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May 10, 2012

Brilliant, albeit creepy, story idea

By Annette

Image credit: VisitWV.com

Apparently Elva Zona Heaster came back from the dead and pointed her wispy ghost finger at her dead husband.

Her mom had her daughter’s body exhumed and they discovered that Elva was in fact murdered by her husband.

Gotta love karma!

 

One January afternoon in 1897, Erasmus (aka Edward) Shue, a blacksmith, sent his neighbor’s young boy to see if Elva, Shue’s wife of three months, needed anything from the market. When the neighbor boy walked through the front door of the Shues’ rural Greenbrier County, West Virginia, log house, he found Elva’s lifeless body at the foot of the stairs. The boy stood for a moment looking at the woman, not knowing what to make of the scene. Her body was stretched out straight with her legs together. One arm was at her side and the other rested across her chest. Her head was tilted to one side.
Read the full text here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/120530#ixzz1uVMluMTu
–brought to you by mental_floss!

 

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April 30, 2012

Ghost Hunting in Las Vegas?

By Annette
Riviera

Riviera (Photo credit: Amyn Kassam (KassamPhotography.com))

The Huffington Post reports that Vince Neil, of Motley Crue, joined the Ghost Adventurers on an investigation of the Riviera Hotel. Apparently, they went searching for Frank Sinatra and dead members of the Chicago mafia.

I have to admit, that gave me a giggle. I’d hope that Frank has something better to do in the afterlife than hang around the Riviera.

But there was something in the article that moved me. Imagine losing a child at a young age. It might inspire you to become interested in the paranormal, right?

Check it out.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/20/vince-neil-ghost-adventures_n_1442021.html

 

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April 3, 2012

Ticking the Bucket List

By Annette

Wordle: bucket list

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March 29, 2012

Ghost Ships that Haunt the Oceans

By Annette
Illustration from a novel The Ghost Ship by Jo...

Illustration from a novel The Ghost Ship by John Conroy Hutcheson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Okay, you know I love a good ghost story and when that picture of the Japanese ghost ship surfaced (the one that had been washed out to sea by the tsunami) then it stirred my imagination.

Imagine how creepy that boat is right now. If you were to set foot on it, what would you encounter?

Well you might be interested to know that there are other ghost ships floating around the globe.

According to an article published in The Guardian (a UK newspaper), there are many such ships.

Here’s a snippet from the article:

The brigantine Mary Celeste really was found abandoned, heading for the Strait of Gibraltar in 1872. She was missing her crew but otherwise intact, carrying six months of supplies and still, remarkably, under sail. The last entry in the ship’s log was written 11 days prior to her discovery.

In 1921, the five-masted schooner Carroll A Deering washed up on a beach in North Carolina; six US government departments investigated, but the episode has never conclusively explained. Nor could an inquiry into the fate of the 25 passengers and crew of the merchant vessel Joyita, discovered abandoned in the Pacific in 1955, return any verdict other than that the incident was “inexplicable on the evidence submitted”.

The author, Jon Henley, goes on to cite several more ghost ships that have disappeared and then resurfaced many years later. Creepy! Imagine the stories those ships could tell. You can read the full article here.

 

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March 29, 2012

Why I Didn’t Finish Reading “The Hunger Games”

By Annette
The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

First, before I am annihilated by Hunger Games fans, let me say that I am 41. I am not the target audience for the book or the movie.

Suzanne Collins is a fantastic writer (I did read the first three chapters) and she’s crafted a story that is compelling, emotionally moving and entertaining. I am a fan of her storytelling skills.

I strongly admire her characterization of Katniss, a strong woman who is both maternal and an ass kicker.

So why did I put the book down?

Generally, I read books for one of three reasons:

  1. To learn something (One could argue that I could learn a thing or two about writing from Suzanne Collins.)
  2. To be entertained – genre fiction, for example Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews.
  3. To be provoked or to open my mind – literary fiction, for example The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

I wasn’t entertained by this story. It’s not a light read by any means. The story is quite dark. Teenagers killing each other for entertainment in games meant to maintain government control?! Dark. Which brings me to another point, I don’t get the “Team Gale” vs “Team Peeta” thing. It’s not Twilight, it should be “team humanity.” Kids are killing each other…

My mind wasn’t broadened either. The characters aren’t particularly deep or multidimensional and they shouldn’t be – it’s a story written for young adults. The characters are written exactly as they should be. They’re perfect for the target audience – which isn’t me.

I’ll tell you who did finish the book and who did love the movie – my 13 year old daughter. And for that I would like to thank Suzanne Collins. This is exactly the kind of story I want my daughter to read (and movie to watch).

 

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