The Horror Dad Journal

Superheroes

2010-05-05T09:27:00.006-04:00

Superheroes have become a regular thing in my life in recent years; the result of both their increasing presence in movies and my daughter's love for them. While I collected comic books during childhood and teen years, my collecting slowed to a trickle and completely stopped in my twenties. I only saw the old familiar faces of characters such as Nightcrawler, Magneto, Spiderman, Hulk, etc. in the occasional movie and in the form of little plastic figurines from the Heroclix game that was one of our most popular products when I still co-owned a game store in Utica, NY (I admit, I wound up collecting Heroclix figures too).

Then Kyra discovered those characters for herself thanks to shows such as Teen Titans and Superhero Squad (her favorite) as well as movies and video games (Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1&2 get a lot of play in this house). Kyra dressed up as Supergirl for both the Hilton Kid's Parade last summer and for the opening of the Superhero exhibit at the Strong National Museum of Play this past fall. My wife and I have taken turns using stuff lying about around the house to transform ourselves into imaginary supervillains for our little Supergirl to vanquish (I've also had to dress up as a bad guy for her to lightsaber duel with when Kyra wears her Yoda costume).

Come to kick Sith butt she has.

Kyra started taking Marvel Superhero vitamins this week. Last weekend she took part in Free Comic Book Day and wound up with 18 (!) free comic books after visiting two different comic shops. Kyra wants to go see Iron Man 2 this weekend... though she mainly wants to see it because Black Widow is in it and not because of Iron Man or War Machine's presence (Her daddy wants to see it because of all of them). It's a big-time superhero week here.

Then, a friend called my attention to this article about the Make-a-Wish Foundation working their magic to bring to life the superhero dreams of a young cancer patient. The foundation, along with a large number of big-hearted volunteers played an elaborate and very sizable version of the superhero make-believe game Kristy and I play with our daughter. Police shutdown traffic and provided a motorcade to guide the young superhero, Electron Boy, to Seattle where he saved a football team and a number of others from a pair of make-believe supervillains. I'm always impressed when I read or hear of the efforts of the Make-a-Wish Foundation and those who assist their efforts. Granting wishes is a super power and according to their Web site they do it on an average of once every forty minutes. There are superheroes after all.

Attack of the Toddler

2010-05-04T11:01:00.004-04:00

Eli took his first unsupported steps yesterday. At 13 months of age, he's been a little bit behind on learning to walk. We were told it isn't unusual for a child his size to have difficulty learning to walk. He's currently 32 1/2 inches in height, weighs 29 lbs and has been wearing clothing meant for two-year-olds for months now. It's good to see him finally taking his first steps, though the cats will be horrified.

Back in March, I explained to Kyra that her brother was turning into a toddler and was no longer a baby. She asked me what toddler meant. I told her that I thought the word came from kids at that age toddling along with their first attempts at walking. She asked me what toddling meant. I told her that it meant walking clumsily. Kyra responded with "Oh! Like zombies!"

Elastic Park

2010-02-07T12:27:00.000-05:00

Larry Moss, the artist behind the Balloon Manor Halloween attraction (see Balloon Manor), is at it again. His newest project is called Elastic Park; it is an interactive dinosaur-themed exhibit featuring Airigami balloon artistry. The exhibit, which will be both fun and educational, is intended to be a travelling exhibit that will be featured at numerous museums (click here to view Elastic Park Web site).

Larry needs your help to make this exhibit a reality. Pepsi Cola is running a contest called the Pepsi Refresh Project. Various organizations are competing for a $50,000 grant to fund their projects. The winner will be determined through online voting. Currently, Elastic Park is in 13th place in the contest. Voters are allowed to vote once per day and voting ends February 28. Please take a moment to visit the Elastic Park page at the contest web site and vote.

Click here to vote for Elastic Park!

-Tom G

2010-01-08T07:28:00.002-05:00

My first week returning to a stay-at-home dad status is nearly at an end. The first day was a bit of a bumpy ride, but we got through it. By the third day I was actually able to get a little bit of writing for http://www.darkdestinations.com/ done. I revised an article about Richardson High School in Richardson, Texas. It has an unfortunate anniversary today that is tied in with a popular 1990s song.

By Thursday, I was back in the swing of things enough to get back in practice with Kyra's hair. After roughly half a year of not dealing directly with those curls, I'm afraid I didn't do so hot a job on her hair the first few days. She was happy with the results on Thursday.

Next week Kyra and I will be touring a local elementary school that we are interested in having her attend. It has a progressive approach to teaching. It has multi-age classrooms and has a International Baccalaureate program. Kristy and I attended a meeting with teachers, parents and students from there last night. The students are encouraged to be outgoing, outspoken and to develop a love of learning through exploration rather than just having facts thrown at them and being expected to remember them. I think the school would be a great match for her. Enrollment is lottery-based, so we're crossing our fingers that she gets in. Getting our kids into this school could make our 2009 upheaval ultimately worth it.

In Eli news: Our little giant has been stepped up to 3 full feedings of cereal and one snack before bed. Replacing the usual bottle of formula before bed with a bit more cereal definitely seems to help him sleep through the night without waking up hungry a few times thoughout the night.

Earlier in the week, Eli had his first taste of sour. He sucked on a lime. He made a horrible face at first and seemed almost ready to cry after the first taste but then suddenly smiled and dove back down for more. We still haven't found a food that this kid doesn't like! Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough to grab my camera and capture his initial reaction. Here are photos of his later enjoyment of the lime.

Mmmmmmmm. Lime. :)

The Return of Son (and Daughter) of the Horror Dad Journal

2009-12-30T18:35:00.006-05:00

The Horror Dad Journal will be returning in 2010, ending the extended break it has been on. I'll have to change the subtitle to "Stay-at-Home Dad with a Part-time Job."

My family and I continue to live with my mother. I've been working a low-paying full-time overnight security job for months. The schedule (1 am to 9 am) has made it difficult to spend time with my kids. Luckily, Kristy landed a job with a good hospital out here (with only a week to spare on her unemployment!). So, I am switching back to being a stay-at-home father during the day and will be looking for part-time supplemental income during the evenings. I will also be returning to writing (and thanks to being back in Rochester, possibly even filmmaking again). Unfortunately, we're still saddled with the old house back where we used to live. Hopefully it sells soon so we can finally stop making payments on a place we no longer live in and can move on with our lives.

In the time since I last wrote an entry, Eli has grown immensly in size. He is 98th percentil in weight and 100th percentile in height. He outgrows clothes faster than we can buy them. At 9 months of age, he's weighing 25 pounds and wearing clothing meant for 18-24 months of age. Kyra also began preschool in the fall and is absolutely loving it. She also insisted that we do a zombie walk this year, and even though I wasn't really feeling in the Halloween spirit this year, she got her old man out there and shambling with her and the other undead the night before Halloween. She was a vampire for Halloween itself.

I hope everyone has a Happy New Year. See you again in 2010!

