My top 10 favorite horror movies.

I already talked about how the horror genre seldom has anything original to offer these days, but I am still usually entertained by them. Being October I'll keep on the horror track and give you guys my top 10 picks for favorite horror movies.

The Faculty (1998) Honorable Mention

You know those paper cutters with the giant blades? Well this movie has the distinction of having one of those being used as a weapon. It's got an Invasion of the Bodysnatchers style theme where aliens are taking over the teachers and students. While not original, the plot is pretty entertaining, if dumb at times, but I still liked it. Kind of cheesy though so that's why it didn't quite make the list.

Rosemary's baby (1968) #10

Don't read any reviews or even, if I remember right the back of the box before you watch it. Because they spoil the last 20 minutes of the movie right off the bat. Anyway, the non spoiler version is that Rosemary gets pregnant, but begins to suspect her next door neighbors and even her husband are witches that want to kill her baby. They wont let her see any doctor, but their own and so she has to defend herself and her unborn child while making sure everyone doesn't think she's some kind of psycho. There is hardly any action or special effects, and the pacing is really slow, but that's how movies were back in the day. It also makes it really interesting. They were going to make a modern remake, but thankfully it got scrapped. Of all the movies on the list this one is by far the most bizarre. It's an oldie but goodie.

The Skeleton Key (2005) #9

A prime example of not having to reuse the same tired old plots in every horror movie. On the surface The Skeleton Key seems to be just another haunted house movie, but it transcends that and ends up being pretty unique. It's about a home healthcare nurse who moves into a creepy old house in the south to be an old man's caretaker. She is told never to go into the attic and soon finds out why. Once again, this movie is not overly scary, but is an enjoyable watch and brings in some new themes.

Rec (2007) #8

There was an American remake of this called Quarantine that I haven't seen so I can't comment on if it's any good or not, but this is the original version and it's pretty freaking awesome. It's in Spanish so if you don't speak it you'll have to find a subtitled version, but it follows a reporter in Spain who is giving a report on firefighters and what they do in the middle of the night. The firemen get a call and so she accompanies them into the building which quickly gets quarantined off and no one can go in or out. It's shot in that shaky handycam style and pulls it off really well.

Poltergeist (1982) #7

This movie is a frigging classic. If you haven't seen it you owe it to yourself to pop it in. It stars Craig T Nelson and some little girl who died a year or two after filming. The family moves into a nice new subdivision and start experiencing all kinds of crazy paranormal activity every night. The movie manages to be funny while at the same time having some really creepy moments. The special effects are a little dated by today's standards, but they're still really well done. This is how a haunted house movie should be done.

The Descent (2005) #6

A group of adventure-junkie girls decide to go caving to help one of their friends get over a traumatic event that just happened to her. The one who plans everything picks an uncharted cave to explore, but tells her friends that it's just a regular old cave that tons of people have done before. They soon discover that others have been in the cave before, but none of them made it out alive. It has a really tense atmosphere and manages to draw you in from start to finish. It is pretty gory with lots of language though.

Alien- (1979) #5

I actually liked Aliens a bit more, but Aliens is much more of a Sci Fi/action movie with very little actual horror involved. Alien however has just one alien and instead of it being among a group of space marines it's there with a bunch of civilians to pick off the crew one by one. Really creepy and well done. The scene where the alien bursts through the guy's stomach in the cafeteria is one of the most famous and well known scenes in modern movie history. This movie is just awesome. Despite being made in the late 70's the special effects are really pretty good and it lacks those weird acid trip sequences that all of those 70's movies seem to have (I'm looking at you last 20 minutes of 2001: A Space Oddysey)

Wind Chill (2007) #4

Generally, not having a budget is a bad thing. Especially for horror movies. This movie is a big exception to the rule however. I had never even heard of it until I saw it for free on Netflix. Basically, it's Christmas break and so these two classmates drive back home together. The driver takes a shortcut on a disused logging road and ends up crashing into a snow drift. So they're sitting in the car in below zero temperatures only to find that something outside of the car desperately wants them dead. There's only like 10 actors in the whole movie, but it comes off as really believable.

