Ryan Byrd’s Ramblings

I’ve received a fair number of comments from people about my awesome mustache, a disproportionate number of whom were blithely unaware that I am wearing it in support of Mustache May; a time of year where men (women?) everywhere celebrate the majesty of upper lip facial hair. Mustaches are not without their detractors. Back in March of ’07 a sinister and short-lived blog run by someone who called himself the switchblade physician, had these negative comments about my friends:

Among my favorite T-shirt slogans is the one which reads “Guns don’t kill people. People with moustaches kill people.” The funniest thing about it is that I think that there just might be some truth to the statement. My cursory study of a recent police blotter (with pictures) found that 67% of criminals (fugitives and captures) had facial hair sufficient enough to meet criteria for a moustache. I’m too tired to apply the statistics here, but I think that this finding is significant. The best way to flesh out the issue, of course, would be to follow age and sex-matched (that’s really funny) cleanshaven and hirsute cohorts over time (ten years or so; a so-called prospective cohort study) and see if there’s a criminality difference between the groups.I’m also pretty sure that smoking cigarettes is positively correlated with criminal behavior. I haven’t seen any studies, though. I wouldn’t anticipate a causative pathway linking tobacco abuse and crime, just a correlation (that is, smoking cigarettes is simply indicative of certain personality traits more prevalent in criminal populations). What’s interesting too is that cigarette smokers tend to have better short term memories than nonsmokers. This is perhaps due to the nicotine in cigarettes stimulating so-called nicotinergic acetycholine receptors in the hippocampus. I know, it’s comforting hearing that the chainsmoker sitting next to you is not only a criminal, but can also most likely beat you at chess. The recipe for a true sociopath, then, is facial hair and tobacco. Not to sound the alarm or anything, but I’d recommend putting out an all points bulletin right now for all mustachioed cigarette smokers out there. For brevity’s sake, we’ll call them the moustachioso.

• Wikipedia’s Take on Mustaches
• American Mustache Institute
• Mustache May

Let’s review the RDBN Halloween posts, shall we? (Are you proud of me for staying on topic so long? The last time this happened was the beloved Bot Week.) So far we have:

• Scary Halloween Lists — for your movie making delight
• Classic Literature to Set a Scary Mood — ’cause you can’t beat the oldies
• Ghost Caught on Camera — boo!
• Friends, Romans, Countrymen — or tales of a super costume
• Haunted Gingerbread Castle — price reduced for quick sale!
• Halloween for the rest of us — awesome costume ideas
• Happy Halloween! (unless you think it’s evil) — a Halloween survey

Halloween Facts

• The name Dracula means “son of Satan”
• Dracula is based on Vlad the Impaler (1431 – 1476)
• Vampires dislike mirrors and silver
• Excommunicated people, unbaptized children, criminals, babies born with teeth, witches, magicians, and the seventh son of a seventh son can all become vampires
• The movie Van Helsin pulls its namesake from Professor Abraham Van Helsin, a character in Bram Stoker’s novel
• Transylvania is a real place in Romania
• The first jack-o-lanterns were carved out of turnips
• This one for the nerds: Oct. 31 equals Dec. 25 (in Hex!)

as thought up by me. Maybe you’re putting up Halloween decorations? Maybe you’re designing a haunted house? Maybe you’re making a scary sounds CD or a spooky movie? These lists could be just what you’re looking for!

scary sounds: doors creaking, women shrieking, something heavy being dragged on the floor, footsteps on old wooden floor, scratching, clawing, scraping, water dropping on a stone floor, chainsaw reeving, moaning, weeping, bat wings flapping, wolf howling, mechanized crazy man’s voice, heartbeat, whistling wind, oscillating sounds (60-120hz), wind chimes, thunderclap, howling, low rumbling, muted children screams, clanking, cat screech, loud static, jacob’s ladder electric spark, screaming, blood curdling yell, owl hooting, glass breaking, windblown door or shutter or door clapping against frame, crazy whispering

scary environments: cold, dark, shadowy, alone, trapped, cornered, injured, defenseless, disoriented, powerless, old, abandoned house, former insane asylum, broken-down warehouse, graveyard, crypts, basement, being wet or shivering

scary things: dirty/slimy things, disturbed/crazy people, rabid dogs, pack of wolves rapidly approaching, flickering light, torture chambers, faceless/emotionless girls, corpses, dismembered bodies, disfigured bodies, impending death or torture, rotting flesh, creepy crawleys (centipedes, spiders, rats, etc.)

Turn your PC speakers up and you can barely hear the ghost right before it briefly appears. Watch the chair closely or you might miss it.