An Unorthodox Halloween – Page 77

Black Friday Redux

Ah…the shopping season.

Oh, I’m not a shopper by any stretch. But, there’s something special about watching a mob lose all rationality and trample the weak and infirm to reach their silly destination. Especially in this season of “peace on earth and goodwill toward men.”

I’ve had a long and wonderful experience with Black Friday shopping. Laughing as someone tries to push me is always fun. As is watching someone try to take something out of my arms…breifly.

It’s not hard to do the math when you’re in walmart standing around a pallet of super big deal thingamajigs your wife wants, knowing there are 12, and 30 people standing there.

Normally, I can just grab ours, make sure the newbie guys (because I always seem to be next to first timers) get theirs, then be on my way. However, some lady that leap-frogged me when I bent over to grab mine…(yes, real funny lady) took my hat off in the process, and I had to wait for it to re-appear from the carnage.

3 women had their arms around the last one, on the ground kicking and screaming when my hat popped back out.

Lady 1 arrived shortly after I did at Wal-Mart. Her mistake? She left the Cricut pallet at 3:30 to go get some video games into her cart first. (Wal-Mart let’s you shop for anything not in their ad, but then they price-match whoever’s ad it was on sale at during checkout) She did not make it back to the pallet till 4:30. Moments before the madness began.

Lady 2 arrived at the cricut pallet at 3:40…and mocked all of us because “they just have some of those expressions over on the shelf there, I’ve already got mine.”
She re-emerged at the pallet at 4:20, having discovered hers was not the special package that was on sale.

Lady 3 is the one that chose to leap-frog me. Don’t know what time they arrived.

It would have been amusing to see which one ended up with the thing, but we had places to go.

See, I’ve never “missed out” on the primary thing we are after on Black Friday by following one simple tenat:

Be kind and sociable.

At the end of the day, it’s just a bunch of stuff. Talk to the people waiting in line before hand. Chances are pretty high you’ll be waiting in line with them at the checkout as well. Ask what they’re going after, and help them get it if it’s near yours/on the way to yours. Very unlikely you’re after the same stuff. Even when you are, there’s nothing wrong with making sure they get what they’re after. A year ago, I struck a deal with several folks. I went after gameboys, while one group went for DVD players and another grabbed a cart for me. So, instead of the 1 gameboy I needed, I grabbed 8, then traded gameboys for the things I really needed.

Be kind to the employees. It’s a terrible day for them. Smile, be nice, say thank you.

Try to protect the littler ones. Kids, babies, women. Do your best to protect them from the jerks shoving things around.

Karma pays off here, at the end. Upset Karma, and you might end up on the floor with 2 others wrestling over the last of something. And then, were the injuries truly worth it, even if you were the one to “win”?

Fixing Jack.

Jack’s reconstruction is officially underway.

First and foremost was addressing the issues we had from last year. Namely, the hands not being able to hold the ornament, and the glass ornament consistantly slipping free of the glue.

I was never happy with the duct tape and pipe cleaner hands to begin with…

From Christmas

The hands have therefore been completely re-imagined. I’ll be going into detail on the process to make said hands when I have them actually completed. And, along with that, I dug out an old light up grapevine ball my mom gave us years ago. The new hands are not only steady, but looking much better, even if they still need a paint job.

From Christmas

Jack himself is in serious disrepair as well. The eyes suffered major cracks and chipping, and had to be removed. And, he’s in need of a major touch-up job on the paint.

From Christmas

His legs are simply not salvageable, and thus had to be amputated. I’ll be making some replacements soon enough. The arms were removed to allow me to make the joints stronger, and make the hand re-attachement easier.

From Christmas

Meanwhile, Zero presently has a head, but I’m still not entirely sure how exactly to go about the rest of it.

So, Jack will likely be ready Thanksgiving weekend, Zero…who knows.

Coca Cola.

Huh?

What’s this got to do with Halloween OR Christmas, you ask?

I was in Costco last night, picking up some bread, as per my orders. There, I saw a magnificent sight. Coca Cola. REAL Coca Cola. The kind I had not witnessed since way back to my childhood.

Back when the local Coca Cola plant used REAL sugar, not that corn…whatever crap. Back when Coke came in those great glass bottles that we’ld save to make Root Beer.

Costco is carrying Coca Cola bottled in Mexico these days. Pure cane sugar Coca Cola. REAL Coca Cola. And, what’s even better, IT COMES IN THE GLASS BOTTLES!

Cracking open that bottle brought so many happy memories back…At Grandma’s drinking soda from glass bottles only to wash them and fill em with root beer.

