• RSS
Payday loans
RedShirts 2 Ad Banner for Kickstarter

Archive for the ‘Michiel’ Category

How Rachael Ray almost made me become a terrorist.

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

“Paisley” or jihad?” Dunkin’ Donuts yanks Rachael Ray ad

Go read it… I’ll wait… discussion will begin in just a minute.

OK, now that your back, tell me, didn’t that picture just scream, “Death to America?”

I swear, there must be no better place to promote Muslim extremism, than in a Dunkin’ Donuts ad.

Nothing shows support for terrorists like a ditzy cook from the Food Network, of Sicilian and Cajun descent, who is such a corporate whore, that she will be a spokesperson for donuts. But just in case it wasn’t already screaming at you to strap on some explosives and claim your 72 virgins, they put in a scarf.

Holy crap! How am I supposed to resist that? And the children! What about our children?

Now all I want to do is change religions, and car bomb something, and it is all the fault of Dunkin’ Donuts, Rachael Ray and most of all… that damned scarf.

… Whew! That was close. I just saw a truck ad and I am back to my usual patriotic, red-blooded, American self. Although I still think Michelle Malkin is an idiot.

In other news from the same day as the above story, I saw the greatest headline ever written.

Monkeys control robots with their minds

Seriously, we will never see a headline this cool, ever again in our lifetime.

Thank you CNN, Thank you.

What would really happen in a zombie apocalypse.

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

One thing that has always bugged me about zombie movies is that only humans return from the dead. It does not matter what the cause is, there are only dead people getting up and walking around.

Well, in spite of what your religion may tell you, people are not special, and I am pretty sure that whatever reanimates dead people will reanimate everything else too. This totally makes the coming zombie apocalypse even more horrifying, and the odds of surviving it drop to zero.

That’s right, I said zero. No one will survive it. Let me show you how I see this going down.

Imagine you and a few friends have gotten together to try to ride out the zombie apocalypse. You’re all huddled in a house. You have the place barricaded pretty well, and it is holding the zombie people and their zombie dogs and zombie cats at bay. But in the house there are terrors you did not count on.

One of your buddies goes to use the bathroom, and after a couple of minutes you hear a blood curdling scream. He comes running out, holding his ass, saying something bit him. You point your gun at the toilet and see zombie goldfish, that have come back from their watery grave to feast on their former human masters. Since your friend has been infected, you have no choice but to shoot him in the head, declare the bathroom off limits, and from now on, you all go in a bucket you found in a closet.

While you all sit around and ponder what to do with the bucket once it is full, one of your friends begins to scream as he is bit by a zombie mouse that died in the walls several months back. As he freaks out, he knocks over a box, and a bunch of zombie cockroaches come running out. You could just turn on a light to keep the zombie roaches at bay, but there is no electricity.

You realize you can’t stay in the house, it is not safe. So you shoot your mouse bitten friend in the head, gather some supplies and leave. But as you head for the door, one of your buddies bumps into the plant that died because it never got watered, and one of the branches scratches him. He thinks nothing of it, since he didn’t think that plants would come back from the dead too.

What none of you realized is that the plant got reanimated, and even though it moves so slow you can not perceive it, plants do move. Although it is stuck in a pot, don’t think for one second that the plant has not been trying all this time to find a way to fertilize it’s soil with your brains, and it has slowly turned and leaned towards the area you and your friends were hiding, just like it had turned towards the sunlight when it was alive.

You all run to one of your friends SUV, and have to dodge a zombie bird on the way. One of you almost got pecked. It was close but you are all ok. You decide to head to the high school gymnasium, as it should be relatively free of pests and animals, and you can figure out your next move there.

As you are driving to the school, you notice all the road kill dragging itself along, searching for flesh of the living. You are not sure what is more disturbing, the half a zombie possum clawing its way along the roadside, or the family of zombie ducklings feeding on the remains of the mother duck. Suddenly you see something even more disturbing, it is a couple of undead squirrels filling their cheeks with the brains of a jogger.

