Reidsville City nitpickers quash the Haunted Warehouse

For the past few weeks our TV station has been hyping the first-ever Haunted Warehouse, around the corner and down the street from where we work here in Reidsville. I went inside where it was supposed to be a few days ago and... although I personally couldn't find anything very scary (guess they hadn't moved in the frightening props and such yet) I thought it was a great location for a Halloween haunted house-type attraction. Our station's general manager really had his heart set on doing this. Well, yesterday afternoon inspectors from the City of Reidsville came and effectively closed it down just a few short hours before it was supposed to start. Supposedly it wasn't "safe" enough... when the building in question is no less safe than any other in downtown Reidsville. Some have openly speculated that the timing of the condemnation is pretty suspect, that somebody up high in Reidsville city government "has it in" for the station. I don't know. But it's a shame that this happened. We were using the same building two weeks ago to tape some pro wrestling, and there was nothing wrong with doing that then.

I'll go ahead and state the obvious: Reidsville city government is, for the most part, bass-ackwards. I have never seen a municipal government so hell-bent on driving away small business and other industry. In the past month or so this town has already lost a good store, because its owner got sick and tired of the crazy sign ordinances that this town imposes. And at least one other retailer has outright said recently that it's going to be closing soon because of how the city government has driven away so much business. Now chalk up the Haunted Warehouse as one more casualty of the economic Bizarro-world that is Reidsville. And some of our "leaders" still dare to wonder how we can't attract any more industry.

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Wait a sec... there's a HELLBOY animated movie on Cartoon Network tonight?!

HOW did this slip under my radar?! Guess that's what happens when you're too busy campaigning and being in debates and whatnot for political office. And here I am working at the station tonight while this is going to be broadcasting. AAARRGGHH...

Well, if you're so lucky as to have a free evening tonight, Hellboy: Sword of Storms airs at 9:30 p.m. tonight on Cartoon Network (click here for the movie's official blog). I've been a fan of Hellboy for a few years now, since the night "Weird" Ed took me to see the movie. Since then I've gotten a few Hellboy comics (and the DVD of the movie 'course). Guess I'm just nuts about things like heroic demons and Nazi cultists and the whole concept of free will and all that. Anyhoo, I'll probably just bootleg it off the torrents tomorrow, so no big whuff about missing it tonight. Can't wait to see it though.

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Musical concepts you just can't teach in an elementary school

Lisa - the music teacher at the nearby elementary school - just lamented about the difficulties that would come if she attempted to teach her students about castrati.

I'm inclined to agree.

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A true-life ghost story

Hey gang, I'm currently putting together something for Halloween. Something of a sequel to last year's big ghost story post (the one that sent two hundred thousand new visitors to this site in the past week or so!) but this one is going to be made up entirely of material that people who found and read that post have submitted to me. I've got stories, photos... all kinds of good stuff about things that go bump in the night. I'm going to earnestly try to have that up by Monday, provided I can squeeze it in between work and campaigning. But in the meantime...

I know Marc - also know by his blogging nom de plume "Bmovies" - pretty well. He's one of the coolest cats I know and just an all-around solid guy. Marc is also one of the most talented people on the Internet you'll ever be likely to meet: you've probably seen some of his handiwork and didn't know it.

Well, Marc has posted his own personal ghost story on his blog. It's a pretty thorough and detailed tale. And a compelling one too. In addition to his other talents I think Marc has quite a good mind at conveying a story. Head on over there if you want a good jolt to kick off the Halloween spirit :-)

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Shadows of the Empire: ten years later

In 1996 Lucasfilm launched a unique project with the Star Wars saga called Shadows of the Empire. It was a massive multi-media event that involved action figures and toy vehicles, a videogame, a hardcover novel, a comic book series, a soundtrack CD... just about all the merchandising you'd expect to come out of a Star Wars movie. Except, there was no actual movie. Set in the one-year period between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Shadows of the Empire was the previously untold story of Luke, Leia, and Lando's search for the carbon-frozen Han Solo. Most of that had to do with following up on a myriad of leads about the location of Boba Fett. But there was also a secondary plot involving Xizor, who after the Emperor and Darth Vader is the third most powerful person in the galaxy, what with him being a bigger criminal mastermind than Jabba the Hutt. The entire storyline was told through all the associated memorabilia: the core story played out in the Steve Perry novel and the Dark Horse comic, but unless you played the videogame you didn't know the ultimate fate of Dash Rendar, the new Rebel character.