The Media Who Cried Flu

2009-05-14T05:40:00.002-04:00

During the early stages of reporting about this new swine flu pandemic, I found myself not paying much attention. It seems that every few years now the media is trotting out stories about some new germ or virus that will destroy us all. Remember SARS? Recall the unease over the avian flu? You barely hear about them now. Heck, I rarely hear about AIDS anymore and that actually killed people I knew. Every time I checked the news online, multiple headlines were dealing with the swine flu (CNN had 3-4 swine flu headlines running at the same time at one point). There were news stories about how handshaking might become a thing of the past because now there is SWINE FLU! Swine flu was going to change the way we lived forever.

Even with two young kids to worry about, I found myself disinterested in the swine flu stories and unable to take them seriously. Our news media has cried wolf too many times for me to take them seriously about something like this. They are so quick to spread fearful stories before getting all the facts. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later, news stories come out that the swine flu is no worse than (gasp) the regular plain old flu which kills 36,000 Americans a year. In other words... no need to panic. It's not a good thing, but your world isn't going to turn into Stephen King's The Stand either.

One last gasp of the swine flu story is that it might combine with the avian flu (see story here) I think that we should call the avian/swine flu offspring "flying pig flu." It will at least make it more entertaining when the media is trying to panic its audience.

Moved

2009-05-13T11:22:00.003-04:00

Sorry about the long pause between blogs. Due to changes at Kristy's job, we are in the process of moving back home to Rochester, NY. Currently the kids and I are living at my mother's house, while Kristy ties up loose ends back in the Ithaca area (packing, getting the house ready for sale). It is great to be back home in Rochester. We just wish the move could have been more planned and less jarring.

I've already managed to secure part-time employment through former employers of mine here in Rochester. I'm still hunting for full-time employment. The change has been stressful for everyone, including my mother. We're grateful for the temporary place to stay while we get our family set-up out here. The first order of business for me was getting Kyra registered for Pre-K. I just barely made the deadline. So hopefully she's able to attend and the classes aren't full already.

It has gotten me thinking about how many films (including horror films) start with the same situation: Kids suddenly finding themselves moving into a relative's home. Luckily for my children, Rochester has fewer vampires than Santa Carla. However, it does have more were-sloths than any other city per capita. Hence the title of my new horror film, The Sloth Boys. With their current careers, I could probably afford to cast Corey Haim and Corey Feldman in it too.

Nightmares and Hallucinations

2009-04-17T01:22:00.004-04:00

Kyra woke up just a bit ago from a nightmare. She had a bad dream in which she was being chased by Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons. It is odd how most of her bad dreams seem to be caused by animation. She used to regularly have nightmares about Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go.

We recently discovered that, like her father, Kyra has sleep hallucinations. Early last week, she woke up shrieking because her bed was covered in insects only she could see. At least she isn't sleep-walking like my brother and I did when we were young. I've read up on night terrors, hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations and sleep paralysis. None of them really seem to fit what my daughter and I experience. The experience is not always a frightening one. In all but one instance I've been able to move freely and talk while having the hallucinations. They also happen in the middle of my sleep cycle rather than at the beginning or end as with hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations. I've experienced both of those (mainly the former) and they really don't compare with the hallucinations I get in the middle of the night.

As a child, I would wake to find "ghosts" in my room. I could tell that I was no longer sleeping and felt awake, only there would be things in my room that shouldn't have been. An example: One night at age eight I woke up to see a man standing alongside my bed, staring out my window. The man, who didn't seem to notice me, was completely the same shad of white, from his hair to his skin to his clothes; the details of his appearance were black lines as if the man had been drawn on paper. He stood between my bed and my brother's crib. Frightened, I pulled the covers over my head so that he couldn't see me. I managed to fall back to sleep. Later, I awoke, suffocating under my blankets. I dared a peek out from under the bed clothes, only to see that the man had been replaced with a woman who was completely black with white lines, almost like a film negative. She was hanging by a noose in the same spot. As I stared in horror, she rotated on her creaking rope, so that she faced toward me. Her face was swollen and her tongue protruded from her mouth. I dove back under my covers and did not emerge until there was sunlight. It didn't help that I'd never heard of sleep hallucinations and was raised by a mother who was convinced that I was seeing actual ghosts... just like she did.

In my early 20s I terrified my ex-wife one night when I hallucinated a wraith in our bedroom that was trying to get her. She woke up to find me over her prone body, wrestling with something she could not see. The "wraith" evaporated in moments. It was the first time I began to get a clue about what was really happening. The wraith had been a dead ringer for the ones in Patrick Swayze flick Ghost that I'd watched earlier that week on cable. I was able to get back to sleep, but she spent the rest of the night awake and scared that something supernatural was coming to get her. It is the only instance where a nightmare I had caused someone else more fear than me.

Over time my hallucinations have changed to primarily be animals. I've woken up to a tarantula tickling my lip and to feel water dripping on my head, only to look up and see that the water was dripping from a dead rat that is now plunging toward my face. Those times caused me to throw back my blankets, startling our cats. Kristy has adjusted pretty well to it over the years, and carries on conversations with me while in this waking-sleep state. Once she woke to me telling her not to move, because I could see a cobra coiled between us, swaying its hooded head back and forth. She held a conversation with me during one of the few non-threatening hallucinations once. I was sitting up and staring over the edge of the bed at a glowing starfish that was crawling around the floor, playing with my sneakers and probing at the clothes laying next to the bed. I'd seen the movie Minority Report earlier that day. The star fish resembled one of the little robots that scurry about in that film.

I explained the hallucination thing to Kyra as best I could. She's still a bit too young to fully grasp the concept, but at least she's not going to spend decades thinking that a trick of the mind passed down through genetics is something supernatural and scary like I did for far too long.

The Ice Cream Horror

2009-04-16T00:39:00.003-04:00

Eli had his second doctors appointment earlier this week. He'd gained two inches and more than two pounds since his appointment two weeks earlier. He's growing like the chicken heart from that old radio play.

We recently bought Kyra a novelty ice cream treat that she picked out for herself. It was supposed to look like Spongebob, but instead we revealed a monstrosity upon opening the ice cream wrapper. It is the first time ice cream has given me chills without eating it. Kyra was brave enough to eat it though. I took a picture first. Is it just me, or is this thing just evil looking?

Kyra didn't care for the gumball eyes. She chewed them briefly and then spat out a dark blue goo with tiny hard gum chunks into the bowl we had to catch the icecream drips.

And Now the Screaming Starts!

2009-04-09T22:10:00.006-04:00

I found it humorously ironic that while Kristy was in labor with Eli our Tivo recorded a movie titled And Now the Screaming Starts!

I finally got around to watching it. The film was released in 1973. It stars both Peter Cushing and Patrick Magee. Magee is one of those underrated actors of yesteryear I love to see in the cast of old films. I was also initially excited to see that this was an Amicus film. One of my favorite Patrick Magee performances was in Amicus's Tales from the Crypt (1972). In that film he had deliciously creepy role as a vengeful blind man. This time around, both Magee and Cushing aren't given a lot to work with. Magee is in the first half of the film and is gone shortly after Cushing's character arrives in the second half.

