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Archive for April, 2008

This again?

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

Military Honor and Decency Act

Long term readers may remember this post.

And so once again we have a group of people that think they know more than the rest of us should.

If you have any respect for our soldiers, or value freedom in any way, you should contact your Representative and tell them that you don’t support this.

I first saw this on my regular Internet news sites and at first I thought, “Eh, I’ve written about this before.” But then one of my readers, Patrick, sent me this site. As I read Mrs. Proctor’s arguments and her defense of them, I found myself getting angry. And then I realized that an unfortunate reality is that silence equals consent.

I do not consent to having our soldiers privileges sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.

I do not consent to freedom of speech being limited to only things that are bland and fail to offend the tender sensibilities of the sexually repressed.

I do not consent to politicians, who as a group are typically some of the most horrifically amoral people on the planet, deciding that they get to dictate proper morality for the rest of us. Generic Levitra cost at http://howmed.net/order-levitra-vardenafil/ and how to use Vardenafil.

I do not consent to allowing people to get away with pretending that their moral decisions are more valid than mine.

I do not consent to lazy parents abdicating their responsibility and instead demand that society at large eliminate anything they don’t like, to prevent them from ever having to have an awkward conversation.

I do not consent to a magazine being banned from sale because someone doesn’t like it.

I do not consent to our brave soldiers being bullied in this manner.

Now to answer some of the obvious responses to my statement.

“Pornography is harmful to women”
-How so? I have run a careful experiment exposing my wife to pornography. She has yet to catch fire, develop cancer, or run off to become a prostitute. Okay, maybe if a pallet of dirty magazines was to fall on you it would hurt. But I think you’d be just as crushed if they were bibles.

“Pornography leads to rape”
-I’m sure that this is following the logic that some person once read porn, and then went on to rape someone. There are also rapists who have read the bible, sang pop songs, and driven automobiles. I think I am safe in saying that most men in the U.S. have looked at porn at some point in their life. And most of us have managed not to rape anybody so far.

“Think about how porn affects the women on military bases”
– With the possible exception of that Air Force SGT that posed for Playboy last year, I would have to say, “Not affected in the slightest”. Unless they are buying and reading it, in which case I might go with “they are titillated.”

“They can always go somewhere else to get it”
-Not always. Some might be stuck on post for some reason. Or they may be deployed to a country where it is not readily available in the economy. Maybe they don’t have a car. Perhaps they are on a ship.

“It’s degrading to women”
-How so? The women who are getting told, “You are so beautiful that we will pay you thousands of dollars for the privilege of looking at you” don’t seem degraded to me. Are other women degraded simply by the magazines being nearby? Because men are looking at the pictures? Because men are thinking impure thoughts after looking at those magazines? So in this logic chain no one but the model, the PX, the magazine, and the man who bought it are involved. I’ve heard some people say that the magazines make men look at women who are around them with lust, but let me tell you, men don’t need magazines for that, we are quite capable of perving out without them.

“Think of the children”
-You know what I think? I think that a kid with one or more parents overseas with a serious threat of bodily harm has more important concerns than a magazine sealed in plastic. And even if it wasn’t sealed in plastic: “Oh noes! Teh naked boobies! I am scarred for life!” Seriously, it’s one thing to not want your kid exposed to something. It’s another to think that everyone else needs work around your hang-ups. Also, Playboy magazine wasn’t involved in a nasty series of child rape cover-ups in recent years. Things more important than magazines could be banned from post if people are allowed to start trampling on rights over “protect the children”.

“But they don’t need it”
-You absolutely right. They don’t need it. But the fact that the PX keeps selling it tells us that they want it. If porn was eliminated soldiers could still do their job. There are lot’s of things that soldiers don’t need to do their jobs. Video games, alcohol, cigarettes, movies, the Internet. We could ban all of those things from post and soldiers could still function. Just because someone doesn’t need something doesn’t give you the right to take it away. Soldiers also don’t need to have families on post. And judging from the behavior of some military wives, I think an argument could be made for keeping them off-post only. One just as strong as banning Penthouse and Playboy.

