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10/02/2006: “Spare Parts” Pumpkin Face Kit!

Gotta admit upfront, this could be an “interesting” week. I like to write most of the following week’s Countdown articles on the weekend, because there’s just no guarantee that I’m going to be lucid enough to write them when I get home from work. This past weekend, I wrote no Halloween Countdown articles. I had a family thing Friday, a friend thing Saturday and a pass out thing Sunday. If you notice any strange asides about death and about wanting death and about pleading for death during this week’s run of articles, you’ll know why.

Today’s feature came out okay, though. “Spare Parts” is a silly kit that lets people make jack o’ lanterns without actually carving them, Mr. Potato Head style. I wasn’t impressed, but I wrote about it anyway.

Oh, I have more to say.

I’ve already told you about Target’s Mountain Dew Pitch Black Freezes, but at the time, I didn’t know about these. They have official cups! Why is this important? I’ve held onto empty (and full) cans of the first two Pitch Black incarnations, and now, I’ll have a memento of the third. You should have that, too. I recommend buying an extra just for the cup. Don’t fill it, because it’ll be sticky forever no matter how many times you wash it. Keep one empty — that’d be your trophy piece. Your mantle’s gonna be freakin’ awesome.

You know, now that I realize it, I’ve been going to the same pumpkin patch for the past 16 years to get a pumpkin. It really makes you feel old. I love that place.

At one Target, I got the cool cup, and at another I didn’t. I was totally counting on the awesome Halloween-themed cup to put my spooky icee in. =(

Those spare parts are cool in theory, but I’d much rather carve my pumpkin. I totally love your use of that pig snout, though. Kids might get a kick out of this though, but as you said, it might be hard for them to get the pieces in. It is a lot safer than using a serrated blade though!

I’m so glad I’m no longer in high school. (Pumpkin-carving was mandatory in my high school for some reason.) Without it being a forced activity I should have fun if I decide to get a pumpkin this year.

OK, I know now that non-carving of a pumkin is sacriligious. What is your opinion on the use of stencils to obtain one of these cool, Roseanne Halloween Episode-esque, type of actual pictures on them. I can basically make a stencil out of anything using photoshop, and actually carved a decent rendition of Michael Myers into a pumpkin last year. Am I a Halloween whore, or is this just the next evolution in carving?

wow spare parts seems like kind of a cop out to the messy horrible smelling gloopy mess that is taking out the insides of a pumpkin.

The fact that they now have official CUPS makes me all the more upset that I can’t get that drink here….

I don’t mind the stencils too much, so long as the stencils aren’t good enough to make the pumpkin look super polished. I like ‘em kinda gritty. Baby I like it rough.

Also, on the Dew Freeze front, make sure you look ALL AROUND for it — that includes the cups and the machines. Certain stores hide the Icee machines in the back of the cafeteria away from everything else, as if they’re something to be ashamed of.

When I see the pumpkin with the spare parts in it, it just looks really wrong, I’ll stick with jabbing spare parts into a plastic potato, thank you very much!

We JUST got these at the Target by my house on Saturday. I’m sick, but I’m still drinking the hell out of these things.

My mom got me a Darth Tater the other day at a thrift store. Honestly, who gets rid of Darth Tater?

Did you think about just taking a nail and using it to puncture the rine of the pumpkin before you put the face piece on it?

I bet it’s because the pumpkin pie candle scent is probably more cinnamon and vanilla than straight pumpkin.
Think I’ll carve a pumpkin this year. I’m getting excited about doing all the stuff I haven’t bothered with since I didn’t get treaters; decorating, buying candy, maybe dressing up. I feel like doing a pumpkin pie from scratch, but my baking record is reasonable but unimpressive.

I like the stensils sometimes, but I hate the little metal pokey thing the books come with. You’re supposed to hold the stensil to the pumpkin & jab along the dotted line. Not only does this take a ridiculous amount of time, but on a more complicated design, I got lost several times last year.

