It's The End of the World As We Know It.....

What better time to watch the movie 2012 than during a tornado warning in New England? I know, 2012 came out a year ago now. I'm a little behind on the times. On the upside, that means that I'm probably not spoiling it for anyone.

I think the first few minutes of a movie tell a lot about what's to come, so I made a few observations about my initial impressions. Here are my notes from the scenes previous to the title page:

1. Time moves REALLY fast in this movie. It's only been ten minutes, and I've already aged three years.

2. With the amount of insane special effects and CGI I know will be in the movie, I would've thought they'd do better with the font of the subtitles. I know I'm no spring chicken, but the movie's barely started and I already have a migraine from squinting so hard.

3. According to Dr. So and so and Dr. So and so, something very sciencey is going down and it's kind of a big deal. It's also very hot. Something about the center of the Earth turning into a giant easy bake oven. Wait. Maybe it was a microwave. [After watching the movie, I would like to confirm that it was in fact a microwave because it ended up turning the Earth into a giant hot pocket - bursting into flames in some places, still frozen in others].

4. Kindle's come in WAY bigger sizes than I ever imagined. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any video clip or screen shot of what I'm talkinga about so I guess you'll have to watch the movie again.

5. I think my next post should be on research on the paranormal phenomena that is John Cusack. It has come to my attention that he doesn't age.



(Twenty years. TWENTY YEARS!)

Even though I am probably the last person to have seen this movie, I still refuse to give away any portions of the plot just in case anyone is even further behind in the times than I am.

What I will point out is that there were a lot of product endorsements. Every scene seemed to be a commercial for something, at times it was beyond ridiculous.

Case in point, the last line of the entire movie.... "No more pull-ups."

Really?

The only product endorsement I was excited to see was the adult beverage chosen by Charlie, the crazy conspiracy theorist living in a van in yellowstone park. I didn't put together this montage so it has some extra stuff in it, but does show Charlie in all his whacky, science fiction loving, good beer drinking glory.



There were many parts of this movie that made me laugh. I think most were put there intentionally but I'm not sure that they all were. One part in particular happens at the very peak of all anxiety. I was at the edge of my seat, the fate of the world was within seconds of being destroyed... and then the reaction of one man sent me from anxiey to hysterics. All I will say is, when you start getting to that point, keep your eyes on the guy with the glasses, squishing his head.

I liked the nods to certain Biblical stories. The first scene that hints at that made me smile. It reminded me of a certain song by the Staggers. Unicorn. Download it.

Overall, I loved this movie. I wasn't fully prepared for the amount of times I had to reach for a tissue, but in hindsight, I should've seen it coming with most of the world dying. I really wish that I could've seen it in theaters, especially in 3D if that was an option. I normally hate CGI and tend to scrutinize the hell out of it, ruining the movie for myself and everyone around me. But that wasn't the case with 2012. I actually didn't even notice the parts that were done with special effects (which was most of the movie), and didn't find myself questioning it once.

So if you haven't seen 2012, do it up. It's free on On Demand right now anyway, so the only thing you have to lose is the time. All in all, I give this movie two PBR salutes and a two tissue rating.

Not So Abanonded Asylum in Taunton Ma

I went to a wedding this weekend in Newport Rhode Island and on our way back, my boyfriend and I took a shortcut through Taunton, MA. Being from NH and surprisingly unknowledgeable about paranormal places in my general area, I had never heard of the Taunton State Hospital and was especially surprised to hear it was still in operation. Of course, I made him bring me to it.



Taunton State Hospital opened in 1854 and was the second state hospital (after Worcester) in Massachusetts. It was originally called the State Lunatic Hospital at Taunton. The building, like most Asylums of its era, is architecturally breathtaking.


Photo taken by Jeremy Harris

While browsing the Kirkbridge site (creators of other well known asylums like Danvers State), I found a little blurb posted by a reader about a patient at Taunton State named Jane Toppan.



"Jane Toppan of Bourne was arrested in 1901 for more than a dozen murders committed while she was working as private nurse and in several hospitals. Rather than caring for her patients, she poisoned them with overdoses of opiates. Tried in Barnstable, she was declared insane and sent to Taunton State Hospital until her death in 1938. She eventually claimed to have murdered more than 31 people as a type of euthanasia for people whose life was not worth living in her mind. Dubbed "Jolly Jane" by her patients before her crimes were known, her name on her birth certificate from 1857 was Honora Kelley. She changed her name in 1864 after she was taken in by the Toppan family. By all accounts, she suffered an unhappy childhood and mental illness afflicted her family. While at Taunton State, she was thought to have set fires to the main building more than once, and she often refused to eat the food, ironically claiming that it was poisoned."

