Ahhh...Sunny and 84.....

Today is Friday and even though as a self-employed professional artist I don't have a traditional 9 to 5 job per se (technically - I guess, every day is like Friday), I still enjoy that liberating feeling of freedom that comes with the recognition of the start of the weekend. So, I find myself being less cerebral and more fun loving on Fridays. Today will be no exception.

I have one of my closest friends and his wonderful wife coming in tonight to stay the weekend with George and I, and I am really looking forward to that. We’ll spend a lot of the time talking about art and new ideas, over eating and drinking, and we’ll probably spend some time at the beach tomorrow where the weather is supposed to be sunny and 84. Ahhhhh….

Now, George and I also plan to take them to the Funland Arcade on the Boardwalk where we will stand in line with a bunch of sweaty kids to ride this...

I can’t tell you how much fun that is! I love these old ride through Haunted Mansions. I read somewhere where this was once voted one of the Top Ten in the US. You can read more about it here.

Now. Speaking of creepy things, George and I and our friend Michael watched this flick last Wednesday evening.

Now, let there be no doubt, this was a lame film ( though it began as mildly interesting, it quickly degraded into total crap). Nevertheless, there were some intriguing ideas that the film arose about life after death and communication with such. Now, as anyone who has known me for many years will tell you, I, along with several of my family members, have always had a strong connection to the metaphysical. I grew up in a house full of spirits (NOT always fun), unexplained phenomena, psychic dreams and the like. George is convinced that I am actually a warlock o sorts (as a matter of fact, I will be casting a spell later this afternoon - but I digress).

This film deals with EVP (Electric Voice Phenomena) and ITC (Instrumental Transcommunication ). These are both technical terms for voice messages and imagery sent to us form the departed. On one level, it is fascinating, on the other - it is desperately creepy and I (at 40 years of age) was heavily creeped out by some online studies I did of both enough to flee a darkened room the other night and to loose about 3 hours of sleep. So, click on some of the links regarding this topic at your own risk.

The only reason that I ordered the film from Netflicks was that George told me several years ago that his grandfather had told him that one night after his wife had died (George’s grandmother) that he received a phone call from her she spoke just a few words to him. They must have been very moving words because according to George, it was a life altering experience for his Grandfather.

Now, I was always familiar with EVP’s ( recordings of messages supposedly form the other side - you can find several here :http://www.ghostweb.com/evp.html ). But the examples I have heard were usually quite murky and I always thought that one really had to stretch the imagination to make out what was supposedly being said.

However, I did find one website which was very thorough and had some amazing items on it, that did indeed creep me out to the extreme and fascinate at the same time. For example, this “spirit” image that appeared on a woman’s television screen of her father that died in 1987.

Like I said, if you get creeped out by such things, visit at your own risk. It is fascinating though. Of course, the whole thing could be bunk, but there is a nagging sensation that I get that leads me to believe that it isn’t.

You can check out the site here: http://www.worlditc.org/.

Make sure and check out the link labeled “Doc Mueller in lifetime and in spirit” where you can click on an audio link to hear a full phone conversation recorded between a man and a departed spirit!! WARING: the recording goes beyond the valley of hyper-creepy in my book, so again, listen at your discretion.

I would be very interested to hear what others think of these links as well. Feel free to leave comments. I’m frankly not sure what to believe.

So, off the creepy and back to the Friday fun: Check out this hilarious website when you get a chance, entitled “The Museum Of Bad Art”. It’s self-explanatory. Click on this example to visit…