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Boo!

Good morning, Halloweenies! (Okay, that’s not original. They’re serving halloweenies in the company cafeteria today).

I am as psychic as a potato. I itch to see something I can’t explain, but I am utterly blind to auras, cold spots, vibes, premonitions and heebie jeebies.

I thought I saw a UFO once. I stood in the side yard at the farm one night watching these strange lights moving far off in the sky…until the sun came up and I saw it was actually a nearby badly insulated electrical wire arcing when it slapped against the pole. I had a touch of heebie-jeebies — call it a heebie — before I knew what I was looking at. I’m apparently capable of the creeps, but my life has been sadly bereft of them.

hampton court ghost

Something about this guy gives me a heebie, though. Usually, ‘ghost’ photos are meh. Obvious double exposures. Flash noise.

This spooky dude turned up on surveillance photos at Hampton Court Palace. That’s one of Henry VIII’s haunts (ho, ho) about ten miles West of Central London. It’s mostly a tourist attraction now.

In December of ’03, a pair of fire doors in a seldom-used area of the palace blipped the security panel three days running. The third time, the guard checked the nearest camera, and these images turned up.

It doesn’t match anyone authorized to be in the area, or any of the Tudor costumes sometimes used by staff. Security in palaces isn’t infallable, but it’s generally good. Nobody ‘fessed up, nor tried to make hay afterwards.

Britain has a tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas (that’s why A Christmas Carol is one), and this looks an awful lot like Zombie Father Christmas. So…probable hooey.

But we drove past Hampton Court not long after, and Uncle B pointed it out to me. And it was kind of brrrr.

Comments


Comment from apotheosis
Time: October 31, 2008, 10:35 am

Most of these are meh. Something about the “ghost girl” photo in the first link always creeps the beejeezus outta me whenever I see it.

I don’t know why. It’s a perfectly average photo. (larger copy here). She doesn’t look ghostly at all, so I’m not sure what gets my hackles up about it.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 10:37 am

I love being spooked. I do not for an instant believe (with my – heh – brain) in any of that horseshit spook/ghost/whatever crap whatsoever, but my body just loves! squirting adrenaline (and feces!) everywhere and having what hair I have stand on end!


Comment from apotheosis
Time: October 31, 2008, 10:58 am

There is a “congress of baboons” but there’s no equivalent vaguely insulting association for senators.

Let’s help them out.

I’m thinking slugs.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 31, 2008, 11:04 am

A sneak of weasels! w00t!

Here’s an odd one for you. I was reading some old ghost stories last night before bed (nice short chunks of prose to help turn the lights out on the brain at night), and the one I lit on supposedly takes place in a town just a few miles from Badger House…on Thursday, October 30. Which is what it was last night.

It’s one thing to get the date right — especially a ghost story set the day before Hallowe’en — but the day of the week? Woo!

Sadly, robed apparitions did not visit the foot of the bed last night and reveal lottery numbers to me.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: October 31, 2008, 11:16 am

Well Apo, when in doubt, bow to the wisdom of Samuel Clemmens:

SENATORS
There are many Senators whom I hold in a certain respect and would not think of declining to meet socially, if I believed it was the will of God. We have lately sent a United States Senator to the penitentiary, but I am quite well aware that of those who have escaped this promotion there are several who are in some regards guiltless of crime–not guiltless of all crimes, for that cannot be said of any United States Senator, I think, but guiltless of some kinds of crime.
– Mark Twain in Eruption

Senator: a person who makes laws in Washington when not doing time.
– More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927


Comment from apotheosis
Time: October 31, 2008, 11:25 am

I think maybe I missed out on some essential experience in childhood that lets people suspend disbelief and get freaked out by this sort of stuff. My parents both disdained horror films as more dumb than scary, so I guess I accepted that.

(I had fears like any kid but they were comparatively mundane, rational stuff. Nuclear war, etc. The only movie I ever saw that made me crap my pants was The Day After.)

