I’ll admit it, I have a particular weakness for shows about the paranormal, UFO’s and Bigfoot. When channel surfing, when in doubt, I can usually find something crazy on History Channel or Discovery. There’s very little of it (if anything) I believe anymore, but I still find it fascinating. It’s partially because there are still things that are truly mysterious, and partly it’s out of sheer disbelief in some of the crackpot theories they come up with. Sometimes I find myself just yelling back at the screen.

At some point, I’ll probably do more in-depth reviews of some of the current crop of shows, but I thought I’d share this tidbit. The other night I was clicking around and landed on “My Ghost Story” on the Biography channel. It didn’t seem too compelling to me. A couple people were investigating an old lighthouse, supposedly haunted by the ghost of a little boy and…a cat.

They did some EVP work (electronic voice phenomena), where they set up a recorder and record ambient noise as they ask the “spirits” questions. Usually, any sounds captured are just gibberish, or are so vague you could twist it to make it sound like anything. In this case, they captured what actually does clearly sound like a cat meowing. Whether it was a ghost cat or just a neighborhood stray remains to be seen, but I’ll concede it sounded like a cat.

Now, one common technique on these shows is to show a faux computer screen with the audio waveforms of the sound, and a caption at the bottom with the words the investigators think were said by the ghost. It really reinforces their power of suggestion. In this case, even though we clearly hear a cat, the editor still thought it necessary to spell out the word “Meow” on the screen.

I don’t know why, but this struck me so damn funny. Just me? Okay, fine.

Click here to jump to the point in the show where they make this amazing discovery.

Following up my last post about Call of Duty, here are a few valuable truths that I’ve learned along the way. Maybe they’ll ring true for some of you as well.

1. There is no such thing as strategy

When you first start playing a Call of Duty game, you might be tempted to try to be strategic, or otherwise use your brain. Forget it. Anything clever you may think about doing is immediately nullified by every other asshole on the map running their crazy asses off. Some players have memorized certain patterns based on where enemies are likely to spawn. Others are just like rabid, headless chickens. Either way, the second you start to think in this game, you’re getting popped.

2. Stop for more than 3 seconds and you’re dead

Related to the item above, most of the time you’ll be playing against people running like maniacs. The way the maps are designed, there’s almost nowhere you’re not vulnerable from behind, so you’ve got to keep moving. Hold still for more than a couple seconds and you’re sure to get shanked. The real downside is that eventually you’ll have to resort to adopting their style of gameplay to survive.

3. When given a choice of directions to go, you’ll always pick the wrong one

This one never fails. When entering/exiting a building, cave, tunnel, etc and faced with going left or right, more often than not, you’re going to make the wrong decision. Check the radar on your mini-map, listen for the direction of gunfire, watch for shadows and check the phase of the moon, but when you walk out that door, you’re getting it in the back.

4. If you run up against someone sporting gold-plated guns, get the hell outta there

This is the sign of someone that’s played WAY too much of this game. They’ve Prestiged (hit the level cap and started over), multiple times and earned gold-plated weapons. When you see one or more players using these against you, it’s best to just pack it in and join a new game.

5. “Matchmaking” is a myth

Again, related to the above, forget about anything resembling matchmaking. In any normal universe, this would mean that you’re put into matches with other players based on everyone’s “skill” level. But that’s not the way it works. I’m not really sure what kind of algorithm they actually use, but I’m pretty sure my two-year-old could come up with something better. I’m routinely thrust into matches where I’m going up against players at double my XP level.

6. You will be called “bitch” or “fag” at least once per session

Pardon my French on this one, but it’s the reality of playing violent multiplayer games against white, 12-year-old gangsta wannabes that have been playing this game for 36 hours straight in their grandma’s basement.

7. Knives will always trump bullets

If there’s one thing to know about Call of Duty gameplay, it is this. You can unload an entire clip in a guy’s face, but if he can get to you with the tip of his knife, you’re toast. Nothing is more frustrating that rounding a corner, coming face-to-face with an opponent, and before you can squeeze the trigger, you’re taken out by a slash of the knife. To add insult to injury, as you watch the “kill-cam” replay, you see that he barely even made contact. In fact, he probably was facing a totally different direction. Want to get kills? Get really good at knifing. Unfortunately, that’s something I never think fast enough to do…until it’s too late.

