13 points for Surviving a Horror Movie

I was just watching 2009s, "The Last House on the Left", a Wes Craven produced Horror film; It is a remake of the 1972 film of the same name,. It motivated me to write one of these, how to survive things. I thought it was pretty good, for being that kind of movie. Cinematography was excellent. It had some refreshing elements in the horror genre. Still, there were some natural and common mistakes committed by the normal and not so common characters.

And so we have my version of....

13 points for Surviving, should you find you are in a Horror Movie:

1) If you have had sex with someone, simply kill yourself, as it has to be better than whatever is about to happen to you before this is all over. However, if the someone you had sex with was the killer, hang in there, they make get their due in the end.

2) When you find you have a killer to deal with, grab a gun; if you don't own one, start now, but own it before you need it.

3) If someone shows up with a random bullet wound, or if one of your group turns up having been attacked, or you find them dead and its not from old age, or some similar natural cause, immediately grab (go get, find, beg, borrow, steal, or make...get it?) a gun; or get them to safety if they are still alive, whichever is more available or reasonable.

Always grab the gun first if possible, though sometimes getting them to safety is the most safe thing to do (typically because that is where the gun is), and it also gets you to safety. However, if getting them to safety means taking them where the assailant is, and it may even be a friend or a part of your group, you have to at least acknowledge and consider that possibility, and then act accordingly (typically to deduce who it is, and then kill them).

4) If you hit, stab, or shoot the killer, do NOT stop. Stabbing: do not leave the knife in them for them to use; pull it the Hell out and practice stabbing techniques for as long as there is movement; then continue on to the vital points until you are tired. Bludgeoning: beat them untill you are tired, if you can keep going and they are still alive, for God's sake, keep going. Shooting: if you shoot them once, typically it stuns them for a second, but only for a second; use that time to take better aim and take off the top of their head, preferably along with their eyes; because a murderer without eyes, is a somewhat distracted and well, blind, murderer.

5) Literally anything can be used as a weapon. Be inventive. Once you find, or create a weapon, do it again, carry as much (and as hidden but easily accessible) as possible. Remember, redundancy, is King.

6) Once you realize your situation, create a plan, once you have created a plan, created plan B, then plan C. If you have time, create a plan D.

7) Once you get the upper hand, do NOT get all righteous and religious. Screw that, go Medieval on their ass(es). Pretend you enjoy it. Remember that the phrase is, "neutralize the threat" (and once you think it IS neutralized, look around, its probably got elements to it you hadn't seen yet).

8) If there are multiple attackers, always attack the most powerful first. Remember, divide and conquer. When you do shoot the first time, don't hesitate for the theatrical effect, continue shooting, one bullet per person, then recycle and start again from the beginning.

9) When you have a gun, or a more powerful weapon than your attackers, do NOT allow them to neutralize it. If you shoot them once, do not allow them to throw a table or lamp or something at you, or to allow someone else to blindside you. Shoot first (repeatedly and accurately, see item #4 above) and ask questions later. Better still, don't ask questions at all, just get the Hell out of there. Remember, whenever you can finally get out of there, well, see item # 12 below.

10) Always remember this is THEIR hobby, THEIR entertainment; when you do get the advantage over them, take it with extreme prejudice; waste no time, do not hesitate, do not think. If you think, think these thoughts: "I am a killing machine, I live to kill my object, my object is my attacker, my attacker is not a person, it is an object, I live to kill my object. I am a killing MACHINE." But don't even think that, just kill them. If you come upon them dead, perhaps a friend of yours died while killing them, kill them again anyway, then run away (see item #12 below).

11) If you decide to capture your assailant, don't. If you DO capture your assailant, do it in such a way that you can kill them in the process. If you capture them and for some sick, stupid reason you decide to keep them for the authorities (screw the authorities, kill them), do not: tie them up in only one way; do not tie them up near anything they can use; be sure to watch them (always from a distance) and every second.

If you need to sleep, kill them, kill them several times even; then sleep the sleep of peace (and wonder, that you;'re still alive), in another room (another very secured room). If they try to talk to you, disable their ability to speak; to do so, kill them if necessary. Do not feed them, keeping them hungry only makes them weaker. Do not give them water, keeping them thirsty only makes them weaker and harder for them to talk (you really don't want to hear what they have to say anyway). Do not take them to the bathroom. Ever. If and when possible, do not give them air, either.

