The Occultist

While watching youtube on my 360, I saw a corner advertisement for a seperate, unrelated video. I was watching a video about the Gamecube and it was trying to direct me to an "ad" for this:

The text for it read: "The Occult: Black Magic, Ghosts and Dungeons and Dragons," all of which is awesome, but you'll notice that the inclusion of, "Dungeons and Dragons" at the end is a dead-giveaway. This is a re-hash of the idea from thirty years ago that Dungeons and Dragons = SATAN! 

The arguement is this: If you've ever rolled a 20-sided die and crit an orc, you're definitely going to Hell. The people spouting off this argument have clearly never seen the game played. The objective is to kill the ever-loving shit out of anything resembling Satan, which would at best make him wary of recruiting you for his army of Hellspawn.

Also: This "ad" is over two hours. That's not an ad. That's a movie. It shouldn't take over two hours to tell someone Satan = Bad!

Quite frankly, I'm just upset about the misleading title. I expect a 1000% more awesomeness and maybe some boobs when you mash enough words together like, "occult," "witchcraft," "ghosts," etc. together.

The entire "video," is just this bullshit image. And one of the side-bar websites listed, "muslimhope.com," is a pro-Christian/anti-Muslim site bordering on hate-speech. Going to this site probably puts you in a goverment watch-list, or rather a more-specific government watch-list. That's the legitimacy of what's going on.

Looking at the comments section, I couldn't find one overty-ironic or negative comment, which means that the close-to 100,000 people "viewing" this are dead-serious about what a man with a name similar to "Weasels" has to say. Just like they're dead searious about this:

Apparently I was wrong this whole time. It's not, "Astral projection," it's, "Astro Projection." 

Like so.

Seriously, it's like a virgin trying to explain sex with all this junk about Ouiji boards and witchcraft. At least try to conjure one demon before passing yourself off as an expert. 

We Have to Move These Microwave Ovens

For some reason I've never cared to delve into, my wife always leaves the microwave door wide open, so the little bulb inside has burnt out. I'm not about to replace it, because why the fuck would I ever need to see inside the microwave? It's a small box. The food you put in there looks the same as the food you take out with the exception of popcorn.You're not fucking soufles bread in there. You're cooking pizza pockets. Besides, the door has that weird fucking screen on it to protect you from deadly microwaves. The only reason you'd ever need a light inside there is to see if your dinner blew the fuck up, and if it did, why would you need to see that, aside from the fact that it looks awesome? Are you magically going to go back in time and stop it from happening? It's already blown up. Let it go, America. If your food catches fire, you'll be alerted by the fact there is now black smoke coming out of your microwave when there was no black smoke before.You can write this observation down in your science journal as you work towards your degree, then get an extinguisher.
If you have a microwave with a spinning tray, you can watch as your plate of food rotates and perch your fingers together and say, "Good. Good. I can see it's spinning. I am well pleased."Otherwise, the most interesting thing to watch is the purple lightning you get when you fuck up and put something metal inside.
I think the only reason there's a window in there at all is because we're all fucking paranoid. We're afraid that some shit is going to go down if we can't see. You'll put in your pizza pocket, and when you open the door again it's asparagus. It'd break you.
What if you cooked something, and when you went back it was gone? You'd accuse your whole family, but they'd deny everything. You'd become angry and sullen towards them as you try to decipher who did it, but in time you'd have your doubts. You begin to wonder if you even put something in there at all, or if you did perhaps it was completely disintegrated. These thoughts would linger with you the rest of your life, gnawing away at you in the dark hours.
Or perhaps you put in a bowl of soup to be reheated, but when you close the door you hear scratching. Concerned, you open the door and see nothing but your soup. When you close the door again, the same sound persists, and now you hear a slight mewing like a kitten. Alarmed, you immediately open the door, but still there's only the soup. ARE YOU GOING MAD? You can hear it all the time now, whenever you're in your kitchen. You can't tell anyone because you're afraid of what they'll say. One day, you wake up in the middle of the night to make a snack, and you hear it again. You ignore it, but the sound grows louder and louder until it fills up your head. Then there's a whispering coming from inside. You tell yourself it's nothing, but you have to make sure. You open the door and it's your own head in there staring back at you! ALL BECAUSE THERE WASN'T A WINDOW IN THE MICROWAVE.

Ghost F**kers

Ke$ha claims she’s had sex with a ghost. Likely, the ghost has now contracted Chlamydia.