I think people should be free to practice, or abstain from the practice, of any religion they so choose. And if your faith tells you that you should avoid dirty magazines, well then that is a great reason to not purchase or look at dirty magazines. But it is a horrible reason to try to make other people stop having them. Your right to practice your faith ends at your neighbor’s right to practice his.

So in closing, the human body is nothing to be ashamed of, sexuality is a valid form of expression, and “Family Values” is just a dirty way of saying censorship.

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.

New Friends of Skippy

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Well it took me forever, but I have finally started adding to the Friends of Skippy List once again.

(Submitted By SSG Lorraine A. Morrison)

  • Do not order boot MP’s to take a larceny report from MSG Ramen at the commissary. They will wander around for hours before they realize that MSG Ramen is a soup
  • Do not send buck privates to the motor pool for one gallon of frequency grease.

(Submitted By Brian Hunter)

  • Not allowed to label flu season tissues as biological warfare agents.
  • Must not label the Texas Chili MRE as chemical warfare.
  • Even if it could be used as such.
  • Not allowed to start a music act called Run-DMZ.

(Submitted By Chris Jacka)

  • Bright colored g-strings are not an acceptable form of underwear for a layout before a FTX.
  • It is also not advised to then take said garments on said FTX and come out of the tent while snowed in wearing only a watch cap, boots and silver g-string and run around the mortar.
  • Lastly, NEVER, EVER, greet the new E-3 fresh from the Ranger Battalion while wearing a gold g-string and combat boots and gently ask him if he needs anything.

(Submitted By Jessica Hoeting)

  • I’m not a ninja, and they CAN see me

(Submitted By CPL Ian Yee -Who was a very busy lad)

  • Hedonism is not an army authorized religion. Therefore I’m not allowed to build a church, cult, or donation box for the Church of Hedonism. Nor can I be the chaplain of said church.
  • “Surprise Sex” or “Ambush Sex” is not a valid substitute for the phrase “sexual assault”.
  • “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” is the army’s policy for gays, not an appropriate response when asked by your chain of command why you showed up to formation in your underwear.
  • You may not refer to members of your chain of command as the “weakest link”.
  • You also may not hold a vote to decide which member of your chain of command you can “boot off the island”.
  • CLP is used to lubricate weapons. Not for personal use.
  • The Air Force is a service, not how hard you blow up your inflatable “significant other”.
  • Your dog does not count as immediate family, therefore you cannot use that as a reason to go home on emergency leave.
  • Do not bang the bottom of a Mk 19 round and attempt to play football with it.
  • Especially in front of your chain of command.
  • Especially when you’re throwing it to your chain of command.
  • “Hooyah Master Chief” is not an appropriate way to respond to any army officer.
  • Work is not a valid allergy to put on your medical records. Neither is BS, officers, NCO’s, or latrine duty.
  • Just because you say you’re allergic to latrines does not give you permission to piss anywhere you want. The Sergeant Major’s flower bed thanks you.
  • Do not try to speed in your humvee and use the excuse “I needed to go 88 mph to achieve 1.21 jiggawatts Sir!”
  • You may not combine any part of the uniform at any time. Therefore shower shoes, pt shorts, IBA, and beret is not an acceptable duty uniform. No matter how sexy you say you look.
  • MySpace is a place for friends, not for posting guard rosters or passing out information to your soldiers.
  • It is not appropriate to say the word “asshole” after saying the rank of sergeant major.
  • The OPFOR patch is not an authorized combat patch.
  • I will not hand out tickets for driving the speed limit.
  • I will not replace the COL PARKING ONLY sign with a SPC PARKING ONLY sign.
  • Just because you put a handicapped sticker on your humvee doesn’t mean you can take the C.O.’s spot.
  • Do not replace all the contents of the first aid kits with water and Motrin.
  • CamelBaks are for water, not beer.
  • Not everyone in the Navy is called Seamen.
  • Also, the proper spelling of Seamen is not semen.
  • There is no such thing as Specialist grade article 15’s, so stop handing them out.
  • You cannot trade guard shifts with the voices in your head.
  • You cannot request Amsterdam, Cancun, or the Playboy Mansion as your preferred duty station.
  • Checking out a female is not called “Reconnaissance of friendly lines”.

