Indiana Jones, Crystal Skulls, the Mayans and 2012.

Ever since George Lucas announced the title of the fourth Indiana Jones movie (i.e. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), my interest has been piqued.

Indy battled the Nazis for the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark? He fought evil Indians for Sankara Stones in The Temple of Doom. And, once again, he went toe-to-toe with Hitler's regime in search of the Holy Grail in The Last Crusade

Now Indy's on the lookout for...crystal skulls? To be honest, my first impression was "Whaaaaaaat?"

But, after reading a Vanity Fair article on the upcoming Indy movie and visiting some rather strange websites on the phenomena, I now have another passion in addition to UFOs, Bigfoot, the Mothman and the Loch Ness monster...

CRYSTAL MOTHER-F'ING SKULLS.

In a nutshell, it's believed that there are 13 crystal skulls of ancient origin buried around the world. Some think that a handful of the skulls are still buried beneath the ground. Others believe all 13 have already been found. Some hippies think that, as I write this, a secret society known as the Illumanati are trying to find these crystal skulls to control the world. Others think scientologists are involved.

What is known, however, is that most of the skulls have been found near Mayan and Aztec civilization in parts of Mexico, Central America and South America.

And here's where the creepiness comes in.

The skulls seem to defy logic.

In fact, everything that is known about them indicates that the skulls should have been shattered fractured, or fallen apart when carved centuries ago. It's virtually impossible to say how the skulls were constructed. To add to that, the world's most talented sculptors and engineers today are still unable to duplicate it.

Fascinating, eh?

One of the most famous of the Crystal Skulls is the Mitches Hedges skull named after F. A. Mitchell-Hedges who discovered it in 1927 while searching for the lost city of Atlantis in Belize. The sculpture is an anatomically correct replica of a human skull, but smaller.

Now, here's where it gets even weirder.

This particular skull was loaned to the Hewlett Packard Laboratories in 1970 for some extensive study. According to a number of web sites I visited, the tests yielded some crazy results including:

- The skull was carved against the natural axis of the crystal, which would almost surely make the piece shatter.
- Even with lasers and other high-tech cutting methods used today it would still shatter if carved this way.
- The lab could find no microscopic scratches on the crystal which would indicate it had been carved with metal instruments or possibly diamonds.
- It was concluded that successfully crafting a shape as complex as the Mitchell-Hedges skull is virtually impossible.

That's why the crystal skulls are a complete mystery on par with Stonehenge, the Easter Island heads and the Pyramids. Nobody really knows where they came from or what they were used for.

However, some people have their theories...

- The skulls were left behind by aliens thousands of years ago.
- When placed together, the skulls will enable humans to see deeply into the past and educate us about the future a la' the movie Highlander.
- They were left behind by a sophisticated Inner Earth society which lives at the hollow center of our planet. The thirteen skulls contain the history of these unknown people.
- The skulls were teleported along with visitors (perhaps ourselves from the future?) who came to teach earth mortals about their heritage and purpose for being here.
- They are the computers of the ancients and contain important information that will help humanity to pass through its current series of challenges and take us into a Golden Age.
- When placed together the skulls will summon our alien gods back to Earth.

Another interesting theory is that the final skull will be found and all 13 skulls will come together on December 21, 2012. Coincidentally, the same exact time the Mayan Calendar ends, which also signifies the end of the world as we know it.

Or, as some theorists put it, the beginning of the apocalypse.

Whatever you believe, you can bank on one of the above theories being somehow involved in the plot for the fourth Indiana Jones adventure. There are even rumors that the little creatures from Close Encounters of the Third Kind will be making a brief appearance towards the end of the film.

Whatever you believe, I personally think the crystal skull phenomena is intriguing to say the least.

And damn, if it won't make a great movie as well.

If you're still interested, I also found this seven-minute Travel channel segment on YouTube which digs deeper into the Crystal Skulls mystique.

Girl's Bathroom...REVEALED!

In college, I created a cartoon about a young Indiana Jones and his little Arabian friend going on a 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' adventure and unlocking the mysterious secrets of the girl's bathroom.

I was thinking of that cartoon on the way to work today and it brought back a flood of memories.

Like most kids, we would have basketball practice after school. It was that particular magic time when the halls were empty, voices echoed throughout the building and, pretty much, it was a free-for-all when it came to exploring unknown catacombs of the school such as the cafeteria kitchen, the teacher's lounge and the janitor's closet.

During a break in free throws, we were heading to the water fountain, when one of my fifth-grade chums ran over to the girl's bathroom door, pushed it open and darted inside.

A couple seconds passed before he shot his head out of the door and yelled, "Well, are you coming or not?"

Like a herd of sheep, we ushered into the great unknown abyss known as the girl's bathroom.

As we entered, the first difference I noticed was, of course, was no urinals. Now, at the time, I knew women had different body parts and that they couldn’t stand up and pee (Although this wasn’t the case in college). Hence, no urinals.

Another observation: unlike the boy's room, all the bathroom stalls had doors.

To this day, I never understood the phenomena of no doors on boy’s bathroom stalls.
Although I remember walking in on many kids grunting, groaning and wiping with reams and reams of toilet paper - in my 12 years of school, I never, ever took a shit in a school bathroom. And it was primarily due to the lack of stall doors.