As you almost reach the school, your friend with the zombie plant scratch begins to turn, but no one notices until he bites into the back of the drivers skull, and the SUV crashes into the big electronic sign in front of the high school. You know, the sign that was purchased by the class of 1987 and tells you when the next girls volleyball game is going to be. You feel bad that it got destroyed, since you know those kids sold a lot of candy, and washed a lot of cars to raise the money for that sign. But you figure that none of that matters anymore, since they are probably all dead from zombies.

Zombies. You forgot about the zombies for a second and got all focused on the electronic sign. You must have hit your head in the crash and thats why you forgot about your zombie friend gnawing on your other friends skull that caused the crash in the first place.

You shoot them both in the head and make your way to the school.

Suddenly, you see some undead emo kids heading for you. You hate emo kids, so shooting them is the first bit of fun you have had since this whole zombie apocalypse started.

You make it to the gym and realize it is just you and one friend that is left of your party. The two of you try to relax, since there is nothing in the gym. No birds that got trapped. No bugs that you can see. No animals of any kind.

It’s as you both breathe a sigh of relief that your friend gets bit by a mosquito.

You have no way of knowing if it was a zombie mosquito or not, especially after your friend slapped it and crushed it.

Not wanting to take any chances, you shoot him in the face. You two weren’t that tight anyway. He was a friend of a friend. He was the fat guy in your group, and you were amazed he survived this long. Although it was funny when he tried to sneak some food, and opened the can of sardines. He screamed when the zombie sardines all started to flop out of the tin. Fortunately they were soaked in oil and just fell apart as they tried to attack.

As you think to yourself that you will miss him more than you would have expected, you begin to feel funny, like a fever is coming on. You notice some of your flesh is slowly becoming necrotic.

How can this be? Nothing got to you. You confirm it buy stripping down and checking every inch of your body in the mirror. No bites or cuts or anything.

As the fever gets worse, you finally figure out what happened. All the bacteria that your immune system has fought and killed since this whole ordeal began are now zombie bacteria. You are becoming a zombie from the inside out. Your own survival mechanisms have betrayed you. Your final thoughts consist of the realization that this will happen to everyone and everything on the planet, and you are witnessing the end of the world.

9/11 Humor… What? Too soon?

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

Back in September, my girlfriend was online at the website of one of her favorite retailers, checking out candles and other foofy girl stuff, and there was something on the site that caught us both off guard. They were having a sale. This was not your average ordinary sale. They were having a 9/11 sale.

Now, I was not offended, as there are few things out there that will offend me. Even so, I had to wonder if this was a wise marketing campaign.

I guess it is not totally out of line, since after the attacks on September 11, our own president suggested that we go shopping, and basically not let the terrorists disrupt our American way of life, i.e. consumerism. It did make me wonder if this is the future of advertising, where we can exploit any tragedy as long as we offer substantial savings on merchandise?

But then my disbelief gave way to my wandering brain, which started to think about how if this did become a regular thing among retailers, just what the ads might look like. Basically, I ran with the Presidents Day sale motif, as it would be done by a local car salesman that produces and stars in his own ads, and just gave it a 9/11 twist.

DISCLAIMER (Yes the following is not exactly tasteful, so, if you go forward and get offended, you have no one to blame but yourself, and I will have no sympathy and probably make fun of your “outrage.” Seriously, you have been warned. Enjoy).

I picture a local car salesman dressed as a suicide bomber and yelling, “Death to high monthly payments.” Then there is a big fakey explosion, and as the dust settles there is a vehicle with very reasonable monthly payments painted on it’s windshield, and a voice over saying, “This beauty can be yours for a down payment of $911.”

Maybe they will use the slogans from 9/11 and say things like, “Lets roll… back prices,” or “Our savings are wanted dead or alive.”

