Mike and I were taking Nina for a walk a couple of weeks ago when we ambled past The Break, the new sports bar. We’ve avoided it, because they didn’t have Buzztime Trivia and we don’t watch sports. When we walked by, however, we thought pub food sounded good, so we would order some to go and take it home.

While we waited, we were surprised that there was a trivia game going on. It seemed pretty fun, so we thought we’d come next week. So glad we did, because we WON first place (and a free beer for the Guy Ritchie question)!

You can read about it here:

• Geeks Who Drink – The Break Sports Bar & Grille

[Space Monkeys] got all but one questions on round two for 15 points and then they jokered for a massive early 30 point lead that they barely held on to all night.

“Jokered” means you can choose one round where you get double the points you earn on that round. We chose that one because that round was music clips and we were pretty sure we had all of them, except the CCR song. Lucky thing we did that because it really helped.

Being first timers, I was worried that it would be too complicated to understand what was going on, but the instructions were very clear. I was also worried that I wouldn’t be able to hear the questions, which DID happen a couple of times, but he was careful to repeat any questions for anyone who needed it. I love that he plays music in between the questions, so we can kibitz without people at other tables hearing.

It was the perfectly orchestrated trivia game and the food was DELICIOUS!

Can’t wait until next Wednesday!

There was a flurry of activity last week as Mike and I worked to make the teardrop trailer ready for a maiden voyage. We had a bunch of little things that needed to be completed before we could camp. The MOST important thing was preventing the windows from leaking, which we didn’t complete, but since there was no rain planned for that weekend, we took a chance and camped anyway. Continue reading to see what we did and more pictures: (Continue Reading…)

I’ve finished adding the curtains to our Teardrop American Outbacker.

They stay put even when the door is open.

I lined them, so they look good from the outside AND inside.

I also added a tie (permanently attached) so that we can open them when we want light or ventilation.

I’m a little worried that the curtain rods bow so much in the middle when I tie them up, but we will probably leave them closed most of the time, so I’ve decided to not worry about it unless it is a problem when we’re camping.

I also made a couple of throw pillows out of the same material, but we haven’t gotten a mattress yet, so they’ll have to wait. We measured the bed space and it’s approximately 70″ wide by 78″ long. That’s just barely too small for a California King, so we’re going to go with a Queen sized mattress.

But, first, we have to do the water test to make sure the weather stripping will keep out the rain.

Update 05-07-12: We took the trailer camping last weekend and EVERY ONE of those stupid curtain rods broke. The ends popped off each of them, making the curtains fall. I’m going to replace the rods with something more substantial.

Note to self: If you are a little worried about something (like bending curtain rods), fix it BEFORE you go camping. Trying to deal with that stuff while we were at the campground was more difficult than it would have been if I had just solved the problem at home.

Can we just talk for a moment about how fun and entertaining Felcia Day’s Flog is? Each week she shares her favorite geeky things and then does something awesome like blacksmithing skills or ice sculpture. Check out the ice sculpture episode here:

When she started Geek and Sundry, I wasn’t all that excited, but each week her Flog episodes make me so happy. Thanks for such good work, Felcia!

Mike and I have finished painting the teardrop trailer and I finished sewing the awnings.

You can see more pictures after the break: (Continue Reading…)

I’ve power-sanded the teardrop trailer to within an inch of its life and now I’ve masked it off, getting ready to paint it.

I am sore from all the sanding, crouching and stretching. It’s a better workout than I’ve had in a long time.

Our new teardrop trailer has an unusual bed platform. There is room for a queen bed in the sleeping cabin, but the bottom of the flooring is uneven.

Many people have leveled it by adding a sleeping platform. You can see what Gregg M. from the Fiberglass RV Forum did to level his here:

His bed platform looks amazing, but it is a bit out of my skills range right now. We need to get this trailer ready to camp in about a month and a half, so that addition will have to wait until I learn more woodworking skills.

For now, we are leveling the bed platform by adding storage bins.

Each side will need one purple bin and two blue bins. I can’t find the purple bin online, but here is the label for it. It is the Homz Clear Storage Bin 7.5 Quart 16.25′ X 7′ X 6.125′

The blue bin is the Snapware Smart Store 11.5′ X 8.5″ X 5.6′. I found it on Amazon here: Snapware Smart Store System at Amazon.com. Here is the label for it as well.

