Nerdy Ramblings of a Special Soul

Profilers

2012-02-07T23:01:00.000-07:00

So, for my birthday in September, I received a Nook Color from my parents. It's a fantastic device, by the way. I now recommend eReaders to everyone I know.

Anyway, the first thing I did was start looking at things in the vein of psychology--specifically criminal psychology. It's something that has always fascinated me and I remember wanting to do it when I was younger, but the years have slipped away. I'm not old, but I feel old (28-years-old).

I've come to really admire the following: Roger Depue, Roy Hazelwood and John Douglas. These three men were amoung the group of firsts coming out of the tyrannic reign of Mr. Hoover in the FBI, breaking into the scene of truly professional, legally sound criminal profiling.

One thing that I noticed with their writing is that their books show their personalities very well.

Roger Depue, who used to be the supervisor of the other two, writes in a very warm and friendly manner, but is very straight-shooting about his perspective. Roy Hazelwood is incredibly informative and intelligent, but very clinical in his delivery. He is professional but clearly is eager to share his experiences.

John Douglas's books have stayed with me, however, because he's an incredibly passionate victims' rights activist. They all are for the rights of the victims (as there are understandably many in any atrocious crime), but Mr. Douglas is passionate and downright angry about his views. It reflects his no-nonsene attitude, but his deep understanding and empathy of the pains people live through when rape, torture or murder happen in their lives, to those they love.

I would never recommend any of their books if you cannot handle narrated descriptions of crime scenes. But I feel as though Mr. Douglas's books, particularly Obession, his 1998 novel that speaks extensively about and for victims, are a good read for anyone not only interested in profilers, but in how to deal with trauma and victimization. If you've ever found yourself telling a victim close to you to 'move on', you may not enjoy the harsh slap that he delivers in this book, but I think it's a good way to help you look from a different point of view.

Likewise, if you yourself are a victim, I think Obsession is a good book for you to read to know you're not alone and there are people out there that can help you without telling you to move on when you're nowhere near ready.

But again, he is writing--as are Mr. Hazelwood (who actually explores the cases I've always been most horrified by, but what made me interested in the subject at all) and Mr. Depue--to tell stories of their careers. So there will be tales about cases in the past. So this is definitely a cautionary recommendation.

(Also, because it will forever need to be said, John Douglas is said to be the inspiration for character Jack Crawford from Silence of the Lambs.)

Music: E.S. Posthumus

2011-06-29T00:09:00.000-06:00

Have you ever heard the music in a movie trailer that sounded particularly epic, or in a television show that was equally so? Ever want to know where it came from?

Well, a lot of that music comes from the marvelous band E.S. Posthumus (or ES Posthumus).

I was once asked about the kind of music I was listening to on my iPod at work, and saying this name confused my co-worker. So the best way for me to classify it for him was to call it "EPIC MUSIC" (I spoke in capslock too). He thought it sounded like a bunch of noise, but ignore him and listen to me.

Or rather, listen to these:

UNSTOPPABLE

This is the music you will hear in the trailer for the Sherlock Holmes movie staring ~~Tony Stark~~ Robert Downey Jr.. It was also used for some promo commercials for the NFL.
NARA

As it says, it was the opening theme to the crime show "Cold Case". I also recently heard it playing on A&E's show 'Hoarders'.
ARISE

I am trying to think of other examples, but I know for sure this was utilized during BBC's Top Gear UK, when Richard Hammond was reviewing the Lamborghini Murcielago in the same episode they were in a challenge for the best cars for seventeen year olds.

I highly recommend investing some money into this group. They have softer music, and music with lyrics. Their tracks will help inspire a creative mind and get you in the mood to do something productive with your day.

My personal favorites are those listed above, along with Selisona Pi from their Cartographer album. Give it a shot! You may find yourself going 'o hay i know that one' when taking the time to listen in the car.

Review&Spoilers: The Human Centipede: First Sequence (2009)

2011-06-27T23:08:00.002-06:00

Oh my God. It's been about three days, and I'm still attempting to comprehend what I've just seen.

The Human Centipede (2009) apparently started as some sort of joke between friends regarding their thoughts on how criminals, namely pedophiles, should have their mouths sewn to the rear end chute of an overweight truck driver. Somewhere between that joke and the movie itself, the director decided this was the perfect premise of a new and original horror film. And it is, but wow.

