While searching imdb’s newest feature of viewing full episodes of tv shows past and present, I came across a show that I only very, VERY vaguely remember watching in the late 1970s (but do not search for it at imdb).  I do remember other aspects of it; particularly, the series of books upon which the series was based.  The Hardy Boys Mysteries (later to be retitled as The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries to include their female counterpart) starred Parker Stevenson (who was later married to Kirstie Alley) and 70s bubble gum pop singer and teenage heartthrob Shaun Cassidy as Frank and Joe Hardy.  One of the mysteries I happened upon thanks to the NancyHardy channel on youtube featured a young Melanie Griffith as a troubled young girl who seems to be drawn by supernatural forces to The House on Possessed Hill.  Hopefully, my mention of the channel will not cause it to be deleted (I have mentioned the fanofbats channel previously and still receive updates for new old episodes of Batman).

Ok… what I do remember from the past.  I do remember the story of Shaun Cassidy.  He is the son of Jack Cassidy and Shirley Jones.  Shaun’s half-brother, David, was a teen magnet himself on The Partridge Family which coincidentally co-starred Ms. Jones.  Shaun’s self-titled debut album was a stable in my house.  It featured mainly cover songs like “DaDooRonRon,” “Be My Baby,” and a few others.  In their adult years, Shaun and David co-starred in the musical Blood Brothers.

And as I previously mentioned, I do remember reading the books written by many authors under the pen name Franklin W. Dixon and to a lesser extent the books featuring Ms. Drew.

Through the quirky way our calendar is set up, the leap day pushed every day following it up one day in the week. Now most people won’t notice this too much, but since we had two leap years since 2003, the dates of this year (after the 29th of February) fall on exactly the same day of the week as 2003.

I’ve noticed those days. Dates and days etched forever in my mind from 2003, are now falling back on the days they occurred. The warm days of this early November remind me again of the fall days in 2003.

Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years will all be on the same day as 2003. And Dec 30th will again fall on a Tuesday.

The logical person I am, knew that this year would happen. The emotions tied to those dates and days is something I didn’t prepare for.

Forever loved, forever in my mind SJO 7/19/1962 – 12/30/2003. A life too short…

Before Mystery Theater, before Elvira, there were other hosts of the ‘B’ horror movies. The one I was most familiar with ran his show on Saturday afternoons for 15 years. We would sometimes have to go out and adjust the antenna to pick up the station. It never came in very good, but then again we were trying to pick up a TV station over 60 miles away. The station was Channel 2 out of Detroit Michigan. The host of the show, the one, the only Sir Graves Ghastly.

I can remember spending many a Saturday afternoon watch things like Attack of the 50 Foot Woman or Them!. Or any other show about sinister spacemen, Giant killer beasts, angry mutated humans, the living dead or cursed half-man/half-animal combinations.

Most of these show had poor story lines, bad acting and fake looking sets/monsters. Most were done on a low budget. They were released in the theaters/drive-ins as the second feature or ‘B’ Movie. They were played on late night TV for years, or in my case Saturday Afternoon.

Sir Graves made fun of the movies, fun of himself and just made the best afternoon of television. So now I get to watch some of these old ‘B’ movies on my computer, and I remember Saturday afternoons with Sir Graves.

Happy Haunting….

Wednesday, October 22 – Breakfast at Golden Corral – best omlette I’ve had in a long time.  Then it was off to the Magic Kingdom where our group got separated.  It was ironic because they make an announcement on the monorail on the way over to the Magic Kingdom about picking a meeting place in case your party gets separated, and during that announcement, I had a feeling we should probably do that.  We ended up finding everyone but not at the meeting place we had desigated.  The Monsters Inc. show is funny as always, and my husband was chosen again to participate, this time playing “Sully”.  We skipped Space Mountain this time around because the line was long and by the time we remembered to get fast passes, we were ready to leave Tomorrowland.  I also skipped one of my favorites, Peter Pan’s Flight, but it was well worth it to get my husband a wheelchair so he could get off his extremely painful infected toe.  Besides, the girls still got to ride it with our friend, Jamiahsh.  Splash Mountain was fun, although the recent updates the ride incurred saw the song on it changed from the extremely catchy “Zippidy Doo-Dah” to something else I don’t even remember.  That’s 0/2 for me liking the rides they’ve updated this trip, if you’re keeping track.

