How To Spot a Murderer

       Halloween is in the air as goblins and ghouls are on the streets. If that is not deserving of a post then I do not know what is. So on this most wonderful Halloween, since I can't give you candy, I figure I'll do the next best thing: teach you how to spot a murderer. Because nothing improves your Halloween like not being murdered in your sleep...or one-upping your friends by figuring out the killer on TV before they can.

       A prime plot point of television crime dramas is: Who did it? The interest of the show comes from the viewer testing their mettle against that of the televised heroes. Through a love of stories and extensive practice, I have been able to decipher how to figure out a television murderer.

      To practice let's stage a murder, shall we? -Fade to Black-

       On a dark and stormy night Detective Stone is called in on a case. The wipers work furiously trying to keep the rain at bay as his car heads down fifth street and towards the business district. He takes a right turn and there, sticking out of the night, is the crime scene. Underneath a street light a body is slumped over, the red lights spinning from the cars of the cops and paramedics lend a disturbing visage to the scene. Stone sighs then steps from his car, pops his umbrella, and head towards the scene. Pictures are being taken of the body of a young woman. Her skin looks even more pale in the faint light. The scarlet tears of the fallen trickle from a wound in her chest, staining her blouse before reaching the ground and rushing off with the rain water to the gutter. Murder is afoot...murder most foul!

The Facts:
       The body of Jillian LeSourie was found dead at 11pm on Friday night. The cause of death seems to be from a fall, but upon further inspection shows a stab wound to the heart. The purse remains, and it's contents seemingly intact so it does not appear to be a robbery. She was an executive at a local business and lived alone.

       Detective Stone enters the business. A man (Craig Livingston) and a woman (Wanda Jenkins) are chatting by a water cooler. Stone approaches them.
       "Excuse me, I'm with the Police. Do either of you happen to know of a Ms.Lesourie?"
       "Oh! You mean Jillian?" Wanda says.
       "Her office was across from mine,"says Craig. "What's going on?"
       "Is she in trouble or something?" Wanda asks.
       "She was murdered sometime last night. Do you two have any idea of what time she usually works?"says Stone as he pulls out his notebook and pencil.
       "Oh my God! Umm...yeah I'm not really sure. I think she works pretty late usually." Wanda says her eyes wide in surprise.
       "I tend to work late and she's always here when I leave. Although last night she seemed to rush out awfully early," says Craig. His eyes also Wanda-like in their wideness and surprise.
       "Do you think Mr. Bullwick had anything to do with it?"Wanda wonders.
       "Mr. Bullwick?" Stone inquired.
       "Yeah, he's the CEO here. They were...'involved'" Craig says making air quotes with his fingers rolling his eyes. "I couldn't help but hear it through the wall."
       "They really weren't great keeping it a secret. A lot of people here have figured it out. Especially with all the fights they've been having recently,"Wanda explains.
       "Can you point me in the direction of Mr. Bullwick's office?"Stone asks while pocketing the notebook.

Johnathon Bullwick's Statement:
       Bullwick admits to cheating on his wife with Ms. LeSouire and to have been doing it for over a year. Apparently they had been fighting a bit recently, because she wanted their relationship to go to the next level and he needed more time. A search revealed a message on his phone: Ms. LeSouire had threatened to tell his wife if he didn't break up with her soon. Thus losing out on getting any of her money out of the divorce.

-Let's pause for a moment to think about what the show's motives are: to create an interesting plot and do so within a certain amount of time. For these reasons the most guilty seeming suspect is almost always a red herring. I'm going to save you some time and tell you that Mr. Bullwick did not do it. It'll probably be revealed later in the show that he has a iron clad alibi like a stockholder's meeting, or a even an affair with yet another woman. But what about the wife?

Mrs. Margaret Skye Bullwick's Statement:
       Mrs.Skye Bullwich seems heartbroken that her husband is such a douchebag while simultaneously feeling quite pissed off. She cries and makes threats of castration. But it is revealed that while her feelings are real, she had known about this before the police told her.

-Time for another break. At this point the show will probably be 1/2 - 2/3 of the way over. So she is certainly more of a suspect than Mr. Bullwick was. The real problem is that she doesn't fit all the criteria. The criteria for a TV murderer are as follows:
     1: The show's introduced who they are. Shows will pretty much never have the murderer be some random punk from off the street, because that is both boring and not fitting with the who-done-it dynamic. So the murderer has been seen in the episode.
     2: They murderer won't be expected. The show is trying to surprise you, this is why the most obvious choice isn't the murderer. The murderer will most often be someone suspected very briefly then dismissed, or never considered a suspect at all.

