This is one of those things that "seemed like a good idea at the time" even though it is probably the worst idea that anyone could ever come up with. Fortunately no one was injured or killed, but holy shit, this is the dumbest thing I have ever done. The Date = Late 80s The Mark = Lindy The Pranksters = Sam, Max and myself The Ruse = To scare Lindy by faking a slasher movie style home invasion. What could go wrong? Note: We were all in high school at this point. I was the youngest (a freshman), Sam and Max (seniors), and Lindy (a junior)
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ My friend Sam came up with this idea to scare our other friend Lindy one night. Lindy lived in a huge house overlooking the rest of the town that we lived in. Her parents are rich and they would often leave here alone. Sam and Lindy have been friends since kindergarten. When her parents were out of town Sam would hang out with her. They would cook diner and watch movies. So Sam knew Lindy's parents were out of town and they had planned on doing one of their dinner/movie nights. He recruited myself and our good friend Max to come up to the house at a specific time and scare them. His plan was that he would go take the phone off the hook in one of the spare bedrooms, so that no one would be able to call out. Then he would unlock the back door by the mud room which led into the kitchen. Then we were to freak them out while they were doing dishes. So Max and I gear up. I was Jason Voorhees for Halloween the previous year so I had a set of gnarly looking coveralls, a hockey mask, and a machete. Max Just had some black clothes and a latex Yoda Halloween mask. We grabbed our shit and headed up to the house. We parked 1/4 mile away and walked so as to not alert them. We made it into the back yard and donned our gear. We thought it might work better if she thought there was only one of us, so we decided to have only one of us visible at a time. We Peered into the kitchen window and saw Lindy rinsing some dishes off in the sink. She did not see us. We took turns trying to subtly get her attention. We moved closer. And closer. Still no reaction. We got to the point where I was standing directly in front of the window, hockey mask and all, starring directly at her and she still couldn't see me. So I tapped on the glass with the machete. A scream and panic. She backed off and ran down the hallway toward her room. Sam, acting incredulous, asked her what was wrong. She screamed back that there was someone out there wearing a mask. Sam followed her to her room. I looked at Max an we decided to try the mudroom door. It was unlocked. We waited a few minutes and then entered the house and thought about our next move. We set up a bit of a homebase in the guestroom at the back of the house, where we could discuss. We thought it would be scary if they knew that we were in the house. We found some laundry in the utility room and balled up a few socks. We would periodically throw a sock ball at her bedroom door. Thump Scream! Wait a minute or two... Thump Scream! We did this for -- I'm not sure how long.10 minutes or so. Then I thought it would really be scary if we shook the knob on her door. Max stayed back at the homebase as I approached the door. As I came within a few feet of her door I could hear her frantically talking on the phone to someone. Sam was trying to calm her down. After listening for a minute I gathered that she had called her best friend, Sarah. Oh shit! That wasn't supposed to happen. The problem, I was quickly beginning to realize, was that we had never really established a definitive end game for our little scenario. I mean Sam had said that at some point he would give Lindy the "Smile, you're on Candid Camera" routine. He seemed to not be doing that. I think that he was too scared of the reaction it would cause. Now that Lindy had somehow managed to get through to someone, the situation was a bit more complicated. As I was about to make my way back to homebase to tell Max what I had learned, I heard Sam shout "SARA'S MOM IS ON HER WAY UP HERE RIGHT NOW?! GOOD! I HOPE WHOEVER THOSE GUYS ARE JUST LEAVE BEFORE SHE GETS HERE!" We needed to get the fuck out of that house. ASAP. Problem was, Sara's mom had left couple of minutes minutes before I had even approached the door. By the time I made it to the living room I noticed a car on the way up. Oh shit I ran into the homebase and told Max what was up. While I was explaining, we heard the front door open. Enter Mrs. Erickson. Mrs. Erickson, in addition to being Sara's mother was a teacher at the junior high. She was in fact, my teacher for several classes. She liked me a lot. I was an honor student. My mother was a teacher. My mother is a friend of Mrs. Erickson. This was bad! This was so bad! Sam and Lindy ran out to the living room when they heard the front door open. Max and I were stuck in that back