other shows: “Yeah, there was a weird shadow at 12:33 on the tape. It kinda looked like a dog.”

My show: “My god! What crawling, eldritch horror is this? It looks as if it were vomited forth from the very mouth of Hell! What is it? What mission of evil has sent it lurching into our realm? Do not look, I beg you! Your very MIND is at stake!

Yeah, I can do this.

But I’ll need a gimmick. Something that’ll make me stand out from the 1.5 billion other ghost hunter shows out there. So, instead of just hunting ghosts, I’ll actually try and fight them. That’s right, my show will be Ghost FIGHTER!!!

Tomorrow: Part 2

Fire Bad!: Part 2

So if all it really takes is dying by violence or extreme negative emotions at death, the list of possible triggers for ghostly behavior would be massive.

You have:
Violence
Extreme Anger
Heartbreak (if the romance novels are to be believed)
Daytime Television
Political Ads
Car Wrecks
Someone ninja-looting your epic during the big Ulduar raid
Calling tech support
Tax Season
Etcetera.

It just seems like it would be far too easy for haunting to occur. And as long as we’re exploring that line of thought, how come you never hear about caveman ghosts? People have been dying violently for thousands of years, yet you never hear about ‘that cave in the hills where a ghostly voice wails ‘Fire Bad!’’

In the US, it’s always Civil or Revolutionary War dead or the odd Indian Burial Ground. In Europe (as far as I can gather) it’s haunted castles. Yet caveman, who by definition lived short, brutal lives, never seem to become ghosts.

It’s puzzling. You’d expect every other cave or rock outcropping to be haunted, but there you go. And I have yet to hear of a haunted shopping mall. People probably die there every year, but you never hear about the ‘Cinnabon of the Dead.’

I would totally visit the Cinnabon of the Dead.

Cheers,
-Jason