And this is the second Florida trip where both my husband and I saw a strange and unidentified creature.  We’re not crazy, but both times we both saw the same things.  This time, it was a black figure running across the road which was actually a bridge over another road.  When it got to the edge of the bridge, the black shape just kept going – which means it was airborne.  I didn’t see it “running” really; to me it was a black oval traveling across the road – I couldn’t make out any legs.  My husband, who has better eyesight than I, saw something running and then flying.  Either way, none of this describes any animal I’m familiar with, especially one who is native to the United States.  And since I’m on the subject, I will describe our first unidentified creature encounter.  It was a few years ago on our way down to Florida, somewhere in the wilderness of Georgia in the middle of the night.  I saw something sitting by the side of the road, and then it opened and flapped a LARGE pair of wings and flew a short distance upwards onto a low branch in a tree.  It’s wingspan was huge – a diameter of a full grown man at least, 6 feet or more.  This sighting was witnessed by my husband also, and we call it “Batman”.  I’ve looked up various birds and the largest I’ve found is a condor, but this creature seemed even larger and its body was bigger and shaped less like a bird’s body.  Mysteries as yet unsolved…

Well, anyway, talking about the strange creature on Wednesday night disoriented us, and after we got out of Disney World’s huge tangle of roads, we went to the Boston Lobster Feast where at least one kid stayed passed out.  Because we had 3 of the 4 kids asleep by the time we got back to the condo, Chris and I decided to take our night out that had been scheduled (and cancelled due to kid neediness) for the previous two nights.  We went over to the Fun Spot, a newer amusement park next to Old Town.  We went on an extreme ride – check this out:

It actually was much more mild than it looks – and no, that’s not us in the picture.  The ride was kind of lame, really…  Conversely, two of the 4 go-cart tracks at Fun Spot are wicked, simply put.  And I’m not exaggerating when I say that someone might be killed on those tracks.  Unfortunately, I had to witness a little girl speed out of control and hit the wall at a high rate of speed.  I think she was alright; she was conscious at least, but she was very scared, and it was terrifying to witness.  The one track starts by winding up a ramp, and then when you’re at the top, the track drops off so suddenly that I’m sure a cart could get some air if one was on a suicide mission and wanted to try it.  So your cart picks up speed down this steep hill, and before the track even levels out, there’s a hairpin turn – looks like you’re driving in a bowl – followed by another downward slope.  I can’t believe they let kids drive the course, and I shudder to think what careless, invincible (so they think) teenage boys would do with a go-cart on that track – especially a whole pack of them driving it together.  But for us adults, it was lots of fun, although I prefer something much more mild in a go-cart – the things have no padding!  Another course they had there was very small but it had a lot of sharp turns, and it reminded me of a live version of Mario Kart – without the fake gift boxes and shell weapons, of course 😉

Here is a picture of crazy go-cart course – it doesn’t even show the “32 degree banked bowl”, just the “shear drop”:

Your typical late 1950’s giant monster movie. Huge lizard terrorizing a small western town. Strange accidents occur, people go missing, and we see a lizard and a very large foot. Complete with dark settings and ‘spooky’ music.

As with most of these 1950’s ‘horror’ movies, they do try to write some sort of plot. Bunch of ‘kids’ in this are driving around in ‘hot rods’ and having all sorts of relationship problems. Money, family, girls you name it, they seem to have those problems. These problems have nothing to do with the giant gila monster.

First report of this monster is from a drunk (of course), and he wasn’t in any condition to be believed.

Yes, a typical ‘B’ movie. I had a few laughs watching it. Available on IMDb.

It’s been a while since I wrote a church post, so here we go.  A while back I mentioned the 4th and 5th grade moving into a new room.  The old one was getting kind of cramped and so when the church redesigned the area in the front of the church, adding a mini-café and some TV screens for the live video feed from the worship center, we were able to take the room where the live video feed was.  This room doubles as a junior high room on Sunday afternoons and has a large portion dedicated to games.  There are four TVs for video games, thankfully not used for our group.  There are also two carpet ball tables, four foosball tables (not all in good shape), two air hockey tables, and one of those mini-basketball games.  Now you may have heard of most of what I listed, but you may not have heard of carpet ball.  This is a game that uses ten pool balls plus the cue ball.  each player gets five balls.  The field is long and narrow (about one foot wide by ten feet long) and the object is to knock your opponents balls into his pit (each side has a pit).  The picture above shows a game in progress.  No, the kids aren’t from my church- I just grabbed the pic off the web.  As you can imagine the kids love these games.  Of course it makes the parent’s job harder, peeling them away at the end… 😀

