Coming back from the dead

Gasp, I missed several days of blogging, especially for the Countdown to Hallowe'en.  Thursday night I was eating and  something just didn't feel right in my stomach.  I was ok until food or drink was just about to go into my stomach and WHO THE HEDOUBLEHOCKEYSTICKS STABBED ME IN THE GUT?!!!  It had gotten excruciatingly worse and I finally went to the doctor...it's either an ulcer or a perforation in the esophagus.  He gave me some medicine to start with the healing so hopefully I'll be fine...but in the meantime I'm on a liquid diet.

Bla.

Otherwise, I'm doing great...blood pressure is perfect, cholesterol has lowered the past 3 times I've had it checked, arthritis is behaving itself, all due to better living through higher chemistry:

That ain't all of them, I take 4 more at different times!

I swear I'm not a hypochondriac, all my diseases are real I tell you!  They're real!  Why doesn't anyone believe me?!



Ahem, back to scaring...

Corpsing Class

Class was fun and we started to put the dead skin on our lovely corpse heads.

Then I showed them how to make a bloody band-aid from latex.

Then I got showed up by Vienna...he made a popped blister on his hand.  Wonderfully gross!

A creepy shot of the works in progress.

Hallowe'en Countdown--24 Days and Counting

Midnight Dance
The music is the Danse Macabe.  This is visually mesmerizing, humorous at times and darkly beautiful...



Via Tiny Sepuku

Hallowe'en Countdown--25 Days and Counting!

Via signgenerator.org

Hallowe'en Countdown--26 Days and Counting--Vintage Film Strips on Hallowe'en!

Via Tiny Sepuku (one of my favorite comic strips too, love this person's work and advice!).





Love the way that they emphasize how "silly" it is to believe in witches and superstitions.

SPOOKHOUSE DAVE! A MUST SEE!

I have just been alerted to the wonderful adventures of Spookhouse Dave! It's the adventures of a young boy being raised by a family of monsters in an old castle and there's a new episode everyday for the month of October!

And I have a thing for Hagatha, so back off people, she's mine!

Hallowe'en Countdown Day -27/School Days

One lesser known fact about Mr. Macabre is that he used to be an art teacher at a Catholic school for a short time. Trouble is, God never showed up but Beelzebub always arrived 10 minutes early each time. Now Mr. Macabre is teaching art to a class of home schooled younguns and this months lesson is making a corpse head.

Yes, I am teaching America's youth how to corpse a skull.

We're actually making nightstand skulls with electric candles coming out of the cranium. I'm letting the kids have free reign with this project, they can do whatever they want.

Showing the kids how to play 'Lobotomy'

And we played 'Orthodontist' too!

This is some more of our little 'Lobotomy' game

And showing the children how to test and see if the glue gun is ready or not.

I-I-I'm not crying, I just have something in my eyes...

A Primer on Candy Corn

Just remember...

Yes!

Yes!

NO!!!

I got hold of some 'chocolate' candy corn in a variety bag. NASTY!

Poor Man's Payday

Ms. M taught me this Hallowe'en trick some years ago and I still remember it:

Take a few kernels of candy corn and pop them in your mouth with about the same amount of roasted or parched peanuts...

Voila! It tastes just like a Payday candy bar!

A Hallowe'en Giveaway...

I almost forgot, I did say that I was going to do a Hallowe'en giveaway. I'm giving away 1 Mr. Macabre Prize Pack which the main prizes are:

A Pot Full O' Trouble complete with battery operated tea light.

Glow in the dark Skeleton Keys (glow caps you put on your keys)

Incense, candles and some surprises to boot!

How may you compete for this box of Hallowe'en goodness?  Well, we'll play The Price is Right...

What you see is my Hallowe'en money stash.  I throw all my dollar bills and loose change from my pockets daily into a big pot (actually a ceramic pumpkin in my room) and twice a year (my birthday and Hallowe'en)  I can be a totally selfish jerk and spend it on myself. The bills in the bottom photo are just straightened out and put into stacks, I didn't count them and there's no rhyme or reason to them, I just put the fronts facing the same way to help the bank teller.  Tell me the total dollar and change amount without going over and you win the prize pack. Each person gets 1 guess but you can change your guess at any time with a new guess but your latest guess will be the one that counts.

Winner is chosen on Friday October 16.

Good luck!

Halloween Countdown Day 28--Broomstick Bunny

My favorite part has to be the black cat at 1:01.

Hallowe'en Countdown--Day -29/ Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Would you like to?

My business cards came in from UPrinting.com.  They are beautiful, the quality is gorgeous!  All my personal information is on the back...

I are real happy!