And Now the Screaming Starts! isn't great but it is entertaining. The movie (which is set in the 19th Century) tells the tale of a young married couple suffering from an old curse placed on the groom's family. The Bride and the family's servants find themselves being assaulted by a spectral severed hand and an eyeless phantom with a bloody stump at the end of one arm. Some of the FX is pretty remarkable for the time period, and the remaining FX is charmingly cheap and cheesy. The makeup on the ghost was well done, but unfortunately the actor in the role kept his wrist on the stump arm flopped down while his arm is pointed up. Since the hand was supposed to be cut off below the wrist, apparently the ghost must have had an extra joint in his arm.

If the thought of ghostly severed hands, over-flowing bodices and screaming servants meeting unfortunate ends appeals to you, AMC will be airing the movie again in early May.

Heeere's Eli!

2009-03-30T11:06:00.003-04:00

Elijah was born at 11:04 pm on Friday, March 27. He shares his birthday with his uncle Jason. Elijah was 21 inches long and weighed 8 lbs, 12 ozs at birth. He has big feet with long monkey-like toes that he can grasp fingers with. He's a pretty mellow little guy and loves to be held so much that the nurses nicknamed him "cuddlebug."

Everyone Out of the Pool

2009-03-26T15:42:00.003-04:00

The baby is now six days overdue. We met with the midwife today and decided that if Kristy doesn't go into labor today or tonight, we'll be heading in to the hospital early tomorrow morning to begin inducing labor. Tomorrow also happens to be my brother-in-law Jason's birthday, so it appears that Elijah will be sharing his birthday with a relative.

For news on the birth tomorrow your best bet is to check the Dark Destinations blog. It is likely that Casey will be making a post there to let people know the news at some point tomorrow. Otherwise, I'll be posting details when we get back from the hospital and I find time to write again.

Wish us luck!

...and Still Waiting...

2009-03-25T12:33:00.003-04:00

Kristy is now five days overdue with the baby. We get phone calls, emails and instant messages on a continuous basis asking if the baby has arrived yet. This morning, my father-in-law called and asked if anything was "going to happen in the next couple of hours" because he needed to go out and run errands. I told him that as far as we knew nothing was happening.

My mother has been staying with us the past two weeks to help out. She took Kyra to a local playgroup this morning while Kristy and I stayed home. When they returned Kyra had a funny conversation with Kristy. Kristy mentioned to Kyra that she'd taken a shower. Kyra asked if it was a "baby shower." Kristy told her that it had been a regular shower. Kyra replied, "Every time you take a shower with the baby inside you, it's a baby shower.”

Last week I bought a new Duncan Butterfly yo-yo and have been playing around with it. Back when I was in the Air Force I got into the yo-yo habit. It was something I used to do to pass the time while waiting to service aircraft. It is sort of like pacing, only it annoys people less and is healthier than smoking. It's been a while since I carried a yo-yo on me like some folks carry a pack of cigarettes. I passed my old worn yo-yo on to Kyra to play with. She likes to drag it around on the floor. So she has part of "walking the dog" down.

Kristy has an appointment with her mid-wife tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be discussing an inducement plan in case Elijah keeps hitting his snooze button.

The Haunting in Connecticut

2009-03-21T10:11:00.002-04:00

We're still waiting on Elijah over here. He's hitting the snooze button inside the womb.

Next week The Haunting in Connecticut film hits theaters. The movie is inspired by real life events. Casey Hopkins and I just wrote a long article on the subject. Click here to check it out.

If She Had Been a Ninja...

2009-03-18T12:28:00.002-04:00

This morning, when I went to wake Kyra up, I saw a Kyra-sized lump under her blankets. As I reached out to the lump to wake her up, Kyra called out from behind me. She was hiding underneath of her brother's crib. She'd taken a pillow under there and slept there in her makeshift shelter all night. She fooled me, so I'm sure she also fooled the closet monsters.

Lucky for me, Kyra isn't a ninja. I so would have wound up with a blowdart in the back of my neck had she been.

Reminder to self: Don't get Kyra blowguns or shuriken for her birthday.

Funeral, Angering Prison Guards and Still Waiting for the Baby

2009-03-17T18:56:00.005-04:00

We made it to the funeral service and back home without going into labor.

Kyra has been having a tough time with Grandma Frieda's death. She seemed not to be affected much by the news at first, but that night she started crying at bedtime. She said she was crying about an old stuffed animal of hers (named "Boo Bear") that she had placed in the crib for her brother many weeks back. She was suddenly worried she was never going to see Boo Bear again. We had a talk and what was really bothering her quickly became apparent - knowledge of what had happened with Grandma Frieda had sunk in.

We've had a few talks about Frieda and the grief that Kyra is feeling. She seems to be dealing pretty well with it overall. Kyra made cards for Frieda by cutting and decorating construction paper, writing the words "Kyra", "Mom", "Dad" and "Nana" on the pieces and gluing googly eyes to them. This morning we placed Kyra's cards in Frieda's coffin along with the photos of Frieda's cats and great grandchildren that had been placed there by other relatives. The service was well done and now Frieda is back with her husband Bob, who passed away a couple of years back. When our son is born, we're giving him the middle name Robert in honor of Bob.

On the way home we passed by the prison that had once held Amy Fisher. Prison articles are popular for Dark Destinations (because there are usually a ton of stories with each one), so I pulled over across the road from it and snapped a few photos. I immediately had a corrections officer pulling alongside me in a big blue truck and telling me to "Git!"

I understand prison guards having concerns, but there are no signs posted condemning photography or stopping along the road. It is a residential road. In fact, we were parked right in front of the house my wife lived in as a toddler right across from the prison. I'm aware of my photography rights and was well within them with what I was doing. However, I'd already gotten enough shots and am not in the habit of arguing with surly liver-spotted prison guards (especially when I have a woman in the car who could go into labor at any time). We mosied along and had an otherwise uneventful trip home.

Now we should be staying put at home until Eljah decides to be born finally.

Any Time Now...

2009-03-14T21:28:00.002-04:00

Kristy is due on the 20th. We're all anxious for the baby to make his appearance. My mother has come to stay with us for a little while in order to watch Kyra and help out.

Kristy's grandmother passed away last night. It sucks. Frieda was a cool lady and we'll miss her.
We're going to the funeral in a couple days. I'm really hoping that Kristy doesn't go into labor while we're nearly four hours away from home... or worse while I'm driving in the middle of nowhere between the two locations. Ugh!

Growing Pains

2009-02-18T13:13:00.002-05:00

Kyra definitely seems on the track to becoming a tall person. She's taller than most kids her age and continually suffers from growing pains around her knees. We can usually tell which nights she will have growing pains as her appetite is usually voracious in the day leading up to it. She'll suddenly transform from her usual slow-eating goofing around meal time habits to devouring everything like a piranha and asking for more. We've taken to giving her pre-emptive strikes of Tylenol just before bed on nights such as that. It decreases the number of times she wakes up crying in pain.

