Stress Tests and the Crazies

We had plans to go to some of the state parks in the vicinity of Portland this morning, however the rubbish weather put those plans to rest. Instead we hit a local shopping mall. Lui was looking for some shoes and we just fancied a general browse before heading to the cinema to watch a new horror film - the Crazies.

As we were wandering around the mall we stumbled across a stall for ‘free stress tests’! Obviously there was more to this than a free stress test and the game was given away by the tower of ‘Dianetics’ books by author L. Ron Hubbard - a science fiction writer who started the cult of Scientology in the 1950’s. Lui didn’t want to pass up an opportunity like this so immediately gave it a go. They got him to hold onto a little contraption called an ‘E-meter’, which scientologists claim measures stress, and then asked him a series of questions about stressful periods of his life. Lui enjoyed the experience but was annoyed that he didn’t ask them any probing questions about their beliefs. A missed opportunity perhaps.

Fully converted to Scientology Lui rejoined us and we went to the cinema to watch the newly released Crazies. Set in Iowa the film follows events in a remote farming town over the course of three days as things get drastically worse for its crazy inhabitants. We all enjoyed it. The mark of a good horror movie is whether any of the characters did anything stupid in it. The crazies wasn’t too bad for that apart from a few times the lead characters saying to one-another ‘wait here’. Why would you separate from each other when there are all these crazy things going on! No rational person would do that!! Suitably scared we got ourselves some lunch in the mall and a milkshake in a 50’s style diner before dropping Lui off at his hotel and heading back to Eugene. A fun few days in Portland.