Longer and more detailed articles on Cape Cod's first serial killer can be found here and here.

In 1975 the hospital, like all of its kind during that decade, was abandoned. In 1999, the large highly recognizable dome that towered over the administration building collapsed. And then on March 19, 2006 the building (including the adminstration and theater) caught fire.



Although I'm sure the fire probably started from curious teenagers or homeless residents, I like to think it was Jane Toppan, causing mischief even after death.

Most of the sites I have found state that demolition of the property has (or will, in some of the older publications) take place, however it didn't look to me that anything had been removed. Although a few of the buildings did still appear to be boarded up, the property was surprisingly active and populated. I found a few contradictions about what the buildings are now used for but the consensus seems to be that the site is still a mental hospital, with 10 wards and 2 child/adolescent wards. I couldn't seem to find any information about when the hospital re-opened after it was abandoned. The sites that confirmed it was still in use spoke nothing of it ever being abandoned and the sites that talked about it being abandoned showed no signs of it being used today. When we were on the grounds I had no idea of its use, just that it definitely was being used for something. To my knowledge, institutions were shut down in the 70's and (beyond temporary stays at a mental ward in a regular hospital or mental help facilities) nothing of their kind have existed since. I'm blaming TSH now for me still being awake and googling mental health history five hours from now.

As we left the property through the winding road surrounded by cornfields, we saw an old man in overalls walking slowly down the side of the road toward the urban streets outside the gates. Making jokes about escaped patients and murderous hitchhikers, we slowed down to eye the walker. Not taking our accusations seriously, we were a little surprised when just as we approached, the man turned to face us and offered his empty water bottle to our closed windows while muttering to himself. From the rearview mirror, I watched as he continued to shake the empty bottle at us and my mind wandered to all sorts of unlikely scenarios...







Finding pictures of Taunton State Hospital was surprisingly difficult, no matter what name I searched under. The few that I did find gave me a hard time about posting them via html, but I thought I would post some links if you are interested in seing more.

Flickr accounts can be foundhere and here. Also once under flickr, if you do a general search for the building you will find more.


For Jeremy Harris's album from Taunton State, click here


And for another site with awesome photography of Taunton State Hospital, as well as other abandoned buildings in New England, click here



I didn't exactly get advanced permission for the use of the pictures I did find, but have tried to give proper credit and link and promote each of their sites as much as possible. If any of these are yours and you're pissed, let me know and I'll take them down. If anyone has more pictures to share, also let me know.

Haley@QueenCityGhosts.com

Due to my recent unemployment and chronic insomnia, I've been getting sucked into hours and hours of internet and youtube loops of research. I'm sure everyone's been there. You start off with a random curiosity on a subject, you do some reading, you find a video, that video brings up a link to an equally intriguing subject, and then next thing you know the sun is on its way back up. And here I am. Tonight started with watching a few old Paranormal STU clips, then split into researching Andy Coppock and the Wolfe Manor at the same time, which led to full spectrum cameras, then back to the Wolfe Manor, then Waverly Hills, The Trans-Alleghany (however the hell you spell it) and ended with documentaries on asylums.

I never get tired of old footage and stories about old state hospitals. It's not even so much the paranormal side of it, I just find it unbelievable that people were really forced to live in places like that and endure some of the treatments that existed. I'm a psychology major and entering the field of helping adults with developmental disorders so a lot of this really hits close to home. Anyway, I know it's a pretty common interest among all us ghosties, so I thought I'd share a good documentary I found while in my black hole. It's nothing breathtaking, and there's not a whole lot of connections to the paranormal (besides a few tidbits from a researcher in the area), but it is very interesting, shows a lot of old pictures and facts, and is very well put together. It's in 3 parts, but they're not overwhelmingly long.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

Bladeless Fan???

I found a tiny ad for this new fan made by Dyson in Better Homes and Garden tonight and was so intrigued I had to google it. Does anyone else find this insane?!



It made me even more excited when I found this video:



I know I'm fairly new to the world of Geek, but it just seems like this fan may open doors in other areas of technology. Obviously, at "200 pounds" per fan (what the hell does that even convert to anyway?), I don't think the Dyson Multiplier will be making an appearance in my house anytime soon. But damn.

When do we get those flying cars we all pictured in our future when we were little?

This just in....

I will murder a small child for these shoes.

Iron Fist Isabella Inquisition Platform Shoes - Black/Pink (Vegan) - Punk.com

Paranormal STU

Don't watch this video. Seriously. Don't press play. It's not hilariously funny at all. You won't love it. And whatever you do, don't watch Paranormal STU at http://www.paranormaltvnetwork.com/channelSTU.html Fridays at 11:30 pm (EST).

