So I thought it would be fun to share some of the evidence I gathered from the place we investigate down in Cape May. The bed and breakfast is called Elaine’s, and the original building to the late 1800s. We will be back there in the fall, but have a few other places lined up over the summer. I can’t wait. The next one is an asylum in West Virginia!

This was recorded in October of 2015 at Elaine’s in Cape May, NJ. I had been using the divining rods to talk to the spirits, and they were really going insane. I was also doing an EVP session during it. The first file is the actual unaltered file. The second one I enhanced and flipped the backward speech so you can understand it.

Me: Is anybody here with us?
Voice: Carmella (Carmello?)

My divining rods jingle.
Bizarre sound (backwards speech) (“That’s Me? It’s Me?”)

Me: Can you tell us you’re name?
Voice: I can’t (I can?)

This was an Echovox session done on May 22nd at around 1AM. Echovox is a program that spits out random phonemes through a speaker, then picks them (plus your voice and any other ghostly voices aka EVPs) and spits them back out on a set delay. I had it set on a 5 second delay this night. Unfortunately my normal speaker didn’t have a charge, so we used a friends, which didn’t have a very long cord. So it caused some feedback. This is the unfiltered recording straight from the EchoVox app. Below I will add the time stamps for the voices we thought we heard. Most of these seem to not be using the apps phonemes to speak, but seem to be a delayed EVP through the microphone. We heard laughing and what seemed to be an old time radio playing, which should be impossible given the app only spits out phonemes.

Important time stamps for the voices we heard . . . .

1:24 Me: Did it just say my name?
Voice: Psychic
Laurie: It just said psychic.

1:55 Me: Can you tell us your name? (echos a bit as this is what the app does)
2:07 Voice: F*ck You!
Me, Laure, Woman: Stunned and laughing at what was said.

We ask for a name again and at 2:43 get “Not Me?”

3:30 Laurie: James? (This is the name of the main ghost in the bar)
Voice: Hello!

4:43 We begin to get some very unusual interference, like an old radio broadcast. One of the women thought it almost sounded like people listening to a ball game. The bar was once a private gentleman’s club.

Important time stamps for the voices we heard . . . .

1:33 Laurie: Is there someone else here?
Voice: Yes

At 4:43 We hear very low “Heee Heee Hee” as if someone is laughing at us. Repeats again at 5:55. This keeps continuing on in other parts of the session too.

5:33 Laurie: Do you think we’re funny?
5:44 Creepy voice laughs “Hee Hee Hee” and then “Frank?”

6:11 Laurie: What do you want to tell us?
Voice: It’s cold

7:15 Laurie: How many of you are there?
Two Voices: 5

7:33 Another creepy “Ha Ha Ha” laugh.

8:42 Laurie: Why do you stay?
Voice: Dead

8:58 Laurie: Why are you still here?
Voice: Ha Ha Ha!

9:14 Laurie: Do you like it here?
Voice: Yes

I know, it has been forever since I’ve updated. I’ve been swamped with work, I’m working three (yes three) jobs. I’m teaching, I’m back working on the soap sites, and I’m a tour guide in Philly. I literally have NO time anymore it seems.

Anyways, a few weeks ago I hit Cape May with my friend Laurie as part of the the ghost hunts we do. It was dead as far as the ghosts go, no pun intended, but we had a lot of time to walk around and site see. We are going back next weekend, and hopefully the ghosts will be a little more active. We also have a battlefield investigation coming up, and then over the summer a penitentiary down in West Virginia, and an old brothel here in Jersey. We may try and hit Gettysburg again too. Oh and The General Warren in over in PA!

So we are in the process of yet more fun home renovations. Our downstairs bathroom ceiling finally caved in under a slow water leak during the one big snowstorm we got this year. Now the downstairs bathroom has been torn out and we are having it expanded and redone. So we are sadly back to only one bathroom again.

So yeah, it’s been a long time since I blogged. I know, I know. I have been in a funk, and the holidays didn’t help. I didn’t decorate for Halloween, I didn’t decorate for Christmas, and for the first time since I was probably 12 I didn’t stay up till midnight on New Year’s Eve. I was in bed and asleep by 8:30!

Sadly, due to a lot of circumstances, there is no cruise or vacation happening this year. That is probably a big part of the reason I’m in a funk. To make things worse, John’s mother is sick and so far much of his time off has been devoted to taking care of her. We haven’t even been able to schedule time to go see “Star Wars,” it’s that bad. (Oh I saw it on my own on opening day of course!) On top of this, other family issues have him doing more at the farm during their down time. It’s basically like he’s still working 12 hours a day even when he’s off, so we have no down time to spend together.

