I have Goosebumps
Aug. 27th, 2012 07:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserI have a confession to make. Goosebumps scares me. (The TV show version, I was too old for the books when they came out and haven't ever gone looking for them since.) Does that sound wacky? Let me describe today's episode:
I was multitasking and missed the first few minutes, so I'm not sure how, but a bunch of kids ended up in an old, abandoned building.
Turned out it was an old insane asylum.
The kids found an operating room. With all sorts of saws and other instruments you'd expect for brain surgery. Clear shot of them, all looking clean and new.
Next the kids found medical records describing the operations and electroshock therapy. (Not described in details, but one character talked about how they electrocuted people and another about "cutting people open".)
Unsurprisingly, the place turned out to be haunted. The ghosts locked the kids in a dorm-type room, but the kids (scared) break out. The ghosts kept whispering to them "Lights out... lights out..." but the kids have no idea what it means.
One kid gets snatched out from the middle of them and reappears strapped down on the operating table. The ghost doctor gets ready to cut his head open. The kids learn that the ghosts were saying "lights out" as a warning, that the doctor would operate on (experiment on, in not so many words) any kids out of their room after lights out. The End.
WTF. D:
A while ago the author of the Animorphs book series and I were emailing back and forth. He's still writing young adult books, and I commented how one had really scared me. He wrote:
I've been asked about whether these books are too scary for kids and I usually answer no, they're too scary for adults. Kids are very hard to scare. They're immortal after all. The processing of aging is in part the learning of fear. Babies aren't scared of anything. Old people are scared of every cool breeze.
That's really tru--ARRRGGG COOL BREEZE! COOL BREEZE! But seriously, I think that really is correct. This episode scared me because I know it could have very easily been true (not the ghost part, but a long-ago doctor abusing mentally ill patients). The idea of being powerless, strapped to a table, at the mercy of an abusive doctor (ghostly or not)...
Edit: And in more scary news? I lost my cellphone a while back, but I only use it once or twice a year, so wasn't rushing to replace it. Twice last week my car didn't start on the first try. Talk about scary, not having a phone in that situation... No pay phones around, would I have to walk in a store and ask a clerk to borrow theirs? c.c I have a new phone now.
I was multitasking and missed the first few minutes, so I'm not sure how, but a bunch of kids ended up in an old, abandoned building.
Turned out it was an old insane asylum.
The kids found an operating room. With all sorts of saws and other instruments you'd expect for brain surgery. Clear shot of them, all looking clean and new.
Next the kids found medical records describing the operations and electroshock therapy. (Not described in details, but one character talked about how they electrocuted people and another about "cutting people open".)
Unsurprisingly, the place turned out to be haunted. The ghosts locked the kids in a dorm-type room, but the kids (scared) break out. The ghosts kept whispering to them "Lights out... lights out..." but the kids have no idea what it means.
One kid gets snatched out from the middle of them and reappears strapped down on the operating table. The ghost doctor gets ready to cut his head open. The kids learn that the ghosts were saying "lights out" as a warning, that the doctor would operate on (experiment on, in not so many words) any kids out of their room after lights out. The End.
WTF. D:
A while ago the author of the Animorphs book series and I were emailing back and forth. He's still writing young adult books, and I commented how one had really scared me. He wrote:
I've been asked about whether these books are too scary for kids and I usually answer no, they're too scary for adults. Kids are very hard to scare. They're immortal after all. The processing of aging is in part the learning of fear. Babies aren't scared of anything. Old people are scared of every cool breeze.
That's really tru--ARRRGGG COOL BREEZE! COOL BREEZE! But seriously, I think that really is correct. This episode scared me because I know it could have very easily been true (not the ghost part, but a long-ago doctor abusing mentally ill patients). The idea of being powerless, strapped to a table, at the mercy of an abusive doctor (ghostly or not)...
Edit: And in more scary news? I lost my cellphone a while back, but I only use it once or twice a year, so wasn't rushing to replace it. Twice last week my car didn't start on the first try. Talk about scary, not having a phone in that situation... No pay phones around, would I have to walk in a store and ask a clerk to borrow theirs? c.c I have a new phone now.
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-28 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-28 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-28 04:54 am (UTC)You can't find a pay phone anywhere these days! Be safe and always carry your cel phone.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-28 05:04 am (UTC)And on the rare chance I do spot a pay phone, it's so disgustingly dirty I wouldn't want to put it to my ear.
My phone is now in my purse, where it will happily live out its lifetime! Other than visits to the outside world for recharging.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-28 07:32 am (UTC)A while ago the author of the Animorphs book series and I were emailing back and forth.
Oh man, how'd you get his e-mail? Ages ago, before I knew Animorphs was jointly written, I tried hunting down his wife's e-mail to tell her how much the series meant to me and how it really kicked off my reading obsession--but apparently they're very private people and don't just leave their contact info out there. (Maybe that's changed! I haven't looked recently.) It's pretty cool that you got to chat with him.
Edit: And in more scary news? I lost my cellphone a while back, but I only use it once or twice a year, so wasn't rushing to replace it. Twice last week my car didn't start on the first try. Talk about scary, not having a phone in that situation... No pay phones around, would I have to walk in a store and ask a clerk to borrow theirs? c.c I have a new phone now.
I had something like this happen to me a couple years back. I got real lucky that time and the person who found it replied to the last friend who'd texted me and agreed to deliver it to them; until I returned home and learned that, though, I was just barely functioning. Didn't help that I was in an unfamiliar part of the city at the time.
It's funny, though; just ten or fifteen years ago most of us wouldn't even have cell phones, and any worrying we'd do would be about the cost to replace it and whether or not we had any sensitive information that might be accessed. Now we're expected to be available for calls or texts 24/7 and feel completely stranded if we lose or forget the damn things.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-28 01:16 pm (UTC)Oh wow, talk about bad dreams! D:
Oh man, how'd you get his e-mail?
Hmm, good question. Retracing my steps, looks like it's not hard anymore!
I started at Amazon, and his 'about' page there, but there was nothing of use. Googling "Michael Grant gone" did the trick though. (Gone was the name of the first book in his new series). http://themichaelgrant.com/gone/ There's a 'contact' link on the side of that page.
If his email address is to be believed, his real last name isn't Grant.
Michael Reynolds michael@themichaelgrant.com
Do you know they wrote a new book together? Eve and Adam (http://www.amazon.com/Eve-Adam-Katherine-Applegate/dp/0312583516/ref=la_B001JRZGOS_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1346159699&sr=1-7). It didn't hook my attention though, so I haven't ordered a copy.
And on cell phones, you're so right. I had been thinking that -- it wasn't long ago that we didn't have them at all, so we wouldn't have been so utterly cut off without one on us at all times.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-28 01:26 pm (UTC)Which makes sense - but if you don't have a cellphone, it causes problems.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-28 01:44 pm (UTC)I think at this point basically everyone could have one, even the poorest folks. My phone cost $20 and I have to put $10 a month into it (alas, I lose the $10 in 30 days if I haven't spent it, but at least that's better than the $50/month I had been paying). That's pretty darned cheap!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 04:51 pm (UTC)So yeah, kids are weird.
Ps. Animorphs was my FAVORITE as a kid, haha.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-30 03:20 pm (UTC)