Happy Haunted Halloween, Whoniverse!

            Yeah, I said "Haunted" and "Whoniverse" in the same sentence!  Mostly because this is a quickie that will hopefully cover both the Doctor Who cosplay event AND the Historic Haunts tour I took, and it will be just funny enough to tide you over for Halloween AND the first 9 days of November (including Dia de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead).  So, instead of going blabbity blah, let's get right to it!  I've got the Necrofusion full album here (which is by Zak Bagans + Praga Khan), which is OPTIONAL for you!  (If it's too distracting, do some DJ Lorn, with Ancient Realms: Atlantis or Ancient Realms: Anasazi!)  WARNING: Lots of pictures here, so if you are having a hard time loading up pictures, I suggest you try using a laptop or a desktop computer and not some iWhatever device you're using.

Who Was Whose Doctor?  Why I Should Have a TARDIS!!!

            The inaugural Doctor Who cosplay event on Saturday, October 18th, 2014, was pretty good: people showed up in costume that were creative, and I was surprised at how creative they were in their choices.  Let me be honest, though: I should've started way earlier than I did.  I was super stressed, wanting some actual awesome costume to wear.  I was so desperate that I was frantically scanning through ThinkGeek for Whovian goodies.  I wound up wearing a DoctorWho-INSPIRED outfit rather than a full on costume, which actually made Dad a little happy.  It was original, but totally painful for my feet as I was wearing Converse high-tops that did not fit me very well.  Maybe I should've applied duct tape to the situation……

            Anyways, despite showing up LATE and missing most of the action (hence the need for an actual TARDIS with Gallifreyan time-travel technology!), people were there dressed as Doctor Rory, Amy, a Dalek, a Cyberman (there were 2 Cybermen, actually), Captain Jack Harkness……  Even Dan and Kris got in on the cosplay action: Kris was Madame Kovarian and Dan could alternate between a Silence (without the hands) and an infected gas mask-wearing medical doctor from the two-parter "The Empty Child/TheDoctor Dances".

            But just dressing up wasn't enough: Dan and Kris even decked out the store in Whovian decorations, with a (cardboard) TARDIS out front, the gravestones for Mr. and Mrs. Pond, Clara Oswald, and River Song, the Face of Bo, the Doctor's non-fightin' hand….  Some chilled bottled Waters of Mars, some Whovian cupcakes and even marshmallow Adipose pops were available for sale in case you get famished or thirsty, with a scavenger hunt available to cure boredom, with a color/draw-your-own-TARDIS activity for the kids!

            My initial assesment: 4 plungers out of 5.  I could've been there earlier, but that's my own damn fault; I would've gotten great pictures of great costumes between noon and 3pm EDT!  Other businesses had stuff going on, like a London Fog tea available at the café two doors down, and the salon doing Whovian nail designs; I also missed them!  DAVROS DAMMIT!  Next time, after creating a ton of Adipose with my mass, I most certainly WILL have a costume ready!

           MARK MY WORDS, SAXON!  *Schwarzneggar accent* I'LL BE BAHCK!!!!!

(more pictures from the cosplay event is available here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsk5QbwvD )

Historic Haunts: The Return of the Damned Blogger

            I hope people remember my post about going on the Historic Haunts tour last year.  I decided to go again this year, but with Papa Spock's camera!  This very decision has consequences, however.  I had opted for the camera for one reason: the possibility of capturing something paranormal in an image.  What I wound up with is much different and weirder from when I started—THE ESSENCE OF EVERY GOOD JOURNEY!  Or is it documentary?  Not sure; I should ask Morgan Spurlock….  *picks up that name she dropped, gently prodding it to do more episodes of Inside Man on CNN*

            Anyways, it's the same stops as before, but the details are a little bit different, mostly because I didn't have the awesome tour guide who wore a kilt last year.  This year, it was a lady in a bit of a Victorian Gothic ensemble.  Currently second-best choice, in my opinion.  Then again, I was not paying as much attention this year because I was instead trying to take pictures for my blog post about this tour.  Cue EXASPERATED SIGH!!!!

            First thing I noticed when I reached location number 1 (Brethren House): we're all holding candles, we're all following this interestingly dressed character around town, listening to tales of history and the weird happenings of what's not necessarily considered scientific and holding candles while we go through.  Either this is a special traditional journey that has a hint of a religious vibe (as in the candle-lit vigils olden day friends of mine have attended for their churches)……or we look like a fucking cult here.  Seriously, tell me if we look like a cult!

