So, I had zero insulation under my living room and bedroom floors. I decided to rectify that several weeks ago and bought a ton of insulation and proceeded to insulate.

Now, let me make a few things clear to you: a) I hate small, enclosed spaces and b) I abhor nasty bugs.  So of course, you can imagine what my crawlspace must be like…

Long story short, I got up a ton of insulation and then came upon a couple of the most disgusting creatures I have ever laid eyes on.  In fact, they were so gross that I high-tailed it out of there and decided to come back another day and finish the job.  Well, ladies and gentlemen, today was that day…

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I find ABC’s “Cougar Town” to be a pretty unwatchable show. But I tried to like it because Courtney Cox is in it. I’m not a fan of hers, per se; but I always imagined I’d be in an airport or casino resort and bump into David Arquette and we’d hang out at the terminal or pool and realize that we have a lot in common. He seems like a cool guy and all, so he’d invite me over to his house and we’d watch awesome movies and maybe even take a photography class together or something. Since we’d become pretty much best buds, I’d get to know Court (that’s what her friends call her) pretty well and it would be nice if I could chat with her about her latest show.

But now that they’re no longer together, I guess it’s a moot point. At least I can now hate “Cougar Town” with a clear conscience.

Black Christmas is a pleasant little Canadian slasher from the mid-70’s.  While certainly not a great film, it does have its charms.  The most interesting thing to me, though, were the similarities it has with John Carpenter’s Halloween, which is fairly unanimously considered a classic of the genre.

The two biggest similarities between the two movies are the fact that they are both set around a holiday (I’ll leave you to guess which ones…) and they both have opening scenes that include point-of-view shots from the killer’s perspective.  Halloween has been praised for it’s originality and is often credited with kick-starting the whole “slasher” sub-genre.  However, Black Christmas is seldom discussed in those same conversations which is funny when you consider that it came out 4 years earlier!

In fact, I had never really heard much about this movie before the remake which came out a few years ago, and I consider myself something of a connoisseur of the horror genre and trash-film in general.  And while it’s certainly not as great of a film as Halloween or any other more famous example of the slasher film, I still think it is worthwhile to watch it if just for its historical value.

That’s not to imply that the movie is no good.  It had quite a few memorable murders and the overall pacing was good.  However, it did suffer from overachiever’s acting syndrome–especially from an exceptionally vile Margot Kidder and a cartoonishly drunk house mother.  I’m still confused by the ending, which has a forced twist that seemingly negates the entirety of the third act.  I don’t mind movies tricking me, but only when it’s plausible and I’m still scratching my head over this one (or maybe it’s just lice).

Anyway, I guess my point is that this movie should be included in any and all discussions you have about slashers.  And if you want to be that exceptionally annoying movie geek, make sure to say that John Carpenter had obviously watched this film a few times before directing Halloween.

PS, I also found it interesting that the protagonist and survivor is a pregnant woman. As everyone knows, the standard slasher convention is that only the virgins survive. Of course, this movie predates any such canonization of the rules…

My wife and I moved into this house about a year and a half ago.  It’s a nice house, we both like it.  It’s an old house–built in 1949.  But I’ve slowly come to the realization that this house has it in for me.  I don’t know why.  My guess is that this house is either built on a Native American burial site, or else it’s one of the seven gateways to hell.  Either way, I have decided to chronicle the house’s attempts on my life and/or sanity.

Take today, for example…but first, some background.  Our dishwasher died about 6 months ago.  It was an old Whirlpool model from the early 80’s that came with the house.  We had been saving up for a new one, but hadn’t gotten around to buying one yet.  Then a friend FB’d (that’s hip, internet lingo for “Facebooked”) that she was selling her twice-used, stainless steel dishwasher for cheap (long story, if it were interesting, she’d blog about it).  Voila, I thought.

And so, quite innocuously, begins a story of mayhem, destruction, and INSANITY…

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