We haven’t tried putting the mattress over these bins and attempting to access them yet, so I can’t tell you if they feel lumpy under the mattress or if they are unable to support our weight. Once we take the trailer on its maiden voyage, I’ll update here.

Update 05-07-12: These little boxes did an EXCELLENT job of leveling the bed platform. They were great for storing our camping gear like flashlights and tools. They didn’t feel lumpy. They didn’t move around. They were easy to access under the queen sized mattress we put in the cabin. I don’t think I’ll even bother with building a fancy platform like Gregg did.

If anyone was mean to you in high school, then this video is for you!

A special thanks to Jed Whedon and Felicia Day for making this a reality.

Like the song?

You can buy it on iTunes here: (I’m the One That’s) Cool by The Guild – iTunes Single

You can buy it on Amazon here: (I’m the One That’s) Cool by The Guild at Amazon.com

Last Thursday, Mike and I bought this cool teardrop trailer.

I talked about it ad nauseum on Starling Travel with more photos.

• Starling Travel » Teardrop American Outbacker: Our Dream Teardrop Trailer

We are in the process of renovating it, so I’ll be posting photos of it here since Starling Travel is about TRAVEL, not trailer restoration.

We’ve already stripped some of the peeling white paint (paradoxically, the black paint is sticking just fine and looks great). I’ll post photos of that in a couple of days once we get it down to the point where we can paint.

After months of fighting a teardrop trailer obsession, I am finally a teardrop owner! So excited!

I used to have a friend named Faisal from Pakistan. Once he told me that in his country they had a saying:

Buy expensive and you cry once. Buy cheap and you cry many times.

I smiled and nodded, saying that we had the same saying here. It went:

You get what you pay for.

Over the last ten years, I’ve thought of Faisal’s saying many many times and I believe it is wrong. This morning, I realized why.

I was looking at my sandals. They were sitting on the carpeting, discarded after a long and tiring day yesterday. I remembered that I had bought them at about the same time as my conversation with Faisal so many years ago. Ten years. These sandals have lasted me over ten years.

When I bought them, I had felt a wave of guilt because they cost me about fifty dollars and I had never once in my life spent that much on a pair of sandals. I could remember the distinct shame of spending so much money on frivolous shoes. Every time I had looked at those sandals, I had felt that twinge of shame for their exorbitant price.

This morning, however, I calculated exactly how much those sandals have cost me. I know I’ve owned them for over ten years, so they have averaged less than five bucks a year. The longer they last, the cheaper their per year cost will be.

While I was remembering how long I’ve had these sandals, all our adventures came to mind. They were there for me when we swam in the fish-filled waters of Roatan. I’ve washed the stench of sweat out of them by throwing them in the washing machine. They have accompanied me on countless camping trips to Lake Mead and the mountains of Utah. They have even scaled Elephant Hill, following Stacey and Dan, slowly inching the Hummer up the trail. Mike has taken hundreds of pictures of me wearing them. They have been my good friends these last ten years.

I will truly grieve when they inevitably break and I can no longer wear them.

You see, Faisal was wrong. Buy expensive and you cry TWICE. Once when you buy the item and once when you finally have to say goodbye to it.

Plaid Stallions had a Nerd Therapy Session that touched my heart:

• Nerd Therapy Session: Big Wheel Blues

Sherry recalls:

From the time I was about 5, every Christmas and birthday, I would ask for a Big Wheel. Would I get one? No! My mother was adamant, and always thought she had good reasons; “You’ll outgrow it too fast”, or “We don’t have room to store it”.

I never got a Big Wheel either. My dad considered them death traps because they were so short that cars couldn’t see them. Instead, he bought a couple of thrift store bikes and made me a Franken Bike out of the parts.

I was so embarrassed by the ripped brown seat held together by duct tape. It didn’t entirely clash with the bright yellow frame, but it certainly didn’t look like a GIRL’S bike, which was really important to me back then.

He tried to make it better by putting pink streamer hand grips on the long handlebars, but that just made it look even more grotesque. Not a picture of that bike exists today because I was unwilling to be photographed riding it.

How I wish I could see that bike again today…

I made a mockup of what my bike kind of looked like using this original photo from the BMX Museum forums: Original bike picture

Bless my poor dad’s heart, he was just trying to save my life.