***** SPOILERS W/ SCREENCAPS AHEAD (may be NSFW) *****

The following overly-verbose review of the events in the movie will include personal opinions and gripes. It will also be detailed regarding the events of the movie, but will not be exact, parts missing or a matter of interpretation.

The movie starts with us meeting the main antagonist, Dr. Josef Heiter, in a car, apparently mourning over some pictures of his dogs. Due to the budget and possibly the intent to not fully prepare the viewer for what was to come, you see three rottweilers standing in a row, and honestly it just looks like they're sniffing each other's butts. If you've owned dogs, you know that they are prone to this butt-sniffing train without the assistance of modern science.

As he sits and ;.;s over this picture, a semi-truck (or lorry if we're talking British) pulls up behind him and a fairly large man bolts out with a roll of toilet paper. He goes dashing across this overgrown area while the antagonist grabs a "gun" and runs out after him. The motions are so deliberate, you sit convinced that he just knew that this particular driver was going to need to take a dump right at that moment, in that very place. He aims as the guy is frantically squatting by a wall, and as the "gun" fires, it breaks scene.

After this, we're introduced to Lindsay and Jenny. Lindsay and Jenny are two American girls who are traveling through Europe for fun. They're preparing for a night out with some hot German waiter, and through their superb acting skills, we learn the aforementioned who they are, where they are, where they're going and the fact that they xoxoxoxo their other friend who called and racked up their phone bill by making them roam on their cell phone.

After this, the girls head off in a rental car, giving the big impression that they have their hands deep in their parents' pockets as it becomes incredibly clear very early on that Lindsay and Jenny are incompetent fools. They are not fit for normal, working class society. They get lost pretty quick, before suffering a flat tire in the middle of a German wasteland of trees and animals and... general nature.

It's during this scene that you really start to hate these two. Or at least become really annoyed with them. Their piercing shrieks at the flat and the lack of cell service (of which they believe should be available in all parts of the world always) wear thin on your soul. As they sit in the car, defeated by a flat tire, a car pulls up beside them. Reluctantly, Lindsay rolls down the window at Jenny's urgings, and attempt to communicate with the large, sweaty German man in the other car that is puffing on a cigar and speaking to them in the language of the land. As every American knows, when someone can't speak English, if you speak it louder and slower, they will eventually understand you. Lindsay and Jenny try this, but when it seems that the man is just too old, Jenny tries to decrypt what the man is saying with her German-to-English dictionary.

Discovering the man said something akin to 'fucking', Lindsay quickly rolls up the window and proceeds to avoid eye contact with the man as she and Jenny whine in panic. Looking over once, he wiggles his tongue at Lindsay, but eventually the man gets tired of trying to lure these hot American girls into his debonair 70-year-old pants and drives off.

The girls fight it out, conceding that neither one of them knows how tires work or how to change them, and Lindsay convinces the whining Jenny to get out with her and walk for help. This ends well, especially when Jenny decides she has had enough of the wilderness and rain. She crosses her arms, stomps her feet, and begins screaming that SHE'S NOT MOVING, because Lindsay can't make her. Five-year-olds are hard work. While she's fitting, Lindsay notices lights up ahead and says she thinks she sees a house and beckons for Jenny as she heads that way. Jenny says, "Somehow, I don't believe you!" but follows her anyway.

After they finally figure out what qualifies as the front of the house (I'm not joking), Dr. Josef Heiter answers the door. Since we already know he's no good, we find ourselves going :|. There are so many warning bells that they shouldn't stay there, such as when he asks them if they're alone, if they're related, but they don't seem to want to listen to their gut instincts and accept a drink of water from him. The man nearly has an orgasm on the couch across from them when they begin to feel the effects of the date rape drug that he slipped in their water. My friend put it best when we were watching it: “Yes, take the open glass of water from that creepy stranger.”

When the girls awake, they find themselves in some sort of hospital-like room, on hospital beds with IV drips in their arms. They’re next to one another, with Jenny between Lindsay and the trucker from the beginning of the movie. Heiter enters and explains that the trucker isn’t a match, and so he’s going to have to kill him. I’m assuming that he means that regarding genetics, the girls match one another whereas the trucker does not, and for his plan, the last thing he wants is something to reject. So, he euthanizes the guy. The girls freak out accordingly.

