I’m writing a book with former Disney Imagineer Rolly Crump called “It’s Kind Of A Cute Story…”. It’s set to be released in summer 2012.

We just opened the website for it, so please check it out at www.itskindofacutestory.com

I’m currently moving my two columns over to MiceChat.com.

So, if you were reading them and were confused as to where I went, head over there to find me at my new home!

I updated the links on the side of this page, and on the links page itself to where you can find me on the web.

I’m now writing for DisneyDispatch.com, two columns every week. On Wednesdays, I write ‘From The Mouth Of The Mouse,’ I interview past and present Cast Members & Imagineers. On Fridays, I write ‘The 626,’ I write about random musings, behind the scenes stories, and the history of Disney in general. Go check them out if you enjoy Disney!

I’m fairly certain at this point that my house is haunted.

I’m not joking. And no, I didn’t just see “Paranormal Activity,” even though I do want to.

No, this stems from years and years of experiences that I brushed off as nothing, but last night clenched it for me. My house is haunted.

Every year, around this time, my parents and brother go away on vacation. I don’t mind either, since a quiet, empty house for a week is usually an awesome birthday gift. I love it. It’s been going on for about 7 years now, and it’s seriously the best birthday gift ever, every year.

In any event, we’ve been in this house for about 12 years. We are the original owners. We bought it when the entire development was being built, so we’re the only people to ever live here. Before the houses went up, it was just woods for miles and miles.

When we first moved in, before the sod went down, everything around was dirt. Being a young kid, I used to go digging all over the development for treasure. I used to find a lot of old Indian arrowheads, and had a pretty decent collection for awhile. That first year of living there, a friend of mine was playing with an Ouija board in my room when we heard a horse neigh outside…it was the weirdest thing. We ran outside, and found hooves prints in the mud. Now, this is going back a few years, so my memory of that may be a bit hazy, but I’m pretty sure it happened that way.

Anyway, the last few years, the light in my kitchen has been turning itself on and off. We chalk it up to electrical problems. It’s one of those light/fan combos that comes with a remote control to turn it on and off. The light switch on the wall controls the power going to it, so if you flip the switch, there’s no power, and therefore no light.

Last Saturday, I had some people over. It was Halloween. Around 10ish, the light turned itself off. We all had a good laugh, “Haha, the ghosts are here.” Yadda yadda yadda. And that was that.

Last night, I’m lying in bed watching a movie when I look down the hall and happen to notice that the light turned itself on. Again, I chalk it up to electrical problems, head down the stairs, turn it off via remote, and then flip the switch so it’ll stay off for the night. Problem solved, time for bed.

Around 2 am, my dog starts barking his head off, and wakes me up from my slumber. Thinking he has to go out, I get out of bed and start to head downstairs. About halfway down the stairs, I notice that the light is on again.

Okay, I think, maybe I just forgot to flip the switch like I thought. No biggie. So I let the dog outside, flip the switch, and I’m ready to crawl back into bed.

And then the light turns itself on again. And then off. And then on. And then off.

Now I’m freaked out. I quickly let the dog back in, and start to make my way to the stairs. I have to pass through the living room to get back up to my room. And as I do, the lamp in the living room turns itself on. And off. And on. And off.

Now I’m freaking the hell out. I run up the stairs, toward my room. The hallway light, right outside my room, turns itself on now. And off. And on. And off.

I’m scared out of my mind at this point. I jump into my bed, and throw the covers over me like a seven year old girl. And that’s how I stayed. The rest of the night.

I didn’t get anymore sleep.

And no, I definitely was NOT dreaming this ordeal. I was wide awake.

Now, don’t get me wrong…I used to go ghost hunting a lot. When something strange happened, I was never scared, because it was cool. But when stuff like that happens in your own house, in the middle of the night, and you HAVE to stay…that’s scary.

So, yeah. I think my house is haunted. It’s a little too convenient for the lights to be following me up to my room for it to be electrical problems.

I’m going to do a little research, see if I can find anything about the woods here before we moved in.
Why it waited 12 years to start getting freaky, I have no idea. But it makes for an interesting story, no?

More as I learn it….

It shouldn’t have happened the way it did. I mean, we didn’t want to kill Brian Keene. It just so happened that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Brian was a nice enough guy once you got to know him. Beneath that cold, hard exterior of a mid-list horror author bitter because none of his other books made it bigger then The Rising hid a pretty cool guy…as long as you got him drunk enough. And we all liked him well enough, so it came as quite a surprise that it went down that way.