There was ONE time, tho. And it was just one of those things, three of us teenagers out driving around back roads late at night with nothing else to do. Gas was cheap and the music was loud (know why heavy metal’s better than rap? It sounds great even on stock speakers in a Dodge Colt.)

And I don’t even know why the subject came up, but there was this old burned-out farmhouse way out Quivira road. We all knew it was there because we were told it was, even though you couldn’t really even see the foundations anymore. It was common knowledge. What was LESS well-known was the “fact” that the fire had been started accidentally by a bunch of wannabe Satanists, and that a bunch of stupid people died, and that a white horse that was brought along for some unexplained part of the ritual ALSO burned to death.

SOoooooooo the story goes…sometimes…late at night, if the moon is out [like it is now] and you’re driving by that property’s fence [like we are right now] you can see that ghost horse running alongside the car with no legs [like that one right there OH HOLY SHIT DRIVEDRIVEDRIVEFASTER]

Yeah, in afterthought it was probably a cow. And it wasn’t running. It probably had white body and dark-colored legs and wasn’t REALLY a floating apparition.

But that’s not what your mind sees at the time.


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: October 31, 2008, 11:43 am

Stoatie, just found a great little GIF for you to play with…

[img]http://www.dvorak.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/bullshit_detector.gif[/img]


Comment from Jessica
Time: October 31, 2008, 11:59 am

I LOVE ghost stuff – and unlike all you boring people, I actually believe in ghosts, spirits, and the like. Really I do. And it tickles me to no end that the group from TAPS is from my adopted home state of RI!

BUT, yeah, that security camera series is too “solid” to be anything but a prank. But it’s fun nonetheless.

Weasel, did you ever do Downy’s Pet Cemetery cache on the outskirts of the Freetown State Forest – home of the creepiest stuff on Earth? I did it alone, and my heart was racing the whole time – I’ve never walked faster. I was just absolutely creeped out from the moment I got out of the car, and it’s not like I wasn’t used to taking these walks alone. I actually felt afraid – for no reason. When I got home I did some poking around online and found that the trail I used is the same trail a beaten teenager walked down after being attacked right near the cache site, AND where I parked my car is where a car with two dead bodies was found just a couple of years before…. wooooooooooooo


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 31, 2008, 12:23 pm

No, I missed that one. Hm. I did go visit poor old Mercy Brown (they really did dig up a poor girl who died of consumption in Rhode Island in 1890-something).

The only times I’ve gotten thoroughly creeped out by myself in the woods was when human varmints were in my vicinity.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 12:25 pm

I sat in the chair my brother was found in when he died. I sat very quietly, trying to “feel” any kind of influence or sensation.

Nothing happened.

I have to admit, I was disappointed.

Oh! And Weasel, speaking of date coincidences, my sister recently discovered that not only was our mother born on the same month/day as Edgar A. Poe – she died on the same month/day, too! Jan 19th and Oct. 7th.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 31, 2008, 12:25 pm

Apotheosis, when my grandfather was a boy in Baton Rouge, he got seriously freaked in a graveyard one night by a white shape that would rise up from behind a stone, hover for a minute, and sink behind the stone again. After a few repetitions, he got close enough to work out it was the head of a white mule, grazing.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 12:39 pm

Anyone here ever actually crap or wee themselves? I haven’t – but I prairie-dogged a bit once.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 31, 2008, 12:52 pm

Hahahaha…you can always count on ol’ Steamboat McGoo to elevate the discourse. The Intellectualizer, we call him.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 12:55 pm

Always glad to be of service, Weaz.


Comment from porknbean
Time: October 31, 2008, 12:58 pm

I pissed myself once McGoo. I was a poor young bean at the time and was missing a button on my pants, so I safety-pinned them shut. Got home from school doing the pee pee dance and could not get a decent grip to undo the damn pin.
….oh and another time, I beg the excuse I had recently given birth to a nine pounder thankyouverymuch *sniff*.


Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: October 31, 2008, 12:58 pm

Happy Halloween Weasel & Minions! It’s also Nevada Day too so I get the day off – WHOOT!

