Ranking Horror Movies

10). Trick R Treat


Four cunning stories are woven together in this epic tale. 1). A high school principal who moonlights as a viscous serial killer.  2). A college virgin who is saving herself for he right person. 3). A husband and wife; one loves Halloween, the other does not. 4). A group of heartless teenagers carry out a deplorable prank. Full of atmosphere and plenty of blood. 
Rotten Tomato Score
Tomato Meter: 84%   Audience Meter: 71%

9). Sleepaway Camp II


A silly and ridiculous 80's slasher movie. In this sequel, Angela is now a camp counselor and when campers fail to conduct themselves with integrity, she steps in and disciplines then is gruesome and horrid ways. It was good for several laughs as the story-line and acting are a bit feeble.

Rotten Tomato Score
Tomato Meter: 40%  Audience Meter: 42%

8). Return of the Living Dead

Another little jewel from the 80's (see a theme here?). In this classic movie, a chemical is released into the atmosphere and finds its way to a cemetery, resurrecting all the bodies that were buried there. These corpses are hungry and looking for human brains to eat. Again, intentional or not, this iconic movie is equal parts horror and comedy. 
Rotten Tomato Score
Tomato Meter: 91%    Audience Score: 79%

7). Motel Hell


Another 80's campy gem. The premise is ridiculous yet horrifying. The bizarre collusion that Farmer Vincent is operating, is casually interspersed with humor; intended or not.  
Rotten Tomato Score
 Tomato Meter 71%   Audience Meter 46%

6). It Follows

After a sexual encounter, a teenager finds herself being followed by an entity only she can she. The only way to get rid of it? Sleep with somebody and pass the entity on to them. While not a horror movie that has a kill count, the suspense and tension you feel as watch this movie is more than worth it. 
Rotten Tomato Score
Tomato Meter: 96%   Audience Meter: 66%



5). You Better Watch Out

I love a movie with a Christmas theme!  In this twisted horror film, a babysitter encounters terror as she starts out protecting her young charges from an intruder, but is shocked when she discovers who the real "inturder" is. The violence does get a little graphic, but the movie as a whole has kind of a satirical feel to it and the ending leaves the watcher smiling. 
Rotten Tomato Score
 Tomato Meter: 89%   Audience Meter: 66%

4). Sleep Away Camp

An 80's gem and a typical slasher movie of the era. When Angela and her cousin Ricky go to camp, one killing after another ensues. We definitely had some good laughs watching this movie; mostly over the clothes and the language.  The surpise twist ending caught me totally off guard. 
Rotten Tomato Score
Tomato Meter: 74%   Audience Meter: 60%


3). Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon. 
A documentary style movie, Behind the Mask follows Leslie Vernon, who is an aspiring serial killer, as he makes preparations for a killing spree of partying teenagers. This movie was entertaining with moments of humor peppered between the horror as he carries out the planned murders. It also incorporated a little twist at the end. 
Rotten Tomato Score
Tomato Meter: 76%    Audience Meter: 75%

2). Fright Night (1985 Version)

In this cult classic, a teenage boy named Charley discovers his neighbor is a vampire. When no one believes his claim, he attempts to get a TV show host who starred in vampire movies to help stop the killing. This film is a perfect balance of parody and horror. The special effects in this movie were incredible considering it was made back in the 80's. I only wish I had the opportunity to see this on the big screen.
Rotten Tomato Score:
Tomato Meter: 91%     Audience Score: 76%

1). What We Do in the Shadows

A documentary crew follows 4 vampires who live together. Written and directed by Jermaine Clement and Taika Waititi, the movie chronicles the lives of vampires Petyr, Deacon, Vladislov (played by Clement), and Viago  (played by Waititi).
This movie is full of laughs as the four squabble about chores, try to keep up with present technology, mix it up with the local werewolves, visit the neighborhood pubs, and try to survive on their diet of blood. 
Rotten Tomato Score:
Tomato Meter: 96%    Audience Score: 86%

That Which Will Catch You Up

My crazy life continues. I work 12 hour days on at least Tuesdays and Thursdays but sometimes more. 

Even when I am home, it seems as if I am doing something school related. 

Blogging obviously takes a back seat.

But here's a sample of what's been going on

1). 