12) If you do somehow, even accidentally kill the evil one(s), as you go for help, remember, they probably had an assistant, or an entire family who may now be looking for you to seek their revenge and pleasures.

13) If you do survive all this, you may wake up in bed, realizing you were in a dream, and probably still are. And if so, you're not done yet. They, are still out there looking for you. Find them first.

In the end, kill them and live to see another day.

Weekend Wise Words

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.
- Carl Jung


Monday morning's Entertainment Blog:
"13 points for Surviving, should you find you are in a Horror Movie"

B-52 Stratofortress from a Survival Equipment Tech's POV

Back in the last half of the 1970s, I was a Survival Equipment Technician, a Parachute Rigger, and a Fabric /  Rubbergear Specialist. I packed emergency chutes, B-52 drag chutes (stored just behind and below the rear rudder tail section), any chutes that arrived on base temporarily and needed a repack, and Pararescue (PJs) chute repacks, which they jumped regularly. Emergency chutes are only used in emergencies and then examined, documented and disposed of. 

In flight

I also had to pack about three or four B-52 drag chutes per day, 48' split ribbon nylon, at 228 pounds each, the buckle alone that connects the chute to the plane was 25 pounds of metal surrounding by a rubber border. Here's some photos at another base packing the chute.

Jump packing into pack and metal container

I've seen it stated that it was 32' but the ones I packed were 48' and heavy as hell, after scooping up snow, then having to be emptied outside of my shop where they were dopped off in wet piles, drug in, hung, dried in the tower, then all fluffy and static, stretched, unknotted (usually using a rubber mallet), straightened out, folded, packed into the bag inside the metal packing container.

loading drag chute into stow/deploy compartment on B-52

You then had to jump up and down on repeatedly until the damn thing finally fit into the bag, sealed off and carried to the storage room for pickup. I finally got to where I could pick up two and carrying them inches off the floor, out of the packing room and into the pickup room.

I've blogged about this before, but I've found some better photos of what I'm talking about.

And its support aircraft, the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker:

Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker

KC-135 cargo area

Loading KC-135 through cargo door

In the last half of the 70s, I had to spend way more time than I wanted on these two aircraft. B-52, mostly, in their cockpit, as that's where those windows were. KC-135, in the cockpit and a couple of windows on each side of the cargo bay. I don't remember if we had them in the refueler's bay but, probably.

Summer's were fine, but winters were freezing until the ground unit got things heated up.

I worked on BUFFs (Big Ugly Fat F*ckers) B-52s, both while it was downloaded (no ordinance on board) and uploaded with nukes, in the highly secured Alert Facility area. The Alert Facility always had the best video games and food on the base, pampering the Pilots who certainly deserved it and slept in trailers right next to their grounded aircraft, within yards of it in fact.

Looking from inside, bottom of the plane to the ground where you climb up into the aircraft. Ladder going up the "tube" (we called it the tube anyway), past the lower two ejection seat area to the cockpit area. Behind the cockpit of the B-52 is the tunnel, full of electronics all around. At the back is a kind of cave with two seats and below two more seats.

 Looking backward from the A/C's seat.at the "tube" going down.

I only dealt with the A/C and Co-Pilots seats.

Here you can see the red safety streamers, there were seven of them. You really wanted those to be checked and into place, other wise, you could potentially fire off the ejection seat. No fun, plus, if  I survived, they'd probably make me repack the chute that I probably repacked within 120 days anyway. They told us stories about a seat being fired off in the hanger, crushing the worker up there until the rocket ran out of fuel, then dropping back a long ways to the hard concrete floor. Yes, the guy was dead.

It's possible they told us this just to scare the hell out of us; if so, it worked, I always checked those streamers. I never forgot. There were also stories of ejections of workers who didn't check the streamers, accidentally fired off the seat, and was positioned incorrectly, thus removing body parts on the way out of the ejection portal.

I probably saw that cockpit in ways no Aircraft Commander, or Co-Pilot ever saw, or thought to see them. At times, I would be lying completely upside down in the ejection seats trying to work on the windows, on the thermal nuclear radiation flash barrier curtains, made out of a material that back in the 70s was $150 a square foot.

Here (above) you can actually see the flash barrier curtain in its stowed away position (shown: A/C seat, left side of aircraft from viewing forward position).

Here you can see, middle left, the little gray cone shape handle used to pull the curtain shut, coming up from the bottom of the dash, sometimes a real bear to work on with dysfunctional.