Hallowe'en Countdown--Day -30/ One of the Unofficial Fruits of Hallowe'en

I would like to nominate the muscadine grape as one of the official fruits of Hallowe'en.  Some would argue the apple is #1 and I would not disagree but the muscadine (pronounced "musky-dine" by most here) has to be up there somewhere.  The large Southern grape grows wild on large vines has been cultivated and grown commercially for a number of years.  The fruit is deep purple to almost black with tiny specks of white like stars on a Hallowe'en night.  The strong, dark, heady scent of the muscadine is deep and smells like a mysterious Hallowe'en perfume, almost intoxicating.

Unfortunately, they are usually only found in the Southern states but to my Northern friends, I would encourage you to try a jar of muscadine preserves or a bottle of muscadine wine, both can be found online.  I bought a couple of baskets from a curbside market today and am going to make homemade jelly from them.

Halloweeny enough? Hallowe'en Countdown- 31 Days Left

Finished the graveyard candles except for the spray paint...gave them a test drive tonight

Haunted Book Review Thursday

How To Build A Corpse: Easy Step by Step Instructional Manual

Published by DiStefano Productions

 http://corpsesforsale.com/

First of all, it's October 1 and I am all a tizzy over it!  This is my favorite month and to commemorate it, I will review one of my favorite how-to books that I have read but haven't used....yet.

You've seen home made corpses on the internet.  You've seen home made corpses in people's yards.  You've seen home made corpses that look more cardboard than cadaver, but if you're in the market to make a humdinger of a dead person, one that looks dried out, smelly and musty, then you MUST have this book.  My copy is many years old, it was sent in a packet unbound but from what I see, they must do a spiral plastic binding on the pages which is good.

Ok, if you want to make a dead person, this is the book for you.  The instructions are easily followed and understood, all of the parts are readily available (aside from the liquid latex and the Bucky skull which you can get shipped to you; he used a model skull but I would suggest going on EBay and getting a Bucky).  What is so neat about this book is the personalization that you can apply to your corpse, whether it is the stage of decay, eye color, clean, dirty, whatever, it's covered!  If you're ambitious, you can make your corpse's eyes glow, mouth move, whatever!  Think what you could do with a 3 axis skull!

Looking for a cute party book that will tickle your fancy with darling recipes and sweet crafts sure to please the whole family?  Then take a hike because we're talking making a scary-@$$ prop that could traumatize a child and not in the good way!  If you're serious about authenticity and anatomically correctness in your haunt, you MUST buy this book! 

One word of warning, some of the images on the website are a bit disturbing, this person has a delightfully morbid sense of humor...you have been warned but you're no doubt scrolling up to click on the link to find the pictures for yourself.

I know you people so well because you're just like me!

Opposites attract, or is that attack?

I have a question for you dear readers.

Are there some of you out there that have spouses, partners, significant others, that just do not get into Hallowe'en?   Maybe there are some of you out there that have loved ones that openly disapprove of your fascination for the dark and spooky.  How do you deal with this?  Hallowe'en to me personally is a lot more fun than Christmas.  Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas.  No, strike that.  I don't like Christmas.  I hate the commercialism, the stress, the demands and the expectations.  I adore what Christmas is all about but what it has turned into gripes me.  I love Hallowe'en because it's a holiday that demands nothing of you rather than to have a good time, unless you're a haunter and then the demands multiply by a factor of 1000.

Just curious if I'm the only one out there.

Few And Far Between...follow up on Houseoftheunusual.com and Boney The Skeleton

A while back I ordered and reviewed a Boney the Skeleton that I ordered from House of the Unusual and I wasn't entirely happy with the quality of Boney when I got him.  I am unfortunately one of those people who doesn't send stuff back, even in restaurants (the only two things that I have sent back was a chicken sandwich at Subway and a hamburger at a local barbecue joint...both were raw and bleeding in the middle and I don't play with food poisoning).  I usually just think, "oh well, there it is, this isn't what I expected".  I have done kind of like someone who leaves negative feedback on Ebay without giving the seller a chance to make it right (I can say I haven't done this, I just don't leave feedback to keep from leaving negative). In this day of big box retailers and cheap imported merchandise, I forget that there are people like me, smaller businesses that are trying to make it honestly and when something slips through the cracks, you want to make it right.



Shame on me.


I got this in my inbox yesterday...

Hello my name is Eddie and I manage the houseoftheunusual.com...

I was wondering why you posted an article on your blog about the skeleton and never asked or called me to see if I would give you a refund?

You see I have been trying for years to be able to bring people like you and me all those original comic book goodies of when we were kids.

The recreation of the Frankenstein and Boney are next to impossible without having to print hundreds, when only a few would sell. I have this 

printed upstate NY in a print shop that has a large format printer. After dealing with this person for so long, I receive the items and just send 

them out...in your case looks like the printer was short of toner...I also discovered the last 4 have similar defects.

After I read your post and examined the products I felt very bad and was ready to shut down my site for a while and rethink everything again. I was very frustrated in what had just happed to my company. I have never tried to rip-off anybody. And only now did I find out that the paper might be 50 lbs not 80 lbs stock...I feel betrayed by my printer, but that's what happens when his son takes over the business.

