MY LIFE - Two work emails about a yellow liquid!

ENTERTAINMENT - Shatner does "Bohemian Rhapsody"

CULTURE/SOCIETY - Police Report Spike in Violent Crime Over Weekend Due to Early Christmas Music

Shadyside, November 24 — The Shadyside Police Department reported a sharp spike in violent crime over the weekend, attributed to the early start of Christmas music in area stores.

The Department reported 7 aggravated assaults, 2 robberies at gunpoint, 3 car thefts and 24 arrests for public intoxication.

At a press conference late Sunday evening, Police Chief Jim Burgles remarked, “It appears that many subjects have been provoked by near-constant playing of Christmas carols throughout the city.”

One victim of one such a crime, Martha Vanderwhip, told of her horrifying experience. “I was shopping in Target, looking at the salad spinners on sale, and this man came up to me and started screaming,” recounted Mrs. Vanderwhip tearfully. “He was saying, ‘I can’t take it any more, I can’t take it any more,’ and he smelled like eggnog. He was holding this pink Christmas tree and waving it around like a weapon, knocking over all the candy cane displays.”

Store security staff managed to tackle the man and restrain him with strands of tinsel, according to Shadyside Target Manager Bing Whitman. The deranged man has not been identified by police.

The City Mental Health Commission also noted a rise in the volume of calls to the Municipal Crisis Hotline over the weekend. “People with fragile mental health may be driven over the edge by the unseasonably early excess of holiday spirit,” said Commissioner Luisa Gonzalez, “and they should not be afraid to seek help.”

Origin site - http://shadysideusa.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/violent-crime-spikes-over-weekend-due-to-early-christmas-music/

HUMOR - Frankenstein’s Monster Goes Trick-or-Treating

BY MATT PASSET

You call me Frank. It just easier. People think me called Frankenstein because of doctor who make me. But me not him. Me his monster. Me get called Frankenstein so much that me make peace with it. Better though just call me Frank.

It funny story how me end up doing trick-or-treating this year with nephew Kevin. Kevin not really nephew, but he call me Uncle Frank because his dad-creator, Dave, is close friend. Frank best man at Dave’s wedding, to Tracy. Tracy sometimes a bit much to take, but Frank try to get along with her. Before Halloween, Dave say he taking Tracy out of town. Need to have day to “talk about us,” so they ask Frank to take quote-unquote nephew to trick-or-treating. “Frank already have costume,” they joke. Tracy make joke sound mean. Me agree to go, because me care for quote-unquote nephew Kevin...

At next house, nice old lady answer door and give Kevin Tootsie Roll. She say Frank’s costume good. Dave tell me this would happen because Frank’s clothes look like costume. Jacket tattered, but Frank always say comfort over fashion. So me thank old woman (maybe witch or maybe just also bad fashion sense). Kevin say thank you, too...

At last house, young couple say bolts in Frank’s neck look real. Frank smile polite but couple reach out to touch bolts. Frank get scared and kill couple. Feel sad but was only thing Frank could do...

To read full piece - http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/frankensteins-monster-goes-trick-treating

HUMOR - Halloween humor

HISTORY - 99 Percent Invisible: Episode 138: O-U-I-J-A

By ROMAN on October 28, 2014

The Ouija board is so simple and iconic that it looks like it comes from another time, or maybe another realm. The game is not as ancient as it was designed to look, but those two arched rows of letters have been spooking people for over 125 years. Actually, the roots of the board go back even farther, according to Ouija historian Robert Murch. To understand where Ouija boards (generically called “talking boards”) come from, you have to go back to middle of the 1800s, to three sisters in New York.

[The Fox Sisters, Credit: Wikimedia Commons]

The Fox Sisters claimed to be mediums to the spirit world. In public demonstrations, they would ask questions of the spirits and receive audible knocks back on the wall, which they would translate into letters of the alphabet. The sisters popularized the growing movement known as Spiritualism,which held that the living could contact the spirits of the dead, who had secret knowledge to impart.

During and after the Civil War, people who had lost loved ones became enchanted with the idea of communicating with the dead, and came up with all different ways to contact the spirit world. In 1886 the fledgling Associated Press ran an article in papers all over the country about these new “talking boards” coming out of the spiritualist movement in Ohio. A few years later in 1890, a businessman named Charles Kennard pulled together a small group of investors and formed the Kennard Novelty Company to exclusively make and market talking boards...

Ouija, it turned out, was also a great thing to do on a date. The original Ouija board was placed on your lap, so your knees would be touching your partner’s knees. Your fingers would be touching your partner’s on the planchette. You might be playing by candle light. However romantic Ouija may have been, it was still innocent enough for Normal Rockwell, who made a painting of a Ouija-playing  young couple that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.

As of 2013, there’s a new version of the Ouija board, which has been redesigned to look even older than the classic board. “They’ve really gone for the older look,” says Ouija historian Robert Murch, “which is cool because people assume these boards have been around for thousands of years, which we know isn’t true, but belief is important to the Ouija board.”

Belief is very important to the Ouija board, especially subconscious belief. Which brings us finally, to how these things work.  In 1852,  an English physician and researcher named William Carpenter was studying Spiritualist phenomena, and coined the term “ideomotor effect.”  The ideomotor effect describes what happens when subconscious thoughts guide muscular movements.

According to Professor Chris French, of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmith’s University of London, the ideometer effect can explain why, on the Ouija board, the planchette seems to be moving on its own. In truth, the players are guiding its movement subconsciously.

Some researchers have even tried to study the subconscious using Ouija boards.

To read the full article - http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/o-u-i-j-a/

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