So there you have it. 7 things that piss me off about these games. There are many more I’m sure, but I think the real issue here is how I’m consistently drawn back to something that frustrates the shit out of me day in and day out.

Maybe there’s some kind of pill I can take.

I’ve been playing first-person shooter games for quite a long time. I remember scoring a copy of Wolfenstein 3D on a 5.25″ floppy disk at a local computer store and playing the hell out of it. From there, I went on to Doom, Duke Nukem, Quake and countless variations and rip-offs, such as Heretic.

However, once games started going the way of Unreal Tournament and Quake Arena, I started getting turned off. These games were less about thinking than just running at top speed around memorized maps, fragging noobs with rocket launchers. At one point I also tried getting into Counter-Strike, but was just rubbish at it.

So for a long time, I stayed away from multiplayer shooters and opted for single-player experiences, even with games that had multiplayer modes.

Right around when Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare came out, I decided to get into multiplayer matches and ended up getting hooked. I bought every other game that came out: World at War, Modern Warfare 2, and Black Ops. The latter I got on launch day and with maybe one or two exceptions, it hasn’t left my Xbox disc tray for about a year. And I’ve never once played the single-player campaign.

So naturally, I’ve been excited to get my hands on Modern Warfare 3. I’d seen the trailers and teasers but would’ve still bought it sight-unseen. I pre-ordered it from Amazon, so it showed up at the house on launch day. That night, I played for maybe 3 hours, which is more time than I rarely get to game in a single sitting.

Almost immediately, something felt…wrong. Right off the bat, it was obvious no attempt had been made to fix matchmaking, if there even existed a matchmaking component to begin with. My first match, I was thrown into a lobby with level-30 players, who had obviously bought the game at midnight and been playing it non-stop.

It shouldn’t be surprising that the typical opponent still just runs his ass off like a crazy person around the map in memorized patterns. But in MW3, it seems even worse than ever before. Again, I can’t quite put my finger on why this seems so pronounced in this incarnation, but at least a few times I truly wanted to throw the controller, or at the very least, take the disc out and put it away for a long time.

Another annoyance is that the money-based upgrade system from Black Ops was not carried over. At first it seemed strange in Black Ops, but it ultimately meant that you could buy what you wanted, in the order you wanted it. Sure, you had to wait for some things to be unlocked at certain XP levels, but it seemed like a good system. Now, in MW3, they’re back to the old “level up” system, where you have to keep moving up the XP ladder to get the next best weapon or perk. So it was frustrating to immediately get into games where opponents had “bouncing betty” mines and personal radars already, and I’d be hours away from having the points to even counteract them. And so far, I’ve gotten my ass shot off a lot by guys camping with those stupid personal radars (blatantly ripped off from the movie Aliens, by the way).

And speaking of leveling, you even level up weapons now. Where in Black Ops, you could fairly quickly buy a red-dot sight for a gun, in MW3, you have to level up that gun enough to unlock it. Again, I think the money system in Black Ops is superior, in that you can focus on collecting enough cash to get the attachment you really want.

Oh, and did I mention “quickscoping” was back? Yeah, that too.

If you’re a quickscoper, I fucking hate you.

Modern Warfare 3 does have a few unique multiplayer modes, like “Kill Confirmed”, where you collect dog tags from fallen enemies, giving your team extra points. And there’s the usual stuff like Domination and Headquarters, which I never really got into because they’re magnets for camping snipers. I was also hopeful that add-ons like the Call of Duty Elite service and Facebook integration would add some new, interesting aspect. But so far, I’ve yet to see much integration at all. And the Elite app is a completely separate app you can’t access within the main game.

I’ve been lamenting this to people for a few days, and recently talked to a co-worker (a hard-core COD player) that was telling me he’d opted to go with Battlefield 3 instead of buying MW3. The more he described it, the more I started to think I should give it a try. It definitely sounds like it’s slower paced, and is less rewarding to the run-and-gun, quick-draw players.

I’m going to give MW3 a little more time, but I can’t help but think I’ll be making a switch very soon.

