Do you want to be my friend?

November 1, 2009 - 2 Responses

Aahh, Halloween! Besides Christmas, it’s my favorite holiday. I’m a huge horror fan, you see, and Halloween is the only time you can go all out with your costume without being thought of as a raving lunatic. I trick-or-treated with a friend last year, but this year I decided to do something a bit more creative before heading off to a costume party. I dressed up as a creepy doll, sat on my porch with a candy bowl in my lap, barely breathed, and closed my eyes (no blinking!). Better yet, I set up stuffed animals and dolls on the porch (to add to the playroom effect) and hung up a sign saying “take your share and DON’T anger the dolly” above my head. When people would come up, I’d either open my eyes and smile suddenly, grab their hand as they reached for the candy, slap my hand in the candy bowl, ask if they wanted to be my friend, or simply just wave at them. Of course I didn’t scare the little ones, of course, but I did scar some big kids for life. Also, adults were scarred as well.

Pictures of people 002

It's a really crappy point-and-shoot shot, but unfortunately it's the only one I have of my costume. Also, click for a bigger picture!

I remember one couple came up to my porch talking about whether I was real or not. The man (a very muscular fellow at that) was convinced I was an actual doll… that is, until I opened my eyes and gave him an evil smile. Needless to say, he screamed and got the heck off that porch. It was immensely funny. Later on, a brother and sister came up, and neither one wanted to get near me. Aftter a few minutes the brother tried to get a lollipop, but I quickly put my hand in the bowl and he and the girl both freaked out. I could hear them at the next house talking about how I was so creepy. Best of all, as another girl was leaving, she kept peeking back at me nervously. All of the sudden, I started waving vigorously, and she screamed bloody murder and raced across the street in a frenzy. Everyone with her was cracking up, and even I couldn’t hold in my giggles.

So what did you guys do this Halloween? Did you scare anybody? Did someone scare you? Tell me all about it in the comments sections. And until next time, here are some photos from the carnival Ariella, Heidi, and I briefly attended during the afternoon. Fun day!

New (old?) layout + new pictures

October 25, 2009 - 2 Responses

Well, I changed the layout back. There were a lot of things about the old one that relaly bugged me, and I missed my old posts. So, it’s back to the daydream theme for me! But that’s not to say I won’t continue to post photos. I just don’t want them to be the main focus of my blog. Every few days I’ll post a few sets of photos. Also, I still plan on changing the layout- just not that drastically! Maybe a new header? If you guys want to make one for me I’ll love you forever. No, really. Forever and ever and ever.

So, now that we’re all back to normal, I want to share something with you guys. Ariella came over today (and brought her little sister Heidi), so I subjected them to a series of photos. I think they actually turned out rather nicely, and since I have nothing else to talk about at the moment, here they are! I got a new camera, which explains the awesome quality. If you’re wondering, it’s a Canon Rebel EOS. Excellent, eh?

Adventures in spamming.

October 25, 2009 - 2 Responses

Happy Sunday, everyone! What have you readers done this lovely day? Me, well, I’m still getting over that nasty bout of pneumonia. >.< Therefore I spend most of my day indoors. Although I had some friends over this afternoon (I’m not contageous, I just have to stay home to recooperate), I was forbidden from leaving the neighborhood and/or performing strenous activities, so a good deal of my day was spent on the computer spamming the Neopets chat board.

I know it’s very immature to spam chat boards. After all, spam is annoying, pointless, and just plain stupid if you really think about it. But that doesn’t stop me! For those who don’t know, Neopets is an online gaming site aimed more at the preteen crowd. I was hopelessly obsessed with the website until I was about thirteen, mainly because of the aforementioned chatboard (technically you have to be thirteen to use it, but I lied about my age). It turns out the “Neoboards” are mainly populated by bored teenagers who take the game way, WAY too seriously. Who knew, right? I didn’t realize until much later that I could have some fun with them.

Fast forward to summer of 2009.  I’m stuck up at our lakehouse and there really isn’t much to do. Therefore, I set up a fake Neopets account and started posting joke messages on the Neoboards to get the reactions. Nowadays, if I get really, REALLY bored, I’ll log on again and mess with the unsuspecting board-goers. This is precisely how I amused myself these past few days, stricken with pneomonia and unable to leave the house. Sure, I probably could’ve found a better use for my time, but this is WAY more fun. I mean, who doesn’t get a good laugh out of board titles such as “I AM FRAN DRESCHER”, “Uncle Lou watches me while I sleep- should I be concerned?”, and “Charles Shaughnessy is the most gorgeous human being ever to grace us with his prescence”? Uh, probably not a lot of people. But I do, and that’s what matters.

That’s not to say I’m particularly proud of this. After all, not a lot of normal teenagers find their fun in annoying the online community of Neopets. It’s funny, yes, but probably not a good use of my time. I still do it, though! So here’s my question: what do you do online that you don’t really like admitting? Do you subsribe to Miley Cyrus’s YouTube or obsessively Google Rick Astley? It’s okay, we’re a non-judgemental bunch here. You can tell us!

Now it’s time for useless facts!

