Movies that scared the S*** out of me

So I came across the above image on my googlereader page today from the website ugly overload.  When I first looked at it, nothing really registered.  Upon closer reflection however,  I realized that it scares the crap out of me, partly because it reminds me of this:

This is the poster from the movie Ghoulies.  Here are two more pics of the little monster (I think the second one is from Ghoulies II):

Images from here and here.

Point being, the snub-nosed monkey reminded me of movies that scared the crap out of me as a kid.  I mean, imagine the terror when you are 8 and you are thinking about sitting on a toilet and a monster coming up to eat your bum.  

So Ghoulies in turn reminded me of other movies that scared me as a kid.  So here it is:

List of Top Movies That Scared The Crap Out of Mandi:

1.  Candyman

2. Gremlins

3. Ghoulies (not sure I ever watched it, but the concept is frightening enough, and I still remember talking about it with my sister)

4. Ghostbusters II - why 2 and not 1?  No clue.  I think it was the pink goo that tried to grab Sigourney Weaver's character and her baby out of the bathtub (maybe I get freaked out about things coming out of plumbing), or maybe it was the evil painting.  Whatever, my Dad had to take me out of the theater I was so gripped.

5.  Poltergeist

So what movies scared you?

Update, I polled my housemate and she said she's still scared dogs because of Cujo.

Christmas? New Year's?

I have no idea what I'm going to do for Christmas or New Year's this year.  I spent most of the past month thinking about my qualifying exam, which was nice.  Since most people plan for these sorts of holidays, I find myself unsure of what to do.  Should I go somewhere?  Stay here?  I have a lot to do here, but it would be nice to get out to the desert.

Ideas?

Short list of things I'm interested right now

Stem cell therapy - how does it work?  What about for MS research?  How do you administer stem cells to damaged nerves?  What kind of cell signalling apparatus is at work?  

Ethics of genetic testing.  Patenting genes.  The public interpretation of science literature making claims about single gene regions causing X percent increase in disease or condition Y.  Government + personal genomics companies...

Mushrooms.  I'd like to be able to find and ID and consume more species/subspecies.

Biodiversity.  I'm always fascinated by photos of newly described species, or photos of really really small things.  Also see here and here.  Bizzare life history traits are interesting too.

Genomics and new technologies for obtaining whole-genome sequences.  How does it work, but more importantly, what do you do with all of this data?  When the human genome was sequenced, it was a big deal.  Now it is b-o-r-i-n-g.  What's next?

Evolution, always.  It's my worldview.

Epigenetics and post-transcriptional processing - Here's a nice New York Times spread.

And finally (well, not really, I just have to end the post at some point), how will science figure into the next administration.  Here's a nice recap of the newly appointed science folks.

Oh yeah - water in California, particularly the bay-delta region and desert regions.

when to give up

You know when I wrote the title of this post it made me think of the old song "the gambler".  I've always had a romantic vision of the person (or being the person) who had absolute control over my feelings and desires.  Just being able to make a decision about life and stick to it.  For example:  "I'll never eat chocolate again", or "I'm going to climb route X or grade Y before January 1st."  And then making it happen.  Or "I'm never going to talk to person X again, and I'm never going to drink so much that I puke in the bathroom at the north entrance to Yosemite..."

Anyway.

But at the same time, I feel like as I've gotten a bit older (mellower?  probably not), I don't want to be that controlled.  I don't want to force myself to do things just because they're "better", or "proud" or whatever.  It just seems like if you have to force yourself, what's the point?  Why does everything have to be a battle all of the time?

Don't get me wrong, I hold athletes and frazzled academics and people who achieve "greatness" in whatever field they apply themselves to in high esteem.  But often you look at these people and their personal lives are in shambles.  What does it take to try so hard for some sort of external goal?  What drives people?  Because no one is really going to remember anyway.  I'm just not sure that I always want to feel like I'm never good enough, or I've never done enough - because it seems to me that this is what it takes to be so controlled.  But as I say this I know I'll never feel like I'm good enough or have done enough.  Maybe being aware of it will help me calm down a little bit and allow myself to be proud of the things that I have accomplished.

So now I've gone off in a completely different direction than I was planning for this post.  I was planning on talking about when you should give up on people.  When do you stop looking at a person through the filter of what you hope for and start seeing - no - feeling the reality.  I feel a little bit like I've given up on my parents.  Every time I communicate with them...it just doesn't work.  I never feel like I'm heard.  Same thing with others.  There are some people who won't hear me, don't want to hear me, or can't hear me, and I have to accept that.  When do you give up?

In other news, Thomasina and her toddler Cedar stayed with me last night.  I was so happy to see them, and finally meet Cedar.  What a wonderful and happy child.  Thomasina looks happy as well.  I was glad to let them have a place to stay, since the roads to Bishop are a bit treacherous at the moment.  Anyway, I haven't had a whole lot of exposure to young children, and whoah!  I don't know why Thomasina isn't more tired all of the time.  Cedar is so talkative and independent!  I think she wandered over more of the house than most people who've been over.  It was pretty cool.

Climbing and mushrooms...and heinous sweaters

This weekend I got to do two of my favorite things: rock climb and mushroom hunt.  Plus I saw a lot of awesome people, and generally had a good time.  Yeah!

Friday I went out to Gold Wall with Drew and we did lots and lots of pitches.  Well, ok, not that many, but my skin hurt like hell when we were done even though I took 3 aleve during the day.  It was also fun to see Karl and Audrey, both of whom are crushing.  James was there too.

