Fort Hood Sorrow

My sorrows and prayers go out to the victims and their families who are suffering.
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Here's What's New At Knott's Halloween Hanut

Cheerfully glowing ghouls highlight Knott's Berry Farm's four new mazes for its annual Halloween Haunt.

The event opened Thursday and runs through Oct. 31.

Here's what to look for:

"Dia de los Muertos": This 3-D maze is in the Boardwalk section of the park at the site of the bumper cars. Fluorescent sets and props that evoke Mexican traditions create an eye-popping experience. It is fairly low on the gore scale but includes a hall with skeletons hanging from the walls and a grisly ritual for the finale.

"Uncle Bobo's Bigtop of the Bizarre": Another 3-D attraction with striking visuals, this maze is not for people who suffer from a fear of clowns. Others might find it humorous. Beware of the cute fuzzy bunny lurking in the hallways.

It's at the other end of the Boardwalk, at the northwest corner of the park.

"Terror of London": Also strong on atmosphere, but high on the gore scale and kinky to boot. It is set in Victorian London and follows the trail of the Ripper's victims to a horrific laboratory. It includes a brothel scene. Expect a lot of surliness from the cast.

It's in the Wild Water Wilderness area, on the south end of the park.

"Lockdown-- The Asylum": Pretty much what the title says. The lunatics are in charge in this maze, meaning the cast members are apt to be in your face. This is a sequel to the earlier "Asylum" maze and it leads into "Club Blood," which explores the dark side of techno dance music.

They are next to the Ghost Rider rollercoaster at the southeast corner of the park.

Also next to Ghost Rider is "The Stepfather," kind of a mini-maze that presents a short scene to promote a Sony horror movie coming out Oct. 16.

Seven mazes are returning: "Club Blood"; "Slaughterhouse," near the main entrance; "The Doll Factory," in Wild Water Wilderness; "Quarantine," in Fiesta Village"; and in Camp Snoopy "Alien Annihilation," "Labyrinth" and "Corn Stalkers."

By the way, no matter how much fog you pump into it, Camp Snoopy still looks like Camp Snoopy.

Also returning are two rides dressed up as mazes: "Black Widow's Cavern" (the Mine Ride) and "Pyromaniax" (the Log Ride).

Scary, Creepy Purses and Handbags

This is from a female;

That's why Handbags and purses have handles and straps.

Have you ever noticed girls who set their handbags on public toilet
floors, then go directly to their dining tables and set it on the
table?

It's not always the 'restaurant food' that causes stomach distress Sometimes 'what you don't know will hurt you'!

Read on.............
Mom got so upset when guests came in the door and plopped their handbags down on the counter where she
was cooking or setting up food. She always said that handbags are
really dirty, because of where they have been.

It's something just about every woman carries with them.. While we may know what's inside our handbags, do you have any idea what's on the
outside? Women carry handbags everywhere; from the office to public
toilets to the floor of the car. Most women won't be caught withouttheir handbags, but did you ever stop to think about where your handbag goes during the day.

I drive a school bus, so my handbag has been on the floor of the bus
alot,' says one woman. 'On the floor of my car, and in toilets.'
I put my handbag in grocery shopping carts and on the floor of thetoilet,' says another woman 'and of course in my home which should be
clean.'

We decided to find out if handbags harbor a lot of bacteria. We learnedhow to test them at Nelson Laboratories in Salt Lake, and then we setout to test the average woman's handbag.

Most women told us they didn't stop to think about what was on the
bottom of their handbag. Most said at home they usually set their
handbags on top of kitchen tables and counters where food is prepared. Most of the ladies we talked to told us they wouldn't be surprised if
their handbags were at least a little bit dirty.

It turns out handbags are so surprisingly dirty, even the
microbiologist who tested them was shocked.
Microbiologist Amy Karen of Nelson Labs says nearly all of the handbags
tested were not only high in bacteria, but high in harmful kinds ofbacteria. Pseudomonas can cause eye infections, staphylococcus aurous
can cause serious skin infections, and salmonella and e-coli found on
the handbags could make people very sick.

In one sampling, four of five handbags tested positive for salmonella,
and that's not the worst of it.. 'There is fecal contamination on thehandbags' says Amy. Leather or vinyl handbags tended to be cleaner than
cloth handbags, and lifestyle seemed to play a role. People with kids
tended to have dirtier handbags than those without, with one exception.

