Stress at work has translated to an unhealthy habit of regular eating out. As a result, I thought I’d list my favorite eateries.
1. Kai Sushi Café – fresh and varied menu; wonderful staff
2. Cazadores – good fish tacos
3. Applebee’s – I like their weight conscious menu
4. Red Lobster – yummy trout
5. Max and Erma’s – tasty burgers
6. BW3 – they employ my favorite bartender
7. Buffalo Jack’s – elk steaks
8. Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen – huge, juicy raw oysters
9. Olive Garden – I crave their seafood brodetto
10. Bravo! – more tasty seafood
11. Rooster’s – Buffalo chicken pizza
12. Thai 9 – awesome curry
13. Jay’s Seafood – quality cuisine in a neat historical building
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Thursday Thirteen - Thirteen Ghosts
Here are the thirteen tortured spirits from the 2001 movie, a remake of the original "Thirteen Ghosts". I've never seen the original but can't get enough of Tony Shalhoub in this version.
1. The First Born Son - The First Born Son is the ghost of Billy Michaels, a boy who loved Cowboy films. One day a neighbor found a real steel arrow in his parents' closet. He challenged Billy to a duel, with Billy using a toy gun. However, his plaything was no match for the arrow, and he died when the neighbor shot it through the back of his head. In death, Billy is in his cowboy suit and holding a tomahawk, with the arrow still protruding from his head. His ghost whispers "I want to play" or "play with me."
2. The Torso - The Torso is the ghost of a gambler called Jimmy "The Gambler" Gambino. One day he made a deal with a rich business man, and when he bet heavily on a boxing match and lost, he tried to renege his bet and slip out of town, and so sealed his fate. The mob and the winning boxer, to whom he owed money, caught up with Gambino and cut him into several pieces, wrapping them in cellophane and dumping the corpse into the ocean. His ghost is just his torso, trying to walk around on its hands, while his head lies nearby screaming within the cellophane.
3. The Bound Woman - The Bound Woman was a cheerleader named Susan LeGrow, who was born privileged and had a penchant for seducing men and tossing them away. When her boyfriend found her cheating, he strangled her and killed the other boy. He buried her body at the 50-yard line of the local football field. Her ghost is in her prom dress, hanging suspended by the belt used to strangle her, and her arms tied behind her back. Before he was hanged, her boyfriend was quoted as saying "The bitch broke my heart, so I broke her neck".
4. The Withered Lover - The Withered Lover is Jean Kriticos, Arthur's wife. She was burned severely saving her family from a devastating house fire, and died of her wounds in the hospital. Her ghost initially appears in a hospital gown, hooked up to an IV pole and showing severe burns on her face. Unlike the other ghosts, she is not a vengeful spirit, electing to help her family rather than show malevolence.
5. The Torn Prince - The Torn Prince is the ghost of Royce Clayton, a gifted baseball star in high school, albeit with attitude issues and a superiority complex. In 1957 he was challenged by a greaser named Johnny to a drag race, but was killed as his car spun out of control and flipped over; the cause of the accident, a cut brake line. He was buried in a plot of earth that overlooked the baseball diamond. His ghost carries a baseball bat, and parts of his body are torn to shreds from when he was dragged under the car.
6. The Angry Princess - The Angry Princess is Dana Newman, who did not believe in her own natural beauty. Abusive boyfriends fueled her low self-esteem, which led to much unneeded plastic surgery for imagined defects. She got a job working as a plastic surgeon's assistant, getting paid in treatments instead of cash. When she tried to perform surgery on herself while she was alone in the hospital one night, she blinded herself in one eye and mutilated herself beyond any saving. She committed suicide in the bathtub by slashing her body repeatedly with a butcher knife. Her ghost is naked, still carrying the knife she killed herself with, and the inside walls of her cube are splattered with her blood.
7. The Pilgrimess - The Pilgrimess is the ghost of Isabella Smith, an Englishwoman who traveled across the Atlantic and settled in New England during colonial times. She was an outsider to the town she moved into, and this isolated her from the other townsfolk. She was the poor scapegoat of the townsfolk when livestock began to die mysteriously. To try to get rid of her, the townsfolk locked her in a barn and set it on fire with her inside. To all of the town's surprise, she emerged from the wreckage without a single burn on her body or clothes. When this happened she was sentenced to the stocks with no food or water until she died of dehydration and malnutrition. As a ghost, she is still locked into her stocks.