In some of my research for these Halloween posts, I stumbled across a fun little blog called “The Ghosts of Halloweens Past“. The author’s tagline is “A collection of videos and other posts that document my memories of Halloweens from the past, particularly from the 1970s, 80s and 90s.“

The site is kind of a grab bag of Halloween pop culture including clips from sitcoms, old commercials, movies, games and cartoons. There are some great haunting-related clips from old shows like That’s Incredible, including a couple about Amityville.

The site is all kinds of nostalgia for a guy like me, born in the early 70′s. The author has only posted twice in 2011, but there are tons of great posts in the archives.

(ps: not responsible for many lost hours on this site)

This elaborately-detailed haunted doll house has been worked on for eleven years!

Check out the pics to see all the little details.

Remember that show from the late 70′s, early 80′s called That’s Incredible? For those of you young’uns, it was a weekly show hosted by John Davidson, Fran Tarkenton and Cathy Lee Crosby. In the vein of Ripley’s Believe it or Not or Real People (remember that one?), it had various segments of people doing amazing things or wild stunts. In fact, the show pretty much pioneered the use of the phrase “Don’t try this at home”.

For some reason they also focused a lot on unexplainable phenomenon (bigfoot, etc), as well as the paranormal. I was about 8 years old when the show started airing and remember watching it religiously with my family. To this day, I vividly remember watching one segment in particular. It was about a Toys ‘R Us store in California that was supposedly haunted.

As a boy, I was really drawn in by shows and stories about ghosts and haunted houses. But I was also susceptible to nightmares, as it turns out. I also recall running screaming from the living room one day, babbling to my mother that I’d just seen a ghost…on tv. It was the Brady Bunch where the boys try to scare the girls with a fake ghost. Yeah, I was a cool customer.

Again, no idea why I remember this one episode of That’s Incredible but I do remember that night I had bad enough dreams to fall out of bed. Not sure what made me think about this again, but I was pleasantly surprised to actually find a clip from that episode about the haunted store. Other shows have since featured this same location, but I think this would’ve been the first.

Oh, and this also is probably an early TV appearance of Sylvia Brown, made famous in recent years by her psychic dog and pony shows on Montel Williams. The haunted store is still an interesting story, but it’s rendered much less credible by her very presence.

Remember when I said earlier that there just weren’t many good supernatural horror movies being made? Well, there are a few exceptions, one of which is the 2007 masterpiece, The Orphanage.

It’s the story of a young couple who move into an old orphanage with their adopted son, Simon. It’s the same orphanage the woman lived in as a child, the same orphanage she plans to reopen as a home for disabled kids. Early on, Simon makes friends with an imaginary boy named Tomas. During a party, Simon suddenly disappears and she actually sees Tomas with her own eyes, a chilling figure with a burlap sack mask.

As the months go by, convinced her son is still alive, she calls in mediums and paranormal investigators to find clues to her son’s disappearance. Little by little, she learns of the orphanage’s history and the truth about the boy Tomas.

This film is incredibly creepy and moves along at slow, steady pace. There are no axe murderers, no elaborate torture puzzles to solve. Just an intense buildup to an ending that’s not only frightening, but heart-wrenchingly sad. I won’t drop any spoilers here, but this definitely lives on my list of must-see ghost stories. Wanna know how scary it is? I watched this for the first time on a plane. Surrounded by people. In the middle of the day. And it still scared me.

Oh and did I mention it’s a Spanish production, with English subtitles? I know a lot of people are immediately put off by that, but honestly after a while you really don’t seem to notice. And while the dialogue is well-written, it’s not a particularly verbose film. It was produced by Guillermo del Toro, whose attachment helped secure a larger budget.

Unfortunately, New Line Cinema has secured the rights to make an American version. Seems studios still believe that U.S. audiences are too stupid or impatient to watch foreign films. I just hope The Orphanage doesn’t go the way of The Grudge or The Ring.

Today’s post is about a book and a movie by the same name. In 1972 (a good year, indeed), Ray Bradbury wrote the novel, The Halloween Tree. It told the story of a group of boys who set out for trick-or-treating, only to find that the leader of their group has been spirited away by mysterious forces. With the guidance of a shadowy old man named Mr. Moundshroud, they pursue their friend across different time periods, where they learn the true origins of the holiday known as Halloween.

