False advertising!

I EXPECTED to be sitting down to watch Devil Girl from Mars.

Instead, we sat down to watch The Bat. Stupid UEN changing the schedule on me.

But…The Bat has it’s place. As spoken of earlier, in a way, it’s the film that began it all. I remember the big promotion about it being aired Halloween night. First/one of the first 3d movies to be aired on TV. And, one of the fast food joints was giving out 3d glasses for it. We had the glasses, and the film was colorized. I was actually looking forward to watching it that year, even though I was not going to be able to go trick or treating because my brother was sick.

The glasses, they do nothing! And, we got a tripped out 3 image blob of a rubber bat flying around on the screen instead. IT SUCKED. I got bored, and went to hand out treats instead, and a haunter was born. Without The Bat, who knows, I might have ended up going overboard on Christmas!!! *gasp*!

So, despite my disappointment, we stayed up to view The Bat on a very windy Friday night, with trees shaking, house creaking and groaning in the wind, and things being tossed around outside. It’s funny, how often the folks in the movie attribute something to “just the wind”, only to have it turn out to be a real threat.

Perhaps that coincidence accounts for why Jen found Kyle asleep downstairs, with all the lights on, hiding under his covers, SITTING UP, and a death grip on his little stuffed monkey.

If I had only known, I would have scared him proper…or at least have gotten pics.

Yer darn right ARRRR!!!

It should be made known, I am a SUCKER for sauces. So, when a sauce uses a halloween flavor in it’s advertising, you know I have to give it a try.

A little while back I spoke of a commercial that brought a smile to my face.

Well, I’ve been seeking this stuff since first seeing that commercial. In fact, the stuff has brought on a bit of a mythic status here at the house with both the boys regularly asking if I had found it yet.

Well, today I did.

Perusing the grocery store shelves in the BBQ sauce section, as become habit, there it was. 4 different flavors of Buccaneer Blends BBQ sauce. I don’t recall them all, because I figured, if you’re buying a BBQ sauce based on a pirate motiff, you really don’t need to look much further than the RUM.

Opening the bottle greeted us with a very sweet aroma, and a spicy/sweet taste. I knew almost immediately, this was a BBQ sauce meant to be used as a marinade/baste rather than one meant to be used as a dip.

So, I pulled out some chicken breasts and set them to marinading. But, I couldn’t call myself a proper Utahn sauce lover if I didn’t at least TRY the stuff in some fry sauce as well.

The Fry sauce…not so great. As I said earlier, this is for cooking, not dipping.

The Chicken, however….

Man this stuff carmalized GREAT, and the sweetness is replaced by a nice, rich, deep flavor as the sauce thickens. YER DARN RIGHT ARRRRRRR!!!!

I’ld wager this stuff would be at it’s best in a slow cook situation. I look forward to meatballs slathered in this stuff placed in the crock pot. ARRRRR!!!!!

Let the countdown begin.

The countdown sign.

This has become a rather popular addition to the yard leading up to Halloween.

2 years ago, it began with a piece of plywood I found, a couple hooks, and some poster board.

Among the problems being the weather mutilating the numbers, and the fact you really couldn’t see it at night…

And…no one seemed to know WHAT it was counting down TO. Oh, sure, I could go put “days to halloween” or something on it, but I like folks to wonder sometimes. And, occasionally, one would ask what the numbers were for.

Last year, we decided to give the thing a good and proper upgrade. Sign V 2.0 got some heavy duty outdoor paint, a permanent housing for a blacklight fixture, some more scrap plywood to make the numbers out of, and some flourescent spraypaint ensured that the weathering and light problems were solved. (though we did lose the cool nighttime face)

The light fixture proved itself to be quite weather resistant through a rather turbulent October, that made me think of leaving it up through the winter after that first snowfall.

By this time, most folks knew what the numbers were for. Very few asked, but I still got a lot of comments. Often with someone hollering whatever the number was for the day. But, we had the problems of the numbers starting to fade in the sun. Well, except the few that I had mistakenly painted with non-flourescent spraypaint first before going back over it with the flourescent.

We joked about getting it out at several points during the year. Having a ‘285’ or a ‘139’ sign out for a day or two during the year. But, once it hit double digits, Jen’s been a bit more vocal about it. Several times mentioning ‘we should put up the sign’.

Well, it’s been burried, and I really only had enough numbers to start at 59. Then, this last week, Jen got asked if we were still doing Halloween, for a neighbor was wondering as they hadn’t seen anything yet, and the sign wasn’t even up.

Well. Who am I to argue with requests? I did have some scrap subflooring left from construction, so another number or two wasn’t so hard. So, Sign V 2.1 got a fresh coat of that outdoor paint for the sign and all the numbers last night. And the numbers all got a base coat of orange prior to the flourescent.

And, we moved it off the grass and onto the porch to prevent problems with the lawn for now.

I’m thinking of adding the blog address to it as well.

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Categorized as History, Sign

Just what color IS the underworld?

So, let me recap.

We have these graves from Guild Wars, onto which I’ve applied the religious rights of several African religions: The grave is where the body is buried, but the spirit remains with the family for a number of years, and is given a ‘pot’ to live in. After some time, the pot is taken to it’s resting place as well so that the spirit is reunited with the body, and the person can continue their journey.

However, if these rites are not performed correctly, or the person is not happy with what sacrifices were made, the deceased will become a ‘wandering spirit’ and inflict death and disease upon the land and family. Thus, fences, posts, and wards are made at gravesites to further help prevent wandering spirits from escaping.

For Halloween, that just sounds like fun.

Just what, however, does this underworld look like that the wandering spirit is struggling to escape from?

Is it a place red in nature?

Perhaps it is green…

Maybe it’s different for each spirit?

Let me know what you think. And try to imagine the above fully implimented with 7 graves, all finished, not stark white, more poles and charms in place to keep the spirits in, and fogged up properly.

Meet the trolls.

I have a problem…

As stated several times, I’ve been wanting to make these ‘tombstones’ to look much more rough than their Guild Wars equivalent. The random nature of tin foil and duct tape allowed me to make the pots rough. For painting the faces, however, I had to enlist the assistance of my resident “unskilled trolls”.

This is a haunter term I heard a while back. Making things look as though they were made by unskilled trolls. I REALLY like symmetry, however. To a point I can’t manage to create things without it bugging me when they are not.

So, meet the unskilled trolls….

Kyle makes the outline

Alec took care of the eyes and ‘noses’

And, we thus have faces created by ‘unskilled trolls’, and a whole lot of me biting my tongue…

I’m quite proud of my talented little ‘unskilled trolls’.

Project Nightfall is coming together nicely. I’ld suspect a rough prototype of a single grave within a week. We’ve set the total to 7 graves, since that is what I have enough stuff for on hand without spending more money.