Traveling the Dark Spooky Paths.

Today is the first day of Autumn.  The leaves are just starting to change color.  The pumpkin beers are on the shelves again.  And the chill is in the air.  You know what I'm talking about, don't you?  I'm not just talking about the slight snap in the temperature.

Autumn is the season that ushers in our link with the nether-realms.  It is were the dark things lurk and wait for this season to break out and linger amongst us mere mortals.  For the next month and a half there is truly magic in the air that can be felt through the smokey spices that fill our nostrils on a nice evening's jaunt.

Every year I get excited and poetic over the Halloween season.  Heck, it's really the only time I post on this blog consecutively.  It's the season that sparks my imagination the most and takes us to spooky dark places.

On the note of Spooky Dark Places, I'm going to play a little game.  I'm going to pretend I own a TARDIS and can travel anywhere in the world and could visit some of the more creepy locations of the world.  I'll keep the settings at modern day in case I would accidentally pop in some puritanical time frame where I'd be burned at the stake for being a witch,  I'll do this as a modern day tourist.

Here I go!  First stop.......

1. The Bloody Tower of London - This imposing castle-like structure is currently the home of England's crown jewels as well as some government offices that still operate there.  It is also one of the main tourist attractions of the UK.  One thing the tour guides (or Beefeater's as they are affectionately called) love to speak about are the numerous amount of ghosts that lurk about the place.  For hundreds of years prior to it being full of tourists, it was full of prisoners as the tower was the main prison of England.  And many a soul fell to the blade there.  It is said the place is haunted by the ghosts of Anne Boleyn, Roman soldiers, two young princes and many more.  Definitely a ghoulish place to visit.

Historic Royal Places

2. Winchester Mystery House - Wealthy Victorian whack-job and widow of the Winchester gun founder, Sarah Winchester, took the advice of a medium who instructed her to build a house that never ends its construction to house all of the spirits of people killed by the Winchester rifle.  Suffice it to say, the place is one big, odd mess of a building.  Hallways and staircases leading nowhere, secret rooms and paranormal activity are the main architectural flavor of the place.

YCTV Destination Videos

3. Island of Dolls (Isla de las Munecas) - What's more disturbing than one of those little, lifeless, plastic baby dolls staring at you from across a room with its cold, dead eyes?  How about hundreds of them staring at you?  Now forget about the room and place yourself on a small island in a canal system just south of mexico.  Now pretend it's not daytime, it's night.  There's also a tragic story behind the place that involves a dead girl.  There you go.

Paranormal Videos / Latest Ghost Videos

4. Highgate Cemetery - This old, London, cemetery is crawling with overgrown foliage and decaying tombstones.  There are many stories of ghosts lurking about and even a tale of a vampire who calls the hallowed ground home.  On a more nerdy than spooky note: Author Douglas Adams is buried here too.

Dorsetghost

5. The Church of Bones - Zoinks and Zoinks again!  An entire church in Bohemia that has a main decor of human bones that have been vigil for hundreds of years.  It doesn't get much creepier than that!  In more geekier news, this location was used as the main villain's lair in the movie adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons.

Journeyman Pictures

There are many other places that we could journey to as well that are notoriously macabre.  Gettysburg National Park, The catacombs of Paris as well as many of the isolated and long forgotten prisons and insane asylums that dot the world could all qualify as well.  But, I only have so much time to dream and have to start getting my autumn and Halloween plans laid out.  So I'm parking the TARDIS back in the garage and will enjoy a smokey, spice laden pumpkin ale and lick my wounds of the current Packer loss.

Until next time, stay vertical and don't wake the dead....yet.

Zangz.

Sexism within Geek Culture.... What's the frackin' deal, guys?

Maybe I was raised right, or maybe I'm an old fart who respects women.  But, I am just not getting this whole trend to demean female geeks in geek and gaming culture.  There's been a wave of negativity aimed toward females who share interests and enjoyment of the realms of the fantastical that's been plaguing the internet as well as the cons and it has to stop!

Maybe I'm missing something, but shouldn't the acceptance of females within the geek culture be something for us to celebrate rather than shun?  I remember being a young geek lad who went to a local convention of yore and have distinct memories of the mass majority of attendees being sweaty, smelly guys.  The very few females that would show up were either A.) Were dragged there by their boyfriends or B.) Sales / booth girls who usually had no interest whatsoever in anything geek related and were only there for the paycheck.

The thought that there may be an awesome percentage of girls who shared in my passions was simply a pipe dream.  That was a good twenty years ago.  Fast forward to today and we have a whole plethora of females enjoying Star Wars, RPG's and video games, etc, etc.  They get it!  They get us!  They are us!  So what's the problem?  Why is there such a need to attack them when they are on-line gaming with us or attending conventions?  Do we really need to argue their "geek cred"?  Do we even need to waste time and energy on their "geek cred"?

With a big push from the counter culture and more acceptance for differences in people, our geek culture has, dare I say it, become popular and it's own "In Crowd".  Maybe more like "In the Know Crowd", but you get my drift.  So, I can see where there can be some leeriness to some cases involving cons and geek girls with model good looks and why some people might be under the impression that their interests may be in question.  I guess I just don't waste the energy to question in the first place.

As I said before, I used to live in a world where there was a small percentage of girls, let alone, very attractive girls, who would never lower themselves to even glance at a page in a comic book.  And if there were such girls, they kept to the shadows for fear of ridicule.  I lived in the times when all of the cute cheerleaders would avoid any interest of geek culture.  Now we are inundated with beautiful girls attending cons in all manor of cosplay.  And yes, some of those outfits are arguably risque.  And yes, some of those girls make a career out of those costumes.  But, do we really have to treat this as being so suspect?  The whole "You're a cute girl and you're just trying to glom off of the popularity of the genres" mentality has to take a back seat to "The more the merrier!" mentality.  Who's not getting this?

What's even far more disturbing is the downright sociopathic sexual assault tactics that are taking place at the cons.  Just because a girl is dressed like Poison Ivy is not in anyway an open invitation to grab and grope their privets.  It's the same mentality as "Well, she was asking for it by being dressed that way." which has proven time and time again to be Neanderthalic (That's not a word?  I don't care!).

And of course this whole trolling females while they are gaming on line with other players has gone from general sexist insults to threats of violence and sexual assault.  WHAT THE FRELL IS GOING ON?!?!?  Has today's yuppie generation allowed reality television to baby sit and bring up a generation of sociopaths?

I've heard of two cases where female gamers have stood up to these twits and posted smart rebuttals on YouTube only to have their on-line accounts hacked and their families' lives threatened by the trolls.  One of the girls doesn't even stay at her own home due to fear of harm.

We as male geeks need to step up to the plate and show females that they are not only welcome within the geek culture, they are as much a part of it as we are.  We have an opportunity to show that we are better people than the bullies of old.  But as I see it, we're blowing it big time.

'Nuff said.

And, yes, the season of spooks cometh.  Stay tuned for coverage!

Stay vertical!

Zangz.