Every spring the Kentucky Humane Society hosts their big fund raiser, the “Waggin’ Trail 5K”.

Back in 2005 when it was called “Paws for the Cause”, your friendly neighborhood spook got fiance-d (pronounced fee-yahn-sayd) to the now Mrs. Spookyblue, and we’ve gone to this event every year since. KHS is a well-run organization that helps a lot of animals in need around these parts.

You can help us to help the fuzzy-headed masses by making a donation to KHS! For those who only know LOLcat-speak… You can haz feel goods making happy puppehs n kittehs.

Click for more info and to haz feel goods.

Category: Stuff  

A bell chimes as I enter the dingy, worn out Blockbuster store. The cloying odor of microwave popcorn makes me cough, my lungs trying instinctively to protect themselves from the DNA altering petrochemical aroma. Shadows loom in the corners and from the back of the store where the florescent lights don’t work. Overhead video monitors are all black, staring, silently shouting “The way is shut!”. Somewhere a muffled radio bleats, “-to repay Christ for dying on the cross by sending in your donation, friends!”

It is the only sound in what feels like a forgotten back room in a decaying thrift shop.

This is what death looks like to a video rental store. The red carpets are stained maroon, the shelves are dusty, the marquee behind the counter is missing a handful of lights, a forced smile with missing teeth.

Once these stores were bright places busy with roaming flocks of people, content in their Friday night ritual, drawn to the activity, the glad noise, the sparkle.

Technology and politics deadened the noise and tarnished the sparkle. Corporate colossi that outshined the small local stores and starved them out of business are themselves suffering the end of a long famine that will surely leave behind nothing but the brightly painted bones of closed store fronts.

I shake off these depressing thoughts and walk over to New Releases, intent on finding a copy of “The Mist”. I wouldn’t find out until a couple of hours later what a terrible choice this would be as an attempt to lift my spirits. Honestly, “The Mist” is cinema garbage. It is a boring retelling of an otherwise brilliant Stephen King short story. Plagued with haphazard casting and a shamefully exploitative finale, it should be avoided with extreme prejudice. Never trust a director that mistakes sickening shock value for irony.

Happy (oblivious) with my purchase, I walk next door to pick up supper from Domino’s Pizza and then head home where Mrs. Spookyblue is waiting. The depressing, gray snow feeling fades as I leave behind the battered shopping center with its dying Blockbuster store.

Unless the MPAA screws it up, you’ll soon be able to instantly download straight to your TV every movie ever made, every episode of The Odd Couple, Lost In Space, and Petticoat Junction. The paltry “On Demand” listings offered by your cable company will be replaced with anything and everything that anyone might possibly want to watch, and your viewing habits will be meticulously recorded, stamped, spindled, and mutilated.

And the Friday night ritual, though changed, will continue.

Category: Movie Reviews, Stuff  

Driving to work this morning, I noticed that telltale green haze of spring along the side of the highway. Millions of tiny little buds will unfold into flowers and leaves in a few short weeks, which means that it’s finally going to be warm enough to get back out to the garage and build some monsters.

A significant part of the enjoyment I get from gluing my fingers together and pouring plaster into my shoes is the background noise generated by my old radio and police scanner. I’ve always been an AM radio fan, and I would probably listen to my HAM receiver more if I spoke Russian. (There’s some kind of spacial vortex surrounding Snug Harbor that acts as a band-pass filter allowing only broadcasts originating from Kamtchatka for some reason.)

The point is that I like hearing about what’s going on around town. I feel more plugged in listening to my local station, and that’s a valuable service to the community, don’t you think?

There was a time when my shop radio was always tuned to AM 840 WHAS, the 50,000 watt blowtorch in Louisville, Kentucky. Whether the discussion was about the size of the herd this deer season or the state of relations between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, it was always seasoned with a familiar local flavor that made whatever was going on feel more personal, meaningful, family.

Sadly, the high corporate mucky-mucks have taken the soul out of my old radio and replaced it with automated network programming. Nighttime talk about the latest metro council gaffe or ballot initiative is gone. The ongoing argument over how to pay for the Ohio River bridges project isn’t ongoing anymore in my garage.

I am a capitalist at heart and I understand the economic realities of broadcast radio. It’s cutthroat, and if your ads don’t sell you don’t make payroll. However, I also understand that you have to have listeners. What set WHAS apart and locked my dial was its professional on-air talent, but now it’s just another repeater for some catalog program out of New York or Florida or Los Angeles.

That local quality, the essence of why I loved listening to WHAS in the evenings, is simply gone and I can’t express just how sad I am about it. So much of the “local” in local radio has been sacrificed at the altar of the almighty dollar just as certainly as a peep in a microwave. It’s all a formula now, reduced to two minutes at the top of the hour and surrounded by the monotonous droning that the latest media metrics charts show we mindless sheep will tolerate for 7 minute segments between commercial breaks.

Jim Strader, a perennial WHAS favorite, still manages to hold onto an hour on Sunday evenings to talk fishing and conservation. Time enough to forget about elections, and terrorists, and left-wing wackos, and right-wing conspiracies. A refreshing breath of what’s going on a mile away instead of across the country.

So I sadly turn away from an old friend and string a new long-wire antenna across the garage to see if anyone else is left out there. Cincinnati? Indianapolis? St. Louis? ” 2X2L calling CQ… 2X2L calling CQ… Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t .. there .. anyone… 2X2L… “

Category: Stuff  

For those who don’t quite grok our current economic situation, replace “economic collapse” with “undead apocalypse” and “fiscal irresponsibility” with “T-Virus”.

I saw something on the news this morning that almost resulted in me throwing my St. Patrick’s Day green eggs and ham at the television. A man-on-the-street interviewee made the broad statement, “Health care oughta be free, and the gub-mint is makin’ me pay too much for gas.”

This person gets partial credit for indirectly referencing the high energy taxes we pay and how part of the skyrocketing cost of fuel is a result of our at – capacity – and – we’re – screwed – if – anything – bad – happens refinery system.

But he fails miserably in his understanding of the role of our gub-mint. We like to relive childhood memories and remember what was often a happy and secure time of our lives, but that doesn’t mean that we can go back there and live permanently. A responsible adult must make his own decisions, provide for his family’s needs, and keep his own cave. Asking (or expecting) someone else, especially government, to take up that role is equivalent to curling up in front of the TV with your thumb shoved in your mouth and complaining when nobody appears to clean up your stinky mess.

The zombie outbreak isn’t impending anymore. It’s here. If you haven’t made preparations yet, then get ready. I recommend you try ZombieShopping.com “your undead apocalypse store”. While you’re there, make sure to play a round of “Name That Zombie”.

(S. Blue isn’t waiting around for the gubmint to pay his server fees.)

Category: Stuff