Miss Me?

I just checked my blog and noticed that I am writing this just 2 days away from a full month's absence.

Sorry about that.

But I've been busy! :D

First up, we -- Texas Spirits Paranormal Investigations (TSPI) -- just wrapped-up the longest investigation I have been on so far... AND... it was my first case as lead investigator!

Can I just say that having the title "lead investigator" really doesn't add anything to the experience, except a little bit of stress? lol ;P I mean, in all honesty, investigation is a group-thang. I had tons of possible EVPs that were voted down as evidence (because there simply wasn't a way to guarantee that they weren't the result of contamination, not for any other reason -- just not good "evidence"), so it's not as thought the lead investigator has any extra say, lol.

Nor should he/she!

Evidence is evidence, and something that can be explained away simply isn't proof of the paranormal. There really isn't in wriggle room there.

But my point is that I have heard of other groups of investigators (not naming any names, mind you) who cat-fight and back-stab over their titles within the group, and I simply do not get it. The work is the work, and if your title is "investigator-in-training" your contribution is every bit as valuable as the lead investigator's.

In fact, this case spanned 2 investigations, and we had a few members who made the 2nd investigation and not the first... Their work was every bit as valuable as those of us who were there from the start.

When you're looking for the Truth, title means nothing.

You can quote me on that.

No, please. Quote me on that. I want that to become a saying. "You know, it's like Ray Jay Edwards says: 'When you're looking for the Truth, title means nothing.'"

Say it as often as you can. I'm hoping to become famous off that line.

So anyway...

I spent a few weekends solely working on the case, then a weekend sick (it was the most demented thing: I'm fine during the work week, then I'm off, and suddenly I can't get out of bed, except to grab another roll of TP to blow my nose with, then I'm fine in time to go back to work, lol), but THIS weekend I got to watch a whole lot of movies and catch up with my li'l bro!!!

Let's see, I watched Couples Retreat, Jennifer's Body, Zombieland, The Wedding Crashers and Grandma's Boy. QUITE a weekend!!! :D

And so well deserved, if I may say so myself! (And I may... It's my blog.)

OH!!!

AND I may have discovered my BEST EVP yet!!! :D It's Class A, perfectly clear and you don't need headphones to hear it! It's a woman's voice saying "Hello?" and then laughing. But I and 2 other investigators went over audio and the video, and we confirmed that the only people in the house and audible at the moment of the recording were myself and another man!!!

THAT is why I do the paranormal-thang!!!

It's cool, too, because it's not the least bit threatening or scary! I mean, the spooky ones are cool in that Goth, Halloween-y kind of way. But the non-spooky nature of this EVP is cool to me because it sort of illustrates the nature of the paranormal as I see it -- It's just stuff happening, stuff that is "odd" because we understand it, but not necessarily odd or scary in nature! :D

Oh, then jumping back to the superficial, entertainment aspect of my life, I am listening to the unabridged audiobook version of Heat Wave by Richard Castle.

Have I mentioned that I'm a nerd?

I love Nathan Fillion and all that he does, in principal, but I am so into Castle on ABC, because it is a very cleverly-written Mystery series with Whedon-esque/Sorkin-like banter between Fillion's character and the uber-hot Stana Katic's character!!! (If you haven't seen The Spirit, run right out and rent it NOW!!! You won't believe how versatile Katic is!!! She is so super-cute as the cop in The Spirit, versus her badass character in Castle!!!)

I know, I've blogged about Castle before, and I even have a link to the show on Hulu attached to this blog. But I'm a huge fan of the show!

And that lead me to buy Castle's audiobook, and I'm listening to it now. (Well... not right now, as I am writing to you right now...)

It's fun because the ghostwriter who wrote the novel has found a way to make the novel very much like an episode of the show! It's brilliant! It's as though the Writers' Room for the show gather around and figure out an alternate-universe episode that would be too expensive to shoot, so they made it a Rick Castle novel! :)

I did no research going in, so I seriously expected this to read like a Mystery novel, with no tie to the show at all. But as I'm listening to what they've done, I'm please to discover that Castle wrote himself into the story, creating that fun back-and-forth that he and Det. Beckett share on the TV show! It makes the novel not just a tie-in intended to make some money off the popularity of the show, but a sort of extension of the show itself!

It's kind of funny, because in the world of Castle, Castle isn't that original an author, lol. I'm working on a story about a group of paranormal investigators, and I am using more imagination to distance any real people/cases from my fictitious universe than Castle appears to be using. But then, Castle has sold 26 bestsellers, so you have to figure that maybe he doesn't have the energy he had when he wrote his first 5 bestsellers, and so maybe now he actually is plucking more from "real life" than he might have when he was young. And, really, a lot of what keep him on the Best Seller list, at this point, is his name: People know they're going to enjoy a great read, so they buy his books as soon as they come out. He doesn't have to prove himself anymore: The name recognition is enough to generate the buzz to push the sales into the millions with each book.

And the part of this that is most funny is the fact that I would not have considered any of this if I hadn't been reading a "Richard Castle" novel!!! :D The release of the novel and the design of the novel actually buried me deeper into the "reality" of the TV show!!! :D

I've heard of show where you could get text messages from the characters, but I think releasing a novel "written" by the novelist main character may be a STROKE OF GENIUS!!! Because when we read the work of our favorite author, we read so much into the fiction! We search for the real-world truth that may exist beneath the fiction. (I know I do it with Stephen King all the time.) So releasing a fictitious author's book naturally seems to cause us to give that author more "life" than 20 season of a TV series could do.

It's very cool!

Anyway, it's my last day off. I'm airing the Olympics at work, and it takes a lot of my mental energy to deal with (since it's a live event, I have to pay attention the whole time for our local commercial breaks) so I'm gonna get back to my Castle novel and maybe play some more Tomb Raider while I'm listening.

I hope you have a GREAT WEEK!!! :D