We had to secure all windows, allowing not even a speck of light to show through, accomplished by day, using sunlight, by night using a flood lamp on a long pole. Someone would stand outside and flash the windows, while we (being a two-man security HRP/PRP team) sat inside, sometimes the warm cockpit, looking for any specs of light after having completely light sealed all the windows.

If it showed a pinhole of light, we could "red ball" the plane, even taking it off full alert status; something no one wanted and always caused a lot of noise.

As well as working on the barrier curtains, we also packed parachutes.

Example of the chute packed and inserted into the seat of the Co-Pilot.

Shot of a deployed 48' ribbon drag chute

I believe this chute was also used on the Space Shuttle landings

That's all I had to say. I spent years working on these planes and greatly enjoyed it for the most part. The only part I found difficult was that I found it hard supporting an organization who's job it was, possibly, to melt entire cities if need be. I found in complaining to my boss one day, to feel better in realizing my job directly, was to save lives, not end them. I don't have any real issue in killing in war, if I'm dealing with those attacking me, but if it's indiscriminate, as in bombing, I do have issues.

What was so stupid about this, or ironic, was that I was originally assigned to a TAC base (Tactical Air Command) and would have been dealing with fighters, not bombers. I foolishly swapped with a guy and ended up with SAC. That caused a great deal of laughter among my new coworkers when I first arrived at my main base. Especially so, because I had been assigned to a base at the tip of Florida and ended up at Spokane, Washington, where the winters were, shall we say, a bit brisk, when on the flightline, during alerts, in the early AM morning hours, with a more than brisk wind blowing.

Sometimes you just have to look back and laugh. Of course, its easier to do from years down the road and in a warm room.

These excellent photos were from http://blog.flightstory.net/1510/cockpit-photos-inside-b-52-stratofortress/

Horror Cinema News

'28 MONTHS LATER’ TALK WITH DANNY BOYLE

Director Danny Boyle (127 Hours, 28 Days Later) conducted a web chat with his fans for Empire Magazine recently. If one sifted through some of the random questions people had for him (do you like banana muffins?), you'd find a few nuggets of info regarding the world he aggressively kick-started with 28 Days Later and its possible threequel, 28 Months Later.Boyle in recent months has said that he's got a lot of projects on his plate at the moment, including the 2012 Olympics, but he would consider directing a third film. 

What's the latest? Pretty much the same thing, however, he seems to be making some time to think about it:"There is a good idea for it, and once I've got Frankenstein open, I'll begin to think about it a bit more."In case you haven't heard, Boyle is directing a stage adaptation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" for London theater-goers.Someone had asked him if he feels responsible for the "death" of slow-moving zombies. He responded, "It's a dream come true! Finally, they're a real menace!" Let the slow versus fast zombies debate begin again...

JOE JOHNSTON ADMITS HIS ‘WOLFMAN’ REMAKE WAS GARBAGE

Director Joe Johnston is finally opening up about the atrocity of cinema known simply as The Wolfman., Johnston opens up a bit about the Wolfman disaster-piece. Details Below-

"CAPTAIN AMERICA was a lot of things. Every picture has its highs and lows, its dreads and excited anticipations. To fully understand the CAPTAIN AMERICA experience, I have to keep reminding myself that I had just come off another film I shot in the UK, THE WOLFMAN," Johnston tells Comic Book Movie. "The two experiences could not have been more different, in fact in many ways (certainly not all) they were polar opposites. I had three weeks of prep on WOLFMAN, a ridiculously inadequate amount of time to try to bring together the fractured and scattered pieces of the production. 

I had taken the job mostly because I had a cash flow problem, the only time in my career I’ve ever let finances enter into the decision process. Money is always the wrong reason for doing something that requires passionate devotion. The production was a leaky, rudderless ship in a perfect storm suffering from bad decisions, infighting, reluctance of the powers-that-be to take responsibility, and too many under-qualified cooks in the kitchen. The good news and bad news about directing is that when the picture works you’re showered with all the credit and when it doesn’t work you’re dumped on with all the blame. Both scenarios are undeserved. I take full responsibility for THE WOLFMAN not working because it goes with the territory."

from: Reggie Dwight for comment:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=17281&uid=50506169943

Suicide

Suicide. There's always an alternative. No, really, there is. If nothing else, simply walk away from your life. Move, cut all connections, if you have to. Just remember, you, are always going to be there with you. So, its far easier to grasp at change from with in. And sometimes you need to ask for help on that.