I agree with Matt though, ‘rougher’ looking carvings are more… attractive. I’ll never have the problem of a perfectly polished carving. My lines are always ragged, though I’ll blame the knives I use.

Hm. I wonder if my old Mr & Mrs Potato Head parts would work on a pumpkin… If I stabbed the pumpkin first with something roughly the same size, perhaps. I might have to experiment with this!

I carved a pumpkin last year, but I was so terrified of coming home and finding it smashed that I didn’t even put it out. I kept it in my house until it started to smell kind of… not funky… but more pumpkin-y? Then I cooked it down and made pumpking juice out of it… hooray for Harry Potter!

Man, I know how you feel. Work is getting pretty frustrating especially since it never ends when there is a toddler in the house.

I haven’t seen these yet but they look pretty cool to me. Maybe your fatigue is tainting them and their legacy will improve with time???

I’ve never carved a pumpkin. Until last winter, I lived by the beach, and things go bad easily when you’re a (almost literal) stone’s throw from the ocean. Plus, I’m terrible at cutting things. I’d probably end up cutting myself more than the pumpkin.

I’m debating doing a pumpkin for the first time ever on my own this year. Maybe just a small one in the traditional triangle-eyes-and-crooked-mouth design. My mother and sister can do all kinds of crazy, elaborate designs on pumpkins without the use of stencils. You should see the front of my parents’ house at Halloween. I don’t know if the huge witch Mom made is still out there and the “gravestone” made from an old boogie board (really), but for the two weeks or so around Halloween, kids will stop to look at scenes of witches, ghosts, leaves, and haunted houses on orange gourds.

My dad once showed me how to slice the rind away from the pumpkin to make teeth and eyes, and I hate him for it. It takes extra long, but a pumpkin doesn’t look “right” without them.

Still haven’t got me a Pitch Black Freeze, but damnit I will! And they better have those cups or I’ll be pissed.

christine: When you use the stencils, poke the holes kinda close together and then when you take the paper off, use a grease pen or sharpie to connect the lines, so you don’t mess up!

I love those stencils.

Everytime I carve a pumpkin, I never bevel the cut for the lid and my lids just fall through. So I end up nailing them on. And the bottoms are never clean as they could be, so I have a lopsided candle trapped inside a sealed container sitting on a wooden deck.

But I’ve always been a firehazard waiting to happen. My mother is a pyrophobe and I’m a pyromaniac.

“Don’t worry mom, everything important is in the fireproof safe. Why have one if you’re not gonna use it, right?”

You know, I can’t say that I remember the last time I carved a pumpkin. I think it must have been when I was in grade school or junior high. I was too “cool” to carve a pumpkin with my parents when I was in high school. Since they did it mostly to spend time with me, they gave it up after I lost interest. It sort of makes me sad. I think I’m going to carve a pumpkin this year to cheer me up.

Now I just need to find a place to put it. I don’t think I’ll mind when it gets smashed, I just don’t want to be cleaning pumpkin bits out of my grill for the next few months.

I know it will get smashed because the neighborhood has some real asshole kids that went around slashing tires and keying cars. One guy had a real nice custom paint job and it’s going to cost him close to $5,000 to get it fixed. My elderly next door neighbor had two of his tires slashed. He’s a REALLY nice guy, and he just bought a new truck last year, replacing the one he’s had since the early 80s. I would dearly love to break something really important that belongs to the jerk who thinks it’s funny to destroy other peoples’ stuff. By something important I mean a video game console, a cell phone, a leg, whatever.

So now I’ve gone from sad to pissed. If I was only jealous of something I could hit the trifecta of negative emotions in one post.

Tales from the Darkside is on the Sci-Fi channel right now. and the “Nose” episode is coming on next!

I went to Target yesterday, their candy (and Jones Soda) selection made my CVS look like a piece of crap. I’m goin back there tomorrow. BTW Josh Blue of Last Comic Standing 4 is performing at my college tomorrow! Whee!