bedroom The only means of egress were past the living room. Past them. Lindy was crying and just wanted to GTFO but Mrs. Erickson insisted on checking the house. Well that's just perfect! Here is where I note that at the time of this little event I was about 6'3" and 260 pounds. Max was 6'1" and a very slender 160 pounds. Max looked at me and whisper/screamed, "We have to hide!" In one swift motion he jumped inside a large laundry hamper, squatted down and closed the lid. Completely hidden. Watching him do that so effortlessly made me hate him, for a brief moment, as much as I have ever hated anyone. Give or take. There were assuredly not many places for ME to hide. I checked the closet. It was full of stuff. I looked under the bed. Empty but there was no way I was fitting under there. I went into the bathroom and decided that the tub/shower was my best bet. I climbed in and closed the curtain. All I could do was wait. I was sweating profusely. My heart was beating like one of Dave Lombardo's kick drums. A torrent of anxiety was washing over me as though it were spaying out of the shower head and my ears were ringing like I had just gotten out of a concert. I heard footsteps approaching the bedroom that we were in. The bedroom light flicked on. A pause of tedious silence. Then the footsteps continued to the bathroom. I couldn't see her but I could hear her as she stood just inside the bathroom -- staring at the curtain. That thin, opaque sheet of plastic, with me, my mask and my machete on the other side. The moment that she took, looking at the curtain, seemed to go on for ages. In actuality it was probably just a few seconds. For whatever reason she decided not to open the shower curtain. Thank fuck! She made her way out of the bedroom and out to the car where Sam and Lindy were waiting. Whew! Max and I made an expedient retreat and hiked back down to his car. At some point, Sam convinced Mrs. Erickson to drop them back at his house. Once they were there, Sam finally spilled the beans about our "prank." Our prank which had morphed a sadistic mental torture session. Although honestly it was that from the moment of inception. Cooler heads prevailed and that was more or less the end of it. I do often think of what would have happened if poor Mrs. Erickson had opened that curtain. Drawn it wide to reveal a large man in a hockey mask with a machete wearing murder clothes. The stuff of nightmares.
I forced my family to watch that piece of shit in the theater! I was a pretty big fan of the comics. I didn't have very many, but I was super excited for the film. Imagine an eleven-year-old non-stop hyping a movie for weeks. Telling everyone about how great the effects were going be. How it may sound dumb now, but wait till you see what they do with the character. How smart and witty and funny it was all going to be. Trust me. This is George Lucas, man. George Lucas! Then we watched it... The shame I experienced was palpable. I could feel my family's judgement and contempt growing with every scene. The duck tits. The scene where they almost fuck. The deeply uninteresting story. The dearth of characterization. No wit. No quality humor. Edge? Oh there's edge to spare. But it's a watered down version of that dumbfuck /b/tard kind of edge. Nothing biting or insightful. Just obtuse, weird, and inappropriate. I see you didn't comment on how fucking depressing Howard the Duck is. It's just so damn bleak. If I ever am in a situation where I need that final bit of impetus to end it all, this is the movie I am going to watch. It did teach me a valuable lesson about the power of hype though, so at least It wasn't a complete loss.
Hey if you end up blowing up like Stephen King, you can always go on and release an unabridged version The Stand style. Then you can revel in your excess.
I am slowly consolidating and reorganizing all of my music files on my computer. It's from 6 different core libraries from 4 different hard drives and 2 users ranging back to 2002. And I used 7 different programs to rip my music with varying degrees of success. Getting everything into one main library. Merging folder groups. Fixing tags. Getting rid of dupes. Dumping bad or low quality rips. It's a process. I could probably automate at least some of it but what is the fun in that? Of course when I do this I have to listen to a bunch of music that I haven't heard in years. I also treat myself to a dram or twelve. Oh and fuck iTunes.
You sound like you would make a good Dungeon Master.
Yeah but you Brits also have a rhetorical greeting that catches many Americans the same way. We normally only use that phrase if there is something obviously wrong with someone or if they have just fallen down. Worked with a guy from London who said that a lot. "You alright?" "Well i didn't get much sleep last night but other than that I feel OK. Why? Do I look bad or something?" "Huh?"You alright?