I remember my own mother using Bengay ointment to try to calm my own growing pains as a child. Kyra's the type of kid who would somehow find a way to get the ointment into her eyes even if she's zipped into footy pajamas with a padlock on the zipper. My wife's grandmother stated that her mother used rubbing alcohol on her legs to soothe growing pains. I don't see how that would help. It seems like that would only have cooling and disinfecting effects. It left me curious as to what other means people have come up with for helping kids who are going through growing pains. Anyone have any homeopathic (or otherwise) means of reducing growing pains?

Happy 50th Birthday to House on Haunted Hill

2009-02-17T10:23:00.004-05:00

The William Castle classic House on Haunted Hill turns 50-years-old today. The William Castle film holds a special place in my heart. It is the first horror film I can recall watching. I was 4-5 years old when I caught it as a Saturday afternoon Creature Feature on TV. Along with episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Scooby Doo it helped shape my early love for all thing horror.

The movie stars Vincent Price as Frederick Loren a millionaire who throws a creepy party for his wife. Frederick and his wife Annabelle are having marital difficulties of the murderous sort. The two invite a group of people, some of whom are strangers, to spend the night in a mansion that is reputedly haunted. Each guest will be given $10,000 if they last through the night. Seven people have died in gruesome murders throughout the house's history and their spirits are said to linger within its walls. Will one of the guests become the eighth ghost?

Ultimately, however the ghosts take a backseat to the real monsters of the tale, Frederick and Annabelle. If you've ever been to a party where the hosts aren't getting along with each other, you may identify with this film which takes that idea to the extreme. Jealousy and greed are far more dangerous than the supernatural in this tale.

Kyra and I will be popping some popcorn later and will sit down to watch House on Haunted Hill. She's seen it already and gets a kick out of it just like I did (and still do).

Repo!: The Genetic Opera

2009-01-29T11:21:00.005-05:00

Last week saw the DVD release of the film Repo! The Genetic Opera. The film has been getting lots of buzz on horror message boards and is supposedly well on its way to cult status. Last Friday I was out clubbing and the DJ was silently projecting the movie on a wall along the dance-floor while playing other music. What I saw was very visually interesting, so I decided to check out the film for myself.

I watched it this week and apparently I was better off watching the movie without its own sound. It was far far better as just a visual as other peoples' music was played over it. Repo! is a rock opera with the stress being on opera rather than on rock. The entire film is sung with no regular dialogue. Often the varying singing styles and lyrics crash against each other during the scenes. The music is weak and even at its best moments reaches only mediocre levels.

The casting for the film is interesting and surreal. Seeing Paul (Goodfellas) Sorvino, Bill (The Devil's Rejects) Moseley, Nivek Ogre (of the band Skinny Puppy), Anthony (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Stewart Head, Alexa (Spy Kids) Vega and Paris (Isn't her 15 minutes up yet?) Hilton singing together. Add in that all of them are dressed like models for Hot Topic and the amount of blood and gore used in the movie and you have a pretty weird spectacle. It is pretty sad when there is an excellent vocalist like Anthony Stewart Head in the cast and even his songs are lackluster at best.

My friend John Dedeke described the visual look of the film as being a cross between Moulin Rouge and Blade Runner. This is pretty accurate. I'd say that there is a dash of Tim Burton, The Crow and Interview with a Vampire in the look as well. Overall, the art and set design (and some of the costume and makeup as well) are the only real success in the movie. This should be no surprise since the film comes from Twisted Pictures. This is the company that gave us the silly, increasingly incomprehensible and dull Saw movies. These are people who have consistently shown strength in their style and weakness in plot.

One of the other things that bothered me while watching the movie was its use of comic panels to tell flashbacks and other aspects of the story. The comic panels were slick-looking but repeatedly told stories that were told all over again through song and performances by live actors immediately following the comics. It is pointlessly redundant and leads to a continuously boring feeling of deja vu.

I've been hearing comparisons between Repo! The Genetic Opera and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I just don't see Repo developing the following that Rocky has. Rocky at least had some catchy songs. If any recent musical stands a chance of developing a Rocky Horror-type following it will be Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Dr. Horrible had to have had a far lower budget than Repo, yet it is far more watchable (and listenable).

If you want to watch a musical with some blood, check out Snuffed! The Musical. It's only 8 minutes in length, has me in a bit part as the forgotten Baldwin brother, and despite being created completely in under 48 hours with no budget and a cast that mostly hasn't been musically trained (and didn't even know they were making a musical until hours before filming began)... it manages to have more memorable songs than Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Various Kyra Pictures Taken During the Holidays

2009-01-10T23:53:00.001-05:00

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Bella dancerella: Enchanted Tales

2008-12-22T20:26:00.006-05:00

Over this past weekend we got together with some of our family for Christmas gatherings (more to come later in the week). My dad and stepmother gave Kyra a number of presents, including a toy called Bella dancerella: Enchanted Tales. The toy is one of the many Disney Princess items I see all over the place. We opened the toy up for Kyra to play with this morning. She absolutely loves it.

The toy comes in three parts; a DVD, a dance mat and a magical princess wand. The wand is actually magical and turns little brothers into frogs. Alright, maybe not... but it does light up in different colors and make different sounds based on which of three Disney Princesses the child chooses on a selector (Ariel, Aurora and Belle). The dance mat is not electronic and is just a guide to various foot placements during certain dances shown on the DVD. The DVD itself features live dancers in princess/ballet costumes along with clips from Disney films. They dance and sing six different Disney songs. It basically equates out to a aerobic workout for the child. Unlike the electronic dance games, the child isn't just stepping on sensors on a mat: they are working their entire body. It had my daughter dipping, stretching her arms up and moving all over the place.

The toy gets a big thumbs up from me as a parent and as for Kyra's review, just look at the expressions on her face as she danced to it this morning (note: the princess clothing didn't come with the toy being discussed; Kyra just wore it for the occasion). She's danced to it three times already today. Thanks Dad and Kathy!

Free to Be... You and Me (1974)

2008-12-09T09:21:00.004-05:00

As a child in the 1970s this children's anthology movie was shown to me at school assemblies on at least two occasions. Certain segments stuck with me though I could never recall the name of the movie. Back in 2004, I was describing the scenes I remembered from the movie while talking with a friend who is passionate about old school AV films. He told me the title was Free to be... You and Me. I looked it up online, found it on DVD and immediately purchased a copy. It was surreal to see the film again after so many years. I also found it strange that I'd been listening to a sound byte from the movie for years without realizing it; an audio sample had been used on Too Much Joy's album Son of Sam I Am (one of my favorite albums of all time).

Free to Be... You and Me started out originally as an album and book a couple years prior to it becoming a made for TV special. It was the brainchild of actress Marlo Thomas, who wanted to create something that would go against the gender stereotypes she witnessed in most children's fiction.

