This New-Fangled Halloween

Halloween is coming - and you know what that means. It's the time of year for book burnings. So, what's going up in flames this year? Harry Potter? Porn? The Ultimate Sudoku Challenge? Nope - this year, it's Bibles.

Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan's bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect.

These are perversions of God's Word, the King James Bible...

We will also be burning Satan's popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort, Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham Rick Warren Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham, Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa, The Pope...

Man. It sure is confusing, trying to keep up with the book-burners these days. But that's not all - if you want to see a true Halloween horror, check out this ministry's website, via this page (scroll down for the link - I'm not linking directly to these nuts). It looks like they licked a piece of candy-corn and wrote it on a puddle of melted crayons.

Since the author freely admits that he cannot read Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, how does he know that the King James Version is the only faithful English rendering of the Bible? Easy! The KJV tells him so! Wow. Such logic makes me weak in the knees.

Speaking of weak knees, apparently they don't make ghosts like they used to.

Ouch! That's awkward. I can see this Halloween shaping up to be just peachy. Therefore, I thought I'd rent The Shining again just to revisit a classic piece of horror by my favorite director. Wow! Was I disappointed!



Give me a break. This movie wasn't really that scary at all! What a rip-off. I don't remember it being so...so heartwarming. So now how is one supposed to have a scary Halloween?



Good old Mary Poppins! Yes, as I recall, it was this movie (and not Alien) that made me jump high enough to stand straight up on my theatre seat backrest.

But seriously folks, you can have a great and spooky Halloween without any television. Just go to hulu.com and check out their huluween specials, or my favorite classic shows: "Night Gallery," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," and "Outer Limits." (They also have "Dark Shadows," but it's the 1990s remake, not the original series, which I love - but I have parts of that on DVD.)

When I was very small, I saw part of a TV show that scared the living crap out of me so badly that I had to leave the room - it was worse than the famous third story from "Trilogy of Terror," which I actually could sit through. ("Trilogy of Terror" is not at Hulu, but you can watch it on YouTube.)



This particular program, I remember, had something to do with red, glowing eyes following a man on the street in the dark before attacking him. Then, there was a scene in which a man trapped in a basement watches in helpless terror as a creature with two glowing red eyes reaches its hairy paws into the window to pull the bars open and come in. I remember that, knowing that the show was about to end, I waited outside the room until all the scary noises had died down, then ran in to see the very last scene: a dark puddle of something on the floor, out of which, suddenly, two red eyes opened and glowed.

Not having any idea what the title of this show was, or if it was a TV movie or part of a series, I searched IMDb and Google and YouTube for this show that had terrified me, without any luck, until a few weeks ago I stumbled upon it by pure chance at Hulu! I could not believe that I had finally found that silly show that had made me scream bloody murder! (And no, it didn't have the same effect on me now.)



It was a "Night Gallery" episode, "There Aren't Any More MacBanes," starring a very young and weird Joel Gray, and (coincidence upon coincidence) including a walk-on role by a young Mark Hamill, who was later to cause me so much adolescent-girl-puppy-love-trauma as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. Too funny! It's a small Hollywoorld!

This year, the ghosts are not on the television - the ghost is our television! Television is dead. We can rebuild it; we have the technology. The average ghoul who wants more control over her Halloween viewing now has more choices than ever before. Between Netflix, Hulu, and LikeTelevision, along with all the online world news/entertainment channels to be had, and online mp3s of Old Time Radio shows, this promises to shape up to be a happy (and cheap) Halloween after all.

(What's that, you say? "Twilight Zone"? I didn't forget TZ - I have the entire collection on DVD. I don't even need an internet connection - I can watch it whenever I want! Bwahahahahaha! *evil laughter*)

Shimmies to Ed Brayton at Dispatches, and Book Patrol at Seattlepi, and all my ghosts and ghoulies out there.

P.S. Any "Twin Peaks" fans out there? You can watch seasons one and two for free at IMDb.