-Like a real show you can figure it out awhile before the end. So you should know by now. Let's look at the first criteria: I've only mentioned 6 characters so far. We know that it is one of them. Stone and LeSouire are both out, so we're down to 4. Now add the second criteria: The Bullwick's are both people you'd expect. So now we're down to 2. The answer: Craig Livingston! The guy with the office next to Jillian's.
       It'll be revealed that he had a big crush on her, but she kept rejecting him. Telling him that she was already in a relationship with someone else. He tried to break Bullwick and her up by calling Mrs.Skye Bullwick. Mr.Bullick and Jillian have a big fight one night about a phone call. Mr. Bullwick storms out. From his office Craig can see Mr.Bullwick's car leacing and Jillian crying in her office. He decides that now is the time to act as they are surely broken up and he can be her shoulder to cry on. What he doesn't know is that the call the fight was about was not his, but the one Jillian had left on Bullwick's phone and they were not broken. Jillian is freaked out that Craig had been listening to them through the wall like a pervert and angry that he tried to break up her love. A confrontation ensues, but no one hears it because they are the only ones working late. Craig, filled with hot molten anger over being rejected yet again, ends up stabbing her then dumping the body out the window out of fear. Then lies about when she had left.


Now get out there and eat some candy and solve some crimes!

Dinosaurs!

        I am no dinosaur expert, but my childhood has graced me with enough knowledge about dinosaurs to let me no when Hollywood is just trying to look cool. Case in point: the "Velociraptor".
       Velociraptors were very different from the ones seen in "Jurassic Park". For instance they are actually only the size of a standard poodle. They also weren't very bright. They were certainly among the smarter of the dinosaurs, but dinosaurs were notoriously stupid. This means they were probably about as smart as birds. I'm sure you've seen enough birds to know they might be clever they are by no means intelligent. Certainly not up to the predatory standards of large cats.
       So why should you believe me that Deinonychus are a lot scarier than Velociraptors? Let's look at the match up.

Velociraptor vs. Deinonychus

Size

Velociraptors: 3 feet tall, 6 feet long, and about 33 ilbs.
Deinonychus: 5 feet tall, 10 feet long, and about 160 ilbs.

A standard poodle vs A standard woman

Winner: Deinonychus

Weapons

Velociraptors: 3 inch sickle claw and 28 sharp teeth.
Deinonychus: 5 inch sickle claw and 60 sharp teeth.

More points = More problems

Winner: Deinonychus

Name

Velociraptor: Name means "Speedy Thief"
Deinonychus: Name means "Terrible Claw"

You can't spell deinonychus without D.I.E.

Winner: Deinonychus

Locale

Velociraptor: Mongolia.
Deinonychus: The Western States, USA.

Get off my lawn, you damn dinosaurs!

Winner: Deinonychus

       I believe the winner is clear. Not only is Deinonychus more badass, but if there turned out to be a secret society of dinosaurs hiding underground it wouldn't be a Velociraptor you'd have to deal with. Let Mongolia deal with them. So tune in next week for Mongol Hordes vs. Velociraptors!

P.S. The "hooded spitter" dinosaur from "Jurassic Park" is called a Dilophosaurus. It had neither a neck frill or spat poison. It was also a scavenger as it was too much of a pussy to be able to bring down any decent sized prey. It is, however, one of the few dinosaurs in that movie that actually came from the Jurassic period.

P.P.S. Deinonychus is an anagram of "Hey, Disco Nun!"

What's In a Name?

