It's Monday morning and I'll skip all the whining about how I wish the weekend was longer and how much I hate Monday mornings. This is no exception; the very first thing I discover when I get to work is that a project that I was told would be mine is, once again, now under the management of my coworker. I know I should probably be glad that this means I don't have to work as much as she does but when I go to your boss and tell him repeatedly that I really, really want more projects, it's very frustrating to NOT get new projects. I'm also trying not to take it personally but...well...we know that's not going to happen.Thus, I'm going to continue with my attempt to be positive today even though the day has started a little on the sour side. It's not my coworker's fault: Either I'm too incompetent to be allowed to work on projects or she's just such a superstar they can't do without her. I'm going with the second option. It allows me to spend the time working on projects I can create myself. I don't need any guidance, right? It's all up to me. Uh, yay?
I did have a nice weekend, however. On Saturday, I decided to go to the movies. It's been a long time since I last saw a film in the theatre and that used to be my main form of entertainment. Since it's near Halloween, I saw, "Paranormal Activity." It's one of those Blair Witch type movies that's filmed with a "home" video camera and acts like it's all real. The reason I saw that one was because I haven't seen a really scary movie in a long time and that one was being hyped as 'terrifying'.
Well, I admit, there were some moments in the movie that were genuinely creepy. It's basically about this young couple who live in a really, really nice house. The girl is a student and the boy is a day trader. I don't know what kind of day trader he is but they live in San Diego and that kind of house is EXPENSIVE. Anyway, the girl has been hearing things in the house and strange things have been happening so the boyfriend goes out and buys a camera so they can record it. Because, you know, that's what you do when you think you're being haunted. You buy a camera. You don't, you know, contact Ghost Hunters or anything and watch them squeal with terror, even though they're supposed to be the experts. The whole movie is pretty much what they capture on camera, particularly while they sleep. As the movie progresses, more and more creepy stuff happens.
The problem I had with the movie is that it's the slow, small things that happen that are the creepiest. These things are doors moving by themselves, keys appearing in the middle of the floor...that type of thing. Yet, as the movie goes on, the creepy moments get bigger and grander and when you find out what's causing them, it's almost laughable. The couple are the only characters except for a psychic who comes in and some random friend of the girlfriend's. As the creepier things get bigger and more obvious, the boyfriend tries things like putting powder on the floor to see if there's footsteps or using a Oujia board to talk to whatever's causing the disturbance. Not, at any time, do they consider NOT sleeping in the house until the very end. NOT at any point do they consider calling someone who can help until they're at their most desperate. NOT at any point do they say, 'this is weird!'. I mean, they can see what's happening when they play back the video but even though the girl acts scared, she doesn't really seem THAT bothered. If she was, why does she wait until the last minute to try to get help?
The movie concept is that this is a real couple, not actors. This REALLY happened to them. It's creepy, I admit but, at times, it's just plain silly. As soon as I found out it wasn't just an ordinary haunting, I felt like the movie was ruined. I suppose they were trying to build the movie using classic structure- build up, action...climax. Except, I think it would have been more effective if you never found out what it was, it would have been more realistic if they made it more 'real life' and less "we're gonna scare the crap out of you." I don't know about you but there are often little moments when I've been in a house, apartment, wherever and I notice a door open that i don't remember opening or a light on that I don't remember turning on. Given my overactive imagination, that's enough to give me the creeps. I don't need some silly explanation or some major drama, a good old 'real' ghost is enough.
I'm trying not to spoil the movie in case you want to see it. I could comment about the silliness of the footsteps, for example or the Ouija board scene. I will say that, at one point, the girlfriend says, "it's no good! It can do whatever it wants!" or something to that effect. It does seem that the paranormal activity CAN do what it wants. The thing I wanted to know is WHY was it doing what it was doing? If what it wanted was what happened at the end of the movie, why the heck didn't it just do it in the beginning? What on earth did it gain from what it did?
I suppose, as I said with the zombies in an earlier post, I like to know why something does what it does. I just like my creepy creatures and phenomenons to have a purpose. Even if it had been to drive the annoying girl and her annoying boyfriend crazy, that would have been enough but, alas, we don't even know that much.
Anyway, aside from that, I spent the weekend carving my annual pumpkins and watching "Harry Potter," because that's what you do when you carve...you watch "Harry Potter." I did three this year since I found three different sizes and decided I needed a pumpkin family. I have a daddy who has a moustache, a mummy who's a vampire and the baby who has his dad's eyes but his mother's fangs. It was fun to carve them.
The rest of my weekend was pretty uneventful. Sometimes they're the best ones. I did, once again, secretly hope that something would happen and they'd have to close the office today but, alas, that did not happen. I do, however, live in hope and hope is positive and I'm trying to be positive. So, it all works out rather nicely. At least...in my head.
Happy Monday!
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