The TV movie has a number of other celebrities involved; Mel Brooks and Alan Alda in particular are featured heavily along with Marlo Thomas. Other celebrities who make appearances include a teen-aged Michael Jackson, Dionne Warwick, Rosie Grier, Harry Belafonte, Kris Kristofferson and Carol Channing. I have a hard time not smiling when a young Michael Jackson sings a song in which he asks if he'll be "big and strong" when he grows up. It is also difficult not to laugh out loud seeing football player Rosie Grier singing song about crying while decked out in his 70s attire. It looks like he could use his shirt collar as a hang glider. However, the film makes some solid points about gender stereotyping and the message is still valid even if the look is comically dated.

While originally purchased for myself, the DVD has become one of Kyra's. She was watching it again this morning which made me think about it. The movie is full of songs, stories, animation, puppetry and live action performances. Even 34 years later, Marlo Thomas's creation continues to entertain my own daughter. She's watched it many more times at the age of three than I did throughout my childhood. Then again, she's also seen The Wizard of Oz many many more times than I did growing up too. DVD is awesome, but it does make some films seem less special due to their availability no longer being limited.

Someone uploaded the entire Free to Be... You and Me movie to YouTube in chunks. If this blog has made you curious, it is possible to watch the entire thing online for free. The opening of the film (with its haunting carousel music) can be seen here. You can select the next segment by searching through the scrolling menu on the right side of the screen.

Thank you, Marlo Thomas, for making it safe for me to play with dolls and cry.

Time Enough at Last

2008-12-08T21:36:00.006-05:00

There is an old Twilight Zone episode titled Time Enough at Last. The episode stars Burgess Meredith as a bookworm who wishes to be left alone so he can read. He becomes the apparent sole survivor of Armageddon and is delighted that he'll finally have time to read... only to beak his spectacles and render himself pretty much blind.

This past weekend Kristy and Kyra went to visit relatives in Rochester, leaving me with much needed time to work on writing projects. I was like Burgess Meredith clamoring for some alone time. The only problem was, once they left I was totally unable to focus. I managed to get some research done on various Dutch families of Tarrytown, NY and started into a much needed revision of the Dark Destination's article on Washington Irving's Sunnyside Estate. That was to be one of a few different writing projects I intended to complete when I had "time enough at last" over the weekend.

However, my brains turned to yogurt and I found myself in a marathon viewing of episodes of The Big Bang Theory. I only discovered the show last week. It's brilliant. I'm completely addicted. I kept making return attempts to write more and kept giving up frustration after limited bouts of progress. I didn't even complete the one writing project. Sigh.

I guess I just needed veg time. Unlike poor Burgess' smashed spectacles, this is just a temporary setback.

Tall People: Slaves to Our Tiny Masters

2008-12-04T23:01:00.008-05:00

A question for you other tall folks out there: Have you noticed that short people think we're there to do their bidding? How many times have you heard, "Hey. I can't reach that. Can you get it for me?" What are we, some sort of service animals for the vertically challenged?

When is the last time you heard a tall person ask a short person to grab something from a lower shelf because they don't have as far to stoop? Never! We'd get kicked in the shins.

The short people have lured us into a trap by making us believe that being tall is "cool." It has conditioned us to respond to their requests as some sort of demonstration of our height superiority... but who is calling the shots here? It's a conspiracy and it's bigger than you might imagine.

I did some research and I found out that short people are physically superior to us. That's right. If you visit Short Persons Support.org, you'll find a whole list of abilities short people have. According to the site, short people have the advantage on tall people when it comes to physics and biology. The site claims that short people have "faster reaction times, greater ability to accelerate body movements, stronger muscles in proportion to body weight, greater endurance, and the ability to rotate the body faster. They are also less likely to break bones in falling." Holy crap! Shortness is like a super power!

That's not all, the web site goes on to say that short people live longer lives. It explains that because human cells have a limited capacity for duplication, short people have an advantage at healing.

"Since bigger people require a larger number of duplications to reach maturity, they have fewer potential cell doublings left to replace defective or dead cells. Thus, the functional capability of vital organs declines with advanced age because damaged cells can't be replaced. A new study also showed that oxidative damage to cells increases at a higher rate with increasing height; e.g., an 18% increase in height leads to an 83% increase in cellular damage. Current gerontological thinking is that oxidative damage leads to aging and death."

Alright, so now short people have heightened agility, heightened strength, heightened endurance (not to mention their greater ability to hide from danger in small places) and now they have some sort of anti-aging healing factor power like Wolverine! Oh...but we're not done yet. The site says there are also studies that show that short people get cancer less than tall people and are less likely to have cardiovascular problems. To add further insult to injury the web site then claims that short people have less of a negative impact on the planet than us tall people. Apparently, us tall folks now have to feel guilt because we cause more pollution and use up more resources.

I've recently been reading about physics and the concept of time dilation. Time dilation is a phenomenon in which time goes slower the closer you are to a source of gravity. Experiments have shown that clocks that are in sync with each other will go out of sync if one is at a higher elevation than the other. The clock that is closer to the ground will run behind, because apparently time is going slower there. So does this mean that time is going slower for short people than for me? I remember how slow time seemed to be when I was a kid. Now, I'm tall and time is whizzing by!

Conclusion: Short people have ultra-cool super powers and will live longer lives which will seem that much longer thanks to time dilation. The next short person who asks me for help reaching something is going to get a vulgar hand gesture.

I'm going to lay down on the floor now so that time will start going slower for me. Being tall sucks.

Meet the Family: Sam

2008-11-24T15:22:00.003-05:00

The youngest of our cats.

Sam

Sam was presumably born in Rochester, NY in 2004. My wife wanted a third cat. I didn't. She got one anyway. She picked him up at a shelter. While I wasn't happy with her trampling over me in her need to get a head start on becoming a crazy cat lady once I'm dead, Sam quickly wormed his way into my heart.

Sam remains the smallest of our cats, giving him the appearance of still being a kitten. Sam (named for director Sam Raimi) isn't a lap cat. The few times he's jumped in someone's lap, he's just looked confused about the situation and jumped back down. Sam is a shoulder cat. When he wants to get attention, he jumps up the front of people. Hopefully, they are expecting them. It can be startling to suddenly have a little orange fury face appear in front of yours. The jump also involves a moment of him scaling a person's chest like he's Spiderman. At our heights (6' in my case, 5'10" in my wife's), my wife and I have to catch him in our arms to keep him from falling back down. Sam gives a hurt look if he drops back down because we're not expecting him.

Even when he cuddles up to my wife at night to sleep, he has to curl around her head. He loves being around that area of the body, it's not just him enjoying being up high.

Meet the Family: Spike

2008-11-24T15:14:00.005-05:00

Here's the Jan to Sebastian's Marcia Brady.

Spike

Spike was presumably born in Buffalo, NY in 2001. Our friend Bob found him and a pair of litter-mates that had been abandoned in a box. Spike's sister had medical problems from the start and after investing in her health care, Bob opted to keep her. Spike came to live with us and his brother went to another home. Sebastian was mortified upon Spike's arrival. I've never seen a cat show such a look of concern, betrayal, anguish, etc. Sebastian's eyes went so huge that he looked like one of those big-eyed animal paintings.

