Kremer’s Stuff

True Ghost Stories

Turn off the lights and get ready   for…

Do you think ghosts only haunt old houses? This young couple moves into an apartment and find it’s haunted.  A true ghost story.

The Newlywed’s Apartment

A group of young men move into an old general store.  Another true ghost story.

The Old General Store

Protect Your House From Vampires

This weekend I finally got around to re-painting the front door of my house.  The center area of the door needed extra scraping and sanding.  It really needed a lot of work.  I had to sand all the way down to the bare wood.  As I moved out from the center I needed to sand less, and could paint over the old paint.  My son Mark noticed a pattern.  I stepped back and saw it too.  Interesting.  I guess if there was a group of Vampires in the neighborhood I wouldn’t have to worry about them coming through my front door.  But since that’s not likely, I just finished sanding and painted the door.

Kremer Lasik Eye Surgery - Not!

Since I re-started this blog back in April and began looking at my Web stats I was surprised to find that lots of folks are coming here after doing a search on lasik, lasik surgery, lasik eye surgery, kremer lasik surgery.  What the heck? Um, we don’t do eye surgery here.  I’ve got a large scar on one of my fingers from a big mistake I made with my swiss army knife.  Believe me you don’t want me anywhere near you or your eyes with a knife or laser!  So I did a little Web research and found that Dr. Frederic B. Kremer, M.D. performed the first Lasik procedure in North America.  His bio is here.  He has Kremer lasik eye centers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Dr. Kremer is no relation but a big congrats to him for his invention.  I wear glasses but know lots of folks who’ve had lasik surgery and it’s been great for them.  So if you are looking for lasik eye surgery, look for someone like Dr. Kremer, not me. The only laser I wield is the toy Star Wars laser sword circa 1977.

The Scorpion King…um… Not really.

I’ve had a couple of posts in the past that I have called “Only In L.A. Moments”.  With this story I am expanding out to an “Only in California Story”.  My son Dan lives in the O.C. more specifically North Tustin in Orange County, California.  He lives in a house with several friends including a filmmaker.  The filmmaker is in the middle of shooting a low budget thriller with a plot line that involves a character of a Voodoo Princess.  Dan returned home late Saturday to find a film crew at the house wrapping up a day of shooting the Voodoo movie.  The filmmaker roommate took Dan aside and said he had some really bad news.  While they were filming a scene with the Voodoo Princess a live scorpion they were using as part of the scene escaped.  They tried to find him but had no luck.  So there’s a live scorpion somewhere in the house.  Of course since this is a movie, they couldn’t use a little scorpion that wouldn’t show well on camera. They had to use a really big scorpion.  The good news was it was the kind of scorpion that is not venomous.  It’s the kind whose sting won’t kill you, but it is painful.  The woman who brought the scorpion thinks, but is not sure, that the scorpion had his stinger removed.  She went on to tell everyone that scorpions apparently like dark cool places like closets and to be careful putting on your shoes.  I joked with Dan that it was better they liked shoes instead of something like an underwear drawer.

UPDATE: One week later the scorpion was caught!  Here is a picture of the scorpion in a jar…and here is another picture showing how big and ugly the scorpion is.

Don LaFontaine “The Voice”

You may not know who Don LaFontaine is…but you have heard him. He is the voice of movie trailers who often started with…”In a World…” He was feature in the GEICO commercial as “that announcer guy from the movies.” Here’s a link to that commercial on YouTube.

The bad news is that Don passed away this week. Being a former radio announcer I wanted to pay tribute to Don by featuring the video above. Don along with the most famous voiceover announcers there are. You may not recognize the faces, but you will recognize the voices.

Strange sights at Indy Gen Con 2008

The Gen Con gaming convention just ended in Indianapolis.  Here’s a picture featured on Indy.com.

If I walked into the restroom and saw this I might turn around and try to find another restroom.  Too strange.

Rielle Hunter is looking for truth

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks you may not have heard about former presidential candidate John Edward’s confession to having an affair.  His paramour was Rielle Hunter whose video production company Midline Groove was hired by Edward’s Political action committee.  In the last couple of days more information has emerged about payments to Midline Groove.  Specifically a $14,000 payment to them after the contract wihth Edwards was up.  The Raleigh News & Observer has a story here. 

I wondered if Midline Grove had a web site.  Apparently at one time they did, but it’s been taken down.  I did find a copy of http://midlinegroove.com/ at The Internet Archieve.  Here’s a screen capture of the one page web site.  On it the text states:

“Midline Groove is a full-service production company committed to projects that reveal truth — the authentic aspects of humanity that are right here and most often overlooked. Creating short and feature length documentaries for the web, broadcast, and big screen, the company was established in 2006 by producing partners Rielle Hunter and Mimi Hockman.”

Interesting and ironic that Rielle is looking for “…projects that reveal truth.”  

Netflix Problems, No Problem For Me

I love Netflix.  Joined up a couple of years ago and have had flawless service since then.  Great way of keeping track of what movies you want to watch…and they just appear in your mail box.  How easy. 

Their shipping system has been down a couple of days apparently due to a botched database upgrade.  Oh well, that happens to most if not all tech companies. I am willing to give Netflix a break.  I just sent back “Harold and Kumar 2″ (Really bad) and “In Bruges” (Good, but strange) and am looking forward to my next movies…whenever they get here.  If it was the dead of winter I might be more upset not to have a DVD to watch this weekend.  But come on it’s August.  Turn off your friggin’ TV and enjoy the great outdoors.  If anyone from Netflix is reading this, hang in there.  You rock.

I’m On A Patent. I am Somebody!

 
In the 1979 movie “The Jerk” Steve Martin’s character Navin R. Johnson gets excited when his name is listed in the phone book.  He dances around with the phone book yelling “The new phonebooks are here, the new phonebooks are here!”  He then looks himself up in the book and proclaims “Here I am, Navin R. Johson.  I am somebody!”.

That line in the movie came to mind when I found out today that my name is now part of a published patent application.  It’s a techie, geek thing.  But I think it’s pretty cool.  I am somebody!  It’s a pretty obscure patent dealing with search promotion. If you really have some time on your hands you can look it up at the US Patent and Trademark Website.  Here a screen capture.

Only problem is.  They spelled my name wrong.  I’m used to “Kremer” being mis-spelled as “Kramer” or “Cramer” but didn’t expect my middle name to be mis-spelled.  My middle name is an old family name: “Maitland”.  I was surprised to find the US Patent office listing me as “Maltland”.

Hmm…”Maltland”.  First image that popped into my mind was MALT LAND some Beer or Malt Liquor Theme Park.  ”Come to MALT LAND, knock back a couple of fourty ounce Colt 45’s ride the Olde English 800 Ferris Wheel!”

Oh well, maybe I can get it corrected before it becomes a full patent.

Paul McCartney Visits Illinois Gas Station

Is that Paul McCartney at a Circle K gas station in Illinois?  Apparently Sir Paul was driving a 1989 Ford Bronco.  Click here for the full story.

So why would Paul, who’s a billionaire, be driving an old Ford Bronco?  It belongs to his girlfriend Nancy Shevell. Here’s a picture from November of last year of them making out in a Bronco.  That’s a late 80’s Bronco for sure…I used to work for a TV station that had ten of them.  Here’s that story from The Gothamist.

But here’s the proof that the picture at the gas station is not a hoax.  Look real closely at Paul’s belt in the top picture above.  Now, look at this press picture of Paul and Nancy.  Same belt.