El Orfanato (2007) #3

Another one of those Spanish horror movies. This one has a middle aged orphan who decides to buy the abandoned orphanage where she grew up so she can help out some other kids with special needs. She soon finds out that the orphanage has some pretty frightening secrets and is supposedly haunted. Not only that, but the ghosts have a special interest in her son. The cool thing about this movie is you're never quite sure if there really are ghosts or if everything has a much more practical explanation.

The Ring (2002) #2

Ok, so this one has me looking at it through nostalgia goggles. The reason it's so high on the list is it scared the crap out of me when I was in high school. I rewatched it a couple months ago and wasn't even phased, but back in the day this scared me for days. The premise is pretty simple. There's a videotape and if you watch it you will die in seven days. The scary part is you watch the tape along with the main character and some of the stuff that happens to her is really pretty scary. The monster is pretty freaking terrifying too.

John Carpenter's The Thing- (1982) #1

In the epitome of hypocrisy, the movie that actually tops my list is in itself a remake. How bout dem apples? There was a 1951 movie called The Thing from Another World that this movie supposedly redoes. I haven't seen the original, so I can't comment on its quality but the John Carpenter movie is fantastic. This is one of my all time favorite movies in any genre. It stands far above every other movie on this list and if you have not seen it I would highly recommend it.

It centers on an antarctic research crew who go to investigate after one of their sister bases stops all contact. They go and investigate and find everyone dead. What follows is the most intense suspense movie I've ever seen. They bring something back with them that kills people and takes their form. So you have these researchers who are completely cut off from any help and they have absolutely no idea who they can trust. Paranoia runs rampant and the acting is fantastic. I absolutely love this movie. Also the South Park episode where they try to figure out which of the schoolkids has lice is a tribute to this movie. If you haven't seen it do yourself a favor and pick it up. It isn't particularly scary by today's standards, but remains one of the most intense movies I have ever seen.

There's more good horror movies out there, that I either didn't mention or haven't seen but these are the ones that struck me the most. Check 'em out this October if you have extra time.

Why is it so hard to make a good horror movie?

I like movies quite a bit. The problem with movies is that you very rarely get anything original. Movies like to borrow from other movies all of the time. A little here and there is fine, but sometimes the movie can't stand on its own and so they recycle other people's good ideas over and over again. Nowhere is this practice more evident than in the horror movie.

Kurt Russell has stumbled upon the last good horror writer.

Now, I like horror movies. That is, at least I'm willing to give them a shot. Especially with Halloween coming up pretty soon. The major problem I have with horror movies is that almost every single one of them completely sucks. For pretty much any genre I'm interested in I can pick out a movie that looks cool and it will probably at least be passable. With horror movies finding a good one is like winning the lottery. I can honestly pretty much count the number of superb horror movies I've seen on one hand.

Samarra is counting on her hand too.

The main problem I can see is just how stupid or redundant some of the premises are. Who is the freaking idiot that keeps saying, "Hey, you know what's never been done before? Vampires, zombies, serial killers, ghosts, werewolves and Frankensteins. Let's make more of those!" Honestly, just stop it. Stop it right now!

Also, reading the first paragraph of a wikipedia article does not entitle you to use an existing monster and then make crap up about it. Oh, that monster? That was a succubus. They eat people to stay strong and can only be killed by a metal rod through the heart, I learned it at the occult section that our high school library has. Yeah, doesn't everyone remember the occult section? You know, the one at your high school that tells you exactly how to stop the exact demon you're dealing with? What, your high school didn't have that? (Yeah, Jennifer's Body and Drag me to Hell were both really retarded) Especially since succubi don't eat people, or need to be impaled *sigh.

Then you get your movies like Candyman. I mean really? The guy got stung to death by bees or something so he comes after you with a hook. Bees are not scary, and why the crap does that give him a hook? I mean, in real life if bees decided to swarm you it'd be scary, but watching someone else play with bees is not scary. At least it's more or less original, but bees? Come on.

Where is your originality? Even those campy B horror films from the '50's had that going for them. Sure Freddy is a cool villain, but do we really need a Nightmare on Elm Street 56? Or Friday the 13th part MMMCXCVII? Is it that hard to come out with a good scary idea that you feel the need to make yet another Final Destination movie? It honestly makes me sick just how unimaginative these people must be. Just because Poltergeist was a sweet movie does not mean you need a Poltergeist 2!