Speaking of my college, my frat is gonna start its pledging season again soon, and now it’s gonna be my turn to inflict the fun!

I have carved 3-4 pumpkins every Halloween for the last few years, but now I live in NYC and have no place to display them. I think I’ll still do it and just be content knowing it is alive in my apartment. I also have no choice but to buy it at a store. I feel like a failure, but I work really hard at carving them, and I have no car, so it’s not my fault.

When I used to cut the top out of the pumpkin (lid) to scoop out the “guts”, I found that once the pumpkin started to shrivel the “lid” would fall in. So now I cut the hole on the bottom of the pumpkin, scoop out the “guts” and place the whole completed jack-’o'-lantern over a candle (a candle that is smaller than the hole of course). WAALAA! Then I can light that glowy baby until it collapses into a gooshy mess! YAAA for Halloween! =) ;D

And now I have another reason to go to Target — besides Jones Soda and reduced priced Superman Returns toys.

Awww, nuts, this reminds me of the time I stayed up late to watch that movie “Pumpkinhead.” I was so disappointed that he was not, in fact, a monster with an actual pumpkin for a head.

I looooove to carve pumpkins, but I don’t give out candy because I do NOT love children. Therefore, I have to carve my pumpkin and then give it to my mom so it can be cheery and festive with her pumpkins.

To make sure no one comes to my door I always turn all the lights out in the whole house… and I *still* get people knocking. Did no one tell these idiots that no porch lights means you just trekked across a lawn for nothing? Do you know how hard it is to have celebratory Halloween sex when there are constant interruptions?

I’ve actually never noticed the pumpkin smell. It was always the guts I hated because they were hard to scoop out with your hands or even a spoon. Took forever to do. By the time the actual carving would happen I was bored by then.
Plus, roasted pumpkin seeds suck.

I did the stencils one year and liked it alot. One time I just painted a pumpkin with superhero symbols (The S-Shield, Batman’s bat, Flash’s lightening bolt, etc).

I tried the PB Icee the other day (didn’t have the cup) and was completely underwhelmed. I didn’t even finish it all the way. I think I prefer mine more slushie-like than like a soft snow-cone. Good things they’re cheap.

My Target has started putting Christmas stuff out. At this point it’s just an aisle, but I get the feeling they’ll be converted completely before Halloween :(

Watched the TCM franchise THS on E! last night. Basically the same stories you’ve heard before, although I was sorta shocked they didn’t mention that LOTR’s Viggo Morteson was in TCM 3. That one ain’t bad.

You really hate the smell that much? While I’m not exactly in love with the stench of pumpkin guts either, it’s sort of a Halloween-mood requirement for me. Kind of like you and…well…Halloween-themed beer commercials, apparently.

Although the thought of carving any this year is already making my shoulders ache. Damn things are friggin’ tough as hell to cut through, and it doesn’t help that I have twigs for arms. Course, maybe I shouldn’t always insist on getting the absolute biggest pumpkin I can find.

I don’t have a lot to say about carving pumpkins, other than that I enjoy it and need to do one up right this year, but the sticker made me think of something. Has anyone else seen the It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown fruit snacks? There’s nothing particularly Halloweeny about them aside from the box, which was a little disappointing, they could have least tried to make a Charlie Brown in his ghost costume or a Lucy witch or something. But they were still cool to see.

Btw, it’s the Kung Fu with David Carradine, not the cheesy 60’s-70’s style movies from china.

Well it’s not really, But it is cool because it’s following hot on the heels of a Shaft marathon, which followed hot on the heels of a Charlies Angels Marathon, which followed hot on the heels of a Miami Vice Marathon!

We need to take an Americawide poll and find out how many other people have this crippling inability to stand the smell of pumpkin innards. Me, I have it so bad, my family has taken to calling pumpkins “Orange Kryptonite.”

You can always recognize my house on Halloween; it’s the one with the carved watermelon.

