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Wednesday, October 31
In which we specify the real reason for the season
Halloween. A time for reflection, rebirth, connecting with the spirits beyon dthe veil and making remembrance of those who have passed.
Sure.
But in the world of a two year old, it's all about getting to put on an outfit that gives him the right to jump hither and thither like a the froggie it makes him look like. And while wearing that outfit, going from stranger's house to stranger's house, saying "Trick or Treat" and getting candy in return.
Candy, from strangers. I didn't think about it until just now, but Halloween kinda runs counter to safety rules I'm pretty sure we all grew up with.
But then again, Halloween also has a huge emphasis on things dangerous and scary. S'why chicks generally dress up like hookers and guys dress up like the physical embodiments of the screwed up psychoses of the nutjobs that prey on hookers.
It's also why not only did I dress punk, but I used a needle to punch a hole in my nose, piercing it for real.
I shoved. Metal. In. My. Face.
I'm trying to decide if this is "Punk as F***" or "Totally Metal."
What was I saying again? Oh yes. *raises glass* Happy Halloween!
posted by: Bliss @ 9:57 PM
Tuesday, October 30
Candy girl:
Back in the day I was all about Trick or Treating. Now I have a couple times of year that I will indulge and one of those is this week. I love the feeling of Halloween. The costumes and the lights and the going door to door and seeing the neighbors and the kids and the treats, oooh.. The treats.
As a kid I love SweetTarts, Snickers (And the less desireable Three Musketeers), Mr. Goodbar, M&M's, clark bars, butter fingers, Reese's Peanut butter cups and heath bars.
On the hated list? Candy corn. Apples. Pennies (If you're going to be that lame give me something I could actually buy some candy with.)
As an adult, I still love many of the peanut and chocolate goodies... (M&M's and Mr. Goodbar are still tops.) But I've lost most of my taste for the really really sweet stuff. I can't stand the pure sugar candies now.
Oh, and worst trick or treat ever? We had a Dentist on our block one year... I got a new tooth brush and a small "travel" size tube of toothpaste. Yeah, great idea there. You graduated from Dental School?
So, what's everyone's favorites?
posted by: Skeeve @ 12:16 AM
Friday, October 26
Zero's Friday Five
The next time you read a new Friday Five, Halloween will have come and gone. My favorite holiday. Girls go out in their underwear and call it a "costume", strangers give you candy, and there's a slew of craptastic horror films on TV all night long. What holiday can beat that? Christmas? Sure, there's gifts but, the movies suck and no girls in public displays of underwear. Ramadan? Hmmm... better not go there. Anyway, that's not my point. No, my point is... candy. Mostly because I don't feel qualified to tell girls what underwear makes the best costume (you all do a fine job anyway), and Hollywood will always make crappy formula horror films... but, we can do something about the candy. Take notes, junior.
1. Raisins - are not candy! The reason you wake up on November 1 to find your house covered in shaving cream, your trees raining TP, and your dog mysteriously knocked up is because you friggin' gave out raisins, or apples, or worse yet: pamphlets about Jesus. You can't even eat the pamphlets (well, you could, but who'd want to?). Sugar, empty calories, chocolate. These are all acceptable. Keep your dried fruit for your nature hikes and diarrhea contests. Dick.
2. The No-Doorbell Option - You're a dick. Let's just make that plain and simple. Little little kids may not admit it, but it's not enough that they get the candy. It's about showing off your cool costume. When you leave a basket that says "Take One" on your front door and don't take part in the holiday personally, you're being a dick. Stop being a dick, and answer the door, or I'm taking all your candy, replacing it with joints, and calling the police because you're distributing weed to children on halloween. Dick.
3. Bite Size Candy - You're a cheap bastard. It's one thing to do the "fun size" packets, it's entirely another thing to deal out one individual bite size tiny piece of chocolate per trick or treater. Give properly sized portions or I will eat your bite sized soul. Dick.