Alas, I’ve never seen any ghosts or other apparitions. I thought I did once while in bed, but I later learned it was just a Night Terror. Here out west everything is too shiny and new for much paranormalistical buildup I think.

How about a Slime of Sentators and a Crime of Congresscritters?


Comment from porknbean
Time: October 31, 2008, 1:00 pm

What the hell is ‘prairie dogging’…..er…ohhhhhh. Geez.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 1:05 pm

A felony of Senators.


Comment from memomachine
Time: October 31, 2008, 1:18 pm

Hmmmm.

Saw a UFO once in New Jersey.

Driving home on the Garden State Parkway going south. I was just north of the Holmdel NJ State Trooper building and coming down the hill there when I saw the strangest thing.

I saw upside down trees up in the air.

Then I looked again and what I actually saw looked like a huge, 300 yards long, shallow concave mirror moving very slowly to the west at about 500 feet altitude. I couldn’t see the top of it as it was shadowed by the lights below. But the street lights on the road gave enough illumination so the surrounding trees reflected very clearly off this thing.

1. Too shallow in depth to be a blimp, which are sausage shaped.

2. This was like a flying mirror, so not a blimp again.

3. Too slow, too long and too wide to be an airplane.

4. No wings.

5. Way too big to be a helicopter. When I was in the Marines I rode helicopters regularly. Definitely not a helicopter.

6. Frankly it looked like an extremely well polished flying saucer.

*shrug* no idea what it was. But I’m definitely not as skeptical as I used to be because this definitely was not “swamp gas”.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 31, 2008, 1:30 pm

You had me at “upside down trees” memomachine. That’s the way you’d describe something you really and truly had seen: start with the misconception.

At the time I saw my not-really-UFO, our area had been hit with a series of UFO reports. Late 1970s. Some of them were rumored to have left burned patches and other bits of physical evidence. I don’t know if that’s true, but we were just a short hop from Oak Ridge (which is still one of our most secretive laboratories, not counting the ones so secret we don’t even know about them).

I think you have to assume some UFO reports are us, trying out stuff.


Comment from apotheosis
Time: October 31, 2008, 1:49 pm

I can’t really say I ever actually crapped myself, because I’d prefer to think of it as an unexpectedly robust and full-bodied fart.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 31, 2008, 1:55 pm

A man just walked past my desk dressed in a Tinky Winky costume. He didn’t look gay.


Comment from Nicole
Time: October 31, 2008, 2:01 pm

I have needed a change of undergarments before, yes. My mom and her sister and I take an annual trip to Hot Springs/Eureka Springs, AR every fall. We are stoooopid, believe you me. 😛 The 3 of us together are far too witty, far too quick and far too merciless.

Way to much giggling and too much tea + ancient elevators in an ancient hotel = oopsies all around. 🙂 We take extra clothes nowadays…


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: October 31, 2008, 2:23 pm

Stoatie – did you touch his belly and make him giggle?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 31, 2008, 2:35 pm

I think that’s the Pillsbury Dough Boy, Scuba. But I get the resemblance.


Comment from Jill
Time: October 31, 2008, 2:39 pm

Swease, I wish I had your inability to be spooked.
I have an undeniable sixth sense.
I could tell you all some stories, but right now I’m jammed at work and don’t have the time.
Maybe later.


Comment from Nicole
Time: October 31, 2008, 2:39 pm

Oh, and regarding the ghosty stuff, I am one of those people who really, really wants it to be true. I would so love to live in a world with ghosts, auras, werewolves, vampires, chupcabras, etc. But I can’t make myself accept without checking for bogusness and I can’t accept something as true once proven false.

I had one experience in a house I used to rent. I got seriously spooked in the kitchen one night by the stove and ran into the living room, in a near panic. No idea why. Just felt threatened and an overwhelming urge to run. Didn’t say anything. Next week a friend comes over and has the same experience in the same spot. Had some friends who were into the “woooo” at the time so they decided they needed to cleanse the house. Moved shortly after so I don’t know if it worked.