As we delved further into the bathroom, I noticed the pink walls. The color gave the girl’s bathroom an overall comfortable ‘girly’ feel. It was actually very welcoming. Had this option been available to me, I would have more than likely let the turds fly in school. Possibly numerous times per day.

Instead of the zoo-like urine and shit smell found daily in the boy’s bathroom, I remembered a dinstint fresh, fruity smell emitting from the air. Also there were no strands of toilet paper on the ground and the balled-up brown construction-paper towels were placed nicely and neatly in the trash can. Man were these girls clean.

Then, all of a sudden, one of my fellow teammates shrieked...

"What the hell is that!" he yelled pointing to the far wall of the girl's restroom.

It was at that exact moment, we came in contact with the Lost Ark of the Covenant...

THE TAMPON MACHINE

Being in fifth grade, I was still a boy. I played kissing games and spin the bottle with girls. I think I even had a psuedo girlfriend or two. In short, I knew girls and boys were different and all that jazz, but I didn’t know we were THAT DIFFERENT.

I would overhear my mom telling people that she was bleeding. I would see the remnants in the trash can, but I just assumed she cut herself. I remember going to the movies and watching The Blue Lagoon. I got freaked out when Brooke Shields had her period in the water. I thought there was a creature under the water biting her.

Suffice to say, I wasn’t educated on the love-making aspect until a little later down the line - a couple years later to be exact. That's when the light went off and I said to myelf, "So that's what that machine was."

So there we were, my buddies and I, our mouths agape as we stared at this machine in awe.

"Man, I wish we had a machine like that in our bathroom," one kid murmured. To be honest, I sort of did too. I was a little jealous that these girls got so many perks. Like the clean bathroom. The pink coloring. Doors on the stalls. And, of course, this mysterious machine.

Boy was I wrong.

In hindight, I liked our little boy’s room. I liked standing by the urinal, pulling my pants all the way down to my ankles and taking a good ol' man piss. I liked the no doors on the stalls. I liked the toilet paper everywhere. Hell, I even liked the poop smell mixed with vomit.

But, you know what I especially like? The fact that I'll never, ever, have a period and/or menstrual cramp as long as I live.

More importantly, I'll never have to use one of those machines. Ever.

Unless, of course, I get shot in the butthole.

Dream Review #2 - Shootin' Arrows At Indy

I was in this living room that had three or four sofas, great artwork hanging and blood-red walls.

I was standing next to this 20' x 20' window with a pretty cool view of this city. It looked like a mix between Chicago, New York and Las Vegas.

In my hand, I noticed that I had a bow and arrow. I also noticed that my right leg had an arrow sticking out of it with a small stream of blood trickling down my leg onto the floor. I was dressed in a jeans, black shoes and a black t-shirt.

I looked across the room and standing next to a wall-size, flat-screen TV - playing what looked like Herbie Hancock's 'Rockit' video - was an older-looking Harrison Ford in full Indiana Jones-attire. He had a bow as well but, it was aimed in another direction.

I glanced towards this magnificant stainless, steel kitchen. Standing there was the hot, brunette chick from the new Transformers movie (Megan Fox). She had a black crossbow that was aimed right at me. I quickly drew my bow in her direction.

It was a Mexican, bow-and-arrow standoff.

Megan let an arrow fly. It punctured my chest above my heart. I yelled. Then I screamed. Then I was angry. Not regular angry, but Hulk angry.

Indy and I both took a couple shots at her. My arrow hit her in the stomach. Indy's arrow planted her in the arm. She screamed, broke off both arrows with her hand and began firing her crossbow. Arrows spewed out in rapid-fire motion almost like a machine gun. I ran for cover as a bevy of arrows busted through the window behind me throwing shards of glass everywhere.

It was a battle royale.

We hopped around, hid behind plants and furniture and continued to shoot arrows at each other. I noticed that my arrow pack would always replenish and I never had to look around for arrows on the ground. It was like I was in some sort of 3-D video game.

Dead silence. We reached a stand still, which I took as an opportunity.

With a dozen arrows poking out of my body, I took a running start, leapt into the air and jumped over a couch. In super-slow motion, I let two arrows fly from my bow. Both arrows hit their mark...head shots to Megan and Indy.

I landed on this white, polar-bear skin rug, which instantly stained with droplets of my blood. As I stood up, I saw Megan Fox's limp body face down in the kitchen sink. Her dead body must have hit the faucet before she died because the sink was overflowing with blood from her wounds. She was dead.

I shot a look over at Indy and, with dozens of arrows sticking out of his body as well, he was locked and loaded with an arrow pointed towards my skull. You could tell by the look on his face that he wasn't too concerned about dying. But, I was. I quickly reloaded and mirrored his aim.

It was yet another high-noon, Mexican standoff.

He smirked and said something that I took it to be a smart-ass remark. Then, I smirked and said something sarcastic back.

We both let our arrows fly.

I felt the penetration of the arrow going through my head right before I woke up.

MY INTERPRETATION: I'm looking forward to the new Indiana Jones movie AND if I can't have Megan Fox no one can.