To mark the ten-year anniversary of Shadows of the Empire the official Star Wars website has published a retrospective of the project, including a list of all the stuff that came out under the title. One thing that is still remarkable about Shadows of the Empire: it's probably the first and only time that there was ever a soundtrack CD that was composed for a fictional book (and it's a very good soundtrack at that, in my humble opinion... well worth tracking down a copy).

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Tonight on Sci-Fi: The Doctor will witness the "Rise of the Cybermen"

"Le-let's cover up that noise... Uhhhh, give us Track Number Ninety."

"It's happening again... I've seen them before."

"Because it hurts."

"Delete, delete, delete..."

They haven't been seen by an American audience in 18 years.

But tonight, as Doctor Who continues the second season on the Sci-Fi Channel since its revival, the Cybermen return, in the first of a two-part story that is as horrifying as it is thrilling.

(By the way, here's my original review of this episode from back in May when I bootlegged it off the 'net.)

In "Rise of the Cybermen", The Doctor, Rose and Mickey accidentally wind up on the Earth of a parallel universe. On this "new" Earth, high-tech airships fill the skies of London and we see firsthand that the proliferation of compatible tech like laptops and Bluetooths may not be the best of ideas. While the Doctor desperately tries to fix the TARDIS, Rose and Mickey run off to see what their other-Earth counterparts are like. While all this is going on, John Lumic - the insane but genius head of Cybus Industries - is about to unveil the ultimate "upgrade package"... whether the leaders of Earth's governments are ready for it or not.

"Rise of the Cybermen" marks a reunion of sorts for David Tennant - who just keeps getting better and better as the Doctor - and Roger Lloyd-Pack, who is playing Lumic in this and the following episode. Tennant and Pack were seen in last year's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with Lloyd-Pack playing the vindictive Bartemus Crouch and Tennant playing his traitorous son Barty Crouch Jr. Lloyd-Pack does an ex-cellent (you have to say it like the Cybermen of the '80s) job portraying Lumic, giving the role an over-the-top insanity we haven't seen in the series since Davros. Which might not be a good thing since in some ways Lumic here is already too much like Davros, but I'm willing to overlook the similarities on this one.

"Rise of the Cybermen" ends with a terrifying cliff-hanger that continues next week with "The Age of Steel". Combined, these two episodes represent some of the best Doctor Who since the series was re-started up almost two years ago. Definitely worth watching tonight and next week.

EDIT 8:46 PM EST: SCI-FI CHANNEL CUT OUT A GREAT SCENE!!! It's the part where Lumic is talking to his henchman who's demonstrating the "work" done on the homeless guys. Okay well he tells them to march forward and the door opens and they head on through, and past the door we hear people screaming. Okay in the original run of the episode on the BBC, the henchman says that it's too much noise "give us Track Number Ninety". A technician activates a console... and we start hearing the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". It continues to play as we see what's going on past the doors: these evil mechanical arms with things like buzzsaws and knifeblades and injectors and whatnot slicing up those poor dudes while they're still screaming. It's a GREAT scene and... I can't believe that Sci-Fi deleted it!!

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Watch the school board candidates forum online

I don't like the way I looked during this thing. Had I spent a minute going to the restroom to look in the mirror I would have noticed how bad my hair looked. It didn't start out looking like that when I left for the forum: guess the wind tussled it a bit. And I had a comb with me for this sort of thing too. Going back yesterday to watch this from the TiVo at the station I kept thinking that I looked too much like Mayor Quimby during the debate on the classic "Sideshow Bob Roberts" episode of The Simpsons:
Quite a number of people have told me they thought I looked good and performed well during the forum, so maybe I'm just being too hard on myself.

But anyway, if you want to watch the complete forum with all the candidates who attended, here are some links for you (BTW these are all in Windows Media format). I'm in the second portion that starts maybe 20-30 minutes in on the first video.

School Board Forum #1

School Board Forum #2

Just remember: unlike Mayor Quimby, I am literate!

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