Don't worry. In the sequel your character doesn't exist.

Then there's the guy who decides that random Japanese movie X about a pale asian girl with hair over her face was really scary and so he decides to remake it for Americans. Yeah it was really scary. In the first movie I saw it in.

There's also the trademark jump shot. What is the director thinking? "Maybe if we play really ominous music and put the camera at an awkward angle the audience wont suspect anything." Yeah, because I haven't seen this exact same thing 50 times before. Oh hey there's no one there, Let me just turn my back and AAAAAAHHHHH! a monster! I totally didn't see that coming, just like I didn't see it coming in the 50,000 other movies that did it.

Lastly there's the torture/gore horror movies. All I can say is you people are sick. Gore is only scary if it's done right i.e. Dead Space. Otherwise it's just another special effect that looks really dated and stupid in 10 years.

The bottom line is there's nothing wrong with originality. Those overdone franchises were popular in the first place because they were original. Your film tanked at the box office because it was not original. We need groundbreaking new concept movies like Silence of the Lambs. Not Hannibal vs. Clareese vs. Alien vs. Freddy vs. Mike Myers in the outer space indian burial ground: part IV. Also, did you know that you can only kill a North Korean Banshee with a bamboo stick sharpened in South Korea? I learned it in the occult travel section of my college library.

Back in my day...

When I was a little kid we hadn't quite hit that anime phase that seems to plague most action oriented cartoons that come out these days. Sure, some of them are good, but most are either complete trash, or take 50 episodes for anything to happen. Anyway, I didn't see any of those kind of shows until late junior high school.

I also grew up after most of the really cheesy 80's cartoons were over and done with. Although those are still pretty awesome, notwithstanding how campy they are. When you're a little kid you'll basically watch anything that's on as long as it's animated. Why did I watch Captain Planet occasionally? It certainly wasn't because I liked it, it was because there was absolutely nothing else on in its timeslot. There were a lot of terrible shows like that in the early 90's. And if I didn't have anything else to do I'd watch them if nothing else was on. However, if there was anything even remotely entertaining anywhere else Captain Planet and co took a back seat to it. That being said, there were some cartoons that were just so freaking awesome that you would drop whatever else you were doing and just be entertained for an entire half hour. For me there were two, right after elementary school. Animaniacs and...

Batman: The Animated Series. This show was so frigging awesome that it does not even have a title sequence. Yeah, that's right. Never anywhere does it ever show the title. All you see is Batman kicking the crap out of two bank robbers and then standing there lit up by lightning, I think one of the reasons I liked this show so much was the animation style. Since Batman is the dark knight and always works after the sun goes down it makes sense to portray everything as dark and gloomy. The way they did this was by drawing everything over a black background instead of a white one. Then they went way back to the Superman cartoons from the 1940's. All the cartoons from that era had a really blocky look to them. The animators brought that look over and the result is a very unique and awesome cartoon show with a running retro theme throughout. Couple that with some sweet voice acting (Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill) music by Danny Elfman, and an awesome rogues gallery (TAS introduced Harlene Quinzell, Joker's psychiatrist who broke him out of Arkham Asylum and adopted the name Harley Quinn.) and you have an amazing series.
The series was my first real exposure to Batman and is probably the reason he's my favorite superhero to this day. There wasn't really a Superman cartoon around. The Ironman cartoon sucked. So did the Fantastic Four, Hulk and probably many others that were so crappy I didn't watch them. Some of them were good like X-men and Spiderman, but with those you'd occasionally have the crappy episodes and have to watch a 16 part episode where Cyclops goes into space for some reason, or Spidey has to rescue Mary Jane for the 4,000th time. That's not to say that Batman TAS doesn't have a bad episode or two, (I'm looking at you Catwoman episodes) but for the most part they're awesome.

Let's take Temple Fugate for example. Temple appears in one episode. He is obsessed with punctuality and is riding the train one day with the mayor. He tells the mayor that his clock company is being sued for 22 million dollars and how stressed he is about it. The mayor tells him to relax and to take a little time off. He asks when Temple takes his coffee break. Temple tells him at 3:00 on the dot and the mayor tells him to take it at 3:15 and shake things up a bit. This of course makes him late for his court appointment and he loses the case bankrupting the company.