Heiter then acquires a young man named Katsuro, who only speaks Japanese. He’s placed in the trucker’s spot, and at this point the movie starts to focus a little more tightly on Lindsay. I’m still not sure why, when we don’t know anything about Lindsay beyond that she’s a cute American girl who was on vacay in Europe when this went down with her idkbffJenny. But get used to it.

Busting out the most epic overhead slide presentation ever, Heiter explains his plans.


Now, listen up, class.

I have the BEST IDEA. Like, you have no clue.

First!!! Imma cut your knees so you can still use them, but only to crawl around! Yay being a baby forever.

Next, we're going to make your mouths and butts fit together like round pegs in round holes. LOL

I know, there's the issue of slipping off each other, but I have that part covered too. Introducing butt flaps.

Butt flaps go here. I have a brand new staple gun for this one. Half price at Wal-Mart.

INSERT INTO HOLE

ZIP!

It's a trainy-train! God, I'm awesome.

After this, the movie cuts to Heiter preparing to put them under anesthesia. After knocking out Katsuro, he moves to knock Jenny out. Apparently at a point of blocking out their whimpers and whines, he is completely oblivious when Lindsay breaks out of her binds and charges for the door. And Lindsay, so freaked out and eager to run like hell, forgets that she has that IV drip in her arm. The needle tears her arm wide open as she runs, and despite the obvious pain, Lindsay still makes a run for it.

This is the first time that I know I started caring for Lindsay and wanted her to escape. If only to spare me for the inevitable sight that I would not be able to unsee later.

During the chase, Lindsay ends up falling into Heiter’s indoor pool. This proves hilarious as he’s chasing her with a gun and she apparently thinks that holding her breath under the water will keep him away forever, forgetting that she needs air eventually. Heiter decides to activate the automatic pool cover, but just as it’s about to seal up over Lindsay, the power in the house dies. He charmingly shouts, “Sorry~” at the water, and frolics off to fix the problem.

This is when Lindsay makes two huge mistakes. People can argue it’s just that she’s an idiot, or that it was a lack of proper scripting. To be kind to the character, we’ll blame the adrenaline rush and blood loss combination for her two poor choices.

POOR CHOICE #1: Lindsay saw the same presentation we did, and understands that Heiter can’t do anything unless he has all three parts. Despite this, she makes the choice to run down to the basement lab and start dragging her sedated idkbff all the way upstairs and out a window in the master bedroom that Heiter broke during their chase.

POOR CHOICE #2: Right by the lab entry door, there is a phone on the wall. Now, based on later events, it can be argued that it’s only a phone that reaches the intercom of the front door. But at no point did Lindsay see this, so she had no way of knowing. She should have tried the phone. Landline phones work even when the power is out.

Anyway.

Somehow, Lindsay became Superwoman and managed to actually get Jenny out of bed, out of the room, up the stairs, through the house, to the master bedroom, out the window and across the lawn before getting hit with a tranquilizer dart by Heiter from behind. She lost the battle. She would lose the war.

The surgery itself is shown only in part. We see teeth pulled and some buttocks cut open. We see Heiter walk off and mope some places about his dog, and then afterwards we see him replace the window in his bedroom.

After this, we’re introduced to the human centipede he created. The movie actually handles this very well.

http://i921.photobucket.com/albums/ad57/terminalsonata/vlcsnap-2011-06-27-21h44m29s247.png Click that link to get the picture. It’s NSFW, but not due to any explicit gore or nudity. There is nudity and oddity though.

After observing his human centipede, Heiter takes to training and maintaining the three (Katsuro as the ‘head’, Lindsay as the ‘middle’, and Jenny as the ‘tail’) like a single entity and a pet. He tries to train them to do tricks, he makes Katsuro eat at his feet, at the dinner table, from a dog dish. They’re placed in a cage at night for sleep. When the ‘centipede’ acts out of line, he does render physical punishment with a horse riding crop. Punishment is severe and not just a maybe, as Katsuro does go as far as biting Heiter’s leg during dinner.

An unknown amount of time passes, and we see Heiter evaluating their healing processes. While Katsuro and Lindsay are healthy, Jenny is found to be suffering from a severe infection and will die. Presumably without treatment, though Heiter just tells the other two that he’s going to need to sever them from Jenny and then obtain a new ‘tail’. As luck would have it, that’s when two detectives show up on his doorstep and he leaves them on the exam table to speak upstairs with the detectives.