Do you get what I mean?!  Thanks, Jenny Lawson aka the Bloggess, for inspiring that bit of crazy thinking!  I can't wait for the brainwashing to be completed so that I, too, may be collecting weird taxidermy and get raised eyebrows during the annual inspection done by the apartment building's management whenever we get too damn comfortable!  Maybe your husband Victor (who's always wrong—unless he's obviously right) can do the inspection this year—just to make it fun!

            Anyways, more pictures here include us walking, tour guide's "preaching" and nothing out of the ordinary—so far…..

            We hit God's Acre (a cemetery surrounded by school buildings, in case you forgot), and for me, it was photography central!  I wound up staying farther behind to take pictures, hoping to CATCH SOMETHING!!!!!!  *flails*  I think I did….because I took this picture—AIN'T IT PURDY?!

And I took this second one just in case of false positives:

Huh….That's weird…..I'm sure that there weren't any bugs around…  And I doubt that there's any dust in this cemetery.  I am also sure that the lens of the camera was clear…..  Let's take a closer look:

And then I went back to the previous picture…..

Pardon the poor editing—My Photoshop skills are severely lacking….but I lined it up best I could!

            Anyways, ORBS!  Very controversial manifestationof spirit energy.  Most orbs caught in photos and videos are actually just dust particles and bugs and what-not.  In fact, Zak Bagans and Nick Groff each say (in their books) that 95-97% of all orbs captured on film (static or video) are bugs or dust particles or lens flares or whatever and easy to debunk.  It's that remaining 3-5% that is totally weird: they emit their own light, are not caused by any light reflecting off of a random bug or some dust, they manifest IN FRAME, and move in intelligent patterns at times.

            I'm not entirely sure that I caught an ACTUAL orb, and verification on whether I did or not would be appreciated.  (FUCK OFF, TROLLS!)  But in any case, the POSSIBILITY is there!

            After the cemetery, we swung by Boyd Theater (which I hope gets back up and running; please, potential investors!  Help bring this historic icon of Bethlehem, PA, back to life!) and the Hells' Fargo:

FIXED!  Lol, I'm kidding, Wells Fargo!

And then passed through that pedestrian alley by the Underground Lair (Wow, how much advertising are they getting just from me mentioning their store in my blog?!) to get to the Sun Inn.

            Before I tell you about the next photo, let me tell you right now……I AM FINE!  I AM OKAY!  You can tell by my tweets!

A little shaken. Singed around the edges. Accidentally set my hair on fire with haunted tour candle. #INCINERATE #EXASPERATE #SANITATE
— Eden Pyrithea (@LadyEden1337) October 25, 2014

Don't worry: i'm okay. It's just some hair and my ego that were burnt. FYI: caNDLES and caMERAS don't mix. #INCINERATE #EXASPERATE
— Eden Pyrithea (@LadyEden1337) October 25, 2014

And it was all my Davros-damn fault for doing this: I was trying to get a picture of the tour guide in front of the back end of the Sun Inn from a point of view towards the ground angled up—like a worm's eye view type of shot.  I was also holding a LIT candle, and it wasn't one of those fake ones that is powered by batteries and working light bulbs; this is ACTUAL fire burning an ACTUAL wick that's part of an ACTUAL candle made of ACTUAL wax wearing an ACTUAL clear plastic cup used to catch wax drippings so that said drippings don't burn our hands.  I was not paying attention to the way I was holding the candle, and inadvertently held it too close to my hair, setting my hair on fire.  I heard it, felt the flames lightly lick my cheek, and yelped, quickly putting it out with the bare hand that was NOT holding the candle.  *shudders*  I finally went through that rite of passage of setting my own hair on fucking FIRE, which is an experience that stays with you for the rest of your life!  All just to get this shot:

            I was able to check after the tour was over to see if I was burnt (because I didn't feel pain; yeah, adrenaline is fun like that) or not, and seeing what the damage was, I was also able to breathe a small sigh of relief.  Yeah, burning your hair is not fun, but it's even worse if you ACTUALLY get burnt flesh in the process.  I even reassured everyone that I'm okay, and that it was just my hair and ego that were burnt (like I said in my tweets).  No need for an incident report for something as stupid as what I had done!  Seriously, I'm not one of those crazy people who live to sue everyone for every imperfection in their lives!