8. and 9. The Great Child and The Dire Mother - The Dire Mother is the ghost of Margaret Shelburne, who was an attraction in a carnival due to her being only three feet tall. She was raped by the "Tall Man," another carnival freak. Her son, Harold (the Great Child), was born as a result of that rape; he eventually weighed over 300 pounds (136 kg). Harold, spoiled, was raised as his mother's protector and kept a child-like mindset, to the point that he wore diapers his entire life. One day some of the carnival employees decided to play a little practical joke on Harold, and kidnapped his mother. In a psychopathic rampage, he set out to look for her, destroying all in his path, but when he caught up with the culprits, he found that his mother had accidentally suffocated to death in the bag that she was kept in. Harold killed the kidnappers with an axe, keeping their remains and displaying them for paying customers. When the owner of the carnival found out what Harold had done, he ordered a mob of people to tear Harold apart. Their ghosts are always together, and Harold still wields the ax and wears a bib stained with food that his mother has spoon-fed to him. An alternate version of the story is told in the DVD commentary: It was said that their deaths were caused by the Great Child rolling over on the Dire Mother while asleep, thus suffocating her, then as a result him starving to death after suffering from depression and guilt, plus the fact that he had no one to feed him.
10. The Hammer - The Hammer is the ghost of a blacksmith, George Markley, who lived in a small town in the 1890s. He was wrongfully accused of stealing, and when threatened with exile, refused to leave town. A gang led by his accuser hanged his wife and children and burned their bodies; in revenge, George used his sledgehammer to beat the culprits to death. He was then subjected to a cruel form of frontier justice by the townsfolk, being chained to a tree and executed by having railroad spikes driven into his body with his own sledgehammer. As a final touch, they cut off his hand and attached the sledgehammer - handle and all - to the hand that was cut off. His ghost is seen with the railroad spikes protruding from his body and a sledgehammer for a left hand.
11. The Jackal - The Jackal is the ghost of Ryan Kuhn, who was born in 1887 to a prostitute. Ryan had an insatiable lust for women, rape, and murdering prostitutes. Wanting to be cured, he committed himself to Borehamwood Asylum, but after attacking a nurse, he was put in a straitjacket and thrown in a padded room. After years of this imprisonment, he went completely insane, scratching at the walls so violently that his fingernails were torn completely off. The doctors kept him permanently bound in his straitjacket, tying it tighter when he acted out, causing his limbs to contort horribly. Still fighting to free himself, Ryan gnawed through the jacket until the doctors finally locked his head in a metal cage and sealed him away in the dark basement cell. There, he grew to hate any kind of human contact, screaming madly and cowering whenever approached by a human being. When a fire broke out in the asylum, everyone but Ryan escaped. He chose to stay behind and face the fire. As a ghost, his arms are free from his jacket, and the bars of his cage are ripped outwards.
12. The Juggernaut - The Juggernaut is the ghost of a serial killer named Horace "Breaker" Mahoney. Standing seven feet tall, he was of such grotesque height and appearance that everyone ostracized him as a child. His mother abandoned him at birth, so his father raised him, putting him to work in the junkyard crushing old cars. After his father died, Horace was left on his own, and soon went mad. He would pick up female hitchhikers on the road and drive them back to his junkyard, then tear them apart with his bare hands and feed them to his dogs. One day he picked up an undercover female police officer, who called for backup, bringing a SWAT team to surround the junkyard. Since close combat was impossible, the police instead struck the yard, and arrested the giant. However, Horace broke free from the cuffs, and three officers lost their lives. Quickly, five SWAT officers took out their guns and brought Horace down in a hail of bullets. When he finally went down, they shot an extra round of ammunition into him, "just to be safe." His ghost still shows bullet holes all over his clothing, and the round that finished him, in the center of his forehead.
13. The Broken Heart - The thirteenth ghost lost a great love, but I don't want to tell you more in case you haven't seem the movie.
1. The First Born Son - The First Born Son is the ghost of Billy Michaels, a boy who loved Cowboy films. One day a neighbor found a real steel arrow in his parents' closet. He challenged Billy to a duel, with Billy using a toy gun. However, his plaything was no match for the arrow, and he died when the neighbor shot it through the back of his head. In death, Billy is in his cowboy suit and holding a tomahawk, with the arrow still protruding from his head. His ghost whispers "I want to play" or "play with me."
2. The Torso - The Torso is the ghost of a gambler called Jimmy "The Gambler" Gambino. One day he made a deal with a rich business man, and when he bet heavily on a boxing match and lost, he tried to renege his bet and slip out of town, and so sealed his fate. The mob and the winning boxer, to whom he owed money, caught up with Gambino and cut him into several pieces, wrapping them in cellophane and dumping the corpse into the ocean. His ghost is just his torso, trying to walk around on its hands, while his head lies nearby screaming within the cellophane.
