When I was a kid, my grandmother delighted in telling us about the ghost that haunted her childhood home back in Germany. Every night, she said, the family heard mysterious rattling on the staircase from dusk to dawn. I never really believed her—and, from the way she told it, she didn’t really believe in that ghost, either—but it made a great spooky story. And ever since then, in the back of my mind, I always hoped that someday I’d meet a ghost for myself. Because, well, you never know.
You Never Know (The East Bay Monthly, January 1 2010)
Hey cats and kittens!
Remember that photo of Sarah Palin toting a rifle while posing in her bikini? In this article, I took a closer look at that (Oh ho ho, get it?) and other hoaxes and urban legends getting circulated as truth online. Check it out here:
How Forwarded Email Jokes, Hoaxes Evolved with Social Media (PBS Mediashift, January26, 2008)
And if that’s not enough to entice you, we’ll also tell you about that YouTube video that makes you gouge your own eyes out. Or does it!? Spooky!
It was only long after I completed this article that I realized the term I was groping for in describing that eye-gouging video was the motif of harmful sensation. A good phrase to have in your verbal repoitore to impress people at parties.