The handbag of one single woman who frequented nightclubs had one of
the worst contaminations of all. 'Some type of feces, or possibly vomit' says
Amy.

So the moral of this story is that your handbag won't kill you, but it
does have the potential to make you very sick if you keep it on places
where you eat. Use hooks to hang your handbag at home and in toilets,
and don't put it on your desk, a restaurant table, or on your kitchen
countertop.

Experts say you should think of your handbag the same way you would a
pair of shoes. 'If you think about putting a pair of shoes on your
countertops, that's the same thing you're doing when you put your
handbag on the countertops.'
Your handbag has gone where individuals before you have walked, sat, sneezed, coughed, spat, urinated, emptied bowels, etc!

Do you really want to bring that home with you?
The microbiologists at Nelson also said cleaning a handbag will help.
Wash cloth handbags and use leather cleaner to clean the bottom of
leather handbags.

THIS IS WORTH SHARING!!! PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO YOUR GRANDMOTHERS. MOMS, DAUGHTERS, GRANDDAUGHTERS AND GIRL FRIENDS !

Halloween, Never Too Early

The video is from an old black and white video of House on Haunted Hill, 1959 version.
When I watch these old black and white horror films, I often wonder how many takes there were due to the actors "cracking up" laughing. It's a good one, although not the best, to watch around the Halloween season. You say Your not interested in watching movies? How about going to see some haunted attractions or haunted places in the United States. I have a couple of real good sites to get You started. One is The Shadow Lands and the other is Haunted Houses. These two sites also have some good links. One attraction I went to a couple of years ago around October was the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland in Anaheim. I was real disappointed.

The folks at Disney transformed the Haunted Mansion into a Nightmare Before Christmas attraction. If it had been executed in an appropriate manner, it might of been OK. However the end result was a cheap, temporary looking attraction. It wasn't in the Disney way of doing things. The younger folks probably thought is was alright. It looked like it was slapped together overnight. The Haunted Mansion is open almost year-round. It's more Halloween like in feeling when it's not Halloween. Here it is; October, Haunted Mansion attraction, opportunity to do something extra special with the season....and what do they do.....Throw a Nightmare Before Christmas theme at the event.....bad idea. Leave the Nightmare Before Christmas on DVD you can rent, not one an attraction....doesn't work. Thank goodness it doesn't last all year.
After the holidays The Mansion is transformed back into the original attraction. Not scary enough for You yet?

Here are some scary, haunted, creepy places from all over the World. Go Here if You dare!
and even here!

Moonlighting and I Love Lucy

Back in the 1980's was a Television show called Moonlighting starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepard. One of the episodes was filmed in the black and white style of Film Noir. Most of the directors, camera men, lighting and art directors, that knew how to film in black and white, had died or retired. There were very few folks around that knew how to film in black and white. The Moonlighting crew and staff wanted that certain Film Noir look and feel of the 1930's and 1940's. For a black and white movie, the lighting, actors make-up, colors,shades, shadows, etc. is different that filming in color. Film noir played with light coming through venetian blinds, lighting to set long shadows, dark shades and shadows in the room settings. They finally found a few guys that were still alive at the time that were will to help.....In fact they were pretty much excited about the project.

I read that the I Love Lucy show always had cans of paint on the set ranging from white to medium greys. They could paint over unwanted shadows and lighting flaws...pretty extreme for a early 1950's sitcom. However that's one reason I Love Lucy has always been on Television somewhere in the World since the beginning of the series....attention to detail. Another first for I Love Lucy is the use of three cameras. All operating at the same time the scenes were filmed. Latter close up shots could be edited with the long shots.

The Fourth Kind Movie

Simon and Simon

Pictured is a house I designed for a client back in the late 1970's. The house was selected and used by Universal Studios for the home were AJ lived in the 1980 Television Series
Simon and Simon. A show about two brothers who were detectives. The location, where they practiced and lived in the show, was in San Diego area. The house is actually in Venice California on one of the canals. Since the photo and television series the house has been remodeled and updated. Rick, AJ's brother didn't have a house. He lived on a boat which was docked on a vacant lot adjacent to AJ's house. Almost directly and to the side of the house is a bridge over the canal.

The actual house is around 2000 square feet. The interior shots were done at Universal Studios.
AJ was played by Jameson Parker and his TV brother was Rick played by Gerald McRaney

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