Stranger still, this is a common phenomenon, and answers one of the most obvious questions about ghosts, namely: if you could haunt the location of your choice, why do ghost end up haunting abandoned, ramshackle houses like spectral crackheads? Think about it: if you could be trapped somewhere, wouldn’t you rather haunt the group shower of the Dallas Cheerleaders than someplace that smells like cat pee and sadness?

Better still, if you could have consequence-free sex with anyone, why wouldn’t you, even if you now have a ghost penis? Why you would chose Ke$ha, I don’t know. Maybe you’re on your way up to Heaven and want one last chance to know what eternal suffering might feel like. Or maybe the body literally disintegrated from disease and shame, leaving only the ghost behind?

Paranatural/Supernormal

While watching supernatural videos on youtube, I realized that the existence of ghosts will never be categorically proven. We’re entering an always-on era, where even the most mundane events will be recorded for posterity. Security cameras are on every corner, and people carry smartphones and camera phones around in their pockets with them wherever they go. Eventually, if not already, someone will record irrefutable proof of a ghost, if they exist.

Consider this video with the caption, “Real or Fake?”

That’s always going to be the case. No one will ever be able to produce a video without the public outcry of, “Fake!” being tagged on to it. Witness accounts are useless as evidence, and all videos and photos will be dissected as fake. There’s even television shows dedicated to debunking these videos. If anyone on the planet is capable of recreating the images in the video, no matter how likely or costly their methods might be, the video will be rejected.

How else could you prove that ghosts exist, save for taking an individual and having them witness the ghost firsthand? Even then, the subject could claim they were merely hallucinating, or that they were tricked. You would have to be able to recreate the experience for every sceptic 100% of the time. Even if a ghost were to become President of the United States, there would still be disbelievers.

Ghosts, by their very nature, however, are not subject to the scientific method. There’s no set structure of rules governing their manifestations, only legends and rumours.

The study of ghosts, however, is as ancient as any intellectual strain in the human consciousness. While there may be no ghosts, ghost hunters are very real, very tangible people, and a legitimate profession. Ghost hunters are not a modern phenomenon, either. The belief in ghosts likely predates human history, with some of the earliest references coming from the dawn of Chinese civilization over 10,000 years ago.

So in 10,000 years or more, no one has officially captured a ghost. Those statistics are kind of downer, but as I said, we’re closer than ever, even, ironically, if they don’t exist.

Modern Horror

I’ve noticed that the horror genre has changed over the last few years. The classic tropes highlighted and derived by the Scream trilogy are still there, but there’s a new genre.

Oddly enough, the plot to these movies closely resemble any episode of Scooby-Doo.

It begins with white people trying to unravel a mystery by investigating a ridiculous hypothesis, ie.: ”The house is haunted.” This usually involves using credible means, such as conducting interviews with locals and experts, and filming in hopes of capturing supernatural activity. Their suppositions, however, are batshit insane, and hence they don’t really believe in them at first. Then, after gathering more evidence, they gradually become more convinced, as does the audience. Despite their new outlook, they don’t bother with the necessary precautions a rational human being would, ie.: “Hey, this house is haunted, maybe I should get the fuck out.” They’ll continue to stay the course even if they don’t want to. Up until this point, the spookiness has really just been a series of random events that can easily be brushed off or forgotten. Then, something big and scary will happen, and then the fate of the people involved is left in question.

This theme is true for a lot of the, “Found Video,” movies out there, like the Blair With Project and all the Paranormal Activity movies that followed it. Its made its way onto the internet as well with the Slenderman videos on youtube.

Zombie’s Breakfast

With all the logistical hurdles with zombies, there’s one that no one seems to mention, or explain, and that is: brains. Not why the zombies want brains, but how they go about getting them. Have you ever tried to crack someone’s skull open? I have, and let me tell you: it’s not easy. The skull contains the hardest bones in the body specifically to keep the brains intact. Your average zombie has trouble with any door with a lock on it so their mechanical skills are virtually non-existent. Man first invented tools so he could crack open his neighbour’s skull and feast upon the gooey insides, then he invented fire so he could see better while doing it, then he invented the wheel so he could get there faster.

A zombie’s not going to be able to chew his way through there, either. Have you ever seen a meth head? They’re basically the living embodiment of the living dead. Meth-heads lose their teeth like crazy because of dry mouth, the silent killer. A dried up zombie is going to have the same problem. The second either one bites into your skull, he’s going to lose his teeth like a second grader eating an apple. That’s probably why so many zombies are depicted as being fully intact instead of looking like chewed-up apple cores. Also because the special-effects budget was blown on blow.