Or maybe the salesman will be in a flight suit and do a bad George Bush impression, “The terrorists hate our free clock radio with every test drive,” while behind him is a banner that says, “Savings Accomplished.”

Maybe they could use actual video of the planes flying into the towers and have a voice over that says, “We couldn’t save everyone on 9/11, but we CAN save you… MONEY!” Then, as they the plane crashes into the building they superimpose a bunch of dollar bills to look like they are coming out of the explosion.

If they run with the idea of using actual 9/11 video with things superimposed, they could show a crowd, running from the dust cloud of the collapsing tower, with the words “High Prices” superimposed on the cloud, and a voice over that says, “Don’t let high prices catch you. Run, don’t walk, to our 9/11 sale.”

Obviously, the only way to end any of these commercial ideas is to say the following: “If you pay more, you support the terrorists.”

Yes, I know it is tacky and tasteless, but I’m not the one who had a 9/11 sale. I just followed the idea to it’s natural conclusion, and if you live in America, you know that none of it is that far fetched, and you can probably picture it all as clear as I could.

I have to admit, it cracked me up, but come on, after seven years, can’t we find some humor in this tragic event?

Yes it is very dark humor, but somehow, I doubt you can come up with a good 9/11 puppies and rainbows joke. And lets face it, being able to laugh at tragedy is a sign of healing, and it is also a very human thing to do, as it helps us to cope and move on. So be human or be offended… the choice is yours.

(By the way, if you were offended by any of this, then the terrorists have already won).

Chitchupaz

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

I have worked in haunted houses for eleven of the last fourteen years. I started in Nightmare on Grayson in San Antonio, and I got five seasons under my belt before moving to Austin and finding a haunt that became my home. Although, the first night I worked for The Nightmare Factory, I was not sure I was going to stay for more than the first night.

I had sent in an application and never heard back from the owners. Then on opening night in 2002 I got a call about thirty minutes before they opened, saying they were short handed and wanting to know if I could help.

Naturally, I jumped at the chance as it had been a little over three years since I moved to Austin and slightly longer since I got my boo on.

Even though I was a veteran with several years of experience I was still just a new guy to them. I had to prove myself. I later found out that anytime in the past that they had an actor show up from another haunt, it never worked out. They figured I would be no different.

So, to put me to the test, they stuck me in this scene that looked like an Egyptian tomb. They called it Chitchupaz, (pronounced chit-you-paz,… get it?) It was gorgeous. There were hieroglyphics everywhere and large hieroglyphic images from the Book of the Dead in spots. There was fake gold all over the place. Sand all over the place. A sarcophagus that was set up with mirrors so that it would fade back and forth between a view of the outside of the sarcophagus, to the inside so you could see the mummy contained within. There was also the torn up remnants of a bloody body on the floor.

I was impressed. I asked them what I was supposed to do in here. I was expecting to be a mummy or something.

Nope.

The owner and his right hand man had been really into Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter that year, and they made this big, beautiful scene without thinking about what to put in it. And well… I think they used to smoke a lot of pot back then, or something, but they thought it would be great to have a Steve Irwin-esque, archaeologist being attacked by a mummy.

So they show me my costume. It was basically the Steve Irwin shirt and shorts, which looked even dorkier with my black work boots, and pale white legs. Needless to say, I felt like an idiot.

Then they showed me the “mummy.” It was a zombie mask that was stuffed and sewn on to a body that was made out of cloth. The arms were sewn together in a loop so that it could hang around your neck… like it is attacking you.

They told me when people come by to run out and pretend the mummy is attacking me, and tell people to stay away from the gold, because it is cursed. The idea of cursed gold got set up in the previous scene by Becky, a talking ventriloquist dummy who would tell bad jokes and also told people to stay away from the gold in Chitchupaz. (Like I said, I think they smoked a lot of pot back in those days.)