After my parents got divorced, my mom lifted the ban on Big Wheels and my little sister got a Green Machine Big Wheel. I was too old to fit into a Big Wheel by then, so I was so jealous of her. Here is a picture of a Green Machine from Marx Toy Museum via Fourth Grade Nothing.

She never seemed bothered that it was a boy’s toy.

In the end, that one of a kind Franken Bike that my dad made me became far more valuable in my mind than the Big Wheel because it was the the toy of my childhood. It almost seems that it doesn’t matter WHAT we play with as children, whether it’s cool or embarrassing, we end up cherishing it because it was the toy that held us up while we were learning how to make our way in this world.

I absolutely ADORE this advice from Ron Swanson:

Never half-ass two things; whole-ass one thing.

This single quote has convinced me that I need to watch Parks and Recreation from the very beginning.

Via: My New Motto, Courtesy of Ron Swanson – Celebrity Pictures, Lol Celebs and Funny Actor and Actress Photos – ROFLrazzi.

I spent WAY too much money in Las Vegas last weekend at the Swatch store buying different New Gent Lacquered watches.

The new watches are a twist on the jellyfish design with colored watch parts. They are similar to the Jelly Piano Swatch made in 1989 designed by architect Renzo Piano.

I wanted to buy them in all the colors and variations (some of them have different gear colors than others), but I limited myself to five, which is more watches than I’ve ever bought in one sitting. Today, I’m wearing my Purple Lacquered.

I’m surprised that Swatch can still send me into a fit of squeals when they come out with a new line of watches.

Via: Swatch New Gent Lacquered 30 Seconds TV Spot | SecondWatch Blog

Someone at the Daybreak Daily asked again about the “smell” supposedly from the landfill.

• Daybreak Daily Forums: Periodic air smell in Daybreak

It reminded me of my worst worry when we were first moving here. This “smell” issue was the scariest thing for me. I had learned about it AFTER signing our lease here, so there was no going back. I was so worried that it would be like the DoWiSeTrePla episode of How I Met Your Mother. If you haven’t seen that episode, here’s a full synopsis:

• Wikipedia: How I Met Your Mother: DoWiSeTrePla

In that episode, Marshall and Lily bought an apartment in New York that they could barely afford in a up and coming neighborhood called DoWiSeTrePla. The real estate agent told them that all the cool new neighborhoods are abbreviations. For example, SoHo is short for South of Houston Street and TriBeCa is short for Triangle Below Canal Street.

At the end of the episode, they are driving in a cab to their new apartment when they smell an ungodly stench. The cab driver informs them that “DoWiSeTrePla” is short for: Downwind of the sewage treatment plant.

We’ve lived in Daybreak over two years now and I’ve smelled it ONCE. It was a pretty minor smell and reminded me of the Great Salt Lake when it gets stinky.

I was SO worried about that smell when we were moving here and the complainers at Daybreak Daily had me convinced that I was about to move into a smelly armpit. Instead, I’ve only caught a whiff of the landfill once and it gave me a kind of nostalgia for my childhood in West Valley City when we smelled the Great Salt Lake every time the wind blew the wrong way.

Is the landfill stinky? It might be, but the residents of Daybreak only smell it about once every two years a month, so stop complaining and stop scaring away people who are thinking of moving here!

Update 06-14-13

I have smelled the Daybreak Stench about once a month, depending on which direction the wind is blowing. I wrote more about it here:

• The Daybreak Stench: Thinking about Smells

For the record, still don’t hate it. Quite the opposite.

I absolutely adore this Flickr photo set of a cardboard and paper mache build of a Barbie camper van.

Building Barbie’s camper van. – a set on Flickr:

We are making a Barbie camper van, like we made our four boats, made an Audi R8 restored my old Barbie aeroplane and we are hoping to get the same level of result.

The main body of the Camper was made out of a Lakeland box and everything else just scrap cardboard and duck tape.

I already have FAR more Barbie campers than I need, but this project makes me want to build a teardrop camper for my Barbie to haul behind her lime green VW bug.

I wonder how much the Solo Cup Company paid Toby Keith to write this song.

No matter how much it was, they should have paid him twice that. I can’t get this stupid song out of my head. Now, whenever I see a plastic cup, I’m humming it! I see blue or yellow Solo cups and I instantly think, “Wrong color! Red Solo Cup! I fill you up! Let’s have a party!”