There was talk about a 2-3 day short trip somewhere, but now that likely won’t happen because of his mother’s health and because my Spring semester starts shortly. We only have that 2 week window each year where we are both off and can get away for extended periods of time, and that window is closing. I at least have a few “investigations” planned over the next month or two with some friends, some over nights to Cape May as part of the investigations a friend and I do, and one investigation in June that will be a quick little getaway. Right now though, I’m basically waiting for it to hit John that he gets no vacation this year, and for him to blow a fuse over it. It won’t be pretty!

So it’s Thanksgiving, and I’m thankful that John’s brother is NOT living with us. Yes that is right! He is staying in this small, vacant, creepy house down the street that the farm owns and rents out. It’s going to be investigated by me and my friends in January when he leaves it, because it just screams “ghosts!” Apparently it used to be the house of a brother and sister who lived together and never married . . . That’s so “Flowers in the Attic!”

Anyways, here is your annual “Turkey Lurkey” time video. For once I am not cooking anything Thanksgiving related. I may make a steak and have a side of spinach, as I’m currently working to lose weight and get in shape again. I may splurge and get Chinese food if anything is open.

So I’m not gunna lie, my holiday spirit is dead this year. I did not decorate for Halloween, and I’m not feeling that bad about it. Well I am a little, but it wasn’t enough to pull decorations out. I didn’t decorate outside or inside. I think this is the first time since 2008 I didn’t decorate. It’s a lot of work to do, and as it turns out I’m not going to even be home on Halloween this year, so I decided to say “Eff it!” I have been in a piss poor mood and didn’t feel like decorating, so there. I think I’m also skipping Christmas decorations this year too. Actually I know I am, they are even more work. The holidays can suck it this year as far as I’m concerned.

On a brighter note, I finally got my fence for the backyard and the dogs. They are so happy to be able to run around finally. Princess still doesn’t often know what to do and insists I be out there with her and not leave her alone most of the time. Ebbie turned black in a day for rolling in the dirt, the brat.

I can’t believe how fast time has flown. I turned the big Four Oh, and now it’s almost October. Slow down universe!

I didn’t get nearly enough of my house and the two rooms I wanted to clean out done this summer. I made a good dent though! Threw out a lot of junk (still more to throw out) and packed up a bunch of old stuff. I plan on finishing those this fall. I definitely have to get one fairly cleaned up because of company coming for Halloween, so that’s motivation.

Over the summer I did do a few paranormal investigations, and I have several big ones coming up next month. The one I’m most excited is spending Halloween night at a local Revolutionary War fort (Ft. Mifflin). My friends and I are leading a public investigation there, and it’s an over night event. Fun fun fun! I’ve been there twice before and something always happens.

I am working on motivating to start getting my Halloween decorations up, though John planted so many flowers all over the front yard that I pretty much have to wait for a cold frost to kill them at this point.

Anyways, below are two fun things I got over the summer at various investigations . . .

This was at Elaine’s Bed and Breakfast in Cape May, NJ. I have to investigate this more when we return there in two weeks. We spend the weekend there a few times a year doing a public ghost hunt with people who book the hotel just for that. On the doorway was a weird form of some kind. I joked it was a vagina ghost.

This is a quick movie from the David Stewart Farm out near Gettysburg, PA. It served as a hospital for the wounded, and in this room they actually did surgeries. We had all sorts of gadgets set out, and almost immediately something went around the room from gadget to gadget lighting them up.

For some reason I’ve been on a kick to find healthy pizza recipes. Pizza is my Achille’s heel, it’s the one thing above all else I hate to give up. I’ve resorted to tortilla pizzas and english muffin pizzas in the past when I’m trying to cut calories, but it’s never the same thing. Recently I Facebooked my many attempts at cauliflower pizza crust, which while not terrible, is a lot of damn work for a pizza. A lot more than using the internet to order a delicious one. Recently a friend posted a recipe for Quinoa pizza crust on my wall. Me, being the pizza lover I am, decided I had to try it. This blog post is a public service announcement to the world . . . DO NOT MAKE THIS!

Reason number one I should have been skeptical this would be good . . . quinoa is gross. I know it’s one of these new fad superfoods, but it is gross. Every way I have ever tried it, it sucks. Why did I think a pizza crust made of this crap would taste good?

Reason number two I should have known to stop . . . the smell. The recipe calls for you to not cook the quinoa, but soak it for eight hours in water. It smells like spunk. I am not even kidding. It smelled like someone masturbated all over my kitchen. Why did I think this would be good? If any lesbians are reading this and don’t know what this smells like, it smells like bleach.

Reason number three . . . after I made it, and seasoned the fuck out of it, it still stank to hell . . . and it looked like vomit. Okay it also looked like oatmeal, or porridge, maybe cream of wheat, all which look like vomit. They at least smell and don’t taste terrible, this did. I think this might be one of the only things that if you threw up, would taste better coming back up.