The book signing started like any other. Keene, the king of the castle, sat behind a mountain of his paperbacks, dispensing words of wisdom on the title pages for a long line of rabid fans. His trusty sidekick and bodyguard, Big Joe, stood watch behind him. Despite his size and stature, Big Joe easily blended into the background, lying in wait for his services to be used against any fan who got too crazy.

Being as how it was book signing in Pennsylvania, the usual gang of FUKU message board members were there. They were scattered throughout the store, turning Keene’s book covers face out, or crowding up the front of Keene’s table so other people get through.

That’s the way it remained for awhile, until the inevitable question was asked that comes up at every appearance.

“Hey Brian, what was up with the ending to The Rising?”

It never matters who asks it…it’s usually just some rabid fan boy making a snide remark, or a FUKU member being a smart ass. It’s almost like a game we play: Who is going to ask Keene at THIS signing? We’ve all done it before, so we’re all guilty.

Keene usually responds with a forced smile, and a nod of his head, explaining how it was his intent to leave the ending up to the reader, allowing them to draw their own conclusions.

But this time, it was different.

This time, Keene exploded.

His face turned  a bright shade of red while his body started to tremble. He gripped the pen in his hand so tightly that it broke and spilled black ink all over someone’s limited edition No Rest For The Wicked. The table he sat behind started to shake violently. Paperbacks fell off, causing a sort of mid-list horror avalanche on the folks standing in front of it.

The moment steam started to come from behind his eyes, people began to duck for cover. His shaking became more intense, affecting the rest of the store as well. It sounded as if an earthquake was taking place.

With one last breath, Keene looked at the person who asked, with eyes filled with fire, and yelled at the top of his lungs.

“I. FUCKING. HATE. ZOMBIES!”

And then, he exploded. Literally.

Tiny bits of Keene covered the store. Everything from supernatural romance to children’s literature now had a touch of Keene on it.

Everyone stood in the shocked stillness for a minute or two until one lone voice in the crowd broke the silence.

“That…was fuckawesome.”

Everyone leaving the store that day would take a little bit of Keene home with them. Some of those pieces you can even find on eBay nowadays. Big Joe himself is said to be living a life of luxury from all the Keene bits he collected and sold to fanatical collectors.

No one really knows what kind of internal combustion caused him to detonate into a million pieces. Perhaps it was just years of pent up frustration from that question, finally coming to a head at that exact moment in time. Maybe it was something else. The world will never know…

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Today is Brian Keene Must Die day. Brian will be killed in dozens of horrifying ways in blogs across the blogosphere for a very good cause. I decided to join in, because what the hell, it’s my birthday, and what a good birthday present this is! If you enjoyed this entry, or any of the others (which can be found here), please consider making a donation to the Shirley Jackson Awards.

I’d just like to mention that I love my friends. All of them.

Be them old, new, young, old…every single one of them, I love. And it’s weekends like this that make me realize why I do.

A few months ago, my good friend Matt asked me if I wanted to go to HorrorFind. I’ve been to plenty of horror conventions before, but usually just on Saturday, when all the “cool” stuff happens. Matt is in the camp of all or nothing, and he gets hardcore about his conventions. He goes for the entire weekend and makes a mini vacation out of it.

I was up in the air about it for awhile, up until “The Incident” happened. It happened a few months before HorrorFind, but it was a turning point for me, and it was a catalyst to my deciding to go the whole weekend.

And boy, am I happy I did.

The entire weekend was a whirlwind of fun and adventure, and I really don’t even have the words to explain it. So…please allow me to list things in a semi-stream of consciousness paragraph format, to try to give you some picture of the weekend that was had…

I left work around 2ish on Friday afternoon because I wanted to get there around 5. I was making excellent time, until I realized how badly Delaware and Baltimore rush hour traffic sucked. And it did suck. A lot. I literally sat in the same spot, which was 10 miles from the hotel, for almost an hour. But I still managed to get there on time, and didn’t kill any body along the way.

The first thing I did when I arrived was hit the celebrity room with Matt. It was pretty empty, still being a Friday afternoon, so we chatted with Ed Lee for a bit. Lombardo had a fangasm when he met Lee, so Matt and I decided to give him his privacy.

