halloween

JusWondering… My Owl Irks

Posted on by sgottahurt

Hooters, The Restaurant, much like The Owl it’s “based” on, is here to stay.  (Well, I guess it depends on which owl species, but I digress.)

Also like The Owl, The Restaurant isn’t as cool as it used to be.  “Hey look!  That owl can turn his head all the way around, almost!”

Upon my recent visit, it occurred to me why I don’t go there as often as I had in my youth.  (Okay, it happened to be my second visit this week.  We went for a “change of pace” on Monday, and they informed us that Thursday was Buy One Boneless Wing Get One Free Day, and that Friday everyone was dressing up for Halloween…  I’ll let you know how it goes.)

Anywow, the reason Hooters has lost its luster, for me at least, is the gimmicky things that they still insist on doing.  My Pet Peeves AKA My Owl Irks are as follows:

1) Ladies, don’t write your name on the napkins.  Don’t sign it with a heart.  Don’t googily goo it up with your real name and your nickname.  You can do this on the receipt, though.  It doesn’t affect me the same.
 
2) Shit-can the birthday song.  Unless it’s for a twelve year old boy (“Hey look!  That owl tried to scoop up that wiener dog cuz he thought it was a squirrel!”), this routine simply puts a spotlight on the biggest douche-bag in the restaurant.  The only other exception – friends trying to embarrass a buddy.

3) I can open my own containers.  Be it A-1 Steak Sauce or a tub of ranch, I can handle unscrewing and ripping just fine.  I often unscrew by myself and rip ones at home – wait, that doesn’t sound right.

4) The ketchup faces must stop.  Stop.  Seriously.  Explaining that the face is “hungover” helps no one keep their dignity.

5) If I want merchandise, I will ask you.  Isn’t it enough you talked me into curly fries?  What am I made of – money?  The calendar’s on sale, you say… And there’s not a single house pet?

6) Hula hooping your boredom away makes me bored.  How about sword fighting?  Perchance arm-wrestling?  Maybe arm-wrestling with oil in a pool with full body contact?

7) We’re not buying that you like us if you sit with us.  I do buy that you like me if you feed me a french fry.  (This happened to me once… I had no follow up so nyeh.)

8) You charged me for a potato salad that’s your lunch?   Well, there goes $1 off your 30% tip.

Come Get Yer Sexy Costume Challenge Right Here!

Posted on by sgottahurt

Update: My sister, Becky, helped me “uncover” one other toy.

With Halloween upon us, I feel it is my civic duty to challenge any or all of you ladies out there that are: A) creative and B) like to… sexy it up… (I was going to put “slutty it up,” but here I did anyway.)

Now let it be known, I’m all about nostalgia, and in addition to that, I’m for the sexification/sluttification of said nostalgia.  I mean, isn’t that what Halloween is all about anyway… in a non-nostalgic way?  (Maybe regular candy has evolved into eye candy.)

But here’s the challenge: we’ve all seen the Strawberry Shortcakes, Rainbow Brites, She-Ras, and Jems.  I still have a fondness for Jabba Palace Leia (especially when there’s a bunch of them pillow fighting), and kudos to those ladies that work wonders as a Care Bear (whodathunk Grumpy could look cheery).  What follows are my suggestions… my outside-the-(cardboard)-box starters, if you will.

To begin: how about Herself the Elf?

Herself Shortcake
Full name: Herself Shortcake

Sure, she’s not too unlike any other fairies (goth girls, whut-whut!), but no one is going around proclaiming, “I’m Herself the Elf!”  Another idea (and in this line there are plenty of options) – what about a Charmkin?

Mmm... bendy

Mmm... bendy

The bulk of the costume would be standard fare, but the kicker is the ring on your head with a giant charm necklace going through it.  Can you imagine that?  How about Blinkins?

I wanna say something about curtains and carpets...

I wanna say something about curtains and carpets...

No pants and a light up bottom?  If that’s a no-go, then let’s go with the girl’s version of Transformers (or maybe more-so GoBots) – Sweet Secrets.

The secret is these toys suck.

The secret is these toys suck.

You could even go as far as these guys and make your shell open up so you can hide inside.  Another great venture would be the alternative to the two-man horse… the two woman My Little Pony.  (Argue over whom gets which end!)

My Little Hair Brush

Also pictured: My Little Hair Brush

My last idea is by far not the least.  My final challenge (and if anyone pulls this off send me pics) – Alf’s Melmacian lost love, Rhonda.  I’ll leave the details to you.