Being a lunatic, it seems that Heiter immediately sees the detectives as a gift to drug, kidnap and test for compatibility. 8| So, he offers them water as they ask his creepy ass questions about the two missing American girls. They accept, and being no smarter than the girls, they accept an open glass that has been RUFIE’D. The one drinks like a good boy, the other not so much. And after they leave, they note the bizarre (even outright explosive) behavior he exhibited during the conversation and go to handle being allowed to come back to search the premises.

Meanwhile, Heiter goes down to check out his centipede, and gets a scalpel to the foot and leg by Katsuro. After getting him on the ground and out of the way, the three victims make way up the stairs and for the master bedroom since Lindsay believes the window to still be broken there.

Summarizing the climax quickly as I’ve gone on long enough!!: the detectives do come back and under up dead, killed by Heiter and falling into his pool. Heiter ends up dead, shot through the head before the last detective falls into the water with his rufie’d and dead partner. Katsuro is dead after cutting his own throat rather than to meet his end at Heiter’s hands.

Jenny dies from her illness while holding Lindsay’s hand. Lindsay is then left there, anchored in front and back by corpses, and left in ambiguity as the camera pans up to the sky.

So, yes. The Human Centipede is a proper horror film with enough unexpected twists that it’ll keep it interesting. It lacks the elements that drive a viewer to pity and yearn for the survival of the characters, and has areas where it could have been improved by dialogue or action to simply make the drama and anxiety higher. I appreciate the fact that we’re left with not seeing the entirety of the connections between each person that made up the centipede, giving room to imagine it.

Which is why, reading about the plans for the second movie is bothering me. Allegedly, the director is going to make up for all the small nuances he used in the first by making it so graphic that the BBFC banned it over in the United Kingdom, and it’s not even ready for launch yet! :|

Anyway, there you go. The Human Centipede as I saw it.

Bug War

2011-05-21T04:07:00.001-06:00

I live in a pretty small town. Bugs are a pretty huge constant here. We have farm animals and massive irrigation ditches, and it's kind of amusing. I'm pretty phobic of bugs. That is to say, I'm incredibly phobic of bugs. I can't manage to step on them 95% of the time because I freak out. Coincidentally, I freak out less when I'm alone, versus with friends or family.

Anyway, today, I had my nails done and I had almost an hour and a half to spare before an appointment for a facial. So, I decided to drive around our little, desolate town. It was important anyway, because my Chevy has been an absolute disaster. Every year as spring rolls around, it screws up when I have to start periodically activating the air conditioner. To do this test, I headed out to an area with fields and houses every mile or so. The speed limit was 50mph, and I had the windows rolled halfway down because the damage was done, the A/C didn't need to be on for me to figure out things were not working.

As I'm cruising along, actually with the intent to weed back around to head to downtown (all two blocks of it), I heard a soft thump against the window at my side. Something in my head realized what was happening. It was confirmed, as a spike of pain shot through my back, starting at my shoulder blade. I knew what was going on. A bee had managed to get sucked into my car and landed between my back and the car. So I did the most logical thing, and that was to start flinging myself back against the seat to kill the bitch. Nevermind that a bee dies after the initial sting.

A flat off-road area came near and I skidded off onto it and threw open my door and tossed the seatbelt as I was still firmly pressed against the seat, determined to at least suffocate it. A moment was taken to brace myself for whatever hideous, bug-guts-everywhere scene I would face, along with the probability that I didn't kill it, it hadn't died, and things would get ugly.

Flailing from the car, I started ripping at my shirt like a mad woman, convinced it was still there and waiting for me. I very nearly ripped my entire shirt off, thus giving the few passers by quite the show. But my shirt was clean, other than a little tan bit. Cool. This was good. It stung, the bee body was on the floor of the car, and I remembered that my mother has horrific allergic reactions to bee stings., My phobia wouldn't allow me to dispose of the body, but I was able to grab my phone. A failed attempt to call my father, I was on the phone with her (having woke her up, whoops). No, I wasn't having a reaction, because it would have hit really quick.