        Hello. My name is Jesse. But what's in a name? Would I by any other name smell as sweet? The one big downside of the name is its commonality not just among guys, but across the gender divide. This raises the question of why the name Jesse is so popular. Jesse is originally a Hebrew name meaning “God Exists”. Since most people aren't fully aware of what ancient meaning their name has I would highly doubt that this is the root of the name's popularity. Perhaps it is in the history. After all there have been many famous Jesse's throughout the ages.
        The first famous Jesse is without a doubt the biblical one and also the one from which I was named. In the bible we learn that Jesse the father of David. What the Bible fails to mention, however, is how Jesse assuredly had that fatherly trait of bragging about their kids. It is hard to be out bragged when your kid is a freaking King. While chilling with his peeps in the fields he was surely a force to be reckoned with. “Oh, your boy Paul saved your flock from a wolf? He sure is brave. Just like when my boy David, you know the King of Israel. Remember when he saved the Israelites by taking out a giant using nothing but a little stone? You must be so proud of little Paul.”
        While Jesse James was a famous outlaw and pretty much a total dick, but I would be remiss if I left him out. After all he is not only a famous Jesse, but was also weird as shit. For starters his mother's name was Zeralda. Take a moment to really appreciate just how bizarre that is. Jesse later went on to marry his first cousin Zeralda Mimms. He not only married a first cousin, but one that was named after his own mother. Again take another moment to appreciate that. As I'm sure everyone knows, he led a very successful life of crime. This life ended on April 3 in 1882 at his home. While climbing onto a chair to dust a picture he was shot in back by his partners-in-crime the Ford brothers. This prompted mother Zeralda to select an epitaph for Jesse which reads more like a passive-aggressive note than a memorial: “In loving memory of my beloved son, murdered by a traitor and coward whose name is not worthy to appear here.”
        Back to the good sort of famous. In 1935 Vernon Elvis Presley and Gladys Love Smith gave birth to identical twins: Elvis and Jesse. Sadly Jesse was stillborn. I'm convinced that had he survived, he would have been twice the rocker and stud that Elvis was.
        In 1936 German athletes were dominating the Olympic games and as if that wasn't enough their wins were helping to further the spread of Nazi propaganda. Enter Jesse Owens. The American, and noticeably not Aryan, went out and pissed the shit out of Hitler by winning 4 gold medals in Track and Field; effectively shoving the “superiority” of the Aryan race right up Hitler's fat ass.
        Jesse Ventura is a former Minnesota Governor, professional wrestler, Navy SEAL, actor, radio host, and probably a million other things I'm forgetting. He once asked the Dalai Lama if he had seen the movie Caddyshack. He also once said, “The will of the people is still the most powerful force in our government.” I do not care what any one thinks, personally I believe he was one of the greatest politicians I have ever seen. He understood that citizens can't just sit back and let the government do everything, he had a sense of humor, and above all he was honest.
        So don't get me wrong, I think my name is pretty cool. It's even got a "J" in it and everyone knows Js are fun letters. However, a name with such an inherently awesome nature comes with popularity and with popularity comes commonality. Throughout school I've often had other Jesses in classes. The real problems with it are caused by Women. As I have established Jesse is a man's name. There is no denying this fact. However, the country is chalk full of Jessicas. Now girls named Jessica are one thing, the real trouble comes from the inevitable nickname: Jessie. Suddenly we are over run with these female Jessies.
        Perhaps you doubt me. I'm over reacting, you think to yourself, sure there's a lot of girl's named Jessie and Jessica, but there's just as many guys named Jesse. Well you would have thought wrong. Let's look at the facts, shall we? I was born in 1987 so let's look at the Jesse/Jessica placements for +/- 4 years in order to show what I have had to put up with throughout school.

Year	# of Jesse's Born	# of Jessica's Born
1983	8,464	54,319
1984	7,597	45,837
1985	8,215	48,342
1986	8,532	52,628
1987	7,983	55,990
1988	7,901	51,494
1989	8,853	47,889
1990	8,965	46,460
1991	8,362	43,392

Total # of Jesses born between 1983-1991: 74,872

Total # of Jessicas born between 1983-1991: 446,351

        This means that for every Jesse there was in school, there was probably 5 or more Jessica's. Six Jessica's with the nickname Jessie. I cannot begin to explain the personal embarrassment of hearing someone say your name, then turning around to find that they were talking to a blonde girl in a miniskirt. “Oh, you were talking to her? I thought you were complimenting me on how well my pants show off my ass. My bad.” At the end of the day I really don't blame these lovely ladies. I've known many a fantastic Jessica. I even had a big crush on one during one of my years in high school. Aside from the stray embarrassing miscommunication they have done me no harm. But you know who has done me harm? Rick Springfield.
        In case you weren't born in the 80s and have never listened to the radio ever before, Rick Springfield wrote a hit song called “Jessie's Girl”. A song that I hold largely responsible for the continual trouble I have getting people to spell my name right. I often have people asking, “Jesse...is that with an I?” To which I have to try to hold back my barbed tongue, “Umm no, there's no I. I am not a woman.” Clearly the Jessie in the song is a man, “He's got himself a girl” after all, so what's the deal? From what I can gather, from the internet, Rick's inspiration for “Jessie's Girl” was his school friend Gary and Gary's girl. Not wanting to use Gary's real name, he changed it to “Jessie” after seeing the name on a softball jersey. I would have hoped that Rick would realized that softball is played by women, but I can't stay mad at Rick Springfield. Sure he has single-handedly put the masculine spelling of Jesse into question, but at least he did so in the form of a catchy tune. If you're going to cause trouble you might as well do it in song.