He then becomes the Clock King and holds an elaborate scheme several years later to ruin the mayor's re-election campaign. This includes messing up the train schedules, locking Batman in a bank vault and tying the mayor to the hour hand of the Gotham City clock tower so that at exactly 3:15 he will be crushed by the minute hand just like Temple Fugate was crushed by that 3:15 coffee break so many years ago.

Now that is awesome! Not to mention that's just one episode with a really obscure villain. They need to bring shows like this back. Sure Spongebob is funny and well written, but he's got nothing on Clayface.

modurn intrnetz grammur & u.

Remember those riveting days of secondary school education where we all learned the exciting nuances of grammar and syntax? Well due to the combined miracles of the internet and it's ready accesibility to overweight illiterate hambeasts all of that is now happily obsolete. Gone are the stressful days of spelling, and predicates and nominatives. They've all been replaced by exciting new better trends!

Oh, Herro! So sorry! Can I herp you a wiff your grammar prease?

This poor child does not have regular internet access. He learns his grammar from outdated textbooks and periodicals.

Back before the internet our forefathers used such archaic linguistic phenomena such as, apostrophes and capitilization. Not to mention complex words like ignominious and inalienable. Seriously though, who has time to write out ignominious in this day and age?

Thankfully the internet has obviated the need for any sort of grammatical convention. So, without further ado, I present the revised handbook of internet grammar and syntax.

Rule 1: Their, there, and they're, as well as your, ur and you're are now completely interchangable.

Ex:Ur sure that there friends are over they're next to youre's?

Rule 2: Bulky worthless objects like a thesaurus are thoroughly antiquated and are to be replaced with repetitive 3-4 letter abbreviations and emoticons.

Ex: Omg, Lol ur webcomic is so funny :P

Lol, thx I try. :)

Omg, your like really talented. :-o

Omg thx lol. ;)

lol :~)

rofl :^o

lol o_o

Rule 3: Grammatical rules dictate that anyone commenting on the internet follow a strict and concise formula. Every Youtube comment ever created follows this incredibly complex grammatical algorithm.

Ex: XXASHKETCHUMXX: First!!!!!!! -56

#1Slipknotfan2: ur an idoit +4

Adbotindisguise: Lol, check out my music channel. -1

Narutofan24924823: First! -30

Rule 4: Proper nouns and capitilization rules are too complex to consistently remember. With the advent of the internet capitalization is carried out at random as it should be.

Ex: PupPIYS: noob. goku-san could totally TaKE out yu-GI-Oh in like 2 SECONDS wIth HiS SupEr SaiYAN!

ALlYOu'rebAse: NO WAY! YU-GI WOULD TOTALLY JUST PLAY A TRAP CARD AND BE LIKE HAHAHA GOKU-SAN I PLAY DARK MAGICIAN GIRL.

PupPIYS: WhaTEver U don'T KnoW YouR StUpid.

Rule 5: It is perfectly acceptable to change the spelling of a word if you wish to substitute the correct spelling with an adjacent keyboard key.

Ex: Moar, teh, pwn, stupud, idoit, etc.

Above all, to garner respect on the internet you must tenaciously follow these guidelines, and keeping in mind the golden rule.

Golden rule: Effort makes you unfit for the internet. People are much more likely to read 1 giant 4 page, run on sentence with no paragraphing than they are to read something that you've proofread. Also, it, never, hurts, to, add random commas, commas, are just, awesome, and are always, correct grammar,,,,.

Cakey please!

What do you get when you combine capture the flag, Team Fortress and high calorie cake fests? Fat Princess. Fat Princess is a PSN game in which the red and blue teams try to rescue their princess from the enemy castle, while keeping the opposing team's princess locked up in their dungeon.

Your job as a loyal subject is to free the princess. There are several obstacles in your way however. The first and foremost being the 16 players on the other team who will do everything they can to keep you from rescuing the princess. Since she likes cake so much you can feed it to her and she will eventually become quite massive making it much harder to get her anywhere. You can always grab a few buddies to help you carry her home, or lob her into your castle with the other team's catapult, but that's much easier said than done.