I tried it their way, as they suggested. And it looked as stupid as it sounds. I would hide in a corner and wait for a group to come by, then they see me come running out, looking dorky in shorts and work boots, with a stuffed mummy hanging off my neck, trying to act like I am being attacked and warning people to stay away from the cursed gold.

The looks of confusion on peoples faces were priceless.

The laughter stung a little.

Sometimes, I could not help but join the customers in laughing at the whole thing, as I knew how ridiculous I looked trying to act like I am being attacked or fighting off what was essentially a stuffed animal, while running around yelling, “Stay away from the gold! ARRRRGGGH! It’s cursed! Don’t touch the gold!”

After about thirty minutes, the boss came up to me and told me that they were getting something into fix the scene, (Oh, thank god), but it would not be in until the next week (Aww, crap). He told me he knew it sucked and to just… well… do the best with what I have.

I think I saw him stifle a giggle after he said that and turned to walk away.

Being a veteran of haunted houses, I said the hell with this, I want to actually scare people. So, I went back to hide in my corner and wait, just like I had earlier in the night. When a group came through my scene, I ran out, like the mummy was attacking me, again, just like I had earlier. But this time I came at customers fast, so that by the time they could process that I had a really fake looking, stuffed mummy around my neck, I was right next to them at the rail, and launching the mummy out over the railing at them, and shoving it in their faces.

I was actually scaring people, and even put a couple of them on the floor. (Hooray me. I’m like scary and stuff.) This even impressed the boss, that I was able to get any scares at all in that scene.

The next week, the owner did fix Chitchupaz. He ordered Anubis. Anubis is a Stalkaround, which is basically a puppet that you wear on your shoulders that makes you look about eight feet tall. Naturally the scene got a whole lot scarier, and to say I fell in love with Anubis is an understatement. I had crowds hitting the floor consistently, running out of the scene terrified, and I fed off the energy.

Anubis had a long life, he was used for the next two years, then was turned into Death for another three years before the Nightmare Factory got shut down.

I got to keep Death, since I spent the most time in him, I helped to maintain and repair him and trained newbies on how to use a Stalkaround and not make it look stupid. Now Death lives in the corner of my computer room, and is sitting behind me as I write this.

Death does get out once in a while. He helped me to win the costume contest at work, and he also was a celebrity judge in the Zombie Apocalypse Talent Show. He also lives on in virtual reality, in City of Villains as “Mr. Death.

But what happened to the stuffed mummy? Well, I am not sure who has him. But he lived on as a catch phrase that we all still use to this day: “A mummy around the neck”.

(Definition) Mummy around the neck – something that seems like a good idea, but once implemented is obviously lame.

ex. Do you think it is scary, or is it a mummy around the neck?

ex. Do you think Segways will change the way people travel or is it just a mummy around the neck?

ex. Was this an interesting and entertaining post about the haunted house, or was it a mummy around the neck?

Feel free to use and spread the phrase.

A Peace Offering to the Furries.

Friday, May 9th, 2008

Dear Furries,

I know I have not exactly been kind to your particular brand of dorkdom/fetish, but I just saw some fascinating videos that made me think of you, and perhaps we can come to a truce of sorts.

This is not exactly “furry” but it is people in animal costumes having sex. So, if you would like to see Isabella Rossellini dressed in insect costumes, mimicking having sex as that insect, then you furries will love this. And yes, it is even work safe! How cool is that?

http://www.sundancechannel.com/blogs/thegreen/390335912

I figure this will either turn you furries on, or it will show you how the rest of us view furries, except that we don’t find you educational. Either way, you can’t lose, and you just might learn something.

Hugs and Kisses,

Michiel

Edited to correct the link.  Thank you Stephanie

So many levels of irony. – Why outsourcing has to stop.

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
OK, I’m out of work and on unemployment. I have been working on the phones in various customer service roles over the last several years. Being that I am unemployed, the state of Texas provides me with a Chase bank card, to pay me the unemployment insurance that is due to me.

So far so good.