4. Tainted Candy - Yes, it's fun to murder children. We all know it. But, at the expense of a perfectly fun holiday? Please stop putting razorblades in your peanut butter cups and injecting bleach into your Snickers. It's not cool. Well... it's not cool on October 31st, anyway. Save your homicidal poisoning fantasies for another day. Dick.
5. No Candy - Okay, everyone has one house on their street where the jerks who live there don't even set out the "Take One" basket, they just turn off all the lights and pretend not to be home. Again, this is the stuff of dickery. If you are one of these people, you have my permission to do #2 (literally and figuratively). This doesn't excuse you from being a dick, and you will go to Halloween Hell when you die. It's a child's holiday, for crying out loud. Why would you want to be mean to children? Dick.
You are now free to trick or treat around the TKOP.
posted by: Zero @ 10:46 AM
Wednesday, October 24
Let the games begin.
Go Sox!
posted by: Bliss @ 10:07 PM
Monday, October 22
4 bars of action:
We have grown the in house wifi a bit more. It's getting bigger all the time. It's 4 full bars in the livingroom now.
The wii, and my powerbook, like this. Alot.
This is the last full week of October. Nov and Dec are waiting in the wings, as is the new year. It's getting darker and darker earlier and earlier. My big maple tree in the back of the house has started dumping it's crisp apple colored leaves on the chairs and table out back, and I still need a leaf blower.
Soon, I will need a snow blower...
Damn this owning a house thing is tricky.
The boys are all tucked in tight to thier beds, and I'm just minutes away from tossing myself into my own bed.
Perhaps tomorrow I'll get to see Zero again.
Good night, little tkop. How big you have grown.
posted by: Skeeve @ 11:42 PM
Friday, October 19
Zero's Friday Five
Hey Kiddies! Last week, I posed a question. You answered. Isis, Eve, and DeputyM got it right. Fruit Brute, and Yummy Mummy complete the General Mills Monster Cereal Quintet. Congrats!
This week, I'd like to ask you another question, but this is one I'd like you to answer in the new ZFF thread I created in the Movies forum. And the question is this:
In your opinion, what are the five best horror films of all time?
posted by: Zero @ 8:31 PM
Wednesday, October 17
Wii have a problem
Not really. Just couldn't resist that as a headline.
What we do have is a shiny new toy, which is primarily used in the room that tends to be the toy jurisdiction of the Tiny Emperor. Tonight we got the chance to let him try his little hands as some of the Wii Play minigames.
It's a singular experience, to be in the presence of a perfect Noob.
And I mean that in every real sense. Not only is the system unfamiliar, the games unfamiliar, but even the concept of it, of doing something with his hand HERE and having it show up on the screen THERE is, for the most part, foreign to him. Hand-eye coordination is still largely in development. 'Left' and 'Right' are current learning concepts, never mind "point this end at the screen" and "Tilt it forward to go faster."
Yet I know that in three, five, ten years, he's going to look back on the Wii as that first, quaint little system that he learned on, just as I look back at the NES. He, of course will look back at the NES the way I look at Pong. An innovative thing that led to the REAL games that I played, and this cool new stuff that I play now. Given the leaps from then to now over the past 20 years (because yes Virginia, as of this coming Christmas it will be twenty years since my dad bought us the NES with the Super Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet triple cartridge), I don't doubt that when The Tiny Emperor is just graduating from college, one of the presents he wants will involve gyroscopic controls, VR, and full-body feedback of which rumblepacks are the precursor.
And it will be made by Nintendo, and it will STILL have that little four-way directional pad somewhere in the controls.
posted by: Bliss @ 10:19 PM
Monday, October 15
Wii have a post.
Todays blog has been brought to you by the letters W, I AND GODD@MMN3D MûTH@LUVIN I!11!
Seriously, though... Have you ever tried to write a post with a wii-mote? (I'm looking at you here Zero...) Let's just say I'm not exactly sure if I'm typing or kicking Raiden's butt. (Thanks Lippy and SingeBackdraft!)