Each person starts out as a villager. A weak little peon that slaps people and has little health, but he's really fast. Your base however, is full of upgradable hat machines. Sick of being a villager throw on a hat and become a warrior with a sword and shield. Not your cup of tea? There's also an archer, mage, worker, and priest each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The worker has the ability to harvest resources and upgrade the hat machines. Once upgraded each hat machine gives the base a specific advantage. Archers suddenly have muskets and flaming arrows, mages can freeze and throw chicken potions, workers chuck bombs etc.

To assist you in breaching the enemy castle the worker can also build siege equipment, such as catapults, springboards and ladders helping you to get that princess. There's other modes too like soccer, capturing outposts, and good old fashioned team deathmatch, but the meat of the game is in Rescue the Princess.

Take this, add a good helping of cartoon gore and you're on your way to a strangely addictive game. You are playing online though, so while most of your games are really awesome you will occasionally have those games when 7 other people on your team rush past you, completely ignoring the shortcut that goes right into the enemy base that you're standing by, only to die at the castle gates leaving you to take the shortcut and rescue the princess alone. Or that one guy who keeps harvesting wood the entire match even though you'll never need more than 20 wood, much less 85, so there's been absolutely no point to it for the past 25 minutes. I wonder if Kevin Hale plays this game? It's glitchy, frustrating, and sometimes the games take forever, but it's awesome. As the game says, "The cake is not a lie."

Hiking: Mt Olympus

Mt. Olympus

Location: Mt Olympus trailhead off Wasatch Boulevard near 4700 south

Distance to summit: 3.2 miles

Perceived Exertion Level: 82/100

Scenery: 3 1/2 stars

Olympus is a trail I've always wanted to do. I lived right next to it growing up, but until recently I never did anything about it. I tried hiking it in July during the middle of the day, when I'd given blood the day before and only made it 1/3 of the way up. My second try yielded better results however, and I came within a hundred feet of the summit. We came up a little short of the very top because we lost the trail and got semi stuck at a part way too steep to climb when it started to rain. We decided to head back instead of being on the 6 'o clock news.

There's a small parking lot at the base of the trailhead, and as soon as you start climbing you realize that the trail is pretty viciously steep. Thankfully it's only like this for 5 or 10 minutes. Eventually you'll pass a giant rock that overlooks Wasatch Boulevard and things flatten out a little bit.

After the rock you'll climb a set of gentle switchbacks which offer little protection from the sun, so if you go make sure you start relatively early in the morning or on a cloudy day, because there isn't much shade until you get higher up. Eventually at the top of this set of switchbacks you'll reach a stream.

The stream was almost dry on the August hike, but was deep enough for a couple of dogs to lie in when I hiked there in July. Regardless of its level it's shady and is always a good spot to stop and take a little rest before you go any further. We met an older couple here who told us that the stream is about 1/3 of the way up, which seems to be relatively accurate. Then they told us that the steepest part of the trail was behind us and that the rest isn't anything to worry about. So we got excited about the alleged near flatness of the upcoming trails only to discover that they blatantly lied and the trail became really steep again like it was at the very first.

At this point the trail has a habit of changing from dirt to these crazy looking sharp narrow rocks that jut out of the ground. While you're following the trail you enter into a canyon and the switchbacks stay relatively short, but they're really pretty steep. Eventually you'll enter the cover of brush and trees and the switchbacks disappear. Instead of them you have a really long straight trail that leads up to the saddle and gets even steeper than before.

Despite the overall steepness of the trail, on our hike it actually got pretty chilly up here. You're in the shade most of the time and are pretty high up. The trail is still really clear, albeit rocky, and eventually it will lead you to the saddle. From here you can get a good view of the surrounding mountains and of the Salt Lake Valley itself. If you're feeling adventurous you can make a left and head toward the summit. The hike to the top involves a fair amount of scrambling and is fairly easy as long as you stick to the trail. Unfortunately the trail is easily lost and as soon as you lose the trail the climbing becomes ten times more difficult. Of course we lost the trail and had to scramble up some really tall rocks on our way up to the top. Unfortunately near the summit we reached a part where we couldn't go up any higher because of the steepness of the rocks and we didn't know how to get back down to the trail. Eventually we made it back within sight of the trail, but with a lot of crabwalking, looking for ways around chasms, and climbing down some very steep, very tall rocks. After we got back to the trail we decided that we must have veered off toward the left at some point and lost the trail without realizing it. If you hike to the summit make sure you take a friend and that it isn't rainy or dark.