Anyway, Saturday night I drove to Berkeley to go to the Retirement Island Christmas Party (holy shit it has its own blog!).  I was thrilled to have an excuse to bake extravagant desserts.  I couldn't really decide, so I made two: a cranberry upside down cake-thingie, and a chocolate peanut butter torte.  The torte was basically peanut butter mousse in an oreo cookie crust, topped with ganache and more oreos.  Yeah.  I think it might be the healthiest thing I've ever eaten.

So I went over to Drew's, dropped my stuff off, and we went over to Sunshine's to rage.  Fortunately, Sunsh provided the sweaters, since neither Drew nor I had appropriate attire for the occasion.  We also managed to drag Casey out of the library so that we could all catch up for a little while.  Casey also had to wear a sweater.

At any rate, I'm not much of a partier, so we left early and went to bed.  I was pretty psyched that Drew has cable, and a freakin' huge flat screen HDTV, so that when I inevitably woke up at 6:30am, I could roll over on the couch and turn on the TV.  The problem with having lots of channels, is that you spend way too much time channel surfing.  And by the way, when did so many religious channels come online?  It's fucking weird, pardon my language.  Anyway, it still wasn't raining Sunday morning, so we drove up to the Berkeley hills and went...mushroom hunting!!!!  Boy was it thrilling - and I'm not even being sarcastic in the least.  Seriously. I love mushroom hunting.  I found a lot of edibles, but none were as exciting as the Prince that I found (Agaricus augustus).  I'd found two Princes in Big Sur a few years ago, and remember that they were beautiful and delicious.  I was pretty psyched.  The Prince ended up being a topping on a pizza for lunch.   Here are some pics from the weekend:

A group of Lactarius spp.

me sniffing the Prince for the characteristic almond fragrance.

A Satan's bolete - on the approach to Gold Wall

Another view of Satan's bolete

An emetic Russula - clearly not an edible, considering the meaning of the word "emetic", and the common name is The Sickener.  However it reminds me of the perfect Super Mario Brothers mushroom:

But I digress...

An action shot.  Somehow crawling through the bushes doesn't matter when mushrooms are involved.

Uncovering a "shrump".

A HORRIBLE picture of me, but a good picture of the desserts that I made.  Christmas sweaters are NOT flattering.  Word.  Plus, how did Drew manage to escape the party without having a picture taken of him in his sweater?  WTF?

Something to blog about

let's start out by saying that I just had a pint on an empty stomach.

Can I just ask all men who read this: on what planet is it OK to spend time with your ex-girlfriend one day, and then call her up for the sole purpose of talking to her about another girl that you like the next day?  Is it Earth?  Really?  Wait... what planet are we on?  Is this the same planet where women are supposed to be smitten when you tell them "I'm not a boob guy, but I'd totally tit-fuck you"?  Yeah.  I think they are in the same galaxy.  Shit I need to hire a shuttle.   All I know, is that I am over-extended on this planet.  I'm trying to fill the role of best friend and ex and it's working for everyone but me.

Did I miss a memo?  

Anyone got a map?

Cognitive dissonance

I'm reading a book right now called Mistakes Were Made, but Not by Me.  It's a book about self-justification as a result of cognitive dissonance, and it has my mind reeling.  

The basic gist of the book is that people will modify their opinions depending on how much something challenges their view of themselves or how much they have invested in something.In other words, people are loathe to change their minds, but especially when they have invested a great deal in their opinion. 

 There are several classic examples of this:  the woman in love with someone who treats her like shit.  The woman says  "he's not that bad" because they've already spent X number of years believing that the person is not that bad.  The longer they have defended the man, the harder it is to see the reality.   Contrast this to someone from outside of a relationship who clearly sees that the guy is a jerk.  

Or how about the whole weapons of mass destruction thing?  Some people still believe that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, because they predicated going to war with Iraq on WMD.  Seriously. click on the link.

It's kind of freaking me out, because I recognize this in myself.  For example, I haven't been projecting climbs and sending harder grades for a while now.  So I say to myself "I just don't care that much, I'm not motivated, I have to study for my qualifying exam so I don't make my advisor think he wasted three years on me, etc."  These things may all be true: I haven't been motivated and I do have to study.  But the very fact that I'm spending time thinking about it and trying to convince myself indicates to me that I'm self-justifying.  So what came first?  Did I lose motivation and need to study? or did I stop stop climbing hard and then need to make up an excuse for it?

I get annoyed with myself for even worrying about it.  I think part of the problem is that no matter what I do, I feel like I'm not doing enough.  I'm doing well in grad school right now, devoting a lot of energy and brain power to my proposal and qualifying exam, but now I feel guilty for not climbing more.  And of course anyone who knows me as a climber knows that I always feel guilty about not doing enough in grad school.  

I spoke with my friend Tim Doyle the other day and asked him why he never wanted to be a professional climber.  He responded "because I like it the way it is."  

"Because I like it the way it is."  

I can't think of a better response to that question.  I know so many people, including myself, who feel they need to elaborate on why being a pro climber is bad for them and why not being a pro climber is good for them.  Maybe this is because I clearly don't have the talent to be a pro climber, so it's not even an option (which I have to justify...because I like other things, because I don't want to feel obligated, whatever) but regardless, why explain it?  Do I not believe in what I'm doing?

Anyway, this is just food for thought.  I think that studying is making me crazy. I'm starting to use all these big words.  Yikes!  I don't want to appear :::gasp::: elitist!