People are disgusted by the smell of pumpkin innards?! I’ve never heard of that being a problem before. It doesn’t bother me at all. My only problem with pumpkin carving is scooping the innards out. It’s not gross, just a hassle. They’re so slick that it’s almost impossible to get more than a few seeds and sinews out at a time, and yet it sticks to the inside like glue.

OH YEAH LIKE WE REALLY LOVE THE FREAKING SMELL OF YOUR HUMAN HANDS AS YOU RIP AND SLICE US UP AND THEN SET OUR INSIDES ON FIRE!

Pumpkin is a fruit, right? Or is it a vegetable? Either way I hate digging out the Pumpkin Guts. Yeeeeck.

I’m up to 46 (no foolin) on that M&M game posted on Saturday ( http://us.mms.com/us/dark/index.jsp ) and some of them were really obscure!!! Lotta Lynch and some Hitchcock that DO NOT belong under the horror genre! So heads up yo!

I don’t get as nauseous as I used to because smoking fourteen packs of cigarettes a day tends to dull a person’s senses and just about everything else

Yeah, we’re all going to be sad when you get lung cancer or COPD or some shit and die. I just want you to rest easy knowing that if for some reason you die of a freak accident, I have that one photo of you holding the penis ice mold from the AC article saved to my hard drive. I would hate for your funeral to pursue without a photo of you holding a plastic cock.

If there’s one big thing that I regret having never done during Halloween, it’s pumpkin carving. Sure, my family would always go to the pumpkin patch and each kid would get a pumpkin, but our parents never allowed them to be cut up in order to make the pumpkins last until December.

You knw that actuall are Mr Potato Head kits for pumpkins, right? The little link thing on my name’ll take you to the first site I found with them. I’m getting one this coming payday!

I have personally carved a pumpkin for years up until last year. I kind of lot the Halloween spirit last year, and pretty much blew off the holiday. Shame on me.

“making faces as if they were trying to pass iron maidens out there asses”
It is quotes like these that keep my coming back to X-E day after day. Have you considered a top 10 or “best of” X-E witticisms? If so, I place my vote for:
“[Man-at-Arms'] one redeemable quality is that his fiery old bastard loins paved the way for that piece of ass Teela.” Matt-7/7/00

The Sculpture Professor is making us crave pumpkins for haloween as a “for-grade” project.

I live in the absolute sticks of Tennessee, and even grow pumpkins from time to time, but I have always gotten Jack-o-lantern material from the grocery store. Are you Yankees just ate up with pumpkin patches or something?

I stopped doing the whole pumpkin and decorations thing a while ago as I’m never home during “operation hours” of Halloween, and pumpkins have a bad habit of ending up smashed. Damn commute. Though I think I might leave a plastic bowl of candy out for the kids to keep in good standing. They’ve been keeping an eye on the house and cars since my sister is running for township council.

I admit to owning one of those fake light-up pumpkins because the previous town I lived in didn’t allow for real ones lit by candles. That’s what happens when you live in a victorian section where all the houses are of the wood frame variety and three feet away from one another. We weren’t allowed to have real Christmas trees either. And it was always interesting to watch people grill in the middle of the sidewalk. Almost as funny as the people who melted the vinyl siding when they put the grill too close to the house.

How does he make you crave them Jon? That should be some kind of psychology class or something.

I don’t know, Matt. Any pumpkin that doesn’t glow from the heat of 2.2 million oversized candles beaming out the triangular eyes, round nose and over-bite mouth isn’t really a jack-o-lantern in my books. Watch for the first teenagers of the night to huck this fake-o-lantern into your neighbour’s yard after stuffing their pillowcase with your assortment of wax teeth, lifesaver 3-packs, and peanut butter cups. You’ve been warned!

So I picked up three pumpkins at a patch, do I have to crave all three to stay alive, cause we are thinking about painting one of them. Also I need to admit we bought a value size bag of candy corn last week, it’s almost gone. mmm candy corn. it’s not the only candy in the house either. so I live on a dead end street with maybe one or two kids, is it wrong to take my kid to a different neighborhood to go trick or treating?