The view from that high is amazing though. You can see the entire Salt Lake Valley and even down into Provo, it's awesome! Also, since you're so close to the valley you should have cell phone reception for pretty much the entire hike. As always with mountains however, coming back down is a beast on your knees, hips, and ankles.

Top 5 cartoon villains to fix the economy.

Ok, the economy's in bad shape I'll admit it. It seems like it's going to take forever to get it back on track. It seems that a lot of people have just given up. Well, if there's one thing that cartoons have taught me it's that villains can turn even the most dire situations into something profitable and lucrative. Sure, they don't win very often, but they come back every time. Maybe the Penguin gets the crap kicked out of him by Batman every other month, but without fail every time he comes back he has a new henchmen army, a new hairbrained scheme to take over the city, and a new style of exploding umbrella.

It's that kind of tenacious ingenuity we need these days to get everything back on track. Some villains like the Shredder or the Joker may have the skills necessary, but they're a little bit too unbalanced. You'd tell them to fix the economy and they'd spend all the money on ninja commandos and high tech death theme parks. So, we'll ignore the extremely mentally unstable ones.

#5: Hoggish Greedly

You know your parents have it in for you when they name you Hoggish. I mean c'mon how sadistic do you have to be to name your newborn child after a barnyard animal? Well does Greedly let it get him down? Not at all. Not only does the guy build up a multinational evil empire, he somehow manages to completely circumvent any and every environmental law ever put into effect. If this guy wants to build an oil derrick he doesn't just do it the old fashioned way he builds a giant walking battle mech whose sole purpose is to drill for oil in the arctic. Pesky environmentalists in the way? Who cares? That thing has flamethrowers, rockets, giant claws and pollution cannons. And if anybody says anything bad about him the media will tear them apart because they're making fun of a poor old deformed pig man. Anyone who can afford to build one of these things every month knows how to manage their finances.

#4: Carmen SanDiego

You know what'd fix the national debt faster than anything? If somebody stole it. Leave it to the greatest kleptomaniacal supergenius of all time to get us out of this mess. How does she afford all those henchmen and helicopters. How does she steal the Mona Lisa, Big Ben, the top of Mount Everest and Stonehenge? Who knows? Without fail she can steal the most closely guarded items in the world and hide them away from the public eye. To top it all off she never gets caught, ever. Ponsy schemes and corporate embezzlement are child's play compared to the things she's done. All you need to do is sell the Great Wall back to China. Economic crisis? What economic crisis?

#3: Skeletor

Not only is this guy an evil genius with a rams-head death staff, but he's ripped. He's got his priorities down. I mean look at him. The guy is stuck on some backwards middle ages planet called Eternia and what does he do? Does he waste his time with bows and arrows, or catapults or other medieval technology? Not Skeletor, while everybody else is trying to fix their chariot he's building laser cages, doomsday robots, invisibility helmets and death lasers. Can you imagine what would happen if he got brought into the modern age? This guy would have an evil moon base within the week. Hey, if he can raise the cash to make all that crazy stuff during the Dark Ages just imagine what he could do for us now. Now if only he could capture that stupid Castle Grayskull so he could move onto more pressing problems like the economy.

#2: Cobra Commander

What's the most efficient way to spend a trillion dollars? Is it on national defense? Healthcare? Civic improvements? How about a giant weather control machine to control the world? Cobra isn't afraid to do what needs to be done. If he has to buy out an entire TV station to broadcast anti GI Joe propaganda then he'll do it. If he has to build laser planes and sink a fleet full of aircraft carriers then he's not afraid to go try. Cobra not only has his own super highly funded elite terror cell, but he's not afraid to go out and lead them himself when the time comes down to it. That's the kind of leadership skills the world needs right now. Cobra Commander isn't afraid to take charge and personally get things done. Even if he has to level entire cities with his weather control machine to do it. Too bad they're taking off his hood for the new movie. Heaven forbid a terrorist cell leader look like a racist jerk. Cobraaaaaaa aaaaattaaaaaack!

