Building a Haunted House: 5 Things I’ve Observed While Being a Visitor

It’s a HUGE dream of my wife and I’s to own and operate a haunted house someday. I’m a lover of all things horror/creepy/Halloween, and this would be the culmination of my fascination. The other day, I went to a local haunted attraction based in a mall. On the drive home, my wife and I discussed a few things we need to keep in mind when we do end up building one:

 1. Remember the ratio of time spent in one room to the number of props. 

Sometimes haunted houses are over too quickly, and that leaves the visitor with a feeling of poor value for the money they paid. The haunt I visited the other day had a classic “meat butcher” room, and the props amazed me. This room was FILLED to the brim with arms and legs and heads and other fun Halloween props. But, we were pushed through the room within a period of about 5 seconds. 

There was hardly any time to admire any of the props. Meanwhile, the haunt was VERY short (although they had a lot of unused space to work with). I realized that they could have taken 1/4^th of the props from the butcher room and hung them from ropes and make you walk through them or something. Spread out all of those props you’ve invested in! People want to see them!

hit the jump for more!

The Spiny Blue Shell of Mario Kart: An In-Depth Discussion on Why It Sucks and How to Fix It

We all know that the spiny shell weapon in Mario Kart is the cheapest load of crap ever, but I’ve never seen an article articulating exactly why it is so unbalanced and unfair. So, I sought to correct that gap (much like the spiny shell tries to correct the 1st position gap).

As with any weapon in the game, there is an attacker and a target. In the case of the blue shell, the attacker is usually one of the last positioned racers and the target is always the 1st position racer. This is half the reason why the blue shell sucks.

Look at it from the perspective of the attacker: If you’re way behind, you want a weapon that will put you ahead. Your direct rivals must be taken out or bypassed before you can even think about going for the leaders. So if you’re in 7th place, who are currently your biggest rivals? 6th and 5th place. Who do you target when you fire a blue shell? The guy in way up in 1st place.

If you’re like me, you shoot the blue shell immediately to make room in your inventory for something more useful (is there any sense in holding on to it?). The 1st place kart that you’ve just taken out will surely be up-and-running again before you get close to catching up with him, and, even if you do catch up, whoever was in second place just took over as the new first place.

Some help.

hit the jump for more

Should I buy Animal Crossing?

I will answer that question in the end. For now, I will ask another: Is Animal Crossing obsolete? Is there a better game with similar game mechanics?

Yes, Minecraft.

Hear me out. Minecraft has caused Animal Crossing to become obsolete.

Why?

On the surface, these two games seem like they are very different. However, that’s not the case. There’s no real purpose to Animal Crossing, and, you know what? There’s no real purpose to Minecraft.

They both put you out there with nothing in your pockets and no goals more intricate than simply: gather stuff. They both allow you to do as you wish. You can choose where you want to go and how you want to spend your time. You can move into a house, upgrade it, add stuff to it, and live out a virtual life.

But Minecraft does everything better. Hit the jump for the full article!

A Concept for a New Star Trek Series

I love finding out that the bad guys are not so bad.

I have been thinking about what a new Star Trek TV show series would have to do to be “fresh” without falling too far from what makes the show so great. What I came up with would be a show where the viewer would get to know two very different spaceships.

Here’s the basic concept: A seemingly independent group of “evil” space marauders steals some sort of important object from Earth, and a new starship has been commissioned and a new captain appointed to pursue the marauders, return the object, and see that justice is served.

The object might be any number of things; perhaps it is a key rock that is used to generate enough energy for Earth’s replicators. Maybe the object is a living person; maybe the daughter of the Federation President was taken. A new weapon or technology? Who knows? The object must be interesting enough to survive seven seasons, and it must be important enough to send an entire ship after it.

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