October 13, 2009 - 6 Responses

I LOVE useless facts with a deep, burning passion. In fact, I loved them before they were cool and had their own iPhone application. So what’s so good about useless facts, you ask? Why would anybody care about such idiotic statistics? They make great icebreakers at parties, for one. Also, it’s just kind of cool to be able to spout off random information at will. Knowing this, can you even fathom my delight when I stumbled upon a series of books completely devoted to useless facts? I was at the book store in Seaside and there they were. Just sitting on a table… waiting for me. Apparently there are a ton of books in the series, but I only read three. However, I did bring along my trusty notebook and copied down a few of the more, um, INTERESTING ones. I’m not sure how factual they are, but seeing that they’re in a book, I’d say they have some credibility!

Papaphobia- the fear of popes

No one knows why a duck quack doesn’t echo

40% of women have admitted to throwing footwear at men

The last words of the guillotined Elizabeth, sister of King Louis XVI, were, “in the name of modesty, please cover up my bosom”

Dr. Seuss coined the word “nerd” in the 1950 book “If I Owned The Zoo”

13 people are crushed by falling vending machines per year

7% of people believe Elvis is alive

A klazomaniac is someone who feels like shouting

The Sanskrit word for war quite literally means “desire for more cows”

In Jasmine, Saskatchewan, it is illegal for a cow to moo within 300 kilometers of a private house

Ray Romano and Fran Drescher went to high school together (This one was actually in the book! I couldn’t help but squeal when it mentioned Fran, even though I already knew this…)

Napoleon was afraid of cats and conducted his battle plans in a sandbox

The Bible has been translated into Klingon (jIH tlhob SoH vam… qatlh?)

Amazing, right? I’m sure you learned some new things today. I myself was hadgreat fun reading these lovely facts, but then I came across this little downer at the end of the last book:

97% statistics are made up.

And, uh, that kind of ruined it for me. Why couldn’t the authors just leave me in ignorant bliss? Oh well. Maybe THAT statistic was part of the dreaded 97%. But then, if it was made up, then there would be no 97%, and it must be true! Ack, nevermind. My brain has begun to hurt. So, until next time, have a pope.

Papaphobics, avert your eyes! The horror!

Papaphobics, avert your eyes! The horror!

The clowns liked my muffin top.

October 11, 2009 - 4 Responses

Last night was exceedingly interesting. You see, here in my town there’s a local haunted corn maze, and Bree, Allison, and I decided to go. Truth be told it’s really not that scary… it’s basically composed of teenage boys in masks running around with fake chainsaws.  The actors aren’t the best either. Many of them break character at the drop of a hat. For instance, the “Ring” portion of the maze was relatively creepy this year (for once). You had flashing lights, your basic Samara coming out of a hole and grabbing at you, et cetera, et cetera. Last year, though, I had no flipping idea what the guy (yes, guy) playing Samara was doing. If you’re wondering, it looked like this:

Yeah, sitting in your hole with your wig on backwards generally is not a recipe for fear. However, when you disregard the crappy acting and somewhat poor costumes, the maze IS slightly freaky. Being out there in the dead of night does give it a certain edge, especially when you’re waiting for a masked dude who may or may not have a roaring chainsaw to jump out at you. Also, having said masked dude stalk you for ten minutes is slightly unnerving as well. Now, I LOVE haunted attractions with a burning passion, but I’m also easily scared if I’m unable to use one of my calm-down tactics. Those tactics? Well, they all involve singing.

Put me in a haunted whatever and forbid me from singing and/or plugging my ears and I WILL freak out. I calm down if I’m able to belt out The Nanny theme song with my fingers in my ears, but otherwise… uh, I don’t do that well. Therefore, throughout the entire maze I was either singing under my breath or belting some tune into some poor, unsuspecting ghoul’s face. Putting on a funny accent (such as my Fran Drescher voice) and starting a conversation with the aforementioned ghoul also helps, but the singing strategy works best. Thankfully Allison and Bree gladly went along with this, so we went through the maze acting like idiots and annoying the heck out of the people around us. Still, I wasn’t scared! But there was this one time…

Towards the middle of the maze, there’s a ginormous clown tent. Guess what’s IN said clown tent? Yeah, clowns. Lots of evil, demented clowns hell-bent on scaring the living Fran out of me. Did I mention I hate clowns? So, in order to cope, I plugged my ears, froze on the spot, and sang Muffin Top (if you’ve never heard it, click the link!!) at the top of my lungs. I thought that, after a while, the clowns would move on to some other innocent maze-goer and I get out of there for good. Thankfully, Bree and Allison were good friends and sang with me for a few minutes. Soon, though, they decided to make a run for it and left me all alone. By this point the clowns had started to surround me, so I shut my eyes and continued my song. But guess what? Apparently my singing had amused the clowns. While my eyes were shut they completely lost their character and cracked up. Oh yeah, and they also called in everybody who happened to be near the tent, which incuded but was not limited to several security guards, Bree and Allison, various patrons, and other spooks in the general vicinity. They were all watching me stand there, hunched over, eyes shut, still singing Muffin Top . Once I opened my eyes, the clowns were all out of breath from laughing and I made a run for it.

Over the course of the night we managed to make several spooks laugh and/or break character, but that incident was definitely the funniest. I can only imagine how I looked. Best of all, a security guard at the end of the maze approached me and asked if I was the “singing girl”. Apparently the spooks will be talking about me for quite a while. So what are you guys doing this Halloween season? Any creepy attractions you’ll be visiting any time soon? How do you cope in a haunted house? Tell me all about it in the comments?