Spike had an attitude from the start. It earned him his name right off the bat. Yes... he's named after William the Bloody. Despite not being anywhere near as large as Sebastian, Spike tends to be boss of the house. I think it may be because Sebastian is so easy going. The times that push has really come to shove, Sebastian has shown himself to be the guy who picks his battles and wins the ones that matter.

Spike has a thing about attacking people who sneeze (especially me). I think he perceives it as a threatening hiss. He's also the reason that the veterinarian comes to our house with a team armed with leather gloves up to their elbows (and the reason why the vet chooses to make us a house-call). Spike has been known to use anything he can as a weapon against vets... including feces. His aggression definitely is based in fear. Spike is totally the model for Yoda's speech about Fear leading to the dark side in Phantom Menace.

Spike, like his sister, has chronic health issues. His immune system can kick into overdrive during periods of stress. His lips swell up, his breath gets raunchy, his fur coat gets lackluster and he becomes lethargic. It has taken cortisone and occasionally shots of actual gold into his bloodstream to bring him out of it. The problem as decreased over time, but meant a good deal of time in an animal hospital when he was young (hence his hatred of vets). Below are pics of Spike displaying the swollen lips symptom and of him following an operation to remove part of his paw padding that had become infected due to cracks forming in the padding (another symptom of his chronic problems).

Meet the Family: Sebastian

2008-11-24T15:06:00.001-05:00

Here's the eldest of our pets.

Sebastian

Sebastian was born in Albion, NY in 1999. His parents were barn cats. He had about 6 weeks as a barn cat himself before we adopted him and he's led a life of leisure ever since. Sebastian has a weight problem. He's currently been on a diet for half a year...and still seems to be gaining weight somehow. I have no idea how he does it.

He is a sweet cat, but his hygiene suffers due to his obesity. This makes him our smelly cat as well. So, while he's the most likely to jump into guest's lap during a visit, he's also likely to get pushed away thanks to the combination of his weight squeezing off blood flow to their legs and the stench coming from his unreachable nethers.

He apparently also has the psychic ability to tell that I'm thinking about him, as he has just now come downstairs to punish me with his crushing bulk. His aroma de cat poop seems less this morning, so one of our other two cats must have taken pity on him and given him a bath this morning.

Here's a pair of photos of Sebastian and I playing together. The camera scared him.

Car Accident

2008-11-20T10:00:00.002-05:00

On Tuesday morning, Kristy got into a car accident on her way into work. Luckily, her and the baby are okay. She was going under 30 mph at the time and was buckled in. She was driving down a winding section of road when she saw cars stopped ahead (presumably due to another accident) and slowed down. Her car began sliding and spinning and she struck a guard rail twice, smashing the front and back on the driver side.

The insurance company decided to total the vehicle based on it's book value. Kristy wasn't very happy with what they are paying us for it. Luckily, we have a reliable second vehicle, so she's able to get back and forth to work. It just means that Kyra and I will be limited in travel for a bit and will miss playgroups at the local community family room. As soon as we get the money for the vehicle, we'll shop around for another car. It will likely not be as nice though. Oh well.

The important thing is that there were absolutely no injuries during the incident.

Zombies, Parenting and the Loss of Identity

2008-11-15T22:08:00.005-05:00

"They're coming to get you, Barbra."
-Johnny, Night of the Living Dead (1968)

A few years back I wrote an article on the history of zombies in pop culture and delved into the psychology behind what makes them scary. One aspect of the zombie in most fiction is its loss of identity. While modern zombies (post 1968) shown in films tend to come from different backgrounds based on the clothing they are seen wearing, they all lose their individuality and are ultimately identical in function and purpose. Even the classic voodoo zombie is an example of identity loss through slavery.

If you watch one of Romero's zombie films you will see zombies from all sorts of backgrounds; nurses, baseball players, mechanics, clowns, soldiers, farmers, etc. As zombies, however, they are just part of a mindless teeming mass united in a single goal. With a few minor exceptions, they seem to all lose their personalities. For example: In the original Dawn of the Dead (1978), one of the most tense moments in the film is an attack by a zombie that was dressed as a Hare Krishna. While he most likely was once a pacifist, as a zombie he's now robbed of his personal mores, decisions and identity.

As an adult I've found that marriage and parenthood can result in some identity loss as well. When you become part of a serious couple, you are no longer always Richard...quite often you will find that you are referred to in the collective, Richard and Jane. You'll also find that friends will act differently around you. Single friends may be uncomfortable around you, because you've become one of "them." Isn't that the real horror of zombie films? The fear of "them" and becoming "them"... whoever "they" are that you are afraid of. Eek! The Communists/Republicans/Mormons/Gays/Muslims/insert whatever culture of people worries you are at your door, wanting to convert you as well! In the case of a single friends perspective of your transformation during a relationship, perhaps the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a better reference. "It looks like the buddy I used to party with...but he's wearing a sweater...and using a coaster!" and "Oh god, I think he might be trying to fix me up with her sister!"

The same can happen with divorce or breakups. I've made friends with couples as a couple and had them part ways after a few years of knowing them. It can feel odd in the years afterward. "Richard and Jane" becomes "Richard" and "Jane." The dynamic that was there when you became friends has changed. I've had friends in this situation where hanging out with them after a breakup felt like hanging out with someone who suffered a head trauma that resulted in a loss of a familiar aspect of their personality. There's a feeling of disability even when the breakup has a positive impact on the person's life. I was married once before. My divorce was definitely a positive move for me. However, I did notice it made an impact on my friendships that varied widely from positive to negative (even though I wasn't the one who had been unfaithful and wasn't even the one who asked for the divorce). Some people couldn't be friends with both of us separately, or the dynamic had just changed too much for friendship to remain comfortable.

Upon becoming a parent, I discovered a bigger bite taken out of the identities of my wife and I. We weren't even "Tom and Kristy" to many people in our neighborhood within a year of Kyra's birth. We were "Kyra's Mom and Dad." We'd bump into another couple with a child at the local store or on the street and that was what we'd hear; "Oh hey! It's Kyra...and her parents."

Even before that point, we were finding less time to practice the things that were integral to being "us." Kristy was finding little time for playing her piano. I had hobbies that got boxed up and thrown into the attic to make way for baby stuff and also because I just plain didn't have time. We both were regular readers, but our book reading slowed to a trickle. It was the same with sex and intimacy between Kristy and I.

Now that I'm a stay-at-home dad, I have become more active in our small community and more people have gotten to know my name. Still, I can tell that a lot of folks I'm talking with at playgroups and what not see me first and foremost as "Kyra's dad." I'm not the star of my own show. I'm a supporting character in The Life of Kyra. Luckily for me, it's a pretty fun show and I'm lucky to land the part. It just takes some adjustment. I think it became even more noticeable to me in some ways because of leaving my job. My solo identity was a bit more publicly stable there. I wonder if housewives and other househusbands have experienced the same thing upon giving up careers to be at home.