I can spook myself pretty good though. Reading does it much more than movies, though. My imagination runs away with me – even though my logical brain says there is nothing there, my brain that wants to believe says “oh yes there is and you better cover your head with the blankets so it doesn’t see you” or “even though you think you know there is nothing in that hotel bathtub in the dark when you get up to pee in the night, what if there was a nasty thing there, a-la The Shining and what if it is reaching towards you?” So, yeah, I can spook myself but I don’t really truly believe in the supernatural.

I don’t look down on anyone who does, though, as long as it doesn’t rely on already disproven “evidence.” Even then, it’s your choice – and it makes a more interesting world if you do believe in this stuff so more power to you. 🙂


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 2:55 pm

Oh, yes, Nicole. I’ve expressed my beliefs up above (I have none), but my life could be taken soooo easily by someone with just a little strategic timing. Just sneak up on me at the right time and – bam! – massive heart attack.

I’ve been living out here in the country for months now – but I have not faced my Ultimate Challenge: walk the 100 yards down to the pitch-black barn at night with no moon and no light.

And then go in…


Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: October 31, 2008, 2:58 pm

McGoo, you have moved to a dark place. You are likely to be eaten by Grue.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 2:59 pm

…and (Nicole) your prose reminded me of something Stephen King wrote in one of his book introductions: something to the effect that

“(he) still keeps his feet tucked under the covers in bed at all times. he knows monsters are imaginary. he knows they can’t hurt him. And he also knows that if he keeps his feet under the covers, they can’t get at him!”


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 3:01 pm

Better Gru’ed than Obama’ed.


Comment from Gnus
Time: October 31, 2008, 3:35 pm

All Spring and Summer long, while it was warm, I’d go out on the deck to smoke, assess the weather, get my eyes open, etc., before heading out for my morning rounds. There’s nothing but scrub brush, palmetto, and pine trees out in front of the deck. The neighbors to the northeast have light watchmen, but the glow peters out before it penetrates very far into the brush/forest beside the houses; otherwise it is very dark.

All Spring I saw occasional flashes of light where there should not be anything to flash. In trees, or close to the ground, just brief flashes. I put it down to lightning bugs or some such, and didn’t think much about it. I likes me some lightning bugs, and we don’t have them here like we did in Tennessee, if at all some years, so I was glad to see them.

One morning about six weeks ago, it had been raining and everything was still wet when I went out to check on things. After a minute or so, I noticed several flashes of light, appearing to emanate from a tree across the way. This went on until I had to leave. I put it down to a boat out in the bay, and the wind moving the leaves, revealing the boat’s running lights, or maybe lights on the far shore that were normally hidden but were being revealed due to the wind blowing the leaves. No big deal.

Two mornings later it had been a nasty day, rain and wind all day, the rain finally stopping around 8PM, with the wind dying down a bit. Everything was still sopping wet when I made my morning appearance, so much so that the trees were still dripping. Once I lit up and sorta settled in, I began to notice those same flashes from the same tree across the way as I had seen previously, a few but not many. As I watched, the flashes slowly increased in frequency and intensity. Pretty soon it was like a Christmas tree with all it’s flashing lights was having an epileptic fit. Some lights appeared to arc toward the ground, leaving a trail behind. Flashes in clusters of three and four. Quite a show.

Too late in the year for lightning bugs. No boat in the bay was gonna gyrate like that without sinking. Couldn’t be lights on the far shore.

It was kinda creepy, but at the same time fascinating to watch. I had that feeling where I maybe ought to be scared and I was just too dumb to know. I have no idea what it was, a theory maybe, but no real notion of what caused it.

I did rule out aliens, since if they picked me to reveal themselves to, they’re too stupid to be dangerous, much less smart enough to navigate in space.


Comment from porknbean
Time: October 31, 2008, 3:38 pm

and (Nicole) your prose reminded me of something Stephen King wrote in one of his book introductions:

To hell with your feet, what about the bat on your wall wanting your eyeballs?

*jeepers…creepers..where’d you get those peepers….lalala*


Comment from porknbean
Time: October 31, 2008, 3:41 pm

Gnus, maybe someone across the way still has their Xmas lights up? Investigate. I double-dog-dares ya.