When it cooked it was heavy, really heavy, like a brick heavy. That was reason number four I should have known this wasn’t going to be good. The density of this crust is less than the amount of poop it’s going to produce, that is a scientific fact. I still continued and tried to make the best of this disaster.

Unfortunately no amount of sauce, cheese, pepperoni, or whatever toppings you pick will be able to mask the fact that this is not pizza. Pizza should not taste like this. The nasty spunk crust still overpowers everything. This is worse than the time I tried flaxseed crust, and I never tried that again. If I want healthy pizza in the future I’ll either use a tortilla, or slap myself to remember that healthy pizza is like Santa Clause, it doesn’t exist.

If I have not yet convinced you that you do not want to eat this, well the recipe is below. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This is pizza crust is probably the closest experience most of us will have as to what it’s like to be a starving Ethiopian child eating dirt and waiting for Sally Struthers to drop off some Chef Boyardee cans to the village. And those only cost pennies a day, quinoa is really fucking expensive. I could have ordered a pizza for cheaper than this.

So depending on where in the country you live, you may have heard our little region almost got taken to the Wonderful Land of Oz last night. Several funnel clouds touched down in the region, though as of yet none of them have been authenticated by the national weather service.

On the left is a shopping center about 5 miles down the road. On the right is what happened at a mall about 20 minutes from me. Cars were flipped, the siding ripped off the mall, and some damage to the roof. Both of these are from Twitter/newspapers.

We got lucky, no damage to our house or the farm. My plants got some damage sadly, it wouldn’t be summer without some insane storm damaging my tomatoes! The above photos are of clouds I took after the storm calmed. The sky went from yellow to pink, it was really odd.

This was a panorama I took in front of the farm.

So it’s been ages since I wrote a movie review on my blog, so I found it fitting I do it of the 2015 remake of “Poltergeist.” The original is one of my favorite scary movies of all time, and personally I don’t feel it needed to be remade. Sure some of the effects by today’s standards are pretty bad, but back in the day the meat crawling and bathroom bake-light scene caused people to get sick. It’s still a great story, and the remake is really nothing more than more evidence that Hollywood is out of ideas and is too afraid to take chances on new things. So was the remake worth it? Was it good? That’s what this review tackles.

THERE ARE SOME BASIC PLOT SPOILERS HERE! If you’ve seen the original, it won’t ruin anything.

For the most part, the movie is a direct remake of the original, with some changes. The movie brings certain things into the modern era. For example the family is down on their luck, with the dad having been laid off, which is why they move into the development. Unlike the original, where the development was brand new and the dad worked for the developers, it’s been there awhile in this version. All the locals know the story of the moved cemetery, and many of the homes are now dirt cheap because of foreclosures. They don’t tell you why though, they leave that up to you. Is it the economy? Or the ghosts?

The technology in the film has been brought up to the digital age, which really means that there should not be any white noise/snow channels for Carol Anne (now called Maddy) to communicate on. The new version has the spirits able to manipulate the electricity in the house, including iPads and cellphones. They never outright say it, but they hint this has to do with the major powerlines that are showb going over the house and the development. When the house goes nuts one night, Maddy is sucked into the closet by the dead. The storyline pretty much progresses the same as the original from here on out.

A major disappointment is they failed to update the film based on current ideas about ghosts. For example, they never explain the idea that ghosts can feed off energy, which is why the power-lines are important, but they leave that up to the viewer to guess about. Also most researchers now believe poltergeists aren’t really spirits or souls of the dead, but psychic energy that is unleashed from someone going through a stressful period, such as the loss of a job or teens going through puberty. They could have gone this way with this version, but then it would have drastically altered the storyline. So they stuck with the old definition of “a noisy entity.” Many scenes from the original are still there, as is much of the same dialogue, though some have been altered. The bake-light scene has been updated and isn’t nearly as gory as the original. Much of the building suspense of the original, such as Maddy/Carol Anne’s interaction with “The TV People,” is gone.

Another major disappointment is that they turn the parapsychologist (played by Jane Adams) into an awkward bumbling buffoon, which if you’ve ever seen Adams is a role she plays well. The Tangina character is now a Zak Bagans/Ghost Hunter reality TV star. Both come off as more or less jokes in the movie, and completely downplay the scientific seriousness of the original.

One of the most iconic scenes that scared most people, the clown scene, is a huge letdown. They had an amazing setup to make it great, and it falls flat.

There are a few nice additions to the movie, for example some minor exploration of the other side beyond the closet, which was lacking in the original. Fans of the original movies will also notice a few scenes seem to actually be from the second movie and are thrown in for fun. A bumper sticker also pays homage to the original director Toby Hooper.

It’s worth seeing for die hard fans of the original, because most like me want to see if they stayed true to the film or wrecked it. It’s not great, it’s not terrible, it just is what it is. If you’ve never seen the original, I would say watch it after you see the remake just so you realize how the film should have been done.

All images found via google images and property of the film/studio.