Happy Halloween!

The pic is courtesy of StrangeCosmos.com A site which can't be visited nearly enough!
And WHY NOT! Its All Saint's Day tomorrow, and tonight, all the little ghosties and ghoulies were out trying to scare the homeowners our of their candy! Brenda and I went over to Shayne's place, where he "does" Halloween in a big way....his front yard is decorated in skulls (some 27 of them by my count) including a complete cage with the skeleton of a dead pirate in it, dangling over the front sidewalk! He dressed up in his head to toe Gorilla suit, and fired up his light saber every time a kid didn't say "thank you". Tried to keep from scaring the VERY young though. They scare easy, and this was supposed to be a fun little "OMG" sort of shock, not a "bwaaaaaaa....daddddddddeeeeeeeyyyyyy" kind of fright. So we were careful.
Lots of parents with their kids. Good to see. I would just be a piece of the decoration, standing there in my mask and cloak, and the parents were too busy watching their kids getting scared to realize I was right behind them. sometimes people would jump when they realized I was actually alive! I thought it would be kind of fun to tap on their shoulder, and when they turned around, they would see Shaynes' voodoo "skull on a stick". That got some shreiks from the parents!
Yup, that was a success.

Shayne and Cindy took some pics and I'll try to put them up here when they have got around to downloading them and sending them to me.

Halloween Scary things....

The most scary thing I have been up to this Halloween weekend is to nail up shingles on my roof. At least it isn' t a 12 in 12 pitch,but it is close....about 9 in 12. That is just a little too steep to stand on! Oh when will I ever learn to build roofs that are not so darned steep! My knees are raw, my insteps are stretched like rubber bands (cept rubber bands don't hurt that bad!) I believe that putting up shingles is pretty nearly one of my most hated jobs.
Ah well, it looks good though.

Finish this off tomorrow, and then carve out some pumpkins. I have not done a Jack 0 Lantern in years! Of course, come next Tuesday, we'll be taking our Katana's out for some pumpkin carving. This should be fun!

Wish I was at your party Zlanth.....but seeing as how I have the flu it is probably best that I stay home. I'll hoist a brewski in yer honer though. I always get the flue after I get a flu shot. They say you can't get the flu from the flu shot...its dead! Hah! I think it just kicks the crap out of your immune system so that you pick up whatever galloping lung rot happens to be in the air at the moment! So, I taught my class in a whisper last night, and today, there is NO voice left at all. Singing in the shower is an exerience...I have to turn the water off to hear myself!

Well, I suppose I should be grateful for small things....the fact that I CAN actually climb on a roof and hit nails. (I notice that as I write this that there is a little twinge of pain everytime I hit the T, G, B , F, R and V. Clearly not every nail I hit with the hammer was made of steel!) I have posted a wonderful pic of Gratitude. Thanks, Dribbleglass!

How to play hockey! OMG!

Pirate asked me to explain how to play hockey! Gosh, for me, that is like asking me how to explain breathing! But, I can do this!

How to play hockey....
Get a bunch of guys to play on the road in front of your house. eight to ten kids is enough, more is better. Place a couple of easily moved objects down about a body width apart to form the "net", backpacks full of school books are good. Place two nets, one on each end of the "rink". You will also need sticks of some kind that you can tape "blades" onto....foot long thin boards which stick out at an angle at one end of the stick which you can use to bat the rubber ball around. We used to tape broken sticks from our older brothers teams together to make a whole "customized" stick for ourselves. Divide up into teams, and try to knock the rubber ball or old torn up baseball into the "net". One player is allowed to be the "goalie" for each side, and he will try to stop you from getting the ball through his "crease" and into the "net". Under your pant legs, you stuff magazines held onto your shins with sealer jar rubbers (if you can still GET sealer jar rubbers!) or elastic bands....that will serve as shin armour. I used inner tubes cut into rings, or else "hockey tape", a black gooey version of surgical tape.

Make the rules up as you go along, don't hit the other guys enough to leave too many bruises, (remember, what goes around comes around) and have a blast! When a car comes up, it will stop. The goalie yells out "CAR!", play is stopped, the backpacks are moved, and the car moves carefully through. The backpacks get put back into service and play resumes.
Have a blast!