You’re absolutely right. Logo-emblazoned items are keepsakes and let’s all face the truth right here, right now — while one is enjoying a delicious meal or a tasty beverage from a container that has the foodstuff’s native logo on it — it *TASTES BETTER*. It’s just common knowledge.

Hey everyone…my stupid work has kept me too busy to keep up with the Halloween Countdown. I have some severe catching up to do.

Anyway, I’m going out to pick pumpkins this weekend with the whole family. There’s something so enjoyable about watching a little kid walking through rows and rows of pumpkins that are half his size or larger, and seeing him try to pick one of them up…hilarious!

Plus, we’ll all be trekking through the Great Corn Maze. Click my name to check it out. It’s a Pirate theme this year….PIRATES!!! So much Halloweeny fun!

Also, I wanted to point out Mystie’s not one, but TWO (however thinly veiled or just plain blatant) references to genitalia.

Ok, it’s groovy to take the kids to other nearby neighorhoods. I recommend the squabs talk to their friends at school to recon the best places to T-or-T. Some spots have good candy, while some have good decorations. Most of all, Have Fun! I can never stress that enough.

I always carve my own Jacks. Doing the lid, carve on a slight bevel, and add a notch on one side, it will always fit right, and look spiff. Freehand is usually my style, but i might download a couple of Homestar Runner stencils this year. My carving kit is made of three different ones from past years, and has “safety” knives with the blunt sawteeth. they work surprisingly well for the big cuts, and I have the smaller, sharper saws for detail work. For our Lord and Master, Mighty Matt, I suggest carving a good face on a pumpkin, then use the pig nose. The eyes that came with you kit makes Jack O’Lanterns look like “VeggieTales” refugees.

I live in a large apartment building this year, so I don’t have a front door…I don’t think putting a Jack o Lantern in the hall would be acceptable (its a ’smoke free’ building). Sigh. Still I NEED to carve me a pumpkin! I guess it could just sit on the kitchen table, in everyone’s way for a month….

I just remembered that I have a “Snoopy as Red Baron” stencil left over from a couple of years ago. I’m going to a cornfield maze this weekend also (see my name for link) so I am prefiguring that I will be partaking of the pumpkin piercing and puncturing.

Well, I got my Pitch Black ICEE. I don’t even like ICEEs or Slurpies. I don’t like Ice period. The Colonel will take this opportunity to make fun of me for it, like he always does.

But it was just plain delightful. I’m contemplating getting another one. The woman just had to tell me how she got an email saying that it was their Halloween promotion this year. And then I had to explain to her why it was so special, cause apparently she didn’t know why everyone was coming through and acting like it was the cure for cancer. I almost asked for another cup because it looked like they only had the LiveWire cups, but I was like forget it, I found the damn thing, that’s enough. Then I turned it over. Yes, it is the same cup. On the back of Matt’s there is a LiveWire Freeze logo.

So, I have officially completed 100% of the Halloween Mini-games I have set forth for myself. Our Jones party is set to start at 3.

Michelle “Max” Maxwell knows most adults secretly want to dress up for Halloween — the trick is figuring out whether the average Jane wants to be a witch, a pirate or the classic sexy maid.
photo
Zoom Mike Urban / P-I
Heather Morgan and Tony Diepenbroch, who are shopping early for Halloween, try on police uniform costumes at Champion Party Supply in Seattle.

As manager of Champion Party Supply, an edgy downtown Seattle costume and decor store, Halloween is her Christmas.

“I prepare almost every day of my life for this season,” said Maxwell, a savvy businesswoman with an MBA who wears combat boots to work.

Halloween for adults saw a surge in popularity in 2000, but tapered off after Sept. 11, 2001, because people lost their appetites for gore, Maxwell said.

“We are off to a very strong start,” Maxwell said. “We saw that in this weekend’s sales.”

Consumer spending on the holiday could leap 51 percent to $4.96 billion from $3.29 billion a year ago, according to predictions by the National Retail Federation.