I almost forgot about Stan Ridgeway. The first time I ever heard his voice was on Mexican Radio when he was in Wall of Voodoo. In retrospect, it sounds VERY unPC now, but I still love it.

I love this song about a taxi driver who got himself in a bad situation, Just Drive.

The most haunting song, however, is Camouflage. It still gives me chills.

I never heard It’s A Lonely Town in the 80’s, but it’s a great story.

Another crime song from Stan Ridgway Goin’ Southbound. I remember hearing this song when I was a teenager.

It’s pretty clear that Bill Paxton really wanted to be Stan Ridgway when he grew up. Reach by Martini Ranch sounds like it was written after a week-long Wall of Voodoo binge.

I adore the gumption of this girl. When Jenine Alexander couldn’t find land in Healdsburg, California, she built herself a home on the frame of a trailer. She had never built anything before and she ended up building herself a wonderful home.

Here are a couple of great quotes from the video:

“For me, living in a small space, is simplifying, for sure, ’cause otherwise… I mean, I have to give myself a small space, otherwise, it’s so easy to compile stuff. So, if I know I’m going to be living with it, there’s no gettin’ around what I bring in.”

“It’s so lovely to wake up in some place that you’ve built yourself.”

If you like what Jenine did with her house, you’ll love the ingenuity of Devon and Melissa’s Alaskan cabin. With no running water, they have set up ingenious ways to shower and cook. They DO have electricity, so they can run their appliances. I love their clever staircase that doubles as storage space.

Via:

• DIY Tiny House You Can Build for $3,500 that’s Mobile
• DIY home for less than $3,500 – videos – *faircompanies
• Devon and Melissa’s 168-square-foot Tiny House Video Tour in Alaska

Update 02-24-13

There is now a Utah-based company that is making tiny houses, called Open Trail Homes. You can see my review here:

• Starling Travel » Open Trail Homes

I cringed at the beginning of this video, but watching it through to the end was SO worth it.

Good song and an interesting video. Yeah!

Via: Discopop Directory: Christmas catch-up: Skrillex

OMG! This little song by Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is ADORABLE!!

Happy New Year’s Eve, Everyone!!

Via: What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? – Celebrity Pictures, Lol Celebs and Funny Actor and Actress Photos – ROFLrazzi

I found this old photograph in my grandmother’s things.

I don’t recognize either the man or the young girl in the photo. Since my grandmother worked in a photography studio long ago, it may be that these two people are merely strangers, but the photograph is undeniably endearing.

The little girl believes in him so fully, despite his lack of a bowl full of jelly. She is entirely unaware of the camera and is focused on Santa completely.

May all of us have as magical of a Christmas as this little girl from the past!

I’m embarrassed at how much I enjoyed these.

Just like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, I systematically watched every iteration.

Merry Christmas!

Note to self: Next time you’re feeling defeated, watch this video.

Why can’t I buy this song on iTunes? I need this on my iPod at ALL times!

Via: Discopop Directory: Someone told Bruno Mars how to get to Sesame Street

I love this photo of Wil Wheaton. I can always depend on him to be overly watched.

Here is the extreme closeup of his watches:

He’s wearing Big Eclipse, just like he did in this other photo:

• Pick Me! » Wil Wheaton and Big Eclipse Swatch

He’s also wearing a Nautilus from the 1986 Spring Summer Collection. I was shocked to realize that I don’t actually HAVE this Swatch in my collection. I was sure that I had, but it’s not there. Here is the listing at Squiggly:

• Swatch Nautilus – Watch – GK102 | Squiggly Swatch Watches and Straps

It was an incredibly popular watch in its time and if you can find a new in box one now, it’s worth over two hundred dollars. Not bad for a watch that was supposed to be disposable.

Back to Wil, I’m always so sad when I see these old pictures of him. In almost every photo, he was smiling for the camera, but his eyes looked incredibly sad. His eyes didn’t match the smile. Now, when I see photos of him, he always looks really happy. I guess the teen years are hard on everyone.

Photo via: Wil Wheaton SuperTeen

Note to self: Next time you’re feeling defeated, watch this video.

No wonder Locke was my favorite Lost character.

Via: Supercut.org — LOST: “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”

I just finished writing my 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month. I’ve been working on Merriton: 35 Minutes from Home. It’s a two year storyline, so I haven’t actually finished the book, but I wrote the words that I said I was going to write.