I headed over, she checked it, it looked sore but alright. I went to my facial appointment with my windows firmly sealed and my poorly running A/C on, burning up gas. I came back, and requested my father extract the body of my vicious attacker. He did, at which point I was informed that it wasn't a bee. It was a wasp. So had I not been so keen on beating it to death with my back, it would have continued to sting me over and over and over. :|

I live in a pretty small town. Bugs are a pretty huge constant here. We have farm animals and massive irrigation ditches, and it's kind of amusing. I'm pretty phobic of bugs. That is to say, I'm incredibly phobic of bugs. I can't manage to step on them 95% of the time because I freak out. Coincidentally, I freak out less when I'm alone, versus with friends or family.

Cue tonight.

Sitting here, minding my own business, my spidey-sense obviously went off because I randomly chanced a glance at the ceiling iver my headm and there was a spider on the ceiling. I did the mature thing and shouted there was a spider on the ceiling above me. As my father wandered off to find spray, I made sure to do a play-by-play on what I was seeing the spider doing, as that is obviously very helpful. "Oh my god, IT'S EATING ANOTHER BUG. ...well, not now, because it dropped it into the floor lamp. OH MY GOD THERE ARE ANTS ON THE CEILING."

They weren't ants, just little gnats that flew in when we've been going in and out.

So, he sprayed it. Over and over, actually, as it didn't want to die. It walked the ceiling, I screamed and hauled ass across the room because gsdghs and my back (it's a bad back) shrieked but I didn't care. My choice was wise. It fell soon after, and I was going on about how it landed where I sit and he needed to check the pillows and the blanket and the cushion because it hit the couch arm and rolled one way or the other. My father couldn't find it. I made sure to maturely yell at him to check the blanket and pillow I was using, while my mother sat across the room and laughed at me--alongside him. Still, nothing could be found.

I've spent the whole night somewhat sore still from the sting, very sore with my back, and convinced that 5/21/2011 would cause the spider to rise again, and it would bite me in its new, upgraded zombie form.

I really do hate bugs.

ISIS - T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T

2010-11-19T04:17:00.000-07:00

The above link leads to one of many articles talking about the joint venture of Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile coming together with mobile payment company, Isis.

It's a situation that I see a number of people being wholeheartedly divided on for a very long time, to be honest. Why?

Well, as the short story of this very complicated endeavor: USA cellular giants Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile have started a venture in attempting to eliminate the need for any sort of physical trade of money outside of one's cell phone. The idea will be to utilize, it seems, a similar technology as what's used in credit cards and debit cards now when a consumer just flips his or her card across a magnetic scanner, and off they go. (Keep in mind, this is the explanation we received where I work, one of these three 'giants'.)

The biggest thing that I can advise to anyone that intends to use this service, especially early on, is to read up on anything and everything you can about it. If you think from the standpoint of losing your phone: the general cellphone user does not think to lock his or her phone. Even with the easy of securing devices such as the Android line-up (my personal favorite) through a pattern lock that triggers anytime the screen falls asleep, most people don't think to do this.

Couple this with the fact that most people will not realize their phone is missing for at least thirty minutes, depending on the susceptibility and functionality of the program when it goes into full-swing, this could end up with consumers incurring more damage than could ever be wrought with a missing credit card or debit card in that time frame. More over, the cell phone companies certainly will hold no liability to the damages that incur. Well, except perhaps in California, but the technology is so new, I'm sure they haven't developed anything yet for it there.

California consumer law states that any damage done on a missing cellphone is not the responsibility of the consumer (keep in mind that it is possible to see who is using the device). Every other state, damages up to the time that the consumer alerts the company is the consumer's responsibility.

For some people, this is a dream come true. Wave of the future! Perhaps it is! I would just caution anyone wanting to involve their personal finances in this brand new thing to really study it and consider the repercussions before jumping into it headfirst. Hear what the companies have to say, but also hear what tech websites and current users have to say. Most likely, the first phones to get this will definitely be Android and perhaps the iPhone, the top phone types today.

And me? I'll stick with cash and cards, thank you!

CutCo/Vector Marketing

2010-11-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

Honestly, I admit that this started as me not investigating what I was calling, and I'd like to preface this as I'm not at all angry. As such, I think that my story regarding CutCo or Vector Marketing would be a little less biased than those who have fell into its trap.

When I was on monster.com, looking for jobs in my area (a small town; my current job is nearly an hour away), I noticed a posting stating that it was a Customer Service job that would pay several dollars above my current level, and that it was from Vector Marketing. It honestly sounded like a temp agency, and when I saw that my town was listed as one that they needed positions filled, I called the number listed. At no time was I advised exactly what this entailed, so I figured it was what I thought it was. Having applied to a temp agency before, it was a nearly identical process.