Comment from Jill
Time: October 31, 2008, 3:45 pm

There’s an entire series, but here’s a start:

http://www.weirdpennsylvania.com/


Comment from Scubafreak
Time: October 31, 2008, 3:49 pm

Kewl. Rachel Ray just learned a new method for shucking corn….. 😉

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRda_A4zXpI


Comment from nicole
Time: October 31, 2008, 4:53 pm

Oo. 100 yds in the pitch black. Don’t know if it matters how skeptical you are, something in human beings is leery of the complete and utter dark. I would have a difficult time. I could probably make it, but nothing says I wouldn’t be running at the end and diving for a light switch.

That’s generally the upshot of my watching intensely spooky stuff by myself in the dark or reading same by myself. I start out very calmly going up the stairs to bed but by the top I am running and leaping at the switch. 😛 I *know* there is nothing behind me. Doesn’t stop my primitive brain from making these chubby legs run, though.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 31, 2008, 4:59 pm

I couldn’t have stood it, Gnus. I would’ve had to figure out what that was.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 31, 2008, 6:16 pm

Our old friend Jam Handy explains how those old zillion-bulb animated signs work. It’s like a paper piano roll between the wires that light the bulbs and the copper plate with the charge.

Dammit, I love these old newsreels. They’re so charged with optimism and wonder.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 31, 2008, 6:59 pm

I had two halloweenies for lunch, BTW. Hotdogs, buns, mustard, meat sauce, onions and celery salt. Why celery salt? I haven’t a clue.

S’alright.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 7:44 pm

Nicole, are you so right.

I read and firmly believe that “fear of the dark” is solidly programmed into our DNA. The selection process that would do this is quite simple: way back when there were predators that ate humans out there (and we were out there too) the folks that wandered out into the dark…got eaten. Therefore they didn’t get a chance to reproduce (as kids) or didn’t survive to help raise their brats if they made it to adulthood. It wouldn’t take meny generations to reinforce timidity about the dark and turn it into a full-blown fear.

Likewise, the folks who stuck around the campfire ’cause it was neat (there was a time when fire was “new”, after all) managed to live and reproduce. Their kids who liked the fire (and were afraid of the dark) also lived to reproduce.

Hence our unintentional genetic fascination with the television. A friend of mine calls TVs “electronic campfires” because our eyes are invariably “drawn” to any TV in operation, much like our fascination with a campfire.

Time for a drink…


Comment from Gnus
Time: October 31, 2008, 7:53 pm

pnb, there isn’t anybody across the way in that direction. Well, not for a couple of miles across the bay, anyways. Just an (almost) empty lot.

Sweasel I did go look after the first episode. Nothing at all out of the ordinary. The second time was kinda eery, it was 3AM, water was dripping out of the trees, it was really dark, and to be honest, I wasn’t all that certain I wanted to know just then. I guarantee if somebody’d made a sudden loud noise from somewhere close, I’d have had to answer McGoo’s question in the affirmative. So I waited until the next morning to go look again. Nothing unusual again, just ordinary trees and stuff.

I theorise that the wind was blowing the leaves such that the neighbor’s lightwatchmen did find openings to illuminate the drops of water in the trees, kinda like the sun makes dew drops twinkle.

Still, we are mighty close to Eglin AFB here. Who knows?


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 8:10 pm

…and to be honest, I wasn’t all that certain I wanted to know just then….

Ah-ha! Ya see, Stoaty! My question wasn’t “Intellectualizer-ing”. It was SCIENCE!! Filling your drawers with …um … fear, is a quantitative measurement.

I think the International MKS Unit of fear should be the Pamper.

Tell you what though, All this ghosty stuff is gettin’ me in the mood to eff with someone. It’s been a long, long time since a toed a Goth….


Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: October 31, 2008, 9:11 pm

“…our eyes are invariably “drawn” to any TV in operation”

Ain’t that the truth. At work there is a tv screen in every elevator and everyones eyes are glued to it the instant they get in. I don’t because they are all set to MSNBC. Barf.