Designing Women
I LOVE this show!!! Occasionally I would check Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu hoping that one of those providers offered it with no success. So you can imagine how excited I was on Saturday when I discover it is now on Hulu!  I've been binge watching it ever since,

2). A Visit
Jon's sweet girlfriend visited at the end of August. Never having been to Florida before, she wanted to do all the Disney and Universal stuff. Jon, who hates anything that has to do with theme parks, was a good sport and played tourist along with her. While I was not able to join them for any of the theme park visits (school was back in session), we were able to watch a movie over at C.J.'s on a Friday night, and then on Saturday we drove over to Daytona Beach to have pizza with my parents and sister. Since she also had never seen the ocean, we made a stop in Ormond to walk the beach. Parking was crazy so I ended up just dropping them off and waiting in the parking lot across the street. It was a beautiful day. 

3).  Excema
I am still dealing with insane excema on my feet! I'm pretty sure it is related to the fibromyalgia. 

4). A T-Shirt 
I love, love, love the t-shirt my friend Mere bought for me 

5)  Pool
After more than two years of the bulb in our pool being out, they FINALLY replaced it last weekend. It looks so nice again.

6.  Sadie
Anything on the counter for longer than 3 seconds is fair game for her to sit on.

7). Ollie
Ollie took a page out of Sadie's book this week and I found him like this.

I sure love my pets

What My Year Has Looked Like So Far

As a whole, I am a pretty humble person and rarely will I compliment myself on anything. However, when it comes to teaching, I really do believe I'm one of the best there is. Especially when it comes to remediation. 

I attribute this to a couple of things:

1). I am very demanding!  I have high expectations for them and, by God, I insist they do everything possible to rise to them! It's not that I ask for what is unreasonable or unattainable for them...each child's learning expectation is different...I only ask that they stay focused and dedicated to their assigned task. 

2). I do my best to build up their self-esteem in any way possible. Especially when you're dealing with remediation, you will have students who are sad, frustrated, and feel defeated. To get them to want to learn when all they've known is disappointment, obstacles, and failures is the key to their academic success. I celebrate every achievement with them with enthusiasm and downplay their deficiencies. It's pretty easy - phrases such as, "that's okay you didn't get that one correct, look how much you have learned already this year" or "you've got this, you are smarter than you think" or "all your hard work has been worth it, look how much progress you've made" (fist bump...high five...or a raise the roof along with it). 

Anyway, I say all this because I have the privilege this year of heading the 2nd grade class that needs a little more "intensive intervention" to bring them up to grade level. There are three 2nd grades; the other two are departmentalized while mine is a self contained. Seems odd that not only do I have the class that needs the most attention and teacher support, but I also have the largest class out of the three (16 compared to 13 and 11). 

There is no question that I have a very needy class - just ask the specialist teachers who need a shot of encouragement and take a few deep breaths when they see my kids coming to their class. As a whole they are wild, talkative have very little focus, and did I mention they are needy? They are attention fiends. 

However, they have grown tremendously in the past two months and are about 70% to where I want them. Also, just in the past couple weeks, they will tell me how much they love learning. And I love that they love it.  

And they are learning far quicker and far more than I could have imagined. They already can:
- add numbers in the 10 millions
- add numbers that require regrouping
- answer two step story problems
- write answers to questions in a story using complete sentences
- identify the subject and predicate of a sentence. 
- identify the verb in the subject *which begins the predicate
- name the type of verb (action or linking) and explain why

They have exceeded  my expectations in every way.  

Saga of the Cars

As if it isn't difficult enough to get up and off to work on a Monday morning, this past Monday I was greeted with a "special surprise" as I reached my car in the parking lot of my apartment complex. 

A shattered car window --- It was still too dark to get a good picture but it looked similar to this




How lovely.  Altogether, about ten vehicles in the complex had similar break-ins and there was no apparent rhyme or reason as to why certain cars were targeted.  The contents of my glove compartment were scattered all over the passenger seat of my car, but since I'm start enough not to keep anything in my car worth stealing, nothing was taken. 

However, this latest fiasco led me to look back and recall the implausible atrocious luck I have had with my cars over just the past four years and I could do nothing but laugh to keep myself from losing my damn mind.

- November 2015: Engine seizes on my 2013 Chevrolet Aveo while driving on I4.  After three tows and a saga detailed here, the car got a new engine and was returned to me in December.  