Of course, as you get older, you might start skating. Inline skates on concrete, or ice skates on ice. Inline hockey hurts more as you slide along the concrete.....You can learn a few more rules, join a league, and play on an actual ice surface. The speed gets a lot higher! You get together in actual "teams" and "play position", play for 3 periods plus OT, and of course,
you have a blast!

In Canada, Saturday night is "hockey night in Canada", the name of a CBC show which is VERY popular. I have seen weddings end early so the guests could catch the game! The game of hockey has defined Canadians as much or more than baseball has defined those south of the 49th parallel, providing a powerful and much needed unifying force.
The NHL, (the National Hockey League) went on strike last year, and the owners locked them out for an entire year. This has caused untold misery among fans who don't know what to talk about when they go out to a tavern for a pint. Now that the season is "on again!", the angels are singing, Molson Brewery stock is up again, wives can get together with other wives and complain (commisserate? celebrate?) about being hockey widows and all is right with the world.
More ice hockey info is below.
http://www.fitness.gov/ice_hockey.html
http://www.firstbasesports.com/hockey_glossary.html
and this from the wikipedia....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_hockeyIce hockey, known simply as hockey in Canada and the United States, is a team sport played on ice. It is one of the world's fastest sports, with players on skates capable of going high speeds on natural or artificial ice surfaces. The most prominent ice hockey nations are Canada, United States, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
In all there are 64 members in the International Ice Hockey Federation. As one might expect, its worldwide popularity is concentrated primarily in locales cool enough for natural, long-term seasonal ice cover. It is the official national winter sport of Canada, and it has a strong enough following in certain regions of the United States (notably the Northeast, the Northern Midwest, and Alaska) that many Americans consider hockey to be a "major sport" in their country as well, although some Americans from other parts of the U.S. dispute hockey's inclusion as a major sport. The parts of North America which have the strongest followings of the sport are often called "hockey country".
While most of the countries mentioned above have their own professional ice hockey league, North America's National Hockey League is considered the world's premier professional ice hockey league and attracts almost all of the world's elite players.

Is it just me or is that driver blind?

Blind Referees. Blind outfielders. Blind swordsmen! Blind drivers! This in from the Manchester Online....one of the finest tabloids in the World! http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/cars/news/s/177/177438_blind_driver_sets_speed_record.html

Mike Newman, from Sale, Cheshire, raced to 167.32mph in his specially-made BMW M5 at Elvington Airfield, near York.
Organisers of the event said the record was set after the average speed was taken from two runs at the Yorkshire airfield earlier today.
He was hoping to break the 200mph barrier but was thwarted as he ran out of room on the track.
He said: "It has been a wonderful day. It has been a really exciting day. Hopefully I have raised awareness ahead of World Sight Day and shown that you can achieve anything you want."
Mr Newman set a record of 144mph in a Jaguar XJ-R in August 2003.
But he hopes today's new record will increase awareness and much-needed funds for his chosen charity, Vision 2020, ahead of World Sight Day later this week.
John Galloway, who helped organise today's record attempt, said: "This is a marvellous achievement. Mike drove totally unassisted. It is a fantastic achievement and has been one of the most emotional days of my life."


Hah! I am sure I was following this fellow down the 401 highway last Thursday!

The good old hockey game...the best game you can name...

I made a post on Jen's comments that was so good that I just had to repeat it here!

Ah, now Jen, when a hockey team ties up after three periods, the game goes into "sudden death overtime". These guys who have been skating like crazy for the last 20 minutes trying to score to avoid just this situation look at their team mates trying to suck enough wind to survive, down at their trembling, rubbery legs, and try to clear eyes blurry from fatigue and sweat. The game goes into overtime, and the game is won in the line changes...if the coach can change his people over during play without leaving too few people on the ice. All considerations of strategy and trying to match up teams against the opposing team goes right out the window, its a matter of "who can drive their body for another 30 seconds drive to the goal!?" Because the first side to score a goal wins the game. The referees mostly just try to stay out of the way....fouls and infractions take too much energy at this point for anybody to commit them, and if they did, their coach would yank them for good for delaying the game. Besides, the players are too tired to play a crisp game anyway, it is nothing BUT fouls, mostly by accident, tired players stumbling over their sticks, their own feet, their opponent's feet, over a shadow on the ice..., no point in getting upset about it.