“There’s just a lot more people celebrating Halloween this year than last year,” said Scott Krugman, a spokesman for the Washington industry group.

Champion Party Supply, which outgrew its Pike Place Market location a dozen years ago, begins packing its walls with bloody body parts, hideous masks and hundreds of spider webs just after July 4, Maxwell said.

advertising
She hires 30 extra people to her normal staff of 10 to accommodate the holiday rush. In terms of sales, St. Patrick’s Day and Cinco de Mayo also top the charts — but nothing compares with Halloween, she said.

“If you can drink and get ripped, we do really good,” Maxwell said. But Halloween sells better because it appeals to children, adults and pets.

This year, people are thinking about Halloween earlier and willing to spend more — an average of $59 compared with $48 last year, according to the survey conducted for the retail federation by BIGresearch. About 8,000 people were polled in early September.

Kirkland-based Celebrate Express Inc., which sells themed-party products online and by catalog, is seeing the trend, said Kevin Green, the company’s chief executive. His average customer spends about $75 on costumes, or up to $200 including party decorations and candy.

Halloween sales revenue will grow more than 40 percent this year, he said. Some of that is because of increased marketing, but the rest is because the holiday is becoming more popular among teens and young adults.

“This is one of the top commercial holidays,” Green said. “In terms of decor, it ranks only after Christmas.”

For Celebrate Express, “Star Wars” costumes are selling the fastest, Green said.

“Apparently it’s still highly popular; maybe it’s the absence of another character,” he said.

Merchants start trying to pinpoint popular costumes up to 12 months in advance, Green said.

Last October, dorky, frizzy-haired Napoleon Dynamite was hot. So far this year, it’s hard to see if there is a clear winner, Maxwell said. Superman costumes aren’t turning out to be a hit as predicted. Rather, Johnny Depp-inspired pirate costumes are flying off the shelves.

“If you want to dress sexy and slutty, you can get away with it for a day,” she said. “The pirate chicks are really popular for sexy this year.”

More than 3.5 million Americans will buy Halloween products for their pets this year, up from 1 million four years ago, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association.

People can even match their own costumes to their pet’s, which Seattleites eat up.

“Who doesn’t have a dog in Seattle?” Maxwell said, showing off a “Pimp Doggie” costume, with purple velvet cape, gold chain and leopard trim.

Other types of merchants are getting in on the Halloween sales action as well. Rite Aid stores, which began putting Halloween items out Sept. 15, have noticed a change in what shoppers want, said Ashley Flower, a spokeswoman for the Camp Hill, Pa., drugstore chain. Increasingly, the main customers are teenagers and adults, which may explain why new items this year include a doorknob scream and an animated crystal ball with a witch inside.

Giant inflatable snow globes with bats and witches sit just inside the front doors at The Home Depot on Aurora Avenue, which sells the 6-foot-tall outdoor decorations for $80.

“Part of it is to create a fun environment as associates and customers are coming in,” said Victoria Eldridge, human resource manager.

The store will have a Halloween costume contest for sales associates Oct. 31, she said.

Ryane - Great idea, thanks for the tip. I did make the holes close to each other, but never thought of using a marker or anything since I have the feeling a lot of the color would end up still on the pumpkin, I’m terrible at following lines perfectly. =D

On the topic of pumpkin smell, I used to hate it as well. When I was young I couldn’t wait to scrub my hands clean after touching the guts. Now I prefer to take my time & freak my mom out with them because they’re ‘disgusting,’ in her words. That’s why I stick her with the job of taking all the seeds out of the gore to bake them, even though they never turn out right.

Last time I got a PB freeze, I couldn’t drink all of it, so I put about half in the freezer… I just decided to retrive it and see if it was still edible. It didn’t freeze that hard, it was still scoopable, but now it has the distinct flavor of children’s grape-flavored cough medicine. Yum!

It’s amazing that I never think of these things, kingslash. I’ve also never heard of them referred to as watercolor markers, but as washable.