3. The Bound Woman - The Bound Woman was a cheerleader named Susan LeGrow, who was born privileged and had a penchant for seducing men and tossing them away. When her boyfriend found her cheating, he strangled her and killed the other boy. He buried her body at the 50-yard line of the local football field. Her ghost is in her prom dress, hanging suspended by the belt used to strangle her, and her arms tied behind her back. Before he was hanged, her boyfriend was quoted as saying "The bitch broke my heart, so I broke her neck".
4. The Withered Lover - The Withered Lover is Jean Kriticos, Arthur's wife. She was burned severely saving her family from a devastating house fire, and died of her wounds in the hospital. Her ghost initially appears in a hospital gown, hooked up to an IV pole and showing severe burns on her face. Unlike the other ghosts, she is not a vengeful spirit, electing to help her family rather than show malevolence.
5. The Torn Prince - The Torn Prince is the ghost of Royce Clayton, a gifted baseball star in high school, albeit with attitude issues and a superiority complex. In 1957 he was challenged by a greaser named Johnny to a drag race, but was killed as his car spun out of control and flipped over; the cause of the accident, a cut brake line. He was buried in a plot of earth that overlooked the baseball diamond. His ghost carries a baseball bat, and parts of his body are torn to shreds from when he was dragged under the car.
6. The Angry Princess - The Angry Princess is Dana Newman, who did not believe in her own natural beauty. Abusive boyfriends fueled her low self-esteem, which led to much unneeded plastic surgery for imagined defects. She got a job working as a plastic surgeon's assistant, getting paid in treatments instead of cash. When she tried to perform surgery on herself while she was alone in the hospital one night, she blinded herself in one eye and mutilated herself beyond any saving. She committed suicide in the bathtub by slashing her body repeatedly with a butcher knife. Her ghost is naked, still carrying the knife she killed herself with, and the inside walls of her cube are splattered with her blood.
7. The Pilgrimess - The Pilgrimess is the ghost of Isabella Smith, an Englishwoman who traveled across the Atlantic and settled in New England during colonial times. She was an outsider to the town she moved into, and this isolated her from the other townsfolk. She was the poor scapegoat of the townsfolk when livestock began to die mysteriously. To try to get rid of her, the townsfolk locked her in a barn and set it on fire with her inside. To all of the town's surprise, she emerged from the wreckage without a single burn on her body or clothes. When this happened she was sentenced to the stocks with no food or water until she died of dehydration and malnutrition. As a ghost, she is still locked into her stocks.
8. and 9. The Great Child and The Dire Mother - The Dire Mother is the ghost of Margaret Shelburne, who was an attraction in a carnival due to her being only three feet tall. She was raped by the "Tall Man," another carnival freak. Her son, Harold (the Great Child), was born as a result of that rape; he eventually weighed over 300 pounds (136 kg). Harold, spoiled, was raised as his mother's protector and kept a child-like mindset, to the point that he wore diapers his entire life. One day some of the carnival employees decided to play a little practical joke on Harold, and kidnapped his mother. In a psychopathic rampage, he set out to look for her, destroying all in his path, but when he caught up with the culprits, he found that his mother had accidentally suffocated to death in the bag that she was kept in. Harold killed the kidnappers with an axe, keeping their remains and displaying them for paying customers. When the owner of the carnival found out what Harold had done, he ordered a mob of people to tear Harold apart. Their ghosts are always together, and Harold still wields the ax and wears a bib stained with food that his mother has spoon-fed to him. An alternate version of the story is told in the DVD commentary: It was said that their deaths were caused by the Great Child rolling over on the Dire Mother while asleep, thus suffocating her, then as a result him starving to death after suffering from depression and guilt, plus the fact that he had no one to feed him.
10. The Hammer - The Hammer is the ghost of a blacksmith, George Markley, who lived in a small town in the 1890s. He was wrongfully accused of stealing, and when threatened with exile, refused to leave town. A gang led by his accuser hanged his wife and children and burned their bodies; in revenge, George used his sledgehammer to beat the culprits to death. He was then subjected to a cruel form of frontier justice by the townsfolk, being chained to a tree and executed by having railroad spikes driven into his body with his own sledgehammer. As a final touch, they cut off his hand and attached the sledgehammer - handle and all - to the hand that was cut off. His ghost is seen with the railroad spikes protruding from his body and a sledgehammer for a left hand.