Well I was online and had a question about the available balance. Since the Chase website does not show pending charges, I just wanted to confirm what was there, just to make sure I don’t spend more than I have, especially with rent coming up, so I call the bank to speak to someone.

I get a guy who is obviously not from the U.S., which does not mean he is not here in the U.S. But, since they are asking for name and Social Security numbers and account numbers, I thought I would ask where the guy was because I know a lot of fraud and identity theft occur outside of the U.S. Not that someone in the US can not use that same information for fraudulent purposes, I just feel better about it somehow.

So I ask him, “What country are you in?”

“For security purposes, I can not give out that information.”

… (blink) , “You can’t tell me what country you are in?”

“No, sir. For security reasons I can not give the location of this facility.”

“You’re in India, aren’t you?”

“For security purposes, I can not give out that information.”

“Let me talk to your supervisor.”

“I’ll get a supervisor on the line, please hold.”

So, at this point I am hoping to get someone in the U.S. or at least an Indian with a little more sense.

“Hello, my name is (insert generic American sounding name here, I think it was Brett or Brad or Trent or something), I am a supervisor here, how may I help you?”

“Well I had some questions about my account, but I do want to know what country I am calling first, and the previous agent would not tell me. So, first off, I want to know, what country are you in?”

“For security purposes, I can not give out that information.”

“Are you in the U.S.”

“For security purposes, I can not give out that information.”

“Are you in India?”

“For security purposes, I can not provide you with the location of our center.”

“OK, are you on the North American continent?”

“I can not give out that information.”

“What planet are you on?”

“I can not give out that information. Is there something else I can do to assist you?”

… (blink) … (blink) … (jaw very slowly descends to floor) It was somewhere around here that I gave up and told him that, if he can’t tell me what country or planet he is on, that he can not help me period. I ended the call.

I eventually called back and got a nice girl, here in the U.S. She was hoping that she would not get in trouble for providing that information, but she figured that confirming she was in the U.S. was generic enough of a location that she could respond to me.

I just find it ironic that I am having a hard time finding a job doing similar work to the kind of work these people do, thus I am collecting unemployment and having to call India, for support on my unemployment insurance account.

This is just another fine example of how American business practices, and your taxes are working hard to help your fellow Americans live the American Dream. Which reminds me, how much longer until I get my tax rebate check? I can really use that about now, I got some bills to catch up on.

(The system isn’t broken. Go back to sleep America. Everything is fine. There is nothing to see here.)

(sleep)

(sleep)

(sleep)

Why I Don’t Like Anime, Manga and Most Japanese Pop Cultural Imports

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

(Caution: Some links are not work safe)

Skippy’s List is a great place to talk about military things, and I really have no military background to discuss those things so I tend to stick with the other main theme, nerdy/geeky stuff. Although I am a big dork in my own right, there are some areas of geekdom that I just can’t wrap my brain around.

I have never really sat down and discussed, or even given much thought to why I find anime so deeply annoying, but somehow this seems like the forum to explore these thoughts and possibly recover a buried memory of ritual abuse at the hands of hentai fetishists.

First off, I would like to say that I can not think of a single thing from modern Japanese culture, i.e. post World War II, that is cool. There are many things from this time period that border on being cool, and float around the periphery of cool, the best example I know of for this is Godzilla. Godzilla is pretty damned cool; he is a giant monster that destroys cities and kills thousands. But there is a certain cheese factor that won’t quite rub off of Godzilla. It is not the bad rubber suit; I can get past that. But in later movies, when he became a protector of Japan and teamed up with other monsters like Rodan and Mothra and fought things like Mechagodzilla… well, if you can’t see my point, you might as well stop reading now.

I think that is part of what gets me about a lot of anime, it just gets overdone. Which brings me to my chief annoyance with anime, the eyes. Whats up with the big eyes? I probably wouldn’t mind it so much if damned near every drawing, sketch, and animation that came out of Japan didn’t look like this, but they all do. Not to mention the tiny, almost none existent nose, and the sometimes oversized, sometimes undersized mouth mouth. I can not fully express how much I hate this style of drawing, but I’ll give it a try.