Whoo hoo. Matt got a shoutout on msnbc.com yesterday; he was even the very first bullet point (you have to scroll past the damn ad, of course). If this was already posted, I apologize in advance: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4326967/ I wonder how many new readers we’ll get from it…

Apparently that guy is Matt’s pal. I would be friend with a guy who had a middle name like Fishingbauer too. Only to make fun of him constantly though.

Did I mention how much I miss my spellcheck on this blog. I have becom typing lazy, as Word just fixes everything for me. Except for the one time it corrected a misspelled LOOK to LEAK. My ending sentence of “The Homeowners Insurance has adequate coverage, but the flood may still be worth taking a look.” was obviously changed to something that garnered endless laughs from the office.

New readers? I know some interesting and entertaining people might find this site and not just assbags, but new people in general angry up my blood. Since it’s not even my website, it’s really none of my business, but… grumble grumble… you damn kids get off my lawn!

Caught the Tales from the Darkside Halloween ep on Sci Fi. VERY awesome stuff. “Heh heh heh! It’s Halloween, gentlemen!!”

Gruesome Grape–pretty standard, nothing special
Creepy Cranberry–tiny bit better than last year’s holiday offering
Spider Cider–tasted like drinking a banana. Not a banana flavored drink, a banana.
Lemon Drop Dead–aiight.
Berried Alive–tasted like swallowing instead of spitting after brushing your teeth.
Monster Mojito–I can’t recall. it must not have been notable, duh.
Candy Corn–I LOVE CANDY CORN!!!!

The only flavor I will definitely be repurchasing is Candy Corn. Spider Cider is a possibility. The suicide (all flavors mixed together) was tingling to the tongue, but not half bad. Of course by that point we were busy finishing off every bottle left on the table. I guess that’s a compliment over the holiday party last year. Those things sat around for AGES and I would drink from them on random dares.

Ooh, tough week + a major link. Hope you don’t kill yourself trying to get entries done.

To any newbies who’re here from the msnbc link, welcome on in! Make yourselves known, we’re a generally friendly lot

Old E, that’s a woman posting that Test Pattern blog. She runs another blog, popculturejunkmail.com, where X-E is mentioned frequently.

Wow, I’ve been out of it for a while. I still havn’t read everything, but I had to post to say that even though I’m about as busy as a person can get, thanks for the great countdown.

Great gross globs of greasy grimy pumpkin guts
Jumbled Jack-o-Lantern junk
Awful orange veggie funk

That name is even funnier for a girl. It IS cool that she is plugging the site though. Somehow I doubt that the MSNBC crowd is right for this place though. But, who am I to judge, I am just a lowly Halloween whore.

If we all wish hard enough maybe there will be a He-Man themed Spare Parts and I can finally make the “ManEFaces” jack-o-lantern I have been dreaming of since I was 7. Halloween miracles can come true.

“They have to have triangle eyes and a mouth with an overbite that’s never etched out quite right.”
Amen.

Awwww! Now you tell me… I got a Pitch Black Icee today and they didn’t give me one of those cool cups…
Ah well, it was worth it anyway to finally get my Pitch Black fix for the week!

There is one very good reason to carve a pumpkin: roasted pumpkin seeds. Mmmmm…

We bought the Spare Parts kit at a party store. My 8 year old and 3 year old loved it! (The older kids and dad prefer to carve…). Yes, the kids have trouble getting the pieces into the pumpkin at first, but the fun for them is getting to change the pieces around, and since the holes are now in the pumpkin they can do that easily. We also bought the Mr. Potato Head Pirate pumpkin decorating kit. Similar theme but not at all scary. The Mr. Potato Head witch, vampire, and fireman kits were recalled due to small parts. Sheesh. You’d think Hasbro would know by now not to do that. Loved your Great Pumpkin post too by the way! The Snoopy music scenes probably seemed too long to you because in the past they have been cut almost completely out of the broadcast to make room for more commercials.

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