Oh and what, exactly, is “meat sauce” Stoaty? Is that like chili or something?


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 9:34 pm

Oh, yes, Enas. I’m one of those folks that – in general – would much rather talk and be talked to than sit mindlessly in front of the tube. So I notice the behavior of others a lot with respect to the “idiot box”. I’ve also noticed even in myself that the “need” to look is quite strong and deep-seated. It’s built in. It has to be,

It’s hypnotic. Just like a campfire. I honestly believe there is a common connection between the two activities and behaviors.

Even when its’ MSNBC. Gag.


Comment from Allen
Time: October 31, 2008, 9:36 pm

My favorite “UFO” from back in the early 80’s. ” I was driving from Roswell to Socorro and was taking the road just north of White Sands. It was just before sunset, and I had to stop and water a bush. So, I’m standing there and awinking light is coming right at me along the highway.

Whatever it was kept coming right at me, low too. It makes a hard right turn and heads south; I’m thinking I don’t need this shit. Pheww! Early cruise missile test, I found out later.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: October 31, 2008, 9:40 pm

Thank you, thank you – Mr Yorl! I have been wanting to ask ‘WTF is “meat sauce”!?’ all evening, but assumed I’d just be mocked to scorn for being an ignorant Brit.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 9:47 pm

Is that the road that goes through Cloudcroft? I drove that road up in the mountains – at night, in a snowstorm, in a POS Chevy Maverick with no heat to speak of and no snow tires or chains – in the winter of 1976. I didn’t know until the next day that on one side of me as I was driving was a 3000(?) foot dropoff.

I don’t doubt you saw strange things out in that neighborhood. I think they invented “strange” there….

EDIT: Um…I was curious about that, too, Badger.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: October 31, 2008, 9:57 pm

Nope – I just looked on the map. Cloudcroft is to the east, not the north.


Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: October 31, 2008, 10:45 pm

My parents and I were watching Ghost Hunters live tonight…Jay and Grant had a freaky experience early on when a loud, deep, angry male voice said right next to Grant, “You’re not supposed to be here!” It was very clear – even I heard it. Oooooo! Grant immediately called, “Jay, did you hear that?” Jay called back, “No, what?” and the voice repeated, farther away but still clear and angry-sounding, “You’re not supposed to be here!” Grant got it on his recorder.

Anyway, I’ve never seen a ghost or experienced anything paranormal, but my mom did a lot when she was a kid.

So, Weas, are you going to put up a Joint NaNoWriMo Thread for us tomorrow? And by “us” I mostly mean “McGoo.”


Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: October 31, 2008, 10:49 pm

Early in my father’s Air Force career (early 60’s) he was stationed at Wright Patterson AFB and he flew in a UFO several times. It was a specially designed recon plane that was able to fly very low, slow, and quiet. It also had a frickin’ laser beam shooting out of it. They flew their missions at night and the laser spreaded out in a fan pattern underneath the plane. Dad said it was very spooky looking if you didn’t know what it was. Every time they flew the police got a dozen or two calls about UFO sightings. But since what they were doing was highly classified the Air Force routinely denied having any aircraft in the vicinity of the sightings. What they were actually doing though was research into creating highly detailed contour terrain maps with lasers.

Some years later Dad was part of a team of engineers at Andrews AFB who developed an EXTREMELY accurate, self-corrcting guidance system for a new nuclear tipped, medium-range, low-flying, subsonic missile that used terrain for cover along its trajectory. Allen, you saw a bit of my father’s handiwork that night!


Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: October 31, 2008, 11:01 pm

Also, I have a poltergeist in my house named Pepper. I have a chess set by the fireplace, and I keep finding the pieces moved around. Stupid dog thinks she can move four pieces before my turn. Dad must have been the one who taught her how to play.

(When I was little and Dad and I used to play various games and he was losing, he would make a big show out of cheating as obviously as possible while pretending that he was trying to hide the cheating.)


Comment from apotheosis
Time: October 31, 2008, 11:09 pm

THE CASE OF THE CREEPING ACES.

