And my husband is on the bandwagon too.  My husband is a clearance maniac – he loves finding good deals on stuff that’s been marked down from its original price.  He found he especially loved the clearance deals at the Defiance Ohio Walmart, which is not too far from us.  But yesterday, that changed…

It turns out that the Defiance Walmart, which is only a few months old, by the way, changed their clearance prices overnight!  They used to have some really good discounts, and it was fun to go there and try to find them.  But now, they haven’t just changed the way they mark stuff down; they’ve taken actual clearance items that were already marked down and marked them back up!
Case in point:  My husband had a Plantronics Headset that he bought last week for $5.  It broke, so he was going to return it, but he forgot it at home.  No problem, he thought, I’ll just buy a new one for $5 and return the old one another time.  WRONG – unless he wanted to spend $21 on the new one!  That’s right, they took a $5 clearance item and marked it up to $21 – more than quadruple the price!!!  So he asked the lady in electronics if they raised their clearance prices, and she said, “I’m not going to lie to you.  We did raise the prices.  They took away our clearance budget.”  Whatever that means.  Not something I, the consumer, should be concerned with…  except that they took all the fun out of clearance shopping at Walmart!  And of course the people at customer service couldn’t help us return our headset since we didn’t have the broken one with us…  their suggestion?  Buy a new one for $21, then return the broken one later for $5 – thanks but no thanks!  Here are some other examples of clearance items that they re-inflated: ATI Video Card from $50 to $115, Panasonic Cordless Phone from $30 to $69, and a US Robotics SkypePhone from $5 to $16.  Each of these items had at least a 100% increase in price.  I understand that the economy sucks and inflation and blah, blah, but I think Walmart should have kept these items on the clearance where they had them; then started their new clearance policy with new clearance items.  I mean, come on, is Walmart really that worried about going broke?

The bottom line is, Walmart keeps finding ways to take away whatever fun is left in shopping.  First it was by playing their little pricing games that get us to spend more and close down their competition, and now they’ve taken away their good clearance deals.  Well, maybe their policies will bite them in the you-know-what come Christimas time when they don’t have any room on their shelves for the new Christmas products because no one wants to touch their crappy clearance items at their not-so-clearance prices!

Hmm, I couldn’t figure out how to make one of the R’s in Mirrors backward like they do for the movie title, but anyway, we saw the movie Mirrors with Keifer Sutherland yesterday.  It was between Mirrors, Tropic Thunder, and The Rocker.  We eliminated The Rocker from the selection because it didn’t look or sound very good, and the only reason we were interested in seeing it is because it stars Rainn Wilson, none other than the hilarious character Dwight Shrute on our favorite show, The Office.  We ended up going with Mirrors over Tropic Thunder because we were at the nice theater, and we figured a horror movie would give us more bang for our buck so to speak – take advantage of the larger screen and the nicer sound.

Mirrors is kind of lengthy for a horror film; it runs about 2 hours.  It didn’t drag for me at all, well, maybe a little, but only because baby Christopher decided to poopie during the movie and he needed his diaper changed.  So I was like, when is this going to be over so I can change him because I don’t want to miss the movie.  It was a cool premise: Keifer Sutherland plays an NYPD cop who accidently shot and killed another cop, so he still has some psychological bruises and can no longer be a cop.  He gets a job as a security guard at an abandoned department store that had had a fire and burned – right up my alley; I really like abandoned buildings, defunct amusement parks, etc.  The department store was cool looking, and throughout the movie, there were lots of shots of the outside as well as the inside.  I kept wondering if it was an actual building they used for filming or rather a specially built facade…  But anyway, the department store is haunted and the haunting ghoul uses mirrors to do its haunting and murdering.  There is actually more to the plot, but I don’t want to risk spilling any spoilers because it was a decent horror movie and worth seeing.  We were alone in the theater, and when my husband left to go to the bathroom, I was pretty creeped out, so I’d say it was spookily successful.  Before we saw the movie, I had read that the director, Alexandre Aja, is one of a group of directors a horror movie magazine called, “The Splat Pack” for their affinity for blood and gore.  The movie was not without blood and gore, but it was not over-used; something that gets on my nerves with many modern horror films – see #’s 1,2, and 5 on my movie stinker list – (The Devil’s Rejects, Doomsday, and The Fun Park) – all terrible movies showcasing the over-usage of gore.