That's impressive. Most ponies are terrible singers on account of them being a little hoarse.
Show me on the doll where Max Headroom touched you.
"Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn't ya?!" Reba and Michael Gross fucking kill it in that movie. As does Fred Ward, but he kills it in everything.
Return of the Living Dead Punk rock zombies. Half-Dogs. "It Hurts to be dead." Rabid Weasels. Tarman. Gratuitous Linnea Quigley. "Send more paramedics." From Ed O'Bannon.
I recommend watching this and this. Two programs that should be mandatory for all US citizens. They give a glimpse of how arbitrary the justice system really is. People in this day have much more confidence in the state's case than they should. Reasonable doubt has seemingly gone out the window. And when the state decides that a case is not worth perusing, well... you see the results.
Sounds good but you all are going to have to give me some time if it's to be one I haven't seen. I live in a pretty remote area so I am limited to satellite internet. No streaming for me. I am 100% reliant on my own movie collection, Netflix-by-mail and sometimes one other source. At any rate I have adjusted my queue. voilà Hopefully I will get one of those movies not named Sullivan's Travels sometime soon. When I do get to watch it I'll just make a new post in the #movieclub. for some reason My ISP lets me watch Youtube after 2am without affecting my bandwidth limit, but only every once in a while.
I'm still working on my music consolidation/clean-up project. I'm listening to a lot of stuff I have not heard in years.
My alternative title is Night of the Comet. I love this movie. We have a global event that wipes out most of earth's population and only a couple of valley girls can pick up the pieces. In it, you have Valley Girls with machine guns, scientists in jumpsuits, neon, arcade games, shopping malls, Geoffrey Lewis and Mary Fucking Woronov.
Alright so TerrorVision is my suggestion.
If you haven't seen it, you should. This is a candy-colored horror comedy that encapsulates virtually every trope and trend from the 80's. Stars Gerrit Graham, Jon Gries as rocker named O.D. and Mary Fucking Woronov. Tons of fun.
One of the things I love about this movie is that it did such a good job making me care about the characters and their tiny, dusty town (very similar to one I grew up in) that I was pulling for them the entire time. Too often in killer beast movies I begin sympathizing with the beast and then end up bummed out in the end. Not here. Fuck the Graboids! Humans rule!
Antique shops freak me out. I have an anxiety based fear of them. I constantly feel like, at any moment, I am going to fall over and cause tens of thousands dollars worth of damage.
Ho. Lee. Shit. I had a rough 36 hours (I had to unexpectedly put down my cat) and I needed to get my mind on something else. So thank you for posting those NaHs. That was absolutely fascinating for a film junkie who has very little conception of the sorts of problems that plague film production. I was able to figure out what Pokey Stick 2's real title is and I just watched it. You were right. Fucking terrible. I love shitty horror movies and I still hated it. So many problems. I can't imagine what that script looked like. It's just heaps and heaps of pointless exposition and backstory. Then it all gets delivered in wooden monotone by actors who seem extremely uncomfortable . Then there is no way to differentiate the characters. Then the whole last half of the movie is underexposed so you can't see much of anything. But the worst problem is that it's just flat out boring. That is a criticism that I try not to use, but it is the defining characteristic of PS2. I like your idea with the Front Line Assembly cut. Maybe work some public domain classical fugues in there with the industrial. Regardless, it sounded good. Which is amazing given what you wrote. You are a miracle worker. Have you written NaH#3 yet? I am curious as to how it all shook out.