So, my time was set up and I got there. The area was pretty standard for an office to be set up in for a company that places employees to satellite locations/other companies.

I went to the office suite and that was where I got the feelings that something was going on with that place. The admin I spoke to on the phone sat at a folding table with a pretty dated computer, and the walls were adorned, not with Vector Marketing, but CutCo. I was handed a clipboard and sent to another room that was progressively filled with individuals ranging in types. Elder individuals and late teenagers alike. They discussed how they were hard up for money, unemployed, but it was clear that we were all from very different walks of life.

Fortunately, with my current job, I can afford a smartphone where I started researching this company to get an understanding of what it was. Here are links to some of the sites I researched at that time (I don't remember all of them as this went on about three months ago or so):

Their actual site
Petitiononline.com petition regarding CutCo/Vector
Rip-Off Report

Now, the over-bearing opinion from the latter two links happens to be that CutCo and Vector, synonymous to each other apparently, is a scam and a pyramid scheme. But there was an overwhelming level of participation from apparently individuals who disagreed with this, so I was intrigued to see exactly what would happen.

To start, we went in to meet the manager who would be interviewing each of us (so they said). They took us in, two at a time, and it was easy to tell that they didn't care much for the pairing, it was just a quick way to process us. Some were dismissed, some of us were kept. Of about 14-15 people, eight of us were asked to stay around.

Then the "group interview process" started. It was more of a sale on joining on board than really an interview process. The manager was friendly, stating that this would be his last interview group before being deployed to Afghanistan. But he was pretty blunt, explaining the hierarchy and the mission statement of the company. And then we got to the products discussion:

Knives, y'all. Basically, the concept of CutCo is that you advertise for yourself all over, and then people call you for a demonstration. Think Avon/Mary Kay meets a Kirby vacuum salesman. You purchase your starter kit, you manage your advertising, and hopefully at the end of the day, you reap benefits from it.

But supposedly eternally sharp knives are not cosmetics. People run out of lipstick and will need to call you to buy more. This company bases sales around a product that, according to them, is indestructible and eternally sharp. (For the record, I wasn't very impressed at anything knife related, but their scissors were pretty awesome.) The kit was something around $170, or you could basically rent them in case you decided the company and the position wasn't for you.

While he stood there, explaining everything, I was pretty quiet at that point. Definitely not a place for me, I decided. It appeared that the other seven were pretty invested in the idea, but I didn't exactly try to strike a friendship with any of them, so I didn't have a chance to ask.

After that, he called us back one at a time. I sat down and said, honestly, "I'm sorry, I don't think this is going to be a good fit for me."

He responded with, "Yes, it seemed that way during the group interview." Probably because I wasn't engaged.

So I just shook his hand and told him that I wish him well, and hope he stays safe during his deployment, and headed out.

My personal opinion about CutCo and Vector Marketing is that... they are definitely a pyramid design regarding how they do things, but they're no different than, again, Avon and Mary Kay. The only thing is that their product is incredibly hard to sell when you're working with home audiences, and they probably have not perfected exactly how to work with their employees. Employees in larger cities or with wide social circles will do particularly well, but not everyone has this sort of benefit.

Or wants it, necessarily. So, I would say anyone that looks at CutCo/Vector for a job opportunity should do their research, hear out worshippers and naysayers alike, and really think if it's going to work for them in the long run.

My two cents! I'm off~

Suspicions

2010-03-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

...for some reason, this thing is advising me I have seven posts. I think this thing is lying.

There comes a point when one's actions begin to add up and you can't help but begin to draw certain suspicions about them. Since this blog is primarily about the paranormal, this of course means I mean to say this is in regards to the paranormal vein.

What happens when someone gives you an item and makes an off-handed comment that seems insignificant then, such as, "This has never brought me good luck, anyway." It's not something you think much of, is it? It's not exactly what you would expect from a gift giver, and in fact I would consider it a bit off-putting or even rude, but whatever, right?

But what if sometime later when receiving that gift, things began to happen? Things disappearing or animals falling ill. Someone falls or more drastically, they need surgery. Things that never before happened. And it starts to come together in suspicion to that item in discussions and eventually like a smart individual, you rid of the item. The giver didn't know! They stated it was poisonous to them too, man.

