Caraccioli

He'd definitely win in a contest with Pinky (the little coward - costume notwithstanding). However, my "other" pet also has a piece of Aztec gold...

My home decorating has nothing to do with practical. Every room in the house is themed after some facet of my life to date. The living room is pirate and pirate skull themed. (It's almost done. I will post photos as soon as I receive some lamp covers I have been waiting for.)

Yarrrrrrrowwww! I actually sort of like the green and blue shag - it has an ocean-like thing going on. I pulled it out of most of the rooms, but left it intact in the office (every upstairs bedroom had been similarly carpeted. ) The chartreuse green carpet, on the other hand...well, its' days are numbered.

My cat is evil. EVIL I tell ya'! (Those are actually the colours of the carpeting that came with my house. Maybe that's what she's upset about.)

Speaking of SW 30th anniversary stuff... I thought these were really cool: Star Wars Figure Comic Packs. I couldn't resist them as the first SW item I bought was Marvel Comics #4 (I was so naive that I thought the whole movie serialization would be in one comic and this was the first and only one.) The link between the figures and comics is sort of neat for me. Plus I like the groovy comic book colors they've painted the figs in. They even look like they might be new sculpts (as opposed to repainted versions of previous figures). Not sure on that one, though.

I'm going to attach the skull to a board and build a flower out of bright cardboard (sitting near the back of the bench) around it. If you look at the top shelf of the bench on the LHS, you'll see six more talking skulls on a platter still in their boxes, stacked on top of each other, awaiting the holiday. I got them all for cheap in early November.

Ok, so it took a few days to remember the camera... (You may notice a certain trend towards skeletons and skulls. I bought a boatload of skeleton parts post-H'ween in preparation for the 2007 room concept, which I have already started conceptualizing (but not building): It's a Skull World The boxes are full of my HEDZ props. I haven't really made one in over 10 years, so they wind up getting stored (although I do re-use them occasionally, like the one for the Drunken Undead Pirate. (The R2 full of skulls is such a nice touch. ) I bought a bunch of those gummy lighted skulls for 75% off for the room. (The watchword for It's a Skull World: cheesy. Just like its namesake.) The workbench. There's a talking skull sitting sort of upside down there next to the skull flower. The 2007 room is to feature a half dozen taking skull flowers about twice the size of the one sitting there. (I don't know where I get these ideas. Honestly.)

Hey blackjohn...if you're looking for any of the "older" new figures, LMK. I broke my collection up when they came out with a fig I couldn't get except off eBay and now they're just sitting around. (This offer excludes all droids and imperial officers, both of which I still collect from time to time. Any protocol droid is MINE. Colonel Wullf Yularen! Whoo hoo! I knew Hasbro wouldn't let me down! )

I think the only one that isn't showing up is Iron Bess's. I adopted my mod persona and checked the post out using the mod edit function... Hey Iron Bess! There's no photo to link to on your photobucket site! If I remember to take my camera home from work, I'll post a shot of my garage later. It's where the haunted house props get made, so I suppose that's where the magic happens.

Christmas Musings

"The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle, the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true."

On a Richard Linklater tear, I was watching the movie Dazed and Confused recently which sort of reminds me of this. It's about a bunch of high school students on the last day of school in 1976. (It was a really vapid movie, IMO, especially in comparison to some of Linklater's other, superior movies. Still, I sort of remember such goings on although I was still pretty far from high school in 1976. So perhaps it's factually accurate...but it's not much of a testament to the wisdom and intelligence of the 70's.)

Blitzen. Huh. I said nothing whatsoever about alcohol. That must be the default or something. I had to look the game "Seven Minutes in Heaving" up. It apparently goes like this: "At its most basic, Seven Minutes in Heaven is played by putting 2 people in a dark room or closet for 7 minutes. That's it. Pretty simple, huh?" (From VirtualKiss.com)

People come...people go... Diamonds are forever. Or something.

Boy do those crappy old plastic masks and thin plastic costumes bring back memories. I can recall fishing through boxes and boxes of the things in the bin at the front of Le Mart du K around Halloween time. I've posted this before, but here is part of the genesis of ol' Mission's fascination with skeletons: (You can just see the cheap, crappy costume peaking out from underneath the black robe. )

Oh, boy! A kindred spirit. Actually, from you web page, I suspect your husband is a kindred spirit. I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for working a haunt, but I love designing them and the props that go in them. Check out my POTC-suggested haunt from the 2006 Wyandotte Jaycee Haunted House. Next year, "It's a Skull World After All"

Huh. I was watching Nanny McPhee last night. It was OK, but I think Mary Poppins is the better movie. (The plots were so similar as to be confused with one another.) "I drew what I likes and I likes what I drew." -Bert the Chimneysweep (Now there's a quote to live your life by. :) )

I was listening to the music from Tomorrow Never Dies this morning and they hit a spot where the music was for a specific, bit part character. His name is Michael Byrne and he played Admiral Kelly. (I mentioned him in the I didn't know they were in that! thread. He was just right for that bit part. Who are your favorite bit part, almost unknown actors? (In case you need it, here's a link to imdb to figure out their name. )

Don't act angsty. Be angsty. "Just be the ball...be the ball...be the ball. You're not being the ball Danny." "It's kinda hard when you keep talking like that." "Ok, sorry. I'm not talking now...I've stopped talking...Not talking. Just be the ball." (Harley Quinn was one of my favorite characters on the Batman:TAS show. Have you seen the one where she decided to go straight? Great stuff.)

I like the one near the end that says, "Evil. One of us is evil." I actually feel bad for the Santas, not the kids. What a job. Y'know, someone should do a page with comical photos of those inflatable Xmas things that are all the rage. When they tip or get a bit deflated or what have you, they can look pretty comical. I saw an inflatable Santa drooped over a wooden sleigh and I could just picture the caption..."It's too much! I may as well give up now!" I saw an inflatable snowman that had got loose from his moorings and looked like he had been hitting the Christmas spirit a little hard. Huh. I should carry a camera.

I finally managed to get the Romex run through the ceiling of my living room for the fan I purchased for my pirate-themed living room! (It only involved drilling holes in the walls, removing moldings, drilling holes in the moldings, removing some of the ceiling in the basement, drilling multiple holes in 100 year-old iron wood floor joists (it seemed like iron wood) and removing a part of the floor in the bathroom so I could get the Romex around the corner of the ceiling and wall.) But the wire is installed! Now all I have to do is actually install the fan. And repair all the damage I've done. (It's a cool fan. Very much like a pirate would have had if they had had electricity. )

Jenny and The Time Keeper basically have it right from what I've read. I was just looking in Way to a Pyrate's Heart (first time in about 6 months, I'd say) and most of that crap is just that: crap. I don't understand why someone would go to all the trouble to register new IDs and post some of that stuff because it isn't relevant to anything and it isn't spam. It's just...noise. Looking at the user names, the posts and the timing, however, most of it appears to be from the same user to me. It's part trolling and part spamming. Weird.

My sister's cats started losing weight although they seemed to be ok. It turned out that they had renal failure which a urinalysis and/or blood test will reveal. I guess it's quite common in older cats.

I second that. We experienced bio-luminescence during some night dives in Australia. It was neat; you waved your hand in the water and little sparks flew off your finger tips. I would be very surprised to find the scientists dismissed the stories as mentioned in the original post, though. Scientists have known about this stuff for quite awhile.

Lucky dog! I moved my auxiliary refrigerator yesterday. I've been wanting to do that for about 8 months. I finally asked the neighbor to help my. Funny how easy that was... 8 months...