What possessed Rob Zombie to attempt a re-make of Halloween? The original Halloween was perfect, the quintessential horror movie. No matter what he did, it’s gonna be compared to the original, and it’s not gonna come close. The project was doomed from the start.

Let me say right off that there’s one Rob Zombie movie that I really really dig: “The Devil’s Rejects”. A funny film with horrific elements, and original too. BUT NOT SUBTLE! Subtlety is not Zombie’s strong point. Yet, subtlety is what made the original Halloween such a great film. Making an unsubtle “Halloween” is a contradiction, and yet that’s what Rob Zombie did with his re-make, and it’s a shame.

While we’re on the subject of horror movies, I was hoping that Freakshow would be a decent movie, since it has the same name as this here blog. Alas, it sucked big time.

I hate it when I’m at the grocery store and the price of an item rings up different than what it said on the shelf. This happens a lot, and really makes me mad. I spend a lot of time comparison shopping, trying to get the best deal, and then I get to the checkout and all my plans come to naught. I think this has been happening more lately, as the price of food goes up. Moreover, I think it’s deliberate. There ought to be a law. That law should be that if something rings up at a higher price than what it says on the shelf, the customer gets the item for free. No ifs, ands, or buts. While I’m on the topic, another related issue makes me mad too. That’s the whole “5 for $3″ type of deal. I want to know what the price of one item is, for Pete’s sake. I don’t want five of them. Moreover, sometimes you get the multiple price discount if you buy one, sometimes you don’t. You just don’t know. This sort of thing should be illegal. They should have the price of just one item, period. I should run for office on this platform. I’d win- this affects everyone. Everyone comparison shops, I don’t care how much money they have. No one wants to over-pay. “Vote for Berlow, and What You See is What You’ll Pay!”

On a related note, as a Real Estate Agent I hate it when other Real Estate Agents take out ads for houses that don’t include the price. What good is that? I’ve seen entire Real Estate Magazines with pages of ads for houses that have NO PRICE! Flyers without the price! Tell me the price, willya? Again, there ought to be a law. If you advertise something, the price should be in the ad. No ifs, ands, or buts. That goes for anything, besides houses. If you advertise something, it should include the price.

By now I have years of blog posts saved up from half a dozen blogs. All the blogs have been removed from the internet except my last one, “The Cynicism of Diogenes” which I will delete as well eventually. But some blog posts should remain forever on the internet. For example, the one on “The Cynicism of Diogenes” where I relate my experience at summer camps should always be up there, for it’s perhaps the only place on the internet where you can read about Camp Onibar. I just got an e-mail today from some other guy that went to Camp Onibar.

The original post on the “Diogenes of Sinope” blog about Summer Camp can be found here. I’m getting a surprising number of hits from people searching for “Camp Onibar”. I only went there one summer.  I was about nine years old, I’m guessing, so that would’ve been 1968. But that’s not right, since I remember talking to another kid at LSD camp (Landon Summer Day) about Martin Luther King getting shot, and that was 1968. So maybe I was ten and it was 1969 that I went to Camp Onibar. I think one of the reasons that I went to Camp Onibar is that my Dad went there as a kid, so it must’ve been around a long time, since my Dad was born in 1923.

The following post is worthy of being resurrected from obscurity on my hard drive. I think it never got the exposure it deserved because it was written right around the time I was kicked off Blogtimore. It originally appeared on the Harish blog on Wednesday, September 21st 2005. The events described really happened. You can’t make this up.

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Once upon a time I was at a 7-11 buying a chili-cheese hot-dog when a guy comes up to me and asks me if that’s my Volvo parked outside. I say “yes”. He says he’s a cop and that I’m in violation and that he can write me a ticket for $500. He follows me out to my car, asking questions. He’s not in uniform but he’s neatly dressed and at first I take him at his word. I go along with what he said, that he’s a cop. But the more questions he asks the more I wonder if he really is a cop. Perhaps I should ask to see some ID. But then I think that that might piss him off and I’ll get that $500 ticket. I’m trying to figure out what to do when I let loose a loud long fart. I’d been feeling flatulent. The “cop” hears the fart (maybe smells it as well) and makes a disgusted face. Before the cop regains his composure, I say “Excuse me,” hop in my car and drive off.

For reasons unknown to me, my first novella Insanity Factory has experienced a price spike on Amazon. There are still three used copies for sale. Until recently the three used copies were selling at around eight bucks plus shipping, but when I looked yesterday there’s now two selling for $23 plus shipping and the other one is selling for $40 plus shipping! Don’t ask me why… I just gave a copy away. Before I canceled the contract with IUniverse I ordered a few for myself- I have three with the photo of me on the back and five without the photo. Somewhere along the line I brought out a new edition without the photo of me on the back, because I was feeling all Castaneda-ish. So I’d say the ones with the photo of me on the back are rarer. As far as I know only fifty copies were actually printed- that’s if IUniverse was being honest about reporting how many were made. I canceled the contract with IUniverse because I was only making $2 per book sold, and I didn’t see it becoming a mega-seller. Better to have it be a rare book, thought I. Get a better contract someday in the future, maybe. I learned that royalties don’t pay the rent- a writer make his money by selling the publishing rights to the publisher. Royalties are just icing on that cake. And with IUniverse (and all Publish On Demand publishers) you’re basically giving away the most valuable thing you have for sale: the publishing rights. Not to mention no reviewer will touch a POD with a ten-foot pole. Are small presses any better than POD? Yes, but by how much?

E-book versions are available on my website for $7.50. I chose that price because it was just under what the used copies were selling on Amazon for. Such a deal!

Update: Now one of the three copies is gone and only two remain. Of the two, one is selling for more than $50 and the other is back to around $8 and change. Go figure…