Month: November 2008

  • How old is too old to still be living at home with the ‘rents?

    I was 21 the first time, then I lost my roomie, then when I was 22 and I never went back, its hard to leave and come back – its that taste of freedom that gets into your blood,  I would hope its harder to come back home after being at college …..

       

    I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!

  • (Pennsylvania) – When firefighters were called out to rescue a man stuck in
    a port-a-potty, they were expecting to find an overturned toilet with the
    victim of a practical joke inside. Instead, when they arrived at the former
    Harold’s Furniture store in the 600 block of Cumberland Street of Lebanon,
    they found 31-year-old Shannon P. Hunter of Lebanon. He was drunk, naked and
    wedged up to his waist in the hole of the toilet, Deputy Fire Commissioner
    Chris Miller said.

  • Haunted Prisons

    Alcatraz was not a recreational prison. It was a
    place of penitence, just as the Quakers who had devised the American
    prison system had planned for all prisons to be. There were no
    trustees here. It was a place where the inmates had but five
    rights… food, clothing, a private cell, a shower once a week and
    the right to see a doctor.

    Each of the cells in America’s “first
    escape-proof prison” measured 4 x 8 feet, had a single
    fold-up bunk, a toilet, a desk, a chair and a sink. An
    inmate’s day would begin at 6:30 in the morning, when he
    was awakened and then given 25 minutes to clean his cell
    and to stand and be counted. At 6:55, the individual
    tiers of cells would be opened and prisoners would march
    in a single file line to the mess hall. They were given
    20 minutes to eat and then were marched out to line up
    for work assignments. The routine never varied and was
    completely methodical.


    As the years have passed, ghost hunters, authors,
    crime buffs and curiosity-seekers have visited the island and many
    of them have left with feelings of strangeness. Perhaps those who
    experience the “ghostly side” of Alcatraz most often are the
    national park service employees who sometimes spend many hours here
    alone. For the most part, the rangers claim to not believe in the
    supernatural but occasionally, one of them will admit that weird
    things happen here that they cannot explain.

    According to one park ranger, he was in one of
    the cell houses one morning, near the shower room, and heard the
    distinctive sound of banjo music coming from the room. He could not
    explain it — but many who know some of the hidden history of
    Alcatraz can. In his last days at the prison, Al Capone often hid in
    the shower room with his banjo. Rather than risk going out into the
    prison yard, where he feared for his life thanks to his
    deteriorating mental state, Capone received permission to stay
    inside and practice with his instrument.

    And perhaps he sits there still, this lonesome
    and broken spirit, still plucking at the strings of a spectral banjo
    that vanished decades ago. For on occasion, tour guides and rangers,
    who walk the corridors of the prison alone, still claim to hear and
    an occasional tune echoing through the abandoned building. Is it Al
    Capone?


  • Why its fun to be scared !!!

    Why do we like horror films, amusement park rides and…
    Halloween? Researchers have discovered that a look of horror
    makes a faster first impression on our brains than a smile. Our
    brains become aware of fearful faces more quickly than those
    showing other emotions—an evolutionary adaptation that has
    kept humans safe.

    Psychologist David Zald says, “There are reasons to believe
    that the brain has evolved mechanisms to detect things in
    the environment that signal threat. One of those signals is a
    look of fear. We believe that the brain can detect certain
    cues even before we are aware of them, so that we can
    direct our attention to potentially threatening situations in
    our environment…What we believe is happening is that the
    happy faces signal safety. If something is safe, you don’t
    have to pay attention to it.”