At some point I'll commit the epic tale of my Wii-aquisition for all to read, but that shall have to wait for a time when I'm not typing like a one fingered remedial business student.
Goodnight all!
posted by: Skeeve @ 11:49 PM
Friday, October 12
Zero's Friday Five
This week I pose a question, the answer to which I challenge you not to Google or Wiki, etc... Once upon a time General Mills created five monster-themed cereals, of which Boo Berry remains a high personal favorite of yours truly. Complete this list... Send your answers to me in a PRIVATE MESSAGE, and next Friday I will post the names of those of you who got it right.
1. Count Chocula
2. Franken Berry
3. Boo Berry
4. _____________
5. _____________
Happy Horrordays!
posted by: Zero @ 6:56 PM
Wednesday, October 10
Paranoia Doesn't Mean They Aren't Out to Get You
The problem with the titular phrase, of course, is what to do when 'they' is yourself?
My blog two weeks ago made vague reference to the events of the previous Monday, in which I was in a car accident that, while an accident, was my own fault in the eyes of the insurance company.
Yesterday, after my back finally was back to normal... I had my ankle buckle and fell in a driveway while carrying both the kids. Let me tell you this, not until you're a parent do you come to know the truly amazing twists and lurches your body will go through when you are carrying your child and fall, in order to take the brunt of it on yourself.
So I'm sitting here (on the bench on the Group W bench) with a refreshed series of aches and pains from my hips all the way up into my neck, and I wonder what other tricks I might be able to pull on myself once this heals up. Will I manage to miss sitting properly on my rolly-chair at work? When the first frost hits, will I not notice that one patch of ice on the sidewalk and go down like a two dollar hooker? Will I fall out of bed for the first time in twenty years, or have a box land on me as we continue the ongoing task of unpacking?
I haven't the foggiest. But I'll be damned if I like this karmic fear stop me from doing ANY thing.
Now hand me the Extra Strength Tylenol.
posted by: Bliss @ 10:25 PM
Monday, October 8
My second home
I spend alot of time at these big box home improvement stores now that I own a house. Perhaps you do too. A place where somehow, for some reason, you think $400 is a reasonable amount to spend on a light fixture. Or perhaps $700 for a new toilet.
"But... It's prewarmed! It must be worth it!"
Ha.
I saw a light dimmer switch today that goes into cahoots with it's breathern, and makes it so if you set up a zone with it's computer brain it will dim and brighten all the lights in that zone even if they're in completely different rooms.. Perhaps even in different houses... No additional wiring needed. All I see there is the potential to mess with ones own family. I did buy a dimer. We installed a new light just before the meet, so those of you in the dining room did actually get to meet the Sun Jr. On and off equate to darkness and liquid hot magma.
We won't have to heat the diningroom... i'll tell you that much.
Once these stores get into you you start looking at all of the fixtures in the house and thinking "Oh, I need to replace that! It's so not like the $79.99 version of it I saw at the LoweDepot." never mind that it's still working... And likely will continue to work for generations to come. The little emperor will be 500 years old and this fixture will still be doing what it needs to, but... It's not as nice as the new one!
Plus... It lets me spend more time in my home away from home.
posted by: Skeeve @ 10:37 PM
Friday, October 5
Zero's Friday Five
1933 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300
1936 Lancia Aprilia
1938 Lancia Astura
1948 Cisitalia 202
1952 Ferrari 250
posted by: Zero @ 9:41 AM
Monday, October 1
Monday again and no thoughts...
Motivating myself to write a blog after a day full of meetings and todo lists isn't the easiest thing in the world... But I do look forward to a day off in the upcoming weeks... (Yeah!)
We're settling into the house slowly.. Still need some unpacking and rearranging... But that will only happen in time... Like by the time the kids graduate High School... Maybe.
The little admiral is teething already. Looks like 2 teeth coming in at once, poor thing.
Ok, seeing as how tomorrow is anouther long day, I bid you all good night!
posted by: Skeeve @ 10:09 PM
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