11. The Jackal - The Jackal is the ghost of Ryan Kuhn, who was born in 1887 to a prostitute. Ryan had an insatiable lust for women, rape, and murdering prostitutes. Wanting to be cured, he committed himself to Borehamwood Asylum, but after attacking a nurse, he was put in a straitjacket and thrown in a padded room. After years of this imprisonment, he went completely insane, scratching at the walls so violently that his fingernails were torn completely off. The doctors kept him permanently bound in his straitjacket, tying it tighter when he acted out, causing his limbs to contort horribly. Still fighting to free himself, Ryan gnawed through the jacket until the doctors finally locked his head in a metal cage and sealed him away in the dark basement cell. There, he grew to hate any kind of human contact, screaming madly and cowering whenever approached by a human being. When a fire broke out in the asylum, everyone but Ryan escaped. He chose to stay behind and face the fire. As a ghost, his arms are free from his jacket, and the bars of his cage are ripped outwards.
12. The Juggernaut - The Juggernaut is the ghost of a serial killer named Horace "Breaker" Mahoney. Standing seven feet tall, he was of such grotesque height and appearance that everyone ostracized him as a child. His mother abandoned him at birth, so his father raised him, putting him to work in the junkyard crushing old cars. After his father died, Horace was left on his own, and soon went mad. He would pick up female hitchhikers on the road and drive them back to his junkyard, then tear them apart with his bare hands and feed them to his dogs. One day he picked up an undercover female police officer, who called for backup, bringing a SWAT team to surround the junkyard. Since close combat was impossible, the police instead struck the yard, and arrested the giant. However, Horace broke free from the cuffs, and three officers lost their lives. Quickly, five SWAT officers took out their guns and brought Horace down in a hail of bullets. When he finally went down, they shot an extra round of ammunition into him, "just to be safe." His ghost still shows bullet holes all over his clothing, and the round that finished him, in the center of his forehead.
13. The Broken Heart - The thirteenth ghost lost a great love, but I don't want to tell you more in case you haven't seem the movie.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Thursday Thirteen – Studs and Bitches
Don’t get too excited, this is about dogs. Here are thirteen of the innumerable breeds.
1. Miniature Schnauzer – my parents have had two great ones
2. Rough Collie – who doesn’t like Lassie?
3. Doberman Pincher – my grandparents had a wonderful one named Pierre
4. Dalmation – though hyperactive from what I’ve heard, I will always think of the Disney movie in connection with this breed
5. Afghan Hound – these elegant creatures always remind me of a friend; that family’s beautiful female was a goof at heart
6. Border Collie – the multicolored eyes and merle (speckled) coats are gorgeous
7. Akita Inu – this Japanese dog is one of the oldest dog breeds in the world; it was actually used to hunt large game in previous generations
8. Borzoi – the Russian wolfhound has amazing speed and lean good looks
9. Puli – my partner tells fondly of a neighbor’s dreadlocked specimen
10. Shi Tzu – the hilarious mockumentary “Best in Show” cemented this breed in my mind as a real darling
11. Chow Chow – while I know of an abused specimen that never did like children, I think they are great
12. Rottweiler – I’ve wanted one of these gentle beasts since first seeing them in a horror movie; a friend breeds some real sweeties
13. Mutt – while not a breed but a mix, like my mixed breed cats (moggies), they are the hardiest of the lot and I grew up with two wonderful female mutts
1. Miniature Schnauzer – my parents have had two great ones
2. Rough Collie – who doesn’t like Lassie?
3. Doberman Pincher – my grandparents had a wonderful one named Pierre
4. Dalmation – though hyperactive from what I’ve heard, I will always think of the Disney movie in connection with this breed
5. Afghan Hound – these elegant creatures always remind me of a friend; that family’s beautiful female was a goof at heart
6. Border Collie – the multicolored eyes and merle (speckled) coats are gorgeous
7. Akita Inu – this Japanese dog is one of the oldest dog breeds in the world; it was actually used to hunt large game in previous generations
8. Borzoi – the Russian wolfhound has amazing speed and lean good looks
9. Puli – my partner tells fondly of a neighbor’s dreadlocked specimen
10. Shi Tzu – the hilarious mockumentary “Best in Show” cemented this breed in my mind as a real darling
11. Chow Chow – while I know of an abused specimen that never did like children, I think they are great
12. Rottweiler – I’ve wanted one of these gentle beasts since first seeing them in a horror movie; a friend breeds some real sweeties
13. Mutt – while not a breed but a mix, like my mixed breed cats (moggies), they are the hardiest of the lot and I grew up with two wonderful female mutts
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