We eventually made our way down to Bob Ford’s reading. We missed the very beginning, but from what we heard, it was an awesome story.

We got down to the dealer’s room and managed to spend some money, which is the norm. I only took a little bit of money with me for the entire weekend so I wouldn’t go nuts, but I knew most of my cash would be spent on useless things that I absolutely need to own.

We all hit up the hotel’s bar that night. There were about 15 of us, so we pretty much took over the “last supper” table, as we called it. While drinking much with friends old and new, Drunken Tentacle added a new member AND officially gained its first official project. We’re all very excited by that (but more on that later…).

When it started to get let, we made our way back to the room. Apparently, putting myself, Matt, Lombardo, and The Qwee in the same room equals mayhem. Lots and lots of mayhem. We must have been up until all hours of the night just talking and laughing with each other. I love those guys.

Saturday was a big day all around. We pretty much bummed around every where the whole time, and did our own thing. I managed to spend MOST of my money on some cool swag (DVDs, patches, and Sweetums!) before the day wore down. The costume contest was that night, and we went out to support Lombardo in his “I skinned a girl’s face and am now wearing it and her clothing” costume. I swear, more girls hit on him at the bar that night then anytime else in his entire life.

After the contest was another night spent with our friends, drinking until the early hours of the morning and having a major geek out session with Alethea. Matt passed out early (“You know what they say…early to bitch out, early to rise!”), and then we slowly lost The Qwee and Lombardo to sleep’s warm embrace.

I wound up hanging around outside until about 4:30 in the morning with Alethea, Bob, Kelli, and the one and only Ron Dickie. I love them, we had an awesome night.

The entire weekend was pretty much a whirlwind, and there is no way I could even find the words to sum it up adequately. It was fantastic and wonderful, and I am sitting here now, very much wishing it was HorrorFind weekend all over again. The pictures and videos will remind me of the good times, but it’ll never replace the sheer awesomeness of the entire weekend. Hell, even experiencing “The Tuck” made the weekend worth it.

I miss you guys already. Can’t wait for next year!

It’s been two weeks since “The Incident.”

I think I finally started to come out from underneath the rock I crawled under and to see the light at the end of the tunnel again. I thought writing about it would have been easy, but apparently I was mistaken. Every time I sat down to write, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, for whatever reason.

So, allow me to backtrack a bit, and start with something that I truly believe: My friends are incredible.

I’m always the one to be there for everyone, smile on my face, listening to their stories and giving them the kind words they need to hear. I never, ever need to be on the receiving end of that.

But this time I did, and they returned the favor in spades. The day of “The Incident,” I called Josh and Heather. I’ve known both of them for damn near most of my life, and I consider them family. It was actually Heather’s birthday, and I completely forgot about it. As I was wishing her a happy birthday, I broke down. Her words of support were amazing to me.

They were on their way to a Billy Joel concert, one I knew they were looking forward to for weeks (because we all love Billy). It was the birthday present she wanted the most, and they were going to have a blast.

Twenty minutes later, after hanging up with them, they call me back. It was Josh. He says “Pack a bag…you’re spending the night. We’re coming to get you in 10 minutes.”

And I was floored. They were giving up a night of fun and Billy Joel and birthday bash-ing to be my support system. I didn’t ask them too and I didn’t want them too…but they were doing it none the less.

So that brings me back to how my friends are incredible. That was just the start of it. The past two weeks they have done absolutely everything they could to bring me back to my old self. From dinner parties at Abby’s, boardwalk visits with Martina & Alex, or just hitting golf balls at Mr. BS’s with Josh and Dave…every single one of my friends came to my rescue.

Am I over it? No, of course not. Am I feeling better? Absolutely. I really don’t think I could have made it through this mess without my friends by my side. They mean the world to me and they really are my everything.

So thank you, guys, for being the best god damn friends a person could have.

Welcome to The Hub, as I’m going to call it. I realize that there are a lot of sites out there that I manage, am apart of, and do things for. I thought it might be easier to have central website to collectively manage and control all of my comings and goings on the Internet, hence the name “The Hub.”

Aside from that, I need to start writing again. Things have been going down lately, and I feel the urge to write to really get them out of my head and into words. So, this will be a blog as well for me to collect my thoughts. I promise to be as truthful as possible, as I know I have the tendency to sugar coat things in some ways, so I’ll do my best to steer away from that.

So, if you’re reading this…welcome. And talk to you soon.