Halloween

As I write this I wait to hear "Happy Halloweeeeeen".  Or Trick or Treat, or even the odd doorbell.  I have the lights on the pumpkin out and the candy dish full of gummy bears and chocolate bars.

So far only 6 kids, I hope it picks up.  Sadly we are in an old neighborhood and many of the families move to new neighborhoods nowadays.   I suspect that as some of the older folks move out some younger families will come in.  This is a wonderfully warm Halloween in the scheme of things.  I recall many a freakin cold halloween having my witches hat pinned to the top of my furry hood.  I was not impressed.

Lots of people I talked to were being bah humbug about the whole thing.  Yes I agree that kids get more than enough candy these days, but I don't think its really about that.  It's the fun and excitement of putting on that awesome costume, getting your face painted and going door to door with anticipation.   It's the comments you get from the people who open the door.  It good honest kid fun!

So as I type this I am excited as the best little pirate just came to the door.  As of this moment I now am up to 26  41 kids so things are looking up.

So if you find your inner child have a Happy Halloween all!

Grapes with Wrath

The other day when listening to the radio they were talking about ACDC now having their own brand of wine.  This seemed very puzzling to me.  Did they say ACDC?  As in...

Shoot to thrill, play to kill
Too many women with too many pills
Shoot to thrill, play to kill
I got my gun at the ready, gonna fire at will
Yeah

When I think of ACDC the liquor that might come to mind is Whiskey or Jack Daniels.  Something hard and something strong.  I didn't give this much thought until a short time later when I heard that Motorhead was also coming out with its favorite Shiraz!  WTF???   What are these words I am hearing together..."Motorhead...Shiraz".  Like some kind of oxymoron!   

Once I got over the initial shock, I gave it a bit of thought.  Maybe this wasn't such an outlandish idea.  After all, advertising, marking, branding, it is all rigged to tap into the consciousness of it's target audience.  And face it...who is the target audience of bands like ACDC and Motörhead?  Well...its the forty somethings that blasted their music on their cassette players!  Its the heads that put on their leather vests or lumber jackets and held their lighters up at their concerts.  It's the teenage girls that blasted "Back in Black" in their 1972 Green Chevy Impalas!  (ummm...nevermind)

But how many of these forty something do you know that still giver and chuck back a mickey or 2 4 of Jack Daniels?  Well maybe a few...but unless you are in a fubar episode many of these fine folks have evolved a tad.

Yes, believe it or not, they start to choose quality over quantity.  Maybe because they can afford better stuff now or because they just don't want to spend their whole weekend hung over.  So maybe, just maybe these bands are on to something.  Their demographic has gotten older.  They still want to have a good time...and Giver...but its done now in a different way.  With some good food and good wine.

Apparently several other classic rock bands have started their own wine labels or collections, such as members of Whitesnake, KISS, Queensrÿche and Warrant.   So the next time you are looking for something a little fine and a little bad, pick up a Motörhead Shiraz!

Mis-Adventures of a Grown up Kid

Well it's a new week.  Last week kind of sucked overall.  It started first thing last Monday with me getting stuck alone in the mall Elevator.  After about an hour they got me out.  Luckily it wasn't all packed which was good.  I sat on the floor and played some solitaire. Every time I moved it made a weird rope slipping creaking noise.  I didn't like that!

Then one night I woke up from sleeping to a cat puking.  I went back to sleep and made a mental note to watch where I walk in the morning.  I have slipped on bile before and gone flying.  Well I couldn't find anything, so assumed it was a dry heave.  Then my laptop computer stopped working.  Some keys worked, some not.  I did all the proverbial techy things, turned it on and off, scratched head, cursed, nothing worked.  Then I noticed this dry film on some of the keys which I now realized was the dry bile puke.  Well that is awesome!!  Of all the damn places to gak.  So now the laptop is in the shop awaiting a new keyboard...sigh...

I have to say, in life I am pretty lucky overall.  I am lucky in the important things but I have some dumb ass things happen to me on a fairly regular basis.  I guess it's life's way of keeping things balanced.  Don't want to get toooo cocky.

I have had so many embarassing situations occur to me over the years that I hardly get red faced any more.  Once when I worked in Canada Place, they were putting new rug on the floor.  The guy just finished laying that light yellow rug glue when I came chipperly walking buy.  Whoosh.... went flying straight on my back on the concrete and into the glue like a giant fly hitting fly paper!  I was covered.  I got up and even had trowel marks on my ass.  My bum was red under my pants from the glue.  My shoes, hair, you name it. Everyone came running over with their mouths open...and then the laughter began.  I had to put a bag on my body so I could drive home...the bag stuck to me too by the way.  I had to be careful going to my car downtown by 96th street.  Many a glue sniffer would have died to be in my presence. 

Another time I was travelling on my first business trip.  I was trying to act all grown up and the flight attendant asked me if I wanted penuts.  Hell yes!  She gave me a package and I tried to open them.  These things are crazy sealed and I really wanted some penuts.  I did the pull the top of the bag maneuvre with all my might.  All of a sudden the nuts flew up in the air and a bunch landed in the hair of the old lady sleeping beside me.  A bunch stuck in her combed back doo.  I was horrified.  So I sat quietly and ate the rest of the evidence.  When she woke up and moved the nuts dropped out of her hair.  She looked over at me confused and gave me a dirty look.  I just pretended I didn't know how they got there.

Another time I was baking a cake for my mom. I had really long hair and a bandana in my hair.  I got an itchy nose and instead of using my free hand, used the beater holding hand...(not good). My hair went into the beater and wrapped around big time.  I screamed and eventually my mom came running (she was vacuuming) and shut the mixer off.  Well..the cake was ruined...I had some bald patches on my head and a hell of a mess.   I heard the words "you stupid kid" quite a bit growing up.  Not in an evil way, but in the way a parent gets frustrated because their kid keeps doing stupid things : )

So that's a sampling of some of my mis-adventures.  I guess it adds to character and helps me not sweat the small stuff.  Hopefully this will be a better week.