Backyard Sasquatches

I've been a bit of a slacker lately on staying up to date with paranormal research. So when I finally checked out the other blogs I follow on Friday, I realized I had been out of the loop about a man called "Mike" claiming to have a family of sasquatches living in his backyard. My thoughts instantly flashed to a news clip I had seen a few weeks ago of a different man with a similiar problem...



My favorite part is when he tells Bigfoot to "Git!". Now if you read some of the comments, a valid point is stated that just because someone is overweight and doesn't speak proper english, doesn't necessarily mean that they are lying or that they didn't see something. It's just that 9 times out of 10 when investigation is applied...

Which leads me to "Mike". I'm glad I waited til after the weekend to express my excitement over such a mind boggling discovery. Instead of retelling something that's already been retold, I'll let you read it from Loren Coleman's blog, "Cryptomundo". Loren Coleman's the go-to expert on all things Sasquatch.

Loren Coleman's Blog/

I have to admit, I'm pretty bummed. The thought of a bigfoot family setting up camp in my backyard was really starting to grow on me. But Christopher Noel's right. If Bigfoot was so easy-going about bro-ing down with humans, he wouldn't have gone undiscovered for so long.



I do have to thank "Mike" though, for re-awakening my love for cryptozoology. In looking for the youtube video above, I stumbled upon video after video on the subject (which I knew I would), sending me into another paranormal phenomena known as the "Youtube Time Warp". It was a very narrow escape.

Rukka Bean Burrito Skunks Again!

At 1:30 this morning my dog decided to have a midnight snack.

A skunk.

Luckily (well, not luckily actually), I had been through this exact scenario with her before...

A few years ago, I had an apartment with a few friends and I decided to take Rukka out one last time before we all went to bed. It was around 1:30 in the morning and about 0 degrees out. After two minutes of standing there holding the leash and shivering my ass off, my brainiac dog runs so hard that she literally snaps the leash in half and takes off for the porch. I immediately ran over to try to break up whatever fight was about to ensue (Rukka's a pitbull and not very sociable with other animals), but before i could get to the porch, I hit a wall of the most horrific odor I had ever smelled. Getting sprayed by a skunk is nothing like smelling one on the side of the highway. It's like a mixture of ammonia, bleach, and burning poo. You literally taste it. I ran back into our apartment screaming and the rest of my roommates came out. By this point, Rukka was flipping the skunk up in the air and catching it with her mouth. I wish that was even an exaggeration. One of my roommates tried to bite the bullet and run into the death cloud but came out only to yak up dinner all over our front lawn. All of our eyes were pouring water and burning as we stood there and waited for it to end. When it finally did, Rukka was foaming at the mouth. All I could think of was rabies, but then we all realized that it was her body's way of trying to flush the chemicals out of her mouth. Someone quickly got the hose and one of us ran upstairs to grab whatever tomato product we could find. I don't remember what it was, but knowing the usual condition of our fridge, it was probably a packet of ketchup. We scrubbed her down as fast as we could and rinsed her off and then rushed her upstairs to get her out of the freezing cold air before she became a big stinky pupsicle. Unfortunately for us, the door had locked behind us. And being that it was the middle of the night and we were all in our jammies, no one had thought to bring out their keys. We were on the second floor so climbing in a window wasn't an option and our landlord lived over an hour away. And so, a day later, we were on the phone with our landlord trying to explain why we had taken a baseball bat to the window of our front door. She seemed to understand. We were also still trying to figure out why, after four tomato baths, Rukka Pooka still smelled like skunk pizza. Turns out the ole tomato routine is just an old wive's tale. After a quick google search, we found that dish detergant was our best option and after one bath, she was good as new. Well except for any time she got wet for the next three months.

And so last night, as I opened the door to see what the holdup was and was hit with the rancid cloud of toxic doom, I had some idea what I was dealing with. I slammed the door as fast as I could, but not before inhaling the chemical mouthful that I had wished I would never taste again in my life. I woke up my father, prepared my arsenal of dish detergant, rags, and lemon juice, and waited for the fight to end. The fight, by the way, was taking place underneath my Mom's car which was a great wake-up present as she left for work this morning. Shockingly, the detergant worked like a charm and with the exception of a small patch on her head (that I was too nervous to really soap up), Rukka was impressively clean smelling. I gave myself a smug pat on the back, decided for one more follow-up scrub down in the morning, and considered the night an inconvenient but tolerable story to add to my collection. Except that that's not how my luck works. Way too satisfied with myself, I filled up the tub an hour before class today to apply the final hose-down. Stacks of cheese and biscuits ready, I picked up my little terror and attempted to plop her into the lukewarm water. Rukka had other plans. Still, hours later, I haven't figured how it happened but at some point between me lifting her up and her feet landing in the water, something slammed down on the water spout of our tub with enough force that it not only snapped the spout off, but completely broke the pipe off.