- September 2016: The air conditioning on the Aveo breaks. It works during some intervals, but not others. 

- February 2017: A short somewhere in the 2013 Aveo leads to the  turn directionals intermittently not working either. Not a huge deal unless your trying to merge into dead stop traffic in Orlando!!!!

May 2017: The battery on the 2013 Aveo COMPLETELY dies; cannot even charge it. Decide it is time to have it towed and get rid of it! My son, who got a new car, let me have his old one (2003 Nissan Maxima)

September 2017: The air condition in the Maxima quits working. 

November 2017: Walk out to the parking lot in the morning to discover my passenger side rear view mirror hanging there...barely attached to the car anymore. I was able to wedge it and keep it on for about another month before I had to remove it completely. 

November 2017: Flat Tire

January 2018:  The sun roof on the Maxima starts acting strange. It will open intermittently all by itself and would not close.  Then later (maybe an hour, maybe a day, who knows) it would close on it's own as well.

April 2018: Maxima will not start and we are stranded at Buffalo Wild Wings. I decide it's time for a new car so the next day I car shop and settle on a 2016 Chevrolet Sonic. 

Mid May 2018: The air conditioning in my "brand new car" stops working.

Mid -June 2018: The low coolant alarm sounds so I add coolant to the engine. 


Late June 2018: The low coolant alarm sounds again so I take it to a dealer to look at. I am told there is a crack in the radiator which is leading to the fluid leak and given an estimate of $1,100. They top off the coolant. 

Mid July 2018: By this time, I could only drive the car less than 10 miles and had to add coolant to the engine every single day to keep it from overheating. 

End July 2018: Have the car repaired ($1,000) and was so happy to have air conditioning again.

Beginning August 2018: The air conditioner worked for one week. Took it back to the dealer and was told it would be another $600 to repair the air. After a few choice words, I surrender the loaner vehicle and RUN out of there without looking back! I still do not have air in my car. 

November 2018: Flat tire on I4 as we drove back from parents on the weekend before Thanksgiving. Thankfully it was a run flat so there was not a blow out and I was able to drive to a service station. But it took 4.5 hours to get it changed and I had a migraine complete with vomiting while waiting! 

September 2019: Car is broken into and window shattered. 

Oh yes, and I also have a slow leak in the rear left tire that I need to replace soon!  

See...laugh or go crazy!  

It's THAT Time of the Year

Of course I'm speaking of Halloween Horror Nights.


While I still mourn the demise of the Bill and Ted show, the atmosphere and houses appear to be enough to keep me obsessed. 

I am still hopeful that one of these years I'll have enough money to invest in a express pass (as I did my very first year), but this is not the year!  

HHN 2019 features 10 walk through houses

1). Us

2). Stranger Things 

3). Universal Monsters

4). Ghostbusters

5). Killer Klowns from Outer Space

6). House of 1000 Corpses

7). Depths of Fear

8). Graveyard Games

9). Nightingales Blood Pit

10). Yeti: Terror of the Yukon


Also this HHN features 5 scare zones

1). Zombieland Double Tap

2). Rob Zombie Hillbilly Deluxe


3). Anarch-cade

4). Vanity Ball

5). Vikings Undead


And finally, something I'm particularly excited about. In addition to of The Academy of Villains who are returning for the third year, this year will feature a new lagoon show called Marathon of Mayhem. 



Let the fun begin!


*All images from Google*

Worth It To Panic Over Nothing?

Well that was a great two days off from school for NOTHING! 

We got a little wind...we got a little rain.  
80% of Central Florida shut down Monday and Tuesday including theme parks in anticipation of this:

Which never happened Not even close...

Instead we got this:

Oh and when I say "great" two days off from school I mean by Tuesday afternoon I was bored out of my mind!  

I've spent the last three days eating and binge watching horror movies. 

I'm so ready to go back tomorrow. 

Just Hit Rewind

Here we are - in an all too familiar position - waiting on a hurricane. 

The third one in the last three years; thank you Matthew, Irma, and Dorian. 

The game we're playing here in Orlando is - will it won't it?

The projected path has changed about 562 times so it's likely we will not know for sure until it is basically on top of us. 
  

My parents are up in Alabama, but this time we are staying put and riding it out.

Got peanut butter, bread, crackers. chips, and lots and lots of water so maste in my apartment until this passes.