In 1993, the book was made into a feature-length TV movie starring Leonard Nimoy as Moundshroud. Ray Bradbury himself provided the narration and won an Emmy for the screenplay. I must confess that I’ve only seen the animated movie, but after recently reading another of Bradbury’s books, Something Wicked This Way Comes, I’m looking forward to giving The Halloween Tree a read.

The cartoon itself isn’t anything technically groundbreaking, the animation is actually quite basic as you might expect from a made-for-tv venture. But it’s made up for by Nimoy’s performance and by the absolutely perfect narration by Bradbury, who has an uncanny gift for painting nostalgic pictures of small-town America.

While the movie might be a little too intense for younger kids, I think it’s a good mix of entertainment and education. The characters learn all about customs all over the world, with visits to Egypt, Ireland, the cathedral at Notre Dame and Mexico, where they learn about the Day of the Dead.

Unfortunately, it looks like the DVD might be hard to find at the moment, but I’ve heard they play it on Cartoon Network at Halloween, so keep your eyes peeled. Meantime, you can pick up the book cheap on Amazon.

As a side note, according to Wikipedia, The Halloween Tree originated as a collaboration between Ray Bradbury and Chuck Jones. Too bad that project didn’t turn out; would’ve been great to see what Chuck would have done with it.

Holy crap, this is an amazing residential Halloween light show, synced to “This is Halloween” from The Nightmare Before Christmas”. Absolutely amazing.

I’d love to try something like this on a smaller scale, but I’m pretty sure I can guarantee a lawsuit from our H.O.A.

PS: Don’t get me started on H.O.A.’s.

As mentioned in my previous post about “All Hallow’s Read“, my favorite author at the moment is Neil Gaiman. This has only been the case for the last few years, even though I knew of him for some time. Way back in the mid-nineties, when comics were getting a resurgence from titles like Todd McFarlane’s “Spawn”, I used to go to the comic shop every Wednesday for the new releases. Over the course of my visits, I often saw these graphic novels called “Sandman” written by a guy named Neil Gaiman. For whatever reason, at the time they didn’t interest me. I think I was just more in love with “Spawn” and the new stuff Image Comics was putting out, than wasting time on details like “story”. Hey, I was in my early twenties.

I honestly don’t recall how Neil sprang back up on my radar. It may have been when my wife and I saw Stardust, a film adapted from his novel of the same name. The movie was just so inventive and different, I wanted to learn more about this guy.

The first book I read was Neverwhere, the story of an average man who gets drawn into an alternate-universe London that exists below the surface of the real one. This had been the first book I’d read, other than programming books, for a few years. I absolutely loved it, and proceeded to read his other books, including American Gods and Coraline, as well as one of his collections of short stories, Fragile Things.

But possibly my favorite of his books is the simply titled, The Graveyard Book. In it, a shadowy assassin murders a family in the night, all except the toddler, who manages to make his way to the nearby graveyard. The resident ghosts of the graveyard take in the boy, whom they later name “Bod” (short for “Nobody”), and vow to protect him from those who would do him harm.

The book moves along pretty fast as Bod has adventures and gets in and out of trouble. Along the way he makes new friends, both living and dead, and is able to learn a few undead tricks, such as “fading” (the ability to make himself invisible to the living).

Full disclosure, my first “read” of the book was the audiobook version, which is read by Neil Gaiman himself. This can be hit or miss with some authors, but he absolutely nails it. Maybe I’m just a sucker for an english accent. Once I decided to write about it, I started listening to it for a second time on my daily commutes.

While The Graveyard Book is often described as a book for young adults, do not let that that sway you from picking it up. I don’t think there was ever a point where I felt anything was being held back or dumbed down at all. That said, if you’re looking to make All Hallow’s Read a tradition, and there’s a young adult in your life, you could do a lot worse than giving them this book. I think it’ll easily become a favorite.

On a semi-related note, Gaiman announced a movie adaptation way back in May 2009. At one point it appeared to be on indefinite hold, but from more recent articles, it sounds like it’s back on track. Neil Jordan (Interview with the Vampire) will be directing it.