Now... the goalies have to earn their pay. Shaved ice from skates getting dangerously dull coat them from head to toe, and it is freezing to their clothing, their hair, their masks. The goalie has to see through the sprays of snow (from people stopping just short of his position) and the sweat trickling into his eyes from the tension and the exertion of moving 50 pounds of padding from "here" to "there", when "there" is a tiny little puck coming in at 80 miles per hour. The ice is chopped and cratered outside of his crease causing even experienced skaters to trip and crash down into a melee of flying blades, elbows and splintered sticks, quite possibly bringing the goalie with them.

There is no heckling, shouting at individual players...they can't hear you anyway over the noise of a crowd going wild, not to mention the pounding of their heart beats, and raspy breathing. Any comment they could make would be short, almost in code..."Pass to you...Rob, got that?...change out Pat...." and of course "ooofff, you son of xxxx that was a cross check! Oooh, my ribs..."

This is when the goalie shines though. Not for him the glory of scoring points, only the panic of seeing 8 men in various colours of uniform charging in on him in the fastest game on earth.

Kind of boring, actually. I mean, how can that honestly compare to watching the outfielder trying to find a place to squirt his tobacco juice, or scratch his groin without a camera catching the act.
Just kidding...I rather enjoy PLAYING baseball. For me...its hard to watch though.

Chain Mail

Don't I look terrifying!
This is a stainless steel coif I made for a fellow who loves the wrestler "Big Poppa Pump" . He had gone to a bar to watch the wrestling, and woke up the next morning without his wallet, his coif, his "raiders" jacket and his shirt.

Lesson learned...watch your drinks....

Motivation

I am having such a difficult time getting motivated this morning. So I figured all I would need to do is to get up onto this here in-ter-net thingy here, and find some motivational pictures. Fortunately, there is lots to choose from! I have no idea who made these signs up....I pulled them off of "DribbleGlass dot com", but I don't know where they got them from!

Now I feel much better, and ready to start my day!

(I think Dribble Glass is one of the few "joke" sites that isn't full of viruses, spy ware and other little surprises! I drop in there once in a while just to reset my humour engine!)

Ren Faire

A retrospective picture of my sales booth at the Ren faire, what...6 years ago!

Weird Facts from EatYourMakup@blogspot.com

<<::Weird Facts::>>
This are some interesting facts I found that some chick researched. I found it humourus.
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have
produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
(Hardly seems worth it.)
If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is
produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. !
(Now that's more like it!)
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the
body to squirt blood 30 feet.
(O.M.G.!)
A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
(In my next life, I want to be a pig.)
A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves
to death! .
(Creepy)
(I'm still not over the pig.)
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour
(Don't try this at home, maybe at work)
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached
to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
("Honey, I'm home. What the....?!")
The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human
jumping the length of a football field.
(30 minutes..lucky pig! Can you imagine?)
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
(What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)
Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
(I still want to be a pig in my next life...quality over quantity)
Butterflies taste with their feet.
(Something I always wanted to know.)
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
(Hmmmmmm......)
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than
left-handed people.
(If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)
Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.
(Okay, so that would be a good thing)
A cat's urine glows under a black light.
(I wonder who was paid to figure that out?)
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
(I know some people like that.)
Starfish have no brains.
(I know some people like that too.)
Polar bears are left-handed.
(If they switch, they'll live a lot longer)
Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
(What about that pig??)

Eventful weekend...

Got a helm sent off. This is what it is supposed to look like. Instead I seem to have forgotten everything I ever knew about making this silly helm. I didnt bother to read my notes on the templates, its just a barrel helm right? I made what...a couple of dozen of them in my career? Well, after I made it, it didn't really look right, so I looked up barrel helms I had done in the past. Yup, I had made big basic design errors. I put the top on the outside instead of the inside, the bottom part got put on top of the upper part, the face plate was symmetrical, the crosses were sqare instead of circular, and there were two of them instead of one! All in all, a shambles. Is it common to forget how to do things, even simple things like making a simple barrel helm like this?
Fortunately, the helm I made is functional, but honestly, I will have to pull up my socks and pay more attention to what I am doing.