At first, there was the Ace of Spades favicon.ico which appeared in my bookmarks next to his site link. And all was good.

Then the same icon appeared next to Rachl Lukis. I was nonplussed. Totally and completely without plus, was I.

And now it’s appeared next to Protein Wisdom’s link.

And yet the stoat holds fast to hers.

screenshotted, suitable for framing

IT’S A MYSTERY.


Comment from Allen
Time: October 31, 2008, 11:55 pm

McGoo, I was headed home from Cloudcroft to Socorro. Roswell is just the closest big town that folks might recognize the name.

My favorite town name in NM, Pie Town. Then you hit Datil. I have a buddy who has a ranch in Datil.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: November 1, 2008, 3:56 am

Allen, that whole highway is “strange” corridor, there.

Pie Town. I like it. There are some strange names in Arizona – like Show Low (from the poker game variation, I guess).

…And, yes, I can’t sleep. Again.

…And Weasel posts a nice ghost/etc thread and then Ace posts about his personal nightmares.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 1, 2008, 5:02 am

Meat sauce is like a sloppy joe mixture: ground beef and, I dunno, spices or something. They actually call it weiner sauce, but that’s too horrible for words. I think it is a delicacy of Rhode Island. For some reason, the crowning touch is a very great deal of celery salt.


Comment from Jill
Time: November 1, 2008, 10:12 am

Hey, McGoo? Last night after waiting 2 hours to give candy to 3 (count ’em, folks THREE) kids, I went to the bar and drowned my sorrows in steak and high-quality vodka.

My friend Jay was at the bar with his wife, and told me about his evening scaring the kiddies. He said he got into costume and makeup of someone run over by a car, and laid under his car in the driveway.

Two teenage boys came up the drive, kicked at ‘that dummy’s foot under the car’ and started to walk up to the house. Now mind you, in addition to spending alot of time spookifying his house, Jay plays the soundtrack from the original Friday The 13th *quite* loudly the entire time that the kids are out and about.

He got out from under the car and crept up behind the teenagers. Just as the dummy-kicker was ready to ring the doorbell, Jay tapped him on his shoulder.

The kid turned around, his eyes got bigger than saucers, and the poor thing peed himself. In front of his friend.

Gahhh, I love Halloween!


Comment from Jill
Time: November 1, 2008, 10:20 am

Anyone else see this?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200267359418

They also have the other 3!


Comment from porknbean
Time: November 1, 2008, 12:27 pm

That is very cute Jill. A friend of mine repaints CPK into folks-we-know likenesses. You should see the ones he did of himself and his partner. He also was made ‘Goodwill Ambassador to CPK’ as a consultant and has been flying around the country with OAA to celebrate CPKs 25th birthday. Very talented guy and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a hand in the Sarah doll.


Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: November 2, 2008, 10:10 am

The only movie I ever saw that made me crap my pants was The Day After.

Oh come on. Steve Guttenberg isn’t that bad.


Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: November 2, 2008, 11:22 am

Gibby – as an adult, the only flick that’s come close to making me fill my diaper was (believe it or not) Altered States. It’s the only flick that – to me – was so intense that I was actually ready to leave the theatre.

Jill – there is a video on the Net somewhere of some guy sitting in a chair on a porch dressed up like a scarecrow on Halloween. When kids walk by he suddenly gets up and they invariably drop their load and scream! It’s a hoot.


Comment from Nicole
Time: November 3, 2008, 12:02 pm

My Forgotten English calendar today has notes on old words for dung. Given McGoo’s addition to this comment thread along with there being a Badger associated with it…

From various dictionaries, dated 1669 through 1855

Scumber: dung of fox
Trettles: dung of rabbit or coney
Lesses: dung of boar, bear or wolf
Billeting: foxes’ excrement
Spraints or Spraintings: otters
Ging: general term for scat
Fuants: dung of wolf, fox, marten or badger
Crotels or Croteys: ordure of hare, rabbit or goat
Fewmets or Fewmishings: dung of deer
Werdrobe: ordure of badger

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