Pilot's Log

For the price of two Shillings (I have some weird terms for mundane money) and some legal fees, I am now officially Stephen R. Bierce, Esquire for acquiring 49.44% of Rather Manor. Dad arranged to have my name on the property deed in place of my mother's to save me the possibility of estate taxes if anything happened to him.

I'll need to get together with my siblings, my niece and my nephew about further redistribution of stupf. The problem with such family get-togethers is of course some people exercize too much EQ and do too good a job of entertaining for much to get done.

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My brother is now a Blackjack dealer at the Harrah's casino in Cherokee, North Carolina. They had no shortage of applicants but how he told me he must have been one of the best ones. I wish him all sorts of success.

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Yesterday I wasted a lot of time watching the movie THE SCARLET AND THE BLACK on TH¡S network. It was about a young man who is the illegitimate son of one of Napoleon's generals, and his travels in French high society as the post-Waterloo Reformation begins to implode. And the ghost of Napoleon himself hovers around, giving advice that eventually gets him killed. (I'm spoiling this because it is far too long a movie and so slowly paced you're better off finding the Russian version of WAR & PEACE.)

If you had a famous ghost giving you advice, would you always obey it? Or would you tell him to go to blazes and try to break the cycles?

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Miss Ruby is a permanent resident of Rather Manor. Tho' I think she's finally decided to Rest In Peace.

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1) I already live in a haunted house.
2) The only "home of my dreams" is a huge apartment building/arcology of the future that I share with hundreds--if not thousands--of other residents. I would think ghosts would be the least of my concerns about such a thing.

I know the answer. I get killed off because either:

*) I AM the Monster/Vampire/Zombie/Poultergeist/Alien/Serial Killer

Or:

*) The good guys mistake ME for the Monster and eliminate me in hopes of saving their own skins. With the possible tragic consequence that if they had let me live, I'd have given them the means to save everybody and nobody would have to die. So they all die for their paranoid bloodlust.

Really, I hate horror movies.

FP

* I think I saw Ruby last night (the ghost of this house's previous owner). It happened too fast for me to be sure, tho'.

* Last week I put a new filter in Mum's spam-trapper on her e-mail account. So far, it's blocked 100% of her spam messages. She says it's taken a lot of the fun out of her e-mail, but I'm not changing it back.

* I finally (after years) have decided to pack away a lot of my VHS tapes. Since my player isn't working there isn't much point in them being readily handy.

* Need to write Sempai a letter.

* The weather has been unseasonably warm and wet here. Every other day, we've had thundershowers.

* The flyash spill is on the other side of Knoxville from where I am, and the earthquake I wrote about had nothing to do with it. So far as we know.

* The NFL has been screwy this season, hasn't it?

* I plan to have a set of pictures taken modeling my new shirts the same way I modeled those four pair of trousers this past summer.

* We just ate our first meal from a monster eight-pound ham (from Cracker Barrel) that a neighbor gave us. We'll probably have ham casaroles, ham sandwiches and ham omelets for weeks. We're gonna need cheese.

* I'm going through my collection of unbuilt model kits to see what I can sell to Paul. Some of these I bought when I was working years ago, and thought I might be able to build them right away, but since they have just sat forlorn and half-forgotten in boxes in the guest room. Meanwhile, I'm also pulling out stuff to work on.

I don't have one. I'm just not a horror guy. Sure, I love Japanese monster movies for the special effects. And I'm into Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter and crossover fantasy/horror stuff like that. But you'll never find slasher stuff in my DVD collection.

Yes, the fact that I'm not into horror surprises a great many, I'm sure. Seeing as I...
1) Share a common ancestry with one of the greatest horror writers of the 19th Century [Ambrose Bierce]
2) Am connected to Steven King via my siblings' association with an actor from at least one of his movies
3) Am connected to Jeff Strand through my mother's career
4) Lived in places where classic horror movies were made (Western Pennsylvania, see "Night of the Living Dead"; Hernando County, Florida, see "Dead of Night"; the Smokey Mountains, see "Evil Dead" and "Army of Darkness")
5) Have all sorts of friends who are into horror themselves.

I guess I'm just as ambivalent to dark occultism as I am to religion in general.

And having seen a real ghost just takes the fun out of contrived spookiness.

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I live in a haunted house. The ghost has visited me a few times but I supposed she finally decided to rest in peace.