The bus station this weekend was a zoo! What fuel crisis? 60 taxi drivers idling their engines up St. Catherines street! I hate Thanksgiving weekend...all the crowding and noise with none of the "Good Cheer" of Christmas. Canadian Thanksgiving is in the pissiest time of year too...October !! No leaves have fallen yet, summer is definely over, but fall is not really here. I have heard this is a good time of year to go diving!

All these things seem so petty when I watch footage from Pakistan. My heart breaks when I hear of schools which have collapsed and think of the families frantically dragging at the wreckage with their bare hands to get to the children crying out with pain down inside. Or worse, hearing the crying stop! In the midst of all this human misery, there are politics....which is fodder for another post!

Well, back to work, make a "good" barrel helm this morning.

The ride to Pembroke

Looks like the College has decided to meet my price and will pay me to drive all the way to Pembroke, teach a four hour class, put me up for the night, and teach another 4 hour class the next night! For the price I demanded! You got to remember, its a 3 hour drive. In Winter. In Canada.
Now, this is a class on how to fight with a sword! The class is not nearly as dangerous as the drive! Fortunately, its a drive on a major commuter route, so it should be free of snow and ice. mostly.
I'm actually quite tickled at this, not least because I know I will be teaching mostly military guys from the big army base right there. I like teaching military...when you tell them to listen up, they, like, listen up! Wonderful!

Next trick of course is figure out how to make this a very attractive class. Promotional materials, and so forth. Should be interesting, I am not really good at promoting myself....not that I am shy, (nobody thinks I am shy!) but I really don't know where to start! When we decided to promote the class at the College, we watched as different departments formed little kiosks and displayed books of "what we do" to interested students. Jean and I looked at that setup in amazement, and proceeded to bring in suits of armour, swords, and a live display! I suspect it was this display which has resulted in the course being so amazingly popular. But I cannot do that at a venue three hours away, so I am sort of wondering how to do it.

So why (you may well ask) am I promoting myself instead of having the college doing it for me. Isn't that what they are paid to do? Well....actually, after watching the Ren Faire collapse due to insufficient promotion, I am nervous about hitching my wagon to somebody else' s promotional horses.

Well, looks like my work is cut out for me this morning!

Harry Reems has a message!

The first of the great porn stars....before John Holms of course....is now 58 years old, a real estate broker, and a Methodist. (Also monogamous, and unusual for a Methodist, a small "L" liberal. )

http://jam.canoe.ca/Video/DVD_Column/2005/10/01/1243476.html

Now he has a message. His DVD just came out, and he explains how awful the life was, how he almost died/went broke/drunk. Get this...it took Hugh Hefner (That Emissary of Satan!...that evvviiiilll man!) to get him into a 12 step program and turn his life around.

So, what's his message? Well censorship is still wrong, beware of people who think they know what is right from wrong, and to quote him "The only story I wanted to tell was the story of redemption. And, indeed, the two filmmakers of this documentary saw the same story and we have the same fix, so I agreed to co-operate in it. And now, quite frankly, I'm being paid quite well to promote the film and to promote the DVD."

So, he is "test-a-fyin". And getting paid quite well do do so.

Gosh Rev-ed, you were agonizing about a glass of wine, and here is a fellow who virtually established the sexual revolution, saying quote..... "No, no, no! In fact, if I were asked if I would do it all over again and I knew I was going to be the person I am today, I'd do it in a heartbeat. There was a lot of pain and angst and suffering, especially right after the trial (he was singled out and prosecuted for his role in Deep Throat before being freed from the ordeal by the Jimmy Carter administration) and until I got sober in 1989, but I'd do it all over again." Yeah, I bet you would Harry! Those memories will never die! And what happens to the girls....oh, I guess that doesn't matter, its all about you!

I don't know whether to envy him or despise him. Either way, ya gotta admire somebody who took the lemons life handed him and made lemonade! Looks like you have turned your life around, so it is unfair to chastise you for your earlier life, but darn it...I'm a gonna tease you unmercifully!