And who knows…you just may be seeing those glass bottles being put to good use…

Now, if only someone would start carrying Dublin Dr Pepper…

Nuts and Bolts

There are several memories of making treats for Christmas from my childhood.

Namely, dipping pretzles and/or Oreos in chocolate, and making Nuts and Bolts.

Both were mildly annoying as a child. Seemed to take FOREVER. Eventually, we stopped with the dipping things. But, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without Nuts and Bolts.

And, given the state of the recipe at the time, it really DID take hours. Cutting up butter into little cubes and placing it around the mixture while baking it on a low setting, stirring and adding seasoning till all that butter was melted.

It’s no wonder I’ve never seen anything even resembling this mix in this day and age of toss in a bag and shake chex mixes. And, when mom stopped making it some years back, and I decided to start…I had to do SOME updating to the recipe, for my own sanity.

For purists out there, I have mangled the thing. For me, I’ve re-created the taste in about 1/6th the time. Able to whip up a batch in 30 minutes.

First thing you are going to need is a LARGE roasting pan. Mine is 18 qt, and is really too small for a full batch. Oh, I can make it work, but it makes a mess. Now, there are those aluminum disposables if you’re desperate, but you can buy a roaster oven around thanksgiving for $20 or less. And they offer a way to free up your oven whilst cooking that christmas ham or turkey anyway.

Now then, the original recipe is all but unintelligable with non-existant ingredients, so I’ll spare you that, and just post it as it exists today:

1 LARGE bag of Cheetos PUFFS (the crunchy wont work!)
2 bags of Bugles (If unable to find, Fritos work as an adequate substitute)
1 LARGE box of ORIGINAL Chex
2 pkg of Pretzles, I prefer the asthetics of sticks myself…
1 can of peanuts
1 can of cashew halves
1 can of mixed nuts **as long as we’re adding the peanuts and cashews, spend a bit more and get the mixed nuts that are not full of peanuts and cashews, eh?

3/4 lbs Butter

1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp Savory
1 TBL Beau Monde (THIS is only made by Spice Islands brand. If unable to find this, search “beautiful world spice” into google for alternatives. )
1 TBL Hickory Smoked Salt (This can be difficult to find outside of the BBQ season)

*An UnOrthOdOx special* I don’t find this is enough seasoning for my taste, so I have taken to using the highly scientific method of using heaping measuring spoons of the above instead of level when measuring my spices.

Mix all the seasoning together into a bowl.

Add the following, IN THIS ORDER to the pan.

1 bag pretzles, 1/2 the chex, 1 bag bugles, 1/2 the cheetos, repeat, place nuts on TOP.

In a seperate dish, toss that butter in the microwave and melt it.

Now drizzle a little butter over the top, be sure to get the nuts, then sprinkle the seasoning, stir and repeat until all butter and seasoning is gone. Toss in the oven at 200 degrees for 25-30 mins or until everything is nice and warm/hot but before burning the cheetos (they will burn first)

Presto! Best party mix out there.

And, as making it the other day, it struck me just how much it fits with the fall holidays, what with the wonderfull fall colors.

From Christmas

Going Christmas.

Do not fear, this is a temporary change…

New banner atop there, and a new counter added to the side.

I couldn’t get my javascript counter editted to display Christmas unless I removed the Halloween one. It would only display one or the other, not both. (if anyone knowledgable in the language is reading and knows the problem, let me know) Unwilling to do that, I’ve had to grab a freebie off the dark recesses of the internet. In all it’s ghastly jollyness.

A few things in my adult life have come to give me a hate/love relation with Christmas. And, in the darker years, I thuroughly despised the season. I do, however, enjoy watching the kids get their enjoyment.

We had to come to some kind of compromise, for I don’t wish to ruin the ‘magic’ for the kids. So, last year, I made Jack.

From Christmas

In a whole host of “it was a good idea at the time” moments…his face was made by making a rough form out of Crayola Model Magic.

From Christmas

Then covering that with some air dry procelain and getting him a paint job. I wanted to see if the porcelain would work for future Halloween projects, see…

And, it worked rather well…that year. Over the summer, Jack’s face has cracked and chipped, proving my fears of the porcelain. So, his face is getting a new touchup, in my more tried and true Powergrab…more to see if my problems with it in October were just the result of a bad case, or a change in formula, than it is a proven method at this point.

He also needs some new legs and hands. The hands were not strong enough last year, they’ll be stronger and look better this year. And, I messed up his legs last year, naughty me…making them too short then trying to graft more length onto them.

See, while the Zombietronix bipedal calculator is good at making human porportioned frames…Jack is supposed to have abnormally long arms and legs.

And…if Jack’s reconstruction goes simply, we might even build him a little Zero to go with him.