I understand that the eyes are supposedly representative of the “round eyes” of westerners, but it has become overdone. If I were to guess at the ideal western eye and facial expression that the Japanese seem to be striving for, I think it is either Carol Channing, or my favorite droog, Alex, receiving his treatment in ‘A Clockwork Orange.

My next beef is the hair. I would have to say at least 50% of all anime characters need to drag a comb through their hair. Much like the characters in ‘Battle of The Planets‘ when they were not in costume. I remember three things about that show, a spaceship, birdlike costumes, and they all had permanent bedhead.

And besides the bad bedhead looks, there are the hairstyles I like to call the “WTF-do’s” which ‘Dragon Ball Z‘ is the handsdown master of. These are hairstyles so bad that they are only rivaled in real life by Yahoo Serious and Carrot Top. (Speaking of which, what is up with Carrot Top? I think he is slowly becoming a real life anime character.)

(I would like to apologize for all of the photo links in the above paragraph, but in finding examples of what I was talking about, I realized how much I love Google image search).

My final question is why does it all have to be so damned cutesy? What little anime I have watched and actually enjoyed for the story was diminished by the unnecessary insertion of gratuitous cuteness. Did there really have to be some floating whatsit to interupt what was a decent story? Why must there be a squinty-eyed big mouthed character for comic relief that is anything but funny? (This is the portion for anime fans to say, “You are not talking about ‘x-character in this movie’ or ‘y-character in that show’ are you,” and I respond with “Yes, that is exactly what I am talking about,” because I guarantee your list will be larger than anything I can come up with on my own. Please include photo links.)

Oh, I almost forgot to bring this full circle, back to Hentai. As soon as I ask myself, “is there anyone out there seriously whacking off to this and getting off,” a voice in the back of my head loudly interrupts and says, “YES! YES THEY ARE! MORE THAN YOU WOULD IMAGINE!” With that thought, all I can do is sit in awe (or possibly fear) of the diversity of human sexual expression.

I am not sure where I am going with this, or if I have even explained myself well, but I do know this… unless you are eight years old, Pokemon sucks.

Infrared Neck vs. the Furries

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

As I have mentioned before, I play City of Heroes pretty regular, and lately I have been spending a lot of time playing my fire tanker, Infrared Neck.

He is basically a drunken redneck with the ability to create and manipulate fire. When charging into battle he yells out his famous battle cry, “Hold my beer and watch this!”

His story begins on a night when the police were called out to his trailer for a disturbance call. During the confrontation his powers manifested for the first time and he accidentally burned down his own trailer and mildly injured the arresting officers. Seeing as how the damage and injuries were unintentional, he was not thrown in jail but instead was given 2,000 hours of community service work.

Thus began the heroing career of the Infrared Neck.

About a week or two ago, I was patrolling the city with Infrared Neck when I ran across an odd sight. It was two cat people, from a super group called The Legion of Catgirls, sitting together in what looked to me as if they were practicing tantric sex. Here is a screenshot of what I saw.

I could tell that they were almost immediately irritated by my presence as the emo cat boy said, “What do you want,” within seconds of my arrival

I thought I was being cool and non-judgemental and I responded with “Tantric sex?”

They immediately became angry and began denying that they were having sex, but instead they were just sitting next to each other talking.

I then explained that it looked like they were having tantric sex, hoping that they would see what I did and maybe we could all get a laugh out of the situation. Instead all this did was piss them off further, and they started calling me a dirty old man, and saying I needed to get my mind out of the gutter.

I again tried to explain that I was not saying they were or were not having sex in public (so to speak), just that it looked kind of like that. They went off on how sad I must be that if I see two people sitting together enjoying each others company that I assume they are having sex.