All that Glisters is So Hawt!

"Space 1999." Good music, first season; okay music, second season. Silly premise. (Even sillier premise, second season.)

Laughable plot. (Even more laughable plot, second season.)

Inability to make audience (even the twelve-year-old audience that I was) suspend disbelief.

Dissed for its scientific absurdity by Asimov and Ellison.

Sniggered at for its English accents mouthing plodding dialogue from American writers.

New Agey "introspective" psychobabble, first season.

Goofy monsters, second season. (I'm talking about the thing in a costume, not the actors mouthing lines worthy of amateur re-dubbing.)




A script even the lead actor finally threw against the wall in disgust.*

Hawt lead actor.

Nostalgia - I has it.

*From Wikipedia: Members of the Space: 1999 cast became disenchanted with the scripts. Martin Landau: "They changed it because a bunch of American minds got into the act and they decided to do many things they felt were commercial. Fred Freiberger helped in some respects, but, overall, I don't think he helped the show, I think he brought a much more ordinary, mundane approach to the series." (Starlog 108 1986, pp. 44-47). Under the pseudonym of Charles Woodgrove, Fred Freiberger wrote three episodes, The Rules of Luton, The Beta Cloud and Space Warp, known pejoratively as the "Woodgrove Trilogy" for its simplistic approach to storytelling. One particular episode (All That Glisters, which dealt with the threat of an intelligent rock) was of such allegedly deficient quality that it sparked a confrontation between Freiberger and the cast. Landau disliked the story so strongly that he wrote the following notes on his copy of the script: "All the credibility we're building up is totally forsaken in this script!"; "...Story is told poorly!"; and "The character of Koenig takes a terrible beating in this script — We're all shmucks!"

Martin, you were a hawt shmuck.

The Bohemian Survival Guide

I just upped my pre-tax contributions to my tax deferred annuity savings plan. Yes, you read that correctly - upped them.

Whatever your financial situation, I recommend that you cough up even a little money each week and put it away, then hunker down for the long term.

Here I was, taking stock of my monetary worth and thinking that I didn't have much to show for myself at age 42, only to feel the chill up my spine when I added up the figures and realized how much better off I am than what I've been reading about the "average American." (I always put that in quotes because I don't believe it exists, any more than the "mainstream" exists, but don't get me started on that.)

Here I am, clothes on my back from thrift stores and gifts, no furniture except a couple of old pieces from my family, a few momentos, books galore (the only thing I really enjoy buying, aside from notebooks and writing utensils), some tapes, CDs, and DVDs, and accumulating student loans - and liquidity from a $38,000 duplex I bought in the 1990s. Not much, but jumpin' jimminy, I didn't realize how much money I had invested over the years. You know what financial advisors say about, "Don't buy a latte every day, invest that money instead - invest even $3 a day, you'll be better off." You know what? Do it. They're not kidding.

In the 1990s I was making $5 - $6 an hour - and I still socked $35 a week away for my 401K. My financial advisor adored that. The balance blew up with the dot-com bubble and burst. I kicked myself for not playing the market when I knew that was going to happen, but I grit my teeth and rolled it into another account, forgot about it, got my first well paying job, and continued to make contributions to other accounts as I changed employers several times. Now that I've added it all together, I've realized that all those stories about little old ladies who never made that much yet saved a million dollars aren't so far-fetched after all. I haven't saved a million, but I don't see why I can't - and I don't see why anybody else can't, either.

Invest your money. I don't know how to say this strongly enough. Here I was, trying so hard not to succumb to the messages from the media to have nice things, to buy nice furniture, expensive clothes, etc., as if those things were some sort of investment. I know better and yet those messages were working on me, making me feel bad for having second-hand furniture that became threadbare and misshapen, for not living up to the standard of friends and co-workers, for having a messy, cramped house strewn with books and papers, for picking up pennies on the street and keeping them in a jar (people literally toss pennies out of their pockets!), for scanning the newspaper for something cheap or free to do over the weekend, for working in the liberal arts where the pay is low.