Kristy and I reached a point of misery in how many of the things we love we'd been sacrificing. We've been making a bit more effort to make sure each of us has some "me" time. However, we'll never be who we were again. When our kids grow older and fly out of the nest, we probably won't know what to do with ourselves and the free time we'll have. I also think of people out there who have kids that are more like accessories. I especially get that feeling when I see the children of celebrities on TV. In that case it seems all too often the child's identity suffers under the weight of the parent's.

I've also noticed that over the past three years of being parents, Kristy and I have made friends we wouldn't have before. We'll make friends just because the people also have children around Kyra's age. It's an odd sensation. When we hear that one of our childless couple friends are expecting we rejoice, not just for them...but because there's more of "us" in the social circle. The parents. So now we're not just looking to fix up those single friends, we're trying to get them to have kids too. Make them into one of us.

"Gooble gobble! One of us! One of us!"
-Freaks (1932)

For someone like my brother, who is single and plans to never have children...we have become "them."

Rewards

2008-11-15T07:55:00.002-05:00

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I'd discuss the rewards we're using in attempting to guide Kyra towards positive behaviors. During the initial potty training stages we used stickers as rewards for using the potty. It worked well for a while, but because she also gets sticker books as gifts, the novelty seemed to wear out quick for her. Back in April, after her time with daycare ended and she began to stay home with me, her potty training regressed a bit, most likely because of the changes in her schedule. That and she was probably a little upset at not seeing Lori, her daycare provider, on a regular basis anymore. Lori was, and still is, very close with Kyra. She stops by for visits and even volunteered to babysit Kyra for free so that they could hang out. Lori has a son that is slightly older than Kyra and Kyra loves him too.

Anyhow, back to rewards. We resorted to using candy for a short while. It worked, but we were doling out too much of it. We stopped, rather than risk tooth decay. Currently, for potty training we've switched to using a chart that tracks each day she hasn't had an accident. She puts a sticker on each day that she doesn't. At the end of 7 days of stickers in a row, she gets to pick a toy out of a bag full of dollar store toys we purchased as rewards. This has worked great. She hasn't had an accident since we started the program. She's also begun to show more of a tendency to use the potty at night. On her chart, we don't count wet pull-ups that were worn while sleeping. However, we give her praise for the times she's had a dry pull-up in the morning and used the potty at night. It seems to be working very well.

This past week, I began trying rewards that would be less cluttering (this kid really doesn't need more toys). I dug out a box from storage that had my toys in it from when I was a kid. I've now been rewarding positive behavior with allowing her some time with these "special" limited-availability toys. I put them back away after the playtime is over so she has to earn them again. It works. It also helps that I was a child of the 1970s and she's currently on a Star Wars kick (She currently sleeps with Star Wars McDonald's toys her Uncle Shawn gave her). So, she's thrilled when I pull out the old Star Wars action figures and the toy lightsaber my best friend Lance gave me as a gift back in the mid-1990s. I also have a toy that was given to me as a gag gift years ago. It's an electronic toy that looks like Frankenstein Monster's head. It talks and you can pull off pieces of it's facial anatomy in a variety of games. That too has been a reward hit.

Earlier in the week, while experimenting with getting Kyra to clean up her playroom by using fractions of the room rather than time increments, I tried another type of reward. After each quarter of the room was picked up, she was rewards with "dance time." I'd play a song on a CD and we'd dance crazy together. It was a hit. It wasn't the dancing to music itself, which she gets to do regularly anyway, it was the fact that daddy was there dancing with her. It was fun. I also got some cardio exercise out of it and it was another bonding experience. It's a total hit.

On a further note, Kyra's now dancing the "Time Warp" at times, even when there's no music to go with it.

Movie Review - Brutal Massacre: A Comedy

2008-11-14T09:35:00.014-05:00

Brutal Massacre: A Comedy is a mockumentary (seems like about 30% of films these days are. Heck, even I've directed one and had a bit part in another) that Fangoria Magazine describes as "A Spinal Tap for horror filmmakers.” A fair and accurate description in my estimation having now seen it.

Brutal Massacre stars An American Werewolf in London's David Naughton as Harry Penderecki, a horror movie director who, while achieving a fan following for his B-movies, has found himself on the outs with the Hollywood movie-machine. The mockumentary follows Penderecki on his quest to make his comeback film, titled "Brutal Massacre." His struggles bring to mind Terry Gilliam's disastrous experience attempting to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote back in 2000. Along the way, Penderecki and his crew face FX failures, injuries, inhospitable living conditions, lack of pay, a sewage mishap, near death experiences, death itself, disloyal actors and police arrest.

The opening moments of the film show Harry Penderecki making an appearance at a Fangoria Weekend of Horrors convention. The scene raised my warning flags and I began to worry about the quality of the movie and whether I actually wanted to sit through it. Luckily, I hung in there and gave it a shot. Even more luckily, I was rewarded with an entertaining and funny film in return for my patience.

The movie has a number of horror genre celebrities besides David Naughton either appearing as themselves or playing fictional characters. I'm not going to bother listing them. It has become an entirely over-used ploy in genre films. These days, I spend more time playing Where's Waldo with the horror icons of yesteryear in these movies that I can't get into the atmosphere of the film. However, in a comedy about horror filmmaking, these roles and cameos have some charm.

Brutal Massacre also comedy veterans Brian O'Halloran and Gerry Bednob in prominent roles as the fictional production's Production Assistant and Director of Photography, respectively. I half expected Kevin Smith to show up for a cameo after seeing those two in the movie. Both Brian and Gerry play well off of Naughton and the scenes with them interacting are some of my favorite in the movie. Ken Foree manages to earn laughs while still portraying a character I couldn't help but feel sorry for.

However, the standout comedy performance in the film is old Leatherface himself, Gunnar Hansen. After seeing him as the beer-swilling, potty-mouthed, lecherous, disgruntled Vietnam veteran, Krenshaw, I want to see him get more comedy roles. He looks like he was having fun making the film and in turn makes watching his performance fun as well.

Brutal Massacre is rated R, though I think it leans more toward a PG-13. It isn't something I'll be watching with my kids anytime soon, so it will remain a treat for those scant hours I have to watch my grownup movies.

Precocious Kyra moment while writing this blog entry: Kyra asked me to open up Word on our other PC so that she could write an article about Sam Patch, the early 19th century daredevil who jumped to his doom in the Genesee River Gorge in Rochester, NY. We were there last month when I was taking photos for an article I wrote about the incident for Dark Destinations. She has quite the memory.

My Friend the Increment

2008-11-14T09:35:00.008-05:00

Lately I've been finding it easier working with my preschooler by making tasks or requests that are broken into increments of either time or scope. I've tried using a timer while getting her to clean up her toys. I set it for 10 minutes of cleanup time, then set it for 5 minutes of playtime break. I alternated back and forth until the room was clean. The process took a long time, but did achieve results without dad having to resort to threatening to throw out toys.

Yesterday, I tried something new in setting her a goal of picking up toys in a quarter of her playroom, followed by a reward and then having her return to clean another quarter of the room. The effect was far faster and more effective in achieving a measurable and noticeable difference for each increment.