Gorgeous huh?

The only advantage I do have is that my boyfriend is a plumber (which seems just a little ironic with the whole ghost... well anyway) so it should be fixed right up but that didn't help me as I stood in the bathroom soaked in sweat, covered in skunky dog hair, and needing to be in class in a half hour. And so here I am. Sitting on the couch in filth, missing the second class of a new semester with the cause of all of my misfortune curled up in my lap. And even though the last 24 hours have been a nightmare, I can't help but smile as her big brown eyes stare up at me apologetically.



Honestly, who could be mad at that face?

Paranormal news in MY town?!?

I live in a hilariously small town. We just put up our first and only stop light a couple years ago. It has been the butt of many Adam Sandler jokes, including when he spoke at my high school graduation (I went to school in a nearby city, Manchester, and was in Sandler's nephew's class). But laugh no more world, we have finally made it big. Associated Press big.

Alright so to be honest, this is only making our reputation worse but the AP nontheless.

Even though we only have one stoplight, no grocery stores, and may be the last remaining town in New England to not have a Dunkin' Donuts, we do have a waterpark. Yeah, apply logic to that one. At this waterpark, there seems to be a flag with the face of Jesus in it. Now, I know what you're thinking. My thoughts immediately went to housewives in Oklahoma with pieces of toast that look like Elvis, but when I looked at a picture of the flag, I was surprisingly curious. It's not that it's in an odd shape like Jesus, or that your eyes "matrix" a face out of a pattern, it has a similiar look as the Shroud of Turin.



A local priest agreed to come take a look at the flag, although I'm not exactly sure what his goal is. "Yep. That's him alright."

The owner of the park says that since he acquired the flag, the weather has been "perfect" and business has picked up. I would love to speak with him about his definition of perfect.

To read the whole article in our newspaper...

Priest will wait to look at water park's flag - Thursday, Jul. 8, 2010

Earthly Expansions- going beyond the paranormal

If you enjoy reading this ridiculous blog of nonsense, feel free to check out my new blog about non-paranormal topics. I named it "Ham and Eggs". I don't really know what that means, but it sounded kinda sweet.

The first few posts may look oddly familiar because, well because I'm lazy. Plus in school they taught me to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.


www.haleyhauntedhamandeggs.blogspot.com

Rukka Bean Burrito skunks again.

At 1:30 this morning my dog decided to have a midnight snack.

A skunk.

Luckily (well, not luckily actually), I had been through this exact scenario with her before...

A few years ago, I had an apartment with a few friends and I decided to take Rukka out one last time before we all went to bed. It was around 1:30 in the morning and about 0 degrees out. After two minutes of standing there holding the leash and shivering my ass off, my brainiac dog runs so hard that she literally snaps the leash in half and takes off for the porch. I immediately ran over to try to break up whatever fight was about to ensue (Rukka's a pitbull and not very sociable with other animals), but before i could get to the porch, I hit a wall of the most horrific odor I had ever smelled. Getting sprayed by a skunk is nothing like smelling one on the side of the highway. It's like a mixture of ammonia, bleach, and burning poo. You literally taste it. I ran back into our apartment screaming and the rest of my roommates came out. By this point, Rukka was flipping the skunk up in the air and catching it with her mouth. I wish that was even an exaggeration. One of my roommates tried to bite the bullet and run into the death cloud but came out only to yak up dinner all over our front lawn. All of our eyes were pouring water and burning as we stood there and waited for it to end. When it finally did, Rukka was foaming at the mouth. All I could think of was rabies, but then we all realized that it was her body's way of trying to flush the chemicals out of her mouth. Someone quickly got the hose and one of us ran upstairs to grab whatever tomato product we could find. I don't remember what it was, but knowing the usual condition of our fridge, it was probably a packet of ketchup. We scrubbed her down as fast as we could and rinsed her off and then rushed her upstairs to get her out of the freezing cold air before she became a big stinky pupsicle. Unfortunately for us, the door had locked behind us. And being that it was the middle of the night and we were all in our jammies, no one had thought to bring out their keys. We were on the second floor so climbing in a window wasn't an option and our landlord lived over an hour away. And so, a day later, we were on the phone with our landlord trying to explain why we had taken a baseball bat to the window of our front door. She seemed to understand. We were also still trying to figure out why, after four tomato baths, Rukka Pooka still smelled like skunk pizza. Turns out the ole tomato routine is just an old wive's tale. After a quick google search, we found that dish detergant was our best option and after one bath, she was good as new. Well except for any time she got wet for the next three months.