Rhonda is the alien that's not ALF
Rhonda is the alien on the right

Drunken Recollection… Movies of the Week Circa 1980

Posted on by sgottahurt

i’m not in as much pain as I was in last time, but on this eve of hops and barley, I’ve become deteremined to find the name of one, if not both, TV movies.

Let me interject my theory on the way the brain works.  I feel the best way to picture our memory is that it’s a warehouse full of boxes.  The older you grow, the more boxes you get.  There may be millions or billions, but basically, what it comes down to is which boxes you can access.  This determines, in part, your intelligence, or at least, your memory.

How I picture it is these boxes contain knowledge you’ve amassed through your life, but if the top is closed (due to alcohol, drugs, age, stress), it’s temporarily or perminently lost.  Why I say that is because sometimes you can send your synapses to look for something… and for the life of you, you know what it is but you can’t think of it… then days ly of this ater it pops in your head.

This is what I’m hoping for with these recollections.  ( I don’t even know if any of this makes any sense.)  I’m hoping I can trigger an answer.

The first flick I recalled was presumably named “The Vindicator,” but via IMDb, I discovered this film was a  “Robocop” clone.  What I remember about the movie was there was this guy who’s brother died in a car accident, so he souped up his truck with weapons (I remember a grapple hook most of all).  He set out to exact revenge against erratic drivers.  The very first catch he made with his hook was a man trying to get his pregnant wife to a hospital.

The second flick, well, that was easy.  I remembered one night in my youth, when I had a loose tooth about to fall out, this TV movie where a mentally challenged man was accused of hurting/killing a young girl, so he hid in a scarcrow.  They found him and killed him, but he returned from the dead or something.  IMDb did it’s job on this one: it’s called “Dark Night of the Scarecrow.”

I also found this on YouTube.  Thank heavens for the Internet – we don’t ever need to remember ever again.

If you have any inkling about the other movie, please give me a clue.

JusWondering… Size Matters?

Posted on by sgottahurt

With Halloween approaching, I begin my usual ponderings like: who’s hosting a party? 

Will there be booze?

The Right Answer

The Right Answer

And is someone in Hollywood considering a remake of “Gremlins” as a CGI movie?

That eventually leads me to ponder about what makes something scary in an allegedly scary movie.  CGI does not work.  Sure, “Jurassic Park” had the advantage of being the first flick to fool our minds with computer graphics, but it smartly mixed in animatronics and puppets as well.

To me, it’s the proximity of the “evil one” in relation to the hero that works well.  When the Queen in the first “Alien” film sleeps not far from where Ripley’s about to hit the hay, that’s creepy.  In “Ju-On,” the Japanese original remade into “The Grudge,” I can barely handle the scene when the girl in bed removes the covers off her face to find the ghost woman bent over her.  (Maybe my fears are sleep-based.)  Then there’s always that ending chase in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”…

One facet of horror in film that I believe goes untouched is size.  Big things are terrifying and small things are chilling, but what about medium things?

Going back to to the puppets in “Gremlins,” they were definitely small dangerous, and small dangerous can be frightening (ask Karen Black in “Trilogy of Terror.”)  But Gremlins in all their puppety-ness can fit in blenders and microwaves.  What are you going to do against a four-foot tall Gremlin?  A four-foot tall Chuckie?  Or a four-foot tall hamster?

In order from least scary to most.

In order from least scary to most.

JusWondering… Columbus Day

Posted on by sgottahurt

Update: Added one more holiday after a discussion with my friend, Devin.

This past Monday came and went in a flash, and it wasn’t until the next day that I realized a holiday had passed – one that hadn’t mattered since grade school, if even then.  But it got me juswondering… didn’t somebody disprove Columbus “discovering” America?

I thought the Columbus story went the way of Shakespeare, Brontosauruseseses, and Pluto (the Planet our Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us when we were wee)?

Perhaps Columbus Day is sort of like an appendix… something we keep around because it’s there, but it might kill us if it becomes inflamed, much like the boats Columbus used to discover this continent.

Then I started thinking about what body parts other holidays might be akin to.  For example, Birthdays are like crow’s feet… they keep coming whether you want them or not. 

Thanksgiving is like a spare tire – or a muffintop for the ladies – because we revel in unloosening our belt buckles and passing out watching tv (as if every other day doesn’t count).

Independence Day = genitalia… especially when it comes to fireworks.  Our fascination develops over time from childhood to adults.  At first, it’s all *yay* sparklers.  As adults, it’s illegal and Chinese and dangerous.

Valentine’s Day is like kidneys.  Two is natural… one is sad.

Halloween is any body part this guy fixes:

Labor Day could be an upset stomach because you can’t wear white after it.

And Christmas would be an itchy butthole… because sometimes you can’t pick what you get.