If you think you need to commit suicide by midnight tonight, you have a problem, seek help. But, if you feel like you can wait till next Friday, well, you're doing good. Especially, if every Thursday, something comes up that makes you delay until the following week. Some things truly are, one step at a time. Just don't take that one step beyond.

People take different tacts at dealing with it. Death. Artists like Emilie Autmun, took her route (a much preferred route if you ask me). Others come up with other unique ideas. 

Ten Lucky suicide survivors.

I was always of the opinion that anyone who commits suicide was doing emotional violence to those around them who love and support them. And, it is. The question here that I didn't realize was, who is perpetrating that violence, and on whom?

Handbook of suicide for those who have lost someone to suicide.

When taken from the point of view of those cleaning up the mess, sometimes physical, always emotional, that is perhaps quite accurate. But when taken from the victim, something I've never been able to see clearly, I'm no longer so sure about it. Having gone through this with someone close to me, seeing how she was affected by a childhood friend blowing his brains out when he was drunk, I felt that he was just weak and was putting it to those who cared about him because they weren't helping him; a thought that was manipulative and just mean.

10 points about suicide.

But when seeing someone directly close to me going through it (and happily, not going through with it), I'm seeing an entirely different side to it.

Allegedly, research some years ago was done by a group questioning survivors of jumpers off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, said that 75% of the survivors said they changed their minds most of the way down (I cannot now find that research, so it may be a social myth).

Golden Gate Bridge Suicides, Then and Now.

The Bridge - a documentary.

Suicide Survivors



99 little known facts about suicide.

Reduced Social Security tax rate for 2011?

I received this email from corporate today:

Congress recently passed the 2010 Tax Relief Act, which includes a provision reducing employees’ FICA tax withholding rate by 2 percent for compensation received in 2011. The standard withholding rate for many years has been 6.2 percent on wages up to a specific threshold each year. 

For 2011, this will become 4.2 percent on the first $106,800 in wages paid by the Company. Beginning with your January 14, 2011 paycheck, and continuing through 2011 for earnings up to $106,800, you will see a corresponding increase in your take-home pay. The rate is scheduled to return to 6.2 percent in 2012.  

Due to the timing of this change notification, the old FICA TAX rate will still be reflected on printed paycheck stubs this pay period. The rate calculation is correct (4.2 percent); only the description line (indicating 6.2 percent) is incorrect. We have been assured the description line will be corrected for the Jan. 28 pay day. 

Thank you for your understanding.


I had not heard at all about this. But I'm not complaining. Nor am I going to hit that $106,800 limit.


Still, the increase will be nice. It will let me take my kids to one dinner extra out, per paycheck. Or something equal to that. If I don't go to too nice a place.


Thanks America!

Exit Through the Gift Shop - Documentary or Mockumentary?

I just finished watching, at the suggestion of a friend, "Exit Through the Gift Shop".

What, an amazing story it has to tell.

"The documentary received overwhelmingly positive reviews, holding 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, and was shortlisted for the 2011 Academy Awards. One consistent theme in the reviews was the authenticity of the film: Was the film just an elaborate ruse on Banksy's part, or did Guetta really evolve into Mr. Brainwash overnight? The Boston Globe movie reviewer Ty Burr found it to be quite entertaining as a farce and awarded it four stars. He dismissed the notion of the film being a "put on" saying "I’m not buying it; for one thing, this story’s too good, too weirdly rich, to be made up.

"For another, the movie’s gently amused scorn lands on everyone." Roger Ebert gave it 3.5 stars out of 4, starting his review saying that "The widespread speculation that “Exit Through the Gift Shop” is a hoax only adds to its fascination." The New York Times movie reviewer, Jeannette Catsoulis, wrote that the film could be a new subgenre, a "prankumentary". New York Film Critics Online bestowed its Best Documentary Award on the film in 2010. Closer examination of archival footage from the film has revealed it to be most likely genuine." ^{- Wikipedia}

I found this hightly interesting and entertaining and I think the blurb above says it all. I only wanted to bring it to your attention and let you consider if you wanted to watch it. A friend of mine turned me on to it, but another friend of his, didn't care for it at all. So, its one of those things, love it or hate it. But typically, in my book that has the makings of something great, at least in some respect.

Check it out. I got it on NetFlix streaming.