And so last night, as I opened the door to see what the holdup was and was hit with the rancid cloud of toxic doom, I had some idea what I was dealing with. I slammed the door as fast as I could, but not before inhaling the chemical mouthful that I had wished I would never taste again in my life. I woke up my father, prepared my arsenal of dish detergant, rags, and lemon juice, and waited for the fight to end. The fight, by the way, was taking place underneath my Mom's car which was a great wake-up present as she left for work this morning. Shockingly, the detergant worked like a charm and with the exception of a small patch on her head (that I was too nervous to really soap up), Rukka was impressively clean smelling. I gave myself a smug pat on the back, decided for one more follow-up scrub down in the morning, and considered the night an inconvenient but tolerable story to add to my collection. Except that that's not how my luck works. Way too satisfied with myself, I filled up the tub an hour before class today to apply the final hose-down. Stacks of cheese and biscuits ready, I picked up my little terror and attempted to plop her into the lukewarm water. Rukka had other plans. Still, hours later, I haven't figured how it happened but at some point between me lifting her up and her feet landing in the water, something slammed down on the water spout of our tub with enough force that it not only snapped the spout off, but completely broke the pipe off.




Gorgeous huh?

The only advantage I do have is that my boyfriend is a plumber (which seems just a little ironic with the whole ghost... well anyway) so it should be fixed right up but that didn't help me as I stood in the bathroom soaked in sweat, covered in skunky dog hair, and needing to be in class in a half hour. And so here I am. Sitting on the couch in filth, missing the second class of a new semester with the cause of all of my misfortune curled up in my lap. And even though the last 24 hours have been a nightmare, I can't help but smile as her big brown eyes stare up at me apologetically.



Honestly, who could be mad at that face?

Close Encounters of the Non-Fiction Kind

I just finished reading Whitley Strieber's, "Communion", which made the #1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller's List (in 19 something...).



This was my first encounter with a book of the alien kind and it scared the hell out of me. That is, before establishing my "no reading of alien books before 8:00pm" rule.

The story follows Strieber in his discoveries of being "visited" by unknown beings throughout most of his life. The story takes you through his initial realizations, doubts, denial, psychological evaluations, hynosis, confirmation, theories, and mild acceptance.

Although I did find it a little convenient that such extraordinary events would happen to an already established horror writer, the book was very good. Although not grammatically or structurally breathtaking, Strieber's theories were extremely thought-provoking and encouraged me to do a little more research of my own.

One parallel he drew that I found particularly interesting was between our myths and perceptions of "aliens" in comparison to those of ancient Gods. He repeatedly compares his encounter with one being in particular to that of "Ishtar", a Babylonian Goddess of "fertility, love, war, and sex" (Wikipedia).



Although the book does tend to jump around a lot and can be redundant in places, I think it is very honest and real. As I read the sometimes scattered thought patterns, I felt all the more inside the author's head, and that I was struggling along with him to understand the happenings. There were also quite a few references to other books on the subject which I am now considering picking up as well.

This is a great book to pop your UFO cherry, if you haven't yet dived into the subject. Although extreme and invasive, Strieber also gives a comforting side to the encounters, which I am greatful for considering my extreme fear on the subject to begin with.

I give this book a scaley, tentacle-covered, alien thumbs up.




I also give an enthusiastic thumbs up to this picture, which I found while searching for a picture of the cover of this book...




I would also like to point out that after criticizing the book's "grammatical integrity", I reviewed my post to find that I had no idea how to even spell the word. Oh well, that's why I'm not an author.

Amelie

After hearing a lot of good reports (and noticing it was free on On Demand this month), I finally saw the movie Amelie.



Now that I've seen it, I can't believe it took me this long to discover it. I will admit that the moment I realized the entire thing was in French and I would have to actually pay attention to subtitles, I almost turned it off. I'm very glad I didn't.

The main character, Amelie, is absolutely adorable and reminded me a lot of myself. We both look at the world like a little kid, play practical jokes, create extensive treasure hunts, and see white bunnies where we shouldn't.




I was only confused by one thing. I didn't realize JC Chasez of NSYNC spoke such fluent french!



I won't go on further and blow the plot. Not because I really care if I ruin the movie, but mainly because I'm really too lazy to write anymore.