Now I realize what I was not spending my money on - and that those things are not really worth having. What was worth having? Free things - like trips to the museum, the Sinfonia, discounted tickets to plays (because I work in the liberal arts), bike rides, libraries, watching "Mystery" on PBS, going to the beach, UTorrent movies, neighborhood Spanish lessons, dinner parties, good books, and participating in an archaeological dig. These were worth doing. In fact, these have been invaluable experiences, nothing that money could buy.

I'm still in debt - one of my goals is to completely become completely debt-free. However, going into debt for higher education, a new laptop (I made my old one last twelve years), and a few life-changing trips abroad were decisions that I don't regret making, because they opened up opportunities for me. I've been living like a beatnik but saving like a miser and even when I wasn't going to school I was studying a foreign language (French, Arabic, and Spanish) and reading about science - and now I see the benefits from this.

So here's how I did it:

-Again, invest your money. Sock away something, it doesn't matter how much - but as much as you can. Make coffee in the morning, and bring your lunch to work. If your employer offers you matching funds, take it!

-Cook from scratch as much as possible. You save more money, eat healthier, and get more exercise (cooking is work) this way. I usually cook in bulk during the weekend, and have leftovers during the week.

-Turn off the television. TV only makes you feel bad about yourself - and paranoid about "crime." It only exists to make you want to buy things to lessen your fear/shame/guilt. If you do watch television, select your programs carefully, and mute all of the commercials.

-Spend as cheaply on furniture as possible. I got my stuff from the flipping alley - there was nothing wrong with it. I can't believe what people throw away. When it rips or the cat scratches it, throw a nice sheet or blanket over it. When it breaks, repair it or throw it out and find another cheap piece. It's just furniture.

-Have a public area and a private area in your home - don't let visitors pressure you into giving them the "house tour." What your bedroom looks like is none of their business. This is a new phenomenon and frankly, it disgusts me. (There was no way I would have given the "house tour" to anyone when we were sleeping on a futon on the floor next to the Franklin stove during the winter.)

-Invest in your continuing education. Not only for the "piece of paper," but for the contacts you make and the new situations in which you will find yourself. The higher your educational level, the more you will venture out of the classroom (and away from these infernal evo-creo "debates") and into open-ended situations in which you'll encounter the unknown. You very quickly find out what works and what does not, what is true and what is not, who is worth listening to and who is not, when you need to learn and do research on your feet.

-Turn down the temperature and wear layers during the winter. I used to close up all but the front room in the upstairs of my old house. If I was cold I would go to the library or a coffee shop to enjoy the rare latte I wasn't having every morning anymore.

-Not everyone can live without a car, but everyone can go on a car diet. If you look at driving a car as somewhat like eating, and ask yourself if you need to put on the calories from driving that you could have burned while walking, it's not such a foreign idea.

-Give to charities that you believe in. That old saw about “what goes around comes around” is true, too. And write your legislators to fund the programs that we need in this country, before the robber barons take over completely. Neutral, universally good organizations like the Boys and Girls Club didn’t receive their funding in recent years because it’s all going to “faith-based initiatives” who are mismanaging the largess they’ve suddenly received, because they don't know any better.

-And since you're reading this, it should go without saying that you never, never, never give a red cent to "prosperity preachers." Sure path to failure, folks. If there is any “Darwinian conspiracy” it’s those prosperity gospel hucksters, and they know it.

(Shimmies to Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

We're a Happy Bunch

Photo: Grant Hermanson

;-) But don't worry, my ebullient spirit reasserted itself on Atheist Talk when I started yakking about Dawkins' books.

Kristine: Blah blah, blahblahblah! Blah! Blahblahblahblahblah...

Host: Thank you, Kristine, now I only have 20 seconds to report on my book. Blah! Thank you, everyone!

Just kidding. We have a fun time at Atheist Talk. (This particular podcast is not up yet.)