If you like horror movies, Mirrors is worth a try.  We liked it and were entertained, despite it having a few obvious plot holes…  but then again, what horror movie doesn’t have plot holes?

It seems that the county fair just to our south will be getting some national attention. Chris Cuomo, who is the news anchor for ABCs morning program “Good Morning America,” will be making an appearance at the Defiance County fair on Thursday August 21. While there, he will be taping a segment presumably on the Tractor Pulls or maybe it is to report on the sister cities Hicksville, OH and Hicksville, N. Y. But, here is the full article for your enjoyment.

With the exception of Thinner, I’ve liked most of the Stephen King movies I’ve seen.  My favorite is Storm of the Century, a Prime-Time Emmy Award winning made-for-tv mini-series that aired in 1999.  Every winter when a big blizzard is predicted in our corner of Ohio, we plan on being snowed in watching our Storm of the Century dvd.  It never happens though; I think it has to do with trying to watch a 240 minute movie that’s not for kids when we have 4 of them.  But anyway, if we ever get time to watch Storm of the Century in the near future, I’ll definitely blog more about it – it’s awesome!

One of Stephen King’s lesser known films, Sleepwalkers, is a movie I saw as a teenager.  I liked it back then, so when I happened to see the dvd on the library’s shelf the other day, that’s what I quickly picked up since I was in a hurry.  My husband and I watched it the other night, and we both had the same opinion.  A fun little horror film, nothing great but still entertaining.  It is Stephen King-creepy, as only he can do, and much of the movie’s creepiness has to do with the mother-son relationship; I won’t go into detail except to say that it’s extremely disturbing.  Brian Krause and Alice Krige play the mother and son monsters who need to feed on a human virgin in order to survive.  They morph into strange cat-like creatures, which is even more strange because cats are drawn to their house, yet deadly to the monsters at the same time.  The special effects are extremely cheesy by today’s standards and even laughable, but sometimes I’m a sucker for that kind of thing and really enjoy bad special effects – my favorite example of this is Jaws 3-D.

While we’re on the subject of Stephen King, as I mentioned, I like most of his movies that I’ve seen.  I tried to read the book Carrie a really long time ago, but I found it hard to follow, either because I was a teen or because of the religious ramblings inserted throughout the book which were done in such a way that it’s hard to follow because it’s depicting Carrie’s mother’s craziness.  But anyway, Stephen King is very talented, of course.  He has a gift of making movies extremely creepy without stooping as low as many of today’s horror movies do with the constant blood and gore.

An interesting event took place in his life that almost reads like one of his novels, well, actually it does since he wrote about it.  On June 19, 1999, his life was changed forever when he was hit by a car while walking down a Maine road.  There are two creepy coincidences about this incident.  First, earlier that year, King had finished most of From a Buick 8, a novel in which a character dies after getting struck by a car.  Second, the driver of the car, Bryan Smith, who was only 43, was found dead in his trailer just over a year later of an accidental overdose.  He was found dead on Stephen King’s birthday, September 21.  The accident was inspiration for the Dark Tower series of books, and King is in talks with Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams to do an adaption of the series.  Since I’m a fan of Lost and Stephen King, that might be something I’ll have to check out.  Until then, I’ll probably be planning another snowy viewing of Storm of the Century this winter that won’t come to fruition.

Nanu, Nanu…Tonight, I was treated to a blast from my childhood. There was a mini-marathon of the series that launched the career of Robin Williams. Mork & Mindy was one of several series that spun off of Happy Days. Mork is an alien from the planet Ork who was sent to Earth to observe the primitive inhabitants and make weekly reports to his boss, Orson. The alien is taken in by a young single woman (played by Pam Dawber) and as one would suspect, their acquaintance eventually blossomed and Mork laid an egg that produced a bouncing baby boy who looked like a 50-something Earthling (Orkans age in reverse) named Mearth (appropriately enough). One of Mr. Williams’ heroes, Jonathan Winters, played the rather large bundle of joy.

One of the episodes in the marathon involved Mork’s encounter with a bully. Although he came from a world that had abolished violence and embraced peace, the alien ingeniously dealt with the bully by traveling inter-dimensionally and moved so fast that the combatant totally missed and embarrassed himself completely. Shazbot, indeed!