This morning I wanted a little bit of quiet time so I could work on some writing. I set the timer and told Kyra when it went off she would get a reward (more on rewards in a future blog) if she managed to play quietly during that time without making a large mess. In this instance, the timer was ineffective. Within moments she was in the den, tugging on my shirt and looking for me to entertain her. A few moments later, she was back again. Reminding her of our deal didn't work one bit.

I asked what she could do on her own that she'd like that would give me the time I needed. Kyra asked to play the toddler reading games on Starfall.com. Now, she's quietly playing on our old PC with headphones on with me a couple feet away working on the newer PC. It has worked far better.

I recall when I was younger, how much larger increments of time seemed to me. While a few minutes seems incredibly scant to me, it may feel like forever to her. Perhaps it has to due with the physics concept of time relativity. It is said that time moves slower the closer you get to a center of gravity. Perhaps being those extra couple feet closer to the ground makes time go slower. I may just try lying on the floor all day sometime next week and see how slow the day seems to pass.

While incremental staging of tasks definitely gets a thumbs up from me, I don't see the timer really working for anything beyond setting a limit on quiet time punishment. The goal will be increments based on clear physical results. It is easier for me to measure and easier for her to understand the goal.

Meet the Family: Elijah

2008-11-14T02:31:00.004-05:00

This is Elijah.

Coming March 2009 to a maternity ward near us.

So far, his hobbies include kicking his mother in the stomach, sleeping and eating through a fleshy tube that runs straight to his tummy. We were pretty sure the next baby was going to be a girl and he surprised us when we got the ultrasound a few weeks back. I wonder if he will continue to pull surprises out here in the world outside the womb.

My wife wouldn't let me name him Milo or Pugsly. She spoils all my fun.

Meet the Family: Kyra

2008-11-14T01:54:00.007-05:00

This is our daughter Kyra.

This is also Kyra.

She can go from Shirley Temple to Wednesday Addams in an eighth of a second. Most times she's in between the two, playing with her Cenobite action figures and her My Little Ponies (though most recently she's been on Star Wars kick). She's precocious as heck and one of the most out-going preschoolers you'll meet. She also shows definite signs of a being a blossoming horror fan herself. At age one she giggled at people in monster costumes at a horror movie convention we brought her to. The same year she was terrified upon meeting Santa Claus. She wakes up and tells us she had nice dreams about monsters, yet has woken up yelling because episodes of Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go! have worried her (the episodes where animals are in peril due to water seem to be the ones bothering her).

Her favorite monster currently is Frankenstein's monster. She fell in love with him after watching Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and The Monster Squad. She also shares her daddy's affinity for Scooby Doo. She also shows an increasing interest in music and will hopefully take after her mother in that regard (her daddy is tone-deaf).

Kyra also has an active imagination and a wonderful sense of humor. For example: When I informed her that we were having stuffed zucchini for dinner tonight, her response was to tell me she couldn't eat it because a ghost had pooped on the food. How can I argue with that? I have no conclusive means disproving the presence of invisible phantom dung!

Kyra is named after Kyra Schon, who played the role of Karen Cooper in Night of the Living Dead (1968) (hence the masonry trowel in the second picture above). So far, she's happy with the association and excitedly points out the iconic image of Kyra Schon whenever it is present on a poster, T-shirt, DVD case, etc.

The first three months of her life, I was a stay-at-home dad before she was placed in daycare so I could take a job that ate up all my time and had me as a slave to a Blackberry device 24/7 365 (even on vacation/holiday/whatever). After going through a couple of years of my job making everyone in our family miserable, we looked at the figures and realized that with us planning on having a second child, the job that demanded so much of my time was barely worth it if we had to pay for daycare for two kids. I left my job in April, 2008. Just a bit shy of 3 years old, Kyra had her daddy back. It's been an experience for both of us over the past seven months.

Kyra is very excited about becoming a big sister next year.

Meet the Family: Kristy

2008-11-14T01:21:00.008-05:00

This is my beautiful wife Kristy.

Unlike me, she has skills that are practical and that are more easily put to use. Currently, she's the bread winner in the family. Kristy is awesome with tools and built the shelves in the photo above in an attempt to get our movie collection under control.

Kristy and I met in 1997. We were fixed up by my dad, who had been her Sunday school teacher. See what happens when you send your daughters to church? They wind up married to creepy freaks like me. Speaking of which, we've been married since 2002. She's put up with 11 years of my crap and still hasn't run screaming for the hills, so I guess she's here to stay. How many women would put with their husband owning an actual coffin (I sold the second one I had) and mucking up the kitchen with stinky liquid latex, fake blood and other FX nastiness?

Besides making enough of living to support her husband staying at home to provide childcare and her abilities in DIY home improvements, Kristy is also musically inclined. She plays piano mostly, but I've lost count of the musical instruments in her collection. Luckily for me she also has an appreciation for horror movies and literature as well as enjoying taking trips to odd creepy locations with me, such as the time we spent the night in the Lizzie Borden house.

We have been parents since 2005 and are expecting another child in March of 2009.

Meet the Family: Tom G

2008-11-14T00:04:00.010-05:00

Hi, I'm Tom G.

I've been a fan of all things dark and macabre as long as I remember (which would be age 4). My initial influences were episodes of Scooby Doo, Kolchak: The Night Stalker and William Castle's movie House on Haunted Hill. At age 16 I had my first date with George A. Romero's horror classic Night of the Living Dead and it was love at first sight. At the same age I also developed another apparently life-long obsession besides Romero's film: the works of authors John Skipp and Craig Spector (both together and separately).

Horror and Halloween are pretty much a lifestyle for me. It is in my movies, music, games, books, etc. Over the course of more than a decade, my wife has managed to get me to buy a few normal shirts so that not everything I wear has a horror movie image or rock group on it.

My brain catches and holds odd little macabre facts the way some guys can memorize sports statistics and everything there is to know about cars. In recent years, I've been able to put this odd quirk to good use finally as co-creator of the Dark Destinations database at TheCabinet.com. It is an on-line guide to all places spooky, horrific and macabre around the world and it is part of one of my favorite web sites. Started in 1994, The Cabinet is one of the oldest horror sites on the Internet. It went on hiatus from 2001 through 2006 and I was honored to be part of its comeback. I've always been a fan of its all-inclusive approach to horror, rather than yet another site focusing on just movies.

2001 is also a significant year for me in that I got my first taste of indie film-making while playing a minor character (basically an extra with a bit of dialogue) and doing some other minor behind-the-camera work for my friend Curt Markham's feature length micro-budget movie Curse the Darkness. After being invited to be a part of the production of a short film for a 48 Hour Film Festival. After those two experiences I had the bug. In 2003, Spinning Grave Productions was formed by a number of friends and myself. In the time since, its members have made a number of twisted comedy shorts. In 2008, I once again had the chance to work on one of Curt Markham's features. This time I got to dabble in making my own latex prosthetics. It is definitely something I will doing more of in the future.