False Advertising!

Friday, April 25th, 2008

I recently purchased one of the fancy new Series Three Tivos. I’ve had a first generation one for years, and I was finally tempted by all the new features available one the latest version. The only problem I had was that I now had to re-enter all of my TV shows. So to make it easier, I decided to go through the list of every show that Tivo could find, and tag all of the ones that I liked. I discovered two important facts.

First there are a lot more shows on cable television than I had previously suspected. Secondly, there are an awful lot of television programs that appear to be “adult oriented”. Unfortunately this was not the case and they misled me into recording them.

Sara’s Secrets – To a man, anything that starts with a woman’s name and ends with “secret” means sexy underwear. Alas, this was a cooking show.

Sweat on the Beach – This was some kind of obstacle course.

Whitetail Diaries – This show was about hunting, and not very tan women as I had imagined.

Singles Pleasing the Lord – This was a religious show.

Answering the Masters Call – So was this. Why do shows about God sound creepily like the titles of bondage fetish porn?

World’s Richest Penthouses – This had absolutely nothing to do with the magazine.

Shop Erotic – It turns out that the home shopping channels sometimes host “passion parties”.

Bare Essentials – This is a QVC special on skin care. On a side note, if you are really into making informed skin care decisions there are probably better places to go than QVC.

The Bad Girls Club – I hate you Oxygen network! This show had absolutely no right not to be porn.

Wife Swap – This was technically not false advertising, but was nowhere near as interesting as I thought it would be.

The Big Bang Theory – This is a good show, but not what I was expecting.

Boxcar Bertha – This could have been the bum-fights of porn. But instead it was a period movie.

What you get for the money –This is about buying a house. Not a floozy.

Tuna Wranglers – Turns out this show is actually about tuna. Go figure.

Honorable mention goes to Hoover Innovations, because I though it said Hooker Innovations and wound up getting psyched up for a documentary on vacuum cleaners.

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

New Site Features

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

Ever since I have started writing this blog, I have have started getting an increase in traffic. And the increase in traffic has in turn lead to an increase in questions being emailed to me. I don’t mind, I like the attention and I certainly have no problem sharing any experiences I have in both the military and the game industry. But I do wind up getting similar questions a lot. So to combat that problem, and to help provide a resource for people who might want more information on those subjects, I have created two new pages.


So you want to be a soldier?

and

So you want to make video games?

From now on, all questions I receive about either subject are going up there, unless the submitter specifically asks me not to.

Also, I’m leaving comments on because as unlikely as it sounds, I don’t necessarily know everything, and sometimes someone else may have other helpful ideas.

Pardon My French

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

Here is another user submitted story by one of the rarest creatures on the planet. A fun officer.

Here is one of those, “You just can’t make this shit up” stories.

No shit, there I was; Camp Shelby Mississippi, pre-mob training for an OIF
deployment. One of my medics, SPC Nancy, was playing “victim” during a STX
lane, and ended up with her arm caught in the closing ramp of an M113 APC.
Needless to say her arm was black and blue, and up in a sling.

Since this was pre-mob training, our unit was on “lock-down”, meaning no one
went anywhere, but to the gym, PX, or post theater. The night after SPC
Nancy’s accident, was a “Wal-Mart Night”. “Wal-Mart Nights” meant that the guys
could put on their shiny shoes, and the girls would tease their hair, because
“Oh Baby, we’re going to Wal-mart tonight!” It meant that the Joes could wear
civilian clothes, and take a bus ride to the local Wal-mart.