There were also a number of guest appearances by other actors on the verge of stardom. David Letterman played a motivational speaker named Elsworth(?). Unfortunately, his is the only one I can remember. Anyone want to help on other appearances?

So, it was kind of nice to revisit one of my childhood favorites.

I’ve always been a big fan of Halloween and Haunted Houses, so when our little theater started to look into doing something like this, I jumped at the chance. The very first “Haunted House” I went to was actually someone’s house. Just for Halloween they would bring in a real casket, and the owner of the house was dressed as Dracula. The candy dish was place on his chest. Every so often he would move to grab a kid. Sent you right through the roof. Of course you wanted to be that kid he moved on because his wife (a witch) would give you an extra candy bar.

Now on to other haunted houses and Halloween. Believe it or not, there are people who don’t like haunted houses. For some it has everything to do with their religion. Now, as long as they aren’t out there preventing my fun, my hat is off to these folks. To take a stand, because of their moral views, counter to the societal views is laudable. Others are simply frightened too much by them, and they don’t enjoy it. Nothing wrong with that either.

There is a third group. They may or may not belong to either of the two other groups. People who have experienced a loss of someone close (spouse, sibling, parent) may not like the idea of having fun with death. While I’ve lost a brother and both parents, the loss of my wife made me see this more. The other deaths could be explained away (didn’t help the grief, but the logic was there). My wife’s death was something out of the blue. Never saw it coming. Generally her family had very long life spans. I could then see how people would be upset and troubled with the fundamental ideas behind Halloween and Haunted Houses. The gravestones, skeletons, zombies, ghouls and ghost can all bring up some troubling memories. I can see where that would really change a person’s view on the whole Halloween event. And that doesn’t even go into the sight of seeing something in a Halloween display that reminds you of your loved one’s death. That is very troubling.

So I guess because of this, I do draw a few lines. I don’t like, and won’t go to a haunted house based on a hospital. I don’t like haunted houses with a lot of suicide themes. There are other things that can be just as scary that don’t touch these areas. It just takes a bit of insight.

Of course, even after my wife’s death, I couldn’t completely give up on Halloween, it was one of her favorite holidays. I can have fond memories of past Halloweens by carrying on the celebration of the day in the future.

Happy Haunting…

Tonight at our weekly haunted house production meeting, those of us who ventured  to Ghostly Manor discussed our satisfaction with the experience and evaluated what we thought could be done with our fright fest.  We were advised to check the website for another well-reviewed house of horror in Ohio, just considerably farther than Sandusky.  It seems that a location just east of Columbus in Pataskala, Dead Acres is a high ranking house dealing in the macabre.  On its website, it has a list of warnings that apparently should be heeded.  For instance, if you are in the least bit skeptical about whether or not to bring your children, you should LEAVE THEM BEHIND.  There is an addendum that states that the actors involved may occasionally come into direct contact with the visitors (something that our group was warned against doing) but that they should not try to become aggressive in return.  One aspect of this house that caught my eye is the haunted hospital wing.  So, as the month of ghoulish happenings, creepy things that go bump in the night, and other horrifying spectacles approaches, be sure to visit your area house of horror.

Today is the first day back to school (already?!?), and it’s really quiet around here.  I guess my oldest two are my loudest two, and we have reduced the traffic in the house by 50% since half the kids are now at school during the day.  Thank goodness for school; I’m enjoying myself already.  So far, I’ve gotten two loads of laundry done – folded, put away and everything, and I have somehow also found the time today to put away most of the clutter that’s been haunting our dining room table for the last week and a half.  I even got to work on my e-book a little bit, and it’s not even 1 o’clock!  And, the kids at school are learning stuff, getting exercise, and socailizing with their friends; they’re not vegged out in front of the tv or outside fighting in the wading pool.  Everyone wins!