We went round and round as I tried to clear it up. But they kept calling me a pervert, and saying I was oversexed if all I could see was them having sex. Then suddenly, according to them I must not be getting enough sex if all I could see was them having sex.

I realized they were completely irrational and there was no way to win. Even so, I was pretty sure they actually were having virtual sex as they protested it a little too strongly, in my opinion. So, I took off, and when I reached my destination, I sent a broadcast message, (a broadcast is a message that can be seen by anyone in the zone), that said, “If anyone is interested, there are a couple of furries having tantric sex on the bridge over by the train. Go check it out.”

This naturally sent them into a little kitty fury. Basically they kept slinging the insults, calling me a pervert, and asking whats wrong with two people just sitting together talking, blah, blah, blah.

I ignored them and went and did my mission and after I was done, I was curious if they were still there or not. They were. This is what I found.

I’m sorry, I don’t care what they say, I am convinced they were having cyber-furry, superhero, cat sex with their costumes on, and that is just hilarious and sad, all at the same time.

City of Heroes is a trademark of NCSoft Corporation

Legion of Catgirls is just some crap made up by furries, but is copyrighted by LegionofCatgirls.com

Great Moments in Haunted House Customer Service, #1

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Over the last few years at the haunted house I work at, I have been “promoted” from actor to security. The only real disadvantage to being security is that you don’t get as many scares in as you do when you are an actor in a scene.

The advantages are that I get much less sweaty, tired and beat up. You don’t have makeup and blood to wash off at the end of the night. And occasionally you get to hear interesting customer complaints, which for the most part, you have to address professionally, no matter how hard it is to do so.

A couple years back, I am standing outside of the back door, wearing my security uniform and gear. My uniform consists of a black shirt with our logo on it and the word “STAFF” on the sleeve. My gear consists of a three cell Mag-Lite hanging in a pair of tiger-striped fuzzy handcuffs, that I bought at the local sex shop, which are looped through my belt. These are how you know I am official or something resembling it.

As this one group exits the building, one of the guys in the group is obviously pissed off. As soon as he spots me, he makes a beeline for me, and asks the obligatory question of the pissed off customer, “Do you work here?”

Realizing this may not be the best time to be a smart ass by pointing to the logo and the word “STAFF” that are clearly printed on my shirt, I ask him what I can help him with.

“I want to make a complaint.”

I already have a good idea of who the offending actor is, and I am pretty sure that this guys story is far from resembling the truth of the matter. Even so I did not expect the next words out of his mouth.

“One of your employees spit in my ear.”

“Somebody did what?”

“One of the guys in there, spit right in my ear, and got it right in the hole.”

Now I knew who did it, Todd. Todd was our house roamer that night. Todd is not the type to spit on anyone for any reason, but I know it was him because of where the guy described the incident occurred and just that fact that it was such a weird complaint, it could not be about anyone else but Todd.

Todd was the guy that when our Jack the Ripper got sick and needed to leave his scene to go puke, he jumped into the scene to take over while we found a replacement. Thing was, he was in a clown costume, but he still found a way to make it his scene. He stood over the fake dead hooker on the floor, with his pants around his ankles, and when people came by, he would yell, “This isn’t what it looks like. Someone killed my hooker. Call 911.”

Todd is a true haunted house professional, and a top notch veteran haunt actor. Seriously, you don’t get, “Someone killed my hooker” out of a rookie.

This particular night, Todd was dressed in his nun costume, vampire teeth, a full beard and a pair of nunchuks. (Get it… NUN-chuks). The name of his character is Sister Badtouch. Here is a photo of he and I having a fight, for the fun of it, in costume. I’m the one on the left.

Anyway, as the customer was telling the tale of this completely unprovoked, precision spitting into his ear canal, all I could think was, “How did Todd end up spitting in someones ear? This can’t be what happened. I have to get the real story.”