Okay so, true Story from the late 90s. Back in the olden days, young people would leave rude, crude, and ridiculous messages on each other's answering machines. It was just funny to come home, listen to your messages, and get your buddy pretending to be calling from the sex shop about the shipment of extra large dildos that had just arrived sandwiched between a message from your mother and a doctor's office confirmation call. Bonus points if someone else was there when you checked the machine. That could be a real hoot! Here is where I note that I am particularly good at doing impressions and that I had a nice Sony cordless phone with a digital answering machine. High fucking tech. Anyway, I was leaving for school in another part of the country and as a farewell I was going to call my closest friend, Bad Ronald, and leave a message as Sean Connery. In order to hone my Connery voice, I used my phone as a recording and playback device. Much like your cell phone, you could use the outgoing memo on the answering machine (the part where you say "This is Ronky Boy's phone, leave a message") to quickly record and then immediately playback the message to see if you liked how it sounded. If not you can erase it and try agian. This is perfect if you are working on an impression. So, I recorded myself saying what I was going to say, and over numerous attempts, nailed down the majority of my James Bond message. I was just having trouble with one part. Three words. Pussy, pussy galore. It took me several more attempts to get those down as, clearly, they were the most important part. Each attempt I made three passes at it with slightly different inflection. PU-ssy, PU-ssy glaore. Pussy, pussy GA-lore. Pussy, pussy ga-LORE. You get the idea. I left the message on Bad Ronald's machine, finished packing my shit and left town a few hours later, just before sunup. But the story does not end there. No, for in the controlled chaos of the move, I forgot that I had Dirty Old Sean as my outgoing message. And before I was off to school in the fall, I moved back in with my parents to save up money. I moved into my old room and set up just some essentials for the couple of moths stay. The essentials included my phone and integrated digital answering machine. But being as it was my parents' house, I shut the answering machine part of it off. And off it remained. Until there was a power outage. When the power came back on it reset the settings on my phone. And the factory settings were set to fewer rings before the answering machine picked-up on my phone than my parents' phone. This meant that Dirty Old Sean was waiting to take your call. All of this went unnoticed for 2 days. It wasn't until my parents asked me if I had received any calls as they were expecting one in particular. I said no, but then it dawned on me that my phone may have intercepted the messages. So I went upstairs and sure enough, the little digital readout indicated I had 3 messages (I told you, high fucking tech) . Then it dawned on me that I hadn't changed my outgoing memo since I moved out of my apartment. With trepidation and more than a little giddiness I pressed play. Note: My parents' names are Walter and Moreen. Second Note: Those are not my parents' real names. They are innocent. I will protect them. FIRST MESSAGE A long silence followed by a confused male voice
SECOND MESSAGE Without missing a beat. Cheerful woman's voice
THIRD MESSAGE Woman's voice. Angry
...uhh, Walt? I'm not sure I have the right number. I, uh, I'm tryin' to... You know what -- I'm just gonna call back later.
Hello. This is Joanie with Dr. Frasier's office. We have an appointment for Moreen on 18th that we will need to reschedule at your earliest convenience. Please call us at 555-7583. Thank you and have a wonderful day.
That. Is. Disgusting!
Nice! I have a friend who went to West Point. They kicked him out for smoking pot. So my only advice is, don't do that. :) Congratulations, that is a huge accomplishment.
I often get Johan Hegg, amongst people how know who Johan Hegg is. I suppose I would also get Mean Greg Allman, if anyone still knew who he was.
Now, it has the Police Department facing an “operational dilemma” in its laissez-faire handling of the demonstrators, a majority of whom are nonviolent, said Stephen P. Davis, the deputy police commissioner for public information. Top police commanders are set to meet on Monday. “How do you allow the larger group to continue while at the same time prevent the instigators from getting what they want?” he said on Sunday. “Last night is going to have to require some re-evaluation of how we’re doing it.” This is precisely the same problem that the people are having with the police in this country. Interesting that the police response is a thinly veiled threat of more force. Should the people respond in kind?Mr. de Blasio called the eruption of violence “beneath the dignity of New York City.”
I posted it here but I'm not sure how many saw it. I don't have very many followers but I tagged it #comedy which is a fairly popularly followed tag.
Super cool. The music works really well with that.
Christ, what an asshole.Groen defended his comments and chastised critics for being outraged by his comments but not by abortion.
Because an OSU grad had to try to get a beaver on the list? That is my guess anyway.Why form a separate category for "animal?"
Yes. I'm Huge fan of synthy music. I play nothing, but I listen to a lot of Goblin and Tangerine Dream amongst other synth based artists.
Cookie Monster ist am besten Metal-Sänger.
What is this about Hubski Drink Club? I'm down.