Because of SPC Nancy’s injury, she was just not up to going to Wal-Mart. Being
the kind, caring, and compassionate CO that I am, I took $20 and handed it to
PV2 Powell and told him to get that young lady a hot water bottle to put on
her arm when he went to Wal-Mart. Now PV2 Powell, who, by the way, is not the
smartest of privates, took the $20 and his best buddy PFC Lewis, also, not
the smartest of privates, and went to Wal-mart on a mission.

After searching for a hot water bottle for over 10 minutes to no avail, PV2
Powell went to the cosmetics counter and asked the lady for help finding a
hot water bottle. The lady saw the look of confusion, and purpose on PV2
Powell’s face, and asked him if the product was for a woman.

“Why Yes, Yes it is for a woman!” said PV2 Powell.
“Oh, okay honey, come with me.” Said the woman.

She pointed them down the aisle, and when PV2 Powell read the carton “Hot Water bottle/ D – O – U…. What’s a Douche?” he asked PFC Lewis, to which PFC Lewis replied “I think that’s French for ‘hot water bottle'”. (No Shit! It actually is.) “I’ll take it!” said a very proud PV2 Powell.

Upon return to the company area PV2 Powell presented the gift to SPC Nancy
and told her “Here, the CO thinks that you should use this.”

First Guest Story

Friday, April 18th, 2008

Regular readers will probably remember that I recently asked for readers to submit any any funny military stories they had.  Well my new friend Sam has submitted one that I think is pretty good, and so I have allowed him to post it up here.

When I was stationed at Fort Sam Houston for nursing school there was a brand new facility opening as part of the hospital. For those non-military, the hospital in Fort Sam is the top dog of all Army medical centers. The new building was called the “Center for the Intrepid” and is a rehab facility for all the amputees coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. The grand opening was a big to-do, canine-equestrian extravaganza with guest speakers/performers like Hillary Clinton, John McCain, John Mellencamp, and Rosie O’Donnell. I get the first three: major political figures and a celebrity who made very large contributions to build the facility. I never did understand why Rosie was there. But, then again, there’s a lot of people that don’t understand why she is here.

Needless to say, all the equipment in this building is state of the art and beyond anything I had ever heard of, let alone seen. My squad was lucky enough to be part of a tour through the facility about 2 weeks before they started receiving patients. The tour guide was a Captain and was showing us the various high-tech gadgets for treating the amputees and helping them cope with their new prosthetics.

One of the facilities in the building was installed on a concept so simple that I never would have thought of it. It was a fully furnished apartment.
The object was to allow the amputees to get used to doing routines chores like laundry, making dinner, vacuuming, etc. with their new prosthetics. And this apartment was NICE; a very plush pad indeed.

At this point the tour guide mentions that the whole building and equipment cost around $55 million and then asked if there were any questions before we moved on. Being the resident joker/smartass of my squad I raised my hand and asked, “So, what’s the rent go for on a place like this?” OK, kinda funny; a few people laughed until I decided to follow up. You know that voice in your head that’s supposed to inform your mouth when you’re about to say something really stupid? Well, that voice apparently was on vacation that day. Now, in my head, it was just the first metaphor for the money spent on the facility.
The follow-up statement was, “This place must cost an arm and a leg!”

Unfortunately, as you can imagine, it was NOT received well. The guy was a full-bird colonel next to me who, if looks could kill, would have cut me in half on the spot. All I could think about was how that’s not what I meant and I feel so small right now they won’t have to open the door as I could walk underneath it. Of course, my whole squad, who knows my sense of humor, thought I did it on purpose so I had to explain again after we got outside that I really didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did. I never did live that one down.

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.

Just ’cause it’s been in my head all day

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008

They’re not squirrels but they will have to do.

Release the kitties!