#1: David Xanatos

Now here's a villain who has it all. Charisma, fashion sense, billions of dollars, and super intelligence. He has more tv-tropes named after him than any other villain except Cthulhu. Including the infamous "Xanatos Gambit" where the good guys go out and take out some of the bad guys, but find out they were being manipulated all along and actually ended up helping the villain they were trying to destroy.

So, why is he perfect to fix our economy? Well for one his philosophy is, "Pay a man enough and he'll walk barefoot into hell." That and he took a $20,000 investment and turned it into his own evil genetics company, robotics company, and television network. He is a member of the Illuminati, knows Karate and Judo, and made an evil cyborg and clone version of himself. This guy is so rich that he had an ancient Scottish castle disassembled and airlifted to the top of his New York skyscraper and then rebuilt brick by brick just so he could see if the gargoyles would come alive at night. Then he used those gargoyles as templates to make a cyber gargoyle army and even made himself a gargoyle powersuit. He's everything you want in an evil mastermind and is even voiced by Jonathon Frakes. If he can't fix the economy then no one can.

Water water everywhere; nor any drop to drink.

When you're a little kid there's nothing better than playing outside in the summer. Of course eventually it gets really hot and you'll do anything to cool down. Whether it's grabbing the sprinklers at the school and spraying each other with them 'till you get sent to the Principal's office, or throwing a sprinkler under the trampoline and jumping through the water, summer inevitably involved getting wet. In quite possibly the most ninja-epic moment of my life, I was jumping on the tramp one day with Mike Call and a bunch of water balloons. I kicked one and it sailed toward him and exploded in mid air, getting him drenched, but leaving me perfectly dry. When he tried, all the balloons just burst on his foot. It was pretty much the most amazing achievement of my childhood career.

I grew up in what I would call the "water fight arms race." Back in the day all we had were some water balloons, those crappy one shot tube rifle things, and some of these crappy All a Dollar squirt guns that every kid seemed to have.

And then it happened. I don't know if it was a Christmas present, just something to get me out of the house, or something to celebrate the Gulf War, but one day I received one of these bad boys.

The Super Soaker 100. This thing was a beast. You had everything you wanted; range, high volume spray, and a huge reservoir of water so you could keep on fighting with fewer refills. This monster could drench you and just keep on going, it was fantastic. Suddenly the tables had turned and I could rock at every water fight. Little kids with their cheap All a Dollar water pistols got owned. I could even get a pretty good fight in when somebody inevitably picked up the hose. Sure they can try to spray you, but that hose only reaches so far and this super soaker had a long reach. Especially if you unscrewed the water tank and just poured it all over people.

However as cheap plastic pieces of crap tend to do mine eventually broke and I moved on to bigger and better squirt guns. One of mine had a backpack reservoir and another pressurized itself from the hose, and you didn't even need to pump it. It had two streams and shot so hard that people would scream and run if I hit them in the face. My other squirt guns were better, but nothing beats the nostalgia of that awesome plastic blue and puke yellow Super Soaker 100.

Hiking: Mt Timpanogos via Timpooneke trail.

Mt Timpanogos

Location: Timpooneke trailhead, On the Alpine Loop in American Fork Canyon (there is an alternative route called the Aspen Grove trail in Provo Canyon)

Distance to summit: 7.5 miles (one way)

Perceived exertion level: 70/100, hard to classify. It's never steep, just long

Scenery: 4 1/2 stars

Special Considerations: If you are in any way acrophobic then the hike to the summit is not for you. You'll be fine until you get to the saddle, but after that it looks kinda scary. I'm only very mildly afraid of heights and there were plenty of times that I felt really edgy the last mile or so. Honestly though, even if you fell, most places give you enough time to catch yourself before you plummet over a precipice. So,it looks much more dangerous than it is.

For the unholy love of frigging Cthulhu, if you value your sanity do not hike this on a Saturday!

I've heard tell that this is the most summitted mountain in Utah and I believe it. I got to the campground at 6:30 in the morning and the parking lot was completely full. I had to drive down past a spectacularly long line of cars and park at the end, and to top it off I still got a parking ticket. If I had to make an estimate I'd say I saw about 1,000 people on the hike. No lie, it was ridiculous. It took me about 4 and 1/2 hours to make it to the summit, but at least a 1/2 hour of that was me very slowly walking behind intellectually challenged Provo residents that I very strongly wanted to strike in the back of the head.