So after apologizing to this guy and getting him calmed down by assuring him that the offending actor would not be working here after Halloween, they eventually left. (I neglected to tell him that none of us would be working here after Halloween, but that bit of information might not have helped calm him down as much.)

Dying of curiosity, I immediately ran into the house to look for Todd.

I found him in some dark hallway traumatizing a group of teen aged girls.

I told him, “Some guy just complained to me that someone spit in their ear. What the hell happened?”

After he stopped laughing, Todd explained that throughout the night he had been using little chunks of Alka-Seltzer to make it look like he was foaming at the mouth. I already knew this as I saw him doing it and it looked great. (Seriously, you have to love the image of a rabid vampire nun coming at you with nunchuks). I also knew he had been foaming all night as there were little wet spots on the floor throughout the house, that I kept slipping on.

He went on to say, “I came out to scare that group and the guys were doing the usual, ‘I’m not scared of you, you suck thing.’ So I did what I usually do in that circumstance, I gave ’em a rasberry.” (For those unfamiliar with the term raspberry, it is also known as a “Bronx cheer” and according to George Carlin the real term is a bilabial fricative, but according to Wikipedia it is an unvoiced linguolabial trill).

So I asked him, how does that count as spitting in someones ear?

Todd explained that since he had been foaming at the mouth, he had a bunch of the foam still stuck to his beard and moustache, and when he gave the rasberry, it shot some of the foam straight into the guy’s ear. It was a lucky shot, really. A one in a million chance.

We laughed about it and finished out the night and later recounted the tale with the owner and the rest of the crew over some beers. We agreed that the Alka-Seltzer was a good effect but should not be repeated, and not because it might get on customers, we don’t care about that. We used to “joke” that if you made someone pee themselves in a corner, and it was all over the floor, scare the next group into the corner to mop it up. The reason the Alka-Seltzer was retired was because it made the floor slippery and in a haunted house, safety is the priority.

This has been just one sample of the kinds of customer service issues that one encounters when working in a haunted house. Someday I’ll tell you how we accidentally broke a quadriplegics high tech wheel chair, but, fortunately, managed to not shut off her life support.

Ah, good times.

Google Ads and The Gay Recruiter Bit

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

I was checking the comments on my post I made last week and I noticed the following Google ad on the page.

Meet Homosexual Army Men
Find Army Homosexual Men Near You View Profiles 100% Free. Join Now!
http://www.GayMilitaryDating.com

Google is amazing. I’m not convinced they truly understand the audience, but they are amazing.

They took the fact that my post was about a gay pride parade, (and ignored it was in an MMO), and the references to the military that were also found on the Skippy’s List website, and said, “Hey, we have an advertiser with a service you might be interested in!”.

Although I was not personally interested in this service, I am an open minded individual. So, if any of you guys out there meets the man of their dreams because you saw this ad in my post, I would love to hear about it and maybe even be invited to the wedding.

I also considered this ad to be a sign from the universe that I need to post the following bit that I do in my regular stand-up routine.

This was a bit that Skippy was going to post a month or so back, but he knows that the cardinal sin of comedy is stealing someones jokes. He was going to ask me if he could post it. At the time, he was already considering getting guest writers, so, this is the bit that made him approach me about writing here. So here it is.

The bit is about a subject that has been bugging me, basically, how homophobic this country has gotten in the last several years. It seems everyone is worried about gay marriage or they are afraid that some homosexual is going to recruit them.

Seriously? Did anyone ever receive a call after high school from a gay recruiter?

Just me?

Fine, let me tell you what happened. The guy called me up and explained the benefits of homosexuality to me.

I told him that, as a heterosexual, I don’t want to make a full-time commitment to homosexuality. So he talked me into joining the reserves.

All I had to do was be gay for one weekend a month and two weeks out of the year, and I really needed the college money.

It was a sweet deal until they decided to “activate my unit”.

I really don’t talk about what happened much, but I will say this…I saw a lot of good men go down.