While the oldest 2 kids are in school, I also have time to focus on my toddler, Disney, while her baby brother is napping.  Today, I got to sit on the floor and play puzzles with her; something we haven’t done together in months, almost a year because of my pregnancy and c-section.  And she was down for her nap by 12:30, which not only means some quality time together for me and baby Christopher, but also that my toddler should be to bed at a decent hour tonight.  Win-win!  While I was on the floor playing with my daughter, I was getting up to tend to the laundry and whatnot.  My daughter was following me around the house, and this is where my day becomes challenging – trying to keep our clingy almost 2-year-old out of my husband’s home office so he can work.  The home office isn’t  a room where he could close the door and utilize the out-of-sight-out-of-mind tactic.  The office is on the landing on our second floor, so if my toddler begins to head up the stairs or even looks up the stairs, she sees her best friend, Daddy, and it’s over.  She tantrums until he holds her, and he can’t get any work done.  Today she got upstairs and in the clutches of Daddy, so when I chased her down, of course she was upset.  But I used one of my favorite child-rearing techniques: redirection.  I taught her how to clean the toothpaste off the kids’ bathroom counter, which she happily did.  We went downstairs for a popsicle, puzzles, and Barney, and all was forgotten.  Wow.  I had totally forgotten about the magic of the redirection technique because the last 2-year-old I had in the house was our “spirited” child, Samantha.  Sammie was never re-directable.  She has always been so strong-willed that it’s literally impossible to re-direct the kid, let alone being able to trick her into helping around the house.  To this day, she will fight for her cause, whatever it may be, until she gets what she wants or she passes out.  And now that she’s older (she’s 4), the crying doesn’t last as long, but she will remember what it is she wanted and bring it up throughout the day (or week or month) until she gets it.  So I am actually enjoying Disney’s terrible twos a little bit – it’s so refreshing to have a kid who listens.  I know, she’s not yet 2 and things could get worse – so much worse.  But I’ve been there, done that, and after what Sammie put us through, no wonder Disney seems like a breeze.  And even if she does get completely crazy, soon she’ll be old enough to go to school, and we’ll start the terrible twos all over again with Christopher.  After 3 tantruming girls in their terrible twos, I’m curious to see what a boy will be like.  Probably no big deal, at least compared to Sammie 🙂

Tonight, I rented the DVD of a musical I have heard so much about but have never had the opportunity to see in any form. Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece, Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has all the makings of not musical theatre but an operatic tragedy. It tells the tale of a barber, Benjamin Barker, who was wrongfully accused of a crime and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The evil Judge Turpin was in love with Benjamin’s wife Lucy and had the barber put away so he could have the woman to himself.

As the movie opens, Benjamin (who has assumed the identity of Sweeney Todd) returns to Victorian era London aboard a sailing ship upon which he meets the young Anthony. While the title character was away, his daughter Johanna became the ward of the sadistic judge. Sweeney opens a new barber shop above the pie shop of one Mrs. Lovett who is known around the city for making “The Worst Pies in London.” It is in this barber shop where Mr. Todd plots to take his revenge against the man who sent him away while helping to keep Mrs. Lovett’s business thriving.

The aforementioned tragic character, the young lovers, and in particular the score itself is much more reminiscent of opera. The dark tones set by the entire piece is unlike most light musical theatre. In fact, audiences must be warned of the large displays of blood…. definitely not the “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens” type of show. However, for those who can look beyond the obvious, what is left is well worth watching. Sondheim composed not only the music but the lyrics to some of his most beautiful songs in Sweeney Todd. “Pretty Woman“,”Not While I’m Around “, and “Johanna ” (one of my favorite Sondheim pieces) are three of the memorable tunes.

As for the marquee attraction, Johnny Depp who has had a looong standing cinematic relationship with director Tim Burton, was adequate in the role. His singing is better suited for a rock band then a musical stage production. Helena Bonham Carter had some of the more difficult songs to sing as Mrs. Lovett (who one could say is perhaps as villainous as anyone in the show). I was also pleased with the voice of Jamie Campbell Bower as Anthony. In perhaps the closest moment of comic relief, Sacha Baron Cohan plays a scam artist named Pirelli who knows something of Sweeney’s past (those of you who know me KNEW I had to mention this bit that looks like a lot of fun).

Would I recommend this musical to everyone? Definitely not! As I said before, if you can look beyond the the blood, what is left is one of the best shows Sondheim has yet created. Sometime, I have been promised to watch a video of a stage performance with Angela Lansbury (who was the original Broadway Mrs. Lovett).

Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (Vocal Selections) Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (1930-). Songbook for voice and piano. 44 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing. (AP.VAL2020A) See more info…