But what if they are... odd, as well? Maybe it's subtle childishness. When you ask a favor you would do for them, they carry it out halfway before starting to stomp their feet because it's over an item they want and they bother you until you relent. Or they refuse you things even though you offer three times what they paid for it because you love it and they want it as an object, not something to love. And there's a tone there.

Second hand, these things sound like human nature. But you know what it's like. You know what it's like to have the classmate or the teacher or the co-worker or the boss or the person on the bus that doesn't feel or act right. That you know something is off. Something jives differently about them compared to you.

Why do you think that is? Is it just an unsettling difference of frequency? Did they just rub you the wrong way? Or do you feel there's another story underneath it all?

MANGA/ANIME: Axis Powers Hetalia - America and why he looks that way

2009-12-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

I love Axis Powers Hetalia, and I love the wankhood that stems from it as well.

To date, one of the most amusing arguments comes from the appearance of America. Eventually I'll put an actual photo up, but in the meantime you can follow the above link to see a generic google image search of him.

He's blond, blue eyed--he's white. He loves video games, hamburgers, beer, and football.

The debate has been that America should clearly look multiracial because he's a melting pot (and in this fandom, that's how you refer to the countries: by their gender) and has no real single-culture platform. Okay, granted. Buttttt...

In the Hetalia canon, he is found wandering the woods of England's "home" and is found, raised by England a bit and eventually sent to become the Thirteen Colonies. :| Therefore America would have that European look because he started from England himself. It's kind of funny and awkward to refer to family genetics with this, but it's a core logic that it's not based on what his primary racial diversity is now. It's what it started as and what he stood as in his very beginning.

And come on, who doesn't want to eat a hamburger while wearing a bomber jacket in the middle of a war?

There's a long list of wrongs to Hetalia, meant to try to shame people out of liking the canon. It's sad, because it's actually an incredibly intelligent but hilarious series. I'm more of a German boy fan myself (Germany, Prussia, Austria), but I appreciate the history humor in it. Especially because it really isn't supposed to be serious!

Over on LiveJournal.com, there's a community for Hetalia. http://community.livejournal.com/hetalia/ Simple enough! They have a site that hosts links to all the original and scanlated strips here: http://sites.google.com/site/hetaliaindexes/ I would really encourage you to take a look at the strips, and if you like you can always find the anime on the LJ community! Don't be discouraged by the drawing level or animation styles. Like I said: Hetalia really is all just for good fun!

PARANORMAL: Shadow People

2009-12-15T13:24:00.002-07:00

A short splurge this time.

Shadow people have been a tight focus of mine since I first heard about this years ago. The concept of shadow people hasn't been around very long, which is something that bites at anyone who bothers to research it substantially. Me, personally, seem to fall onto accounts only starting in the last century.

I’ve noticed quite a few demonologists focus on this heavily because most of them are convinced that whatever these things are, they're not exactly benevolent. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen, though in my interviews I’ve had a pretty common consensus about them. I’ll describe this further below.

From my own research (both simply studying the research of others, and interviews), I've noted that there are three common appearances for them. This is if they solidify enough to have a solid silhouette. They either appear as a normal person silhouette, or as though they're wearing a cloak or a top hat. The latter confuses me... so much. But, coming from the school of thought that these are highly intelligent creatures, I can only imagine it's because it's a familiar sight (and adds to the surreal experience). Witnesses I've interviewed have confirmed each of the appearances, and some have identified them as having red eyes shortly before they manifest to cause something to happen. I tend to wonder if these varying appearances tend to mean something in their variances of methods. The red eyes seem to be a malevolent charge, at least in the cases that I’ve interviewed about.

Another common thing I've found from those I've personally interviewed is that shadow people like high-stress environments, and they prey on environments that can be developed into high-stress ones. Hospitals seem to be a normal stomping ground, possibly due to the illnesses and the tragedy that often occur there? I've also witnessed them causing people to become angry and hostile where they never were before, and once torn from that environment, the victims returning to relative normalcy. I've witnessed these victims losing power and internet and phone, and having their animals tormented during this sort of haunting as well. It's quite perplexing. And when I say “relative normalcy”, it seems they never quite return to what they once were.

As always, I’m willing to listen to anyone wishing to speak. You may e-mail me. If you choose to speak here, comments are not screened.