It was a lot easier than when I did NaNoWriMo in 2004, but it was still very hard.

Me rest now…

Sent via the form at lauramoncur.org

we are contemplating a move to daybreak from harvard/yale area. can you provide me with your opinions both good and bad.

our rationale: i am sick of the cost of maintaining a drafty old house. looking for something that feels the same without the expense (time and money). daybreak seems like a good choice, but i know nobody who lives there. plus it seems like a fun neighborhood for kids.

thanks you for your insights,

kendal

oh, and how are the schools?

Kendal,

Living in Daybreak is definitely different from Sugarhouse. If you work downtown, your commute will be horrible unless you are able to take Trax. That is the worst part of living here. Sometimes, it takes me thirty minutes just to get from Daybreak to I-15. I thought the 114th South exit would help, but it’s still an ordeal just to get to the freeway. If you can take Trax, it’s awesome because you can read or listen to music, but driving it is miserable.

I LOVE that our house needs no maintenance. We were constantly fixing things in the Lake Street house because it was over a hundred years old. It’s so nice to live in a house that just works. One caveat, building a new house is always a nightmare. It would be better to buy one of the existing homes here than to try to build a new one.

This house takes less money to heat as well. Even though it’s twice the square feet, it’s so energy efficient that we pay less in heating and cooling.

One unexpected plus is there is less smog out here. Since we moved here, Mike’s asthma has improved so much that the doctor has cut down his dosage of all his medications. That saved us money, but more importantly, my husband is much healthier. We will never move back to Sugarhouse for that reason alone. This is our third winter in Daybreak and I am not dreading it like I used to because I know that Mike isn’t going to be struggling for his every breath.

I love the Daybreak activities. They do something every month and I really look forward to them. The summer is the best because they have live music every Friday and Saturday night. If you want the Sugarhouse feel where you can walk to and see the activities, try to get a place near Soda Row or the Community Center. East Lake and the North Shore don’t have as many activities within walking distance as Founders Park does.

I don’t have any children, so I can’t tell you about the schools. It’s nice that there are so many kids here, though. I always found it a little creepy that there were never any children around in Sugarhouse.

Best of all, I haven’t had anything stolen off my porch. I haven’t had anyone arrested in my backyard. And not one panhandler has knocked on my door asking for money. The cops are so bored here that I feel VERY safe. All those things happened to us when we lived in Sugarhouse, so you can imagine we were pretty sick of it by the time we left. I’ve talked about the crime problems in Sugarhouse here:

• Pick Me! » Mike’s Bike Was Stolen Yesterday
• Pick Me! » Daybreak Dream a Nightmare?

The one negative that I can say is that the children run positively WILD here. It’s not uncommon to see a three year old child wandering alone with no adult supervision, so drive SLOWLY.

If you’re thinking of moving here, I say go for it. I absolutely adore it here, so I would definitely recommend it.

Best, Laura

This postcard from PostSecret made me want to hug the girl who sent it.

It reads:

I feel that having a feminist for a mother deprived me of basic makeup, skincare and hair skills that seem to come naturally to other girls.

I envy you girlie girls sometimes.

My mom never really taught me how to do makeup or style my hair. I think she did it because she wanted me to stay a kid as long as I could. Pathetically, I stayed a kid until about ninth grade when I realized that I needed to get some makeup and hair skills or I was going to be ignored my whole life.

Seventeen magazine taught me a lot, but now, my favorite is YouTube. No matter what I’m trying to do, YouTube has a tutorial for how to do it. If you are in need of some makeup and hair skills, here some of my favorites:

Heat Free Dolly Curls from YaYaLifestyle: This has been my absolute FAVORITE hairstyle lately. So easy and it looks really good the next morning. The only thing I do differently is that I apply TONS of anti frizz (I used BioSilk) to my hair because my hair is a frizz magnet.

If you didn’t plan your hairstyle the night before, here is a tutorial how to curl with a curling iron. Skip to the 2:20 minute mark to get to the curling portion of the video:

I love the tutorials from Sephora’s YouTube Channel because they sell makeup sets and then SHOW you how to use them. If you want to go with your own makeup, they also have great general tutorials. I love this five minute makeup tutorial. They focus on making it quick and easy. Of course, I need to focus on blemish coverage (still have pimples, even at 42 years old!) instead of worrying about baggy eyes. My eyes are fine and mostly hidden under my glasses, so I would spend more time on hiding all my pimples.

