Mandarin

y, my! Not only does he skip his sister's concert, but he went to Elitches instead... on a Sunday night at that!

Yes, folks. It's true. I am evil. I skipped out on the CYS concert so I could go to Elitches. You want to hear my excuse? Yeah? Yeah? Ok... Here it is! I've been trying to go to Elitches with a guy at church for the past few months and if looked like it was going to work out. My sisters whole-heatedly gave me permission to skip the concert and go to Elitches instead. (Needless to say, I felt guilty, especially when the guy couldn't come after all and I went by myself, but hey, it was free. (Free makes anything ok... Ok, maybe not.)

ANYWAY, when I got there, I found they had a new attraction -- a free spook house... "Huh," I thought to myself. "Is the "family friendly spook house" worth the long line?" I decided to try it out. I'm glad I did. It was so cool because the place seemed to be designed by a bunch of robotic/electronic hobbyists. It was like the robotic hobbyists conventions they have in California in our own back yard. I don't have a clue what was in the actual spook house, but I can tell you they used the same kind of motion detectors I got for *cough* may day, Bimba pneumatic cylinders, fairly descent strobe lights, more expensive smoke machines, etc. It was fun to see what psychological tricks the guys came up with, the way they implemented the robotics, etc. Here's a list of things I thought were cool:

The entrance was a ramp that went through a large tube. The tube had paint splattered all over it and black-lights illuminated it. The tube rotated. Seems kinda dumb. I've seen these things before and thought it a device that might look slightly cool but not worth the effort. I, being in the back of the group, noticed the people ahead of me starting to veer off to the side of the ramp while walking through it. I though, "Oh, brother." and determined to walk through it with no problems... Oh, how wrong I was. No matter what you look at, you unconsciously walk off to the side and hit the rail with great force over and over again. It really feels like the ramp is tipping, but it's fixed. Kind of cool how your brain uses your peripheral vision as a method for balancing. (Basically, you fall over as you try to walk through the thing.)

The strobe lights were cool... Several dark hallways were pitch black between strobe flashes. After walking through a hall with a strobe light for a while, your brain starts to think you're not moving. You honestly feel like you're standing still... You know those dreams you have where you have to get away from something but for some reason, you just cannot run? These hallways gave the same effect. Pretty cool!

There was a short hallway that had a bunch of corrugated drain lines hanging in it. Just like everyone else, I thought, "Oh, brother!" and fought my way through the hoses, wondering why drain lines were supposed to be scary. What they did, though, was divert your attention from the actor standing at the side of the hallway. Fighting your way through the pipes distracted you enough to create a perfect opportunity for an actor to scare you.

Another room was so densely filled with smoke that you couldn't tell where to go. you couldn't see for more than a couple feet in front of you, and after walking for several seconds, you'd start to wonder if you were going to trip on something... Meanwhile, an actor would run around the room, seeming to come out of nowhere. Where Art thou?

Well, I'm tired of typing and if you actually read this, you're probably sick of reading :-)