Hey I want to apologize and send you the Frankenstein in its place. I will have all this original stuff redone soon but I hate doing that because I would have to charge almost $200.00 for each..Is that worth it I don't know.

I recreated the Polaris submarine from my original at a cost of $645.00 and was able to sell it on eBay for $350.00 Not a very good investment.

Anyway I am very sorry and would like you to send me your address so I can send you the Frankie.

PS.  You know this is funny but after 40 years I just realized that Boney's hand is up instead of down as the ad pictures him...Believe me when I say this, the real one I have which is new in mint condition...looks worse than the copy.

PPS...I used to have 11 Boneys and 9 Frankie's...I have sold or gave most of them leaving me with only 1 of each...In 2004 I sold 5 Franks and 6 Boneys on eBay...You see the ones you see for sale now a days... most were mine.

This is obviously someone who got lesser quality products from his supplier who he trusted and in turn, didn't know anything was wrong until he ran across a strange Southern man's Hallowe'en blog.  This guy is obviously honest and got sideswiped from his printer and from me, to which I offer my apologies.  It wasn't the quality that I expected but it was unknown to him.   I LOVE the concept of offering all the stuff from the back of comic books like I grew up with.



In short, I'm giving this company another chance and I ask that you please do also. It's MY fault for not bringing the printer's error to his attention.  

Thanks to all of you for your kind consideration.

It's That Time Of Year...

...When the Hallowe'en dishes take their yearly bath in the dishwasher from storage.  And also when I hear the familiar rant from Mrs. Macabre,
(Big long heavy Zoloft-can't-touch-it depressed sigh) "Are we going to go through with this AGAIN with the dishes?!"

Three words..."YES WE ARE!"

So I got a little crazy with the glitter

A while back I found some German glass glitter on Ebay. I went a little crazy. It has a flicker bulb in it so it looks like a regular Jack O' Lantern in the dark.

And a close-up of the glittered surface (might have to use this picture as my desktop).

Would this be what Edward's Jack O' Lantern would look like?

Haunted Book Review Thursday

Country Living: Happy Halloween

Bewitching Parties and recipes, enchanting pumpkins and decorations, plus lots of other spine-tingling ideas

For those who know me by now know that I try to be a gentleman.  A crazed demented insane shell of a man but a gentleman nonetheless.  Therefore I will first of all praise the finer points of this book:

• The cover is absolutely wonderful, the die-cut cat is unique and striking (uh oh, he's gonna make this one nasty)
• The photography is par for the course with Country Living's quality, beautifully illustrated, lavish color photographs adorn every page (Aaaand here's the windup.....)
• The directions to the projects are simple to follow and involve readily available materials that don't involve a lot of time and money (And here's the pitch.....)

And that's all the nice things I have to say.  Now for the fun part:
I feel that I have been betrayed by the editors of Country Living.  I have many past issues of their October Halloween issues and have never been disappointed.  There has always been a rustic charm and old fashioned feeling of the warmth of Halloweens past with projects from past issues that are noticeably absent in this one.  The first quarter of the book was spent on Jack O' Lantern carving, with nothing that I haven't seen before elsewhere (I'm also a traditionalist when it comes to Jack O' Lanterns, I only carve faces but that's just me).  The second quarter is the crafts section and I really didn't see anything that was remotely original.  Then we come to three-eights of the book which is recipes.  I collect cookbooks also but didn't see anything overtly original or strikingly different about their Halloween dining menus.  The last eighth is kid's costumes.  They're cute, easy to do and there's some great patterns that can be used included.  However, like the kids in Martha's Halloween book, your kids are not about to be Red Riding Hood (unless torn fishnets and 29 hole Doc Marrtens are involved with makeup from Spencers), they're going to want to be %$#@&!!!  HANNAH MONTANA, HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL KIDS OR ANYTHING ELSE SO UNHALLOWEENY IT MAKES ME WEEP IN MY SLEEP!!!  Unless they're going to go as someone from Twilight in which you're going to have to wash the clothes, bathtub and towels four times to get rid of all the glitter that's going to be stuck to it.

But I digress.

This book was shrink wrapped when I bought it, otherwise I wouldn't have if I would have seen it first.  I was terribly disappointed that it ran along the lines of Better Homes and Gardens instead of the caliper that I was used to from Country Living magazine.  But you get a year's free subscription to Country Living free with purchase but I lost my receipt so that's out.(Strrrrrrriiiiiike!)

In short...save the $17.95.  Spend it on something else that you might use for Halloween, like 10 or 15 bags of those little candy corn pumpkins that I can't eat enough of, and candy corn, the traditional stuff, not any of that hoidy toidy gourmet crap.  What?  Am I the only person that eats this stuff?   And Smarties (loves me some Smarties too!).

Don't look at me that way, I told you that I was weird.