Other than just how sheerly crowded it was, the hike was awesome. The first leg of the trail is Scout Falls which I've already covered. After that you'll climb a few more switchbacks over some stream crossings until it flattens and you come to a sort of valley meadow surrounded by mountains.

Eventually you'll reach another set of switchbacks which slowly, but steadily climb up to the Timpanogos Basin. This set of switchbacks is probably the longest part of the hike, but it really isn't that difficult because the climb is so gradual. Notwithstanding there's plenty of shade and rocks and even a couple more waterfalls if you want to stop and take a break.

So eventually you'll start to see the first traces of snow and you'll reach the top of the switchbacks and reach the

Timpanogos Basin. From here you'll be able to catch your first glance of Mt. Timpanogos. There were 4 or 5 tents down in the valley, and quite a few people stopped to take a rest over here. Shortly ahead the trail intersects with the Aspen Grove trail and you can either follow it to Emerald Lake or go right to Timp summit. Emerald Lake is far from impressive so I made my way up to the summit. Here you'll go through another series of switchbacks and the trail is often lost completely in the snow (Aug 01) but you can still follow it fairly easily. Eventually you will come up to the saddle and get a magnificent view of Provo and Utah Lake. It seems most people stopped here. I don't know why, as you're only a mile from the summit, so I kept going.

The hike to the summit is the part I was talking about when I said your fear of heights might get to you. There is less of a well defined trail here and even a bit of scrambling over rocks. Although it looks like one misstep would be fatal, most of the time you'd have plenty of time to catch yourself, if for some reason you did fall. Eventually you'll reach the summit and see the little shack up there.

From what I gather this shack was built as a triangulation point before they developed the technology to just use planes and satellites. It used to have windows, but they've all blown out. There's a lot of graffiti, including an amusing picture of a clown with the caption, "If this clown can make it you can too." Seriously, I saw everone from a group of 12 year olds, to an old man who looked to be in his 70's on the trail. You get an amazing view of your surroundings up here and can see the faint outlines of the trails you hiked coming up. I also got 4 bars of cell phone reception :) If you're feeling adventurous you can keep going and there's a perpetual snowfield you can slide down that'll take you to Emerald Lake. Everyone was going that way though, and since I was so sick of BYU students everywhere I took the other way. I lost the trail once or twice, but eventually I made it back down to the Timp Basin.

At the basin there's a sign marked toilet and allegedly if you follow it there's a B-25 crash site a mile or so off trail. On the way down I decided to take it and check it out. The trail goes for a 1/2 mile or so and then disappears at a river formed by snowmelt. From here I went off trail for an hour or so and looked for the crash, but all I ended up finding was a tent and two other hikers who were also looking for the site. There was still some snow though and the crash is 50 years old so it's altogether possible that I walked right by it. Eventually I met up with the trail again and decided to just head back down. The hike down is actually harder than going up, as it's really hard on your knees and ankles. After what seems like forever you do eventually make it to the bottom though.

Hiking: Scout Falls.

Scout Falls

Location: American Fork canyon. Timponeke trail off the Alpine Loop

Distance to falls: 1.22 miles

Perceived exertion level: 38/100

Scenery: 3 stars.

A nice well shaded trail with a gentle incline, lots of aspens and quite a few streamcrossings. You can follow the trail for as far or as little as you want, because the Timpooneke trail goes all the way up to the summit of Mt. Timpanogos if you're feeling ambitious. The trail doesn't ever get all that difficult unless you accidentally leave it like Ryan and I did and climb up the streambed. The streambed is marked off with a couple of big rocks across the trail, at which point you're supposed to turn around and go up a switchback. If you don't, you'll reach the falls faster, but you'll have to deal with some fairly difficult scrambling while watching out for mud and loose rocks. It's nothing unmanagable though.

Overall this is a fun hike achievable by hikers of most skill levels. It offers a view of several mini waterfalls, streams, and of course Scout Falls itself which is really pretty. Other than that there isn't too much to see unless you go farther up the trail.