Last year, I bought this palette and I loved this video because it showed me how to actually USE the makeup I bought.

Honestly, all the skin care tutorials just talk about products and I have never found a skin care routine that has worked for me, so I have nothing to share there. Here’s a good tutorial for how to shampoo your hair, though. I don’t use the turbo turban. I find the towels at Ikea work the best.

That girl who felt like she never was taught how to use makeup by her mother just breaks my heart because I felt the same way. Fortunately, there is an entire ARMY of people online willing to teach me how to be a girlie girl.

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

I can’t believe how funny these commercials are. They totally make me want to buy a Toyota Yaris, because, you know, it’s a car!

Ironically, my VW Beetle didn’t have this feature. The windows broke so often that I eventually just stopped rolling them down at all.

My Beetle wasn’t very good in this department either. It had two cup holders that couldn’t hold anything larger than a can of soda and even that was a tight squeeze.

Yellow? No! I guess I’ll just have to go with Other Other Blue…

Nine airbags! I AM PROTECTED!

I think you have to have a good buzz on to fully enjoy this one.

That bike is WAY too big for her to ride. I wonder if they did that on purpose to imply that biking to work is uncomfortable…

I haven’t enjoyed commercials for a LONG time. Thanks, Toyota, for helping me enjoy advertising again!

While procrastinating working on my NaNoWriMo word count, I found this:

• Spinal Tap – 11 – YouTube

They wouldn’t let me just show you the video here, so you’ll have to go to YouTube to see it.

I am participating in National Novel Writing Month this year. I haven’t participated since 2004. Here is how I felt after last time:

• Pick Me! » Life after NaNoWriMo

I told myself that I was going to take a month off and not write a word for a month, but my fingers have all of these muscles from writing every day and they get restless if I leave them with nothing to do. I wrote over 14,000 words in two days. I can’t expect to go cold turkey, can I?

After years of writing almost every day, doing 2000 words a day isn’t that difficult. I am working on my new novel/blog: Merriton – 35 Minutes from Home. I already had several chapters written before I started and an outline for each week for the next two years, but I’m not counting all that in my word count for NaNoWriMo. I’m just working on adding 2000 new words to the total every day this month (except the four days for Thanksgiving weekend).

My only hope is that I don’t procrastinate and leave myself with 14,000 words to write in the last two days like I did in 2004.

I am so sad that I didn’t get to see The Blum Collection exhibit when it was in the U.S. This collection of over four THOUSAND Swatches has tons of prototypes that just make me drool. Here is a playlist of videos of the collection.

Here is the official info from Swatch:

• Official Swatch Website: The Blum Collection

After the exhibit tours, it will be auctioned off by Phillipps de Pury. Here is a link to the Blum Collection on their site:

• Phillips de Pury & Company: THE BLUM COLLECTION
• View Entire Lot: Swatch The Blum Collection

This collection has prototypes for Swatches that are nearly impossible to find in their final form. They have seven iterations of Eclipses in a wide variety of colors that just make me green with envy.

Via: Swatch The Blum Collection catalog | SecondWatch Blog

Here is a slideshow of the photos from this year’s Halloween Party.

The theme this year was Scary Monsters, Super Creeps and it was AWESOME!

Here are the winners for Scariest, Funniest, Sexiest, Beast of Show and Best Potluck:

I love this video of Liberace playing with skeletons! It’s great for getting in the mood for Halloween!

Note to self: Next time you’re feeling sad for no reason, read this again.

• Hyperbole and a Half: Adventures in Depression

It will help, I promise.

I never knew that “I’m dead inside” could be so liberating.

I love Diamond Rings because his videos totally remind me of the Eighties (totally!), but this video holds a special place in my heart because he portrays Halloween.

The costumes are a lot of fun to spot in this video, especially the haunting visage of Hunter Thompson at the 4:12 mark. The lyrics to Wait and See don’t have anything to do with Halloween, but I love the song anyway just because of the video.

I really recommend Special Affections, the album Wait and See is on. It reminds me of an early album by New Order. You can buy it here:

• Special Affections by Diamond Rings at Amazon.com
• Special Affections by Diamond Rings [iTunes link]

Last year, there were a bunch of good costumes on television. You can see some of them here:

I especially love Halloween episodes on How I Met Your Mother. They are so much fun. Here is why Barney loves Halloween:

Here is the Halloween Walk of Shame Parade:

I love this one, too. Flight Suit Up!