So where does this idea of brain-eating zombies come from, besides everywhere? The most popular zombie flicks always show them tearing away at the entrails like a pack of hyenas, and I can’t even think of a single scene where there was a zombie munching on a brain. Even in ridiculous fictional worlds where the reanimated dead can rip a person in half they still have trouble with the ol’ noggin munchin’.

I think most of it comes from real-life cannibal tribes who would dig up their dear departed, then chow down on their brains, because why wouldn’t you? It’s what Grandpa would have wanted. A few weeks later they drop dead from the diseases they just contracted from eating a rotting human brain, and the cycle starts over again. You’d think someone would have caught on by now. I know everyone doesn’t have the same standard of hygiene, (the French), but it’s not that hard to put two-and-two together, unless of course you’re a shambling mess from eating brains.

Then there’s the science aspect of it where if you feed one flatworm’s brains to another, it’ll gain all of it’s knowledge. That’s how Stephen Hawking got so smart: eating flatworms.

Huh?

 

It's come time to discuss something I recently saw, something which had a brief impact on me. There are many times in life when one encounters something outside their philosophy, and strive to wrap their minds around it. The shape of it, however, does not accept your mental bindings, and so the whole thing comes unravelled.

It was at Christmas party for my girlfriend's job at Moore's men's clothing, which was held at the Fairmount Hotel in Vancouver, one of the more upscale locales of the city, nestled near the water not two blocks from East Hastings street. It was held on the early date of November 8th, giving ample time before the Christmas rush to enjoy one's self. It made sense, actually. Why throw a Christmas party when no one could attend, as it is Christmas after all, and most people are busy with friends, family, shopping, work and the weather?  Strange things like this have been making more sense to me. Why just the other day, a man with a hearing aid was asking about sound insulation for his place. I reasoned that the sound insulation was not to keep him from hearing his neighbours, or such, but rather to keep them from hearing him, as with his hearing disability he would like to have his music or TV playing quite loud.

We were in the ballroom and were given free drinks and an exquisite buffet. I had the salmon, as I've been trying to expand my pallet. There was a desert table with delicious seasonal treats like mint flavoured cakes with a mouse centre with little Christmas decorated leafs,  gingerbread men, and Christmas pudding. As part of the event, I was dressed in a black stripped tuxedo with a silver vest and tie and I was looking as good as I've ever looked. There was even a photographer on hand to take pictures of us all in our finery. I have photos of it on Facebook, if you'd like to see. I'm Philip Allen from Abbotsford. Go ahead, I'm not shy. This blog is being published there via RSS feed.

All in all it was the best party I've attended. It was what I'd imagined my prom should have been, as opposed to what it was, but oh well.

There was a DJ, and at midnight, they released balloons over the packed dance floor. It was at that time that I was heading to the cheese table, because I'm more interested in food than dance. So as I'm walking back, I seem something odd. I can't quite describe it, but something, possibly a long piece of sting, a deflated balloon, or a champagne glass, was being pulled under a table. It was dark, so the details elude me. I couldn't figure out if it was an animal, like a rat or a small bird, or if it was someone's shoe as they were absconding beneath the table to make love. It was like someone was pulling something by a string, which made no sense to me. I would have looked under the table, but it would have been silly.

But now, I wonder: was it a ghost?

As I said, I don't know what I saw. Nothing fits. Nothing makes sense. It seemed to shimmer, like a glass, or a piece of plastic. For all I know, it could have been a shopping bag, but the way it moved was rather peculiar. It was midnight, however, which is when someone would expect to see a ghost, and it was in a big hotel, which is the perfect setting for such a figment.

I can't even say why it was so peculiar. I don't know enough of what my eyes beheld. I could say if it was a hand, or not. Why did it seem like it was translucent? Why did it seem like it was hiding from me, like a bug crawling out of sight?

Maybe I was hallucinating. I'll be honest: I used to hallucinate things. Maybe I was insane, but when the lights went out, I used to see faces flying around like demon heads. There were things in my closet which were easily explainable when the lights came back on, but in the meantime I saw strange figures. The ships on my wallpaper used to set sail. Once, I saw my dead dog walking back and forth across the top shelf of my closet. Tentacles would emerge from couch cushions. Birds of fire would swoop down when I looked out the window. Wolves would walk up the stairs. I could see the air. I could see every particle the universe was made up of floating about like fireflies, even with my eyes closed. The floors were covered in bugs. I had to run through them to call my parents.

But that was years ago. Tens of years. No need to worry anymore.

Right?

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