            Hi!  I'm Lady Eden Pyrithea, your substitute Smokey the Bear mascot, and I say that fire only belongs on the grill, in campfires and in fire tornadoes.  DON'T BURN OUR FORESTS OR HAIR!!!  #INCINERATE

            So, back to the Sun Inn, after carefully eyeing the candle for the rest of the tour, and taking a picture at the HISTORIC Hotel Bethlehem (which still has a Room With a Boo I would LOVE to stay in; in fact, I dare skeptics—especially Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait—to spend a couple nights in this room.  Yeah, it's expensive and got a HUGE waiting list, but I swear, the memories will be WELL worth it!), I was able to head home, call Papa Spock to inform him of the events that took place within that hour and take my second shower of the day.  It was a long day, and I swear, despite the short burst of fear and panic I had, it was……okay.  I disliked the amount of issues I had prior to the tour (Buses should NOT break while people are in transit to their audiologist appointment; the bus drivers should also NOT take ten minutes to stop the fucking bus and try and fix it themselves, due to said people being ALREADY late to their audiologist appointment and do not need to be even later!), but I have to quickly sum it up as a VERY LONG DAY.  I was so tired that I wound up falling asleep on my own couch after the shower and a mug full of milk.

            Seriously, I should get a reward for surviving all that.  Not something big, just…maybe, a new pair of headphones that are long overdue?  Or a large tub of delicious mint gelato decorated with cannolis?

            Out of exhaustion, I say BLEHHHH.  Anyhow, I hope everyone enjoys their Halloween (which is my BIRTHDAY!  Yeah, totally my birthday!  Just like Vanilla Ice!  And the two other babies that were delivered that same day in that same hospital I was born at, all scheduled at the same time because the obstetrician was about to go on vacation, which turned it all into a race! #FIRST) while I spend it with my parents before heading out on another trip to locations within my sector.  Remember last year, when I spent a snowed-in Doctor Who Day at a hotel in Pittsburgh that SHOULD HAVE an elevator in it and not just be a converted apartment complex?  Yeah, it's same that trip again, only with a real hotel with a REAL elevator (not just an imaginary one), and it's much earlier in the month.  Bonus: I get to bring my dice rolling game, and possibly get Mama Squirrel and Papa Spock to bring the Princess Bride game I gave them for last Christmas on this trip.  Hopefully, we'll get to have a Starbucks Popular-Seattle-based-coffee-shop-chain gaming night again.  It was fun trying to conquer Tokyo, but perhaps we can play some other games, like said Princess Bride game or my Roll For It game or……some other game.  It was fun—CAN WE PLEASE DO IT AGAIN?!

            Anyways, while I'm gone (and absently publishing a blog post scheduled to be released next week), I hope you ENJOY YOUR HEALTHY HALLOWEEN TACQUITO!

Midget Ghost Theory and A Review of the 100th Ghost Adventures Epsiode

            I understand that I promised this post on Saturday.  But in that case, Saturday meant Monday, so  I hope you forgive me for that temporal flop as I finally post something after not knowing exactly what to blog about.  There's two parts to this one…with this half part warming you readers up.

            Please allow me to explain the title…. because it might not make sense to a random "normal" person stumbling upon this blog out of sheer boredom or Googling.  First of all, the Ghost Adventures Crew just aired their 100th episode so I'm going to review that.  Yes, a review of their 100th episode.  They have been around for years so why haven't I reviewed any of the others?  Easy: I didn't have this blog up before!

            "Midget Ghost Theory" came out of a discussion on Twitter where I was simply scrambling for a topic to blog about.  I just asked a few people for topic ideas, but @NotGayDalek just had to bring up religious topics and gay marriage and I'm like, "I'M NOT DOING THAT!"  Later on, people brought up the Amish and "gay Amish," "Amish Gay Marriage" and finally "Gay Amish Ghosts".  To which I responded with the tweet pictured below…..

            And there it is….I have my reasons for it, which includes audio from the Nerdist Podcast.  But I'll get to that in a moment.

            First, the review of Ghost Adventures episode #100!

Ghost Adventures #100: The Exorcist House

            I'd like to first congratulate Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, Aaron Goodwin, Billy Tolley, and Jay Wasley (whom I've met and chatted with at Parafest 2013!  SQUEE!) on making it all the way to their 100th episode!  And being a nerd, I can't forget to also say congratulations to the rest of the production team, the editors and the team at the Travel Channel…  Giving credit where credit is due so people don't feel left out…

            It's either credit or plastic!  Though plastic may be a bit cheaper…

            It was only 2004 when Zak, Nick and Aaron first started filming the documentary and captured not only footage of a FULL-BODIED APPARITION (which is a big deal within the paranormal community because it's SO RARE!) but also poltergeist activity on film.  (You can read more about this in the books Zak Bagans published, Dark World, or Chasing Spirits by Nick Groff)  Now, they've been considered experts in the paranormal field, and are quite often recognized as celebrities by a ton of fans.  Their investigation style quite often involves breaking one of the rules of paranormal investigation: never go someplace alone, which has safety and practical reasons behind it.  They also sometimes provoke and almost always head to locations with a dark history and what could be demonic activity.  They've investigated strip clubs, brothels, casinos, abandoned hospitals, Loretta Lynn's Ranch, an English fort, even an island used to quarantine people and cremate their remains when plagues hit Italy, the very same island that is now forbidden to locals and tourists on holiday by the Italian government.  But for their 100th episode, they decided to do something very significant, to give a very special intense treat to all the fans who also like horror films….