Besides the games, the new room has a divider that cuts off the games during the main time, a projector hanging from the ceiling that broke down this weekend, a better sound system than in the old room, and some couches to sit on during small group time, though some groups leave the room to hold their small groups.  We did this in the old days too when we had this room, before we were moved upstairs when the upstairs was new.  The teaching and worship area is larger as well.  Large enough that some forward-thinking person decided to set up the chairs in three sections.  You see, in the old room we only had room for two sections which kind of became the “boy’s side” and the “girl’s side,” distinctions we never had in mind.  The first day one of the leaders was watching the kids as they claimed a chair and commented on how it was fun watching them try to puzzle out which was the boy’s side and which was the girl’s side.  🙂

The student from Moody Bible Institute who was a leader a few years ago when he was in high school and now came back as a study for his class, taught today at the second service and recorded himself for his class.  He was a little nervous at first I could tell, but he got into it and did a fine job.  One of these days I’ll get a chance to teach in the new room, but the children’s pastor, Steve, wants me to record the kids and make weekly shorts to show at the beginning of class.  I did a little too good of a job on the DVD I made for my cabin… 😛  As soon as he gives me a camera on which to do it, I will, probably in two weeks as I am doing drama next week.  The camera I used at camp really isn’t good enough as it was made to be a still camera first.

The calling idea is working well too.  I have called at least the parents of each member of my small group once so far and I should be giving another call either this or next week.  There is one student who gave me an unreadable number so I haven’t been able to call him yet though and I totally forgot to ask him this weekend about it.  I hope I remember next weekend.

Well, I think that’s enough for now.  Until Tuesday most likely.  Due to small group, Monday is a bad time for me to post.

Ever since Fox network acquired the rights to the World Series, the Treehouse of Terror (aka The Simpson’s Halloween Special) has been pushed to the first weekend of November.  The annual episode is actually three terrifying yarns told to send chills through the hearts of audiences.  Ironically, my favorite to date is the original, particularly the Simpson’s unique spin on Edgar Allen Poe‘s classic, The Raven.  In it, Homer is driven insane by the raven which strangely resembles Bart.  It also featured the first appearance of Kang and Kodos, alien invaders from Rigel VII.  In their first episode, the beings were not bent on world domination; however, Lisa’s suspicions got the better of her and the alien’s left in disgust.

SPOILERS AHEAD: Tonight’s episode featured three new tales.  My favorite was the final homage to another classic Halloween special.  The names were changed to avoid any lawsuits.  Milhouse and Lisa sat in the pumpkin patch awaiting the arrival of The GRAND Pumpkin.  Only in this tale, the creature comes alive after poor Milhouse sheds a tear after he is abandoned by his love.  After witnessing the torture pumpkins go through for Halloween (turning into jack-o-lanterns, etc), the giant gourd vows REVENGE. Most of the other aspects resemble the Peanuts special (even down to Bart’s holey Charlie Brown ghost costume and Ralph Wiggum’s cloud of dust as Pig Pen).  The Grand Pumpkin also featured the annual appearance Kang and Kodos.  And in yet another nod, Marge practiced her trombone which simulated the adult voices of the Peanuts cartoons.  While not as memorable as past years, I never miss a Treehouse of Terror.

I don’t know what kept me from seeing The Incredible Hulk when it was in theatres last summer.  Maybe it was the fear of being disappointed a la the original film.  More probably, it was the fact that I was in a show and was really busy, because I read some reviews and got excellent work of mouth.  However, seeing it on video I was FAR from disappointed.  The sequel had EVERYTHING the first film lacked in abundance.  It was almost a marriage of the comic book and the television series with homages paid to both.

The Incredible is so much closer in tone to the series while at the same time remaining faithful to the comic book.  Bruce Banner is on the run forever searching for the cure to his transformation into the not-so-jolly green giant. However, he may just come to realize that curing it is not necessarily the answer.  Along with him is his former fiance Betty Ross daughter of General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.  General Ross is bent upon capturing Banner and using his alter-ego as a military weapon.  Another important figure derived from the comic series, Major Emil Blonsky (a rather power driven soldier) is introduced.

