xtcian

While I can't swear that some Bosnian politician didn't *also* call a press conference to commit suicide, I think you are probably remembering Pennsylvania State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer, who did just that in '87 after being convicted of bribery charges. Yuck.

Good for you for screaming back at them! That is the difference between the 3rd grade Ian and the 3rd grade me. .. . I would have broken into tears. I always wanted to scream back at my childhood tormentors, but I never could. 3rd grade was a particularly bad year for things like that, wasn't it? Ick. By the way, I read every Nancy Drew book and ALWAYS did my book reports on them!

I have my own video list: "Country Bears" and "Garfield." Worst kid movies EVER. Believe me, once you start accompanying Peanut to the movie theater, your list with grow exponentially!

You've done something good with your life?

I think it reveals your closet optimism that you don't get a kick out of watching suicide and humiliation. At first I thought your list unnaturally mixed objects of schadenfreude with objects of a forgiving eye for bad movie making, but now recalling you're a movie maker yourself, I suppose watching ISKWYDLS is a little like watching other artists immolate themselves.

I wish I could erase the fact that I read a horrific short story by Stephen King wherein a man washed up on a deserted island eats himself. It's soooooooooo icky, the ickiest thing he ever wrote.

I think Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion scarred my husband for life.

For me personally, I hereby move to erase the memory of a dance contest in 6th grade. My 8th grade friend begged me to enter the contest with him. I was a naive newby and said yes even though neither of us actually could dance. So he works up this elaborate "routine" with all sorts of breakdancing moves..the worm,etc. That night, with the gym lights out and spotlight on, in front of hundreds, I realized...bad freakin' idea. Too late, had to follow through. Caught hell for maybe only 3 days after so it could have been worse, but I still cringe at the memory!

I would like to erase the photos of Chris Farley post-mortem. I at working on my lunchbreak and someone sent me a link to the photos of him laying on the ground in his apartment- he was blotched with purple and blue and had all this strange foamy cauk-like stuff coming out of his nose. It was the saddest, but sickest thing I ever saw and I almost lost my lunch looking at it. The same day, I proceeded to feed my demented side by going to Rotten.com and looking at the Japanese Fecal Matter section. I'd like to have that erased if I could too, please.

Jon - In my "research" for this post, I saw that the Pennsylvania treasurer had done the same thing. The video I saw was definitely the guy from Bosnia, but I'm not going to hunt for either.

Carla - rotten.com is just awful. I've trained myself not to go there.

Bozoette Mary: the line that haunts me:

"I washed my foot before I ate it."

As long as we're talking about internet videos, I enjoyed that one of the pudgy kid doing the "Star Wars" imitation, although I DO feel guilty about it.

Ian, maybe you'll write the next "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Although I didn't love that movie. I think there's something wrong with me because everyone did.

And I'm embarrassed to say I watched and cried my eyes out to "The Notebook." That is one I'm sure would have been on every guy's memory-erase wishlist, but you can't blame a girl for being a romantic.

Actually...I recall reading something recently about psychologists who are working on treating trauma and PTSD... it had something to do with some drug that blocked memory in some way and prevented people from re-experiencing trauma (and hence, having it rooted in their memory). I think the study gave people some drug which blocked certain memories shortly after an event and then compared their PTSD symptomse to those who did not receive this drug. I fear that I am remembering this information all wrong (hah!) but let me see if I can dig this up from somewhere and give you the actual reference.

Okay, yeah, I did get it a bit distorted. It has to do with administering the drug propranolol to patients. And it doesn't people forget events, but it allows memories to be coded more normally, without the associated disturbances.

I don't have a reference to the scientific journal in which I read about this, but here is a link that gives you the basic scoop:

http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/85/98584.htm?pagenumber=1

I'm blocking out Blair Witch. Not just because recalling the cinematography, if you can call it that, makes me physically ill, but because the only reason I watched the entire movie is that after ten minutes of it, I wanted to watch the entire cast die horribly, and even that was taken from me. Taking a chainsaw to Heather at the end would have made it all better.

While I'm risking flames, I'll also put up 2001: A Space Odyssey. Too sad when HAL died. Only one in the movie who seemed to be capable of emoting in the entire movie. When Dave is locked out of the spaceship, a million miles from anywhere, having to jettison his dead companion, and the only thing between life and an unpleasant drifting space death is convicing a psychotic computer, he acts... annoyed, like HAL cut him off in traffic.

I want to block out Seven. It's a great movie, but after watching it, I wanted to take a shower.

Hmm.. disturbing images I want to block out... hmm... I was watching one of the charity shows where doctors fly places to help people, and they showed the mothers of children whom the doctors simply couldn't treat, and some of them had spent days getting to the clinic and had been waiting in the slim hope that they could get in.. that made me cry.

Also could do without the news clip I caught by accident about three days ago. I don't know exactly what it was for, but they had just discovered a girl that had been under a collapsed structure for several days (girl was dead), but they'd been pulling people out alive. The girl didn't make it, and the cameras would not get out of her mothers face, who was howling and crying and screaming in another language. Brrr.

Oh yeah, Animal Vets. Want to block that out. Never watch it again. Had a big black dog on there that had been hit by a car, and needed to be put down. They were trying to contact its owner, who finally got the message at the last minute. In walks this giant, tattooed biker guy and his biker girlfriend. Upon seeing his dog, big tattooed biker guy bursts into tears, and strokes the dog's side saying "you're such a good dog", and the dog, recognizing him, tries to wag his tail, thumping it several times on the lab table. Whew, misted just thinking about it, and watching it, I was crying like a baby.

Dead things don't bother me. Watching gore doesn't really disturb me at all, since I deal with it on a regular basis. Watching the grief of the loved ones of the dead or dying absolutely kills me though, no matter who or what the dying is. I don't even like to see people have someTHING important to them destroyed like an heirloom, so when there's a life involved, it cuts my core.

Ishie