            The Exorcist was a novel and also a film that is actually based on real events that happened in the 1940s in St. Louis.  It is believed that the demonic entity that possessed the boy when he and his grandmother were playing with the Ouija board is still in that house where the actual exorcism.  People are afraid to enter it and even the family that currently owns it is afraid to talk about it at all.  So this little journey really seems like a search for some answers for the crew's previous bouts with demons.  It's also dangerous, as demonic forces can really fuck your health and life up, perhaps even possess you and tear families apart.  It is real and very dangerous; people could die from demonic possession.

            There have been strange goings-on surrounding this investigation as well, with Father Ashcraft, their consulting priest, falling ill a couple of days before the investigation when he was on his way to talk with the crew, with an unexplainable crack appearing in one of the windows while talking with a neighbor, with the guys feeling such fear, especially Nick, who exclaimed, "I have a…family!  I don't want to die from this!"

            My assessment of the episode?  It definitely seems special, definitely has that sense of darkness that surrounds the story.  The sequence editing (arranging the clips in a certain order for those who don't understand the jargon I sometimes use to sound technical), I probably wouldn't touch for now but if there was a better way to arrange things, I would've done it that way.  It wasn't the best episode  by far but it could have some improvements so it could be better.  I can't pinpoint them at the moment.  The narration could also use some polishing….  All in all, it's still a very exciting episode, with #GA100 becoming a trending topic on Twitter!

            But there are also questions related to the paranormal that I feel need answering--which brings me to the next topic in regards to little people (which will sometimes be referred to as "midgets"--simplification, not labeling, so please don't take offense; apologies in advance….)

The Midget Ghost Theory

            People can come up with some weird questions for Google; mine included, "Do people who abuse LSD see in ultraviolet when on acid?" or "Can cats hold complete conversations in not-dubbed English with people?"  And the most important one I wouldn't just ask the GAC, but also members of the Haunted Collector team, TAPS and the Constantinos:

DO MIDGET GHOSTS EXIST?

            It is a bit difficult to determine whether the ghosts of little people really do exist, as they can be mistaken for children due to their being "fun-sized".  But there is another reason for this, as "midget ghosts" might just not exist at all.  The best explanation for this can be provided by a Matt Mira story from Nerdist Podcast episode number 10, which was recorded at a live show at Largo in LA and features Adam Savage from Mythbusters….

Here's the audio from Youtube......

Matt Mira:  I have a somewhat related midget story.  Uh, the, uh… When I, I used to work at a funeral home and, uh--

Chris Hardwick:  Oh my god!  His…funeral home stories are…and he loves it, like, when he goes home to Boston, he fills in part-time at the funeral home, just helping out.

Matt Mira:  Put the fun in funeral!  (Laughter)  But, uh, so we're at the cemetery, and uh, Manny, one of the cemetery guys who digs the graves, he says--we're just standing there afterwards, you know, we make sure that the grave is filled in so that no one steals stuff.  Uh, so we stand there with him….

Chris:  That's the minimum that guy's job is, making sure that the grave is filled…

Matt:  So he turns and he goes…He just goes, "Hey, uh, can I ask you something?"  And I was like, "Yeah, what's up, Manny?" and he goes, "You guys ever do a funeral for a leetle person?" and I think and I ask my friend Joe, and we're like, "No, we haven't."  And [Manny] goes, "We haven't either, man.  They don't die!"

(Laughter)

            So, with that (so-called) knowledge, we can now apply the property of Association:  if ghosts are the earth-bound spirits of dead people, and little people don't die, then how can there be midget ghosts if there aren't any dead little people?

            Of course, I might be wrong.  Which is why this is called the Midget Ghost Theory, not the Midget Ghost Fact.  I might also be wrong in the sense that there are midget ghosts and they are just mistaken for children.  They could just be hiding somewhere out of the way or something, or they could move on right after death to some unknown afterlife that many religious scholars and quantum physicists theorize about.  We just really don't know.

            But I really hope there are midget ghosts, if not for my excitement but also to help my tweep @LisaR_M feel less disappointed about the supposed non-existence of these types of spirits; if there are any of them out there, we need to hold the digital recorders and PX devices a little lower or provide step stools to help them out, lest we feel phantom kicks on our shins that are trying to grab our attention.

            (Please note that this second half is solely based on silliness and comedy.  There's almost nothing serious and factual about the "Midget Ghost Theory".  And I'm not an expert, so don't take my word for it.)