Yet, what made the movie so special (in my opinion) are the gentle nods to past incarnations of the character.  In most Marvel Superhero movies, Stan Lee (creator of The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, and a whole list of other heroes) makes an appearance.  Lou Ferrigno (the ORIGINAL, original Hulk) has a cameo as a security guard as he did in the first film (and in a very cool vocal appearance).  There is also a nice reference to Bill Bixby (the original Dr. Banner) near the beginning of the film.  There is also a cameo of the original closing theme of the television series (“The Lonely Man”) .  Plus a mention of a certain investigative reporter.

Everything about The Incredible Hulk made it so much better than the first movie.  Everyone involved knew exactly what they were doing and made one monster of a tale.  It even included a cameo from a character  that  foreshadows a follow-up feature film.  So much for fans of the comic as well as those who remember the television series of the 70s-80s.  An Incredible film.

Thursday was an interesting day.  I subbed for the gifted teacher at a middle school.  Fir some reason this teacher has only five classes instead of the usual six.  Two each of 7th and 8th grades, one 6th grade.  Now what happens when the reason for the teacher’s absence is because she took the 8th graders on a field trip?  Five – two = three.  Three classes, and a full days pay.  Wow.  To be fair I did check around for extra work, but none was to be had so I pretty much spent the rest of the day reading my book.  Friday I had a full contingent of classes though.  It was 7th grade math and the teacher was in the building helping with a tour of kids from the local Japanese school (school originally made for Japanese families who would be in the country for a year or two and didn’t want the children’s education disrupted from the normal Japanese school routine).  However, the tour didn’t start until the end of third period, so he was still around for the first classes.  The rest of the classes had me doing no teaching- he set them up as a homework day so they could independently work on a long assignment he gave them.  More book reading… No, not really.  I walked around and helped a bit, and more than once headed up to the board to go over some common problems I was getting a lot of questions about.  Not a bad day.  I will be at their rival school on Monday for 8th grade math.

So, not much excitement, and no- you may not have your minute back that you spent reading this post. 😛

Our trick-or-treating was actually on Thursday, and we had lots of fun.  It’s a darn shame though that we lost our camera along the way, and even after numerous calls to the police station, it hasn’t turned up.  But after trick-or-treating, we went to our friends’ church party, and they took a Halloween picture of our whole family.  I wonder if they’ll sneak it into the newspaper next year to advertise their party.  They did that this year – imagine my surprise when I’m flipping through the paper the other day and there’s a picture of us from Halloween last year, dressed as a fish with my husband the monk beside me holding Pebbles Flintstone.

I just hope there wasn’t anything else too important on that camera.  Also, it was an expensive camera which my husband had won, not to mention the fact that we’re now without a camera.  We had to finish the rest of our Halloween celebrations without taking any pictures.  On tap today was the community Halloween party at the ice rink – there’s no ice in there yet.  Instead, they set up carnival games, bouncy castles, a cardboard box maze, and face painting for the kids.  They have hay (straw) rides through the “haunted” fields, and each kid that attends gets a bag of popcorn and a trick-or-treat bag to put their candy in when they win it from the games.  It’s very cool, and the best part is that it’s all free – including hot dogs and punch for the whole family.  For some reason, this year’s turnout was a bit lacking – less than 1/3 of the people from last year I would estimate.  I guess it’s because they had it after Halloween this year?  I don’t really get why that would scare (haha) people away – a free fun thing for the kids including dinner?  It’d be hard to keep us away!  Since I only have one Halloween picture of the kids and they’re cute, I’m reluctantly sharing the whole family’s Halloween picture, myself included – I love dressing up for Halloween and wanted to get more mileage out of my less-than-$5 80’s costume.  One of the funnest things about dressing up is being creative and finding things that make a costume for a bargain.  Next year I want to be Dorothy from Wizard of Oz, so I’ll have to be on the lookout all year for a dress and shoes I can use.  Here is a list of people and costumes from this year:

Taylor – almost 9 years old – a costume she put together herself involving a dress, a cape, and devil horns
Sammie – 4 yrs – a princess
Disney – 2 yrs – a unicorn
Christopher – almost 3 mos. – a lion cub
Dad – an escaped inmate
Mom – a time traveller from the 80’s

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!