A school originally founded in 1873, but rebuilt in 1959 was photographed recently by Tokyo Times. It was abandoned after a typhoon wiped out the settlement, but the school administrators check on it regularly to assure it has not been damaged and ready for reuse if necessary.

The result is an incredibly creepy time capsule of a school from the late Fifties.

• An abandoned but perfectly preserved Japanese school — Tokyo Times

It’s surprising how quickly a building can change from loud and vibrant to silent and creepy. If my home, with its Xbox and comfy chair were abandoned and preserved for half a century, would it be just as eery?

Here are a couple of links to Halloween Podcasts that has some things that you normally wouldn’t hear.

• Retrospace: Retrospace Podcast #22
• Retrospace: Retrospace Mix Tape #16: 2011 Halloween Mix

Here is the list of music and clips from Retrospace Podcast #22:

• “Night Gallery” theme (7 seconds only)
• Halloween III TV promo
• “Cthu Thlu” – Caravan
• “Visiting Hours” movie Radio Spot
• “Horror Movie” – Skyhook (1975) – (portion of song only)
• Woolworth Halloween radio commercial (1978)
• “Kolchak – The Night Stalker” TV theme
• “Halloween” soundtrack clip (1978)
• “Werewolf” – Gary Warren
• “H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-N Spells Halloween”
• Bobby “Boris” Pickett WCOP Boston radio spot
• “The Munsters” TV theme
• Clip from “Young Frankenstein”
• “Docteur Jekyll Et Monsieur Hyde” – Serge Gainsbourg
• Clip from “Scary Spooky Stories” LP 1973
• “Rosemary’s Baby” theme as sung by Mia Farrow
• “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” clip

Here is the list from Retrospace Mix Tape #16:

• Jacula – Soul Satan 1979
• The Duponts – Screamin’ Ball (At Dracula Hall) 1958
• Movie Promo The Haunted Strangler
• Bo Diddley – Bo Meets The Monster
• Billy Demarco & Count Dracula -Drac’s Back 1962
• Revels – Midnight Stroll 1959
• Virgil Holmes – Ghost Train 1961
• Buchanan & Goodman – Frankenstein Of ’59
• The Verdicts – The Mummy’s Ball 1961
• Hollywood Flames – Frankenstein’s Den
• The Nu-Trends – Spooksville 1963
• Milton DeLugg & The All-Stars – The Munster’s Theme 1964
• Thomas Newman – To The Shock Of Miss Louise 1987
• John Zacherle – Coolest Little Monster 1960
• Five Man Electrical Band – Werewolf
• Bill Doggett – Monster Party 1959
• Johnny Fuller – Haunted House
• The Jayhawks – The Creature (From Outer Space) 1957
• The Kac-Ties – Mr Were-Wolf 1962
• Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Feast Of The Mau Mau
• Allan Sherman – My Son, the Vampire 1964
• Bobby Please And The Pleasers – The Monster 1959
• Redbone – The Witch Queen Of New Orleans
• The Fiends – Theme from The Addams Family 1964
• Johnny Otis Show With Marci Lee – Castin’ My Spell
• Billy Lee Riley – Nightmare Mash 1963
• Sonny Richard’s Panics With Cindy And Misty – The Voo Doo Walk 1962
• Swingin’ Phillies – Frankenstein’s party 1958
• The Monotones – Legend of Sleepy Hollow 1958
• Howlin’ Wolf – I Ain’t Superstitious
• Jackie Morningstar – Rockin’ In The Graveyard 1959
• Buchanan & Goodman – Frankenstein Returns (Part II)
• Morgue And The Ghouls – Morgus The Magnificent
• Orvin Yoes – The Vampire 1960
• Combustible Edison – Bewitched 1995
• Combustible Edison – Coven of Witches 1995
• Trax – Watch Out For The Boogie Man 1977
• Nosferatu – Willie The Fox 1970
• The Vamps – Disco Blood 1977
• Saxon – Princess Of The Night 1981
• Jack Malmsten – Satan Takes a Holiday

Enjoy this campy Halloween fun!

Check out this haunted house made out of Legos. It makes me want to break out an old Lego set and get creating!

Via: Incredible Old Victorian Houses Made Out of LEGOS! – News – GeekTyrant